Kitabı oku: «The Last Rogue»

Chapter One

“Ahhh!”

Deverell Fairfax, Viscount Raleigh, turned over, his head pounding viciously as a hideous shriek was followed by a tremendous clatter. What the devil? His servants had orders not to wake him before noon, and as he cracked one eye open he saw a flood of light that looked suspiciously like early-morning sun through bright yellow draperies.

His lashes drifted closed once more, shutting out the worst of the light, while he attempted to regain his blissful state of slumber, but the hammering in his temples continued unabated and a thundering of footsteps echoed outside his chamber. Dash it all, who is here? he thought groggily. Better yet, where was here? For as he came more awake, Raleigh became distinctly aware that his surroundings were not those of his London town house.

Turning onto his back, Raleigh blinked at the ceiling, where vaguely familiar saffron and blue silk hangings slowly came into focus. The faint scent of flowers made him wonder if he were not in a lady’s chamber. Gad, he could not recall. Putting a hand to his aching forehead, he racked his brain. He remembered receiving a summons from his father and drowning his displeasure in a bottle or two. Or three.

Lud, he must have gotten completely foxed. He had been lonely, missing all of his friends, now married, and he had decided he would much rather see one of them than his parents, and so he had taken off in a hired coach, without his valet or any servants. Had he even packed a trunk?

Raleigh groaned. Lifting his fingers from his throbbing temples, he stretched out an arm, groping among the bedclothes for some sign of a companion who might enlighten him. When his questing hand found someone, he blinked in her direction, but all he saw was a lumpy form covered in blankets. Had he worn the poor woman out during the night that she slept so soundly, or was she suffering the ill effects of imbibing as well as he?

Sighing, Raleigh pushed himself up on one elbow to get a better look at her, but his perusal was interrupted when a horrified squeal erupted from across the room, followed by a deep bellow that rang in his skull like a hammer.

“My God, Raleigh! What’s the meaning of this?”

“Oh, my goodness, Jane!”

Recognizing the feminine voice, as well as the bellow, Raleigh winced. Apparently, he had made it to Casterleigh, the Sussex home of the earl of Wycliffe and his wife, Charlotte. As to the source of their distress, Raleigh had only to glance at his bedmate, who had finally roused herself. She had her back to him, displaying a long, thick braid that bore no resemblance to the flowing tresses of his paramours.

A sinking feeling descended upon him as Raleigh watched her fumble with something at the bedside table, and it was soon borne out, for when she faced him again, she was wearing spectacles and the outraged expression of Charlotte’s younger sister. Groaning, he fell back upon the pillows in disbelief.

What the devil was he doing with Plain Jane?

His head threatening to burst, Raleigh somehow managed to dress himself without assistance, after his companion, wearing a prim, long white nightrail, was hustled from the chamber. He still couldn’t figure out how the chit had gotten into his bedroom—or what might have happened there. Raleigh shuddered at the thought, his memory returning in bits and pieces that refused to include Charlotte’s sister. Lud, some might call him a rogue but he hoped he was not so far gone as to molest young girls, let alone the sister-in-law of one of his friends. And she a vicar’s daughter!

Groaning, Raleigh looked down at his twisted neck cloth and gave up on tying it to his satisfaction. At least he had possessed the foresight to bring a trunk. Heaving a sigh of disgust at his less-than-perfect appearance, Raleigh wandered into the adjoining sitting room, where the participants in this morning’s debacle had hastily assembled.

No one appeared to notice his entrance, for Charlotte was already talking, rather desperately, to her husband. “I told Jane to sleep there because you always insist that guests be lodged in the yellow bedroom, and I did not want to upset your routine by making other arrangements.”

Raleigh would have smiled if his head hadn’t hurt so badly, for Wycliffe’s strict attention to detail was well-known, though he had relaxed his rigid schedule since his marriage. The viscount’s amusement faded when Charlotte resumed her speech in what seemed like an excessively loud tone. Couldn’t she lower her voice? he wondered as he touched his throbbing temples.

