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him held her still.

      ‘Someone tried to kill me?’

      Her question was odd. ‘There were five people in the carriage. What makes you think it was you that they were after?’

      Her breath was taken in one trembling gasp and he knew even as she remained silent that there were things she had not told him, but the final strains of the dance had just ended and his brother moved over to join them.

      ‘Thank you, my lord.’ Beatrice was all distance and good manners and he tried to determine in which direction she had stepped away, but could not.

      ‘I hope she gave you an apology for the other day.’ Ashe placed his arm against his own.

      ‘I think she gave me more than that.’

      ‘The Bassingstoke money is forged in steel, Taris, Ipswich steel, and the workers as poorly paid and as underaged as any in England.’

      ‘You have been busy, brother.’ An edge of criticism curled in Taris’s answer.

      ‘I like to think of it as careful. The woman was with you overnight, after all, and I thought it only prudent to find out something about her.’

      Hating himself for the question, Taris nevertheless asked it. ‘And what did you find out about her?’

      ‘She was widowed a month before the carriage accident, though few in the area knew her or her husband socially as they did not seem to mingle much. Indeed, it was said that she was rather reserved so I am hoping that she will not present…a problem.’

      ‘Problem?’

      ‘She is a widow of means. If she decided that your night together ruined her reputation, you might find yourself in trouble.’

      ‘The woman came as a friend tonight, Ashe, not to hold me accountable for the consequences of a carriage accident.’

      ‘Emerald implied that she could be interested in you in other ways.’

      ‘Other ways?’ Taris did not like the tone of entreaty in his query. What had Emerald seen that he himself had not? The feel of Bea against him was hard to forget. Even here in a roomful of women all vying for his attention he still sought the honeyed and gently lisping tones of the clever Widow Bassingstoke, yearning like an adolescent for her soft full breasts and for her eagerness.

      ‘Emerald thought perhaps there was more to that night in the barn.’

      ‘More?’

      ‘Damn it, Taris, your name has been linked to no woman’s since you returned from Jamaica and that does not come from any lack of interested women. My lady wife thought perhaps the…drought had been broken.’

      ‘Drought? If you weren’t my brother…’

      ‘Then I wouldn’t care at all,’ Asher supplied before he could end the sentence. ‘It is only because I am your brother that I take the time to try to protect you.’

      ‘Well, don’t, for I need neither a nursemaid nor a minder and if you feel I may sully the family name by dallying with someone unsuitable then perhaps you should look to your own recent past.’

      ‘I didn’t mean…if you liked her it would be different…’

      ‘Enough, Asher. Rutledge would not take kindly, I think, to seeing two of his patrons having a fist-and-cuff in his salon and any association I choose to pursue with Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke is none of your damn business.’

      ‘Very well. If you feel that strongly about her…’

      Taris suddenly frowned, having the sneaking suspicion that he had just been taken for a ride in the dulcet tones of his sibling, and wondering too just what his defence of the Widow Bassingstoke actually meant.

      He knew that she was still here, for he had caught the sound of her voice. His eyesight, however, allowed him no possible means of locating her again and he did not dare to chance sending Bates to wheedle the promise of another dance.

      It simply was not done. One dance would not excite the comment two would, and already he could hear in the buzz of comments around him speculation about Beatrice-Maude and their possible relationship, as he seldom took to the floor at any of these soirees. He smiled. Seldom was probably putting a generous face on it—never would be the more appropriate term.

       Chapter Seven

      An assortment of calling cards and invitations arrived the next morning and Bea found them in a tidy pile on the salver on the hall table.

      Lord, she thought as she sorted through them, the impressive list of names making her wonder. She remembered when Frankwell had received cards in Ipswich in the early years of their marriage and the lengths he had gone to arrange them where they might be the most visible.

      For her part now she stacked them up and placed them face down, hoping that no one would make the effort to come and call and agitated by the fact that they might.

      She knew exactly why she had suddenly become fashionable. It was the direct result of her dance last night with Taris Wellingham. She had heard it from her servants, who had heard it from those of the other grand houses, the grapevine of gossip as rapid and faultless as any paper in print.

      Chewing on the edge of a nail, she glanced up and caught sight of herself in the mirror above the mantel and was glad that Taris Wellingham could only see the vague outline of shapes.

      If he could see properly, she doubted he would make the effort to dance with her at all. Perhaps everything she was imagining between them was pure falsehood.

      She lifted her wrist to her nose and smelt. Violets. Her mother would pick posies sometimes and place them in her room in the old house above Norwich before she had been betrothed. Nearly half a lifetime ago.

      When Elspeth appeared at the door a few moments later Beatrice was already sorting through a pile of new books in her library. This room of all the rooms in her house was the one she most favoured. To have a place where she could set out each tome was a delight above all the others and to read in the daylight without any interruption was something she had not been able to do since…for ever.

      ‘You look happy this morning, Bea. Could that have anything to do with your apparent success at the Rutledge Ball last night? Molly mentions the name of Lord Wellingham?’

      ‘I danced only one turn with him, Elspeth,’ she returned. ‘In a ball with a programme of at least twenty-nine other dances I fail to see the significance of such an action.’

      ‘Word is that he seldom favours the waltz. It also says that he has not danced at a soiree in years.’

      Beatrice remained silent.

      ‘Lord Taris Wellingham is one of the most powerful men in England, Beatrice. He is the also the gentleman that all the young girls set their caps at and a lord who, although charming, is decidedly unavailable.’

      Bea waited to see if Elspeth would mention the problem of his sight, but she did not. Still, as the silence lengthened she was loath to just leave it there.

      ‘I heard some woman speak of a property…Beaconsmeade I think it was they said.’

      ‘His seat in Kent. A magnificent house by all accounts it is too, and its master a man who should not be trifled with. You can see that in his visage, for the mark on his face is rumoured to have come from a pirate’s bullet in the West Indies.’

      ‘You are jesting with me, surely. What possible tie could the son of a duke have with such people?’

      ‘I do not know. All I do know is that he is a man whom any woman, no matter what her age, might be swayed by.’

      Bea began to laugh. ‘The woman that you are alluding to meaning me?’

      ‘Even a sensible woman has her dreams.’

      ‘I

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