The Rake's Retreat

by Nancy Butler

  There was a commotion in the front hall. The library’s occupants spilled out into the foyer in time to see Lovelace come tripping over the threshold, holding the hand of a younger male version of herself.

  “See, Charlie,” she was saying. “Isn’t it the most wonderful house.” She caught sight of Jemima. “Lady J!” she trilled. “They found me! Oh, you must come out and meet my dear mama and my dearest papa.”

  Lovelace drew her out the door—quite oblivious of the tall, bearded man behind Jemima—and with one sweeping motion of her hand indicated the traveling coach and the garishly painted prop wagon that were drawn up in the drive. “Lady Jemima, may I present WELLESLEY’S WANDERING MINSTRELS.”

  The four adults beside the coach all bowed theatrically.

  Troy put an arm around Jemima’s waist. “Well, Jem, everything’s fallen neatly into place. Lovelace can go off and conquer London, Kip has returned to Bryce Prospect, and we can get back to our own home.”

  She nodded wearily. It was going to be some time before Troy understood her need to get away from him. She wasn’t going to tax him with it now. He’d have enough on his plate with the loss of his two friends.

  “There’s only one thing I don’t understand,” he added. “Where the devil has Bryce gotten to?”

  Where indeed? Jemima echoed silently.

  * * *

  Bryce sat unmoving on Rufus in the woods that edged the lawn and watched the cavalcade roll up to his front door. A group of people emerged from the coach and another group came out of the house. They mingled on the porch steps. Lovelace was there and a youngster who had to be her brother. The two more imposing adults he assumed were her parents. Troy and Carruthers were there. And Kip. And of course, Jemima. It was the last time he’d see her. The last time he’d allow himself to even go near her.

  He suspected how much he’d hurt her just now. But he also knew that a clean wound healed more quickly than a jagged one. And so he’d taken his leave of her abruptly, and with every expectation that her recovery would be swift. It was true she had most eagerly come to his arms, but he accounted that behavior to be an aberration—the result of her naturally passionate nature fanned into desire by his skillful manipulations. Once she was no longer in his company, Jemima’s good sense would prevail and she would doubtless look back on their encounters with a shudder of dismay.

  She wouldn’t lament the loss of a dear confidante, a clever and delightful companion, as he would. She wouldn’t burn for a thousand nights to come, as he surely would, with the mindless need to lose himself inside her.

  Any notions he’d harbored that she possessed tender feelings for him had been laid brutally to rest in the library. The expression of near revulsion on her face when he’d declared himself to her had been all the proof he needed of his wretched folly. It had been madness to believe he could have any future with her. She’d never trust him again, for one thing. Not after all his convenient lies. It was true she had turned to him in the ravine, seeking the comfort of his arms. But she had been overwrought. Once she was rational again, she would recall how he had forced himself on her in the library, and her heart would be closed to him forever.

  And even if she retained some small charity toward him, there was another impediment—she’d seen the painting in his bedroom. Pray God she never discovered how low he had sunk—bartering his art for a foolish, gullible man’s gold—or she would feel nothing for him but disgust.

  No, they would both be best served by ending things now. He had been reminded again that afternoon of how dangerous it was to care deeply for a person. He felt anew the pain that shredded your soul when love turned to loss. He’d lost enough people in his life—his mother, and beloved grandfather. Kip, for a time, and he’d lost his father, though not to death. He’d lost his respect and his regard. It still hurt, but it was an old pain. His love for Jemima and his ruthless determination to give her up had replaced that ache in his heart.

  He’d sworn three years earlier, at Lady Anne’s bedside, that no one would ever render him defenseless again. But Jemima had done just that. Nothing had ever frightened him like the sight of her in the hands of that cutthroat, Tarne. Or the vision of Kimble’s pistol barrel swinging toward her. Both times he had been momentarily powerless to think or act. And that was an intolerable state. When he’d told Jemima he wanted to marry her, he still had no idea how much she meant to him. It was only when he’d seen death hovering close around her, that he realized the full measure of his love. It was crippling to be that connected to another person. Christ, it was nearly paralyzing.

