Sort of.
‘Aside from your uncle, I know nothing about the rest of your family, Miss Blunt.’
‘There is nothing else to know, Mr Warriner. For a long time there has been just me and my elusive uncle.’
‘I take it you didn’t see him often growing up.’
‘See him?’ She laughed. ‘I believe that would have been far too much trouble for him. Until last week, I’d never so much as heard from him.’
Interesting—if sad—and he felt sorry for her. The first notes from the orchestra filled the room as he slipped his hand around her waist and tried not to think about the lovely way it curved beneath his palm. ‘Surely you corresponded?’
‘I did. He didn’t. But then I suppose he was busy as important men are prone to be.’ Her tone told him she didn’t particularly like Rowley, but was trying to be tactful with the truth.
‘I doubt he was busy for the entire fifteen years you’ve lived in Cumbria.’
‘How do you know I’ve been in Cumbria for exactly fifteen years?’ Good heavens, she was sharp.
‘You’ve caught me out. I have been asking about you.’
‘I shan’t ask why in case you use it as an excuse to flirt.’ She stepped on his foot.
‘Is that a warning?’
Her lovely green eyes lifted towards his and quickly dipped again as a rosy blush stained her cheeks. ‘Actually...this is technically my first ever real waltz. I never learned it in Cumbria. Aunt Daphne has been teaching me, but as she is so often—’ She clamped her mouth shut and those bewitching eyes widened slightly, and Jake just knew she was going to say the word drunk, but stopped herself.
‘She is so often what, Miss Blunt?’ The corners of his mouth were already twitching and as one they both glanced towards the refreshment table. True to form, both the slurring Sawyer sisters appeared to be already the worse for wear. Cressida’s silk turban had fallen so far forward it almost covered her eyes and Daphne’s whole body was definitely listing on the scuppers.
‘Shall we change the subject?’
‘Probably safest.’ His thigh brushed hers and sent ripples of awareness directly to his groin. ‘What would you like to talk about?’
‘Why don’t we talk about you, Mr Warriner?’
Did that mean she was interested in him? Jake certainly hoped so. ‘What would you like to know?’ She was staring at his face intently, a little too close than was proper. Now that he knew she needed spectacles to see, the close proximity made perfect sense, yet only a fool would fail to enjoy it. ‘Did your obvious enquiries about me turn up anything intriguing?’
She didn’t deny making them, which he also took as a good sign. ‘I think I have the measure of the man you are now, Mr Warriner, but I am curious about how you came to be so. Tell me about your background—before you were a rake.’
‘I have always been a rake.’ She was an atrocious dancer. Delightfully atrocious to the extent Jake would have to take his handkerchief to his boots to remove all the dusty footprints she was leaving on them. She almost tripped over them again and he used it as an excuse to hold her closer. Relieved to be supported, she gripped his shoulder tighter and gazed up into his face with an expression of intense concentration.
‘Nobody is born a rake, Mr Warriner. Rakes are made. We are all nurtured by circumstance. There is probably some pivotal moment in your past which shaped your future.’
There was, not that he’d ever tell her. ‘Do you really think a person’s character can be altered by circumstances?’ He was trying to distract her from probing further, but typically she refused to be swayed.
‘Of course. It has certainly shaped mine. I doubt I’d be as stubborn and vexing if I hadn’t spent fifteen years on my own. There has to be something in your past. A significant occurrence which set you on the wrong path. Why don’t we start with your family?’
‘Well, up until very recently they were a very bad lot, so perhaps we should blame them for the shocking way I turned out. At home in Nottinghamshire we are known as the Wild Warriners—a title which was earned thoroughly by every generation of my forebears going back to Tudor times. We are a rotten lot. Very bad blood.’
Rather than shocked, she seemed interested. ‘How bad?’
