Wages of Sin (Regency Rebelles Book 1)

by Jen Yates

  ‘I'm afraid so, Miss Silverton.’

  ‘Well, her Ladyship is hardly ready to receive him.’

  ‘It's alright, Carl,’ Lucy murmured. ‘No use berating poor Gummer. He's just the messenger. You may tell his Lordship I will attend him as soon as I am able—and you may make that sound as haughty as you like, Gummer. Thank you.’

  With a barely suppressed smile, the man backed from the room, leaving Lucy to stare at her secretary-companion in dismay.

  Her heart was jolting about in her chest like a runaway cart.

  ‘What will you do?’ Carly asked, ‘He may well see you if you go up to your rooms to change. You’d have to go right by the morning room.’

  If she could just halt the bouncing thing in her chest she’d be able to think.

  ‘Lord knows why I care, but I can’t let him see me like this. There's only one thing for it. I’ll wear one of those skirts we used to cover up with when Mama was alive. They must still be hanging in the closet in the washroom back of here. It will at least conceal the scandalous breeches.’

  ‘Those old things are little more than rags and the moths have probably been at them,’ Carly said, clearly scandalized. ‘Besides they might be more of an apron than a skirt now.’

  At least they were skirts.

  ‘Less scandalous than breeches, though.’

  ‘True. But—what will he think?’

  Indeed. Imagining how he’d likely bristle with disapproval and disgust made her consider ignoring the summons altogether. But she’d been raised better than that.

  And she was no coward.

  Slapping her riding gloves against her thigh, she thrust her shoulders back and lifted her chin.

  ‘It doesn't matter what he thinks, does it? It's not as if he's come courting. In fact, all the better if he had. I wouldn't have to give him the cut direct. My outfit would do it for me. Which is a perfectly good argument for greeting him exactly as I am.’

  ‘Really, Lady Wolfenden,’ Carly gasped in mock horror, ‘one in your position ought to be setting an example of modesty and decorum—‘

  Amusement bubbled up in Lucy’s chest.

  ‘—and not galumphing about the countryside like a veritable post-boy!’ they finished in unison, perfectly mimicking their severe teacher of deportment at Lady Bessborough’s Seminary for Young Ladies in Bath.

  ‘Yes, Miss Darby, I’m sorry, Miss Darby. It won’t happen again, Miss Darby,’ Lucy sang and they both doubled over with laughter.

  ‘Come on. Let's see what sort of a scarecrow we can make of me.’

  Dear God, if only a remonstrance from the dour Miss Darby was all she had to anticipate.

  Carly led the way to the tiny washroom behind the armory, which was little more than a large cupboard. Within was a washstand upon which always sat a ewer of clean water and on hooks in the corner hung four limp rags looking like nothing so much as old worn out dusters.

  Made of plain, unflattering calico, it was nine years since they’d even looked at the garments. Nine years since Mama had despairingly begged her eldest daughter to at least try to behave as the young lady she’d been born.

  Heaviness threatened, as it always did when she thought of Mama.

  Snatching up the longest two skirts, Lucy held one in each hand.

  ‘Hopefully one of these will still fit.’

  Draping one over the washstand she wrapped the other about her waist and pulled the strings tight at the back.

  ‘It doesn’t meet. There’s a three inch gap,’ Carly said. ‘You and Quelle were skinny as bean poles back then.’

  ‘We were,’ Lucy muttered, repressing the incipient panic threatening her sang froid

  Snatching up the other one, she wrapped it over the top of the first to tie at the front.

  ‘What else is in this cupboard? Oh—one of Mama’s black lace caps. Perfect!’

  Carly’s face puckered in a doubtful frown.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to risk trying to get upstairs to change? I can’t imagine what Lord Pennington’s going to think.’

  Lucy gave the skirts a vicious downwards tug trying to make them cover the toes of her boots.

  Giving up, she glared at Carly.

  ‘It’s not as if I’m trying to impress the man, is it?’ Lucy demanded, stuffing her unruly locks beneath the fluff of ancient black lace.

