The Rake of Hollowhurst Castle (11 page)

‘Just as well, for I want to meet the latter and have no interest whatsoever in your land, considering it's in excellent heart. That girl should take more interest in her household and presenting a ladylike appearance to the world and less in things that don't concern her.'

‘And how, pray, would the rest be paid for if she'd sat at her embroidery and let the estates go to rack and ruin when her uncle became ill? Davy Courland never had any more interest in the place than he would in a book of ladies' fashion plates,' he defended Roxanne rather hotly, realising his error in flying to his grandmother's lure when she forgot a countess's dignity and actually smirked.

‘I suppose you think you're devilishly clever?' was all he could manage to come up with in his own defence, and heard himself sound like a fractious schoolboy with a groan.

‘I don't just think it, I know it,' she informed him, superbly unworried that she sounded vain about it, and he did his best not to laugh and encourage her.

With Stella on the inside plotting and now his grandmother using every advantage she wouldn't scruple to employ, he and Roxanne stood little chance of remaining unwed long. Which, of course, suited him very well, it just didn't please him so much that they seemed to think it a love match.

Instead it would be a marriage of passionate friendship and good sense, he assured himself doggedly. He and Roxanne suited each other so neatly it would be foolish to ignore their underlying compatibility, and he
wasn't a fool. Luckily he didn't believe her to be one, either, and soon she'd see for herself they could amount to more together than they ever would apart. All it would take was a few more of those incendiary kisses and she'd be as eager for the marriage bed as he was. Or almost as eager, he reminded himself ruefully, as frustrated need ground painfully as he reacted like an idiot to the idea of Roxanne and bed of any sort just at the moment, something he was perfectly certain hadn't escaped his grandmother's eagle-eyed gaze.

‘I think she'll do,' Lady Samphire told him majestically, ‘if you ever manage to persuade her you'll make her a good husband, of course.'

Feeling the sting of her sharp tongue rather more sharply than she probably intended for once, Charles looked back on his rakish past and regretted at least some of it for making Roxanne so very wary of him. After months at sea it had seemed normal for a healthy young male to find relief from frustration and loneliness in a skilled courtesan's arms. He doubted if anyone who hadn't experienced the highs, lows and the occasional becalmed boredom of a long sea voyage would understand the life a naval captain on duty, constantly aware of every detail of the day-to-day running of his ship to keep it at sea and in a fit state to offer battle when the need arose. Charles recalled the tension of detached command, when he'd borne responsibility for searching out the enemy and doing his best to outwit and defeat them. A successful frigate captain must be sharp enough, skilled enough, to bring the unwary to battle or outrun the unexpected day and night. And then he had to avoid being overfamiliar with his officers and crew, without being deemed indifferent to their well-being
and aspirations. In many ways, it had suited him to be nigh as powerful as a king in his own country while at sea, waiting for the latest fat French merchantman to sail into his well-placed trap. However, the isolation of it could eat up a man's soul if he didn't take good care to keep himself sane.

 

‘Roxanne, I'm awed by your stamina, but don't you feel worn out after dancing half the night away and then spending a whole morning in the saddle?' Stella asked mildly as Roxanne failed to reach her bedchamber without being seen. She sincerely hoped her face didn't betray her turmoil and did her best not to flush like a schoolgirl under her friend's speculative gaze.

‘It seems ridiculous now, but I quite lost track of time and need to set myself to rights before anyone calls and sees me looking like this,' she replied, with an airy wave at her own person that she hoped would excuse her hurrying off without further ado.

‘Indeed you do,' Stella agreed with a smile that robbed her agreement of any sting, but Roxanne shifted uncomfortably under her shrewd gaze all the same.

‘Yes, well, the sooner I let Tabby make me fit to be seen again the better, for I'm certainly not presentable at the moment. Whatever would your mama say if she could see me now?'

‘Heaven forefend,' Stella replied with heartfelt fervour, and Roxanne only had to think of the furore if Mrs Varleigh Senior had seen her brazenly kissing Sir Charles Afforde to blanch at the very idea.

‘I really must change,' she excused herself before she gave herself away completely and dashed into her bedchamber to set the bell ringing frantically for Tabby.

