A Little Deception (6 page)

‘Charles?’ Helena’s laugh was bitter, tinged with hysteria.
‘I was never in the schoolroom, Rose. You know Father’s thoughts on education
for females. He considered my beauty a lure for a duke at least! What use was
education? But you insult me by implying that I was always motivated by
avarice. When I was seventeen I was prepared to sacrifice everything for love!
Yes! I’d have run away with nothing but the clothes I had on, but he who had no
prospects was too proud to condemn me to a life which, he said, would be one of
unending struggle. You didn’t know that about me…that I was so selfless…did
you? Now I’m married to your brother …’ Her eyes glittered with angry, unshed
tears. ‘So don’t you accuse me of not making sacrifices!’

As the carriage negotiated a deep rut in the road the
silence inside was tense. Rose bit her lip, repenting her earlier accusations.
Helena was as unhappy with her lot as she was.

‘Rose,’ said Helena at last, the familiar mocking tone
returning as she fixed Rose with a level look, ‘this uncharacteristically
madcap charade is, I assume, motivated by the desire to save us all … and not,
I trust, prompted by romantic folly?’ Squeezing Arabella’s shoulder in a
motherly fashion, she went on, ‘Perhaps you should talk some sense into your
sister, my dear Arabella. She is taking a big gamble in her desire to be the
confident woman of the world she imagines Lord Rampton would admire. And we all
know that Rose is not a natural gambler.’ She clicked her tongue. ‘I fear what
may happen if she pursues this dangerous charade.’

Arabella, out of her depth, remained silent.

‘Lord Rampton and I have come to an arrangement, Helena,’
Rose said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. ‘It’s only for …’ she
steeled herself, ‘a few weeks.’

‘A few weeks! You told us all he was leaving by week’s end.’
A slow smile curved Helena’s lips. ‘Ah, but he is taken with you, Rose. He
believes Lady Chesterfield can offer him diversions sufficient to make him want
to stay.’ She burst out laughing. ‘What an interesting situation, and I, who
have been bored for so long, am now enthralled.’ Her eyes glittered above the
steeple she made of her gloved hands. ‘How will sweet Rose play the dangerous
Lord Rampton?’ She looked thoughtful before adding, ‘Meanwhile, I am only too
happy to take my cue from Arabella so that I can convincingly play the
ingenuous schoolroom miss.’

‘You are?’ It was all Rose could manage.

Helena leaned forward and tapped Rose playfully on the
shoulder with her fan. ‘Now that you have engaged the interest of London’s most
notorious rake, Rose, I shall have much more fun as an innocent with an eye to
London’s most eligible bachelors than I would as Charles’s wife.’ She sat back
again, adding, ‘While I watch you sink deeper into a mire of your own making.’

‘HE
ASKED YOU to dance three times?’ Helena repeated. Rose, conscious of Helena’s
dampening effect on Arabella’s previously high spirits, looked up from her
stitching and remarked, with a smile, ‘Viscount Yarrowby was obviously very
charming, dearest.’

She knew Helena was chagrined; that she’d wanted to attend
the ball the previous night but instead had had to nurse Charles, who had come
down with a mild fever. Aunt Alice had chaperoned Arabella while Rose had
hastily summoned an imaginary megrim herself. She had no intention of nursing
her brother, who was not a good invalid, when that was Helena’s duty.

‘He’s lovely,’ Arabella enthused, eyes shining as she held
one of the blue drawing room cushions to her chest and executed a twirl in the
middle of the room. ‘He was so sweet and charming all evening. Of course, he
couldn’t take me into supper as Lady Belton had engaged him to take in Miss
Mawks, but he was by my side the moment he’d executed his duties.’

Rose could see she was intoxicated by her success. And why
shouldn’t she be? Arabella exuded a fresh, ingenuous charm.

Her gaze strayed from her admiring appraisal of Arabella to
Helena and a wave of trepidation engulfed her. Helena had always been,
undeniably, the most beautiful of them all. She had spent her life being fêted
and admired. Now, suddenly, she had been eclipsed. Not only by Arabella, but by
Rose too.

Helena had promised not to expose her. But could she behave
with malice towards Arabella?

