Authors: Mary Jo Putney
The Rake (24 page)
She gulped, then said in a soft Dorsetshire accent, “I ... I thought you might like a bit of company, sir.”
Could Mac have thought a woman might improve his temper? The cockney had never pandered before, but Reggie supposed it was possible. “Who put you up to this?”
The girl looked even more alarmed. “No one, sir. I've fancied you from the time you came here, and ... and I thought you might not mind.”
He was briefly tempted, for the chit was a pretty little thing. He would certainly have accepted her offer if he were foxed.
But she wore a dying kitten expression that made her seem less like a lusty wench intent on pleasure than like Joan of Arc waiting for the torches. Perhaps she had come from hope of material gain. An unflattering thought. He snapped, “This is not the way to earn a better position or a higher wage. Go back to your own bed, and we'll pretend this never happened.”
It was not a graceful way to reject her, but even so, he did not expect her sudden tears. Exasperated, he pulled the blanket down to encourage her departure.
She was naked. At the sight of her rosy body his resolution wavered. It had been weeks since he'd had a woman, and having Alys Weston constantly under his nose was keeping his rude male instincts at constant simmer. Then his eyes narrowed as he studied her. Admittedly the signs were not yet obvious, but Reggie was no green innocent. “You're increasing,” he said flatly.
The girl stared at him with horror, as if he were the devil incarnate for guessing. Then she yanked the blanket up around her shoulders, her helpless sobs worsening.
He sighed. Obviously there was no getting rid ofâGillie, that's what her name wasâuntil she recovered. He donned his robe, then looked around for her clothing. Her shift and dressing gown were folded neatly on a chair.
He handed her the shift. “Better put this on.”
Then he turned away, taking his time rifling through his drawers for a handkerchief. By the time he gave one to the girl, she was standing by the bed in the hastily donned shift, tying her shabby robe around her. She accepted the handkerchief gratefully and buried her woebegone face in its snowy folds. Reggie sat down and waited for her to emerge from the handkerchief, curious as to why she had come.
When Gillie's sobs subsided to hiccups, he said with as much gentleness as he could muster, “Did you think that if you ... visited me, you could pass the child off as mine?”
From the stark look in her pansy eyes, he had guessed correctly.
“Didn't you think I could count?” he asked, beginning to find some amusement in the scene. “Sit down and relax. I won't eat you.”
She perched nervously on the edge of the bed. The girl probably had only the vaguest understanding of procreation and gestation. Patiently he asked, “Won't the father marry you?”
She twisted the handkerchief in her hands, not meeting his eyes. “We'd been walking out together for ever so long, and he s-said we'd marry someday. But when I told him w-what had happened, he asked how he could be sure it was his.”
Another sob escaped her. “The next day he told his pa he was going to Bristol to get a job as a sailor, and off he went. H-he didn't even say good-bye.” She covered her face with her hands, shoulders shaking again.
Reggie's mouth tightened. He wasn't very proud of the male sex at times like this. While he was no paragon of virtue, at least he hadn't left a string of abandoned bastards scattered across the countryside. He sat next to Gillie on the bed, patting her shoulder comfortingly. Still sobbing, she turned and burrowed against his side. He held her until she had cried herself out.
Finally she straightened up and wiped her eyes with the damp handkerchief. Her nose was red and her face blotched, but she still had a certain dignity as she said unevenly, “I'm very sorry, Mr. Davenport. It was bad of me to try and trick you, but I was that desperate. I didn't know what else to do.” She swallowed hard, then said fiercely, “I won't go to the workhouse, I won't. I'll have my baby in a ditch first.”
“Is the workhouse that bad?” Reggie asked.
She nodded and looked at her hands. He made a mental note. Magistrates administered the Poor Law, and it appeared that he should investigate local conditions. But that was for later. “Won't your parents help you?”
She shook her head, her tangled brown hair falling over her forehead. “They're Methodists and ever so strict. My pa said that if I ever got myself in the family way, he'd never have me in the house again. Even my mam ...” Her voice trailed off.
“Does Mrs. Herald know?”
“Oh, no, Cousin May would never have hired me if she had known,” Gillie said bleakly. “When she finds out, she'll discharge me right away.”
“Where would you go, then?”
“I ... I don't know, but not the workhouse. Maybe I can walk to London and find work there.”
Reggie frowned. The only work she would be likely to find in London would be on the streets, with all the dangers that entailed. He could send her to Chessie, but he doubted the girl had the temperament of a good prostitute. After swiftly reviewing the available choices, he said, “You can stay here. I'll tell Mrs. Herald not to discharge you.”
She looked up, eyes wide with hope. “You'll really let me stay until the baby is born? I swear, sir, you won't even have to pay me. I'll work as hard as I can to have a roof and food.”
