Lady Sarah's Redemption

by Beverley Eikli

  Rampton raised his glass to his guests and fixed Lady Chesterton with an appreciative look as he proposed the toast.

  “To a pleasant evening and the satisfactory completion of our business.”

  It was unlike him to mix business with pleasure. Boredom, had been to blame. When his friend Babbage had sworn he would repay his loan to Rampton within the sennight, then reneged with the surprising excuse that he was reluctant to press the lady who owed him the necessary means to do so, Rampton had been unsympathetic. But when Babbage had elaborated upon the evening he and the ‘exotic’ beauty had spent together, Rampton had, despite himself, been intrigued. To his surprise, he had found himself absolving Babbage of his debt by taking on Lady Chesterfield’s debt in lieu ... For no better reason than that he wanted to see for himself whether this apparently fascinating young woman would enthral him as much as the notoriously difficult to impress Babbage.

  “I hope you are enjoying your visit to London, Lady Chesterfield,” he said, conversationally. “My friend, Adrian Babbage–whom you will no doubt recall,” he added, his smile sly, “tells me you have spent your life in the West Indies and this is your first visit to your father’s home. You must still be adjusting to the climate.”

  “I daresay I will not be here long enough to get used to it, Lord Rampton,” said Rose, coolly. She disliked the way her host’s eyes travelled languorously from her décolletage to her face when he spoke. Certainly they were very fine eyes: a piercing blue, but the supercilious arch of the eyebrows disconcerted her. And while his unconcealed admiration was certainly balm to her self confidence, the collusion in their depths hinted at a whole world of which she knew nothing.

  She forced a smile. It was important not to put him off-side. “Once this unsavoury business has been attended to, and my sister–” she caught herself just in time– “-in-law launched, we will return home.”

  Fighting the urge to slump and hide as much of herself as possible beneath the table Rose held herself proudly. Self conscious though she felt in Helena’s outrageously daring, diaphanous silver and white evening gown, she knew any attempts at appearing coy or modest would only look contrived and draw further attention to what she wished, heartily, was not quite so obviously on show. She must not look down and frighten herself with the sight of how much bosom was revealed, although the faint breeze that ruffled the curtains and caressed her bare skin was a constant reminder. Edith had assured her that although she looked every inch the seductress, she was not, actually, indecent. It was small consolation.

  Unaccustomed to male attention, Rose was unnerved by Lord Rampton’s lazy, confident smile. He looked like a man used to getting his own way.

  Well, Rose knew how to get her own way too. Success depended upon managing Lord Rampton in the same artful manner she managed her stubborn brother and her volatile, unpredictable sister-in-law. She must play the seductress, as naturally and consummately as Helena, the catalyst and inspiration for this whole charade.

  Leaning slightly across the table, she contrived a faintly seductive pout, surprised at how easily it came ... and disconcerted by how much she enjoyed the results.

  Charles had tried, several times, to interject. Characteristically he had allowed himself to be quelled by an impatient response from Lord Rampton. Rose felt vindicated. Of course she had had no choice but to have come this evening. Her brother was completely out of his depth.

  And he looked it. But was he, Rose wondered, aware of the almost collaborative smiles their host continued to direct at her? Her skin tingled.

  Rose had always been surprised that Charles was not firmer with Helena on the subject of wardrobe. Until now she had never realised the licence marriage gave one to behave as one chose, rather than as one ought. An unmarried woman, dressed and behaving as she was now would have been labelled ‘unconscionably fast’.

  Dropping her eyes beneath Lord Rampton’s admiring gaze Rose encountered her reflection in the highly polished silver epergne that formed the table centrepiece. Edith had worked wonders with her appearance. She had never realised she could look so good. Heightened expectation coursed through her.

  For the first time she questioned whether a life of subsistence was the only future? With the kind of confidence that now buoyed her she felt capable of anything. Then she remembered the size of the debt owed this man would suck the lifeblood out of even their marginal existence. What was she doing dreaming of gilded futures when it was not too extreme to say a life in debtor’s prison or the workhouse was a distinct possibility if she could not appease this man?

  She took a deep, sustaining breath, flicking her tongue over dry lips. Lord Rampton, she realised, was waiting for her to broach the subject which had brought them to his dinner table.

