Sarah Elliott

by The Rake's Proposal

  “But because Owens was found in our carriage house, that means that whoever did this was near our house, and might know where we live. He must have driven me to the party, too…is it possible I wouldn’t have noticed?”

  “Well, it would seem so. Your mind was probably on other things. But I don’t want to alarm you, Katie. I don’t think anyone is trying to hurt you, or us, specifically. He probably saw our carriages getting ready for an evening out and assumed that we had well-lined pockets.”

  “Surely he would have robbed me en route rather than waiting around all night?”

  “Well…there weren’t many people around to witness the abduction so early in the morning, were there? That wouldn’t have been the case if he’d tried to rob you on the way to the ball.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Still, though, it’s a bit chilling to think of someone lurking about my carriage house like that. Unfortunately, Owens didn’t get a look at his face.”

  Kate nodded, her own flesh crawling at the thought. She’d definitely been distracted when she’d left for the party, fretting about whether she would see Ben and how to react if she did. It was perfectly conceivable that she simply hadn’t noticed who was driving the carriage. “We should notify the authorities, I suppose.”

  He nodded his head. “Yes, I will…but I think I should do it alone. I want your name to stay out of this ordeal. The damage it could do to your reputation, especially if your…um, late-night excursion became known, would be irreparable. I’m certain it was no more than a misconceived robbery. We’ll tell them only what we must and be very careful with ourselves for the next few days.”

  She nodded slowly, wondering if she should confess her suspicions about Andrew Hilton. In the end, she held back, hoping that Robert was right. His explanation seemed reasonable enough, and if she weren’t already suspicious, she’d assume no more herself. Mentally laying the subject to rest, she said, “Well, I suppose there’s little else we can do. No sense in dwelling on it.”

  “Said like a true Sutcliff.”

  “What are your plans for the day?”

  “Thought I’d try out my new curricle…I’ve been meaning to take Charlotte for a drive in the park, but the weather’s been so abysmal lately. Did you notice the sun?”

  Kate looked out the window. The sky was blue and cloudless, and sunlight streamed into the breakfast room. It looked glorious, and frankly, no, she hadn’t even noticed.

  “It does look beautiful,” she said wistfully.

  “I’d invite you along, sister dear, but…well, you understand. It’s bad enough that her lady’s maid has to come along.” He paused and grinned unabashedly when Kate sniffed in distaste. She had no problem understanding her brother. “Perhaps you can dredge up a suitor to take you out,” he suggested mischievously.

  “I have correspondence to attend to, thank you, and I don’t have any suitors,” she gritted out through her teeth. Her brother was being altogether too cheerful.

  “I suppose, then, that you wouldn’t be interested in the roses you received just this morning—”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you even want to see who they’re from?”

  “Hang him, whoever he is.” They could only be from Philip Bannister, and she just couldn’t get excited about that prospect.

  “I see. Mind if I give them to Charlotte? Hate to see them go to waste.”

  “Go right ahead,” Kate said, “although it’s not so romantic, you know, giving your lady fair someone else’s flowers.”

  “Charlotte is a practical girl. She’ll understand. That’s why we get on so well.”

  “You? Practical?” Kate asked with a smile as she rose from the table. “I’m not so sure if I agree, but if you prefer to think so, then go right ahead.”

  She turned to make her exit, satisfied with her patronizing tone. When she reached the door she turned again, hoping to get in one last jab at Robert. But it was too late—his spoon was at the ready, loaded with half a buttered crumpet. He cocked it back and fired, sending her running from the room with a squeal. The crumpet hit the door just as she closed it behind her.

  Robert grinned smugly. He rose from his seat, picked up his gloves and headed for the front door. On his way out, he grabbed the large bouquet of white roses and plucked the note from them. Without reading it, he placed it on the table by the door and left.

  Two minutes later, Mary entered. She had planned on bringing the flowers to Kate’s room and frowned at their absence. All that remained on the table was a small envelope. She picked it up.

