Free Lady Lucy's Lover by M.C. Beaton Page B

studied the other with veiled curiosity.
    She looks so fragile and virginal, thought the Duke in surprise. And yet his emotions have never been so overset before.
Perhaps it was the atmosphere of the garden. She looks so
pure
sitting there, little more than a schoolgirl.
    He looks as cold and formal as usual, Lucy was thinking. What
can
he be thinking of me. I have never responded like that, even to Guy. It must have been because my nerves were so overset.
    To Ann Hartford, standing at the door of the supper room, they seemed entirely insulated from their surroundings by their interest in each other. She took a half-step forward, and then stopped.
    â€œWhat is the matter?” asked Giles Hartford. “I thought we were to take Lucy home.”
    â€œShe is with Habard,” said Ann bleakly. “Oh, what have I done?”
    â€œDone! Done?” Giles peered over his wife’s thin shoulder but did not see what she saw. Lucy and the Duke of Habard looked, to him, totally uninterested in one another.
    â€œYou have done nothing,” said Giles Hartford. “If Standish chooses to disgrace himself, it is nothing to do with you.”
    â€œBut I said—you know, just as a joke—that Lucy should take a lover just to bring that husband of hers to his senses.”
    â€œWell, if you mean Habard, you are very much mistaken. He’s hardly led the life of a monk, but on the other hand he has never shown a
tendre
for married women of any kind. You are overtired, my dear, and overworried on behalf of your friend. Let us go home ourselves. You may see Lucy tomorrow and offer her the comfort she needs. We are quite safe to leave her with Habard.”
    The Marquess of Standish clutched his head. Harriet Comfort leaned indolently against the blue silk upholstery of her carriage and looked at him with something approaching hate.
    Earlier that day she had received a note from Mr. Barrington promising her a large sum of money should she manage to ruin Standish.
    She had shrugged and thrown it away, for of all her beaux, she rather liked the handsome Marquess. But he had gone too far. As they had left the ball, he had bemoaned the social ruin he had brought upon himself by taking “a harlot” into society.
    The Marquess was too distressed and too tipsy to know what he was saying, but his words had cut deep. Harriet Comfort craved respectability and was, most of the time, able to ignore the fact that she was not
comme il faut
, soothed and flattered and courted as she was by the most eminent gentlemen of society. Now she wanted revenge on the Marquess and revenge on that silly milkmaid wife of his who had looked at her with such disgust and horror.
    â€œGuy, Guy,” she cooed soothingly. “What a great fuss you are making. You forget who I am. You forget that most men at that ball would give their right arm to spend one night with me. Why! Tomorrow you will be the admiration of the clubs.”
    The Marquess looked at her blearily. “Do… do you think so, Harriet?”
    â€œI know so. Have I ever been wrong in matters of fashion? Now I am going to take you someplace quite exotic. Have you ever seen a Chinese woman?”
    The Marquess shook his head.
    â€œThen relax, and I shall provide you with such a night of pleasure that you will forget all else.”
    The carriage had been traveling for some time and came to a stop outside a huddle of tall buildings.
    â€œWhere are we?” asked the Marquess.
    â€œSomewhere near the river.” Harriet smiled. “Come.”
    The Marquess followed her from the carriage, shivering as the chill of the night air and the raw damp smell of the river struck him.
    Harriet knocked at a low door and waited until the judas was opened. A face stared at her and then the door was unlocked.
    The Marquess found himself in a low, lamplit room. There were two mattresses on the floor. And at the far end of the room, a Chinese woman was half lying on a