Fallen Angel. Sophia James
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that news!’ Nick laughed. ‘The gossips, I fear. Well, they’re half right. She did turn me down, but she doesn’t look like a nun.’
‘Who is she?’
‘Brenna Stanhope, the same girl who rescued me in the woods on the London Road.’
‘But you said she wouldn’t see you?’ Charles queried.
‘She wouldn’t. I had to trick her into coming here. I’ve become the patron of an orphanage she runs in the East End, and she only accepted an invitation—and with great wariness, I might add—from that patron, Lord Deuxberry.’
Charles laughed in disbelief. ‘She doesn’t like you?’ He beamed. ‘You must be losing your touch, Nick.’
Nicholas frowned and lowered his voice to almost a whisper so that Charles had to strain to hear. ‘When Father met Johanna he knew in one moment that he loved her. “Once and forever”, those were his words…’ Raising his glass, he finished his drink, all layers of urbanity overshadowed by a savage anger. ‘And he said it would be the same for us.’
‘My God,’ Charles retorted, all humour fleeing, ‘you can’t be telling me…’
‘I’m not telling you anything.’ His eyes darkened perceptibly. ‘And don’t worry, it’s a passing fancy that’s all. In a month she’ll mean as little to me as every other women I’ve known.’ He stalked over to the window and threw open the sash, enjoying the air that rolled into the room. Brenna Stanhope made him restless and uncertain, for she made him imagine possibilities he thought he’d long since dismissed.
‘The men at the club called her clever.’
Hearing the question in Charlie’s voice, Nicholas refilled his glass and tried to explain with a stoic patience.
‘Brenna Stanhope has a mind that would cut most men’s logic to ribbons; if I had to describe her personality in one word, it would be “formidable”. Last night she told me that she was not a part of any bargain and that I could never pay enough for her. That was just before she ordered me to leave her alone.’
Charles began to laugh in earnest. ‘What does she look like?’
‘She has dimples.’
‘Alan Wrightson claims she is beautiful.’
‘Then the man, for all his faults, cannot be accused of having bad taste in women.’
‘He claims she has violet-coloured eyes.’
‘Those too.’ His brother’s whoop of delight made Nicholas’s heart sink.
‘When do I get to meet her?’
‘You don’t and I’ll see you at dinner.’ Draining his glass, Nicholas put it down on the table and walked out of the room.
In his own study he shut the door and leaned back against the cushioned header of his favourite chair. For twelve years he had been the quarry of countless feminine wiles and pushy doyennes all eager to marry him off and tie him down. For twelve years the gossips had run his name with this woman or that one until finally they had framed him callous and hardened. The ‘Heartless Duke of Westbourne’ was how he had heard his name bandied as the cream of each year’s débutantes were paraded before him and failed to rouse even the slightest interest. He ran his fingers across his temple and closed his eyes. Letitia Carruthers. Deborah Hutton. Alison Smythe-Finch. His consorts of the moment were all well bred, all well experienced. And all easily left. His father’s legacy personified. What stamp, then, did Brenna Stanhope make on him and why? He shifted in his chair and finished his drink.
Beautiful, clever, mysterious and with eyes the colour of Scottish heather after the rain. He shook his head at his sudden predilection for the way of poetry and smiled wryly before bending his head to the figures in a thick ledger on his desk.
Chapter Four
Nicholas spent the next morning at the London Ballet Company’s headquarters arranging a private session of La Sylphide to be performed as a matinée the following Wednesday. He then hailed his cabriolet and drove straight to Beaumont Street, running into Brenna as he stepped into the place. She was dressed today in a white smock splattered with colour, carrying a tray of spiky paintbrushes. Her hair was bunched up untidily upon her head, curling tendrils escaping down dark against the lightness of the uniform.
‘Hello,’ she said softly, and he was surprised by the deep blush on her cheeks as he came to stand beside her. Clenching his fists, he jammed them in his pockets just to make certain that he would not touch her.
‘You’re painting?’
‘I’m m…making a mural for one of the dormitories. The children are helping me, which explains the mess.’
She stammered slightly, both from the question and his demeanour. Today he seemed as far from the grand lord as she’d ever seen him.
‘May I have a word with you alone, Brenna?’
She frowned, both at his continued familiarity in using her Christian name and at the implications of a private conversation. She didn’t want to be alone with him, but under the circumstances there was little else she could do to prevent it. With feigned nonchalance she opened the door to her study, making sure that he sat before she went around to her desk, having no wish to leave him with the opportunity of shutting them in together.
Nicholas noticed a well-used copy of Alexander Kingslake’s revolutionary tract ‘Eothem’ beside her elbow. Why was he not surprised? ‘I have organised the ballet for Wednesday,’ he began. ‘The performance starts at three, but we’d need to be seated by at least a quarter before the hour.’
Brenna nodded, unsure as to her reaction to the whole thing. A ballet performed privately just for them pointed out to her his privilege, but also she understood, for the first time, the power that lay close to his hand should he choose to use it. It worried her, this sovereignty above others, accorded not merely because of his title but inherently there because of who he was. If he could organise an outing of this magnitude on just a whim, then think of what he could find out should he really set his mind to it. He would make a powerful foe and adversary, and a dangerous investigator should she cross the threshold of his curiosity and cause him to venture into the realms of mystery he might easily wish to dissipate—because of this she would need to be careful. Her uncle’s words came back to her from the morning of Nicholas’s first visit: I think he could be persistent… The whole of London treads carefully in his wake and it seems he owns almost half of it.
She forced her mind back to the present and her eyes narrowed doubtfully. All the problems of dress and shoes for the children presented themselves as her mind ran fretfully over the number of nights left for the sewing.
Nicholas, for his part, understood none of the reasons for her reticence, placing it, instead, to her fear of public places and he said, less gently than he meant, ‘I think, Miss Stanhope, that the children would definitely enjoy it even if you are determined not to.’
She caught his glance and replied coldly. ‘My feelings for such an outing hardly need figure here, your Grace—’
‘Then why do you hesitate?’ he broke in.
Brenna sighed and stood, turning to the window, arms wrapped tightly through each other as she replied, ‘It’s all so privileged and dreamlike, this world you offer us, and far from the reality that will ever be Beaumont Street.’
‘And you think that it’s wrong to want to share it?’ he countered, watching her with a growing interest.
‘I think it is wrong to want it.’ She turned to him now, eyes ablaze with intensity. ‘It’s like the children’s bedtime stories, endings that belie all sorts of beginnings, fairytales that only live in books or in a rich man’s world, for none of them will ever have what it is you so easily offer, though many here may want it afterwards. You can’t covet what you don’t know,