How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3)

Copyright © 2016 by Jayne Fresina

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Cover art by Judy York

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Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Back Cover

To Cat Clyne

“We certainly do not forget you, so soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us… All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest when existence or when hope is gone.”

—Anne Elliot,
Persuasion

1815

Halfway up a tree…

Sometimes a man had to go out on a limb.

Captain Nathaniel Sherringham, a gambler who had dangled at the end of a great many theoretical limbs, and frequently lost his shirt there, was nothing if not persistent. But for once he found himself quite literally up a tree and potentially about to lose more than a linen shirt.

Still, if he ripped his breeches and got stuck while climbing this tree, it couldn’t be for a better cause. Hopefully, the note he carried in his coat pocket was about to impress Diana Makepiece enough that she’d give him another chance to plead his case, this time while he was sober. Whatever his means of getting that note into her hand, she ought to be moved by it. And should he amuse her by getting trapped in the branches or savaged by blackbirds in the process of delivery, all the better.

Despite her haughty manner, Diana had struggled to hide her chuckles if he walked into a wall, or got poked in the eye by a lady’s ostrich-feather headdress. With her dark sense of humor, she’d take delight in seeing him stranded up there, and if he fell a few feet and broke something, she would be even more amused. Mayhap he could arrange a black eye too. The hilarity would surely bend her double, but only when no one might witness her elegant shoulders relaxing.

“Captain Sherringham,” she would say in her somber voice, and with her querulous eyebrows on alert, “I would have sewn you some wings, had I known you were trying to fly.”

Oh yes, Nathaniel’s misfortunes were frequently her source of private glee. Yet, perverse as it may seem, this was the woman he wanted and he was not giving up yet. Diana had recently suggested that his optimism in the face of impossible odds was part of his “wretched” charm. That was enough to give him hope.

Now here he was, inching along creaking tree limbs, making one last attempt to win Diana over before he left Hawcombe Prior, risking his new buckskins in the process.

It was fortunate that although the early morning air pinched his skin with cold fingertips, frost had not yet set in. There was certainly little else in his favor as he scaled the oak tree behind the cottage where Diana and her stern mother lived. Nothing more than reckless bravado.

He looked down to the gnarled roots where he’d set young Jamie Bridges on guard. When he whistled sharply, the boy turned his sleepy face up. Nathaniel jabbed two fingers toward his own eyes and then pointed at the cottage. Jamie nodded, frowning a little, and leaned back against the tree trunk, waiting for the penny he’d been promised and the safe return of his sling. He was possibly the world’s most disinterested lookout.

Nathaniel couldn’t get much higher in the tree, so it was time to take his chance. He knew her window; it was open. Diana had told him once—in a rare, unguarded moment—that she liked to sleep with fresh air blowing in, even when it was winter.

He took the folded note out of his pocket. The small square of paper was tied with string to a crab apple, which he estimated would give it just enough weight. Carefully, he aimed the borrowed sling and fired. His message flew gracefully across the short distance and through her window, bypassing any other barriers. Such as her mother.

All that remained was to wait and see if Diana came to the old bridge to meet him. If she didn’t, he would set off on his journey and never think of her again.

The branch across which he stretched gave an ominous creak, and he suddenly had no need to worry about his descent because the law of gravity saw to it for him.

“Never seen a grown man climb a tree before,” young Jamie grumbled, scratching his head and looking down at Nathaniel’s sprawling form.

“And you haven’t now. Remember?” He groaned. “Not a word to anyone.”

“Don’t get all aerated, Sherry. I ain’t stupid.” The boy yawned. “I ain’t the one climbing a tree for a woman already engaged to marry another.”

Indeed, Nathaniel thought with an inner groan of despair while brushing dead leaves from his uniform jacket, when
would
he learn to give up on a lost cause? But he was a gambler, wasn’t he? It was what “Sherry” did best.

Which, much to his chagrin, wasn’t saying an awful lot for his other abilities.

1819

Just when Diana thought she was safe, hidden successfully from the biggest nuisance in Buckinghamshire, that shrill voice rang out. “Ah, here I find you, Miss Makepiece, perched in the corner, quiet as a church mouse.”

For a petite woman, the parson’s wife created a surprisingly large cloud of dust and a considerable rumpus as she plowed through the dancing crowd to collapse on a chair beside Diana.

“Gracious, you ought to make some noise and move about once in a while, or you might fade entirely into the wall plaster.” The lady chuckled at her own wit. “That won’t improve your sad lot in life, will it, poor dear?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mrs. Kenton,” Diana muttered. “Sometimes the idea of invisibility is not without appeal.”

“What’s that? Such a timid little voice you have, when you use it at all. Your presence is so easily overlooked that I am surprised you have not been sat upon.”

Apparently Mrs. Kenton paid no heed to her husband’s sermons about the meek inheriting the earth.

Digging a fork into her slice of cake, she dramatically regaled Diana, and everyone seated nearby, with the story of her struggle at the refreshment table. In that place of greed, violence, and malice, she’d been elbowed in the eye, thumped about the head by a fiercely wielded reticule, had her slippers stamped upon until she was certain every bone in her foot was broken, and bravely thwarted the near theft of her best lace handkerchief. Any listener unaware that her quest had merely been for cheesecake might think she’d survived a riot at the Bastille.

