How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3) Page 24

  “Cheers to Johann Sebastian then.” Nathaniel steered her quickly out to his borrowed curricle before anyone could discover his ruse, or before he changed his mind and gave in to the unusual occurrence of a guilty conscience.

  * * *

  Beside him in the small, well-sprung vehicle, Diana watched the glittering lights of Bath flash by. The satin sky above them was not yet as dark as it would be, but already dotted with stars. The warm air drifted around her like a soft, silk cape with only a gentle breeze stroking her face as they dashed along.

  “Lady Plumtre tells me you mean to become her companion,” said Nathaniel suddenly. “That you are resigned to being an old maid, to living at her side and serving at her beck and call for the rest of your life.”

  What a horrible thought! She chuckled.

  “She can give you a home, she said. When your mother no longer can.”

  “How charitable of her.”

  “And you ended the engagement with Shaw,” he said.

  Diana sighed heavily, watching stars and puddles of lamplight reflected in the river as they approached the bridge. Her mother must have told Elizabeth, she thought. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “That is an intimate question and I cannot answer it.” Diana’s heart struggled to keep a steady beat. She still had not learned how to discuss what she felt, or even to believe it herself. Although so much was different here—she was different—sooner or later she would have to go home to face her mother again. It was all very well to be a new woman away from her mother’s view, but then what? Could this change be lasting for her?

  He was still the naughty captain at heart, the accomplished, artful lover, the bold rogue. She was quite sure he’d fabricated the entire story about George’s curricle. Naturally, he wouldn’t worry about what would happen when his deceit was exposed and he’d have to face the consequences. He thought only of the here and now, of what he wanted in that moment.

  “What happened to Mrs. Sayles this evening?” she asked coyly.

  “She is unwell.”

  “But she is always unwell. In the two weeks of our acquaintance I’ve never known that to stop her from going out into society or missing an invitation, however begrudgingly it was granted.”

  “I am sure Mr. George Plumtre will find room to bring her. If she should recover suddenly.”

  “When he fixes that broken curricle?”

  “Yes.” He smirked.

  Diana shook her head. “It was rather cruel of you to leave Mrs. Sayles behind.”

  “But she wouldn’t know whether she’d missed the beginning of the concert or not. You would. Like your cousin, she is only coming tonight because it’s a social event, not for the music.”

  There was no arguing with that. Whatever wickedness he’d employed to arrange their trip together, she was grateful for it. Did that make her as bad as him?

  They didn’t wait in the Octagon Room for the rest of their party. Sherry took her directly into the Tea Room where the concert was being held. He was quiet now, thoughtful perhaps.

  Diana became aware of people turning to watch them pass. There were appreciative smiles and respectful nods, evident curiosity and keen interest. She could not imagine that any of it was for her in that old gown. It had to be for Sherry who, as usual, stole more light than any other man in the room. How lovely it was to be on his arm. She had imagined herself shrinking, squinting, and shriveling in such a bright, hot glow, but when he smiled at her with genuine pleasure she forgot her fears and stretched into the warm light. His smile was just as effective as a spoonful of Dr. Penny’s tonic.

  On the way to their seats, he stopped and introduced her to several folk. They knew him through his business it seemed. He had asked her first if she would mind meeting them and she had replied in mild surprise, “Why would I mind? Of course I would like to meet your friends.”

  They were pleasant, well-spoken, witty people who greeted her with polite cordiality and seemed not in the least startled that Sherry would be in the company of such a shy, plain girl. Well, not so plain, she thought, remembering that he had accused her of false modesty. She was getting accustomed to looking in the mirror and not immediately finding all her bad features, looking instead for the good, the passable, and the slightly improved.

  Nor was she so shy anymore. Diana had proven to herself that she could be entertaining and hold her own in a conversation. She’d had plenty of practice at the Plumtres’ table where it was necessary to be loud. One might starve otherwise.

  * * *

  They took their seats. The lights were lowered and the chatter of the crowd muted. He had made sure to arrive separately from the others in their party because he wanted to sit with her away from all of them. He didn’t want her to suffer the distractions and demands of that noisy bunch, because he knew what music meant to her. Over the years of their acquaintance he had witnessed her yearning to simply enjoy the music while everyone around her prevented it.

  Tonight he wanted her to know that he understood, that he was not the empty-headed buffoon she thought him to be. Well, not always.

  He might not be as clever as she was about music, but he knew what it was to be frustrated, to want something badly and never quite be able to capture it.

  And he was wooing her, as he’d warned. He gave her all his attention.

  Several women at the concert recognized him, but he carefully avoided their searching gazes and waving fingers. If Diana noticed, she gave no sign.

  As the music began, he reached for her gloved hand and held it lightly on his thigh.

  She did not struggle to take it back, and her fingers eventually relaxed as the slightly plaintive notes of a slowly soaring melody took hold of her senses.

  Nathaniel wanted to say much to her, but tonight he would be quiet and let her enjoy the music.