Last night as neither Rose nor Helena had gone out in
public, the charade over Rose’s identity had not been an issue. But what of the
next ball or masquerade? Aunt Alice had lent Rose sufficient items from her
wardrobe so she could deport herself in reasonable style and Helena had agreed
to play the debutante out of malicious interest, but what of Charles’s
reaction? And that of Aunt Alice?

Rose had come to England with no intention of entering into
the social whirligig. So why did her heart now thunder at the possibility of
venturing forth into society. Thunder—not from trepidation, but
anticipation?

She was saved from having to explore the uncomfortable
conclusion to these thoughts by Helena’s dampening response, ‘I believe Lord
Yarrowby is quite a bit older than you.’

‘What does that signify?’ Arabella’s eyes widened. ‘Papa was
twenty years older than Mama, don’t forget. And Lord Yarrowby is only fifteen
years older than me.’

‘Oh, so you’re well advanced with your calculations,’
remarked Helena, apparently tiring of the conversation. She rose, her high
heels clicking on the parquetry, her silk gown swishing around her ankles as
she made her way towards the door. As she turned, her gaze travelled Arabella’s
length, as if assessing her worth.

Arabella’s jaw dropped as she realized that Helena was
mocking her, but the hurt look on her face only made her sister-in-law laugh.
‘I was not insulting you,
ma chérie
,’
she said, her tone more kindly now. ‘Rather the contrary. It would have been
simply too stupid of you not to have considered all matters pertaining to his
eligibility. Ah, a letter!’ she cried, gaily, snatching up the thick cream
parchment sealed with wax as the maid entered with the morning’s post. But her
disappointment showed as she turned it over.

‘Rose, your admirer,’ she said, stonily, after she’d
dismissed the maid. ‘Although, by rights, any letter addressed to Lady
Chesterfield should be opened by me. Well?’ she demanded, when Rose merely
stared at the missive as if she didn’t know what she should do.

Rose would have told her to mind her own business had
Arabella not also begged with childlike enthusiasm, ‘Yes, do tell, Rose. Is
Lord Rampton your new admirer?’

‘Lord Rampton merely wishes to meet me this afternoon,’
replied Rose evenly, once she had scanned it, folded up the paper and placed it
in the pocket of her skirt. ‘No doubt something to do with the arrangement we
have over the debt.’

But after being ushered into Lord Rampton’s drawing room,
then spending several minutes engaged in trivial chatter about the appalling
traffic conditions occasioned by that afternoon’s wet and windy weather, Rose
realized that her debt was far from Lord Rampton’s mind as he eventually got
down to the real reason for his request to her.

‘I understand it was Miss Arabella’s debut into society,’ he
said, conversationally, regarding Rose from above the rim of his cut-glass
tumbler.

‘Yes.’ For some reason Rose was wary. With little experience
of men she found being alone with one both disconcerting and exhilarating—or
was that because of the man, himself? Her palms felt sweaty and her throat dry
but she held her head high as she practised the self possession that had always
served her well.

‘She has a certain charming freshness,’ he went on, seeming
to observe her more acutely than the remark warranted. ‘More sherry?’ he asked,
suddenly by her side, bending to relieve her of her half-empty glass.

Rose hoped that if she kept her eyes trained on the fire,
and a polite but distant smile upon her lips, he would not notice the rapid
rise and fall of her bosom and the heat that flamed in her cheeks.

‘I couldn’t help noticing that she appeared to catch the eye
of Lord Yarrowby.’ Surveying her with an assessing look as he returned to his
seat, Lord Rampton raised his tumbler in salute, took a thoughtful sip, then
smiled. It was an intimate smile, as if he had known her a long time, and was
assured that each understood the relationship between them.

Rose felt both foolish and naïve. She should never have agreed
to meet Lord Rampton, alone, though Edith had accompanied her here, allaying
any suspicions Charles might have had. ‘You were, perhaps, expecting Arabella
to comport herself like a country bumpkin?’ she asked, cautiously.

Lord Rampton’s shout of laughter gave but short-lived
relief.

‘Having met the other women in her family the thought never
crossed my mind.’ His eyes twinkled.

