Never Resist a Rake

by Mia Marlowe

  “No need for that. ’Twas my fault. I should have sent a tray up with Gibbons there,” Cook said with a nod to the quaking footman who’d been tasked with waking him. “I’ve packed a luncheon hamper. It’s in the coach. Is there anything else you’ll be wanting before you leave, my lord?”

  “My garrick?”

  “Here you are, my lord.” Gibbons stepped forward with John’s greatcoat and his topper and riding gloves. John let himself be dressed like a tailor’s dummy. When Gibbons stepped back and looked him over, he gave John a grim smile that said he’d done the best he could with what he had to work with. “Have a pleasant journey.”

  They’d all be much happier once he was gone, so John decided to spread a little cheer. Ignoring their pleas that he should leave by the front door, he stomped into the alley at the rear of the house where the coach waited. To John’s surprise, it was empty. Two outriders were mounted behind the conveyance. John recognized his half brother Richard’s favorite horse. He’d brought the beast to Wiltshire with him. The white mare beside the gelding had beautiful conformation. It probably belonged to Richard’s wife.

  Well, of course they’d bring their horses to Town. They wouldn’t have wasted all their time looking for him. Every day the Upper Crust rode sedately along Rotten Row to see and be seen. Lord Richard and his new wife were probably both top-notch equestrians and had no doubt cut a wide swath through the glittering horse set.

  Behind the outriders, a prime bit of horseflesh danced before a sporty little gig being driven by a groom. Apparently, like John, this conveyance was also being transported to Somerfield Park.

  John didn’t wait for the coachman to open the door for him. He did it himself and, after rapping on the ceiling to signal the coach to move forward, he slumped into the tufted cushions and closed his eyes. He didn’t know where the other Barretts were and didn’t care. Perhaps they’d hired another coach and gone on without him. In an empty conveyance, at least he’d be able to sleep his way to Somerfield Park.

  He had barely drifted off before the equipage stopped again. Glancing out the window, he saw that they’d merely gone around the block and stopped in front of the Barretts’ posh Mayfair address. Richard and his wife came out of the red door, headed his way. His half brother was nattily dressed in buff trousers, an understated beige silk waistcoat, and a black jacket topped by a garrick with a built-in cape draping his shoulders. Lady Sophie wore a matching pelisse and gown traveling ensemble in head-to-toe emerald green.

  If John cared at all about his appearance, he might be a trifle embarrassed to greet them in such a rumpled state.

  Swathed in a serviceable brown hooded cloak, Rebecca appeared, framed by the open doorway for a moment. She flashed a quick smile in his direction and then, eyes chastely downcast, made her way down the steps after Richard and Sophie. At least his family had kept up their end of the bargain and arranged for her to travel with them. Good thing. If she weren’t at Somerfield Park, John wouldn’t vouch that he’d stay there either.

  Rebecca stopped shy of the gate. Then the dowager came out of the town house, leaning on her silver-headed cane and the butler’s arm.

  “That tears it,” John muttered. He might have been able to bear the trip in an enclosed coach with Richard and his lady. He might even have been able to stand being in such close proximity to Rebecca, though it would have been gut-wrenching.

  To be next to her and not able to touch her. To smell her sweet fragrance and not be able to imagine what it would be like to gobble her up. To—

  He cut off those unproductive thoughts as old Lady Somerset drew nearer to the equipage. He was not going to make pleasant conversation with the woman who’d consigned him to the lot of an unwanted bastard.

  He scrambled from the coach and held the door for Richard and Sophie to embark.

  “Good of you to join us, old chap,” his half brother said genially as he helped his wife into the equipage. “We’d almost given up on you.”

  “Don’t scold, Richard. Your brother is here now, so no harm done,” Lady Richard said, then fastened her bright, blue-eyed gaze on John. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you better. And the first thing you need to know about me is that I’m not a terribly formal person. Please call me Sophie, and may I call you John?”

  “Of course, my lady…I mean, Sophie.” He was as bad as Porter when it came to those ingrained verbal tics of subservience. He wished now that he’d let Gibbons draw a bath for him and fit him out with fresh clothes.

  Richard climbed into the coach after his wife.

  “Ah, Hartley! There you are, my boy,” came the dowager’s commanding voice from behind him. John turned toward her and put on his best “nobody face.” He’d first learned to shelter behind it at school. It was the face that hid the fact that he had opinions and hopes and dreams that were just as important as those of his titled classmates. He extended his hand to help the lady into the conveyance. Sir Humphrey and his wife had drummed politeness into him until it became nothing more than a reflex.

  “How lovely to have you all to ourselves for a bit,” Lady Somerset said, patting the squab beside her once she got herself settled. Her smile seemed almost hopeful.

  John wiped off his “nobody face” and let her see what he was really thinking. He’d sooner sit beside a python than Lady Somerset.

  “There’s only room for four in the coach,” John said. “Where is Miss Kearsey going to ride?”

  “In Richard’s gig, with Simpkins, of course,” Lady Somerset said.

