The Rake's Retreat

by Nancy Butler

  After a nod of greeting to Bryce, Troy made up a plate for himself, and then sat down opposite the breakfast parlor window. In the sunlight his thick hair gleamed a rich, pale gold, and his eyes shone a pure sapphire blue, in spite of their somewhat inflamed condition. Since Troy had seated himself beside Miss Wellesley, who was herself not an inconsiderable beauty, Bryce was almost overwhelmed by the shimmering splendor that arose from the table opposite him. It made a man long to take up a paintbrush.

  “I am Terence Vale,” Troy said, holding out one hand to the girl beside him. “Jemima’s brother.”

  Bryce winced—he’d been too distracted by gilded youth to perform the proper introductions.

  “And I am Lovelace Wellesley,” the girl replied.

  “Wonderful name,” Troy remarked, still holding her hand.

  “Wellesley?” she said. “Yes, I do adore it.”

  “No,” Troy said with a grin. “Lovelace. I assume you were named after Richard Lovelace.”

  Her face went blank. “Oh! Is he someone you know?”

  Troy laughed. “No, he’s been dead for over a hundred years.”

  She frowned. “That’s very disagreeable. Why would I be called after someone who is dead?”

  “He was a poet,” Bryce interjected gently. “A very renowned poet.”

  “Lud!” said Lovelace with a toss of her curls. “What do I care for horrid old dead poets. Now playwrights, that’s a different matter altogether.” She gave Troy a wide smile and said with great portent, “I am an actress. I was on my way to London with my family to perform in a new play. We’ve been traveling the provinces, you see. And to great adulation, I must confess, though I do not like to sing my own praises. Why, only last month, a critic in Wiltshire said that my Ludmilla—that was in The Valiant Maiden of Wurtenburg—sent him home in tears.”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised,” Bryce muttered to himself.

  “What was that?” She turned to him with a wide-eyed expression of inquiry.

  “Nothing, Miss Wellesley.” He pushed back his chair and rose. “I think I’ll go up and see how Lady Jemima is faring.” Bryce stood watching Troy expectantly, as though he was waiting for some response.

  The young man looked up and said with an easy smile, “She’s still asleep—I checked before I came clown. But you’re welcome to look in on her. It’s not like Jemima to sleep in, she’s usually up with the birds. I…don’t recall much of last night, but I do remember she was dreadfully overset by the notion that I had been murdered.”

  Bryce nodded. He’d only allowed Lady Jemima enough time with her brother to see for herself that he was not yet a corpse, and then had whisked him away to his room before she could detect how truly pickled he was. She’d had enough shocks for one night, he reckoned.

  Lovelace had been following their conversation with an expression of charming confusion on her face. “You aren’t the man who was murdered!” she declared hotly to Troy.

  He bit his lip. “Oh, and why do you say that?”

  “Because I saw it happen,” she said, tapping one finger against her lace-frilled bodice.

  “You’re sure it wasn’t me?”

  She narrowed one eye. “Do I look like a lackwit to you? The man who was murdered had light brown hair. Yours is quite blond.” She folded her arms triumphantly.

  Troy looked up at Bryce, who was lounging in the doorway, trying not to laugh. “Then I guess I am not dead,” he pronounced. “If Miss Wellesley says it is so.”

  “Well, that relieves my mind,” Bryce drawled. “Hate sharing my breakfast table with corpses. Now if you two will excuse me…”

  Still chuckling, he made his way up the stairs. It was a pity Jemima had missed Lovelace’s latest start. It would have entertained her no end.

  * * *

  Jemima awoke slowly, aware only of a feeling of great relief. Troy was not dead. The words sang in her heart. Somehow, by some miracle, he had been returned to her. She recalled how Bryce had roused her gently from her stupor and then urged her brother down beside the library couch. She had wrapped her arms around Terry and wept with joy. He had seemed befuddled by her outpouring of emotion, but then he was particularly unsympathetic to a woman’s tears. Dear, peevish Troy.

