Rakes and Roses (Proper Romance Regency)

by Josi S. Kilpack

  He felt he should be relieved by her explanation, but he wasn’t and didn’t understand why. “You are certain you would never change your mind and want . . . more than friendship from me?”

  She finished setting up the chess pieces. “Yes, Mr. Stillman, I am certain. Not only have I no interest in marrying, but I am five years your senior, and, if I might be so bold, I am your superior in class, wealth, and life experience. Even if I were open to a relationship in general, it would never work for us; the balance is off.” She smiled patronizingly now. “But we get on well and seem to understand one another enough to be friends, which is quite nice, is it not?”

  Harry let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “That is such a relief to hear.”

  Her expression turned skeptical. “Some men would feel insulted.”

  “Well, yes, I mean you have just told me I am stupid and low-class and immature, but . . .” He paused to consider what he could appropriately say, but then realized he’d already broken all bonds of good manners and might as well say all that he felt. They were friends, after all, and could therefore be honest with each other.

  “I enjoy your company very much, Lady Sabrina, but I have so much to learn about this new kind of life I want to live. Thank you for helping me to learn those things I should already know, such as how to be friends with a woman. I fear the years I have spent in such filthy dissipation have kept me from learning what a young man should have learned during those years. I want . . .” He took a breath and held her gaze. “I want to be the kind of man that a woman like yourself might want to be with someday, and I feel overwhelmed by all I have to change about myself to become that sort of man.”

  “Does this mean you are reconsidering marriage? Two nights ago, you seemed as set against it as I am.”

  “I am reconsidering everything. If I am to be a responsible man who is not ruled by vices, then perhaps I can be a husband and a father and—”

  He stopped as he saw her catch her breath, the way she did when he winked at her or complimented her. Yet he’d said nothing of the sort. She quickly repaired the expression, and he decided to continue.

  “I see a very different life ahead of me, and I am eager to make up for lost time in learning how to live it. But I am in no hurry. There are a great many things I need to prove, to myself most of all, before I can be confident of offering myself up as a partner to someone else. I suppose I am beginning to think ahead, that is all.”

  She smiled, masking anything he thought he might have seen in her expression. “I have no doubt you will triumph in that life, Mr. Stillman. You are a man of intellect and growing insight that will guide you on this journey now that your goals are set and your mind is clear.”

  “I cannot tell you how much it means to me to hear you say that, Lady Sabrina. I respect your opinion very much, and that you could have a good opinion of me after all I have put you through is priceless to me.”

  She nodded and looked away. The air had changed, certainly because of the raw honesty of his thoughts. The old Harry would never have done such a thing, and she likely was not used to such openness either, though she had handled herself with grace and elegance.

  “You won our last chess match, though it was under less than virtuous circumstances, so you have the first move,” she said, turning the subject completely, which he appreciated as he had no idea how to do so himself. He would remember the technique, however, for later days when he would need to restore comfort to an awkward conversation.

  “I am a rule-following man these days, so I shall accept my position.” He leaned forward and looked over the board, then glanced up at her.

  She was also leaning forward, which left only two feet of distance between them as she surveyed the board, surely mapping out a dozen moves and countermoves before the game even began. This close, he could see the fine lines around her eyes and the texture of her skin, which was not as smooth as most of the debutants come to London for the Season. He had heard many women lament their fading youth as they got older, but he hoped that she did not share that feeling. There was a depth to Lady Sabrina that youth could never claim, and though he wished she would tell him more about her marriage and her younger years, he did not need to know the details to understand that they had shaped and formed her into the woman she was.

  She met his eye, and he grinned to hide his inspection she would likely find offensive. “If I win this game,” he said, “you will call me Harry.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “And if I win?”

  “You continue to call me Mr. Stillman.”

  “That is hardly a prize,” she said.

  “Then, please—name your prize.”

