‘Ross will help me-’ she began.
Richard shook his head. ‘Ross cannot prevent your father from forcing you to stay in Bath, nor can he prevent him marrying you off if he so chooses. I can.’
Deb closed her eyes. She knew that he was right. If she arrived at Walton Hall with some nonentity of a man or, worse still, alone, there would be no one to stand between her and a betrothal to her cousin.
‘Papa is not cruel,’ she said, thinking of her father and wanting Richard to understand. ‘It is merely that he is not accustomed to opposition and he wants to see me safely married off. None of the others-Liv, Michael, Guy-has ever done anything to thwart him…’
‘You do not need to explain to me,’ Richard said swiftly. ‘I understand.’ He smiled at her. ‘Is it agreed, then? Are we betrothed?’
Deb looked at him. Betrothed to Lord Richard Kestrel. She was not sure if she was mad or dreaming.
‘We are betrothed,’ she confirmed, adding hastily, ‘temporarily.’
Richard’s smile made her feel warm deep in her bones. ‘Temporarily,’ he said. ‘Of course. May I kiss my fiancée?’
‘No!’ Deb said. She felt a little panicked. ‘Before we go any further, my lord, there are a number of conditions I should like to clarify.’
‘Of course.’ Richard sat down on the bench again and drew her down beside him. He sounded obliging, but Deb had the impression that her difficulties might start right here.
‘There is to be no kissing or intimate behaviour,’ she said, ‘unless-’ She stopped, appalled at the way her thoughts had almost run away with her tongue again.
Richard was looking very interested. ‘Unless?’ he queried softly.
Deb fidgeted. ‘I was going to say…unless we are required to give each other a chaste kiss on the cheek to maintain the fiction.’
‘You were not going to say that,’ Richard said. ‘You were going to say something along the lines of unless you change your mind.’
Deb stared at him, shocked by his perception. Did she wear her emotions on her face, that he was able to read her so easily? Or was it that he was so instinctively attuned to what she was thinking that he knew it almost before she did? Either way it was not a reassuring thought.
‘I have other conditions,’ she said, thinking it safer to ignore his remark. She saw him raise his brows sardonically, as though he were prepared to let it pass-for now.
‘Please continue,’ he said.
‘You must be guided by me.’ Deb looked at him. Even as she spoke she could sense his instinctive resistance. This man would make his own decisions. He might be influenced, but he could never be coerced. She moderated her tone. ‘I hope that you will defer to me on all matters relating to my family, where I have the greater knowledge.’
This time he nodded, to her immense relief. ‘That seems sensible.’
Deb took a careful breath. ‘It is also to be understood that our engagement lasts only for the duration of the visit to Bath. After that, it is over.’
This time Richard laughed. ‘We shall see,’ he said.
Deb shot him a suspicious look. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You might find that by then that you do not wish our engagement to be at an end,’ Richard pointed out.
His arrogance took Deb’s breath away.
‘I do not think that there is any likelihood of that,’ she said stiffly.
Richard shrugged, as though he knew better. Deb’s temper fizzed. Taken all in all, the response to her conditions had not been all that she would have wished.
‘I have some prerequisites of my own,’ Richard said. ‘I will escort you back to Ross now and I shall call on you tomorrow to discuss this further.’ He did not wait for her reply. ‘We are to announce our engagement immediately after that. And we are to spend the next few weeks furthering our acquaintance, so that when we travel to Bath, no one will be in any doubt that we are genuinely in love.’
Deb stared. She had not been expecting this.
‘I cannot accept that,’ she said, her throat tight. ‘There is no requirement for us to appear to be in love! Marriages are made for plenty of other reasons.’
‘Not this one,’ Richard said.
‘Why not?’
Richard held her gaze. ‘Because it is important that you convince people you are in earnest. Your father might well force you to break the engagement if he senses you are halfhearted about it.’ He took her hand. ‘Trust me. It will not be so bad, Deborah.’
