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

Was it only three years and six months since he last saw her?

“Diana.” The name burst out of him, just when he thought his tongue was frozen by her icy regard. “
Diana?
”

She was so changed, frail and faded.

“Captain Sherringham,” she replied, her voice tired, her head bowed as she looked down at her trapped skirt again. “You’re back.”

The weary resignation in her voice irritated him. He might as well be a returning infestation of greenfly, he thought angrily. Now she would not even look up, intent on hiding her face.

He recovered enough to reply with his customary jocular teasing. “Yes, I am returned, but don’t worry. I shan’t blot the horizon long with my presence.”

“That will be a pity for some ladies, I’m sure. You’ll still find some addled enough and at liberty to seek a rake’s company.”

“Good. I do love a woman with a taste for merry thrills.”

“And thrillingly merry bad taste.”

She wrestled with her skirt, but since she didn’t have the physical strength to secure her escape, her actions became more frantic and even less effective. The large fellow now noticed her struggle and tried to move his chair, but only succeeded in dragging the leg further along her skirt and rending a larger hole in the hem.

Where was her husband? Nathaniel wondered. Why did William Shaw leave his wife unattended?

Nathaniel folded his arms. “I came over to make this gentleman move off your gown, yet I hear not a word of thanks.”

“Fortunately, Captain, I haven’t been waiting around for you to save me,” she muttered.

“I didn’t imagine you had. It would have been foolish to do so, since you gave me my marching orders once before.”

“For a man with itchy feet, marching orders are a gift.”

“Itchy feet?”

“A man who is never still, never content, must always be going somewhere. Running away.”

“
Running away?
” He was incensed by that comment. She dared to accuse him of that after what
she’d
done to him—left him standing on that bridge like a simpleton? She might at least have come to say good-bye. He didn’t expect miracles, but would a few words have been too much? They might have parted under better terms, and he could have apologized for his undignified proposal.

Her face in shadow, she said, “As my mother says, some men won’t stop running until they trip and fall face-first into a grave.”

Ah yes, the delightful Mrs. Makepiece. She and her opinions were always mentioned sooner or later. “Speaking of which”—he spat out the words—“I almost mistook you for your mama tonight.”

He heard one inhaled gasp, and then Diana gave another furious tug to her skirt. Apparently a pricked temper gave her the needed burst of strength at last. Her skirt ripped free of the gentleman’s chair and she walked away without another word, torn hem trailing after her.

Somehow moving his feet in the other direction, Nathaniel returned to the refreshment table. But he decided against refilling Caroline’s beverage or his own. His hands trembled with so much anger that he might be tempted to smash the punch bowl to the ground.

“I say, aren’t you that Captain Sherringham?” A woman standing by the cake was squinting hard at him.

He didn’t recognize her. She was short, plain but well-maintained, about his age. Her lips gathered in a tight pout as she awaited his answer—almost as if admitting his name would be the same as confessing guilt of a crime.

“Captain who?” he murmured.

She stared hard, a deep line forming between her brows.

“Ah, wait!” He held up a finger. “Sherringham. That dreadful, brazen fellow from whom no innocent young woman was ever safe. Gambling debts up his backside. No responsibility. No discipline or willpower. Terrible habit of drinking too much and swearing in polite society. Never out of bed on the right side of noon, countless women left ruined in his wake when he
runs off
.”

She blinked rapidly. “Well, I—”

“Never met him before in my life.”

“But you—”

“And frankly, madam, I am shocked and offended that you would mistake me for that reprobate.”

Turning swiftly on his heel, he walked away. Whoever she was, let her swallow that with her cheesecake.

He knew what they all thought of him, but they were about to be surprised.

Captain Nathaniel Sherringham was no longer the rudderless, jolly rake everybody loved to mock. He was a man of determination, purpose, and considerable means.

He was also a man who had learned not to lead his life as if it were an open book.

Yes, he was back. And in control.

Things were going to be different this time.

