Ravished by the Rake (29 page)

‘Yes. Now let me go.’

‘Does he love you?’ Who the devil could it be? Who had she met that he had not noticed?

‘No. Now, are you satisfied?’

‘Not if you are unhappy. Never, then.’ He felt sick and shaken. ‘Dita, what can I do?’ He would bring her the man on his knees if it would wipe that bleakness from her eyes.

‘Leave me. Stop asking me to marry you.’

For a long moment he could find no words. He was not used to defeat and he had not expected it here, or to find it so crushing. But a gentleman did not rant or complain; he had asked her what she wanted and she had told him with a sincerity that was utterly convincing.

‘Your scarf, Dita.’ He picked up the gauze strip and put it around her shoulders, his fingers brushing the soft skin. That was probably the last time he could legitimately allow them to linger like that, he realised, and gave himself one more indulgence, as he touched the back of his hand to her cheek.

The party was still animated and the room crowded as he let himself back into it. No one appeared to be looking for Dita so he stood there feeling lost and wondering at himself while he massaged the bruised knuckles of his right hand.

She was out there thinking about the man she loved. The bastard who obviously did not care for her, or he would be with her, protecting her from rakes. Protecting her from Alistair Lyndon.

His vision clouded and it took him a moment to realise it was with tears. Appalled, Alistair strode from the room, into the hall, snapped his fingers for his hat, cane and cloak. ‘Tell my coachman to drive home, I’ll walk,’ he said.

When he reached the street he strode out, uncaring where he was going. Damn it, she was his. He loved her—what was she doing, wanting another man?
He loved her.
Alistair stopped dead in the middle of the pavement.

So that was what this was, this restlessness, this feeling of peace when he was with her, the mingling of thoughts and the shared laughter. The passion. The need to protect her. Love, the emotion he did not believe that mature, clear-headed men felt.

‘Want to be friendly, ducky?’ He glanced down to find a sharp-faced girl looking up at him, her right arm crooked in the time-honoured invitation to take it and walk with her to some dark alley.

‘No,’ he said as he fished in his pocket and found her a coin. ‘No, I am not inclined to be friendly at all.’

The street-walker bit it and walked off, casting a coquettish look over her shoulder, her skinny figure swaying in her tawdry finery.

On the ship Dita had asked him why he didn’t marry her and then, without waiting for his answer, had told him why she wouldn’t take him, even if he offered.
I want you, but I do not love you. I do not even like you, half of the time,
she had said.

And he had pressed her to marry him, over and over so that the passages between them when the old, uncomplicated friendship had seemed to return were marred by his insistence, her resistance. And for him that lingering friendship, the passion, the sense of duty, had changed into something more, so slowly, so naturally he hadn’t even been aware of it. Perhaps that love had always been there, waiting to emerge.

Could he convince her? Woo her? But if she had given her heart to another man she would not settle for anything—anyone—less.

‘Hell, I have made a mull of this,’ he said to the empty street. How was he going to live without Dita?

He had gone, without protest, and left the field to some unknown man, Dita thought bleakly. Of course, he didn’t even know there
was
a field. He didn’t know she loved him, didn’t know she longed for him to love her, too. Like the honourable man he was, he had rescued her from Langham, made sure she was safe and then walked away, finally accepting her refusal because she was in love. The perfect gentleman.

But that touch, that lingering, gentle caress … Had that been a farewell or a blessing? Both, perhaps. She stared, unseeing, into the darkness. It had always been Alistair, all her life. Now, she had lost him for ever.

She shuddered, but it was not the cold that made her shiver, it was the thought that there was nowhere in London to get away from Alistair, and the knowledge that she could not bear to see him find someone else to marry and to live his life with.

In the end she was too cold to think properly. She went inside to where her mother was deep in conversation with two friends. ‘I thought St George’s, Hanover Square, and the wedding breakfast at Grosvenor Street. They’ll be going down to the house in south Devon, I expect, and then—Ah, Dita dear, I was wondering where you had got to.’

‘Mama, I’m sorry, but I am not feeling very well. I think I might have caught cold. May I take the carriage and send it back?’

