The Persuasive Love of a Libertine

by Jane Lark

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, you are simply getting the knack of this very quickly. Did Peter kiss you?”

  “A gentleman does not ask such questions, and besides, you are not to mention Peter.”

  Harry smiled, apparently hearing words between those she’d used to answer. “He did then.”

  She sighed at him. “Occasionally.”

  “Like this…”

  “No.”

  “Then he is even more of a fool than I had thought.” Harry’s gloved fingers slipped forward and brushed across her cheek before he stepped away and let her go, then continued walking.

  She held his arm. “We should return to the parlour. Otherwise my mother and father will want to know what we have been speaking of.”

  He looked at her, with one of his charming, teasing smiles. “Or not speaking of.”

  A sense of warmth filled her—of happiness. Yes, he had cheered her. This was what it was like to flirt. This was what Mary had enjoyed before her elopement, and what others had been up to in town, while she had shyly hidden in corners and then awaited the false and fickle attention of Lord Brooke.

  “What are you doing tomorrow? Do you ride?”

  “Not particularly well, although I can do so. But I do not have a horse.”

  “Well, I shall not bring a curricle to have the maid sit behind us again. I shall ride here and we may walk out and have the maid at least a dozen paces behind us.”

  She laughed, but… “I am not here tomorrow. We are going to the market. I shall be in Devizes.”

  “Well then, you may come and take luncheon with me at The Bear.”

  “My mother will be with me.”

  “I am well aware.”

  She stopped suddenly before they reached the French doors, and turned sideways to look at him, although her hand still gripped his arm. “Harry, why are you here, really?” She wanted to know the truth.

  “I told you, to cheer you, and seduce you.”

  His words sounded as believable as his offers of marriage in town.

  She looked directly into his eyes as he had done to her at the end of their first two kisses. “Do not mock me. Why? It is a long way to come from London, and I do not at all believe you were passing through.”

  “You wish me to lay my whole self on the table, do you?”

  “I do.”

  “Then if I must, and I think it too early to admit because I am sure your heart is not yet ready, but as you have asked. I like you. I like you in a way that makes me wish to marry you.”

  There was no humour in his voice’s pitch or his eyes.

  Her lips parted slightly. She turned and continued walking, still gripping his arm but silent. She thought him serious.

  Unfortunately for Harry, Peter had gone before him, though. She was wiser. She would not marry a man like him. A man like him would be charming to her face; while behind her back… there would be mistresses.

  She would not allow herself to be used like that. These men presented themselves like a pretty shop window, but behind it… She would not be his manikin as she had been Peter’s.

  Part Six

  Drew smiled to himself as he leant back in the chair and laughed aloud.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  He looked up at his very beautiful wife. Her pale blue eyes flashed a smile of pleasure at him. She would not be happy if she saw the words in his letter. Her friend Emily had already been treated ill by one of his friends and was now within the sights of another.

  “I have a letter from Harry.” He smiled at her, in a placating expression. “Did you not receive one from Emily yesterday? Which you kept your own counsel on. Well, I believe I have the other half of it. The question is shall I keep this to myself or tell you so that you might tell your friend?”

  She rose and lunged for the letter; he pulled it out of her reach. “Andrew!”

  Drew smiled at her. “I might keep my own counsel.” They were sitting at the table, eating their breakfast, or rather, drinking the last of the warm coffee.

  “No. You must tell me what Harry is doing there.” Mary sat down in the chair near him once more, and glared at him.

  He loved her in a temper. “Emily told you he is there then, calling upon her?”

  “Yes, but she does not know why, and she does not trust him.”

  “He is there because he wishes to be, and as for trust, in that we both know she is probably being wise.” Especially as Drew’s letter contained a request for guidance on how Harry might evade a chaperone. She is followed about and watched like a prisoner…

  Mary’s parents had been remiss, though, and Emily’s had been forewarned to be more solicitous when their daughter had been caught up in his and Mary’s elopement. Still, he did not think Harry’s intent was dangerous. He smiled at Mary. “He likes her. Is that not obvious?”

  “Peter liked Emily,” Mary answered, “and look how that progressed.”

  “Peter liked the idea of Emily, not the woman. Harry likes her.”

  “To what end?” She was not to be persuaded that all was well.

  Drew folded his letter and lay it on the tablecloth beside his cup. Mary’s gaze followed the action. “I believe he wishes to marry her, although he has not said so in his letter.”

  “You believe…”

  “You know he has been condemning Peter since Peter parted from Emily, and you know he always danced with her and spoken with her. He likes her.”

  She did not trust him, Drew could see it in her eyes. She liked his friends, and as they were like his brothers they had become a part of his family in a way, but Mary had learned from him, to treat them with kid gloves—and although she had accepted that Peter had had to marry the women he had fallen in love with, she had not forgiven him for courting Emily when he had not loved her.

  But Harry? The word love had not been said, but Drew suspected it existed in unspoken words. “Perhaps it will be good for her to have Harry flattering her with his attention. It might cheer Emily up.”

