An Unlikely Debutante Read online

  ‘What does Lina get out of this arrangement?’

  ‘Unfortunately the terms of the wager forbid me to pay your sister for her help over the coming six weeks, but they do not forbid me giving her gifts to reimburse her for her time and efforts.’

  ‘Lina? Get over here, girl,’ Raul called to where his sister was laughing with some villagers at a nearby table.

  ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘You really want to do this?’ Raul asked his sister.

  She shrugged. ‘It’ll make a nice change from dancing and telling fortunes. And I’ll be back with you in no time at all.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ Alex said enthusiastically, holding out his hand for the other man to shake.

  Raul looked at the hand, then slapped Alex on the shoulder in a brotherly way.

  ‘We don’t shake hands on a deal like this,’ he said, smiling and showing a set of surprisingly white teeth. ‘We fight.’

  ‘Raul, no,’ Lina protested.

  ‘Only way to know a man’s character.’

  ‘You’ll get us thrown out of Pottersdown.’ Brother and sister had huddled together conspiratorially and Alex had to strain to hear Lina’s words.

  ‘I’m not letting you go without this, Lina,’ Raul said after a hushed but heated discussion.

  Lina turned to face him and shrugged. ‘He wants to fight. It’s up to you.’

  Alex only deliberated for a second, realising Raul was trying to figure out what sort of man he was entrusting his sister to.

  ‘Let’s fight,’ Alex heard himself say.

  ‘Good man. Ten minutes, behind the cider tent.’ Raul left, whistling happily to himself.

  Holding out an arm to escort Lina through the fair, Alex felt a rush of anticipation. As much as he knew he should count his blessings, these last few months he’d felt as though he’d been going through the motions and not really living, not really experiencing anything. Only the rush of excitement as he broke in a new horse or watched it cross the finish line with a new personal best speed got his heart pounding and his muscles tensing at the suspense.

  This boredom he’d been feeling was entirely self-induced. Alex was well aware that his broken heart after Victoria had left had caused him to push away anything that might hurt him. And it had worked: three years on and his heart was mended, but he’d rather lost sight of the thrills in life that made it worth living.

  ‘What should I call you, then?’ Lina asked as they walked.

  ‘You know my name. Lord Whitemore.’

  She rolled her eyes, the first of many gestures he would have to persuade her to drop if she was going to fit in with the finest debutantes of the Season.

  ‘Your real name. I’m not going to go around calling you Lord Whitemore, am I?’

  ‘I certainly hope you are. That is the correct form of address between us.’ Alex, who had always prided himself on being relaxed and informal, felt decidedly conventional and old-fashioned around Lina.

  ‘What do people actually call you, though?’ she persisted.

  ‘Do you promise not to use it?’

  ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘Alex. Well, Alexander, but I prefer Alex.’

  ‘I suppose I’m meant to curtsy when I greet you, as well?’ Lina murmured quietly.

  ‘We can work on greetings later. I’m sure I can fill a whole morning with the proper way to greet a gentleman.’

  ‘I’m quivering with anticipation.’

  They reached the cider tent and Lina led him around the side to an open area that was partially shielded from view. Alex quickly rolled his shoulders, loosening his joints, before reaching up to undo his cravat and slip off his jacket. He caught Lina’s eyes lingering on him as he rolled up his sleeves to reveal tanned forearms before a group of men sauntered around the tent.

  ‘Ready for a beating?’ one of the older men sneered.

  ‘Pay him no mind,’ Lina called. ‘Raul fights fair, not like this devious coward.’

  ‘Watch your tongue, Lina, or I’ll watch it for you.’

  Alex stepped forward, placing himself in between the older man and Lina. He had no desire to be her protector, but she was under his care for the next six weeks and he would not hear her spoken to in that way.

  ‘Can I not leave you five minutes without you picking a fight, Tom?’ Raul called as he rounded the back of the tent. The older man shot Alex a dirty look, but sauntered away, taking up his place at the back of the rapidly assembling crowd.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Raul asked.

  ‘Whenever you are.’

  ‘We fight until first blood.’

