How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3) (4 page)

He needed a woman who would never be bothered by his flirtatious streak. Perhaps a woman just as capricious as Nathaniel, a jolly girl who liked a good time and didn’t worry about his notoriety.

His proposal to Diana, all those years ago, had been rash, sudden—a gamble, like most things he did. He’d delivered it with his usual lighthearted humor, and the idea of marriage had likely come to him the same way, as a jolly good joke of which he would soon tire. By the following morning he must have come to his sober senses and seen the error in binding himself to one woman.

The belief of being prudent and self-denying, principally for his advantage, was her chief consolation…

But this morning she pondered his laughter again. So confident, hearty, and warm. That sound had not changed. Oh, she hoped life had treated him well. For all his faults and despite his utter unsuitability for
her
, she wanted him to find happiness.

Her attachment and regrets had for a long time clouded every enjoyment of youth; and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect.

He had kissed her once, on the day before he left Hawcombe Prior for the last time.

Appalled that the memory should sneak its way in so determinedly, Diana stared down at her overfilled teacup and watched the liquid surface tremble. She closed her eyes.

It was a kiss taken without her permission, and she could not forget how it felt—the rush of unwanted emotion coursing through her body. She had never known the like of it before or since. That night she had been unable to sleep. Wretched man. What had he done to her?

“Diana?” said Sarah suddenly. “You’re shivering. Are you cold?”

Diana set her cup and saucer on the table and hastily grabbed her knitted shawl from the arm of the chair. Jussy got up to throw more coal on the fire.

Outside the window, Mrs. Kenton was herding a troop of little boys along the lane, chattering at them the entire time as she corrected a skewed hat or a misbuttoned coat. Her husband had begun taking in student boarders to help pay his bills, which gave the lady more to do with her time and her organizing skills, much to the relief of Diana and her friends, who had all fallen foul of her attempts to manage their lives from time to time.

These days Mrs. Kenton was too busy for much more than the occasional remark about fabric choices, the “right way” to dress a bonnet, or how a woman past blossoming ought to stop wearing her hair in a fashionable style and don a lace cap when indoors.

Thinking of that last comment, which was thrown in her direction quite recently, Diana raised a hand to her own tumble of neat curls. She went to such trouble every evening to attain those ringlets by twisting and tying her locks in rags before bed. It was a practice she’d continued nightly without fail ever since she had hair long enough.

But perhaps Mrs. Kenton was right and she
was
too old for those uncovered ringlets.

* * *

Later, when her friends had gone, Diana went into the kitchen and found her mother seated by the fire, applying ox gall to remove a small stain from her favorite old shawl.

“Mrs. Bridges was very grateful for the Welsh cakes, Mama. I said I would make some more.”

“Hmph. I’ve never known a woman to put her hand out so often and so shamelessly, yet she never returns the deed.”

Pulling an apron over her dress, Diana replied that she would happily forgo something to make up for the added expense of baking ingredients.

Her mother frowned over her shoulder. “’Tis they who should be bringing cakes to us for all the times you entertain those rambunctious little boys. Why that daughter of hers can’t look after the little brats I don’t know. Too busy finding new ways to plump up her bosom, no doubt, and making eyes at the carpenter when she should be home helping her mama with that brood.”

Diana could tell her mother was in a high state of dudgeon, for otherwise she would never let a word like “bosom” slip out.

“Of course, in respectable families very young children are sent out to a wet nurse, not kept underfoot at home,” she added crisply.

“You did not send me away, Mama.”

“No, but I had only you to tend.” Her mother sniffed. “No one else to manage or keep content. I did not birth a child a year and then let it roam about disturbing the neighbors as if I had naught to do with it. People who make too many children should accept responsibility for them. It’s not for you to be looking after those little boys all the time, Diana.”

“I don’t mind it. What else do I have to do, Mama?”

“Plenty about this house!
I
can hardly ever find you when I need you these days. Always off in your own world, idly daydreaming.” Her mother added scornfully, “And what worthy literature are you and your friends reading now?”

When Diana told her the name of their new book, Mrs. Makepiece shook her head and dabbed at her stained shawl with greater fervor.

