A Lady's Guide to Rakes (9 page)

A low chuckle bubbled up from deep inside Alexander. “I pay him no disrespect, Miss Merriweather, I assure you. I am merely stating fact. A woman who has the pluck to float through Hyde Park in a tattered balloon will never be content living in her husband’s shadow. You need adventure, excitement.” Lord Lansing shook his head. “He is not even of Society. You do not live in the same world.”

“I will be perfectly happy and we do travel within the same circles. Chillton is a great gentleman of commerce.” Meredith raised her chin smugly.

The rake settled his gaze upon Chillton once again, seeming to focus on his… his coat. “You did say
great
gentleman of commerce, did you not?”

“I did.”

Amusement lit his eyes. “Very well, though do remember my next words—you may have earned his promise of marriage, but you will never marry that man. Ever.”

Meredith’s mouth fell open and there it remained for several seconds. “And may
you
come to recall my reply… as you swallow a rather large bite of humble pie—I
will
marry Mr. Chillton.”

“Meredith,” came a soft, feminine voice.

A faint scent of orange blossom beckoned her attention to Chillton’s sister, who had suddenly appeared at her side.

“I do apologize for the intrusion. Your aunts bade me to send you to them.” Hannah turned to the rake and smiled coyly at him. “I apologize to you as well, sir, for removing dear Meredith from your conversation. Perhaps I might provide adequate company until she is able to return?”

Alexander Lamont drew up to his full height and bequeathed Hannah with the most charming of bows, never once removing his all-too-seductive gaze from the young woman’s batting eyes. “I shall be honored to share your company, Miss—” He looked to Meredith to bridge the gap.

A moment later, after providing the requisite introductions, Meredith crossed the room to her aunts, who were waving their fans excitedly as they conversed with Mr. Chillton.

Her aunt Letitia caught her wrist and drew her forward the instant she breached their circle of conversation. “There you are, dear. Mr. Chillton was just telling us that you were orchestrating a possible match between Lord Lansing and young Hannah. How wonderful!”

“Oh, um…” Meredith felt the heat shooting into her cheeks. “Actually, I was only seeking to learn if the earl’s son might have interest in Hannah.”

Her aunt Viola’s eyes sparkled like fireworks over Vauxhall Gardens. “And? What do you think? I vow, Mr. Chillton and I are ever so anxious to know.” She abruptly clasped Meredith’s other wrist, sending her crystal of sherry splattering on the floorboards.

“Oh, heavens!” Aunt Letitia sputtered. “Viola, you’ve spilled our gel’s refreshment.” She turned to Chillton and fashioned a girlish pout for him. “Do be a dear, kind sir, and fetch Meredith another, will you?”

“Why, of course, Lady Featherton.” Chillton clicked his heels together and bowed, then headed for the refreshment table set up in the dining room.

Aunt Letitia’s eyes were twinkling now too. “Quickly, dear, have you been successful?”

Meredith cinched her brows. “Successful? At what may I ask?”

Aunt Viola shook her head. “Why, in your quest to lure the rake from his pressed and starched biding place. We invited Lord Lansing here especially for you—for your research, you know.”

“I didn’t know.” Meredith’s heart double-thudded in her chest and her head grew impossibly light, making her feel rather unstable. Heavens, what she would not do for an empty chair! “I wished you had warned me, Aunties. For I was caught completely ill-prepared and I fear his attendance this night is a complete waste.”

“Is it now?” Aunt Letitia waggled her thick white brows and inclined her head toward Hannah, who appeared to be giggling madly at something the rake had said. “Lord Lansing seems to be quite taken with Hannah. Perhaps her innocence will be bait enough to draw out his supposed rakish tendencies.”

“Perhaps.” Meredith studied Hannah and Alexander from her place by the pianoforte. “I own, I had not thought to try
innocence
… but ‘tis a brilliant idea, Auntie. How clever of you.”

Aunt Letitia swished her fan through the air, allowing the momentum to close the silken folds in her waiting palm. “I thought of nothing. ‘Twas Chillton’s idea to send his sister to fetch you.”

“Chillton’s?” As if suddenly hoisted by winches, Meredith’s brows shot to her hairline. That was certainly a surprise. Her own Mr. Chillton had done something impulsive.