  Alex nodded. It was all the same to him. The muscular gypsy squaring up opposite him was obviously no stranger to a fight; indeed, it seemed his preferred way to seal a deal or settle differences. Alex himself had learned to box at school and had thrown and taken a few punches in more recent years. Added to that his work with his horses kept him physically fit and quick on his feet. Although he didn’t expect to win this fight he was confident he would at least be able to leave with at least his pride intact. It wasn’t really about winning or losing anyway. Alex knew it was his character that was being tested, not his skill—whether he was the sort of man to stand and fight or run and cower.

  Slowly the two men circled each other, both light on their feet and constantly moving. For Alex all sounds of the surrounding crowd faded to a distant hum as he concentrated fully on his opponent. Suddenly Raul jabbed, a blow that was made to test Alex’s reactions more than anything, and Alex easily blocked it before returning a couple of lightning-quick body blows that elicited quiet grunts from Raul.

  Backing off slightly, they circled again. This time Alex struck first, a powerful blow to Raul’s face that the gypsy wove away from at the last moment. Alex’s fist connected, but the impact was glancing and put him slightly off balance. Raul took full advantage of the situation and began hammering down blows, forcing Alex to go on the defensive. He retreated, using his arms to protect his face, and felt the swell of the crowd behind him.

  Sensing Raul’s confidence at victory, Alex allowed him one more punch before feigning to the left and darting right. Before Raul could recover, he delivered a hard blow to the other man’s cheek, followed by a left hook to the jaw. At exactly the same moment, Alex felt Raul’s fist connect with his temple and a tearing pain in his eyebrow followed by the warm trickle of blood over his face.

  Both men backed off, lifting their hands to their faces. Both sets of fingers came away wet with blood.

  ‘First blood.’ Raul grinned, wincing as the movement pained his split lip. ‘For a toff, you don’t fight badly. Now, let’s drink.’

  Allowing himself to be led to where the cider was flowing, amid handshakes and claps on the back from the dozens of spectators, Alex realised Lina was nowhere to be seen. She had a habit of disappearing—she was quick and nimble and seemed to weave with ease through the crowds. He supposed it was from a lifetime of working at packed fairs, but right now it was a damned nuisance; he wanted to finalise their arrangement and maybe just see that sparkle of admiration in her eyes.

  ‘You will look after her?’ Raul asked as the two men knocked back their cups of cider.

  ‘I will care for her as though she’s my own sister,’ Alex promised.

  ‘Then I have no more objections. No idea how you got Lina to agree, though.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She hates your lot. Toffs. Always has...’ Raul paused, tapped his cup against Alex’s and grinned. ‘I don’t think you’re so bad myself.’

  * * *

  ‘What a cosy little arrangement you’ve landed yourself in,’ Tom crowed, making Lina shudder as she caught a whiff of his horrific breath. ‘Whoring yourself out to a gentleman.’

  ‘I’m not—’ Lina caught herself and took a step back. It never paid to get into an argument with Uncle Tom.

  ‘Shall I expect payment today?’

  ‘He’s not paying me,’ Li
na said.

  ‘Giving yourself away for free? Your dear mother would be turning in her grave.’

  ‘He has promised me gifts, certainly enough to cover the debt I owe you.’

  ‘I want the money.’

  Lina shrugged. ‘I will just sell the gifts and then you can have the money.’

  ‘The deadline is still the end of the week, Lina.’

  ‘I won’t have the gifts for six weeks.’

  ‘Not good enough. I need the money now.’ There was a hint of panic in Tom’s voice that made Lina pause for a second.

  She closed her eyes, steeling herself for the suggestion she was about to make, and then ploughed ahead. ‘If you give me the six weeks to raise the debt, I will pay you twelve pounds instead of ten.’

  Uncle Tom regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Four weeks and I want fifteen pounds.’

  Lina swallowed nervously, but still nodded. She didn’t exactly have a choice. She just hoped Lord Whitemore was generous in his gift giving.

  ‘And I want information.’

  ‘What information?’

  ‘Raul tells me you will be staying with this toff. You’ll be privy to his security arrangements, the layout of his house.’