  Mary sighed. “Even if his intent is honest then it is pointless. If Emily ever does consider marriage again she is adamant she would not consider a man like Peter. And in her letter to me she says he is taking liberties and making assumptions and she shall not endure it.”

  “Our quiet Emily…” He smiled at Mary, then reached out and gripped her hand. “It sounds as though she is perfectly able to manage her situation with Harry herself.”

  Mary’s fingers closed about his hand, and he felt the grip about his heart too. “You said that about Peter too.”

  “I was not to know he would find a mistress.”

  “And Harry? What if Harry finds a mistress?”

  Drew held her gaze. “He will not want a mistress if this is love.” Drew had ceased sleeping with others from the moment he had begun even thinking of chasing after Mary.

  “And is it love? Is that what he has said?”

  “Not in those words. But I believe it is from the intensity of the tone in his letter and our last conversation here.”

  She sighed again. “She still will not trust him…”

  “Then he will have to earn her trust, as I had to earn yours. That is not a bad thing, is it?”

  “I am concerned for her. I feel as though we should travel there.”

  “To play chaperones. She has her parents and maids. We would be in the way.”

  “But she does not wish to be courted.”

  “Does she not? I would be surprised by any woman who did not care for the attentions of a man who has left the place he as always lived to ride off and find her.” His eyebrows rose. “Is that not a thing of fairy tales?”

  Her face twisted in an expression that told him off for his annoyingly positive response.

  He laughed.

  She let go of his hand and swiped at his arm. “It would be a thing of fairy tales if she could trust him. As it is, I shall write and tell her that I think his intent is not mean
but that she should be wary of him.”

  “Then I shall write to him and tell him that Emily is wary of men she cannot trust and he shall have to earn his way into her confidence.”

  Mary stood once more. “I am going up to the nursery. Caro and I are going to take George into town with us to have him fitted for a suit.”

  “Sweetheart.” He caught a hold of her hand and stood so that he faced her. “Tell me that you still trust me?”

  She smiled fully, her anger washed away. “I trust you.”

  He leant and shared a kiss with her, then rested his forehead against hers, as his fingers clasped the back of her neck, and he whispered over her lips, “Then trust my words about Harry.”

  She pulled away with a growling sound, slipping from his hold, and turned to walk out of the room.

  He laughed.

  ~

  The letter still gripped in his fingers, Harry paced the room, the heels of his boots striking the bare floorboards of his bedchamber in the inn.

  Wary… Wary and damned cruel. Perhaps he ought not to trust her. The woman had kissed him on a number of occasions, in the scarce moments they had each time they passed that blasted tree in her parents’ garden, but withheld anything more.

  He had on the second evening accused her of wishing to seduce him, and was beginning to believe the statement true.

  She had made him even more desperate and confused.

  He’d been kissed and then waved goodbye to time and again.

  She was wary…

  He was becoming impatient, and now Drew urged him to gently ease his way into her trust. He knew exactly how Drew had eased his way into Mary’s trust, through opening his heart and then his trousers.

  Harry shook his head. He would not achieve the second aim, but would the first bear weight with Emily, if she was still attached to Peter.

  She had hardly spoken of Peter. She had said she did not wish to hear his name. But what did that mean? That she liked Peter still and could not stand to hear of him? Or that she hated him and could not stand to hear of him?

  Harry’s patience had expired. He would not remain silent. He wished to know, and the devil to her wariness.

  He discarded Drew’s letter on the bed and picked up his riding coat. He would ride over to Seend now. Why wait?

  His arms thrust into the sleeves of his riding coat as he walked from the room. He would hire a horse. For the last three days, he’d been reliant on Smithfield, who had taken to sending a carriage for him in the late afternoon, while in the mornings Harry had gone to Smithfield’s factory and learned everything he might about the man’s business.

  He had played the game, all of it, the way of polite society. Only to be told that Emily was still wary of him—when it was she who had been playing fast behind her parents’ backs, seducing him nightly behind the trunk of a tree.

  He’d had enough of that.

  He walked out to the stables at the rear of the inn onto the cobbled yard. A groom turned to him. “Will you saddle me a horse?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mr Webster! Mr Webster!”

  Harry turned.

  “Sir.” The inn’s clerk approached him, walking with a hurried stride. “Sir,” the man said again.

  “Yes,” Harry answered with impatience.

  “I believe you are to stay a few more days. But when will you be settling your current bill?”

  “When I leave,” Harry snapped.

  “It is only that much has been put on credit, meals, carriages…”

  “And I will settle it all when the time comes.” He had learned the voice that dismissed such things from a very early age; he lay on the accent of a family history steeped in old money and called the requester a fool with his pitch. It meant, though, that he must leave the place and the debt behind soon, because such techniques did not work forever.

  It made it even more urgent that he acquired Emily’s agreement to marry him, quickly.

