How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3) (22 page)

“Yes. Quite possibly, while I am in Bath I shall be mad. So?”

A breathless laugh shot out of him.

She reminded him slyly, “
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
.”

Nathaniel rubbed his chin slowly with his long fingers, a devious spark in his eyes.

“Oh dear,” she murmured, “what now?”

His eyebrow wavered.

“I would prefer, madam, to thaw that icy heart of yours with a very respectable courtship. And despite my occasional clumsiness, I am not an elephant, so I would like a courtship with you that lasts longer than half an hour.”

“
You
want a respectable courtship?” She didn’t believe he knew how.

He raised her hand and kissed the leather-clad knuckles. “Let Miss Makepiece be duly warned that she is about to be severely, thoroughly, and painstakingly wooed. As she never has been. As the lady deserves.”

“I see,” she managed, more than a little breathless. “That’s all very nice, I’m sure. But I just told you my intention. Surely the wooing is unnecessary.”

“Not at all. Nothing
I
do, madam, is unnecessary! I hope you are ready, Miss Makepiece. Seduction is not merely a one-act play. It comes in three parts. With intermissions.”

“Oh?” She laughed. “I look forward to your efforts, Captain. I’m sure they will be vastly…entertaining.”

He pursed his lips, offered his arm again, and they walked on. “Entertaining, eh?” he chided.

“I do hope you won’t be climbing any more trees to impress me. It is so easy to break a limb at your age.”

He chuckled softly. “I can assure you, no further trees or limbs will be harmed in the process of this wooing.”

She had no idea what he planned to do to her, but the anticipation was even greater than watching him scale that elm tree in foolish pursuit of a bonnet.

* * *

“I have a great deal of time for Sherry,” Sir Jonty told Diana the following afternoon at Wollaford Park as they all sat in the conservatory and listened to the girls play harp and pianoforte. “He is a splendid fellow, and I should not mind him asking for one of my sisters. Not at all.”

The subject of this discourse stood nearby, hands behind his back, focused on the ladies playing. Sun shone through the glass panels and lit him up from head to toe.

“He does seem very pleasant and amiable,” she replied in a whisper so as not to disturb the music.

“If only the girls weren’t quite so rough about the edges, what ho?”

Diana pretended she didn’t know what he meant.

Jonty sighed gustily. “I know Lizzie don’t think much of ’em. They ain’t refined enough.”

“They are delightful girls!”

“But they ain’t without fault. I love my sisters, but I know what they lack.”

She had to admit that the girls ate with their elbows on the table from time to time, and she had once seen Daisy fixing her garters midway through the pudding course.

“I wish they were more demure, Miss Makepiece, more like you. I see how George admires your gentleness and your manners.”

She stared ahead. “Oh?”

“Fellow lights up when you enter the room. I suppose you had lessons in deportment and the like, eh? Those lessons Lizzie is always pushing at me for the girls.”

“No, indeed, we could not afford them. But my mama is very keen on proper behavior and it has been drummed into me since childhood.”

“You were fortunate to have her, then.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “I was.”

“At least you can mix with society and never be out of place.”

Diana was amused that he thought so. If only he knew. However calm and at ease she might look on the surface, she was very different inside. But perhaps he was right and her mother’s training had helped her hide those anxieties and emotions so that no one ever guessed the turmoil beneath.

While it would indeed be nice to have a genial, demonstrably loving mother like Mrs. Plumtre once in a while, it was also useful to have a mother capable of giving direction. Fanny Plumtre was an amusing, benign lady, but she was quite without any authority over her daughters. She gave both girls suggestions, none of which were ever taken, and yet she bestowed her kisses upon her daughters anyway.

Jonty lowered his voice and suddenly became very solemn, as she’d never yet seen him. “I fear for my little sisters. Wouldn’t like the girls to be looked down upon in the future. I know my wife considers me boorish, but that is just the way I am, Miss Makepiece. She knew that when she took me on. ’Tis too late for me to change and I see no reason for it. ’Tis different for a man, of course. I have a thick skin and not much troubles me. But Susy and Daisy—I should like them to belong, to fit in a little better.”