“She came yesterday afternoon to help with the twins. They were so fussy and restless, they must both be bringing in teeth!” Turning toward Raleigh she said, “Max keeps telling me to hire a nanny, but we never had one at the vicarage, and I am loath to entrust my babies, or even Barto, who is all of three now, to someone else’s care.”

“Charlotte.” Wycliffe’s booming voice brought her attention back to her husband and the matter at hand, while making Raleigh wince.

Charlotte glanced at her husband helplessly. “In the evening when it began to rain and blow so terribly, I told Jane that she must stay. I lent her…something to wear and planned to send someone down to the vicarage in the morning for her clothes. Indeed, one of the maids, Libby, I believe, was right behind Ann, who had brought up a tray when…”

“They opened the door, and instead of quietly informing you of what they had seen, they screamed and dropped their burdens all over the parquet floor,” Wycliffe said with disgust. Raleigh couldn’t decide if the earl was more distressed by what the maids found in the bedroom or by the spilled breakfast. He had always accused Charlotte of causing mishaps involving foodstuffs.

“I agree that they could have shown more discretion,” Charlotte said, “but I cannot fault them for being startled. And I am still confused about Raleigh. How did you get here?” she asked.

Raleigh smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid that’s not quite clear. I received a summons to the family seat, but sometime during the night, I appear to have changed direction.” He remembered going to his club, but finding no comfort there. It seemed filled with strangers and upstart cits, while his friends were ensconced in the country, getting heirs. He, alone among his circle, was still making the rounds of parties and gambling hells, though he could hardly claim to like it. Sadly flat, it all seemed these days.

Several bottles later he had decided to forgo his sonly duty in favor of visiting one of his married friends. Although Wroth lived closest to London, one simply did not just pop in on the marquis of Wroth. Ever. And so Raleigh had considered Cornwall or Sussex, eventually tossing a coin as to his destination. “It appears to have been a last-minute decision,” he admitted.

“You know you are welcome any time,” Charlotte hastened to assure him. “But how did you…get in?” she asked him, looking a bit awkward. Apparently, Wycliffe’s countess turned a blind eye toward housebreaking as long as she knew the perpetrator.

“I hate to disappoint you, but I came in through the front door—opened by Wycliffe,” Raleigh said, relieved when she transferred her questioning gaze to her husband.

“I had but recently arrived home, having been delayed by the weather,” Wycliffe explained, “and Richardson was the only one about. I dismissed him since it was so late, and so when the knock came, I answered it myself. Seeing that Raleigh was in no state to communicate, I sent him up to the guest room. No one told me Jane was there!”

“What about your valet?” Raleigh asked.

“I do not use Levering at night,” Wycliffe answered, a slight flush climbing up his neck. Raleigh’s budding grin was forestalled by the earl’s grim visage. “But what of you? Couldn’t you tell the…room was occupied?”

“Not when that deep in my cups!”

“’Cups?’ You mean he was…drunk?” his heretofore silent bedmate asked in shocked tones. Eyes open wide behind her glasses, Jane Trowbridge shivered visibly, though Raleigh couldn’t see that his sobriety—or lack thereof—could have affected her in the slightest.

Unless he’d done something while blissfully unaware. Alarmed, Raleigh surveyed her up and down, from her prim hair, pulled back tightly from her face, down the length of her drab gown to her sensible shoes. No, surely he was never that inebriated. Leaning back against the settee cushions, he studied her closely. “Yes, I admit that I was castaway, but what is your excuse? Didn’t you notice someone crawling in beside you?”

Raleigh had the distinct pleasure of seeing her gasp and flush before Charlotte hastily broke in. “At the vicarage, the younger children often came to us during a storm, so Jane would hardly mark it as unusual to have…uh…company.”

Choking back a sharp retort, Raleigh found he did not care to be likened to one of the vicarage children. He was about to protest that he in no way resembled those shabby youths when Jane looked down into her lap and uttered a low admission. “The bed was soft, the house quiet, but for the rain, which was rather comforting. I suppose that I slept like a stone.”

