A Rake to the Rescue

by Elizabeth Beacon

  ‘I admit we can, but it’s not enough for you,’ he said as if the words hurt, but he was going to say them anyway.

  ‘No,’ she said bleakly. Toby’s existence meant it could not be and so did his little Angela, in her very different way.

  Magnus felt agony drive through his heart as if another bullet had slammed into him to smash it to eternity and made himself let go of another lot of hopes and dreams and step away from her. She didn’t love him and why should she? What was there to love about a man who’d deluded himself he loved Delphi for all the hopeless years she was wed to Drace? Then he let the confounded woman use him like a naive boy instead of a man who thought he knew enough to pave the world before Lady Drace taught him otherwise. He recalled the agony of knowing the woman he thought he loved was growing his child in her belly and refused to admit he had anything to do with her. And then she had taken his baby away.

  No, there was nothing to love about him, so no wonder Hetta was refusing to even look at him. She’d suppressed passionate, unconventional Hetta for far too long behind her son’s needs and her own caution. Champion had treated her like an object to be collected, then discarded, instead of a person with needs and hopes Champion had never come close to fulfilling. Of course, the real woman behind all that caution was eager to be free, to explore who she really was and what she wanted to do with a personable enough man who appealed on some level to the lovely female she was under layers of caution and lack of confidence. He was still vain enough to know there was a surface gloss to him, now he was back to his usual rude health and burnished by the summer sun. He had a vigour and youth that called to the vigour and youth in her and made her vulnerable to purely sexual attraction because she had kept it clamped down deep inside her for so long it was rebellious and looking for mischief.

  Lucky she was standing on the little hillock beyond the cover of the trees where he stood, watching her like a hungry watchdog eyeing a juicy bone it knew it could not have, when Jem tracked them both down and did his best to pretend they were not even a little bit undone by passion. Magnus noted the slight slip of fine muslin that only vaguely masked her rosy-skinned shoulders underneath it. There was a button he must have undone and she fumbled it back into place as soon as she realised she looked loose and lovely and there was a lad approaching with his best imitation of an elephant to give her time to be her proper self again. Magnus felt something twist in his belly as he recalled his own amusement when Jem had used that tactic on Wulf and Isabella to divert them from loving one another long enough to pay attention to some visitor or an urgent message he could not put off giving them any longer.

  He didn’t feel very amused now, not with Hetta looking flustered and shamed at being caught all the way out here at this hour of the day with a man who must look as if he had been ruffled by the north wind. He remembered how her hands had caressed his hair and shyly undid his shirt to find out if his masculine nipples were echoing her much richer feminine ones and why wouldn’t they when every inch of him was hard with wanting her? The memory made him smile, despite this hollow ache inside him and the dread of never being able to watch her looking slightly undone and so utterly beautiful to a would-be lover ever again. She had her back to him now, but didn’t she realise how supple and feminine and ridiculously arousing it was? Morning sun was lighting fire in her rich chestnut hair and the lightest of breezes had sprung up when the dawn was a fading memory and it was playing among the folds of her softly clinging gown as if that was all it was born for.

  He gloated over the memory of her every hesitant touch and murmur of feminine appreciation as she let her hands rove over his body. At least he was fit and well muscled again after a summer of riding and self-denial.

  No, remember how she flinched when you called a halt, Magnus, and of course she doesn’t love you.

  He shifted away from the tree he had been leaning against, smoothed his hair and straightened his waistcoat, then buttoned his shirt far enough to nigh strangle him. He hated the confinement of a stock and cravat now, after years of believing they were an uncomfortable necessity for a man of fashion. In many ways he was a changed man, but how dearly he wished he had changed in time to win the respect of a woman he wanted to love. She would wave it away as the easy words of a man of light mind and elastic conscience and she had already wed one rogue, so why would she waste the pent-up passion and glory of the real Hetta on another?

