Dangerous to Love (6 page)

“What?”

“You know, marry ’im.”

Serena’s jaw dropped. Gasping, she started to her feet. “Marry him? Marry
him?
I wouldn’t marry that .  .  . that Philistine if my life depended on it!”

“What ’ave you got against the major?”

“What have I .  .  . ? I don’t believe I’m hearing this.”

“So ’e ’ad ’is way with you. But you can’t blame ’im for that, or so you told me. He mistook you for a doxy, and you played along with ’im.”

Serena gritted her teeth together and closed her eyes. “You have no conception of what it was like. Furthermore”—she glared at Flynn—”I don’t wish to discuss it.”

“It’s always like that the first time for a woman,” said Flynn. “With practice, it gets better.”

She gazed at him in utter confusion and hurt. “Flynn,” she whispered, “I thought you were my protector. I thought that if you knew the truth you would .  .  . you know .  .  . do something drastic. I thought you would want to tear Raynor limb from limb.”

He edged forward, elbows on thighs, chin cupped with both hands. “And so I would, if I thought the major ’ad taken advantage of you. But don’t you see, it was the other way round? You took advantage of ’im. The thing to do now is to press your advantage before some other lady snatches ’im. If I knows the major, and I do, when ’e ’as a chance to think about it, ’e will want to do the ’onorable thing.”

Once again, Serena lowered herself to her dressing-table stool. “I think,” she said faintly, “that you have taken leave of your senses. Julian Raynor is no fit husband for the daughter of Sir Robert Ward.”

It was Flynn’s turn to glare. “ ’Oity toity! When did you get so ’igh an opinion of yourself?”

“But I don’t—”

“The major, let me tell you, my girl, is one of the finest gentlemen I knows. ’e ’as got a library in that ’ouse of ’is that casts the one ’ere into the deepest gloom, yes, and ’e invited me to make use of it whenever I please. You wants to know what separates a real gentleman from those painted fribbles what are always ’anging on your skirts? A real gentleman knows ’ow to treat ’is inferiors. Ask the major’s croupiers. Ask ’is operators. They’ll tell you if the major is a real gentleman or not.”

“How he treats women is more to the point,” retorted Serena. “Flynn, I don’t want to argue with you. What I should have said was that Raynor is no fit husband for the daughter of Sir Robert Ward because he is an anti-Jacobite. My father would never allow it.”

“You are three-and-twenty,” said Flynn, slowly, distinctly, his elocution suddenly as cultured as Serena’s. “You don’t need your father’s permission to marry, and Sir Robert is not here. What would you have me believe—that you are a dutiful daughter? I know better than that!”

She smiled at this, and shook her head. “No, I know better than to try and fool you. But Jeremy believes that Papa may yet be given a pardon. What a terrible thing to greet my father on his first night home with the news that I’d married one of the enemy.”

“A pardon? Is it settled, then?”

“Jeremy is hopeful that it will be arranged by the end of the month.”

They both fell silent as each became lost in thoughts of Sir Robert. Serena’s reflections were tender. Flynn’s were cynical.

Pardon for Sir Robert Ward was a costly business. There were “presents” to be made to officials to ease the way, and fines to be paid off, and God knew what all. The Wards were fortunate that they had not lost everything when the Rebellion failed. They could thank Mr. Jeremy for that. He’d had the good sense to stand aloof from his father’s politics and remain loyal to the Crown. In the harsh retribution that had fallen on Jacobite families following the Rebellion, the Wards had remained relatively unscathed. Until now.

If he were Mr. Jeremy, Flynn reflected, he would tell Sir Robert to go to hell. Appearances to the contrary, the Wards were close to ruin, and Flynn blamed Sir Robert for it. He’d emptied the family’s coffers when he’d thrown in his lot with Charles Edward Stuart, and then he’d unscrupulously commandeered the legacy that Serena had inherited from her mother. Letty and Clive were fortunate that they were underage and their legacies were still in trust, or Sir Robert would have commandeered those as well.

Also to be pitied was Mr. Jeremy’s wife. Catherine Ward had brought a respectable portion to her marriage, and what a wife brought to her husband belonged to him outright. It was Flynn’s opinion that that money would
soon go the way of all the rest, if it had not done so already.

