The Rake of Hollowhurst Castle (7 page)

‘Oh, just look at you, Roxanne!' Stella said with a
very satisfied smile as she took in the new gown, the stylish hairstyle and the soft sheen of a fine set of pearls about Roxanne's slender neck. ‘You look lovely, just as you always should have done.' Roxanne must have looked puzzled, for Stella went on, ‘Don't try to tell me Maria Balsover didn't choose all those limp and totally unflattering gowns you wore when you made your come out under her and her mama-in-law's supposed wing, for I won't believe you, Roxanne. She was determined you'd not outshine her—how shocking to her pride if you had made a marriage equal in status to her own.'

Stella sounded as if she'd been bottling up her feelings on the matter for a very long time and could no longer contain them and Roxanne could hardly take umbrage on her sister's behalf when it was probably true. She'd been too young and then too indifferent during that long-ago and disastrous Season to see what Maria was about. At first she'd fooled herself that she was waiting for a certain dashing naval officer to come home from the sea and to realise she was the only wife he could ever dream of taking. Then she had realised what a rake and a rogue he'd become and didn't care what she looked like because she knew she'd never marry.

Little fool, she chided herself now, yes, he was too busy stealing other men's wives to look at her twice when she was seventeen, but there were better men she could have wed. Yet she couldn't regret coming back to Hollowhurst and spending those precious years with her uncle, even if all she'd learnt about managing the estate and the castle was wasted now she was a mere country gentlewoman.

‘Mrs Lavender's right, Miss Rosie,' Tabby seconded
with a wise nod. ‘Miss Maria refused to listen to a word I said about what suited you.'

Roxanne shrugged, for she hadn't met any man in London she'd the least qualm about leaving behind, so it didn't matter now. ‘Well, tonight Maria isn't here and we are, and you, Mrs Lavender, are looking particularly splendid in that pretty silvery lilac, especially considering I very nearly had to knock you unconscious and have you carried into the dressmaker's with it, you were so wedded to that interminable black.'

Stella's mouth set in a stubborn line for a moment, then she caught a glimpse of herself in the pier-glass and couldn't hold to her resolution never to be happy again once she lost her dashing major.

‘I do like it,' she admitted, looking so shocked that Roxanne and Tabby laughed, and it set the evening off on a light-hearted note that lasted all the way to the mellow old hall the Longboroughs had lived in as far back as anyone could recall.

 

‘By Jove, you look so very fine tonight I hardly dare speak to either of you,' Squire Longborough assured them in his gruff voice. ‘You'll have our local bucks falling over themselves to dance with you as soon as you show your faces, so just see you save me a dance each, eh? Got to do the pretty until Lavinia says I've poured enough oil on all comers to choke a duchess, but save me a good old country dance apiece, there's good girls.'

Seeing Stella half-confounded and half-delighted to be called a girl and gruffly ordered to dance with their host when she fully expected to get away with her usual excuse that widows didn't dance, Roxanne was about
to twit her about it when she turned a little too far and met the intense, intent blue gaze of Sir Charles Afforde instead. Arrested in mid-laugh, she felt as if someone had just launched a hot spear straight at her most intimate core and altered everything. Everyone else faded into a murmur of faintly heard babble, a bright veil of dream figures no more real than ghosts. Suddenly she was a girl again, as sure that he must love her as strongly as she knew one day she would be mature enough, deep enough, to love him.

Missing a step, she felt her breath stall, her heartbeat race and her skin flush with some unknown, unthought-of heat she certainly shouldn't be feeling for someone who tormented and infuriated her as severely as Sir Charles Afforde did. Held still and bound to him for a long moment by his bright, compelling gaze, she stood on the edge of something even she never quite anticipated in her wildest dreams. Her lips were a little apart, her breath a little hurried and her eyes a touch feverish as they darkened to pure velvet black in the candlelight.

‘Ah, Miss Courland,' the son of the house interrupted their discovery of each other.

Young Joe Longborough shot a glare at the man he obviously regarded as an interloper and gave Roxanne a reproachful look she didn't care for at all. She didn't relish being so violently awakened from her daydream, she decided with an exasperated glare for both gentlemen that should have put them firmly in their places.

‘Ah, Mr Longborough,' she parodied crossly.

‘I came to claim a waltz,' he informed her pompously.

‘Then I suggest you go away again,' Roxanne told him crossly, ‘and don't come back until you've learnt
some lessons in gentlemanly conduct from your papa, Joseph Longborough,' she ordered and turned back to Stella with a condemning glare for both gentlemen.