  ‘Sir Hadrian Porter has sent a messenger,’ Jem explained rather breathlessly, his eyes on the horizon in case they had not finished being embarrassed by the sensual tension Magnus could almost taste in the air.

  ‘What did he say?’ Magnus asked wearily, turning his back on the temptation of Hetta standing not ten yards away so he could at least try to think about someone else.

  ‘To expect three for lunch in the parlour and a dozen or more in the kitchen,’ Jem told him concisely. Sir Hadrian must have decided to bring this business to a head even before the attack on the way here, then. He could not know about their latest near-disaster yet, could he?

  ‘We had better not waste any time in making the house fit to welcome more visitors even if he brings a murderer with him. I can see no other reason for Papa to come here except to tell us who killed your father,’ Hetta told Magnus coolly.

  He would argue, if only Sir Hadrian appreciated what a unique daughter he had and valued her properly. The man had abandoned her to his stony mother when she was grieving for her own mother, then manipulated Hetta when she’d tracked him down with Toby still a babe in arms. Magnus felt his fists tighten and ordered himself to relax and let the mature and headstrong Hetta order her own future. He had no right to snatch a part in it. ‘I don’t know why he had to drag whoever did it all this way,’ he said.

  ‘And I don’t want you caught up in your father’s murder again,’ she said as if he was yet another of her responsibilities.

  ‘Afraid I killed my father in my sleep?’ he drawled, but he had to divert her somehow.

  ‘No, but you were there that night and I don’t want you accused by mistake,’ she disarmed him by admitting.

  ‘I thought you trusted your father to get to the truth?’

  ‘I do, but I don’t trust those who employ him not to do what is expedient rather than what is right if he doesn’t find it soon enough—they are politicians after all.’

  ‘Your father will drive them to wherever he wants them to go.’

  ‘All right, then, be stubborn. Put all your faith in him. But don’t expect me to break you out of jail if you turn out to be wrong.’

  ‘Don’t you fancy being a criminal’s moll, then, Mrs Champion?’

  ‘No, I don’t have any acting talent.’

  ‘Flaunt that figure you take such pains to hide and my jailers will be putty in your hands,’ he told her with a leer to demonstrate he had noticed every one of her feminine assets.

  ‘You can get on and rescue yourself for that, Magnus Haile.’

  ‘They will have to catch me first,’ he said modestly and grinned as if he was still his old carefree self and his heart wasn’t aching at the gap between her and her father, but at least she forgot to worry about him in her haste to get everything perfect for Sir Hadrian’s visit and whatever strange visitors he brought with him.

  She marched back to the house with Jem in tow to organise hospitality for an unknown mix of visitors plus one murderer. She cared enough to want him safe and that counted for something. Perhaps he wasn’t as hopeless as he thought and the dangerous tug of her one day seeing past his affair with Delphi and lack of any noticeable purpose in life before his father’s death whispered there might be hope for him after all. One day, if he worked hard enough.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Despite staff falling over one another all morning to make the old house even more immaculate and ready for visitors than usual, nothing prepared Magnus for the sight of his elder siste
r-in-law’s ponderous travelling carriage lumbering up the drive. Constance, Lady Carrowe, had brought three grooms and half-a-dozen outriders with her, but Magnus thought a highwayman watching for a chance to rob would be more intimidated by the closed coach with some very alert guards that followed her swaying monstrosity up the long drive. Sir Hadrian waited until Connie had gone in, amid as much fuss as she could make to remind the world she was a reigning countess, then jumped down from the anonymous-looking vehicle to bustle a cloaked and hooded figure inside before anyone could see more.

  ‘I refuse to be put off or left behind or lied to one more time,’ Connie told whoever was listening with a stubborn tilt to her chin as she swept into the drawing room as if she owned it.

  ‘But you could easily have miscarried, jaunting about the country for days on end to find me, my love,’ Gresley protested weakly.