  Jemima got up and held one hand to her head. Bryce had plied her with brandy once Troy had gone off to his bed, and she wasn’t used to such strong spirits. Or to having her life turned upside down in the space of one day. First, Lovelace’s brush with murder, then Bryce’s high-handed manipulation, capped off by the erroneous report of Troy’s death. She devoutly hoped today offered her nothing more taxing than a peaceful stroll in the garden.

  She moved to the dressing table and began to comb the tangles from her hair. She had long ago gotten used to doing without a lady’s maid, since it was Troy’s habit to go jaunting off to out-of-the-way places at the drop of a hat, which made servants an encumbrance. Their visit to the Iron Duke was a case in point. Two days earlier Troy had come striding into the drawing room of their London town house, insisting that she accompany him to a mill in Kent. She knew he didn’t expect her to actually attend the prizefight, he merely wanted her company on the journey.

  He had a wide circle of male friends who were always delighted to travel with him, so it was flattering that he frequently asked her to go along in their stead. Not that her presence didn’t offer him compensations other than her companionship. She knew precisely how to wangle the best rooms from an innkeeper, and how to ensure that her brother would get the finest cuts of meat from the kitchen. She smoothed things for him on every stage of a journey, kept him soothed and untroubled, so that he had nothing to focus on but his poetry and his amusing pursuits.

  She had been looking after him for so many years—ever since their parents died—that it never occurred to her that he was taking advantage of her good nature. He was generally so amiable himself that she didn’t mind performing those little offices that made his life run without a hitch.

  There was a knock at the door. Jemima spun on the bench. “Yes?”

  “Are you stirring yet?”

  Oh, Lord, it’s Bryce. “Yes,” she called quickly, “I’ll be down in—”

  The door opened.

  He at least had the courtesy not to enter the room, preferring instead to lean against one side of the door frame. “I wanted to see how you were faring this morning. You…had a rough time of it last night.”

  “I am not dressed,” she said icily, disregarding his solicitous remark. She felt a small stirring of guilt—Bryce had been noticeably selfless last night and she owed him some gratitude for that, but that didn’t mean he could come wandering into her bedroom at will.

  He eyed her voluminous night rail, and the roomy dressing gown she wore over it. His brows rose. ‘Rather overdressed, if you ask me. Not what I would have chosen for you.”

  “They belong to your housekeeper,” she muttered between her teeth. “In case you have forgotten, my things are still at the inn.”

  Her fingers itched to draw the lapels of the robe over her chest, but she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cringe under his overt scrutiny. It infuriated her that he thought she could own such unflattering garments. Just because he was a maiden lady didn’t mean she dressed like a dowd. She had a mind to appear at dinner wearing her most revealing gown, if only to put him in his place.

  “That is why I am here,” Bryce said, shifting to the other side of the doorway. “I’m off to see the magistrate this morning—to let him know he still has an unidentified body on his hands. On the way back, I can take you to the Tattie and Snip to fetch your things. And your brother’s. He was a bit…indisposed last night. It must have slipped his mind.”

  “He was roaring drunk,” she retorted sharply. “Though I suppose I should thank you for trying to keep it from me. He’s gotten like that a time or two in the past, so it doesn’t shock me. And furthermore, I am only his sister, Mr. Bryce, not his watchdog.”

&nbs
p; Bryce shrugged. “He apparently gives you the same freedom.”

  She looked perplexed, and so he added, “Most men who sobered up to find their sister staying in the home of a well-known libertine would have at least taken me aside and warned me off. Troy is at present sitting in my breakfast parlor, blithe as you please, making inroads on the kippers. And he didn’t bat an eye when I mentioned looking in on you. A less fraternal performance I have yet to see.”

  “You sound almost disappointed,” she observed. “Would you rather he challenged you to a duel over ‘my honor’? I should warn you, Troy is a crack shot.”

  Bryce’s eyes darkened. “Shooting wafers at Manton’s isn’t quite the same as looking down a pistol barrel and staring perdition in the face.” He stepped back from the door. “I’m leaving for the magistrate’s in fifteen minutes. Meet me on the front steps if you want to join me.” He turned and disappeared.

