Sinfully Ever After (Book Club Belles Society) Page 24

  “Apparently there are many things he doesn’t like to discuss,” Becky muttered, thinking of the war medal.

  “Well, he is among friends and family here, for goodness sake,” said Mrs. Penny. “He need not be shy with us.”

  The colonel did not come back to the table. His empty chair stood empty and forlorn, and then it began to feel accusatory.

  Becky excused herself before the cloth was removed and the pudding brought out. She had promised Diana to be at her house within half an hour, just to pay a visit and help entertain her mother’s guests—not to eat—but she could not leave Midwitch Manor without talking to Luke today.

  She should, at least, wish him a merry Christmas.

  A swift examination of the rooms downstairs did not reveal the missing colonel. Eventually finding her way to the kitchen, she located a packet of headache powders, dissolved them in some ginger beer, and took a glass upstairs to look for him. Someone had to check on the fool man, didn’t they? He didn’t look after himself.

  As she ascended the grand staircase, there was a great deal of noise and merriment coming from the dining room below, so she guessed she was not missed. Not yet anyway. Her steps took her along the creaking landing. She would have listened at each door to find his, sure he’d be making some sort of noise inside. But there was no need to go spying at doors.

  Something had followed her up the stairs, and as she walked along with the glass of ginger beer, Ness plodded rapidly by her, leading the way directly to a door at the end of the corridor. There the dog sat, staring up at the door handle and then looking back at her, its ears pricked.

  She smiled. “Good boy.”

  He stood, wagged his stump, and looked again at the door, just as it swung open.

  There was Luke, in his greatcoat, apparently prepared to go out.

  When he saw Becky, his jaw dropped. For a moment, she thought he would slam the door shut again, so she quickened her steps.

  “I brought you something for your head.”

  He stared, one hand gripping the door handle, the other holding his cane. “Why?”

  “You do have a headache, don’t you? I’ve taken care of my brother enough to know the signs.”

  “You shouldn’t be up here, Rebecca. It’s not”—he rubbed his temple with the handle of his cane—“proper.”

  “Yes, I know. And you’re a gentleman now.”

  “Precisely.”

  “They’re all below and no one knows I’m here. You’re quite safe.” She held the glass outstretched toward him. “I wanted to wish you a merry Christmas before I left.”

  His jaw twitched. He looked at the glass and then at her again. “You’re leaving?”

  “I promised Diana to join her this afternoon.”

  Instantly his eyes darkened, even the whites murky. His lips were pressed tight with resentment.

  She looked over her shoulder to be sure no one had followed her. “May I come in?”

  “What for?” he snapped.

  Seeing she would have to take matters into her own hands again, she suddenly stepped forward, ducked under his arm, and walked into his bedchamber, Ness trotting after her.

  He slowly turned to see where she’d gone. “I know what you’re up to, woman.”

  “You do?” she asked jauntily. In truth, she didn’t even know herself what she was doing. Perhaps he could enlighten her.

  Lucky Luke remained in the open doorway. “You’re trying to make me lose our wager. Coming up here to tempt me.”

  Relief swept her so quickly she almost dropped the glass of ginger beer. “Oh, you still mean to win then?”

  “I warned you I don’t like to lose.”

  “But I heard about the generous gift you gave your brother.”

  Luke sighed. He propped one shoulder against the door frame. “And you didn’t believe that my intent to marry you was nothing to do with the inheritance terms. So if I didn’t want the money, then I must not want you either. Is that it?”

  “Yes.” Her voice sounded very small and meek suddenly. Not at all like her.

  “It’s time you started believing and trusting in me then, ain’t it?” He gestured for her to leave his room, but instead she set the glass on his mantel and walked around the bed.

  “You departed the table very suddenly and left everyone to talk about you. I suppose it makes you feel important to leave us all wondering.”

  He said nothing.

  “Mrs. Penny thinks you are shy, because you won’t talk about your leg or your medal. But you are not shy, of course. You just like to be mysterious.”

  Still not a word. Her eyes suddenly spotted a familiar object on the table beside his bed. Sense and Sensibility. He must have been reading it last night, despite his dislike of books.

  “You can take that back,” he growled. “I don’t know how it came to be in my coat pocket.”

  “Because you picked it up and took it.”

  He denied it flatly and then muttered, “Can’t make head nor tails of it. Take it back to your friends.”

  She lifted it and held it to her breast. His eyes followed the motion and then he blinked and looked at his feet. “Will you come out of there, Miss Sherringham, before someone comes up here to find you?”

  She walked back around the bed but still delayed going to the door. “Your daughter is anxious about your leg because she wants you to take her to the Manderson assemblies, you know. She wants to show you off, poor girl. She wants to dance with her father.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m a daughter too.” She stroked Ness, who had jumped up onto the bed to sit proudly before her. “I don’t know what I would do without my father.”

  Luke’s gaze lifted again, to the book she held and then to her face. “A husband doesn’t have to take you away from him.”

  “Well, I’m sure I didn’t—”

  “A husband can be a help to you. Share your burdens.”

