How To Build The Perfect Rake (5 page)

‘Very agreeable,’ the girl replied, tone
indifferent. Olympia was female and so did not rouse much interest,
it was plain to see. Her attitude helped to explain why the divine
Carisse had no close female friends, certainly.

‘Carisse is having a very nice time although
it is all quite exhausting.’ her mother said, taking up the
conversational burden.

‘I’m sure it is. You must both be very busy.
Why, Carisse is the loveliest girl in London, so she must not have
a moment to herself.’ Olympia observed sweetly, hoping she was not
overdoing the sugar. Fortunately, neither mother nor daughter was
inclined to look beneath the surface and readily accepted this.
Carisse actually smiled at this while her mother bridled with
pride. It was a frightfully toadyish thing to say but nothing less
than blatant would suffice with these two. If she were going to
push Luc’s cause, she had to get to know the wretched female
somehow.

‘Now then, Miss Grayson,’ Mrs. Houghton said
playfully, ‘you’ll quite turn my girl’s head!’

Already been done.
If the Houghton’s head were any more turned she
would be looking where she had come from as she walked down the
street. ‘Oh, but it’s true,’ Olympia murmured. ‘Everybody says
so.’

‘How nice of you to say so. Isn’t that
sweet, Carisse?’

‘Very sweet.’

Olympia’s undoubted sweetness having been
agreed upon, they spent another few moments in desultory
conversation before she excused herself, having first enquired if
she may call upon Carisse for ‘I do not know many girl’s in London
as yet.’

This suggestion was warmly welcomed by Mrs.
Houghton and mildly approved of by her daughter and, duty done,
Olympia felt she could retire from the field triumphant. She had
been in two minds about securing an introduction because really,
the Houghton was clearly hard work for anybody who had an ounce of
sense. But fate had seemed to decide her direction all along and
clearly it was telling her to take a hand in Luc’s future. Rake’s
training or not, he would probably need all the help he could get
if he were to secure the affections of his beloved and if Olympia
could find a way of pushing his suit forward then she was duty
bound to do so.

‘Although,’ she muttered to herself,
watching the blonde beauty across the room ten minutes later, ‘I
cannot help but think that duty should not be so very onerous.’ For
what in the world would she and Carisse talk about? She could
already sense they had nothing in common. Less than nothing, unless
it was the subject of Carisse herself. Which, she suspected, it
probably would be. Olympia sighed and went to find a likely man to
dance with. Perhaps, if she flung herself into the proceedings she
could shake of her impeding sense of dread.

Chapter Three

By the middle of June the
unseasonable heat of May had dissipated a little, allowing London
to move about more freely for the heat had been accompanied by a
enervating humidity that had becoming increasingly trying to
the
ton
.

The turn in the weather had brought the more
familiar grey skies and when Luc tooled back into town he was
running ahead of a squally rain that had been threatening since sun
up. He made it to Jermyn Street just before the first fat drops of
rain began, handing the reins of his curricle to his tiger as he
landed on the street, hurrying up the front steps. Jacobs opened
the door and looked him over with a lugubrious eye. If he was
impressed by the sharp cut of Luc’s jacket or his newly acquired
hairstyle, the butler hid it remarkably well, merely stepping back
to allow his master ingress.

‘Jacobs,’ Luc drawled, handing him his coat,
gloves and hat. ‘Anything of any interest happen while I was out of
town?’

‘No, sir.’

Of course it had not. The city could have
undergone earthquakes, fires or a mighty apocalypse but Jacobs
would not fine it noteworthy enough to comment on. Luc had merely
wanted to practice his new, carefully cultivated air of languid
inquiry. It was a difficult thing to pull off but he thought he had
its measure; just a hint of lazy indifference, combined with a
healthy dash of bored amusement.

He had experienced a busy but, he hoped,
rewarding three weeks. Lord Howe had been a surprisingly acute
teacher and had drilled Luc like an infantry captain, running him
through his paces with malicious efficiency. It was quite true that
Luc was not, in any real sense of the word, a rake. But he thought
he might manage to behave like one and that was almost as good as
the real thing, for all intents and purposes. He wished to win over
the interest of Miss Houghton, not seduce all the Season’s
debutantes so authenticity was not actually required. He could
hardly wait to go and show Olympia the end results of his
efforts.

