Regency: Rakes & Reputations (Mills & Boon M&B) (38 page)

T
he reins hanging limply in his hands, Marcus peered abstractedly into the cloudy night-time gloom that surrounded the carriage. From the distressed sound of his horses’ breathing, it would seem that he had run the poor beasts into the ground—an action for which he felt bitterly ashamed—in addition to which, he had not the faintest idea of where he had finally pitched up.

Having set off out of Lennox Gardens with no clear idea of where he was heading, the red mist of anger that filled his head had obscured everything but the need to remove himself from the hurtful echo of Sophie’s bitter accusations. The toll-gates at Hyde Park corner and Kensington Gore figured vaguely in his memory, as did passing the gates of Chiswick House, but beyond these easily recognisable landmarks his mind was a total blank. That he had travelled some goodly distance at speed was only too apparent from the foam-flecked hides of the two wheelers who were now pawing at the ground in restive agitation.

Cursing himself for an insensitive fool, Marcus grabbed the handful of cloths that Hobbes kept tucked behind the driver’s seat and, lowering himself carefully down from his perch, inched his way through the gloom to examine the leaders. Murmuring soothing words of comfort as he worked, he wiped away the excess of sweat from the animals’ drenched coats, covering their shuddering backs as best he could with an assortment of rugs and other articles that he found in the box.

Raking his fingers through his hair, he peered around him. From the narrowness of the lane that they were on it was clear that he must have turned off the turnpike at some point, but where, and—more to the point, perhaps—why?

Casting his mind back, he did have an indistinct recollection of slackening the reins and letting the leaders have their heads, but where in God’s name had the beasts taken him? With only the dim and gradually diminishing light thrown out by the carriage’s twin oil lamps to light his path, Marcus inched his way slowly up the lane in the hopes of coming across a gate or other such feature of the landscape that might point him in the direction of a dwelling-place of some description.

Just at that moment the scudding clouds chasing across the night sky parted momentarily, to allow the full moon to shine down on the scene in all her glory, causing Marcus to blink several times before he could believe the evidence of his eyes. But, even as he threw back his head to let out a whoop of sheer disbelief the moon disappeared to obscure his view once more. Not that the Viscount needed any such light to guide him through the gates of Bradfield, which, as had been clearly revealed in that single instance, lay scarcely twenty yards distant from the very spot on which he
was now standing! The clever beasts had brought him back to his ancestral home!

Shaking his head in wonder at the extraordinary ingenuity of these four-legged marvels, he took hold of the leader’s harness and set out to guide the exhausted animals up the lane towards the wrought iron gates that opened on to the Bradfield estate. A single pull of the bell brought the elderly lodge keeper, his nightshirt flapping beneath a hastily donned drab woollen overcoat, tottering out of the front door of the lodge.

‘Very sorry, your lordship,’ gasped the man, as he drew back the bolts and began to pull open the gates. ‘Wasn’t warned to expect you.’

‘Sorry to get you up, Cutler,’ returned Marcus, adding his weight to the older man’s efforts. ‘Didn’t know I’d be here myself until a short while ago.’
And that’s something of an understatement, if ever there was one,
he thought to himself, with an inward grimace. ‘You get yourself back to your bed—I can shoot the bolts myself as soon as I’ve got the carriage through.’

‘If you’re sure, sir?’

At the Viscount’s insistent nod, the lodge keeper, clutching his coat about his bony frame, hobbled back to his door, where he stood for some moments watching in total confusion as the heir to the earldom led in the clearly shattered four-horse team along with their carriage but minus both driver and groom.

Unleashing the horses from their traces single-handedly proved to be a rather more exhausting procedure than Marcus might have imagined, but, being reluctant to rouse any of the grooms or stable lads from their hard earned slumbers, he doggedly persevered with his self-imposed undertaking until all four animals were unharnessed, rubbed down, watered and safely in their
stalls. Only then did he turn his attention to the problem of getting himself into Bradfield Hall without waking up the entire household—as hammering on the great oak front door or tugging at the bell-pull would most surely do.

The Hall, as he knew, would be well and truly secured against intruders—thanks to the diligence of Warren, his father’s major-domo, who took a personal pride in seeing that every one of the Hall’s many entry points was safely locked and bolted before he retired for the night. Since it was now close to three o’clock in the morning, Marcus doubted that anyone in the house would still be awake.

Looks as though it’s going to have to be the well-tried route of previous misadventures,
he thought gloomily, as he made his way round to the rear of the building, past the succession houses and into the neatly kept kitchen gardens.
Thank God the clouds have blown away. At least I’ll have enough light to see by should I happen to fall and break my neck!

Eying the ancient walnut tree that stood in the centre of the garden with a certain amount of trepidation, for it was a good many years since he had been obliged to use this method of entry into his bedchamber, he was heartened to observe that the single upper branch that reached as far as his windowsill still looked strong enough to support his weight. Whether he was still sufficiently agile to accomplish the tricky manoeuvre remained yet to be seen. His bedroom window, he was relieved to note, had been left in just the way he always demanded, revealing a welcoming gap of two to three inches in its top sash.

