How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3) (26 page)

She tipped forward to lay her head on his shoulder as he leaned back against the wall of the tiny dressing room.

“If it’s an obsession,” she whispered, “it cannot last. It will burn itself out.”

For a moment he said nothing. She felt his heart thumping hard against her own. Oh, what were they doing together?

“Stand up,” he growled suddenly, his hand still caressing her intimately.

Should one ever disobey a command from a man when he seemed annoyed under these circumstances?

She swiftly decided to comply. A naughty imp whispered in her ear:
You know very well what you’re doing, Diana. Pricking his temper. Tantalizing and teasing. Being wicked and revolutionary and flirtatious. Being everything you were always warned against. And didn’t think you could ever be. Enjoying every bit of it.

This gown was not the only new thing she was trying on.

Nathaniel leaned forward, and holding her hips in a firm grip, he placed his mouth in a very unexpected place and repaid the favor she had done for him.

The next time an assistant came knocking on the door to see if she needed help, she was utterly beyond speech and Nathaniel was obliged to answer for her in a high-pitched squeak.

* * *

He wanted to hear her say she loved him. He needed it. Otherwise he might just be a part of her rebellion, a passing fancy. Nathaniel had never been as uncertain as he was now with her. None of his other relationships had ever been like this. He had never faltered. Never smoldered as he did this time. With her. For her.

It took every ounce of willpower to keep her waiting, but he wanted this to be right, to be done properly.

Diana was blossoming, but he didn’t want to rush her. He would make this the way he’d imagined in his dreams.

He would wait for those precious words from her lips.

Over the next few days he kept his distance. He did not come to dine at Wollaford and Sir Jonty was busy organizing the grounds for the ball, as well as overseeing the building stages of his folly by the lake. The weather was fine but not remarkable. There was a sense of unease, of something changed in the air.

Diana could not settle or feel any contentment until she saw Nathaniel again.

She knew her cousin had written to her mother. No doubt a letter would soon arrive summoning her home to Hawcombe Prior. In the meantime she was mostly confined to the lodge, Elizabeth making a great deal of unpleasant fuss anytime she expressed a desire to go out.

“Poor George,” she snapped at Diana, a few days after the Bach concert, as they sat sewing in the drawing room. “You have caused him terrible pain by being so attentive one moment and then running off with that scoundrel Sherringham the next. I do not know if George will ever recover. Just as he had begun to let his heart heal again. I hope you are satisfied with the havoc you’ve caused.”

Diana sought Sir Jonty in his library that afternoon after hearing sounds of his return and the usual ruckus from his spaniels. She would never bother a gentleman in his library, but Sir Jonty was not the sort to stand on ceremony and had been so generous that she felt it necessary to speak with him directly, rather than rely on Elizabeth to convey her apology.

He seemed surprised to see her there, but he put aside his copy of the
Bath Chronicle
and listened without interruption as Diana assured him that she had meant no harm to his brother, and she was sorry if her friendship had been misconstrued as anything more.

“Well, no, dear Miss Makepiece… I’m sure… George… I’m sure it is nothing to be anxious about. Do not distress yourself on that score. I only hope you have not been inconvenienced. We did think there was an attachment between you and George. But…that is how things go, I suppose.” He smiled. “You have helped open his eyes and his heart again. We are all grateful to you for that, my dear Miss Makepiece. And…as long as you have not been injured…then all is well.”

Glad to get that off her chest—but a little puzzled about why he thought she might have been injured—she left him to his newspaper, his pint pot of black porter, his tobacco pipe, and his peaceful library. After all, the poor man had few places in that small house where he could escape his wife’s nagging.

* * *

Nathaniel received a visit from Jonty the day before the Wollaford ball. His first thought was that the man had come to inform him that his invitation to the ball was rescinded.

This, however, was not the case.