Charity begins at home,
that was Flynn’s motto, and a father who did not put the welfare of his own children first wasn’t much of a father. Because of Sir Robert, the Wards were mortgaging themselves to the hilt. Financial ruin was only a step away.

“Your father don’t regard Mr. Jeremy as one of the enemy,” he offered cautiously, “and he ain’t no Jacobite.”

“Jeremy did not take up arms against the Cause,” Serena replied with so little hesitation that Flynn surmised this was not the first time this question had teased her mind. “You might say that Jeremy was neutral. Papa understands this. Besides, have you forgotten that the man to whom I was betrothed lost his life at Prestonpans? If I ever wed, it will not be to someone who would dishonor Stephen’s memory. There is one thing more. Julian Raynor has no more wish to wed me than I do him, so this is a useless conversation.”

“But—”

“Leave be, Flynn! Now, if you please, tell me how things went off last night.”

This was soon done, for aside from the close call at The Thatched Tavern, everything had gone smoothly.

“And Clive knows that the militia were there?”

“You may be sure that it was the first thing I told ’im. We’re to lie low, that’s what Clive thinks, and I agree with ’im. ’e is going off this morning to tell ’is connection in Oxford that we are no longer accepting lodgers, leastways not for some time to come.”

Her brow was knit in a frown. “Does Clive suspect an informer, or what?”

“Serena, ’e is being cautious, ’tis all.”

She nodded at this, and the frown gradually lifted. “If
the authorities were on to us, they would have arrested us by now.”

“Very true. Now, to get back to Raynor—”

Rising in a swish of skirts, she glared down at him. “If I hear that man’s name one more time, I swear I shall scream.”

“But—”

Moving quickly to a silk screen against the wall, she said over her shoulder, “If you would be good enough to draw a bath for me, Flynn, I should like to bathe and change my clothes,” and slipping behind the screen, she began to disrobe.

It was an effective way to bring the conversation to a close. Not to be outdone, Flynn stalked to the screen. “And don’t be forgetting to soap your fool ’ead,” he said through gritted teeth. “Not that that will make a jot of difference to what’s inside it.”

“What?” asked Serena, poking her head around the side of the screen.

“Your ’air, don’t forget to wash your ’air.” And inwardly berating himself for worrying about a baggage who was well able to take care of herself, Flynn went to do her bidding.

It was always like this, he told himself philosophically, from his first day at Ward House, when he’d pissed his breeches because he’d been too afraid to ask where the privy was, and Serena, without fuss or embarrassment, had found him a change of clothes. Sometimes, when Serena was at her most stubborn—like now—he thought he must have been mad to sell his soul at six years old for a pair of pissed breeches.

In all fairness, he had to admit there was more to it than that. In the intervening years, Serena had stood in the role of mentor to him. She had taught him to read and write. His cultured speech, which he could employ when
the notion struck him, was the result of her patient tutoring. She had instructed him in manners and deportment so that when he broke the rules, it was from choice and not through ignorance. He had ambitions for his life which he had shared with no one but Serena, knowing that he would be laughed at by anyone else. One day, he was going to make something of himself. Serena believed it too.

More and more, however, the conviction had grown in Flynn lately that the burden of Serena was becoming too much for him, and that it was time to relinquish it into older, more experienced hands. The political climate, Sir Robert’s imminent return, the threat of bankruptcy hanging over the family, and not least Serena’s involvement with Jacobite fugitives—all these things pressed heavily upon him. Moreover, it was more than time for him to cut the tie that bound him to the Ward household. If he was going to make something of himself, he must strike out on his own. He was reluctant to do so until he saw Serena settled.

Julian Raynor was just the sort of man Flynn would have chosen for Serena if he had been her fairy godmother instead of her self-appointed guardian. All the chairmen knew of the major and his splendid house on St. Dunstan’s Court, just off Fleet Street.

Raynor was a regular nob, a gentleman who treated lackeys and lords indiscriminately, that is to say, on their merits. Basing his opinion on below-stairs gossip, Flynn surmised that the major’s odd position on the fringes of society had something to do with it. A man who frequently met with prejudice was more likely to judge with an open mind. Having met with condescension and snubs most of his short life, Flynn heartily approved this trait in his betters. That the major never failed to tip generously
for a job well done did not hurt his case with Flynn either.