Some people underestimated the advantage of being quiet and unnoticed, Diana mused, gazing up at the rafters. Woodworm larvae, for instance, were possibly burrowing away up there, munching tunnels capable of bringing the entire structure down upon the dancers’ heads. Yet the stealthy little creatures went about their business without making a sound heard by the human ear.

If only certain people did the same.

The parson’s wife choked on her cake and, in a wheezing breath, exclaimed, “I am underwhelmed by the selection of refreshments. Had they invited me to join their committee, I would have set them straight, but they must have been too afraid to ask me. I am always so busy with all the other duties I take on, I daresay they did not want to impose.”

“Naturally. There could be no other reason for excluding you.”

“Two shillings to get in and another
sixpence
just for tea and cake. Exorbitant prices for a small town hall! It’s not the Upper Rooms at Bath, for pity’s sake.” Having set the empty plate in her lap, the parson’s wife briskly fanned the underside of her chin. “You have eaten nothing and you are so very thin. It borders on unsightly. A lack of padding on one’s bones is terribly aging, you know. Will you not have some cake?”

Yearning only for solitude and for her bones to be left in peace, Diana shook her head.

“Sarah Wainwright looks very well this evening,” Mrs. Kenton continued in Diana’s ear after only the briefest of pauses. “Such an amiable creature, now that
I
have pried her out of her shell. As I warned her—and as I tell you—a young lady who is painfully reserved and too often mute in company risks ending her days friendless and unloved.”

There was a difference between being mute and choosing not to say aloud every stream of thought that came to mind, thought Diana.

The parson’s wife continued. “But Sarah really ought to be told that shade of yellow does her no favors. With a sallow complexion one must be so careful, and if only she would take my advice for the dressing of her hair.”

Oh, why did people feel the need for conversation, even above the music? Unless someone needed to warn of a fire breaking out in that crowded place or to inform her of a rampaging madman with an ax, Diana could think of nothing so urgent that it needed to be howled into her ear by Mrs. Kenton, who leaned close enough to disturb Diana’s ringlets with the blast of every annoying word.

“She was such a gaunt little thing when she first arrived. Thanks to my intervention, she has grown into a handsome gel these past few years.”

Handsome
. Diana’s jaw tightened. That particular tribute always felt begrudging to her, as if the givers couldn’t bring themselves to say the object of their discourse was truly pretty. When used as praise for a younger woman, it was a consolation prize, one of which she had, on several occasions in her youth, been the recipient. Only once had a man called her “beautiful.” And then look what had happened. Unaccustomed to such bold declarations, she hadn’t known what to do with herself or how to respond.

And where was he now, for all his grand talk? Gone more than three years without a word to anyone he once professed to care about. Typical.

Some would say Diana only had herself to blame.
Ha!
As if it mattered to
her
where the most irritating, unreliable man went or why. It was no surprise at all that he’d taken himself off in such dramatic fashion. One could only stir up a modicum of astonishment that he’d left the place fully clothed, apparently with both boots still on his feet, and without bloodshed.

In an effort to relieve her headache, Diana relaxed her previously clenched jaw, tipped her head back very slightly, and let her gaze seek airy space above. This resulted in her sighting a trapped sparrow that fluttered about the rafters of the old hall. With every swoop of the confused bird, her own inner distress grew swiftly.

“Perhaps Miss Sarah Wainwright will have better luck than you, dear,” Mrs. Kenton continued loudly, every unencouraged syllable clanging through Diana’s sore head and causing several folk standing nearby to glance at her over their shoulders in pity and bemusement. “’Tis a great shame you never had the benefit of my friendship and advice when we were that age.”

Diana thought that if Mrs. Kenton’s “friendship” had been used upon Napoleon ten years ago, the war would have ended much sooner than it did. The lady’s talents were wasted in Buckinghamshire.

“I would have found you a husband, Miss Makepiece, before it was too late and you’d lost your bloom. Now here you sit, twenty-seven and all hope gone.” The lady began to hum loudly along to the music, causing several folk nearby to turn as if they thought a bee had invaded the room. Mrs. Kenton paused again and exclaimed, “That young fellow dancing now with Sarah Wainwright seems very keen and attentive.”

Suddenly Diana could not sit silently any longer. “But young men can often appear to be something they are not. When the next prettier thing crosses his line of sight, probably with a larger dowry and a significant bosom, he will promptly forget Miss Wainwright and her amiable handsomeness. All men are duplicitous and fickle.”

The parson’s wife looked at her in surprise, pausing the rapid motion of her fan.

Diana sighed. “The perils of pushing a quiet person to speak, Mrs. Kenton. Unfortunately, you might not always want to hear what they’re thinking.”

After that, the lady kept her vociferous commentary mostly directed at the ears of the luckless soul on her other side.

Oh dear
, thought Diana,
I let my temper get the better of me in a public place
. That was not proper and very unlike her. She decided it must be due to old age and the fault of this hall, where noise and memories persisted.

