An Encounter at Hyde Park Read online

  Wonderful. They had abandoned her to a strange man who had very insulting ideas about her.

  “I cannot, in good conscience, leave you alone, miss,” he said, keeping pace with her.

  “My friends are nearby. I am not alone,” she said, staring at the yew tree. It stood as still as trees normally did, and as silently.

  “You appear quite alone to me.”

  “Appearances can deceive,” she said, thinking of him and his stray curl. How that errant curl looked so playful and charming. How fully he was neither.

  “Allow me to escort you home,” he said, taking her elbow.

  “Without an introduction? What shall that do for my reputation?”

  “Certainly far less damage than being seen pursuing an Indian, an Iroquois, if I judge rightly.”

  Know it all.

  “Everyone knows that Mr. Grey is the nephew of Lady Dalby. That her nephew is an Iroquois is hardly a mystery,” she said.

  He gave her a look of pure astonishment. “If you knew he was an Iroquois, why did you pursue him?”

  “I was not pursuing him,” she said. “And,” she added, seeing that he was opening his mouth to argue with her, “he is Lady Dalby’s nephew. I don’t suppose you have anything ill to say about Lady Dalby.”

  “Nothing I would say in mixed company,” he said.

  Prig.

  Of course it was no secret to anyone that Sophia Dalby had made her start as a courtesan, marrying her way into a title. But what was that? Didn’t every woman not in possession of a title want to marry into one? As to what should not be said in mixed company, that observation was perhaps the most obvious. A man never did want to hear what women wanted, what they really wanted.

  It was not the cut of his coat that made the man, it was the cut of his coat of arms.

  “Have you met the lady?” Elaine asked.

  “I have not had the pleasure,” he said, still keeping a firm grasp upon her arm.

  They still walked side by side through the park. He would not relinquish her. She did not find it flattering in the slightest. Of all the ways to be ruined, walking in Hyde Park with a man to whom she had not been introduced was perhaps the most mundane way to do it. Elaine had no wish to be ruined, not at all, but she had considered, as all carefully brought up women did, all the ways she could be ruined and how to avoid every single one of them. Ruined girls did not make stellar marriages, everyone knew that. But if she were going to be ruined, and she was not, she did not want to be ruined for anything so boring, so lacking in romance, as a walk in a public park. In full daylight.

  “I do think you should go,” she said, tugging at her arm. He released her with mild reluctance.

  “I shall. After I have escorted you home.”

  Boring prig.

  “As we have not been introduced, you can have no idea where I live,” she said.

  “I expect you shall inform me.”

  “Your expectations shall be dashed.”

  They walked along is stiff silence after that, he holding her arm, she pretending that he was not holding her arm. Being assaulted by the Iroquois would have been preferable to this ludicrous abduction. When they reached Rotten Row, he stopped.

  She, naturally, was forced to stop with him.

  She sighed and tapped her foot.

  He did not sigh and he did not tap. He looked askance at her as if he had nothing more to do than wait for her to comply with his last spoken wish.

  Pompous prig.

  “You are in Town for the Season?” he asked.

  “Clearly.”

  She sighed and lifted her chin in annoyance.

  He did not sigh and he did not appear annoyed. It was most contrary of him. She did not enjoy contrariness in people. Then again, did anyone? But Elaine had always thought of herself as a most congenial, most pleasant sort of woman. She was perhaps more well-read than most women of her station, and she was, possibly, a little too obvious about her mental acuity, but then there was that saying about hiding a light under a bushel basket. She did not lug baskets around with her, and she did not see any reason why she could not be both congenial and well-educated.

  Very few people seemed to agree with her. Needless to say, she did not think that very congenial at all. She, being excessively congenial, was prepared to get along with everyone regarding nearly everything.

  But not with this man and not in the midst of an abduction.

  “I am simply trying to help,” he said.

  “You are not helping. You are hindering me,” she said. “I would have thought that was obvious.”

  “As a gentleman, I cannot leave you unescorted,” he said, sounding almost bored.

  “A gentleman would not abscond with me.”