‘The worst. My father was a violent drunkard, my grandfather was little more than a trickster and my great-grandfather was exiled from the ton for all manner of nefarious shenanigans too awful to sully a young lady’s ears with. The earlier ones were no better. I come from a long line of ne’er-do-wells and, if the family stories are true, a couple of out-and-out traitors. The family seat is built like a fortress. There is a twenty-foot wall surrounding the house, enormous impenetrable gates and even a priest hole, although I doubt it ever held any priests. Sir Hugo, a Warriner from way, way back, had it made to hide his own sorry carcass in when angry people came looking for him. That says it all. So you see, I was doomed to be a rotten egg long before I was hatched.’ Jake spun her in a quick set of turns straight past her fuming uncle and the bristling Earl of Redditch, and she shot them both a defiant smile as they twirled away.
Slightly and attractively breathless, she then picked up the conversation exactly where they had left it. ‘I do not subscribe to the belief of bad blood. My own father was a wastrel, yet I have turned out all right. But then I had a good mother to see me through my formative years. Tell me about your mother.’ Like a dog with a bone, she was determined to get to the root of his problem and she had inadvertently found his tangled roots straight away.
‘I barely remember her.’ A lie. ‘She died when I was very young.’ Because he hadn’t fetched his father when she’d asked. ‘My eldest brother Jack brought me up.’
‘You smiled as you said his name. Are you close to your brother?’
‘Brothers,’ he corrected with a grin, ‘There are four of us. I’m the baby of the family.’ Fearing for his feet, Jake manoeuvred them back towards the alcove rather than back to her chaperons as was customary at the end of a dance. He both needed and wanted to talk to her more. She didn’t seem to mind and allowed him to lead her to their secluded spot in the corner.
‘Tell me about them.’
Thankfully, this was much safer ground so he happily complied by keeping things superficial. ‘We are all the spitting image of our father, who despite being a scoundrel was devilishly handsome, but obviously, I am the most handsome Warriner by far.’ She rolled her eyes, but was smiling and that smile warmed his heart. ‘We also all have the same initials—J.L. Warriner—why I cannot say, but it makes receiving letters at home very confusing. I open my eldest brother’s bills and he receives all the adoring love letters sent from all the women who desperately want to marry me. His name is Jack. He’s the responsible Warriner. He looks after everything and everyone. Did I mention he is an earl? We might be wild, but at least there is a title lurking in the background, although Jack doesn’t like to use it. Too much bad history is associated with it and he’s trying to rise above it. You would like him, he’s very dependable.’ She acknowledged this with a grin that made his chest swell to have caused it. ‘Then there’s Jamie. He’s the brave Warriner. He enlisted in the army and fought against Napoleon, but now he’s an artist who illustrates children’s books for a living. And he’s doing very well at it, too. The clever Warriner is Joe. He’s a doctor. A very good doctor who recently got married to an equally scholarly woman. He and his bride are nauseatingly happy. All my brothers are nauseatingly happily married and settled. Jack has three sons and Jamie has four daughters and I dare say Joe will have a family soon enough. A new niece or nephew might be pending, but alas, I am a bit behind on the latest family news.’ The numerous exchanged letters weren’t the same.
‘You miss them.’
‘I do, but their life is in Nottinghamshire and mine is here.’ Suddenly the pull of home was stronger than it had ever been. He missed his b
rothers and their noisy families, missed being part of that noise. More than anything he missed being him. Just Jake rather than the rake-cum-spy—or was it spy-cum-rake? He didn’t know any more and he was suddenly tired of it. ‘Would you like me to get you a drink?’ Over which he would quiz her some more about her uncle’s business interests to avoid getting maudlin and homesick.
‘No. I’d best go back before Uncle Crispin or my aunts come and fetch me. I can’t spend all night in the company of a rake. No matter how diverting that company is, Mr Warriner.’ She smiled somewhat reluctantly. ‘Thank you for struggling through the waltz with me. I hope I didn’t crush your toes with my clumsy big feet. No doubt I shall see you in another alcove in the very near future.’