The air in her mother’s parlor seemed excessively warm and stale the next morning. Diana thought perhaps she was still suffering the effects of last night’s debacle, but glancing around at her friends and fellow book society members, she saw them all in some state of similar discomfort.

Lucy Bridges had requisitioned an old copy of
La Belle Assemblée
to fan herself so violently that she’d wafted half the dried petals out of a dish of potpourri beside her. Meanwhile Justina Wainwright dabbed her perspiring forehead with a jam-stained napkin, subsequently leaving a few sticky crimson blobs above her eyebrow. And her sister-in-law, Rebecca, resorted to loudly puffing out unladylike breaths, while popping open the buttons of her lace chemisette. Since there were no men present, Diana supposed it was safe to allow some exposure of skin, but really she ought to do something to cool the air before the unveiling went too far. Where Rebecca was concerned, one could never be sure what she might do next, and a petticoat lifted to the knee may soon occur if this heat was not alleviated.

It was good cause to open the window, she decided hastily. Her mother did not care much for an open window this early in the year, but she cared even less for too much bosom and ankle on display.

Having opened the parlor window, Diana returned to her chair and reached over to pour the tea, just as Sarah Wainwright—the society’s youngest and newest member—bounced with sudden excitement and exclaimed, “You will never guess who I saw at the Manderson Assembly Rooms yesterday.”

Diana temporarily lost control of the teapot’s spout, splashing tea into her saucer and across her mother’s second-best tablecloth.

“A notorious”—Sarah lowered her voice and glanced nervously at the parlor door—“
adulteress
!”

Rebecca Wainwright passed Diana a napkin to help mop up the spilled tea. “An adulteress? Good Lord, and in Manderson of all places.”

“It is quite true,” Sarah insisted. “She was pointed out to me. A Mrs. Caroline Sayles.”

Diana dabbed at the tea stain and gave a small sigh of relief, for she had expected another name to fly out of Sarah’s mouth. Until she remembered that Sarah Wainwright would not know Captain Sherringham by sight. He had left the village shortly before she came to live there.

“They say Mrs. Sayles has run off from her husband
five
times,” added Sarah, eyes popping.

“Goodness,” Rebecca exclaimed wryly. “If I were her husband, I would have changed the locks.”

“Well, it seems he has now done so. It was a most scandalous divorce and all over the London papers.”

“You shouldn’t listen to gossip,” said Justina Wainwright primly, but then she leaned forward. “What did the adulteress look like?” Always eager for lurid details, she was probably looking to use them in whatever story she was currently writing.

“Nothing very special, I must say. For an adulteress, I expected something quite different. But I can report that she wears an excess of rouge.” Pausing, Sarah glanced sideways at Lucy Bridges, who was halfway through a jam tart and had bulging cheeks that were suspiciously robin’s breast in hue. “But apart from that, I saw nothing extraordinary about her. She looked like any other woman of middle age, just slightly sillier.”

“Middle age?”

“About thirty,” Sarah replied. “Although all the powder and rouge might make her look that old.”

Diana bit her lip and stirred her tea violently.

“I do wish I could have gone to the dance and seen the adulteress,” exclaimed Lucy, scowling fiercely at the crumbs left on her plate. “It is most unfair that I cannot go anywhere more interesting than these book society meetings for another fortnight at least. Papa has forbidden me to leave the village or attend any functions in mixed company.”

“You are in mourning for your grandmother,” Diana reminded her.

“Yes, and thanks to her, I have missed the last assembly dance of the season.”

Rebecca gave a scornful snort. “How inconvenient for you that your poor grandmother chose this month to shuffle off her mortal coil.”

“Well, she didn’t even like me and made no bones about it, so why should I feel sorry?” Lucy glanced over at Diana. “Oh, and by the by, before I forget, Mama asked me to thank you for the scones you brought over. Although they were not very well risen and rather hard, she said since you have naught else to do, perhaps you might make us some more. Little Timothy devoured four and he’s such a troublesome eater usually.”

Before Diana could explain that they were not scones but Welsh cakes, Lucy turned back to the others and snapped, “Grandmama said I was a terrible, flighty girl and that I should be shut away in an attic with nothing but bread and milk until I was beyond my
most trying age
.”