‘What, to pretend to be in love with you?’ Deb felt extremely hot and bothered. She scrambled to her feet to put some distance between them. ‘It is impossible that I should do such a thing!’
An expression crossed Richard’s face, so fleeting she wondered if she had imagined it and when he spoke there was nothing but faint amusement in his voice.
‘Why so?’
‘Because I…’ Deb flailed around as she tried to explain herself. ‘It is dangerous…’
‘In what way?’
Deb could see the trap yawning at her feet. She prevaricated. ‘I am not very good at acting.’
‘Then do not act,’ Richard said. ‘I am sure we may be convincing, nevertheless.’ He got up in a leisurely fashion and, before Deb could move, his arms went about her and his lips came down on hers in an embrace that, despite its brevity, lit a sharp flame all the way through her body.
He let her go a second later. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, amusement in his voice. ‘I could never keep any promise not to touch you, Deborah, though I do swear not to do anything that you do not want.’ He stepped back. ‘The decision must be yours. If you can accept me on my terms…then I am yours to command.’
Deb’s heart was beating rapidly. Although her mind was telling her that she was about to commit another impulsive act of folly, she knew her decision was already made. She had no real choice.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I accept your offer and I thank you for helping me, my lord.’
Richard’s transforming smile took her breath away. ‘Then you are welcome, Deborah. Do you think that you might call me Richard, though? You will give the game away if you persist in addressing me as “my lord”.’
Deb nodded. ‘I can try. It feels…unfamiliar.’ It was not the only thing that felt strange. The whole situation felt shaky and perilous. She was conscious of Richard watching her, a slight frown on his brow.
‘Is something else troubling you, Deborah? You seem very tense.’
Deb hesitated. ‘I feel very nervous,’ she said.
‘Of me?’ Richard’s expression was unreadable.
‘Of our situation.’ Deb’s gaze faltered as it met his. ‘I know that I should not say this,’ she said. ‘It is scarce modest in me, but I cannot be coy…’
Her voice wavered at the tenderness she saw come in to Richard’s face. He waited.
‘You were correct before,’ she said, in a rush. ‘I wish to keep my distance from you because I like you. I told you when we met here by the river-’ Her breath caught. ‘I like you, Richard Kestrel, but you are dangerous to me and this masquerade of ours…’ her gaze touched his ‘…this just makes you more dangerous still. I must be monstrous foolish to allow you so close when you have a reputation for being the greatest rake between here and London and when it seems…’ she sighed ‘…it seems that I cannot resist you.’
Once again she saw the flare of emotion in his eyes and felt her heart rate increase by several notches. What might have happened she could not say, but then Richard turned his head sharply, and over his shoulder she saw that Ross was approaching.
‘A reprieve,’ Richard said as he took her hand. ‘Ross is coming to rescue you.’
Deb shrank. She wondered just how much Ross had seen of their recent encounter. ‘I had no notion our half-hour had expired.’ Her hand clung to his. ‘I do not quite know what to tell him about this.’
Richard kissed her fingers. ‘I shall speak to him tonight. And I shall call upon you tomorrow.’ He smi
led at her. ‘Good day, Deborah.’
Feeling strangely shaky, Deb watched him go. He shook hands with Ross, exchanged a few words and then strode away. Deb watched his tall figure out of sight. She knew that she had a tiger by the tail now. From the moment that she had agreed to the betrothal she had lost control of the situation. She had gained a fiancé, but not the type of man that she had wanted in the role. She was obliged to admit that it was quite another service that she wished Richard Kestrel to perform for her, and that brief but passionate kiss had confirmed it. No precepts of modesty of respectability could hide the truth. The principles that had kept her life so barren of love were crumbling. She wanted a rake. She wanted Richard to be her lover and she was not at all sure how long common sense and propriety could govern her actions.
Chapter Eleven
‘Y ou seem mightily distracted this evening, old fellow,’ Ross Marney said, ushering his friend Richard Kestrel into his study and closing the door firmly behind them. ‘Never seen you lose so badly at whist. Lucky the ladies only play for pennies or you’d be in River Tick by now.’ He gave Richard a searching look. ‘Is there anything that I can help with? Anything that a glass of brandy could improve?’