Adventurous even.

This proved that Alexander was completely wrong about him. The urge to tell the rake so was near overwhelming.

She glanced up at the couple once more.
Just one moment, please. That isn’t Hannah with Alexander—well, not unless she’s aged twenty summers in the span of a single minute.

“Do excuse me for a moment, Aunties.” Meredith quickly skirted the pianoforte for a better view. And then she recognized the woman, and relief flooded over her.

It was the merry widow! Her aunts must have unwittingly invited her.

Just then, the widow turned her head toward Meredith and gave her a secret wink. Marvelous!

Meredith marched triumphantly back to her aunts, who were busily extricating any information to be had from Hannah, who had joined them during Meredith’s brief absence.

“No, I tell you,” Hannah was saying, in little more than a whimper. “He wasn’t interested in me at all. It’s Meredith he fancies. She’s all we discussed.”

“Me?”
Meredith couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Aunt Viola rose up on her toes and whispered into Meredith’s ear, “Perhaps you, Meredith, should be the rake’s wriggling bait… instead of Widow Heywood. Oh yes, do not appear so surprised. You did not think her attendance here was an accident, did you?”

“Sister is right,” added Aunt Letitia into Meredith’s ear. “Who else would be better able to conduct your experiments, hmm?”

When her aunts quieted, Meredith probed Hannah a little more.

“Why, pray, would he wish to know more about me? I am already affianced… er… I mean… my heart is already spoken for.”

Everyone just stared back at her, making her small gaffe seem as wide as the Thames.
Why will they not stop staring? Say something. Someone. Anyone. Just one word will do.

Please.

Meredith glanced at the door and searched her mind for any viable excuse to walk through it. “Just where is Chillton with my sherry? Perhaps I shall go and look for him, hrnm?” She patted Aunt Viola’s shoulder. “Think I will.”

“Don’t be nonsensical, dear, he knows where you are and the house is not so very large that he will become lost.” Aunt Viola’s attention pricked suddenly. “Oh look, Widow Heywood comes this way.” She glanced at the widow, then at Hannah, who knew nothing of Meredith’s experiments. “You remember her, Meredith. We paid her condolences after Mr. Heywood passed. The crowd is ever so large though, and I fear she may not see us. Would you greet her, dear? I do not wish her to feel forgotten this eve.”

“Yes, of course. It shall be lovely to see her again— under more pleasing circumstances.”

Dear me.
Meredith lifted the hem of her skirt from the floor and charged forward, meeting the widow before she could reach her aunts and Hannah. Chillton would be back at any moment, and there was absolutely no way she’d be able to explain away her less than honorable “seduction for guineas” arrangement with the widow.

When she reached the merry widow, Meredith wrapped her gloved hand around the widow’s and drew her close, as if she meant to kiss her cheek. “Thank you for corning, Mrs. Heywood.”

“Oh, Miss Merriweather, I am dreadfully sorry that I missed my appointment at the stables. I had a caller, and… was detained. Couldn’t be helped.”

Meredith gave a quick glance back at her aunts, who were doing their best to distract Hannah. “Never mind that. I handled everything. We haven’t much time. Were you successful with Lansing just now?”

The widow leaned back and reached out for both of Meredith’s upper arms. “No” was all she said as she sadly shook her head from side to side. “Would have liked that one in my bed too. And yet, his interest seems only to lie with one woman.”

Meredith widened her eyes. “Who? Tell me who and I shall hire her on at once. That is, if she does not ask too much.”

“She will not cost you a farthing, I am certain of it.”

“Really?” Meredith asked excitedly. “Who is she?”

“
You,
child.”

Meredith touched her own collarbone. “
Me?
Impossible.” Though it wasn’t really so impossible, was it? The widow was echoing Hannah’s words of only moments past.

“ ‘Tis true, I swear it.” With that, the widow kissed Meredith’s cheeks.

All of the warmth seemed to run out of her head as Meredith watched the widow continue on toward the Featherton sisters to make her good-byes and quit the musicale.

Meredith blindly felt her way to the pianoforte bench and sank down upon its glossy surface.

Could her aunt Viola be right, after all? Was she the best bait to draw out the rake? As much as she tried to deny it, she could not dismiss the logic of it. If she used herself as bait, there would be no chance of error. And, of course, she would not have to rely on spying for secondhand reports of the results.