Rose felt her defences crumble. No man had ever looked at
her like that: with such unreserved admiration. Her pulse quickened. Nor would
such a look ever have been likely to breach her defences, had it come from
another man. She had never lost her heart, or had it even slightly bruised; she
would not have thought such a thing possible. But Lord Rampton, with his
strong, angular face, his frank, direct gaze and the most beautiful mouth she
had ever seen, was doing all that and more.

‘No, indeed, I’d wager that with your sister-in-law’s
refreshing want of airs and her pretty face she’ll be the toast of the town.
Which is all the more reason to warn you—’

Foreboding and confusion coursed through her. ‘Warn me?’
Rose repeated faintly, her hand going to the low neckline of the pretty
pale-mauve voile Helena had surprisingly insisted she must borrow for her
unchaperoned visit.

‘Lord Yarrowby is a rake.’ He stated it baldly, with relish.

‘And Arabella danced with him but three times,’ Rose
replied. Clearly Lord Rampton had requested her company on false pretences. Now
was time to show strength. Lord Rampton was dangerous territory. Dangerous …
she had to remind herself. She must have as little to do with him as she could
before discharging Helena’s debt.

‘If you … summoned me here,’ she emphasized the word with
disdain, though her heart felt like breaking, ‘simply to tell me that, then I
think you have perhaps overestimated the depth of our acquaintance, sir.’ She
rose and looked around for a repository for her barely touched sherry.

Lord Yarrowby was a remarkable catch. Everyone said so, and
if Lord Rampton wanted to pretend concern over Yarrowby’s suitability merely to
draw Rose into his lair… well, it was simply too much of a sacrifice to make
– on either Arabella’s or her behalf.

Drawing in a breath that she hoped would replenish the
sensible side of her, she was surprised by his obvious dismay. Surely she had
not strayed so far from propriety that he wouldn’t understand by now that she
did not take kindly to his subterfuge? His next words, however, had the effect
of shocking her so much that she dropped back into her seat.

‘I beg your pardon, madam. I had thought your apparent
fondness for young Arabella betokened a certain regard for her personal happiness.
I had not realized that you planned to honour your debt through her … success.’

‘Of course I intend no such thing!’ Rose declared. ‘Only I
thought you had requested me to come here on the pretext of—’ She stopped
abruptly.

Lord Rampton watched her confusion with amusement. ‘Yes?’ he
prompted, mildly.

She waved one hand through the air dismissively, then took
another sustaining breath in order to gather her disordered wits. ‘Naturally,’
she said through clenched teeth, ‘where my sister…er…sister-in-law is concerned
it is of far greater importance to me that Lord Yarrowby should be a man of
decency and honour than that he has a fortune and a title.’

‘Bravo.’ Her host congratulated her with heavy irony. ‘Being
somewhat tender-hearted myself I hoped to elicit such a declaration.’

‘I am not completely shameless,’ Rose muttered. ‘You will
get your money, as promised, my lord, and I shall ensure that my sister-in-law
makes a match that will secure her future happiness which, I hope, will be free
from financial hardship.’ She rose. ‘Good day.’

Lord Rampton shadowed her as she navigated her way around
the furniture towards the door. She could almost feel the radiation from his
body and she turned, supporting herself with one hand on the back of the club
sofa, looking up to find his generously curved mouth smiling down at her, his
deep-blue eyes sparkling with amusement.

‘Lady Chesterfield,’ he said, taking her hand, his voice
filled with remorse, ‘I have offended you. Hardly the action of a gentleman,
especially when I have just accused Yarrowby – who is, I must tell you, a
former friend – of lacking the qualities required to be called one.’

Rose had no choice but to surrender her hand, which he bent
over with a flourish. A rush of sensation whooshed to her lower belly and she
drew in her breath sharply. What had caused that? Surely not the mere touch of
his lips upon her suddenly sensitised skin as he murmured, ‘Pray, forgive me.’

‘Perhaps I overreacted a trifle, Lord Rampton.’ Rose slanted
a sideways look towards him as she’d seen Helena do in the company of
attractive men. ‘You see, my sister-in-law is very dear to me and her happiness
is paramount. I was horrified at the charge you just levelled at me.’