Nothing But a Rakehell (A Series of Unconventional Courtships Book 2)

by Deb Marlowe

  “To the green below, which has been set up for battledore,” Glory answered.

  “I’ve never played,” Miss Vernon told Keswick. “But I should be glad if you would explain the game and perhaps give me a demonstration.”

  Glory saw his scowl, and thought for a moment that he would refuse the girl outright and rebuff her obvious machinations. But he glanced around and then toward the tables and tents, and his expression changed to one of pained resignation.

  She pursed her lips. After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped forward.

  “I am very sorry, Miss Vernon,” Glory said firmly. “But I must claim Lord Keswick, as we have a prior commitment.” She turned to the viscount. “In fact, my lord, I am sure we are due at the stables very soon. I know we meant to stay until the end of the game, but it appears it is over already.” She looked to Mr. Lycett and Miss Ruddock, who had come up the stairs empty handed.

  “Yes, we’ll have to set the servants to searching the undergrowth,” Mr. Lycett said with shrug.

  Glory turned back to the newcomer. “I’m sure we would not wish to interrupt your family reunion, in any case. After all, you’ve traveled such a long way to engineer it.”

  “Of course.” Miss Vernon shot her a look full of venom. “How . . . thoughtful.”

  “So nice to have met you,” Glory said with a smile as Keswick extricated himself from the girl’s grasp. “Shall we go, Keswick?”

  “We shall,” he said with irony. He bowed to the others. “I must not fail to honor a prior commitment.”

  Miss Vernon caught his eye. “I am sure we’ll have a chance to spend time together later, my lord.”

  He inclined his head and Glory turned away. She did not take his arm as they walked back across the field. She smiled and spoke as they passed through the guests still gathered at table and tent, but her mind was very busy. Was this the sort of thing Keswick faced often? She flushed, hoping that he hadn’t placed her behavior in the same category as that young lady’s. Desperately, she reviewed her own conduct as they walked in silence along the graveled path.

  As they reached the clearing where the stable yard and outbuildings stood, she looked up into his face. “I am very sorry if I have made you uncomfortable, Keswick.”

  He looked down at her and after a moment his puzzled expression gave way. “No.” He took her hand and bent over it. “No. Do not think to compare yourself to that harpy. I do thank you for your intervention, but I think I should go to Tensford.” He placed a kiss on her gloved hand.

  They stayed, frozen in that position, for several heartbeats too long.

  His breath warmed the leather and sent heated currents flowing up her arm and on to all the peaks and crevices inside her. The space between them felt alive with the spark and clash of gathering forces. She could not have pulled away, even if she wanted to.

  He broke the contact, eventually. “Good day, Glory.” Looking more than a little dazed, he turned to leave.

  She watched him go, her mind racing. He disappeared into Tensford’s workshop and she clutched her arm tight to her chest. “Good day,” she whispered.

  * * *

  Dinner that evening felt interminable. Miss Vernon had clearly altered the seating arrangements so that she was seated next to him, which had visibly flustered both the countess and her footmen. Little good it did the chit. Keswick couldn’t focus. He could barely summon the energy to answer her myriad questions. He spoke absently and shot an occasional furtive glance down the table, where Glory and Mr. Sommers were talking of equine bloodlines. He ate little, said less and partook of the wine freely.

  After the last course had been cleared, Keswick allowed the footman to pour him another glass of port. He tossed this one back as quickly as he had the first and nodded when the servant silently offered again.

  Around him, the gentlemen talked and laughed around the dining room table. The women had gone through, and the men enjoyed their masculine solidarity with rich wine and expensive cigars, but Keswick’s mind wandered elsewhere.

  “Are you all right, old man?” asked Sterne.

  “You do look rather . . . distracted,” Lycett remarked from his seat nearby. “Something on your mind, Keswick?” He sniggered. “Or someone?”

  “Someone, yes.”

  “Oh, ho!” Lycett crowed. “Shall we take guesses as to who it is?”