  It wasn’t wrong to retreat, he assured himself as he watched her from his hiding place, when your emotions were so very tangled.

  When Jemima at last disappeared through the front door with her brother’s arm about her waist, Bryce whispered a hoarse “Good-bye” and turned Rufus in the direction of MacCready’s cottage.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The London debut of The Rake’s Reform was a resounding success. Troy had written an endpiece for Lovelace, and when she tripped up to the footlights and recited it, in a breathless voice that carried up to the highest tiers, there was not a dry eye in the house.

  Love tarnishes without the cloth of care, and bright regard is vapor in the air.

  Without the breath of constancy in reach, it withers like the last forgotten peach.

  Faith grows not in an attitude of scorn, and passion dies before it can be born.

  If doubting clouds the soul and fogs the brain, then love forever hidden will remain.”

  Jemima added her applause to the crescendo that rose from the pit and from the boxes. Troy merely sat back and said smugly, “See, I knew she could to it. My little Lovelace.”

  She shifted in her seat. “You’re not forming a tendre, are you, Terry? The two of you have been living in each other’s pockets these past weeks.”

  He shook his head. “I just needed a distraction. I’ve lost two of my friends, after all. And you know how I feel about Lovelace…she’s…like a sister to me. Like you used to be, before you stopped hanging on my every word. Not that I mind the change.”

  And there had been a change, Jemima reflected. A remarkable change.

  It had begun on the carriage ride back from Kent. Troy had drawn up his horses at one point and turned to her with a troubled expression on his face. “There’s something I need to ask you, Jem. Bryce left a note in my room before he disappeared yesterday. He said I should ask you about our journey to Scotland. It made no sense to me, but I don’t think he would have bothered to write it, if it wasn’t important.”

  Jemima clasped her hands in her lap and wondered why Bryce had done such a thing. But then the answer became clear. She couldn’t have an equitable relationship with Troy until there was truth between them. Bryce knew that—his own brother had kept him in the dark, and she could imagine how that must have pained him. She had spent her life concealing her own spirit from Troy. Hiding her light, Bryce had called it. She would never break free of Troy’s shadow as long as she avoided telling him what was in her heart. Her passions, her aspirations, and her fears.

  So she told him of Armbruster’s assault in the dark country house. When she was done, he laid one hand on her sleeve. “Ah, no, Button. No.”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “I’m sorry I never told you.”

  He lowered his head. “I’ve failed you, haven’t I? I see it now. Too busy playing the poet to notice what was going on around me.”

  Jemima had to resist the urge to comfort him; it was a lifelong habit. But she knew she was the one who needed consoling. She only wondered if her brother would ever be selfless enough to notice.

  “And Bryce?” he said after a long silence. “Did he also try to force himself on you? Is that why he needed to leave me the note—was he prompted by a guilty conscience?”

  She gave a tiny shrug. “He was very attentive at times. But I doubt I was ever at risk.” That much was true. It was she who had encou
raged him, out of curiosity, and need, and budding desire.

  “I may not be getting points for observation right now, Jem, but I could have sworn you liked Bryce.”

  “Oh, I liked him very much,” she said in a trembling voice. And then the tears came, streaming down her cheeks, unchecked and barely noticed. The pain in her heart was all she was aware of, the wrenching, twisting, knife-sharp pain.

  Troy dropped his reins and enfolded her in his arms. “I’ll tear out his black heart,” he whispered fiercely, “if he’s made you fall in love with him and then spurned you.”

  “He said he wanted to marry me,” she wailed into his collar.

  Troy held her away from him. “But then what’s amiss? I certainly won’t throw a rub in your way. The man’s got an unsavory past, but then they do say rakes make the best husbands.”

  “He went away, Terry. Left me without a word of hope. I doubt we will ever meet again.”

  Troy kept his own counsel on the matter and promised Jemima that he would be the best, most caring brother in the whole blasted universe.