Compounding her weariness, Diana was recovering from a spring cold, which had left her not only in low spirits and with a pimple on her chin, but also with weakened patience for too much clamor and vitality. A most unfortunate circumstance since she was now surrounded by an abundance of both.

“You
can
take Sarah to the Manderson assembly on Tuesday, Diana, can you not?” Rebecca Wainwright, Sarah’s stepmother and one of Diana’s dearest friends, had exclaimed in a hurry as they’d left church on the previous Sunday. “It is to be the last dance held there until September, but I have too much to do. With the baby so fractious and teething, I do not like to leave him…and Luke does not return from London until Wednesday, so he cannot escort his daughter. Justina has her hands full with her little tribe and cannot get out.”

It was, of course, a well-known fact that unlike her friends, Diana had nothing else to do, having no husband, children, or house to manage. Unwed and past her youth—halfway to death, if one listened to the parson’s wife—she was a woman in want of purpose, always reliable and available.

“Mrs. Kenton insists she can chaperone and she won’t take no for an answer, as usual,” her friend had added with an urgent whisper, “so you must go too, for balance, or I fear Sarah will not forgive me.”

So there Diana was, trying to keep the peace and make everybody happy—a state for which any decorous, well-raised lady should always strive.

Diana raised her fan again to hide that stubborn, vexatious pimple. Still hoping to relieve her pounding headache, she was about to close her eyes when she heard a woman’s voice above the music and stamping. A voice other than Mrs. Kenton’s.

“Oh, Sherry! You are so very bad! What can one do with such a naughty fellow?”

Diana felt time stop. The music faded. Trying to hear more from the people standing somewhere behind her, she had tipped so precariously to one side that she almost fell out of her chair when Sarah Wainwright abruptly shot out of the crowd like an arrow from a longbow. “I broke my fan!”

Diana stood quickly, feeling as if she’d been caught doing something she should not. With a quick smile, she exchanged the broken fan for her own. “I’m sure you need the cooling benefit more than I do, since you are dancing.”

Sarah thanked her profusely and then exclaimed, “You look very pale, Diana.”

“Do I?” Raising an unsteady hand to her cheek, she pressed it there, hoping to encourage some color back again. “Perhaps I was not as recovered from my cold as I thought.”

“You poor dear,” Sarah exclaimed, grasping her hand. “I shall fetch you some cake.”

“No. Thank you. Although cake is the cure for a great many ills, I have no appetite for it at present.”

“How tired you must be. Your hand is so cold, even through your glove! We should go home at once. I will ask for our carriage to be brought around to the steps.”

Cold? How could she be cold in this stuffy hall? Diana assured the girl that she was perfectly content to wait for the last dance. She didn’t want to spoil the evening; these events were far too important for eighteen-year-old girls.

Having urged Sarah’s return to her eager partner, Diana casually moved back toward the wall until she felt a sturdy beam at her shoulder.

Her mama was right, as she so often proved to be. Diana should not have come out to Manderson before she was fully recovered. She should have—

“Good God, it’s been so long since I was here,” a male voice exclaimed on the other side of the beam. “The old place hasn’t changed though. Not a bit.”

Diana froze, clutching Sarah’s broken fan so tightly that the horn cut into her palm through her glove and would leave a red dent in her skin. For one startled intake of breath she thought he had addressed his comment to her, but he had not, of course. He was not even aware of her presence. Thankfully. She wished for the wall to absorb her completely, as Mrs. Kenton had warned her it would. The pimple on her chin throbbed, and she was sure it grew larger by the second.

“And are your memories of the place sweet, my dear Sherry?” his companion inquired. “I daresay you charmed many young ladies in this room, you sly devil.”

“A great many.”

“But never one in particular?” the woman demanded, her tone coy.

Diana stared at the nearest candle flame as it stretched tall, undisturbed by the slightest draft while she held her breath.

“No one in particular,” he said. “You know me, the more the merrier.”

Their voices moved away, merging with the general commotion, and Diana finally exhaled with such a hard sigh that the bold candle flame nearby was nearly extinguished. Still partially wedged behind her beam, she slowly turned, scanning the crowd for a sight of his sun-kissed head and that ridiculously well-carved physique.

A stout gentleman moved aside, taking a cluster of women with him, and Diana found the owner of the name—and the laugh—that had plucked her attention out of the weary void. For the first time in more than three years, there he was, his fine, foolishly arrogant profile smudged by candlelight.

He was back. Of course he was, she thought scornfully. He’d returned after all that time, just when she looked her very worst and had a pimple the size of a holly berry on her chin. When else might he possibly return but at that very moment? She would have laughed out loud at her own misfortune, if she’d had no fear of being heard and looked at.

Yes, there he stood. It was him, and no denying it.

Captain Nathaniel Sherringham, “Sherry” to his closest friends.

The most frustrating, infuriating man she’d ever known. A man who dared accuse her of having vinegar in her veins and a heart like an icehouse.

The irreverent, imprudent gambler who once in utter madness—and very probably in his cups—had proposed marriage to her.

The man who had once called her beautiful, but to whom she was now apparently “no one in particular.”