  * * *

  According to the printed program at which she’d glanced as they sat down, this was Bach’s Concerto in D minor for two violins and orchestra. She would never forget. That rather uninspired name had given no clue as to the heart-wrenching beauty of the music they were about to hear. Although familiar with the composer’s work, she had never heard this piece and it was instantly carved into her soul.

  With her hand in Sherry’s, she let the music claim her. Felt the poignant notes steal inside her veins and fill her with exquisite joy. Never had she been able to hear an entire piece from beginning to end without interruption.

  He could have brought her jewelry or some other fancy gift, which perhaps she might have expected from the old Nathaniel trying to impress her. Instead he gave her this moment, knowing her better than anyone. It would cost him—perhaps end his new friendship with Sir Jonty once he knew that Nathaniel had lied to steal her away from George that evening. So many people would be annoyed and upset.

  Yet he had done all that to sit beside her and make sure she enjoyed the concert.

  Reckless, risk-taking Sherry.

  Diana closed her eyes, not just to hide the tears that filled them, but to let the music take over completely. Into her very bones it came. And she tightened her fingers around Sherry’s hand, squeezing.

  There was no other sound but the music and her heartbeat in her ears.

  * * *

  “Sherry! I thought it was you from behind,” the woman shouted to him as they passed through the Octagon Room after the concert. “I’ve never seen you so still. I thought you must be passed out drunk! But I couldn’t hear you snoring.”

  He winced. Couldn’t remember the woman’s name. Julia perhaps? Jenny? Damn it.

  Diana had not said a word to him since the music began, but she seemed in haste to get out of the place now that the last note had been played. He tried to keep up with her as the crowd surged around them.

  Another woman to the left of their path also waved a program at
him. “Sherry! Sherry! What are you doing here? You never were one for music, as I recall!”

  “I didn’t know you were in Bath, old chap!” another fellow bellowed behind him.

  Nathaniel struggled onward, keeping Diana’s head in his sights as it bobbed in and out. Where the devil was she going in this much haste?

  At the doors their progress was hampered by a cluster of folk all trying to get out at once. He caught Diana’s sleeve to hold her back, and instantly wished he had not because they came face to face with another woman with a high-hoisted bosom and a very low-cut gown. Her thick perfume hung in a cloud around them.

  “Sherry, darling!” she cried in a gushing breath of gin and aniseed. “I wondered when you would come back to Bath. I thought you had deserted us. No one fun ever calls in to see me anymore!” She noticed then that he was with Diana. Her heavy, languid gaze swept down and up, and then she smiled. “Do call upon me soon. When you are free.”

  He moved to pass her and she stuck out her closed fan, poking it into his chest.

  “I have missed you, Sherry. All the girls have.”

  “Excuse me.” He pushed the woman’s fan away and hurried after Diana again.

  When at last he was outside in the fresh air he found her standing by the horses, tears in her eyes.

  “Diana, none of those women meant anything to me,” he began. “I went there to play cards, not—”

  She silenced him with a gloved finger to his lips. “Don’t say anything. Take me away from here. Now. While there is still time for us.”

  “Time for us?”

  “The Plumtres will find us at any minute. I saw them in the crowd. And then you will have to explain your actions to them.”

  “What do I care?” he muttered.

  “I care,” she said. “I don’t want a scene to spoil the evening. It’s been so wonderful. Please, don’t let it be over yet.”

  Without another word he helped her up into the curricle.

  * * *

  He’d expected her to insist that he take her back to Wollaford, but instead she wanted to see his lodgings.

  “Show me where you stay when you are in Bath,” she said.

  He hesitated. “It’s not the sort of place one takes a lady.”

  “Then pretend I am not one.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Diana.”

  “I am being daring, determined. You accused me before of not being so.”

  But he had said those things to her in frustration when he was trying to find a way into her heart and wanted to make her show emotion. “I cannot take you to my lodgings.”

  “Where is it then?” she demanded. “A house of ill repute, such as those you apparently frequent while here?”

  So much for not wanting the evening spoiled. “No! It’s a perfectly respectable boarding house for single gentlemen, but the landlady doesn’t allow female guests in the rooms.” One hand guiding the reins, he reached for his handkerchief and passed it to her.

  She snatched it from his hand. “I’m not crying about all your women, so don’t think I am,” she said. “The music was too beautiful, that’s all. It left a deep impression upon me.”

  He wasn’t sure he believed her.

  Perhaps reading his doubt in the fluttering amber of passing lamplight, she added, “The music was sad, hopeful, sweet, and bitter all at once.”

  “Does that mean you liked it, or not?” One could never be sure with women. Not one like her, anyway.

  “Yes,” she replied sulkily, blowing her nose hard.

  “Well, that’s alright then.” They rode on a while and then he said, “At least now I know you have some feelings. Finally, tears! For music, of all things.”

  She sniffed, blinking her wet lashes.

  Nathaniel took a deep breath. “There have been women in my past, Diana. Doesn’t mean anything.”

  She was quiet.

