The Reluctant Rake

by Jane Ashford

  “Perhaps I will, my lord,” agreed the other, “for a few hours. If you should want anything, you can always—”

  “I shall be fine. Go on.”

  Picking up the tray to return it to the kitchen, Jenkins nodded. “I’ll look in on you before luncheon, my lord.”

  Ellerton made an airy gesture. He mustn’t be too emphatic or Jenkins’s easily aroused suspicions would surface. The valet went out, and he felt some of the tension ease. That hurdle seemed safely past. He’d had Jenkins shave him, and he was fully dressed, as he always insisted on being lately. There was nothing to do now but wait for Susan to arrive, and hope that she hadn’t botched it.

  This time seemed very long to Baron Ellerton. He was accustomed to making his own arrangements and acting for himself, and in this vital matter he would have vastly preferred doing so. But as he had no alternative, he tried to school himself to patience. His success was limited. Do what he might, scenes of disaster continued to form in his brain—Jenkins discovering them as they were on the point of leaving, Susan failing to secure a carriage and avoiding telling him so, and more disagreeably, his injuries worsening irreparably because of the journey. Though he did not think the latter probable, the worry would intrude, and more than once he wondered if he was doing the right thing. But the pressure to see Georgina and settle things between them, for good or ill, was stronger than this concern. All his faculties were focused on getting to her; indeed, the one scene he did not visualize was that with her. The disaster of her refusal he could not contemplate.

  At last, after what seemed hours to Ellerton, when he looked out the window at the sound of a carriage, it was Susan, and not some unknown traveler. He saw the girl get down from a hired chaise, speak briefly to the driver, and enter the inn. He swung his uninjured leg to the floor and prepared for the ordeal of moving.

  In the next moment, Susan was looking round the door, her green eyes gleaming with mischief. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes. Is the corridor clear?” Ellerton didn’t want to meet anyone. None would oppose him like Jenkins, but there might be some dispute, and he did not wish to attract attention and the chance of someone recalling the doctor’s orders.

  Susan looked, then nodded.

  “You will have to help me. The crutches are over there.” The doctor had provided a pair of crutches, but as he had commanded they not be used for three days, they had been placed in the far corner of the room, where Ellerton could not reach them.

  Susan fetched them quickly and helped the baron lever himself up and onto them. He tried them awkwardly, nearly falling. “Here,” said Susan, “lean on my shoulder on one side. That will be steadier.”

  This worked better, and they made their way out of the parlor and into the hall, going more slowly than Ellerton would have liked. The strong wish for speed, combined with his inability to achieve it, was maddening.

  “Does it hurt?” asked Susan, betraying more worry than either of them had expected.

  “No,” lied Ellerton. In fact, his leg was signaling distress, though the pain was not enough to seriously concern him. It was hardly more than the ache in his ribs when he breathed deeply.

  They reached the front door and started outside, only to be nearly knocked over by an entering ostler. The man looked considerably startled to see Ellerton walking. The baron himself had to smile. He must look ridiculous, he realized, supported by a pair of sticks and a ravishingly pretty redhead.

  They were halfway across the innyard to the chaise when the voice of the innkeeper hailed them from behind. Ellerton cursed softly. “The ostler must have told him,” he said to Susan.

  “Sir,” repeated the innkeeper, bustling forward to them. “Should you be up and about? It seems a mite soon to be—”

  “I’m taking him for a drive,” interrupted Susan in her customary positive tone. “He needs fresh air.”

  The man looked doubtful.

  “The doctor thinks it will be good for me,” added Ellerton, silently apologizing for the lie. He liked the landlord.

  “Ah. The doctor does.” He nodded wisely. “That’s all right, then. But I hope you won’t be late, my lord. I’ve found a brace of partridges for your dinner.”

  For the first time, Ellerton realized that he would not be coming back to the inn. He would not make the journey twice, but would go on to his own London house. And it seemed ungrateful to go off this way without a word. He glanced up at the inn. All here had been very kind.