“That won't be necessaryâyou'll be paid for your labor.”
Her eyes started to fill again. “God bless you, Mr. Davenport. I don't know how to thank you. You can't know what this means.” She laid a shy hand on his forearm. “If ... if there is anything I can do for you ...”
Her meaning was obvious. Once again he was tempted, for at least she no longer looked like she was offering herself to be sacrificed. But he knew enough of human nature to realize that in her present mood, the girl was likely to fancy herself in love with the first man who was kind to her, and he didn't need any more complications in his life.
“Just don't do it again,” he said crisply. “Lust is a normal part of life, but if you want to indulge in it after the baby is born, take precautions. If you don't know an older woman who will explain, ask me and I'll tell you what to do.”
Gillie blushed violently, but nodded. Besides being pretty, she seemed fairly intelligent. In time she would probably find a husband. Illegitimate children were not that uncommon.
Suddenly tired, he stood and offered her a hand up. “Off to bed now. I'll talk to Mrs. Herald in the morning.” He scowled ferociously at her. “Make sure that none of the other maids get ideas. I might not be so tolerant next time.”
Unintimidated by his expression, she gave him another shy smile, then slipped out the door. He pulled off his robe and climbed into bed, then snuffed the candles. At least the girl's problems helped put his in perspective.
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Alys's bedroom had been chosen with an eye to her monitoring night traffic. Wakeful herself, she had heard her employer come in late for the last several nights.
Tonight, half an hour after hearing his light, booted steps, she heard a different sound. Curious, she rose and opened her door a fraction, and saw a girl leaving Reggie's room. She froze, feeling ill. The moonlight wasn't bright enough to distinguish details, but Reggie's visitor was one of the maids, Gillie or Janie from the size and shape.
The girl paused in the hall, wiping her eyes as if she had been crying. Then she pattered toward the stairs that led to the attic. Alys eased the door shut and pressed her forehead against the cool panels. So he was sleeping with one of the maids. She wondered how long the affair had been going on. The girl was sniffling as if she was a virgin who had just been seduced.
Not that it was any of her business what Reggie Davenport did. Wretchedly she returned to her bed, drawing herself into a ball and tugging the covers close for warmth. She had thought there was a little understanding between her and Reggieâsome laughter, a certain similarity of mindâbut that must have been her imagination. If any connection did exist, it certainly did not include any interest in her as a woman. She had been a fool to think otherwise, even briefly.
Remembering how he had kissed her, she pressed a fist against her mouth, her teeth cutting into the knuckles as she fought against crying out with pain. She had been watching her irascible employer closely all week and guessed that he had stopped drinking. Now that he was sober, he clearly wasn't interested in her. He'd been drunk both times they'd kissed, and apparently the experience had been so dreadful that he was altering his entire way of life rather than run the risk of a reoccurrence.
Strong and confident in so many ways, in her sense of herself as a woman Alys was utterly vulnerable. And so she wept through the night, until she fell into the sleep of the utterly exhausted as dawn began tinting the eastern sky.
Chapter 15
The next morning Reggie discussed the pregnant housemaid with his housekeeper. Mrs. Herald clucked her tongue disapprovingly, but she was a kindhearted woman and agreed that they couldn't put the girl out when she had nowhere to go. Having borne children herself, she was also willing to assign Gillie's duties with an eye to the girl's condition.
The only other person Reggie told was Mac Cooper, who raised his eyebrows in an unusual show of emotion. “That pretty brown-haired lass? Pity her lover isn't around to horsewhip.”
“I agree.” Reggie was dressing for dinner, and he paused to pull on a fresh white shirt. “If it's any comfort, the young man will probably find that life as a common seaman is quite punishment enough.”
Mac said with a questioning note, “You've not been drinking the last few days.”
“Very observant of you,” Reggie said dryly as he tied his cravat.
Undeterred, the wiry valet said, “Sobriety is no bad thing.”
Reggie donned his waistcoat. “Glad you approve.”
Mac put on his lofty, upper-servant expression. “I'm sure that it is not for me to approve or disapprove.”
Reggie made a rude noise. “Since when have you not had opinions, you cockney fraud?”
“I never said I didn't have opinions,” Mac said with a hint of smile. Then he added, his London accent thickening as it always did when he was concerned, “It's that worried I was getting.”
Reggie gave his servant a hard look as he tugged on his beautifully tailored coat. “In other words, I was going to hell in a handbasket, and everyone noticed except me?”
Mac considered for a moment, then said simply, “Yes.”
Reggie smiled with reluctant amusement. Mac had never been overconcerned with tact. Then he went down for dinner, glad that Julian would be arriving the next day. The household would benefit from some of his friend's easy good nature.