  Fleetingly, her mother’s image looked back at her from the age-speckled mirror, and Lucy switched her gaze back to Carly.

  This was not the moment to indulge a fit of maudlin longing for Mama.

  ‘Lucy Wolfenden, you’re the absolute end sometimes. Think what your grandfather would have said,’ Carly admonished, as she led the way back into the armory. ‘And Atlas liked him. That says something.’

  ‘Grandfather would have thought it a huge joke—except he did hold the ridiculous notion I should wed the heir.’ Entirely ignoring Atlas and his traitorous defection, Lucy halted as they reached the door into the great hall, lungs and heart constricting in her chest. ‘If Grandfather were here, the new Earl would not be. Oh, Carl, why did he have to die?’

  For a moment she clung to the great iron door latch, the ache of her loss like a mailed fist squeezing her already distressed organs.

  ‘He was old and ill, and he said himself he was ready to go,’ Carly said gently, catching at Lucy’s arm. ‘Come on. Chin up. You have a lion to beard in its den.’

  They smiled at one another although Lucy’s effort was a little watery.

  ‘Yes. A wolf can easily outsmart a lion.’

  But her next thought stole the brief moment of triumph.

  The new Earl of Pennington was also a Wolfenden.

  Compressing her lips with determination, she started across the expanse of marbled floor to the hallway leading to the morning room.

  ‘I’ll wait here for Quelle and Char. Shall we start without you?’ Carly asked, lingering by the monk’s seat where she’d laid the swords.

  ‘Of course. Though I intend only to be gone long enough to welcome his Lordship home to Pennington and then hand him over to Horsham.’

  Carly’s raised brows and her skeptical expression stayed in Lucy’s mind as she strode into the hallway.

  She couldn’t see why this interview should take more than a few minutes. The man had only just arrived. It’s not likely he’d be demanding a tour of the estates right away. And if he did, well, that could be left to Mr. Locksley, the steward.

  Having arranged all comfortably in her mind, she turned past the grand staircase and headed for the morning room.

  Too late now to wish she’d been armored in the formal mourning of her mother’s out-moded black bombazine.

  Why the devil was her heart pounding like Red Demon on a tear about the paddock?

  Dragging her steps as she traversed the ante room, she considered the man awaiting her.

  The elder son of her grandfather’s younger brother, Gabriel Wolfenden had occasionally visited the estates he would one day inherit.

  But he’d been on the Peninsular with Wellington’s forces since 1808, had frequently been mentioned in dispatches and achieved the rank of Colonel.

  She guessed he’d bear little resemblance to the austerely handsome young man who’d spent several days closeted with her grandfather before he left for Portugal.

  At eighteen, she’d been more susceptible to the attractions of a well set up gentleman in regimental blues than she’d like to admit.

  Embarrassment quivered through her.

  One could only hope he hadn’t noticed.

  It was disconcerting to feel that adolescent admiration re-surfacing at the first glimpse of his manly form and the sound of his deep, commanding voice.

  Approaching the door to the morning room, she forced her breathing to settle.

  Which was easier than calming the wild dance of her thoughts.

  By the time she stood with her hand on the door latch, she’d managed to steady herself, if not the crazy beatin
g of her heart.

  Presumably he’d have a copy of the will with him, if he came from London, and she’d finally be forced to claim her independence—for regardless of what Grandfather had hoped, she’d not marry a man who had no interest at all in her person.

  Determination stiffened her spine.

  She did not intend marrying anyone, she reminded herself.

  As wealthy young women, she and Victoria could well afford to maintain a household and modest stables on the outskirts of Bath.

  Once Victoria married, Lucy and Carly along with Charity and Raquelle planned to travel. As Raquelle’s Aunt Fortunia did.

  The excitement generated by that thought was like touching a lodestone. It fired her imagination, fueled her dreams, and quickened her blood.

  France, across Europe to Russia—

  The magic of it stole her breath and distracted her mind.

