Once a Rake (Drake's Rakes) (4 page)

“Lady Sarah! Are you comin’ in f’r dinner soon?”

Sarah jumped. The last thing she needed was for anyone to come looking for her.

“I will be there in a minute, Mary!” she called, staring down at the Scot with dread. “I’m securing Willoughby!”

“Mizz Hardy says to hurry please, ma’am!”

The thin, hesitant tones of Mary Sunday’s voice were punctuated by the slamming of a door.

“Come along, then, lass,” her surprise guest said, lifting a hand. “Gi’ me a hand up, and I’ll be off.”

She stared at that hand as if it were a puzzle. She tried so hard to be practical. To be realistic. She couldn’t. “No,” she said with a shake of her head. “You won’t.”

She simply couldn’t do it. She could not condemn him.

She should, God knew. She should get him as far away as possible before Martin returned. If the man was a traitor, there would be no mercy for her, none for anyone on the farm. But her instincts, developed over a lifetime spent balanced on the edge of security, had served her well. And her instinct said that no matter how it looked, this man was telling the truth.

He rolled and pushed himself to his feet. “Don’t be daft, lass. Help me leave.”

He swayed so alarmingly that Sarah put a hand around his ribs to stabilize him. It was like trying to balance a standing stone. “You wouldn’t get off my property before you went down again,” she said, “which would surely attract the wrong kind of attention. It happens that I have several empty outbuildings you could use for a night or two. We just need to get you there.”

His hand on her shoulder, he shook his head, as if to clear it. “What if yon lassie stumbles over me?”

Sarah actually laughed. “No one goes into these outbuildings but Mr. Hicks, our man of work, and me. And Mr. Hicks never sees anything I do not want him to.”

The Scot squinted at her, his eyes creased with humor. “Don’t tell me. You do a wee bit of smuggling on the side.”

She stiffened. “Now you’re being ridiculous. I run my husband’s estate. And make certain that his cousin who does smuggle remains at a safe distance.”

The Scot tilted his head. “I think you have no man to protect you.”

“My man went off to war.”

“He fought at Waterloo?”

She looked away so he could not see her fresh guilt. “Yes. The 35th Foot.”

He nodded. “Good lads all.”

Odd how this stranger’s praise could make her feel a bit better about Boswell. “Thank you. I heard the Black Watch fought heroically as well. You were an officer?”

“A colonel. Still am, unless this brangle has cost me that as well.”

For a few moments, Sarah concentrated on getting the man into motion. Tucked right under his shoulder, she was struck by the solid weight of him. A
frisson
of energy seemed to shudder between them. Unbidden heat in a cold dusk. The sensation was so unfamiliar that she stumbled with the surprise of it. He didn’t seem to notice, thank heaven. She would simply have to ignore it.

Drawing in a breath, she pushed on, stumbling over the cobbles of her stable yard. That was when it truly struck her what she was doing. Without her permission, her heart sped up. Her chest suddenly seemed too tight, as if a bubble of air were caught in it. She hadn’t been beset by such feelings often, but she knew what they were. Exhilaration. The impermissible excitement of trodding along the edge of rebellion.

The last time she had felt it, she had been helping her friend Fiona run away from school. She could easily remember the heady thrill she’d felt as their coach had jolted and swayed across Berkshire. She swore she could still smell dust and leather seats.

“That cousin of his is nae wrong, lass,” the Scot suddenly said. “Four months is a long time.”

As quickly as that, the exhilaration died. “Not long enough to give up. Now, come along. I refuse to miss my dinner.”

Bearing more of his weight, she guided him into the potting shed, not much in use at this time of year. He stumbled over his own feet, and shivered alarmingly as they entered through the listing wooden door. The floor was dirt, but it was dry and the temperature tolerable. He could at least rest a night or two before moving on.