After his master left, Mac went through the motions of cleaning and straightening automatically. So little Gillie had been given a slip on the shoulder. Perhaps he would ask her if she wanted to go for a walk this evening. She'd be in need of a bit of cheering up. A slight smile on his face, he completed his work and headed to the servants' quarters for his own dinner.
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Much of a steward's job involved moving around and keeping a watchful eye on how work was progressing, and Alys spent her morning doing exactly that. After riding up to the pastures to consult with Gabriel Mitford about when the sheep would be ready for shearing, she stopped to check on the haying.
Most of the grass meadows had been cut, the fragrant shocks piled into small stacks that dried the hay and kept it cool. She dismounted into the ankle-deep stubble to talk with the bailiff. He admitted that work was going well, adding with a countryman's caution that if the weather continued sunny, they would be finished the next day.
As Alys mounted to ride to her next task, she caught sight of her employer in the line of laborers moving steadily forward against the tall grasses. She had known that he was working on the haying, but had not chanced to see him.
Davenport riveted her attention, and not only because he was the tallest man in the field. His dark hair was tousled from the breeze, his sleeves casually rolled up, his open-throated shirt revealing his darkly tanned skin. She was struck by the beautiful image of a man and the land, and the sense that he belonged here.
Absorbed in work, he was unaware of her scrutiny. His lean body moved in a steady, graceful rhythm, his powerful arms and shoulders swinging the scythe from right to left, the mowed grass falling neatly to the side.
As she watched, the knot of misery that had formed in her breast the night before dissolved. It is said that every man is the hero of his own play, and every woman, too. Alys was the heroine in the story of her own life, and ever since Reginald Davenport had come to Strickland she had viewed him in terms of the role he played in her own personal drama. As her employer and a forceful, magnetic man, he had automatically become a leading player. He had absolute power over her livelihood, had saved her life, and, perhaps inevitably, had come to be a focus of her secret dreams and unadmitted desires.
Now, for the first time, Alys changed her perspective and tried to see how his world must look to him. Though he had not said so in words, she believed that the central drama that now absorbed him was an attempt to rebuild his life, to find some sense of connection and meaning. He had changed in small ways since he had come to Strickland. Now, by stopping his drinking, he was trying to change on a much more fundamental level.
She had known other men who routinely drank themselves insensible. Most would have vigorously denied that they were drunkards, and only the barest handful ever attempted to stop, no matter how destructive their habits. Yet Reggie, a self-admitted rake, was making the effort. The desperate, angry tension she had felt in him these last days was a measure of the difficulty of what he was attempting.
She was only a minor actor in Reggie's world. His happiness or misery, his drinking or sobriety, had nothing to do with her. The silent battle that he was waging with his inner demons was far more important to him than she would ever be.
The thought was a curiously liberating one. Davenport was a complicated man, one who could act with both heroism and villainy, though he was neither hero nor villain. A man who, while not old, was certainly not young; who had the recklessness to create problems for himself, and the honesty to admit when he had done so. From what she had seen, he was fair and compassionate in his dealings with those around him.
He was also very much alone.
He didn't need her professional skills or her femaleness, her wistful fantasies or her regrets. What Reggie might need at this difficult time was friendship, acceptance, and understanding. Those things she could give freely because, quite simply, she liked him.
She urged her mare forward and rode away, resolving to work harder at being a friend, no matter how snappish his temper. And even though he had a lamentable taste for housemaids as bed partners.
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After a late luncheon at the manor house, Alys was on her way to the stables when she saw Reggie working with a tall gray gelding in the paddock. Moved by her new resolution to be more friendly, she decided to stop and watch for a while before going out for the afternoon. William was there already, his small, sturdy body balanced on the paddock fence while he watched, enthralled. He barely turned his head to greet his guardian when she joined him.
Alys had to admit that Reggie was a sight worth watching as he put the gelding through its paces. She already knew that he was a superb rider. Now she saw that he was a superb trainer as well. Rather than using his strength to dominate the horse, he worked with his mount, not against it, patiently guiding and correcting with nearly imperceptible shifts of weight and touch.
When he was done, the result would be a vastly superior hunter. It was an understatement when she commented, “Very light hands.”
William nodded reverently. “He could ride Smokey without any reins at all.”
When Reggie's circle-turning exercise brought Alys into his view, he hesitated, then turned the gelding to where she and William sat. Though he appeared pleased to see her, his expression was a bit wary, lacking its customary glint of subversive humor. He was probably unsure how she would greet him. They had scarcely exchanged a dozen words in the last week.
