Redeeming the Roguish Rake

by Liz Tyner

  Rebecca broke the seal and read the earl’s happiness at welcoming her into the family, and he wanted to assure her that, as his son’s wife, she could choose wherever her father would live on the earl’s property. Rebecca would only have to ask and a servant would be provided for her father’s needs.

  She threw the paper into the stove, not wanting her father to see it when he returned from his walk. The earl wasn’t a bad person, but he had the power to choose his tenants and one who’d displeased him simply by missing too many Sunday Services had had to leave.

  *

  When her father arrived home, he used the broom to brush the dirt from his boots, then stepped inside. In that moment of the morning sun streaming through the window, she saw red-rimmed eyes. Only when her mother had died and dear Mr Scroggins, her father’s closest friend, had passed had she seen his face so drawn.

  She couldn’t bring herself to speak the truth.

  But he would have to know. The banns would have to be read.

  ‘I must beg your forgiveness, Becca,’ he said, spoon lifting the porridge and then dropping it back into the bowl. ‘We are so fortunate that we discovered who he was before you wed him. I must beg your forgiveness for letting someone so unfit close to you. But he is at his father’s now. I just cannot see how such a saintly man as the earl could have such offspring.’

  ‘Father.’ She took a bite. Apparently she hadn’t quite managed to rid the food of the overcooking. She swallowed. ‘You did not know who he was.’

  ‘I thought—’ He took in a breath and the effort seemed to weaken him. ‘I thought him a husband to you. I was selfish. I saw only what I wanted to see. I thought it a solution for us all.’

  ‘You gave shelter to a man you thought a vicar who’d been injured. You were doing right.’

  ‘I’d mentioned to the earl that I had prayed that the new vicar might be a suitable mate for my daughter. I knew he meant…to select an unmarried man for the post.’

  ‘You only care about my future.’ The porridge tasted like the inside of a stove. She looked at the bowl. ‘I did ruin the meal.’

  He took a bite. ‘It’s fine. Nothing wrong with it but a little strength in taste.’

  She stared at the lumpy mess. ‘There’s something I must tell you.’

  ‘And something I must tell you.’ His chest expanded on a slow breath. ‘Pride, Becca. I didn’t want to lose my service to the village even as I was supposed to step aside for a younger man. The earl said it was time for my pension and that he would provide for both of us, yet I did not want to go. And it almost caused an irreparable—’

  ‘Father…’ She tried to halt his words, but her own lodged in her throat.

  ‘I let my wishes override what the true plan was,’ he continued. ‘Now there is a new man of marriageable age moving into the village. The real vicar. There is no other home suitable but this one. It is within easy reach of all the people. A vicar needs to be close to his flock. You and I will move. It is the right thing to do.’

  She looked at the mess in her bowl, and then at her father. ‘I will marry the earl’s son.’

  He choked.

  She jumped up, ran to the back of his chair and thumped him on the back.

  ‘No, Becca.’ He gasped out the words and looked up at her, eyes watery. ‘No. You must not.’ He coughed again, clearing his throat. ‘You have been too sheltered here. You cannot know the evils of a man like that. You cannot yoke yourself to someone who will not cherish you.’

  ‘Father. I must.’

  ‘No.’ He stood and waved his arm in the direction of the estate. ‘He will destroy your goodness.’

  ‘Then my goodness doesn’t go very far into my heart.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how far it goes if he destroys the whole organ.’

  ‘Do you not think I have the fortitude to withstand the trials?’ She asked the question for herself.

  ‘You shouldn’t put yourself in such a position of risk. The fortitude is what you must have now. If you put yourself in the middle of an ocean, you can’t will yourself strong enough to walk out. You must understand the limits of yourself and never get close to the edge. You may feel you are strong enough to stand near a precipice and you may well be. But the ground under you may crumble and no one can stand when the earth falls away beneath them. I forbid the marriage, Becca.’

