The Rake of Hollowhurst Castle (4 page)

To watch them now, who'd think the Besfords' marriage had got off to an appalling start? Charles suppressed a shudder at the memory of that stiff and chilly ceremony, with bride and groom as loving towards each other as the Regent and his unfortunate princess must have been at theirs. Luckily they came to a better understanding once Caro had grown bored with being Rob's despised and neglected wife and pretended to be Cleo Tournier, courtesan to one very particular, stubborn aristocrat, who looked as if he loved being stuck fast in his devious wife's toils nowadays.

‘I'd like nothing better, my Cleo.' Rob answered her brazen encouragement to take her to bed forthwith with a scorching look that made Caro blush like a peony, Charles was amused to see.

All the same, he felt a sneaking envy of their delight in one another. He'd never love Miss Courland as Rob undoubtedly loved his Caroline and she loved him, yet he'd seen enough of the closeness and fire between them to wonder what such absolute intimacy would be like. He'd always taken life more lightly than Rob he mused as he accepted his candle and obligingly took himself off to his comfortable bed. A marriage of convenience would suit him, especially when it promised passionate nights of mutual satisfaction. He couldn't embrace the married state with the enthusiasm Rob demonstrated, but he'd be an attentive and faithful husband to Miss Roxanne Courland until death did them part, whether she liked it or not!

 

Roxanne had gone to bed very late after packing the first of her belongings and got up early to begin the task
of despatching them to Mulberry House and starting on the rest. She supposed she should be grateful to Sir Charles for provoking her into moving house so quickly, for if she'd been left to linger over each old letter and beloved childhood book it might have taken weeks, if not months. As it was, she'd set herself a mere day of frantic activity to remove all she held most dear, and already the farm dray was setting off, laden with a quantity of trunks and boxes of books that astonished her. Her lips tightened as she contemplated what the arrogant baronet would say about the half-empty shelves in Uncle Granger's personal library, but she wasn't having a stranger selling or disregarding what it had taken him a lifetime to collect.

Having seen the lord-of-the-feast side of her great-uncle, she wondered if Charles Afforde knew about Uncle Granger's quieter interests: his love of fine music and his patronage of poets and artists once thought obscure and outlandish. She must make sure someone packed the fine collection of watercolours from her own room as she shuddered at the thought of coming back to beg for anything left behind. Among them was an exquisite painting of Hollowhurst Castle by Mr Turner that she'd no intention of leaving for the Castle's new owner. Considering he was rich enough to buy Davy's heritage, he'd just have to commission one for himself if he wanted one.

Like an automaton that had wound down in mid-dance, she suddenly sank into a chair and let the truth sink in. Hollowhurst and all it meant to her had a new owner, and what had once seemed set in stone was now as fugitive as a house of cards. How could Davy do such a thing? she raged silently. Surely he trusted her to run
the estate and keep the castle in good order? And one day his son might feel very different about the impressive heritage he should have had. She felt angry tears threaten the rigid composure she'd imposed on herself since she realised just why Charles Afforde had returned and barely managed to fight them back.

‘It was never meant to be like this, you know.' Charles Afforde's deep voice interrupted from the doorway, and she was so startled she looked up with fury and grief naked in her dark gaze.

‘I can't see how you expected me to feel otherwise,' she said and tried to freeze her sorrow until later, when he wasn't by to watch.

‘I expected Davy to prepare you for this, if nothing else,' he said rather cryptically, and she wondered what on earth he meant.

What other disaster could there be, given her home was now his and her whole world was rocking on its axis? She shivered at the very thought of more unwelcome revelations and dismissed the idea; nothing could be worse than the bombshell he'd already dropped, after all.

‘Well, he didn't,' she replied flatly.

Surely the end result was the same? Possession, she decided furiously and once more wished futilely that she'd been born a man. Not that it would have done her any good since Davy was older and the heir, but he might have reconsidered if he'd a brother devoted to the estate he found a burden. Yet a mere woman must stand by and watch the lords of the earth dispossess her of all she held dear, she railed silently.