She smiled cheerfully. “From the looks of those hindquarters, I'd guess that Smokey is a first-rate jumper.”
His face eased at her friendly greeting, “You're right. A little wild, but very strong over fences and with tremendous stamina.” He reined in the gray by the fence so William could pat it. “He'll do for the hardest hunting in the Shires.”
One could give a hunter no higher compliment. Alys said, “Are you training the new horses for sale, or for your own use?”
“For sale,” he said. “This one will be worth ten times his purchase price in another year. Two of the others I bought in Dorchester will be equally good.”
“And the fourth?”
“She's too small for flying country like the Shires, but will do well enough in rough, hilly counties like Devon, where cleverness over fences is more important than speed.” Reggie automatically calmed the gelding when Nemesis slipped through the fence and caused the horse to sidle away nervously. “A horse that's bred for racing but isn't fast enough is a sad creature that has failed in its purpose in life. A horse bred for hunting is far more versatile. The fastest can be raced in steeplechases, and the rest are almost always suitable for some kind of hunting or riding.”
“So hunters are philosophically more satisfying than racehorses?”
“Exactly.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “And better business as well.”
By this time Alys was no longer surprised to learn that a rake could have a shrewd head for business. She shifted on the fence, beginning to find the narrow board uncomfortable. “If you intend to expand the horse training, you'll be needing more men for the stables.”
William chimed in, a hopeful gleam in his blue eyes. “I can work as a stable lad.”
Reggie smiled. “I think Lady Alys would prefer that you keep to your schooling.” He glanced at her. “You're right, though, more will be needed, and soon. Do you know anyone in the neighborhood with experience of horse training?”
Alys bit her lower lip, considering. “Jamie Palmer, the supervisor at the pottery, used to be a groom. He was particularly good with young horses.”
“Can the pottery spare him?”
“He would be missed,” Alys admitted. “But his assistant is very capable, and I think Jamie would prefer to work with horses if he has the choice. Shall I ask him?”
Reggie shook his head. “I'll stop by the pottery myself. I'll want to know him better before offering a position.” He gathered his reins, preparing to go. “By the way, did I mention that a good friend of mine, Julian Markham, is coming for a visit? He should be here sometime later this afternoon.”
“No, you didn't say.”
Alys must have looked doubtful, because Reggie said with a trace of humor, “Don't worry, he's one of my more respectable friends. He won't cause any trouble.”
Before Alys could think of an appropriate response, they were interrupted by the sound of hooves and the jingle of harness. A smart chaise drawn by matched bays swept into the yard between the stables and the paddocks. Alys shaded her eyes with one hand to study the newcomer. “I'd say your friend has arrived.”
“So he has.” Reggie smiled. “Julian has always had good timing.”
His eyes popping at the sight of such a bang-up equipage, William scrambled down from the fence for a closer look. Alys followed at a more dignified pace while Reggie dismounted and tethered the gelding, then came through the gate.
The driver of the chaise handed his reins over to his groom, then jumped lightly to the ground while Reggie stepped forward to welcome him. Alys examined the newcomer with interest. She had assumed that a close friend of Reggie's would be about the same age, but Julian Markham was considerably younger.
He was also quite the handsomest man she had seen in the last dozen years. Since Randolph, in fact. Even after hours of driving, his well-tailored forest-green coat and gleaming boots were elegant to a point just short of dandyism.
After shaking hands, Reggie turned and introduced his friend to Alys and William. Markham bowed gracefully over her hand. When he straightened, his gray-blue eyes widened slightly when he realized that she was as tall as he. Or perhaps it was her mismatched eyes that surprised him, or her tan pantaloons.
Whatever he thought, he was far too well mannered to show disapproval. He said with a smile, “Reggie told me about you, Miss Weston, and of the superlative job you have done at Strickland.”
For a moment she wondered if he was being sarcastic, but Julian had a smile of singular sweetness and charm. In fact, he was altogether quite adorable. She wondered whether Peter or Meredith would be more impressed. Peter would see him as the perfect London gentleman, while Merry would be hard-pressed not to consider him as husband material. Well, perhaps he was.
As Alys made a suitable reply, Merry herself appeared on the scene, drawn by the signs of activity. Smudges of dry clay marred the shapeless, ill-fitting gown that had been acquired from a maid after the fire, and her golden hair was tied back with a plain black ribbon. Obviously she had been at the pottery, working on her china designs.
Davenport said, “Meredith, I'd like you to meet a friend who has come to visit.” Merry turned to greet the newcomer. For an instant horror flickered across her face. Alys almost laughed out loud even as she winced with sympathy. Meeting a handsome, elegant young gentleman when looking like an urchin was the stuff of nightmares. Luckily, Merry could not look less than pretty.
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