  Two spots of color appeared on her cheeks, but she coughed as though that was the cause. Then she looked back at him and cocked her head—goodness, she was beautiful. It was all right to think that about a friend, right?

  “If I win,” she finally said, “you will write me a poem.”

  “Ah, then I cannot lose tonight regardless of who is victor,” he said, sitting back and moving his center pawn forward. “Let the battle begin.”

  They spoke of politics again—Mr. Stillman was terribly ignorant of the topics of discussion from this last Parliamentary session—and Sabrina tried to keep her focus on that conversation and the game before them. The conversation they’d had when she’d first entered, however, kept circling in her mind. He felt something for her—something he couldn’t make sense of—and though she felt she’d done a good job of convincing him it was friendship, she knew that wasn’t what she was feeling.

  How could she have let this happen?

  When he’d asked her what she would like her prize to be if she won, the thought that had popped into her head was a kiss. If she was not so skilled at keeping secrets she might have said it out loud. And then what? She had just finished convincing him that she would never want more than friendship from him—couldn’t want more than that—yet she wanted to kiss him?

  She glanced up from the board to his mouth. Right now, this moment, if there was a way she could kiss him and have him forget it happened, she’d do it. When his attention was directed her way or even when he was listening to her express her thoughts about one topic or another, she felt . . . wanted. Sabrina had never felt wanted before.

  Her feelings were obviously a result of the situation; she was his caretaker, and he was handsome and charming, and, goodness, he was knitting her a lap blanket. She felt drawn to help him as Lord Damion and oddly responsible for the beating he’d suffered. All that complexity had her emotions tangled up like silks thrown haphazardly in a basket.

  “You support the Tory agenda, then?” Harry asked.

  “Anyone with an ounce of sense supports the Tory agenda. It is the only agenda that has room for the growth that is happening in our country, whether we want it to or not. The Whigs, well, they think they can keep things as they’ve been, but they can’t. The past two decades have shown that. There is no stopping the progress that will continue throughout this century, but if we act wisely, we can improve our society while also preserving the strength of our country, which is the most powerful government in the world.”

  “What long-term consequences do you see from this rise in industry? Textiles, for example? We’ve been so dependent on imports for some of the things we can now create ourselves—what will that do to our foreign trade?”

  He moved his rook, inadvertently putting himself in check. That meant she was two moves away from winning the game . . . and earning a poem from him as her prize. Since she could not ask for a kiss.

  But she couldn’t risk a poem either. It would be too intimate, and after the realizations she’d made regarding her feelings for Mr. Stillman, she couldn’t risk words he wrote just for her. It might lead her to pondering too much on his better qualities, thinking more about his fine face and body and . . .

  She moved her knight on the opposite side of the board. Calling him by his given name se
emed the wiser choice.

  She began explaining her thoughts on the impact of England producing more of their own goods, but she kept her eyes on the board.

  He moved a pawn—not resolving the issue with his rook—which left him in check for a second turn! Sabrina’s competitive spirit screamed in protest, but she stuffed it down and made another insubstantial move, talking the whole time. His sincere desire to learn from her seemed to have led him to listening so hard that he did not see his own folly.

  He moved his rook on his next turn, thank goodness, but now he’d left himself open on the other side. Gracious. She moved another pawn and saw straightaway that she’d left her own hole on the board.

  Harry’s lips turned up in a slow, tremor-inducing grin as he moved his knight into the space she had opened. “Check,” he said, triumphant.

  Sabrina pretended to be frustrated and made a move that looked like she was trying to get out of the mess she was in, but she didn’t try very hard.

  Three moves later, Harry had captured her king. He picked up the piece and balanced it on his open palm. “I won this game fair and square, Lady Sabrina, you know that, right?”

  Breathe. Let it out. She nodded in surrender.

  “So, then, from here forward you will call me Harry.”

  She attempted a weak protest. “I do not think that is a good idea.”

