A Rake by Any Other Name (20 page)

The best way to enslave a man was to free him. It would make him wonder why he wanted to get away.

“But I didn't—”

“Come, Hartley, you may not have made a declaration then, but we both know what dance that particular tune called for. It's why you brought me here, but I see now that you are much too involved with your new project to worry yourself about me right now.”

Well, that was inspired if Antonia did say so herself. Much better to blame his lack of interest in her on his new scheme than on that vulgar mushroom of an heiress Sophie Goodnight. Plus, it cast Antonia in the Madonna-like light of being so understanding she'd excuse his lack of attentiveness without needing an apology from him for it. That would be useful later. What wife needed that much attention from a husband anyway?

His purse, yes. His person, not so much.

“After the ball, perhaps you'll be more settled,” she suggested as she gently withdrew her hand from his.

“Antonia, it's not—”

She put her fingertips to his lips. “Hush, dear. You don't have to explain. I understand perfectly. And don't fret that I'll feel neglected while you…work.” She tried very hard not to color the word with the revulsion she felt, but if the new Somerset timber company funded her future, she wasn't about to denigrate it. Not now at any rate. “Because I'll be busy too. Your mother and I will have our hands full planning the party and ball. There are so many things to do, but I won't bore you with them.”

She rose to her feet and he followed suit. Gentlemen were so easy to manipulate. They were conditioned from boyhood to protect the fair sex from unpleasantness, especially if that unpleasantness was coming from themselves. Hartley would bless her for arranging matters so he didn't have to say baldly what was so clearly dancing on his tongue.

“Thank you for allowing your mother and me this chance to get to know each other better,” she said. “She's a lovely woman.”

“She's a peach,” he said in a tone that suggested he thought otherwise.

Impulsively, Antonia stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “You'll be so pleased with the party, I promise.” Then she headed back down the path.

Don't call me back. Don't call me
back.

If he didn't say the words now, he'd not have another chance to say them. Antonia would make sure of that.

She'd also make sure, one way or another, that she'd be betrothed to Richard Barrett, Lord Hartley, by the end of the ball.

Sometimes, the most important things in life are decided between one step and the next. The bewildering thing is that one is never quite certain during which two steps this remarkable occurrence might happen.

—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset

“Miss Dovecote.”

Eliza's chest constricted at the rumbling sound of that voice. She turned to see David Abbot trotting down the lane after her and her friends.

“I suppose you want us to walk on,” Drucilla said snappishly to Eliza. “I might have expected it. The lady's maid and the valet surely won't deign to stroll with the likes of us.”

“Oh, go on with you,” Sarah said to the older woman. “Just because you haven't a fellow wanting to walk you home from church, that's no call to be nasty to one who has. We'll see you at the house later, Dovecote.”

Sarah only called her Eliza now when no one else was around. Even though they were friends, the traditions of the below stairs folk must be maintained with as much rigidity as the manners of the quality folk upstairs. It was a matter of dignity all around, Mr. Hightower always said.

Sarah wrapped her arm around Drucilla's elbow and fairly dragged her along. Eliza waited for David to catch up. She loved watching him run, his long-legged strides eating up the distance between them.

“Mr. Abbot,” she said with a grin when he stopped in front of her. Sometimes her cheeks hurt from smiling so much when he was with her, but she couldn't help it.

“Do you think you could remember to call me David when it's just we two?”

She forced the smile from her face. “I think you should be Mr. Abbot to me for a while, since you let me get halfway back to Somerfield Park before you caught up with me.”

One of the loveliest things about Miss Goodnight and her family moving into guest rooms in the big house was the fact that Eliza was once more under the same roof as David. Her cozy chamber—and now that she was a lady's maid, she rated one all to herself!—was just down the long corridor from his, on the fourth floor.

She'd always admired David, but it was different now. The feeling seemed to be mutual. He noticed her and sought her out. Eliza didn't want to think it was only because she'd been elevated so quickly to her new position. She wanted to believe that the brief time she'd been away from Somerfield Park with the Goodnights had made him miss her and realize what she meant to him.

Instead of grinning like an idiot, which was what she really felt like doing whenever David was about, she cocked a brow at him. Her mistress said it was good to keep a man guessing. After all, he needed
something
to think about. Why shouldn't it be puzzling over the woman in his life?

“Don't be put out, Eliza.”

“Nonsense, if I were put out, it would mean I care about you.”

He smiled at that, and Eliza kicked herself. She'd almost admitted her feelings. That would never do. The man should always make the first declaration.