  Mary knew she shouldn’t. She really did. But she slipped her finger under the seal, opened the note, and read it anyway. Her eyes grew wide and a pleased smile touched her lips.

  She put the note into her pocket and left the hall with a renewed spring to her step.

  The drive through Hyde Park was largely silent. Charlotte was too tired from the previous night’s escapade to speak much, and Robert was brooding. At least he’d managed to convince her maid to sit outside, next to his driver, leaving him alone inside the carriage with Charlotte. That should have made things all right.

  But then she began to giggle.

  He raised one supercilious brow.

  Charlotte stifled her laughter to explain, but continued to smile. “I’m sorry—I was just thinking about Kate…the look on your face when she told you that she’d spent the better part of the evening in a gaming house!”

  And she began to giggle again.

  Robert did not so much as smile. In fact, he had been thinking about the same subject and it didn’t amuse him at all. “I hardly see any humor in this situation, Charlotte, and please refrain from mentioning it again. I just hope to God that all of London doesn’t know about last night’s stunt. That would devastate her chances of making a suitable match.”

  Charlotte turned more serious. “I don’t think anyone will know. Ben said they saw no one as they left.”

  He sighed. “Gossip has a way of getting out. I suppose I’ll find out sure enough when I visit my club tonight.”

  “Pessimist,” she said, nestling herself into his shoulder. “Everything will be fine, Kate will get married, and it will all end happily ever after. And, well, if it doesn’t exactly happen that way, everything will still be fine. She’s a pretty capable person, you know. For such a protective brother, I’m surprised you allow her all the freedom that you do. Although truth be told,” Charlotte added, turning her eyes up toward Robert’s face, “that’s one of the reasons I love you most. Any brother who allows his little sister to run the family business must be first-rate. It makes me hope we have many daughters.”

  He rolled his eyes, but there was true affection in his expression. “I hate to shatter your illusions, Charlotte, but you overestimate my tolerance. Believe me, it’s simply a much easier task to let her do as she pleases than to try and stop her.” He put his arm around her and pulled her tight. He’d told her his entire family history, as she would soon be a part of the family as well. The company itself was no secret, but it certainly wasn’t something that the family advertised; although it wasn’t altogether unusual for aristocrats to dabble in commerce, it was downright unseemly for them to take it as seriously as his family did. The fact that Kate had actually run the business—and eventually might do so again—was so scandalous it went beyond thinking.

  “Besides,” he went on, “I’ve never been all that interested in boats. If it were up to me, I’d sell the company altogether.”

  “Kate would hate you if you did that.”

  “Probably, but there’s no reason to worry. Her sole ownership of the company is a well-protected secret, so why not indulge her?”

  “What on earth will she do when she marries? Her husband will have to know, and most husbands wouldn’t be as tolerant about her…er, hobby, as you are.”

  “She’ll probably grow out of it.”

  Charlotte raised an eyebrow, not believing it for a minute. “Will she?
I wonder if she doesn’t care about it so much that she’s getting married just so she can be in control once more.”

  “No…even if that were partially the case, that wouldn’t explain her hurry. I think she’s just being sensible for once…probably realizing that she wants to be a wife and mother. It’s my good example, getting married, you know. She’s always looked up to me.”

  Charlotte interrupted him with a snort.

  Rob suppressed a smile at her obvious irritation. “As I say, she’s already growing out of it. When she does marry, I’m sure she’ll give up the company for good and let her husband run things.”

  “You’re fatuous. I take back all the nice things I said about you earlier.”

  Rob’s grin broke through. “I’m trying to annoy you.”

  “You’re succeeding. I think you underestimate your sister. She cares very much about her company. I admire her, as should you, you…you dilettante.”

