The Reluctant Rake

by Jane Ashford

  Had he been less exigent, Sir Richard might have simply agreed. But he was unused to being ordered about by anyone, still less by Dora Hanlon’s nephew. “If she has chosen to leave the shelter I attempted to provide—” he began.

  “She doesn’t know what she’s about, man,” said Shea. “Likely, she’s fallen into the hands of some plausible rogue.”

  “Like you?”

  “Not like me,” said Shea through gritted teeth. “I would never—”

  “She’s run away before,” interrupted Sir Richard.

  “You’re throwing her back in the gutter, then?” The other man’s voice had gone cold.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You plucked her out on a whim, and now you’re tossing her back. What do you care?”

  Sir Richard’s lips drew tight. “May I remind you that Bess rejected my help? I sought to do her a good turn, and she would have none of it. From the beginning. There is no question of ‘tossing her back.’ I resent your tone, Shea.”

  Michael Shea put a hand to his forehead. “You’re right. I apologize. I was overhasty. But you will search for her, won’t you? I’ve looked in all the streets around the cottage.”

  “I’ll send some men out to inquire, but London is a big place.” Sir Richard shook his head. “I don’t know what else I can do.”

  Michael Shea hesitated, then gripped his cane so tightly his knuckles whitened and turned away. Sir Richard felt an uncomfortable pang of concern when he was gone. He gave the order for a search, and called for his horse.

  * * *

  Not twenty miles from Sir Richard’s comfortable house, Bess Malone lay curled on a hard, narrow bed, drifting in and out of a frightening dream and moaning at intervals. In lucid moments, she would struggle to sit up and seek some avenue of escape, but the dream would surge back when she moved and push her down again.

  There had been some drug in her dinner, she knew. She had been in a fine rage when she recovered from the blow her kidnappers had dealt her and found herself in a swiftly moving carriage with no way to get out. She had fought them with all her might when they forced her into this house. One of them wouldn’t open his left eye yet a while after the scratch she had given him. But they were two big men, and she had been overwhelmed and locked in this windowless room, bare of anything that might aid her.

  Still, when the knock finally came, Bess crouched, ready to spring on her captors once more. However, it swung open to reveal the nobleman she had met in the park, in full evening dress, and both his social position and the look on his face intimidated her. When he offered his arm and told her to come to dinner, she went. It wasn’t until the second course that she began to feel odd and to realize that he had drugged her. This brought back her anger, and she had leapt up and accused him. He had merely laughed, and when she flew at him, stumbling a little from the drug, he had held her off at arm’s length, his fingers biting cruelly into her upper arms, and laughed again. Like a devil, it seemed to Bess.

  He enjoyed leaving marks on her pale skin, she realized. He liked resistance, too. He taunted her to encourage it. But at last, when it had come to the moment, he’d wanted her broken and docile, and she wasn’t. So he called for more of whatever they had given her and forced her to take it in water. After that, everything dissolved in the phantasmagoria that still tormented her now. The second dose of the drug faded very slowly and erratically.

  At last, in a more lucid interval, Bess heard a rattle and saw a tray being slid through a special hinged panel at the bottom of the door. It held coffee and bread and butter, and she fell from the bed trying to reach that delicious smell. Lying on the dirty wooden floor, Bess felt tears come. She wanted the coffee so, but she couldn’t stand, or even crawl.

  With a gigantic effort, she began to pull herself along the floor, inch by inch, dizziness threatening every move. It was hunger, she told herself fiercely, for she had lost her dinner soon after eating it. She would feel much better when she had eaten. And then she would think of a way to kill the despicable Lord Fenton.

  * * *

  It was a late spring day with a fresh breeze, and fashionable London had turned out in the park. Low-sprung barouches and high-perch phaetons dotted the landscape, along with riders and walkers. It was a pretty sight, though Sir Richard found his progress impeded by the necessity of responding to greetings and salutes from all sides. In his present mood, he found this dawdling gait frustrating, and he was relieved when he saw Julia Devere and her mother approaching in their elegant carriage. He pulled his horse’s head around and moved toward them, his pulse speeding up in anticipation.

