How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3) (17 page)

“You have never come close to being engaged, sir?” jolly Mrs. Plumtre persisted. “A handsome fellow like yourself, I wager you have broken many hearts!”

“I did think myself in love once, but the lady did not return my affections. I proposed and was summarily rejected.” Nathaniel stretched one leg under the table, found her toe with his, and pressed it lightly. Alas, the impulse to misbehave was still there. He hadn’t quite outgrown it, he realized, chagrined.

Diana raised her napkin to her lips. When he slid his foot under her hem and touched her ankle, she almost leaped out of her chair.

“How terrible!” exclaimed one of the Plumtre girls—he didn’t know which she was, but the expression on her rosy face exuded compassion through the candles. Her sister agreed with a kittenish mewl of sympathy.

“It cured me of the thought of marriage for some time,” he added somberly. “But perhaps it was for the best. I was young and aimless then. I had made no plans for the future, and the young lady was wise to point that out to me. Although at the time I found her brutal honesty hard to bear, I have come to understand her reasons, even if I cannot fully forgive her for the words she used.”

“You’ve never mentioned this before, Sherry,” cried Caroline. “You said there was never anyone special.”

He laughed uneasily.

“You didn’t want a wife, you said, because then you might have to spend every night with her,” she added.

Gazes raced up and down the table, some confused, some amused, at least one lady appalled. Even George blushed. As for Diana, he couldn’t tell. Her brows were still, her gaze lowered.

Nathaniel explained in a light tone, “I meant only that regularly closing one’s eyes for an extended time in the company of a woman does seem a risk, does it not? After all, familiarity breeds contempt, as they say, and a woman in a vengeful rage—as a wife sometimes will be—can be a terrible creature.”

His host agreed wholeheartedly. “One keeps separate bedchambers. And even a bolt on the door to keep a spouse at bay. My wife finds that quite necessary from time to time, what ho, Lizzie?”

This conversation had gone altogether too far for Lady Plumtre. She looked as if she longed for the release of sudden, swift death.

But Nathaniel stole a hasty glance at Diana and caught the slightest twitch that betrayed her lips to be on the verge of uncontrolled laughter again. Her breathing was labored, her delectable bosom rising and falling rapidly in the kiss of candlelight. Like two peaches in a pretty muslin handkerchief, ripe for tasting, he mused.

He cleared his throat with a short cough. “I suppose separate sleeping arrangements are wise. I should not want to give a wife access to my defenseless form while I sleep. Who knows what she might get up to?”

The candle flames fluttered wildly as the ladies around the table reacted with gasps and giggles. Diana threw him a warning look, trying to be stern.

“She could put mustard on my tongue while I snore,” he added, “and shave all the hair off my…head.”

Mrs. Plumtre covered her mouth with both hands. Her eyes were wide one moment, but screwed up with good humor the next, and her shoulders shook with stifled laughter. Her daughter-in-law’s mouth tightened, creases settling around it in a well-established pattern.

“But I suppose I can be brave and submit to the dangers of marriage as other men before me have done.” He chuckled, wiping his mouth on the napkin. “Invest in a few sturdy bolts. For both our sakes.”

“Well, it is good for us that other young lady turned you down before,” Mrs. Plumtre cheerily assured him. “Now my girls will have the pleasure of buying new gowns and bonnets in which to chase you around the Pump Room. The gentlemen’s hunting might be over for the season, but the ladies’ sport has just begun.” She winked, breaking into more laughter that shook her curves and was contagious, sweeping up the rest of her family. Except for her daughter-in-law and grim-faced George, the bereaved fiancé who seldom contributed to the conversation.

The sound of Mrs. Ashby blowing her nose into her napkin like a ship’s foghorn reminded them all of her presence, her lost daughter, and that engagement recently undone by tragedy. Mrs. Plumtre guiltily bottled her laughter and patted George’s hand where it rested beside hers on the tablecloth.

Abruptly one of the Plumtre sisters exclaimed, “Perhaps you are still in love with that lady who refused you, Captain. What if you saw her again? You might feel the same now as you did then.”

“Nonsense,” her sister-in-law said bitterly. “Men do not retain that first flush of desire for long. Their attention spans are not equal to those of women.” She glared in her husband’s direction, but Sir Jonathan was enjoying his salmon and not listening to a word she said.

