Never Resist a Rake

by Mia Marlowe

  Rebecca smiled at Freddie’s roundabout way of patting her own back. Then she spared a moment to pity John. All day, carriages like the one below had been arriving at the house’s great double front doors. Some of the finest families in the kingdom spilled from those elegant equipages. If all the young ladies who alighted from those carriages were of the same mind as Freddie, Lord Hartley would have to step lively to evade capture by one of them.

  But surely after last night, the fact that these wellborn ladies were after him wouldn’t be enough to turn his head. She and John had formed a bond in shared pleasure. Rebecca was a part of him now, no matter what he had to say on the subject.

  A soft rap came at the door.

  “That’ll be Olive with your gown,” Freddie said, then raised her voice. “Come.”

  “My gown?” Rebecca said as Freddie’s maid bustled in bearing a smallish valise and a largish hatbox.

  “Yes, you silly goose, have you forgotten already? I had that pale pink one of mine resized for you.” Freddie turned to her maid. “Step lively, Olive. It’ll be wrinkled enough without your shilly-shallying.”

  Since Rebecca had never seen Olive move at less than a flustered trot, she didn’t think the maid could be accused of shillying a single shally.

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” Rebecca said. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, in any case.

  Olive shot her a shy smile and quickly unpacked the gown, spreading it on the bed and smoothing her palms over the pink silk. It was an ethereal watery color and reminded Rebecca of the eastern sky as night retreated, before the heat of the sun warmed the heavens to a rosier hue.

  The color would have washed Freddie out completely, since she was pale to begin with, but it would be perfect for Rebecca, with her chestnut hair and cool-green eyes.

  “Oh my,” she whispered in awe. “This gown is far better than fine. It might have been made for me.”

  “Well, don’t stand there gaping like a codfish, Rebecca.” The smile in Freddie’s voice mitigated her harsh words. She was clearly pleased by Rebecca’s reaction. “Try it on.”

  Olive’s deft hands helped her out of her thrice-turned green day gown and into the pink silk. Freddie’s measurements proved true. The bodice was snug, the décolletage daring but not vulgar. The empire waist rose to the exactly right place. The skirt portion flowed over Rebecca’s hips like water and spilled onto the polished floor.

  “Oh, that train is le dernier cri,” Freddie exclaimed, clapping her hands over the foot and a half of silk and lace that trailed Rebecca. The maid shot her a questioning look. “It’s something of a pun, Olive. Le dernier cri literally means ‘the last word.’ Won’t Rebecca’s derriere give everyone reason to watch her walk away with a train accentuating her charms like that?”

  “It does make me feel like a princess,” Rebecca said happily, as she turned this way and that before the long looking glass in the corner. She couldn’t wait to see John’s expression when he saw her in it.

  Freddie choked on a laugh. “Not quite a princess, my dear. Let’s not succumb to delusions of grandeur, but you’ll do. Indeed, you will.” She nodded approvingly. “Have you any jewels?”

  Long ago, her father had pawned every piece of jewelry Rebecca had inherited from her grandmother on her mother’s side. It was supposed to form part of her dowry, but nothing was safe from the requirements of a debt of honor.

  “I didn’t think to bring anything but ribbons to the country,” she lied. She’d always rather Freddie think her above such fripperies than unable to have them.

  “Well, a ribbon at your neck might be fine for day wear, but it won’t do for that gown,” Freddie said. “Olive, fetch my freshwater pearls. They’re simple but elegant. They should do nicely. Now slip on your gloves. You have some white satin, don’t you? Good. Oh, wait till you see the cunning little headdress I had my milliner work up for you.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.” She’d never be able to repay her friend’s generosity.

  “Pish! I wanted to.”

  Freddie dove into the hatbox and came up with a fetching confection of lace and seed pearls. An ostrich feather curled around the headpiece, and once Freddie positioned it correctly, the plume nodded above Rebecca’s head.

  The two girls gazed into the mirror together. Rebecca couldn’t say which of them looked more pleased by the results of her transformation. Freddie might be brash and abrupt sometimes, but she had a tender heart and a generous spirit.

