Harlequin Historical February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Never Trust a RakeDicing With the Dangerous LordA Daring Liaison

by Annie Burrows

  But her uncertain temper made him hesitate while he formulated the words. And when he was ready to speak, he found himself saying, ‘There is no saying anything to you tonight. You really should learn to master that temper of yours...’

  ‘And you should learn not to be so...’

  ‘So determined to have the last word?’ He reached out to run one finger down her face. ‘You won’t do so, however, because...’

  With a little cry of vexation she lashed out at him with the hand that held her fan. The flimsy weapon splintered against his forearm. In utter shock that she should have reacted so dramatically, in such a public arena, she dropped the shattered bits of wood and paper on the floor, turned on her heels and ran to seek out her aunt.

  * * *

  ‘Now I know I told you not to encourage him, my dear,’ said Aunt Ledbetter, on the way home, ‘but you really need not have carried out my advice quite so strenuously, even if he was making improper advances. Which was bound to happen eventually, with a man of his stamp,’ she finished repressively.

  ‘I know and I am sorry to have caused you embarrassment,’ she said meekly, hanging her head. ‘But nobody makes me as cross as he does. It seems that every time I meet him I act in a way that I know I should not. Yet I cannot seem to help myself. First, I—’

  ‘Threw together that dreadful ensemble, to make him regret ordering you to go out for a drive with him.’ Her aunt nodded sagaciously.

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Well, your taste was a little bit on the dull side when first you came to town, but you have always known what colours match, at least. Wearing a fox fur with a mulberry pelisse could only have been a deliberate decision to look as dreadful as you could. And, having observed the interaction between the pair of you since then, I can only conclude that...’ She paused, her face puckering into a troubled frown.

  ‘That what?’

  ‘Why, that unfortunately you appear to have fallen head over heels in love with the man.’

  ‘Oh dear. Is it that obvious?’ And how come everyone else had seen it before she had? Miss Waverley had accused her ages ago of trotting after him like a lovesick spaniel. But it had only been tonight that she’d castigated herself for behaving like a particularly well-trained dog of that specific breed.

  ‘Then it is true,’ her aunt continued in a worried voice. ‘I suppose I should have done something about it sooner, but then I have never seen anyone truly struck by the coup de foudre before. In fact, I thought it only happened in romance novels. So at first, when your reaction to him seemed to be doing you so much good, I was simply pleased for you.’

  ‘Doing me good?’

  ‘Yes. When you first came to town you were a little unsure of yourself. Instead of blossoming, you began to look downright moped. I was beginning to worry you would ask to return to Much Wakering. And then, all of a sudden, Lord Deben put a sparkle in your eyes. I know, on that first day, that it was from anger, but I thought at the time it was better to see you fire up like that than to see you dwindling from day to day into a shadow of the girl you ought to be.’

  ‘Now you see, that is what I don’t understand. He makes me so angry! Surely, if I really do love him, I should be feeling...I don’t know...sweet. And a bit soppy and melting when I see him.’

  ‘That would only be the case if he returned your feelings, my dear.’

  ‘Which he doesn’t, does he?’ When her aunt remained silent, Henrietta sighed.

  ‘It is mortifying. I hardly ever stop thinking about him, whereas he seems to regard me as an amusing diversion. It was that which made me lose my temper with him so badly tonight.’

  From the shadowy corner of the coach she heard her aunt sigh.

  ‘I should have taken steps before it came to this. I am sorry that I did not fully appreciate what was happening between you. It was only when you reacted to him with such passion, in public, tonight that I saw how very deeply your feelings run. But I should have seen.’ She clucked her tongue. ‘Wherever we go, you scan the room to see if he is there. When he is present, your eyes follow him, with your heart in them. When he beckons, you fly to him like a little homing pigeon. But the most telling thing of all is the way you have become aware of yourself as a woman.’

  ‘I have...aware of myself...?’ She could feel her cheeks heating. Though it was exactly what they had been aiming at, she asked, somewhat defensively, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It is all perfectly natural, my dear. When you fall in love, your whole body comes alive when the object of your affection is within sight.’

  ‘Oh, no...’ she groaned ‘...I never knew. I never guessed...not before tonight.’

  Her aunt leaned across the seat and patted her hand.

  ‘I can hardly criticise you for falling for him, when he has been at such pains to charm you. Rakes are very charming. It is their stock in trade.’

  ‘He has not been charming at all,’ Henrietta protested. ‘Every time we talk, we...sort of fence with each other.’ Even the time he’d kissed her, it had been a contest of sorts.

  ‘That is the way he has chosen to fascinate you. Just be thankful he did not choose another way.’

  Oh, if only her aunt knew! That kiss had been so tantalising that she was waiting with mounting frustration for the night when he might deign to whisk her away to some secluded spot and kiss her on the mouth.

  ‘At least you can walk away from him with your reputation intact, now that you realise what he is about.’

  Her spirits plummeted. ‘After the way we parted tonight, I don’t suppose he will bother with me any more.’

  ‘That would be for the best. You have several very eligible suitors dancing attendance upon you, after all. Mr Waring, for instance—what do you think of him?’