  “Is your leg hurting you?” asked Susan in a pointed tone, as if to remind him that they risked further discovery standing here.

  “Lord, yes, I shouldn’t keep you on your feet,” exclaimed the innkeeper. “Have a pleasant drive.” And raising a hand in farewell, he turned away.

  “Come on!” added Susan.

  The baron allowed her to urge him to the chaise. If his purpose was not so important…he thought, then shook off this hesitation. It was important, important enough to risk his own health. He could not be deterred by politeness.

  “Can you climb up?” said Susan.

  Ellerton looked at the chaise steps. “I shall have to,” he replied.

  But at that moment, the landlord reappeared with two of the ostlers behind him. “I don’t know what I was thinking of,” he said, and Susan and the baron froze. “You’ll never get up into that carriage alone. Jem and Bill here will lift you.”

  Susan let out her breath. Ellerton nodded. “Thank you.”

  At last they were both inside, and Susan leaned out to signal the driver. Ellerton, his injured leg propped up on the seat opposite and swathed in blankets and cushions, still couldn’t help wincing a little as they started off, but the first jerk was succeeded by a smoother movement, and he decided the bouncing would not be too bad.

  “I’ve told him to go slowly and carefully,” said Susan.

  “Thank you.” Ellerton sat back and let himself relax, for the first time at leisure to examine his surroundings. His eye fell on a basket in the opposite corner. “Is that… Tell me you haven’t brought that hellish cat?”

  As if in answer, the lid of the basket popped up and Daisy’s ginger-furred head appeared. He focused gleefully malevolent yellow eyes directly on the baron.

  Ellerton groaned.

  “Daisy is under strict orders to be good,” said Susan, fixing the cat with an admonitory glance. “But he hates being shut in the house all the time, you know.”

  “I do not understand,” answered Ellerton, “why someone, most likely your parents, has not strangled you ere this. To bring that animal, after all that has passed, it is…” He stopped, for once at a loss for words.

  “He won’t bother you,” retorted Susan. “And I don’t think you should speak to me so when I am helping you.”

  The baron looked at her, and she grimaced. He put his head back on the seat cushions and closed his eyes.

  There was a silence. Daisy could be heard emerging from his basket and establishing himself on the plush seat.

  “You haven’t told me why you must be in London,” Susan said then.

  Ellerton opened his eyes. “And I don’t intend to.”

  “I should think that after all I have done—”

  “You would be mistaken.” His tone was extremely discouraging, but Susan merely frowned and bit her lower lip in thought. Another silence fell, in which could be heard a peculiar rasping noise. “I hope you are prepared to pay for the upholstery,” added Ellerton. “Your cat is destroying it.”

  “Daisy!” Susan leaned forward and disengaged his claws from the plush. Holding them in one hand and shaking a warning finger, she said, “You will be shut in your basket if you do not stop it.”

  With every appearance of sullen rebellion, the cat subsided onto the seat. The baron suppressed a smile.

  “Where are we to take you?” asked Susan then, her voice c
arefully casual. “Your house?”

  Ellerton went very still, cursing himself for having overlooked this detail. He had to go directly to the Goring house to find Georgina, yet how could he explain this to Susan without revealing his purpose, which he absolutely refused to do. He could not even leave the girl and go on, for she lived at his destination.

  Susan was gazing curiously at him.

  “You will see when we arrive,” he responded curtly. “Now please be silent. I slept poorly, and I should like to try to make it up while we drive.”

  She obeyed, but she also smiled at her triumph over him. Where they were going would tell her a great deal about his goal, she concluded. For Susan had no intention of ending this adventure without discovering what that might be.