“I hear the lady who wrote those books died a spinster, so you can see where it got her. I would have thought you too old for those silly novels.”

Diana was tempted to warn her mother that in her virulent determination to remove a slight blemish from her precious shawl, she would take all the color out of it too. Instead she stepped down into the pantry and stared at the shelves. There, pushed to the back and gathering dust, her mother kept a few ingredients deemed too luxurious and expensive for everyday use. Exotic spices reserved in case they had a special visitor—a Clarendon, for instance. Years ago Diana had chirped to her mother, “You do know King George isn’t coming to visit Hawcombe Prior, don’t you, Mama?” and received a clip ’round the ear for her trouble.

Those precious ingredients sat there in readiness, waiting for a chance that may never come.

She wondered what would happen if she brought some of those jars out into the light. But it was a passing idea, a spark of rebellion soon stamped out. Diana reached for the familiar bottles.

Perhaps she ought to be beyond her enjoyment of romantic novels, she mused, but Anne Elliot’s story had touched her heart. She understood how persuasion, like a constant drip of water over many years, can eventually make a mark, even in solid rock.

Nathaniel was surprised to see the Pig in a Poke tavern with shutters closed over its crooked, ivy-fringed windows and the front door bolted. Yet another change to the place he had visited so many times in the past. There was no sign of life within, no smoke billowing from the chimney, no children shrieking or dogs barking. It was as if he had unknowingly died and now walked in an unsettled dream where everything was the same on the surface, but not quite as it should be when one looked closer.

Then, as he turned his mount to head across the common, he spied a familiar face at last.

Three ladies walked down the High Street, deep in conversation. They had not yet seen him, but the bright auburn hair of his sister, Rebecca, was unmistakable, even with most of it hidden under a straw bonnet.

Nathaniel grinned and urged his horse into a canter.

“Well, if it isn’t my rotten little sister, Rebecca! I thought your husband would keep you under lock and key for his own peace of mind, as well as the general safety of the village.”

His sister’s astonishment turned quickly to laughter and joy, much to his relief. “Nate! For the love of—why did you not write?”

He dismounted to greet her. “I didn’t want to give you any warning,” he teased. “But it seems as if someone already knew I was coming, for they boarded up the tavern as a precaution!”

Rebecca’s hazel eyes shone warmly up at him, springing with tears that were quickly swiped away. “Mrs. Bridges’s mama died and so they are closed for the mourning period.” She reached up, tapping his cheek lightly with her fingers. “How typical that your first visit should be to the local tavern and not your loving family.”

“It was not a visit of pleasure,” he replied, “but one of business with Mr. Bridges.”

Clearly, she didn’t believe that. As he knew she would not. “Oh, it is very good to see you looking so well, Nate. Is it not, Jussy?” She stepped back to take in his full height. “So finely dressed too.” Squinting, she added, “Your luck must have improved.”

“You might say that.”

Now her friend Justina joined in the welcome. The two girls had grown up in his absence, he noted—no surprise, since they were now wives and mothers. But whenever any amount of time passed between sightings, he was always struck by the considerable changes as if his mind expected them to remain forever little girls with muddy petticoats.

“You have several new acquaintances to meet,” said his sister. “You have a little nephew, to begin with.”

“Aha! I must set about corrupting him at the earliest opportunity. I’ve been remiss in my duty as his mad uncle.”

“And I have two seedlings,” Justina told him, “who, along with Becky’s son, have been left this morning to the care of my poor husband, so I cannot leave them long or I might return home to find him trussed up in the pantry with a flowerpot on his head, while the new litter of piglets runs riot through the house.”

Nathaniel smiled. “Your boys take after you then, Jussy.”

“They are both
girls
,” she replied smugly, as if she’d had a say in the matter, “and yes, they do take after me.”

Rebecca added, “To the great despair of her husband.”

They all laughed.

He remembered Darius Wainwright as a dour fellow who couldn’t crack a smile if his life depended on it. Nathaniel could not envision how Darius and lively Justina Penny had ever found common ground. Opposites attracting, perhaps?

“Oh, but you have not yet met Sarah Wainwright,” his sister exclaimed, drawing the other girl forward from where she hovered in the background. “Sarah is my stepdaughter.”