  She waited for him to lower his arm. ‘I made my decision. I made it earlier. A vow unto my heart and I must continue with it. Promises are no good if they’re able to be excused away.’

  ‘It isn’t a real vow until the banns are read and the words are said.’

  ‘Then we will go forward. I want you to perform the ceremony. I want to wear the last dress Mother made for me.’

  He gave one slow sideways shake of his head. ‘I cannot. The new vicar will have to do it.’

  ‘I remember Mother telling you how proud she would be to know that you could some day perform my marriage.’

  ‘Rebecca. You ask too much.’ Both his hands fisted lightly.

  ‘Mother asked it.’

  ‘I cannot give you into a life with a man like that. I just cannot.’

  ‘Father.’ She took his gnarled hand, scarred from the work he did in the fields with the people he cared for. ‘Please.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Fox stood in his room at his father’s estate. His cousin Andrew had been gracious enough not to comment on Foxworthy’s change in appearance.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re getting married.’ Andrew sat propped on the arm of an overstuffed chair.

  ‘Oh, I can,’ Fox answered, taking one extra moment to adjust the perfect cravat. He’d had the mirror removed on the first night after walking into the room when he’d seen his reflection. For an instant, he’d thought himself a stranger and the realisation that he saw his own image had sickened him.

  He’d avoided every mirror in the house for the past three weeks and doing so had helped him feel immensely better. His life was over. He might as well marry.

  ‘Leave your cravat alone unless you want to put it over your face,’ Andrew said. ‘You laughed at me for wearing the same colour waistcoat every day. Leave it to you to find a way to rearrange your face into the latest fashion.’

  ‘Thank you for bringing my clothing. I feel like myself now.’ And he did. Mostly. But the marriage part of the day was not at all something he felt familiar with. ‘Did you bring the guest as I wrote in the letter?’

  ‘Yes. You’re daft.’

  ‘The newsprint will convince everyone I’m truly married. A love match. That I’ve found happiness even though I am disfigured.’

  ‘You really don’t look any worse than usual, Fox.’ Andrew studied his cousin’s face. ‘Women never concerned themselves about your appearance anyway. They overlooked it because you had money.’

  ‘Your kind words are accepted in the spirit given.’ Fox reached up, touching the turn of his nose. It didn’t ache at all. The cut had healed over quite well, too.

  ‘How’s the earl holding up to three weeks in your presence?’

  ‘He almost died.’

  Andrew’s brows moved up.

  ‘Yes. The vicar brought back some pestilence from his travels. The physician who travelled with him has been sick, too. We were not allowed to leave the estate for fear of spreading it among the countryside.’

  ‘You have been…contained with your father?’

  ‘And other than it almost causing his death…’ he paused ‘…neither of us continue to be quite so fond of the new vicar.’

  ‘Well, I hope you are fond of your wife.’ Andrew shook his head. ‘You had to get away from London to find someone who had not heard of you, I suppose.’

  ‘She has astoundingly good taste,’ Fox said, moving away.

  ‘My wife has a bit of your reckless spirit.’ Andrew threw out the words carelessly and walked to the next room, whistling as he went to the main sitting room. ‘She swore to me that those proposals
were your way of ensuring a single state. I guess she was wrong. Perhaps you were courting death.’

  Fox stilled. Perhaps he had courted death in all his gaiety and pursuits and reckless ways. Then he shook his head. No, he’d just not believed it possible for anyone to be willing to risk their neck damaging a peer.

  He followed Andrew while still contemplating how many times he’d danced along the edge of a societal precipice or hovered around a woman whose husband had a murderous temperament. He pushed those thoughts away. The past would not do him any good and he had no reason to dwell in it.

  His life was all about the future. Or it had always been. And now his future was to be married.

  Walking into the room, he saw Beatrice with her hair amassed on her head. The woman had painted a heart under and to the side of her right eye. Well, that was Andrew’s burden to bear.

  He smiled inside himself. Rebecca would never do such a thing.

  Beatrice stood, her mouth wide when she caught sight of him. Well, he must get used to that reaction.