It took some minutes, but they got him settled on the chair Mr. Hicks kept for his bad back. Sarah ignored the chair’s groan of protest as all fifteen stone sank onto it. Shoving aside empty pots so the man could lay his head on the bench, Sarah gathered together what empty sacks lay about.

“This is the best I have for cover,” she apologized, laying them in his lap. “I’ll return later with blankets. Will you be all right?”

He never opened his eyes. “This’ll be grand.”

Still she hesitated. “It isn’t much.”

He chuckled. “Lass, this little stone hut is a palace compared to some of the places I’ve called home. Dinna fesh y’rself.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “Of course. I heard conditions on the Peninsula were terrible.”

Strangely enough, that was what got his head up and his eyes open. “Aye,” was all he said, wearing the oddest expression. “The Peninsula.”

She gave a jerky nod. “Well, good-bye for now,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “I hope you like rabbit stew. That is what is for dinner.”

“May I ask one favor, lass?”

She shrugged. “You can certainly ask.”

“Your name. I don’t know what to call my angel of mercy.”

She fought a furious blush. Suddenly she felt uncomfortable, as if her act of charity had just become very personal.

“Sarah, Lady Clarke,” she finally said. “And you?”

He stared at her as if she had two heads. “You don’t know my name?”

She shrugged. “Evidently whoever drew up the posters felt a description was sufficient. ‘Tall, large Scot with red hair, blue eyes, multiple scars and tattoo of thistle and dagger on left upper arm. Weight sixteen stone.’” She tilted her head a bit. “It seems you have added a scar to the collection. And lost a stone or two.”

He shrugged. “Swimming is nae my best sport. And it’s nae a dagger. It’s called a
sgian dubh.
”

Sarah blinked and surrendered a faint smile. “Oh. Of course.”

He looked surprised. “You know what a
sgian dubh
is, do you, lass?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I had friends in school from Scotland. They had
sgian dubhs.
” She couldn’t help but smile, thinking of how her friend Fiona had sewn a special pocket in her sleeve to hold the little knife at the ready. “We wove some pretty elaborate plots involving those little knives and certain academy mistresses.”

It was his turn to grin, and it softened his face, easing those hard lines that bracketed his mouth and punctuated his forehead. “Ferocious wee thing, aren’t you?”

Her humor died. “When necessary. Now then, sir. I would appreciate a name.”

Before she could think to intervene, he climbed unsteadily back to his feet and bowed. “According to you English,” he said, his deep voice sliding over her skin like honey, “my name is John Edward George Ferguson Hawes, Viscount Hawes.”

She blinked up at him, an odd sense of familiarity nagging her. “You’re a peer?”

Again, he shrugged, as if it were unimportant. “So it seems.”

“It seems? Are you not certain?”

His smile twisted. “Oh, aye. I’m afraid I am. The thing’s just a bad fit. I prefer to hear the name I carried until the day the toffs found me.”

He began to sway again. She reached out to grab his arm. “Then what name will you allow?” she demanded in exasperation. “So I can get you off your feet before you fall all on your own.”

She had no intention of being in the way when he did.

Thankfully, he didn’t attempt another bow. “If it’s all the same to ye, lass,” he said, “I would rather you call me Ian. But if you’ve a need to be formal, then it would be Ferguson. Colonel Ian Ferguson.”

In that moment, everything changed. Sarah felt as if she had been felled by a tree, by a house. By an iceberg.

“You stare, lass,” he said, listing a little more.

“You cannot be,” was all she could manage. She wanted to step back, to get a better look at him. But she knew if she let go, he would drop like a rock.

“Can I no’?” he asked.

Suddenly that sense of familiarity made sense. It was the color of the hair, that dark, rich auburn. The blue, blue eyes and the height. The story she should have remembered about how Ian Ferguson became Viscount Hawes.

Anger began to bubble deep in her. Resentment.

“The girls I was speaking of who attended school with me at Miss Chase’s Academy outside Slough,” she said. “The ones with the
sgian dubhs.
Their names were Fiona and Mairead Ferguson.”

