By the time she’d realised that nobody had followed Miss Waverley outside, the brazen hussy had already sidled up to Lord Deben and was trying to get him to respond to her.
With about as much success as she’d had with Richard. The man was just not interested. In fact, he had looked as though he was finding Miss Waverley’s persistent attempts to interest him repellent. She had felt like cheering when he had reproved her for her behaviour.
Then, when the door had burst open and Miss Waverley’s mama had come out a split second after the girl had flung herself into Lord Deben’s arms, she had felt as angry as the earl had looked and had reacted on instinct. All her resentments had come to the boil and ejected her from her hiding place in a spume of righteous indignation.
‘You are quite wrong about me.’ For a moment, he had made her doubt herself. But, having carefully examined her motives, she had made a reassuring discovery.
‘I would have acted the same, had I come across any woman attempting to trap a man into marriage, in such a beastly, underhanded way as that,’ she said hotly. ‘It was deplorable!’
He glanced at her keenly.
‘I note that you do not deny that you were crying because of something she had done, though.’
How annoying of him to read her so well. And to look at her as though not only was she an open book, but also one that he found fairly contemptible. She drew herself up and attempted to look back at him with a level of contempt to match.
‘I knew it,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘What did she do, steal away the man with whom you fancied yourself in love?’
Lord Deben was beyond annoying. He was hateful. She had known, from the sneer that was never far from his mouth, that he would mock anyone foolish enough to suffer from the softer emotions.
‘F-fancied myself in love?’ She tossed her head and attempted a laugh. ‘Do not be ridiculous.’
The smile that lifted the corners of his mouth now was positively triumphant.
‘I am not the one being ridiculous here.’ He eyed her nodding ostrich plumes with open amusement. ‘Though perhaps you can take consolation from the fact that a lot of girls of your age have their heads stuffed full of romantic nonsense,’ he said patronisingly.
‘My head is not—’
But he continued, regardless. ‘And I knew, five seconds after becoming acquainted with Miss Waverley, that she is used to having men fall at her feet.’
Yes, thought Henrietta gloomily. While her own head was stuffed full of romantic nonsense about ancient Greek heroes, the beautiful Miss Waverley was cutting a swathe through real-life, modern men.
She looked away from the mockery in Lord Deben’s lazy brown eyes.
‘She is welcome to them all,’ she replied, her voice quivering with emotion. ‘If a man can’t see beyond her beautiful face, then they are idiots. A man who can be taken in by a cat like that is not the kind of man I would ever want to … well …’ her voice faded to a whisper ‘… marry.’
‘You should not,’ he said firmly. ‘Any man who can so easily switch his affections from you to a scheming jade like that is not worthy of your regard.’
She supposed he was trying to make her feel better, but his words only reminded her that she had never been certain of Richard’s feelings towards her. He had never given her any indication he was interested in her, other than as his best friend’s sister, until the previous Christmas, when he had grabbed hold of her, tugged her underneath a bunch of mistletoe and kissed her very thoroughly.
All her daydreams about him had stemmed from that one, surprising interlude. Before then she had never considered him as much more than Hubert’s impossibly handsome friend.
After that … She shrank down inside her furs in the faint hope they could somehow shield her from Lord Deben’s penetrating gaze. After that, when he had not followed up on what she had seen as a declaration of intent, she had shamelessly pursued him, that was what she had done.
Well, that was all behind her now. She was not going to waste any more time over a man who was too stupid to see what was right under his nose. There was plenty to keep her amused in London: lectures, exhibitions and all sorts of interesting people to converse with. People with good brains, who put them to practical use in the world of commerce, rather than idly frittering away their inherited fortunes on frivolous pastimes.
But she couldn’t help sighing. ‘Well, Miss Waverley is exceptionally beautiful. And poised. She only has to smile on a man to dazzle him …’
Lord Deben did not like to see her looking suddenly so dejected. It did not seem right that she should compare herself unfavourably to a female of Miss Waverley’s stamp. ‘Well, she did not dazzle me,’ he said firmly. ‘I was singularly unimpressed by her.’
Yes, Henrietta reflected with some satisfaction. He’d had no trouble whatsoever in repulsing her.
Encouraged by the way she perked up, he continued, ‘In fact, I would go so far as to say she is no more dazzling than you.’ Her confidence had suffered a knock, so he would give it a well-deserved boost.
‘What!’
When Henrietta turned a puzzled face towards him, she found herself on the receiving end of a long, hard stare.
‘Not that I am saying that you are a real beauty. Just that you are by no means less capable of dazzling a man, should you put your mind to it.’
‘Not a beauty …’ she managed to gasp before her breath caught in a lump somewhere in her throat, making speech impossible.
‘You only have to compare yourself with Miss Waverley to know I speak nothing but the truth. But let me tell you, as an expert on what makes a female attractive to a man, that you are not completely lacking in potential.’
‘You mean by that, I suppose, that I am not a complete antidote?’