  “Simpkins can stay in London. I’m going to drive,” he said with a curt glance at Richard. He supposed he ought to ask his brother if he could drive his gig, but he’d watched Lord Blackwood demand—and get!—the shoes from off the feet of a doorman at a high-toned brothel when Blackwood had forgotten which lady of the evening’s room he’d left his own in.

  A man with a title didn’t go hat in hand to anyone. He simply demanded and the world delivered. John learned that lesson quickly.

  Slamming the coach door and stopping his ears to the dowager’s sputtering protests, he ordered the driver off the gig’s seat and offered Rebecca his arm. He helped her up onto the narrow seat and then went around to join her from the other side.

  “My congratulations,” she said softly as the outriders fell back, so that they formed a rearguard for both the gig and the coach. “If being surly and unpleasant is your aim, you succeeded beyond all expectation.”

  Eight

  Those who style themselves “free thinkers” are wrong. They haven’t an original thought in their heads. They merely take the contrarian view, complaining that Society places too many demands upon them. What utter nonsense. If there were no demands made, those who eschew conformity would have nothing against which to rebel. Wouldn’t they be in a pretty pickle then?

  —Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset

  John had wanted to see Rebecca, but now he was acutely aware that he should have agreed to a bath and a shave. “On the contrary, it was surly and unpleasant of them to bar you from the coach.”

  “As you pointed out, there’s only room for four.” Rebecca’s hood fell back. In daylight, he noticed her brown hair was streaked with strands of auburn that glinted in the sun. “But no one barred me from anything. I offered to ride in the gig. It’s a lovely day for it, and frankly, I loathe being enclosed.”

  She had a point. In the open gig, they’d see much more of the countryside than the occupants of the stuffy coach would. “Truthfully, I wanted to travel in the gig mainly so you could spend some time with your family. I gather you need it.”

  Time with his family was the last thing John wanted.

  “If you’re quite ready, we’d better move on,” Rebecca said. “The coach is already turning the corner, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t know the way to your home from here.”

 
“I can get us to Somerfield Park,” John grumbled as he flicked the reins over the gelding’s back. Once he’d learned he was the marquess’s heir, he’d studied a map to find out where the countryseat was located. Finding the most direct route to the great house was no problem.

  Finding the way home was another proposition altogether. He had no idea where that might be.

  London was deep into its midmorning bustle. The milk carts and night soil wagons had made their rounds earlier in the wee hours. Now the delivery carts were stopping by shops to drop off eggs and mutton from the countryside or more exotic goods from distant outposts of the English empire fresh off the ships.

  A little later, the fashionable set would rouse for the day, and the streets would be full of dashing curricles, each flashier than the last. They weren’t terribly practical as conveyances went, but they made a strong statement about the taste and the depth of pockets of their drivers.

  Well-dressed ladies and dandies would bustle along, on their way to make calls at the homes of their friends. The length of those visits was strictly regulated and the etiquette for initiating or returning one was more labyrinthine than the most tortuous maze. The activities of Polite Society seemed as predetermined as a set piece at the ballet.

  Of course, John hadn’t ever danced any of those steps.

  “I understand you’ve known of your new station since last June,” Rebecca said, interrupting his thoughts. “Why did you come to London instead of joining your family in the country?”

  “I’d lived in the country all my life. Bolting to the Village seemed like the thing to do.” John hadn’t been sure quite what to do when he first came to the city. He was only sure he didn’t wish to present himself dutifully at Somerfield Park—not after having been shuffled off and ignored by Somerset all his life. “I thought all good little debutantes burned for their Season here. Never say you don’t prefer Town life to rusticating in the hinterlands.”

  “Town and country living each have their charms. But a glittering Season is not the goal of every debutante,” she said with surprising candor. “My dowry is not awe-inspiring, so I don’t have fellows lining up. Besides, I’m a bit of a bluestocking, which puts some gentlemen off.”

  “Ah, yes, your penchant for museums,” John said, grateful she’d turned the conversation away from him. “So you haven’t been snapped up in the marriage market?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve spent too much time in lecture halls and not enough at routs. What about you? I haven’t seen you in any of the usual places. Do you even know anyone here in Town?”

  He shook his head. “No one you’d know.”

  That was where the fellows of the Daemon Club had come in. He’d bumped into Lord Blackwood on his second day in London. He and Porter were coming out of the tailor’s shop where John had ordered a bespoke wardrobe in keeping with his new station. John hadn’t seen the viscount since they’d left Oxford. Blackwood had stood him to a pint at a nearby pub and then encouraged him to try White’s, the exclusive club.

  “Never fear. You’re a member,” Blackwood had assured him. “The heir to Somerset is placed on the list from the hour of his birth.”

  “Come with me, then,” John had said.

  “Can’t. I was expelled from White’s last year, and believe me when I tell you, my expulsion was richly deserved. Bunch of pompous toads,” Blackwood had said as he knocked back the last of his ale. “But one should try everything at least once. Go on, Hartley.”

  So John had presented himself at the coffeehouse. After a bit of an altercation with the doorman, he was admitted on the strength of the butler’s order. Evidently, word of the scandal in the succession at Somerfield Park had preceded him at White’s. Most of the denizens of that exclusive haunt seemed fully aware of the tale of the unknown heir who’d suddenly become Lord Hartley.

