The Rake's Redemption

by Anne Millar

  “It’s hardly a word I’d expect to hear you use, Lady Guilmor.”

  Thomas didn’t expect his feint to divert her and it didn’t even rate an acknowledgement. “If that man is to be Judith’s husband she’ll be off to Russia with him. Not just a foreign country, Thomas but a very backward one.”

  Thomas knew he was meant to repent his inexplicable failure to wed Judith and live happily in marital bliss. He knew too that there was no point in explaining to his godmother how the present lamentable state of affairs wasn’t his choice at all. He’d receive short shift if he tried that.

  “She’d be very much at the mercy of her husband.” Amara wouldn’t scruple to pile on the pressure if she thought it would achieve her aim. The trouble was her words were ringing too true for comfort. Horsley had been wild beyond what might be expected of a man deprived of his regiment. And to invoke Judith in such terms, for Thomas had no doubt it was Judith that the cur had meant. Had he somehow found out about their times together? Had Judith told him?

  Whatever the reason for it Thomas couldn’t thole the association of the filthy word Horsley had used with the sweet kind girl he’d known. Was she to blame because Thomas had seduced her? Their lovemaking had been sweetly innocent never carnal. And the depth of Judith’s hurt came through in the bitterness of that letter she’d sent him. The depth of her love, though he’d never seen it that way before now. So if Judith needed to be rescued, and she did, he owed it to her to be the one making that rescue.

  “Godmother, can I ask you not to make too much of your opinion that Judith should marry me and not Horsley?” There was no earthly reason not to be straightforward with Amara Guilmor. Any attempt at fudge simply invited a crushing retort.

  “To what end?” Trust Amara to be equally direct. “Not merely to spare you embarrassment I hope?”

  “No, though there is no harm in that. I should also like to speak to Judith alone, so if you can find a way to arrange that please do.”

  He could tell how pleased she was by the width of her grin. “I’m perfectly sure that can be arranged, Thomas. At last you see sense my boy, and not before time. Now I’m really looking forward to my visit.”

  Judith recognised the coach the moment it came through the paddock gates. Normally a visit from Amara would have her smiling with delight, anticipating equal measures of indiscreet gossip and cheering flattery. Nothing though could lift her present mood, which was why she was spending so much time staring out through the window. She was becoming depressingly familiar with the shrubs and trees that marked what father was pleased to call the courtyard and in reality was simply the stretch of gravel that provided space for visiting coaches in front of the house.

  The parlour at the front of the house had one overwhelming advantage though. It made it easy to avoid John and that had become more important than ever after their last row. John had been furious and unforgiving, cursing her for procrastinating about meeting Theodore’s Horsley’s conditions. Judith had retaliated in kind, telling him what an apology for a man he was. Their screaming had brought the housekeeper to order them to stop. Emily Rogers had forgotten herself far enough to tell them they were driving their father to his grave with their quarrelling. It had been that bad. Not that John cared.

  Now it wasn’t just Amara alighting from her coach but Thomas Stainford too. Where that should mean nothing, where it did mean nothing, she was still weak enough to spark a hope at the sight of him. Foolish and weak when there was nothing to be hoped for from Thomas Stainford. Like enough Amara had dragged him here playing on the gratitude he owed her for past kindness. Amara who had never lost her fond hope that Thomas and Judith would wed when anyone else would have given up, anyone with any sense that is.

  So she would have to listen to him crowing about the troops he would take to Spain, his second departure to the wars and one that just like the first would cost her high. Not just her but Charles too. A tormented soul who had wanted to put more trust in her than she could bear. At least he had gone now, going to Penwick on her advice to see his father. She could not promise him that she would prevent Horsley revealing his secret, but she had conceded that she would try. A promise his misery had extracted from her and she had as yet done nothing to fulfil.