  “Now stop. I’m teasing. And it’s you who underestimate her. As you’ve guessed, my father’s will said nothing about preventing her husband from gaining control of the company by marrying her. So she had our solicitor draw up a very explicit contract, full of stipulations and big words, for said husband to sign. When that’s taken care of, I suppose her husband will be a figurehead, of sorts…the poor, unsuspecting sot. And to think she had the nerve to call me unromantic.”

  “Why ever did she say that?”

  Robert looked guiltily at the flowers in Charlotte’s lap. In that instant, he vowed he’d buy her flowers every day for the rest of her life.

  “Just because she’s my sister,” he grumbled.

  Charlotte smiled. “I hope there isn’t any bad blood between you and Ben because of last night. He was really just an innocent bystander.”

  “I somehow doubt that.”

  “Does that mean you noticed the attraction between them, too?”

  “Charlotte? I’m sorry—what did you say?”

  “You heard me, Robert.”

  He turned to look at her with very clear, very serious eyes. “I’m wishing I hadn’t. Charlotte, you may not play matchmaker here. You have no idea how unsuitable he is. In the first place, he has no intention of marrying, and in the second place…well, blast it all, he’s my best friend. I know everything that he’s done.”

  “Pretty dastardly, huh?”

  “You cannot even begin to fathom. He’s too attached to his life the way it is, without anyone to tie him down to one spot. He spends half the year traveling, for God’s sake, and I can’t see him changing that for anyone. Even if he could be convinced to marry, he’d make a bloody rotten husband.”

  “Well, I believe in reformation. I think she should set her cap for him. You said yourself that you hope the man she marries likes boats. Doesn’t Ben have some sort of shipping company?”

  “That hardly signifies in this instance. I think I should thrash him, after all.”

  “You will not,” Charlotte said, looking up into his face and waiting for a kiss. Kissing was a surefire way to cheer him up. “You know, maybe Kate won’t find marriage so distasteful.”

  Rob leaned down and kissed her hard on the lips, damning the fact that they had just arrived at the Bannisters’ front steps. “Personally, I can hardly wait.”

  When Ben had left Robert’s house early that morning, his day had grown steadily worse. By ten o’clock that evening, he was quite drunk and in a foul mood. He had started drinking with supper, and had not yet stopped.

  He was seated at a corner table at White’s, not talking to anyone and not looking as if he would like to. He’d actually cringed when he’d seen his reflection in one of the many mirrors that hung from the walls of the club. He couldn’t blame everyone for giving him such a wide berth—he really did look ominous, with circles beneath his eyes and his cravat askew. Damn that bastard Jones.

  He usually got on with Simon Jones quite well, but tonight the chap’s humor had rubbed him the wrong way. Indeed, it was only because they were friends that Simon had felt comfortable enough to take liberties.

  “So, I hear you had quite a romp with Katherine Sutcliff. Can’t say that I blame you, even if she is Robert’s sister.”

  “Where’d you hear this nonsense?” Ben had asked.

  “It’s been making the rounds all day. Let’s see…I guess it was Peter Weatherton who told me—said he saw her get out of your carriage in front of her brother’s early this morning. Come, you can’t deny it. You were definitely holding her rather tightly last night at the Bannisters’…just let me know when you’re through, though. It’d be a shame to waste such a pretty thing on you alone.”

  Ben had hit him. Hard. A closed-fisted blow to the face, making blood spray from his nose. Simon staggered back, holding his hand to his nose.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you, Sinclair?”

  Ben didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he took another menacing step forward, ready to strike Simon again.

  Simon stepped back, knocking over a chair as he did so. “No thanks, Sinclair. I’m not going to tangle with you when you’re in this mood. See you when you’re sober.” He turned on his heel, wasting no time to exit.

  Ben had sat back down, lost in his thoughts. Bloody hell. It couldn’t get much worse. He’d been in this situation before, had had his name connected with countless other women. Usually he would just shrug off the scandal. Marriage was not for him, and he wasn’t about to get tricked into it. He’d worked rather hard creating a life for himself in which he could climb aboard ship whenever he felt like it and travel to some new part of the world. That freedom meant almost everything to him, and every relationship he’d so far had with a woman had caused him, after only a short while, to want to escape.