  “You’re so good to me,” Rebecca said, giving her an impulsive hug.

  Freddie waved her away. “Piffle. What are friends for?”

  A prickle of guilt niggled at Rebecca. Last night, she’d been all tangled up with the man her friend had set her cap for. She hadn’t felt disloyal to Freddie at the time. After all, Freddie hardly knew John, and it wasn’t as if her heart was engaged. But now, she and Freddie—and every other woman of marriageable age visiting the great house—would be in direct competition for his favor.

  She ought to step aside for Freddie. After all, Rebecca wasn’t really up to scratch. She ought to put her efforts into helping her friend’s cause. John trusted her. She could do a great deal to improve Freddie’s chances.

  Her chest ached at the thought. When she and John were together, the difference in their stations didn’t matter a jot. She knew things about him, personal things like his astounding confession about how he really felt about having been with too many women. She knew about his boyhood hurts. She didn’t think he’d ever tell anyone else about that. She longed to ease the bitterness he felt toward his family. It was eating him up, and she hurt right along with him.

  Which of the other wellborn daughters coming to Somerfield Park were interested in John for himself instead of the marchioness’s coronet he could offer them?

  When Rebecca looked up at the night sky this evening, she wondered if she could find a world where things like rank and wealth didn’t matter. Where was the place where love trumped all?

  “Oh! I brought the slippers to match too.” Freddie began pawing through the valise and hatbox looking for them. “Lovely little beaded things. Your feet may be a tad bigger than mine, but even so, I should think you’ll do well with them. It’s not as if your dance card will be completely full in any case. Not with all the higher-ranking debutantes available.”

  Freddie’s words made tears press against the backs of Rebecca’s eyes. Her friend didn’t mean to be cruel, she reminded herself. Freddie was simply devoted to the truth, however unpalatable it might be. In a ballroom filled with earls’ daughters, Rebecca would naturally be a wallflower.

  But I’ll be an extremely well-turned-out wallflower, she told herself.

  While Freddie continued to mutter about the whereabouts of those slippers, Rebecca wandered to the window and looked down at yet another coach arriving. A strikingly beautiful woman stepped down from a smart equipage.

  Freddie’s fashionably blond tresses were so fair as to be almost white. This lady’s long curls glinted golden in the sunlight as they escaped her flattering scoop-shaped capote. Her gown and matching pelisse were an eye-catching poppy red, a hue few wellborn misses would dare. However, instead of overpowering this woman, the flamboyant shade only accentuated her natural beauty. From her dainty satin half boot to the coquelicot ribbon on her bonnet that matched her outrageously bright gown, she was dressed in the first stare of fashion, despite the loud color.

  But her bold fashion sense wasn’t what made Rebecca’s heart sink to her pelvic floor.

  It was the fact that the footman didn’t help her alight from the carriage. Neither did Somerfield Park’s butler.

  John Fitzhugh Barrett stepped lively to hand her down himself.

  * * *

  Lord Somerset wasn’t available to greet his guests for the hunt. Lady Somerset had stepped in to welcome the visiting lords and ladie
s with her typical unruffled dignity. However, by midafternoon it was clear she was flagging, so John had asked that he be allowed to take her place.

  “Thank you, Lord Hartley. What a thoughtful and brilliant idea,” she said. “I confess to being all in, and there are a number of things I must tend to before our first dinner this evening. I wonder if Richard might join you to make introductions.”

  His half brother was called away from poring over the estate’s ledgers to greet the bon ton as they alighted from their equipages. To his credit, Richard introduced John as “my brother, Lord Hartley” and not as “the upstart usurper who stole my birthright.” John doubted he’d have been half so gracious if their places were reversed.

  It was a measure of the prestige of Somerset that the lords to whom he was presented did not shun him as the denizens of White’s had when he was on his own in London. Instead of being cut by the ladies, John lost count of the number of giggling debutantes who made dipping curtsies to him or flirted with him from behind their fans on their way into Somerfield Park.

  Clearly, the “Hartley Hunt” was in full force.

