A Rake by Any Other Name (12 page)

Spare me your “O, what a tangled web we weave” nonsense. If a certain young man could simply be relied upon to do as the family wishes, there wouldn't have been any need for deception in the first place.

—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset

Richard found his grandmother pacing the shore of the duck pond, her cane's pewter tip digging into the soft ground. Lord and Lady Pruett seemed frozen in horror at the water's edge. The dock that had once jutted into the pond to give visitors a place to sit and fish, or tug off their shoes and socks and dangle their feet in the water was now submerged beneath the murky surface.

“Where's Ariel?” Richard demanded as he hopped one-legged, pulling off his boots in preparation for going in after whoever was still in the pond. The water where the dock had been churned furiously. An arm flailed on the surface then disappeared ominously. Someone, maybe several someones, was struggling under there.

“It's not Ariel, dear.” His grandmother waved a dismissive hand, and Richard surmised the shrieks had come from Lady Pruett. Gran was as calm as the swans on the far side of the pond who hadn't let the human activity on this side disrupt their stately procession. “Your little sister and her governess returned to the house some time ago. One can only feed ducks for so long, you know. So tiresome. All that infernal quacking.”

“Then who—”

His father's head broke the surface, followed by David, the footman who'd lately been pressed into service as Richard's valet. Then the marquess seemed to find his footing and rose with a lily pad dripping from his left ear. With his wife sputtering in his arms, he waded toward the shore. David followed, dragging the sodden wheelchair whose spokes were chinked with dark mud.

“Oh my,” Richard's grandmother said with a shaky chuckle. “It's a miracle.”

“A miracle, my foot.” Richard narrowed his eyes at his father. “How long has he been able to walk?”

“Come now, Richard,” the dowager hissed. “Is that any way to act when your parents might have drowned?”

“I happen to know the water is only about four feet deep at the end of the dock. The likelihood of them drowning was slim.” Richard yanked his boots back on. His grandmother studiously refrained from meeting his gaze as the wet members of the party trudged out of the water. “Slimmer, I'd imagine, than my chances of getting the truth of what's really going on from anyone.”

“Hush, boy. Not before your guests.”

Before Richard could wangle any more information from his grandmother, Sophie, his sisters, and Antonia came running toward them, babbling like a gaggle of geese. Ella and Petra threw their arms around the father, excited over his incredible cure.

“Stand back, girls,” the marquess said, as he deposited his wife into the wheelchair. David knelt to swipe out the mud between the wheels' spokes with his gloved hands. The footman's crushed velvet livery would never be the same. “Your mother has had quite a fright.”

“She's not the only one,” Gran muttered.

Petra and Ella now crowded around their mother, smoothing her wet hair and crooning protestations of thankfulness for their parents' deliverance. Lady Antonia was complaining to whoever would listen that her picnic was utterly ruined. Only Sophie seemed to have the sense to do something helpful. She draped her plaid blanket over his mother's lap and tucked it around her before she began to shiver.

“Will someone please tell me what happened here?” Richard demanded.

“Lord Somerset seemed to want to venture out on the dock. He indicated with a hand motion or two that the footman was to take him, and of course, Lady Somerset went with him,” Lord Pruett explained. “I fear the dock proved a bit rickety and wouldn't support their combined weight.”

It was evidence of yet more deferred maintenance on the Somerset property. Richard had to do something and soon, or eventually all the improvements to the estate would be as useless as the follies.

“If you'll excuse us, Lady Antonia, I believe we must end the festivities for today,” Lord Somerset said without the slightest slurring of his words or any other indication that, until now, he'd been mute for weeks. “My wife requires rest.”

“And I require some explanations,” Richard said quietly.

“Oh no, the party's been ruined.” Antonia's perfectly shaped brows drew upward and together in distress. “I'd hoped to set up butts and host an archery competition once we all came together again.”

“Oh, I daresay anything involving sharp pointy objects would be counterproductive at the moment, my dear,” the dowager said.