At least, that's what Miss Goodnight said.

Of course, the lady wasn't doing so well in matters of the heart herself at the moment. She hadn't said in so many words, but Eliza knew it was a bone of contention with Miss Goodnight that Lady Antonia and her family were still in residence at the big house. But Sophie Goodnight's advice still had a sound ring to it. It was a matter of self-respect. Eliza wouldn't gush that she loved David beyond the lot of mortals till he said he loved her first.

“Don't you want to know why I was late to walk you home?” David asked.

“Don't know why I should. It's not as if we have a standing arrangement.” In fact, he'd only walked her home from church once before. She turned from him and headed down the lane. When David fell into step with her, his long legs slowing their pace for her comfort, she decided her mistress's advice about men was brilliant. Now that Eliza wasn't mooning about over David, he was starting to moon over her.

“All right,” he said. “Let's plan on walking out together after church from now on.”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Eliza said with deceptive sweetness.

He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. It was an endearing gesture. She took it to mean she'd won this round. “Asking.”

“Very well. You may walk me home from church next Sunday. We'll let it be something I decide from one week to the next,” Eliza said, tickled that she'd be able to share this little exchange with her mistress later while she worked on Miss Goodnight's hair. If she couldn't produce a coiffure that lasted for an entire evening yet, at least Eliza could supply amusing gossip. “Now that that's settled,” she went on, “why were you late?”

“I had to ask the vicar something,” David said. “It was about what that fellow Thaddeus Clack said that made his lordship admit him to Somerfield Park in the first place.”

“What was that?”

“Rosewood Chapel. At first, I thought it might be some sort of code. You know, something that only Lord Somerset would understand, but it makes more sense that it's an actual place. So I asked the vicar had he ever heard of it.”

“Had he?” She peered up at him, trying not to let him see how he still fair took her breath away. Though his coloring was darker, David was every bit as fine to look upon as Lord Hartley—and far more approachable.

“Yes. Turns out, it's not far from here. Only a little farther down the coast from Crimble in a village called Brambleton.”

“Oh! My mother's sister lives in Brambleton.” She wished she were learned enough to offer to write a letter asking about the chapel. But then, her aunt wouldn't be able to read one in any case. Besides, Eliza's days were full enough without the distraction of being able to read and write. There was always a hem to mend or lace to reattach to some part of Miss Goodnight's wardrobe.

Her mistress was deucedly hard on her clothing. Eliza still hadn't managed to get the grass stains out of her riding habit. Her mistress must have taken quite a tumble, but she hadn't complained of a fall.

Of course, that particular day, Miss Goodnight had ridden out with Lord Hartley. Eliza drew her own conclusions. The less said about that the better, she decided.

“You know how to read,” she said to David. “I've seen you poring over his lordship's used newspapers in the common room often enough.”

“The marquess insisted upon it when I first came to live and work at Somerfield Park. So Mr. Hightower saw to my education. I had to spit shine shoes till he could see his reflection in them
and
learn to read and do sums in order to please him.”

“And now we're both doing well for ourselves,” Eliza said contentedly. “I always knew you'd be chosen to be Lord Hartley's valet.”

David shrugged. “Lord Hartley's easy enough to serve.”

“But you don't seem happy. Whyever not?”

“I don't know. It's not something I can put my finger on. I just have the sense that I'm not doing what I ought with my life. There's a piece missing.”

It's me!
Eliza almost sang out, but she bit her lip to keep from it. Still, if only he'd think a moment, he'd realize she was his missing piece. A man needed a woman to steady him and settle him down. She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow to give him a hint. “What do you think it might be that you're missing?”

He shook his head. “I haven't a clue.”

Eliza nearly growled in frustration. Why were men so puddingheaded sometimes?

“But back to Rosewood Chapel,” he said. “I need to go there for myself and see what connection there might be between that place and his lordship.”

“How will you get to Brambleton?” London was farther away, but it was an easier trip than traveling into the country if a body didn't have a conveyance or a horse to call his own. Every other day, a coach ran from Somerset-on-the-Sea to the great city, but not much serviced the hinterlands.

“I'll take the mail coach as far as Crimble, but then I'll have to walk. Brambleton is too small to have any regular coach routes.”

A flash of brilliance struck her. “I could ask Miss Goodnight if I may borrow her equipage and driver to visit my aunt in Brambleton. I'm pretty sure she'd let me because, after the London trip, she told me I might take a couple of days for myself if I liked.” She squeezed his arm. “You could come with me.”

