Read Online Royal Revels by Joan Smith - Free Book Online

in distaste. ‘‘I’ve given my trust to a gentleman for the last time. I want my money. He promised to take care of me. If he refuses to keep his promise, then I must take care of myself. You give that message to the prince,” she said with a long look at Belami.
    Then she arose with an imperious toss of her head. ‘‘Nice to have met you, Miss Gower. I shan’t ask you to return. A lady’s reputation is too precious to trifle with, as I have learned to my sorrow, but I look forward to seeing Lord Belami again. On business,” she added, playfully lifting her brow behind Deirdre’s back.
    Belami gazed at her for a long moment, trying to interpret that glance. There was something of the coquette in it. There was also a challenge. His sporting blood warmed to it, but when he replied, his voice was cool.
    “It will take a day or two to work out a counteroffer,” was all he said. Had Deirdre not been present, he might have said more, but she was waiting for him, and they left.
    Réal had been walking the horses. He arrived as they came into the street. “I’ve walked our bloods around the block,” he told Belami.
    “Fine, we’ll be going straight home,” his master told him, helping Deirdre into the carriage before him.
    “They’re not getting enough exercise,” Réal cautioned severely.
    “That’s your job. See that they do get their exercise,” Belami told him, and closed the door.
    “What did you make of that?” he asked Deirdre, when they were settled in with the blanket around them.
    “Oh, Dick, I feel such a fool, and so cynical! You were right about her. She’s just a pathetic girl in trouble. I went there prepared to despise Lady Gilham thoroughly and ended up feeling sorry for her,” she said. She placed her ungloved hand on top of the blanket, silently inviting Dick to hold it.
    He ignored it. “You don’t mean you were taken in by that Cheltenham tragedy!” he exclaimed, and laughed.
    “Do you think her story is untrue?” she asked, astonished at his behavior.
    “Five percent of it may be true, but the whole is highly embroidered. She obviously did have something to do with Prinney, or she wouldn’t have those letters, and he wouldn’t be willing to fork over a thousand pounds. He’s well past the red-hot sort of affair she’s painting. It’s suspected the extent of his dalliance with Hertford is laying his head on her bosom, and from the tone of those letters, it sounded the same lukewarm sort of thing with Gilham—if that’s even her name. You don’t import your chef and footmen and dally for hours over dinner either. I think he just wanted a pretty woman to sympathize with him.”
    “She is remarkably pretty,” Deirdre admitted.
    “Didn’t I say she reminded me of you in appearance?” he asked with one of his smiles that always sent her heart capering. “But only in appearance. As for the rest of it—the overprotected and naive little wife, the daughter in London—I take leave to doubt every word of it.”
    “But you said yesterday…”
    His finger went to her lips and tapped them into silence.
    “I thought over what you and your aunt said and viewed her in a clearer light today.”
    “She sounded very honorable, outside of having had that affair with Prinney, I mean. She won’t turn Mrs. Morton off, and you know what a trial an ill-natured chaperone can be. There I feel akin to her. She dealt very properly with Sir John’s sister, too. Imagine Prinney telling Mrs. Lehman he had an affair with Lady Gilham. I knew he was ramshackle, but I never thought he would be so mean,” she said in vexation.
    “He’s not mean, and he’s not a tool either. That’s exactly what confirmed my feeling we were being led down the primrose path. Lady Gilham has no notion of how gentlemen of the higher social class conduct their affairs. A gentleman would never boast of such a conquest. They save their boasting for acknowledged courtesans, not vulnerable widows of unsullied