Anita Mills (11 page)

“Well, I’d hope she would stay to dine,” Louise insisted. “We can send ‘round a note to Rose Farm, after all.”

“Really, but I should prefer—that is, I am certain I am expected at home.”

“Well, if you insist. Pennyman, run get the pot of face cream off my dressing table—the one in the black jar. I’d have her wear a little to bed every night—’twill soothe roughened skin. And if you will wear it in the daytime, I have hopes ’twill stop the freckles,” she added to Kitty.

“Really, ma’am, but I am not given to them,” Kitty demurred.

“Well, we cannot take the chance, for Sturbridge abhors brown females, my love.”

It was not until she was again safely in his tilbury that Kitty dissolved into whoops. “Lud, Charles, but what she will do to your wife, I should hate to think.”

He clicked the reins over his matched pair. “She will come around, I promise you. Mama is nothing if not practical, after all.” He half turned to look down on her. “And I am a man of honor, Kitty Gordon. Having offered for you, I shall keep the bargain.”

P
LEADING THE HEADACHE
, Kitty retired early to avoid her aunt’s enthusiastic plans for a summer wedding. But once inside her bedchamber, she could not sleep, and after several hours of attempting to read Caro Lamb’s
Glenarvon,
a singularly self-serving work if Kitty had ever read one, she abandoned both the book and her room. Creeping downstairs, she was surprised to find Roland in the bookroom.

“I’d thought you to still be out,” she murmured when he looked up in surprise.

“Just in—country pubs is deuced boring, you know,” he admitted, the slight slur in his voice betraying that he was more than a little bosky. He lifted up a book. “Been trying to read, but can’t seem to keep the words straight. Tired.”

She moved closer to see the title. “
Alexander’s Granicus Campaigns
? I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Got to like it,” he admitted, “else it puts you to sleep. Me, I don’t get tired of it.” For a moment, his young face clouded. “Hate being an only son, Kitty—hate it. If Jess had been a boy, I’d been a soldier.”

It was something she’d heard him say so many times she’d lost count. “I know,” she sympathized.

“Wished I’d been at Waterloo—wished I’d fought Boney, you know.”

She forbore pointing out that he was but twenty now, and it was unlikely he’d have been allowed to go in his teens. Instead, she said nothing, waiting for him to vent his frustrations yet again.

“But I got to be head of the family,” he muttered thickly.
“Got Jess and Georgiana and Little Fanny to think on, don’t I?” His blue eyes were almost fever-bright as they met hers. “Thing is, the younger girls is away to school, and Jess don’t need me—you are more to the purpose here than me, Kit. Least you wasn’t afraid to take Haverhill. Me, I never thought to do it.”

“It was not one of my better ideas, Rollo,” she said quietly. “Indeed, but I wish I had not. But one cannot escape one’s mistakes,” she added, sighing.

“Think we can scotch the scandal?”

“I think ’twill depend on whether he can be brought to pity Jess.”

He nodded solemnly. “Cannot be a divorce, you know. Throw a spoke in your wheel. Sturbridge’s mama wouldn’t let ‘im wed into the family.” Reaching for the brandy decanter that he had on the desk behind him, he offered, “Want to join me, Kit?”

“Rollo, your mama would not approve at all.”

“What she don’t know don’t make no difference,” he maintained stoutly. “Come on—a man don’t like to tipple alone. Besides, you ain’t one of them as butter won’t melt in your mouth. And ’tis real French cream I got here—genuine article.” To demonstrate, he poured out two glasses. “Smooth stuff, Kit.”

“ ’Tis all of a piece, anyway, I suppose,” she conceded, taking the one he offered her. “Maybe ’twill aid me to sleep.”

“Good as laudanum.”

It warmed her throat going down, so much so that it almost chocked her. He watched her make a face. “Ain’t supposed to
drink
it down, you know—got to sip it. Be disguised in a trice if you was to take it like that,” he warned.

“Kitty!”

They both looked up guiltily as Jessica slipped into the room, then Roland relaxed. “Oh—’tis you.”

“I—I could not sleep.”