  And she could not afford that just now. In fact, she was procrastinating, which was not like her at all.

  Glancing down to check the raggedy old skirts were serving their purpose, she knocked briefly and entered, leaving the door open behind her.

  ‘Good morning, Lord Pennington. Welcome home.’

  Atlas was sitting upright at the right hand of the tall, broad-shouldered man gazing out the mullioned windows. When the Earl turned and stepped towards her, the familiar room had never felt so close, so confined.

  He was so much more than she remembered. More breadth, more steel, more confidence in the way he held himself.

  More focused on her.

  Perish black bombazine!

  She wished she was wearing her best russet morning gown with her hair in one of Alice’s elegant arrangements instead of hurriedly stuffed under Mama’s old lace cap that did little to confine the wildness of it.

  Such wishes are pointless when it matters little what he thinks of you. You’re no longer a dreamy-eyed eighteen year old.

  He was an imposing presence, highlighted by the morning light flooding through the tall, many-paned windows.

  His skin was deeply tanned, his hair the color of dark toffee with lighter caramel streaks as if he’d seen much sun and the eyes surveying her with an impersonal curiosity from beneath straight dark brows were an uncompromising clear grey.

  Few men were taller than her five foot ten, but Gabriel Wolfenden was actually looking down at her.

  Crossing the room, hand extended to take hers, he bowed over it.

  Strong and well-kept, it was not the hand of a dilettante. The man appeared intensely civilized, well mannered, even rawly elegant, but emanated an air of steel-bound, accountability—

  Lucy reined in Lucas Wolfe’s racing thoughts and pressed her lips firmly together as she inclined her head to acknowledge his formal bow, for all the world as if she wore the most elaborate court dress.

  As she schooled her features and excused her thoughts because the man before her could have stepped from the pages of a Lucas Wolfe novel, he turned her hand palm up and pressed his warm, velvety lips to the pad at the base of her thumb.

  He hadn’t even spoken a word.

  How dared he?

  It was pure strength of will that empowered her not to react, not to snatch her limb back, but no amount of will or anything else could keep the bright flags from her cheeks.

  ‘Thank you, Lucinda. I’m glad to finally be here at Pennington—although I cannot lay claim to the title yet as there has been no time to observe the formalities. And speaking of formalities, we’ve always been just Gabriel and Lucinda. I see no reason for that to change.’

  His hand dropped absently to rest on the dog’s head, as if they were companions of long standing.

  Folding her hands primly together at her waist, Lucy schooled her features into what she hoped was prim and disapproving.

  ‘Thank you, my L—Gabriel. I’m sure Grandfather would have left everything in order to facilitate a smooth transition for you. We’ve been looking forward to your arrival. You have come straight from France?’

  Lucy knew her speech was stilted and proper, but one of them needed to observe the proprieties.

  Dark eyebrow twitching a little, he merely nodded and leaned one hip casually against a small, solid Jacobean table holding a nine-branched candelabra.

  ‘My visit at this time is necessarily brief. The war is not done with me yet.’

  His voice caressed the air about her with the rough-satin sensation of velvet and his long fingers stroked the dog’s big silky ear.

  Lucy drew in a deep, calming breath.

  It had to be nerves making her so sensitive to his presence, to the invisible emotion sparking from his aura to hers.

  Tiny, jagged lightning bolts seemed to pierce the air between them.

  Perhaps it was anxiety to have her future arranged that was unsettling her, the ambivalence of excitement at finally having her independence—or something faintly ominous in the way the dog was behaving.

  More likely, it was despair at leaving the only home she’d ever known.

  Surreptitiously, she rubbed her hand over the soft folds of old calico, in an effort to stop the tingling sensation still evident at the base of her thumb.

  Where he’d briefly touched his lips to her naked skin.

  That small action suggested he was not as proper as she might have supposed.

  No reason she should have a response to it, nevertheless.

  Long ago she’d decided she could be as happy in a place of her own as at Pennington Towers. There was no reason to be apprehensive about how that would be arranged.

