A Most Unconventional Courtship

by Louise Allen

  Alessa counted the chimes from the church bell as she climbed. Nine o’clock. So, his lordship had not put her behind so very much. Two hours to deal with the laundry and set it to dry, then there would be her usual visitors before the town settled down to its afternoon somnolence. His lordship would probably have to contain himself in patience until three o’clock when the Residency would send servants to collect him. It often took the visiting English a while to accustom themselves to the sensible Mediterranean practise of a rest in the heat of the day, although Sir Thomas, with his experience on Malta, and in the even greater heat of Ceylon, accepted it without question.

  Alessa stopped outside her own door, conscious of her heart beating faster than the climb should account for. What was she apprehensive about? He was only a man, when all was said and done. However careless he had been the night before, he had behaved with remarkable forbearance on waking up to find himself in a strange place, in considerable pain and confronted by a hostile woman and two children.

  She had overreacted, she admitted to herself painfully, and she supposed she had better apologise. She laid her hand on the catch and reviewed her excuses. He had brought violence and two unsavoury characters to her front door, she had been very tired, he was an outstandingly attractive man. Yes, well, Alessa my girl, that is not something you are going to explain to him, even if you could explain to yourself why that should discompose you so much. She took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

  Chapter Three

  Lord Blakeney was sitting up, only now the pillows were at the other end of the couch from the way she had left him. Now he faced the body of the room. ‘Have you been out of bed?’ Alessa asked sharply, good intentions forgotten, her eyes skimming round the room to see what else he had been up to.

  ‘Of course,’ he drawled, watching her face. ‘I read your diary, I found your money hidden behind the loose brick in the hearth and I left dirty fingerprints all over the pretty bits of nonsense in the soaking pails.’

  Ignoring the first part of his sarcastic retort—she kept no diary and her savings were woven into strings of garlic hanging from the ceiling beams—Alessa latched on to the final remark. ‘And what were you doing with the laundry?’ she demanded.

  ‘Looking for my stockings.’

  ‘You can have them when they are clean and not before,’ she said briskly, in much the same tone as she would use to Demetri when he tried to wheedle something from her. ‘And how did you get as far as that across the room?’

  ‘I hopped.’

  It must have hurt. Alessa felt a grudging flicker of admiration at his single-mindedness. ‘Is there anything you need?’ She set down her marketing basket and remembered she should be making her peace with him, not lecturing. ‘I am sorry if I was…short this morning, my lord. I was angry that you had led such men to my doorstep.’

  ‘I am sorry too. You were quite correct to scold me for it. I should have known better, as you said. My only excuse is tiredness, the pleasure of being on land again after several days at sea and, ridiculous as it probably seems, the warmth of the evening.’

  ‘Warmth, my lord?’ Alessa untied her flat straw hat and hung it behind the door before reaching for her apron.

  ‘I wish you would call me Chance.’ Dark brown eyes watched her, a smile lurking behind apparent seriousness.

  You, my lord, are a charmer and you know it. I should refuse. ‘Very well, Chance.’ She reached behind her to tie the apron strings and saw his glance flick to her breasts as the movement strained them against her embroidered lawn shirt. The glance was momentary and not accompanied by the knowing leer that she had come to expect from so many of the Englishmen who had passed through the town in the wake of the French retreat. She poured a little of the heavily resinated red wine from the north of the island into two beakers, watered both generously, then passed him one. ‘You were explaining how the warm evening made you careless?’

  He took the beaker with a murmur of thanks and sipped. To her secret amusement his eyebrows shot up as he tasted it, but he made no comment. His second sip was far more circumspect. ‘I was behaving like a tourist,’he admitted. ‘A picturesque scene, friendly, smiling faces, intriguing little streets, a balmy evening made for strolling, the stars like diamonds on black velvet. Who could have expected danger?’

  Alessa raised a quizzical eyebrow and was rewarded by a self-mocking grin.