“Got the ticket for you,” he promised. “Get another glass from Papa’s cabinet.”

“Oh, but I could not. Mama—”

“Been asleep an age. If you wasn’t a married lady, you’d be an ape-leader,” he pronounced definitely.

“Thank you,” Kitty muttered dryly. “As I am two years the elder, I suppose I am one.”

“Not you—not now, anyways. Sturbridge came up to scratch.” He lifted the decanter and poured a goodly amount into the glass that Jessica produced. “That’s more like it.” He giggled. “Tipplin’ with the females—wonder what Lady Sturbridge would say to that?”

“A great deal, I should suppose.”

“Was she truly rude to you?” Jessica wondered as she took a dainty sip. Before Kitty could answer, she choked. “Ugh!” she gasped.

“Got to get used to it.” To demonstrate, he took a sip and held it in his mouth before swallowing. “Ahhhh—smooth as a baby’s skin.”

“Lady Sturbridge allowed as how I am top short, too dowdy, and too delicate,” Kitty admitted, “but she will contrive to make me presentable.”

“She never said that, surely!” Jessica protested. “Kitty, not even Louise Trevor would say that to your face.”

“Well, she did—not in precisely those words, but I had no difficulty in catching her meaning. And neither did Charles, for he apologized much of the way home.” Despite her irritation with the dowager, Kitty could not help smiling. “She sent me home with face cream—to keep me from spotting.”

“But you ain’t got spots!” Rollo fairly howled.

“That is not to say I will not get them,” she responded, mimicking Lady Sturbridge’s tone. “And the cream serves more than one purpose, after all. While I am waiting to freckle, I can use it for the chapping.”

“Doing it too brown! You got good skin, Kit!”

“Thank you, Rollo. Oh—and she means to take me to London herself, for she has the acquaintance of a modiste who can conceal the flaws of my form—not to mention the bootmaker who excels in shoes to make me appear taller.”

“Kitty, I’m sorry.”

“Fiddle, Jess. I was vastly diverted, I assure you,” Kitty managed, giggling. Abruptly, she sobered. “I would that I knew how Haverhill fared just now.”

“I would that he died,” Jessica declared flatly. Then, to cut off Kitty’s disapproval, she sipped some more of the brandy, murmuring, “Quite right, Rollo, it does improve.”

“He ain’t any better? You’d best hope that he lives, Jess, ’cause if he don’t, we got a devilish time explaining it. Kitty’s liable to be clapped up.”

“He’s too weak to eat unaided.”

“Egad.”

“Yes, and I cannot think Charles means to care for him as he ought.”

“Charles is tending him?” Jessica demanded incredulously. “After what he did to me?”

“Stuff it, Jess!” her brother retorted. “The way I heard the tale, he didn’t do anything but rough you up a bit. I mean, deuced bad business, but it ain’t like he ravished you.”

“He meant to!” Tears welled in her lovely eyes. “Rollo, how could you say such a thing to me?”

“Of course he did! And Papa ought to have called him out for it, but he didn’t—made him wed you instead, in fact. Thing is, you ain’t blameless in the matter yourself. Besides, he didn’t get the deed done, so you wasn’t hurt none.”

“Rollo!”

“Well, demned stupid thing to do, going off with him like that, Jess. And don’t be watering the plants for me, ’cause it won’t fadge—I ain’t Mama,” he told her stoutly. “You was a peagoose, and you know it.”

“He said he wished to see the old miller’s rock, Rollo—how was I to know otherwise?”

“Dash it, but a bosky fellow don’t want to look at rocks, Jess! Fellow was three sheets into it!”

“You do not know how it was!”

“I ain’t a slowtop,” he retorted. “Got a notion. I mean, if a pretty girl was to go off alone with me, I’d think—well, I’d think she was inviting me to kiss her.”

“And would you tear her clothes?” Jessica demanded hotly. “Would you throw her onto the ground, and—”

“Of course not! I ain’t a loose screw, but you can’t know that. Thing is, you don’t do it, anyways, ’cause you don’t know what the fellow’ll do.” He turned his gaze to Kitty. “Don’t know why he didn’t try to ravish you also. Little thing like you ain’t a match for a man like Haverhill, Kit.”