  Nor how such a move would be construed and gossiped about by the old tabbies of the ton.

  She would have her sister, Victoria, with her until she married, as well as Carly.

  ‘You’re only making a short visit?’

  ‘Indeed,’ he murmured, ushering her to one of the low, Louis Quinze chairs in the window nook. He seated himself opposite, in the matching chair where Grandfather had always sat.

  Atlas dropped to lie at his feet.

  Aware of the butler hovering, his interested gaze fixed on the dog, Lucy said, ‘We’ll take tea thank you, Horsham.’

  Bowing, he left the room.

  All so blessedly normal—and yet not.

  ‘I apologize, Lucinda, if I’ve pulled you away from important tasks.’

  Gabriel’s gaze encompassed the entirety of her person, starting with the limp lace cap and skimming downwards over the shabby mess of her skirts and the dusty toes of her boots. His expression remained guarded, even neutral.

  Lucy inclined her head and kept her mouth firmly closed.

  She’d long since learned the easiest way to ensure saying nothing incriminating was to say nothing at all. He probably thought she’d been dusting—or polishing the silver.

  It only mattered he not discover the truth of what had been occupying her.

  Any of it.

  ‘I’m on a tight schedule and have pressing issues to settle with you as soon as may be. This war has held them at bay far too long. First, I offer my sincere condolences on the passing of your grandfather. I know you had a close relationship with him, as he always mentioned you in his letters—and I deeply appreciated you writing for him when he no longer could. He once said you were the glue holding Pennington together and I believe he was right. I hope it has not been too onerous a task for you? Uncle Penn indicated you loved the place and professed it was nothing less than a ‘labor of love.’

  Pressing issues? Did he refer to his taking over the running of Pennington?

  And her and Victoria’s removal therefrom? Or—?

  He turned a politely enquiring gaze on her and Lucy knew she had to think of something with which to respond.

  Difficult, when she felt as if her mooring line had been cut and she was adrift, sans anchor or rudder.

  It was what she’d been wanting. It was, she reminded herself.

  ‘Indeed,’ was the best response she could manage.

 
A wooden feeling was creeping up from the soles of her feet.

  No doubt he expected her to have at least a modicum of social skills, but the numb dread had reached her throat and forming words was suddenly difficult—even if her brain could have put them together.

  She’d never had trouble conversing with a man.

  But something in what he’d said, or hadn’t said maybe, teased her mind with the thought he was going to offer marriage.

  Her heart dropped to the soles of her reprehensible riding boots—hopefully hidden beneath her ugly skirts—and floundered about like a fish on a river bank.

  Crossing her feet at the ankles, she dropped her eyes to make sure those boots were not betraying her.

  Grandfather’s dearest wish had been marriage between his heir and his granddaughter. He’d often mentioned it to her, as no doubt he had to Gabriel.

  To keep from bursting into speech, which would no doubt be something garbled and unintelligible, she clamped her teeth down on her bottom lip.

  Best to say nothing. Let him explain himself.

  Since she’d reached the advanced age of five and twenty unwed, he likely thought she’d been waiting on the day.

  Lucy twisted her fingers in her lap.

  If only Horsham would hurry with the tea so she had something to do with her hands! Or to occupy her traitorous mind suddenly building a case in her head for the desirability of marriage to Gabriel Wolfenden.

  Giving one’s heart to a man only led to heartache, misery and eventually death.

  Lifting her head, she tilted her chin upwards and determined not to drop it again by even one fraction of a millimeter.

  Love was a weakness. But marriage without love was cruel.

  She shuddered in repudiation.

  If her parents’ unhappy union hadn’t been deterrent enough, she only had to think of Liberty Davencourt, who’d been forced to wed an old man to forestall a scandalous liaison between her and the son of the miller.

  That they’d eventually gained their happiness at huge emotional cost to themselves and their families always brought a lump to her throat and an ache to her heart.

  Love was a bitter thing.