Jake would have tried to convince her to stay a while, but he could already see a furious Rowley elbowing his way across the crowded dance floor to get to her. ‘No doubt you will, Felicity, but alas, the cavalry is on its way to rescue you from my wicked charms.’ He winked as he bent to kiss her gloved hand. ‘By the way, most ladies call me Jake, because I am dashing. Like a pirate.’
She grinned and shook her head at his return to shameless flirting. ‘Most enlightening, but I am not as susceptible to dashing pirates as most ladies. For the record, I prefer Fliss to Felicity, but you can continue to call me Miss Blunt as is proper. Especially when one is conversing with a pirate. Goodnight, Mr Warriner.’ She slowly walked three steps away before turning back. ‘Responsible...brave and clever?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘An interesting choice of adjectives to use for your three brothers. Hardly wild-sounding Warriners at all. In turn you called them responsible, brave and clever. Admirable qualities. Noble. Dependable. Which beggars the question—if they are the responsible, brave and clever Warriners, what does that make you?’
For a moment, he wished he was more like his brothers and less like his father. Worthier. Admirable. But alas, fate had chosen this path for him and both King and country needed him to stay on it. He covered the uneasy well of longing with his most rakish smile. ‘Why, that’s easy, Fliss.’ The sound of her name was like heaven on his lips. ‘I’m the disappointment. Somebody has to look after the family legacy.’
Chapter Six
Seething in Uncle Crispin’s phaeton
‘If you don’t mind, Felicity?’
Her uncle shot her his get out of the carriage and give us some privacy look. Fliss knew this because he had already left her twiddling her thumbs as she stood idly waiting for him to conclude his business three times already.
‘Actually, I do mind. This is not at all how I thought I would be spending the day.’ This morning she had awoken early because her uncle had promised she could finally visit the Menagerie at the Tower of London, a place she had been dying to see for as long as she could remember.
‘I have a little bit of business to attend to, Felicity. We’ll be on our way shortly and I promise my little surprise will be worth the delay. I am just waiting for one more thing and then I shall take you to Gunther’s.’ He said this as if she should be impressed.
‘What is Gunther’s?’
‘The home of the finest ice cream in all of London.’
‘You want to feed me ice in February?’ Thanks to the sedate pace and lack of exercise, Fliss’s fingers were already frozen inside her thick gloves.
‘You might sound a little more grateful. Gunther’s is the place to be seen.’
I don’t want to be seen, I want to see the lions! Or the Elgin Marbles or the Changing of the Guard. In fact, almost anything which did not involve the rest of the fashionable residents of Mayfair.
Fliss bit back the angry retort because her uncle’s business associate had pulled his curricle alongside and was doing his best to appear as if he couldn’t hear their taut conversation. Uncle Crispin nodded to the man, then turned back to glare at her. ‘Now if you will excuse us, Felicity, I shall be but a few minutes.’
For the fourth time she reluctantly lowered herself on to the path and took herself a few feet away. For good measure, she folded her arms and positively seethed at him, not that it had any effect.
Behind her she heard the snort of a swan and turned to watch it floating across the Serpentine, instead. For such beautiful birds, they had the ugliest sound. They didn’t quack or tweet. The best way to describe the noise of a swan was a cross between a snort and an asthmatic cough. Nature’s way of reminding the bird it wasn’t perfect. Nothing ever was. Today was certainly turning out to be a thorough disappointment. Even though Fliss had awoken in a perfectly lovely mood, her uncle had spoiled it straight after breakfast and she was already regretting the compromise she had made in the spirit of family harmony.
Last night, after the Renshaws’ ball, he had promised faithfully she could begin seeing the sights of the capital, decreed that she could take the carriage and her great-great-aunts to visit the Tower with his blessing and Fliss had started the day believing him. With hindsight, she should have realised something was wrong when her maid had laid out a wholly inappropriate and showy outfit for her to wear. Kitty had been most insistent she wear it and Fliss had been equally as insistent that she didn’t.