  “You agreed to the terms,” he reminded her. “And it is not such a hard thing for friends to address one another more comfortably.”

  Sabrina stood, knowing she needed to leave. Everything was too much tonight. She smiled, though she could feel the tightness of it. He was watching her with an eager grin. She finally nodded, taking heart in the fact that it wasn’t a poem that might compare her to a sunset or a flower.

  “All right,” she conceded. “You won. Now I shall bid you good night.”

  “You must call me by my name before you leave,” Harry teased, still grinning as though this was just another game. Which it was . . . to him. “I want to hear my name on your fine lips.”

  Fine lips? She swallowed and met his gaze. “Good night . . . Harry.”

  He kept smiling, and she felt every particle of it. Then it softened like a light being dimmed, and she felt his eyes taking her in, moving over her like physical touch. She could not breathe by the time he met her eyes again.

  “Good night, Sabrina.”

  Sabrina was lingering over breakfast and yesterday’s papers the next morning when she received a letter from Mr. Gordon asking that she come to his office as soon as possible. They were scheduled to meet for her monthly meeting on Friday; his summoning her two days early was cause for concern. She was tempted to look in on Mr. Stillman—Harry—before she left, but could not come up with a reasonable excuse. After last night, she needed to be more cautious than ever. She needed distance from . . . Harry. Perhaps a trip to London was exactly in order.

  Were she a stronger woman, she would stay in London until Harry was no longer in Wimbledon, but she did not have such fortitude, and the plans for when he would be ready to travel had not been confirmed. She would stay in London tonight, however, regather her defenses, and then proceed with more caution during the next week and a half he would be at Rose Haven. She had suffered through greater discomfort than this before; she just needed to keep her wits about her.

  She arrived at Mr. Gordon’s office at one o’clock in the afternoon, having taken Molly to her mother’s workhouse on the way because Molly had received a message two days earlier that her mother was failing quickly.

  Mr. Gordon was standing behind his desk when Sabrina entered, and he sat as soon as she took her place across from him.

  “What has gone wrong?” she asked immediately.

  “Malcolm will still not accept the payoff. I have tried every possible way to change his mind—even offered an additional fifty pounds to the fifty you suggested. He insists that either Mr. Stillman or Lord Damion must pay the full amount in person.”

  Sabrina startled. “Lord Damion?”

  Mr. Gordon nodded slowly. “He offered that option yesterday, which is why I asked that you and I meet today. Obviously Lord Damion cannot meet him, which means Mr. Stillman must meet with him in person and pay off the debt himself so we might be done with this.”

  Sabrina slumped in her chair and stared at the tips of her shoes poking out beneath the hem of her lavender walking dress. It was difficult to think of Mr. Stillman as just another one of their foxes, and the idea of him meeting with Malcolm was impossible to consider. Yet she must find a way to be objective.

  When she didn’t say anything, Mr. Gordon continued. “Will Mr. Stillman be recovered enough by Wednesday next to pay off the debt in person? It will have been nearly a month since the attack.”

  Sabrina was still focused on a different aspect. “Do you think Malcolm is attempting to uncover Lord Damion’s true identity?”

  “Yes, I think so. Did you find the letter you gave to Mr. Stillman at the conclusion of that first meeting?”

  Sabrina shook her head slowly. The staff had looked everywhere, and the letter had not materialized. Which meant Malcolm’s men must have taken it. Which meant they must have known that was where Mr. Stillman had been going. Had they followed Mr. Stillman but then lost him before Jack had brought him to the pub? What would have happened if they’d found her that day?

  Sabrina was sick to her stomach at the possibilities. She looked up and met Mr. Gordon’s compassionate eyes. He had been Richard’s solicitor and not hesitated when she asked him to continue to work for her after Richard’s death.

  Creating the persona of Lord Damion had been his idea. Buyers and sellers and partners continually questioned Sabrina’s ability to make decisions because she was a woman, but no one questioned Lord Damion, even though they all knew the name hid his true identity.