  “Abscond?” He looked askance at her, his dark curl mocking her, his light eyes looking cold and judgmental. As if he had any right to judge her, he who had made off with her. It was beyond ridiculous.

  “I assume you know the meaning of the word,” she said, refusing to look at him.

  The street was thronged with traffic, both foot and horse, and she counted six piles of horse dung, one still steaming, between where she was and where she wanted to go. Her house was not too terribly far from Hyde Park, though she had not started for the park from her house; no, she and Emeline Harlow had met at Eleanor Kirkland’s home on Brook Street and walked to Hyde Park with Lady Jordan, Eleanor’s aunt, who had grumbled in very indiscreet tones the entire time about the inadvisability and inconvenience of walking when carriages were readily available. Elaine, convivial as always, had silently agreed with Lady Jordan but had held her tongue as congenial people so often do. The point was to be in the good graces of the entire Melverley clan, most especially Eleanor, so that she could meet the very men her mother was determined for her to meet. And so she had walked and made pleasant conversation and once they had reached the Park, Eleanor had made quick work of losing sight of Lady Jordan.

  Elaine suspected that had been Eleanor’s plan from the start.

  Of course it had been Eleanor Kirkland’s plan from the very start to lose her aunt in the vastness of Hyde Park; it was her plan to somehow lose her aunt’s chaperonage every day, but she had not expected to lose Elaine Montford to a man. Two men, if one counted Mr. Grey, and since Eleanor adored Indians, those she knew and those she merely read about, she was ill-disposed to count Mr. Grey. So. Miss Elaine Montford, in doing the most simple of exercises, that of following a man without being detected, had been not only detected, but taken up.

  It was beyond ridiculous.

  “Where is Miss Montford?” Lady Jordan, Eleanor’s aunt, asked.

  It should also be noted that Lady Jordan, who should have remained lost, had found Eleanor and Miss Harlow rather more quickly than was her usual practice.

  Emeline Harlow kept her mouth shut and looked innocently at Eleanor. Eleanor knew it was beyond her ability to appear innocent, and her aunt knew her too well to appreciate the effort in any regard.

  “She, uh,” Eleanor began, looking at Emeline for a bit of help. Emeline continued to look innocent. “She is, that is to say, she has met a friend,” Eleanor said, doing quite a fine job of not squirming, if she did say so. Lady Jordan might be cup shot more than she was sober, but Lady Jordan was never so drunk that she couldn’t face an army of duke’s men with sabers raised with nary a quiver. Lady Jordan was formidable, and that was quite a polite way of putting it.

  “And gone off? I hardly think her as ill-bred as all that,” Lady Jordan said. “She was given into my charge, however reluctantly,” and the reluctance was all on Lady Jordan’s part, of that there was no doubt, “and she shall remain there until redeposited into her mother’s keeping.”

  Emeline Harlow continued looking innocent.

  Eleanor began to have an increased respect for Miss Harlow.

  “Who is this friend and where have they gone?” Lady Jordan said, looking about her with a peevish air.

  Aunt Mary, Lady Jo
rdan, was quite short and quite round and occasionally gave the appearance of a very shrewd house cat, the sort who feasted not only on table scraps but also on juicy mice who ran afoul of her. She looked very like that now. Eleanor was determined that Elaine and not she play the part of the mouse.

  “Eleanor? I require an answer,” Lady Jordan said, rather snappishly, too.

  “We were not introduced,” Eleanor said.

  “What do you mean, you were not introduced?” Lady Jordan said, pouncing. Emeline Harlow pressed her lips together and took a step backward. “I must insist that you stay precisely where you are, Miss Harlow,” Lady Jordan said, pinning Emeline with a cold stare. “I will not suffer another girl in my keeping to wander off.” Emeline froze, eyes wide. “How is it possible,” Lady Jordan said, turning her blue gaze back onto Eleanor, her eyes looking more feral by the moment, “that Miss Montford did not make the introductions?”

  It was not possible. That was the problem.

  “They seemed in a hurry,” Eleanor said.