  Julia’s heart had begun to pound some minutes before, when she had noticed him across the grass. The sight of his broad shoulders and handsome blond head had first thrilled her, then made her miserable again.

  Julia had been racking her brain for a plan since the ball and had come up with nothing. Her feelings hadn’t changed. She was still angry and still determined to win Richard back from his hussy of a mistress. But she had no idea how to go about it. She had a vague notion that a woman such as her rival had many unfair advantages. She could offer enticements that Julia could not even imagine. She could lure him and bewitch him. Julia had no experience of such things and would not, she told herself haughtily, stoop to them if she did. Would she? What about kisses? She’d gladly offer those. But how to find an opportunity? She felt helpless, and yet absolutely determined to do something.

  As Sir Richard greeted them now, all thoughts went out of her head. His presence increased her pulse and her outrage. That he could look just as before, after what had passed between them, seemed unbearable.

  He chatted easily with her mother, but Julia could feel his eyes on her. Perversely, she turned her head away and watched the passing carriages. Let him speak, she said to herself; I shan’t be first.

  “You are looking particularly lovely today, Julia,” said Sir Richard.

  Julia glanced down at her gown of thin, white muslin sprigged with two shades of green and trimmed with knots of green ribbon. It was new, and she had fallen in love with it the moment she saw it. “This dress makes me look positively hagged,” she answered.

  Both of the others protested. Julia shrugged, and wondered why she was being a fool.

  Before the conversation could continue, they were interrupted by another rider who pulled up beside Sir Richard, greeted him, and nodded to the ladies. It was Lord Fenton.

  Julia and Lady Devere turned their heads away, both now pretending great interest in the passing scene. Lord Fenton was not the sort of man they acknowledged, though neither had quite the temerity to order their coachman to drive on. He was, after all, an earl.

  It was not Lord Fenton’s habit to force himself on such a fusty group. He found people like the Deveres a dead bore. And up until recently, he had felt the same about Sir Richard Beckwith, until he had appeared at the Chaos Club and snatched Bess from under his nose. They were now, in Lord Fenton’s mind, sporting rivals, and his desire to gloat overrode his customary discretion.

  “Beckwith,” he said with a false joviality. “Fine day.”

  Sir Richard, his mind wholly occupied with Julia, merely wished him away.

  “Good to be outdoors,” Fenton added. “I suppose you’ve been spending a great deal of time indoors lately.” His emphasis of the word was unmistakably risqué, but the only member of his audience who caught it was Julia, sensitized by her hours of brooding in the last few days.

  “And how is our mutual friend?” asked Lord Fenton. Frustrated by his quarry’s lack of response, he was becoming reckless.

  The direct question finally penetrated Sir Richard’s preoccupation. “Friend?” he echoed.

  “Indeed. Such a charming young…person.” Lord Fenton’s tone was poisonous.

  Richard blinked. He couldn’t believe Fenton was speaking so. He had to get
rid of the man before Julia caught his innuendo.

  He was too late. Julia’s pale green eyes were glittering with rage and humiliation, and her cheeks glowed with an unaccustomed brilliance. “We should be going, Mama,” she said, as if no one else were present.

  Lady Devere agreed, eager to leave the vicinity of Lord Fenton. She gave the order, and the barouche started to move forward.

  Sir Richard’s expression satisfied Lord Fenton. A thin smile crossed his face as Sir Richard pulled his horse’s head around and followed the carriage.

  “Julia,” he said as he trotted along beside it, “I must speak to you.”

  Julia was choking with rage. She started to refuse, and then was overwhelmed by a wave of anger. “Very well,” she snapped. “Stop, Edward.” The coachman pulled up at the edge of the drive. “We will walk a moment,” declared Julia, opening the carriage door unassisted. “I will be right back, Mama.” She strode onto a graveled path.

