The Officer and the Proper Lady. Louise Allen
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was full enough of carefree widows and dashing matrons—and the demi-monde of skilled light-skirts—to keep a gentleman of an amorous disposition amused without him needing to venture amongst the ingénues adorning the Marriage Mart.
But Miss Tresilian was not one of those young ladies either. She was, to his experienced eye, a good three and twenty, her manner was open and her wits sharp. She was not one of the fashionable set either: he did not recognize her name and her bonnet was a Season out of style. There was something about her that argued both virtue and a lack of sophisticated boredom.
‘My reputation is worse,’ he observed, reverting to Major Fellowes. ‘I have not heard of him—but he had heard of me.’
‘And he was very wary of you.’ Miss Tresilian nodded. ‘So you are a notorious duellist as well as a rake?’
‘I confess I fight, gamble, drink and amuse myself with some dedication,’ Hal told her with a shrug, feeling he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb so far as his reputation with Miss Tresilian was concerned. He did not have to mention loose women in his list of sins: the slight lift of one eyebrow showed that she could add those herself.
A shadow passed over her face. ‘Gamble? What on, Major?’
‘Anything, everything. Cards, dice, horses, what colour gown Miss Tresilian will wear for her next appearance in the Parc.’
‘Do you often win, Major?’
‘Almost inevitably.’ She raised the brow again. ‘I play cards well, but I have the knack of calculating odds even better. I enjoy gambling, not throwing money away. You disapprove of gambling, Miss Tresilian?’
‘My mother and I are in Brussels on what is called the economical plan,’ she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste for the term. ‘In other words, we are compelled to live abroad where it is cheap in order to husband our resources. Many of the British community are here for the same reason, and for most of them, it is because the head of the household has gambled away a fortune.’
‘Your father is not with you?’
‘Papa died just before Phillip was born.’ Miss Tresilian looked round, sighting her brother standing hopefully in front of the refreshment stand. His nankeens, Hal saw with amusement, were now an absolute disgrace. ‘Thank you, Major Carlow, for rescuing me and for your escort. I am sure you must be wanting to rejoin your friends now.’ Whatever her reasons for staring at him so fixedly before, they were evidently nothing to do with flirtation. She was now intent on politely disengaging herself.
‘Not at all. At least, not until I have put a stop to any tittle-tattle that you being seen walking with me might arouse.’ Hal scanned the array of elegant ladies gathered in little parties around the pavilion. ‘What we need is a matron of influence and reputation. Ah yes, just the person.’ He tucked Julia’s hand under his arm and led her across the gravel to a lady sitting alone, delicately spooning vanilla ice from a glass. Behind her, in the shadows of one of the trees, stood her maid.
‘Lady Geraldine. How very lovely you look today.’
‘Major Carlow, a delightful surprise to see you doing something as tame as walking in the Parc, and at such an early hour! Perhaps you never got to sleep last night.’ Her ladyship smiled wickedly from under the brim of her hat as Hal bowed, returning a smile every bit as wicked.
‘May I introduce Miss Tresilian, ma’am? Miss Tresilian, Lady Geraldine Masters. I have just rescued Miss Tresilian from a rather slimy dragon. I have done my utmost not to flirt with her, but she will now have been observed by the censorious walking with me for quite ten minutes.’
‘And requires some respectable chaperonage? Indeed. Do sit by me, Miss Tresilian. My first duty is to warn you against associating with bloods of Major Carlow’s ilk. However, I must congratulate you upon escaping from a dragon’s clutches. Major, take yourself off so I may restore Miss Tresilian’s reputation as required.’
‘Ma’am.’ Hal bowed, repressing a smile at the expression of barely concealed alarm on Miss Tresilian’s face. Lady Geraldine, daughter of the Duke of Wilmington and wife of the indecently wealthy Mr John Masters, was one of the leading Ladies of the Park, as the reigning English set in Brussels Society were known. She was a handsome woman in her late thirties, kind, outspoken and apt to be amused by handsome young men of address of whom she had a number in her train. Her devotion to her husband was, however, in no doubt. He should know, he had tested it personally. ‘I leave her in safe hands. Good day, Miss Tresilian.’
‘Good day, Major. And thank you.’ She smiled, an expression of genuine sweetness, and her face, that he had thought merely pleasant, was transformed.
Hal swallowed, bowed and took himself off, pausing to direct a waiter to send ices and tea across to Lady Geraldine’s table. He handed the coins to pay for it to Phillip. ‘Settle the account, there’s a good chap,’ he said, amused by the delighted expression on the small boy’s face as he followed the waiter, the coins clasped tight in his grubby fist.
A charming pair, the Tresilians, he thought as he strode towards the Place Royale exit, heading for his hotel and a couple of hours’ sleep. One grubby urchin and one respectable young lady. One virtuous young lady, he thought and told himself to forget about her.
‘Tell me about your slimy dragon, Miss Tresilian.’ Lady Geraldine fixed her eyes on Julia’s face and smiled. Her regard wavered as someone approached their table.
‘My brother, ma’am,’ Julia apologised as Phillip marched up, waiter in tow, a huge grin on his grubby face. ‘He is not usually such a ragamuffin.’
‘Boys will be boys,’ her ladyship remarked, with a glance at Major Carlow’s disappearing figure. Julia dragged her own eyes away from broad shoulders in dark blue cloth. Did every officer have his uniform tailored to such a pitch of perfection? If they did, she had never noticed before.
‘However,’ Lady Geraldine continued, ‘I am sure he does not need to hear the tale of the dragon. Monique!’ Her maid came forward. ‘Please take Master Tresilian to a table in the shade to eat his ice. There, no-one can overhear us. Now tell me, what necessitated your rescue by Major Carlow?’
Julia could see no way out of telling her everything. ‘I presume Fellowes thinks that because we are not well off and I have no male relatives in Brussels, I am open to such offers,’ she concluded. ‘It is very lowering to think such a man assumes something like that about one.’
‘It is nothing to do with your appearance or manner,’ Lady Geraldine said soothingly. ‘After all, Major Carlow obviously recognized you as a respectable young lady, or he would not have brought you to me. And if the worst rake in Brussels sees that, then you have no need to fear.’
‘He warned me he was,’ Julia said with a frown. ‘Not that I have any experience of rakes, but he did not seem so very shocking.’
Although she had been very aware of a faint, and very feminine perfume when she had taken his arm and there had been a smudge of what might have been face powder on his shoulder. And perhaps the tiny red mark on his cheek was rouge and not a shaving nick. There had been dark shadows under those beautiful blue eyes: it was beginning to dawn on her that the gallant major had probably come straight from a woman’s bed to join his friends in the Parc.
‘Charm is a rake’s stock in trade. He did not flirt with you?’ Lady Geraldine appeared surprised.
‘I don’t think so, ma’am.’
‘Extraordinary.’
Julia told herself that her good opinion of Major Carlow would have suffered if he had flirted, but she had the uncomfortable suspicion that she might have enjoyed it. No-one had ever flirted with her, and the fact that such a notorious rake had not attempted it was disappointing. Unflattering, even. From a purely academic point of view, it would have been interesting to see what all the fuss was about.
‘May I have your direction, my dear?’
Julia