‘You do look very pale, dear. I will come with you.’

Her mother swept her out with punctilious farewells to their hosts. ‘I do hope you have not got anything more than a slight chill,’ she said, tucking rugs around Dita
in the carriage. ‘At this stage in the Season it would be such a pity to miss anything.’

‘I would like to go home, Mama. At once. To Combe.’

‘Home now? But why?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it, Mama.’ Her mother opened her mouth, but Dita pressed on. If she was asked any more questions or talked at, she felt she could not bear it. ‘Now Evaline is betrothed there is no reason for me to stay in town, is there? There is no one I am going to marry, Mama. I am sorry, but I am certain of it. I need time to decide what I want to do and I cannot think in London.’

Nor can I bear to dance and flirt and smile and watch Alistair make his choice. Much better to hear about it at a distance. When he brings his new bride home I can come back to town or go to Brighton or something. Anything. Her hand crept to her cheek where his had touched. Goodbye.

Dita straightened her shoulders and made herself sit up. She was not going to run away and mope for the rest of her life. She had money, she had contacts, there was a new life out there if she only had the strength to find it. Widows managed it when they had lost the men they loved and so could she. She just needed some peace to plan, that was all.

A
listair left it until eleven before he called. He had to tell her how he felt. It was hopeless, of course, if she was in love and not just telling him that to stop him insisting on their marriage. That it might be a ruse was the only thing that supported his spirits—until he remembered the tears on her cheeks. They had been so very real.

It was still far too early for a morning call, which properly, if illogically, should take place in the afternoon, but there was a limit to how much suspense he could take. Pearson answered the door. ‘Good morning, my lord. I regret that none of the family is at home this morning.’

‘None of them? I will return this afternoon.’

‘I believe it unlikely that they will be receiving today at all, my lord.’

What the devil was going on? The only thing he could think of was that Dita had announced that she wanted to marry whoever it was, her father had objected and a major family upset was in progress. The fact that she
must be holding out would indicate that she was serious, he thought, striding down St James’s and into his club. It was going to be a long twenty-four hours.

The second day produced almost exactly the same result. ‘His lordship is at the House and is expected back very late. Her ladyship and Lady Evaline are, I believe, shopping, my lord, and will be going on to afternoon appointments. Lady Perdita is not receiving.’

Frustrated, Alistair reviewed his options, other than breaking and entering. He did have, if not a spy in the camp, a source of intelligence, he realised.

The note he had written to James Morgan brought the young man himself around to White’s in the early evening. ‘How may I be of service?’ he asked as they settled into chairs in a quiet corner of the library.

‘I need to know what is going on in the Brookes’ house,’ Alistair said. No point in beating around the bush. ‘Is Lady Perdita betrothed to someone, or is there a problem over some man?’

‘I don’t think so.’ James frowned. ‘But then, I haven’t seen Lady Evaline today as she had various obligations. I can ask her tomorrow though—I am hiring a curricle and taking her driving in the park. Of course, if it is very delicate, she might not be able to say anything.’ He hesitated. ‘You could ask Lady Perdita, perhaps?’

‘I would if she was receiving,’ Alistair said, almost amused by the way James struggled to keep the speculation off his face. ‘Never mind, I will call again tomorrow.’ And this time, if he was still refused, he was going to go in through the tradesmen’s entrance and find out,
one way or another. But he had betrayed more than enough to his new secretary. ‘Do you enjoy the play?’ he asked. ‘We could go to the Theatre Royal and then on to some supper.’

Pearson looked decidedly uncomfortable to find Alistair on the doorstep at ten the next morning. ‘I am sorry, my lord, Lady Perdita is indisposed.’

‘Seriously?’ Alistair’s blood ran cold. Had Langham hurt her and she had said nothing at the time?

‘I could not say, my lord.’

The man was hiding something. Alistair smiled. ‘Please tell her I called.’ As soon as the door closed he went along the pavement to the area gate, down the steps into the narrow paved space and tried the handle of the staff door. It was unlocked.

‘Here, you can’t come through here! Oh. My lord …’ One of the footmen stared in confusion as Alistair nodded pleasantly to him and took the back stairs, up past the ground floor, on up to the first where the ladies had their sitting room.