Despite Lady Plumtre’s insistence that he was no longer welcome at Wollaford, Nathaniel found Jonty in much the same good humor as usual. There was only a little awkwardness as he greeted Nathaniel and looked around his small room at the boarding house.

“I remember a time when I enjoyed my freedom in such lodgings as these,” he said, smiling. “But then my papa died and left me Wollaford. Thus I was obliged to find a wife and settle down.”

Nathaniel waited, sensing his friend had something preying on his mind. Jonty paced back and forth, hands clasped behind his back. Finally he stopped, looked at Nathaniel, and said, “I came today on my brother George’s behalf.”

“Oh?” It had to be about Diana.

“You know—I’m sure you have seen by now—his attachment, his growing fondness for a certain lady.”

Dropping to a chair by the window, Nathaniel nodded. His mind had been filled with nothing and no one but her since their last encounter.

“George has been…cautious when it comes to giving his heart again. After his sad loss.”

“Of course. That is understandable.”

“But now he finds a woman in whose company he takes great pleasure. A woman he fears you may have some prior claim upon.”

Nathaniel said nothing. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, hands clasped. He did not want to lose Jonty’s friendship, but neither was he going to give Diana up and clear the field for that wet cabbage leaf George.

“So my brother asked me to inquire about your intentions related to that lady. He does not wish to encroach upon another man’s…property.”

“I very much doubt she would appreciate being referred to as my property,” Nathaniel said, darkly amused.

Jonty proceeded to walk up and down again, clearly uncomfortable with his task as messenger in this affair but anxious for his brother’s sake. “My wife thought you had given the lady up, but George wished to be sure. The lady herself seemed…uncertain as to where she stood in your life.”

Naturally, Lady Plumtre was eager to get him away from her cousin and would want to think he had given up. He stared out of the window and saw Diana’s face, her green eyes watching him steadily, thoughtfully. This rebellion of hers… He sighed and shook his head. She had enchanted poor George too.

“Well, old chap?” said Jonty.

Nathaniel stood. “The lady is capable of making her own choices,” he said carefully. “I think we should let her choose the suitor she wants.” Then he laughed curtly. “It might, after all, be neither of us. She has been a trifle unpredictable of late.”

His friend blew out a great breath. “I daresay you are right, Sherry. Let the lady choose. George will have to take his chance like everyone else. Perhaps it will do him some good. I have rather tried to protect him from the world, you see. Sheltered him as best I could. Alas, he was then unprepared for the weight of grief when he lost Eleanor. He had not learned to stand on his own feet, to face misfortune. That, I fear, was my fault, having never let him know any.” Jonty paused. “I believe Miss Makepiece has helped him climb out of that pit of despair in which he wallowed. She has been so patient and kind. Has even offered to help my sisters. I am indebted to the lady.”

It was plain to see why Jonty wanted Diana for his brother. He saw her as serving a purpose for his entire family. “Yes,” Nathaniel muttered stiffly, “she is remarkable, isn’t she?”

What did
he
have to offer her? He had begun to build a future, but he didn’t have a house to put her in. He had lodgings here and there. Didn’t even keep a carriage of his own.

Nathaniel Sherringham—thirty years old and of no fixed abode.

Perhaps that was why she only thought of him as a potential lover. Nothing serious.

The conversation turned to other matters, but Jonty left soon after that, with a firm handshake and having secured a promise from Nathaniel that “this business” had not and would not change the friendship between the two of them.

The day of the Wollaford ball was grim, cooler, and spoiled by rain, confining everyone indoors. But by the evening the air was warm again and dry. Only the ground remained damp.

“Naturally,” Elizabeth complained. “That will allow every foot to bring mud into the ballroom.”

“At least you won’t be the one required to get on your hands and knees and scrub the floor tomorrow,” Diana pointed out.

Her cousin glared at her. “I pray you will remember your place this evening and bear in mind the trouble you’ve already caused by being thoughtless and flighty. Putting yourself forward.”

