How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3) (12 page)

As he had observed last night at his sister’s farm, Diana seemed smaller than he remembered, more fragile. It brought out his protective instincts, he supposed. When he saw her stumbling along in the rain without her coat, he had thought only of her safety, of the need to rescue her. He was almost overwhelmed by it. How quickly that gallant desire had transformed into the need to bribe a kiss from her reluctant lips. And now to demand more, for his forearm rested across her lap and every stride of the horse caused his sleeve to brush her muslin and the legs beneath.

That little bit of contact had an extraordinary effect on Nathaniel and sent a procession of wildly passionate images through his mind. He thought about riding off with her, never taking her home at all.

Now why on earth would his mind wander that way when he was determined not to forgive her, not to let himself fall into old traps?

“You bring out the wicked in me,” he muttered, bewildered and not knowing why he still felt this way for a woman who had rejected him so heartlessly.

“I do not suppose your
wicked
ever goes very far away, Captain. Men often have a much more difficult time abandoning the follies of youth, so my mother says.”

She had to keep mentioning her mother, didn’t she? That was enough to cool any man’s ardor. “And what do you think? If you have a separate thought in your head that was not put there by your dear mama.”

“On the outside you are a chameleon and can alter to suit your surroundings. But within, you are what you always were.”

“Which is?”

“A cheeky, flirtatious scoundrel who lives to be the center of attention and would take any opportunity to steal a kiss. From any woman. Even one he cannot have any serious thought about. He likes games. He likes to see how much he can get away with. Just like a boy. And he will never grow out of it, because he does not want to and he does not have to. Let other people bear his responsibilities. Let them stay behind to pick up the pieces.”

“I see.”

“You asked for my opinion.”

He groaned. “I think I prefer it when you are mute with supposed shyness after all.”

“You had better put me down at the bridge or I shall know for sure you have not changed your”—she sneezed so violently she lifted out of his lap for a moment—“ways!”

He closed his arms tighter and more securely around her because she was so wet that he feared she might slip out of his grasp. “You’re ill, Miss Makepiece. It would be careless and ungallant of me to make you walk home from the bridge.” As she opened her mouth to argue, he added, “By all means, lecture me again about propriety and Miss Austen’s gentlemen heroes. I’m sure not one of them would leave a lady in the rain to find her own way home. But I cannot win. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.” He laughed without much mirth.

“At least while you rail against me, your lips are safe from being kissed, because the very second they are still, you know a rogue like me will steal from them. I would rather not have the temptation, so do keep chattering and abusing me with your insults, even as I rescue you from the weather and your own stubborn will.”

Apparently she didn’t know what to say to that. By encouraging her to talk he had, ironically, confused her into silence.

Shy? No, she was not shy. But she was wary, so accustomed to living by her mother’s rules that she couldn’t imagine any other way. The opinions she expressed were her mother’s—he was sure—not hers. Perhaps she did not know the difference.

“It surprised me to find you still here, Diana,” he said. “I had expected you to be married by now to William Shaw.” His sister would glare at him or kick him under the table for raising the subject, but it had to be said. “Did your dear mother find something amiss with the fellow eventually?”

She shot him a quick frown. “He married another.”

“So I heard. And left you brokenhearted.” Her gaze went to his lips, and almost at once she looked away again. He thought of what he’d just heard, about her refusing to kiss William Shaw and not wanting to spoil memories. He wanted those memories to be of him, but it was difficult to believe she had fond thoughts of their past encounters. The damn woman hid her feelings so well. Perhaps Lucy had misheard or misinterpreted what she had witnessed in the Bolt.

“I know what it is to be rejected, Diana. To have one’s heart thrown aside and trampled. I know it all too well, but I never imagined
you
would be affected.”

She struggled again, intent on leaping free of him and his horse. “Your heart has never been in any real danger.”

“Why do you say this?” he exclaimed. “Aha! Of course, you think me still a boy for whom life is a jest.”

“That proposal was reckless, thoughtless, and immediately regretted. As you proved by leaving the next day, once you realized your mistake.”