  Henrietta supposed he must be one of those younger sons who’d taken to seeking her out as a dance partner.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said with a shake of her head, ‘but I cannot even bring his face to mind. There is no point in discussing him. No point in discussing anyone, for the present. In fact, I wonder if perhaps I should just withdraw from all this,’ she said, waving her hand vaguely in the direction of the fashionable neighbourhood through which they were driving. ‘I was quite content before he, that is, Lady Dalrymple, inter—intervened.’

  ‘Absolutely not! I have already accepted several invitations which I have no intention of letting slip through my fingers. Besides, if you withdraw from public so quickly after that little incident, it will only make people think the worst. You are just going to have to weather it out.’

  Henrietta grimaced. She had agreed to go along with Lord Deben’s plan in the first place because she worried about what effect her Season in London would have on the rest of her family.

  ‘I suppose you are right. I shall attend all the events you wish me to attend, of course.’

  ‘That’s the spirit. And when you encounter Lord Deben the next time, you must exercise some restraint. If he should approach you, you must just be polite. Nothing more.’

  ‘Polite,’ she echoed. Would she be able to manage polite? She had been so used to speaking her mind with him that it would be very hard to draw back and treat him just as though he was anyone.

  But she would try. She had to try. She was already far too tangled up with him, emotionally. Perhaps this would be the way to break free of the insidious hold he had over her. If she kept on behaving politely and with distance, perhaps eventually she would start feeling polite and distant, too.

  * * *

  ‘You do realise,’ he said two evenings later, ambushing her as she exited from the ladies’ retiring room, ‘that this show of coldness on your part will only make me even more determined to storm your citadel?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Being cool and polite only had so much
effect on Lord Deben. He had blithely ignored her show of hostility on the first night after the fan-breaking incident, saying he knew she hadn’t meant it. He’d infuriated her further by saying he didn’t mind the fact she had such a temper. That she had, at least, the virtue of not being boringly predictable.

  She had listened with mounting anger at his patronising tone, thanked him politely, dropped a curtsy and beat a hasty retreat back to her aunt’s side.

  ‘I have been used to having women fling themselves at me,’ he said, sidestepping to block her progress down the corridor when she would have evaded him. ‘I have had my pick of them. Your very spirited resistance to what everyone is saying was an improper advance has apparently fired my blood. Now I must have you.’

  ‘Stop it,’ she snapped. Not only did he sound as though he was repeating the lines of one of the villains from a Covent Garden melodrama, but behind him she had just spotted two girls, who’d been about to avail themselves of the facilities, suddenly pretend they needed to adjust their hair in the mirror first.

  ‘People are watching.’

  ‘We want them to watch, don’t we?’

  ‘Not any more, no,’ she said wearily. It was impossible to hold him at arm’s length while he still thought she was playing the game. She needed to stop it, now, before she got really hurt.

  ‘You have been generous to devote so much of your time to me,’ she said firmly. ‘Particularly considering how ungracious I was about your offer to start with, but...’ It was too dangerous to continue. She rather suspected that, having experienced Lord Deben’s brand of lovemaking, she would never want any other man to touch her that way. He’d told her to watch other men’s lips and imagine what they would feel like upon her, but the only man’s lips she wanted to look at were his. Nor could she imagine anyone else being able to provoke such a response as the wild thrill that had gone through her on Lady Susan’s sofa.

  Who was she ever likely to meet with half the experience, the charm, the attraction of a Lord Deben anyway?

  Not that she could tell him why she wanted to end it. It would be mortifying to have to admit she was afraid she had fallen in love with him.

  ‘There is no need to continue. We have achieved our intended result.’

  His face closed up.

  ‘So, now that I have made you a social success, you intend to toss me aside? I have served my purpose and now you have no further use for me?’

  ‘No! It is not like that.’

  He inhaled sharply and bowed his head.

  The dread of losing her made it feel as though he’d swallowed a rock.

  It would all be much simpler if only they lived in an earlier age. An age where a man of his rank could just carry a maiden off to his castle and imprison her deep within his fortress. But it wasn’t the middle ages. This was the age of reason. He’d already seen that he would have to go about capturing in quite another way—with cunning and stealth, and subtlety. And that most potent weapon of all, the power he wielded over her body.

  He’d thought he’d been making steady progress. But now, for some obscure reason, she’d shied just when he thought she was ready to take the final hurdle.

  Before he raised his head, and looked at her again, he was careful to wipe all expression from his face.

  ‘If you have any consideration for me at all,’ he said firmly, ‘you will not end our...agreement in this way.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I have my reasons. Perhaps you can put it down to pride. Perhaps I do not wish people to think that you have rebuffed me so very finally. Do not forget, our entire relationship has been carried out in full view.’

  She’d not thought he cared what anyone thought of him. But in this matter, perhaps it was different. He had a reputation for being irresistible to women. It would dent his pride to have been found completely resistible to one such unprepossessing female, particularly since he’d gone so very far out of his usual milieu in order to appear to pursue her.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘You may choose the method of ending this charade. But please do not drag it out for much longer.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said, giving her an ironic bow. ‘You may be sure I shall bring it to a swift conclusion.’ He stepped to one side. ‘I, too, am growing impatient with things as they are.’

