[Cornick Nicola] The Last Rake in London(Bookos.org) (22 page)

He came back to her and bent to kiss her, a kiss for once that was gentle and devoid of the tempestuous passion that had characterised their relationship.

‘Oh, Sally Bowes,’ he said, against her lips, ‘don’t let the past haunt you. You are too sweet and generous for that to happen.’

The tenderness of his kiss undermined Sally’s defences completely. She felt a sudden, huge and surprising rush of relief because the fear had gone and with Jack she felt safe. She drew him to her, sliding her hands over his shoulders and it was only then that she realised his shirt was still damp and clinging to his body. In his hurry to care for her he had certainly neglected his own comfort.

‘You’ll catch a chill!’ she protested, drawing back, and he smiled at her and pulled the shirt over his head in one fluid movement before joining her on the bed again.

His skin was warm beneath her fingertips and he felt so vital and alive that Sally drank in the scent and the taste and the strength of him, giving him back kiss for gentle kiss, wanting to feel closer still. Their tongues tangled, delicate at first, then bold and searching. Both of them were too intent on each other to hear the commotion in the bedroom doorway until Charlotte gave a muffled squeak.

‘We did knock!’ she said.

‘Are you lost to all sense of propriety, nephew?’ Lady Ottoline demanded, bustling into the bedroom and thrusting Jack’s wet shirt towards him.

‘Absolutely, Aunt Ottoline,’ Jack said. ‘Utterly and completely.’

For a second even Lady Ottoline was silenced. ‘When I spoke to you of setting up your nursery,’ she said, with a ferocious glare in Sally’s direction, ‘I did not mean for you to start immediately. I shall call the bishop and arrange a special licence
at once
!’

‘That,’ Jack said pleasantly, pulling his shirt on, ‘is Sally’s decision, Aunt, not yours.’ He bent to place a final kiss on her lips. ‘I will see you later, darling. For now I think I should leave you to rest.’ He paused, his eyes still very close to hers. ‘Despite our conversation last night,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I would like you to reconsider, Sally. Please do not reject me out of hand.’

‘Out!’ Lady Ottoline ordered, shooing him through the door and closing it firmly behind them.

Charley gave a giggle and sat down on the end of the bed. ‘I only came to thank you, Sally, and to make sure that in saving Lucy you did not take hurt yourself,’ she said, ‘but now I see that you are in such good health I shall have no more concerns on that score!’

‘I hope,’ Sally said hastily, ‘that Lucy is recovering?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Charley said. ‘The doctor thinks there is no real harm done and she is sleeping now. Stephen is sitting with her.’ She looked at Sally. ‘But for your prompt actions though, Sally…’ She shuddered. ‘Well, I do not like to think what might have happened. What a blessing that you can swim!’ A frown puckered her forehead. ‘One thing puzzles me though.’ She made a slight, embarrassed gesture with her hands. ‘When we came in and you and Jack were…well, you know…’

‘Kissing,’ Sally said helpfully.

‘Yes!’ Charley said. ‘And sort of lying on the bed together and—’

‘Yes,’ Sally said, ‘anyway…’

‘Well…’ Charley blushed. ‘I am a little confused as I am sure that when you arrived on Friday your engagement was only a ruse and yet now…’ Her voice tailed away uncertainly.

‘Yes, of course.’ Sally had forgotten that Charley had been party to the original deception. ‘I am sorry to give you concern, Charley. The truth is that your brother has proposed to me in earnest, and—’

She was unable to say anything else as Charley launched herself at her and gave her a bear hug.

‘How marvellous!’ Charley gasped. ‘I knew it! I knew that Jack was in love with you. All that posturing around over Greg Holt’s attentions to you, and pretending that he did not care. I knew from the start that you were meant to be together.’

Sally extracted herself carefully from the hug. ‘I haven’t said yes yet,’ she warned.

Charley’s face fell ludicrously. ‘But you will! Oh, Sally, please say you will!’

