The Perfect Rake (21 page)

Prudence said hurriedly, “It was a very small, private affair, I believe, was it not, Lord Carradice?” She sent him an urgent look.

Gideon nodded. “Oh yes, Sir Oswald. It was very small—so tiny in fact that it almost didn’t exist.” A small hand squeezed his arm, not with affection, so he added, “And completely private. Wales, you know.”

Great-uncle Oswald nodded understandingly. The hand relaxed.

“And which great-aunt was it? For a moment I thought it might be Estelle. Gave me a nasty turn. But Prudence said no. I didn’t know you had any relatives in Wales.”

“She lived a very retired life, I believe,” Prudence said.

“Oh
very
retired,” Gideon agreed. “The family hardly knew she was there at all.”

The waiter arrived with the drink Gideon had requested. Across Prudence’s head, Sir Oswald waggled his eyebrows at Gideon in a man-to-man fashion. Gideon, not knowing what else to do, waggled his back.

Sir Oswald stared, his bushy brows beetled slowly upward. “Oh, like that, was it? Packed off to Wales, was she? I see now why the whole thing was kept so dashed quiet. Take your point, Carradice. I’ll say no more about it, then. Ladies present and all that. Now, Prudence m’dear, you surely aren’t goin’ to maudle your insides with that shockin’ stuff, are you? I thought you was gettin’ her lemonade, Carradice!” He glared at the champagne Lord Carradice had ordered and removed the glass from Prudence’s hand. “I sent some of my special rhubarb tonic to Lady Ostwither—I’ll go and roust up one of those fellows to fetch some for you now. Tonic for the blood, you know, rhubarb.” He hurried off.

Prudence turned to Gideon, her brow furrowed and her mouth pursed in the most delightful way. Gideon longed to kiss her. He cast a quick, furtive glance around the room.

“What is it?” Prudence said anxiously.

“Just checking to see if anyone would notice if I kissed you now.”

She took a step backward. “Don’t you dare do such a thing! You said you’d stop teasing me! We agreed to be friends!”

He gave her an injured look. “I was thinking of a very
friendly
kiss.”

“You know what I mean.” She made a praiseworthy, if unsuccessful attempt to keep her mouth in a severe line.

Gideon shrugged and tried to look guilty. “Habits aren’t so easy to change, Miss Imp.”

He studied her, a smile playing round his lips. She was three parts fierce, one part adorably flustered, and the whole of her completely irresistible. And that dimple, peeping out just when she was trying to look most straitlaced and puritanical. He took a small step forward, closing the gap between them. She held her ground and lifted her reticule, not high, nothing to draw any vulgar attention to them—just a small reminder to him of what she would do if necessary. Little Miss Imp, ready to do battle with the big, bad rake.

He sighed, mournfully. “You have no sense of adventure, do you, Miss Imp?”

“Don’t call me that! And don’t you dare do anything improper. Now, what did Great-uncle Oswald mean about your great-aunt being packed off to Wales?”

Gideon shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never packed a great-aunt off anywhere, and if I tried, I’d come a cropper. A lady of backbone and fortitude, my Great-aunt Estelle. Terrifying female. Nobody could pack her off anywhere. Someone tried once, I believe…poor fellow was never heard of again.”

“But Great-uncle Oswald said—”

“Excellent things, eyebrows. One waggles them in a mysterious fashion and people jump to all sorts of conclusions. I’ve no idea what your esteemed relative thinks about my imaginary aunt, and care even less. The point is, he dropped the subject.”

“Yes, thank goodness. Do you think ladies’ eyebrows can communicate as well?” she asked.

“No, they don’t have sufficient thicketry,” he said with authority.

“Thicketry?”

“Yes, that is the official term. Now, while dear Sir Oswald is fetching you some disgus—er, delightful tonic, I don’t suppose you’d care to enlighten me as to why I needed a recently expired Welsh relative in the first place. Not that I’m not ungrateful, you understand. A thoughtful, if unusual gift. Nor do I wish to exhibit vulgar curiosity, but if I’m to be acquiring dead relatives at the drop of a hat—”

“Oh, pray, stop! There is no need to rub it in, I know it was wrong of me, and I meant to tell you earlier, but was distracted.”

“Distracted, eh?” His smile was rather smug, she considered.

