Never Resist a Rake (7 page)

Those who style themselves “free thinkers” are wrong. They haven't an original thought in their heads. They merely take the contrarian view, complaining that Society places too many demands upon them. What utter nonsense. If there were no demands made, those who eschew conformity would have nothing against which to rebel. Wouldn't they be in a pretty pickle then?

—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset

John had wanted to see Rebecca, but now he was acutely aware that he should have agreed to a bath and a shave. “On the contrary, it was surly and unpleasant of them to bar you from the coach.”

“As you pointed out, there's only room for four.” Rebecca's hood fell back. In daylight, he noticed her brown hair was streaked with strands of auburn that glinted in the sun. “But no one barred me from anything. I offered to ride in the gig. It's a lovely day for it, and frankly, I loathe being enclosed.”

She had a point. In the open gig, they'd see much more of the countryside than the occupants of the stuffy coach would. “Truthfully, I wanted to travel in the gig mainly so you could spend some time with your family. I gather you need it.”

Time with his family was the last thing John wanted.

“If you're quite ready, we'd better move on,” Rebecca said. “The coach is already turning the corner, and I don't know about you, but I don't know the way to your home from here.”

“I can get us to Somerfield Park,” John grumbled as he flicked the reins over the gelding's back. Once he'd learned he was the marquess's heir, he'd studied a map to find out where the countryseat was located. Finding the most direct route to the great house was no problem.

Finding the way
home
was another proposition altogether. He had no idea where that might be.

London was deep into its midmorning bustle. The milk carts and night soil wagons had made their rounds earlier in the wee hours. Now the delivery carts were stopping by shops to drop off eggs and mutton from the countryside or more exotic goods from distant outposts of the English empire fresh off the ships.

A little later, the fashionable set would rouse for the day, and the streets would be full of dashing curricles, each flashier than the last. They weren't terribly practical as conveyances went, but they made a strong statement about the taste and the depth of pockets of their drivers.

Well-dressed ladies and dandies would bustle along, on their way to make calls at the homes of their friends. The length of those visits was strictly regulated and the etiquette for initiating or returning one was more labyrinthine than the most tortuous maze. The activities of Polite Society seemed as predetermined as a set piece at the ballet.

Of course, John hadn't ever danced any of those steps.

“I understand you've known of your new station since last June,” Rebecca said, interrupting his thoughts. “Why did you come to London instead of joining your family in the country?”

“I'd lived in the country all my life. Bolting to the Village seemed like the thing to do.” John hadn't been sure quite what to do when he first came to the city. He was only sure he didn't wish to present himself dutifully at Somerfield Park—not after having been shuffled off and ignored by Somerset all his life. “I thought all good little debutantes burned for their Season here. Never say you don't prefer Town life to rusticating in the hinterlands.”

“Town and country living each have their charms. But a glittering Season is not the goal of every debutante,” she said with surprising candor. “My dowry is not awe-inspiring, so I don't have fellows lining up. Besides, I'm a bit of a bluestocking, which puts some gentlemen off.”

“Ah, yes, your penchant for museums,” John said, grateful she'd turned the conversation away from him. “So you haven't been snapped up in the marriage market?”

“I'm afraid I've spent too much time in lecture halls and not enough at routs. What about you? I haven't seen you in any of the usual places. Do you even know anyone here in Town?”

He shook his head. “No one you'd know.”

That was where the fellows of the Daemon Club had come in. He'd bumped into Lord Blackwood on his second day in London. He and Porter were coming out of the tailor's shop where John had ordered a bespoke wardrobe in keeping with his new station. John hadn't seen the viscount since they'd left Oxford. Blackwood had stood him to a pint at a nearby pub and then encouraged him to try White's, the exclusive club.

“Never fear. You're a member,” Blackwood had assured him. “The heir to Somerset is placed on the list from the hour of his birth.”

“Come with me, then,” John had said.

“Can't. I was expelled from White's last year, and believe me when I tell you, my expulsion was richly deserved. Bunch of pompous toads,” Blackwood had said as he knocked back the last of his ale. “But one should try everything at least once. Go on, Hartley.”

So John had presented himself at the coffeehouse. After a bit of an altercation with the doorman, he was admitted on the strength of the butler's order. Evidently, word of the scandal in the succession at Somerfield Park had preceded him at White's. Most of the denizens of that exclusive haunt seemed fully aware of the tale of the unknown heir who'd suddenly become Lord Hartley.

He was shown to a table in a dim corner and served a pot of scalding coffee and a plate of biscuits. His server handed him a freshly ironed newspaper. John kept looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was hanging about surreptitiously to discover if he was able to read it. He was tempted to hold the paper upside down to see what they'd do.

But he didn't. He read his paper from first page to last, drank his coffee to the dregs, and left.

No one, other than the server, said a single word to him.

Now, after running with the Daemon Club for a few months, John had a few choice ideas about how to best scandalize the patrons of White's. If he were going to be ostracized by Society in any case, he might as well give them reason.

“I say, you do excel at daydreaming, my lord,” Rebecca said. “I'd offer a penny for your thoughts, but I suspect they're worth more than that.”

“Oh. I don't mean to be poor company.” John had become accustomed to solitude. He needed to remember to hold up his end of the conversation.

“Poor company or not, your family is relieved simply to have your presence. There were some who believed you wouldn't come back to the house last night and they'd have to go looking for you again,” Rebecca said.

“In truth, I almost didn't come back.” If he'd tried the opium like Smalley had, he'd probably still be in that squalid den. There were some young lordlings sprawled about who looked as if they'd been wearing the same clothing for weeks.

“There was only one who adamantly believed that you'd keep your word to return to Somerfield Park,” she continued.

“You?”

She shook her head. “I only gave you one chance in three. I'm not naive. There are enticements aplenty in London that might give you reason to stay.”

