Denis DeLacy was at point-non-plus. His instructions had been precise, but they hadn't taken into account the fact that Miss Gresham, for some reason, was impervious to serious lovemaking. Oh, she encouraged his flirtation and paid him a great deal of flattering attention, singling him out from among her wide circle of suitors, but it was all done with a playfulness and a laughing enjoyment that made anything more intense impossible. He knew he was making no serious inroads into her affections, although everyone else assumed he was the preferred suitor.
Somehow he had to gain her confidence, sweep her off her feet.
He listened with half an ear to Julian Bentham regaling Chloe with the tale of their activities the previous evening. "It's enormously amusing," he was saying.
"Billingsgate is such an extraordinary place… and the people, Chloe. You wouldn't believe how fascinating they are. You can't understand a word they say most of the time, and they're always fighting. We saw at least three scraps, didn't we, Frank?"
"Oh, at the very least," his friend agreed. "And nearly mixed in with 'em too." He laughed uproariously. "But the best of all is the oysters. You just eat them standing on the street. And you can buy a pint of porter to go with 'em."
"Men are so lucky," Chloe said. "Why can't women do these things? I'd love to eat oysters in a fishmarket and watch the people, with no one knowing who I was."
"Well, why don't you?" Denis said slowly, somewhat dazzled by the brilliance of his idea.
"How could I?" Chloe turned to look at him curiously.
"Come with us tomorrow."
"How?" Her eyes were sharp with interest now.
"If you dressed as a boy," Denis suggested softly, "then you'd draw no attention at all."
Chloe clapped her hands, her face alive with amusement. "What a wonderful plan. But where am I to find boy's clothes?"
"Leave it to me," Denis said. "I'll deliver them to Mount Street tomorrow morning."
"How will you leave the house?" Frank asked, lowering his head instinctively as they huddled together.
Chloe frowned. "It depends what time you go."
"Oh, not before about two o'clock in the morning," Julian said. "That's when the carts come in with the fish for the stalls and they start unloading."
Tomorrow night, Chloe thought with contrary satisfaction, she wouldn't pay her customary visit to Hugo, she would go to Billingsgate instead. And if he missed her, all the better.
"I'll meet you outside the house whenever you say," she said.
"You'll be able to escape your chaperone's eye?" Frank asked.
"Very easily," Chloe assured him.
"But what of your guardian?" Denis watched her through hooded eyes as he waited for her response.
Chloe glanced across the room to where Hugo was dancing with Miss Anselm, both of them clearly more interested in their conversation than in the waltz. They were laughing, and he seemed to Chloe to be holding his partner unnecessarily close. He had never danced the waltz with his ward.
"There won't be a problem," she said with cheerful insouciance. In fact, she had no intention of keeping this adventure from Hugo. He expected her to amuse herself with her own circle, and she would do so. And she would show him that other things could provide as much entertainment as lovemaking… that one could become bored doing the same thing every night and she was no more dependent upon him than he was upon her.
"We'll be waiting for you at two o'clock, then," Denis said. "And I'll deliver the clothes in the morning. Shall you mind if they're not very elegant?" He regarded her with a half-smile that managed to convey a degree of intimacy. "The thing is, you are rather small and I don't think anything of mine would fit. But I could borrow a suit of my brother's."
"How old is your brother?" Chloe demanded, not a whit struck by any possibly indecorous slant to the conversation.
"Eleven," Denis said with a disarming grin. "And he's almost exactly your size."
Chloe laughed and lightly brushed his hand with her own. In swift response he took her hand and raised it to his lips, saying daringly, "I can't wait to see you in such a costume, Chloe."
"That," Chloe declared with mock disapproval, "is a most improper thing to say, Denis."
"But then, you are proposing a most improper excursion," he said solemnly.
"It was your proposal, may I remind you," she bantered.
"But I didn't notice any hesitation on your part." His eyes laughed at her and her own responded. He still held her hand and she made no move to take it away.
Denis DeLacy seemed to have taken the honors for the evening yet again, her other two suitors reflected disconsolately, each of them wishing such a daring proposal had occurred to them.
Hugo wondered if he was imagining an air of suppressed excitement in his ward when he escorted her home. She seemed preoccupied and responded to his various attempts at conversation distractedly, but the sparkle in her eyes had a distinctly mischievous glimmer to it.
He decided to postpone questions until later, when she came to him in the privacy of his bed. However, as soon as they reached home, she said she had to look in on Peg and the baby and flew upstairs with a cheerful good night.
Frowning, he went to the kitchen for his customary nighttime conversation with Samuel.
"How's Peg?"
"Wants nuthin' to do with the babe," Samuel said, pouring tea. "Doesn't seem t' know what to do wi' it. Didn't even want to put it to the breast… and the poor mite wailin' fit to burst."
"Seems quiet enough now." Hugo sipped tea.
"Mrs. 'Erridge wasn't standin' for no nonsense." Samuel stretched his legs to the fire's blaze. "An' Peg's too weak to fight 'er at the moment."
"I expect Chloe will sort it out," Hugo said with conviction, and soon after took himself to bed, where he waited in vain for the usual visitation.
He fell asleep eventually, trying to persuade himself that he should be pleased that his efforts to lessen the intensity of their liaison seemed to be having the desired result. But he felt bereft nevertheless and wondered how long it would be before the sense of loss diminished.
Chloe huddled alone in her bed, taking what comfort she could from Dante's weight on her feet. She wondered miserably if Hugo had even noticed that she hadn't come to him. He was probably dreaming sweetly of making love to Miss Anselm… or Judith Devlin.
But if her plan for tomorrow night worked out as planned, she'd be the only person on his mind, and present denial would surely make the reunion all the more glorious.
Denis himself delivered the promised parcel of clothes the next morning. Chloe, who had discovered somewhat to her chagrin that Peg responded better to Mrs. Herridge's brusque instructions over care of the baby than she did to Chloe's gentler, more understanding approach, greeted him eagerly and with even more warmth than usual.
"Did you bring them?"
"Yes. Would you like to see?" He handed her the parcel.
"I'd better not open it here," she said, glancing over her shoulder to the open library door. "Samuel has a way of popping up when least expected." She chuckled. "Of course we'd hear Lady Smallwood a mile away. But that's unkind of me. May I offer you a glass of sherry?"
"Thank you. Where's Sir Hugo?"
"I don't know," she said truthfully. Hugo had already left the house when she'd come down to breakfast and Samuel had said only that he'd had some commissions to execute.