Gallant Waif by Anne Gracie (the alpha prince and his bride full story free .txt) 📗

admirers! Look at her—responding to the gallantries of the biggest collection of rakes and downright gudgeons he had ever seen—and they called themselves his friends!

Finally, unable to stand the sight any more, Jack left, mining abruptly from the sight of her, pushing his way through the glittering throngs of people.

Kate watched as he disappeared out into the night. He hadn’t even looked at her for the last half-hour. Suddenly she realised she had the vilest headache. She sought out Lady Cahill and asked to be taken home.

“Mr Carstairs called again this morning, Lady Cahill,” announced the butler, an edge of disapproval in his voice.

The old lady frowned. “And I gather from your tone, Fitcher, that Miss Farleigh was ‘out’ to him again.”

Fitcher assented with a dignified half-bow.

“The foolish child! I suppose I will have to talk to her about it. Ask her to step down for a moment, will you?”

“Now, missy, I’d like to know why my grandson has been haunting this house for the last week or so but not, apparently, finding anyone home, and I do not refer to myself.”

Kate flushed. “I’ve been so busy…” Her voice trailed off under Lady Cahill’s sardonic gaze. “Well, if you must know, I have no wish to speak to him.”

A well-plucked eyebrow rose.

Kate’s voice warmed in indignation. “Well, and why should I subject myself to more of his tyranny?”

“Tyranny?”

“Yes, ma’am. As if it is not impossible enough having him glaring and glowering—and gnashing his teeth at me from across every room I enter, whether it is at Almack’s, or a concert or a private ball. He is making me—and himself— ridiculous. I wish he would return to Leicestershire and leave me alone. He has nothing to say to me that I have not heard before…or, if he has, I do not wish to hear it, for I know what it will be.”

“You think so, eh?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He despises me.

“As I understand it, you have barely spoken with my grandson since leaving Leicestershire.”

Kate flushed again. “There has been no need,” she said in a low voice. “He made it perfectly clear then what he thought of me. And his behaviour since then only reinforces it.”

Jack’s behaviour made a horrid kind of sense to Kate—he thought she was some sort of immoral lightskirt, and he was there to prevent her from disgracing his grandmother. That was why he glared at her every time she so much as looked or smiled at a man, no matter who the man. He didn’t trust her an inch, that was obvious!

The old lady observed the tense way her young protégée fiddled with the fringe of her shawl.

“And there is no possibility that you could be mistaken? Young men, and young women too, often say foolish things that they do not mean, especially when they are in love.”

“In love! No, indeed, ma’am, you are quite, quite mistaken there!” The fringe tore in Kate’s fingers. Unaware, she moved restlessly around the room.

Lady Cahill heaved herself off the sofa. “My dear, foolish child, when you are as old as I am, you will learn that young men, particularly young men of my grandson’s cut, do not generally make cakes of themselves following a young lady around only to glare at them from a distance, unless their emotions are very strongly engaged. And only one emotion prompts that sort of behaviour.”

She held up a hand to forestall Kate’s reply. “No, that’s quite enough. The subject is becoming tedious and fatiguing. I beg you will think about what I have said, but we will speak no more of it now. I intend to repose myself for a few hours before I ready myself for the ball tonight.”

She paused at the doorway and looked back. “I expect you will find that my grandson will be present at the ball tonight—Wellington is guest of honour. It is to be his last social appearance before returning to the Peninsula.”

Chapter Seventeen

”Good God, how has that young woman managed to insinuate herself amongst decent people? Do our host and hostess not know she is a traitress and a whore?”

The penetrating voice was overheard by dozens in the tightly packed ballroom. As one, heads turned.

“Who do I mean? Why, that Farleigh chit, of course. Look at her, dancing as if she had not a care in the world, the shameless hussy. And at a ball in honour of our brave and gallant Marquis of Wellington; the gall of the woman!”

The voice lowered itself slightly, and continued to a gathering crowd, avid for gossip.

“That little tart betrayed our brave soldiers to the French, lived with a Frenchman as his mistress! I know, for my husband was one of the officers that captured her. Her father would be turning in his grave—he was a man of the cloth, you know. Mind you, I always wondered why he never looked at her—he must have known…”

The crowd pressed closer.

Something was wrong. Kate knew it. So many looks, sideways glances, whispered comments followed by significant stares.

“Miss Farleigh, our dance, I believe.” An elegant young fribble bowed over her hand and led her into the next set.

“Have you heard, Miss Farleigh? ‘Tis monstrous exciting. Apparently some little whore has been passing herself off as a lady, when all the time she played spy for old Boney and whored for his officers. And she’s here tonight!’ Her partner glanced around the room, speculating.

Kate glanced away, a sick feeling in her stomach. Let me just finish this dance, she prayed silently, then I can leave inconspicuously.

But it was not to be. As they moved through the stately steps of the cotillion she noticed her partner eagerly whispering his news to the others in the set. At one point he faltered, stopped and stared at Kate, aghast. He turned back to his source, whispered something and resumed the steps.

Only now he would not look her in the eye. His fingers did not so much touch hers as gesture disdainfully in her direction. The dance continued. Kate