Rebecca laughed, and Justina, seated beside her on the sofa, said, “I fear that would have been a long wait.”

Lucy stuck out her small chin. “Oh, you are all so clever and smug now. But I remember, Jussy, when you were always in trouble, and it was not so long ago when you were getting me into it too! Before Mr. Wainwright came here and married you.”

“You make it sound as if he tamed me.”

“Everybody says he did.”

“I can assure you he did not!” Justina straightened her shoulders in protest. “I tamed
him
, if you must know.”

Rebecca intervened with her shilling’s worth. “But Luke says you’ve made his brother much naughtier than he used to be.”

“I made him smile more. Is that a crime?”

“It depends, dear Jussy, upon the methods you employed to achieve that smile.” At that they both chuckled until Lucy dropped her cup into her saucer with a clatter.

“Oh, don’t start cooing again about your dratted husbands,” she cried. “I am rendered nauseous by hearing about them and their latest gallant deeds every time we come to this stuffy parlor. We’re supposed to be discussing the book.”

Lucy was usually the last person present to show any interest in the book they read, but little pleased her these days. She had been foundering in a permanently sour mood ever since her mother birthed yet another baby boy that winter, giving Lucy the pleasure of
six
younger brothers. This was bad enough, but when her curmudgeonly grandmother’s demise severely curtailed what remained of her social life, that was the last straw.

Diana looked on as her friends bickered. It seemed as if there was too often tension in their book society meetings, and they no longer had sweet, even-tempered Catherine Penny to bring peace in her gentle manner. Since she had moved away from the village to become Mrs. Forester, the loss of her steadying influence was greatly felt. Diana might have taken over the role of adjudicator, being the eldest remaining in their group, but as an unmarried lady past her prime, her consequence was naturally diminished and she slipped further down the order of precedence with each passing year. No one would listen to her advice.

It was young Sarah who made a valiant effort to steer the conversation back into pleasanter territory. Glancing at Lucy’s even redder face and tightly pursed lips, she said, “But I must tell you more about the dance. Oh, and Samuel Hardacre was there, Lucy, in a very smart new coat and asking about you.”

“I am also heartily sick of
that
subject,” Lucy snapped. “Since I wasn’t there, but forced instead to sit home in black ribbons and eat flat, burnt scones, what does it matter to me that you danced so many times that you wore out your slippers? Or that a man who smells of damp wood chippings, has rough hands, and wears his hair too long asked after me? I am quite sure I wouldn’t give a sixpence for that dreary, oafish carpenter, and you may have him for all I care.”

“But I don’t want—”

“Oh no! Of course the village carpenter is not good enough for a Wainwright, is he? I, however, the daughter of a lowly tavern keeper, can expect to get nothing better.”

“Lucy, I’m sure Sarah didn’t mean to—”

“Go on then, rub salt in my wound! Remind me again that I was not there while you danced with every eligible man in the county! That I am almost
one-and-twenty
”—she emphasized the number by pressing a fist to her heart, as if it cost her blood to say it—“and should be out finding a husband. Yet I am stuck at home every night in mourning for a woman who despised me. I have no prospect of any good company or handsome bachelors in sight. I have no escape! I suppose you will finally feel sorry for me when I too am twenty-seven, have lost all my opportunities, all my looks, and am destined to die an old maid.”

As her tirade drew to a shuddering, impassioned halt, every other eye in the room turned sheepishly toward Diana. Three teacups were hastily raised in unison. A fourth—Lucy’s—was merely banged about in its saucer, for she was too caught up in her own problems to realize that mentioning the specific age of twenty-seven was sufficient for everyone present to know whom she meant.

Diana felt a headache coming on again. Or perhaps it was the same one from last night and it had not yet left. “Shall we turn our attention to the book then?” she asked.

They all hurriedly agreed and Diana gave another small sigh of relief when Sarah opened their borrowed copy of
Persuasion
and began to read aloud.

