The Rake's Reflection

by Lesley-Anne McLeod

  "Where is the earl?" Delia asked.

  "I have lent him my mount. He is gone for a ride. He wished to see the Tower; I am thankful for that. As recently as yesterday morning, I feared I would never see him again. I thought that the Tower had permanently lost its rightful heir."

  Delia chose a chair with a piecrust table close to hand and put down her workbox. "I am afraid I have caused a great deal of trouble. Had I stayed in Scotland and not indulged my wish for travel..."

  He hastened to reassure her. "Trouble, perhaps, yet good also. My brother would not wish to hear it, but I see the hand of Providence in this. Your arrival has brought us back together and I thank you for that."

  Looking at his face during this earnest speech, Delia thought what a pleasant and uncomplicated young man he was. He was very unlike his elder brother.

  "Will you tell me a little of your family's history?" she requested. "Or tell me if I am too bold in desiring it?"

  "You surely have a right to know, involved as you are now even against your will." The young rector sighed. When Delia had seated herself, he followed suit.

  "It seems simple enough to tell. My father and my brother did not get on. My brother left Manningford Tower ten years ago, when he was nineteen, to set up his own establishment. I was sixteen. He returned from time to time, and always there would be terrible rows. Five years ago my father was dying, and I asked Rupert to come. They argued even then and Rupert would not stay. I told him if he left he need never try to see me again. I told him I hated him." His voice was briefly suspended by emotion.

  Delia ached for his pain.

  "I had not seen him since, until yesterday. He did not come for the funeral, or the reading of the will. He took me at my word, you see. Soon after the funeral came a letter advising that he had sold my father's London house and rented Manningford Tower to Sir Thomas. I had taken up this living a year before my father's death. I tried to renounce it, but Rupert would not hear of it. He vowed to influence the bishop so that the living would stand vacant. I could not allow that to happen to the people of Manningford."

  "How terrible for you both," Delia whispered.

  "That was the worst of it. He seemed to feel nothing. It was not terrible to him. As I went about my business, I heard tales of his actions. His existence consisted of pointless gaiety, debauchery even, gambling and carousing. He was much in France, despite the conflict and war, and I still wonder over that." He looked deeply troubled.

  Delia put her slim hand on his arm, and said, "I have seen little evidence of such activities. But of course, I have known him only a week. His face, I think, proclaims hard living."

  "He hasn't...you have been treated as you should?"

  "He has treated me with respect and every kindness. His London house is beautifully kept by Mrs. Inniskip."

  The door was flung open and they both started. Torgreave strode in bringing the chill air of the outdoors as well as his sardonic presence. Delia snatched her hand from Charles' arm as the earl looked askance at it.

  "How pleasant," he sneered. "You are becoming acquainted."

  "We are. In fact, I shall call your brother Charles, and he must call me Delia." She smiled at the younger man. Then she looked back at the earl. "I dislike your manner, however, Rupert," she informed him, meeting his gaze with a challenge in her eyes.

  Torgreave was the first to turn away, ostensibly to warm himself before the fire. Delia was conscious that Charles watched the interchange with widened eyes.

  She supposed he would never have spoken so rebukingly to his elder brother. She suspected that when their father had chastized Rupert, rebellion had been the response.

  "The frost is hard," the earl said curtly over his shoulder. "We should return to London as soon as possible, unless my brother is to have our company indefinitely."

  Delia thought he looked very tired.

  "I should not be averse to having you remain," Charles said.

  Rupert turned to smile at his younger brother. "I was up all the night, reading those journals of my father. They are just like him, correct, cold, and uninformative. Entries are very short: a brief note regarding my mother's funeral, a remark here and there on my transgressions, and a list of your achievements, Charles." Delia heard no rancour in his tone as he related what he had found. "He wrote regularly on Sundays, and there is no indication that he ever was anywhere but Manningford Tower or London. I think he traveled not at all."