  So why couldn’t he just shrug off this incident like all the others? Why the hell did he just now completely lose his temper? Sure, Simon was being a bastard, but Ben could admit that his own scruples were hardly much better. Hitting him was inexcusable, not to mention an admission of guilt.

  But Simon had bloody well made him angry, and he knew that this situation was different. This time it was Robert’s sister, and his problems were compounded because, blast it all, Ben realized that he actually liked the girl. She didn’t make him want to run away and he wasn’t exactly sure why. She was argumentative and far too sensitive, two qualities that manifested themselves every time she hurled object or insult at his head. But she was also intelligent, entertaining and, damn it, beautiful as hell.

  It was almost laughable to think about, but he wasn’t really interested in most of the women he slept with; disinterest was more like it. These women fulfilled a purely sexual need, and when he was done with them, he never looked back. Unfortunately, Kate Sutcliff just didn’t fit that mold.

  He still wasn’t about to do the honorable. He’d done nothing wrong, had just kissed the girl, for God’s sake. But even as he tried to justify his actions, Ben knew he was kidding himself. That had hardly been just a kiss, and if he had the chance to do the evening over, he probably would have made love to Kate on that sofa, damning the consequences. She’d be compromised one way or the other, as he now knew. He felt his body grow hard just thinking about her, her luscious curves, the way she’d responded to his touch…

  “Looks like you’re having some pretty heavy thoughts. Care if I join you?”

  Ben flushed, his thoughts actually being rather lascivious, as Robert pulled out a chair to take a seat opposite from him.

  “Came by to see what kind of damage was done last night,” Robert went on, disinterestedly brushing a fleck of lint from his sleeve. “Is the gossip mill grinding away as usual?”

  “If you haven’t already heard the latest, you will soon enough.”

  “Hmm.”

  Ben looked hard at his friend. He was being far too nonchalant, and if last night was any indication, Robert didn’t take his sister’s reputation lightly. Even after she’d pointed out that Ben was essentially an
innocent bystander, he’d continued to shoot him murderous looks, presumably for jeopardizing her reputation in the first place by dancing with her so closely—that much had nothing to do with circumstance; that was free will. Although Ben could now admit that dancing with Kate was a rather stupid risk to take, he couldn’t seem to help himself at the time.

  “You’re taking this rather well,” he offered.

  Robert shrugged. “There’s not much else to do. You don’t have any ideas, do you?”

  “No,” Ben answered warily, suspicious of the direction things seemed to be taking.

  “You know, she’s here to get married.”

  “Aren’t they all,” Ben said wryly, and immediately wondered why this should bother him so much.

  “You haven’t exactly helped her goal, Ben.”

  “I won’t marry her, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  Robert had never looked so appalled. “Well, good God, you don’t think I want you to marry her, do you? Perish the thought. I can’t think of a worse choice.”

  “Thank you,” Ben replied tightly. “So what do you want?”

  He was all seriousness now. “What I want is for you to stay the hell away from her. You can’t tell me that you’re not attracted to her, or that nothing happened last night. I know you too well.”

  Ben knew it was futile to deny this accusation. “A blind man would be attracted to her, Robbie, but rest assured, I don’t plan to complicate her life or yours.”

  Robert nodded deliberately. “See that you don’t.” Then he began pouring himself a glass of sherry, ready to move on and hoping to smooth over the acrimony that had developed between them. “It’s settled, then. D’you want another drink?”

  Ben nodded, watching the amber liquid sparkle as it filled his glass. “So, have the police learned anything about last night?”

  “Not really. There’s not a sign of the man anywhere. He pretty much vanished into the night. Seems it was just a simple robbery gone awry.”