  “There is no situation in which a proper introduction is deemed too onerous, too untimely, a duty,” Lady Jordan said. It was quite, quite true. Really, Eleanor simply had to learn to lie better. She was a passable liar if she had the time to work something up. Deceiving on the spur of the moment, in the instant when one most needed a credible lie, was not one of her personal strengths. It was so inconvenient, so often. “What is the woman’s name? I don’t suppose you know her, Miss Harlow?”

  Eleanor looked at Emeline with a small degree of satisfaction. She could not remain silent, looking impossibly innocent now.

  “It was not a woman, Lady Jordan,” Emeline said. “I do not know him, I’m afraid.”

  It would have been far better for Emeline Harlow to keep her indiscreet mouth closed.

  Lady Jordan’s blue eyes narrowed, her pupils expanding. “Do you mean to tell me that you allowed Miss Montford to wander off with an unknown man?”

  “We assumed he was known to her,” Eleanor said, and then wished instantly she had not.

  “As she did not introduce him, one can only assume he was not!” Lady Jordan snapped. “Miss Montford, wandering off with a strange man in Hyde Park, and I her chaperone.”

  And here was when Eleanor’s vast reading of Shakespeare and Fielding paid her back tenfold, for this was the moment when she saw the way clear of the entire mess, all of them, Eleanor, Emeline, Elaine and her aunt. The mysterious gentleman was on his own in securing his own reputation, if he could. She rather thought he’d have rough time of it.

  War was a brutal business, especially the wars waged between men and women during the London Season.

  “I am quite certain she did not want to wander off with him, Aunt Mary. In fact, it was very clear to both of us,” she said, making certain that the innocent looking Miss Harlow was in this with her to the hilt, “that she wanted to get away from him, to return to us, and to you, but that he simply wouldn’t allow it.”

  “Do you mean to say that he made off with her?” And here the most wonderful thing happened; Lady Jordan asked this of Emeline. “Against her wishes and consent?”

  “It did appear so,” Emeline said, and when Eleanor gave her a hard look, added, “most definitely so.”

  “An abduction,” Aunt Mary said. “In Hyde Park. In full daylight. ‘Tis not to be believed.”

  “We were all witnesses to it, weren’t we?” Eleanor said, staring at her aunt. “What could we have done? Poor Miss Montford was quite at his mercy.”

  “She did appear so,” Emeline added.

  Lady Jordan, who could, if she chose, look as feeble and vapid as women of her years and situation were reputed to look, looked quite the opposite now. Now she looked as hard and calculating as a Roman general facing the barbarians at the gate.

  “You are certain she did not know him?” Lady Jordan asked.

  “We were not introduced,” Eleanor said, because they had not been and that did settle the matter in minds which very much wanted it to be settled.

  “We shall inform Melverley first,” Lady Jordan said briskly. Assuming they would find him at home, but it was a good plan as it would delay the next inevitable step. “Then Melverley shall report the incident to Mr. Montford. He must be made aware that his daughter . . . well, best let him put a name to it. We shall not.”

  They might not put a name to it aloud, but they all, most assuredly, had put a name to it.

  Eleanor only hoped that it did not go quite that far. She actually liked Elaine Montford.

  The Marquis of Melverley was not at home. No one had thought he would be. Melverley did not return home until 6, when he dressed for another evening of debauchery and drunken revelry. Until the hour of 6, he was snug in the embrace of his mistress. Or some nameless light skirt. Melverley could barely distinguish which and if he did not bother to make the distinction, certainly no one else would.

  It was for this reason that the Eleanor and Aunt Mary had the leisure to sit about Melverley House until the hour of 6 with absolutely no guilt at the delay in alerting Mr. Montford about his daughter’s possible disappearance. It was a topic of discussion that was entirely appropriate for two gentlemen to have; for a woman to have informed Mr. Montford that his daughter had disappeared from Hyde Park with a mysterious man was not a conversation a proper and dignified woman should have. Or that was Aunt Mary’s argument.