  Ellerton did not really expect to sleep, and he did not, though he kept his eyes closed to discourage Susan from talking. Indeed, his impatience built with every tedious mile, and he longed to command the driver to whip up his horses and return to town at the breakneck pace he had left it on that ill-omened drive that now seemed so long ago. But his leg made that impossible, and he had to endure the whole journey at a near-walk. He tried to pass the time by thinking of what he would say to Georgina, but this merely intensified his frustration, and he came close to anger at her for leaving him in the first place before he caught himself, remembering that it was his own fault.

  Finally, after what seemed an age, Susan said, “We are in town now. Where am I to direct the coachman?”

  The issue could no longer be avoided. Ellerton faced it squarely. “Your grandmother’s house.”

  She gaped at him. This was not what she’d expected. “Our house? But why?”

  Ellerton braced himself mentally. “It is very important that I speak to your cousin. She left before I could do so.”

  “But Georgina was at the inn for days.” Susan was frowning at the floor, trying to work this out.

  “Nonetheless. Will you tell the man?”

  Starting, Susan leaned out and gave the directions; then she turned back to gaze at him. “This doesn’t have anything to do with me, does it?”

  “Nothing whatsoever,” he assured her cordially.

  She abandoned her notion that he might be going to complain of her conduct to her grandmother. It had not been a satisfying theory in any case. “Why didn’t you write Georgina a letter?” she asked.

  “I wished to speak to her,” he answered, wishing fervently that the driver would go a bit faster. Only their arrival would silence her, he knew.

  Susan frowned at the floor once again. She could not imagine what important matter Ellerton would have to discuss with Georgina.

  It was at this moment that the baron was visited by inspiration. His crutches had been laid across the two seats in the middle of the carriage, where it was widest, and the tips rested very close to where Daisy curled. Glancing quickly at Susan, and seeing that she was wrapped up in her thoughts, Ellerton grinned wickedly and took hold of one crutch, unobtrusively poking Daisy sharply in the side. In the next instant, his hand was withdrawn and he was gazing innocently out the chaise window.

  Daisy reacted predictably to this insult. He sprang up and glared all around. Then, the absence of visible foes not deterring him in the least, he leapt across the vehicle to fasten his claws in the plush covering the wall between the two passengers’ heads. Yellow eyes glittering, he hung there, plotting his next move.

  “Daisy!” cried Susan.

  “Watch it,” exclaimed Ellerton at the same moment, for the cat had leapt again, coming perilously close to landing on his injured leg.

  From that point, chaos reigned. Daisy jumped from one wall to another, eluding his mistress’s furious grabs with apparent ease. Despite a number of close calls, he never hurtled out the open windows or fell to the floor, but he did jar the baron’s leg more than once, eliciting a groan and clenched teeth, along with a conviction that he had made a mistake in provoking the animal.

  At last Susan managed to throw both arms around the cat and hamper his movements with her skirts. Ellerton thought she would be scratched to ribbons, but to his surprise, Daisy did not touch her. In fact, he allowed himself to be scolded soundly and stuffed back into his basket, the lid securely fastened over his head. That accomplished, Susan sank back and let out a sigh of relief. Both of them were panting from the battle.

  “He doesn’t scratch you?” asked the baron curiously.

  “Oh, no.”

  “But why not?”

  The girl seemed surprised. “He wouldn’t.”

  “I can’t imagine that there is anything that beast ‘wouldn’t’ do.”

  Susan seemed almost shocked. “He would never hurt me. We love each other.” She paused, then added, “We are very much alike, you see.”

  That Susan should echo a conclusion he himself had reached surprised Ellerton again. He looked at her with new interest.

  But Susan had already dismissed the subject from her mind. “Are you going to tell me what you wish to speak to Georgina about?” she asked flatly.

  “No,” he replied with equal bluntness.

  “I think it is very unkind of you, after I have helped you this way.”

  “I would not have required help, if it had not been for your earlier antics.”

  This was unanswerable. Susan scowled and turned toward the window. “Here we are.”

  The chaise was indeed drawing up before Lady Goring’s house. Ellerton saw with relief that the street was empty. He hoped to make this visit quietly, though of course Lady Goring’s servants must inevitably know of it.

