Falling for a Rake

by Pendle, Eve

  “Oh… I don’t know. He might play devil’s advocate with everyone, goading on some and challenging others.”

  Shadowy in the half-light, she could see him running the edge of his coat through his fingers. When she’d held the wool it had been warm, rough, and soft. The feel of a hot summer night rather than the end of this chilly spring day.

  “He might carefully check how much support a particular bill has and ensure that it can go through. On occasion, voting contrary to his beliefs could be useful, when there is no hope of getting a bill passed. It solidifies his camaraderie with unsavory characters who can never be voted out of the House of Lords because they were never voted in.”

  “Dirty work.” He was the strangest rake she’d ever met.

  “Always,” he said. Was there a wry smile in his voice?

  The light was really fading now, and she couldn’t see. “Like a spy, but in plain sight.”

  He laughed. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “And this is what you do.”

  His laughter faded with a little huff. “Me? No-no. I’m just an idle observer.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious. “But you do attend the House of Lords.” She was unwilling to give up the image of him as a justice warrior in disguise.

  “Only to sleep and jeer,” he said dismissively.

  She felt her face drop. It was as though he was shuttered back into cynicism and she was dejected somehow.

  “I find the red benches extremely comfortable. Better than in my own house, where I cannot find any peace for the sheer number of servants buzzing around.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Though what he was saying now was much more consistent with what she’d heard about him. He was said to be the most notorious rake in the country. A ruiner of reputations. A wastrel and a scoundrel.

  It was rumored that he had a mistress in every county he regularly visited. At the Waddington’s soiree he’d been boorish and today he’d chased her. That was why they were in this hole in the first place. She mustn’t forget that because of idle talk that probably wasn’t even about himself.

  “Don’t then.” There was rustle, as though he was stretching out his legs to get more comfortable. “Now. Tell me something.”

  I thought you were dead. The breath clogged in her throat. His body, loose on the ground, rose into her mind and stuck there.

  Something hit her chest and bounced into her lap, breaking the image. She reached forward, and her fingertips touched an angle covered in softness. His hat was laid there. “Instead of throwing a gauntlet, you threw your hat?”

  His laugh was so rich and sweet she could drown in it. “I have gloves too, but a gentleman doesn’t remove his gloves in the presence of a lady. But this is your game. We’re at the bottom of a deep hole. Tell me anything.”

  “I had a fiancé.” It was the first thing that came to mind. James back to the front of her mind after four years of trying to forget.

  “Had? Ah, I see. You’re trying to convince me you are a desirable lady,” he teased. “But you are still a spinster, even if you had a fiancé.”

  “I’m not trying to convince you of anything.” Perhaps herself, but that was a different matter. “You asked me to tell you something. I did.” Idiot. She ought to have talked of ferns. Or her family. Or anything that wasn’t James.

  “Are you a virgin?”

  “Yes!” She was shocked into a truthful retort. “How dare you insinuate otherwise?”

  His shoulder bunched up in a shrug. “You were the one who was trying to convince me you’re desirable by telling me you were engaged to be married. What happened to your fiancé?”

  “He died in an accident.” Her monotone was the same whenever she talked about James’ death. Thinking about James was like picking the scab on a wound. She resisted the urge to babble.

  “What sort of accident?” he queried.

  “A hunting accident.” Dull, nothing interesting. “I thought hunting ferns was less dangerous, but it seems I may have been wrong.”

  “Hullo!” A call from above them.

  * * *

  “Miss Green?” Lady Emily jumped up eagerly. The sound of her brushing off her skirt was like the swish of a whip. He could see a shady movement, but the light was almost gone and he could more feel than see the disturbance in the still air.

  “I’m so sorry. We can’t find a long enough rope. Any rope, actually.” Miss Green sounded genuinely upset and a little panicky.

  They wouldn’t get out tonight. The thought struck him with a grim weight of responsibility. He’d planned to get back in time for his evening visit to Fanny. He wouldn’t manage that now, and he’d let her down. She was a prickly thirteen-year-old, having spent time on the streets and with Barnardo’s home for children. But Portsmouth was not safe for a young woman at night. The threat wasn’t just lascivious sailors, but malicious lawmen too, eager to lock up women.

  Fanny walked to meet him in the daylight. After she told him how her classes, or more recently, her apprenticeship to a corset maker, was going, he sent her home in his carriage. Generous donations to children’s charities ought to be enough, but he cared for Fanny as a proxy. He thought of her as his unofficial ward, despite her fierce independence. He hoped fervently that Jones had received and understood his message and arranged for Fanny to be delivered safely home.

  “What should we do?” Miss Green asked.

  “Did you bring the blanket?” Pragmatism first, whatever the social outcome. It would be better if Lady Emily did not catch a chill down here.

  The promised blanket landed in a flap of rough wool, one corner dragging on the damp floor before he could grab it up. He folded it and offered it up to her. Taking it, she covered her shoulders.

  “It’s growing dark, and thus it’s becoming dangerous.” Emily’s voice wobbled. “As the head of The Ladies’ Association of Fern Enthusiasts and Hunters, I don’t think you should risk blundering into another hole.”

