Nicola Cornick Collection

by Nicola Cornick

  ‘When I first bought up all the stakeholders in the Blue Parrot, I had no intention of giving the club to you,’ he said. ‘I was so angry and disillusioned that I wanted to take everything away from you and ruin you. I am so sorry, Sally.’

  Sally’s head was against his shoulder. Her hair tickled his face. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said serenely. ‘I guessed that was what you planned. Greg came to warn me, and I was very fearful, but some instinct told me you would never hurt me like that. So I took the risk.’

  ‘You showed me how much you trusted me,’ Jack said, turning his face into her hair and inhaling the scent of her, wanting to feel her deep in his bones. ‘You are braver than I. I was humbled.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Sally said. ‘That cannot happen very often.’

  ‘I love you,’ Jack said. He slid an arm about her and drew her closer against him, where it felt as though she belonged. ‘I loved you from the first moment we met, though I utterly failed to realise it. I was so accustomed to thinking that the only woman I could ever love was Merle.’

  ‘I understand,’ Sally said. ‘She was your first love.’

  ‘It was madness,’ Jack said, ‘like a drug. From the moment she and I met I was entirely swept away, in love with the idea of love, as well as with her. But with you …’ he paused, then kissed her ‘… I feel so much more—love and acceptance and peace as well as excitement at the prospect of the future.’ He stopped. ‘I am not so good with words,’ he said gruff ly, ‘but I love you so much I can scarce believe it.’

  ‘You could show me,’ Sally said, tilting her face up to his in the most innocently provocative way he had ever seen, ‘if you would like to.’

  Astonishingly, Jack found himself hesitating for a second. It seemed extraordinary that he, the greatest rake in London, should be reluctant to make love to his own fiancée, and yet he felt unsure. He felt hesitant about almost everything in the newly discovered world of his where Sally held his future in her hands.

  ‘If you are absolutely certain—’ he began, stopping abruptly as Sally put a hand around his neck and brought his lips down to hers. She tasted sweet and desirable and his head spun. He relaxed into the feeling, recognising now that there was so much more here than lust, so much of warmth and generosity and love, and that it was his for the taking.

  ‘I think,’ Sally said, as their lips parted, ‘that once we set a wedding date your Great-Aunt Ottoline will insist on an inordinate amount of propriety from us, so it is perhaps best that we should be totally improper now.’

  Jack grabbed her hand and was about to hurry her back inside the club, but she stopped him. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘There are too many people there. Come with me …’

  Like a wraith in her silver gown, she led him into the green depths of the garden to where a topiary arch led to an enclosed garden with a sunken pool and a little wooden pagoda. The dawn light glittered on the water and the air was full of the scent of roses. Sally let go of him only for long enough to go into the pagoda and emerge with a heavy rag-rug seat cover the same red-and-gold colour as the roses. She laid it down on the grass in the shadow on the hedge.

  ‘Here,’ she said, with a bewitching smile. She lowered her lashes. ‘I must confess,’ she continued, ‘that our last encounter gave me a taste for fresh air.’

  Jack’s mouth went dry. ‘Here?’

  She looked at him a little quizzically. ‘I am beginning to think that your reputation is decidedly undeserved, Mr Kestrel.’

  Jack was beside her in one stride, covering her mouth with his, pulling her into his arms. ‘We’ll see,’ he said.

  ‘This is a Worth gown,’ she said, when he released her. Her voice was a little unsteady.

  Jack laughed. ‘Darling, I’ll buy you twenty of them.’

  Sally, whose busy fingers had been working on the fastenings of his shirt, paused for a moment. ‘Could you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jack said, obliging her by shrugging himself out of the shirt, and pulling her down to sit with him on the rug. ‘So far you seem to have given little real thought to my financial circumstances—despite my shameful suspicions that you were a fortune hunter—but I am accounted extremely wealthy, you know.’

  ‘How delightful,’ Sally said. Her hands were sliding over his bare chest in distracting circles. She pressed a kiss against his collarbone and the ripples of sensation shivered across his skin. He tried to concentrate, before it was too late.

