The Rake of Hollowhurst Castle (6 page)

‘Indeed we will, Miss Courland,' Mereson intoned on behalf of all his minions. After giving the chief among them a few significant looks, he made sure they dispersed to their supposed places in her household, and Roxanne wondered, not for the first time, how on earth they managed to fit into it without constant collisions.

At last only the kitchen staff were left, and the last giggling housemaid had been towed away by more sensible friends. Roxanne looked on Sir Charles with even less favour as he refused to notice she wanted him gone.

‘There's scones and fresh blackberry jelly if you'd like me to send them through to the drawing room, Miss Rosie,' Cook prompted, and Roxanne decided her light-as-air touch with such pastries was no compensation for an interfering nature, and Sir Charles was welcome to her.

‘Then will you join me, Sir Charles?' she managed to say graciously enough. ‘Such a treat is not to be lightly missed, I can assure you.'

‘My thanks, Miss Courland, but it defeats me how you managed to find room for so many in this rather compact house and still omitted to engage a companion to make my visit respectable,' he carped as she led the way to her not-yet-formal drawing room.

‘If my companion and my reputation were any concern of yours, Sir Charles, I might explain myself. As they're not, I feel no need to do so.'

‘They soon will be if you get yourself ruined in the eyes of the world because you're too stubborn to engage a duenna. I feel compelled to see you set right, Miss
Courland, as I'm the most likely cause of our neighbours whispering scandal about you living alone so close to the Castle if you don't see sense and employ a duenna.'

When she would have burst out into an indignant denial that he had any rights or obligations toward her, he held up his hand and Roxanne could see just how this supposedly light-hearted rogue had commanded his own ship and several others with ease.

‘It's not because I possess a managing nature that I plague you about this, although I admit that's part of it, but I promised your brother I'd make sure you were well settled and happy. Setting the gossips tattling about you before you've hardly got your boxes unpacked and your furniture arranged doesn't augur well, Miss Courland. But if you cherish some bizarre plan to get yourself ostracised by polite society so you may become a recluse and ignore all your neighbours, then tell me now and I'll leave you to get on with it.'

Oh, how she'd like to snap some smart retort back at him, to claim her position in local society was too secure to need his approval or interference. Inwardly seething, she managed to give him a sickly smile in recognition that he was a guest under her roof, and her uncle had taught her that obliged her to at least try to be hospitable. Somehow she managed to contain the flood of protest longing for release into what she hoped were a few pithy sentences he wouldn't be able to argue with.

‘You're not my brother and I'm not obliged to explain myself to you, Sir Charles. I absolve you from any promise you made him and beg you won't give me another thought. I have many plans for the future, but none of them are any concern of yours. You'll have most of your
staff back by nightfall, so I suggest you put your own house in order and leave me to manage mine.'

‘You're the sister of a good friend as well as my cousin Tom Varleigh's sister-in-law, so do you honestly think I'll stand by and watch you ruin yourself in the eyes of your own kind when I've any power to stop you, ma'am?'

She'd been wavering until he added that ‘ma'am'—such a world of impatience and frustration as it contained, and such an awful promise of what she might become: a mere ma'am, a superannuated spinster with too much money and too little sense to find herself a husband. Now she was no longer the mistress of Hollowhurst, would she be seen by local society as another annoying female with no male to guide and centre her, a dangerous woman contained by their disapproval and then, when the years passed and she'd become a quiz, maybe their laughter? Roxanne shuddered and did her best to hide her misgivings from the abominable man.

‘I'm very pleased to say you possess no power over me, Sir Charles,' she informed him haughtily and enjoyed the frustration in his eyes.

‘Mrs Lavender has arrived, Miss Roxanne,' Mereson intoned from the doorway, which called an abrupt halt to their argument and made it annoyingly plain she'd already listened to him and found herself a chaperone.

‘Stella!' Roxanne gasped and ran out into the hall to welcome her visitor, genuinely pleased to see her, but also glad Stella's arrival gave her the excuse to ignore the wretched man for a few precious moments. Her letter asking Tom Varleigh's sister to lend her countenance, if she could tolerate the task, had met with a very ready
response, considering it must have got to Varleigh only hours before Stella set out.

‘Oh, Roxanne, how lovely to see you again, and if you're quite sure I won't be in the way, I'd really love to stay,' Mrs Stella Lavender greeted her.

‘I think you're the only female I could endure having here to lend me countenance, if you're prepared to take on such an onerous task.'

‘It'll be my pleasure, especially since this rogue's nearby to make sure you need a chaperone rather badly,' Stella replied, with a delighted chuckle as she sighted Sir Charles lounging in the drawing-room doorway. ‘How d'you do, Don Carlos?' she greeted her cousin and hugged him as impulsively and affectionately as she just had Roxanne.