Hmm, Raleigh thought. From what he had seen of the noisy, crowded vicarage, he could hardly fault the chit for seeking peace, and he could take some small comfort in the knowledge that if he was indistinguishable from one of her siblings, at least he didn’t snore.

“Well, the damage is done,” Wycliffe said. “Now we must decide what we are going to do about it” He gazed straight at Raleigh, who experienced another queasy, sinking feeling as he looked into his friend’s face. Although his glib tongue could probably be induced to spout out a variety of remedies, it suddenly felt thick and stuck to the roof of his mouth. A sense of doom enveloped him as Raleigh realized only one answer would satisfy Wycliffe.

Darting a quick glance at Jane, he sucked in a sharp breath to right his reeling head. Surely the girl was too young for what he suspected Wycliffe had in mind? Clearing his throat, he found his voice. “I think that all depends on several factors,” he said, watching Wycliffe’s expression darken. “For instance, just how old is the, uh, lady in question?”

Charlotte sent him a sympathetic look that made him feel even more like a man bound for the gallows. “Jane is eighteen now, Raleigh,” she said, and his stomach rolled. He turned to blink at the bespectacled chit in astonishment When had she grown up? He remembered her always as one of Charlotte’s innumerable child siblings, who often frequented Casterleigh during his visits. Eighteen?

His palms began to sweat, and a cold, clammy feeling echoed in his gut, for Raleigh knew well what a stickler Wycliffe was for honorable behavior. The two maids who had woken him with their shrieks had, no doubt, spread the tale throughout the house by now. And from there it would go through the village and back to the girl’s father, the vicar himself.

Raleigh thought of kindly John Trowbridge and stifled a groan. It appeared that he could either lose his respect and his friendships or his freedom, and so he forced his groggy thoughts toward his mouth, eager to have the business concluded before his stomach rebelled further.

“I suppose there’s nothing else for it but to come up to scratch,” he declared. Then, turning to Jane, he bowed his aching head. “I say, Miss Trowbridge, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Having at last forced out the question he had never entertained in connection with Plain Jane, Raleigh had a glimpse of shocked eyes behind rounded glass before he proceeded to cast up his accounts all over Wycliffe’s prized parquet floor.

Jane was aghast, her normally placid disposition so highly agitated that she paced back and forth across the thick Aubusson carpet in the yellow bedroom while trying to reason with her sister. “You cannot truly expect me to marry him!” she exclaimed once again, but the look of compassion on Charlotte’s face made her turn aside.

It was all her own fault. Rain or no, she should have gone home to her hard, narrow cot at the vicarage. Usually, Jane disdained her sister’s luxuries, but last night she had weakened, giving in to the temptation of the huge, soft, sweetly scented feather bed. And now she was paying the price of her lack of character!

She had slept like a rock, cradled in the cushioned warmth, the wind and rain only a faint sound against the tall windows. There had been no arguments from James and Thomas in the next room to be shushed, no night cries from Jenny to be soothed or worries over what Kit might be up to—only an odd sort of comfort that she had never expected to find in such a lavish setting.

She had not even marked the presence of someone else until all the shrieking started this morning. Goodness knows the bed was large enough for half a dozen people to rest without disturbance. “It was all a mistake. Nothing…happened,” she muttered.

“I know, dear, but I’m afraid that doesn’t have much to do with it,” Charlotte said. “Believe me, in society, it is all outward appearances. A married woman can carry on all sorts of dalliances if she is discreet about it, while a miss must not even be touched by a hint of impropriety!”

“But Charlotte, this isn’t London—only a tiny corner of Sussex! It was an honest mistake, no harm done, and who will be the wiser?”

Charlotte shook her head, her lovely face full of sympathy, but Jane also recognized the set of her chin. As sweet as she was, Charlotte could also be determined. Witness her marriage to an earl far above her station, Jane thought glumly. And now she looked frightfully resolute.