‘I don’t know,’ Sally said honestly. ‘I know you think that Jack loves me, Charley…’ she put a hand out to halt Charley’s rush of affirmative words ‘…but the truth is that I think he is still in love with Merle Jameson and maybe he always will be.’

Charley’s face stilled and she was uncharacteristically silent for several moments. ‘I was only sixteen when Jack eloped with Merle,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘and it is true that he did love her desperately.’ She saw Sally’s expression and shook her head slightly. ‘I am sorry, Sally, but you yourself have said that it was the case. I didn’t understand Jack’s feelings at the time, but now that I am older I can see that it was a mad, passionate, sort of love. He put her on a pedestal and wanted to take her away from her cruel husband. But it was also a very young and naïve kind of a love. I do not know if their feelings would have survived had Merle lived. But…’ she hesitated ‘…I think Jack loves you in a way that is no less profound, just different.’

The door flew open without a knock and Connie bustled in. Behind her in the doorway Sally could see Lady Ottoline lurking with a face like thunder, and Bertie, looking distressed.

‘Not now, old thing—’ he started to say, but Connie ignored him and wafted towards her sister on a wave of overpowering scent.

‘Sally darling!’ Connie said dramatically. ‘We just got back and heard what happened. How utterly ghastly! Such a good thing that I wasn’t here—I am terrified of water and might have damaged my new blue tussore gown in all the excitement!’ She turned to Charley. ‘I hope the child was not injured?’

Charley was, for once, completely silenced, and it was left to Lady Ottoline to sweep magnificently into the room and deal with the interloper. ‘It might help, Mrs Basset,’ she said icily, ‘if you knew the name of Charlotte and Stephen’s daughter and actually cared about her welfare into the bargain.’

‘I beg your pardon!’ Connie spluttered. ‘I am here to enquire into my sister’s health—’

‘As though you care a ha’pence for that either!’ Lady Ottoline snapped. She looked from Connie to Bertie, who was trying to efface himself against the velvet wall hangings. ‘Sadly it does not take a towering intellect to work out why my nephew chose to marry you, Mrs Basset,’ she said, ‘and I realise that it cannot be for your conversation. If he wishes to sit and look at a spiteful and empty-headed little doll for the rest of his life, then that is his choice. But I do not care to, so you will remove yourselves from this house forthwith and make sure that you are not within twenty miles of me at any time in the future. That is all.’ And she swept out again.

‘Well, upon my word,’ Connie spluttered, a bright spot of colour burning in her cheeks. ‘Who does she think she is?’

‘She
was
the person who was going to leave her fortune to me,’ Bertie said gloomily. He grabbed Connie’s arm. ‘Come along, old girl. Time to make a swift exit, I think. What do you say to another night at the Randolph?’

I
t was raining when Sally got back to London, big fat summer raindrops that spattered the dry cobbles and made the air smell of dust. Jack had wanted to drive her back, but Sally had insisted on taking the railway; she needed time alone to think. She had told Jack that she would give him an answer to his proposal that night, after the opening of the new Crimson Salon at the Blue Parrot, which meant that her whirlwind affair had lasted precisely a week. It seemed a perilously short space of time on which to make a decision that would affect the rest of her life so profoundly. Yet even if she turned Jack down, she could see that things would not be the same; he had come into her life and changed everything.

The club was reassuringly calm and quiet. Dan took her through everything that had happened in her absence and assured her that they were ready for the opening. Keeping her eye on the clock so that she would have plenty of time to get dressed for the evening, Sally worked her way through the pile of papers and correspondence on her desk. It was at about five o’clock, when she was thinking of going upstairs to get changed, that there was a knock at the door and Greg Holt came in and closed the door behind him.

‘May I speak with you, Sally?’ he asked.

Sally smiled. ‘Of course! It is good to see you again, Greg. Are you coming to the opening of the Crimson Salon tonight?’

