A Rake by Any Other Name (13 page)

“Oh?” He strode across the space and peered over her shoulder. The print that filled the entire page of the oversized folio was clearly the work of a master. The dramatic use of light and dark was reminiscent of Michelangelo. The color palette was as sophisticated and vibrant as Titian's, but the subject matter was disturbing, to say the least. “What on earth is that?”

“
Judith
Slaying
Holofernes
,” Sophie said calmly, “by Artemisia Gentileschi. Realistically rendered, don't you think?”

“Never having seen a beheading, I can't say.”

“I doubt Miss Gentileschi ever did either, but art is more about the possible than the probable, isn't it? I've rarely seen such passion in a canvas.”

“That's one way of putting it.” Richard cocked his head to get a better angle on the scene, but any way he looked at it, the painting was still a writhing mass of fury. “Who was the artist angry with?”

“Why would you say such a thing? Men have been painting horrific things for centuries, and no one ever asks if they were angry.”

She had a point.

Then her shoulders slumped a bit. “Actually, Artemisia was angry with someone. Her art teacher, Tassi.”

“Remind me never to do whatever it was he did.”

“You wouldn't,” she said, closing the book with a snap. “Artemisia was young and innocent when she came under his tutelage. Tassi violated her. When he refused to marry her, she fought to bring him to trial, and during the course of it,
she
was tortured with thumbscrews to try to make her recant her testimony. He was finally ordered to serve a year in prison, but the sentence was never imposed. He wasn't incarcerated for a single day.”

“Well, that explains her choice of subject matter, a woman's revenge,” Richard said, though he wondered why the disturbing image held such fascination for Sophia.

Had she been similarly violated? It might explain her odd way of looking at things. And her cryptic remark,
What makes you think I'm a
virgin
?

But before he could think of a way to ask such about such an indelicate topic, she changed the subject on him.

“So Lord Somerset is in full possession of his wits and his mobility once more,” she said as she toed on her slippers and returned the art book to its place on the shelves. “Remarkable recovery.”

“Isn't it?”

“I'd imagine it takes some of the pressure off you.”

“Not really.” He stared out the window, over the seat she'd just vacated. The Somerset woods stretched in the distance for hundreds, probably thousands, of acres up and down the distant coastline. “Actually, I have an idea that might do the trick though.”

He told her about his newly formed plans. In addition to the massive oaks, the woods were filled with maples, alders, spruce, and sycamores. The lumber had to be worth something, and if properly husbanded, it was a resource that could be replenished.

“That's brilliant, Richard,” she said, her blue eyes sparkling with approval. “And think of all the jobs you'll provide for the local people.”

He hadn't thought about that. His only goal had been to bring Somerset back to solvency, but she was right. In harvesting the Somerset woods, he'd have to employ hundreds of men from the village. The notion opened up several new avenues of thought.

“We could build a mill here on the property,” he said. “Finished lumber will fetch more than raw timber and provide jobs for even more people.”

“Careful.” She grinned at him. “You'll be accused of thinking like a tradesman.”

“I'm thinking like a man who has to paddle fast to keep his head above water.”

Her smile faded only a little. “If your plan works, you won't need my dowry to keep Somerset afloat.”

“No, I don't suppose I will.” He took her hand and pressed it between his. Her fingers were slender and her skin smooth—such fragile-seeming hands for a young woman who was anything but. “When the time comes that a man asks for your hand, he shouldn't seek more than that.”

“Oh, I rather hope if I were to ever marry, my husband would want more of me than my hand.”

“Never doubt it.” His body roused to her innuendo almost immediately, and for a moment he imagined her cool palm on the hottest part of him. It almost made him forget what he'd meant to say, but then he recovered himself. “I simply meant that you alone, without your father's burgeoning purse, ought to be enough for any man.”

“Just keep repeating that and you may find you believe it.”

He shook his head. “You're still doing it. Like a champion cricketer, you bat away every compliment I bowl toward you.”