“But look at Georgy,” the younger girl insisted. “He is still in love with Eleanor, and she’s de… I mean”—she blushed—“she’s not coming back.”

“That’s probably
why
he’s so fond of her,” Lady Plumtre drawled as she picked at her food. “No one is ever quite so well thought of as they are when they’re dead.”

This cold remark, dropped heavily and callously, left another deep hole in the conversation, until Nathaniel, anxious to save Mrs. Ashby’s feelings from further hurt, said quickly, “Well, I can promise you all that since my disastrous marriage proposal to the lady who once spurned me, I have learned my lesson. I have grown up since then. Which, ironically, is what she advised me to do.” He paused for a sip of wine. “I often wonder what she would think of me now. If we ever met again…if I might have improved in her eyes.”

Look at me, Diana.
But she would not look up now. Those green eyes refused to see how he had changed.

Sir Jonathan’s hearty laughter stirred the candle flames again, and then he boomed down the table, “As my mama says, hunting is over, but no doubt you like to ride, Captain. I’d happily show you around the estate while you’re here. I’m planting a good number of new trees and have just begun to build a Grecian folly by the lake. You must come with me tomorrow, Sherringham, and allow me to show off, what ho? Another fellow’s opinion is always welcome, and you shall have luncheon with us at the lodge if the ladies have no objection.”

“I would like that very much, Sir Jonathan.” Nathaniel’s smile was directed at Diana across the table, but she still avoided eye contact.

“You trip along tomorrow and we’ll have a cold luncheon with pork pie and cucumber, eh? Just the thing for a spring day.” Ignoring his wife’s furious scowl, he waved his wineglass at Nathaniel. “And you must call me Jonty. Everyone does, you know.”

“Then I insist that you call me Sherry. It is the name I am most often called by my friends.” The young Miss Plumtres burst into frothy giggles, as if he’d said something remarkably funny. After a moment he realized this jollity was caused merely by his smile. Hastily, he checked the reflection of his teeth in the blade of a knife and, finding nothing unsightly stuck there between them, continued to smile. Why not? He liked to make ladies laugh, of course. Surely there was nothing wrong with it. When he experimented, widening his smile, this produced yet more breathless chuckles and considerable heaving of the young ladies’ bosoms.

Suddenly he looked over at Diana and caught her rolling her eyes. She now turned to George Plumtre, asking him gently about his fondness for poetry.

Nathaniel’s smile faded.

He didn’t think he had behaved too badly. But he couldn’t help his mood being jocular, his spirits light and merry. She was there before him again, so how could he not be happy? He might have said things a gentleman shouldn’t in the company of ladies, but that was her fault. She made his heart beat too fast, and he wasn’t made of stone like her. He’d tried to be when he came back.

God
and
the devil knew he’d tried.

* * *

So that was how he made his money. A brewery. Diana heard him talking more about it after dinner as he and Jonty sat together by the fire, the dogs sprawled at their feet. Her mother would probably not approve of a fortune earned through ale, she mused, so it was just as well he kept the source of his new wealth close to his chest and under his beautifully embroidered waistcoat.

He was not engaged to Lucy Bridges, then. Or Lucy Brydges, she mentally corrected herself, remembering the family’s rise up the rungs of society. The realization that Nathaniel was still unattached swept over her in a cool wave of relief, although it shouldn’t matter so much. Poor Lucy must be disappointed. Hopefully the sadness would soon pass for her. If only the young woman would open her eyes and see how much she meant to Sam Hardacre—but he was a quiet soul who kept his feelings hidden to preserve his pride.

Diana knew all about that and felt great empathy for the man.

Nathaniel would say it was the carpenter’s fault for not speaking up. “Sherry” had no understanding of the difficulties faced by those who were not blessed with an excess of self-confidence.

A smile teased her lips as she thought of his brazen announcement at dinner.
I came to find myself a wife
. Only Sherry would have the gall to say that in the company of several unmarried ladies.

But despite that comment and his lapse at dinner, he definitely was trying to dim the light now. Although he answered the Plumtre sisters’ many impertinent questions, he did so in the manner of a benevolent, patient older brother. The naughtiness he’d exhibited earlier in the dining room was now carefully packed away and he was on better behavior.