‘Obviously not, and I suppose the mail boats between here and America are unreliable at this time of year,'
he replied with a hint of impatience at her truism, ‘but I never intended driving you from your home at a moment's notice, Miss Courland. Take as long as you like over the business, I have time since I left the sea and can spare as long as you need and more.'

‘I'll be ready today; I always knew I'd have to leave when Davy married. I can't see how two women could rule the same roost and stay friends.'

‘Such is the unfairness of English law, is it not? The eldest male heir gets the best plums and the others scrabble for what's left.'

R
oxanne wondered fleetingly if Sir Charles resented not being Lord Samphire's heir, then dismissed it as a silly idea. If ever she'd met a man capable of forging his own destiny, it was Sir Charles Afforde. No doubt he'd been able to buy Hollowhurst by his own efforts after such a successful career, even without that very substantial trust fund from his mother that Davy had told her of long ago, when she was still eager for every snippet of information she could garner about this stranger.

Naval captains with a reputation like his must have been turning crew away instead of having to press-gang them, eager as they'd be for a share of his prizes. None of which meant she had to like him, she reassured herself stalwartly and managed to recover her barely suppressed fury at him. If she didn't, she'd break down in front of him, and such weakness was intolerable.

‘I've no need to “scrabble”, sir,' she assured him stiffly. ‘My uncle left me a fine house in Hollowhurst
village and his personal property. Didn't my brother inform you of the terms of his will when he sold you Hollowhurst?'

‘He said there was a fine line to tread between his great-uncle's personal property and the goods and chattels that came with the castle. One you must have expected to walk if he brought a bride home.'

‘I might feel more generous towards my brother,' she snapped, because she saw pity in his blue eyes and she'd prefer anything to that, even a cold fury she sensed would freeze her to the marrow if he ever unleashed it.

‘Yet I've no intention of arguing about a few court cupboards and worm-eaten refectory tables, Miss Courland, so pray take what you like,' he countered coolly. ‘And
I
won't ransack the place in search of my inheritance, Sir Charles. My house is already furnished and all I require will fit on the farm dray when it returns. You'll find your bookshelves a little empty and one or two walls bare, but I'm no magpie to be going about the place gathering everything I can.'

‘I suspect you'd rather leave much of what's yours behind out of sheer pride, lest you be thought grasping. I give you fair warning I'll send it after you if you're foolish enough to do that.'

‘Then I'll send it back. I already told you I've no room.'

‘Perhaps we should place the excess in a field halfway between our houses and fight a duel for it one morning?' he said as if their argument was mildly amusing, but in danger of becoming tedious.

Well, it didn't amuse her; she set her teeth and wondered why she'd got into this unproductive dispute in the
first place. Of course she'd intended to be gone before he arrived, but he'd outmanoeuvred her and she suddenly knew how all those French captains felt when the famous, or infamous,
Condottiere's
sails appeared on the horizon.

‘Do you intend to fill the castle with daybeds in the Egyptian style and chairs and tables with alligator feet, then?' she asked sweetly.

‘No,' he replied shortly. ‘I prefer comfort to fashion.'

‘Then you'll just have to accept that most of the furniture was built to fit a castle and would look ridiculous in a house less than fifty years old.'

‘And you'll have to accept I'm here to stay and have no intention of being cut by half the neighbourhood for throwing you out of your home at half a day's notice with little more than your clothes and a few trifles.'

‘Even if you have,' she replied with glee, feeling almost happy she was leaving for the first time since he announced his purchase last night.

‘Not a bit of it; I've just told your local vicar that I'm away to stay with my family for at least a sennight in order to give you time to find a suitable chaperone and remove from the Castle. He and his wife thought it a noble act of consideration on my part.'

‘But they occupy a living bestowed at your discretion, do they not? And know you not at all, Sir Charles.'

‘Only by repute,' he said with a significant look she interpreted as a reproach to her for judging him on that basis herself. He'd no idea how bitterly he'd disappointed her young girl's dreams in making that rakehell reputation, and it was up to her to make sure he never found out.