Greg nodded. He rubbed his chin a little uneasily. ‘I wondered…That is, I thought I might bring Nell with me as my guest.’

Sally was so surprised she almost upset the inkpot. ‘Nell? My sister?’

‘The same,’ Greg said, with a faint grin. His eyes were nervous. ‘I looked her up when I got back to London.’

‘That must have caused a stir in Blakelock Street,’ Sally said drily.

‘Yes.’ Greg pulled a face. ‘I will move them out of there as soon as I can. I am sure the children would be happier in the country and Nell would look so much better with colour in her cheeks. It’s no place for them to be—’ He broke off as he saw Sally’s expression. ‘What?’ he said, a little defensively.

Sally was laughing. ‘Oh, Greg, that was quick! I always said that you were a managing sort of a man!’

‘And you never needed me to manage you,’ Greg said ruefully, ‘but Nell is different. And I have known her for years. It is not as though this is sudden.’

‘No,’ Sally said. She gave him a sharp look. ‘But Nell is not like me. She is a person in her own right, Greg.’

‘I know,’ Greg said. ‘I do know that, Sal. I can only hope that with her political convictions Nell can be persuaded to look kindly upon me.’

‘As long as you support the right of women to have the vote, then I am sure there shall be no problem,’ Sally said, smiling.

‘I try,’ Greg said, ‘but then I think of your sister Connie having the right of suffrage…’

‘Well,’ Sally said, ‘if it comes to that, I need only think of the likes of Bertie deciding the future of the country…’

‘A fair point,’ Greg conceded. ‘You have my support. Were they unbearable after I left?’

‘Intolerable,’ Sally agreed. ‘But Lady Ottoline gave Connie a piece of her mind and they retired to the Randolph and left us alone.’

‘You do not seem too concerned,’ Greg observed. ‘Not long ago you would have blamed yourself for the entire episode.’

Sally fidgeted with her pen. ‘I suppose so. But Jack made me see that Connie and Nell are not my responsibility any longer.’

‘I’ve been telling you that for years,’ Greg said drily.

‘I know.’ Sally avoided his eyes. ‘I am sorry, Greg.’ She smiled. ‘But if you came for my permission and blessing for you and Nell, then you have it anyway. Dear Greg. I am happy for you.’

Greg smiled slightly too, but the smile faded from his eyes quickly. ‘I wish I could say the same for you,’ he said. ‘I understand from Charley that you do intend to go through with it?’

Sally sighed. ‘Greg, we have had this conversation already.’

‘You are going to marry a man who cannot love you.’ Greg said. He shook his head. ‘You deserve better than that, Sal.’

‘I have not given Jack my final decision—’ Sally started to say, but Greg stopped her with a look.

‘You
have
decided, Sal. You know you have. You have made the first reckless and ill-considered decision of your life.’

‘The second one,’ Sally said, thinking back to her first night with Jack.

Greg did not smile. ‘There is something I haven’t told you. I wondered whether I should interfere or not…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Damn it, Sal…’

‘If it is something to do with Jack’s past,’ Sally said feelingly, ‘then I do not want to know. I have no desire to spend my married life with people coming up to me and whispering maliciously in my ear that there’s something I should know about my husband. There is always going to be someone talking scandal.’

‘It’s not that,’ Greg said.

Sally raised her brows. ‘Then what is it?’

‘You must accept that I am telling you this for your own good—’ Greg began, but Sally shook her head sharply.

‘All you are doing is making me nervous. Well?’

‘Whilst we were at Dauntsey,’ Greg said, ‘my agent had an approach from someone acting on behalf of an anonymous buyer. They wanted to buy my stake in the Blue Parrot, Sal.’

Sally felt a chill tiptoe down her neck.

‘Why would anyone want a stake in the club?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Greg said, ‘but they wanted it badly. They offered twice the value of my investment. I told Montgomery that I would not sell under any circumstances and I asked him to try to discover the identity of the mystery buyer, but all he could find was that the agent was Churchward, who acts on behalf of the Kestrel family, and that he had approached all the other investors as well. They all sold, Sal. I am sorry.’