  ‘Any idiot, of course, as you are obviously too polite to remind me. If it had been Marseilles or Naples, I would have been on my guard. As it was, I took a risk and paid for it, but not as much as I deserved, thanks to you.’

  Alessa hefted the cauldron on to the fire and poured in water. Then she began to lift the individual items from the soaking pails, checking each for marks that would require further treatment. ‘Is your nickname because you take risks? Or gamble, perhaps?’

  ‘Chance?’ He smiled. ‘No, just a convenient shortening from when I was a child. I am really quite painfully respectable and sensible.’

  Alessa felt her eyebrows rising again and hastily straightened her face. He was too good to be true: handsome, nice to children and respectable to boot.

  ‘I can see you do not believe me.’

  ‘If that is so, you most certainly do not fit into the mould of most of the English gentlemen of my experience.’ Alessa reached down a bottle of liquefied soap and measured some out into the cauldron. He was very easy to talk to. ‘No gambling?’

  ‘Well, merely to be sociable.’ That sounded almost convincing.

  ‘No carousing late into the night?’

  ‘I do not carouse, merely enjoy fine wines and spirits in moderation.’ That was positively sanctimonious, if difficult to believe.

  ‘No ladies of the night, glamorous mistresses, orgies?’ Aha, that had produced a faint flush of colour on Chance’s admirably sculpted cheekbones.

  ‘Absolutely no orgies.’

  Alessa shot him a slanting look, but did not comment. After all, one did not expect a man to be a saint—or one would be severely disappointed for most, if not all, of the time, in her opinion. A gentleman who did not squander all his money at play, drink himself into a stupor and pursue the female servants with lecherous intent was, as Chance said, positively respectable.

  Was he also very conventional? He was standing up surprisingly well to her frank interrogation. What would he make of her story, if she were rash enough to tell him? She took a paring knife and began to flake off slivers from a block of greenish-grey olive oil soap; the last bottle she had prepared was almost empty.

  ‘Is there nothing useful I can do? I cannot feel comfortable lying here while you are working so hard.’

  Alessa shook her head, then realised that he might as well carry on with the soap so that she could be dealing with the more soiled items while the water heated. ‘Thank you. Perhaps you can do this.’ She perched on the edge of the couch and handed Chance a bowl, the knife and the soap. ‘I need fine slivers so it will dissolve well in water, then I bottle it up concentrated and use it with the washing. It is better with the fine fabrics than scrubbing the soap directly into them.’ She realised she was explaining, as though to the children. ‘I am sorry, you could not possibly want to know all that. I get into the habit of teaching.’

  He took the knife and began to whittle at the block. ‘Like this?’

  ‘Perfect.’ She smiled stiffly at him, suddenly self-conscious at their close proximity. She could feel the firm length of his thigh against her hip and made rather a business of standing up and twitching the cover straight. It did not help that she knew precisely what lay under that blanket.

  He was so approachable that it was almost like chatting with Fred Court, or Spiro the baker, and she had fallen into the Greek habit of openly expressed curiosity about strangers. Her neighbours would think nothing of a close interrogation about family, occupation, views, interests and wealth, but she must not allow herself to fall into the trap of undue familiarity with someone f
rom the Lord High Commissioner’s circles.

  As she massaged soap directly into the dirty marks on Chance’s stockings, Alessa reflected that she had allowed herself to swing from irritable suspicion to liking, and, if she was honest, attraction, in the space of barely twelve hours. And all because of a handsome profile, a pair of thoughtful brown eyes and an open manner. Careful, she admonished herself, tossing the stockings into the cauldron, this man is serious temptation.

  It did not matter in the least that a man in his position was obviously not going to be interested in a laundress for anything other than dalliance. Her instincts told her he would not take advantage of her in that way; she was quite safe from Lord Blakeney. But was she safe from herself? She needed to guard her heart as carefully as she hoarded her money, if she were to remain strong and single-minded for herself and the children.

  They worked in companionable silence. As the bowl of shavings grew fuller and the items of clothing followed each other into the hot water, Alessa pushed the damp hair back from her forehead and forgot to worry about her involuntary guest.

