Chapter Twelve

‘M iss Shepherd?’ Henry said, reeling. He had left her at home only an hour earlier, and now she was sitting with his friends, sipping tea, looking right at home in their drawing room.

No, he thought, that wasn’t quite right. Miss Shepherd looked decidedly uncomfortable.

‘Good afternoon, Lord Routledge.’

‘I do not wish to be rude, but what is Miss Shepherd doing here, Louisa?’ he said, turning his attention to his friend’s wife.

Lady Shrewsbury had been born to be a Countess, raised with the sole intention that she marry some wealthy gentleman, provide him with children and be a dutiful wife. Every lesson of her childhood had been focussed on that one goal, but it had also prepared her well for moments like this. She sat looking as serene as a summer’s morning, her hands folded demurely in her lap, her face set into an expression of gentle curiosity.

‘I asked her to come for tea and cake. We’ve had a lovely afternoon. Miss Shepherd even played a piece on the piano for me. Have you heard her play?’

He regarded her suspiciously. ‘How did you know where Miss Shepherd is staying?’

Lady Shrewsbury gave a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘I must have heard it somewhere. You know what gossip is like.’

‘Gossip does not concern itself with the living arrangements of penniless young women from Sussex.’ He turned to Miss Shepherd. Despite his surprise at finding her at Shrewsbury House, he could not deny the surge of pleasure he felt at seeing her again. It was concerning just how quickly his feelings for Miss Shepherd were developing. Only once before had he ever felt like this, and that mistake had ended up ruining two lives for many years.

He cleared his throat. ‘Are you well, Miss Shepherd?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ she said, but the tone of her voice was flat.

Lord Shrewsbury stepped forward, looking uncomfortable. His old friend had never been able to hide his emotions, which was helpful in this sort of situation.

‘I think my wife was about to arrange for a carriage to take Miss Shepherd home.’

They all looked at one another in awkward silence for twenty seconds, and then Lady Shrewsbury stood.

‘Yes, let me do that. You boys can discuss whatever business you need to, and I shall ensure Miss Shepherd is delivered home safely.’

‘I am quite happy to walk,’ Miss Shepherd said, looking as though she would be quite happy to swim through a crocodile-infested river if it meant getting out of this house.

‘Nonsense. I brought you here, I shall have my carriage take you home. It is no trouble.’

Lady Shrewsbury waited for Miss Shepherd to rise and then slipped her arm through the younger woman’s. Together they left the room, with Miss Shepherd sparing a quick backwards glance in his direction.

‘What was that about?’ Henry asked.

Lord Shrewsbury waved a hand, trying to dismiss his curiosity. ‘You know what Louisa is like, she worries about you.’

Henry groaned, imagining the scene. Lady Shrewsbury turning up unannounced, insisting Miss Shepherd accompany her to an interrogation, poorly disguised by delicate crockery and cake.

‘Excuse me, Shrewsbury. I think I need to check on Miss Shepherd.’

Quickly he left the neat drawing room, rushing past the footman and throwing open the front door himself. The carriage outside was just starting to move away as Lady Shrewsbury watched from the pavement.

Without a word he dashed past her, leaping forward to grab hold of the handle of the carriage door, pulling it open and throwing himself inside as the horses picked up speed.

He landed with a jolt on the upholstered seat—thankfully the empty one, or he would have crushed Miss Shepherd entirely. Taking a moment to straighten himself out, he ensured the carriage door was not still open before turning to his travelling companion.

‘Lord Routledge, that was quite the entrance,’ she said, amusement clear in her tone.

‘Please forgive me for leaping into the carriage, I wished to check you were well.’

‘Most people would send a note.’ She raised an eyebrow. With relief, he saw a hint of a smile on her face. In the Shrewsbury’s drawing room she had looked uneasy and out of place, as if she would grasp any excuse to escape. Out here in the carriage she was beginning to look like her normal self again. It struck him that he should not know what normal was for a woman he met merely a few days earlier, but he did, and he found he quite liked the idea.

‘I like the more personal touch.’

‘Is it something I am wearing? Or perhaps the way I am acting? There is something that means my company is irresistible to the aristocracy this afternoon.’

‘It was a shock to come into Shrewsbury House and find you sitting and having tea with Lady Shrewsbury.’

‘It was a shock for me as well,’ Miss Shepherd murmured.

‘She turned up with no warning and invited you to go with her?’

‘You make it sound as though I had a choice. When you are someone like me you do not argue with a Countess, certainly not in public.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘It was not your fault. Not directly at least.’

‘Not directly? So you do blame me a little?’

Miss Shepherd regarded him in a manner that reminded him of one of his governesses when he was a young boy. Each morning she would rouse him from bed and immediately ask him to recite the kings and queens of England from the past five hundred years. As he spoke she would regard him over the top of her glasses, pushing them up her nose with a tut of disappointment every time he got one wrong.