  A faint sensation of nausea started to build deep in Lina’s gut.

  ‘I’m not stealing anything for you.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to steal. Just to pass on a little information. What’s information amongst family?’

  Lina shook her head.

  ‘That’s the deal, Lina. Either fifteen pounds and a little information in four weeks, or you pay the ten by the end of the week.’

  Squeezing her eyes tight, Lina tried to suppress the image of her mother’s disappointed face as she nodded.

  ‘Good girl. I’ll be seeing you in a few days.’

  Chapter Four

  The grass was wet beneath her feet as Lina crossed the field, hopping over a shallow ditch and scrambling up a bank before joining the road again. She had caught a ride on a farmer’s cart from Pottersdown to the village of Hilstone and from there a friendly shopkeeper had assured her it was no more than twenty minutes’ walk across the fields to Whitemore House. Lina had dallied, stopping to pluck some wildflowers to weave into her hair, resting on a tree stump and turning her face up to the sun and even pulling off her boots to dip her toes in the cool waters of a gurgling stream. The twenty-minute walk had turned into an expedition that lasted more than an hour, but now Lina knew she could delay no longer.

  She wasn’t sure why she was quite so nervous. This was what she had been waiting for: an opportunity to change her life, to do something different, be somewhere different, at least for a short time. For every one of her twenty years she had lived and worked amongst her gypsy family, travelling through England, performing at fairs in the summer and doing whatever work she could find in the long winter months. For a while she had been restless, unsure what was bothering her, torn between a desire to actually belong somewhere and a carefree and adventurous spirit that wanted to experience everything the world had to offer. She couldn’t decide what she truly wanted from her life, so everything had just stayed the same.

  ‘New experiences,’ Lina murmured to herself as she stopped beside a pair of huge wrought-iron gates, pushed open to reveal a sweeping drive. Fingering the metal for a moment, she peered inside, trying to catch a view of the house.

  The drive curved away to the left through immaculately kept lawns and disappeared over a dip with no house in sight. Swallowing her nerves, Lina pushed herself to enter the grounds of Whitemore House, aware of the pounding of her heart in her chest.

  When the house did come into view, set back at the crest of a small hill with the drive sweeping dramatically in front of it, Lina had to stop and pause for a second. Then she laughed out loud. It was easily the biggest building she had ever laid eyes on and Raul had taken her into London twice and York once over the course of their travels. It was perfectly proportioned, one central structure with two symmetrical wings flanking it, all in a beautiful sandy-coloured stone.

  After more than ten minutes of walking, Lina finally reached the front door and was self-consciously adjusting her dress as it opened before her.

  A middle-aged man greeted her with a tight smile.

  ‘Miss Lock, I presume?’

  Lina nodded, her mouth too dry to speak.

  ‘Follow me, please.’ His words were delivered with a disdain that shook the nervousness from Lina. This was the reason she disliked the aristocracy. They were obsessed with the idea of respect and good manners, but treated anyone inferior as if they were at best a nuisance and at worst an inanimate object, to be used and discarded. Even their servants were rude.

  ‘So are you a member of the family, then?’ Lina asked, making sure she added a coarse quality to her voice as she spoke. She stepped over the threshold, trying to take in the vast entrance hall, the marble flooring and the perfectly sculpted statues that sat in recesses dotted along the walls.

  ‘Most certainly not. I am Lord Whitemore’s butler.’

  ‘So a servant. Strange, that.’

  The butler looked down at her from his superior height.

  ‘What is strange?’ he asked eventually with a long-suffering sigh.

  ‘Well, I always thought servants were meant to be polite. To be a shining example to make their masters proud. But you, you’re ruder than a cow that hasn’t been milked for a week.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ the butler stammered. Lina half expected his face to turn bright red, but instead his cheeks seemed to lose colour and his lips were pressed thin. ‘That sort of language won’t be tolerated, Miss Lock.’

  ‘Ah, but it will. See, I’m an invited guest and you are a member of staff.’

  ‘The Marquess will hear about this.’