  ‘Life is not just,’ Beatrice said. She walked closer, examining him like a child might examine a particularly unusual worm.

  But Beatrice was Beatrice. She always spoke before the words had a chance to reach her brain and if one somehow did creep in, he doubted the detour delayed it. She was granted such leeway because she was an artist.

  She shook her head and grimaced. She pounded her fist against her chest. ‘I get one minute of no sleep and I look as if I’ve been rolling in a sack of unwashed potatoes. You get beaten and appear looking better than ever.’

  ‘I would have said as bad as always,’ Andrew grunted.

  ‘Look at that nose.’ She practically crossed her eyes in the process of gazing at his broken nose.

  Fox took in a breath. He could not believe her lack of manners. His nose would never be the same.

  ‘It’s gorgeous,’ she exclaimed. ‘Utterly perfect.’

  Andrew tilted his head to the side, examining Fox. ‘That’s not how I would describe it.’

  ‘Beatrice,’ Fox muttered. ‘It will never be the same.’

  ‘Thank goodness,’ Bea said. ‘That has added something. Without it you had no character to your face. Now… Now I must paint you.’ She turned to stare at her husband. ‘You must see the beauty of it. He now has facial character.’

  ‘If so, that’s his only character,’ Andrew said, head still tilted, looking around Beatrice. ‘You are sure you didn’t merely crash into a tavern floor after swallowing too much brandy?’ he asked Fox.

  Fox moved to stand out of Beatrice’s view. He put his hand in front of his face, tilted his head in the same direction Andrew did and made the same gesture they’d often given each other as teens.

  And his cousin responded with a cheerful flick of the wrist, his way of swatting the gesture back to Fox.

  Chapter Twelve

  It had been three weeks since Rebecca had seen the earl’s son. Every day she had expected to get word from him that it had been another jest. Every day she had looked at her father and noticed the shadows under his eyes and the wrinkles around them.

  He could not be without a home. Not after devoting his life to helping others.

  She pulled back the curtains, hoping the warmth from the sun’s rays would brighten the room. Even cooking breakfast hadn’t brought the temperature high enough to erase all the chill. She glanced from the window to see if Fox had arrived at the church. He hadn’t.

  Now she was to stand beside him and be his wife. In some secret part of herself she’d not really expected him to continue the idea of marriage. He’d not done so on his previous proposals.

  Perhaps some spirit of spite had caused her to go forward with the marriage. He’d asked her and she’d called his bluff—now she wasn’t sure what was to happen.

  Her father had voiced aloud his hope that Foxworthy would abscond. He’d reassured her countless times that the new vicar might be the answer yet.

  The vicar had visited earlier that morning. His voice whistled from his nose or somewhere even less appealing.

  Her good work for the day had been easy to accomplish. She’d smiled at him, listened as much as she could tolerate and complimented him on his quick recovery. She couldn’t have complimented him on his unflattering hairstyle, the cheeks that puffed when he smiled or the many times he talked with rapt awe about the woman who’d once been his patron.

  A vicar who made her want to cover her ears wasn’t quite the husband she would have chosen for herself, but after he left, her father looked at her, frowned and mentioned that health was important in a vicar.

  ‘Do you think the earl really thought him suitable for someone’s husband?’ she asked.

  ‘I think he—he sometimes errs.’ His face brightened. ‘But the vicar has good points. He follows instructions well and has good habits. You could teach him to be more interesting.’

  It dismayed her that anyone would think that man a suitable a husband for her. She raised her brows.

  ‘A less interesting husband can help soothe one into slumber.’

  She sighed. ‘I do not like to sleep that much.’

  But the thing that worried her was that if Foxworthy hadn’t arrived and the new vicar had, she might not have noticed the way his hair was cut straight across his brow. That could be easily changed. His voice lingered in the air like a bad scent, but she would have overlooked that, too, planning a good work to help him find something that could be of interest. And that smirk of a smile. She shuddered. She’d been ready to marry and fall in love with the first upright man of morals who stumbled across her path.