Joseph's ears reddened visibly and his rather heavy features contorted with temper. He shot out a hand to pull her back and force his mastery on a mere woman who dared find his manners boorish and his personality lacking in charm, but he felt his arm locked in a grip of honed steel instead.

‘You won't lay so much as a finger on Miss Courland without her express permission,' Charles told him in a low, menacing murmur even sharp-eared Roxanne failed to pick out of the general hubbub in the splendid old room. ‘Try it,' he warned his host's son with a look intended to freeze the dolt to his very bones, ‘and I'll break your arm and make you wail like a baby in front of everyone here tonight.'

‘How dare you threaten me in my own home? I'll see you thrown out on your misbegotten ear,' Joseph blustered, but he wasn't fool enough to raise his voice above a whisper and let their dispute become public property.

Sensing extreme masculine tension, although she hadn't heard any of their actual words, Stella intervened. ‘Have you met my famous cousin, Mr Longborough? Commodore Sir Charles Afforde, lately of the Mediterranean Fleet and now of Hollowhurst Castle. And, Charles, this is Mr Longborough, elder son of the Squire and his charming lady,' she said genially, even if her eyes warned Charles that he must contain the temper, which only his close friends and those unfortunate enough to rouse it were aware he possessed, while under his
hospitable neighbours' roof. Joseph gulped and backed swiftly away, just as she'd intended.

‘Longborough,' Charles responded with a perfunctory bow.

‘An honour, Sir Charles,' Joseph managed almost convincingly. Apparently even he didn't want to carry on behaving like a boor in front of a hero of the late wars, a seasoned warrior who could outdo him on every field of arms he could think of. ‘I must greet my father's other guests,' he mumbled and stumped off to do what he'd vowed not to when his mother had asked for his support.

‘W
ell, Charles?' Stella asked ironically.

‘Not nearly as well as yourself and Miss Courland, that's very plain to see,' he replied as smoothly as if he hadn't just offered both an outright and an implicit challenge to his host's son.

‘Why, thank you, how flattering,' she returned and shifted her attention to Roxanne, who was strangely silent at her side.

‘How do you do, Sir Charles?' finally Roxanne managed in a distant voice, still reeling from that odd moment of recognition between them, the eerie feeling of being isolated with him outside reality. Something she didn't quite catch or understand had just passed between him and Joe as well, and normally she didn't like not knowing everything that was going on about her.

‘Better now,' he told her with a smile that mocked himself for once instead of her and threatened to rock
her back into the strange world they'd almost stepped into just now.

‘Good, but it's a little warm in here tonight, is it not?' she asked him, in the face of Stella's incredulous expression that told her that, while it was a noble and impressive venue for a country ball, Squire Longborough's ancestral hall was definitely
not
warm, despite the fires burning at each end.

‘I dare say it will be as soon as the dancing begins,' he replied with a look suspiciously like that a man might give when overlooking an eccentricity in a woman he respected or maybe even loved.

What a mistake it would be to sink into his subtle enchantment and believe he'd ever passionately love her. Better to remember that foolish illusion had once lit up her life with a false, glittering promise only ever alive in her imagination. He hadn't lifted a finger to draw such a silly little idiot in as she'd been then; perhaps she deserved the pain her infatuation had caused her all those years ago. Nothing was to be trusted about tonight then, least of all her senses, and Roxanne wished she'd worn her old brown velvet evening gown and not ventured into the dangerous world of fashion.

‘So may I have your dance cards, ladies?' he enquired, as if they'd been deliberately withholding them.

‘You can have Roxanne's, but I don't intend to dance,' Stella said.

‘Then I shall not, either,' Roxanne declared, deciding that would suit her very well.

‘Shall I declare my resolution to do likewise and stand out every measure with you both, like a third wallflower?' Sir Charles teased his cousin, but if Stella didn't know he was determined to see her dance despite
herself, Roxanne rather thought she didn't know him, after all.

‘You can if you like, I still don't dance,' Stella countered mulishly, and Roxanne realised she'd underestimated her. Her companion knew her cousin very well, and was determined to go her own way despite him. Admiring such stern resolution, she lifted her chin in silent support.

‘I will if you will,' he taunted softly, and Roxanne was certain something more than just the surface banter, half-serious and half in jest, was at issue between them.

‘But I've already loved and lost,' Stella argued, confirming Roxanne's conclusion that she didn't fully understand what they were arguing about.

‘Which makes you a very lucky woman. So are we three going to dance tonight or not?' he asked, with a sly, almost beseeching sidelong glance at Roxanne that seemed to hold more meaning for him and his cousin than it did for her. She held her breath while the silent debate went on, feeling excluded, wondering if she would ever know either well enough to make out what they were arguing about.