  Where Charles would find the strength to face his father she couldn’t imagine. Despite Judith’s opinion that he cut the wretched girl loose to fend for herself, Charles had insisted on taking Jane with him, hoping no doubt to control what his wife would say against him. Judith couldn’t quite rid herself of the niggling fear that Charles would still allow himself to be manipulated by the scheming little trollop. The only way to deal with lingering attachments that had passed their usefulness was to sever them completely. A lesson she herself badly needed to apply.

  Determinedly putting all such haverings aside Judith roused herself to have Mrs Rogers fetch father to the drawing room. When their visitors were shown in they would be properly greeted in the formal style to which father attached so much importance. Fortunately John had taken himself off somewhere today so he wasn’t going to spoil things. Amara was quite capable of telling him off herself for any rudeness and that could only lead to another row.

  Jonathon Hampton’s reaction to his visitors would have gladdened any heart let alone his daughter’s. For a little while the feeble, silent master of Oakenhill brightened and flourished. Amara sparkled of course in that fulsome way she had of making her listeners believe they were the centre of her world. But it was Thomas Stainford who startled Judith. Courteous of course, Thomas always had impeccable manners, but he seemed able to tap into father’s line of thought. It helped that Jonathon Hampton was pathetically grateful that John was not going to Spain. He kept repeating that his last son would be spared, leaving Judith feeling an ungracious wretch for having the wicked thought that a French musket ball might spare them all a great deal of trouble in the future.

  She was an unnatural and sinful creature though, her reaction to Thomas Stainford confirmed that. She should have been disdainful and haughty, dismissing a man who was irrelevant to her life and had caused her nothing but trouble in every particular each time they’d met. Yet she couldn’t help her gushing, soft response to his polite smile. The man knew his power too, standing there tall and strong in his regimentals, virtually gloating in his ability to dominate the room.

  Judith knew Amara could see through her desperate facade of indifference, she could tell from the quiet little smile her friend was allowing to play around the corners of her mouth. If she were so transparent she was a lost cause and might as well submit herself to the lust that Theodore Horsley had made clear was to be her fate. After all she deserved no better.

  “Guilmor is pleased with the Volunteers, Edmund too. Nearly all the trained men have signed to the regulars, to Thomas’ battalion. And Thomas is now a colonel.” Amara had a ready audience in father. He read everything published on the course of the war in Spain with a fervour that sometimes alarmed her. It was as if he saw beating the French as compensating for Jeremy’s death. As if anything could bring him back.

  “You must make sure you trounce the French, Thomas.” Grateful as she was that the visit bringing father out of himself, he was embarrassing when he was like this. In a few short weeks he had lost much of his normal reserve.

  “Let us hope the war will be over soon. But if it is not I will do my duty, Lord Hampton.” Thomas managed a reply she could not disapprove of, but it still sparked father into a torrent of questions about the coming campaigning season and just where Thomas thought the Peer would strike. As she listened to the patient replies and the never ending questions Judith lulled herself with the thought that father hadn’t enjoyed himself this much for many weeks. Thomas was answering him with enough detail to satisfy him and she felt a rush of gratitude for his kindness. Until she saw that little smile still playing round Amara’s lips.

  “Judith, I think I will take a rest now. If our guests will excuse me.” She had been too
busy dreaming to watch father for signs of fatigue. As she rang for Mrs Rogers and a footman Judith damned herself. She should have noticed how tired he was before he was forced to ask for himself. Amara’s decision to accompany the little group leaving the drawing room was made unexpectedly but Judith wasn’t fooled. Lady Guilmor might well enjoy a few more words with her old friend Lord Hampton, but it wasn’t her exclusion from the conversation with all the talk of war that led her to leave. Scheming to set Thomas and Judith together was much more likely cause. Mrs Rogers would be too busy with father for a little while to play chaperone and if Judith knew Amara, and she did, that little while would be extended.

  “I should congratulate you on your promotion, Colonel.” Someone had to say something before the silence stretched to impenetrable gloom.