  Jemima swung back to her mirror and was dismayed to see that a noticeable pink flush had risen to her cheeks. Drat the man, for having such an effect on her. Making her feel giddy and outraged at the same time. It occurred to her that going for a carriage ride with him might not be the wisest course she could follow, but then she chided herself for being missish. Even in the propriety-conscious ton, unwed ladies were allowed to drive out with their gentlemen callers. Not that Beecham Bryce would ever have had a reason, gentlemanly or otherwise, to call on Lady Jemima Vale.

  More’s the pity, that tiresome inner voice lamented. “Oh, hush,” she said aloud.

  She twisted her hair into a knot, coaxing a few strands to curl about her face, and then quickly drew on her chemise and gown. Both were freshly laundered and ironed, and she silently saluted her host for the efficiency of his staff, as she caught up her bonnet by its ribbons and went hurrying from the room.

  She made a sidetrip to the breakfast parlor, where Lovelace and her brother were deep in conversation. Or more accurately, Lovelace was deep in conversation—Terry looked to be in deep shock.

  “…and then in Basingstoke, the mayor presented me with an honorary wreath, to commemorate my performance of… Oh, hello, Lady J. I’ve been telling your brother a bit about myself.”

  Troy craned around to grin up at his sister. “Jemima.”

  “Morning, Troy,” she said, as she bent over and kissed him on one cheek. “How’s your head?”

  “Still attached to my shoulders, more’s the pity,” he said with a rueful wince.

  She patted him on the shoulder. “I gather you backed the winner yesterday—”

  “Troy?” Lovelace interjected. “Lady J, did you just call him Troy?”

  Jemima looked down at her brother. “Are we incognito this morning?”

  He turned to Lovelace with an apologetic smile. “I am known to some as Lord Troy.”

  Lovelace scrambled up from the table as if there were a serpent on her plate instead of a coddled egg, “You are Lord Troy? The poet Lord Troy?”

  As he nodded, she raised both hands to her mouth. “Oh…this is infamous. And so unfair! I was going to meet you in London, when I performed in our new play. You wrote it, you see…well, the poem. And now you have ruined everything! That you should first see me hobbling about on a stick, wearing this wretched old gown, with my hair in positive knots…it is beyond mortifying. Oh, how…how could you sit here, eating your breakfast, knowing the whole time that you were Lord Troy?”

  “Even poets have to eat,” he said gently, clearly trying to untangle the source of her distemper.

  “I have never felt so dispirited in my whole life. First murderers, then rabbit holes, now poets who pretend to be ordinary people. M-my life has surely become a wretched thing.” She raised one hand to her brow and wilted back against the draperies, staggering a little on her bad ankle.

  Jemima leaned down to her brother’s ear. “She’s an actress.”

  “So the rumor goes,” he muttered as he continued to regard Lovelace’s theatrics with a dubious eye.

  The girl had begun to sob softly, the tears running down her face in tiny rivulets.

  “You’d better deal with this, Jem,” Troy said as he threw his napkin down and got to his feet. He drew his sister away from the table. “You know I can’t stomach weepy women.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, waving away the suggestion. “Bryce is waiting for me—I am already late. Use some of that famous Vale charm on her,” she whispered intently. “Tell her about our trip to Greece. Tell her you saw her in Othello and thought she was the best Moor ever… Oh, I don’t care what you tell her.”

  She snatched a honey bun from the side table and went hurrying off toward the front of the house.

  Bryce was waiting in the drive, in a black high-perch phaeton drawn by four exquisite chestnut horses.

  “This is a surprise,” she said, as a groom assisted her onto the elevated seat. “Rather bang-up for the provinces, don’t you think?”

  His cheeks narrowed. “I can always have the hay wagon brought around, if you’d prefer.”

  “No, this is very nice. As long as you don’t overturn us in a ditch.”

  He made no comment, merely dropped the reins and sent his team out of the courtyard at a brisk trot.

  Jemima held on to her bonnet as they rounded the corner of the drive onto the main road. “You needn’t show off on my account,” she said. “I am sadly unimpressed by driving.”

  “I see,” he murmured, keeping his eyes on the road. “So you are not one of those sporting ladies who longs to take the ribbons from her gentlemen friends. I, on the other hand, live to take the ribbons from my female acquaintances.”