There were other things Flynn liked about the major, things he had observed when he waited patiently in the vestibule, in the wee hours of the morning, while Mr. Jeremy lingered at the green baize tables. Julian Raynor knew his way around women, be they whores or duchesses. Such a man would know how to tame a sharptongued, irrepressible female who was used to going her own way.

He was exaggerating, of course. There was more to Serena than a sharp tongue and a strong will. She was also warmhearted, generous, and loyal to a fault. Perversely, these virtues only added to his worries. Serena gave herself far too freely and not often wisely. She doted on her miserable father, and took the most appalling risks for a set of people who were as close to fanatics as Flynn ever hoped to meet.

What he wanted was for Serena to take all that misplaced devotion and give it into the safekeeping of a man who was a worthy mate for her, a man who would appreciate all her fine qualities, as well as temper her failings; in short, a man she could respect or be made to respect. Such gentlemen did not grow on trees.

This thought turned his mind to Captain Horatio Allardyce, the scoundrel who had come sniffing around Serena’s skirts when she was barely out of the schoolroom. It wasn’t Serena Allardyce had been interested in, but her dowry. One look at Allardyce and Flynn had known he was up to no good. Serena wouldn’t listen. Poor Serena. She’d had a rude awakening. Allardyce’s fancy woman, the worldly Lady Amelia Lawrence, had soon put her wise to what was going on behind her back. After that, Serena gave men of Allardyce’s stamp a wide berth.

Her next suitor, Stephen Howard, was a gentleman of
unquestionable virtue. Flynn had had no quarrel with Mr. Howard, except that he had known he wasn’t the man for Serena. He was too tame, too biddable. Another thought occurring to him, Flynn frowned. Surely Serena did not lump Major Raynor with Allardyce? Anyone with sense could see they were as different as a silk purse was from a sow’s ear.

He wondered about The Thatched Tavern and what exactly had taken place between Serena and the major. Almost as soon as he had thought of it, his mind had rejected the idea of rape. Flynn considered himself a shrewd judge of character, and unlike some gentlemen he could name, the major did not strike him as the type to force himself on a woman, not even if he believed that woman to be a harlot. He’d seen Raynor, once, in a chilling rage when one of his operators, a beautiful girl by the name of Emerald, had been waylaid and almost ravished by one of Raynor’s own patrons. His views on men who preyed on defenseless females were well reported at the time, and the duel that had followed, in which the major had deliberately blown his adversary’s powdered toupee from his bald head, had not only added to the major’s popularity among his peers, but had also taught them a lesson. From that day to this, the girls who worked for Raynor went unmolested.

Flynn could not see such a man going against his own principles. Besides, Serena did not have the look of a woman who had been mishandled. There wasn’t a mark on her. Then again, she did not have the look of a woman who had been well and truly pleasured. It was no great feat to put two and two together. Not a rape, decided Flynn, but a seduction which his intrepid mistress had begun, confident that she would be the one to call the shots. Being the innocent she was, it would not have occurred to her that there would come a point when nature
would insist on taking its course. He couldn’t stop grinning. Evidently, the experience was not one Serena cared to repeat. Finally, a man had come out on top, and she didn’t like it, not one jot.

He knew well enough that her brothers would not be as complacent as he if they ever got to hear of it. Oh no, they would
get
all worked up, and belt on their smallswords, and go after the major demanding satisfaction. Flynn might have done the same if Serena were younger and less worldly. But she was three-and-twenty with no dowry to attract suitors, and, by far the most tragic to Flynn’s way of thinking, fast becoming reconciled to her single state. This chance encounter with Raynor was on a par with answered prayer, if only she could be made to see it.

It wasn’t only Serena who needed to be persuaded of her good fortune. Though Mr. Jeremy was not the stiff-necked prig his father was, Flynn did not think that he would welcome an alliance between his sister and a man who owned a gaming house. That was the trouble with the gentry. They put stock in the wrong things. Well, he was bound and determined that Serena was not going to let Julian Raynor slip through her fingers, not if he had anything to do with it.

That Julian would not do the honorable thing never once seriously crossed Flynn’s mind.