A Rake’s Guide to Seduction (27 page)

Ned gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “I don’t need a few pounds. I don’t need a loan. I have debts, Ham. Rather crushing debts. It’s expensive to lead a gentleman’s life with no title and no fortune waiting for a fellow. If only I’d had your luck at cards.”

“It’s not luck!” said Celia furiously.

Ned rolled his eyes and pushed himself up with a grimace. “As you like. The fact remains that I need money, and this lady is the key to the treasure chest.”

“You would threaten her life over a few thousand pounds—”

“
Crushing
debts,” Ned repeated. “I really can’t settle for less than thirty thousand. I know you can’t pay out that much immediately, but Exeter could. Come along, my dear. We really must go.” And he pulled another pistol from the pocket of his coat.

Anthony raised his arm at once and pulled the trigger. The only sound, though, was a tinny click. Ned looked at the pistol pointed at him and grinned, a cruelly bitter expression. “I really didn’t want to hurt anyone,” he said as he got to his feet. “You’ll notice that pistol was unloaded. This one, however”—he raised his second gun—“is. Now, my lady, come along, and please don’t throw any more china at me.”

“Celia, leave the room,” said Anthony as he lowered his arm. She hesitated, then began backing toward the door. Ned swung the pistol around to point it at her. Celia froze, glancing at Anthony.

“This way, Lady Bertram,” repeated Ned. His face had hardened, and he didn’t look half so charming or handsome now. A trickle of blood ran down his cheek from a cut by his eye, and the light in his eyes was no longer amused but deadly, madly serious. Celia didn’t know what to do. She had been so angry a few minutes ago, it hadn’t occurred to her to be frightened, but now she was—and grew more so when Anthony stepped directly between her and Ned’s cocked pistol.

“Go on, Celia,” said Anthony in the same eerily calm tone. “You aren’t going with him.”

“I would prefer not to shoot you, Hamilton, but I will. Don’t tempt me to tell you how I shall persuade the lady if I must use this shot on you.”

“No,” said Anthony. “Put down the pistol, Ned.” Celia edged backward, thinking frantically. She did not want to leave Anthony alone with an armed madman, but if she stayed, she would only distract him. She reached the door and felt behind her for the knob, unable to look away from the two men, unable to blink. Every time Ned moved a step to one side, Anthony moved with him, staying squarely between him and Celia. She had to get help, if only she could get out of the blasted room. She ran both hands over the wood behind her, searching for the blasted doorknob as her stomach knotted in incipient panic.

“God damn it,” said Ned impatiently. “I’m not going to regret this as much as I thought.” And the pistol went off.

Celia froze in anguish as Anthony jerked.
No,
wailed her heart.
No, no, no…
But he didn’t fall to the floor. He spun around, gazing incredulously somewhere to Celia’s left. She turned her head and saw that she had missed the door entirely; she had been feeling the wainscoting several feet away from it. Which was probably rather fortunate.

Lord Warfield stood in the doorway, a smoking pistol in his outstretched hand. His face was stark white, carved with lines of grief. Ned stared at him a moment, shock written large on his face, then dropped to the floor without a sound. The pistol clattered to the floor beside him.

Celia scrambled across the room, her heart almost bursting out of her chest. Was he hurt? Had Ned managed to fire and hit him? She’d only heard one shot, but if they had fired at the same moment…Anthony was just standing there, seemingly stunned. She threw herself at him, holding on tightly in case he was about to collapse. “Are you hurt? Did he shoot you?”

His arm came up around her. “No,” he said, his voice dazed. “He didn’t.”

Celia choked, then gave a sob, and another. Anthony closed his eyes and held her close, absorbing every shudder and tear. If Ned had shot her, he would have died, too—in spirit if not in body. His only thought had been to get her safely out of the room, and then…then…

Anthony didn’t want to think about Ned. He still trembled from the white-hot anger that had gripped him when he realized Ned meant to hold Celia—with a pistol to her heart—for ransom, but he knew later would come sorrow, for the betrayal by such a friend, and regret, that he never knew how desperate Ned had become before turning to attempted murder and fraud. Later…later he would feel the loss of a friend he had trusted and liked.

But he still had Celia. His arms tightened around her, and his eyes burned. Thank God he had her.

“Oh, good heavens—Celia!” Rosalind had heard the shot from the hall and come running. She rushed up behind Lord Warfield, who was just standing in the doorway for some odd reason, and pushed at him. “Celia!” she cried again, unable to see into the room.