  Sir Richard could only swing down from his horse and hurry to catch up with her. Julia strode along the grass border as if marching on parade, her chin high, her eyes straight ahead.

  “Julia…”

  “I agreed to walk only because I must tell you something,” she interrupted. “Our engagement is at an end.”

  “What?”

  “I am breaking it off. I cannot marry you.”

  “But…” Sir Richard strove for composure. This was down to Bess, he knew, and he determined to tell her the whole story no matter how it might embarrass them both. “You must let me explain. I know you’ve heard gossip, but it isn’t true.”

  “I saw you,” replied Julia. She turned on her heel and rushed back to the barouche. Sir Richard caught up as she was climbing in again. “We can go home now, Edward,” she said.

  “We must talk this over,” insisted Beckwith. “I will call.”

  “There is nothing to discuss. I shan’t be at home to you.”

  “Julia!”

  But the barouche had started moving. Sir Richard stood watching it wend its way among the press of vehicles, a cold like ice forming around his heart, oblivious to the stares of passersby.

  Nine

  Sir Richard called at the Deveres’ after dinner that evening and was told they were out. As the upstairs windows were all dark, he was forced to believe this, but he was on the doorstep as early as possible the next morning asking for Julia.

  “Miss Devere is not at home, sir,” replied the footman.

  From the look on his face, Sir Richard could tell that Julia was within, but refusing to see him. He considered knocking the servant to the floor and fighting his way to her, but even in his current state, he was not quite ready to take such a step. Instead, he said, “Is Sir George in, then?”

  “I will inquire, if you would care to step into the study, sir.”

  He paced the small room for what seemed a long time before Julia’s father appeared.

  “Richard, my boy,” was his greeting, with outstretched hand. “I’ve been trying to persuade Julia to come down, but it’s no good. What have you two been quarreling about?”

  He spoke so lightly and jovially that Richard took heart. Perhaps things weren’t so serious after all. Perhaps his life’s happiness was not being torn from him forever. He would tell Sir George the whole story, and let him speak to Julia. But when he met Devere’s wide, china-blue eyes, he couldn’t begin. Sir George would not approve of what he’d done. Indeed, he would not comprehend why Richard had thought of entering a place like the Chaos Club. He would vow that he was as willing to help the poor as anyone, but a girl who set out to sell herself? Sir Richard could see him shaking his head and pursing his lips judiciously.

  “A misunderstanding,” he said. “There was a girl. Julia thought… But it was nothing. I give you my word.”

  Sir George did purse his lips. “Now, my boy, I know Julia. Eh? Most even-tempered girl—child and young lady—I’ve ever seen. But here she is bursting into tears, insisting we leave for home this instant, railing at her mother and me one minute and refusing to speak to us the next. Doesn’t sound like nothing. Eh? Not with Julia. Some women, yes. Act you a Cheltenham tragedy about an overcooked roast. But not my Julia.”

  “She is mistaken. She doesn’t understand.”

  “Well, you explain whatever it is to me, and I’ll put it right.”

  Sir Richard tried to think how to begin. With his outrage at the idea of a young girl being sold to some bored man of wealth?

  “I should tell you,” added Sir George when he didn’t speak. “An old friend came to us with some story about you. We didn’t heed it at the time, but now…” He looked grave. “Don’t tell me it is true, Richard. I told our friend it was preposterous to think of you involved with some…girl of the streets.”

  And so it was, thought Sir Richard. That was why he had made such a mull of it.

  “Won’t you assure me it was a lie?” asked Julia’s father.

  “The story was distorted,” he replied. “I was trying to help the girl. She had no idea what the Chaos Club—”

  “The…” Sir George looked as if he might explode. “You are a member of that place?”

  “Of course I am not!”

  His tone was so emphatic that he pulled Sir George up short.

  “I heard talk of what was to go on there, and I went to stop it. That is all.”

  “But this girl?”