Immediately his features lit up. “You know Fiona and Mairead?”

This time she did step away. His legs immediately gave out, landing him with a thud on the chair.

“
You
are their brother,” she accused.

He frowned at the venom in her voice. “Aye, lass. I am.”

She nodded sharply. “When was the last time you saw them?”

He looked bemused. “Two…nae, three years.”

“Indeed,” she said, knowing her voice was cold with condemnation. “In that case, it might be better for both of us if I bid you farewell right now. You will undoubtedly be able to find your way in the morning.”

Before he had a chance to react, she turned about and slammed out the door.

Chapter 3

Sarah’s indignation propelled her on a march around the outbuildings.

Fiona Ferguson’s brother. How could he be? Fiona had been born and raised in Edinburgh. She was now living somewhere in West Riding. How could her brother wash up on the south coast and end up on Sarah’s farm? How was Sarah supposed to deal equably with him, when all she wanted to do was wallop him in the head with a fence post for neglecting her friends?

There had been few enough of those in Sarah’s life. Her birth assured that. But for those precious few years at school, she had been able to claim four. Her roommates: Pippin Knight, Lizzie Ripton, and the Ferguson sisters. Fiona had shared four years of boarding school with Sarah. But Fiona’s twin, Mairead, had lasted only weeks, overwhelmed and miserable by the upheaval in her life. And none but her sister and friends had cared.

Fiona had always been quick to excuse her brother for abandoning her and her sister so thoroughly. “He found us a school,” she would say. “And when that didn’t work for Mairead, he sent one of his friends to make sure she got home safely.”

He had found them what the students had dubbed Last Chance Academy, the worst school in Britain, in which dozens of girls had been left to languish behind the cold walls of arbitrary discipline, mediocre academics, and parental indifference. The only time Sarah thought of her marriage with anything but regret was when she remembered that it had saved her from another day in that prison.

And Ian Ferguson had not once visited his sisters or interceded on their behalf. He hadn’t so much as asked exactly why it was that Mairead went home. Only Fiona had fought for her sister. Fiona and her school chums.

Sarah finally came to rest against Willoughby’s enclosure, still too angry to go inside.

It wasn’t that easy, of course. It never was. Her feelings for Ian Ferguson were far more complicated than mere anger, and had been for years. But she wasn’t about to kick at that nest now: It would be pointless.

Inevitably, Sarah’s gaze swept over to the arbor.
Oh, Boswell. How did it come to this?
Even before Boswell’s flight, she had worked herself raw to hold on to Fairbourne. She had cobbled this place together with her callused fingers, her wits and her determination to finally belong somewhere. She would do anything to protect it. She
had
done anything, and the secrets weighed on her like grief.

How then, could she think of risking it all for one man? All Martin Clarke had to do was discover Ian Ferguson crouching in her potting shed, and Fairbourne would be emptied like a plague house. The family Boswell had asked Sarah to protect would be destroyed, and the only real home she’d ever had lost.

Her instincts said to leave Ian Ferguson to rot. To hand him over forthwith to the militia, where he would no longer be a threat to her or to Fairbourne.

Rubbing at her eyes, she sighed. She couldn’t. Fiona would never understand. Even after her brother’s neglect, Fiona still loved the beast. She still insisted that it would have been impossible for Ian to do more for her, since he was busy fighting on the Continent. She would never understand if Sarah turned him in. Sarah would never forgive herself if her actions hurt her friend again.

As if expressing his scorn, Willoughby snorted, butting up against her leg. Sarah instinctively bent to scratch his ears.

“I should do it, should I?” she asked the pig, often the recipient of her thoughts. “I should just turn him over to the militia. That way he would be safe from Martin, and I would be safe from him.”

And yet, even as she said it, she knew that she would do nothing of the sort. She would patch him up as best she could, and show him the way up the coast. And when he was gone, she would return to the gray monotony of her life. And she would never tell a soul he’d been there.