The door was ajar and he walked in to find Evaline trimming a bonnet at the table. ‘Alistair!’

‘I need to talk to Dita,’ he said without preamble.

‘You can’t. She’s not … I mean, she isn’t well.’ Evaline appeared decidedly flustered.

‘Not here?’ She bit her lip and then nodded. ‘Where?’

‘She left for Combe yesterday morning, first thing,’ Evaline admitted.

‘Why?’ Evaline just shrugged, her pretty face showing as much bafflement as he felt. ‘Is she betrothed to someone?’

‘Oh, no.’ She seemed glad to have something she could answer. ‘Although it something about marriage, I am certain. I heard Papa and Mama … I should not repeat it.’

Alistair sat down without waiting to be invited, finding, for the first time in his life, that his legs were none too steady. As he realised it Person opened the door. ‘Do you wish refreshments to be served, Lady Evaline? Good morning, my lord.’ It was as close to a rebuke as he was going to deliver. Alistair smiled at him. Even disapproving butlers were to be tolerated now he knew that Dita was still not promised to another man.

‘Not on my account, thank you.’ He got to his feet and bent to kiss Evaline’s cheek. ‘I’ll go and see she is all right.’

‘Oh, good.’ She beamed back at him. ‘And tell her to come back to town soon—I need her help for all the shopping I have to do!’

The temptation to take his curricle was almost overwhelming, but Alistair controlled it. He had no idea how Dita would react when he arrived on her doorstep and he wanted his wits about him. Speculation about what was going on kept running round and round in his head, but he could make no sense of what was happening.

He ordered Gregory to pack for at least a week away, ordered a chaise and four and set out at midday with one terse instruction to the postillions. ‘Make the best time you can and there’s money in it for you.’

It took them fifteen hours to Bridgewater, and another five on the narrower, twisting roads, and then lanes, that led to the Castle.

By the time the chaise pulled up in front of the great doors it was eight in the morning, Alistair had taught his valet to play a variety of card games, they had snatched dinner in Bristol and had slept in moderate discomfort for the past five hours.

Two hours later, with breakfast inside him, bathed, shaved and dressed in buckskins and boots, Alistair rode up to the front door of Wycombe Combe. At least he had got inside the door this time before he was refused, he thought, confronting the Brookes’ butler.

‘Is Lady Perdita not receiving me, or is she not at home to anyone?’ he demanded.

‘Lady Perdita has given orders that she is not to be disturbed, my lord. She’s shut herself up in the Library Suite in the tower, my lord. And she hasn’t come down. We take her meals up to her and I have to knock; the door at the foot of the tower is locked, my lord.’ Gilbert had known Alistair since he was a boy and seemed grateful for the prospect of some guidance.

The butler would have a master key, Alistair reflected, but he did not want to put him in a difficult position; besides, he was experiencing a strong urge to do something flamboyant to make his point to Dita. She wanted romance? Well, if she locked herself up in a tower like Rapunzel, romance was what she was going to get.

Her grandfather had added an incongruous tower at one end of the house in a fit of enthusiasm for the Gothic, inspired by his friend Hugh Walpole. It overlooked the miniature gorge that the river made and created the impression that one of the turrets of his own castle had taken flight and landed there. Dita’s father had moved the library into the second floor and Alistair recalled
from childhood games of hide and seek that there was a guest suite above that.

He wondered why had she abandoned her own rooms as he made his way along the frontage of the house, round the curve of the tower wall and along to a point where a mass of ivy clung to the stonework. Forty foot up a window was open. Alistair shed his coat and hat, gave the ivy an experimental shake and began to climb.

He had made harder climbs, and more dangerous ones, although the result of falling on to the slabs below would be terminally unpleasant, but the ivy was old and thick and made a serviceable ladder. He was within six feet of the window when a wren erupted out of the foliage, shrieking with alarm, a tiny brown bundle of aggression.

The ivy tore under his hands as he swung out reflexively, swearing, then he grabbed hold above the weak spot and threw his weight more securely across.