  “Fetch two of your grandmother’s footmen,” he said to Susan when they had come to a stop. “I fear I cannot climb down.” The jolting of the ride had made his leg feel tender and tired.

  Susan met his eyes. “What if I won’t?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What if I won’t get them—unless you tell me what you are doing here?” Her green eyes glinted.

  “Then you would be very sorry indeed,” replied Ellerton in an ominously quiet voice.

  Susan hesitated, then wrinkled her nose. “Oh, very well!” And catching up Daisy’s basket, she jumped out of the carriage. The baron let out a long sigh. He’d had no idea what he would do if she balked.

  In a few minutes, Susan reappeared with help, and Ellerton was gently lowered from the chaise and carried into the library just off the front hall. At his signal, Susan dismissed the servants. He thought she might make another attempt to pressure him when he asked her to fetch Georgina, but she did not, and shortly thereafter Ellerton heard steps approaching down the stairs and Georgina herself appeared in the doorway.

  “Baron Ellerton! What are you doing here? You should not have—”

  “I had to speak to you,” he broke in. “Please come in and shut the door.”

  Astonished, she obeyed, and outside in the hall, a slender, red-haired girl slipped down the stairs and applied her ear to the door panels.

  Eighteen

  By the time she had taken a seat opposite him, Georgina had somewhat recovered from her amazement. “You were not to travel,” she said. “Oh, I hope you have not hurt your leg. The doctor said—”

  “It couldn’t be helped,” interrupted the baron again. “It was imperative I speak to you.”

  “To me?”

  “Yes.” He had pondered his beginning, and he was prepared, indeed eager, to press ahead. “You left the inn abruptly.” She started to protest, and he held up a hand. “At my, er, instigation, I admit. Do you know why I spoke to you in that way about going?”

  Georgina shook her head. Something in his voice had made her heart begin to pound, and she was not certain she could speak aloud.

  “I was angry. You had said the previous afternoon that you were going, without a hint to me of your intentions, and that
made me very angry.” He paused. “Because I did not wish you to go, you see.”

  “I…I never meant to, really,” breathed Georgina.

  “No?” His eyes were fixed on her face.

  “No, I just…that is…” She could not explain her feelings and doubts to him. “I knew I would have to go eventually. I didn’t want to.”

  Ellerton had seen what he hoped for in her expression. “Neither of us wanted it, then,” he replied. “And why was that, I wonder?”

  The teasing note brought Georgina’s eyes to his again. She saw there everything she had wished for, and despaired of. Unexpectedly, she smiled. “Perhaps because we enjoyed each other’s company.”

  “Far more than that.” He did not smile yet. “I love you, Georgina. I realized that when you had gone. Will you be my wife?”

  She couldn’t dissemble. “Yes,” she answered, and felt as if a great bubble of joy had burst in her chest.

  “Damn this leg!” exclaimed the baron savagely, making Georgina start. “I cannot get up, you know.” His mouth twisted. “Will you come here?”

  She rose and went to kneel beside his armchair, on the side away from the footstool where his leg was propped. Her smile reappeared.

  But Ellerton’s joy in her acceptance was lost in frustration over his state. To be unable to move, to take the woman he loved in his arms, was intolerable. He felt both enraged and humiliated. “Damn!” he said again.

  Georgina did not ask him what was wrong. She knew, and knew too that speaking of it would merely make it worse. Instead, she leaned a little forward and slid her arms around his neck, bringing her face very close to his. Then, tentatively, she kissed him.

  It was not an expert kiss. Georgina had had no experience in such matters, and she was, in spite of her insight, a bit unsure of herself. But it was enough. Ellerton’s arms tightened around her, pulling her into the chair with him, and he kissed her in turn, teaching Georgina more about the subject in a moment than she had gleaned in all her years. Elated, she gave herself up to his embrace.