  Perhaps she deserved what she received. She clasped her hands together. Tight. It somehow seemed to help her stay on her feet.

  Relief burst inside her when her father told her that a carriage had arrived, but the well-being didn’t quite reach her feet. She looked out the window and didn’t recognise the vehicle, but knew Foxworthy’s cousins planned to arrive with a carriage large enough to take them all to London.

  ‘Are you ready, Becca?’ her father asked, his face turned to the window. ‘We must go greet the earl’s family. I’m sure the earl and Foxworthy will be along shortly.’

  She nodded.

  He turned to her, and her father smelled of the same soap her mother had gifted him with not long before her death. He only used that soap on wedding and funeral days.

  He paused. ‘You are every bit as beautiful as your mother today and I thought her the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,’ her father said. ‘Seeing you in the dress, and remembering her stitching it in her last moments, it’s as if she is here with us today.’

  ‘I know, Father.’

  Rebecca stepped into the sunshine, feeling the warmth on her face.

  She steeled herself when she saw the carriage draw closer. It wasn’t as big as the church, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen one so large. The coachmen were dressed in matching livery. Her father stopped, turned back and his grim-lipped smile didn’t make her feet want to work any faster.

  A woman descended after manoeuvring her hat to get it through the carriage doorway. She stopped beside a man wearing black. The woman’s dress had tucks, trims and huge puffs of sleeves. She reached out and tapped the man on the shoulder who stood beside her. He’d said something. ‘Andrew,’ her shriek admonished him.

  Low rumbles of laughter floated through the air and another man, also laughing, stepped into the sunshine.

  These toffs were to be her relatives?

  She suddenly realised the new vicar’s cheeks weren’t quite so round as she’d thought and one could make quite a huge change with a sideways part of the hair.

  But perhaps Foxworthy wouldn’t arrive. If he didn’t, she was certain she could be quite gracious—quite gracious in her predicament. She might be the first woman jilted at the altar to fall upon her knees and give thanks.

  Her father turned to her again. ‘Rebecca,’ he whispered. ‘You
had three weeks to change your mind. Now you only have a few moments, but it’s still enough. And I know the new vicar would much love to have a wife such as you. He told me so three times when I walked him to the church and he asked if I thought there was a chance you would reconsider.’

  ‘I just…’ She tried to think of something to say to reassure him that she wasn’t really slowing because she’d changed her mind. She couldn’t say she’d been admiring the lady’s dress—that would have been a lie—and she couldn’t see anything else about the trio to compliment, except the men did look like she’d imagined royals would look. They wore lavish cravats and the flowery twists somehow contrasted in a way to make the men seem more masculine to be able to wear such things with confidence.

  The cravats seemed to be the source of the woman’s amusement. She was asking if she could have them later to be sewn around the hem of one of her dresses so it would look like she’d stepped into a garden of blooms.

  The second man leaned towards her, flicked at the white on his neck, said something low and laughter again floated through the air.

  Fox’s cousins would laugh at her, too. She knew it.

  Her father paused and turned back. ‘You are happy in the vicarage, Rebecca. Happy. You can still change your mind, Becca,’ her father whispered. ‘We will make do. The earl will understand. Just faint dead away when he arrives. Hold your stomach. Moan and groan when you wake. Act addled from pain.’

  ‘That would be deceit, Father.’

  He sighed. ‘I will put in a good word for you and I’m certain you’ll be forgiven.’

  Then Foxworthy’s cousin who’d pointed to his cravat turned to her. She could feel his eyes taking her in more than she could see them because she simply could not meet the man’s gaze.

  She’d heard Foxworthy had a cousin who was a duke and perhaps he’d decided to attend the marriage. Her mouth became parched.

  The trio moved closer.

  ‘Father, I am feeling a bit faint.’ The words fell away on the air. She would not have to have a good word put in for her. It was the truth.