The Rake's Retreat

by Nancy Butler

  Bryce cocked his head back so that he could look her in the eyes. “He brought you to the Tattie and Snip, and then went haring off to a prizefight without any thought to your safety. He learned you were staying in the home of a notorious rake and never even raised an eyebrow. And he practically offered you to me, on a platter. No, I am not making it up… I only wish I were. Do the pretty, he said to me. Charm her, Bryce.” He drew a breath. “Is that fondness, my pet? Sounds more like pandering to me.”

  Jemima stood up and stumbled down from the rock pile. She spun to him, her hands curled into fists. “Why do you always do this to me? We cannot speak together for five minutes before you begin to insinuate the most wretched things.”

  He blinked. “Was I insinuating? I thought I was saying it right out.”

  “Then I will say this right out,” she cried raggedly. “You are jealous of Troy—yes, jealous. Because he has a rare gift, something that one man in ten thousand possesses. He is clever and charming, he draws people to him. He visits with royalty and heads of state wherever he travels.

  While you, sir, are a wastrel and a rake, who has nothing to your credit but a string of ex-mistresses and God-knows-how-many by-blows. My brother will leave the world enriched by his genius. You will leave the gutters full of your baseborn brats.”

  Jemima almost clapped a hand over her mouth. If he had struck her for such harsh words, it wouldn’t have surprised her. But he only laughed, his head tipped back, and his eyes regarding her with amiable humor. “You,” he said, once his laughter had subsided, “have been eavesdropping on my father. Only I believe his expression was ‘my ill-gotten brats.’ I give you points for alliteration, but then what else should I expect from the great Troy’s sister?”

  Jemima flashed him one last look of extreme irritation before she swept past him. She wished the blasted gully wasn’t so full of rocks—it was difficult keeping her chin up when she had to watch out for her footing. And she knew he was following her stumbling retreat with his eyes—she could feel them burning a tiny hole between her shoulder blades.

  How dare he criticize my choices? she raged to herself. How dare he draw her into his life and then presume to sit in judgment on her? And most of all, how dare he see inside her, and with such cuttingly accurate insight?

  How could he know that the complacencies of which he had accused Troy were the very things that had lately begun to chafe at her? Her brother’s lazy expectations, his need for constant coddling. Genius or not, he had no right to expect her to fetch and carry for him. She again recalled his words, “She follows me like a faithful hound,” and nearly screamed in vexation.

  It wasn’t Bryce she should be angry with, she realized, as she clambered up the sloping entrance to the ravine. It was herself. She was the one who had given up any dreams of a husband or children to nurture her brother’s talent. So that he could have it all—fame and wealth and the love of the multitude. And in due time he would doubtless marry and father a family. And where would Lady Jemima Vale be then? Trapped in the role of faded spinster aunt, who would then be required to transfer her solicitous care from her brother to his offspring.

  Bryce had accused her of living in Troy’s shadow and she saw now that it was true. She had lived in the darkness for too long. She knew she would never marry—there were circumstances in her life that precluded that possibility, things that even Troy knew nothing about. But if she was truly going to experience her own life, and not some vicarious version of her brother’s, then she had to decide what it was she wanted. The years were racing past and she had allowed herself to experience so little.

  As much as she questioned Bryce’s morality, there was no doubt the man had seized life and tasted it. Tasted it and drunk from it and never regretted one moment. And he had loved. Surely not in the romantic manner that schoolgirls prattled about, but he had given his passion free rein and reveled in that heady blossoming of the senses. She, on the other hand, was as withered and parched as the dead crab apple tree that loomed before her.

  With an oath, she scrambled up the canted trunk of the tree, tugged her mare closer, and levered herself onto the sidesaddle.

  The need she had denied for so many years now positively raged through her. She wanted to be loved by a man. Not thought of as a faithful pet, or, worse yet, a piece of luggage—but adored, worshipped, and esteemed. But barring those unrealistic expectations, she would happily settle for being desired. And unless she missed her guess, Beecham Bryce, that blunt, infuriating, and unaccountably attractive man, already desired her. So maybe it was time she stopped fleeing. For once in her life she would meet her fate head on.

