The Persuasive Love of a Libertine

by Jane Lark

  I am so very sorry. I wished to speak with you in person, as though I might offer you some form of consolation. Though I have no idea how I might have done so. I imagine when—I called, and I hope your footman told you that I did call upon you in town—that you were not in a mood to hear from anyone who has any association with Lord Brooke. I apologise for him, and for my association with him. Forgive me; I have no idea what to say, although I suppose the emotion I seek to express is sympathy. Please merely accept that sentiment from me, and if, if your parents are willing, then perhaps we might correspond.

  I think we had become friends. I hope that was the case, and I do not see why we should not continue our friendship through a written correspondence.

  Yours sincerely,

  Harry Webster

  Emily stared at the writing on the paper a moment more. There was a large swirl of ink beneath his name. A bold mark. A confident mark. The mark of a man like Peter.

  She folded the letter and tossed it into the stream before her, then watched it bob on top of the water, flowing with the rush of the current, spinning along. The stream followed the edge of the field, weaving along beside a hedge. She watched it from her position on top of the bridge. It became just a dot of white, but then it absorbed the water and sank down as it drifted farther on and out of sight.

  That was where Emily intended to be for the rest of her life—out of sight.

  Harry was quite right; she did not wish to ever speak to, or hear from, anyone who had anything to do with Lord Brooke, and as that included nearly everyone she had met in London she would never go back. The heat of shame warmed, and probably coloured, her skin.

  Fool.

  She had allowed herself one last letter to Mary to tell her that she would not write or visit. Mary had, of course, replied and told Emily not to be so silly, and that if need be they would ensure they warned her if Lord Brooke would be at an event.

  But Mary’s husband, Drew, had been friends with Lord Brooke forever, and Emily had only known Mary for three years. She had become close to Mary when Mary had plotted her elopement. Emily had been swept up in the intrigue of it, and the excitement, and then when Drew’s friend had begun to court her she had been honoured, and felt herself absorbed in Mary’s matrimonial harmony. To then discover that Peter had been sharing a bed with, and fallen in love with, an actress.

  Emily’s fingers pressed onto the stone wall of the bridge as though she might seek to leap over it. She could see herself within the river, beneath the water. She had not replied to Mary’s letter, and she never would. She would grow old here in a quiet, provincial town and avoid men with titles and reputations—because truthfully she had known that Drew’s friend was a debauched scoundrel. Everyone had known it. It was why Mary had eloped with Drew because her family would never have agreed a match with a man like Drew, or his friends. But Drew had fallen in love and changed. Peter…

  He had too, only not with Emily.

  She turned away from the stream and began to walk towards home.

  Yet, she had not loved him either, and so she should not feel as angry with him as she did. But to be deserted for an actress!

  She had never thought she’d have a chance to marry a man like Peter, until he’d begun to court her, and even then she’d felt beneath him in status. Yet he’d married an actress.

  She had been such a ninny.

  Part Three

  Harry drummed his fingers on the tabletop beside his glass as he glared at Drew. “She is not writing to Mary…”

  “Did I not just tell you so?” Drew responded impatiently. “And do not look at me as though this is my fault. Mary cannot force Emily to remain her friend. She has written twice and now she is respecting Emily’s wishes.”

  “Her wishes… To shut herself away.” Harry’s hand slapped down on the table.

  “She wants nothing to do with anyone who knows Peter. She does not want to either risk meeting him or be spoken of before him. Can you blame her?”

  No. But Harry was included in the people who knew Peter—along with numerous people in town. Does she not intend to return to town?

  She had not replied to his letter, yet he had known it was a big step to expect her to commence a correspondence with him, but to not communicate with Mary, to not visit her friend…

  “She is suffering,” he said aloud.

  Drew and Mark laughed.

  “Why are you laughing? It is not amusing.”

  “It is you who is amusing,” Drew answered. “And perhaps it is you who is suffering…” Drew leant back in his chair and lifted his glass of port in a salute. “Congratulations on the joys of affection.”

  They were gathered about Drew’s dining table, drinking and playing cards. Mary had left them after dinner and said good night. Such evenings at Drew’s were like old times. Harry’s friends had always been more like brothers. They had a closeness that had defied Drew’s settling down. Yet Peter’s… Peter would have been here usually. If he had been here, though, Harry would have broken his damned nose.

  “I feel for the woman, do you not?”

  “Not as you do, I have a wife.” Drew laughed again.

  Harry stood up, reaching out to grab at Drew’s collar as his other hand formed a fist.

  Mark grasped Harry’s arm. “Calm down, do not become so heated. We know you hold her in regard.” His voice echoed with impatience.

  Harry glared at Mark. “You should not be saying so before Drew. He will tell Peter.”

  “He is saying nothing that I do not know,” Drew said, “and you have no need to fear me telling Peter. I will keep anything you say to myself.”

  Perhaps Harry was too drunk to see things clearly. But he longed for something to hit once more and aggression was not usually in his nature.

  When Harry did sit, Mark was standing over him and Drew staring at him. “You are infected,” Mark stated.

  “An interesting choice of word,” Drew answered.

