Authors: Rakes Ransom
“Aunt Rosalie, ma’am.” Arthur kept twisting his neckcloth. “It’s not that I’d ever invite a here-and-thereian to your home. Leigh is a fine gentleman and officer, one of the best. Even Wellington’s said so, hasn’t he, Highet?” Highet’s mouth was now hanging open, so Arthur got no support there. “It’s just that, well, he’s got a name with the ladies. I mean, I’d trust Claibourne with my life, Uncle George, ma’am, but I wouldn’t leave him alone with my sister, and you know she’s up to snuff. As for some unschooled country chit—”
“Claibourne?” Clothilda Ponsonby screamed, along with horrified gasps and exclamations from Priscilla and Miss Chadwick, a chorus of doom that would have done Macbeth’s three witches proud. “You left a young woman alone for four hours with Rake Claibourne? George, how could you?”
Mrs. Bottwick dropped the teapot.
*
By the time Jacelyn heard the dog’s woofs and whines, and then frantic scrapings on the door, she was beginning to doubt her wisdom. Not in the matter of Squire and his hounds, of course. Not even in the absurdity of capturing the wrong man, a natural error under the circumstances. No, Miss Trevaine was wondering if her own good sense could ever win over the new sensations shuddering through her. Perhaps Squire was right after all, that she did need some Town Bronze before facing such a nonpareil. Maybe then, when a tall, handsome gentleman gazed at her so warmly she would know where to look, instead of staring dreamily back into his blue eyes, mesmerised like some poor terrified mousekin waiting for the cat to pounce. Of course she wasn’t precisely frightened, only trembly and breathless and, oh dear, what did one do with one’s hands? Ah, she realised with a shock of clarity, that must be why ladies carry fans!
It was with a great deal of relief that Miss Trevaine opened the door and welcomed her pet, hiding her uncertainties in a fierce hug and having her burning face slobbered on.
“My lord, this is Penelope. Pen, meet your…your benefactor.”
“Yes, hardly a rescuer,” said Claibourne, coming forward with the heel of the bread loaf, which he offered to the big dog, making an instant friend. “She certainly is large,” he said, looking for something good to say about an animal that stood as tall as his waist, with a miscellaneous assemblage of gangly parts covered with grizzled whiskers going every which way. The bread gone in a gulp, Pen looked up at him mournfully from under an overhanging shag-rug brow. “And marvelously expressive eyes. You are certainly worth a king’s ransom, old girl. Sorry you had to make do with a mere earl.”
Blushing, Jacelyn began gathering things into her hamper. “We’d best be going, my lord. Squire will be looking for you, I’m sure, and I’d rather he not find me at all! Besides, if you keep petting Pen behind the ears like that, her tail will destroy Shoop’s cottage, as if I weren’t in bad enough straits with him already.” She carefully wrapped the pistols in linen napkins before placing them in the hamper. Opening the door, she remembered to tell the earl, “Your direction is just to the rear of the cottage. You cannot miss the break in the hedge. The path there leads straight back to the main road, and Squire’s gatehouse is only minutes ahead. I brought you ’round Robin’s barn lest you—Arthur, that is—recognise Shoop’s cottage too soon. My way cuts right across this clearing, my lord, so…so I wish to…to thank you and—”
“Not so fast, sweetings,” drawled the earl, still looking perfectly at ease in Shoop’s high-backed chair. He slipped his knife back into the boot, then slowly rose and came toward her. Jacelyn backed away until she was half in, half out of the doorway, feeling the cool night’s breeze on her cheek. Then she was stopped by his hand at her neck, his thumb caressing that same cheek.
“No, I don’t think I can let you go so easily.” Leigh spoke almost regretfully. When Jacelyn glanced down to where her pistols lay on the top of the basket she held in her hand, he smiled, teeth white in the moonlight. “No more of your games, love, now it’s my play. Or don’t you think I deserve a reward for all I’ve been through, hm? Terrorised by highwaymen, threatened within an inch of my life, deprived of my dinner. Yes, I think I’m owed some restitution, wouldn’t you say so, Miss Trevaine?”
“Yes, my lord,” was Jacelyn’s whispered response.
“What’s that, my girl, not used to paying for your crimes?”
“No, my lord,” meekly.
“Ah, in that case I won’t demand too high a price. Perhaps just a kiss?” And he stood there, his arm negligently across her shoulder, waiting expectantly.