She’d rejected the thin silk ensemble specially designed for her by Madame Devy because clearly the modiste had never ventured outside in winter. To the maid’s vocal consternation, Fliss had rifled through her own wardrobe for something more suited to a cold February morning of exploring. That flimsy pelisse and those thin-soled slippers would have left her hideously exposed to the elements and ruined her feet. Instead, Fliss had dug out the sensible navy-wool walking dress she had brought with her from Cumbria, complete with its matching thick coat, and paired it with her sturdy yet comfortably worn boots. Garments much better suited to traipsing around a damp castle and climbing up its ancient battlements. But when she reached the hallway to meet her aunts, she met her uncle instead.
‘There has been a change of plan.’ Her uncle was dressed in his expensive riding clothes and the smile which materialised on his face was not echoed in his cold, flat, grey stare. ‘It occurred to me last night that we have not spent enough time together, Felicity. I wish to remedy that and I hope you will indulge me in my quest to get better acquainted with my only niece by asking you to accompany me this morning on a little adventure.’
She’d had an adventure planned, one which blessedly had not included him and the unnecessary restrictions he placed upon her. ‘I don’t ride and I want to see the lions.’ The churlish response was the best Fliss could manage in the wake of the disappointment. Yet another day would pass and she would still be denied the opportunity of seeing the places she had specifically wanted to see.
‘I have something more exciting planned and you do not need to ride. I shall drive my phaeton and take you to see a part of this fine city which is much more interesting than the Tower. You will be diverted. I promise.’
His jaw was tight and his gaze was frosty and Fliss was well and truly trapped. It would be unforgivably rude to turn down her host’s invitation even though she sincerely doubted he really wanted them to become better acquainted. He was up to something. She knew that in her bones. ‘If you insist, Uncle Crispin, then I shall postpone my excursion.’
‘That outfit is a little plain for what I have planned.’ His eyes rested on the spectacles sat on her nose and narrowed. ‘I’m sure your maid can quickly find you more suitable attire.’
How splendid. Another battle of wills and directly after breakfast. The food had already begun to curdle in her stomach. ‘Uncle, it is February and freezing outside. If I am going out in a phaeton, then I shall do so wearing wool or not at all.’
‘Will you at least take off those ugly spectacles?’
‘I thought you were taking me to see something special. If I take off my spectacles, then it’s hardly worth going as I shan’t see whatever it is you are so eager for
me to see at all.’ As she had intended, he couldn’t argue with sound logic and they walked to the phaeton in a silence so brittle, the merest puff of the cold February air would likely shatter it.
Since then, Fliss had been largely invisible to him. Uncle Crispin’s apparent idea of a treat not to be missed was to join the fashionable crowd in parading up and down Rotten Row. A pointless exercise in her opinion if ever there was one. So far they had spent an hour either saying hello to people they had said goodbye to only a few hours before or, like now, he was discussing business and she was excluded. She had a good mind to take herself off to the Tower as a mark of protest, but with her atrocious sense of direction, going alone would doubtless end in disaster. There was no telling where she’d end up if she attempted the trip by herself on foot. Kent, probably. Or worse. It would be typical, for her useless nose would take her to one of the less salubrious parts of the capital where she’d end up accosted by footpads or garrotted in an alleyway.
Much as she loathed taking the coward’s way out, a solitary expedition to the Tower of London was out of the question. With a sigh, she stared out over the lake and smiled at the sight of a solitary rowing boat drifting across the middle. Only here, in London, where people ate ice cream in February, would a person be daft enough to row across a freezing lake for pleasure. The gentleman in charge of the oars appeared to be flagging under the exertion, while the lady passenger was hunched inside her highly ineffectual but highly fashionable coat as if her life depended on it. It was a pretty coat, made in the exact shade of blue as the eyes of a certain rake of Fliss’s acquaintance. A rake she had dreamed about last night despite her better judgement and one she rather liked. For all his faults, Jake Warriner had rescued her at the ball and asked nothing in return.
A Warriner to Seduce Her Page 8