“By your friend in the inadequate scarlet dress,” she corrected him. “The thing is, Great-uncle Oswald was going to put a notice of our betrothal in the
Morning Post
. Your being in mourning was all I could think of at the time to prevent him. I’m sorry. “

Gideon looked at her in admiration. “No, you did very right. So I’m in mourning, eh?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to go into black, because I said your great-aunt had an aversion to black and the trappings of mourning, so her will instructed everyone to wear colors. And to go to dances and so on.”

“I’m particularly relieved about the ‘so on,’” Gideon assured her. “What a wonderfully resourceful girl you are!”

Prudence blushed. “I suppose you think I’m a dreadful liar, but—”

“Not at all,” exclaimed Gideon, “I thought I recently reassured you on that point. Resourcefulness is to be admired.”

Prudence bit her lip.

“But you have grossly compromised my character, Miss ImPrudence, and now you’ll have to make it up to me.”

“Make it up to you? In what way, pray?” Prudence asked, darkly suspicious of his sudden injured-saint expression. “Compromised your character? I didn’t think such a thing would be possible.”

Gideon took her hand in his. “Not possible to compromise my character!” he exclaimed, deeply shocked. “How can you ask such a thing? First you paint me as a pudding-hearted suitor with a sad want of dash—which is appalling, for I am particularly known for my aversion to pudding and my eloquence in dash! Next you break my tailor’s heart by consigning his
billets-doux
to the fire and then you kill off my relatives willy-nilly and refuse to allow me to go into mourning—”

“They were bills, not
billets-doux!
” Prudence objected.

“To a tailor,” declared Gideon in an austere manner, “it is the same thing! Now, allow me to escort you in to supper, and over crab patties, partridge poults, and lemon tartlets, I shall give due consideration to the matter of compensation owed for the blackening of my good name.”

Prudence looked mulish.

“I thought you said we were to be friends,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but your view of how friends behave and mine seem to be chalk and cheese.”

“Then you must educate me on the matter, immediately, before I disgrace myself by lapsing into bad habits again. And while you offer me knowledge on the etiquette of friendship, I shall offer you crab patties, which are food for angels. Not cheese. Plebeian stuff, cheese. Quite unworthy of you.” He tucked her hand back into the crook of his arm and proceeded to steer her gently but firmly toward the supper room, explaining, “You shall nourish my mind while I feed your body.”

How did he
do
that? Prudence wondered as he swept her in to supper. He’d not only overcome her scruples about going in to supper with him, he’d made her laugh. And he’d also managed to make the innocent consumption of crab patties sound like some sort of seductive rite, and she had no doubt he could make it so!

She resolved to stick to bread and butter. And perhaps just one lemon tartlet.

Chapter Ten

“Thus I am not able to exist either with you or without you;
and I seem not to know my own wishes.”

O
VID

I
T WAS BARELY A WEEK SINCE
C
HARITY HAD ATTENDED HER FIRST
society function, and already she was a success, thought Prudence proudly. Now, attending her first ball, her sister was a picture of grace and beauty, seeming to float effortlessly through the complicated figures of the dance. Only Prudence knew the significance of the faint frown marring the marble smoothness of Charity’s brow. At least the tip of her sister’s tongue wasn’t visible, as it was wont to be when Charity was concentrating hardest.

For the days leading up to the ball, all five sisters had run the dancing master ragged, practicing and practicing until they knew all the steps by heart. It would be mortally embarrassing if Charity or Prue made a misstep or forgot the movements of the dance. They were determined not to look like the ignorant country misses they were. They had even practiced the wicked waltz, though neither of them expected to perform it yet.

The dancing master might well have saved his shoe leather, thought Prudence with a wry smile. The Merridew girls might have performed their part in the dances with sufficient grace and skill to pass muster, but Prudence had danced several dances with veritable clodhoppers and now the flounce on her new ball dress was torn so badly that she needed to pin it up.

Charity seemed to gain confidence with every step. Prudence smiled, watching. Who would have thought that after spending a childhood where to dance or sing was to court a whipping from Grandpapa, her sister would prove to have so much natural grace? She appeared perfectly at home in a ballroom, as if, like the other girls here, she’d been preparing for it all her life. The dance drew to an end, and Charity’s partner led her from the floor. Several gentlemen came forward offering her sister refreshments. Charity seemed unfazed by the attention.

