Fated Folly (2 page)

She had been mad to come. Mad to think she might beard the ogre in his den. Justin was right. She was being childish. She had thought to cajole a complete stranger just as she twisted her papa around her little finger. And a hostile stranger at that.

Almost without conscious thought, she turned back and dropped down to have another sneaky look through the keyhole. The restricted picture this time encompassed the man's face and Clare let out an audible gasp.

He was
young
!

Then the thought was blanketed out, for she saw him glance at the door and abruptly rise from his chair. He had heard her! Clare leapt up and, tripping over her own feet, half stumbled, catching at the railing.

Behind her the door opened, and a male voice demanded, ‘What the devil—?'

He broke off as Clare half turned towards him, still clutching the railing. He seemed to take in her situation in a single glance, for he stepped forward, and quickly grasped her elbow, saying warningly, ‘Steady!'

Clare stared up at him, mute with astonishment. Lush, dark hair flowed to the shoulders about a lean countenance, with strong features. One would not call him handsome, but his face, his very presence, gave off life and vigour.

‘
But—but you can't be Sir Rupert Wolverley,' she muttered faintly, finding her tongue.

A smile crossed his face, lighting it up, and Clare experienced the most unaccountable jolt in her chest, as though her lungs had collapsed. She gasped as if for air, and the gentleman's brows snapped together in a quick frown.

‘
Are you unwell? Come and sit down.'

Before Clare well knew what had happened, she had been led into a spacious, sunny room, lined with filled bookshelves, where the gentleman obliged her to sit on the chair he had lately vacated by the desk. She watched him cross to a tray on a nearby table and pour some liquid from a decanter into a glass.

Her first amazement was abating. He was not, she realised, quite as young as she had at first supposed. But then again not, like Justin and his associates, little more than a boy. Here was a
man
. With a man's strength to be seen even in his figure, despite the concealing buckskin breeches and the dark blue coat worn less tightly fitted than present fashion decreed. An unprecedented sensation she could not recognise tugged within Clare as she felt the power radiating from him.

A tinge of warmth crept into her cheeks as he turned back towards her, and she thrust the thoughts away.

Returning to her side, he handed her the glass, saying with another of those devastating smiles, ‘Brandy. An excellent remedy for shock.'

An involuntary giggle escaped Clare. ‘You did give me a shock. But I don't want any brandy, thank you.'

She held out the glass and he took it back. ‘Then I shall drink it. I sustained something of a shock myself, you know, finding a strange young lady outside my door.'

‘
I beg your pardon,' Clare said contritely, as he tossed off the liquor and set down the glass. ‘I dare say you will be vexed, but I was going away again. Only when I saw how young you looked—'

‘
You saw?' he interrupted, bending a rather severe frown upon her. ‘Meaning?'

Clare bit her lip, but she could not suppress the mischief. ‘I was looking through the keyhole, I'm afraid.'

His lips twitched. ‘I trust your curiosity was satisfied?'

‘
Oh, it wasn't curiosity,' Clare told him earnestly, thinking how very much more approachable he was than she had anticipated. Her unease was evaporating fast. ‘I was trying to nerve myself to come in.'

‘
You wanted to see me?' he asked, casting her another frowning glance.

‘
Yes, I did. That is if—if you are indeed Sir Rupert Wolverley, which, I must tell you, I find incredible.'

The frown vanished and his eyes softened into amusement. She was waiting expectantly, but he said nothing for a moment, looking her over in silence.

Sir Rupert was caught by the expressive animation in the pretty face, which was framed by pale gold curls just showing under the bonnet. She was eyeing him quite unselfconsciously, with an elusive naughty twinkle that kept appearing and vanishing again, as if she was not quite certain of its possible reception.

He was conscious of an impulse of sensual warmth as he eyed the soft lips upon which a smile hovered, and instantly snapped away from the thought. She was a child. The garb spoke her status—a debutante's muslin gown with its fashionably high waist and a neat blue spencer atop, outlining that pert young bosom.

A stirring within made him stiffen in instant self-outrage. She evidently noted the change in his face, for the twinkle disappeared from her eyes and she gazed solemnly up at him.

‘
I am indeed Sir Rupert Wolverley, ma'am,' he said, more curtly than he had intended. ‘I am at a loss to imagine what you can possibly want of me, however.'

‘
Oh, drat,' uttered the girl softly, and with a faint grimace. ‘Now you do sound like an ogre.'

A short laugh was surprised out of him. ‘Have I that reputation then?'

She twinkled charmingly. ‘Only to Pippa and Justin.'

Quick wrath kindled, but the girl must have seen it in his face for she rose quickly and came towards him, a cajoling note in her voice.

‘
Pray don't look at me so. Why won't you let them marry?'

Suspicion warred with the resurgence of unwarranted tenderness in his breast. He stared down into her face, beset by confusion.

‘
Who are you?'

She smiled. ‘I'm Clare Carradale. Justin's sister, you know.'

‘
Are you indeed?'

Miss Carradale's eyes registered dismay, and her hand rested lightly on his arm for a moment. ‘Pray don't be angry. Not with them, in any event. It was all my own notion. Neither of them knew anything of the matter.'

‘
You came here for this?'

‘
I came to meet Pippa. We are to go to Bond Street together, you see.' The mischief crept back into her face. ‘Well, that is paltering a little with the truth, for I had every intention of bearding you if I could, and so I came early on purpose.'

Amusement seized him, but he suppressed the impulse to laugh.

‘
I am flattered, Miss Carradale.'

She grinned engagingly. ‘Don't be. I assure you my vision of you was far from flattering.'

