A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting(63)

‘It is unfair,’ she agreed – and though she could easily have pointed out his hypocrisy again, this time for sympathising with Hinsley’s plight when he had not done so with hers, she left it unsaid. She found she no longer cared about scoring points against Radcliffe.

‘You said you have hated it – do you hate it now?’ she asked instead.

‘Less than I thought,’ he admitted. ‘I had not realised how much I missed my family, how much I was neglecting them by staying away. And it has been … entertaining, I can admit, watching you cut a swathe through them all. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.’

Their heads had turned towards each other as he spoke, their gazes no longer fixed upon the portraits, and as his mouth quirked upwards, she felt her own mirroring it. She was struck, as she had been upon their first meeting, by how much his face changed when he smiled.

‘Oh, so that’s why you agreed to help me, is it?’ she said. ‘For the entertainment.’

‘I’m not sure I can be said to have “agreed” to help you,’ he refuted at once, grinning now. ‘I was coerced, I was blackmailed. I didn’t have any choice in the matter.’

She gave a soft laugh. The memory was all at once rewritten to be a humorous part of their shared story, as if it had never been shameful, or fraught – as if they had never even been truly at odds, even for a moment.

‘You had a choice,’ she argued, rapping him lightly upon the arm with her closed fan.

‘Oh, I’m not so sure about that.’ The words – though meant lightly, she was certain – sounded quite serious when spoken aloud, and by the surprise in Radcliffe’s eyes it had caught him off guard, too. They considered each other for a long, thoughtful moment – grey eyes staring into brown, brown staring back – before he cleared his throat, breaking the tension. She took a hasty sip of lemonade.

‘Mr Pemberton, you’ll be pleased to hear, is quite as rich as they say,’ he said after a beat.

‘Oh yes?’ she said, forcing her voice into brightness. ‘May I ask after your sources?’

‘His financial manager, his manservant and his tailor. His bills are always paid on time, his servants report no issues with wages, and his financial manager – once two or three cups into his beer – boasts of a very favourable return on investment. Your Pemberton is as clean as they come: eight thousand a year, quite simply. My tiger, Lawrence, found out the whole – he is a very accomplished spy.’

‘That is good news,’ Kitty said slowly. And it was, though she did not feel as pleased as she would have expected.

‘Does it make your path clear?’ he asked.

‘Almost. I still need to overcome Mrs Pemberton’s final qualms about my quality. But I hope that soon there will only be the where and the how of the proposal to consider.’

‘Oh, only that?’ Radcliffe said. ‘I suppose you will allow Pemberton the privilege of deciding for himself what he is to say to you?’

She scowled at him. ‘Yes, of course I will.’

She turned her shoulder dismissively, but Radcliffe was immune to such slights by now.

‘I wonder what sort of proposal you should most like, were it up to you,’ he imagined. ‘“Dearest Miss Talbot,”’ he did a passable imitation of Mr Pemberton’s self-satisfied drone, ‘“being of sound mind though irritating personality, I promise to you that I am filthy rich and will pay off all of your family’s debts.” Can you imagine it, Miss Talbot? The romance! The passion!’

‘If you are done amusing yourself,’ she said, not quite able to take the laugh out of her own voice. ‘I shall take my leave – I have much still to do, you know.’

He offered a gloved hand.

‘May I escort you to your aunt, then?’ he suggested gallantly. And this time, she accepted – the faintest of blushes staining her cheeks.





27


‘It is most worrisome, James, no matter what you say,’ Lady Radcliffe insisted. ‘And try as I might, I cannot get him to speak to me about it!

‘I can’t imagine why,’ Radcliffe muttered. Lady Radcliffe eyed him a little frostily. Radcliffe avoided her gaze, turning his head out of the barouche to stare onto The Strand in the hope it might discourage her from pursuing the conversation. Had he known, when his mother had requested his escort to the opening of the Royal Academy’s annual art exhibition, that she would use it as an opportunity to lecture him on Archie’s behaviour, he would have avoided the whole thing entirely. Though he should perhaps have suspected an ulterior motive earlier – when had his mother ever expressed an interest in art before?

‘It is all very well being so cavalier,’ the Dowager said crossly, ignoring all of Radcliffe’s attempts to shut the conversation down, ‘but I do believe Archie to be getting a real taste for cards!’

‘Just like last year he developed a real taste for boxing,’ Radcliffe said, ‘and the year before a real taste for horse racing.’

‘They are not at all the same thing,’ Lady Radcliffe dismissed. ‘More and more frequently I hear of boys being quite ruined by gambling. You know Lady Cowper’s younger brother fled to Paris for just that reason – they hushed it up of course, but it is widely known. And I have never met a young man less interested in cards before this year!’