Richard laughed and accepted the invitation, taking one of the wing chairs set before the fire and waiting whilst his friend poured for both of them. He had attended Olivia Marney’s card party that evening more in the hope of seeing Deb than in anything else, but in the event she had not been there and Richard had found himself bored and inattentive. He had lost badly, to the great pleasure of all the ladies, who had fleeced him mercilessly.
He had also known that he had to talk to Ross. His friend had been more generous than he had deserved earlier in the day, when Richard had turned up at the Customs House under the guise of Lord Scandal. Had it not been for the long history between them, Ross might well have called him to account. The least he deserved was an explanation.
Richard looked up with a smile of thanks as Ross passed him the drink before settling himself in the other chair. For a while there was the companionable silence that often existed between old friends. Richard and Ross had served together on the Valiant and had shared more mess room debates than either cared to remember, both in and out of their cups. When Richard had come to Midwinter, the slight formality remaining from their professional relationship had deepened into friendship. Never before, however, had Richard proposed to marry Ross’s sister-in-law, and whilst he hesitated on how to broach the topic, Ross looked at him directly and said, ‘It is to do with Deborah, I suppose. Can it be that you wish to marry her?’
Richard jumped and spilled his brandy. ‘Devil take it, Ross, can you not give me due warning before you pull such a trick? This brandy is too good to waste.’
Ross laughed. ‘Sorry, old chap. Thought I’d move the conversation along a bit as you seemed lost for words. Do I take it that my wild stab in the dark was somewhere near the mark?’
Richard did not answer immediately. He turned the brandy glass round in his palm. ‘Pretty close,’ he said. ‘Mrs Stratton and I pledged our troth today.’
Now it was Ross’s turn to choke. When he had recovered his breath he said mildly, ‘Didn’t think you’d be able to persuade her. Nor did I think you were the marrying kind, Richard. Thought that you proved that when the betrothal to Lady Diana Elliot went awry?’
Richard pulled a face. In his long and frequently reprehensible history as a rake there was no episode more discreditable than the engagement to a duke’s daughter that had ended almost as soon as it had begun, when she had discovered him pleasuring a Cyprian on the terrace at their betrothal party. It was many years ago, but Richard could not remember the episode without a wince of shame because he could see, with the benefit of hindsight, that it had been an act that had shown contempt towards a lady who had done him no wrong. Lady Diana had given him his congé in arctic terms:
‘You are clearly unsuited to the state of matrimony and I am not so desperate for a husband that I would bind myself to a man who shows me so little respect…’
God help him, at the time he had thought it amusing. The incident had confirmed his outrageous reputation and he had played on it to the full. Yet after a couple of years the empty life of a rake about town had become too barren to sustain him and he had chosen to join the Navy, to his father’s utter fury. He had enjoyed life at sea and had acquitted himself with valour, but when he had been invalided out, his old way of life had beckoned him as surely as a devil tempting him from the path of virtue. Until he had come to Midwinter and seen Deborah Stratton, and felt his heart seize in his chest. In one second she had achieved what the French had failed to do, and shot him down. It was rich retribution for a rake.
He did not intend to make any further mistakes. Deb had given him the advantage now and he would not let her escape him. It was marriage-or naught.
Richard stretched his long legs out to the warmth of the fire. He had already decided to tell Ross the whole truth, for he could see no way that he and Deb could sustain a masquerade beneath the noses of his friend and her sister. He rested his chin on his hand and sighed.
‘I shall tell you the whole matter, Ross, and then you may have me horsewhipped from the house if you please.’
Ross paused. ‘Is that a likely outcome?’
Richard sighed again. ‘I cannot be certain. Suffice it to say that your sister-in-law recently advertised for a gentleman of honour to come to her assistance.’ He saw the arrested look in Ross’s eyes and added hastily, ‘I need hardly tell you, Ross, that I am relating this in confidence. I have no wish to make further difficulties for Mrs Stratton. She was in urgent need of a fiancé and I offered my services.’
