Pursued by the Rake

by Lancaster, Mary

  “Why?”

  “So that I can kiss you without everyone watching.”

  Her stomach melted. Her lips tingled with anticipation. She even glanced toward the French doors onto the terrace—and saw Agatha slipping outside. Behind her, Bart paused, glancing furtively over his shoulder to see if they were observed. And then he stepped out after her, letting the curtain fall behind him.

  Something has to be done.

  “Oh, Joe,” she said in sudden alarm. “I think Bart is eloping with Agatha! We have to stop them!”

  He blinked. “Eloping? What on earth makes you imagine—”

  “Something he said when it was clear Mr. Renleigh would keep Agatha from him if he could,” she replied in a rush, tugging at this hand. “And they have just left the ballroom together via the terrace. We can’t let them do this!”

  He sighed. “I suppose not. Come, we’ll catch them at the front if they’re running.”

  At the edge of the dancefloor, he released her, and she could not help being sorry—and annoyed with Bart and Agatha for spoiling the most delightful dance she had ever known.

  “Though they’d have to have a carriage secretly prepared for them,” he mused as they moved quickly toward the ballroom door. “No easy feat with so many guests here.”

  “Perhaps it makes it easier,” Hazel argued. “Their orders being in among so many others…” She glanced to the side to see if the Renleighs had yet noticed their daughter’s departure. But before she could look properly, Joe tugged her out the door. All she had managed to see was Roberta Standish looking directly at her, an expression of startled outrage on her face.

  Oh well, we can explain this later…

  Free of any eyes but the servants’, she picked up her train, looping it over her arm, and she and Joe ran along the passage at full tilt, narrowly missing a footman with a tray of freshly washed and gleaming glasses. They all but slid across the polished hall floor in their dancing shoes until abruptly, Joe skidded to a halt and caught her arm.

  The front door was opening.

  Hastily, Hazel took Joe’s arm, trying to look as though he was respectably escorting her somewhere. But it was odd. There was no servant at the door. Expecting no further guests at this time of the evening and no departures until after supper at the earliest, no doubt the porter was performing more urgent duties elsewhere. But he would not have left the door unlocked.

  There came the sound of a key being extracted from the lock, and then Bart’s face appeared around the door. An instant later, Agatha followed him inside, and he hastily closed the door. With a smile at each other, Agatha flitted toward the stairs, while Bart strolled toward the reception room on his left.

  “What in the world,” Joe asked, “are you doing?”

  At his first word, the young couple froze. At the last, they swung to face him, their movements perfectly if involuntarily synchronized.

  “Oh, the devil,” Bart said, “you weren’t meant to see us.”

  “So I gather,” Joe drawled. “Aren’t you enjoying the ball?”

  “Well, of course, we are. It’s a ruse.”

  The sound of footsteps in the passage leading to the ballroom propelled Hazel to action. “We can’t talk here!” She rushed toward the reception room, summoning Agatha with a gesture of one hand.

  Obediently, Agatha turned back, and they all spilled into the reception room. Joe closed the door.

  “You’re ruining the plan,” Agatha said with only the faintest hint of recrimination.

  “What plan?” Hazel demanded.

  “For Agatha’s parents to see us slipping outside during the dance. They will then think the worst of us and be proved wrong when Agatha is with her maid having her hair repinned, and I am somewhere else entirely. I took a spare key from the kitchen for the purpose of sneaking back into the house.”

  Joe eyed him with apparent fascination. “And this achieves…what, precisely?”

  “We have proved that we could elope if we wanted to,” Bart said. “And chose not to.”

  “It makes Bart seem safe to them,” Agatha agreed.

  “I almost see your point,” Hazel said doubtfully, “but are Mr. and Mrs. Renleigh quite so subtle in their disapproval?”

  “You think it won’t work?” Agatha asked.

  “What will not work?” another voice asked ominously.

  Every head jerked round to observe Roberta Standish closing the door behind her.

