Anne Barbour

A RAKE’S REFORM

Anne Barbour

Chapter One

A night of intermittent rain showers had served to freshen the morning that burst on London one summer day in the year of our Lord, 1817. Dawn spread her banners across an amethyst sky as the sun rose to touch first the city’s church spires with golden fire, then the humbler dwellings of mortals. At last a single beam of radiance stole through the curtains of an elegant Mayfair town house to bathe the admirable figure of Charles Trent, fifth Earl of Bythorne, Viscount Spring, Baron Trent of Grantham, of Creed and Whitlow—who sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands.

He was getting too old for this sort of thing, by God. He had arrived home only minutes before. When he had gone to Vivienne’s dinner party the night before, he had only a few hours of dalliance in mind, but the beautiful widow had been desirous of much more. Lord, her demands—on his time, his energy, and his purse—were growing untenable.

Perhaps it was time to end that particular liaison. The Earl of Tenby’s sadly neglected wife had been sending out some interesting lures lately.

Thorne sighed. On the other hand, the young countess, though undoubtedly a diamond of the first water, was also young and very silly. Perhaps he should reestablish his connection with Maria Stafford. She was a bit on the hard side, and selfish as she could hold together, but in her favor—besides a complaisant husband—she was thirty-ish—near to his own age, in fact, and an excellent conversationalist and a comfortable companion.

Good God, he thought in dismay, had it come to this?

Was he actually weighing his potential mistresses on a comfort scale? Had the thrill of the chase and the sensuous delights of victory given way to the desire for—for what? Friendship? He snorted. He had enough friends.

Thorne bent his thoughts once more to the delectable Countess of Tenby, she of the ripe, thrusting bosom and swinging hips. He thought of the little pink tongue that slid out to moisten full, pink lips and felt a gratifying tightening of his loins. Comfortable, hell. He still knew what he wanted from a woman, and it wasn’t conversation.

With this conviction turning reassuringly in his brain, he prepared to sink into the softness of his bed, only to be deterred by a scratching at his door, followed almost immediately by the entrance of a soberly clad gentleman whose anxious demeanor seemed at odds with features that seemed almost cherubic in their insouciance. In a hand that fairly shook with agitation, he carried what appeared to be a note.

“My lord?” whispered this apparition.

“What is it, Williams?” asked Thorne wearily.

“It’s Miss Chloe, my lord. Her maid just brought this to me.”

He waved the paper before him as though it had suddenly caught fire, and advanced into the room. Hastily, he thrust the note at his employer.

“Now what?” Thorne distastefully eyed the wrinkled missive, noting the blotches and the tearstains with which it was liberally embellished.

“‘My
lord,
’“ he read aloud.
“‘I can no longer hear your unfeeling interference in my life.’“
Thorne cast his eyes heavenward. “Good Lord, more histrionics,” he muttered. “‘Now
, you have committed the crudest transgression of all. I tell you again, my lord, I will not be shackled at your whim to a man I do not even know. Your complete disregard for my feelings, as well as your contempt for everything I hold sacred has driven me to flee your tyranny.’“ 
The earl glanced at his valet with foreboding. “My God, don’t tell me...” He trailed off, his eyes once more on the note.
“‘I have, therefore, left your dubious protection to seek sanctuary with One Who Will Understand. Do not attempt to pursue me, for my mind is made up. You won’t find me, anyway,’“
read the last sentence, somewhat smugly.
“‘Yours truly, Chloe Venable.’“

Rising, Thorne swore long and fluently. “The little twit! I might have known she’d try something like this. How long has she been gone?”

“I could not say, my lord. Pinkham seems to feel that she departed the house late last night after all of us—er, that is,” he added with a sidelong glance at his master, “most of us—were asleep, for the young lady’s bed has not been slept in.”

Thorne sighed heavily. “Well, there’s nothing for it. I’ll have to go after her. Does Chloe’s maid—what’s her name—Pinkham?—have any idea where she might have scarpered to?”