  He was shown to a table in a dim corner and served a pot of scalding coffee and a plate of biscuits. His server handed him a freshly ironed newspaper. John kept looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was hanging about surreptitiously to discover if he was able to read it. He was tempted to hold the paper upside down to see what they’d do.

  But he didn’t. He read his paper from first page to last, drank his coffee to the dregs, and left.

  No one, other than the server, said a single word to him.

  Now, after running with the Daemon Club for a few months, John had a few choice ideas about how to best scandalize the patrons of White’s. If he were going to be ostracized by Society in any case, he might as well give them reason.

  “I say, you do excel at daydreaming, my lord,” Rebecca said. “I’d offer a penny for your thoughts, but I suspect they’re worth more than that.”

  “Oh. I don’t mean to be poor company.” John had become accustomed to solitude. He needed to remember to hold up his end of the conversation.

  “Poor company or not, your family is relieved simply to have your presence. There were some who believed you wouldn’t come back to the house last night and they’d have to go looking for you again,” Rebecca said.

  “In truth, I almost didn’t come back.” If he’d tried the opium like Smalley had, he’d probably still be in that squalid den. There were some young lordlings sprawled about who looked as if they’d been wearing the same clothing for weeks.

  “There was only one who adamantly believed that you’d keep your word to return to Somerfield Park,” she continued.

  “You?”

  She shook her head. “I only gave you one chance in three. I’m not naive. There are enticements aplenty in London that might give you reason to stay.”

  She was his only reason to go, but he couldn’t say that. He didn’t think she’d appreciate it.

  “All right,” he said. “You’ve piqued my curiosity. Who among the Barretts is my champion?”

  “Your grandmother. The dowager was convinced you were enough of a Barrett to feel the call of familial duty.”

  “God knows no Barrett would feel the call of familial affection.” His mother might have been common and flighty and sometimes even neglectful, but there were other times when she’d showered John with love. He remembered those bright, early days, shining as if through a prism, all glorious and multihued.

  “The call of familial duty,” he repeated. “The dowager must think Lord Somerset’s hunt is pretty important.”

  “It is. The fact that the hunt can still take place after his lordship’s accident is nothing short of providential. But for the hunt to go on while the estate is thick into timber production will set the ton on its ear. The visiting lords might start to thinking about what could be done with their own floundering estates. At least that’s what Lord Richard says.” She glanced at him and then away, her cheeks pinking in the autumn sun. “It’s not just the hunt. That’s his lordship’s bailiwick in any case. Your grandmother thinks you’ve muffed your chances here in London and need a fresh start.”

  He frowned at her.

  “Can you say she’s wrong?” she asked.

  He shook his head. No one, other than the members of the Daemon Club and Lady Chloe, had even acknowledged his existence.

  “Lady Somerset says it was a mistake to allow you to hare off to London on your own.”

  “Allow me?” He snorted. “No one allows me to go anywhere. I go where I please.”

  “Said the man who is on a journey he was bribed into making,” Rebecca said tartly. “In any case, your grandmother is convinced she can undo the damage and reintroduce you to Society.”

  “Has the dowager ever had a single doubt that she could accomplish anything?”

  “I haven’t known her long, but I’d say probably not,” Rebecca said with a laugh.

  Lady Somerset certainly had no doubts about shuffling him off to Wiltshire when he was inconveniently orphaned.

  “She didn’t know at the time,�
�� Rebecca said.

  “Didn’t know what?”

  “That you were the heir,” she said as if he’d spoken aloud. “If her ladyship had realized that, I’m sure your childhood would have been much different.”

  It bothered him that Rebecca seemed privy to his secret thoughts. Obviously, his “nobody face” didn’t work with her. “Excuses don’t make much difference to a six-year-old.”

  She turned to glare at him. “Are you still six years old?”

  “What?”

  “You’re not the only one whose young life was not what it should have been, you know.” She lifted her pointed little chin and looked away.

  “Rebecca, I—”

  “Miss Kearsey, if you please,” she said primly. “I deserve it.”

  “So you do. My apologies.”

  She nodded her acceptance. “The point is, you’re no longer a boy. It’s time to put aside whatever’s past and look to your future.”

  It would be a future determined for him unless he asserted himself, but she didn’t want to hear his side of things. Bouncing along side by side in the gig wasn’t conducive to having an argument, so they rode in silence.

  The houses on either side of the street became much less grand and finally became fewer and farther between. At the first stone fence row marking off one field from the next, John’s heart lifted, and he inhaled deeply.

  He’d forgotten how sweet a lungful of country air could be.

  A small whirlwind of fallen leaves, a rust-and-scarlet dervish, twirled across the road in front of them, and the gelding shied at the unexpected sight.

  “Easy now,” he said sternly. “Don’t be such a ninny.”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “I was talking to the horse, not you.” He gave a quick tug on the reins and the gelding settled. “That’s better, you wicked beast.”

  “Don’t call him names. He can’t help it. He was just startled.” She twisted her gloved fingers together in her lap. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”