  The rector sighed, but said only, "I think that Jane has a nuncheon for us. Let us go through to the dining room. After, I shall ride to Manningford Tower and speak with Sir Thomas."

  True to his word, Charles rode off after they had shared a light repast. The earl retired to his brother's study, with only a brief word of apology.

  Leaving Morag undisturbed abovestairs, Delia went alone to her workbox in the parlour. She settled on a sofa beside the fire. Sorting her silks aimlessly, she reflected yet again on the change in her circumstances.

  It appeared that at least one of those she had considered her parents, was not. If Torgreave's speculations were correct, the cold uncaring man that he had disliked was her father as well. She paused in her work and stared absently at the candle flames flickering from the candelabra at her elbow. Her mother's honour was in question. Her mother, who had been a loving companion to her husband, and a thoroughly delightful parent. And the man she regarded as father -- the good man devoted to estate and country -- was he no relation by blood to her? Had that marriage then been a sham, like so many amongst her acquaintance? Had her own brother and sister, both of whom had died, been only half-siblings? She felt dizzy with questions and shivered.

  She started when a hand touched her shoulder. It was the earl. He held her green figured shawl, her warmest, in his strong hands. She had left it in a chair across the room. She stared at him still lost in thought. He wrapped the shawl about her, very gently, before seating himself beside her. He could be tender, she realized with surprise. How little she knew him yet. She supposed he could be very charming. One could scarcely be a rake without possessing the arts of pleasing. She had seen little of that side of his character.

  "This changes your life, does it not?" the earl said.

  "At times I feel I shall never compass the facts. I find myself rehearsing them constantly as though repetition might bring acceptance and understanding. My mother...," her voice was suspended by emotion.

  He interpolated gently, "Why should we feel so differently about this moral transgression? My brother and I can contemplate my father's possible actions as unremarkable. The possibility that your mother broke her marriage vows brings distress to you."

  Delia recovered her composure. "You should know better than I," she said without malice, "for you are the male, a rake who is condemned yet accepted. The women you use are deemed without honour and unacceptable anywhere."

  "Perhaps I should know." Intense weariness marked his face. "But I do not. As for our own situation, we must all support each other. There may yet be a good explanation, though I cannot find it in those journals."

  "You hated your father. I cannot wish him mine. And my mother would never have loved such a one. Or borne his child."

  "My father was a decent enough man. Ten years ago I could not have said that, but it is the truth. He desired me to be a replica of himself. I could not. And he held himself as a pattern card of virtue, against my misdeeds. If he is your father as well as mine, it is proved he was not so virtuous as he claimed. That eases my guilt, I think."

  Stamping in the hall heralded the return of the rector. Delia began to pack up her silks mechanically, though she had not laid a stitch.

  "Ah you are both here," Charles put his head in at the door. "I have brought boxes of papers from my father's desk."

  The earl's face darkened. "Sir Thomas?"

  "Sir Thomas allows of course that you may go about the estate as you wish, with access to the steward and his rooms. But he will not allow you in the house, as
it is rented to him. He will not have you speaking with his family."

  "He sounds the sort of pious, hypocritical fellow my father would have called friend." Torgreave was pleased to be unpleasant.

  "You can scarcely condemn the gentleman for disliking your reputation. From my conversations with you, I have discerned that you dislike it yourself." Delia rebuked him. She surprised a deep choke of laughter from the earl.

  "I saw Susannah...Miss Slimbridge..." Charles said.

  Delia looked at him, wondering who Susannah was. A groom from Manningford Tower began to bring the boxes into the chamber. Bowland bustled in to assist.

  Rupert answered her unspoken question for his brother, while regarding the wood- framed crates. "My brother is in love, Delia, with a daughter of Sir Thomas. My tenant is implacably opposed to any relationship. Because of me."

  Delia studied each man in turn, her wide eyes solemn. "I see. We add complication to difficulty to confusion, and create such a coil as we may never sort."