  Joe groaned. “Did you bring Standish? Mama? Half a dozen guests, perhaps? What are you doing here?”

  “Of course not,” Roberta retorted. “I came to see what you meant by slipping away so improperly with Hazel! You are undoing all our good.”

  “Nonsense. We are, as you see, merely chaperoning these young people who wanted some air. The question is, what do we do now to prevent the Renleighs setting up a hue and cry for their daughter? Unless they have already done so?”

  “It seemed quite peaceful when I left,” Roberta said, bewildered.

  “Good. Then you and Agatha must return to the ballroom together. In fact, Hazel should go with you.”

  “And where will you be?” Roberta demanded.

  “Playing cards with Bart,” Joe said without obvious pleasure. “Having been dealt a blow to my hopes by Miss Curwen.”

  “What hopes?” Hazel asked.

  “The hope of a waltz and supper. In fact, I insist on the supper, so you had better have forgiven me by then. Go,” he added, gesturing with his hands like a farmer shooing his geese. “One hand of whist, Bart.”

  The whole incident began to feel like a theatre farce, and Hazel had a strong urge to giggle. However, Roberta was looking at her oddly.

  “You left the ballroom to look after those two?” Roberta asked.

  “Well, yes. I feel responsible for them,” Hazel admitted. “But you should know they were about nothing improper. They merely had a slightly…unusual plan to prove Bart’s worth to her parents.”

  “Will it work?” Roberta asked and then looked annoyed at herself for doing so.

  “It might have if it didn’t simply annoy them with the trickery of it. But your presence is definitely better for them.” Hazel frowned. “And for me.”

  Roberta regarded her curiously. “You are a creature of impulse, are you not? Like Joe. You are bad for each other.”

  “Is he impulsive?” Hazel asked, choosing to ignore the last. “It seems to me he plans very well.”

  “He can do,” she allowed. “But you cannot believe taking you to Essex, rescuing Bart from the magistrate’s court, and playing highwayman to rescue you from Barden were acts of mature planning!”

  Hazel closed her mouth. For some reason, Roberta’s words made her happy, and it was easy to trip back into the ballroom, where the waltz was just ending. She played her part, feigning deep and entertaining conversation with Agatha and Roberta. Agatha looked slightly awed by this attention, and by the time they came to her mother, seated by some other matrons, she had probably forgotten that she could be in trouble.

  “We have returned your daughter to you, ma’am,” Roberta said cheerfully. “Having kept her back from you in the first place!”

  Mrs. Renleigh looked both gratified and displeased. “I had expected Mr. Sprigg to bring her straight back.”

  Clearly, she had not even noticed Bart and Agatha leaving the ballroom, so their plan had already misfired.

  “Oh, we fell into conversation with Agatha and left Mr. Sprigg with nothing to do,” Hazel said inventively. “I believe he went off somewhere with Sir Joseph.”

  “But he will be back,” Agatha said anxiously, “for it was the supper dance, and people are already beginning to go in.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he will be along in a moment,” Hazel said, sitting beside Agatha. While she searched for conversation, she overheard Mrs. Renleigh confiding in Roberta.

  “I own I don’t know what to do, Lady Standish. I know he is a family friend of yours—and of ours, in
truth—but the boy does not have a feather to fly with, and they are so young.”

  “It is very young for her to have such a fixed attachment,” Lady Standish agreed with sympathy. She appeared to consider for a little. “His family is not wealthy, it is true, but their birth is quite unexceptionable. I think, perhaps, if you were to allow them to meet frequently, without any engagement, of course, they will either tire of each other or grow more maturely attached. Obviously, you know your own daughter best, but I have often noticed that enforced separation convinces romantic girls that they are in some kind of tragedy, and then they dig their heels in rather than letting go as they might well do naturally.”

  Hazel almost hugged Roberta for that piece of advice, especially when Mrs. Renleigh said that she would discuss the matter with her husband.