‘
Indeed? I think I shall not enquire too particularly into that, then,' he said, on a wry note, unable to prevent himself from smiling. Her nearness disturbed him and he moved away a little.

‘
Ah, but that's why I was so shocked, you know,' she told him ingenuously, ‘so you may pique yourself upon that by all means.'

He glanced at her, and inclined his head. ‘You overwhelm me, Miss Carradale.'

‘
I wish you will call me Clare,' she invited, taking a step closer. ‘After all, we may well be related before too long.'

At that, a door closed in his mind. ‘Unlikely, I think.'

‘
Now I have made you cross again.' She dropped back. ‘What a pity you are not like your butler.'

He was startled. ‘Like my butler?'

The mischief sparked in her face. ‘Yes, poor Brookland was no match for me at all. I hoaxed him into thinking I was afraid to meet you, only so that I might be certain you were here.'

‘
And your purpose in seeking me out,' Rupert said flatly, ‘was to plead your brother's cause?'

Miss Carradale wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, not plead precisely.' She drew an audible breath. ‘To be frank with you, I had conceived the notion of—of cajoling you into such a charming humour that you could not help giving your consent.'

Rupert could not control a quivering lip and knew she saw it, for her tone became confiding.

‘
But I am only certain of my success in that line with middle-aged men, and you are nothing of the sort.'

‘
And you are—if you will forgive me?—a minx, Miss Carradale,' he told her. He added as she gave a stifled giggle, ‘Is that what you expected to find?'

‘
I thought you must be a good deal older. Not perhaps Papa's age, for he is quite fifty, you know. But Pippa speaks of you in such terms as gave me the impression that you must be on the shady side of forty at least.' Her eyes quizzed him. ‘So you see it is all your fault. I might have succeeded if only you had not been so different from my expectation.'

‘
Accept my apologies,' Rupert said drily. ‘Had I been apprised of your purpose, I would have assumed a suitable disguise.'

She burst into delightful giggles. ‘What, a grizzled wig and spectacles?'

‘
Something of the sort.'

‘
You could never look like Papa,' she declared.

To his faint surprise, the animation died out of her face, to be replaced with a suddenly intent look.

‘
But it's most odd, you know, because even though you don't resemble Pippa, I feel—I feel as if I know you.'

Now that she said it, Rupert was conscious of having experienced a similar sense of ease with the girl, as if they were not entirely unknown to each other. He hastened to quash the notion.

‘
I believe that is readily explained. Relatives often give off an air of familiarity.' He smiled. ‘I have met your brother, and that must explain why you do not seem quite a stranger to me.'

‘
Then you feel it, too!' Clare said wonderingly.

He did not answer, but his eyes passed over her face in a searching look as he moved closer. Clare felt her breath catch and was conscious of an irregularity in her heartbeat. He met her gaze and seemed to hold her with the sheer power of his eye. His fingers came up and lifted her chin. His touch set her trembling inside.

‘
How old are you?' he asked, his tone unexpectedly gentle.

‘
Seventeen.'

‘
My God,' he uttered softly, and a shadow crossed his face, ‘I ought to be shot.'

Clare's heartbeat quickened. Had she heard him correctly? She did not hesitate.

‘
Why do you say that?'

His fingers tightened, pinching her chin. Roughly, his tone almost hostile, he spoke.

‘
You should not be here. Were you my niece, you would know about it.'

Clare jerked back, slapping his fingers away. ‘I am not your niece!'

‘
You are young enough to be so.' He crossed to the still open door and held it, executing a slight bow. ‘Goodbye, Miss Carradale.'

Heat flooded Clare's cheeks. Compressing her lips she walked with downcast head to the door. As she reached Sir Rupert, she paused and glanced up.

‘
Ogre!' she spat.

To her mingled fury and amazement, he smiled again and his face lit.

‘
That I may very well prove to be, young lady, if you don't run away this instant.'

Clare threw him a baleful glance and marched from the room. The door snapped shut behind her. How dared he relegate her to the status of a child? That was hateful. But the outrage was already crumbling under the onslaught of that last smile as she fled down the stairs and gained the refuge of the little parlour.

***

 

Lord Carradale glared at his erring daughter over the top of his spectacles. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses, girl?'

‘
Papa, don't be cross,' begged Clare prettily, fluttering her innocent look at him. ‘Sir Rupert was not at all put out, I assure you.'

From the elegant Chippendale sofa came a faint moan. The wife of his lordship's bosom sank further into the green-striped, brocade cushions and resolutely plied her fan. ‘What did I ever do, I ask you, to be saddled with such a madcap child? Oh, the mortification!'

‘
But I do not at all see why you should be mortified, Mama,' Clare protested, turning from her father where he stood before the fire—for April had just barely turned its attention to bringing the sunshine, and it was chilly in the spacious morning-room—to confront her mother. ‘I told him it was all my own idea.'

To Clare's irritation, Lady Carradale ignored her, addressing herself, as was her invariable custom, to her lord, just as if Clare was not present. And in those hateful piteous tones too.

‘
She is devoid of sense. Has she no notion of propriety? It is all your fault. You have spoilt her to death, and now see what has come of it.'

‘
But I swear to you, he was only amused, Mama. He laughed.'

‘
Clare!' uttered her father bodingly, shoving his thumbs behind his lapels and drawing himself up straighter, and assuming an expression of severity in which Clare had no belief whatsoever. ‘A chit of a girl does not—um—call upon a man in his own house and—hrumph—and tell him how to conduct his affairs.'

‘
But I didn't,' Clare said despairingly. ‘He did not give me the opportunity to do so.'