Standing back to watch them exchange cousinly and not particularly respectful greetings, Roxanne wondered about this new Charles Afforde. With his cousin he was affable and charming; there was none of that knife-edge of rakish impudence or insufferable superiority she disliked so much marring his manner with this woman he evidently loved and respected.

This Sir Charles seemed infinitely more dangerous than the one who'd been inciting her to fury so very recently, and she wondered wistfully what it would be like to be at the heart of his family rather than reluctantly hovering on the edge of it, doing her best not to long for a loving friendship between them. Well, perhaps a little bit more than friendship, if the truth be known—a dash of danger, perhaps a spark of the fire he'd lit in her with that incendiary kiss the first day he came back to Hollowhurst?

Transformed by such caring, his potent caress of
mouth on startled mouth in that romantic autumn twilight might easily have seduced her into falling in love with him all over again, at the very moment he'd taken her once-safe world and blown it apart as efficiently as if he'd landed a broadside on it from his old flagship. It was just as well that he showed no sign of either loving or respecting her as he plainly did Stella then, wasn't it? If her heart was to stay safe and well armoured against him, she could do with all the help she could get from his arrogant determination to get his own way and the memory of just what disillusion awaited any female stupid enough to dream impossible dreams about Captain Charles Afforde, R.N., of course.

‘And you, Mrs Star?' he asked his cousin now, with a frown of gentle concern as he saw and probably felt the loss of weight from an already slender frame and pushed Stella a little further away to note her shadowed eyes. ‘You're not as well as you'd like us all to think, are you, my dear one?' he quizzed her gently, and Roxanne blinked back a tear in sympathy with the one Stella surreptitiously wiped away, then did her best to turn into a smile.

‘I shall be now I'm away from Mama's attempts to marry me off to every unattached gentleman she knows under the age of seventy and Great-Aunt Letty's perpetual gossip,' she said with heartfelt relief.

A
t last Roxanne felt the promise of easing into her new life and her new home, as seeing how much Stella wanted to be useful made her feel better about needing her help. Used to coping alone, Roxanne finally admitted to herself that she needed Stella's lively company and good advice on making her new place in the world. Perhaps being needed would help Stella adjust to life as a widow of limited means if she felt she had a place and a purpose.

She'd dreaded engaging a duenna until Joanna's last letter told her how unhappy her sister-in-law seemed. If Stella agreed to join her, much about her current situation that seemed out of kilter would be tolerable after all, she'd decided, as she made the invitation to join her at Mulberry House. She might even enjoy socialising with her neighbours and attending assemblies in the local towns with such lively company. She took a second look at Stella's fine-drawn features and too-slender frame and
decided even such mild dissipation must wait until they were both a little better prepared to enjoy it.

‘I hardly dared hope you'd come so soon,' she informed her new chaperone as she ushered her into the drawing room and urged her closer to the fire.

‘Wild horses wouldn't have kept me away, but I really ought to change,' Stella demurred, with a doubtful glance at immaculate black skirts.

‘Don't be ridiculous, Cousin,' Sir Charles argued impatiently as he strolled into the room in her wake, for all the world as if he owned Mulberry House as well as Hollowhurst Castle, Roxanne thought rebelliously. ‘If you want to catch a chill, I doubt if Miss Courland wants to nurse you through it.'

‘I'd happily do so if necessary, but I'd prefer you to stay hale and hearty for your own sake, Stella, dear,' Roxanne assured her friend and wished he'd go away. Instead he gave her that annoying, bland smile and sat in a gilded and brocaded chair she immediately disliked for not collapsing under him as he crossed one long, elegantly booted leg over the other.

‘How reassuring,' Stella joked rather lamely and began to look better as the warmth from the fire reached her chilled limbs and pinched-looking fingers.

‘And here are the promised scones and jam at long last,' Sir Charles murmured; if Roxanne hadn't been so relieved to see the tea tray on Stella's behalf, she might have risked a hostile glare and violated all the Courland traditions of hospitality.

‘Ah, this is wonderful,' Stella informed them with a sigh of satisfaction as she sipped fragrant China tea and stretched her sensibly shod feet towards the warmth.

‘And I thank you for encouraging Cook to return to
the Castle if this is an example of her handiwork, Miss Courland. It was an act of supreme self-sacrifice,' Sir Charles said as he took another scone and added jam and cream as eagerly as a hungry boy.

Roxanne had to fight against the appeal of so masculine and powerful a man allowing boyish delight to eclipse his usual rakish persona. He's an unscrupulous rogue, she reminded herself sternly. The occasional glimpse of the younger, less cynical Charles Afforde she remembered only proved what a hardened rascal he was now. Forced into the role of gracious hostess, Roxanne rang for more scones and innocently informed Mereson that Sir Charles was so partial to Mulberry House tea he'd surely need another cup, so he should send in a pot especially for him.