“Mistake?”

“When you woke to a new day, you had already changed your mind and seen the foolishness. Is that not why you left?”

He could not believe his ears. “You did not read my letter, Diana?”

“Letter?” A short, hard laugh gusted out of her. “Now you pretend you wrote to me? There is no need for lies, Captain. It is all in the past. Let us not revisit that error, I beg you.” She seemed to wilt in his arms, as if all the air had gone out of her.

“I wrote to you that morning, Diana. Before I left the village.”

“How very amusing, I’m sure. You should go back to your mistress who waits for you in Manderson. She might believe your lies.”

“My mistress? Do you by chance refer to Mrs. Sayles?” He chuckled, the idea of Caroline being his mistress too patently ridiculous. “Is that what the rumor is now?”

“Not that it matters to me. It is no business of mine.”

“It certainly is not, since you didn’t want me. Even after I opened my heart to you.”

She was not listening. Too busy fretting about being seen on his horse now that they neared the village. “You understand nothing about me if you think I am naive and easily led,” she gasped. “Taken in by your practiced art of seduction. Like all your other
near misses
.”

“Seduction? I only asked for a kiss. How quickly your mind leaps ahead, Miss Makepiece. Tsk-tsk. Must be all those horrid novels you read.”

“You are impossible. You take nothing seriously.”

She had almost elbowed him in the groin. “Diana, sit still before you knock us both off this horse!”

“Now you see me again like this—
poor Diana
—and for vengeance you think it jolly good fun to tease and torment me, bribing me for a kiss.” Ah, her temper was mounting. He knew it because she was listening less and less to what he said, building a conversation with herself.

“Alas, you guessed my dastardly motives. I want to kiss you simply for revenge. And since you can pretend that you were forced into it, you won’t need to feel any guilt. But if you’re going to swoon, please do it after the kiss. I like my victims to be conscious when I use my villainous arts on them.”

Diana muttered scornfully, “In and out of our lives you flit. The moment you grow weary of this village you can be off again with no strings to bind you.”

“I understand Lucy Bridges is not as stingy with her kisses as you are, Miss Makepiece.”

Oh, that she heard. The fussing woman caught her breath. “Yes, Lucy would suit you very well. I’m sure she could overlook your faults. She could be content with a pretty surface. If anyone can put up with you, she can!”

Nathaniel momentarily lost his grip and she slipped out of his arms. It was fortunate that he’d slowed his horse, but she still stumbled. A lady was never supposed to run anywhere and Diana was usually so well composed, yet now she took flight as if he might physically harm her. Perhaps she truly thought he would put her over his knee and spank her as he had teased.

He recovered, leaped down, and caught up with her at the foot of the bridge. “Diana! There is no need to run from me like this. What has got into you?”

She was breathing hard, leaning against the stone wall, and trying to keep a nonchalant face. “I am going home, Captain. There is no cause to chase after me in this dramatic fashion. Kindly go…”—Diana looked around anxiously and then pointed farther along the turnpike road—“go that way, so that we are not observed together.”

“I will go whichever way I choose.” Nathaniel folded his arms.

He could see her trying to hold in her temper, squeezing her lips together. Showing a hot temper would be improper, of course.

“It doesn’t mean I’m following you,” he added. “Why would I?”

One of those dark eyebrows arched and lifted.

Annoyed by the smug, cool doubt and still wanting to lure her emotions out, he exclaimed, “You made your feelings plain three years ago, madam. You need have no fear that I came back for you. I am not that same reckless fool. If that’s why you run from me, you waste your energy.”

She pointed over his shoulder. “Oh, look! A rainbow.”

He turned.

The woman seized her moment and ran off again. But she only got four or five steps across the bridge before he caught her again, lifting her off her kicking feet.

He carried her to the arched door of the old mill at the foot of the bridge and finally set her down. The doors were padlocked, but there was a broad entrance under which they could take shelter.

Diana, who had never imagined being so manhandled in her life, was appalled. But she was also exhausted and could not fight any further.

