Excerpt of Unlacing Lady Thea by Louise Allen

London. 3rd June 1814

The skeleton clock on the over-mantle struck four. No point
in going to bed. Besides,
he was thoroughly foxed, although not drunk enough to keep
him from lying awake
wondering what had possessed him to make this insane plan.
And worse, to follow
through with organisation so ruthlessly efficient that to
cancel now would throw his
entire staff, financial team, estate management and social
life into disorder – and
make it seem he did not know his own mind.

‘Which I do not,’ Rhys Denham informed the ragged-eared
ginger tom that sat
on the hearthrug eyeing him with the distain that only a
feline or a dowager duchess
could muster. ‘Know my own mind, that is. Always do, just
not this time.’

The appearance of the kitchen mouser on the principal floor,
let alone in the
study of the third Earl of Palgrave, was unheard of. The
household must be stirring
already and be too distracted by their master’s imminent
departure for the continent
to notice an open door at the head of the servants’ stair.

‘It seemed a good plan at the time,’ Rhys mused. The brandy
at the bottom of
the glass glowed in the candlelight and he splashed in more
and tossed the lot
back. ‘I’m drunk. Haven’t been this drunk in years.’ Not
since he had woken up one
afternoon and realised that drink was never going to blot
out the disaster of his
wedding day, restore his faith in friendship or his
delusions about romantic love.

The cat switched its attention to the plate with the remains
of the cold beef,
cheese and bread that had left out with the decanters. ‘And
you can stop licking
your whiskers.’ Rhys reached for the food. ‘I need this more
than you do. I have to
be more or less sober in three hours.’ That seemed
improbable, even to his fogged
brain.

‘You have to admit I deserve a holiday. The estate is in
order, my finances
could hardly be better, I am bored to the back teeth with
Town and Bonaparte has
been out of harm’s way on Elba for a month,’ he informed the
cat around a mouthful
of beef. ‘You think I am a trifle old for the Grand Tour? I
disagree. At twenty eight I
will appreciate things more.’ The cat sneered, lifted one
hind leg and began to groom
itself intimately.

‘Stop that. A gentleman does not wash his balls in the
study.’ He tossed it a
scrap of fat and the cat pounced. ‘But a year? What was I
thinking of?’ Escape.

Of course, he could come back at any time and his staff
would adjust to his
demands with their usual smooth efficiency. After all, if
there was some kind of
crisis, he would return immediately. But to cancel on a whim
was not responsible
behaviour. It put people out, it let them down, and Rhys
Denham despised people
who let others down.

‘No, I am going to go through with this,’ he declared. ‘It
will do me good
to have a compete change of scene and then I’ll be in the
mood to find a pretty,
modest, well-bred girl with a stay-at-home temperament and
good child-bearing
hips. I will be married by the time I am thirty.’ And bored
out of my skull. A vision of
the succession of prime bits of muslin who had worked their
magic in preventing
just such boredom flitted across his memory. They had never
expected dutiful
monogamy. A wife would. Rhys sighed.

The friends who had deposited him on his doorstep an hour
ago after a
convivial farewell night at the club were all married, or
about to be. Some even had
children. And, to a man, they seemed cheered by the thought
of someone else falling
into parson’s mousetrap. As Fred Herrick put it, ‘About time
a rake like you stops
nibbling the cheese, takes a proper bite at it and springs
the trap, Denham.’

‘And why is that such a damnably depressing thought?’

‘I could not say, my lord.’ Griffin stood in the doorway,
his face set in the
expressionless mask that signified deep disapproval.

What the devil had his butler got to be disapproving about?
Rhys levered
himself upright in his chair. A man was entitled to be in
his cups in his own house,
damn it. ‘I was speaking to the cat, Griffin.’

‘If you say so, my lord.’

Rhys glanced down at the rug. The ginger beast had vanished
leaving behind
it only a faint grease stain on the silk pile.

‘There is a person to see you, my lord.’ From his tone this
was the cause of
the stone face, not his master’s maudlin conversations with
an invisible cat.

‘What kind of person?’

‘A young person, my lord.’

‘A boy? I am not up to guessing games just at the moment,
Griffin.’

‘As you say, my lord. It appears to be a youth. Beyond that
I am not prepared
to commit myself.’

Appears? Does Griffin mean what I think he means? ‘Well,
where is it… him?’

Her? ‘Below stairs?’

‘In the small reception room. It came to the front door,
refused to go down to
the tradesman’s entrance and said it was certain your
lordship would wish to see it.’

Rhys blinked at the decanter. How much had he drunk since he
got back
from White’s? A lot, yes, but surely not enough to have
imagined that faint hint of
desperation in Griffin’s voice. The man was capable of
dealing with anything without
turning a hair, whether it was pilfering footmen or furious
discarded mistresses
throwing the china.

A faint trickle of unease ran down his spine. Mistresses.
Had Georgina failed
to take her congé as calmly as she had appeared to do
yesterday? Surely she was
satisfied with a very nice diamond necklace and the lease on
her little house for a
further year? Rhys got to his feet, tugged off his already
loosened neckcloth and
left his coat where it was on the sofa. Ridiculous. He might
seek pleasure without
emotional entanglement, but he was no Lord Byron with
hysterical females dressed
as boys dogging his footsteps. He was careful to stick to
professionals and fast
married women who knew what they were about, not single
ladies and certainly not
unstable cross-dressing ones.

‘Very well, let us see this mysterious youth.’ His feet
seemed to be obeying
him, which was gratifying, considering the way the furniture
swayed as Griffin
preceded him down the hallway. Tomorrow – no, this morning –
promised a
hangover of monumental proportions.

Griffin opened the door to the room reserved for visitors
who did not meet his
exacting standards for admission to the Chinese Drawing
Room. The figure seated
on a hard chair against the far wall came to its feet.
Short, bundled into an ill-fitting
dark suit of clothes that said junior clerk to Rhys’s
unfocussed eye, it had a pair of
portmanteaux at its feet and a battered beaver hat on the
chair by its side.

Rhys blinked. He wasn’t that drunk. ‘Griffin, if that is
male, then you and I are
eunuchs in the Great Chan’s court.’

The girl in the youth’s clothes gave an exasperated sigh,
set her fists on the
curving hips that betrayed her sex and said, ‘Rhys Denham,
you are drunk – just
when I was counting on you to be reliable.’

Thea? Lady Althea Curtiss, daughter of the Earl of
Wellingstone by his
scandalous first wife, the plain little brat who had dogged
his heels throughout his
boyhood, the loyal friend he had scarcely seen since the day
his world fell apart.

Here, in the early hours of the morning in his bachelor
household, dressed as a boy.

A walking scandal waiting to explode like a smouldering
shell. He could almost hear
the fuse fizzing.