  “I set out to help her. To find her some…respectable employment.” The phrase made Sir Richard want to hit something by this time. “She didn’t care to be a servant. I was trying to find an alternative when she ran away. I had no other…connection with her whatsoever.”

  “Huh.” Julia’s father appeared to be thinking. “Well, I trust your word. Wouldn’t want to try such a thing myself,” he concluded finally. “I mean, plenty of unfortunates in other places, eh? Help some of them.”

  “Believe me, should a charitable impulse ever strike me again, I shall!”

  Sir George sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. Tell my wife, and let her speak to Julia. But I can’t promise she’ll listen. I’ve never seen her like this.”

  “If I could just see her.”

  Devere shook his head. “She won’t come down. And I won’t have her forced. Come back tomorrow, and we’ll see.”

  “I can come this evening,” urged Sir Richard.

  “No. Tomorrow. Give her some time to cool down, my boy. Always best in these sorts of wrangles. Take my advice.”

  What could he possibly know about it, wondered Sir Richard bitterly, with his unruffled domesticity and his blameless life. But he couldn’t argue any more with Julia’s father. “Very well,” he said.

  “Good lad.” Sir George clapped him on the shoulder. “It will all work out for the best, you’ll see.”

  With something close to despair on his handsome face, Beckwith took his leave. He spent the rest of the day trying to run away from himself. But through a bruising ride on the north road, several tankards of ale at midday, and rather more wine with his dinner, his gloomy thoughts remained with him.

  When night closed in and he retired to the library, he ordered brandy. His mother and brother were out, and the silence of the place weighed on him as it never had before.

  Thomas came home some hours later and found his brother in a very uncharacteristic state of inebriation. He eyed him with concern. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” replied Richard in a flat, dead voice. The brandy had finally stopped the endless rehashing of his dilemma in his brain, and he had no intention of starting it up again.

  Thomas came in and sat down opposite. “I can see that there’s—”

  “I told you,” roared Richard. “Nothing!”

  Tom sat for a moment in stunned silence. His brother seemed a stranger all at once. He frowned as he watched
Richard refill his brandy glass with a hand that wavered back and forth, spilling brandy on the tabletop. Richard didn’t even like brandy.

  Something dreadful must have happened. Thomas leaned back a bit, trying to appear relaxed, and poured himself a bit of brandy. “I saw something odd tonight,” he said. His brother did not reply. “That Irish fellow who called on you, the one with red hair, I saw him at a gaming club with Lord Charles Wearingham.”

  There was still no response.

  “Quite thick, they were. Wearingham had been losing again, of course. He always does lose. And the redheaded fellow was helping him drown his sorrows. What’s his name, anyway?”

  “Who?”

  “Red-haired man who called here for you. Well set up. Clothes a bit flashy.”

  “Shea,” muttered Sir Richard. “M-Michael Shea. Nephew of Dora Hanlon.”

  “Hanlon? The gardener?”

  His brother nodded and gazed into his glass. He didn’t want to think about Dora Hanlon.

  “What can he have been doing in that club?” Thomas looked perplexed. “Roger Preston said he’d seen him around there before, too. Odd.”

  Sir Richard shrugged. He had no time for puzzles other than his own tonight.

  Thomas yawned and stretched rather ostentatiously. “It’s late. Shall we go upstairs?”

  “You go on.”

  “Come along. You’ll fall asleep on the table in a moment.”

  “I said—” But before Sir Richard could finish his sentence, a loud pounding began on the front door, reverberating in the hall like a giant’s drum.

  “Good God,” said Thomas. “What the devil’s that?”

  His brother got unsteadily to his feet. “Go see.” Tom caught his elbow to steady him, and they went to the door together. A half-dressed footman met them in the hall, pulling on a shirt. “Never mind. Go back to bed,” said Sir Richard, his voice a little slurred. The servant stared.

  “Go ahead,” added Thomas, cursing their luck. The whole staff would be chattering tomorrow about their master’s drunkenness.