“I had a pistol,” she reminded him.

“Ί suppose I could look in on him,” he conceded, changing the subject abruptly. “Daresay Charles ain’t much of a nurse. Me, I at least know about gunshot wounds.”

“How?” his sister asked sarcastically, still stung by his words to her. “A man is not the same as game, Rollo.”

“Read about it.”

“Would you take me with you, Rollo?” Kitty asked suddenly. “I cannot sleep knowing he is in such case.”

He looked up at the clock on the mantel, squinting his eyes to focus on the dial. “Dash it, Kit—’tis nigh to two o’clock. I said I’d go, didn’t I?”

“Please, Rollo. If he should die, I don’t know what I—”

“Ain’t going to die! Ball’s out, ain’t it? If he survived that, he’ll make it—unless he gets a putrid infection in the hole,” he amended thoughtfully. “Just weak, that’s all. But I suppose if you ain’t going to rest until—well, guess we could.”

“You cannot go off in the middle of the night,” Jessica protested, scandalized. “What if Mama were to discover it?”

“Well, as I am betrothed to Sturbridge, you wretch, she cannot make me wed Rollo, after all.”

“It ought to be you instead of Kitty, Jess. Ain’t anybody as could cavil at it if you were to take care of your husband, you know.”

Kitty finished her brandy and, emboldened by the intoxicating warmth that spread through her body, she teased her cousin. “Yes, if you were kind to him, perhaps he might be persuaded to let you go.”

“Ought to try,” Roland coaxed. “If Sturbridge is there, and me and Kitty also, he ain’t going to lay a hand on you.”

“He could not if he wished,” Kitty added. “I could put him into the floor myself. I’m telling you that he’s very ill, Jess.”

“
Now?
Mama—”

“Mama ain’t going to know. Be four of us there, Jess,” he persisted. “Don’t be a coward—cowards never win any battles. Be home ere the sun comes up.”

The younger girl looked from her brother to her cousin and perceived they were indeed serious. She wavered, then drank the rest of her brandy in one gulp. Coughing, she managed to nod. “If he offers me any violence, I shall expect you to kill him, Rollo,” she finally got out, drawing courage from the spirits.

“Done.” He rose unsteadily. “Ticket out of boredom, I’ll be bound. Could use a good lark.”

“I
DID NOT EXPECT
it to be so dark,” Jessica complained as the two-seater bounced over the rutted lane.

“Don’t know why not—night, ain’t it?” her brother retorted. “And you got it better than Kitty. You riding all right back there, Kit?”

“Yes.”

She sat with her knees drawn up onto the groom’s step to avoid ruining her dress, and held on with both hands. The ruts jarred her bones unmercifully, but she consoled herself with the fact that Jess was finally going to face Haverhill.

It was not until they were almost to the crofter’s cottage that she began to worry. It had been six years since the baron had seen his unwanted young wife, and much could have changed in the intervening time. What if Jess were right—what if he saw her and changed his mind? What if he should decide he wanted her after all? Somehow that thought did not bear thinking.

Rollo reined in too sharply, nearly throwing her from her precious perch. “You sure Charlie’s here? Don’t see his nag.”

“He must be. He promised he would sit with Haverhill.” She slid from the groom’s step and straightened her gown. For once at least it did not rain, and for that she was thankful. As she walked toward the dark cottage, she patted her hair back into place. “There is Charles’ horse,” she murmured, relieved.

“Eh?” Rollo moved unsteadily, still more than a little disguised from too much brandy and wine. “Got the right of it—Charlie’s nag,” he admitted, his voice slightly thick. “C’mon, Jess—got to see the bloody dolly mopper sometime, after all.”

“Rollo!”

“Sorry—your bloody husband, then.” As she hung back, he reached for her hand, tucking it into the crook of his elbow gallantly. Don’t be in a pelter, Jess,” he said soothingly. “Fellow ain’t such a dashed loose screw as to throw you down again—not with me and Sturbridge to stop him.”