So it was, at two o’clock that afternoon he
called around to Martin Street and requested an audience with Miss
Grayson. A familiar visitor, he was shown immediately into the
drawing room where he found Mrs. Richmond dozing over a novel and
Olympia pensively – and not very enthusiastically – embroidering a
sampler. At the sight of him she immediately cast it aside and rose
to her feet.

‘You’re back! Dear heaven’s, you’ve been an
age.’

‘My dear girl, one does not become a rake
over night.’

‘One does not become one in three weeks,’
she pointed out, coming forward, ‘so you can stop playing
fool.’

‘Miss Grayson,’ he observed softly, taking
her outstretched hand and bowing over it, ‘how charming.’

This brought her up short.
She paused, head tilting a little as she regarded him, brown eyes
searching his face. ‘The nonpareil hairstyle,’ she decided, after a
moment’s consideration, ‘a version of the windswept.
Very
nice and it suits
you rather well, although how you finally got it to cooperate is a
mystery. Clothing sharp but not those of a fop
or
a dandy, top boots shining and
the neckcloth…’ she paused, wrinkling her nose a little. ‘Is it the
Oriental?’

He grinned, unable to help himself. He knew
that of all people, Ollie would be the one who he could not pretend
with. She knew him too well. ‘The virtues of having four
brothers!’

‘Credit where it is due, if you please. I
have remarkable powers of observation. You entrance was rather
good, I must say. That tone of voice.’

‘It’s devilish hard to get right,’ he
confessed, glancing at Aunt Flora who had begun to snore softly.
‘Ah… should we wake her so that I can pay my respects?’

‘Do you have an urgent desire to hear how
fragile her nerves are? She had a set to last night with Lady
Asquith and has been fretting about it all morning.’

‘Lady Asquith?’ he tried to picture the
woman and came up with a plump, middle-aged woman much like
Florence Richmond. ‘What is the problem?’

‘Something about a dress. Or possibly a
bonnet. They share the same milliner and the same dress maker so it
could be either one. But never mind about that. Tell me how it all
went.’

‘Rather well, actually. Howe really is a
dreadful rake but he came up to the mark. But only tell me,’ they
moved across to a sofa that stood before the window and sat down,
‘what’s been happening? Has… has Miss Houghton accepted an offer as
yet?’

‘Well she isn’t engaged, although both the
Duke of Branson might be making inroads and Mr. Falstaff is a
contender. Lots of money and he writes poetry to her beauty.’

Luc frowned. ‘How sickening.’

‘It is, really. Actually, Carisse seems to
attract a lot of poets. They’re always penning odes and sonnet to
her beauty. Not to my taste, although I have to admire men who are
prepared to read such stuff out loud in front of strangers. That
takes real courage.’

He chuckled. He had missed Olympia. Her
conversation was always a breath of fresh air. ‘But how do you know
about Branson?’

‘I have insinuated myself into the
Houghton’s good graces,’ Olympia said, rather grimly. ‘I only hope
you appreciate how I have suffered in your absence.’

He eyed her suspiciously. ‘In what way…
insinuated?’

‘Become her friend. Or as near as one
becomes friends with Carisse.’ She did not elaborate on how wearing
the girl’s singular self-obsession was. Conversations were not so
much conversations as monologues on her various self-obsessions.
Was this dress quite right, was that hairstyle becoming enough? Did
Olympia really think that ass’s milk applied regularly to the skin
could keep the complexion radiant?

‘For you have freckles, Miss Grayson,’ she
had observed, narrowing her eyes at the small spray of pale beige
dots that lay across the bridge of Olympia’s short nose, ‘and so
you probably know of such things.’

‘I don’t, actually.’ Olympia had returned
wryly.

‘But don’t you try and get rid of them?’

‘I don’t really think of them at all. I’ve
had had them since I was quite young.’