Wincing at the very thought, she nevertheless forced herself to look in the mirror and was horrified by the damage that a wild ride and an even wilder kiss from a rake had wrought on her appearance. A stranger coming across her by chance might be forgiven for thinking her a tramping woman dressed in the cast-offs of some charitably inclined lady.

‘Lord, I look a terrible fright,' she muttered at herself, but couldn't tear her gaze away from the wild woman in the mirror.

Fanciful though it sounded, she looked as if she'd had a flame lit inside her, almost as if her normally workaday dark brown eyes had felt the warmth of some star-drenched southern night and now couldn't quite forget it. Or perhaps, her more prosaic self informed her sternly, she just looked as if she'd come close to being seduced by one of the worst rakes known to the
ton.
He was a danger to her reputation, of course, but not her heart—which was perfectly intact this time and only racing because she'd come so close to being forced to wed that rake and regret it for the rest of her days.

‘But would you
really
have regretted it so much, Roxanne?' she demanded brusquely of the houri in the mirror and saw the wretch smirk and then wriggle with delight, like an excited schoolgirl promised a heady treat. ‘No, I rather thought not,' she condemned herself roundly, then wondered what anyone hearing her would think of her sanity. That she didn't actually have any, of course, but any lady who let herself be kissed and caressed and almost seduced by Sir Charles Afforde, and who then sneakily yearned for him to do it all over again as soon as possible, couldn't be considered totally rational.

‘Just look at the state of you, Miss Roxanne!' Tabby burst out as she hurried into the room to find out why her mistress had sounded her bell as if she thought the house might be afire.

‘Yes, I just was,' she replied ungrammatically and once again fought an annoying, self-conscious blush as her maid took in her full disarray.

Curse it—she should have done her best to put Miss Courland, spinster lady of means and very much mistress of herself and no one else, back together without any help. Except she'd considered the task beyond her.

‘Well, you'll never do to receive visitors as you are, so you'd best hold still for once while I do the best I can and hope Mrs Lavender manages to keep them busy.'

‘Who's called, then?' Roxanne asked with would-be carelessness, wondering with a silly leap of the heart if Sir Charles had already followed her back here to continue the forbidden, and yet so mutually pleasurable, task of completing her seduction.

‘Mr Joseph Longborough and that Huntley boy, to name but two,' Tabby replied pertly as she seized Roxanne's hairbrush and began a ruthless attack on her wildly curling mane.

‘Ouch!' she protested, the sinking of her heart at the very idea of facing those two callow youths after her encounter with the far deadlier, more handsome and much more wickedly tempting Sir Charles almost diverting her from the pain in her scalp.

‘If you will go galloping about the countryside like some wild schoolboy, you can just learn to take the consequences, Miss Rosie,' her maid informed her grimly, but Roxanne knew from that familiar form of address that she was almost forgiven. ‘And since you've come
home without that ribbon I put in your pocket for the very purpose of preventing this mess, I dare say that handsome buck from the Castle had something to do with it,' she muttered darkly, but Roxanne pretended to be deaf—it was either that or protest too much, and she wasn't prepared to risk doing that with someone who knew her too well.

‘Finished?' she enquired sweetly instead.

Tabby snorted disgustedly. ‘As if anyone could put this disaster in a fit state to be seen that quickly,' she snapped and resorted to the fine silver comb Roxanne dreaded to tease out a stubborn tangle. ‘I don't know why I never thought to ask your sister for a reference. I dare say a lady's maid of my experience and patience could command whatever sum she cared to ask from a lady with the least pretension to caring what she looked like if she had a reference from a respectable countess at her back,' she chided, and Roxanne would have nodded sagely to encourage such a scheme, if only she wasn't firmly anchored by a thick hank of hair.

‘You're welcome to try it, of course, but I don't know how long such a lady would put up with being nagged and abused by her own maid.'

Tabby sniffed and, finally satisfied that Roxanne's hair was as smooth as she could make it in the time available, began to pin it into a style she'd obviously spent the morning learning from Stella's maid. Watching it take shape in the mirror, Roxanne thought the softer style became her very well. So well that she couldn't bring herself to order Tabby to dismantle it and put her old, plain coiffeur back together to discourage Joe's callow attentions. This told her two things: one, that his clumsy attempts to annex her and her dowry no
longer felt significant, and, two, that looking well in case another, more potent, gentleman called was almost too critical to her sense of well-being for comfort.