  “The tavern wench at the Crown and Cock does go on about him,” Sir Blackwell said wryly.

  Keswick ignored him. “You might guess, but it would be of no use,” he told Lycett. “I was thinking of an old gypsy woman.”

  “Why?” Lycett frowned. “Is there an encampment nearby?”

  “Not that I know of. No, I was recalling a night in Covent Garden.”

  “Tell us,” Sterne urged.

  He looked around at the men at this end of the table. Several were looking the other way, toward Tensford, asking about the next day’s plans, but a few waited expectantly for him to speak. He sighed. “It was late, but things were still in full swing in the Garden, as is often the case. Walking through, I saw an old gypsy woman in a decrepit stall. I don’t know which looked older or more worn, but she and her stall were both draped in colorful cloths. The wood of the structure looked wormy, as if only habit and the dust of the place kept it upright.” He paused and took a drink. “The strange thing was, I’d been in that part of the Garden a hundred times, and I’d never noticed her there before.”

  “Odd,” said Sterne.

  “Yes. She sat outside the place, smoking a pipe. She called out to me as I passed and invited me in. She said she would tell me of my past lives. If I untangled the troubles I’d been through already, they would lend clarity to the path I walked now.”

  “Past lives?” Sterne mused. “That Eastern belief that we are born again and again, a new person each time?”

  “Such balderdash,” Lycett scoffed. “It doesn’t sound very English to me.”

  He said it as if there could be no greater insult.

  “Nor did it sound so to me,” Keswick admitted. “I walked on and went on my way. Yet, I had the strangest dreams that night and I could not get her out of my mind.”

  “You went back?” Sterne asked.

  “The very next night. But there was no sign of her or her stall.”

  “What nonsense,” Lycett snorted. “If you want to occupy your mind, you should do better to think about what spot you’d like for tomorrow’s shooting.” He turned away. “Tensford, I’d like to lay claim to the blind near the bend in the river where the sand stretches out into the water.”

  “I don’t believe there is a blind located there,” Tensford replied with a frown.

  “Surely there must be. I gather you’ve invited Mr. Stillwater to shoot with us?”

  “He invited himself, rather,” Tensford admitted. “But he was a friend of my father’s, so I indulged him. How did you know of it?”

  “I ran into him in the village, and he mentioned it. He had a great many questions about where we would be shooting and about that spot near the river in particular.”

  The conversation turned to the next day’s sport, but Sterne ignored it. “It’s an interesting idea, isn’t it?” he asked, leaning in. “Past lives?”

  “Yes. Frightening, too.”

  “Frightening?”

  “Yes, when I imagine what a bounder I must have been, to deserve some of this life’s trials.”

  Sterne looked as if he would like to debate the point, but someone called his name, and soon, he too was drawn into the debate over the best spot to shoot from.

  It left Keswick alone with his drink again, wishing he’d gone into that tent, long ago.

  The old gypsy woman might have given him some advice that could have him avoiding the current mess he found himself in. Or perhaps—she might have told him of the many sins he’d committed before—and he would know for certain that this quagmire was the punishment he deserved.

  That Vernon girl. She was rep
roof in human form, if ever there was one. Who would have thought that she would get herself to Gloucestershire and find a way to insinuate herself into this house party? She was tenacious, he’d give her that, but it was too damned difficult to find any other qualities to admire in her.

  Glory, on the other hand, possessed so many appealing qualities a man would need an abacus to number them—and yet she failed to see them for herself.

  It was that vulnerability that had dropped the first stone into the calm and placid waters he’d finally achieved. The ripples had spread, however. Her lively humor and charming wit, the entirely familiar way she could care for others and still remain wary of them, the way she could stand toe to toe, challenging him with a smile, her inner strength, and outer loveliness, they were all great boulders she tossed at him, stirring up foam and swells and waves within him.

  Stirring up feelings.