Observing her sister shyly responding to masculine gallantry, Prudence felt as though she would burst with pride. Her younger sister was a picture of beauty, confidence, and grace. It was a personal triumph over Grandpapa and all his meanness. Her sister was like a rose, who, having spent most of her life in a harsh and bitter environment, emerged into sunlight unfurling her delicate petals, untainted by the vicissitudes of the past. Prudence prayed that all her sisters would be as unscathed.

She was watching Charity so closely, she knew to the minute when the Duke of Dinstable walked into the room. Their eyes must have met, for in an instant, her sister changed from a shy young girl at her first-ever ball to a glowing creature who seemed lit from within.

Prudence blinked. She had never seen her sister thus. Charity was radiant.

She glanced from Charity to the duke and back again. It was amazing. Hope was right, after all. The duke gazed at Charity in much the same way as she was looking at him—as if entranced. There might well have been nobody else in the room, for all the two of them noticed.

Was that how it was, love at first sight? It had been that way with her mother and father. One look and he’d known, Papa used to say. Mama would laugh and say it took at her least three good, hard looks at Papa before she’d decided he was the one. And Papa would laugh and kiss Mama and call her his beautiful slow top. Slow top indeed, Mama would retort in playful indignation—she was simply being discerning! And she would give him a look, and Papa would look back and after a moment they would laugh and kiss again.

Prudence sighed. Even though she’d been a child, she had never forgotten those intense, magical looks. The look of two people in love.

Now her beautiful younger sister and a shy, neat duke were exchanging just such searing, magical looks. A lump formed in Prudence’s throat. It was exactly what she had dreamed of for her sisters: the love that Mama and Papa had known, the love that only Prudence could remember. The love that Prudence had once dreamed of for herself.

She watched the duke bow over her sister’s hand and the breathtaking smile her sister gave him and prayed that their magic, at least, was real. And enduring.

Prudence took a long swallow of ratafia. She’d feared so much that her anxiety to see them safe might influence Charity into agreeing to the first possible man who offered for her. But if appearances were to be believed, and the duke did offer for her, there would be no sacrifice.

The duke seemed a very decent man—what little she knew of him. Quiet, a little shy, yet with unmistakable dignity and the assurance of rank, he was looking at her gentle sister with the kind of tenderness that made Prudence feel like weeping. And her sister was looking right back at him.

For that look in her sister’s eyes, Prudence would tell a hundred more lies.

The duke was surely not a rake like his cousin; in fact, that newspaper report about him she’d read had suggested he’d come to London in search of a wife. Prudence closed her eyes and said a little prayer. When she opened them, he was leading Charity toward the terrace, escorting her as if she were some sort of fragile bloom in need of care and protection.

No, the duke was not a rake like his cousin, Lord Carradice, thank goodness. He was totally sincere.

So why did she feel so suddenly…bereft?

Recalling the torn flounce, Prudence made for the ladies’ withdrawing room. She drew a packet of pins from the new netting reticule that Grace had made her and began to repair the damage.

“Torn your flounce, Miss Merridew? Do you want me to pin it for you?” It was Mrs. Crowther, the woman she had met at the Ostwither soiree. Without waiting for Prudence to respond, Mrs. Crowther bent down and took the pins from Prudence’s hand. She was wearing red again tonight, a brilliant, low-cut silk gown that pooled around her as she knelt.

Prudence had little choice. She thanked Mrs. Crowther and stood quietly while the older woman pinned the flounce with quick, efficient movements.

“That should hold it,” Mrs. Crowther rose from the pool of crimson silk. Her dress molded around her sinuous figure like a flame.

Prudence, in her gown of creamy satin with dainty green and white snowdrops embroidered around the hem, felt like a gawky schoolgirl by contrast.

“Thank you.” She put on her evening gloves again and made to leave.

“Not so fast, my innocent.” Mrs. Crowther placed a long-fingered hand on Prudence’s arm.

“I beg your pardon?” Prudence raised an eyebrow, hoping she looked haughty. She did not like Mrs. Crowther or her tone. She tried to move but found Mrs. Crowther was holding her fast. They were not alone in the room and Prudence did not want to make a scene.