‘Now sit still while I find a gown that's fit for you to be seen in, Miss Rosie,' her irascible maid chided her, as if she was fourteen again instead of ten years older and wiser.

‘It's only a couple of youths who've seen me looking far worse while I was busy round the estate about my uncle's business,' Roxanne protested feebly, but Tabby was too caught up in Stella's campaign to turn Roxanne into a fashion plate to take much notice, particularly when Roxanne was half in thrall to the idea herself.

T
en minutes later, just as Stella was doing her best to come up with yet another polite question to stretch Joe Longborough's banal remarks into a conversation, Roxanne joined her in the drawing room and knew she'd made another mistake. The gown Tabby had chosen, and that she'd half-heartedly protested was too smart for afternoon visits from her neighbours, had looked the height of demure respectability until she put it on. Crimson velvet of so dark a hue that it looked almost black, until the soft stuff caught the light and turned to rich burgundy, was not the sort of colour to allow its wearer to fade into the background. Another error of judgement on her part, Roxanne decided, as a shaft of autumn sunlight slanted into the room and made her a little too noticeable in the rich golden light.

‘Miss Courland,' Joe observed with what he probably thought of as dangerous slowness while his greedy eyes did their best to gobble her whole.

‘Mr Longborough,' she said shortly and dodged him to nod just as abruptly to his friend and skirt around them both to join Stella on the sofa where neither gentleman, fortunately, possessed the scandalous ill manners to try to join them.

‘Tea, Roxanne dear?' Stella asked her, eyebrows raised and the faintest, most unforgivable, hint of a laugh in her voice.

‘Of course, that would be most refreshing.'

‘After your busy morning.'

Roxanne just nodded, wondering what on earth her friend was up to.

‘And here comes my cousin to join our merry band,' Stella remarked with the blandest, most deceiving of smiles. ‘I must ring for another cup.'

‘Indeed you must,' Roxanne managed, the dizzying prospect of meeting the wretched man so soon after he'd kissed her almost senseless, rejected her demands to be completely seduced by him with insulting ease, then had the bad taste to be discovered doing so by his grandmother before he'd made her cry so spinelessly in his arms nearly made her bolt for her room, whatever anyone thought of such hysterical cowardice. ‘We all know just how partial Sir Charles is to an excellent cup of tea.'

‘Miss Courland, Stella my loved one,' Sir Charles greeted them with a bow of such elegance that Roxanne could see Joe trying to store it away for future imitation, despite the fact he obviously hated his rival.

‘Curse the whole damned lot of them!' Roxanne muttered vengefully under her breath, but saved her best glare for the newcomer. After all, Joe might be a self-opinionated lout, but he hadn't failed to seduce her
today, then turned up on her doorstep not an hour later as if it was no more significant than a casual wave across a crowded room between friends.

‘Longborough, Huntley,' he added, with a nod that should have made both her other visitors conscious he was the dominant male of the party.

‘Afforde,' Joe drawled recklessly and Roxanne expected him to be blistered by a challenging stare from Charles's impenetrably blue eyes any second—and just when had she begun to think of him as Charles and not Sir Charles or even Captain Afforde?

Of course, being ignored in favour of Simkins would make Joe squirm far more effectively, especially as her butler chose that moment to produce that extra cup on a silver salver, along with a glass of rich burgundy, which he handed to Charles as if he were already master of the house.

‘Neatly done, Simkins,' Charles observed with a smile of complicity and encouragement for her newly promoted butler, and Roxanne wasn't sure whether to agree with him or march out of the room with her nose in the air.

‘Have you acquired tickets for the subscription ball at Tunbridge next week, gentlemen?' Stella asked the two younger gentlemen before war could be openly declared.

‘Indeed we have,' Mr Huntley agreed eagerly, looking as if he'd like to tow his friend out of the room before he rashly challenged a man who could outwit and outgun him on any field of battle. ‘Looking forward to it. Came to beg the privilege of the first dance, didn't we, Joe?'

‘How charming of you, Mr Longborough,' Stella twittered as if she believed every word she was saying.
‘I'll be delighted to grant it to you, of course—so flattering to be asked at my age.'