‘Far from it.’ He turned his lazy perusal over her face once more. ‘You have a remarkably good complexion. No superfluous facial hair. A fine pair of expressive eyes and a set of good, straight teeth. As a connoisseur of beauty, I cannot help regretting that your nose is out of proportion to the rest of your features, but I see no reason why you could not, to use your own words, “dazzle” a man who is not so nice in his tastes.’
‘You …’ She clenched her fists, struggling to keep her temper. ‘You are the rudest man I have ever met.’
‘Not rude. Honest. But how typical of a female,’ he said with a curl to his lip, ‘to latch on to the one item, out of a whole catalogue of genuine compliments, which you can construe as an insult and take umbrage.’
‘And how like a man to deliver a lacklustre compliment in such a way that no female with an ounce of pride could take it as anything but an insult!’
‘Miss Gibson, I have just complimented you on your complexion, your eyes and your teeth, told you that with the right attitude you could successfully dazzle a susceptible male, and you fixate on the one flaw that you cannot deny you have.’
They were approaching the Cumberland Gate for the second time.
‘Take me home,’ she said. ‘I demand that you take me home right this instant. And never, ever call on me again.’
Lord Deben looked down at her in disbelief. Women sought him out. They fawned over him. They sent him languorous looks across heated ballrooms and slipped him notes to let him know where they could be found should he wish to avail himself of their charms.
They even waylaid him on terraces in the attempt to force him into marriage.
They did not tell him he was rude, dismiss him with a haughty toss of their head and demand to be taken home.
So naturally he steered his team right past the gate and commenced upon a third circuit of the park.
‘This outing will end when I decide it will end,’ he informed her curtly. ‘And if I wish to call on you, who is to prevent me? Your aunt? She would not dare,’ he drawled with contempt.
Henrietta could not believe what he was saying. At the start of this outing, he had informed her himself that he had no intention of wasting more
of his precious time on her than was absolutely necessary.
‘You are abominable,’ she hissed. ‘You no more wish to prolong this outing than I. Nor can I believe you have any intention of calling on me again. You just like throwing your weight around. You … you bully.’
‘A bully, by definition, oppresses those weaker than himself for his own pleasure,’ he snapped. ‘At no time have I attempted to oppress you. No, and what is more, everything I have done in your regard has been for your benefit. And the longer I spend with you, the more convinced I become that you need somebody to watch over you. You do not appear to have any instinct for self-preservation at all. You say whatever comes into your head, without giving thought to the consequences, never mind the way you act. You leap into situations that are well beyond your comprehension, with a naïveté that is truly stunning.’
‘You have only seen me act impulsively the once,’ she retorted. ‘And believe me, I regret interfering …’ She faltered. ‘No, no, actually …’ she lifted her chin and looked at him defiantly ‘… no, I don’t regret it. I cannot like Miss Waverley and I don’t suppose I ever shall. But I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if you really had ruined her, not knowing that I’d witnessed the whole thing and could have stopped it if I’d acted.’
‘What?’
‘I think you heard me. But to make it even clearer for you, I admit I may have acted in a way you think was naïve and foolhardy, but at least my actions that night ended in good.’
‘Ye gods, you sound like some kind of … Puritan. As though you were brought up to believe in some antiquated code of fair play that went out with the restoration of the monarchy.’
‘I was brought up to tell the truth, and value honour and decency,’ she said. ‘There is nothing unusual in that.’
He laughed mirthlessly. ‘Now that just goes to prove how naïve you really are. And how much you stand in need of a protector. I have lived far longer than you and moved in wider circles, and so far I have not met anyone else who would put such values above their own self-interest. If it wasn’t for the fact you allowed your feelings about Miss Waverley to show enough to call her a cat, I would wash my hands of you entirely. For if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is a sanctimonious hypocrite.’
‘I am not sanctimonious! Nor a hypocrite. I—’
‘Very well,’ he bit out. ‘I absolve you of that sin. Sin,’ he laughed bitterly. ‘Who am I to absolve anyone of sin? Since, according to one who considers himself an authority on the subject, I am the most blackened sinner of this generation.’
‘Are you?’ She flushed guiltily at having the temerity to say such a thing, and hastily attempted to cover her blunder. ‘I mean … I wonder that anyone dared to say it.’
‘A vicar tends to think his pulpit gives him a certain measure of authority,’ he said. ‘And since the vicar in question also happened to be my brother, he felt no compunction in haranguing me in public for a change.’
For a change? She frowned. ‘If he is in the habit of, um, haranguing you, what on earth made you go and sit in a church where he was preaching?’
‘An idiotic notion that my presence at his first appearance in the parish where he went to take up his living might go some way to mending the breach between us.’ Instead, he’d learned that the seeds of hatred his father had sown during their childhood had taken such deep root not even his brother’s so-called Christianity was sufficient to make him forgive and forget. Will’s face had been contorted with spite as he’d moralised about the sins of fornication and adultery, culminating with a look of total malice as he’d rounded off by proclaiming that the meek would inherit the earth.
Well, that was as may be, but one thing Will would not be inheriting—no, not even though he’d already managed to get his wife with child—was one inch of his father’s property. His father’s property. He’d always known he would have to marry and produce an heir, but reluctance to end up tied to a woman like his mother, in a relationship like the one his parents had endured, had made him drag his feet.