And he had shown his interest at the stables the other day, had he not? Besides, she’d already tested every other sort of woman of allure she could think of: the courtesan, the widow, the innocent. And not one was able to elicit the desired response in the man—the response that would offer undeniable proof of the rake he truly was.

There was no other way, was there?

Meredith came to her feet and fixed her gaze on Lansing, then started across the music room for him.

Lord—oh, and Mr. Chillton too—please forgive me for what I am about to do.

For now that her course was clear, she would stop at nothing to prove her hypothesis.

Once a rake, always a rake.

After a time, a rake may say the following to the object of his desire: “You are probably the best friend I have.” This simple phrase serves to double a woman’s emotional investment. Be on your guard.

Two days later, Meredith sat primly beside Mr. Chillton in her aunts’ parlor, waiting for him to tell her why he had come to call without so much as a card to announce his intentions. It was quite unlike him, which intrigued Meredith quite a bit.

“For you, my dear Miss Merriweather.” Mr. Chillton spread his thin lips into a handsome smile as he handed Meredith a small box wrapped in a scarlet ribbon.

Meredith blinked at the case. “For me?” She turned her face up to him briefly, then excitedly tugged at the ribbon, letting it fall first to her lap, then to the parlor carpet. “Why, this is so… so unexpected.”

Unexpected was putting it mildly. This was the first present Mr. Chillton had given her.
Ever.

And the fact that she was now sitting with a small jewel box in her hand, placed there by Chillton himself, greatly confused her. This was totally out of character for her frugal beau.

Why, hadn’t he once told her—when she had spotted a pair of pearl earbobs that were the perfect gift for her sister Grace—that purchasing baubles and trifles was a complete waste of money? One could not eat them. They did not provide warmth or shelter from the weather, and they did not serve any useful function. They simply glittered.

In the end, his logic had prevailed.

She’d never forget the horrified look on Grace’s face when she opened her birthday gift: a wedge of salted pork.

Yes, Meredith had almost convinced herself as she lifted the box’s lid and peered inside that she would find a brass button… or something useful like that.

She blinked.

Meredith lifted the brooch she found inside to the light. “No, this can’t be a… Clearly, these stones are not… and yet they look so much like—” She held the brooch up to the last rays of sunlight squeezing through the gap between the curtain panels.

“I hope you are pleased, Miss Merriweather,” Chillton said tentatively. “ ‘Tis a diamond brooch, as you have guessed.”

The back of Meredith’s eyes began to sting, not because of the great value of the gift, but rather because she’d judged Arth… Mr. Chillton so unfairly. For though he seemed somewhat frugal at times, he was also a very generous man.

This proved it. Completely.

A radiant burst of happiness showered over Meredith.

“Mother sent it round for you,” Chillton added in the next breath.

“Your m-mother?” Meredith could hardly pry the words from her mouth.

“Indeed. Both she and Hannah thought it should be yours and that I should be the one to give it to you.”

Meredith’s spirits fell like a stone into a well. “So this brooch… is not from you?”

“Well, of course it is. Handed it to you, did I not?”

A heaviness settled in Meredith’s chest as she realized why he had given her the gift. It was a test.

Chillton watched as she carefully replaced the brooch into the jewel box. A whisper of a pleased smile quivered upon his lips. “You
don’t
like it,” he said knowingly. “Told Mother you didn’t care for such nonsense. We’re of like minds on this issue, I said.”

“It is lovely, Chillton.” Meredith sniffed back the tears of disappointment that threatened. “However, you are correct. I have no need for it.”

“That’s my sensible gel.” Chillton crossed his arms over his chest and grinned proudly. “You and I are a match in every way.” Reaching out to her, he lifted her hand and raised it to his lips before standing. “Must be off now. Business, you know.”

Meredith rose and politely followed him from the parlor into the passageway.

When he reached the entry hall, he turned to her matter-of-factly. “No need to delay any longer, Miss Merriweather. Please do me the honor of informing your aunts that I shall call Wednesday next, for I have a matter of great importance to discuss with them.”

As Edgar closed the door behind Mr. Chillton, Meredith trudged to the window and watched him board his scuffed phaeton.