“Don’t fear,” said Warfield in a heavy voice as he moved aside to let her pass. “She’s in no danger now.” He had a pistol in his hand and he wore riding clothes; she remembered that he had been on his way to meet David and ride out looking for Mr. Hamilton. Rosalind turned to search for her daughter, fearing the worst, only to realize Celia was fine. She clung to Mr. Hamilton, and he to her, as if neither would ever let go. Behind them Mr. Childress sat slumped on the floor, his shirt front red with blood and a pistol on the floor beside him.

“What happened?” Rosalind gasped. Warfield turned away, staggering toward the wall, and instinctively she reached out to steady him.

“Ned,” was all he said. “Ned.”

Rosalind looked at his ashen face and without a word took the pistol from his shaking hand and let him lean on her shoulder.

The room filled with people, alerted by the gunshot and by the servant who had come when Celia rang the bell and then gone in search of help. Marcus directed some footmen to carry away Ned, who was seriously injured but not dead, and to send for a surgeon at once. David handed Anthony the pistol Ned had dropped. Anthony let go of Celia long enough to see that it was loaded, and then he handed it back to David without a word. Celia tried to murmur an apology to Hannah for destroying the collection of china figurines that used to stand on the table near the fireplace, and Hannah only remarked on her excellent aim. Rosalind undertook to comfort Lord Warfield, and the servants began filtering in to clean the room.

As others stepped in to take control, Anthony took Celia by the hand and led her out of the house, almost running through the garden, across the lawn. There he stopped and turned to her. “Do you still want to marry me?”

She blinked, out of breath. “Why—”

“I would understand if you said no,” he said, almost arguing. “I’ve brought nothing but scandal and danger upon you, and any sensible woman would no doubt be grateful to be released from our engagement.”

“But I’m not,” Celia said. “I want to marry you.”

“Because I love you.” He spoke almost over her words. “I have never loved another—never. It was affection, or lust, or friendship, but never love. Not like I feel for you. If he had shot you—”

She put her hand over his mouth. “He didn’t.”

Anthony bowed his head. “If you don’t want me, say it now, I beg you. I don’t know how I’ll bear it, but…”

“You won’t have to,” she said. “I want to marry you. I love you.”

“I love you,” he repeated. His grip tightened on her hand. “I love you.”

Celia smiled. If she didn’t smile, she might cry. “I know,” she told him softly. “I’ve known that for a while now.”

That night he knocked on her door late, very late. Celia started to exclaim in surprise when she saw him standing there, but he pressed a finger to her lips, warning her to be quiet. He took her hand and together they stole out of the quiet house, down to the lake. Anthony helped her into one of the boats and handed her a thick blanket. He rowed them out a short way, until it seemed the two of them floated alone in a world of stars, above in the sky and reflected below in the water.

Then he sat on the bottom of the boat and pulled her into his arms, tucking the blanket around them. Celia leaned back against his chest, his arms around her, and gazed up at the night sky.

“You asked me once, here on the lake, why I wanted to marry you,” he whispered. “I couldn’t tell you. I still can’t.”

She turned her head to look at him in confusion.

“I can’t tell you because there isn’t a single reason,” he went on. “There are as many reasons as there are stars above us. I could no more list them all than I could name those stars, but my reasons are just as real and just as fixed.”

“I was wrong to ask you that,” she murmured.

“No, you can always ask me anything you want. I have nothing to hide from you.” He shifted, settling her more comfortably against him. “I have known you were the girl for me since you threw my boots in the lake, right over there.” He indicated the rock they used to dive from when they were children.

Celia frowned. “I never threw your boots in the lake.”

Anthony laughed, a low, warm rumble in his chest she could feel through her entire body. “It was the first time I had come to Ainsley Park. Your brother invited several of us from Oxford, and we wanted to go fishing. You clamored to come along. David said you were too small to bait the hook and could not come with us, but you followed and threw in a pair of boots after we had all waded into the lake. ‘There,’ you shouted in a fine fury. ‘I am not too small to do that!’ And you stormed off. But they were my boots, not your brother’s.”

Celia’s eyes rounded. “But—but I was only a child then! And why did you never tell me they were your boots? I surely thought I had punished David quite thoroughly, for he was always ruining his boots and never had a spare pair.”

“You were eight, and you stood up for yourself,” Anthony said with a smile. “And I thought, that girl has spirit.”

“But that does not mean you loved me,” she said slowly. His smile faltered.

“You were the daughter of the duke of Exeter,” he said simply. “I was the cuckoo in the Lynley nest. Love was not something I was permitted to feel for you.”

“Permitted,” she said in disbelief. “Permitted by whom?”