She looked down, her dark lashes laying in a sooty crescent on her cheeks. He ached to place a kiss on each of her eyelids, to taste that tender skin.

He realized she felt herself undeserving of his compliments, and he wondered why. But before he could ask her what had happened to make her reject kindness, or move to kiss her as he wanted to do so badly it was almost a sickness, his father burst into the library.

“I believe I'll ask Mr. Hightower to arrange that coach for me to return to Barrett House.” Sophie tugged her hand free, made her good-byes to his father, and skittered out of the room without a backward glance.

Though he wasn't ready for her to leave, he could have almost kissed her. Again. If he was going to accuse his father of lying to him, he didn't want any witnesses.

In every pride, there comes a time when the young lion beards the old one in his own den. However, lest the young male get too cocky, let him remember that the magnificently maned fellow is nothing more than a figurehead. It is the lionesses who hold the real power.

—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset

“Sir, it gives me no pleasure to say this, but what the blazes were you thinking to perpetrate such a fraud?” Richard started softly but crescendoed to a blistering snarl. “And on your own son, no less.”

No one spoke to the marquess like that. His face a mask of outrage, Lord Somerset drew himself up to his full height. It only served to accentuate the fact that Richard now topped his father by a couple inches. There was a good deal more silver at his lordship's temples than he remembered, and creases of worry had set up a picket line around his eyes.

“Are you speaking of the son who hadn't deigned to show his face here in so many years his youngest sister couldn't recall what he looked like?” Lord Somerset thundered.

“That's not fair. You knew where I was. Have I ever failed to answer a summons?”

“Not since… Well, wasn't there that time when…Oh, hang it all, Hartley.” His father seemed to crumple into himself a bit. “It was your grandmother's idea. And you know how she gets when there's a bee in her bonnet. Woe betide all who wander into her path.”

“Why did she think it necessary?”

“It hardly signifies now, but she claimed it would help you see your duty more clearly.”

“I've never failed you,” Richard said through clenched teeth. He'd slaved through his years at Oxford, though his father had never acknowledged his stellar academic accomplishments. They were no more than what was expected, after all.

“She seemed to think Seymour's devil-may-care attitude might have rubbed off on you. I'm sorry for my part in it.” The marquess strode to the liquor cabinet and poured a whisky neat each for himself and Richard. “The thing is, the women in this family, and by that I mean mostly your grandmother, are afraid, Son.”

He accepted the drink from his father.

“The prestige of the family is everything to her. She senses it slipping away,” Lord Somerset said.

Richard couldn't believe his beloved grandmother was the author of this mendacity. “If Gran does feel herself diminished by our present circumstances, she still doesn't seem a jot less imperious.”

His father snorted. “She wouldn't. But to be fair, she knew you'd be difficult about accepting the way we've found to fix matters.”

“Anyone who can't be manipulated into bowing to her will is now considered difficult?”

“My lady mother rightly claimed that you wouldn't feel the full weight of ownership of the problem unless I was…unavailable. And I daresay she's right.” His lordship sank wearily into one of the wing chairs. “You can't imagine the burden of the marquessate until it falls onto your shoulders. It has the weight of history, Son.”

Richard's father knocked back half his whisky and then went on speaking. “Our lineage stretches back to the Conqueror. There have been Barretts here since the first Domesday Book was compiled in 1086. The family name was Barat then. We may have started off French, but we've made this corner of England ours.” The marquess finished off his drink, hard and fast, not savoring the twenty-five-year-old Scotch in the least. Alcoholic fog could feel like absolution at times, Richard knew, but he didn't think his father deserved any. “Damn, it galls me to be the one who failed.”

At this candid admission, Richard's chest constricted in sympathy for his father's misery. He sat down in the wing chair opposite the marquess. “I wouldn't say you failed, sir. I would rather say you've had bad luck. But for a South Sea volcano and a disaster at sea, Somerset would have been right as rain.”