Despite her ire, Roxanne almost ruined everything by laughing out loud as Joe's expression gave his thoughts away. ‘Honoured,' he finally managed through gritted teeth, while looking as if he'd prefer strangling Stella to dancing with her.

‘Then I hope I can claim the honour of
your
hand, Miss Courland?' Mr Huntley asked with a sheepish look at his friend as he took advantage of his confusion.

‘Of course you can, Mr Huntley,' she had to reply, and indeed she'd far rather be stumped about the room by over-enthusiastic Mr Huntley than informed how greatly she'd benefit by marrying a man who'd inherit his father's acres and position in due course by Joe.

She thought it was that information that made her dislike Joe Longborough so heartily nowadays, for she was very fond of the squire, and the spectacle of his uncouth son longing for him to quit his shoes so he could step into them the sooner made her feel distinctly sick.

‘I fear I have business in town next week and therefore cannot beg for any dances from either of you,' Sir Charles put in smoothly, and Roxanne wondered why the whole idea of attending the local subscription ball suddenly seemed such a poor one if he wasn't to be there.

‘Such a shame,' she muttered darkly and received a mocking smile in return as she marvelled at the sharpness of his hearing.

‘But I have every intention of returning in time for the evening party my grandmother has decided I'm to throw in her honour, Miss Courland,' he added with a long, intimate look she very much hoped was camouflaged
by Stella and Mr Huntley's gallant attempts at cheerful conversation. ‘And as my grandmother is to remain at Hollowhurst while I'm in town, she's instructed me to call, Miss Courland, and ask you to visit and be introduced before I leave, in order that she might “have some civilised company whilst you're gallivanting about the country, boy”, I think were her exact words.'

‘That sounds like my Great-Aunt Augusta,' Stella said with a sage nod, and Joe just looked as if he'd like to strangle every one of them, including the Dowager, very slowly.

‘Until next week then, ladies,' he said by way of farewell, along with one of those ungainly nods of dismissal he'd wasted on Charles up until then.

‘I think I'd have had to develop a cold by next week, if not for that rather nice young man he brought with him,' Stella said reflectively once the two younger gentlemen had left.

‘I'm fairly certain I'd have joined you, except Joseph Longborough would never let poor Mr Huntley forget I'd cried off from that dance on the flimsiest of pretexts,' Roxanne agreed with a brief grimace for Joe's appalling manners.

‘So we'll go then, even if we're to be deprived of your company, Cousin Charles,' Stella informed him with that ironic smile that often made her true thoughts impenetrable to Roxanne.

There was obviously a very strong affection between the cousins, but did that necessarily mean Stella was matchmaking? Probably, Roxanne decided with a sigh and sipped her tea as if she'd nothing to contribute to the conversation Stella and Sir Charles kept up with little apparent effort.

Quite when the perfidious baronet gestured his cousin from the room, Roxanne couldn't have said, since she'd been woolgathering for several minutes when he must have done so, but she roused herself from her reverie to see Stella's lilac skirts belling out behind her with the speed of her going and looked up and met his eyes with a haughty question in her own.

‘You didn't think I came here this afternoon for the sole purpose of exchanging veiled insults with your would-be cavalier, I hope? Especially since he's not a very appealing cavalier to waste our time on,' he asked with one eyebrow raised in a world-weary look she imagined Joe probably spent useless hours in front of his dressing mirror trying to imitate.

‘No, you also came to tell your cousin that you'll be leaving Hollowhurst for a while and that next week you'll be hosting an evening party with your grandmama, did you not? So you see, Sir Charles, I was listening to the salient points of your conversation, after all.'

‘You are becoming quite the social adept, Miss Courland,' he informed her loftily and then chuckled as her right hand fisted without her even thinking about it. ‘That's better; if I ever feel the need to converse with female automata I can rely on most of my stepsisters to oblige me. Pray don't ever aspire to such vapid correctness, will you, Miss Courland? It would be a crime against nature.'

‘I didn't know you had any stepsisters,' she said and despaired of herself for falling into the trap of being curious about his relatives when she should be concentrating on being furious with him for intruding on her life in far too many ways.