  ‘Williams, what is all the noise about?’ a soft, feminine voice called and was shortly followed by the emergence of Lord Whitemore’s sister from one of the many doorways that led into the grand entrance hall.

  ‘Please forgive me...’ The butler was silenced by a friendly wave of the hand and Lina felt herself being swept into the embrace of the slightly older woman.

  ‘Come, come, you must be tired from your journey. I have tea set out on the terrace. In the shade, of course, the sun does dastardly things to my complexion,’ Lord Whitemore’s sister gushed. The journey had taken less than three hours and Lina had experienced many more arduous days, but she allowed herself to be swept along by the other woman’s enthusiasm.

  ‘Thank you...Lady Whitemore?’ Lina ventured.

  ‘Dear me, we haven’t even been properly introduced. I am Lady Georgina Pentworthy, Alex’s long-suffering and completely devoted sister.’

  ‘A pleasure to meet you, Lady Pentworthy.’

  Georgina shook her head very slightly and laughed. ‘Why don’t you call me Georgina, my dear? Much simpler than trying to untangle which part of my name to use when.’

  They walked through a room filled wall to wall with books. Lina had never seen anything like it and paused for just a second to take in the dozens of bookshelves that lined the walls, full of heavy, leather-bound books. It made her much-treasured and battered three-book collection seem rather insignificant.

  ‘I am so pleased you agreed to come and stay,’ Georgina said, squeezing Lina’s arm lightly. ‘These next few weeks are going to be so much fun.’

  ‘Would it not have been better for you if I refused?’ Lina asked. ‘Then you would have won your wager straight out.’

  ‘Don’t tell my darling brother, but I don’t really mind if I win this wager or not. It’s the journey that is going to be the important part.’

  ‘The journey?’

  Georgina motioned to a seat on the terrace, behind a table that looked out over the formal gardens directly behind the house. An assortment of mouth-watering pastries and a delicate china tea set were laid out and Lina wondered if Whitemore’s sister had been waiting on her arrival.

&n
bsp; ‘My brother is a very accomplished man, very talented,’ Georgina said slowly whilst pouring out a fragrant cup of amber-coloured tea. ‘But he has buried himself in his work for the last few years and I’m hoping you will be able to coax him out.’

  Lina took a sip and eyed up the pastries, relieved when the other woman slipped two on to her own plate and motioned for Lina to take her pick.

  ‘How am I supposed to do that?’ This wager was becoming more complicated by the minute, what with Uncle Tom’s expectations of her and now Georgina’s hidden motives.

  ‘He will have to take a break, look up from his work and focus on something entirely different. To get you ready to attend a London ball you will have to go shopping, go for day trips, socialise at some local functions...’

  ‘Does Lord Whitemore not do all that already?’

  Georgina grimaced. ‘He does,’ she said slowly. ‘But suffice it to say even if his body is in attendance, his head and his heart are not.’

  Taking a bite of a crisp, fresh pastry Lina closed her eyes and savoured the mouthful. She wondered if she had ever tasted anything so delicious in her entire life.

  ‘How am I meant to influence that?’ Lina asked, putting down the pastry before she spoke so she would not shower her companion in crumbs.

  ‘Just by being here.’

  It seemed like a lot of responsibility and as Lina gulped down the hot tea, she felt a stirring of unease. She liked Georgina, she seemed warm and genuine and hadn’t condescended to Lina once during their conversation. Despite their obvious differences in status and wealth Georgina was talking to her as if she was a treasured friend, not a gypsy girl whose main talents were a little fancy footwork and telling lies to impressionable young girls.

  ‘Please don’t fret,’ Georgina said reassuringly. ‘I’ll be here to guide you these first two weeks and after that I’m sure you’ll run rings around my brother.’

  Lina wasn’t so sure. She knew she had a lightning-quick tongue, but sometimes she was too hot-headed, too fast to jump into a dangerous situation. From what she had seen so far Lord Whitemore had that easy manner of many men of his class, but also a cool, self-possessed quality and the self-assurance to go along with it. Lina wasn’t sure how well her usual tricks would stand up when pitted against Lord Whitemore’s imperturbable logic.