“No, my lord. She has any number of friends here in London, but surely the parents of these young ladies would not act as accomplices. And, of course, she has no close relatives.”

The earl, removing his lace-trimmed cravat, nodded grimly. “The devil take it, Williams, the chit has brought me nothing but grief since her arrival here. It’s only been a few months, but it seems like a lifetime.”

“Indeed, my lord,” replied the valet, divesting the earl of his rumpled evening clothes so that he might garb himself in more appropriate day wear. “Being saddled with a ward of—of so nubile an age has proved an onerous responsibility.”

Williams offered a discreet sigh.

“I suppose you’d better roust Aunt Lavinia,” said Thorne, winding a fresh cravat about his neck. “She will no doubt expire from the vapors when she hears the news, but perhaps she will have some clue as to where Chloe has loped off to.”

The valet bowed himself from the room and Thorne repaired to Chloe’s bedchamber, where he began flinging open drawers and cupboard doors. All to no avail. She had left nothing behind to tell him of her whereabouts. A search of the little rosewood desk that stood near her bed was more fruitful, however. Thrust in a far corner of the uppermost drawer was a faintly drawn, hurriedly sketched map. Perusing it carefully, Thorne exclaimed in disgust. Why, it depicted the area around his country seat, Bythorne Park near Guildford, not twenty miles from here. Chloe must have drawn the map last month, when they had spent a week there. Thorne peered more closely at the names of nearby villages laboriously marked on the paper. The road wound past them all, coming to an end near the top of the map at a village called — what was it — Overby? Oddsbeck? He tossed the paper aside impatiently and for several moments stood in the center of the room running his fingers through soft, dark hair that already looked as though it had been churned by a baker’s whisk. He moved to the fireplace, but realized after a moment’s stirring of the ashes that everything that had been placed there in the recent past had been thoroughly burned. Except ... A single charred piece of paper fluttered in the draft created by the flue.

Ah, good, he could read the date — only a week previous. And it had been written to Chloe. The rest of the missive, unfortunately had been almost wholly consumed by the fire. “— how very pleased I was —” he muttered, searching for readable fragments. “ — heartened by your — please do come — understand your — ‘Wait a minute. ‘Please do come’?” His gaze swept to the bottom of the letter, but the signature was unreadable. Underneath, however, the writer had scribbled, “Rosemere Cottage,” and the name of a village, which was also virtually indecipherable. The first letter, he was almost sure, was “o” — or “d” — or possibly “c,” and then an “m,” perhaps or a “w” or a “v.” Overcross! The name fairly leaped into his mind.

“Overcross.” He tasted the name on his lips. Where had he heard it before? Turning, he scooped up the map from where he had tossed it on the floor. Yes, he was sure the name at the top of the map was Overcross, as well, but where had he heard it before? The village was not a great distance from the Park, but far enough so that it was unfamiliar to him. Yet — he was sure he had heard of it, and not too long ago.

He paced the floor, the map clutched in one hand, the letter in the other. His desperate ruminations were cut short a moment later as the bedchamber door opened to admit a short, plump woman whose feathery gray hair escaped in tufts from a cap tied sadly askew.

“Bythorne! What has happened? Williams told me—” Her gaze swept about the room. “Oh, merciful heavens. It’s true! She has flown! Oh, the ungrateful little wretch! I believe I’m going to have a spasm! Beddoes, my vinaigrette!”

Holding a hand to her pillowy breast, she sank down on the bed, gesturing wildly to the maid who had hurried into the room behind her. Thorne crossed the room to seat himself beside her.