“By society. By your family. By myself.” He sighed. “I had a great deal of affection for you—like a sister, I told myself. And it was. But then I saw you again, years later, during your Season. It was right after Euston had made you an utterly absurd marriage proposal and you said something that night, as we were laughing at him. You were so beautiful that night.” His voice softened. “You said you were the only person in London who knew I wasn’t half so bad as I pretended.”

Celia’s mind whirled. She remembered Lord Euston’s ridiculous proposal, and she remembered Anthony had saved her from it; she even remembered wondering what it would be like if he had kissed her. But that was so long ago. She had been a naive, silly girl then, still harboring romantic fantasies without a single thought about what marriage—of what love—was really like. Anthony, even then, couldn’t possibly have had an interest in
her…

“I could never see you in a sisterly way again.” Anthony looked a little abashed. “I even dared to ask Exeter permission to call on you.”

She gasped, sitting bolt upright and making the boat rock. “No! You did? But I had no idea! He never said a word to me. Did he refuse? Did he—?”

“He had just given Bertram his consent to marry you.”

Celia closed her mouth. For a moment she tried to think what life would have been like, if Anthony had courted her, if she had married him then instead of Bertie. Bertie might have married someone better suited to him; he might still be alive and well, perhaps with children to please his father. Anthony would not have been so alone and aloof for those years. And she…

“There is no way of knowing what might have been, if I had asked him a few weeks sooner,” said Anthony gently, as if he could hear her thoughts. “We were both different then.”

Yes, Celia realized, she certainly was. Four years ago she was a silly, foolish girl, filled with shallow fancies of love and adoration. Could she have even appreciated Anthony then? Certainly not as she did now. Having been lonely and unhappy herself, she understood him—and knew all the better what he had gone through to make him the man he was. Wordlessly, she rested her cheek on his hand where it cupped her shoulder. The backs of his knuckles were scraped and bruised from his struggle with Ned.

“I would not change a thing,” he murmured against her hair. “I would have waited fifty years for this.”

Celia smiled. Anthony was a greater romantic than anyone knew—anyone except her. Hannah had been right; the people who said he was wicked and cold-hearted didn’t know him at all. “I’m glad you did not.”

He laughed again. “It certainly felt like it at times.”

“Especially today.”

His arms around her tightened. “Yes.”

Celia turned to face him. She didn’t want to talk about that again, not now. “You teased me once about making love in a boat.”

Even in the moonlight she could see his eyes gleam in a reluctant smile. “If we should tip the boat, it would be an ignominious end to the evening.”

“Well,” she said softly as she reached up to kiss him, “we’d better be careful, then.”

It was a small wedding, nothing like her first one. It was in the Ainsley Park chapel instead of St. George’s in London, and only her family and a few friends attended. She simply wore her best dress instead of an elaborate gown specially made, and her bouquet was a bunch of flowers picked by the bridegroom in a nearby field instead of hothouse lilies wrapped in lace. But Celia thought there was a beauty and a joy in this wedding that had been lacking in the first. The spectacle of that occasion had filled her vision and left little room for anything or anyone else. Today, all she could see and think of was Anthony, standing straight and true at the altar waiting for her.

This time she heard every word of the vows they exchanged. Her hand trembled as Anthony slid the gold band on her finger. When the vicar pronounced them man and wife and said the blessing, it was all she could do not to fling herself into Anthony’s arms.

“Happy, darling?” Anthony asked after they had signed their names together in the register.

“Tolerably,” she said, then burst out laughing as he blinked. “Must you even ask?”

He grinned in relief. “I’ve forgotten all sensible conversation today. Everyone will wonder why you married such a fool.”

“Then I shall tell them all, quite happily,” she declared as they walked out of the chapel into the sunlight. “I married him for love.”

Rosalind dabbed at her eyes as she watched her daughter and her new son-in-law walk down the steps. They had eyes only for each other. He truly did love her, she realized, as much as Celia loved him. In place of the anxiety that thought would have wrought only a few days ago, she felt only relief. And peace. Anyone could see Celia was happier than she had been in years. If Mr. Hamilton—Anthony, she reminded herself to call him now—could make her daughter so happy, now and for years to come, Rosalind would never have an unkind word or thought for him again.

Lord Warfield came up beside her. “Good day.”

She smiled and hastily tucked her handkerchief into her dress’s sash. “Good day, Lord Warfield.” She could feel his eyes on her, although she continued to watch Celia and Mr. Hamilton. They were making slow progress back to the carriage, stopping to speak to everyone.

“You’re…er…” Lord Warfield cleared his throat. “You’re happy, aren’t you?”

She took a deep breath, blinking away the last of her tears. “Of course. Why would you think otherwise?”

