Secrets of a Gentleman Escort

by Bronwyn Scott

  Annorah felt sick. She could hardly breathe. ‘Nicholas, is that true?’ She grabbed the sleeve of his coat, forcing him to stop. She wished she hadn’t. She searched his face in the light of paper lanterns, looking for denial but she found only pity. Pity for her, the poor rich girl who’d bought herself a lover and was now suddenly stunned that her lover had a history.

  ‘Yes, it’s true, but I can explain, just not now. We have to get back, we have to see what can be salvaged.’

  Salvaged. It was a nice way of saying he had to wait and see what happened in order to plan his next strategy, a strategy that probably involved her. What would he have to tell her? What would she believe? What would she need answers to? Annorah fell back, letting the men go on ahead.

  This should not come as a surprise, but saying it over and over did not make it better. She’d known nothing about him. He’d wanted it that way and she’d let him keep his secrets, thinking it would make no difference. Maybe it didn’t make any difference. All this still would have happened.

  Or maybe not. Maybe she would not have asked him to come, would not have risked exposing him to more people. Annorah sank down on a low stone bench, outside the ballroom, her mind working at rapid speed. All the pieces were coming together, all the things she should have paid attention to, but hadn’t. She’d been caught up in his kisses, caught up in the pleasures he bestowed on her.

  But the clues had all been there: the newspapers, the letter, the quick acquiescence to the extended stay. In hindsight, she could see the answers. He’d read the newspapers, looking for mention of his scandal, looking for an indicator it was safe to go home. The letter had been such an indicator, only it had brought the opposite of what he hoped. The letter must have told him to stay away. On the heels of that warning, her invitation to the house party, plus another thousand pounds, had probably looked like manna in the wilderness.

  For all she knew, he’d changed his mind about returning to Hartshaven because he had news he could return to London. She’d been an absolute fool and she could only lay part of the blame at his doorstep. Part she had to lay at her own. Nicholas had warned her on more than one occasion of what could happen if she associated with him. She’d simply not believed it or that it could be as bad as he had made it out.

  He had not lied to her. It was every bit as bad as he’d cautioned and that wasn’t even the worst of it. She’d fooled herself into the most dangerous illusion of all: believing someone loved her. Again. It was the one thing she’d thought she’d be safe from with Nicholas. She’d felt safe too soon and now she was rewarded with the darkest of betrayals. Her mind began to slow and her body felt numb. Her world had fallen apart. Somehow, she’d have to get up from this bench and carry on. There would be fall out, and there would be scandal and decisions she had no idea how she would make.

  A noisy group of young men exited the ballroom, everyone talking at once. ‘There’s going to be a duel!’ one of them said in loud tones, exclaiming to the others. ‘I can’t believe it!’

  ‘Well, not yet,’ another argued. ‘It’s not official.’

  ‘Redding’s done everything but call him out!’ said another.

  ‘He called him a petticoat-monger, if you can countenance it. No man can bear that label without fighting,’ the first young man spoke up brashly. ‘If Redding had called me that, I’d have shot him on the spot. D’Arcy has to issue a challenge.’

  Nicholas to fight a duel? She wanted to believe such a claim was ridiculous, but it wasn’t. He’d almost fought another man in London. Duels were part of the Nicholas she didn’t know, but that didn’t change the role she’d played in this débâcle. She’d brought him here, she’d built up a fantasy that had put him at risk. Annorah rose, sticking to the shadows. She didn’t want to go into the ballroom, but she had no choice. This was her fault. She had to go in there and protect Nicholas even if her heart was breaking. What did it matter now if she retreated to the cottage in the north? The fight was lost. Perhaps it had always been lost. Surely, this was the darkest moment of her life.

  Chapter Twenty

  Protect Annorah. Protect Westmore. Protect Channing. Protect the agency. But above all protect Annorah. The best way to do that was to follow Channing’s protocol for difficult situations: isolate and defuse. These were the thoughts running through Nicholas’s mind when he entered the ballroom with Westmore at his back. The others had defence mechanisms built in for such an occurrence. Annorah did not.