  She untied his horse’s reins and led the gelding back to the entrance of the ravine. Bryce looked up in surprise as he came up the grassy incline. “I imagined you’d be halfway back to the house by now.”

  “I don’t know where the house is,” she said with less than total honesty.

  He reached for his horse’s reins, then stretched them tight between his fingers. “Jemima, I…”

  “No, Bryce.” She leaned from the saddle and laid her hand for an instant on his hair. It was warm from the sun, the loose curls soft beneath her palm.

  This is what I want, she thought with a little shiver. And what I just might be able to have.

  “Don’t say anything,” she said softly. “We are like oil and water sometimes. That’s all it is.”

  Bryce was looking at her with an expression of cautious assessment. “I still believe I need to apologize. I have an unfortunate tendency to speak my mind, and devil take the consequences.”

  She narrowed her mouth as she shook her head. “I am the one who needs to apologize. For letting idle gossip color my judgment of you. Inexcusable, I think, now that I have met you.” She offered him a tentative smile. “The man is wholly different from the myth.”

  Bryce disregarded her smile as he wrapped the reins over his hand until the knuckles showed white. “The gossip is true, Jemima,” he said in a gruff voice. “At least part of it. I am not a victim of slander… I’m not a victim of anything but my own wayward nature.”

  She would not be swayed from her intent. “Wayward or not, Bryce,” she proclaimed, “you possess a few redeeming qualities. For one thing, you have never uttered an unkind word to Lovelace, whatever you might think of her. My sainted brother sent her off to the garden in tears yesterday morning. And I’ve seen how your servants respect you…and the farm people. I wager Mr. MacCready is not easily won over, and he admires you a great deal, I refuse to believe you are so black as you have been painted.”

  If she thought this declaration would be met by approval on his part, she was sadly mistaken. He looked away from her, off toward the line of cedars, his face hovering close to a scowl. “You might not think me so black today, Jemima,” he said in a low voice. “But there will come a time when you will.”

  Turning his horse away from hers, he swiftly mounted. “I have some business with one of my neighbors,” he said over his shoulder. “If you ride back along the ridge a mile or so, you will see the housetop beyond the trees.”

  He spurred his horse forward and rode off without so much as a backward glance. She had the uncanny feeling that this time he was the one who was fleeing.

  * * *

  Once he was sure Jemima was headed back toward the house, Bryce returned to the ravine. It took him several minutes of rolling rocks off the landslide, before he had cleared enough space at the top of the pile to see into the cave. Mindless of his pristine buckskins and gleaming topboots, he slithered through the narrow opening and fell with a thump onto the pebbled floor.

  A lantern sat conveniently at his feet. He lit it from the tinderbox he carried in his coat pocket and surveyed the small cavern. It was a tidy bivouac, all things considered. A pallet was spread out under one limestone outcropping with a small metal trunk beside it. A crate containing pots and plates and a variety of utensils had been shoved against the opposite wall. He only wondered
that the bent fork he plucked up from the crate wasn’t part of the Bryce family silver. Because the fine linen sheets and soft woven coverlet on the pallet had surely come from his home, as had the silver flask, which was half hidden beneath the pillow. Filled with his father’s cognac, no doubt.

  He knelt beside the metal trunk and traced his fingers over the two small books that lay there. A third book had been carefully wrapped in a large linen napkin. At least the thieving troglodyte had had the sense to protect Bryce’s rare volume of Japanese woodcuts from the dampness of the cave.

  Grinning like an idiot, he shifted onto the pallet, sitting with his hands pressed hard over his eyes as he tried to quell the fierce, hopeful beating of his heart. But it would not be stilled. No matter how much the voice of reason intruded, telling him over and over that he was a bloody fool to believe in miracles, he couldn’t hold back the elation that was bubbling up inside him.

  Chapter Six

  Bryce arrived back at the house to find a stranger standing on the front porch, smoking a clay pipe.

  “Good day to you, sir,” the man called merrily, as Bryce dismounted from his horse and handed the reins to a waiting groom.

  “And good day to you.”