“Another day perhaps,” Lord Somerset said as he turned, pushing his wife in the chair, for a change, back toward Somerfield Park. David squelched after them, his big feet leaving muddy prints as they went. The dowager made good her escape, leaning on the footman's arm.

They weren't getting away that easily. Richard followed for a few steps, and once they were out of earshot of the others, he grasped his father's arm. “Today, sir. You will give me an accounting for this subterfuge of yours.”

The marquess frowned but nodded. “Wait for me in the library.”

Richard returned to the rest of the party where his sisters were taking leave of the Pruetts, still so delirious over their father's recovery they gave short shrift to praising the picnic's virtues. Lady Antonia's bacchanalian-themed party was officially over.

Sophie patted Antonia on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Tonia. No hostess can foresee all outcomes when she plans an event. My tea had a near poisoning, your picnic a near drowning—these things can happen to anyone.”

Antonia's mouth worked furiously, but whatever she was thinking, she was too well-bred to say.

“Miss Goodnight, you're closer to Somerfield Park than Barrett House,” Richard said. “Why don't you walk there with us, and we'll send the coach round to take you home?”

“How kind of you, Hartley,” Antonia said, claiming Richard's arm before he could offer it to Sophie. “Always thinking of others whether they have any business being here or not.”

Richard jerked his gaze to Antonia sharply. She must be terribly overwrought over her party breaking up so disastrously. He'd never heard anything remotely ungracious drop from her lovely lips before this.

Seymour stepped up to Sophie to play the gallant with another of his mocking bows. “If you please, Miss Goodnight, I'd be happy to escort you. Seems to me it's high time you and I got to know each other better.”

Sophie took his arm, and the pair started off in the direction of Somerfield Park, chatting like old friends.

Richard watched them go, knowing Seymour meant nothing by it. He was game for flirting with any available female. But for some reason, seeing Sophie on his friend's arm bothered Richard far more than when Lawrence had fastened his lips on Antonia's.

***

Contrary to Sophie's expectations, Lawrence Seymour could be a witty and pleasant companion. He regaled her with tales of his and Richard's exploits on the Continent, and whether by design or simply because it was true, he made himself look the scoundrel in the stories.

She was also surprised that Seymour was so well acquainted with the contents of Lord Somerset's expansive library. She'd heard that the marquess collected a number of books which featured art prints. Seymour was able to confirm that his lordship's shelves were well stocked.

“There was a lecturer on the ship in which we traveled from India who specialized in female artists. I'm quite interested in learning more about one called Artemisia Gentileschi,” Sophie said.

“The name doesn't seem familiar.”

“I'm not surprised. She was an Italian Baroque painter and a rather obscure one at that.”

“Well, the Somerset library, rather like all country manors, majors in obscurity, so I don't doubt you'll find something.”

“Good,” she said. “I'd rather not return to Barrett House until I've had a chance to look. The library there is restricted to gardening tomes and a rather exhausting history of the Peloponnesian Wars.”

“You mean ‘exhaustive,' don't you?”

“Clearly, you haven't tried to read it.”

Laughing, he led her over the meadow and up to the grand front entrance. Then he escorted her through the parlors and corridors to the library in the southeast corner of the great house.

“One has to negotiate a bit of a labyrinth to find the library, but here we are, Miss Goodnight,” Seymour said as he opened the door for her. “You know, I believe you're a good influence on us.”

That was something she'd never been accused of before. “Really? How's that?”

“Ordinarily, English country society is about as exciting as watching bread molder. Since you've been here, we've had no end of unexpected developments.”

“If I've upset the natural order of things…well, I suppose I should apologize.”

“Don't,” Seymour advised. “However, for what it's worth, Hartley is a fool not to snap you up.”

She grinned up at him. “Ah, but that assumes I'm available for the snapping. Don't let my parents' machinations fool you into thinking I agree with them.”