After a moment’s indecision, Jacelyn stood on tiptoe and darted forward, quickly brushing the side of his mouth with hers. When she moved as if to leave, that strong hand firmed at the back of her neck.
“No, no, you’ll have to do better than that. That was not even dustman’s wages, much less an officer’s. Come, little sparrow, let me show you.”
He pulled her to him, his other arm pressing at her back, and bent his head to hers, his lips very soft and gentle on her mouth. She almost thought she was floating, till his hands started to move, to knead and caress. He raised his head briefly, to see a wondering look in her eyes, her mouth formed in a bemused “Oh.” With a groan he covered her mouth again, this time with his lips opened, his tongue running over hers until she could taste the wine and his breath and his very soul, she supposed, as he must hers. Then she gave up what little rational thought was left to her. She had no frame of reference, nothing to compare these fiery new feelings to, to understand them better, so she stopped trying and joined wholeheartedly in her first real kiss. She raised her arms and held him as close as she was able, wanting to stir him the way his hands were rousing her, straying down her back to where a lady would have skirts and petticoats, so a gentleman couldn’t take such liberties. Then his hand pushed aside Lem’s jacket and stroked the side of her breast until she felt she’d faint if this went on much longer, and die if it ever ended.
*
It’s one of those interesting observations that, whenever the cards are stacked against you, there are so very many jokers in the deck. Take now, for instance. Miss Trevaine had not only abducted the wrong gentleman, but she’d spent four hours alone with him. Furthermore, he’d turned out to be, by his own confession, one of the worst womanisers on two continents. And now, just when she was enthusiastically, devastatingly, definitively helping him prove that claim, who should come thundering into the clearing but Squire and half his house party.
It was Lord Arthur Ponsonby who, first spying the couple silhouetted in the open doorway, locked in a passionate embrace, gave the evening’s most superfluous statement by shouting, “There she is!”
Jacelyn was right. Arthur always was a spoilsport.
She’d done it again. Squire Bottwick had no idea how the she-devil’d managed to bring off such a complicated, convoluted plot, but she’d done it. Here it was, a perfect Saturday morning in autumn. You could almost taste the crispness in the air as the thoroughbred trampled leaves under its hooves. Was Squire out riding neck-or-nothing on the heels of his hounds? Was he feeling the wind in his face as he took the jumps along with his friends, ridding England of one more vermin? No, he was plodding along, riding as slowly as the purebred under him would tolerate, on his way to Treverly Hall. Miss Trevaine had done it again, ruined another day’s hunt. It was enough to make a grown man cry.
Bad enough he’d miss today’s sport, Squire mourned; sure as hellfire his wife and sister would have him in church tomorrow, for all his sins. Monday morning the guests would be leaving, and he’d have to see them off. No hunting then either, but at least now there was something worth praying for. If his puffed-up sister sniffed down her nose at him one more time, he’d wipe it for her, see if he didn’t.
Cloth-head Clothilda she’d always been. Cloth-head Clothilda she’d always be, complaining about country morals corrupting her precious Priscilla. As if Squire didn’t have enough in his budget, that skitterwit had decided to faint in his sitting room, as though she’d been in any danger. More likely she resented not being the centre of attention. As for Arthur, the twiddlepoop, they might have squeaked through this if the nodcock hadn’t rushed back to his mama with the news of Jacelyn’s fall from grace. Squire could have hushed the servants, and Claibourne’s fellow officers could have been trusted to hold their tongues, but Priscilla and that milk-and-water friend of hers, Miss Chadwick? They’d have the news broadcast throughout Cambridgeshire faster’n a cat could lick cream. As for Clothilda, she was most likely writing to her friends in London this very minute. She’d announced her connexion, via Ponsonby, to Sally Jersey often enough, and everyone knew Sally Jersey was the biggest gossip in London. Devil take it! Besides, fumed the Squire, feeling thoroughly put-upon, that blasted dog had nigh ruined his wine cellar before they’d freed it, excavating an escape route through some of Bottwick’s best dutyfree bottles.
This was all beside the point, and Squire well knew it. What was really gnawing at him was the look on Jacelyn’s face, so pale there in the moonlight, when, without more than an “I’ll see Miss Trevaine home,” Claibourne had lifted her onto the back of a huge grey charger. He’d walked beside it out of the clearing, the dog on the other side. Squire’d silently dismissed the other men—he cursed himself again for not seeing they’d keep mum―and followed. Nothing else was said until they reached Treverly, when Jacelyn announced she would use the back door. She’d looked Squire straight in the eye, chin up, and told him there was no need to disturb her father until morning; he needed his rest. She’d slid off that great hulk of a horse before Claibourne could lift her down and, turning without another word, walked toward the house. No tears, no vapours, no recriminations, all of which Squire found waiting for him at home.
