Emily's Beau by Allison Lane

Author:Allison Lane [Lane, Allison]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Regency Romance
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 2003-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

“What do you want now?” demanded Jacob the next night when Harriet dragged him onto the terrace outside the Debenham ballroom. He dug in his heels, refusing to move another inch.

Tears sparkled in her eyes. She was an even better actress than her bedamned mother.

“It’s R-Richard,” she choked, producing a sob. “He k-kissed me last night and t-tried to force his way into my r-room. I t-told you he was dangerous. You have to help me.”

Jacob grabbed her shoulders to shake some sense into her, but reined in his temper before he struck her again. He should have expected this after yesterday’s scene, but he’d thought his slap had finally knocked some sense into her head.

This newest lie proved how little she understood society. A lusty man might well seduce a maid – something Mrs. Nichols had known from her brief term as a servant – but he would never touch a girl he’d sworn to protect.

“Please?” Harriet reached up to clutch his arm, wrinkling his sleeve. “You can’t leave me in that house another instant. I barely escaped his attack.”

“Nonsense!” He backed away, brushing her aside. “Stop this idiocy at once. Every word proves what an ungrateful mushroom you are. If Richard did attack – which I don’t for a moment believe – it’s because your behavior marks you as fair game.”

She gasped.

“It’s time you faced facts,” he continued relentlessly. “Captain Nichols might have connections to several great houses, but the nearest was three generations back, so you have no claim on society.”

“You can’t know that!”

“You forget that I knew him well for ten years. He was closer to me than my own father. Nor do you understand how well society’s ladies know family trees. They also know family scandals. It would need little time and less effort to discover that your mother was the bastard daughter of a whore.”

“How dare—”

“Facts, Miss Nichols. Her father might have been a baron as she claimed – or perhaps not; her mother serviced too many men to know which one actually fathered her. When raising a child interfered with the woman’s business, she left your mother at the workhouse.”

“No! She grew up in her father’s house after her mother died in childbirth!”

“Lies. She had hundreds of them. Every time she described her past, she embellished it further to make herself sound better. But people noticed those changes, especially the women. And Captain Nichols knew the truth.”

“B-but—”

“We let her get away with the first lie – the orphan recently left to the parish tale. It harmed no one. But the truth is a common enough story,” he continued relentlessly. “She’d been in the workhouse for ten years when Captain Nichols’s father died. He asked the parish to find him a wife, because he was the last of his line. The parish leaped at the chance to rid itself of an uncooperative charge who had been turned off within the week from every servant’s post they found her. So they sent your mother to India.

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