  Bloody hell, but she’d defended him once more. Well, extricated him, rather. And heaven knew, he’d needed it. Appreciated it. Felt knocked quite askew by it—by her perception and her willingness to step in on his behalf.

  On his behalf.

  It made him wild. It made him want to weep a little.

  He’d felt affection before. Want and need and longing. He’d experienced them all in familial and romantic directions. He’d spun adrift in their currents, and they had all led to loss. Pain. Grief.

  A sharp bark of laughter made him look up.

  “Still lost in Covent Garden, Keswick?” Lycett laughed loudly at his own joke. “Come back, man, and give us a lark.” The man shook his head. “I don’t mind telling you, I’ve been waiting. We heard all manner of things about your reputation when you first arrived. We’ve expecting a dust-up out of you, but you’ve disappointed us so far.”

  At the head of the table, Tensford straightened in his chair and put aside his cigar. “On the contrary, Mr. Lycett, Keswick has been an exemplary guest in my house. If you are disappointed in any aspect of our party, you must lay the blame at my door.”

  “No, no, that’s not what I meant.” Lycett threw up a hand. “No offense meant, sir, to either of you. It’s just we’d heard the stories, you must understand. We’d heard of women and gambling and drinking and racing and all the fun you get up to.” He looked around the table. “It’s just, we’ve been waiting to see a sign of it.”

  Keswick stood. “You are right, sir.”

  For the last several years he’d been all tumult and shambles on the outside, while remaining calm, ordered and untouched on the inside. Somehow, since coming to Greystone Park, he’d got turned inside out.

  He gazed at Lycett. The man seemed very far away. They all seemed . . . distant.

  “Are you going to get us up a lark, then?” Lycett asked eagerly.

  “No, but I do thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For reminding me of who I am.”

  He was going to snag a bottle of brandy and walk down to the village. He was going to buy rounds of honeyed mead at the Crown and Cock. He might get in a fight and he rather thought he should take Betsy upstairs and give her the swiving she’d offered up his first evening there.

  Turning, he stalked out the door.

  He was going to get back to himself.

  Chapter 13

  The frogs and the night birds provided the music for her, although Glory did hum a few bars here and there as she practiced Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot. She’d come out here to the long field by the river to practice her dancing, before tomorrow morning’s lesson. She’d needed air, and a bit of freedom and the certainty that she wouldn’t be interrupted.

  The gentlemen in the house were rowdy tonight. They’d gathered in the billiards room—not far enough away to keep her from hearing shouts of laughter, smelling occasional wafts of cigar smoke, or worrying she’d be caught out in the ballroom.

  She was practicing, because, as much as she hated to admit it, both Hope and Mr. Thorpe had been right. She was getting stronger with repetition. Not that she was exactly graceful, but she’d begun to get the particulars of the rhythm, spins and turns of this particular dance. What she needed now was stamina—she still could not make it all the way through the full dance without pain and fatigue in her weak leg.

  She’d chosen the far end of the field, past the wide curve in the river, where a line of shrubs topped the bank. If she danced in front of them, she would not be so visible from the road, should someone venture past. Not that they would, so late. She felt quite safely alone, save for Poppy’s comforting presence, so she hummed and carried on for as long as she could, before she sat on the bank for a rest and tried to breathe in the peace of the scene.

  It was a lovely night, with a soft breeze and the murmur of the river and the stars shining so brightly overhead. She concentrated on them, instead of the place on the bank where she’d kissed Keswick. She stared hard and saw the stars had begun to fade a little across and downstream, as the moon started to rise over the trees. The dance of moonlight on the water more than made up for it.

  Poppy nickered at her, then went back to cropping grass. With a sigh, Glory stood and went to begin again. Miss Munroe had been correct, too. She should arm herself with as many weapons as she could—she would need them all when she went to London next year.

  She had to face facts. She was going to have to go and partake of the Season, as Hope wished. Any secret fantasy about Lord Keswick saving her from such a fate had to be rooted out, ripped from where it had been hiding, tucked away, down in her inner recesses.