Diana was moved by his great fondness for those two sparkling creatures and envious of the easy way he expressed it. He loved his sisters and didn’t hide it, didn’t see anything amiss with letting them know. Of course, that did give the girls rather too much rein, because they knew they wouldn’t be punished. They knew how to get around their adoring great lummox of a brother.

“I should send the girls to your mama, what ho? Let them come under her strict thumb.” He laughed, back to his usual jovial self. “I think they would soon upset the peaceful quiet of your little village, Miss Makepiece.”

“Oh, it’s not so very quiet there. I believe as much goes on there as in Bath, but not as many people get to witness it.”

A short while later, while there was a pause in the music and they all applauded, Sir Jonty left her side to speak to his sisters. Diana saw George Plumtre getting up and moving toward her, as if intent on taking his brother’s vacated seat, but suddenly Sherry was there instead, claiming the spot. George was obliged to divert his course midstep, and had only two choices—to return, looking foolish, to his own chair, or to take the empty one beside Mrs. Sayles. He chose the latter.

Diana’s heart skipped giddily as she felt the tapestry cushion beside her sink and, in her peripheral vision, saw Nathaniel’s legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, the leisurely pose of a man who was comfortable and self-assured. Here he came to do his “wooing.”

“You look very well today, Miss Makepiece.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

“The flowers in your hair have distracted me all afternoon.”

She had rather impulsively taken some white baby’s breath from a little posy on her dressing table and tucked it into her hair. “Yes,” she replied, feeling foolish. Hopefully she would not now break into Plumtre giggles.

“Looks like pearls from a distance, or little stars caught up in all that luscious midnight hair.”

Diana threw him a hasty, bemused glance. “Very poetic, Captain. I’m sure if you look closely you may see some gray among the midnight.”

He laughed, leaning back into the corner of the sofa. “No, not a strand. I think you must have found the secret of eternal youth here in Bath.”

Susanna Plumtre now gestured for Diana to take her seat at the pianoforte, but Sherry abruptly shifted a few inches closer and trapped her skirt under his thigh. “Stay a moment,” he murmured from the corner of his mouth.

“As it happens I am not in the mood to play, so I will pretend I haven’t seen her.”

“How lucky for me that you are not in the mood to play. With them.” His hand found hers on the cushion between them, and he stroked the back of it gently with one fingertip. She shivered.

Jonty’s sisters were excited about a concert they longed to attend. This discussion soon swept everyone up in a whirlwind of noise, and the two people on the sofa were temporarily forgotten.

“Certain expectations have been raised by your behavior, Captain,” Diana warned him steadily. “You spend so much time at Wollaford that Sir Jonty thinks you will make an offer for one of his sisters very soon. He is beside himself with joy at the prospect.”

He chuckled. “You know why I come here, Diana.”

“To ride out with Sir Jonty and rescue stray hats?”

“Of course.” He suddenly stretched his arm along the back of the sofa and tickled the nape of her neck, twisting a small curl around his finger. “Hats and other lost items that no one else dare retrieve.”

If anyone looked over at the sofa, they would see his impropriety. Diana made an effort to slip her skirt out from under his thigh, but then his hand left the curl and came down to cover her fingers. Her breath squeezed out in short, hard gasps.

“I come here to see you,” he whispered. “To admire your beauty, which strikes my heart anew each time I see it. No flowers in your hair can compete with that. They wilt in comparison to such delicate features. They bow their heads in deference.”

“Oh, do stop. You’re making my spleen ache.”

“That’s not your spleen.” He leaned closer. “Don’t pretend you can’t see your own beauty, Diana. False modesty is not becoming. Be bold and know what you are. Know your own worth and stand up for it.” His breath warmed her skin, skimming over her cheek with a partial kiss that was also a sigh, unheard and unseen by anybody but her. Then he stood and left her, strolling over to join the others around the pianoforte.

She saw him whisper something to Jonty, who then looked over his shoulder at Diana and exclaimed, “Miss Makepiece, you must attend the concert with us too, of course. Sherry says you have a fine ear for music.”

“We’ll all go,” Nathaniel said firmly.

Jonty clapped his hands together, making his wife jump in her chair. “It will be a jolly company,” he roared.