  ‘I am perfectly well, despite the fact you are always dashing about the country and not telling me why and that would wear on any wife’s nerves, let alone mine. I know you have a mistress, Gresley, so don’t try to deny it. When I think of all the reasons you came up with why I could not go to London or Leicestershire with you, or the times you stopped away without saying where you were going, I would be a fool not to realise. I won’t be made a mockery of any longer.’

  ‘Dash it, no. That’s not why I...’ Gresley’s voice tailed off and he looked so hunted Magnus almost felt sorry for him, then recalled his suspicion Gresley was wrapped up in their father’s murder and doing his best to deflect blame and hardened his heart.

  ‘While I have to wish her ladyship had not come so far in her condition, I have to agree it is high time your wife knew the truth, Lord Carrowe,’ Sir Hadrian said sternly.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Connie said as if she really meant it. ‘This latest disappearance was the final straw and I refuse to be kept in the dark any longer.’

  ‘I think you showed great strength of character to come all this way in a delicate state of health, your ladyship,’ Hetta intervened before Connie had hysterics.

  ‘I am quite robust after the first few months,’ she admitted, and since his sister-in-law usually played on her sufferings for the Haile succession, Magnus knew she was truly anxious about what Gresley had been up to behind her back this time.

  ‘You must have had a long and weary journey and even the most robust of us get tired at times like this.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Champion. My husband wants me to turn round and go home, but I must know what has been going on.’

  ‘I agree, but why not let me call for your maid to accompany you to a quiet room I prepared for visitors to wash off their dust and maybe even change into a fresh gown after such a tedious journey? You will feel so much better and I will make sure the gentlemen do not begin without you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Connie said as if she was truly grateful.

  ‘She would come,’ Gresley said helplessly when even the sound of his wife’s silk skirts was lost behind a stout oak door.

  ‘She is your wife, Gres. Her father-in-law met a grisly end and she has a right to hear the truth,’ Magnus told him and wondered who Sir Hadrian was hiding behind another door along that hallway guarded by two of the armed men.

  Gresley looked unconvinced. ‘Why?’

  ‘We can’t hold the line as a family if she doesn’t know where it is,’ Magnus said impatiently. Had his elder brother always been this irritating?

  ‘Why is Mrs Champion here, then?’ Gres objected as if she could not hear a few feet away in a room that suddenly felt small with so many uneasy people in it.

  ‘Speaking for myself, as I am wont to do nowadays, my lord, I believe I need to hear this tale since someone has chosen to involve me in it whether I want to be or not,’ Hetta told him with a challenge in her steady gaze he did not meet for long.

  ‘Sir Hadrian has come to give his conclusions about the old Earl’s murder, so you had best not be rude to Mrs Champion if you want to know what they are,’ Magnus told his brother severely, and Gres could hardly admit the last thing he wanted was the truth coming out, so he subsided into sulky silence.

  Connie bustled back into the room and, since Magnus had never known her to change in less than an hour, at least she was eager to hear the truth. ‘You can have the joint stool, Gresley. We can’t wait while you send for a seat more befitting an earl,’ she told her husband when he stood up to give her his chair, then looked round for something more suitable for his lordly backside.

  ‘You like me to consider my state,’ he protested as he lowered himself in more ways than one.

  ‘Not today,’ his wife snapped. Magnus wondered if she shared his suspicions about Gres and pitied her if they were right.

  ‘If we can proceed?’ Sir Hadrian queried mildly.

  ‘Not much choice,’ Magnus thought he heard Gresley mutter into his wine.

  ‘Be quiet, Gresley,’ his wife ordered sharply.

  ‘It seemed better to meet here rather than in London,’ Sir Hadrian went on, ‘but we have a deal to do next, so I shall be brief.’

  ‘Good. Need to get back to Exeter in time for dinner,’ Gresley grumbled as if food was the most important thing on his mind. Magnus doubted it from the hunted look he cast about the room as if looking for possible lines of escape.