“I don't want to put you in a difficult spot. It wouldn't be proper for us to travel together.”

“No, it wouldn't, but only if anyone knew about it,” Eliza reasoned. “Go ahead and take the mail coach to Crimble. If you start walking after that and my coach happens to stop and pick you up along the way to Brambleton, who would be the wiser?”

“I wouldn't want you to risk your reputation on my account.”

Her reputation was the least of her concerns. The idea of being alone in a swaying coach with David left her slightly light-headed. She gave a soft chuckle to show him she was making light of the situation.

“Are you trying to warn me that you have improper thoughts about me, David?”

He stopped walking and met her gaze without a hint of amusement. His dark eyes burned. “Yes.”

It was only one word, but it sent a ripple of goose bumps over her whole body.

Her mouth went suddenly dry. She'd hoped for just such a crack in his reserve. Now a whole world of possibilities opened before her. But David wasn't the sort of man to rush headlong into them. After all, he'd managed to limit a declaration of his feelings for her to a single word, for pity's sake.

“Let me worry about my reputation.” She could count on David to do right by her, whatever happened. She gave him her brightest smile and started walking again, pulling him along, because if she continued to look into his eyes, she'd be tempted to stand on tiptoe and kiss him then and there, in front of God and everybody. And that would never do.

She'd brushed her mouth over his as he lay unconscious in the lane near the Hound and Hare. If there was another kiss between them, he'd have to start it. Eliza had no doubt she could finish it.

“Besides, you might need my help finding what you seek once you get to the chapel,” Eliza continued.

“Fancy yourself a Bow Street Runner, do you?”

“I've been known to unravel a mystery or two,” she said.
After
all, I intend to unravel you, David Abbot. Indeed I
do.

***

Sophie ripped the page from her sketch pad and crumpled it into a ball. No matter what she did, she couldn't seem to get the perspective on the statue of Eros right. The fickle god of love defied her efforts to capture him in foolscap and charcoal. Viewed from her place of concealment on a stone bench sheltered by an ivy-covered trellis, the statue in Somerfield Park's garden was turned three quarters away from her.

He wasn't a chubby-cheeked Cupid. This rendition of the god of love was a youth in the first flush of manhood, his lean musculature well defined. He gazed into the distance, his head turned so she could see his firm jaw and straight Roman nose in profile. In a nod to his cherubic roots, Eros's granite head was covered with short curls, and small wings sprouted from his shoulder blades.

“Start from a central point,” she muttered to herself. The central point seemed to be his well-developed bum, so she sketched those hard cheeks, adding the thighs and calves, shading as she went.

She'd seen Richard in skin-tight trousers that didn't disguise his ample endowment in front, but she'd never seen him without a jacket, so she didn't know if his backside compared favorably to the statue. She suspected it put the god of love's rock-hard bum to shame.

“There you are.” A masculine voice interrupted her increasingly naughty musings.

Richard.
He was striding across the crisp green lawn toward her.

She flapped her book closed before he could see what had captured her attention. Not that she had a thing to be ashamed of. She wasn't the one who'd broken her word.

Lady Antonia was still firmly ensconced at Somerfield Park.

“Here I am,” she said, determined not to advance the conversation if she could help it.

“The glittering horde descends upon us tomorrow,” he said, clearly not looking forward to the arrival of more guests. “The rest of the ladies are in the parlor making favors for the house party.”

“How nice. But as it's not my house or my party, I fail to see how that concerns me.” She knew he expected her to slide to one side of the bench to make room for him, but she didn't want to. It would be giving in, and she wasn't in the mood to yield a finger width.

Not until Lady Antonia was gone.

“I don't know what you're so testy about.” Richard didn't wait for her to move. He crowded onto the bench with her.

She sidled to the far edge. “Don't you?”

“I spoke to Antonia just as I said I would.”

“And yet she's still here.”

He frowned as if that puzzled him a bit too. “She told me she understood and released me from whatever understanding we may have had. At least, that's my recollection of the conversation. Now that I think about it, I really had to say precious little. Before I knew what was what, she was letting me go.”

“How magnanimous of her,” Sophie said dryly.

“It was,” he said, missing the irony in her tone. “After she was so gracious and harbored no ill feelings, it felt churlish to ask her and her family to leave. Long before she and I kept company in Paris, the Pruett and the Barrett families have been friends. She's only still here to help with the house party and the ball. It's for Ella, really.”

Sophie unstiffened a bit. Ella had been giddy with excitement at supper last night. It was hard not to wish her success in her first social outing as an adult.