“But Sir Jonty assures me his brother is not at all unhappy. I do not think George was as attached to me as you thought.”

“Diana, it’s time you learned that men know almost nothing when it comes to matters of the heart.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Quite true.”

The Plumtre girls were so excited that they flew down the steps of the manor house to greet Diana that evening. Sir Jonty had brought the ladies over from the lodge in the carriage—at his wife’s insistence—to save their dancing slippers from the wet ground, and before her foot had touched the gravel, Diana was whisked into the manor house to admire the flowers, the buffet table, and, of course, their gowns.

Mrs. Plumtre had not yet seen Diana’s new ball gown and she exclaimed in delight, “How pretty, Miss Makepiece! My goodness, it quite brings a tear to my eye, seeing you look so well. The air here at Wollaford has been of much benefit to you, I think.” She reached up and patted Diana’s cheek in a motherly way. “Your cousin tells us you will soon be going home. We shall miss you, my dear.”

Her heart faltered. Going home. Yes, she knew Elizabeth wanted to be rid of her. She had not fulfilled her expected role at Wollaford and was now considered more liability and competition than anything.

“I shall miss all of you too,” she said sadly. “Very much.”

“Then you must return to visit us every summer.”

But Diana doubted her mother would let her leave Hawcombe Prior again, once she learned about her riding out unchaperoned with Nathaniel, spending hours alone with him in Sydney Gardens, and coming home as the birds began to sing. That would take some explaining.

The ballroom at Wollaford Park was a long, Tudor-paneled hall with a black-and-white tiled floor, two large hanging chandeliers, and a massive fireplace that tonight was filled with flowers and a large paper fan painted with exotic birds and butterflies. Some chairs were set around the walls for those who did not dance, and at the far end of the room there was a raised wooden dais upon which a group of musicians played. It was the grandest ball Diana had ever attended and she might have been overwhelmed by the grandeur, if not for Mrs. Plumtre’s unfussy manners.

Only now did she fully appreciate her new white gown, for it helped her courage a great deal. She was exceedingly grateful to Susy and Daisy for insisting upon having it made for her. She would have felt terribly out of place in her old “best” frock, despite her mother’s efforts to improve it. And that thought made her sad, because it forced Diana to consider all that her mother had left behind for love and a moment of passion. All the pleasures that her mother had never known—the balls and fine gowns and carriages that kept a girl from mud upon her slippers. All those things Diana now had the opportunity to know.

The ballroom quickly began to fill with guests and music. Diana had no time to hide in a corner and observe, because the Plumtre sisters took her up and down the chessboard tiles to meet those few friends she had not yet encountered in Bath and to be reacquainted with those she had. She looked around for Nathaniel, but there was no sign of him for the first hour.

Diana was dancing with Jonty when she saw Mrs. Ashby and her colorful niece arriving. That was not going to please Elizabeth, she mused, wondering what would happen when her cousin saw they’d been invited. Currently holding court beside the buffet table, Lady Plumtre was in her element among those grander folks she considered worthy, a queen bee showing off her husband’s ancestral home, tonight able to ignore the fact that her living quarters were in the lodge by the gates.

As the evening wore on, Diana danced continually. There was no shortage of partners and no time to rest, but she looked eagerly for Nathaniel, and at last, there he was.

* * *

Nathaniel spied her almost at once because, despite the crowd, her elegance and grace stood out just as they always had before. In her virginal white gown she looked seventeen again. Suddenly all those years since did not exist.

He crossed the floor to where she stood. When she turned and found him there beside her, Nathaniel took her hand without a word. Again, he would not spoil the music, knowing what it meant to her, how she enjoyed every note. When she began to speak, to admonish him for being late, he silenced her with a finger to the lips and a softly muttered, “Say nothing, Miss Makepiece. Not yet.”

“But I—”

“Do not spoil the beauty of the music. I requested the piece especially for you.”