  She’d looked positively ill when they’d left her trying to digest the pieces of information Westmore had callously flung out in his haste to reach Redding. Westmore wasn’t known for his sensitivity and Annorah had paid for it. She hadn’t followed them into the ballroom. Perhaps that was for the best—out of sight, out of mind. The further he could keep her from the scandal that was about to break, the better, and it was going to break, just like a summer deluge, immediate and fierce. The only control he had was where it would break.

  Already, groups gathered near the Timmermans and Redding fell silent when he passed, likely having overheard Redding’s early allegations. Andrew Timmerman looked thunderous. Redding, that skinny weasel, looked triumphant. Georgina didn’t know quite how to look. Her chance to win access to the fortune was still intact, yet her niece was once again the victim of a nasty relational turn of events.

  ‘I want a word with you, Mr D’Arcy,’ Timmerman began, his face florid with barely contained emotion.

  ‘Not here,’ Nicholas answered tersely, taking the first opportunity to shape the conflict to his liking and right now he’d like a little privacy. Isolate. The first rule of managing a difficult situation was to keep it contained. Privacy could do that. Airing dirty laundry to the entire ballroom could not. If Timmerman’s head was so hot he couldn’t see that, Nicholas would see it for him.

  ‘He’s right,’ Westmore put in. ‘Whatever is going on is not a public matter until things are sorted out. Let’s adjourn to your study.’

  Timmerman began to see the wisdom of the idea. Some of the colour began to recede from Timmerman’s features. Nicholas would have taken it as an encouraging sign, but Redding stepped forwards, seeing his advantage slipping away. Information was only powerful if people had access to it.

  ‘He wants to hush it up, Timmerman. Can’t you see his ploy? It’s as good as an admission,’ Redding sneered. ‘If there was nothing to worry about, he’d want to publicly clear his good name where everyone could hear.’

  ‘Have you already slandered it?’ Nicholas ground out. ‘It doesn’t take a brave man to spread rumours about someone not present to defend themselves.’

  ‘Easy now,’ Westmore muttered.

  But there was every need and Nicholas pushed Redding a bit further. ‘The privacy isn’t for me. It’s for Annorah, who should be your first concern.’ He fixed Redding and Georgina with individual stares. ‘Unless your plan is to see her publicly ruined so you can sweep in and claim her from the rubble.’ It didn’t take deep intelligence to understand how a man of Redding’s calibre operated. ‘That would work out nicely for you both, wouldn’t it? You’d have your money and you—’ he glared at Redding ‘—would have a fortune at your disposal.’ An extraordinary fortune from what he’d learned this afternoon.

  His barb had struck home as he’d intended. Georgina paled and Redding stepped back. Good, let them have a taste of their own petty strategies. They no more wanted their personal motives and finances discussed in public than he did. Let them also realise he was not the only one here with something to be risked. Self-righteous bastards like Redding often forgot their own transparencies in the heat of the moment.

  ‘Perhaps now you’d like to adjourn to your study?’ Nicholas offered to Timmerman. Timmerman was staring at his wife and Redding. Nicholas’s deflection had worked. Timmerman’s anger was now directed at the pair of them. Only, it had worked too well
.

  ‘Redding, you are here solely on my wife’s sufferance, not mine. I want you packed and out of my house within the hour for the trouble you’ve brought it.’

  No, no, don’t do that. Nicholas wanted to cringe. They’d all been about to go to the study and defuse. But not now. Redding would not tolerate being ousted. Beside him, Westmore straightened his stance in confirmation. He could almost count down to Redding’s eruption in his head. Three, two, one...and oh, yes, definitely make it loud enough for everyone to hear.

  ‘You’re the fool, Timmerman. You are harbouring a petticoat-monger under your roof and kicking out a legitimate landowner and a neighbour. He’s nothing but a fancy, paid whore who’s come sniffing after your niece’s fortune. You might want to ask yourself how he got here. Is he here because he smells the gold or did your precious niece invite him?’ Redding’s thin lip curled up. ‘I use the term invite very loosely. Perhaps she hired him.’