  ‘Then first I must say the last Lord Carrowe’s murder could have been solved straight away if I could have visited the scene before it was cleaned. Still, at least I was given a good description of it by Dowager Lady Carrowe’s housekeeper.’

  ‘Peg insisted on cleaning the Red Room herself,’ Magnus explained to Hetta. ‘She said the girls should not have to and I was miles away and ill. She would not allow an outsider in to gossip about the horror of it to anyone who would listen, so we Hailes owe her a great deal.’

  ‘I don’t see why. She is only a servant,’ Connie said haughtily and reminded Magnus he didn’t like her.

  ‘It was a great help to hear a concise and intelligent description of how the room was before she cleaned,’ Sir Hadrian said. ‘And a drawing of his late lordship’s wounds was made by the Coroner’s Clerk, so it was clear from the outset two people were involved.’

  Connie gasped at the thought of two murderers running wild in a house her husband now owned, however little she intended setting foot in it. Magnus recalled finding the old man’s bloody corpse and wondered if he would ever get the image of his father lying in his chair horribly murdered out of his nightmares.

  ‘I believe the late Earl may have already been dead when the second actor arrived and attempted to confuse the issue,’ Sir Hadrian continued.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Connie whispered as if news of that second person confirmed her worst fears and Magnus hoped that was all he was. He preferred Gres as sideshow rather than the main act.

  ‘Why should you, my lady? But now we must establish the order of things before I propose a logical solution to your family mystery.’

  ‘It was footpads. Any fool in London could have broken in and killed him,’ Connie insisted as if she suddenly didn’t want to know the truth after all.

  ‘Yet any fool in London would know there was nothing left worth killing for, as the last Earl of Carrowe had sold it before they got there.’

  ‘There are a lot of fools in London,’ she insisted doggedly and Magnus pitied her for the long, shocked stare she gave Gresley’s now ashen face.

  ‘Not many who would break into a ruinous old house in the little hours for not much return, Lady Carrowe, and it must have been hard for a lady to go there at dead of night.’

  ‘Ridiculous. A woman would not have the strength for such a vile act,’ Connie insisted as if she might be accused of doing it herself if she didn’t find good reasons why not.

  Magnus supposed anyone who lacked this horrible whisper of suspicion he had might suspect Connie of enough ruthless ambition
to kill her father-in-law before he landed the earldom in such debt even her vast fortune could not pull them out of River Tick. He might think so even now if she was a good enough actor to disguise her guilt if she stole down to London one dark night to stick a knife in the man who stood between her and a countess’s coronet.

  ‘You would be surprised what a lady can do if she is driven hard enough, Lady Carrowe,’ Sir Hadrian said coolly. ‘But it is high time you knew who did it,’ he added and went to the door to signal his taciturn henchmen to bring in the prisoner.

  ‘Delphi?’ Magnus’s exclamation was drowned out by Gresley’s moan of protest and Connie’s gasp of horror.

  ‘Careless of you to get caught,’ Hetta said as if she wasn’t surprised.

  Lady Drace looked as coolly composed and pointed at Connie. ‘She wanted to be a countess so badly she would have killed her own mother. I don’t know why any of you are looking at me as if I did it.’

  ‘You know perfectly well Lady Carrowe did not kill the late Earl,’ Sir Hadrian told her sternly. ‘You have had plenty of time to consider your position on the way back here, Lady Drace. Do you really think there is any point in this charade?’

  ‘Your pride will not allow you to admit you failed, Sir Hadrian, so any poor creature will do for you to land a dreadful crime on and you prove it by picking on me.’

  ‘No, I seek the truth.’

  ‘Then don’t look at me,’ Delphi said and Magnus groaned on her behalf because she didn’t seem able to hear the double meaning in her own words even now she had said them.

  ‘Did you leave the country to evade justice?’ he asked and, since she refused to meet his gaze, he concluded she did. ‘Then what possessed you to return?’ he added when her silence gave her away.