“Diana will not want to go,” Elizabeth grumbled. “She has no reason to attend a concert, and she has been out too much as it is. Why would anyone want to sit and listen to music for hours on end with no respite? There will be no one there of any account, I’m sure. Diana can stay with me.”

Every eye was suddenly upon Diana. There she was on the other side of the room, seated alone on the sofa and minding her own business, but now startled to be the center of all focus. She drew her feet further under the sofa and clasped her hands tightly together, taking up as little room as possible while she was being observed with pity and irritation.

“But the Viscountess Blakeney and her companion, Lady Dodsworth, will attend,” Nathaniel cunningly intervened. “I was almost certain you would want to be there, Lady Plumtre. I’m surprised to hear you criticize a concert patronized by those ladies.”

That naturally changed Elizabeth’s mind for her, but she found another reason for Diana not to be included. “There will not be enough room in the barouche for all of us. I refuse to be packed in too tightly yet again.”

“But that’s part of the fun,” Daisy exclaimed.

“Indeed it is not! It is undignified to arrive at the assemblies all squashed together, and I must wear my new taffeta silk which crumples if it is not well spread out.”

Daisy fell back into a chair without the slightest attempt at grace and exhaled a hearty “
Fergalumph!
”

There was a pause and then Sherry said, “It is a concert of Bach, and Miss Makepiece was just telling me that he is a favorite of hers. You would not leave your house guest behind, surely? Even if it costs you a few more wrinkles.”

Diana had never told him that Bach was a favorite, yet it was true. Somehow he must have found out.

Elizabeth’s scowl might have shriveled the toes of a lesser man. “I merely point out the practicalities. My husband never thinks of them while he is inviting all and sundry on these jaunts.”

The others blanched at hearing Diana described as “all and sundry,” but she was not surprised. She understood now that she’d only been sent for because Elizabeth had anticipated a “frail” cousin’s support in everything she said against the Plumtres. Expecting a Clarendon ally, a pale shadow, Elizabeth had instead found herself even more disgruntled and outnumbered.

“I’m sure we can arrange something,” said Sherry, “if Miss Makepiece
does
desire to attend.” He looked over at her, the blue of his eyes so intense and touching her in a shockingly intimate way. Encouraging and supporting all at once. “Does the lady desire?”

“Yes,” she managed, slightly hoarse and ignoring her cousin’s hard stare. “I should like to attend the concert.”

“Good.” He grinned broadly. “That’s settled then!”

“What about me?” Caroline Sayles demanded. “I like to hear a good tune.”

This, of course, had been one of Elizabeth’s greatest fears when the invitation first began to expand. “We definitely have no room for you in the barouche,” she replied speedily.

“Surely we can make room,” said Daisy. “Having everybody crammed in makes it more fun!”

Clearly disgruntled, but with no one else taking her side, Elizabeth was obliged to say, “Captain Sherringham must find space for Mrs. Sayles then, if she means to come too.”

There was a pause, and then Nathaniel said, “Mr. George Plumtre, I believe I heard you mention a splendid new curricle recently purchased. One that is free of drafts and has a cushioned seat of the highest quality.”

Awoken suddenly to his chance of being and doing something important at last, George somberly assured the group that he would take a passenger in the new curricle about which he’d boasted earlier. And then he added, “Miss Makepiece will be quite safe with me.”

Nathaniel’s face fell, his plans obviously trumped, but Diana saw the keen smiles of his sisters and mother, so she could do nothing but accept George’s offer, not wanting to disappoint them. She caught the tail end of Nathaniel’s scowl before he turned away again.

She raised a hand to her cheek, where she still felt the brief and secret graze of his lips.

Those flowers in her hair were definitely causing mischief.

But she had not set out to cause any jealousy. At least, she did not think she had. It was a wickedly pleasant sensation, no denying it. Was it possible that she enjoyed it a little too much?

She had better come to her senses and put a stop to it. Tomorrow at the concert, she would make certain George Plumtre knew she regarded him as a friend only and nothing more.

As for Nathaniel…he told her it wasn’t her spleen that he endangered. She suspected he was right.