She was his only reason to go, but he couldn't say that. He didn't think she'd appreciate it.

“All right,” he said. “You've piqued my curiosity. Who among the Barretts is my champion?”

“Your grandmother. The dowager was convinced you were enough of a Barrett to feel the call of familial duty.”

“God knows no Barrett would feel the call of familial affection.” His mother might have been common and flighty and sometimes even neglectful, but there were other times when she'd showered John with love. He remembered those bright, early days, shining as if through a prism, all glorious and multihued.

“The call of familial duty,” he repeated. “The dowager must think Lord Somerset's hunt is pretty important.”

“It is. The fact that the hunt can still take place after his lordship's accident is nothing short of providential. But for the hunt to go on while the estate is thick into timber production will set the
ton
on its ear. The visiting lords might start to thinking about what could be done with their own floundering estates. At least that's what Lord Richard says.” She glanced at him and then away, her cheeks pinking in the autumn sun. “It's not just the hunt. That's his lordship's bailiwick in any case. Your grandmother thinks you've muffed your chances here in London and need a fresh start.”

He frowned at her.

“Can you say she's wrong?” she asked.

He shook his head. No one, other than the members of the Daemon Club and Lady Chloe, had even acknowledged his existence.

“Lady Somerset says it was a mistake to allow you to hare off to London on your own.”

“
Allow
me?” He snorted. “No one
allows
me to go anywhere. I go where I please.”

“Said the man who is on a journey he was bribed into making,” Rebecca said tartly. “In any case, your grandmother is convinced she can undo the damage and reintroduce you to Society.”

“Has the dowager ever had a single doubt that she could accomplish anything?”

“I haven't known her long, but I'd say probably not,” Rebecca said with a laugh.

Lady Somerset certainly had no doubts about shuffling him off to Wiltshire when he was inconveniently orphaned.

“She didn't know at the time,” Rebecca said.

“Didn't know what?”

“That you were the heir,” she said as if he'd spoken aloud. “If her ladyship had realized that, I'm sure your childhood would have been much different.”

It bothered him that Rebecca seemed privy to his secret thoughts. Obviously, his “nobody face” didn't work with her. “Excuses don't make much difference to a six-year-old.”

She turned to glare at him. “Are you still six years old?”

“What?”

“You're not the only one whose young life was not what it should have been, you know.” She lifted her pointed little chin and looked away.

“Rebecca, I—”

“Miss Kearsey, if you please,” she said primly. “I deserve it.”

“So you do. My apologies.”

She nodded her acceptance. “The point is, you're no longer a boy. It's time to put aside whatever's past and look to your future.”

It would be a future determined for him unless he asserted himself, but she didn't want to hear his side of things. Bouncing along side by side in the gig wasn't conducive to having an argument, so they rode in silence.

The houses on either side of the street became much less grand and finally became fewer and farther between. At the first stone fence row marking off one field from the next, John's heart lifted, and he inhaled deeply.

He'd forgotten how sweet a lungful of country air could be.

A small whirlwind of fallen leaves, a rust-and-scarlet dervish, twirled across the road in front of them, and the gelding shied at the unexpected sight.

“Easy now,” he said sternly. “Don't be such a ninny.”

“I beg your pardon!”

“I was talking to the horse, not you.” He gave a quick tug on the reins and the gelding settled. “That's better, you wicked beast.”

“Don't call him names. He can't help it. He was just startled.” She twisted her gloved fingers together in her lap. “You'll hurt his feelings.”

“Horses don't have feelings. And they don't understand much of what we say to them. It's the tone they respond to.” John had just kept the gelding from bolting, and Rebecca was more concerned about hurting its feelings than she was grateful to him. He began to wonder if he could do anything to suit her. “Horses are strong creatures, but they're cowards at heart. They get silly when they don't know what's coming.”

“Can't say I blame them. People are like that too.”

“But most of us are smart enough not to worry about what we can't control. Besides, it would be a wise one who'd know what's coming.”

“Count me wise, then,” Rebecca said with a crooked little smile. “It doesn't take much to see around some bends. Would you like me to play gypsy and predict your future?”

“Can you?”

“Easy as breathing.” She drew a deep lungful. “Smell that air. Isn't that much better than London?”

Again he wondered if she read minds. How did she know he'd already decided to be grateful not to be in the city just based on the fact that he could finally breathe deeply again? They were far from the rotting smell of the Thames and the stench of too many bodies packed too closely together, not all of them terribly clean. Now he wondered how he'd borne it for four whole months.

If she knew how he felt about that, maybe Rebecca really could tell his future. She didn't look like a gypsy. Her hair wasn't dark enough, and her eyes were decidedly green, not the snapping black associated with those wandering folk. “Do you claim to be part Roma then?”

She shrugged. “If you go back far enough in anyone's lineage, who knows?”

“So how do you manage your fortune-telling, Madame Kearsey? Do you use a crystal ball? Or tea leaves?” He put a fingertip of his glove between his teeth and tugged it off. Then he held out his hand to her. “Maybe you read palms.”

She ignored his hand, though he wished she'd take it, even if she was still wearing gloves. The miles would pass far more quickly if he could touch her.

“I don't need anything like that. Your future is easy to predict.” She was smiling now, and it made his heart rise up even more than the fresh air had. “Your grandmother will see to it that you're accepted by the people who matter and you're sensible enough not to fret about the ones who don't welcome you.”

She thought him sensible. That was something.

Then her smile went a little brittle around the edges. “You're a planner. After you've scouted out your options, you'll propose to a young lady of good family, marry her, and sire the next generation of Barretts.” She glanced up at him and then fixed her gaze pointedly on a distant spot on the horizon. “And that's the life I see for the next marquess of Somerset.”