‘Then I'm sure you have nothing to worry about,' she said stiffly. ‘A returning hero takes precedence over a wronged woman any day of the week. Witness Odysseus's triumphant return from ten years of chasing about the Aegean after assorted goddesses and nymphs, in contrast to poor Penelope's slaughtered maids and all that interminable weaving she had to do as well as fighting off her importunate suitors.'

‘Oh, I hardly think you fall into that category, Miss Courland. Indeed, I doubt any man would be brave enough to try to make you do anything you didn't wish to. Anyway, I can hardly throw you out into the snow with nothing but the clothes on your back when you're known to be a considerable heiress, and one who's very fastidious indeed about
her
suitors.'

She hadn't thought local society took much notice of her or her potential marriage, except to criticise her for acting as her uncle's steward and refusing to employ a duenna to look down her nose at such a poor example of a lady. She had much to learn about her new occupation of doing very little in a suitably ladylike fashion.

‘You'll be much sought after now that you're free to be entertained by your neighbours,' he went on as if attempting to reassure her. Roxanne could tell from the glint in his apparently guileless blue eyes that he was secretly enjoying the notion of her struggling to adapt to her new role, and tried not to give him the satisfaction of glowering furiously back. ‘You'll have time on your hands enough to visit all of them now, Miss Courland,' he went on smoothly, as if he was trying to be gallant and not utterly infuriating, ‘and they certainly wish to visit you if the vicar, his wife and their promising son just down from Oxford are anything to do by.'

‘I'm glad my uncle taught me to discern a false friend from a true one then,' she replied stalwartly, trying not to let a shiver of apprehension slide down her spine at the very thought of such an existence. ‘I've no desire whatsoever to be wed for my money.'

‘Nor I—perhaps we should wed one another to avert such a travesty,' he joked, and she felt a dart of the old pain, more intense if anything, and cursed that old infatuation for haunting her still.

‘Since that's about as likely as black becoming white, I suggest you look elsewhere for a bride, Sir Charles,' she said scornfully.

‘I'll settle into my new life before looking about me for a lady brave enough to take me on,' he parried lightly.

Roxanne tried not to be disappointed as he reverted to type and took on the shallow social manners common among the
haut ton,
at least if her memory of her one uncomfortable Season was anything to go by. She'd felt out of place and bored for most of her three months in the capital, and as glad to come home again as Uncle Granger was to see her. Her sister Maria had delighted in that milieu and had worked her way up the social ladder from noble young matron to society hostess, but Roxanne hadn't felt the slightest urge to join her, let alone rival her in any way.

‘Indeed?' she replied repressively.

‘I'll need to feel my way among local society after usurping a long-established family,' he replied with apparent sincerity, then looked spuriously anxious as he watched her struggle to remain distantly polite. ‘But first I insist you find a congenial companion, Miss Courland. No lady of your years and birth can live alone without
being taken advantage of or bringing scandal on herself and her family. If you don't look about you for a chaperone, I'll do it for you. The local matrons will consider a respectable duenna essential now I've come amongst you, and no lone damsel can be considered beyond my villainy, and I've my own reputation to think about, after all.'

‘You don't have one, at least not one any lady dares discuss and be received in polite society. As for employing a duenna for me, I have already told you it would be highly improper. I'd be ostracised if I took one of
your
choosing,' she said haughtily, her gaze clashing with his.

‘I promised your brother I'd look after you in his stead,' he told her with a glint in his eyes that looked very unbrotherly indeed.

‘Exactly how old do you think I am, sir?' she asked defensively.

‘Hardly out of the schoolroom,' he replied, with a wolfish smile that gave his words the lie.

‘I'm four and twenty and on the shelf. I dare say I could take up residence at Mulberry House without any chaperone but my maid and nobody would raise an eyebrow except you.'

‘There you're very much mistaken, my dear, but if you choose not to be visited or invited out, I dare say you'll grow used to the life of a recluse,' he replied ruthlessly, but at least she'd wiped that annoying, indulgent-of-female-folly grin off his face.

Impatient of the petty rules of society she might be, reclusive she wasn't, and hated to admit he was right. She
could
live so, but it'd be a very limited existence and she was too young to embark on a hermit's career.