“You burned my note, I suppose,” he accused, breathing hard, probably from the exertion of chasing after her and carrying her like a sack over his shoulder. “Did you even bother to read it?”

“There was no note from you.” She’d seldom heard of him writing a letter to anyone. To his sister perhaps, but only once or twice in all the years she’d known them. He was notoriously lazy with his correspondence and everyone knew it. How could she believe him now? Why should she?

Nathaniel clearly assumed that William Shaw had called off their engagement. Like everyone else, he couldn’t believe Diana ever made a choice of her own or had any sort of will that was not directed by her mother. But she would not enlighten him to the truth. If she told him it was her own decision, he would only assume in his usual bigheaded way that she’d rejected William because of
him
.

And it was too late for all that. Their moment—such as it was—had passed.

Then there was Lucy. The girl was so eager to marry and she was the merry, sociable sort. Suited to Nathaniel.

In the shifting shadows of the mill doorway he looked like a carved statue of a pagan god come to life. Like a fallen angel with that fair, sandy hair kissed by the memory of summer and those cerulean eyes, so intense and searching. Every woman he met fell under his spell, and Diana—always the quietest girl in the room, always observing—had seen how he basked in the adoration. She didn’t believe he would ever give that up to focus his attention on one woman. One woman could not possibly keep his lively, lusty attention forever. There would be heartbreak, especially if the woman he chose made the error of falling in love with her husband.

Whenever they had danced, Diana had felt people staring at her, as if they couldn’t understand why he chose her as his partner when he could have had any pretty girl in the room. She wondered herself. Mischief, she supposed. Her mama was always right.

“I sent you a message the morning I left, Diana,” he said. “I fired it myself through your bedchamber window with a sling.”

“You did
what
?”

He ran a hand over his face, flattening rain-drenched spears of hair to his brow. “I climbed that damnable oak behind your mother’s cottage. I didn’t want to leave without giving us another chance.”

She tried to think, but her mind wouldn’t cooperate.
Don’t believe him, Diana. He’s a rogue and a charlatan. This is another of his practical jokes, no doubt. Any moment now he will burst his seams with laughter.

Diana sniffed. “What did this supposed note say?”

He frowned.

“And don’t bother making something up, Captain, for I will know you’re fibbing. It comes naturally to you and always did. But I never fell for it, did I?”

The frown broke with exasperation and then reformed with scorn. “Oh, you know me. It was childish nonsense. Just what you would expect. Good thing you never read it.”

“Don’t tell me then,” she grumbled into her handkerchief. “It hardly matters now anyway. The years have passed, and we are both too old for climbing trees.”

“Quite,” he snapped. “Three years is an eternity.”

For me it has been
, she longed to say.

What had his foolish note contained, she wondered, suddenly morbidly curious. He seemed embarrassed now to tell her. Had it been a hastily scrawled line,
Will you marry me, yea or nay?
That was how life was for him—easy and straightforward. He never saw potential problems.

Suddenly Nathaniel seized her hand. “We should start again, Miss Diana Makepiece, and put the past behind us.”

“And why, pray, would we do that?”

He lifted her gloved fingers and pressed his lips against her knuckles.

“Captain?” she demanded.

He met her frown with a narrow-eyed, somewhat menacing appraisal. “Your opinion of me might improve.”

“Well, it could hardly get any worse.”

Nathaniel’s hand tightened around hers and tugged her closer. “I am not all bad. We may become friends.”

Skeptical, Diana tried to retrieve her hand, but his grip was too strong. “I wouldn’t hope too hard, Captain.” She admired his spirit; she envied his lively manner and his fearlessness. But to feel more for such a capricious man would be a mistake. “I think you should—” A dark, devious twinkle sizzled in his blue eyes and made her draw an anxious breath. “Do not think of it!”

He blinked, but the wicked sparkle remained. “Do not think of what?”

“
That
. It is not proper!”

“I’m afraid not. It is, however, necessary.”