The chill in Sally’s blood intensified. She toyed with a pen, trying to concentrate and succeeding only in getting ink stains all over her fingers.

‘Not everyone is as loyal as you are, Greg,’ she said lightly. ‘So you think that Mr Churchward’s mysterious buyer is intent on controlling the Blue Parrot?’ She put the pen down. ‘And indeed if he has already bought up all my other investors, he owns the club now, for your share and mine come only to forty percent.’

Greg nodded. ‘Churchward represents many other clients in addition to Jack Kestrel, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Sally echoed. She looked up and met Greg’s eyes. ‘But I think we both know that it must be Jack who is behind this. Who else would be interested in buying the Blue Parrot?’

Greg shook his head. ‘I do not know. But why would Jack seek control of the Club, unless…?’

Unless…

Sally thought back to the very first night that she had met Jack. It was only a week ago, but it felt like an age. So much had happened. Despite the shortness of their acquaintance she had even fooled herself into thinking she knew him, understood him. But what did she
really
know of Jack Kestrel, the man she had fallen helplessly in love with, but who could not love her in return?

She had been careless when they first met, she acknowledged, telling him that her business situation was precarious and dependent on the investors in the club. Such information would be crucial for a man looking to buy a stake…Or looking for revenge…

‘Montgomery said that the offer arrived whilst we were at Dauntsey?’ she asked carefully.

‘On the Friday,’ Greg confirmed.

The Friday. That had been two days after she and Jack had met. The very day that Jack had come to the Blue Parrot to accuse her of conspiring with Connie to fleece his family.

‘And Churchward’s client was still interested when you came back to London yesterday?’ Sally questioned.

Greg nodded sombrely. ‘He pressed me for an answer immediately even though it was a Sunday,’ he said. ‘Montgomery said that Churchward was most insistent. I am sorry, Sal.’

‘I will see you tonight,’
Jack had said, when he had put her on the train at Oxford and given her a brief, hard kiss in parting. Tonight, with the King present and the unveiling of the Crimson Salon, Jack Kestrel would walk in not only as her fiancé, but also as the man with a controlling share in the Blue Parrot. If Greg had sold, he would have owned almost everything. Everything that Sally had worked for, everything that she had struggled to achieve over the last seven years, belonged to Jack. He had taken her body and he had taken her heart and now he had almost succeeded in taking her business. She was ruined. It was the perfect revenge.

Yet some stubborn instinct in her told her that Jack would never do that to her. Even while the doubts whispered in her mind, reminding her that Jack was ruthless and she barely knew him at all, an obstinate loyalty and the deep conviction she had that she
did
know him, made her cling tenaciously to the idea that he would never hurt her like that.

‘I don’t believe it,’
she whispered.

Greg was looking at her with pity. She knew he thought she was denying the truth because she could not face the idea of Jack’s betrayal.

‘Don’t say you are sorry again,’ Sally said, as Greg opened his mouth to speak. He shrugged, but kept silent.

‘Jack would not do that,’ Sally said, but she wondered if she was trying to convince herself.

‘Whatever happens tonight,’ Greg said, standing up, ‘I shall be there for you, Sal.’

He went out. Sally heard him say goodbye to Mary, heard the sound of the door closing behind him, and then she sat in silence, she did not know for how long, with the thoughts and fears, dreams and nightmares jostling in her head, until she finally admitted to herself that she did not know what to believe.

‘Matty! Matty!’ Sally tumbled through the door of her bedroom to find Mrs Matson knitting placidly in the chair beside the fireplace.

‘Here’s a to-do!’ Mrs Matson said, laying her work aside and getting stiffly to her feet. ‘Wondered what had happened to you, Miss Sally. Isn’t the King due in an hour and a half?’

Sally threw a harassed look at the clock. ‘He is! Why did no one come to find me?’