  Melverley did not appear to care for Aunt Mary’s argument.

  “Do you mean to tell me that you lost the girl?” he said.

  “She wandered off,” Aunt Mary said.

  “The purpose of a chaperone is to prevent girls wandering,” Melverley said.

  Melverley, Eleanor’s father, was quite a large man, quite full through the chest, and quite bluff in his manner. Bluff and brusque. And normally cup-shot. In fact, he was so normally cup-shot that it was quite a feat to catch him stone sober. Eleanor had learned from an early age to recognize every point on his daily journey between drunk and sober. He was sober now. Something must have gone terribly wrong with his mistress today.

  Aunt Mary, who was sister to Melverley’s dead wife, and who had lived with Melverley for most of her life as a stop-gap mother to Melverley’s daughters, did not live in fear of Melverley. Far from it. Aunt Mary was often cup-shot as well. Aunt Mary, Eleanor suspected, went through at least two bottles a day. Aunt Mary was also, unfortunately, sober. She had not been sober in the Park, but they had been home quite some time and she had not consumed anything, including her tea, which did tell the tale quite precisely regarding her state of mind.

  Eleanor was quite, quite certain that having both Melverley and Aunt Mary sober at the same time, and in this situation, was a very bad thing.

  “When did you plan to inform Mr. Montford?” this from Melverley, who was towering over Aunt Mary in a threatening manner.

  Aunt Mary was not to be threatened. Aunt Mary, who had been a petite and delicate beauty in her youth and was now a plump and short matron with untidy gray hair, lifted her chin and faced the tower that was Melverley boldly.

  “I did not plan to inform Mr. Montford at all, as must be plain even to you, Melverley. That is your province entirely. It would not have been at all proper for me to delve into those waters.”

  “For a woman who has lost her charge, you seem damned particular about the proprieties.”

  “Language, Melverley,” she scolded, casting a look at Eleanor.

  “Damned particular,” he repeated, with considerable emphasis.

  To say that growing up in the Melverley household was a lesson in propriety and proper deportment would have been a bald lie.

  “You will do your duty, naturally,” she said.

  “Of course,” he said, and when Aunt Mary visibly relaxed, he added, “and you both shall accompany me. I’m certain that Mr. Montford will want every detail of the encounter. Who better to provide it?”

  And so it was that Eleanor and Aunt Mary had to face Mr. Montfor
d, Melverley a far from comforting presence at their backs.

  Oh, Melverley sober was a cold, implacable man. Eleanor much preferred him drunk.

  The Montfords lived in a nice house on a tidy street. It was not a spectacular house on an impressive street, but not everyone could live in Melverley House on Brook Street, could they? Or, more impressively, Hyde House on Piccadilly, where Eleanor actually spent most of her time. Of course, that was the entire point of Elaine making a proper match, to improve upon her address. Everyone understood that. That Elaine’s chances of doing that, having been snatched up by that strange man, had dropped to almost nil was something everyone took very, very seriously. Even Eleanor.

  Mr. Montford, tall and auburn-haired, did not take the news well. Melverley, without even the support of a swallow of rum, faced him squarely. It was in times such as these, thankfully few, that Eleanor thought that her father did seem very much the marquis. Eleanor was not accustomed to thinking well of her father. It was a strain to her emotional stability.

  “Some man made off with her?” Mr. Montford said, beginning to pace.

  “I believe it was more an instance of your daughter having wandered off,” Melverley said.

  “You lay this at her door?” Montford said, his voice a growl.

  “Of course not,” Melverley said, though Eleanor was quite sure he would like to do just that.

  “And where were you, if I may ask, Lady Jordan?” Montford said. “My daughter was given into your care, after all. I had thought a woman of your age and manner would be quite more than enough to discourage rogue men from making free with my daughter.”

  There was an implied insult in that observation, Eleanor was certain of it. By the glimmer in Aunt Mary’s eyes, Mary was equally certain of it.

  “I am hardly capable of throttling a man, sir,” Mary said.

  “Were you even close enough to have throttled, given that you could?” Montford said.