“Captain Sherringham, if you dare—”

The words were stolen away as his mouth lowered to hers, claimed her lips. She’d said the wrong thing, of course. In his case, saying “if you dare” was like waving a red rag at a bull.

Diana was almost lifted off her feet, left to hover on her toes as he took his kiss. His tongue touched hers and stroked it gently. A raindrop that fell from his eyelashes to her cheek was warm and soft, tickling her skin as it trickled down the curve like a tear and finally gathered on the ridge of her jaw. Until the tip of his tongue followed it and then licked it away.

She was stunned speechless.

“If you don’t believe me about the note,” he whispered, his lips warm against her ear, “ask Jamie Bridges. It was his sling I used.”

Every inch of his hard body was pressed against her, and in her wet clothes she had little defense. He must feel her heartbeat. She might as well be naked. The wicked thought flashed through her mind as if he had put it there with his kiss.

“Ask him,” he repeated. “Unless you’re afraid.” A flash of white teeth showed as he smiled. Oh, that lethal charm. He would never lose it. “The world might tip upside down if I was proven honest for once.”

Nathaniel’s eyes shone down at her and she was caught up in their brilliance, like a fly trapped in a spider’s web.

“I once fell out of a tree for you,” he whispered, sounding bewildered.

“That would explain these bouts of madness,” she reasoned.

“You don’t want to believe me, do you?”

“It’s not something you should be proud of, Captain. It was a remarkably foolish thing to do. If it’s true.”

He raised his other hand to her brow and stroked a stray curl away. “I can show you an interesting scar if you’d care to see evidence.”

Fortunately a rumbling sound warned of wheels approaching and broke through the threads of gossamer that held them both enthralled. He released her hand and she tumbled dizzily back to earth.

“I do not want us to part under a cloud,” Diana said as she stepped into the shadows to avoid being seen by whoever passed. “Let us say good-bye this time as
friends
, not in anger.”

“You can be friends with a—what was it—a cheeky, flirtatious scoundrel? A moment ago you made me sound like the worst of men.”

“This cold has shortened my temper. As I said, your behavior is none of my business.” She simply couldn’t give him more than friendship; he must understand. Anything more was out of the question. They were completely ill suited in every way.

His horse had followed them over the bridge, cropped at the wet grass for a moment, and then come to find him. Now it nudged Nathaniel’s shoulder with its long nose and whinnied.

“The rain has eased, so perhaps you can walk me home, Captain,” she said.
What harm could that do?
she thought. Perhaps they
could
part civilly, as friends.

He looked away from her, his jaw set hard, his lips pressed angrily together.

“It is for the best, Captain,” she added. “You have many other prospects and—”

“Prospects?” he snapped, turning back to glare at her. “Oh yes, tons of women who want me to kiss them and would never run away as if they thought I wanted to chop them up with an ax.”

“Well, then.” Diana forced a smile.

For a long moment he stared at her, then finally he bowed his head. A drop of rain fell from the tip of his nose. He took the horse’s bridle and walked out the doorway. She hesitated, not certain what he meant to do, but then he gestured that he would help her mount. Apparently words were beyond him.

It was not a sidesaddle, but she could manage if she sat carefully, and they didn’t have far to go.

Nathaniel walked, leading the horse and letting her ride.

* * *

That kiss had been a mistake. It only served to remind him of what he couldn’t have. He suspected she was lying to him about not reading his note. But how quickly he had forgotten that he despised her, he mused.

It was troubling, infuriating.

When they reached her mother’s gate and he helped her down, she kept her eyes averted.

“Good-bye then, Captain. I wish you well,” she said stiffly. “May all the harsh words be forgotten and do say we shall part as friends.”

It was as if she was performing for an audience, giving a demonstration of how adults should behave. He knew she taught music lessons now to supplement her mother’s income. Did she also teach etiquette to bored young people? He could imagine her rapping knuckles with a hard stick.

Her mother must be watching. That was the audience for whom she was acting out this display of nonchalant politesse.

Nathaniel found it impossible to speak, so he bowed, opened the gate for her, and watched Diana walk into the house. She did not look back.