He was at that time a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit, and brilliancy; and Anne an extremely pretty girl, with gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling. Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly anybody to love; but the encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. They were gradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love.

Diana, once previously resolved to avoid memories of Nathaniel today, now found thoughts of that reckless man thrown into her path again.

Should she mention seeing him at the dance in Manderson? If his sister later discovered he was there, would it not look strange that she kept the information to herself? But raising the subject seemed a challenging prospect. Until she had actually laid eyes on him yesterday evening, she had not known how his return would affect her.

Her pulse, she had found, still changed its rhythm in his presence and threatened to embarrass her.

He annoyed her so, made her nervous, made her forget her composure. There was also, so she’d discovered, a twinge of…regret.

It made no sense.

She’d turned down his marriage proposal for very sound, practical reasons, and even if she had suffered some vexing, nervous emotion the next morning, his swift abandonment of the village immediately after suggested that he’d come to his sober senses, seen the truth in her words, and realized the futility of pursuing her further.

Her mother—always right about so many things—had pointed out that Nathaniel was neither reliable nor sensible. He relished a deliberate ignorance when it came to bills and responsibilities. His manners, while open and charming, were never restrained but shared equally between all the women he knew.

“He probably flirts with you, Diana,” her mother used to say, “merely because he knows how it torments me to see you being made an object of ridicule.”

One could never tell with Nathaniel where the jokes ended and the real feelings began. Part of her didn’t want to know. Facts were easier to deal with than emotions. Her mother, the greatest influence in her life, dealt in facts and therefore so did Diana.

Sarah read on in her clear voice.

Captain Wentworth had no fortune. He had been lucky in his profession; but spending freely what had come freely, had realized nothing…

The man, as her mother had said, was rootless, a gambler. He spent money as fast as he made it, had no appreciation for the polite ways of society, and seemed to make his own rules. All true, and he would gleefully admit it to be so. It was part of his awful charm that he knew his own faults and never tried to deceive anyone about them.

Such confidence, powerful in its own warmth, and bewitching in the wit which often expressed it, must have been enough for Anne; but Lady Russell, saw it very differently. His sanguine temper, and fearlessness of mind, operated very differently on her. She saw in it but an aggravation of the evil… Lady Russell had little taste for wit; and of anything approaching to imprudence a horror. She deprecated the connection in every light.

There was also an underlying worry for Diana’s mother, another reason for her disapproval of Nathaniel. Mrs. Makepiece had eloped with a man of whom her proud family did not approve. The mésalliance was brief, for he died early, but as with most missteps in life, the consequences of it stretched on. He had left his young wife with a baby daughter in her arms and a sack full of debts on her back.

Since most of her haughty family had snubbed her, Diana’s mother was forced to rely upon the charity of an unwed brother who was then the parson of Hawcombe Prior. She became his housekeeper, and when he died, he had left them a small annuity and a few bits of china. The new parson did not require a servant, so she and Diana had been forced to find new accommodations.

Then the Sherringhams came along and Mrs. Makepiece found herself paying rent to the eccentric, salty-humored major, her new landlord—a man she considered socially inferior. Oh yes, her fall from grace might have obliged the lady to take in private pupils for French and music lessons, but her pride remained undented. She still thought her blood finer than that of anyone in the village.

Shortly after the Sherringhams arrived in Hawcombe Prior, Diana’s mother wrote to her very grand relatives, seeking forgiveness for past sins. These fine cousins, the Clarendons, had finally begun to acknowledge her again, and the sinking lady grasped desperately at this slender branch.

“You must know, Daughter,” she exclaimed once to Diana, “that any close association with Nathaniel Sherringham—a young man of no breeding, no manners, and no fortune—will finish us completely with the Clarendons. And certainly do him no favors either.”

Again, her mother’s advice was perfectly sound. It was evident that with his looks and charm Nathaniel could find a richer prospect, a wife with many more advantages. Diana was not lively like him and did not bring smiles to a room simply by being in it, the way he did. She preferred shade and quiet corners from which to observe the action. Nathaniel needed the sun. He thrived in it.