  The irony of some people’s willingness to work with an unidentified man over a respectable woman was irritating, and yet the Lord Damion persona had allowed her to become wealthier than most of the men she did business with. She thought back to when she’d told Harry that there were no good men—how had she not thought of Mr. Gordon? Or Joshua? Or Jack?

  “If Malcolm’s intention is to flush Lord Damion out, how far will he go to do it?”

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Gordon said. “But we must take it seriously and use every caution as we move forward. If Malcolm’s intention in meeting with Mr. Stillman is to extract information about Lord Damion, then we are safe. There is nothing Mr. Stillman can tell him that will lead to you—at least not directly. And I do not believe there is any reason for Malcolm to connect Lord Damion with Lady Sabrina.”

  “Mr. Stillman could tell him about The Lost Tartan,” she said. “And Jack.”

  “Mr. Stillman is our only option,” Mr. Gordon said after a moment. “I can impress upon him how important it is to protect Lord Damion’s information.”

  Sabrina nodded, but she felt sick. Sending Harry back to the man who’d had him beaten was wrong. But there was no Lord Damion to go in his place.

  “I don’t see any other choice. I will ask Joshua to travel with him in the unmarked carriage, though I can offer only what help Harry asks of me. The only thing ‘Lady Sabrina’ knows is that he owed money to unsavory people but a trustworthy lender has helped him settle his debts.”

  “Harry?”

  She blinked and pulled her eyebrows together. Was that a question?

  “You address him as Harry, now?” Mr. Gordon clarified.

  She felt herself flush, but Mr. Gordon spared her an explanation. “I shall craft a careful letter encouraging Mr. Stillman to take you into his confidence and to request your help with the meeting. I’m sure I can persuade him that you’re the only person who can help him.” He paused, watching her for a few moments. “And perhaps if he is well enough to travel to London it will serve as a natural transition into his removal from your care.”

  Sabrina was brought up short. “What?”r />
  “Mr. Stillman has remained under your roof because he has not been well enough to travel, correct? If he can manage the trip to London, however, then he can settle into his uncle’s house in Town.”

  The idea of Harry leaving her so soon left her feeling flat, which was all the more reason for her to hurry him on his way. Whatever connection she felt between them was not sustainable and would fade as soon as they no longer shared company.

  “I shall be prepared to offer whatever assistance he needs for the meeting and leave the coordinating with his uncle up to him, unless he asks me for help,” she said, standing. She avoided Mr. Gordon’s eye for fear of what he would see in hers. “Please keep me informed of the correspondence between you and Ha—Mr. Stillman, and between you and Malcolm. Joshua can go along to ensure that Malcolm does not hurt Mr. Stillman further in an attempt to extract information.”

  She turned to the door and heard Mr. Gordon hurry around his desk in order to let her out. “Are you all right, Lady Sabrina?” he asked.

  She nodded quickly, still avoiding his eyes. “Yes, thank you.”

  But she suspected they both knew it was a lie.

  Sabrina didn’t return to Wimbledon Thursday morning. Or Friday or Saturday or Sunday either. Each morning she woke up with the intention to return but found reasons not to.

  On Friday, she sought out her friend Elizabeth Roundy, who lived in London year-round. On Saturday, she shopped for items she needed for her trip, rewrote her lists, and wrote out instructions for Mr. Gordon on every topic she could think of so that he could reference her advice should something come up regarding her investments while she was gone.

  Mr. Gordon informed her that he had made arrangements with Lord Howardsford to receive Harry at the Mayfield house in London as soon as possible.

  She also wrote back and forth with Therese, coordinating her responsibilities by pen and paper rather than simply talking it over with her.

  Sabrina walked Hyde Park every morning and rested her head against the glass of her bedroom window, looking for her fox every night. She knew very well where her fox was: at her home in Wimbledon, likely wondering what was keeping her.