It was so tempting. She knew Lord Deben was not offering her this chance for her sake, but out of his own desire for revenge, yet if she played along...
But then she suddenly recalled her father telling her that if she could ever apply the word temptation to something she wanted to do, then she knew she oughtn’t really to be doing it. And felt like Eve reaching out to take that shiny, delicious apple from the serpent.
‘You...you are a devil,’ she gasped.
He chuckled. ‘Because I am tempting you to give in to a side of your nature you do not wish to admit you have?’
Oh, there was that word again.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, ashamed though she was to admit it.
‘But you will do it.’
The glittering vision he’d shown her wavered and took a new form. The faces of the people in it were haughty and cruel. And she, by joining them and giving former friends like Richard the cold shoulder, of inflicting the same misery that she’d borne on Miss Waverley, made her as cruel and hard as they were.
She didn’t want to become such a person.
She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. She would not become that sort of person.
‘No,’ she said firmly. Then, a little louder, ‘No. It would not be right.’
‘You are refusing my offer?’
‘Most certainly.’
The ungrateful baggage. He had never exerted himself to such an extent for anyone else, or promised so much of his time to aid their cause.
It was Will all over again. Spurning the hand of friendship which he’d extended and spitting in his face.
His face shuttered. ‘On your own head be it, then.’
‘What do you mean?’
She frowned up at him, those ridiculous feathers bobbing in the breeze. She really had no idea. Over the next few days, society would beat a path to her door, whether she wanted them to or not.
There was nothing she could do to prevent it. Everyone had seen him driving an unknown female around the park not once, but three times, and all the while engaged in animated conversation. He had taken care not to acknowledge anyone, which would stoke their curiosity about her to fever pitch. Why, they would want to know, would such a renowned connoisseur of female beauty have paid so much attention to this rather vulgarly attired little nonentity?
They would want to know who she was, what her connection was to him and where she had come from. They would not leave her be until they had pried every last one of her secrets from her. She would very soon regret her stubborn refusal to make her a reigning queen of society. Then—oh, yes, then he would have this proud little Puritan crawling to him.
‘You will find out. And when you do, don’t forget that I offered my protection.’
When they reached the gates the next time he put his team straight through them and took the turn out on to Oxford Street.
Henrietta could see she had offended him by turning him down, but really, after only these two encounters with him, she was sure it would be better never to tangle with him again. He was too autocratic. Too far out of her social sphere. Too clever and tempting, and worldly and, oh, altogether too much!
She bade farewell to that vision of a glittering ballroom and all those nobles who’d wanted her to dance with them. She was going home, to her dear aunt and uncle, to Mildred and Mr Crimmer. Back to the world of pantomimes at Covent Garden, and dinners in the homes of businessmen, and balls where she would dance with the sons of aldermen and merchants.
And when she went home to Much Wakering she would at least do so with a clear conscience.
* * *
Lord Deben remained silent with that expression of displeasure on his face all the way back to Bloomsbury. But when she alighted outside her aunt’s house, to her surprise he tossed the reins to his tiger, sprang down and caught up with her before she’d set foot on the first step.
‘Miss Gibson,’ he said sharply.
She sighed. What now?
‘You are such a simpleton,’ he said, glancing down the street as though he was already itching to be away. ‘You don’t know what you are saying, to turn down my offer of assistance. And though you have made me very angry, I cannot leave things between us like this.’ He wouldn’t mind making her pay for her rudeness to him by leaving her to the mercy of the gossipmongers. But he did not want her to come to complete shipwreck. She was so naïve, and...and green, believing in goodness and decency, and telling the truth and shaming the devil.