  ~

  Emily folded Mary’s letter and put it into the drawer in her writing desk, while she smiled. Mary had told her to be wary. Emily had been wary. But greedy, a little scheming, and bossy too, for the first time in her life, and it had been exciting.

  For four evenings, she and Harry had walked circuits of the garden and kissed behind the plane tree, but when Harry suggested any other activity she had invited her mother or a maid. It was amusing to see his frustration during the day, and in the evenings, to kiss him for moments only to pull away.

  She was not being used now. She was using. It was satisfying and amusing and… Powerful. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror in her room. She understood why men enjoyed these games.

  A loud sound of gravel stirring outside drew her attention as a horse whinnied too. She walked over to the window and looked out.

  Harry dismounted from the horse he’d been riding, dropping to the ground.

  It was only eleven; he was not expected. He was meant to come over at four, in her father’s carriage.

  She picked up a pale blue shawl, wrapped it about her shoulders, and hurried downstairs. He was in the hall, and neither her mother nor her father were at home to greet him.

  “Harry, what are you doing here?”

  “Calling upon you,” he answered in a pitch that was far snappier than his usual tone.

  “What might I—”

  “Will you walk my horse to the inn with me?” His bluntness had not changed, but he seemed in a temper.

  “I suppose it will not harm. It is only a few yards along High Street.” She nodded at Mills, who still held the door open, and then followed Harry out, without going back up to her room to fetch a bonnet. Her hands pulled her shawl across her chest as she walked beside Harry.

  He’d left a footman awkwardly holding the reins of his hired horse.

  “Thank you,” he acknowledged the footman as he clasped the reins. Then he began to walk, with the horse trailing after him.

  She caught up and walked beside him.

  “I presume we have about fifteen minutes to talk,” he opened. He was walking slowly, with his free hand hanging at his side. He did not attempt to offer his arm.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Well then, in those fifteen minutes, you are going to explain to me what you are about?”

  “What do you mean?” The morning sunlight made her squint when she tried to look at him.

  “I mean, you are kissing me as though there is to be something between us, and yet… What do you think about Peter?”

  “I told you I do not wish to speak of him, I—”

  “And I do not care. For today, please tell me? Have I a hope or are your feelings still engaged to him?”

  Harry’s plea hung in the air as they walked from the gravel on to the dry mud track, the dust lifted about her shoes as it lifted before his boots, and the sound of the horse’s hooves dulled.

  Her feelings had never been engaged with Peter, but she would not tell Harry that. “Have you a hope of what?” She looked ahead as a carriage passed them.

  “Of marrying you, obviously. What else would I hope for?”

  She glanced at him, he was looking at her, with the intent gaze that she sometimes faced after they had kissed. She looked ahead again. “I am no longer thinking of marriage.”

  “I wish I could stop walking and make you look at me,” he said on a low growl. “How can you kiss me, then, if you have no intent?”

  “But you kissed other women without intent?”

  “That is unfair. Yes. But not other respectable women.”

  She looked at him without guilt. She had become more confident in recent days. He had given her that in recent days, his conversation, flattery and flirtation had shattered her shyness.

  “That is amusing in a way, because I have never kissed a respectable man.”

  She looked back at the street ahead.

  They walked in silence for a few paces.

  Perhaps her words had cut hi
m? But they were the truth. She had kissed him just as he must have kissed other women, without affection, and so he had no reason to be cross with her.

  “I shall let you say that,” he answered without any strong emotion, although his voice made it sound as though his throat had dried, “because I think it is aimed at Peter, and not me. But perhaps that answers my question. Yet, I would say to you, he and I, we are not alike.”

  “Good morning, Miss Smithfield!” One of her neighbours walked towards them.

  “Good morning,” Emily answered. “This is Mr Webster, a friend of my father’s. Mr Webster, this is our neighbour Mrs Heath.”

  “Good morning, Mr Webster.”

  He lifted his hat a little and bowed his head. “Mrs Heath.”

  Mrs Heath walked on, past them.

  The inn was beside them. “Let me hand over the horse, and then is there a field we can walk through, away from the road and your house, so we may continue to talk?”

  “Not with any propriety.”

  “Then somewhere that might be seen from the back of your house or the road. But please, God, Emily, allow me chance to speak some more with you. That is all I wish.” He did not await her answer but walked on into the inn’s yard with a quick, assertive stride.

  She waited outside, by the high arch of the coaches’ entrance, her arms wrapped about her as she held her shawl and looked along the road.

  He’d said he wanted to marry her. But why? Peter had had his reasons; he had wanted a family. But Harry?

  “Emily!” She turned as he called out to her. He was walking back across the cobbles of the inn’s yard.

  When he reached her, he did not offer his arm, but as she clutched her shawl perhaps he knew she would not have accepted it.

  “Is there another way to walk?” he asked.

  “Yes, through the churchyard, there is a path from the back gate through the field which leads to our kitchen garden.”

  “Well then, we will take that route.”