“Miss Wainwright.” He bowed. “I am delighted to make the acquaintance of an instant niece.” Her small face looked familiar but he could not immediately place it.

Her eyes were round, thoughtful, and rather intense. The sort of eyes that might come in useful if she had a spy to interrogate. “Captain Sherringham. I have heard much about you.”

He laughed. “You may as well believe every bleak word, for the truth is probably a great deal worse than the gossips of Hawcombe Prior can conceive.” Glancing down the street in the direction from which they’d traveled, he asked if they’d been plundering the village’s one and only shop. “I see no packages, so it seems you left Mr. Porter’s shelves stocked for once.”

“We’ve been to a meeting of the book society,” his sister replied. “Don’t you remember? You used to call us the Book Club Belles.”

As if he could forget. “Still under the influence of dangerously subversive novels, eh?” he teased. “I never did think young ladies should read novels. It gives them entirely false expectations of men and of life.”

His sister used to claim she was no romantic—a fact Nathaniel disproved easily by pointing out her love for books in which the hero always gets his woman, justice prevails, and they all live happily ever after.

An event that happened in real life as often as the Prince Regent passed up a new pair of breeches.

“Have you seen Papa yet?” his sister demanded.

“Hmm? No.” He tore his eyes away from the small cottage in the midst of a row that crossed the end of the High Street. The Book Club Belles used to congregate in the parlor of Mrs. Makepiece’s cottage. Obviously today they’d been to some other cottage in the lane, for he couldn’t imagine starchy Mrs. Makepiece still putting up with his sister and her friends now that Diana was married and gone to Manderson.

“It might be best if you let me come with you, Nate.”

Nathaniel was still looking down the main street to where it met a grassy path known as “the Bolt” for its narrowing shape and its convenience as a shortcut. At the far end of the Bolt, not visible to anyone unless they passed through it, the trees had reached across and tangled their branches overhead, making a cozy arch. A favorite haunt for secret lovers. That was where he once proposed marriage to Diana Makepiece. Where she tore his heart out and trampled it. There were probably still pieces of his flesh in the ground. Perhaps they had grown into sad, thorny weeds.

“Nate, did you hear? I said it might be best if I come with you and prepare Papa, or the shock could do him in.”

Since no one mentioned Diana, he was determined to say nothing about her either. It was not as if he yearned to hear details of her wedding or anything else about the woman. She was nothing to him now.

“How long will you stay?” Justina asked.

“We’ll see. I am undecided.”

“But what have you been up to all this time?” They could tell from his clothes, of course, that he was no longer in the army.

“Oh, this and that.” He gave them what he hoped was a mysterious, narrow-eyed look.

“I believe I saw you at the Manderson assembly dance yesterday evening, Captain Sherringham,” said Sarah suddenly.

So that was where he’d seen her pert face. She was the merry young miss in the yellow dress, enjoying a rowdy country jig.

“Your companion is not with you today?” she added, casting a meaningful glance at his sister and her friend.

“No, she remains in Manderson, recovering from a sore head.” He had left Caroline reclining on a chaise, being tended to diligently by the landlady at the Royal Oak in Manderson.

“A lady friend?” his sister demanded. “You must introduce us at once.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary. I am merely escorting her to relatives as she could find no one else with whom to travel.”

His sister gave him one of her skeptical looks. “Well, we had better go and see Papa.” She linked her arm with his. “I was going to have luncheon at the manor with Jussy, but now Sarah will have to go alone. I will join her there later.”

Still no mention of Diana. Why would there be? It was doubtful the friends saw much of her these days. He may not even catch another glimpse of her himself while he was there. Not that he wanted one anyway. At breakfast he’d casually asked the landlady of the Royal Oak about the prominent town resident, Mr. William Shaw, and learned that he had married at the end of last summer and had recently returned from a long trip abroad with his wife. The extended travel did not seem to have done Diana much good, he thought grimly. Perhaps that was why she’d looked so tired when he saw her yesterday.

“Goodness, your face just went very dour,” exclaimed his sister.

“Indigestion,” he snapped. “It bothers me from time to time.”