  His heart pulsed unexpectedly. She put the safety of others before her own well-being. He admired that, even if it was unwise for her to stay with him longer than she had to. But they had little choice.

  “I don’t know...” Miss Green sounded lost and confused. “Where should we go?”

  “Stay at a local inn.” Emily’s voice was commanding. “I saw the Red Lion in Salcombe. Ask the landlord about someone hereabouts who has a long rope. Quietly. And then try and get some sleep. In the morning, come and rescue us as soon as it’s light.”

  “But overnight... Will you...” Miss Green’s mastery of the English language did not extend to expressions of indelicate subjects like a man and woman in close proximity overnight in a hole.

  “As soon as it is light, mind,” added Markshall. “But discreetly. It won’t do for Lady Emily to have her character smeared.”

  “Discreet.” The shape of Miss Green could be seen nodding above them. “Yes, I understand. Shall I fetch your father, Lady Emily?”

  “No,” Emily replied immediately. “Yes. Ah.” She shuffled from foot to foot. “Just find a rope and get us out of here tomorrow morning.”

  “Well, I must take your middle answer, as I’ve already telegraphed him.” Miss Green sounded quite pleased with her ingenuity.

  “No one else,” he shouted. The presence of the Duke would make this much more challenging for them both, anyone else risked exposure of the whole scandal.

  Emily nodded in agreement.

  He listened and watched as she reassured her friends above that she would be fine. There was no sign of fear for herself even as the voices of Miss Green and Mrs. Burnham gradually receded, leaving them alone.

  The jolt in his chest was equal parts terrible satisfaction he would have Lady Emily’s company for longer and concern at what the consequences might be. She’d be compromised by being alone with him.

  This was not what he’d intended. On the anniversary of a meeting Fanny, a little girl who’d forced him to change his
view of the world, he observed a ritual. He sought out a circumstance that would reaffirm what he viscerally knew: he’d given up all right to a wife, family, and love, when he’d deserted Lydia and Annie ten years ago. Lady Emily was precisely the sort of righteous woman to remind him who he was. Her fern hunting trip was an ideal place to play the libertine whilst seeking rejection. His hefty donations to charities each year were probably more beneficial, but the penitence was necessary.

  When he’d compromised Lydia he’d been young and arrogant enough to think it didn’t matter. He knew better now, so it was different with Lady Emily. And yet, it was the same. His stomach solidified, as dark, icy and alien as the hole they were in. He wanted to rip at his abdomen, as if he could tear out the part of him that had done this.

  With her clear-eyes, sensible attitude and smooth mid-brown hair, Emily was nothing like Lydia. This would be entirely different, he told himself. He only wished he wasn’t such a good liar.

  Chapter Three

  Emily slumped to the floor, uncaring of her bustle and dress. Tiredness hit her like a stallion at a gallop. Her throat was hoarse from all the shouting earlier and her shoulder ached. She needed a bath and to sit in front of a fire that would envelop her in warmth. Miss Green and Mrs. Burnham had left and there was nothing to do but bear the chilly night. Markshall was just across the small space, but she couldn’t remember the last time she was so frozen and alone.

  Well, she could, but she pushed the memory away with the most distracting, irregular part of this whole escapade. “Were you following me?”

  “Is that a sensible thing to ask, Lady Emily?” His inflection sounded amused, but there was a hint of warning too.

  “Probably not.” It wasn’t sane when they were in a dark place, on their own, for hours and hours until morning and rescue. But it was better than ruminating on James and she didn’t want him to re-open the topic she had been so ill-judged as to begin. But they must talk about something while they were stuck together.

  “You know the answer anyway. Don’t you.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Yes, then. She had known he was following her, pursuing her even. “Why?”

  “That is an even more unwise question.” He sounded like a stern teacher. “Do you really want me to answer?”

  A shiver went down her back. No. “Yes.”

  He sighed, as though resigned. “Perhaps you don’t remember our first encounter.”

  She did. It was at the Waddington’s dinner and ball, a large and glamorous affair. They had been seated together, and she had tried to ignore him and speak to the sensible married men around her about matters like whether a Midlands hedge was superior to a Devon hedge.

  “When we met, or more accurately when I first saw you at the town square a week or so before we were introduced by the Waddingtons, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”

  Her mouth opened in a little ‘o’ of surprise. He had seen her before they’d met at the Waddington’s dinner? And he’d thought her beautiful? “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, that is the interesting thing about the truth,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not it remains the case. You cannot change it, and neither can I. It keeps on being true, even if you refuse to acknowledge it, because it’s a matter of fact rather than opinion.”

  Emily laughed shortly. “Are you haranguing me for finding it incredible that you say you found a spinster, of only ever middling charms, the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen?” She wasn’t under any illusions about herself. A doll-like beauty she was not. “You might as well chastise a fox for running from the hounds.”

  “You have a remarkable purpose in the way that you walk. You have long, striding steps that say, ‘I am going to achieve something’. That attracted me first. When you turned, I saw a stray strand of your hair, escaped from your bonnet. It glistened in the sunlight.”

