Rebels, Rakes & Rogues

by Cheryl Bolen

  Fortunately, there was no coastal cliff to gobble her up here. Just a hilly, pleasing landscape, air tinged with salt water, and perennial breezes that swept Louisa's soft muslin gown to outline the gentle curves of her body.

  He felt compelled to draw her hand into his as they walked along the footpath. Even with no words passing between them, he was oddly warmed by her presence as they trod up the forlorn hill.

  When they reached the top of the hill, Harry's breath caught at what he beheld. On the next bluff there arose a mighty castle. Its turrets caught the light of the mid-day sun, the castle's solidness the antithesis of Tintagel's ruins. His chest tightened. This was it. Their quest had ended.

  Chapter 20

  Long after the innkeeper's wife had cleared away their dinner dishes at the Speckled Goose Inn that night, Louisa and Harry sat in the parlor discussing their plans for the following day.

  "I cannot believe our good fortune," Louisa said happily. "To think tomorrow is actually the Public Day at Gorwick Castle."

  "The home of Lord Tremaine," he added dryly.

  "I know you're right. I shouldn't be getting my hopes up. After all, how many times have you been at Public Days and actually set eyes on the Lord of the Manor or – in this case – the Lord of the Castle?"

  He looked at her incredulously. "I've never been to a Public Day in my life, unless you count Cartmore Hall."

  "No, I don't expect you would have," she said, laughing. "How stupid of me."

  "Except for pulling flowers from the edge of cliffs, I'll wager you've never done a stupid thing in your life."

  The crimson began to roll up her face.

  "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you," he said, placing his hand over hers.

  A bubbling heat surged through her at his touch."You know very well you have put me to the blush again."

  "I seem to have a facility for doing that."

  She smiled, glad that she could find humor in herself.

  He grew pensive. "What if we don't see the Lord of the Castle tomorrow?"

  "Then we'll just have to find a way to stay within the castle walls when the tour is over."

  "I don't like the sound of that," he said. "It could be dangerous -- if Tremaine is the man who ruined my father."

  "Since he's reclusive, I don't think the lord would recognize you. After all, you spent eight years out of the country."

  "But he might recognize you."

  "I told you there was no way he could have seen me that night."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "For one thing, I was in darkness. For another, he had to be sixty feet away from me."

  "Had the man ever seen you, he would remember."

  "How so?" she asked, puzzled.

  "You are an exceptionally beautiful woman."

  Sweet heaven above! Her cheeks were flaming again. She didn't know how to respond. To thank him would be to acknowledge the truth to his statement -- which would be the pinnacle of conceit. How did practiced flirts handle such a situation, she wondered, not that she wanted to resemble those empty-headed girls in any way. Her inexperience with men -- despite eight years as a married woman -- only brought home how inadequate she was for Harry. Not that he would have had her anyway.

  He reached toward her and traced her nose with a single finger. "Sorry I made you blush."

  She tried to make light of the sensual gesture. "I daresay Cook could bring me to blush by reciting the grocer's list."

  He laughed at that, then poured more wine.

  Together they drank three bottles of wine, though Harry's glass count far exceeded hers, as did his capacity for drinking spirits. Louisa began to yawn, and the next thing he knew, she laid her head on the table, right next to the dripping candle, and went to sleep.

  Harry carried her upstairs to their bedchamber, his insides turning to pure mush. Louisa had a habit of doing that to him.

  Their room was dark when he placed her on the bed to light the taper. That done, he removed her pelisse. She would just have to sleep in her gown because he wasn't about to draw her wrath for such an action. He stood there a long while, drinking in her loveliness. He thought of going back to the tavern and drinking himself into oblivion, but for some inexplicable reason he could not leave Louisa.

  He moved to the bed, stripping off his clothes until they heaped on the well-worn wooden floor. Then he climbed beside Louisa. She began to softly moan, then she called his name. Harry.

  She called his name again.

  Then with a disappointment deep and gnawing, he realized Louisa was asleep.

  "Harry!" she said once more, urgency in her voice.

  He placed his arm around her. That it was his name she called – and not that beast Godwin Phillips's – pleased him. His own comfort was far from his thoughts. He was consumed with the urge to take care of Louisa for the rest of her days. To protect her from men who would use her. Or abuse her. To let her know what it was to be cherished. To awaken the passion of true love he knew budded within her soul.

  For in this passionate little bluestocking lay the promise of all his dreams. Louisa Phillips was the only woman who could ever replace his mother as the Countess Wycliff.

  * * *

  Edward stopped to change horses at Woking. Because of the fair weather, he had made excellent progress. He was going to push himself to make Salisbury by nightfall, and if he continued at this pace, he could be deep in Cornwall tomorrow. With his riding crop in one hand and his unraveled woolen neck scarf in the other, he jumped from the box and strode toward the tavern. A drink would do his parched throat good.

  Then he heard it. A small voice had said his name. And the deuced thing about it was the voice sounded like Miss Sinclair's. "Mr. Coke."

  There it was again! Couldn't be the young lady's. She was miles from here, safe and snug at Wycliff House, though it was no longer called that. Nevertheless, he decided to turn around to see who it was who was calling his name.