‘If you really must,' Stella finally conceded, sighing long-sufferingly as she handed over her dance card and watched him initial it.

‘Miss Courland?' he asked expectantly, once he'd handed Stella's card back to her and held out his hand expectantly for hers.

Feeling as if she was committing herself to something far more than a mere dance, she finally gave it to him, feeling disconcertingly as if a spark had leapt from his
fingertips to hers as they touched fleetingly during the transfer.

‘Two waltzes?' she protested as she received her card back so cautiously she only touched it at the opposite side to him and even then with the very tips of her fingers.

‘More would render us conspicuous,' he told her flippantly, and suddenly her palm itched for a very different reason, since she'd very much like to box his ears with it.

‘I barely know you, Sir Charles.'

‘Something two waltzes might fairly be expected to remedy, don't you agree, Miss Courland?'

‘Not in the least. I intend to save my breath for my dancing and shall use my eyes to guide my steps, this being the first time I've danced a waltz in company. It was considered scandalous hereabouts until recently, you know.'

‘And yet you still know how to dance it? How very shocking of you, Miss Courland, to have acquired such a
risqué
skill in secret.'

Wretched, wretched man, Roxanne decided, clenching her teeth determinedly to stop herself telling him exactly what she thought of him with almost half the county within earshot.

‘There is little anyone could call secret about being taught the steps by my sister's husband Tom Varleigh and their eldest daughter while my sister played for us all, especially considering my niece is but eight years of age, or have you quite forgotten her, Sir Charles?'

‘Nobody could forget little Julia Varleigh, and I certainly shouldn't dare to,' he asserted with a reminiscent
smile at the thought of the Varleighs' precocious eldest daughter; Roxanne saw it with a sinking heart.

If only he'd carried on being careless and even a little callous, distaste for such a flinty-hearted man might have built up some sort of armour about her much-tried senses. Instead, he looked like a doting uncle when he spoke of her adored niece, and she began to see that he was as capable of feeling strong affection and maybe even love as the next man—indeed, probably
more
capable than a good many careless gentlemen. How very unfair of him, she decided huffily and frowned at the monster for his failure to be one.

‘No,' Stella intervened with a significant glance at one of the local gossips who was straining every nerve to overhear as much as she could of the new owner of Hollowhurst and its dispossessed chatelaine's conversation. ‘Nobody would dare overlook my niece, and nor should they, but she's not here and you are. So are you both intent on setting the tabbies in a flutter by arguing over Roxanne's dance-card all night, or can the rest of us please get on with enjoying ourselves?'

‘Very well, but why do I have to waltz twice with Captain Afforde when there are perfectly good sets of country dances planned?' Roxanne protested querulously, much as eight-year-old Miss Julia Varleigh might at being sent off to bed on such a night and not allowed to join in, so a part of her wasn't at all surprised when the cousins exchanged rueful glances over her head.

‘Because Captain Afforde doesn't enjoy seeing his partner flirt with her host for the night in the middle of what was supposed to be their dance,' Charles informed her with a heat in his gaze that told Roxanne he was only
half-joking about her easy, joking flirtation with their host for tonight.

‘Mr Longborough was a boyhood friend of my uncle's. Indeed, he's more of an honorary uncle to me than what you vulgarly classify as a “flirt”, and his wife knows it and thinks it's as funny as the rest of us do. To imply otherwise is just stupid and crass, Sir Charles,' she accused, trying to tell herself he'd no right to unnerve her with heated looks that promised more than that swift, disturbing, overheating kiss he'd pressed on her lips the first night they met again, even if it would only be to maze her senses into getting her to do whatever he wanted.

The too-brief caress of his firm mouth on her surprised one had caused her more than enough trouble over the last few weeks, thank you very much, without adding more sleepless nights and silly daydreams to it and make her wonder even more if she'd really changed from the deluded girl who'd once thought herself so in love with him. It had all been an illusion, after all, and she had to remember that in the face of any temptation he could offer.

‘Then consider me stupid,' he replied with a wry twist of his intriguing mouth as he admitted to what she could only interpret as jealousy—but surely to be jealous he'd need to care about her in the first place? ‘Now here's your partner for the first dance come to claim you, Miss Courland, so pray recall how much you hate to be conspicuous and go and dance with the poor man, will you?' he teased.

Roxanne wondered if she'd ever understand the infuriating, intriguing man, even as she guiltily realised she didn't want to leave his side to dance with another.