  “You should, Judith. But I still thank you.” His smile told her he was about to say something more. “Kind words from you mean so much.”

  Damn him, everything that was weighing down on her and he chose to flirt and tease. Of course he had no care for her problems if he even considered them. Colonel Stainford would lead his regiment to glory in Spain and his connections would mean he would soon overcome the minor inconvenience of being disinherited. She was a fool again as she’d been a fool so many times. This time for hoping that one effect of Charles’ conversation with his father would be that the Earl would reinstate Thomas.

  He was still smiling as though he expected her to reciprocate with some meaningless drivel. When it would have taken only a single word for her to throw the whole mess in front of him and ask him for his help. But what was the use when Thomas didn’t have the money to bail out the Hamptons, and probably wouldn’t help if he could. That left only the option of challenging Horsley. Would Thomas really risk his rejuvenated career for her sake? That was too much to ask: for him to risk his position and his life.

  “Horsley was very angry about the volunteers.” Thomas checked himself. That was about as informative as telling her that Christmas was on December the 25th this year. “I am sorry if that will make matters difficult for you.” Why didn’t he have the strength to come out and tell Judith that she was making a gigantic mistake and she should shun Horsley like the plague.

  “Why should it make matters difficult for me?” Judith seemed startled by his disclosure. Or maybe she was angry at his criticism of Horsley. The man she was betrothed to after all.

  “St Petersburg will help smooth his feelings no doubt.” There was no way to explain why it would make matters difficult for her without launching into a full denunciation of the man as unfit to be in the same room with her.

  “St Petersburg? Why should St Petersburg be involved, Thomas?” Judith looked so mystified that it was obvious that Theodore Horsley hadn’t bothered to inform her at all about this morning’s offer.

  “Horsley was offered a position as military attaché to the Russian court to sooth his disappointment over the Volunteers.”

  “You mean to buy him off?” Thomas couldn’t help loving her for the sarcasm of her reaction. Not a word of self pity for the prospect of being exiled to the cold chill of the Muscovy realm. Just a direct question that spared no one’s sensitivities.

  “If you like, though he’ll get precious little money out of it compared with what he’s spent on the Volunteers. Still the country and the government are grateful to him for his expensive patriotism. I believe the offer was meant to appeal to his sense of social worth.”

  “So quite cheap for the King’s ministers then?” Judith was delightful in her cynicism and Thomas could feel the thrill of being with her sparking in him. If it were so easy to slip back into the way they had been maybe he could save her from her mistake.

  “Judith, St Petersburg will be very far from home.” The cloud that appeared in her eyes nearly stopped him there, but he held his nerve. “Your position will be so very dependent on your husband. Yet Theodore Horsley is... unpredictable.” He still couldn’t bring himself to repeat what Horsley had said. Surely she would see his doubts and understand he would not have spoken unless he had good cause?

  “A grave deficit, Thomas. In a man.” Judith’s first thought had been to tear through Thomas for his arrogance. ‘Unpredictable.’ Theodore Horsley was only too predictable, evil, manipulative and dangerous to those weak enough to have to fear him. Which unfortunately included the Hampton family. Thomas was as right in that as he was wrong in fearing her dependency on her husband. She would have no husband. If Horsley took her to St Petersburg it would only be as his convenient. Maybe a foreign clime would make the shame easier to bear. At least there would be no one she knew there.

  She could see the tension relax in his face when she responded in so considered a way. What had he expected? That she’d scream at him? She was trembling with the anger but she wasn’t going to give way to it. Far better to hit back. “You would never be unpredictable Thomas. Not when you left for Spain without warning. Not when you took advantage of your brother’s nature to amuse yourself with his wife.”

  Judith knew she’d hit home by his reaction to her last jibe. Till then he’d shown little response other than that smile of his, but that changed when she mentioned his brother’s nature.

  “Charles is unfortunate in his choice of wife.” As a stilted, understated excuse for the man’s true nature it was unbeatable.