  Had the king himself been standing there addressing him, he could not have been more taken aback. For the quite lovely Ellie Sinclair faced him, and she was dressed as a tiger! And from the direction she had come from, he realized she had been perched for the whole world to see on the back of his phaeton! That is, the whole world except him.

  For a moment he scowled at her, completely seized with anger. What could she possibly be thinking of to come all this way with no chaperon? Whatever was he to do now? Two days could be lost in taking her back to London, and he had no assurances the foolish chit would even go.

  What a fool he'd been to trust her to be complacent and stay behind. After listening to those radicals she surrounded herself with, how could he have been stupid enough to think the girl would do the conventional thing?

  "You are angry," she said feebly, walking toward him in her masculine togs.

  Where ever did she find them? From a distance she would be taken for a boy, but no one seeing that lovely face could have any doubt as to her gender. He wished for a fleeting second that she could be ugly. Then this would be much easier.

  "Course I'm angry. You've cost me valuable time."

  "How so, sir?"

  Did the deuced girl have to gaze at him in such an innocent manner? Blast her! "Naturally, I'll have to take you back to London."

  She huffed and stuck out her flattened chest. "I will not go."

  Were she really a boy he would have been able to speak authoritatively to him, but he couldn't do so with Miss Sinclair. She was, after all, a lady. "Now see here, Miss Sinclair, you cannot travel with me."

  "Why not?"

  "Because you're a lady." He swallowed. "And I am a gentleman."

  "My sister, sir, is a lady, and your cousin is a gentleman, and they are travelling together, and you yourself admitted there was no lewdness between them."

  "But I never said it was appropriate. In fact, it would be extremely inappropriate if it weren't for the fact your sister's been a married lady."

  She thought on all
this for a moment, standing there in boys' clothing that was still too big for her. "There will be no impropriety if people think I'm a boy."

  "But you're not a boy!" Seeing a man leave the tavern and not wishing to be overheard, Edward rushed toward Miss Sinclair and walked her back to his gig. "See here, Miss Sinclair, it ain't proper for you to be traveling with me," he said in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

  She looked up at him, those blue eyes of hers flashing. "What is proper and what is improper is merely in the eye of the beholder. Do you not agree?"

  "I agree," he said, rolling his eyes.

  "You and I know there is no impropriety between us, do we not?"

  "We know there is no impropriety," he said with the voice of one reciting a familiar passage in a favorite book.

  "Then as long as others believe that I am a boy, there will be no impropriety! So it's all settled."

  "What's settled?"

  "I'll continue to act the part of your tiger all the way to Cornwall."

  "Can't have you sitting behind on that rail," he uttered.

  She shrugged. "Could I be your little brother, then?" she asked meekly, her voice like that of a much younger girl. She stuck out her chest. "See, I have bound my breasts so I look like a lad."

  He turned away, an unfamiliar flush creeping into his cheeks. "I will not look at your breasts."

  "Oh, you cannot see them," she said cheerfully.

  "I should hope not!" he exclaimed, turning back to face her, a scowl on his face.

  "Oh, Mr. Coke, I have put you to the blush!"

  "You have not," he snapped.

  She linked her arm through his. "Then it is all settled."

  God in heaven, what have I ever done to be saddled with the likes of Miss Ellie Sinclair? he asked himself.

  * * *

  When Harry awoke Louisa with a cup of hot tea the following morning, she nailed him with an accusatory stare and said, "Confess, my lord, when I slept last night you brought a hammer into our chamber and pounded my head soundly with it."

  He laughed. "I fear you consumed far too much wine."

  She raised herself to a sitting position. "How did I get to bed?"

  "I carried you up the stairs."

  He thought he liked it better when she blushed. Her complacency disturbed him. This was not his Louisa.

  His Louisa. He cherished the idea. To the very core of his soul, he cherished Louisa Phillips. She was undoubtedly the finest woman he had ever known.

  Yet he knew Louisa was the only woman who could ever claim his heart. The only woman – indeed, the only person – whose life was more precious than his own.

  Chapter 21

  At breakfast – which Louisa and Harry again took in their private parlor of the Speckled Goose Inn – Harry ate heartily, but Louisa had little appetite.

  "Has my special elixir helped your head?" he asked softly.

  She nodded. "The head's better. Would that I could say the same for the rest of me. Why did you allow me to drink so much, my lord?"

  "I am not your master, Louisa."

  She could have sworn he said those words with regret. The effects of the wine must be lingering, clouding her thinking.

  When the innkeeper's wife brought another pot of hot tea, Harry questioned her. "I say, my wife and I are trying to decide if Lord Tremaine is the same man we once met in London. Tall, distinguished looking with a beard."

  "That sounds like him," the woman said. "Only saw him once meself. At St. Stephen's Church the day they dedicated the new windows. Lord Tremaine paid for them himself. 'Twas the only time I know that he set foot in the church. The family pew sits empty as you please at the front of the church Sunday after Sunday."

  Harry gave her a shilling and lavish compliments over the comfort of their room.