  The gentlemen stared at her, apparently much struck by her words. No one had a thought to add.

  They worked at the papers the remainder of the day, in company only with Morag and Bowland. The work was undertaken silently. Not until they sat down to dinner did they discuss their conclusions.

  "Morag and I found nothing among the household accounts," Delia said, pushing her chicken about her plate. "The earliest papers were as orderly as the last, all from London or Manningford Tower. There is no hint of irregularity, and no evidence of travel."

  Charles appeared also to have little appetite. "I had the same experience. Wills, inventories, record books, all perfectly tidy, and uninformative."

  "As are the estate accounts, such as are here." The earl was the only one eating. "I shall go to the steward's room as well, but there is no clew to be had among them. I left Bowland packing them away. I believe that I must have access to the Tower."

  "I cannot think how we will arrange that," observed the rector.

  "Nor can I, at the present. So, if Delia agrees, we will return to London tomorrow."

  "As soon as you wish, Rupert, but not tomorrow," Delia contradicted.

  The earl paused, his fork halfway to his mouth.

  "It is Sunday. Morag and I will not travel on the Sabbath."

  "Good God, you have been concealing your Presbyterian scruples from me most cleverly." He laid down his utensil and stared at her.

  "I claim no peculiar degree of piety," Delia responded meeting his stare. "But some restrictions I will observe. It is a day of rest. Besides I would like to hear Charles preach."

  "You cannot, not and keep this visit as private as we agreed necessary," he objected.

  "Do you not remember the old pews, Rupert? Miss Tyninghame may attend with perfect propriety, and be all but undetected." Charles smiled with increased appreciation at Delia.

  "Besides," Delia added, "You shall not wish to miss this opportunity to hear your brother's sermon, my lord. I shall be glad of your company."

  Rupert stared from one to the other, apparently suspecting a plot between them.

  He sighed."Very well. But if you choose to speak on the prodigal son, Charles, I shall not be responsible for my actions."

  The Rector tried to smother his laughter, but could not, and his explosive hilarity was contagious. Until that moment Delia had thought she might never laugh again. And it sounded as though it had been an age since the earl had indulged in genuine mirth.

  * * *

  "Dear Aunt, I have been to visit the Brother of the Earl. He is a Rector and a fine man. The cold has Intensified, and the Thames has frozen solid. There is talk a Fair will be held upon it."

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was remarkable, Delia reflected as she trod up the steps to the house in Grosvenor Street, how quickly one adapted to new circumstances. This return to London seemed almost a homecoming. Life in Edinburgh was a remote fancy. Only the letters she sent tied her to her former existence. They were scribed with difficulty, hampered by the unrevealed truth. The missives she frequently received seemed to come from a distant, half-remembered past.

  She looked over her shoulder at the lean, great-coated figure of the earl directing her coachman.

  "Travel with a gentleman carries a degree of security and comfort with it," she commented to Morag Lochmaddy, who followed at her heels.

  "Aye, they have a usefulness," the Scotswoman agreed. "'Tis offset by the trouble they cause."

  "You are harsh," Delia chose to laugh at the comment. "Torgreave was kindness itself on the journey. And Bowland was such a help." She smiled warmly on the small man. They entered the hall and he took their wraps.

  Morag snorted.

  The earl entered the hall after them. He asked, "Who or what has given Mrs. Lochmaddy such displeasure?" He shrugged out of his greatcoat.

  Delia was saved from framing a reply by the housekeeper's hurried approach. She could not detect emotion in Mrs. Inniskip's angular face.

  Torgreave apparently sensed a query for he said, "Inniskip, you will like to know that my brother is well. He sends you kind regards. We shall see him again, perhaps here in London. So your interference has wrought one good thing at least."

  The housekeeper dropped a slight curtsey, stony-faced, and greeted Delia. Then with Morag Lochmaddy, she passed through the green baize door. Bowland, laden with wraps, scurried after them.