“Rollo, I—I cannot.”

“Oh, for mercy!” Kitty snapped in disgust. “The man’s half-dead, coz.”

“But what if he recovers?”

“I certainly hope he does. Otherwise, you will be bringing me baskets to Newgate.” She moved to lift the door handle. “Try to keep your voices down in case he sleeps.”

At first, she thought the outer room was deserted, but then she saw Sturbridge asleep in a leaned-back chair, a half-guttered candle spluttering in a dish nearby. “Charles!” she hissed.

He lost his balance as he came awake guiltily. “What—? Oh, ’tis you, Kitty.” Then, as his mind cleared, he frowned. “What the devil are you doing out at night? Mrs. Merriman will tan both our hides if we are discovered.”

“I brought Rollo and Jess,” she answered, as though that ought to explain everything. “How is Haverhill?”

“Worse, I think. Don’t know how we’ll do it without rousing the neighborhood, but he’s got to have a doctor. Fever’s come up, and he was more’n half out of his head when I came. Kept talking about dead fellows, as far as I could collect him. And when I tried to calm him down, he urged me not to tarry—said we had to charge or lose the day.”

“Charge where?” Rollo asked curiously. “Did he say where?”

“No—just ‘Charge!’ ”

“I’d best see to him first,” Kitty declared. “Has he drunk anything?”

He nodded. “Brought some Madeira—mixed it with Mama’s sleeping draught. Thought if I was to sleep with a havey-cavey stranger, I’d like to know he was out. But you got no business being here, not at night.”

She ignored the uneasiness in his voice. “Then ’tis no wonder Haverhill is confused.”

She slipped into the other room and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The baron’s steady, rhythmic breathing reassured her somewhat as she approached the bed.

“My lord …” When he did not answer, she leaned over him and whispered more loudly, “ ’Tis Kitty Gordon, sir.”

“Unnnnhhhhh.” He shifted slightly, but did not rouse.

She touched his forehead and found it warmer than before. Hopefully, it was but that her hands were cold, but she feared the worst. She tried again. “My lord, ’tis I—Kitty Gordon!”

“Kitty Gordon,” he mumbled thickly. “Go ‘way. No case …” His voice ended in a sigh. He turned over, cradling his head on his arm.

“Is he awake?” Jessica whispered timidly, stepping inside the door.

“I think Charles has got him utterly foxed, if you want the truth of it,” Kitty snapped irritably. “And I think him feverish. Here—feel of him and tell me what you think.”

“Touch him? Oh, but I—”

“He’s as out as if he had his cork drawn, Jess!”

“But—”

“Of all the cowardly, the—the
goosish
nonsense! Have you no gumption at all?” Kitty fumed. “No, I suppose you have not,” she decided, sighing. “I forget.”

“Kitty!” Nonetheless, Jessica edged closer to where Haverhill lay, moving for all the world as though if he should so much as breathe loudly, she would run. Very gingerly, she extended her hand, ready to snatch it back on the instant.

Her fingertips brushed over his forehead, barely touching it.

“He
does
seem a trifle hot,” she agreed.

Just then, his eyes fluttered open, and he stared up at her. She jumped back, screeching, “Aiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee! Aiiiiiieeeeeeee!”

“What the devil—” he muttered.

Both Sturbridge and Rollo came running. “My dear Jessica, if he has so much as—”

“Stuff!” Kitty snapped.

“I say, Jess, but what the deuce? Scare a man out of a year of his life,” Rollo remonstrated, his voice severe.

But Jessica was still staring, white-faced, at the baron. “I do not know who he is, Kitty, but this man is not Haverhill!”

“Of course he is. You have but forgotten after six years,” Rollo assured her. “Bound to be.”

“Well, he is not,” Jessica maintained stoutly. “Do you think I could ever forget his face—or his fat fingers? Haverhill is
old
!” Emboldened by the presence of the others, she raised an accusing hand. “Just who are you, sir?” she demanded.

“Haverhill,” Jack croaked.