“Well…you’re watching the two of them, and you’re crying…I know you’re none too fond of Hamilton.”

“He is now my son, and I shall be as loyal to him as if he were my own child.” She gave him a quelling look. David had explained everything about Mr. Childress’s plot to her, how wrong they had all been about Mr. Hamilton—Anthony—and she didn’t want to speak of it ever again, particularly not today. “As the mother of the bride, I feel entitled to shed a tear or two of joy.”

“Joy.” His face relaxed. “Aye, joy is always permitted.”

Rosalind smiled. “I should hope so, particularly at a wedding.”

Warfield grinned back. He had a nice grin, she thought suddenly, when he wasn’t provoking her or arguing with her. “Might I have a word with you?”

“Of course,” she said, surprised. They had talked quite a bit the last few days, ever since he had patted her hand so comfortingly that horrible day a week ago. She realized he was more of a father to Anthony than old Lynley ever had been, and Rosalind wasn’t above surreptitiously discovering more about her new son-in-law. And to her surprise, she found she was becoming rather fond of the earl as they talked. “What about?”

“Not here.” He glanced out the door, almost nervously, to where the other guests still lingered in the sunshine, laughing and chatting with the bride and bridegroom. “Over here?”

Mystified, Rosalind went where he indicated, into the vestry near the register where Celia had just recently signed her name, beneath those of her brothers and Rosalind herself. Almost thirty years ago, she realized with a small shock, turning the page to look. For a moment she stared at William’s signature beside her own youthful one, the ink now faded. What a long time ago that had been.

Warfield had followed her. “Your husband?” he asked gruffly. Rosalind nodded, remembering how nervous and uncertain she had felt that day, marrying a duke twice her age with two sons barely eight years younger than she was. He had seemed so imposing and elegant, so tall and dark and serious. She had loved Exeter, but with a sense of awe; she had been intimidated by him, especially at first. There had been none of the easy connection between them that Rosalind had just seen between Celia and Anthony.

“Do you miss him?” asked the earl. Rosalind turned the page again, back to the present, and then she turned away from the register.

“Yes. At times. He was a good husband.”

“Good, good.” Warfield seemed ill at ease. He kept glancing at the register uneasily. “But you’ve been a widow a long time.”

Rosalind bowed her head. “Almost fifteen years.”

“And have you never…That is, what I wanted to ask…” He wet his lips. “Have you never thought of remarrying? Or considered…having affection for another man?” She stared at him. Warfield took a deep breath, then, to her astonishment, took her hand in his. “Your Grace, I have the greatest admiration for you,” he said. “And the deepest respect.”

“You hardly respected my opinion a fortnight ago,” she said in surprise. “You said I was judgmental and irrational.”

He dismissed it with an impatient flick of one hand. “That was when you thought Hamilton the scourge of the earth.”

“With reason.”

“Well, perhaps, but—”

“I wonder how you would react if I had been right and you had been wrong.”

“But I
was
right, wasn’t I?” he pointed out.

Rosalind pressed her lips together. “You cannot always be right.”

He paused. “No, no, of course not. I hope you shall be gracious when I am wrong.”

“Is this what you wanted to speak of?”

“I would like to call on you,” he said in a rush. “After Hamilton and his bride have gone. When we have nothing else to argue about.”

“Perhaps we shall always have something to argue about,” she said tartly.

“I should hope so, it adds spice to a marriage,” he replied, unperturbed.

“Marriage!” She laughed in surprise. “Who mentioned marriage?”

“I did. Not that I’m asking for an answer now, mind. You might not turn out to suit me after all—” Rosalind gaped at him, and he grinned hopefully. “But I think you might. And I should like to know if I might be to your liking as well.”

“Lord Warfield.” She tried to gather her wits. He was unbelievably outrageous, but she found it a little exhilarating at the same time, and oddly charming. “I hardly think—”

“Are you saying no?” He took a step toward her. Rosalind put one hand on her bosom. She had to look up at him. “Are you?” he repeated. Mutely she shook her head. She wasn’t saying anything at the moment. “Thank heaven,” he declared, before taking hold of her shoulders and pulling her forward to kiss her.

Off balance, she had to grab onto him to keep her balance. His arms flexed under her grip, and he gathered her closer, right into his arms. He lifted his head and looked down at her. “All right?”

“L—Lord Warfield,” she stammered.

“Patrick,” he said. “Call me Patrick. Do you want me to turn you loose?”

Rosalind looked at his wide, firm mouth. Her hands were still clutching his broad shoulders. She must be mad. “No.”

“All right, then.” And he kissed her again.