  After all the lumbering coaches, John was surprised to see a single fellow come whipping down the tree-lined lane driving an open gig meant for speed instead of comfortable travel. Richard’s face split in a smile as he stepped forward to greet the gentleman, whose sandy hair was disheveled and whose waistcoat was spattered with mud from flying over the country roads.

  “In a hurry to meet the Grim Reaper, are you, Seymour?” Richard said.

  “Not at all. This gig is devilishly fast, but perfectly safe.”

  “It’s not the gig I’m worried about,” Richard said. “It’s your driving.”

  “I’m careful enough.” Seymour grinned. “I’m trying to save myself for your sister Petra. She’s offered to end me more than once. I’d hate to deprive her of the pleasure.”

  Then the fellow turned to John. “And you must be the man who rescued my friend from a lifetime of boredom in the House of Lords. Lawrence Seymour, your servant, sir,” he said to John as he tossed the reins of his high-stepping filly to a waiting hostler. “Didn’t that sound nice? I’m actually philosophically opposed to being treated as a servant on any level.”

  John shook Seymour’s hand and decided he liked Richard’s friend.

  “I’ll see Seymour to his room,” Richard said. “It’ll be my last chance to remind him that meddling with any of our sisters will require us to nail him to a stump and set the stump on fire.”

  John laughed as they headed into the house. “Our sisters,” Richard had said. “Us.” John wished it were true. All his life, he’d wished for a father and a family. He’d never been part of an “us.” With Lord Somerset’s growing dementia, the chance to be recognized as a son was slipping away. Was it possible that John might have a half brother and sisters who were truly willing to make him part of their circle?

  He pushed the wish aside as childish. Rebecca was right. He wasn’t six years old anymore.

  Another coach broke free of the tree-lined drive. John recognized the Endicott crest embossed on the side. Family was a dicey proposition. He could choose his friends, and they were all finally here. He pushed past Mr. Hightower and the footman to open the coach once it rolled to a stop.

  “Hartley, you’ve grown even more handsome since I saw you last. Do you suppose there’s something to wholesome country air? Gives me hope for poor Smalley and Pitcairn.” Lady Chloe Endicott’s red cherry of a mouth stretched into a broad smile. John brought her hand to his lips for a correct kiss. “How glad I am to see you.”

  “Not half as glad as I am to see you, my lady,” he said. “How was your journey?”

  “Crowded.”

  Blackwood climbed down from the carriage behind her, followed swiftly by Pitcairn and Smalley. Lady Chloe’s saucy French maid scrambled down from her perch beside the driver and, in heavily accented English, stridently instructed the Somerfield Park footman on the proper unloading of her mistress’s trunks and accoutrements.

  “Crowded, but lively,” Lady Chloe amended. “You know how I loathe being alone. The gentlemen’s conversation made the miles pass by more quickly.”

  “We’d have done more than bump our gums,” Smalley said, his affected country accent finally finding an appropriate venue, “but Lady Chloe don’t allow no cards in the coach.”

  “Just as well,” Blackwood said with a yawn. “I’d have cleaned out you and Pitcairn before we reached Tincross Bottom, and then you’d have nothing else to lose the whole time we’re here.”

  “Nonsense,” Lady Chloe said. “All three of you would have been left with nothing but your drawers if we’d gambled away the time and you know it, Blackwood. I can always tell when you’re bluffing.”

  “Why is that, I wonder?”

  “Because, my dear Lord Blackwood, it’s the only time your gaze is not glued to my décolletage.” She laughed. It wasn’t the merry tinkle of a green girl, but the full-throated laughter of a woman who was sure of her own femininity and enjoyed flaunting it everywhere she went.

  Mr. Hightower, who’d been trying to appear as if he weren’t hanging on every word, coughed to cover his shock as his bushy brows shot skyward. The staid butler would only be the first to be scandalized by his friends, John suspected. He was beginning to look forward to this house party very much indeed.

  “Mr. Hightower, please see Viscount Blackwood and Messrs. Smalley and Pitcairn to their rooms.”