  Louisa could barely contain her excitement until the woman left the parlor. "Oh, Harry! Lord Tremaine has to be our man."

  He nodded solemnly. "A good thing today is Public Day at the castle."

  * * *

  Since the weather was fair, they decided to walk to the castle, which perched on a cliff above the village of Falwell.

  "I understand it dates to the twelfth century," Harry remarked as Louisa gazed up at the stone fortress.

  A mighty fortress it must have been, guarding much of the Cornish coast through the Middle Ages. Its battlements had eroded over the centuries but were still plainly visible even from a half mile away. Bulky round turrets anchored each corner of the square castle grounds.

  As Harry and Louisa wound their way through the cobbled streets of Falwell, Harry found himself wondering if there was a moat around the castle. Moats and castles had fascinated him as a youngster. He had more than once lamented that Cartmore Hall was not a castle.

  The sun was high in the sky when they strolled up to the gate to Garwick Castle, which did have a moat, but which looked to have dried up centuries earlier.

  They weren't sure where to go once they were within the castle yard, then they saw an old aproned woman with a throng of girls around her.

  "Must be a school trip," Harry muttered.

  They walked across the yard and stood waiting with the group of girls, whom Harry judged to be somewhere between ten and twelve years of age.

  They only had to wait a few moments before the housekeeper opened the huge timber door and welcomed them into the castle, gratefully accepting their shillings.

  She led them to the great hall first and gave accounts of the days when oxen were roasted in the massive fireplace. Despite his childhood fascination with castles, Harry found snippets about the inside of the castle exceedingly dull. When would they get to the interesting things like armor and buttresses? he found himself wondering.

  He was rather amazed at Louisa's interest in the building, but he supposed women liked that sort of thing. He was a bit embarrassed at being the only man in the group.

  Partly out of boredom, partly because he had not forgotten their reason for coming, he was careful to glance down every hallway and into every room, looking for signs of the lord of the castle.

  Nearly an hour elapsed, and no luck yet. If only there were a painting of Lord Tremaine. That should be enough for Louisa to make her identification.

  When they made their way to the second storey, his interest perked. Surely this was the floor where Tremaine resided. Harry continued to eagerly look down each hall and into each room, even if they were not on the tour. He sincerely hoped the housekeeper did not think he was scoping out the place with an eye to burglarizing it.

  Then he realized the foolishness of his idea. The place practically crawled with big, bulky liveried servants. Why would a man need to keep so many strong men in his employ?

  At eleven o'clock in the morning, it was far enough removed from mealtime to give the housekeeper liberty to show the group the castle's massive dining room.

  "The table seats sixty," she said with pride as she led her group into the rose-colored room. She rather reminded Harry of a mother duck leading the way for a trail of ducklings. The room was carpeted, and the smooth walls had been covered with silk damask. Everything was the same soft shade of red. The housekeeper had called it rose. He called it red. Mindful to stand behind the girls so as not to obstruct their view when the housekeeper began her recitation, Harry strolled into the room and stood behind the students. Then he looked up at three huge crystal chandeliers suspended from the ceiling.

  Next, his glance swung to a portrait that hung above the marble fireplace, and a chill sliced into him. His heart began to drum, and he swallowed hard. He began to break out in a sweat. He almost questioned his sanity. Was he actually standing in Garwick Castle, or was he standing in the dining room of Wycliff House in Grosvenor Square a decade earlier?

  For the portrait was the missing portrait of his mother.

  He felt as if her emerald eyes looked down on him. He loosened his cravat. He could almost hear her reassuring voice. Louisa guessed that something was
wrong with him. She moved to his side and lay a gentle hand on his arm. "Are you unwell, Harry?"

  He shook his head. "The bloody bastard has stolen my mother's portrait."

  Louisa gasped, her glance shooting to the painting that dominated the room. "She's. . .beautiful," Louisa whispered.

  * * *

  That afternoon and evening, Harry drank with a vengeance. So much that Louisa worried about him.

  She watched him as he sat beside her on the upholstered bench not five feet from the blazing hearth that lighted their parlor. His face took on a gold cast from the light of the fire. His brow was moist with perspiration, and his dark hair was tousled.

  "It was almost like seeing her again," Harry said.

  He wasn't really carrying on a conversation with her, Louisa knew. He was merely thinking aloud.

  "You were very close to your mother," Louisa soothed.

  "Everyone who knew her counted her a friend. She had that way about her. Everyone loved her."

  "With such a disposition as well as beauty, I think she must have had an army of suitors – before she married your father, of course."

  "Her suitors all came before my father. You can be assured once she wed him, she never looked at another man. She was completely devoted to him." His tone sobered. "You know she died but one month after my father died."

  Louisa nodded sympathetically as he continued.

  "She defended him when I berated him for losing everything."

  "At the time I thought perhaps she would have been better off wedding the first man she had been engaged to."

  Louisa's brows lowered.

  Harry gave a little chuckle. "She actually ran off with my father. She had become engaged to a wealthy suitor – she called him George – but had not really been in love with him. Then she met my father and knew she belonged with him, not George."

  Louisa asked, "Is there a possibility Lord Tremaine could be George?"