  That was outside of enough. Nick exploded. ‘How dare you challenge a woman’s honour?’ A thick crowd had pressed around them. There was no more privacy. This had now become a public event, the very thing he’d wanted to avoid. He had to tread carefully here. The danger with public events is that it put a man’s bravado on trial in front of his peers. Men did and said things that could not be undone. Still, he might be able to work it to his advantage if he was quick. He could publicly protect Annorah, perhaps publicly exonerate her.

  Redding knew he had the upper hand for a moment. ‘A woman’s honour, but not the other?’ He turned to Timmerman. ‘Don’t you find the grounds interesting on which D’Arcy issues the challenge? We have no denial of his true self.’

  ‘Remember your place, Redding. You and I are men,’ Nicholas recited almost from rote. ‘We may settle our grievances in our own fashion. A woman has no such recourse but that which her male supporters allow her.’ It was one of the primary lessons Channing preached at the agency. He heard a stifled cough from Westmore. At least Westmore could take back news he’d made an admirable defence of the code.

  ‘You haven’t answered my question. He’s stalling, Timmerman. But he can’t bluff his way out of this.’ Redding held up a folded sheet of paper. ‘My acquaintance in London writes that there is rumour Nicholas D’Arcy is a high-paid courtesan of the male variety.’ Redding snickered. ‘My friend has a more polite vocabulary than most.’ He glared at Nicholas. ‘That issue is settled. The only real one remaining is how you got here. Did Miss Price-Ellis pay you?’

  A gasp circulated the ballroom on a rising tide of whispers, then a collective hush fell. No one wanted to miss this. There was a rustle in the stillness, the sound of skirts, the shuffled movement of people stepping aside. No, he did not want it to be Annorah, not right now when all she could do was make everything worse. Annorah would think she could save him, that she should save him by taking the blame. She would do it, too. She was far too literal of a creature to think beyond the moment. The moment demanded sacrifice and she would give it without thinking of the long-term damage that truth would do. Nicholas would not have it. He had nothing against the truth, but it was a powerful weapon that must be used sparingly and with great caution. He slid his gaze sideways to Westmore, the one ally who would understand. Westmore moved stealthily, falling back into the crowd to remove Annorah. She would not like it, but Nicholas would have to trust Westmore to explain the reasoning on his behalf. He would not see her again. He would have no chance to say goodbye and definitely not in the fashion in which he’d planned.

  Certain that Annorah had been safely removed from the ballroom, Nicholas squared his shoulders. If he could not defuse the situation, he could deflect it. ‘Miss Price-Ellis did not pay me to attend this house party. My choice to accompany her was entirely voluntary.’ It was true on both accounts. He had decided to come on his own volition after receiving Channing’s note. Furthermore, Annorah had not yet paid him. He’d officially taken no money from her at this point for this aspect of their association, nor would he in the future. If she should send a deposit to the agency, he would have Channing send it back.

  Timmerman’s posture seemed to ease a bit at his niece’s name being cleared of any complicity. The crowd seemed to deflate a bit. The scandal wasn’t as astonishing as it could have been. It was good that people were starting to think Redding had been all smoke and mirrors with his insinuations and letter from London, but Nicholas knew there was one more hurdle. The sooner Redding threw it out, the sooner this could be over.

  ‘Does she know what you are?’ The last hurdle did not come from Redding, but from Timmerman. This was the most damning of all the questions, the most dangerous. A lie was thin protection for Annorah. Nicholas didn’t want an ounce of this sordid scandal touching the beauty of Hartshaven. All it would take would be someone travelling to Hartshaven to unearth the truth, that he’d been there all week and that he was no librarian. They hadn’t looked at a book once.

  ‘She does not know all that I am, sir.’ Nicholas met the older man’s gaze evenly. ‘We did meet by correspondence and I do hold her in genuine regard, but my past has not been a detailed subject of discussion between us. You cannot blame her for this. None of you can.’ This last bit was meant for the audience at large. ‘If you want to blame anyone, blame Redding for having the indelicacy to air his concerns publicly instead of addressing them to me privately. You can even blame me for having the audacity to reach above myself by coming here and pursuing her. But do not blame her.’