Dang, the chit had backbone. Yes, and class, he’d give her that too. Too bad she wasn’t a boy. She wasn’t though, and now Squire had to face his old friend and tell him—what? That he, George Bottwick, had found Trevaine’s daughter the perfect husband? A nobleman of impeccable background and repute, with fortune to treat his only chick better than she was accustomed, who could be trusted to love and honour her for all of her days?
The truth was enough to break a father’s heart.
*
At precisely eleven o’clock the Earl of Claibourne rode up to Treverly Hall, to the front door this time. It was a stately mansion of warm brickwork, not the rambling hodgepodge of Squire’s manor house, where each generation had added its own style, whether it matched or not. Treverly was elegant and understated, bespeaking good taste and the wherewithal to maintain it. Evidence of Shoop’s skill bloomed in perfect harmony, although the earl’s knowing eye guessed Shoop must command a whole platoon of clippers, mowers, and pruners.
The boy who ran up to take Baron’s reins before Claibourne could dismount smiled when Leigh warned him not to pull on the horse. “He’ll walk with you if I tell him, but he’ll raise Cain if he thinks you’re making off with him. Cavalry horse, you know.”
“Yessir,” the groom said, grinning. “I’ll stand right here with’m, if’n that’s what he chooses.”
The door was opened by a liveried footman who also took the earl’s hat, gloves, and riding crop. Only then did the whitehaired butler step forward. “How may I help you, my lord?”
“Would you please tell Lord Trevaine that Leigh Claibourne wishes to see him.”
“Certainly. I believe his lordship is expecting you, my lord.”
You can bet your shiny brass buttons he’s expecting me, Leigh thought, and likely the whole staff of servants knows it, from milkmaid to
monsieur
in the kitchen. Only his twitching lips betrayed Claibourne’s urge to laugh at the butler, who had more dignity than the Prince Regent. Before he followed that stately personage down a hall hung with priceless masterpieces, however, he couldn’t resist winking at the footman who, grinning, made a mock salute. Leigh also gave one last look to the riding crop. It had been a gift from Squire Bottwick, with the words, “You’ll need it.”
“I have to admit it’s not what I wanted for my daughter,” Lord Trevaine told his caller, although he liked what he saw well enough. Not the external trappings of a finely turned-out gentleman, in fawn knee breeches and muscle-moulded jacket of dark blue Bath superfine, but the firm handshake and the way this young nobleman sat at his ease in a stranger’s library. The earl showed no nervous sense of guilt, nor yet any cocky self-assurance as he looked the older man straight in the eyes. Trevaine saw much to admire. It wasn’t the earl’s lack of capital which disturbed him, either; he himself had fortune enough to rebuild three abbeys, and no use for it beyond his books—and his daughter. He didn’t worry that Claibourne would squander away Jacelyn’s monies: from the earl’s own account of his less than formidable prospects, his lands were of primary concern, and that was always a good investment.
Furthermore, Trevaine would make sure part of Jacelyn’s wealth was held secure for her, no matter whom she married. Not even the young man’s dicey reputation bothered Trevaine overmuch. Old family scandals could be instantly forgotten. Trevaine hoped he had more sense than to hold a boy responsible for his parents’ misdeeds, much less those of an uncle by marriage, all carefully enumerated by George Bottwick. Claibourne’s own tarnished name could be nearly as casually dismissed: restless youth, the brutal scars of war, and the fact that if people are predisposed to think the worst, it is often in the nature of spirited young men to live up—or down—to their expectations. Even Squire, so determined to give an honest reckoning, had found no fault with the earl’s personal integrity. All in all, this prospective son-in-law would have satisfied Jacelyn’s father. And yet…
“She is so young. Not in years, as Bottwick keeps reminding me, but in spirit, so free and innocent. She always reminds me of a spring breeze, as sweet and pure, and in such a hurry to smell every budding flower, touch every newborn lamb.” Trevaine’s voice broke a little, and he removed his spectacles, wiping them with a handkerchief. “I would do anything to keep her that way. I don’t care aught for gossip, my lord, but I’d not see her hurt.” He blew his nose. “Mostly I’d hoped to have her here with me for a few more years.”