  “Infected…” Harry queried, his anger deflating.

  “By Emily bloody Smithfield. It is like a virus passing among us, this attraction to a single woman, and it makes a man mad. It made Drew mad, and then Peter, and now you. There is no cure for it but for you to either bed the woman a dozen times until she is out of your blood or marry her. Although I believe Peter tried the bedding and it failed to work.”

  Drew smiled.

  Harry wanted to slap Drew’s smile away, because after all Peter bedding Lillian had been disloyal to Emily. But the options Mark proposed left Harry only one cure, a cure he already wished for. “But how?” he slurred a little, looking at Drew, because Drew had done this; he had found a good woman and persuaded her to marry him, and Mary loved him even two years after the event.

  “I presume you are asking me how to marry her, as I know you know how to bed her.”

  A grunt of humour left Mark’s throat.

  “You simply pay the woman some attention and then ask her the question.”

  “But she is shutting herself away in damned Devizes. How am I to pay her attention when she is not here?”

  “Go to Devizes,” Mark answered in a sharp tone. “You might as well chase her there, since you are only going to be a bloody misery if you stay in town, your company is not worth having. You have bored me to death with talk of her for the last two weeks.”

  “Thank you.”

  Drew laughed.

  “Why must you find me so amusing?” Harry complained.

  “Because it is far more fun watching you in this agony than it ever was being the person in the quagmire.” Drew smiled. “Emily is a sweet, pleasant woman and you have the perfect chance to win her; you should take it. But now, I think we should retire and leave this game. You are too drunk and I am too tired, George wakes up at a foolish God forsaken hour, and Mary will insist on bringing him from the nursery into our bed.”

  “Who are you?” Mark whispered mockingly at Drew as he offered Harry a hand to help him up.

/>   Perhaps things were not like old times. They would never completely be like old times, they had—all four of them—spent hours and hours together at card tables, and in the beds of whores. But now Drew was loyal to Mary and he adored his son and the child they expected soon.

  And Peter… He was away creating a nest of love with his former bird of paradise, slighting poor Emily.

  Poor Emily.

  When Harry woke in the morning it was with a heavy, sickly thump of pain hitting his skull, but with a determination to do something to relieve the thoughts spiralling around in his head. He’d return to London, to collect the things he would need for a long stay, and then hire a carriage and drive to Devizes.

  Then he’d tell Emily that he was not about to let her run away because of the foolishness and cruelty of his friend. It was Peter who should hide. Let Emily continue with her life.

  ~

  Harry travelled back to town, sitting beside Mark, who was in an uncommunicative mood. Whenever Harry tried to speak of Emily, Mark grunted. Yet it gave Harry more time to think, and plan. He had obtained Emily’s full address before leaving Drew and Mary. Emily’s parents did not in fact live in Devizes, but in a village close to the town, in Seend. Seend was the place for him to go.

  He did not travel that day. He needed to order a carriage and pack a trunk. But he set the plans in place to travel the next day, and his heart beat in a steady, firm rhythm throughout the afternoon and evening as he and Mark sat in a more private gentlemen’s club.

  By travelling to Seend he was planning a journey that would ricochet through his future, with who knew what impact.

  In the morning, he woke early, just as the sun peeked above the horizon. He intended to change his life today, lay it down as a stake on red or black—good or bad. If good came up, it would change Emily’s life too.

  He’d hired a carriage and a groom to accompany him, so that the groom might bring the carriage back to London. He intended to take a room in an inn when he reached Devizes and then hire a horse to ride over and visit Emily. Then if he needed a carriage, he would hire one locally, by the day.

  Harry held the reins and steered the horses. It was rare for him to have the opportunity to steer a pair. He did not have the funds to keep a carriage, and so he appreciated the novelty of driving out of London to the edge of Salisbury Plain. The scenery and the ambience were pleasant as he travelled through Berkshire and Wiltshire, mulling over the words he might use when he knocked on the Smithfields’ door.

  But most of his sentences lost their way immediately after hello. What did a man say to a woman whose heart had been broken by his friend? A heart he longed to claim himself.

  The nearer he drew to Devizes the more his heart knocked against his ribs begging for him to turn about. This was not him. He was an easy-going man who favoured a simple, uncluttered life.

  Did he really wish for a wife?

  No.

  Yet if he wanted Emily, he must have a wife. He wanted her, and therefore he wanted a wife. Yes.

  But how?

  The horses raced on at a good steady canter as the evening drew closer with its chillier air.

  In Marlborough, he pulled into an inn and considered stopping. “How far to ride on to Devizes?” he asked the groom who came to take the reins of the horses.

  “Around about an hour, sir.”

  An hour. And if he changed the horses and hired fresh, then perhaps less.

  He’d ride on and not stop. “Have you horses?”

  “We do, sir.”

  “Then change these over and tell me when the carriage is ready.” He tied off the driving reins, then climbed down. The groom he had brought with him descended from the other side. The man could return the horses tomorrow on his way back to London.

  Harry walked into the inn’s taproom and ordered an ale, God help him, because when in Rome and all that… But the drink was actually refreshing. He smiled as he stood at the bar and sipped from a tankard, like a yokel.