‘I'm not your dear, Sir Charles, and will thank you to address me in proper form.'

‘You have no idea what you are just yet, Miss Courland, and I suggest you take a few weeks to find out before you launch yourself into local society as their most scandalous exhibit,' he retorted brusquely.

‘You could be right, but this subject is becoming tedious, or do you want me to put that admission in writing and have it published?'

‘No, I want you to behave yourself,' he informed her as sternly as if she was fourteen again and he her legal and moral guardian, not the biggest rogue to break a score of susceptible hearts every time he came ashore.

‘Really? And I just want you to go away so that I can start my new life,' she snapped back, smarting at the idea of all those unfortunate, abandoned females and how nearly she'd become one of them.

‘Then want must be your master,' he said laconically and lounged against the intricately carved fireplace, since she'd omitted to invite him to sit.

She was about to spark back at him, regardless of the fact she must get on with her neighbours in future and he'd be the most important of them, but a rustle of silk petticoats announced a new arrival and stopped her.

‘Good morning. I believe you must be Miss Courland?' a lady very obviously with child greeted her from the open doorway.

Roxanne sprang to her feet and offered the stranger a seat, trying to feel as overjoyed at so timely an interruption as she ought to be.

‘I couldn't make anyone hear so I'm afraid I invited myself in,' her visitor told her with an engaging smile.

Roxanne could see no resemblance whatsoever to
Sir Charles Afforde about the lady's warm golden eyes and heart-shaped face and searched her mind for any possible clues as to her identity. She doubted the lady was related to him and was obviously far too respectable to be a left-handed connection. Not that he'd sink so low as to install his pregnant mistress at the Castle before Roxanne had quit it, she decided with weary resignation.

‘Pray forgive me, Miss Courland, I'm Mrs Robert Besford of Westmeade Manor, but please call me Caro. My husband and Sir Charles have been friends since they were unappealing brats in short coats, so I barged in, since I couldn't wait any longer to make your acquaintance.'

Roxanne could see no reason why a boyhood friendship between this lady's husband and Charles Afforde should make her and Mrs Besford friends, too, but found it impossible to snub the vivacious young woman or refuse the warm understanding in Caro's golden-brown gaze.

‘I'm very pleased to meet you, Mrs Besford,' she said, holding out her hand in greeting and having it firmly shaken by one that looked too small and slender to contain such strength and resolution.

‘Caro,' her new friend insisted and Roxanne smiled back.

‘Then I must be Roxanne, Caro, for I gave up being Rosie when my brother insisted on calling me Rosie-Posie long after I grew up.'

‘Gentlemen can be so effortlessly maddening, can't they?' Caro replied.

‘My apologies, Caro,' Sir Charles said, looking uncomfortable, ‘I'd no idea you'd arrive so close on
my heels. I'll make sure my groom has seen to your horses, as Miss Courland's men are busy, if you'll excuse me?'

‘Gladly. Pray go and soothe Rob's anxiety about me by discussing where you're going to acquire the blood-stock you intend on breeding,' Mrs Besford said with an airy wave and, to Roxanne's surprise, he meekly did as he was bid.

‘He thinks he has to humour me,' Caroline told her with a conspiratorial smile. ‘Especially since he woke my household last night by shouting something incomprehensible at the top of his voice in his sleep. According to my husband, many men have nightmares after taking part in battles or skirmishes, but goodness knows what set Charles off in the midst of the Kent countryside in peacetime. His manservant managed to calm him down without waking him and the rest of us went back to sleep, but Charles is mortified this morning and I'm taking shameless advantage. I'll soon be kept busy at home with this new baby and my little daughter, so I exploited his guilty conscience when he tried to leave me behind this morning. I think Rob's still fighting off the vapours after dreading every bump and bend we travelled over on my behalf,' Caro confided. ‘I dare say he almost wishes himself back at Waterloo, the poor man, but I'm bored with being treated like spun glass and thought you might welcome some support, even if I'm of precious little use.'

‘I was beginning to wonder if I'd get out of here without turning into a watering pot, or throwing something fragile and irreplaceable at Sir Charles, so you're very welcome, I assure you.'