  This talk made her uneasy, so she left Ness and walked to the fire. It was not in use at that moment, but he had nailed a length of string from the mantel and an apple dangled from the end of it, inches above the ashes of last night’s fire. “What’s this?”

  “A fire-roasted apple. Best midnight snack a man can have. Never had one?”

  She shook her head.

  “One night, I’ll roast you an apple and we’ll eat it together.”

  Like Adam and Eve, she mused. The original sinners. “Would that be proper?”

  His eyes burned into her across that little distance. “Not until we’re married.”

  He wasn’t going to come in and shut the door, she realized. Determined to resist temptation, he gripped that door handle so tightly that veins stood out on the back of his hand. “I’m going out to feed Sir Mortimer,” he said with a strange breeziness. “Want to come?”

  She scowled. “Sounds wonderful.”

  A brief flare of white teeth revealed his amusement at her frustration and then he turned away, whistling for Ness to follow.

  Damn the man.

  * * *

  “They’re having plum pudding and brandy butter,” she said as they came out into the daylight. “Don’t you want your share?”

  He gave her a meaningful look. “I’ll have my share later.”

  What need did he have for puddings when he had Rebecca to look at? He was inordinately pleased that she’d come to find him in his room. Although it was naughty of her, of course, and she knew it. No one had ever brought him headache powders before; they usually left him to sleep it off because they knew how ill-tempered he could get with a sore head.

  Rebecca was not afraid, as she would remind him pertly.

  When they arrived at Sir Mortimer Grubbins’s sty, he was pleased again to see her admiring his improvements. “You’ve even
made him a sign,” she cried, looking up at the painted wooden oval hanging over the sty.

  “Sarah painted it.”

  “Yes, I thought the spelling was too good to be yours.”

  He laughed. His headache was feeling better already. “I daresay Master Clarendon has a fine hand and gets all his letters ’round the right way.”

  “Naturally. But it’s not always the elegance of the handwriting that matters.”

  “Oh?” He waited to hear more, but suddenly, as if she thought she’d said something foolish, she forgot the subject and leaned over the new fence to greet Sir Mortimer instead. “This has to be the luckiest pig in Buckinghamshire.”

  Interrupted by a shout, both looked around to see Charles Clarendon on his horse, peering through the iron scrollwork gates.

  “Looks like someone waits for you,” Luke muttered. He wasn’t going to get upset about it. He didn’t like the sour pang of jealousy, he’d discovered, and he couldn’t very well give Clarendon a thumping. Not now he was a father and a gentleman. If he wanted Rebecca to trust him, he’d have to earn it.

  “I’m sorry you don’t like him, but I—”

  “His family has a match in mind for him already. Some earl’s daughter with fifty thousand pounds. She is at Lark Hollow. His sister made sure to tell me.” Blast! He hadn’t meant to say all that, for it made him sound jealous, which he was not. Why should he be jealous of that boy?

  Now she took umbrage again. “Why should this matter to me?”

  “Perhaps I’ll ask him what his intentions are, if marriage is not among them.”

  “You are not my father, Colonel. Even if you are old enough to be him!”

  “Old enough to be your father?” He grumbled, “Only if I was an extremely precocious fifteen-year-old.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past you!” Head high, she walked on quickly, almost running as she came to the iron gates.

  “Miss Sherringham—Rebecca—wait. Please.”

  “I’m just having fun,” she yelled. “You told me I should have some, didn’t you?”

  * * *

  Why did he have to try and control her? She was a woman who had enjoyed a fairly independent life, traveling with her father. Under no circumstances would she give all that up to be one of his minions, having to report all her comings and goings to him. Getting as soppy as Justina Wainwright, who couldn’t even stay angry at Mrs. Kenton anymore.

  Charles helped her up onto the back of his horse. “I was tired of waiting for you and decided to fetch you myself,” he said.

  When Becky looked back over her shoulder, she saw the colonel standing with one hand on the gate, watching them through the bars. Wind ruffled the dark hair on his hatless head and pushed the tall collar of his coat against his scarred cheek. She turned her face away, determined not to feel that ruthless tug upon her heart again. It was merely indigestion; she was convinced of it.

  But then another thought occurred and she looked back once more. He was still watching. Curiously he did not have his cane with him and yet he must have walked very quickly after her along the gravel carriage drive. His tanned, rugged face was lined with agony.

  * * *

  He watched them disappear around the bend, and then he returned to the pig sty and tossed a bucket of Christmas scraps into the beast’s trough. As he stood there, getting his angry breath back, the pig nudged a fence slat with his snout until it opened. Ness ambled through the gap and the slat swung shut again. Dog and pig ate happily, side by side, a friendship formed with that mutual appreciation for good food.

  If only other unlikely alliances could be so easily and simply founded, he thought sadly.

  His leg burned now as if it was on fire, but as she had walked away from him, he’d had no choice but to chase after her, even when he lost his grip on the cane and it fell to the gravel. He needed her to stop, needed to catch her. That had overridden the pain. Now it was back with a vengeance.

  She claimed not to want her reputation saved, and Luke had never before tried to save one. Yet he was determined to make this work.