“Hard to get, eh?” He laid his finger aside his nose in the time-honored gesture of collusion. “Well played.”

“I'm not playing,” she protested.

“Of course you are. We all are. If you're versed in obscure Baroque painters, you're surely familiar with the Bard. ‘Life's but a walking shadow, a poor
player
, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.'”

“‘It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,'” she finished for him.

“Touché. I am an idiot most of the time.”

“I sincerely doubt that.” Sophie wondered why Seymour seemed to delight in giving people reasons to underestimate him. Then she remembered how he'd kept Richard from doing more damage to the bully who'd tormented them both when they were young. There was character in Lawrence Seymour, however much he tried to hide it. “Richard is fortunate to have you as a friend.”

“I hope you'll count me yours as well,” Seymour said. “Well, I'm off. This is the time of day when Petra and Ella usually ride, and I don't think I've bedeviled Hartley's sisters enough for one day yet.”

He turned and sauntered down the hall, hands in his pockets, whistling as he went.

Sophie went into the library, and it nearly took her breath away. The ceiling soared twenty feet. A spiral staircase in the corner led to a wrought-iron balcony ringing the room at the upper level. Not only were the shelves full to bursting with leather-covered volumes, there was a string of cushioned alcoves with tall, Palladian windows filling the room with light. Red leather wing chairs flanked a marble fireplace and a cabinet labeled “maps” stood opposite a massive burled oak desk.

“This library is a little slice of heaven,” she said with a sigh of contentment. “Maybe I
should
try to become the next marchioness.”

***

Questions bombarded Richard with every step down the polished marble hall. Why had his parents, and even his beloved grandmother, perpetrated such a cruel ruse? He doubted his sisters were in on the deception. Their joy over their father's supposed miracle seemed genuine enough.

Why did Lord Somerset feel he had to resort to such lengths to bend Richard to his will?

His father would probably argue that Richard was stubborn, and he was. He knew this about himself, but he wasn't irresponsible. If the Somerset marquessate was in trouble, Richard wasn't about to let it fall apart if he could help it.

He just disagreed with his father about how he should go about reversing the family fortunes. At first, he'd recoiled from wedding Sophie Goodnight and her bloated dowry because of his attachment to Antonia. He wasn't the faithless sort, and he felt he owed Antonia his allegiance. Now he rejected the scheme because it wasn't fair to Sophie herself. She didn't deserve to be the human embodiment of a financial endowment to Somerset.

She deserved to be loved for herself.

The thought surprised him when it first surfaced, but once it formed, it took instant root. Such ideas were dangerous, he knew. The fact that he considered Sophie's happiness meant he no longer saw her as merely a block to his own.

He'd been ready to pledge his undying devotion to Antonia in Paris. Now, even if the infernal money debacle hadn't raised its ugly head, he wasn't so sure of his feelings toward her. Antonia was still the same polished young lady, the same confident daughter of privilege who fit neatly into the beau monde and would help him fit in too.

Only now, he wasn't sure he even wanted that world. Richard feared he'd become changeable as a weathercock.

It didn't help matters any when he opened the door to the library and found the source of his dilemma there, in all her disheveled glory. She lounged in one of the alcoves, her slippers discarded so she could prop her stockinged feet on the cushions, a book balanced on her bent knees. After an afternoon of tramping in the fresh air and sunshine, most women would scurry off to their boudoirs to repair the damage of too much wind and exertion.

Not Sophie. She'd removed her bonnet, revealing her tumbled-down mass of hair. The fact that the hem of her gown had a grass stain visible from across the room obviously troubled her not at all. She was so intent on her book, she didn't seem to notice that he'd entered.

Until she spoke without looking up. “Hullo, Richard.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Magic,” she said with a wink.

He arched a skeptical brow at her.

“And excellent peripheral vision,” she conceded.

“What has you so captivated there?”

“Your father has a book about a Baroque painter in whom I've developed an interest. There are some very fine prints here.”