  “A man cannot change his past,” he said, “only his future.” He cleared his throat and the horses cantered along, the wheels of the curricle rumbling over cobbles. “I hope that the woman I marry can accept me despite my faults and will not hold past mistakes over my head each time she thinks of them.”

  “You want her to ignore so much, never to know about those women, never to ask. Is that treating her fairly? You would want—expect—to know all about her past.”

  He frowned. “What past could she have had?”

  Diana snorted. “See? You want her to ask you nothing, yet she must hide nothing from you.”

  “She should have nothing to hide!” He turned his head to look at her and then he repeated, “What past could she have had?”

  “She must know nothing of yours. Why should you know about hers?” Her eyes shone, even with her face in shadow.

  “I didn’t say she should know nothing,” he muttered, suddenly peevish. “I said she shouldn’t think of it or bring it up every time she wants to start a quarrel with her husband.” The thought of Diana having experience of that kind had never occurred to him. According to Sarah Wainwright’s gossip, Diana hadn’t even wanted to kiss William Shaw. But was that the truth? Two years of an engagement was a long time for a man to go without trying something.

  He would have.

  Who the devil was engaged for two years and didn’t even share a kiss, for pity’s sake? Oh, no indeed, she must have… He couldn’t bear to think of it.

  Jealousy struck as it never had before, like a serpent’s tongue.

  “I think she should at least know what you did with your paramours,” Diana said. “She should know that much.”

  “Very well,” he exclaimed hotly, “I’ll show her.” He turned the horses toward Sydney Gardens.

  Twenty-one

  With the wonderful music still singing through her blood, Diana was flying that night. She didn’t want to go home to her book and her bed. Not yet.

  This moment with Nathaniel was magical, the sort of moment that might never come again.

  Of course she knew there were many women in his past. Nathaniel had never made any secret of it. Seeing their eager faces as they tried to catch his eye had merely reminded her of the fact. He had experienced much that she had not, and tonight she was forced again to consider the disadvantages of being a woman in this world.

  Diana had always accepted the fact that if she did marry one day, her husband would have more knowledge in certain matters. Unlike her friends, the Book Club Belles, she had never been particularly keen to know about relations between husband and wife. William Shaw had certainly never inspired those yearnings within her. But Nathaniel…oh, Nathaniel had always upset the rhythm of her pulse.

  She’d assumed it was because he was forbidden. He was a man she knew she could not have, the naughty book she could never open. Her mother had warned her about him from the first time they met.

  Now that she finally allowed herself to admit her feelings for him, they flourished inside her. They had grown too quickly for her to manage, and tonight they took over completely.

  But Nathaniel treated her gingerly, barely daring to touch her. That was not how he had been with other women, she was quite sure. Diana did not want to be treated as if she were made of dainty china and might break.

  “I’m stronger than I look,” she whispered.

  He had halted the curricle under some trees off a deserted path in the park. It was quiet, the air warm and still.

  “Touch me the way you touched them. I want to know what it’s like. With you.”

  “Diana—”

  “Now,” she commanded. “I want you to touch me. Everywhere.”

  * * *

  She guided his hand to her breast as they sat beneath the whispering trees, and he felt the hard, thrusting beat of her heart.

  “I am supposed to be wooing you properly,” he groaned. The silk taff
eta of her gown was soft and warm under his palm as he explored her shape.

  “Yes, well… I don’t have patience for that.” She kissed his cheek, licked his ear, nibbled his lower lip.

  “The music did something to you tonight.”

  She stroked his thigh with a bold hand, then reached for the fall of his breeches.

  “Diana,” he moaned, sliding down into the grass with her.

  “Hush.” He felt her fingers inside his breeches, venturing eagerly forth. And then she made a small sound when she found what she sought, her hand closing around it. “You gave me a lovely gift tonight,” she whispered. “Let me give you something in return.”

  Nathaniel knew that he would need all his willpower tonight to keep from finishing what she began, but at that moment his protesting mind was blank. His body and his white-hot desires took over.

  He felt for the hooks on the back of her gown and loosened as many as he could to tug it down over her shoulders. Her skin shone like a polished pearl in a slender shaft of moonlight that filtered through the leaves above. A sweet but very faint scent of lavender reached his nostrils and he inhaled deeply, taking in as much of her as he could while kissing her throat and the curve of her exposed shoulder. The yearning he’d tried so hard to stifle in her presence now pushed at the bindings of his will, desperate to break free.

  His lips traveled down over the swelling flesh of her bosom above her corset. He could just make out the darker shade of her nipple under the lace chemise. He let his tongue sweep over it, ruffling and dampening the delicate lace, allowing himself just that one taste. But her nipple instantly rose to attention, pricking through a hole in the thin, dainty border of lace and taunting him. Wanting more. He could not bear the temptation and took her nipple again between his lips. He closed his eyes.

  She gasped, trembling. Her hands stroked his manhood, fingertips tracing slowly up and down the length as it grew and stretched. The heaviness and heat of his desire for her mounted.

  The pounding in his temple became faster, harder. His breathing was shallow and quick, but he couldn’t hear hers. Was she holding her breath?