There was a very long silence.
‘What form did this advertisement take?’ Ross said, after a while.
‘It was a notice placed in the Suffolk Chronicle.’ Richard looked at him. ‘Under a pseudonym, of course.’
‘And you answered it,’ Ross said.
‘I did.’
‘And you also paid to suppress all the other replies?’
Richard grinned at that. ‘I did. How well you know me.’
‘Hmm,’ Ross said. ‘Did you know from the start that it was Deb who had placed the notice?’
Richard hesitated. ‘I…guessed.’
‘Extraordinary,’ Ross opined.
Richard smiled ruefully. ‘I do have rather a strong instinct where your sister-in-law is concerned, Ross.’
‘My dear fellow, we have all observed it,’ Ross said. He reached for the decanter and topped up Richard’s glass. ‘I suppose it is the nature of your impulses towards Deb that have always concerned me. I have to admit that I had not expected chivalry to be one of them.’
Richard’s mouth twisted wryly. ‘Thank you, Ross.’
‘I beg your pardon.’ Ross laughed. ‘I do not mean to imply that you would seduce Deb, merely that you might want to.’
‘You give me too much credit.’ Richard’s conscience stirred. ‘Until recently I would have seduced Deborah with the greatest of pleasure had she encouraged me to do so.’
Ross’s eyes narrowed. He looked torn between amusement and disapproval. In the end he merely said, ‘And now?’
Richard shifted. He was thinking of the incident the previous year when he had asked Deb to be his mistress. He had mistaken her then. Misled by her widowed status and also by her vivacious nature, he had assumed her to be a high-flyer like Lily Benedict, or, if not that, at least an experienced woman of the world such as Lady Sally Saltire. He had also assumed that once he had made love to her, her power over him would wane. Now he could see that both assumptions were groundless, for Deb was an innocent in matters of love and that very innocence captured and held him as surely as if he were bound with silken ties. He could ignore what was on offer from a practised flirt like Lady Benedict and prefer the infinitely more difficult prospect of wooing Deborah Stratton.
And that wooing would lead to
marriage. If he wished to keep the friendship and respect of Ross Marney he could not simply take Deb to his bed. He did not even want to. He wanted Deb, but he did not wish to make her his mistress. Somehow that had become insufficient. He wanted to protect Deb and gain her trust. He was acting on an instinct that had never previously stirred in his relationships with women. He wanted more. He wanted everything. Once she was his, he would never let her go.
He spoke slowly. ‘Now I want to marry her. Genuinely marry her, I mean. Not connive at a pretence.’
Ross nodded and moved on to another difficult question. ‘What was it that prompted you to assist Deborah in this matter, Richard?’
Richard smiled. ‘I felt that she had presented me with a perfect opportunity to woo her.’
Ross looked thoughtful. ‘That is true, of course. She has played into your hands. But what of your other, more altruistic motives?’
Richard shifted a little uncomfortably again. Ross could never accept things at face value and he was usually correct.
He spoke slowly. ‘I had the distinct impression that Mrs Stratton’s need was acute. She tells me that her father is insisting that she return to live under his roof, and that she feels unable to comply.’ His took another mouthful of brandy. ‘She also implied that Lord Walton intended to marry her off to her cousin and that she had no desire to wed ever again. She seemed very distressed by the entire matter, which was one of the reasons why I offered my aid.’
Ross nodded. He hesitated. ‘It is certainly true that Deb is set against marriage. She was very unhappy with Neil Stratton. She has frequently expressed the view that she would rather starve than marry again. It seems a shame, but she is quite adamant.’ He gave Richard a look of acute perception. ‘I should warn you that there are matters there which are very painful to her.’ Ross looked away. ‘But that is Deb’s story to tell, not mine. Suffice it to say that I would have killed Stratton if the fever had not beaten me to it.’
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