  The church clock striking eleven brought her back to herself. She straightened up and looked across at Chance. There was a full bowl of soap shavings on the floor beside him and he was intently whittling the remains of the soap into some kind of animal. He looked up, caught her eye and grinned. ‘Pathetic, is it not?’

  Alessa scrutinised the stunted creature, called on all her tact learned from praising juvenile attempts at art, and said encouragingly, ‘It is a very nice pig.’ Probably it should have one more leg, but one should not be over-critical.

  ‘Thank you. Honesty, however, leads me to confess it is supposed to be a horse.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ His rueful laughter was infectious and Alessa was still chuckling as she pulled out the screen from the wall and arranged it around the couch. ‘I am expecting…clients. Your presence might embarrass them. Would you mind…?’

  ‘Pretending I am not here? No, not at all.’

  Alessa smiled her gratitude and hurried to set the bedroom to rights. It had only just occurred to her that, as the couch which she normally used was occupied, she would have to retreat to the rather more intimate setting of the bedroom. All her visitors would be known to her, but even so, it felt like an intrusion, and she wanted to make certain no personal items were visible.

  Chance lay back against the pillows, tried to get comfortable and contemplated taking a nap. That felt like a good idea—unless he snored, which would most certainly draw attention to his presence. Presumably Alessa was expecting ladies with intimate items of apparel for laundering, or perhaps she did dressmaking alterations. A strange man would most definitely not be welcome in the midst of that feminine activity.

  No one had ever complained about him snoring; perhaps he could risk dropping off. The knock at the door cut across that train of thought and he listened to Alessa’s hurrying feet as she went to open it.

  ‘Kalíméra, Alessa.’

  ‘Kalíméra, Spiro. Ti kánis?’

  Chance sat up abruptly. A man? He made himself lie back, wondering at his own reaction; presumably there were men without wives or servants who needed laundry and mending services. Alessa was speaking in rapid, colloquial Greek that he could not follow beyond the initial greeting, but something about the tone, intimate and concerned, disturbed him. And they were going towards the bedroom. The door opened, shut, and the sound of their voices became a murmur.

  Chance sat up again, now unashamedly listening. The conversation had stopped and all he could hear from the bedroom was a sort of rhythmic thumping. Visions of bed heads knocking against walls, and what might cause that, came to mind only too vividly. She is…no! His instinctive revulsion startled him. What was the matter with him? She had every right to earn her living as she pleased. Who was he to judge? And yet he was. Which made him a hypocrite.

  Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps this Spiro had come to mend a broken bed frame. And perhaps I’m the Duke of York, Chance thought grimly, waiting for the thumping to stop, which it did after a few minutes. The murmur of voices reached him again and after an interval the bedroom door opened.

  By twisting painfully Chance could catch a glimpse of the room through the join in the screen. Spiro was a stocky middle-aged man, just now rather flushed in the face. No tool bag. Whatever he had been doing in there, he had not been mending the furniture.

  Alessa was a trifle pink in the face as well. He watched grimly through his spy hole as she smoothed back her hair. There was another knock at the door. This time it was a younger man, favouring his left leg with a slight limp. Again the greeting, the rapid flow of conversation, the firm click of the bedroom door latch.

  This time there was silence from the room. Chance realised he was straining to hear and shook his head sharply in self-condemnation. He was furious with himself for listening, furious with Alessa for putting him in this position—furious that she had shattered his illusion of the hard-working, virtuous young widow.

  A tap on the door was followed by it opening. Chance missed being able to see who had entered beyond a glimpse of a man’s coat, but the creak of a chair seat told him that the new visitor was waiting.

  How many more, for heaven’s sake? The sound of a man’s voice raised in a gasping cry penetrated from the bedroom. Chance lay down, put a pillow over his head and waited grimly for it all to be over.

  He was roused from his uncomfortable doze by the sound of the screen being pulled back. Alessa was regarding him, hands on hips, an expression of amusement on her face. ‘Whatever are you doing?’