‘Didn’t want to disturb you,’ Mrs Matson said, pursing her lips. ‘Remember what happened last time I walked in—?’ She stopped, peering. ‘You’ve been crying, pet. You never cry. What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ Sally said. ‘Everything.’ She dashed the back of her hand across her cheeks. ‘Oh, Matty, someone has bought up the Blue Parrot and I think it is Mr Kestrel and I can’t help but worry he has done it for revenge! He will take everything, Matty, everything I have worked for, and I can’t bear it!’

‘Can’t bear for him to take it or can’t bear that he might have betrayed you?’ Mrs Matson asked shrewdly.

‘Both!’ Sally gulped. ‘How
could
I have been so stupid to have fallen in love with him, Matty? I barely know him! And it hurts so much to think he might have done this.’

Mrs Matson caught Sally’s cold hands in hers. ‘Wait, wait! You don’t know what he has done. You won’t know until you ask him.’

‘No,’ Sally said, ‘but I cannot speak to him when the King is here and all my guests…Oh!’ She ran a hand through her hair, dislodging the pins. ‘How monstrously stupid I have been!’

‘Can’t help who you fall in love with,’ Mrs Matson said comfortably, going over to the wardrobe and taking out a glittering silver gown that tumbled like a waterfall over her arm. ‘Knew the moment I saw Matson that he was the man for me.’

‘Did you?’ Sally said, staring. She had never known that.

‘Didn’t marry him for nine years, mind,’ Matty said. ‘We had to save up.’ She looked at Sally. ‘One week, nine years…Sometimes it doesn’t make any difference to how you feel. I’ll draw you a bath, Miss Sally. You’ll feel better after that.’

An hour later, dressed in the beautiful Worth silver gown, with her hair in diamond pins and all traces of tears removed from her face, Sally hurried down the stairs at the Blue Parrot.

Dan met her as soon as she reached the bottom step.

‘There’s trouble,’ he said.

Sally shot him a look. Her nerves, already fluttering as tight as butterflies in her stomach, tightened further.

‘The King is here,’ Dan said.

‘Already?’ Sally was horrified. She checked the marble clock in the hall. ‘He is not due for another half-hour and he is always late! Why did you not come to tell me?’

‘I was on my way,’ Dan said plaintively. ‘He only arrived five minutes ago—with Mr Kestrel.’

Sally felt a flash of panic. So Jack had arrived, too—and he had not come to find her. All the fears and doubts she had tried so hard to suppress came rushing back. Was he going to use this night, of all nights, to announce that he now owned the Blue Parrot and had ruined her business and her reputation? She pushed the terrifying thought out of her mind and tried to concentrate.

‘Where are they now?’ she enquired.

‘In the Crimson Salon. They thought they would be the first to use the new gaming tables for a game of
chemin de fer
.’

Sally swore softly. ‘Very well.’ She might have known that Jack Kestrel and King Edward between them would create havoc with her carefully planned evening. First she was supposed to greet the King and make a little speech welcoming her guests, then she was going to declare the new Salon open and send around the champagne…But of course Jack and King Edward had had to arrive early and ruin all her plans. The guests were streaming in now, the ladies elegant in rainbow silks, the gentlemen stark in black-and-white evening dress. All looked horrified when they heard the whisper that the King was already there. Sally hurried towards the Crimson Salon, her heels snapping over the marble floor.

Dan threw open the door and Sally paused on the threshold. For a moment it felt as though time had unrolled and she was standing there on the night a week before when Jack had almost broken the bank. Tonight he had observed the dress code and was looked devastatingly handsome in black and pristine white. In other ways the picture was the same as it had been the previous time; Jack was sprawled in his chair, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead, his cards held in one careless hand. He had discarded his jacket and the pure whiteness of his shirt looked stark against the darkness of his tanned skin. He looked arrogant and dangerous and so shockingly attractive that Sally’s heart beat violently against her ribs before she took a deep breath and schooled herself to calm.