“You were seen, Jane. The servants are already spreading the tale, presumably, and you know how gossip flies through Upper. It will be all over the countryside in a trice, and if you don’t marry him, you will be ruined, Jane. Ruined!”

Jane turned away, her thoughts bleak. “Does it really matter?” she asked softly.

“Of course, it matters!” Charlotte took her by the shoulders and turned her around. “Why would you say such a thing?” she asked, genuinely bewildered.

Jane could not meet her eyes. “I am well aware that I am not the beauty of the family,” she said, swallowing hard against the truth she had always known.

“Neither are you a gorgon!” Charlotte protested. “And believe me, beauty does not guarantee happiness. It is more of a burden than anything else.”

Jane shook her head, unconvinced. “You were always surrounded by suitors, while I have had nary a one.”

“You have no suitors because you have discouraged every boy within miles, Jane, and well you know it! I thought you were being extremely particular, as I was, so I said nothing even after you refused a season in London! Never would I have suspected that you do not recognize your own worth. You are a lovely girl, and any man would be proud to take you as a wife.”

When Charlotte released her, Jane shook her head once more. Everyone knew that of the vicar’s daughters, Charlotte was the beauty, with young Carrie and Jenny well on their way to matching her. Sarah and Jane were the plain ones, and though Sarah was devoted to her great oaf of a husband, Alf, Jane had always been determined never to marry, to neither be disappointed nor disappoint. She had her garden and her books and her duties at the vicarage.

“Perhaps this incident is all for the best, for now I will have an excuse for my lack of prospects. Being ruined, I can live quietly, helping Papa,” Jane said softly. Although such an existence seemed quite reasonable and was what she had always planned, Jane was surprised to feel a tightening in her chest at the finality of it.

“A pariah at age eighteen?” Charlotte asked in horrified tones. “Jane, you are too young to make such a decision, to throw away your future irrevocably. And what of Papa and the little ones? How can the villagers be expected to listen to his sermons when his own daughter goes astray? How will you do your errands when most of the good people will cross the street rather than greet you? Will you make the children suffer because of you, a latter-day Lizzy Beaton?”

“Lizzy Beaton’s reputation is well earned!” Jane said of the poor pox-ridden woman who lived nearby. Although the vicar made sure the woman had food, the villagers avoided her, even those male citizens who had once frequented her hovel.

“And how will you prove that you were not compromised when you were seen in bed with a naked man?” Charlotte asked.

Was he naked? Jane nearly started at that news. She had not been wearing her glasses, naturally, and by the time she got them on, her companion had been modestly covered by a drawn-up blanket. She shook her head at the irony of it all. Only she was so plain as to be ignored by an undressed, drunken male!

“You can hardly compare me to Lizzy Beaton,” Jane argued, though not as forcefully as she would have liked. She knew she was blameless, and she could, no doubt, convince her kindhearted father of her innocence, but Charlotte was right. Most people were not as forgiving as dear Papa. Jane had a hollow feeling in her heart as she realized that although he would gladly shelter her, she could not hide away at the vicarage, if it would cause him—or her siblings—harm.

She blinked, determined not to weep at this horrible turn of events. She was going to have to marry him! “Oh, if it were anyone but Raleigh!” she said aloud, sinking into one of the cabriolet armchairs that were scattered about the room. Raleigh was too handsome, too frivolous, too dandified, too titled, too everything. “Why could it not have been Mr. Cambridge?” she asked, her voice cracking. “He is so distinguished.”

“Indeed, he’s old enough to have sired your father,” Charlotte said dryly. “Raleigh is a much better match. Why, he is still in his twenties, a viscount and someday to be an earl!”

“Don’t remind me,” Jane said glumly. She had no wish for material gain, or a life in London where people were wicked and full of excess, where married women had dalliances and men drank so much they did not know where they were sleeping—or with whom.