  She knew it. She’d known he had no real interest in her. The pain she felt as she walked away from him was so severe she wondered she could still draw breath.

  Her only consolation was that she’d been the first one to declare the end must come. He had no idea that the thought of breaking with him was tearing her apart.

  It didn’t make the pain go away.

  Chapter Ten

  By the next afternoon, Henrietta was managing to breathe remarkably steadily again. She’d scarcely slept the night before, nor been able to consume a single mouthful of food all day, but breathing—yes, she’d regained the ability to do that.

  She’d even been able to make herself presentable, come downstairs, and take part in her aunt’s At Home. At least, she’d sat and given the appearance of listening to whoever happened to be speaking to her and inserted one or two comments that didn’t seem to have been wildly irrelevant, to judge from the way they were received.

  It would get much easier to pretend she was not in pain once Lord Deben had done whatever it was he’d decided to do to bring down the curtain on their performance. Then at least she wouldn’t feel as if she was on an execution block, waiting for the axe to fall. The connection would have been severed and she could commence the process of getting over him.

  Although, she reflected, absently rubbing at her neck, getting back to anything like normal, after the association with Lord Deben had come to an end, might well prove as difficult as recovering from decapitation.

  Her full attention was brought back to the present by Warnes announcing, ‘Lady Carelyon.’

  Henrietta’s eyes flew across the room to stare at the glamorous, redheaded young woman entering her aunt’s drawing room.

  As Lady Carelyon greeted her aunt, Henrietta examined every detail of her dress, demeanour and physique avidly. She looked as though she was about the same age as Henrietta. Petite, and very pretty, although when she turned and advanced towards Henrietta, her hands outstretched, she found something about the way she was smiling rather chilling.

  ‘My dear Miss Gibson,’ she said, taking her by the hands and giving them a brief squeeze. ‘I do hope you do not mind me being so forward, but I just could not wait for an introduction to the woman who has become famous for giving my arrogant brother such a public set-down.’

  ‘You...you are Lord Deben’s sister?’

  The redhead made a moue and nodded. ‘I know, I look nothing like him. And I hope I am nothing like him either.’ She gave a theatrical shudder. ‘The cold-hearted brute.’

  It was all Henrietta could do not to gasp. She would never speak so of any of her own brothers to a perfect stranger. Not even if they were in the middle of one of their infrequent squabbles. Especially not at an At Home where everyone present could hear. It was not as if Lady Carelyon was troubling to keep her voice down, either. Why, it was almost as if she wanted everyone to know how much she disliked her brother.

  ‘Oh, dear, I have shocked you,’ said Lady Carelyon, pulling her down so that they would sit next to each other on the sofa. ‘But it is so rare to hear of any female, not related to him, who is immune to his surface charm that I was sure we should be firm friends.’

  ‘Oh, well, I...’

  ‘And I am positively scandalised by this latest display of vice on his part,’ she said as she drew off her gloves.

  ‘Vice?’

  Lady Carelyon took her hands again, in a gesture of sympathy which was completely at odds with the malicious gleam in her feline green eyes. ‘Per
haps nobody has warned you yet that he is a hardened rake. But it is obvious to those who know him well that Deben has clearly grown bored with seducing other men’s wives, now, and has progressed to attempting the virtue of innocent damsels such as yourself.’

  Henrietta gasped. What a horrid thing to say! It was bad enough that those dreadful men who’d invaded this drawing room at first had put such a vile interpretation upon their association. But this was his sister. Surely she knew him better than that?

  The gleam in Lady Carelyon’s eyes intensified. ‘I can see that I have shocked you by speaking so plainly, but somebody had to give you a warning. And I suspected you would only heed that warning if it came from such a one as I. The word is that you are a girl of much spirit. If anyone less closely related to him than I had dared to speak so, you would have sent them to the rightabout, would you not? But you won’t be angry with me, will you?’ She tipped her head to one side and widened her eyes, like a little girl pleading for a treat from the sweetshop.

  ‘You are already standing firm, according to the story that reached my ears. Yes, you have begun to take steps to repulse attentions that are becoming unsavoury to you. And I say, good for you,’ she said, patting Henrietta’s

  hand in an odiously patronising way. Just as though she were a matron of forty, not a slip of a thing scarcely older than herself.

  ‘And now I come to the main purpose of my visit,’ she said, giving Henrietta what she thought was a very sly look. ‘Once he realises you are never going to permit him to ruin you, he will be furious. For you will have made him look like a fool. And he will want his revenge. When that time comes,’ she said, leaning forwards and lowering her voice, ‘you will stand in need of friends, my girl. Or he will find some way to grind you beneath his boot heel.’

  No, he would not! He wasn’t like that. Even if Lady Carelyon was correct in thinking he was attempting to seduce her and had failed, he would never be as vindictive as she was suggesting. She only had to think of the way he’d dealt with Miss Waverley. He’d wanted to punish her, yes, but not to destroy her. And anyway, he wasn’t trying to seduce her. How could anyone believe it of him?