  She is beautiful and fun, and alone because people like you, every last one of you in this room, have forced it upon her with your narrow ideas about what a woman with a fortune can and must do with her life and who she must do it with. Well, it’s no wonder she came looking for me.

  * * *

  Nicholas was gone and most of the guests with him. Annorah sat with Westmore in the study, watching the hours of the early morning tick away on the long-case clock. The ball had broken up not long after the confrontation had ended, not that she’d seen it or had any first-hand witness to what would surely become gossip legend in this part of Sussex. Westmore had hauled her from the ballroom and her uncle had come a half hour later to inform her that Nicholas had gone. Then he’d returned to seeing off the guests with her aunt as if nothing unusual had happened.

  There’d been footsteps in the hall as other guests made their way upstairs to their rooms and the house had eventually fallen silent. Servants would rise early to clean up the clutter. ‘Would you like to go upstairs?’ Westmore asked at one point. ‘You must be tired.’

  Annorah shook her head. She wasn’t tired, she was numb. There was a difference. Her aunt and uncle came in once everyone was seen to. She hoped they wouldn’t stay long, but she had no luck left. They both took seats, signalling the beginning of a longer conversation. Perhaps it was better to get it over with.

  ‘Annorah, Mr D’Arcy dealt most unfairly with you and we are sorry for it,’ her uncle began. ‘He did not disclose to you all that he was. His life in London was questionable, to say the least.’ Her uncle shifted in his chair, decidedly uncomfortable with the discussion. ‘He was not fit company for you or for any gently bred woman.’ He spread his hands on his thighs, studying his fingernails. ‘I will not force you to listen to the details.’ He tossed a pleading glance at her aunt. Tag, you’re it.

  To her credit, Aunt Georgina did look worn out by the events of the evening. Her face was pale and, for the first time, Annorah saw the discreet signs of age upon her. ‘My dear, you’ve had such horrid luck with these things. You should know by now that you need to be guided by those who know better. If you had, you would have been married. But now all is about to be lost.’

  ‘Not quite. I don’t think it’s that’s dire yet.’ The voice drew Annorah’s gaze to the doorway. Redding stepped inside, confident and commanding. ‘There’s still a way out of all of this.’

  Annorah f
roze. Her aunt and uncle turned eager, hopeful eyes his direction as he laid out the plan she was certain he and her aunt had intended to spring all along before Nicholas had arrived.

  ‘We’ve been neighbours a long time. Perhaps I could offer myself as a husband? Annorah and I could marry in time to satisfy the lawyers and save the family fortune. You needn’t suffer.’

  Annorah blanched. This was the horror she’d fought so long to avoid. Now, despite all her machinations, it had found her anyway. Perhaps it was true, perhaps no one could outrun their fate. It had caught up to her and she was alone to face it, just as she’d always been. Her aunt and uncle were already making grateful noises for the offer.

  But she still had one quiet and forgotten ally. Grahame Westmore shifted in his chair, drawing all eyes away from Redding to himself. ‘There is still the little issue of the standing engagement. The announcement ran in The Times today and I believe Mr D’Arcy signed the betrothal agreement.’

  ‘You did what?’ Georgina flew at Uncle Andrew. For a moment Annorah pitied her uncle.

  ‘You were the one who was so eager to secure proof we had an engagement in time,’ Andrew responded, leading his angry wife to the door of the study. He gave her a sharp look when she would respond. ‘We will discuss this upstairs.’

  Redding had discreetly melted back into the hallway after that domestic tantrum, leaving Annorah with Westmore. Annorah stood up and paced the room, some of the numbness over the evening and Redding’s latest offer wearing off. She wasn’t entirely sure all of it would wear off ever. She trailed her fingers over the knick-knacks lining the edge of her uncle’s wide desk. ‘Nicholas has left without saying goodbye.’ She’d thought earlier that the devastation she’d felt on the terrace had been her darkest moment, but it had been superseded in short order by Nicholas’s vanishing act and then again by Redding’s offer. It just went to prove the old adage that things could always be worse. She wondered if she’d struck bottom yet. Probably not, there was still Hartshaven to turn over to the charities.