“Jane.” Charlotte knelt before her and took her hands. “I know that for some reason you don’t think much of him, but Raleigh is one of the finest men I know. He is good and kind and honorable, and I am proud to call him friend.” Jane inhaled slowly. “I would be even prouder to call him my brother,” Charlotte said, her full lips curving upward at the corners.

Jane let out her breath in a great sigh. What chance did she have against a determined Charlotte and her husband? She was surrounded by concerned family, and yet she had never felt so alone. What choice was there for her?

“Very well,” she said, her heart sinking down to her toes. “I will marry him, if Papa will do it.”

John Trowbridge looked rather bewildered when called to the Great House and presented with the special license for one of his own daughters. Leaving out the sordid details, Charlotte told him that Jane and Raleigh had been compromised, but as they had shared a fondness for each other for some time, all were in agreement to wed.

Perhaps, if her father had been as adamant as the others, demanding that she marry immediately, Jane might have had the courage to defy them all. But, instead, Papa pulled her aside and told her very gently that she did not have to go through with anything unless she truly loved Raleigh. Ignoring the ludicrous notion of her harboring any affection for the glib-tongued viscount, Jane put her arms around her father and hugged him tight, fighting back the tears. Yes, I have to do this, she thought to herself. Not for myself, but for you, and the boys, and Carrie and Jenny. And Charlotte and Wycliffe.

Jane was a dutiful girl, and she did her duty. She stood throughout the brief ceremony, with Raleigh stiff and unhappy beside her, and suffered the congratulations of everyone there, all of them far more pleased than either bride or groom. She pretended to eat an elaborate celebratory repast off Wycliffe’s elegant china and let the younger children fill themselves with cake.

It was only when a servant arrived with a trunk of her meager belongings that the enormity of her action, and its consequences, struck home. Between all the chatter and preparations that led up to the wedding, Jane had not had time to really think about her future. Rather, she had vaguely assumed that things would go on much as before, with her being married in name only, while Raleigh returned to London.

Now, abruptly, she was informed that she must make haste to leave for the viscount’s family seat. At the pronouncement, Jane stared so numbly at her husband that Charlotte whisked her off again to the yellow bedroom, which she was quickly growing to despise, ostensibly to assist her final packing.

In reality, Charlotte had chafed her cold hands, while sending a maid to fetch some clothes to add to Jane’s poor supply. “When I think of all the times I asked you to let me have some fine gowns made for you! Well, there’s nothing for it now, but to take what you have. Raleigh will have to spring for a new wardrobe!” she said, smiling.

Jane said nothing when the maid returned with an armful of nightrails. From experience, she knew that Charlotte’s clothing would be voluminous on her. However, this time it was not the size but the flimsy nature of the gowns that caught her attention. They were so worn as to be nearly transparent!

“I cannot wear those,” Jane whispered as the maid left.

“Of course you can,” Charlotte said with a forced heartiness that made Jane immediately suspicious of her motives.

“Why are you giving them to me?” she asked.

Charlotte blushed, making Jane even more leery. “In absence of our mother, I thought I would take it upon myself to give you some advice for your wedding night,” she said cheerfully.

Although Jane had a vague idea of reproduction, gleaned from the animals that populated the farms and hillsides, she was appalled to learn that human procreation worked in generally the same manner. Hastily dismissing the subject, Jane turned away, but Charlotte seemed intent upon embellishing the bald facts with rather disgusting details. Refusing to listen, Jane was grateful when a knock at the door and the sound of a baby crying drew Charlotte away.

“Jane, all I can say is that it is wonderful with someone you love, wonderful beyond imagining,” Charlotte said before taking one of the twins from a maid.

Nodding just to be rid of her, Jane turned back to her packing, without making the obvious comment. But I don’t love him. And I never will. Swallowing against a sudden thickness in her throat, Jane resolutely packed the scandalous garments, though she knew she would never wear them.

Nor would she permit the kind of liberties that her sister had discussed so candidly. Charlotte and Wycliffe and Raleigh himself might have gotten her to take his name, but the rest of her would remain her own.