Carisse had shaken her head, astonished at
this cavalier attitude. ‘How odd.’

Generally speaking, that was the most
attention she paid to Olympia, demanding to know her opinion on
whatever beauty product was mentioned in the women’s periodicals
she pored over. ‘Honey, applied to the skin with a linen cloth is
meant to clarify the skin,’ she would observe, face bent over the
page. It was the only time she seemed to read. Fashion and beauty
advice were grist to her egocentric mill. Mrs. Houghton seemed to
encourage her so it was little wonder that the girl had such a
narrow view of things.

‘For my Carisse’s face is her fortune,’ she
had confessed to Olympia one day as they were walking in Hyde Park,
‘and it will secure her the kind of future that I have always
wished my little girl to have.’

‘She certainly is beautiful,’ Olympia had
commented, watching the girl engage in multiple conversations with
her usual gaggle of males. They seemed to come from nowhere
whenever the Houghton appeared, forming up a devoted assemblage of
worshipers. ‘I am sure she will receive a great many favorable
offers.’

‘Oh yes,’ Mrs. Houghton had replied
serenely, ‘I only need to wait for exactly the right one.’

It was, Olympia had reflected, good to have
a plan.

It was curious, but in the weeks that she
had taken pains to know the girl better, she had discovered Carisse
was somebody she could almost pity. It was odd, for on the surface
there was nothing to feel sorry for her about. She was beautiful,
confident and assured of her stellar place in the universe. But
such single-mindedness also made her vulnerable, for what would
happen to her when her looks began to fade, as they must? To have
nothing to fall back on, to not be able to engage the mind – or,
more importantly, the imagination – must be a dreadful thing.

‘As long as she marries somebody who will be
kind to her,’ she murmured, almost to herself.

Mrs. Houghton had given an indulgent laugh.
‘As if any man could not be kind to such a creature as my
Carisse.’

Which only went to show how little the silly
woman knew of the world, Olympia decided. She herself had been
gently brought up and as protected as young woman could be and yet
she knew that not all men – or women – showed their true face to
the world. But she forbore to say anything further, knowing that
her companion would not understand such quibbles.

‘So I am back in time, then,’ Luc said, with
some relief.

Olympia looked at him for a long moment. She
had not thought that Carisse would suit him before she had come to
know the girl better and she thought it an even greater mismatch
now. Luc, for all his amiable naivety, was an intelligent fellow
who enjoyed all manner of pursuits, many of the cerebral. It was
one of the things that had bound them together in friendship, their
shared love of books. She could not conceive what he would have to
talk about with Miss Houghton, if he were unlucky enough to win her
hand.

‘Do you
really
mean to marry
her?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘I have come to know her better now
and, while I do not find her as dreadful as I imagined, she has no
real sense of… of the world. In fact, she is remarkably
insular.’

‘That is because she has not seen the world.
When we are married I will take her around Europe, let her explore
history.’

Olympia stared at him. Carisse and history,
she suspected, had absolutely no interest in each other but how to
explain that to her besotted suitor. ‘So you’re going ahead with
it?’

‘Of course,’ he looked surprised. ‘What do
you think the past three weeks have been about?’

‘You being idiotic?’ she
shook her head. ‘I have to say, I shall be interested in how you go
about this whole rake thing. It is not as if you are unknown in
Society. People
know
you’re nice.’

‘People don’t really know
me at all, fortunately. I spend too much time in the country for
that. It’s all right. I have thought this through and I believe it
can be done.’ He sounded so confident that Olympia had no choice
but to accept it. And really, what was the worst that could happen?
That he might look like a complete goose? Or that the Houghton
actually accepted his offer of marriage… Yes, Olympia decided with
an inward frown, that probably
was
the worst thing that could happen.

‘When are you making your great debut?’ she
asked, deliberately making her tone light.

‘That’s the thing. You don’t happen to know
where Carisse is going to turn up next, do you? I have a pile of
invitations at home but I’ve no idea which one to go to.’

‘She’s going to some silly poetry reading
tonight.’