That woman! He might have had real siblings if she’d had any sense of decency at all. If she’d even bothered to defend any of her brood from his father’s malice, they might now be able to tolerate one another. Instead of which, the olive branch he’d extended to Will, by going to support him in his new parish, had been taken out of his hands and used as a weapon to beat him with.
Well, if it was war Will wanted, war he should have. He’d decided there and then that he must put aside his aversion to women in general, and wives in particular, and set up his nursery. One legitimate son, that was all he needed. One male child, sired indisputably by him.
The look on Lord Deben’s face made Henrietta’s heart go out to him, even as her hand went out to clutch at the handrail. His brother had evidently hurt him by denouncing his morals from the pulpit. Not that men ever admitted to being hurt. But it certainly explained why he’d whipped up his horses and was suddenly driving them at such a demonic pace.
She braced her feet against the footboard as he put his curricle through a gap that was so slender she was almost convinced he would lock wheels with one of the other carriages. When they made it through, with what looked like barely an inch to spare, and he urged his horses to even greater speed, she bit down on her lower lip and the craven urge to beg him to take care. He had already accused her of various defects in her character. She was not going to let him add the feminine one of timidity to the list and give him another excuse to sneer at her.
Besides, men needed a way to work through their feelings, since they would scorn to go away somewhere quiet and weep. She’d seen it often enough with her brothers. They went out and shot something, or got into a fight—or rode their horses at breakneck speed.
‘You can wash your hands of me with a completely clear conscience,’ she declared, surreptitiously taking a tighter hold on the handrail. In the event they did collide with anything, at least she might avoid the ignominy of being pitched on to the grass verge like a sack of grain.
‘I do not consider that you owe me anything.’
‘Well, that is just where you are wrong, Miss Gibson. I owe you more than you can imagine.’ His search for a wife would not have prospered with the scandal Miss Waverley had almost unleashed upon him. Oh, he had no doubt that there would have been women still prepared to overlook what they would perceive as a lack of gentlemanly behaviour, but the encounter with Miss Waverley had taught him he would, indeed, rather shoot himself in the leg than shackle himself to one such. ‘And for that reason, I have decided to help you.’
He smiled. In a way that made him look cruel.
She shivered. And admitted, ‘I am not sure I like the sound of that.’
From the look on his face, whatever form this ‘help’ might take did not stem from any sense of altruism. He’d already told her he did not care what anyone thought of him, or might say of him. So, if he was planning anything, it was not because he wanted to help her, not really, but because in some way it would benefit him.
‘Come, come, wouldn’t you like to win your suitor back from Miss Waverley?’
‘Not particularly.’ She was not about to tell him that Richard had never, technically, been her suitor. But anyway, she was done with trying to get him to notice her. All it had accomplished was her humiliation.
‘Well, even if that were true,’ he said in a derisive tone, not taking his eyes from his team, ‘I think you would enjoy taking the wind out of Miss Waverley’s sails. And I certainly would. I have a strong aversion to letting people think they can manipulate me.’
She knew it! This was nothing to do with protecting her, or helping her. He was trying to use her to take his own revenge upon Miss Waverley.
‘So do I,’ she retorted. She was not going to let him use her, or involve her in any of his schemes.
‘Well, then, let us discuss what is to be done.’
‘No, you don’t understand, I—’
�
�To begin with,’ he cut in before she could even start explaining, ‘I do not think the case is as hopeless as you seem to think.’
Amazingly, his dark mood seemed abruptly to have lifted. He’d slowed his horses to a steady trot and he was smiling—although the smile that played about his lips was so cruel that it sent a shiver down her spine. This was not a man to cross. How on earth had Miss Waverley thought she could get away with it? He was downright dangerous.
‘Miss Waverley obviously does not want him herself, or she would not have set her sights on me. Perhaps, once she had snared him, she discovered he is not as wealthy or well connected as she had first supposed.’
Henrietta did not think it had been as calculated as all that. It just seemed to be in Miss Waverley’s nature to want to make a conquest of every good-looking male who crossed her path. And Richard was more than just good looking, he was downright handsome. Far more so than Lord Deben, whose features were marred by being always set in a kind of sneer. Or twisted by whatever inner demons had made him take such risks with his team, and his carriage, not to mention his passenger, by setting such a pace.
It was a shame really, she mused, darting him a swift glance, because if he didn’t look so cross all the time, he might be very attractive. He had the full, sensual lips, and the lazy hooded eyes, that put her in mind of portraits she’d seen of Charles II.
Not that he would be foppish enough to sport ringlets, or disguise that fit, muscular body in yards of lace and velvet.
‘That is half the battle,’ he said, giving Henrietta a brief vision of him leading a cavalry charge against a solid square of soberly dressed roundheads, wearing just the expression he wore now.
‘The other half is demonstrating that you are far superior to Miss Waverley, in every way. That you are a woman worth pursuing.’
Never Trust a Rake Page 6