  “And the lady, my lord?”

  “I’ll escort Lady Chloe to her chamber after we have a spot of tea in the parlor. She and I have a few things to discuss. See to it, Mr. Hightower.”

  “Very good, my lord. Toby.” Hightower snapped his fingers at the footman. “Step lively and see to his lordship’s tea. This way, gentlemen, if you’ll be pleased to follow me.”

  Whatever his private thoughts about the new arrivals, Hightower was quick to do John’s bidding. Sometimes, it was very good to be Lord Hartley.

  His friends followed the butler, cracking jokes and warning John not to let Lady Chloe pull out a deck of cards in the parlor unless he wanted to end up in his drawers. Chloe took his arm and smiled up at him warmly.

  “They’re right, you know. If we cut a deck, I’d see you in your unmentionables,” she assured him.

  “That’s why I won’t play cards with you.”

  “Oh, Hartley, you don’t know what you’re missing. I’d make certain it was great fun for you, even if you lose.”

  “Not if, when I lose,” he admitted. “You are a masterful poque player.”

  Lady Chloe was also gracious when it suited her, and she deftly turned the conversation to a more socially acceptable topic. She chatted quite properly about the beauties of the Somerset countryside as they strolled at a leisurely pace up to the first-floor parlor, where tea was waiting for them. Lady Chloe nodded to the maid who brought the hurriedly assembled tray.

  “I’ll pour out myself. You may go,” Chloe told the girl. She took her seat on the striped settee as if she were mistress of the place and began arranging the teapot, cups, and saucers to suit her. Her upbringing as the daughter of an earl showed in every graceful movement.

  “Thank you, Sarah.” John was making it his business to learn the servants’ names as quickly as he could. The girl rewarded him with a toothsome smile, bobbed a deep curtsy, and then left, pulling the door closed behind her.

  “I freely confess it, Hartley. You have me on pins,” Lady Chloe said as she poured the tea into egg-shell thin cups. “What is this mysterious tête-à-tête about?”

  “Well, I hope—”

  “One lump or two?”

  Why did women always try to foist sugar on him? “None. I’m a simple man.”

  “That I seriously doubt. The quiet ones are always the most complicated. And the most worth unrave
ling.” She handed him a steaming cup and prepared her own with a generous dollop of milk and one lump of sugar. “Tell me, Hartley. What’s afoot here?”

  His plan had seemed a good one when the idea first came to him. Now he wondered if her role in the game he intended to play would offend her. Still, she was his friend. If she wouldn’t help him, who would?

  John shared his scheme, and, along with it, his hopes and a piece of his twisted soul. She listened without interruption. When he finished, she leaned back on the settee, teacup halfway to her artfully rouged lips. Chloe peered at him through half-closed eyes, considering him like a tabby studying a mouse hole.

  He had no idea what was racing around in her pretty little head. No wonder she was a terror at a poque table.

  Lady Chloe smiled at him, her teeth stark white against her red lips. It struck him as a feral smile. Then the smile moved up to crinkle the corners of her eyes, and the predatory impression vanished. His heart-stopping, sleepless night on the roof with Rebecca was making his imagination run rampant.

  “Well, what do you think? I can’t do this without you, my lady,” he asked. “Will you help me?”

  “Why not?” She ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip. “It’ll be fun.”

  Nineteen

  I have always subscribed to the adage “One must begin as one means to continue.” Fortunately, my grandson Hartley has been given a rare opportunity to begin a second time.

  —Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset

  John came down the grand staircase with a spring in his step. For the first time since he had learned he was Lord Hartley, he finally felt in control of his destiny. He had a plan. He wasn’t waiting for things to happen to him anymore. He was acting instead of reacting.

  He intended to make a memorable impression on the Upper Crust tonight. Mr. Porter had moved heaven and earth to make sure he looked every inch the marquess’s heir. The valet nearly had a case of the vapors when John called for his striking pink waistcoat. Porter seemed beyond grateful when John relented and allowed himself to be dressed in elegant, Brummell-esque simplicity.