  “We’ve been awaiting your return. I came here with Sir Walter—he’s inside with your guests. Not a happy man, that one. Not to be in company with such fine ladies…and such talkative ladies.” He grinned and held out his hand as Bryce came up the steps. “Lawrence Fletcher, at your service. Of Bow Street, as you might have guessed. Most folks just call me Mr. Fletch.”

  “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Fletch. I am Beecham Bryce.”

  Bryce had never had occasion to meet a Runner in person, his own crimes being more amatory in nature than strictly unlawful. He studied the man briefly and was not impressed. Though of middle height, Mr. Fletch was possessed of an unfortunately disproportionate body—his melon-shaped head quite overwhelmed his thin, angular frame. A fitted moleskin jacket and pipestem breeches did little to flesh out that reedy architecture. His bony wrists protruded noticeably form the worn edges of his shirtsleeves and an oversized Adam’s apple bobbed above a carelessly knotted Belcher handkerchief. Not exactly the sort of man to strike fear into the hearts of wrongdoers. Crows, perhaps, but certainly not bloodthirsty murderers. So it was a good thing, Bryce reflected wryly, that there was no one of that ilk hanging about in the district.

  Mr. Fletch bore his scrutiny with relaxed tolerance. He then gave Bryce a wide smile. His eyes, neither black nor brown, glittered brightly in his swarthy face. “I note your nag sir.” He nodded toward Bryce’s departing horse. “Won the Derby in ‘08, unless I miss my guess.”

  Bryce gave the man a swift, approving look. Perhaps there was a brain after all in that oddly shaped head. “You’ve a good eye for horseflesh, Mr. Fletch. I bought Rufus from his owners—the ungrateful rascals were going to put him down when he started to lose his races.”

  “Gelding,” the man said with a wink. “No use a’tall for breeding. But a nice country hack, I reckon.”

  “He’s a grand horse, and since I won a great deal of money on him in that particular Derby, I thought he deserved better than a trip to the knackers.”

  Mr. Fletch bowed slightly. “A man after my own heart, Mr. Bryce. Now if you will join your guests in the drawing room, I believe we can get down to business.” He knocked his pipe against the stone railing of the porch and followed Bryce into the hall.

  Everyone looked up as the two men entered, their faces full of anticipation and a touch of unease. Lovelace was sitting primly on the sofa, her injured foot resting on a little stool, with Troy beside her, sprawled back against the cushions. Jemima was seated at the window in a delicate side chair. She looked at Bryce for an instant, and then lowered her eyes to her lap. He could have sworn she blushed.

  Sir Walter was the first to greet him, rising from his chair near the fireplace and muttering worriedly, “He’s French, Bryce. Confound it, the fellow is French.”

  Bryce looked from the magistrate to the Runner. “He sounds English enough to me, Sir Walter.”

  The man hissed, “Not Mr. Fletch, dash it all, the corpse.”

  Mr. Fletch coaxed Sir Walter back into his chair. “Mr. Bryce, if you will make yourself comfortable.”

  Bryce went to stand beside Jemima, murmuring, “This looks to be a farce that will outshine anything the Minstrels could produce.”

  “Sssh!” She shot him a warning look.

  Mr. Fletch situated himself before the fireplace, his knobby hands hanging loose at his side. “Now that Mr. Bryce is returned, we can begin. I am going to tell you what I have discovered, but if any of you have something you would like to add, please feel free to interrupt me.”

  Lovelace gave a little shiver of anticipation.

  Mr. Fletch clasped his hands before him. “I have thoroughly examined the body of the murdered man, which Sir Walter has been good enough to keep in his spring house.”

  Bryce gave a little snicker of amusement, which he immediately covered with a dry cough.

  Jemima gave him another dark look, as Mr. Fletch continued. “He was killed by a single knife thrust through the thorax, which penetrated the heart.” He glanced at the two women, as if assessing the possibility of potential swooning. Both Jemima and Lovelace were regarding him with avid, bright-eyed attention. “From the tailoring of the man’s clothing, and from the coins in his pocket, I can deduce that he is, if not himself French, someone who has spent some time in that country.”

  Lovelace raised her hand. “Mr. Fletch,” she said, once he had acknowledged her. “I heard the man speaking and he sounded just like me.”