  “Anything to eat, mister?”

  Good Lord, he’d never been referred to as simply mister in his life. He laughed a little, under his breath, and smiled. “A cold pie would suit, something that may be served quickly. I am travelling on.”

  “Pigeon…”

  The girl was not apparently calling him a pigeon but offering him a pigeon pie.

  He laughed more openly, honestly amused by the woman, and the setting. He did not travel outside of London; he had lived in London for most of his life and even though Drew had now moved out of town, when Harry had visited him he’d never stopped along the way. This was a new way of life to Harry, a thing found in books. “A cold pigeon pie would be perfect, thank you.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows at him before she turned away. She apparently had a poor opinion of sophisticated men from town.

  A chuckle rumbled through his chest.

  When she returned with a plate bearing his pie, she set it down before him in a dismissive way that was almost like a thump upon the old scarred wooden table.

  “Thank you, my dear!” he called to her back.

  She glanced over her shoulder giving him a chilly stare that accused him of being responsible for every fatherless child in the town—she’d labelled him a libertine.

  That was so, but there were no fatherless children.

  He ate his pie in peace. Had it been a couple of years ago perhaps she would have irritated him to the point he would have sought to seduce her only to make a point, but that was not the man he was today. And besides, he did not have the quality of charm that Drew did; Drew was the one who had been able to charm his way into any woman’s drawers no matter the circumstance.

  The inn’s groom approached after about a quarter-hour and lifted a hand, to indicate that the horses were ready. Harry rose from the table and tossed a penny down beside his empty plate.

  An hour, perhaps less…

  He drove the horses hard, as the sun set, the sky about him turning pink and gold, promising another bright late-spring day tomorrow.

  It had turned to night before they reached Devizes but the sky was still bright, lit up by a moon that was almost full, and the stars… God, the stars… He had never really looked at the stars since he’d been a boy. There were thousands, scattered like the spread of a spilt bowl of rice, glittering like diamonds in candlelight. This world, the countryside—he smiled at his naivety—was a world of discovery.

  He rode into Devizes at nine, the horse’s hooves’ clopping noisily on the cobble in the marketplace, as the central fountain sent the sound of splashing water echoing back from the facades of the numerous inn’s and grand properties. Devizes seemed a wealthy town despite its rural status.

  The Bear Inn faced him. He rode on through its archway to the rear where the grooms came forward to help him and his groom disembark.

  ~

  Harry stretched when he woke, his arms reaching above his head as he remained lying in the bed, with its crisp fresh, starched linen. The room was not huge, but still quite opulent for him. But as usual he’d signed for it on credit, with a smile that professed him the son, and now the brother, of a Baron, a man of status (if not wealth) and style (if without title).

  And he refused to feel any guilt for misusing his father’s and brother’s names. They deserved nothing less.

  He sat up, the sheet sliding over his skin.

  Today was a dawn in his life. He looked out of the window. Was it too early to call at the Smithfields’? Possibly not; it would take him some time to eat, hire a horse, and then ride out to the village they lived in.

  He got up with a smile parting his lips. Whatever words slipped out of his mouth when he faced Emily, he would see her today. His heart swelled with a warmth even greater than the feelings he’d discovered for her in town. But then they had been forbidden emotions, emotions he’d sought to hold back because she had not been his, and there had been no hope of that. Now, there was hope.

  Hope.

&
nbsp; Bloody hell, the word scared him.

  But he refused to heed any fear. He was damned well going to be happy. He’d never felt like this for a woman. It was a luxury and a blessing. He had Drew’s and now Peter’s happiness to hold up before him as a banner of success too.

  It was a little after ten in the morning when he rode out of the town, having eaten a hearty breakfast of devilled lambs’ kidneys and freshly baked bread, with ale. Lord, Drew and Mark would be laughing at him again if they had seen him, as content as any local bumpkin.

  Unsure of his direction, or who owned what land, he kept to the narrow road, following it down a steep hill beside the canal with its ingenious engineering of a staircase created from possibly over twenty locks. Their black and white arms reached out towards the road. It was quite a sight.

  The road carried on. He’d been told that the village of Seend was at the bottom of Caen Hill, on the left, when the road forked. What he had not expected was for the canal to curve too, yet it did, pointing him in the direction of the village.

  Seend 1 mile, the marker stone announced at the turn in the road.

  He continued, lifting up and dropping down in a posting trot, his knees pressed against the horse’s sides. He was not a great rider. He had rarely ridden since he’d settled in London, yet he was adequate. It was a skill a man did not forget and it actually felt good to ride again, and freeing to have so much space about him, without the boundaries of a busy road or a park. There were no edges in the countryside; he was not about to come across a street cluttered with sellers shouting out their wares and the crowds that wished to buy.

  Within a quarter-hour he was riding into Seend on a dusty, dirt road.

  In a hard rainfall the mud road would be a quagmire, a little like his life. But now the road was hard and dry.

  The houses on either side were large properties, easily worthy of Harry’s brother’s residence in London. He’d anticipated one such property, perhaps even owned by Emily’s father, but there were several.