  He was a good man. She felt it—a truth that lived in her very bones. She knew he’d done something to help that street sweeper, just as he’d helped Tom, the stable lad, find a better life.

  He was generous and kind—and he didn’t want anyone to know it. He made her laugh, made her feel comfortable and safe, made her feel alive with a soaring passion—but he didn’t want her to do anything about it.

  She’d thought she had something to offer him in return for all of those grand feelings, but she had been wrong.

  She’d thought he might need her in his life. She’d thought he’d needed a friend, a feminine point of view, a woman who could act as a confidante and sounding board.

  She’d had doubts about whether he would allow her close, but now she suspected he didn’t need her close. Clearly he didn’t lack for feminine companionship. Lady Tresham was mostly bored and overdramatic and Miss Vernon was more than a little forward, but put them together with Betsy the barmaid and herself—and even here in the country’s limited society, the last thing Keswick lacked was women in his life.

  With resolution, she pushed on with her dance. She would master it. And perhaps another. She would let go of silly, girlish dreams and deal with the realities of her situation.

  She stretched her arm out towards her imaginary partner. She made the turn and stepped forward, then back. Now to cross behind her neighbor in line, and to form a graceful arch just as Mr. Thorpe always urged . . . but in thinking too much about her arms and lines, she lost track of her feet. Her weak leg stumbled, then twisted in the wrong direction. Flailing wildly, she went down.

  She lay curled in the grass for a moment, breathing deeply.

  “Curse it all,” she said, rolling over onto her back. But no, that wasn’t nearly strong enough to voice her anger, dismay and frustration. Frowning, she searched for really good curse word.

  “Damnation!” she said loudly.

  It felt good.

  “Hell and damnation!” she yelled at the sky while her feet pointed right toward the spot where she’d kissed Keswick.

  A sudden rush of tears started to flow. They leaked from the corners of her eyes and ran back into her hairline.

  “No!” Her own weakness infuriated her. “I will not cry!”

  Yards away, Poppy’s head came up. Her ears pricked toward the bridge. She snorted a warning.

  Glory froze. What? What had alarmed her mare? No one would be out here now. But wha
t else could it be? There used to be boars in the forest. But they were long gone, weren’t they? A dog?

  Poppy snorted again and stamped a foot. Glory braced herself. She had to get to her feet. If a wild dog—

  Something dark blotted out the sky above her, just as she started to sit up. A head. A man’s head, bent over from behind her.

  “God in heaven, are you all right?” he asked, just before her forehead cracked into his.

  * * *

  “Scorch and burn it!” Keswick clutched his forehead and reeled back.

  “Ow! Oh . . . Ow.” Glory collapsed back onto the ground. “Keswick? What are you doing here?”

  He stared at her while probing his brow. “What am I doing here? I’m going to the village. The question is—what are you doing out here?”

  “I . . . Nothing.” She rolled to her side and climbed carefully to her feet.

  “Nothing?” he said in disbelief.

  Wincing and holding her head, she gestured toward the bank. “I’m going to go and sit down a moment.”

  “Nothing, you say?” He followed her. “You are alone out here. At this hour. Twirling about in the dark like a demented sprite! And you say it’s nothing?”

  Her hand dropped and she looked back over her shoulder. “Truly?” She sounded horrified. “Did I look demented?”

  “The fact that you are out here alone at all is demented. What were you doing?” A stray, unanswered question popped into his head. Something Miss Munroe had said. “Dancing lessons. Is that what you are up to? Dancing?”

  “Apparently not.” She sounded truly upset. “Apparently I am doing my best impression of a demented fairy, convulsing under the moon.”

  The moon did chase quick, shining streaks throughout her hair, which had been pulled loosely back and bound at her nape. He forced himself to look away. She started toward the bank again, her back stiff and her shoulders slumped inward. “I’m sorry. I should not have said that.” He’d distressed her. “I was just surprised to find you out here.” He touched his forehead. “And I was in pain.”