  So she and Troy made their peace, and so far it seemed to be an enduring one. He had hired a young man as his secretary, to look after his creative requirements—and to keep him in licorice and pen points. He had given Jemima one of the spare bedrooms in their house to use as an art studio. And he was careful not to intrude there unless expressly invited.

  She was glad he had thrown himself into helping the Minstrels with their play. After the truth about Kimble and Armbruster came to light, Troy hadn’t wanted to go to any of his clubs or visit his usual haunts. She suspected he felt some complicity in their nefarious deeds, if only for being so obtuse. Lovelace was a harmless diversion, as long as he wasn’t about to throw his heart over the windmill. She knew the girl thought of her brother only as an amusing companion, and the last thing the Vale household needed was two brokenhearted lovers creeping through its halls.

  Not that she was prone to creeping, she amended, but she was certainly brokenhearted. It was three weeks since she had left the Prospect and there had been no word from Bryce in all that time. Kip had written to tell her the aftermath of the spy business. He’d also informed her that he’d sold out his commission and was taking over the estate, at least until he could convince his father that he didn’t want the place. He never once mentioned Bryce in his letter. It was a notable omission.

  Jemima had kept her feelings for him at bay—until the week before, when she had read the final draft of Troy’s endpiece. She had burst into tears and stood weeping uncontrollably until Troy had taken her into his arms and soothed her. He really was a very understanding brother these days.

  Once the players had taken their curtain calls, she and Troy drifted down the crowded staircase. There was to be a celebration in the theater’s reception room, and Lovelace had insisted they join the Minstrels in raising a glass. As they neared the foyer, which was lit on both ends by branches of candles held aloft by towering statues of scantily clad muses, the crowd parted slightly.

  Beecham Bryce was standing in the gap. There was a woman on his arm, exactly the sort of woman Jemima expected to see there—petite and rounded, with a mass of ebony curls and a clinging gown that gave the torch-bearing muses a run for their money. She tried to look away, thought of slipping back up the stairs until he was gone, but the crowd behind her was unrelenting. They formed a wall of humanity, all of them with the single-minded intention of moving down to the foyer.

  Troy hadn’t seen Bryce, and he continued speaking to her as though the world hadn’t turned upside down.

  And then Bryce turned his head and saw her. She nearly stumbled. And she surely blushed. Her only consolation was that she was wearing a dazzling new gown, a pale green sweep of silk that shimmered with spangles. But he wasn’t looking at her gown, he was looking directly into her eyes.

  Like an arrow, that gaze pierced her.

  Troy tugged on her hand when he realized she had stopped moving. He saw where she was looking and muttered, “Damn!” under his breath. Then the crowd shifted and Bryce was lost from her sight.

  “Button?” Troy touched her cheek.

  ‘I’m fine,” she said, drawing in a deep breath. “I just hadn’t expected to see him here.”

  “I feared he might come,” he said. “Lovelace invited him, you see. But I didn’t expect to see the Stanhope woman. She and Bryce are ancient history according to the betting book at White’s. The odds favor Lord Henley to be her next—” Troy’s voice drifted off. “Sorry, Jem. I’m so used to talking to you about everything… I forgot you probably don’t want to hear about Tatiana Stanhope.”

  She made a valiant attempt at a smile. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter.”

  They went backstage, and Jemima did her best to enjoy Lovelace’s success, but she kept a wary eye on the door to the reception room, fearing that Bryce’s invitation to the play might have also included a summons to the celebration. But he never appeared, and when Troy’s carriage was at last brought around, she felt greatly relieved. She dozed restlessly on the short drive back to their townhouse, until Troy roused her gently and coaxed her up the front steps.

  Troy didn’t notice the caped figure standing across the street, hidden in the shadows of a wide oak. He was intent on getting Jemima to bed and fetching her a glass of hot milk, as she used to do for him when he was ill. His nurturing skills needed a deal of honing, but he reckoned he wasn’t doing badly for a novice. And after all, Jemima had furnished him with an excellent example.