  "You must not be so unkind," Delia reproved Rupert. They moved upstairs to the drawing room, which was bright with candles and firelight.

  "I regard her interference as intolerable. I will not pretend otherwise." The earl shot her a keen look. He rested a booted foot on the shining fender of the broad fireplace. "Can you truly tell me that you are glad of what has happened due to her audacity?"

  Delia's pearly skin whitened. "No," she murmured. "Of course not. I would give anything to be at home in Charlotte Square with naught to consider but a myriad of invitations and my aunt's next rout." She was less than honest -- she knew it. If she had not left Edinburgh, she would never have met Rupert. The thought was unbearable. She had rather be in London, with him. That realization took her breath away.

  "Tell me about your life in Edinburgh," he invited.

  He cast himself into the wing chair nearest her as she seated herself by the fire. She thought he was in an uncertain temper. She had no real wish to comply with his request. It was the present dilemma that occupied her mind.

  "There is little enough to tell. It is not at all remarkable." Delia met his shuttered gaze steadily. "My come out was made three years ago. I attend at balls, routs and all manner of fashionable gatherings. I have two or three close friends with whom I tour the shops and libraries, and drink tea and gossip."

  "And you entertain myriad admirers?" he said. He stared into the fire, his face set in grim lines.

  "Yes," she responded. She thought wistfully of fresh-faced Geordie McKenna, William Scott, Neil Rosslyn and others: mere lads, open and carefree. They held no attraction for her anymore.

  He frowned, deepening the carved lines about his mouth. "But you are yet unmarried. Can you mean to follow in the footsteps of Lady Barbara?"

  Delia had regaled the earl during their journey with tales of her aunt's prodigious learning, sociable nature and successful salons.

  "I think not; I don't know. Why do you ask me? What business is it of yours to pry so?"

  "None."

  The single word, the heaviness of his tone, frightened her. She sought to lighten their conversation. "Perhaps it is merely that Morag frightens my suitors away."

  Rupert seemed to pull himself from his dark mood with a palpable effort. "The redoubtable Mrs. Lochmaddy. She is an odd mix of maid and companion surely?"

  "My aunt Barbara, while no republican, has long treated her servants with an awareness of our parity." Delia eagerly seized the opportunity to divert the conversation. "Morag has served in my aunt's household in a variety of capacities. The tragedy of her hu
sband's death brought us together. One morning when I found her weeping over the bedlinen in my chamber, we discovered an empathy. I was in need of an abigail. We became friends, as unlikely as that may seem. She has an invisible boundary for our relationship, which I cannot see. She will not cross it." Delia smiled thinking of it.

  "And she was happily wed and yet has no use for my sex?" the earl queried. He straightened in his chair, as Bowland carried in refreshment.

  "She merely believes that you are in fact the weaker sex," Delia responded. She could not agree with Morag. Torgreave's strength belied any thought of weakness.

  Bowland ventured a disapproving snort on his way out of the room.

  "Bowland disagrees. Now we shall have the two of them arguing." He seemed to find the thought amusing.

  Delia was only happy that his mood had lightened. She poured out the tea. "What next shall we do to find some clue to our relationship?" she asked. Her own mood had darkened.

  Rupert accepted a porcelain cup brimming with tea from her. "As we found nothing in my father's papers at Manningford, I believe we must question those who knew him. If we continue in our investigations so slowly though, it may be sometime before you see Edinburgh and the admirers again. Conversely, I foresee that a journey to that city may soon become necessary, if we persistently have so little success." He returned to harshness, his face cold-set.

  Delia wondered what she could say that might alleviate his anxieties, return him to ease.

  "You had best adjudge yourself at home here, and occupy yourself with your needlework. I shall put some inquiries afoot over the next few days, and see what fruit they bring."

  "I am accustomed to order my own existence," she snapped, her desire for his comfort destroyed. "I am not some idle, fashionable doll."

  "Are you not? I thought you just indicated that you were."