And as soon as she heard the first strains of the violin, he knew she recognized it as the tune that had entranced her at the concert. She smiled, her eyes glistening with gold and emerald. “This is not fitting music for a ball, surely,” she whispered.

“Have you ever known me to follow the rules, Miss Makepiece?”

“No,” she admitted with a wry smile.

“Then even if nobody else takes to the floor, you and I shall dance. We can’t let the music be wasted, can we? This is special, for you and me. It is our music, whether it’s for a ball or not.”

He led her out onto the floor and every face turned toward them. Many folk had taken seats when they heard the first soft notes, assuming this to be a piece of interval music and expecting refreshments of some kind.

But Nathaniel would dance with the woman he loved and to hell with what was usual. Jigs, minuets, and cotillions were for ordinary people. He and his beautiful Diana—who was anything but ordinary—would dance to their own music.

Tonight Miss Makepiece was seen and admired as she should be, brought out of her corner and into the light of those fine chandeliers. He was proud to dance with her and felt every envious eye upon him.

Her gloved fingers were laid gently over his, but he stroked them discreetly with his thumb. It was the most contact he could expect for now.

As they danced, there was no more speaking. The other guests were hushed, startled perhaps by the odd choice of music and not knowing what to do. Only the Bach could be heard, soaring around them.

And since they were dancing without conversation, Nathaniel let her know with his eyes how stunning she was tonight, how glad he was to dance with her.

Later he would ask her whether George Plumtre had proposed yet. Although he was quite sure she’d turn the fellow down, he didn’t want the Plumtres—or her mother—holding him to blame. It must be entirely her choice and seen to be.

As their music came to an end, so did their tranquil moment of solitary togetherness. Susanna hurried up to Diana and asked if she had seen Daisy at any point in the last half hour. Nathaniel said that he thought he had seen her with a group of young people going out through the glass doors and onto the terrace for some air.

Susanna groaned. “She’s going to ruin her dress outside in the mud and Jonty will be furious. I promised to keep an eye on her but she slipped away.”

“We’ll find her,” Diana assured the anxious girl. “I would like some air myself. Go back to your partner and enjoy the dance.”

* * *

They went out onto the pretty terrace, ostensibly to admire the starlit sky and the blooming roses on the trellis. But Diana was in need of a kiss.

Fortunately, Nathaniel was of the same mind. He drew her behind a particularly lush climbing rose and kissed her.

“Thank you for the music,” she whispered. “How clever of you to remember.”

“How could I forget? That music will forever be etched in my mind as I heard it the night Diana Makepiece first held my hand in public and caused a scandal.”

“You’re late. I began to think you would not come. That my cousin had chased you away.”

He grinned. “Trust me, she tried.”

Diana reached up and drew her fingers down his cheek, then across his lips. While they were dancing and he’d forbidden her to speak, she’d had so many things she wanted to say, but now they stood in silence. Somehow that was more meaningful than if she had exploded in chatter. She’d never known him this quiet, this calm. It was as if he’d finally worked all that restlessness out of his soul.

But perhaps she just hoped that was the case.

“Has George spoken to you?” he asked.

“George? Why? About what?”

“I believe he is going to propose.”

She frowned. “To me? What for?”

Nathaniel laughed softly. “Then I know what your answer will be. Let him down gentler than you once did me.”

“I told you I don’t want a husband.”

Those blue eyes grew misty. “You are decided. Yes, I remember.”

“I can be free to do as I please. Like men. Why not?”

“Because you’re not a man. You’re a woman.” He began to sound annoyed, his voice tight.

“But I will no longer be bound by the constraints of propriety, Sherry. And in the eyes of most people, since I have not married and produced babies, I’m not even a woman. Therefore, I shall act like a man and enjoy a satisfying love life.”

His brow creased. “Diana, you take this rebellion of yours too far.”

“What’s the matter, Sherry? This recklessness is what you find admirable. Or is it different when a woman takes control?”

