Page 56 of A Lady's Guide to Scandal

Warning thusly issued, she dove gracefully straight into the arms of a very shocked Mr Fletcher, to the accompanying gasps of all onlookers.

‘I say – Miss Talbot?’ Mr Fletcher caught her readily enough, but was clearly much shocked, silver whiskers quivering in concern. ‘Miss Talbot, are you all right? Pemberton – fetch her a drink at once! She must get some air.’

The conversation was forgotten as all in the company rushed to help. Pemberton disappeared towards the refreshment table, Miss Talbot was encouraged to lean upon Mr Fletcher’s solicitous arm, while Mrs Kendall fanned her gently, and Lady Montagu began to usher them out towards the doors. Radcliffe was left on the sidelines, deflating slowly – and watching the proceedings through narrowed eyes. His experience of Miss Talbot’s character and behaviour thus far had not given him much reason to believe she was the fainting type, and though she was accepting the attentions with a wan smile and weak expressions of thanks, her colour was as healthy as ever.

As she was led away, she glanced back over her shoulder at Radcliffe. He caught her eye and raised a single brow, while she sent him the ghost of a wink in return.

It was some time before they found themselves in conversation again, by which point Radcliffe had recollected his calm. His mother having gone in search, with Lady Montagu, of Turner’s latest masterpiece and Pemberton being nowhere to be seen, Radcliffe wandered over to sit beside Miss Talbot where she was ‘resting’ upon a plush red couch.

‘I suppose I am to infer from your wink,’ he asked quietly, ‘that that little performance was for my benefit?’

‘For yours, and for your mother’s,’ she agreed.

‘I’m not sure it was necessary,’ he told her.

‘I’m quite sure that it was,’ she disagreed. ‘You looked about to land Pemberton a facer, which would have cast a pall over the evening – for everyone but the gossips. Besides, I did owe you a favour.’

‘Forgive me,’ he said apologetically. ‘I had thought the favour was to be of my choosing, not yours – though perhaps that was rather an audacious assumption?’

‘I believe,’ she said loftily, ‘the correct response is to say thank you.’

‘I will own that the intervention was fortuitous,’ he admitted, smiling a little. ‘My mother was already disappointed with me when I arrived, so I would have been quite in the doghouse if I’d started a brawl. Though,’ he added, looking at her sidelong, ‘I would have perhaps chosen something a little less dramatic.’

‘Ah, that is because you lack vision,’ she explained, her expression perfectly straight but humour clear in her dark eyes – which were singular for their expressiveness.

‘Why is your mother disappointed in you?’ Miss Talbot asked.

With hackles still a little raised from his altercation, Radcliffe was tempted to give her a set down, but – seeing that her face was free of judgement – instead let out a gust of air. ‘She thinks I am taking a too cavalier an attitude to Archie – or, rather, I suppose she should like me to take a more active role in managing the entire family.’

‘And you don’t want to?’ Miss Talbot asked, head cocking in interest.

He gave a vague shake of the head. ‘I suppose …’ he said slowly. ‘I suppose it is more that I don’t know how. My father was— He would have taken a very hard line with Archie – I know, because he took a hard line with me. And if that is what being the head of the family looks like, I’m not sure I can do it.’

Miss Talbot absorbed this for a few moments. ‘He was a strict parent?’ she asked carefully.

He gave a snort of laughter. ‘You could say that. He was not fond of … too much enjoyment, of excess, my father. He thought one’s duty was to uphold the family’s reputation, every minute of the day – and he guarded ours fiercely.’

‘So when he sent you to Vienna with Wellington,’ Miss Talbot said quietly. ‘That was because …’

‘Because he thought me a damage to the family name? Yes. As a younger man I wanted to enjoy everything the world had to offer – the gambling, the drinking, the excess of it all. My father thought it dangerous. He thought having employment would force me to learn some humility, and since Wellington owed him a favour … I became his attaché.’

Miss Talbot sucked a slow breath in through her teeth.

‘Of course, he was not expecting war to resume,’ Radcliffe said heavily. ‘No one was. When it did, he demanded I return – but I could not leave then. It would have been the height of cowardice. I thought he might understand that, one day. That he might be … proud, in the end. But by the time I got home, after the war was over, he was already dead.’

This was the most he had spoken about his father – about their relationship – to anyone before, and it was a relief to say it all aloud – and still more so as Miss Talbot did not feel the need to fill the air with platitudes or false reassurances, instead allowing his confession to rest untouched in the air between them. Perhaps it ought to shock him more that he had chosen Miss Talbot – not Hinsley, not his mother – to unburden himself to, but Radcliffe found that he was not at all surprised by the turn the conversation had taken. In the past few weeks, it seemed that at every occasion they attended, he and Miss Talbot would end up like this, at the edges, sharing strange intimacies. He thought she could probably ask him almost anything and he would answer her.

Radcliffe took a gulp of lemonade, winced to find it singularly tasteless, and lowered his glass. ‘This sort of conversation is much better done over brandy,’ he said, lightening his voice.

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Miss Talbot said, more gently than he would have thought her capable. ‘It was certainly my father’s favourite.’

‘He drank?’

‘Gambling was his chief vice,’ she corrected. ‘It was not a problem when he was a bachelor – gambling seems to be an accepted part of a gentleman’s life – but when he was disowned, he never could properly adjust to his change in circumstances. The debt grew quite rapidly from there.’

‘He started drinking then?’ Radcliffe asked.

‘No,’ Miss Talbot said. ‘He drank before. But after Mama died, he couldn’t stop. I’m sure it would have killed him if the typhoid had not.’