  “Charles does not need a wife, Thomas. His is a character that should not marry, and he has told me he feels he has let Jane down.” Please let him accept that and not deny the truth because it was difficult to face.

  “My brother needs a wife more than ever now he is heir to Penwick.” Right then Judith knew the conversation wasn’t going to end as she wished. And the more she pressed him the more stubborn Thomas was likely to become.

  She still had to try even if it was futile. “There is no shame Thomas. Charles is as he is, and you can do nothing about it.”

  “It was my responsibility to protect him, Judith. It still is.” It was useless to make any further effort. Nothing was going to shake Thomas into acknowledging his brother’s true nature. A treacherous little part of her was whispering how marvellous it would be to have Thomas take responsibility for protecting her and that clinched the decision. Besides if she went on she’d only start to worry whether Thomas would blame her if the Earl reacted badly to his son’s confession when Charles reached Penwick.

  “When will you leave for Spain?” Let him think her as interested in the war as her father if he liked, there was too much hurt in trying to make a man who knew he was right see that he was wrong. Thomas would live his life by his code whatever it cost those about him.

  Conversation was stilted thereafter though Judith learned much more about the difficulties confronting Wellington than Thomas had vouchsafed to her father. She was almost pleased when Amara returned, gushing breezily about how cheered father was by keeping John at Oakenhill. Judith didn’t miss Thomas avoiding the inquiring glance from his godmother though, or the frown that instantly replaced Amara’s bonhomie.

  As they gathered themselves together to leave she knew a sense of deep desolation. Not only might she never see Thomas again, if she did she would be indelibly altered from the woman she was now and would have fallen far below his orbit.

  “Be careful Thomas. please.” It was too heartfelt a plea to be mistaken for convention but he only grinned back at her.

  “The devil doesn’t want me yet, Judith. I’ll see you again before you know I’m gone.”

  At least this time he’d said goodbye, even if it was to more than he knew. Judith watched the coach whipped up and driven out of the courtyard before she resumed her desultory examination of the estate account book. The figures were not improving and every time she insisted the book be made up to date it provoked a row with the insolent Tomkins.

  Depressing as that activity was it was far preferable to the interruption she suffered within the hour. John could barely cling to his horse as the animal cantered onto the grav
el in front of the house. As Judith ran to him she saw that in fact he was only held in the saddle by the ropes lashing him to his mount. The scarlet of his tunic had hidden how much blood had been spilt and he was barely conscious as the footmen lifted him down. Aware enough though to whisper to her.

  “Theodore says this is your fault. For not coming to him.”

  Chapter 21

  Thomas watched the coach wheel into the Trefoyle drive with mild interest. This morning should have been a jubilant one. He would have the regiment on the road within two days and Sir Edmund was departing for London with the Guilmors today to confirm their success to Horseguards. If it weren’t for the fact that eight in the morning was too early for a cigar he should by rights be standing here on the terrace, feet braced as he surveyed the manicured landscape, puffing away in celebration of a remarkable coup.

  Only he wasn’t. Not because of the hundred and one things to be checked at the barracks, he’d be leaving shortly to encourage those of his officers who would benefit from a reminder of how he expected their duties to be discharged. The battalion would leave on time and in good order, Thomas had no doubts on that score. Judith was the problem: stubborn, prickly, and unreasonable. And those were her good qualities. Lord knows he tried. If she’d only been prepared to listen he could have explained why he thought Horsley unpredictable.

  But she had to jump in and attack him. Then talk about Charles’ nature as if that were a subject fit for a lady to raise. Instead of a secret that if it were exposed would leave his brother with no option but to put a pistol to his temple. For all that he couldn’t quite believe that might have been the last time he would see Judith Hampton, or that if he did see her again it would only be as another man’s wife. As the carriage came closer Thomas recognised the Hampton’s slightly shabby town coach, and he couldn’t stop the surge of hope that Judith might have seen sense.