He did not sit near Caroline Sayles and seemed cool toward her. There was no sign of affection or even friendship between them. Left alone, Caroline sat with a plate of marzipan on her lap and slowly tasted her way through it, nibbling little pieces of the colored sweets and putting each one back to try another. Although she had complained of an upset stomach earlier that evening, her appetite seemed unaffected. From across the room Elizabeth watched this with ever-increasing horror and kept trying—in vain—to get her husband’s attention so he would take the plate away.

But Diana, who knew what it was to be the target of disapproving gazes and to feel awkward and out of place, felt some compassion for Caroline Sayles. She saw all that discontent and ill-mannered squirming and twitching as nerves. Caroline picked at her teeth, drank too much wine, and frequently adjusted her gown, but since no one engaged her in conversation what else was she to do? She could not leave until the man who had brought her was ready to go. In the meantime, it could not be very pleasant to know that one was being gossiped about, one’s dirty laundry aired by strangers. At some point, Diana supposed, it must chafe upon even the most audacious spirit and cause a callused, toughened skin.

In Diana’s left ear, George Plumtre was reciting some dull, woebegone poetry, reading from the book in which he’d been absorbed earlier that evening. Diana had lost interest several tedious verses ago, unable to concentrate while her gaze traveled across the room and her ears followed, listening for Nathaniel’s voice. But George’s rumbling recital rolled onward with a great deal of emphasis on all the wrong words, jerking her attention back and forth.

“Mr. Plumtre,” she said when at last he finished, “I do think perhaps you might find something more cheerful to read. Once in a while.”

He looked at her. “But I am grieving. I mourn the loss of my darling Eleanor.”

“Of course. Your grief is understandable,” she replied gently, “but you must allow yourself to heal eventually, and wallowing in the constant company of such poetry will not help that process.” Now that she’d begun expressing her opinions out loud, Diana found the process very freeing. And much easier the more she did it.
Best not get carried away
, she thought.
Wouldn’t want to turn into another Mrs. Kenton!
“That is merely my supposition, however. If you feel it is helping you, then by all means continue. You would know what is best for yourself.”

His gloomy face, and particularly his jowls, were on a fast descent toward the carpet. “But why should I wish to heal when I have lost my beloved Eleanor?” He showed her a small oval-framed portrait that fit in the palm of his hand. “It was delivered to me this evening by Captain Sherringham. Now you can see her beauty.”

“Captain Sherringham delivered it?”

“Mrs. Ashby was beside herself and could not manage the task. She asked the fellow to undertake it for her, and he did so in such a kind, understanding manner that I think he must know what it is to suffer a broken heart.”

Nathaniel and his good deeds again. So that was why he had come tonight.

“I see.” Sensing Nathaniel’s eyes fixed on her from across the room, Diana was suddenly very glad she’d gone to more trouble with her dress that evening. It was vanity, but it couldn’t be helped.

Her ankle itched where his toe had touched it under the table. She was quite sure he’d left her stocking marked with boot polish, but she didn’t dare look. Clumsy fool.

“My beloved Eleanor,” George said, snuffling. “How can I live on without her?”

“Mr. Plumtre, it is clear she was precious to you, and your devotion to her memory does you credit. But life must be lived, sir. And as fully as one is able. Otherwise what is the point of it all? Someone reminded me recently that there is a difference between selflessness and martyrdom.”

“But how can I enjoy life without Eleanor? How can I think of myself and my future without her?”

Diana sighed, looking down at her hands. “We cannot sink under the weight of sadness or regret, because that does no good for anybody.” Diana thought of her mother, eaten up with bitterness because of what she didn’t have, never taking time to appreciate what she did have, or that she had been lucky enough to know love and passion at least once. Many people never had that. Or they missed their chance. “We must live life while we have it.”

“You too have known sorrow of the heart, Miss Makepiece? I see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice.”

“I have known disappointment and heartache, yes.”

She wanted to tell Nathaniel she was sorry for her tone of voice all those years ago when she’d rejected his proposal. It was true that she might have let him down with gentler words. Not that her answer could have been anything different. Even if she could have set her other reservations aside—had they thrown caution to the wind and married—they would have struggled financially.