  ‘You will want to continue working after we are wed,’ he said huskily. ‘I understand that.’

  ‘I thought that you must,’ Sally said, trailing kisses haphazardly down his chest, ‘when you gave me the deeds to the Club.’

  ‘But we may have a house in the country—’

  ‘Where I may design a garden even bigger and more exciting than this one,’ Sally finished. Her fingers had reached the waistband of his trousers now. ‘Must I do this all myself?’ she complained.

  ‘No,’ Jack said. He tumbled her over beneath him so that she lay looking up at him, ethereal in her silver gown, her hair spread out about her on the rug. He slid the gown from her shoulders. ‘Mmn. I like this one.’

  Her skin was creamy white, bathed in the dawn light. He lowered his head to kiss her brow softly and to trace the curve of her cheek with his lips, nuzzling lower to her neck and the vulnerable skin beneath her ear. He heard her breathing catch and felt her shiver as he eased the gown down over her body to pool in a silver heap on the rug beside them.

  ‘No damage done,’ he said. He ran his hands down her tightly laced body, lingering over the curve of her breasts, delving into the satin softness of the bloomers, finding the gap that left her completely defenceless to his touch. ‘Odd,’ he said reflectively, ‘that a corset is as effective as a suit of armour above, and yet below …’ Slyly, his fingers stroked her inner thigh, then slipped deeper to caress her intimately. Sally gave a little gasp and arched to the touch of his hand.

  ‘Jack …’ Her voice broke on his name.

  ‘Have patience, sweetheart.’ He dropped a lush kiss on her mouth. He found the contrast of her tight lacing above and flagrant exposure below intensely arousing. It was something, he thought, that he would need to explore at length in future. But for now, he needed her naked. He wanted to devour every last inch of her cool, sweet body and know that it was his entirely, freely given.

  ‘I need to unlace you,’ he whispered.

  Through a combination of luck, force and willpower Jack managed to relieve Sally of her underwear and himself of the remainder of his own clothes, and managed to keep his sanity intact as well. He was so hard now that he was desperate for her, but he was not going to hurry. He covered her pale body with his own, worshipping her with his hands and his mouth, branding her with kisses over her breasts and the sweet curve of her stomach. His tongue traced the line of her hip and again she arched against him with a gasp of pure need. With a groan he dragged her body against him. She tasted hot and sweet and smelled of summer and roses and it drugged his senses until they spun. She gave him back each eager kiss and caress, generous and open as ever, and his heart swelled with love and peace and the last dark corners of his mind were flooded with light.

  ‘This time it is with love,’ he whispered, ‘and it always will be.’

  Her eyes were wide and dark, dazed with passion, brilliant with tears. His fingers brushed her cheek tenderly. She clung to him, drawing him down, and he took her mouth with leashed passion, pressing gently within her, feeling her tighten around him and his body catch fire from hers. He was aware of nothing then but her sweet, fevered response and the whirling, painful spiral of his own desire until he tumbled over the edge, gave all of himself without reservation for the first time in his life, and lay spent and dazzled with Sally clasped tightly in his arms and against his heart.

  ‘Sally?’

  Sally woke reluctantly to the sound of Jack’s voice and realised that she was still lying naked in his arms on the rag rug and that a drift of ros
e petals had fallen from the tree about them and dusted their bodies with pink and gold. Her skin felt a little chilled from the fresh morning air and she shivered and burrowed closer to Jack’s warmth. His arms tightened about her in response.

  ‘Sally?’ he repeated.

  ‘Mmm?’ She was so happy and at peace that she did not wish to have to move or think, but Jack persisted.

  ‘You do realise,’ he said, his breath stirring her hair, ‘that you have not told me that you love me.’

  Sally gave a little spurt of laughter. It seemed extraordinary that she had never told him when she had known almost from the start that she had fallen in love with him.