  Why? Just because he’d been seen kissing her?

  Because Sarah had her heart set on it?

  For his brother’s approval?

  Out of lust?

  Or was there another reason?

  He’d never spent so much damnable time thinking about a woman. One awkward, curt, untrusting wench.

  Last night he’d faltered again, taken another step back from his quest for reform, drowning his frustration in brandy, alone in his room, cursing the finials of his bedposts and anything else that couldn’t talk back. Ness had wisely slept under the bed last night, out of sight.

  He knew he should not have said anything to her against Clarendon. That would only cause her to turn farther away from him. She took offense at anyone treating her in a concerned way because she was not accustomed to it and had lived twenty-two years with a father who merrily turned a blind eye to the dangers that awaited his lively daughter. It was worrisome that the major had been so ready to hand Rebecca over to him. Would he be so ready and careless with any other unworthy man who came along? Instead of approaching Rebecca, who would only block her stubborn ears, perhaps the best way to handle this was to have a word with her distracted father. The major ought to be made aware of certain issues developing, for he was the one man who had a right to chastise her, the one man she would listen to.

  Fun. Yes, he wanted her to have plenty of that. But not with Clarendon, or any other man.

  With him.

  Twenty-five

  Becky pointed out the turning for the Bolt, and Charles slowed his horse as they passed under the arch of wintering trees.

  “What was the old man babbling to you about? I saw him stumble after you to the gate.”

  “He wished me a merry Christmas, that’s all.” She felt quite winded, as if she had a stitch in her side.

  Charles drew the horse to a halt, swung his leg over its head, and slipped down to stand on the yellow, trampled, and muddy grass. He held up his arms for her.

  “Shouldn’t we ride straight to Diana’s, if I’m late?”

  “I must talk to you first.”

  She couldn’t very well urge his horse onward and leave him behind, so she slid down but avoided his waiting arms. Her own still hugged the copy of Sense and Sensibility to her bosom.

  “We walked here the last time I came,” he said.

  “Yes, but the leaves are all gone now.” The branches were bare, tangled, and knotted overhead, a few gaps between showing the stark winter sky. In the summer, it was a lush canopy of emerald and gold. When Charles was last there, it had turned to autumnal colors and he had remarked upon it being just like her hair.

  “This is where we kissed,” he reminded her, clasping her hand.

  “Let’s make haste. Diana is waiting.”

  “You do not want to kiss me today?”

  “No. Not today.”

  He leaned away as if she’d struck him across the face.

  “I heard there is an earl’s daughter at Lark Hollow and that’s why you’re here.” Why tiptoe around the subject? She didn’t have time for his flirting today.

  A loud bellow made them both jump, and suddenly the narrow path was filled with cows. Charles swore under his breath as they huddled out of the way to let the herd pass. Mr. Gates brought up the rear and tipped his hat to them, shouting a “Merry Christmas.”

  Becky was ready to walk on, but Charles gripped her waist and spun her around. “There is always an earl’s daughter somewhere. But that is why I enjoy your company. You are so different from all of them.”

  “You are expected to marry her?”

  “Lady Olivia Moncrieff, I suppose you mean. Who told you that?”

  She did not want to mention Luke. “I overheard your sister mention som
ething.”

  Charles scoffed. “Eliza is impatient for either Kit or me to marry money, since she’s had no luck. If one of us succeeded in catching a titled heiress, it would take Father’s mind off her failures. That’s why he sent us off for Christmas; lost his patience with the three of us. But particularly with Kit, who should have provided an heir long before now.”

  She sighed and rubbed her arms, feeling the bitter chill of wind blowing hard down that narrow tunnel of trees. How very mercenary it all is, she mused darkly—this business of marriage. Yet it might also be called practical. It was the way she’d always forced herself to think, determined not to stray into romantic ideas and thinking herself above all that nonsense.

  “You know that I cannot marry you,” he added.

  “Yes.”

  “Then what does an earl’s daughter matter to us?”

  He tightened his hold upon her and she feared he meant to take a kiss, but before he could do so, Mrs. Kenton appeared, her face flushed, possibly from too much festive wine. Racing down the Bolt, she saw Charles’s arm around her, but she had not seen Rebecca struggling.

  That infamous voice rang out in “full boom.” “Miss Sherringham! I am shocked! You and yet another man. What excuse are you to make for this? Another boot lace?”

  Furious, Becky pushed Charles away and ran, with Mrs. Kenton still shouting after her.

  Charles found it all vastly amusing and he laughed uproariously, soon following Becky on horseback.

  * * *

  Luke joined the major at the sideboard as the plum pudding was served.

  “Ah, you are back with us, Colonel!” The merry fellow smiled. “Did you take some air? You seemed in need of it.”

  “Yes.” He looked over at the pianoforte where Sarah and Justina were playing a soft, sweet tune together. “Major, I think you ought to ask Charles Clarendon his intentions with your daughter.” He kept his voice low. “It may not be my business, but I—”

  “Yet you are still concerned for her?”

  “I find I cannot be anything else.”

  The major’s eyed widened. “Then you are not such the lost sinner some would paint you, Colonel.”