  Emily felt his words like the caress of warm water, smoothing over her, seeping into her cracks of vulnerability. He sounded sincere, impartial almost. His tone said it wasn’t that he found her admirable and lovely, but that he simply observed it, able to see her when no-one else could.

  What else could he see about her?

  “A moment later, you smiled.” He paused. “It was like I was looking straight into the sun. It was unbearable and perfect.” He sounded wistful.

  Her breath was shallow in her chest and quicker than it ought to be, and she was leaning forwards, toward him. He was seducing her with mere praises, at her own request. She ought to be able to see through it and be immune to such easy flattery, but instead, she was entranced.

  “And it wasn’t for me. You ignored me totally.”

  “Should I continue to ignore you?” She couldn’t overlook him now, any more than she could give up on her affy fern. Would ignoring him keep his interest?

  “Are you saying now, my… interest is reciprocated?” His hesitation and tone gave the question an odd detachment.

  “I ran away from you.” That was then. Now he’d captured her breath and her foolish heartbeat. It had been a long time since she had felt like a woman, with the need to feel beautiful. “I fell down this pit rather than continue our conversation. Does that sound like reciprocating your feelings?” Recounting their predicament reminded her of the wet stone at her back. She was an aging spinster with an obsession of ferns, not a giddy young lady in her first season, controlled by rushes of lust and a fancy for a wealthy, pretty, ladies’ man. Even if he had sea blue eyes.

  “Yes.” His voice was dead, devoid of the flirtatious tone she expected and dreaded. “It does sound like our emotions are in accord in this case.”

  “I see.” But she didn’t. He confused her. A moment ago, his words had been rough with a longing that had lit a corresponding fire in her. Now she was in the cold and the black again. She hadn’t felt this way, no, hadn’t allowed herself to feel this way, since James. She supposed she only had herself to blame. If she had only… If James... If things were different.

  “You snubbed me with the greatest charm and tact at the Waddington’s ball. No-one but me even realized.”

  It was true. She’d sensed his interest, heard about his character, and protected herself with a frosty smile and attention to other gentlemen. That had been in public, where her reputation was everything. Her actions now seemed irrational and unnecessary. This accident was proof anything or nothing could happen, and her reputation might be wrecked either way. She’d worked so hard to be a perfect lady. But she could throw herself into his arms or turn her back from him, and it neither would affect how the moral world saw their night alone.

  “I’m sorry.” In this pit, actions that seemed rational on the surface were unthinkable, and insanity like apologizing for snubbing a libertine was utterly logical. And kissing him seemed desirable.

  He made a huff of almost amusement. “I’m sorry I chased you into this hole.” He paused, then continued more soberly. “You must be freezing. It’s going to be a long night. Come over here. We can share the blanket.”

  He’d tantamount to confessed to wanting her. He was a Lothario, and she was a lady who maintained a reputation so pure that it wiped away the memory of the death of her fiancé without any blemish. She’d been impeccably careful for four years.

  “You’re cold. Come and lean against me.” His voice was caring, as though he was concerned for her welfare rather than his interests.

  “I mustn’t.” That wasn’t no. She should say no. But it was chilly, and she was so alone. “What is your given name?” She needed a new name to chastise herself with if she was to make another mistake.

  “Oscar.”

  And there it was. Her decision was clear. “Just for warmth, Oscar.”

  “Of course.” There was a note of glee in his voice.

  “And after tomorrow morning, you will leave me alone.” No-one but them would know what happened here, this would be isolated. “You won’t seek me ou
t. I won’t see you again.”

  “I always leave a lady alone if that’s what she wants.” There was no rancor in his tone, but his sentence didn’t end on a down pitch. The phrase seemed somehow unfinished, as though there were other words too.

  It was entirely dark now. She couldn’t see him, only hear the even pace of his breath nearby. She moved to sit up, and the rustle as loud as a gunshot in the confined space.

  “I’m here.” His voice came from slightly to her left.

  Tentatively, she crept towards him on her knees, arm outstretched. Her fingers bumped into wool. His coat. Warm hands reached out and guided her around.

  “Here.” He gently eased her backward, his voice rich in her ear. “Sit between my legs.”

  “No,” she squeaked, pulling away. Immediately he released her.

  That was too much. Too close. She settled herself next to him, her uninjured shoulder against his. She didn’t relax, fussing with rearranging her skirts.

  “Tell me about your ferns.” He tucked the blanket around them both. His legs were outstretched, and hers were only just touching. Through layers of wool and linen, she could feel his thigh against her knees.

  “I’m just the same as the multitude of young ladies and people of all ages that adore ferns.” That somehow sounded both pompous and correctly self-deprecating.

  “Mm hum.” He sounded entertained. “Perhaps try actually informing me, rather than assume I know anything about this subject.”

  “I just collect them.” She thought about the portable sanctuary she’d created, with all her equipment and specimens. “My favorite ferns are from abroad and stay in my Wardian case with a miniature jungle ruin scene, like a lost past world.” She’d arranged every fern in it carefully, tending every leaf, and it drew the praise of many fellow collectors. “In it, I have specimens of–”