‘Vixen,' she heard Sir Charles murmur with a sleepy suggestion of intimacy that made Roxanne shiver with a feeling she assured herself was just a goose walking over her grave.

‘The master of Hollowhurst must learn to appreciate the finer things in life,' she assured him solemnly, only to see a gleam of devilment light his azure eyes.

‘I assure you, Miss Courland, that I enjoy them already,' he informed her even more softly, and she was intensely annoyed to feel herself flush as she avoided the open challenge in his brilliant, taunting gaze.

Only just restraining a flounce of disdain even she'd only half-believe in, Roxanne was puzzled at catching a distinct glow of satisfaction in Stella's warm brown eyes over their ludicrous exchange. What was there to be pleased about in his empty attempts at flirtation, and what could Stella be thinking of? Surely she didn't
imagine there was anything more between her and Charles Afforde than exasperation on both sides?

Nothing could be less likely to re-ignite the sweet schoolgirl fantasies she'd once woven about Lieutenant Charles Afforde than current reality, and she was glad to have made such a recovery from those silly daydreams. Somehow or another, Roxanne resolved, she'd make her companion realise she was immune to his charm. He was Stella's cousin when all was said and done, so she supposed she must go about the task gently and not come straight out and tell her she found Sir Charles Afforde the most annoying gentleman she'd ever met.

‘Now that my presence here is as respectable as a bishop's,' he went on now, certain he was right in his own eyes at least, ‘at least I'll be able to call and pay my respects to you both without sneaking in through the kitchen door to avoid the curiosity and censure of our neighbours, Miss Courland.'

‘You'll certainly arouse it now if they see you leave by the front door when it must be obvious you sneaked in the back,' she replied disdainfully.

‘We'll have to hope they're not in the habit of watching the comings and goings at Mulberry House very closely then, or risk my leaving by the back door and causing wild speculation if anyone sees me,' he countered effortlessly, and she found herself hating him all over again.

‘I dislike dishonest dealings above anything, Sir Charles. Of course you must leave openly, with no excuses needed to call and see how your cousin did after her journey, even if you had no idea she was coming.'

For a moment Roxanne thought she caught a hint of chagrin in Sir Charles's cerulean gaze, but told herself
she was mistaken. She thought he'd probably bend the truth so someone he loved could hear a lesser version, but at heart he wasn't a liar and she wondered how she knew that so surely.

‘Of course you do,' he responded lightly, so she decided she must have been mistaken in thinking he'd something to hide, ‘and what a useful addition to Miss Courland's household you're proving already, Stella, love.'

‘Yes, it quite gives me a glow of virtuous self-satisfaction,' Mrs Lavender told her cousin lightly, and Roxanne was glad to see the ghost of her friend's mischievous smile light her pale face, reminding them she'd once been a very happily married woman and not the shadow of herself grief and the blundering attempts of her mama and great-aunt to ‘take Stella out of herself' had made her.

If Stella could find another man who'd love and appreciate her as her major had done, she'd be so much happier creating a comfortable home for her own family than enduring her mother and great-aunt's company, or hiring herself out as companion or chaperone to ageing maidens such as herself. Roxanne resolved to go against all her previous resolutions to avoid local society as often as she could, now Sir Charles must be a part of it, and accept as many invitations as Stella's currently precarious health allowed. The thought that where a cousin he cared for went, Sir Charles Afforde would almost certainly follow, Roxanne dismissed as something to be endured in the cause of friendship and fell to plotting how to get Stella out of mourning and into something more cheerful.

‘Ah, here's your tea, Sir Charles,' she rewarded
herself by gloating as Mereson led the usual procession into the room.

‘No, no, ladies, I'd hate to deprive you of a drink you all seem to love so well,' he protested lamely, and Roxanne almost let her heart soften.

‘But there's plenty for all of us,' Stella put in with a sly wink in her direction that made Roxanne realise she liked her new companion even more than she remembered, especially as she seemed to have even fewer illusions about this handsome rogue than she did herself.

‘True, but alas I can't linger here enjoying myself all day. It's high time I returned to my echoing hall and readied it for the return of those who know how to make it a bit more homely,' Sir Charles said with what sounded like a weary sigh, and Roxanne wondered if she was supposed to feel sorry for him. She didn't, of course, she reassured herself fiercely; if he didn't like being master of a huge and ancient pile he shouldn't have bought it in the first place.

‘I hope the staff I'm doing my best to send back will be welcome, Sir Charles?' she asked loftily as she rose to bid him adieu.