  ‘Well …’ she said, thoughtfully, rubbing her fingers in gentle circles over his chest. ‘I do like you a great deal, Jack. I enjoy your company. You have a delightful family. And although such matters do not weigh with me, I am thrilled that you are so rich—’

  She broke off with a muffled gasp as he stopped her words with a kiss.

  ‘Minx!’ But there was a note of anxiety in his voice that she was quick to hear and she realised with surprise that he was nervous. Jack Kestrel, the last rake in London, was anxious because he loved her so much that he would not be able to bear it if she did not love him equally. Sally’s heart ached as she realised how much he needed her.

  ‘Oh, Jack,’ she said, ‘I love you very much.’ She hesitated. ‘Although I have known you but a short time, I feel as though I have loved you for a very long time.’

  Jack made a sound of satisfaction and wrapped her closer still in his arms. Sally thought fleetingly then of Merle Jameson and of her father and of all the shadows that had haunted the past for both her and for Jack. She opened her mind like a flower opening to the sun and let the regrets and the jealousy and the guilt drift away for the last time, then turned her face up to Jack’s and kissed him until they lost themselves again in one another.

  Epilogue

  They were married in the church at Dauntsey a month later. Charley and Nell were the bride’s attendants and Lucy made an adorable flower child. The King and Queen were the guests of honour, which gratified Lady Ottoline exceedingly. Gregory Holt was groomsman.

  Connie and Bertie did not attend. They were on an extended honeymoon in Scotland. Connie, forgetting that she was writing to congratulate her sister, instead wrote that she detested Scotland; that most of the time it rained and when it did not she was eaten by the midges, that Bertie spent all his time fishing or shooting things and she was bored to death.

  After the wedding reception was over Sally, Jack and Lady Ottoline stood in the hall beneath a portrait of Sally, Duchess of Kestrel, and Lady Ottoline took Sally’s hand in hers.

  ‘One day,’ she said gruffly, ‘you will be Duchess in my mother’s place and in her own image. I know she would have approved of you.’

  Sally, looking up at the Duchess’s piquant face and smiling green eyes, thought that she was perhaps right.

  Jack’s arm tightened about Sally’s waist. ‘She will be magnificent,’ he prophesied and Sally could see all the love he felt for her in his eyes.

  Lady Ottoline smiled. ‘And as for you, nephew,’ she said, ‘I am glad that you have come home at last.’

  Jack looked up at the picture of Justin, Duke of Kestrel, on the opposite wall to his wife.

  ‘The last rake in London is caught,’ he said, an irresistible smile on his lips. ‘He is home and he is very happy with his fate.’

  Read all about it…

  More about this book

  2 Inspiration for writing Dauntsey Park: The Last Rake in London and the Kestrel family

  Edwardian Fashion

  The Age of Science and Invention

  6 Recommended reading

  MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  7 Author biography

  9 Q&A on writing

  NICOLA CORNICK ON Dauntsey Park: The Last Rake in London

  As an author who has set most of her books in the Regency period, I found writing a book with a background of the Edwardian era quite a challenge! Yet the more I researched the Edwardian period, the more struck I was by the similarities with the Regency. There was the same glitter and decadence in High Society, there was the gambling and the balls and the country house parties, the fabulous fashions and the contrast between the self-indulgent lifestyle of the rich élite and the poverty of the rest of the population. And somewhere in the process of planning the book, I thought it would be nice to link Dauntsey Park: The Last Rake in London with my Regency writing because the comparisons were so strong that this felt the natural thing to do.

  Jack Kestrel is the last rake in London, a man whose behaviour harks back to an earlier era when his ancestors, the Dukes of Kestrel, were renowned for their gambling and womanising. I wrote the stories of Justin Kestrel, his brothers Richard and Lucas and their friend Cory Newlyn in my Bluestocking Brides trilogy and I thought it would be wonderful if Jack was a man cut from the same cloth, not simply in terms of his ancestry but also in the way that he had inherited all the vices—and virtues!—of his rakish forbears!

  For me, Jack Kestrel epitomises all the fascination of the Edwardian era. He is born into the aristocracy but is also a self-made man deeply involved in the scientific advances of his day. He is a rake who needs a strong self-made woman to tame him! Like his ancestors he thinks he will never fall in love. Like them he finds his destiny.