  Bryce watched Troy assist his sister into the house with a curious pain in his chest. I should be the one she leans upon, he muttered to himself. As glad as he was to see that Troy had finally developed some proper fraternal feelings, Bryce would have usurped his role in an instant.

  Why had he risked going to the play, knowing the pain he would feel seeing her face-to-face? God, she had looked so bewitching, there on the theater steps. The green gown had trembled with light, and her eyes, the eyes that haunted him in his sleep, had slashed through his cloak of pretense—his air of studied unconcern had dissolved beneath that bright, unwavering gaze. He would have gone to her, like a man under a spell, if Tatiana hadn’t pinched him on the arm and asked peevishly where he was taking her for supper. He’d taken her all right, straight back to her rooms on Half Moon Street. And left her there.

  Had he really been thinking of rekindling that affair? Did he imagine the cold, practiced skills of a courtesan could remove Jemima’s heated imprint from his soul?

  You have to stop doing this, he growled to himself.

  He had to stop seeking Jemima out in secret. He had thought he could give her up, but it was hell living in the same city with her, breathing the same air, traveling the same streets. Every night he found himself on the pavement across from Troy’s house, waiting for Jemima to return from her evening’s entertainments. And every night he told himself it would be the last time.

  But in a week it wouldn’t matter. He’d be away from England, and the temptation to seek her out would be gone. Though his feelings for her wouldn’t be; he doubted they would ever diminish. He was a proper fool, all right, caught for all eternity in the unrelenting grip of the one emotion he’d spent his lifetime avoiding.

  As he turned away from Jemima’s house, he recalled the last line of Lovelace’s speech. When doubting clouds the soul and fogs the brain, then love forever hidden will remain. Showed how little Troy knew about the matter. As clouded by doubt as he was, Bryce knew the love he felt was hidden only from Jemima. He couldn’t hide it from himself…not when it coursed through him with every breath.

  But then as he walked on through the quiet streets toward his own house, he rethought the lines. If love was hidden from the person who had your heart, then it might as well not exist. Maybe that’s what Troy meant. And in that case he was more astute than Bryce ever realized.

  “Damned, perishing poet,” he muttered into the night.

&
nbsp; Chapter Fourteen

  Bryce stepped back from the painting. It needed a bit more carmine in the woman’s face. Devil take it if those Dutch didn’t love their apple-cheeked women. For himself, he preferred them with magnolia skin…and azure eyes…and a mouth of lush, blushing rose.

  “Ahem.”

  Bryce turned. Liston, his butler, was standing in the doorway of the studio bearing a silver tray. “A young lady wishes to see you, sir. She sent up her card.”

  Bryce plucked up the card in his paint-smudged fingers. And then placed it gently down on the salver. “No.”

  When the butler did not move, he leveled a basilisk glare at him and repeated the word. “No.”

  “But, sir…” the man protested. “If I may say…you’ve not been yourself since you returned from Kent. I think…that is, we downstairs all think…er, knowing from your valet what occurred there, that perhaps you should—”

  Bryce’s jaw tensed and his fingers clenched on the paintbrush. “I don’t care what you think. I need to finish this painting today. Or His Highness will have a royal conniption and refuse to pay me. Now, if I don’t get paid, Liston, you don’t get paid. So tender my regrets…oh, and best lock the door behind her.”

  The butler nodded in a crestfallen manner and went out of the room. Bryce had to restrain himself from going to the window to watch as his visitor exited the town house.

  He was screwing the lid back on the small jar of carmine paint, when he heard the breathless gasp behind him. He shut his eyes and prayed there was something wrong with his hearing.

  “Oh, Bryce…” she crooned. “I never thought… I couldn’t even imagine…”

  He turned, saw her standing in the doorway, awestruck as she gazed around his studio. In her walking dress of palest orange striped with vertical bands of sea green, he thought she looked as completely edible as a marzipan peach. And just as bad for his digestion.