‘Gladly,' she said and went to do so with a decided flounce of the whispering old-rose skirts that had given her such satisfaction when she put them on tonight. She wouldn't let his rakish tendencies spoil a special night, and she smiled and danced to such effect that Sir Charles had to fight his way through a crowd of her admirers before he could claim her for the first of those waltzes.

‘Young puppies,' he muttered under his breath when she finally tore herself away from her court, with a dazzling smile of farewell for a boy she'd known since he was in his cradle.

‘I beg your pardon?' she replied innocently enough.

‘You heard, and be very careful whom you encourage to chase after you to prove to me that I'm one of many.'

‘One of many what?'

‘You know very well, but in case you feel the need to flirt with any more schoolboys or roués to prove your point, I'll gratify your vanity by admitting to be a member of your court tonight, Miss Courland. Satisfied?'

As if she ever could be, Roxanne silently despaired, wondering if he'd known where she was during every instant they were apart as acutely as she'd been aware of
his
every move. Nothing she could find to berate herself with about feeble-minded females, who'd yearned after the impossible once and should never do so again, could cure her of being acutely conscious of Sir Charles Afforde and all that he said and did—always and, she suspected, for ever. However, she
could
conceal her
besotted state from him until he grew bored with his games and amused himself elsewhere.

‘Was I doing that?' she asked innocently, even as she felt his strength envelop her with warmth and power as he swept her on to the dance floor, and couldn't quite suppress a gasp as her body threatened to betray her.

‘Oh, yes, you definitely were,' he murmured and went some way to chilling the wildfire that threatened to eat her up as he controlled their physical reaction to each other and led her smoothly into the dance.

‘How silly of me,' she muttered darkly and risked an upward glance at his face as their bodies managed the waltz without much input from her. He looked blandly charmed by her company, on the surface. So why did she think he was less than charmed by this whole business than he pretended?

‘I don't think you silly at all,' he told her rather absently. ‘Life might be very much simpler if only I could,' he ended, as if he couldn't help himself, and then watched her with guarded, even sombre eyes.

‘Then pray feel free to do so,' she invited in a rather hollow attempt to pretend there was nothing very significant between them. ‘I'm all for simplicity, Sir Charles.'

‘Hah! If only that were true, Miss Courland, how easy this whole business would be for us to conclude.'

For some reason a shiver chilled its way down her spine, despite the warmth generated by their movements and the shockingly real feeling of his guiding hand upon her waist, his body next to hers. Such a wild mix of excitement, turmoil and apprehension he sparked in her that Roxanne almost longed to be dancing with someone
less disturbing, less masculine, less in every way than Captain, lately Commodore, Sir Charles Afforde.

‘What business?' she finally recalled her wandering wits enough to ask.

Was that a conscious, almost guilty expression that flitted so fast across his handsome face she wondered if she'd imagined it? It must be, for the next moment he assumed his familiar, cynical mask of the genial and not-often-denied rake, and she seemed a fool to herself for ever imagining he was other than as he seemed.

‘Becoming lord and master of so much history and tradition, of course, Miss Courland—your great-uncle left very large boots for a man to try to fill.'

‘That he did,' she agreed loyally, wondering if that was why Davy never seemed to feel much joy at the prospect of inheriting them.

‘And of course you have your own dubious reputation to live up to,' she half-teased and half-taunted him, then regretted wanting to do either as a flicker of what might be pain lit his suddenly expressive face, as he left himself unguarded long enough to let her see something of his innermost thoughts.

‘Of course,' he echoed with all his defences firmly back in place while he obligingly leered at her to prove it.

‘Pray try not to be any more annoying than you can help, Sir Charles.'

‘Why not? You expect so little it seems a shame to disappoint you.'

‘I could respect you,' she offered, half-seriously.

‘Don't do that, never do that,' he said so fervently that she stared full into his extraordinary eyes; she saw there such turmoil and slumbering passion that she'd
have faltered to a halt if not for his strong, steady arm guiding her so ruthlessly efficient in figures he could obviously dance in his sleep.

‘Ah…' Momentarily silenced by something glimpsed and then just as swiftly hidden again, she gathered her wits and reminded herself he was right.

By profession, he was a defender of his country, a fearless warrior with the wits and training as well as the strength to beat a cunning and determined enemy time after time. By reputation, he was a seducer of beautiful women, a cuckolder of careless husbands and a cynical manipulator of society's skewed rules that dictated a single gentleman could sow wild oats with delighted abandon, whilst single ladies must keep themselves chaste and pure and ignorant of what their potential husbands were up to. A small voice in the back of her head told her that a man about to put his life at risk so often during a distinguished but lonely command was entitled to seek comfort in a willing woman's arms, but she suppressed it ruthlessly.