  A few minutes later, Sir Joseph and Bart crossed the emptying floor toward them.

  “What careless cavaliers you are,” Hazel observed.

  “Not at all,” Joe insisted, offering his arm.

  Before she took it, Hazel murmured to Roberta, “That was kind of you, to say what you did.”

  Roberta gave her a faint, flickering smile. “I can be kind. When it does not adversely affect my own family.”

  It was an odd statement, but there was no time to pursue it, for Joe was leading her toward the supper room.

  *

  Sitting beside Joe to eat had become something of a rarity since coming to Brightoaks, and Hazel thoroughly enjoyed the supper. They talked of light, witty things and laughed together, bantering like old friends until it came to Hazel that she had never felt so at ease with anyone. And yet that comfort came with an edge of excitement, because of the physical awareness that never left her in his company, and because of the warmth in his eyes that quickened her heart.

  Even when the supper room was emptying once more, she knew she could happily have sat there with him for the rest of the evening.

  “We shall have to bestir ourselves,” Joe said, rising at last and standing behind her chair to help her rise.

  “Of course,” she said, casting a quick glance up at him as she rose. “You will have your next partner to stand up with. Is it another waltz?”

  “It is. And this time, I am determined we shall enjoy it all.”

  She accepted his arm without thought. “Me? But you have just danced with me. People will talk.”

  “They have nothing to say. Two dances is quite proper.”

  “But… you are the host. You have obligations to say nothing of our own pleasures—”

  “Trust me, it is my own pleasure I am thinking about,” he interrupted. The smile she loved flickered across his sensual lips, lighting his eyes. “Don’t deny me.”

  And she couldn’t. One more dance. Just one. No one would begrudge me that.

  When they walked back into the ballroom, the orchestra had already begun the introduction. Joe simply took her hand and swung her into his arms and onto the floor.

  The wonder of the evening continued. And if the banter between them was a little more breathless, if the heat in his eyes had grown so thrillingly clouded that she could not look away, well surely no one else could see it. She felt almost as if they danced in isolation from the rest of the world, in a wonderful bubble where nothing could interfere.

  Gradually, they spoke less and looked more. She stopped even trying to hide the effect he had always had on her. And began to understand what he was willing her to. He likes me. He really likes me.

  “Joe,” she whispered.

  “Yes, my sweet?”

  “I… Joe, do you…?”

  The music stopped. She hadn’t been prepared for it and almost screamed with vexation. Somehow, her hand was on his arm, and they were walking off the floor, and then a cool breeze blew against her cheek, and she realized they were on the terrace.

  Three swift paces to the left, and he stepped up onto the boundary wall, drawing her with him. When he jumped down to the lower ground beyond and stretched up his arms for her, she put her hands on his shoulders and jumped.

  Slowly, deliciously, he let her slip down the length of his body to the ground. His hands slid around to her back.

  “Yes,” he said huskily. “I do.”

  His mouth covered hers, and she was lost.

  Happiness exploded within her, along with melting desire and sweet, tingling bliss. It was not their first kiss, nor even their second, but for some reason, it seemed more serious, more ruthlessly determined. As if he were no longer exploring or even persuading, but taking. The thought thrilled her, and she gasped into his mouth, pressing closer and kissing him back with all the passion in her heart.

  His mouth left hers, sliding down her throat with hot, exciting kisses. She felt his tongue over the galloping pulse at the base of her neck, and then he was kissing along her collar bone as she clung to him, tangling her fingers in his hair. Then he took her mouth again, and her whole body felt alive as never before, eager and ready, though for what she didn’t know. Just more of this. Much, much more.

  I do, he had said, a long, long time ago.

  “You do what?” she whispered against his lips.

  “I do want you. I do need you. I do love you.” His mouth sank once more against hers, and she almost wept from sheer emotion. “Hazel, sweet Hazel, will you marry me?”

  She drew back an inch, staring at him. She had no idea what she’d expected. “M-marry you?” she stammered. “Me?”