  Fashion

  Edwardian etiquette demanded several changes of clothing for both men and women throughout the day, depending on the social event they were attending.

  The fuchsia pink silk dress worn by Sally in Dauntsey Park: The Last Rake in London was at the cutting edge of fashion in 1908. Whilst gowns by designers such as Worth were made for a more traditional clientele, the tea gowns designed by Mariano Fortuny and evening gowns by Paul Poiret freed women from the constraints of the old-fashioned corset.

  The corset was designed to produce an S-shaped figure and was laced as tightly as possible. This placed restrictions on breathing and movement that were dangerous to health. In 1906 Woman’s Life magazine criticised tight lacing for causing “more ruined digestions, more red noses, more weak hearts, more agonies of pain … than anything else.” It must have been a huge relief when fashion moved on!

  Poiret established his own fashion house in 1903. He designed flamboyant window displays and threw legendary parties to draw attention to his work; his instinct for marketing and branding was unmatched by any previous designer. In 1909, he was so famous that the wife of HH Asquith, the Prime Minister, invited him to show his designs at 10 Downing Street. The cheapest garment at his exhibition cost thirty guineas, double the annual salary of a scullery maid.

  Men’s fashions were also changing at this time. In Dauntsey Park: The Last Rake in London, Jack borrows a tuxedo to wear for a formal dinner. Whilst these were increasing in popularity during the period they were not considered completely acceptable for formal events!

  The Age of Science and Invention

  Renowned for its golden days of aristocratic indulgence, the Edwardian period was also the age of science and invention, with the first motor cars taking to the streets, the first developments in aviation and the London Underground Railway spreading out into the city suburbs.

  Nowhere were the inventions and developments of the age more spectacularly displayed than at the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908. This was the largest fair of its kind and the first international exhibition that was sponsored jointly by two countries. It was organised to celebrate the Entente Cordiale of 1904 and to display and promote the industrial achievements of both countries. On 14th May, 1908, the Prince of Wales, the future George V, declared the exhibition open, and Madame Albani sang the national anthem in the pouring rain. On 26th May “The Marseillaise” and the national anthem were played for the visit of President Fallières of France and Edward VII. As the exhibition buildings were all painted white the event and the site soon gained the nickname, “The Great W
hite City,” a name that was to be preserved for history when the Central Line opened a station there in the 1950s.

  Besides the “serious” exhibitions of machinery and products, there was a wide range of novelty attractions and sideshows such as toboggan rides, slides, helter-skelters and the Flip-Flap. This was a fairground ride consisting of two one-hundred-and-fifty-foot counterpoised iron arms, with carriages holding fifty people, which went up to two hundred feet, passing each other. By the end of the exhibition over a million people had paid £27,000 to go on it. The attraction also inspired the White City hit song, Darewski and Willmott’s “Take Me on the Flip-Flap” which was performed in the music halls to great acclaim. The 1908 Olympic Games also took place in London and the stadium was built on the same site.

  In the words of the song:

  “Good old London’s in a maze

  With its very latest craze

  And every day in crowds we fight and push

  On a motorbus to climb

  Twenty-seven at a time,

  Or take a good old tube to Shepherd’s Bush.

  It’s an exhibition rare that is drawing thousands there

  Every nation gaining in the grand display …”

  It must have been quite an experience!

  FURTHER RECOMMENDED READING

  The Edwardian Country House by Juliet Gardiner—A book that gives a fascinating insight into the romance and reality of Edwardian society and evokes the “golden” years before the First World War.

  Victorian and Edwardian London by AR Hope Moncrieff—First published in 1910, this book, written by a Victorian gentleman about town, takes the reader on a tour of central London and describes the customs of the times.

  The Edwardians: Biography of the Edwardian Age by Roy Hattersley—A vivid picture of Edwardian Britain, covering everything from the class system to the indulgences of the aristocracy, to the invention of the motor car and aeroplane.