  ‘Attempting not to eavesdrop.’ Chance hauled himself up into a sitting position.

  ‘Eavesdrop?’ Now she looked thoroughly confused. Just how brazen was this woman?

  ‘Yes, on your business transactions.’

  They stared at each other for a long moment, then Alessa asked slowly, ‘Just what, exactly, do you think I was doing in there?’

  Chance said nothing, but she could read the message in those expressive brown eyes as though he had written her a placard. He thought she was prostituting herself and he was struggling to find a way to avoid answering her direct challenge.

  Alessa felt sick. Then angry, both with herself and with him. She should have realised how it would look and said something first. But why should I have to explain myself in my own home? I did not invite him here.

  ‘You think I was having sex with them? For money?’

  Silence. Her frank speaking must have shocked him even more. The gentry did not like to call things by their true, ugly, names. Then something seemed to change in the atmosphere of the room.

  ‘No. I do not think that. I do not know why I do not, in the face of what I have just seen and heard. I would be a hypocrite to condemn you for it in any case. But I do not believe it, and I am glad.’ Chance’s mouth twisted. ‘There’s a jumble of muddled thinking for you.’

  ‘Indeed.’ She stared at him, fighting her way through her own muddle of emotions. What did she feel? Embarrassment, anger, disappointment that he should have thought such a thing of her, pleasure that he rejected the evidence, complete confusion over why his opinion should matter. ‘Why?’ she demanded, before she could stop herself. ‘Why do you not believe it?’

  That direct question had taken him aback. What were the women of his acquaintance like, that he was so surprised by direct questions, a willingness to argue? ‘Because I think I know you, even after so short a time. Because I do not think you would use your own children’s bedroom. Because, if it were so, I would be jealous.’

  The last words were soft, as though he was speaking only to himself. Her eyes, which had been watching his hands, powerful and elegant on the homespun blanket, flew to his face. He had taken himself by surprise as much as he had her.

  ‘Jealous—?’

  The knock on the door cut off what would have been an impossible question. Alessa tore her eyes from Chance’s and went to open it. ‘Mr Williams! Pl
ease come in. I had not expected you until this afternoon, but Lord Blakeney will be delighted to see you so early, I am sure.’

  The Lord High Commissioner’s steward stepped into the room with the polite half-bow he always favoured Alessa with. It amused her, and puzzled her too, that he should treat one of the Commission tradespeople with such courtesy, but he was unfailingly punctilious where she was concerned. She managed an answering smile and bobbed a curtsy.

  ‘Sir Thomas was most concerned when he received the message, Kyria Alessa. Although, with your skills, we knew his lordship could not be in better hands.’ Alessa could almost feel the waves of curiosity emanating from the couch as the steward turned towards it. ‘How do you find yourself, my lord? We are all appalled that you should have encountered such violence and criminality in a town under English governance.’

  ‘I am justly punished for my recklessness in wandering around alone at night in an unknown town, Mr Williams, but I will recover soon enough, thanks to Kyria Alessa.’ His smile was warm, even though she was conscious of a certain constraint in it. The things that had passed between them were too recent and too strangely intimate to leave either of them comfortable.

  The two stalwart footmen who had followed Mr Williams were waiting just inside the door. ‘Have you brought a change of linen for his lordship?’

  Roberts, the one she knew best, hefted a portmanteau. ‘All in here, Kyria, just like young Demetri said.’

  ‘Perhaps you can assist his lordship to dress, in that case.’ Alessa indicated the screen and drew the steward to the other end of the room, leaving Chance to the mercy of his helpers. She caught Mr Williams’s eye with a smile as a grunt of pain and a hasty apology from one of the men marked his lordship’s progress with his clothes. ‘He is not seriously hurt,’ she assured the steward. ‘But I imagine both his hip and ankle are extremely painful and it would be best if you can see that he rests for several days. He will be guided by Sir Thomas’s own doctor, of course.’