  “I realise, Lord Rampton, you are owed rather a lot of money. Mr Babbage, however, indicated that ...”

  The beautiful Lady Chesterfield’s hesitation, and the sudden colour that flooded her cheeks piqued Rampton’s curiosity. He waited for her to finish, recalling Babbage’s colourful account of this young woman’s conduct one wild night the previous week. It was all the more intriguing for, while Lady Chesterfield was certainly as beautiful as she had been painted, her demeanour did not accord with Babbage’s description. In surprising contrast with her gown there had been lapses indicating Lady Chesterfield’s confidence was not as iron-clad as she would have him believe.

  “What did Mr Babbage say he was prepared to be, Lady Chesterfield?” Rampton prompted, unconcerned that, to his own ears, he sounded condescending. His efforts were rewarded as he watched the blush deepen and noted the difficulty she had in responding. He had not expected such sport when he had asked the beautiful Lady Chesterfield and her lily-livered husband to dinner.

  “Patient, Lord Rampton.”

  “Ah, but there we differ, Lady Chesterfield. You see, Mr Babbage is a very patient man. At least, he is where beautiful women are concerned.” Rampton took a sip of his wine, savouring it, and the moment. “I, on the other hand, am not.”

  With amusement he observed the way her fingers clenched the stem of her wine glass and the obvious effort with which she forced herself to relax. She toyed with her glass before glancing at him over the rim, flirtation in her tone as she murmured, “Mr Babbage is a gentleman.”

  His lips curled at the inherent implication. “Whereas I am not?”

  The seductive gleam that lit up her large blue eyes, and the curve of her mouth ─ shaped more like a rosebud than the full, sensuous look he generally preferred ─ went a long way towards explaining the effect this young woman had had on Rampton’s erstwhile debtor. He felt a moment’s exultation as he held her gaze. He could read complicity in their depths. Yes, he thought with satisfaction, with the Chesterfields as hard pressed for ready funds as rumour had it there would be no difficulty coming to some mutual agreement with the beautiful Lady Chesterfield whereby no money need be exchanged. Unconsciously he ran the tip of his tongue over his top lip as he returned a somewhat wolfish smile, motioning to the footman who hovered at the sideboard to bring more wine. Here was the return on his investment this evening, considering the other diversions he had sacrificed.

  “A gentleman?” repeated his lovely guest with evident amusement. “I am forced to reserve judgement, Lord Rampton. Time alone will tell.”

  It could be an entertaining season, thought Ashley, anticipation surging through his loins. He was without a mistress and she was an exquisite looking creature, long married and clearly disenchanted with the husband no doubt chosen for her.

  “Yes,” he considered. “But Mr Babbage has no head for business. Which is why he is perpetually in debt and I am not. Nevertheless, Lady Chesterfield–” He inclined his head, smiling, ignoring Charles. “I am confident we can come to some arrangement.”

  Yes, he was sure of it. He would not call in the debt. Once Lady Chesterfield had launched her sister-in-law, she and her husband would return to the West Indies. All that differed from the ori
ginal plan was that, between now and then, he and Lady Chesterfield would have enjoyed a little more pleasure than anticipated. One only had to spend five minutes in their company to see that neither Lord or Lady Chesterfield were likely to object.

  ABOUT BEVERLEY EIKLI

  Beverley Eikli wrote her first romance novel when she was seventeen. However, drowning the heroine on the last page (p550!) was, she discovered, not in the spirit of the genre so her romance-writing career ground to a halt and she became a journalist.

  Throwing in her secure job on a metropolitan daily to manage a luxury safari lodge in the Okavango Delta, in Botswana, led her into a new world of romance and adventure: living in a thatched cottage in the middle of a mopane forest with the handsome bush pilot she met around a camp fire.

  Seventeen years later, after exploring the world in the back of Cessna 404s and CASA 212s during low-level survey sorties over the French Guyanese jungle and Greenland's ice cap, Beverley is back in Australia living a more conventional life with her husband and two daughters in a pretty country town an hour north of Melbourne

  She writes traditional Regency Romance as Beverley Eikli and sensual or erotic historical romance as Beverley Oakley.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

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