‘With wide-open arms, Miss Courland,' he replied with a bland look and a careless bow that settled one of her internal arguments about him.

She definitely didn't pity such an arrogantly devilish gentleman his lone state. There'd be besotted young ladies lining up to do that as soon as they could decently persuade their parents to call on him, and she'd just made that more possible by restoring his senior servants to their accustomed place and making sure his household ran almost as smoothly as if he possessed a chatelaine to keep a sharp eye on it all. Good, she told
herself with approval, as pitying the wretch in any way would stretch her compassion to its limits.

 

‘Hurry up, Roxanne, we'll be dreadfully late!' Stella called from outside the door and Roxanne fidgeted on the dressing stool once again.

‘No, you don't, Miss Rosie,' Tabby countermanded and took the irons from their stand by the fire and applied them to Roxanne's glossy ebony locks with fierce concentration.

‘Don't you hear Mrs Lavender, Tabby? She says we'll be late and the last thing my hair needs is more curls,' she protested weakly, wondering where the self-confident chatelaine of Hollowhurst had gone.

‘Who cares if you're late? When you get there, at least you'll be worth looking at—and I'm not adding curls, I'm putting the ones you've already got into some sort of order for once. You're going to be the belle of the ball if I have anything to do with it, Miss Roxanne, like it or not.'

‘You and half the tradesmen in Kent,' Roxanne muttered like a rebellious child and thought vengefully of all the mercers, dressmakers, milliners, glovers and shoemakers Stella had dragged her to over the course of the last week. No doubt the whole lot were dining out on the vast amounts of money they'd made out of her for the first time in years.

‘And it's high time you sent some trade their way,' her maid scolded back, ‘they've made little enough out of you these last few years, and I've had no chance to practise my skills as a proper lady's maid, either. So hold still, Miss Rosie, or else I might burn your ear.'

‘Had I known you longed to work for a fashion plate,
I'd have given you a reference so you could do so, you know,' Roxanne said half-seriously and surprised a look of horror on her maid's face that was swiftly hidden.

‘You're well enough when you remember to act like a lady, Miss Roxanne,' Tabby informed her sternly and then stood back to examine her handiwork critically. ‘And you certainly look like one tonight, so we're halfway there,' she ventured, a smile softening her tight-lipped expression.

‘Yes,' Roxanne agreed without vanity, ‘I do look very neat and well groomed, don't I?'

‘Neat and well groomed?' Tabby echoed incredulously, raising her eyes to the heavens as if seeking divine inspiration. ‘You look lovely, Miss Rosie, and there's a good many gentlemen bound to agree with me tonight.'

‘They won't pay me any extraordinary attention; most of them have known me since I was a babe and are quite used to me.'

‘Oh, but I think they will, and even if some don't, not all of them are blind or daft,' Tabby replied with an infuriating, I-know-better-than-you smile.

‘We'll see,' Roxanne said, rising to her feet and enjoying the unaccustomed luxury of dusky rose silk flowing about her as her skirts settled and whispered with her every movement.

In truth, she was rather in awe of the immaculate lady of fashion looking back at her from her pier-glass tonight. For so long she'd taken little note of her hair, except to see that it was neatly confined to a net or the severe chignon she adopted when the management of Hollowhurst began to devolve on to her shoulders and she had little time for anything more elaborate. Then
there was her figure, which she now realised hadn't been so obvious to all and sundry since she came out and was much less womanly. She'd battled with Stella and the dressmaker about the low neckline of her fashionable gown when it was being made, and only the lure Stella finally offered of putting off her blacks if she did as they said had persuaded her to do as they wanted and not order a fichu or another half an ell of fabric inserted into this ridiculously low neckline.

Yet, as she smoothed the already immaculate silk over her flat belly and softly curved hips, Roxanne felt a secret lick of pleasure at the radical transformation in her appearance since Stella and Tabby decided it was high time they took her in hand. Nobody could call her a quiz tonight, or overlook her as she gossiped with the older ladies who were inclined to annex her and tell her how they'd all been desperately in love with her great-uncle once upon a time and tried all the tricks under the sun to attract his attention to no avail. One of them had hinted that Uncle Granger had been in love with her grandmother and, once she arrived at Hollowhurst wed to his brother, had never looked at another woman. That comment had sent her home feeling so sad that it was days before he'd been convinced she wasn't sickening for something and they could enjoy their usual easy banter. All that was lost to her now, she remembered and had to blink back a tear he would have scolded her for.

‘Sir Granger would be so proud of you tonight,' Tabby murmured, showing her mind was running on similar lines, but luckily Stella finally lost patience and bustled into the room just then and ended what was in danger of becoming a welter of sentiment.