‘I would not know Lady Shrewsbury if it were not for you.’

‘That is not true. You climbed into her library well before we became acquainted.’

‘A few seconds before we became acquainted, although I concede that you are correct. Except I probably would never have actually met the Countess. I would have found Agnes Pepper, asked her my questions and been on my way.’

‘Or you might have been caught and escorted to gaol where you would still be rotting, awaiting trial.’ He shook his head. ‘I digress. I am sorry you were pressed into coming here.’

Miss Shepherd was quiet, regarding him thoughtfully.

‘I suppose you know Lady Shrewsbury is in love with you.’

Henry appreciated the directness of her words, even if he wished she had not uttered them. There would be no delicate skirting around the subject until they finally found the words to speak in metaphors and suppositions.

‘I have known Lord Shrewsbury for a long time,’ he said quietly. ‘We were friends from the first day at school, two scared young boys forced to grow up quickly in a hostile environment. He inherited his title and all the land and properties that went with it when he was twenty-one. He told me, one day soon after, sitting in the huge chair that had once been his father’s, that he would always be there for me. Of course, he knew of my problems with my father and he wanted me to know that, however I chose to deal with them, I would have a powerful ally.’

Miss Shepherd sat with a straight back, her hands folded in her lap, listening to him with her full attention.

‘Over the years he has done more for me than anyone else, and although his family life is a little more straightforward, I have been there through every bereavement, every period of mourning.’

‘He’s like the brother you never had.’

‘Yes. About seven years ago we both decided it was time to stop our youthful fooling around and think about settling down. We swapped the late-night card games for more respectable balls and dinner parties. That was when we met Lady Shrewsbury, Louisa.’ He cleared his throat, feeling embarrassed about the story, but needing to explain the history, so she would understand a little better the relationship between all of them. ‘Shrewsbury fell head over heels in love with her. She was pretty and accomplished and the perfect woman to become a Countess.’

‘But she set her sights on you.’

He nodded, remembering back to the awkward moment he had realised the woman his closest friend loved wanted him to propose instead.

‘I liked her, but there was no way I could ever allow any romantic feelings to develop, not knowing how Shrewsbury felt about her.’

‘That is very noble.’

‘It didn’t feel noble at the time. After a few weeks of this awful awkwardness, I told her I could never consider anything more than a friendship between us.’

‘How did she take it?’

He thought back, remembering her serious expression, the tears in her eyes.

‘She was upset, but she said she understood. She disappeared for the rest of the season, and I assumed she had set her sights elsewhere. The next year I was a little distracted, as that was when I met Anne. I barely paid any attention to what was going on outside of my own infatuation, but suddenly Shrewsbury and Louisa announced they were engaged. I was ecstatic for my friend, although at first wary of Louisa.’

‘You thought she might still harbour feelings for you?’

With a rueful smile he shrugged. ‘That sounds rather conceited, does it not?’

‘It would be a legitimate concern to have.’

‘One evening Louisa took me to one side and told me how happy she was. She apologised for her behaviour the previous season, for acting like a lovesick pup, and assured me of her affection for Lord Shrewsbury. She said she knew how much our friendship meant to him, and she hoped one day we would have a similar relationship.’

‘So they married.’

‘And they have been very happy.’

‘But...’

He sighed. He wasn’t entirely sure when he had realised his friend’s wife was in love with him. It certainly hadn’t been whilst he was married—he had been too distracted by his own troubles. Or when Lord and Lady Shrewsbury had collected him after the fire that had killed Anne and destroyed his main source of income. It had been later than that, when the fog of grief and shock had finally started to clear, that he had sometimes caught her looking at him with a wistfulness in her eyes.

It was an impossible situation, and he had not known what to do about it. But, as always, his old friend had been much more aware of what was going on in his house than Henry had given him credit for.

‘I came to realise Louisa still harboured certain feelings towards me.’

Lord Shrewsbury had sat him down one evening and poured out two glasses of whiskey. He had done the hard part of putting into words what he had seen and sensed, never once blaming Henry or asking him to leave.

‘Lord Shrewsbury knows,’ Miss Shepherd guessed.

‘Yes. Louisa loves him too, in her own way. I don’t think she would ever act on her feelings towards me, she is aware I value my friendship with her husband too highly, and that I love her as a friend, nothing more. Shrewsbury accepts what he cannot change, and has never once placed the blame at my door.’ He motioned vaguely at the carriage they were sitting in. ‘Most of the time it manifests in a concern for my happiness, which is not in any way scandalous, but sometimes she does get a little overprotective.’

‘I am hardly a threat.’

Henry regarded the young woman sitting opposite him and realised there was no guile behind her words, no desire for him to react, to compliment her. She truly believed she was insignificant, not worthy of notice.