Suddenly she heard voices shouting, a shriek of alarm. They both turned toward the sound.

“Was that Daisy? What on earth is she up to?”

Their quarrel cut short before it had properly found its pace, they hurried down the terrace steps and across the lawn, following the noise and a darting, leaping flame that led them toward the lake in the distance.

* * *

Daisy was halfway up the unfinished marble steps of her brother’s partially built folly. With her were several young people from the ball, two of them holding lit torches.

As Nathaniel neared the scene, he shouted sternly at Daisy to stop at once and climb no further. Diana added her plea to his, and the young girl paused to look over her shoulder. She was laughing, her face pink in the flickering torchlight.

“I am not afraid,” she exclaimed. “They dared me to climb up. It’s more difficult than that silly tree.” Apparently she didn’t care that she was showing her ankles, or that her brother had expressly forbidden her from entering the folly until it was completed.

Nathaniel glared at the young men and women present. They now looked rather sheepish, as if they wished to slink away and hide in shame for encouraging this display. Once again he ordered the wayward Daisy to stop and come down. He could see the marble was slippery from that day’s rain, and in a panic he envisioned her tumbling to the hard ground below.

But she laughed madly. And then she leaped, taking flight and shouting for him to catch her.

A split second later and he would have dropped her, but somehow he caught the reckless bundle and set her on her feet.

Diana began to admonish the girl, but she was laughing again, exclaiming at how much fun it was to fly through the air. “Don’t be such a fusspot! It was nothing.” The girl turned boldly to her audience. “And now you owe me a guinea!”

“I suggest you go back to the house,” Nathaniel said. “Your sister is looking for you, and you shouldn’t be out here in the dark so far from the ball.”

“I don’t know why you’re being a fearsome grump,” the girl exclaimed. “You’re usually much more fun, Sherry!”

He frowned. “There is a time and a place, young lady.”

Diana said gently, “Do come back to the house, Daisy. You’ll get your lovely gown ruined out here.”

The girl seemed to relent. She heaved her shoulders, pouted, and started walking out of the folly, but suddenly she ran back to climb the unfinished stairs again. This time her feet slipped worse than before as she climbed with more speed and less caution.

Nathaniel shouted at her. She laughed down at them.

“You didn’t think girls could climb. I told you I wasn’t afraid of anything, didn’t I?”

“Daisy!”

Her next step was interrupted when she caught her toe in the hem of her gown.

Nathaniel lunged forward to catch her, but he was too slow this time.

The small figure tripped, lost her footing, and fell through the air to land—so it seemed to him—directly on her head.

With everyone screaming around her and chaos breaking out, the limp girl opened her eyes and groaned, “
Oh, fergalumph!
”

Then she fainted.

* * *

Nathaniel carried her back to the house, and Diana organized the girl’s friends into an orderly procession behind him. There was no point in everybody panicking, as she told them. No point in calling out who was to blame.

“Take her through the kitchen,” she whispered to Nathaniel. “We don’t want the guests to see her like this. I’ll take the others back into the ballroom and get her brother.”

He said nothing but merely nodded, his face white, his eyes staring. As he carried the unconscious bundle, blood leaked from Daisy’s brow onto his coat.

Diana laid a hand on his arm. “You could not have prevented it, Nathaniel.”

Again he nodded. She left him at the kitchen door and quickly steered the other young people around to the terrace, advising them to say nothing to anyone about the incident. She would not want Mrs. Plumtre to hear of this until there was time to prepare her gently. And time to clean the alarming blood from Daisy’s brow.

On reentering the ballroom through the French doors, she spied Susanna and quickly told her what had happened. “Do you know if there is a doctor here? Anyone with some medical knowledge?”

Wide-eyed, Susanna nodded. “Doctor Smith and his wife.”

“Good. Find them and take them to the kitchen as discreetly as you can.”