“Well, thank you for that, Hartley. But in truth, we've been in decline for a number of years. And I've been in decline. My memory is still as full of holes as a moth-eaten cloak. Our financial bad luck, as you call it, is simply the final nail in the coffin.” His father dragged a hand over his face. “I believe I saw Miss Goodnight's hand in yours when I first entered the library. Am I to see this as proof that you're now amenable to the match?”

Since he wasn't really sure of the answer himself, Richard posed his own question. “What would you say if I told you I have an idea that will answer Somerset's financial woes?”

“Go on.”

Remembering the light dancing in Sophie's eyes when he first suggested it, Richard launched into an enthusiastic description of his plan to harvest the estate's forest. He capped his proposal by telling his father about building a lumber mill to provide employment for Somerset-on-the-Sea's struggling families.

“Sell the wood?” his father said when Richard finally paused for a breath. “Where will we have the hunt next fall? You know I invite key members of the House of Lords to shoot partridge and pheasant each year.”

“Perhaps you could invite them to see what might be done to improve an estate's financial outlook and uplift a village's economy at the same time.”

“But…you'll be engaging in
trade
.” His father spat out the word as if it soured his tongue.

“Yes,
we
would.” Might as well get the old lion used to the idea that he too would be tarred with the tradesman's brush.

“I forbid it.”

“How is this different from investing in that doomed whaling vessel?”

“That wasn't engaging in trade. It was speculation. Somerset's assets were being soundly—”

“Lost off the coast of Nova Scotia,” Richard finished for him. “I will allow that your investment was a smidge more sensible than gambling it away at White's, but the money's still gone all the same.”

Lord Somerset glared at him. “Now see here. If you sell the forest, it's…well, it's drastic. It's as low as selling the household silver. It announces to the entire world how dire our predicament is.”

“Do you think they won't know soon enough in any case?”

His father threw up his hands. “You may as well petition the House of Lords for permission to chop up the estate and sell it off piecemeal.”

“If we don't do something soon, that's exactly what we'll be reduced to.”

“And that's precisely why you must marry Miss Goodnight as her father and I have agreed,” Lord Somerset said triumphantly, as if certain he'd trapped Richard with the only logical conclusion.

“Sir, I can't tell you how repugnant that idea is.”

“Repugnant? What's the matter with you? She's certainly pretty enough.”

“Miss Goodnight's not the problem. The whole idea is.” Richard stood and leaned on the mantelpiece. “You would sell us both for thirty pieces of silver.”

“Oh, trust me, Son. Miss Goodnight's dowry is worth considerably more than that.”

“I don't care if it's enough to pay off the Prince Regent's personal debts,” Richard said. “Don't you see you have reduced both of us to mere commodities? Sophie is part and parcel in a trade, of no more consequence than an extra bag of wheat tossed in to sweeten the deal. You demean her in the exchange.”

“So you do care about the girl?”

“That's not at issue,” Richard argued. “Doesn't it bother you that in this bargain, I may as well be a cicisbeo?” He thought certain his father would object to him being no better than a kept man. He thought wrong.

“A cicisbeo with generations of noble blood running in his veins,” the marquess countered. “You'll hardly be the first wellborn young man to take a bride who's beneath him in consideration for financial gain.”

“Sophie is not beneath me.” In fact, he'd never met a woman he felt was so far above him. He was in awe of her each time he reached for her.

“The daughter of a nabob? Of course she's beneath you. If not for this present emergency, the whole Goodnight family would be so far beneath our touch…” His father caught himself before he said more against the young woman he expected Richard to marry and laughed. “You are heir to the marquessate of Somerset. There are damned few in this country who aren't beneath you.”

“Then I wish I was anything but your heir, sir.” Richard started for the door.

“Now just a moment, you insolent pup.” His father leaped to his feet. “We're not finished here.”