He swallowed, his eyes raking over her, feeling that pull of attraction, that desire to reach out for her.

‘Lady Shrewsbury is an astute woman,’ he said, his voice low.

Miss Shepherd stiffened a little, her eyes searching his.

‘You are beautiful, Miss Shepherd.’

She let out a bark of laughter. ‘I know you jest, my lord. I do not think I am ugly, all my features are in vaguely the right proportions and in the right places, but no one has ever called me beautiful.’

‘Then everyone in the world is a fool.’ He knew this was a dangerous subject. By talking about it, he was giving himself permission to study the woman in front of him, to see the way her face lit up when she smiled, the stunning emerald green of her eyes, the perfect smattering of freckles across her nose. As his eyes roved over her he had to remind himself why nothing could ever happen between them. Not four hours earlier he had told Miss Shepherd why he could not get involved with her. He had told her things about his life that he had never told anyone before, all in the hope that she would understand why he could not do the gentlemanly thing and propose after the kiss they had shared.

Yet right now in this moment he could feel all his resolve slipping. One more kiss couldn’t hurt. Not in the privacy of the carriage. One more kiss to sustain him, and then he would return to his search for a suitable wife.

‘You are looking at me strangely,’ Miss Shepherd said, her voice catching in her throat.

‘Strangely?’

‘Like you are a wolf and you want to eat me.’

He laughed. ‘You do not know how right you are, Miss Shepherd.’

She shifted in her seat and her knees brushed against his. It was an accident, but it sparked another flare of desire in him. She must have seen it in his eyes, for she let out an involuntary little gasp.

‘We cannot,’ she said decisively.

‘Definitely not,’ he agreed.

‘It would be worse than foolish.’

‘It would be disastrous.’

They sat facing each other, eyes locked on one another as the carriage bumped through the streets. It was as though someone else had taken over his body for, despite his words, he reached out and drew the curtains on both sides, shutting out the world outside.

‘No one would know,’ he murmured.

‘We would know.’

‘We can keep a secret.’

Despite the throbbing desire that pulsed through him, Henry knew Miss Shepherd had to move first. He held all the power in their relationship, and it meant she had to be the one to decide.

She was breathing fast now, her chest rising and falling rhythmically.

‘This is a terrible idea...’ she said, and then suddenly she leaned forward.

Their lips met and he kissed her deeply, feeling the pent-up passion of the last few days come flooding out. She tasted sweet and her mouth was soft and inviting underneath his. For a moment he forgot all the reasons they were supposed to be keeping apart, forgot his resolve to disregard his own wants and desires, forgot he had promised himself again and again that he would think rationally about all matters of the heart. For a moment he allowed himself to pretend the world consisted just of him and Miss Shepherd. There were no sisters to think about, no families to consider, no meddlesome friends.

She let out a little moan and he was lost completely. He moved closer, narrowing the gap between them until their bodies were pressed together, held by the tiny confines of the carriage. As she arched her back, he trailed kisses down her neck, pausing at the little notch at the bottom of her throat. He’d never considered anyone’s collarbones before, but right now Miss Shepherd’s seemed exquisite.

She gasped as he dipped his head lower, kissing the tops of her breasts, pushing at the material to reveal more of her velvety soft skin.

‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asked, desperately hoping she would not say yes.

‘Don’t stop.’ Her voice came out as a gasp, and he felt such desire as he never had before.

A little voice somewhere deep inside screamed at him to stop, but it was easy to ignore. All he wanted, all he could think about, was the woman in front of him. He gripped at the material of her sensible dress, pulling it until he exposed her chemise underneath. The top was held together by a delicate bow that he untied within seconds.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he murmured as he lowered his head again, his lips meeting her skin. The carriage jolted a little as it swung round a corner, and Henry took the opportunity to sit back on his seat, pulling Miss Shepherd with him so she landed in his lap. He was about to kiss her again when she stiffened.

‘We’re slowing down,’ she said, her voice laced with panic.

‘No,’ he murmured, peppering kisses down her neck.

‘We are. We’re slowing down.’

He paused for a second, realising she was right. He tweaked the curtain that covered the window to look outside.

‘Damn,’ he muttered. He recognised the street they were on—they were very close to Miss Shepherd’s lodgings. The carriage would be rolling to a stop in less than a minute.

Miss Shepherd scrambled off his lap and fell onto her seat, leaving him feeling bereft. She looked beautifully dishevelled and he contemplated thumping the roof and calling out for the coachman to do another lap of London, but already Miss Shepherd was lacing her chemise together and trying to adjust her dress. She was looking down, refusing to meet his eye.

The weight of what they had done hit him, and he could not believe he had lost control again. For the past few years he had worked and worked on his self-control, on making sacrifices so that he could achieve his long-term goals. Now every promise he had made to himself he’d broken, after just a few minutes in a carriage with Miss Shepherd.

