Page 17 of Not Quite a Lady
Lily stared, realised what she was doing, and clapped her hands over her eyes. With a gasp Aunt Herrick slid to the floor in a dead faint. Blake, kneeling amidst the wreckage of the supper tray, let out one startled expletive and was silent.
For a moment the tableau was frozen, then Lily, keeping her back to the bed, ran to her aunt’s side. She had subsided safely onto the thick pile of the carpet and was moaning, apparently more in shock and outrage than from any bruises.
‘Mr Lovell, please go back to bedthis minute. Percy, fetch Mrs Herrick’s woman and my maid, and then help Blake clear this up.’ Lily waited a moment. ‘Mr Lovell, are you decent?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He sounded chastened.
Good. So he should be, the reprobate.
Still on her knees, Lily turned slowly around and regarded the dishevelled bed and its occupant, now decidedly paler than before he had got up. He looked at her with rueful apology and somewhere, at the back of those expressive grey eyes, wicked amusement.
This was dreadful. Lily bit her lip. Aunt would have hysterics when she came to, the carpet with its special border of golden crocodiles and papyrus foliage was going to have to be cleaned and Blake’s be-frogged livery was covered in claret.
It was also, very, very, funny. Coming on top of a day packed with horrible surprises it was too much. She turned away, tried to control herself and failed utterly. With a gasp she sank back on her heels, buried her face in her handkerchief and wept with laughter.
‘Miss France – Lily! I am sorry…Hell,I did not mean to make you cry.’
‘Don’t you dare get up again,’ she threatened, lifting her flushed face from the linen. ‘It is so unfair – you create havoc and then you make me laugh.’
More servants crowded in.
‘Oh, Maria, Janet, help Mrs Herrick to her room, she fainted, but she does not appear to be hurt.
‘That’s right,’ she turned to the footmen who were sponging the soup off the carpet. ‘Do the best you can and we will have to look at it again tomorrow when the light is better. And fetch Mr Lovell another supper tray please.
‘Not that you deserve it,’ she scolded, approaching the bed and wrenching the coverings straight as the footmen hurried out.
Lecturing him was the only defence she could find to hide the shock and embarrassment, and fascination, of seeing his naked body. ‘Now, will you promise me you will stay there?’
‘Will you finish your supper here?’ Jack was managing to sound reasonably contrite.
Lily did not trust him one inch. ‘Certainly not. Aunt would never allow it after what she has just seen. I mean…’
Oh Lord, that could have been better put.‘I mean, she thought you were unconscious. Please do not be difficult.’
Without thinking she put out one hand imploringly and Jack caught it in his and raised it to his lips. ‘I apologise, Lily. I would apologise to your aunt too, if I did not think it would set her off again. But I can stay for one night only.’
He released his grip and Lily thrust her hand safely behind her back.
‘And thank you. I am sorry if I seem ungrateful, but I am not used to accepting favours, and I am not good at being told what to do.’
‘I had noticed,’ Lily remarked with a smile as she closed the door behind her and left Mr Lovell alone with his crumpled sheets and a strong smell of claret.
Aunt Herrick was propped up on thechaise longuein her chamber, smelling bottle in one hand, fan in another, while Janet and Maria hovered with cordials and pillows. To Lily’s surprise she waved them away.
‘Leave us, off you go. Well.’ She eyed Lily’s flushed face with a knowing eye. ‘And just what have you brought home, Miss?’
‘I have not brought him home,’ Lily protested, perching on the end of thechaise.‘He was knocked out on our doorstep. What was I supposed to do with him? Leave him to bleed to death outside the front door?’
‘He is a well-built young man, I’ll say that for him.’ The older woman chuckled at Lily’s blush. ‘What is he?’
‘He owns a mine in Northumberland and he is looking for investors for steam pumps for it.’
‘Oh. Trade. Then he’s no use to us.’
‘Aunt.’
‘Well? You have lost your baron, young lady – what are you going to find to replace him with?’