“Aunt Lavinia, you must not excite yourself so. I will find her. There, there,” he said soothingly, patting his aunt’s hand as she continued to bemoan her charge’s perfidy. Lady Lavinia St. John, his mother’s sister and a spinster of some fifty years, had acted as his chatelaine ever since the death of his parents, some years previously. She was a master of domestic arrangements and had kept Bythorne Park running smoothly for years. When he had requested that she come to live with him in London to act as chaperon for his newly acquired ward, she had acceded without demur. Unfortunately, she was not a disciplinarian, and young Chloe had run virtually roughshod over all her well-intentioned precepts. Poor Aunt Lavinia, mused Thorne fleetingly. She did not merit this sort of chaos in her declining years. He augmented the hand-patting with a few more “there, there’s.”

When, at last, the lady’s bosom began to heave less spasmodically, he asked, “Do you have any idea where Chloe might have gone?”

At her woeful shake of the head, he continued. “Does the name Overcross mean anything to you? I believe it’s a village some distance to the north of Bythorne Park.”

“Overcross? Overcross.” She repeated the word several times, until at last enlightenment spread across her comfortable features. “Yes. Chloe traveled there last spring when we visited the Park. There is some woman living there whom she—just a moment.”

She rose and moved to a shelf of books hung above the desk. Removing a volume, she returned to the bed. “Yes,” she continued, reading from the cover. “It was this female—this Hester Blayne.”

She handed the book to Thorne, who read aloud. “ ‘Women’s Rights: An Apologia.’ Good God!” He dropped the book as though it had bitten him.

“You are familiar with the name?” asked his aunt.

“Of course. Good God,” he said again. “Hester Blayne is one of the most vocal of that incomprehensible breed, English feminists.”

“Yes.” Lady Lavinia nodded bemusedly. “Besides this book, Miss Blayne has written several others, all espousing the betterment of women—and two or three novels, as well, on the same theme. Chloe is a great admirer of Miss Blayne’s. She has attended several of her lectures here in Town, and in April, while we were at the Park, it was all I could do to prevent her from haring up to see the female at her home—which apparently is in Overcross.”

“I remember now.” Thorne clenched his fingers. “Chloe nattered on at me for days to allow her to visit the Blayne woman—although I didn’t pay much attention to her name at the time.” He rose from his seat on the bed. “It’s obvious that’s where she’s gone, but—good Lord, how did she get there?”

“Well,” snapped his aunt, “I wouldn’t put it past the little wretch to simply hire a hackney to take her to White Horse Cellars, where all the coaches depart for Surrey. Oh dear, Bythorne, she did not take her maid, so she must have set out on her own. Oh, merciful heavens, what if something has happened to her—a young girl traveling by herself. . . At the very least, she will be ruined.”

“Not if I can help it,” replied Thorne grimly. “If I set off now, I shall be in Overcross by this afternoon, and I shall have her back home before anyone is the wiser.”

Thus, it was only a very short time later that vehicles and passersby on the Portsmouth Road were treated to the sight of the Earl of Bythorne’s famous red-and-black racing curricle flashing southward from London.

It was some hours later in the same day that England’s premier feminist, Miss Hester Blayne, knelt in the front garden of her cottage just outside the village of Overcross. She presented a rather unprepossessing figure, for she was of less than average height and slender of form. Tendrils of brown hair escaping from under a neat linen cap drifted about absurdly youthful features, for her upturned nose and rounded chin belied her eight-and-twenty years. At the moment, she presented an even more nondescript appearance than usual. Garbed in sturdy boots and a serviceable muslin gown, she was engaged in a vigorous program of weed removal from her front garden.

She had been hard at this task for most of the afternoon and she felt almost drugged by the sun and the sweet early-summer scents of the afternoon. She lifted her head at a sound from the cottage.

“Hester!” An elderly woman stood at the doorway, peering nearsightedly into the blazing warmth.

“Here, Larkie. Come see what I’ve accomplished.”

“Good heavens, child. You’ve been out here for hours. Why didn’t you let the new servant girl attend to this? You said you planned to work all day on your book.”

Hester stood and stretched muscles pleasantly tired from her exertions.

“Perkins has been busy all day in the kitchen with Cook, I think, and I simply had to get out into this glorious day. I’m well ahead of my deadline for once, so I decided to play truant.”