“Yes, Father, we are,” Richard rounded on him. “You played your part too well, you see. Mr. Witherspoon was hesitant to do anything on behalf of the estate on my orders without proper documentation, so he went to Dr. Partridge, and between the two of them, they had you declared
non
compos
mentis
. I signed the papers the night I returned home. You are no longer in control of this estate. I am.”

“A formality. Once I tell Witherspoon to tear up those worthless papers—”

“He can't. They've already been submitted to the court. It would take a lawsuit to reverse the finding and you, Father, have no funds with which to prosecute one,” Richard said. “Unless you wish to sell Mother's jewelry, of course.”

“You're going to regret this.” Cold fury burned in his father's eyes.

“I regret many things, your lordship, but not this.” He didn't flinch under his father's unyielding stare. “I will harvest and sell off the estate's wood, but I'll replant as I go, so the next generation of Barretts will still have the asset. I'll build the mill and hire the villagers. I'll save Somerfield Park because I believe it's worth saving. But I'll do it my way, not as part of some scheme you and Mr. Goodnight have concocted.” Richard stalked to the door and paused with his hand on the crystal knob. “I do feel the weight of the estate. I feel it every moment of every day. It's mine now, in all but title. And there's not a damned thing you can do about it, sir.”

***

Sophie knew it was incredibly bad form to listen at keyholes, but the temptation was so great. Besides, she rarely resisted temptation, even when it was not.

Richard was easy to hear through the small aperture. He spoke about his plans for the forest with confidence and clarity. He wasn't going to raze the whole thing, he argued. After he hired a forestry expert, they'd put together a rotating schedule for cutting that allowed for regrowth and wouldn't disturb the wildlife more than necessary. Her idea about the mill to create more jobs had already been folded seamlessly into his projections.

She was so proud of him for wanting to provide relief, not only for his immediate family, but for all the families of the village and surrounding farmsteads who were dependent upon the estate. But even as laudable as that goal was, she knew there was another reason a small, glowing lump of something delightful was building in her chest.

The man had
listened
to her.

He'd taken her idea and promoted it as if it were his own. He didn't try to change the subject, or pat her on the head and assert that women didn't know anything about commerce.

Richard accepted her idea and was eager to implement it.

Men had always been keen to get their hands on her father's money. More than a few wanted their hands up her skirt. Only Richard had seemed interested in what buzzed around between her ears.

Perhaps her father hadn't done so badly when he tried to orchestrate a marriage between her and Richard.

Then the conversation on the other side of the door took a turn toward their arranged match. She heard Richard say clearly, “Sir, I can't tell you how repugnant that idea is.”

Her breath hissed over her teeth. Sophie recoiled from the keyhole as if it were an adder poised to strike. She clapped a hand over her mouth and ran from the library.

Repugnant
.

Was she repugnant when they were entwined on her plaid blanket in the ruins of the old castle? It hadn't seemed so at the time, but now she knew, from his own lips, what he really thought of her.

That glowing lump in her chest began to ache so badly she found it hard to breathe.

She took a couple of wrong turns in the great house, but she wasn't about to ring any of the bell pulls she fled past to summon help or a coach to take her home. The last thing she needed was for anyone to see her like this.

When she finally found the foyer and massive front doors, she flung them open and escaped into the coming twilight. Sophie swiped her eyes angrily as she strode down the tree-lined lane toward Barrett House.

How dare that man make her weep!

She didn't care what he thought. She didn't care what any man thought of her. She ought to have been more careful though. She knew what could come of trusting, of letting a man become important to her, of opening herself to the possibility of closeness.

It always led to betrayal.

It would be dark by the time she reached Barrett House, but she didn't care. Somehow, she had to convince her parents to leave this place. She'd never ride in a Somerset conveyance again, never darken the door of Somerfield Park.

And, please God, never set eyes on Richard “high and mighty Lord Hartley” Barrett ever, ever again.