  She couldn’t keep from laughing. “I wonder you can be so full of sauce this early in the morning.”

  Bryce shot her a wicked look. “I am particularly full of sauce in the morning.”

  Jemima was spared a reply when an inattentive goose boy let his charges wander into the path of the oncoming carriage. Bryce sent his horses onto the grassy verge and neatly avoided the potential decimation of the local poultry population. Jemima was impressed by his skill, in spite of herself.

  “I do enjoy riding, however,” she remarked once they were back on the road. “Troy and I grew up in the country and we rode every day. Now we only ride in Hyde Park, which is rather tame.”

  “If you stay on at Bryce Prospect, I insist that you let me mount you.”

  Jemima turned to stare at his rugged profile. His face was relaxed and without any guile. She couldn’t see the devils that danced in his eyes. “Thank you for the offer,” she said. “But I doubt we will remain past today. Lovelace’s family should turn up by noon at the latest.”

  “You have engagements back in London, then?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing pressing, now that the Season is winding down. But you will surely want us out of your hair. Speaking of London,” she added. “I am surprised I have never seen you driving in the park. This carriage would be hard to miss.”

  “I don’t drive in the park,” he said as he guided his horses past a slow-moving farm cart.

  “What?” she said with a chuckle. “Afraid everyone will give you the cut direct?”

  He turned to her and she saw his mouth had tightened. “Yes, Lady Jemima. That is exactly the reason.”

  She started to apologize, and then stopped herself. Bryce had made his own bed, so why should she be sorry he had to lie in it? Still, the expression on his face troubled her for the rest of their short journey.

  They soon came to Withershins, a small village whose shops and houses were clustered around a charming green with a duck pond at its center. Bryce slowed his team as they made their way along the high street, pointing out the local livery, the bake shop, and a tavern called the Bosun’s Mate.

  “You’re quite near the sea here,” Jemima said. “I’d forgotten that. The countryside looks so pastoral, not maritime in the least.”

  “We’re only five miles from Romney Marsh. Best place to land smuggled goods on the entire
coast.”

  “Have you ever been involved with smugglers, Mr. Bryce?”

  He gave her a wry look. “And would I tell you, if I had?”

  She laughed. “No, I suppose not. It’s just that in London we think smugglers a very romantic lot.”

  “Well, then,” he pronounced musingly, as he drew up in the stableyard of a small manor house. “I might just have to take it up…if that’s what it requires to impress ladies from London.”

  A young groom ran out from the stable to hold his horses. “Thanks, Smitty,” he called down. He turned to Jemima. “Want to come in and meet Sir Walter?”

  “Perhaps not, if you don’t mind. I believe you’ll be able to sort things out better without a female hovering nearby.”

  “As you like. This shouldn’t take long. You can always go for a walk—there’s a pretty meadow beyond the stable.” He added with a grin, “It’s a pity you left your sketchbook at home.”

  “I know I am not talented, Mr. Bryce,” she said with some starch. “I draw only for my own pleasure.”

  His eyes widened. “I didn’t mean to imply anything uncomplimentary. You could…come up with a few sketches, and we could make a parlor game of it later, guessing what they were supposed to be.”

  He swung down from his seat before she could hit him and went around to her side of the carriage. “You can’t blame me, Lady J. I only provoke you because it makes your pretty blue eyes light up.”

  “They’re green,” she said between her teeth.

  He lifted her from the seat and held her a little bit above him, his hands tight at her waist. Then he slowly lowered her, until their noses were nearly touching. “So they are,” he whispered. “I don’t know how I keep forgetting.” He set her on her feet and went striding off toward the front of the house. He stopped before turning the corner. “And don’t go wandering near any groves of trees, if you please.”

  Grumbling to herself about irritating, high-handed, overly confident men, Jemima stalked off behind the stable, to a wide field where acres of wildflowers were just starting to blossom. She settled down on a thatchy spot and took off her bonnet, tipping her face to the sky. The sun felt very pleasant on her cheeks and on her shoulders, where it warmed the thin muslin of her gown.