  “She means, he spoke English,” Troy translated with a wry glance at his sister.

  Mr. Fletch was unperturbed. “It has on occasion happened that a Frenchman has learned to speak our language. Quite well, in fact, and with a barely detectable accent.”

  Jemima made a noise of impatience. “Mr. Fletch,” she said haltingly, “I do not wish in any way to tell you your business, but I have myself owned gowns that were from Paris. And I’m sure in the bottom of my reticule you might find the odd coin from Greece. These facts make me neither French nor Greek.”

  Mr. Fletch nodded. “Just so, ma’am. I have not said that this man is French, only that his clothing is. Which begs the question, how is it that a man who spoke English, who was murdered in England, was wearing clothing from a country with whom we have been at war for over a decade?”

  Lovelace raised her hand again, waving it back and forth. “I know!” she cried. “Oh please, call on me.”

  “He ain’t a schoolmaster, Sheba,” Troy muttered.

  “Yes, Miss Wellesley?” Mr. Fletch tried not to roll his eyes.

  Lovelace looked around, making sure that all eyes were on her as she proclaimed, “He was a spy!”

  “Or a smuggler,” Bryce said under his breath.

  “Or an emigre,” Jemima mused aloud.

  “Ladies, gentlemen, please. We are not here to conjecture on anything. We are here to establish facts. Now with Miss Wellesley’s assistance, I would like to recreate the murder. Mr. Bryce, Lord Troy, if you would join me up here. And Miss Wellesley, of course.”

  Troy rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. “Theatricals, how lovely.”

  Bryce leaned for an instant over Jemima. “If you make so much as one cutting remark…”

  She hid her grin behind her hand, but could not prevent her eyes from dancing up at him.

  After a great deal of deliberating, Lovelace arranged her two actors into the proper positions. “Now you must argue and glare fiercely at each other.”

  The men took antagonistic stances opposite each other and began to mutter nonsense in a low tone.

  “Perfect!” Lovelace cried. “Now Lord Troy must say, ‘This is all I found, I tell you!’ ”

  They did as she asked, and then on her further instructions, Bryce caught Troy’s wris
ts in his hands and began to force him back toward the fire breast. “Now!” Lovelace crowed. “The knife.”

  Bryce drove an imaginary dagger into his opponent’s chest. Troy staggered melodramatically around the room for far longer than was necessary, and then collapsed in an inert heap upon the sofa. Lovelace screamed then, full out and with every bit of lung power she possessed. It lasted a full fifteen seconds, and Bryce swore later to Jemima that he heard Sir Walter’s foxhounds baying in response all the way off in Withershins.

  “Oh, s-sorry,” Lovelace stammered when she was through, once she realized that everyone in the room, including the corpse, was looking at her with their mouths hanging wide open. “It was what came next. I—I forgot we were in a drawing room. I am stage-trained, you know.”

  “Ought to be house-trained,” Troy murmured, but then gave her a broad wink, “We’ll see you in Covent Garden yet, Sheba.”

  Mr. Fletch thought it was time to get his reenactment back on track. “What now, Miss Wellesley?”

  “He,” she said pointing to Bryce, “crept stealthily up to the tree where I was hiding. And then he grabbed me by the arm.”

  Bryce walked casually across the carpet.

  “Stealthily, old chap,” Troy coached from the sofa, his chin on his fisted hands.

  “You’re dead.” Bryce dismissed him with an amused scowl. He grasped Lovelace lightly by her wrist and swung her toward him.

  “Now,” Mr. Fletch said quickly. “Tell me what you see.”

  “Mr. Bryce,” Lovelace said with a perplexed frown.

  “No,” the Runner said between his teeth. “The man who caught you in the woods. Describe him.”

  Lovelace closed her eyes, her face working into a tight squint as she concentrated. “A tall man…dark hair…tanned face…pale eyes.”

  “You are still describing Mr. Bryce,” the Runner said impatiently.

  “Indeed I am not,” she cried. “It’s true there is a resemblance…when Mr. Bryce came to my aid, I thought he could have been the murderer. Well, actually, at first I thought the cow was the murderer…”