  He glanced around. “Can you see any other Hazels in my arms, kissing me?”

  Since his lips were so close, she kissed them tenderly, which led to a much longer break in the conversation.

  Then she gasped. “Wait, wait, you can’t marry me! I’m ruined, and I’m nobody!”

  “You’re not ruined. And no one is nobody. Especially not a lady with royal blood in her veins.”

  “On the wrong side of the blanket.”

  “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters if you love me.”

  She took his face between her hands. “Joe, you know I love you,” she said brokenly. “I’ve always loved you, even when I first saw you. I think I was as much jealous as angry.”

  His thumb caressed the length of her lower lip. “Is that a yes?”

  The possibility of more than this moment, of a lifetime of happiness with him, exploded in her mind. Oh, yes, she longed, she yearned to spend her life with him, caring for him, helping him, laughing with him, loving him… And it could truly happen, all the confused desires she had been fighting all week.

  Emphasizing the point, he kissed her long and deeply. “Say yes,” he commanded raggedly. “Say it now, so that I can take you to bed and love you as I’ve always wanted.” Her knees gave way. Only he held her up, devouring her lips now for they both knew there was only one answer she could give.

  But this was madness, insanity. All the confused desires she had been fighting all week… She had been aware of his existence for longer, but she had really only known him for a week and a day. No one fell in love so fast. No one could be sure so fast.

  And yet, she was.

  Because her wicked body was screaming with lust. Because his was. Because they had both drunk champagne. Even if she knew in her heart that what she felt was true and lasting… He was a man who, by his own admission, wanted her in his bed. Tonight. And in the morning, would he remember he was still waiting for his lightning bolt?

  He loves me. He said so…

  She clung around his neck, feeling the hard, exciting proof of his desire against her abdomen. Fresh lust flooded her.

  His lips brushed against hers. “Forgive me. I would not hurt you or rush you. Tell me tomorrow. Tell me next week. Just marry me soon.”

  She pressed her cheek to his. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Kiss me once more, and I’ll take you back.”

  She obliged, and at the end of it almost threw caution to the wind and shouted, Of course I will marry you! But her swollen lips did not seem
able to form words, and in any case, he was busy tucking stray locks of hair back into pins and smoothing out her crushed gown.

  He offered her his not quite steady arm.

  “Don’t we have to climb back up?”

  “Oh, no, there are steps. I was just in too big a hurry to take the time.”

  And somehow, she could laugh again, shaky but genuine. She was still smiling as she reentered the ballroom and thought she would never stop. Because he loved her. Because he wanted to marry her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The next half-hour passed in something of a blur of warm euphoria, just because he loved her. There had never been happiness like this. And although some twinge of common sense, or perhaps simple fear, had prevented her from answering him right away, there was no doubt in her heart as to what that answer would be. It had just all happened so quickly.

  She danced with someone else, a gentleman Lady Sayle introduced her to, though his name passed through one ear and out the other. She knew she smiled and chatted when they came together in the dance, but she had no real idea what they talked about. Her heart, her mind, her whole being, were full of Joe.

  She kept to her own rules when the dance finished, civilly excusing herself to her partner and walking off. Coming across a few chairs together without occupants, she sat down alone to recover her breath and hug her beautiful secret to herself.

  Her gaze fell on him, laughing with Selim over something, and then he made his way to a young lady she didn’t know and bowed with his usual grace. A moment later, she took his hand and was led onto the floor for the final dance of the evening.

  Hazel would have liked it to be with her. But only because of her constant desire to be close to him. No jealousy remained. With love acknowledged, it seemed, came trust.

  “Miss Curwen, may I join you?”

  Hazel glanced up and was surprised to see Lady Theresa Thorne. “Of course. I am surprised you are not dancing.”

  “Oh, I cried off,” she said casually, sitting beside Hazel. “I’m too tired. As I imagine, are you.”

  “Not really,” Hazel replied. “I’m just not quite…persona grata.”