‘Apparently complete oblivion to my continuing
existence is socially unacceptable to my immediate, if not my close, family, so occasionally I'm summoned to spend a few days being bored to distraction at my father's expense. Since he married their mother and I didn't, I really can't imagine why we all put ourselves through the discomfort of finding out all over again that we have nothing in common.'

‘How awful,' she was surprised into saying sincerely when she'd been so determined to keep him at a polite distance.

‘I suppose it is really,' he agreed with a sigh, and Roxanne felt he was letting her see a side of himself he usually kept well hidden from the world. ‘My mother died when I was born and my father acquired my stepmother and her tribe of daughters some years after I'd been virtually adopted by my grandparents, so it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say we're virtually strangers to each other.'

‘You and your father aren't close, then?'

‘Not by a country mile, Miss Courland.'

‘Poor little boy,' Roxanne said with those treacherous tears heating her eyes again, much to her annoyance when she looked up and saw him watching her as if amazed he could engender such emotions. ‘Not that you look as if you suffered unduly from his neglect,' she informed him hardily.

‘Oh, I didn't, so pray don't waste your pity on me, Roxanne. My grandparents spoilt me within an inch of becoming unbearable.'

‘Only within an inch?'

‘Torment, but even if the navy didn't have a way of dealing summarily with toplofty boys with too-high an opinion of themselves, can you imagine my
grandmother indulging anyone completely, let alone a scrubby brat?'

‘She adores you,' Roxanne told him, remembering the softening of her ladyship's gaze as it dwelt on her handsome grandson when she didn't think he was looking.

‘It's mutual, I assure you.'

‘Good, but I dare say you didn't come here to discuss your family relations, Sir Charles,' she reminded him and herself.

‘No, or only in a roundabout fashion,' he said with a thoughtful look at her that for some reason made her shiver with apprehension. ‘I really came to ask you to marry me and
be
my family, Miss Courland.'

‘Oh, that's all right, then,' she said faintly, as she felt the earth spin on its axis a little too realistically.

‘Good, so you're not dead set against the idea, then?' he said clumsily, sounding as if he'd been knocked off his own superb balance for once.

‘Of course I am,' she said crossly. ‘I've never felt the least desire to make a marriage of convenience, Sir Charles, and you haven't done or said anything to convert me to the idea so far today, so of course I won't marry you. I already told you that and I might add that I find this scene embarrassing in the extreme and wish you'd spared both of us the trouble.'

‘You'll just have to endure being embarrassed then, because I haven't finished,' he told her gruffly, as if she'd hurt him—but how could that be so?

To be hurt, he'd have to feel some deep emotion towards her and she doubted he'd let himself be that vulnerable. No, he didn't love her, and she wasn't sure what she felt for him, either, so that was fair enough. It was his serious contemplation of the idea of actually
marrying her because she was well enough born, and not exactly repellent, that turned her stomach.

‘I'm not obliged to stay here and listen to this any more than you're forced to waste your breath in such a foolish fashion,' she said regally, but he refused to accept her rebuff.

‘Yes, I am. If anyone else saw us nearly make love on the lawn this afternoon then I feel every need to try to persuade you to see sense, before they can spread scandal and ruin your good name.'

‘They didn't, and I've no intention of wedding you, Sir Charles, so I suggest you leave now before we risk saying something we'll regret.'

‘Why not?'

‘Why not what?'

‘Why won't you marry me?' he asked as if genuinely puzzled.

‘Because, contrary to your inflated opinion of yourself, Sir Charles, you're not irresistible,' she snapped contemptuously.

Again he quirked that annoying eyebrow at her and she felt herself blush hotly as she recalled her fiery response to his kisses and more intimate attentions earlier—wretched, wretched man!

‘This morning I wasn't quite myself,' she mumbled, as if that explained everything.

‘No, you were mine,' he insisted, a certain look in his eyes telling her he was recalling in too-vivid detail exactly how wanton she'd been in his arms.

‘Never! Now if there's nothing else, I'm very tired, sir, and intend to rest before I must meet your cousin at the dinner table as if nothing untoward has occurred today, which it hasn't, of course.'

‘Not through any fault of yours,' he told her dourly, looking as if he was torn between wanting to shake her or kiss her breathless all over again.