“Says he is the baron, Jess,” Rollo said, coming up behind her. “And he ought to know—Egad!” For a long moment, he could only stare at Jack. “ ’Tis Red Jack Rayne!”

“Do not be
ab
—who
?
”
Kitty stared also. “Are you saying he is
not
Haverhill?” she demanded.

“I tell you ’tis Red Jack!” Roland all but shouted.

“Are you quite certain?” Sturbridge asked, crowding his shoulder.

“Know him anywheres,” the younger man insisted. “Went to London to see Prinny decorate him—stood as close as Kitty is to him right now, I tell you. Ain’t Haverhill—’tis Colonel John Rayne, hero of—”

“It does not matter what he is hero of.” Kitty cut him off abruptly. She stared down at the offending fellow. “You told me you were Baron Haverhill,” she said accusingly.

By now, though still more than a little befuddled, Jack was awake. “Ears will never be the same,” he muttered. His eyes met Kitty’s. “Am.”

“Am what?” Sturbridge demanded.

“Haverhill.”

“Oh, no, you are not!” Jessica all but shouted at him.

“Henry’s dead—last month. Inherited.” Reflecting the glow of the candle the viscount carried, Jack’s eyes were almost gold. “Sorry to disappoint you, Miss Gordon.”

Kitty sank to the edge of the bed and sat there, feeling numb. “Red Jack Rayne—I have abducted Colonel Rayne,” she said finally, as though she could make herself believe it. Swallowing as though it would help her grasp the enormity of what she had done, she repeated it. “Red Jack Rayne.”

“Haverhill’s
dead
?” Jessica demanded. “Are you quite certain, sir?”

“Heir.”

“Been wanting to meet you, sir,” Rollo told him sincerely. “Followed the reports since Cuidad Rodrigo, you know, and—”

“Not now,” Sturbridge interrupted him. “Can you not see the man’s in no case for civilities? Red Jack Rayne—lud! Got to get him to a doctor forthwith, Rollo, ere he is the late Jack Rayne.”

“I am not wed! I am not wed!” Jessica repeated.

“Course you ain’t wed, now!” Rollo retorted, stung by Sturbridge’s tone to him. “Widow!”

“Black does not become me.”

“It don’t make no difference! If there was none to know of the wedding, then there’s none to know if you mourn the fellow! Go to London now, if you want.”

Instead of having the desired effect on his sister, Rollo’s pronouncement seemed to overset her more. Casting a look at Lord Sturbridge, she burst into tears.

“Stifle it, Jess!” Kitty ordered curtly. “We’ve got to think of Haverhill now.”

“Haverhill’s dead, Kit!” the younger girl wailed. “Dead! There was no need!”

“
This
Haverhill, peagoose!”

“Kitty—Miss Gordon!” Sturbridge protested. “There is no need—dreadful shock, after all!”

“Take him home with us,” Rollo decided. “Mama knows about the abduction, and when she finds ’tis Red Jack Rayne, she ain’t going to cavil at it one bit.”

“Do you think we ought to move him?” Kitty asked anxiously. “What if his wound should break open?” Recovering from her earlier shock, her common sense reasserted itself. “Perhaps we ought to summon the doctor here.”

“And say what? That you have abducted the fellow and got him shot?” Rollo asked derisively. “Best let Mama tend to the matter. Are we agreed, Sturbridge?”

“Well, I—”

“Charles—Charles!”

The viscount reddened at the sound of his mother’s voice in the outer room. Thrusting the candle into Roland’s hand, he groped his way toward the door.

“Mama, what the devil are you doing here?” he wondered almost plaintively.

“I demand an explanation, Charles, and I will not be put off! ’Tis quite one thing to sow one’s oats with the demimonde, quite another to dally with a neighbor! If Kitty Gordon is there, you’d both best come out!” As he stumbled into the outer room, she fixed him with the look of an avenging angel. “We shall take her home, Charles, though what the Merriman woman is to say, I am sure I do not know! Betrothed indeed! I’ll not have an indecent female in the family, Charles Trevor—do you hear me?”