‘I expect you are sorry,’ she said, eyeing him warily.

‘I am. Of course I am. Miss Shepherd...’

She held up a finger and silenced him with an icy glare. It was chilling how quickly she had changed from moaning in pleasure underneath him to looking as though she never wished to see him again.

‘Please spare me the lecture on how much you like and respect me, but couldn’t possibly think about marrying me,’ she said, quickly removing a few pins from her hair and jabbing them back in. He winced as she pushed them in with force, feeling every scrape of her scalp. ‘Thankfully no one saw our indiscretion...’ She grimaced and then corrected herself. ‘Our mistake.’

‘Miss Shepherd...’

She held up the finger again and he fell silent, not wanting to enrage her further.

‘I have no desire to become the next burden to your conscience, so I suggest we meet one further time to discuss what progress you have made in tracking Selina down, and then we bid each other farewell. For good.’ She looked as though even spending five more minutes in his company would be too much, but she would tolerate it for the sake of her sister.

The carriage slowed and Miss Shepherd flung open the door before it had even come to a complete stop, jumping down into the street. He watched her stride up the steps to her lodging house, not once looking back, her shoulders tense. Just before the carriage began moving again he saw her fumble with the key, jabbing it three times into the lock before she managed to open the door.

Henry slumped back against the seat. He should go after her, even if there was no way he would be admitted to her rooms, and he doubted Miss Shepherd would deign to step outside to speak to him now.

‘Damn, damn, damn,’ he said, thumping his fist against the seat. He had handled this poorly, very poorly indeed.

Sarah rushed up the stairs, unlocked her door and dashed into her room, only allowing the tears to spill from her eyes when the door was firmly closed and locked behind her. She threw herself on her bed, buried her face in the pillow and let out a deep sob.

For a minute she allowed herself to cry, letting out all the disappointment and heartache. She used the pillow to muffle the sound of her weeping, not wanting her neighbours to know she was so upset.

Once she had let the tears flow for long enough she sat up, wiping her cheeks and breathing deeply, gritting her teeth to stop more droplets escaping her eyes. Lord Routledge was a distraction, nothing more. There was no point in getting so upset over him.

Her rebellious mind flashed back to the moment he had looked at her as if she were the most irresistible woman on earth. How his lips had claimed her, how expertly he had touched her, bewitching her, so in that moment she would have agreed to anything.

‘He does not want you,’ she told herself, annoyed when the thought made her sad. She should not want him either, but she did. The whole point of her being in London was to find Selina—anything else was a distraction. Twice now she had allowed herself to succumb to his charms, to give in to her desire and kiss him, even though she knew nothing good could come of it. She needed to focus on finding her sister and then leaving London for the job she had worked so hard to find. That was her future, not obsessing over a Viscount who had very clearly told her there could never—not a chance, not even if they both wanted it—be anything between them.

She did not think Lord Routledge was playing games. He was a kind and genuine man, and he had so far been true to his word, offering assistance in tracking down Selina. The kisses they had shared had been the result of an overwhelming attraction between them. She had felt it, and from the possessive look in his eyes he had felt the same too. They desired one another so much it had been impossible to keep their hands to themselves.

Even so, she felt a surge of anger towards Lord Routledge. He had been the one who had sat her down and explained why he could not do the honourable thing and marry her after their first kiss. She didn’t expect marriage, she didn’t really know what she expected or wanted, but she wished she didn’t feel quite so rejected.

Crossing her arms over her body, Sarah went to the window and peeked out, wondering if he had alighted from the carriage and tried to follow her into the lodging house. But the street was empty, the carriage gone, and with it Lord Routledge.

That told her exactly what she needed to know. He might desire her—and feel genuine regret that he had allowed his baser instincts to take him over—but not enough to keep him from his real life, not even for a few minutes.

‘Enough,’ she declared to herself. She would meet Lord Routledge one final time to find out what he had discovered from the gentleman’s club Selina had tried to gain access to. Then she would thank him for his help and release him from any further obligation. Lord Routledge could return to his balls and his debutantes and his search for a suitable wife to placate his father, and she would continue looking for Selina alone.

‘Always alone,’ she murmured and then shook her head. It was her choice to be alone. She could have spent the last six months dancing at the assembly rooms and hunting for a husband, but instead she had diligently applied herself to finding work that would give her a good life. It was her choice to be alone—a positive decision, not a negative one—and she would learn to embrace it.

With a sigh she turned away from the window and sat down on her bed. She had to hope Lord Routledge would uncover something at the gentleman’s club, for she was struggling to find any other trace of Selina. She did not want to leave London without her, but in a few weeks she would have to make the choice of whether she should continue looking and forfeit her job, or leave without knowing what had happened to her sister.