Suddenly Sarah Wainwright cried out in alarm and pointed, “Sir Mortimer Grubbins! What is he doing now?” Across the common, a large Oxford Sandy and Black pig was rooting aimlessly through a cottage garden, the gate hanging wide as if he had opened it with his own trotters. “Mrs. Dockley’s peonies do tend to be his favorite! He must have got out again. Oh sakes! He will not stay put lately. I do not know what has got into him.”

The pig lifted its snout and grunted loudly over the wall, munching the luckless blooms belonging to the oldest resident in the village.

“We had better go and get him quickly,” exclaimed Justina, “before he does any further damage to the poor lady’s garden.”

Sarah took hasty leave of the little group and dashed across the common, shouting to the errant beast who calmly grunted in response. Justina followed close behind, waving over her shoulder as she left brother and sister to walk down the road together.

“So…the Book Club Belles still meet.” Nathaniel led his horse by the reins. “I am glad to see not everything has changed. Your friendships are as strong as ever.”

“Yes, although marriage has taken one of our number from the village, of course. We miss her terribly. Her husband does not bring her to visit nearly enough.”

He swallowed as best he could with a tight throat and looked away at the low clouds.

“I was sorry you did not come home for
my
wedding, Nate,” his sister added.

“I knew nothing about it,” he snapped, still thinking of the other nuptials he had not attended. Then, recovering, he cleared his throat and continued in a gentler tone, “Until I heard from some of my old army friends, quite by chance, that the lovely, flame-haired Miss Rebecca Sherringham had taken herself off the market by marrying infamous Lucky Luke Wainwright of the Nineteenth Light Dragoons and various dens of iniquity from Bombay to Brighton. A man fifteen years her senior and with a harem of lovers in his past. They took great enjoyment in teasing me about that.”

She chuckled. “I suppose it was a shock to you, brother dear.”

“Not overmuch. You always were terribly impulsive and attracted to trouble.”

She slapped his arm with her reticule and they walked on together.

“I heard it was something to do with a gambling debt?” he added.

His sister protested, “Luke needed me. Someone has to take care of him.”

“Oh, yes, the poor invalid! How is that notorious limp of his these days? You do know he always used that for sympathy from the ladies. The severity of his lurch depended largely on the desperation he felt for getting a woman into his bed.”

“I see you still like to expound at length upon subjects of which you know little to naught.”

“I also know that he shot himself in the thigh quite by accident while cocking his pistol, yet he tells all manner of heroic tales about the acquisition of his wound. Poor, simpleminded woman, I daresay you were taken in. Like all the others.”

“Indeed I was not.”

“You were always so very particular about men and especially about the ideal husband. Now look at what you married. Still, I suppose even a stubborn, scolding woman like you needs a man eventually, just to control your hysterical humors—”

“My
what
?”

“—and the Wainwrights
are
stinking rich. No doubt you could overlook all his sins for a comfortable, well-feathered nest. Women are mercenary creatures.”

“Stop it at once! I will not have you tease me about falling helplessly in love. Unless you would like me to torment you in the same way.”

He looked down at her. “Tease all you like, Sister. I have nothing to hide.”

Rebecca’s eyes gleamed. “Don’t you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Never fallen in love?”

“Good God, no.”

“But what about—”

“There are far too many lovely and obliging girls in the world requiring my attention. It would be selfish of me, don’t you agree, to reserve all this manly beauty for one woman?”

“Nate, you are the very limit.”

“Although I am thirty now. I suppose, sooner or later, I must marry if I want a son.” He gazed off into the distance, feigning deep thought. “Perhaps, before I’m too old and set in my ways, I
ought
to find a suitable young woman who doesn’t try my patience too much.”

His sister chuckled again, the breeze fluttering through her bonnet ribbons. “And what will be the qualities she must possess, apart from an ability to tolerate your antics?”

“I’m not so difficult to please.” He grinned down at her. “Any pretty, fair-haired girl between fifteen and—oh—twenty-five. Not so old that she can’t be trained to behave and not so clever that she thinks too much. Someone exceedingly grateful for all that I give her, who knows her place and never questions me.”

“Nathaniel Sherringham, I pity any woman you set your sights upon.”

Thus, joking together, they walked onward to their father’s house.