“Yes, and so does everyone else, Mama. I assure you—”

“ ’Tis to be hoped that Isabella has the sense to send her back to America. No doubt there they will not refine so much on her lack of breeding.”

Kitty rose hastily and slipped behind her beleaguered betrothed to support him. “Really, madam, but—” she began coldly.

“I knew it! When Pennyman saw you creep—and
creep
is all you can call it, Charles! When Pennyman saw you creep from the house, she recalled the nightshirt, and it did not take much imagination to think the worst. Charles, how could you?” Before he could answer, she turned wrathful eyes to Kitty. “And you! You hussy! If you dare to say you have been compromised by my son, we shall see about it! I’ll tell the truth of the matter ere I’ll see him legshackled to a—”

Rollo thrust himself through the doorway between Kitty and Sturbridge. “It ain’t that way at all, Lady Sturbridge—it ain’t! And none’s to believe she’s been compromised, ’cause me and Jess is with her!” Manfully, he faced the dowager. “Owe her an apology, you do.”

“Roland Merriman!” she exclaimed. “Whatever—?”

“Lady Sturbridge, we can explain,” Jessica promised, standing on tiptoe to peer over her brother’s shoulder.

“Miss Merriman! ’Tis night! There can be no—”

“Came as soon as Sturbridge summoned us,” Roland insisted, exercising his mind to invent a plausible tale. “Didn’t we, Kit?” he asked, hoping she would help him.

“Well, yes, but—”

“Got Red Jack Rayne here. Fellow’s hurt, if you want the truth of it, and Charles—”

“
The
Red Jack Rayne? I would that you told the truth, young man,” Louise interrupted him. “If this is not an assignation, what is it?”

“Trying to tell you,” he retorted. “Charles found Red Jack and brought him here. Sent to me ’cause …” At
point non plus
in his story, he looked again at Kitty for help.

“Because he knew Roland would be interested. That is, he
knew
Rollo could tell him if ’twas truly Red Jack.”

“I have never heard such a Banbury tale in my life, Kitty Gordon,” Charles’s mother declared forcefully. “Red Jack Rayne indeed! What would someone like that be doing here?”

“Beset by highwaymen,” Rollo maintained stoutly.

“In Sussex?”

Ignoring the incredulity in her voice, he nodded. “Charles found him.”

“And when we heard that ’twas Red Jack Rayne,” Jessica murmured behind her brother, “Kitty and I had to see him.”

“In the middle of the night, miss?” Turning to her son, the dowager demanded, “I’d have the story from you, I think.”

“Not much to tell,” he began evasively. “ ’Tis as Rollo says.”

“If you found a wounded man, why did you not bring him to Blackstone Hall? Why is he in an abandoned crofter’s cottage?” she asked awfully.

“Can’t bring just anyone home,” Roland answered for him. “What if he was a flash-cove or something? Man don’t bring home what he don’t know, after all. Sent to me—knew I’d seen Red Jack in London.” Then, reddening under her icy stare, he added hopefully, “You ain’t going to tell m’mother, are you? Shouldn’t have brought the girls with me. She’ll read a regular peal over me, you know, for it.”

Sensing that Roland had seized the advantage, Sturbridge addressed his mother. “You owe Kitty an apology, Mama.”

His mother’s eyes dropped. “Well, what was I to think? First the nightshirt, then you sneaked from the house—”

“Quite an understandable thing,” Jessica admitted.

The dowager favored her with a look of gratitude. “Thank you, dear child. You at least seem able to know a mother’s concern for her only son.”

“I’m not in short coats, Mama,” Sturbridge muttered.

“Kit’s waiting to hear it,” Rollo reminded her.

“It does not matter,” Kitty said tiredly. “We’ve got to do something about Haverhill.”

“Haverhill? I thought you said ’twas Red Jack Rayne,” the dowager said suspiciously.

“Colonel Rayne is Baron Haverhill also, ma’am,” Jessica volunteered.

“Oh.” Realizing that they all still waited for her to acknowledge her mistake, Louise Trevor inhaled deeply and drew herself up to her full height. “Well, I own I had hoped I was wrong, Kitty dearest.”