Unbuttoning his jacket, he flexed his shoulders and, after taking a deep breath and casting up a prayer to
the heavens above, swung himself up onto one of the walnut’s lower branches and started to climb.

Some ten or so minutes later, his hands and face having both been badly scratched in the process of achieving his goal, he found himself balanced somewhat precariously with his left knee on the windowsill of his bedroom and his right foot perched on the none too steady branch of the tree, whose ominous creaking sounds were beginning to cause him serious concern.

Reluctantly letting go of his secure hold on the branch above his head, he grappled feverishly with the window’s lower sash, eventually managing to hoist it upwards sufficiently to allow him to haul the upper part of his body across the opening where, breathless from his exertions, he remained motionless for some moments, both legs still dangling limply over the outside sill.

A sudden noise from within the room had him lifting his head in alarm, whereupon, gathering up the remains of his strength, he started to heave himself over the windowsill—only to find himself being grasped by the seat of his breeches and dragged with considerable force into the room, to be dropped, face-first and none too gently, onto his bedroom carpet.

‘Righto, my lad,’ came Giles’s unruffled voice close to his ear. ‘That’s quite enough of—
Good God! Marcus?
’

‘Get your knee out of my back, there’s a good chap,’ begged the Viscount, gingerly rolling himself over and up into a sitting position as soon as his startled brother had gathered enough wits to comply with his request. ‘Obviously not quite as fit as I thought I was,’ he added wryly.

‘A good deal more dicked in the nob though, it would seem,’ retorted Giles, as he reached out a hand to help
Marcus to his feet. ‘I took you for a burglar, you blithering idiot! What the devil do you think you’re at, sneaking into the house in this underhand manner? What’s wrong with the front door, may I ask?’

‘As it happens, I was doing my best to avoid waking the entire household,’ returned his brother irritably, peeling off his soiled and ripped jacket and shirt and tossing them to one side. ‘So, unless you want the whole lot of them down on our heads like the proverbial ton of bricks, I suggest you try and keep your voice to a minimum.’

‘Yes, but why
are
you here?’ asked Giles, lowering his voice but still staring at Marcus in confusion. ‘Last I heard, you were off to do the pretty at the Crayfords’. The fragrant Miss Pendleton-Flint give you your marching orders, did she?’

‘You could say that, I suppose,’ muttered the Viscount abstractedly, as he threw himself down onto his bed to lie glowering at the silken underside of his tester. ‘Seems I lost my temper, somewhat, and made a fool of myself into the bargain!’ Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he sat up with a rueful half-laugh. ‘Can’t think what’s got into me of late—I don’t usually behave in such a crass manner—must be getting old!’

‘Or just in love, perhaps?’ murmured his brother, not quite
sotto voce.
‘It does tend to hit you like that, I’m told.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ returned Marcus impatiently. ‘Miss Pendleton-Flint and I simply agreed to disagree and that’s all there is to it.’

‘Then why are you getting so riled up about it?’ asked Giles, eyeing his brother steadily. ‘There are plenty of other fish in the sea—as I’ve heard you remark often enough in the past.’

And with good cause,
thought Marcus, with a wry twist of his lips.
But none of them like Sophie.
He closed his eyes in a vain attempt to conjure up the image of her face. Sadly, all he achieved was a resounding echo of the hurtful recriminations that she had thrown at him. ‘I was simply trying to make the poor girl’s life a little more bearable,’ he grunted, clenching his fists. ‘It makes me really angry to think of the way that godforsaken bunch of social misfits treat her.’

‘Such righteous altruism does you real credit, bro,’ observed his brother, with a dry laugh. ‘And there was I, thinking that your interest in the female was purely carnal!’

A faint flush covered the Viscount’s cheeks as Giles’s dart hit the mark. Frowning slightly, he gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I won’t deny that I find myself very attracted to her—she is so utterly different from any other female I’ve ever come across. She is so bright and intelligent, and incredibly resourceful, yet she is constantly put upon by her employers—she even spends her own hard-earned cash on books for the schoolroom, would you believe? And yet those misbegotten savages treat her as less than nothing—it makes my blood boil just to think of it.’

Getting to his feet, he began to pace the room. ‘I just wanted to get her out of that blasted house. She deserves so much better. If you could have seen her at that tavern, Giles,’ he went on, his eyes softening at the memory. ‘There didn’t seem to be any problem that she wasn’t prepared to tackle—I swear that I’ve never come across anyone quite like her in the whole of my life. In fact, I wouldn’t mind betting that more than one of her fellow travellers could well have perished in that snowstorm had it not been for Sophie Flint’s down-to-earth capability
and sheer dogged determination—she even had me milking a blessed cow—did I tell you that?’

‘I believe you may have mentioned it once or twice,’ said his brother, turning away to hide the grin that was forming. ‘Nonetheless, bro, you know the rules as well as I do—defenceless virgins are out of bounds to men of our class, and as for offering virtuous spinsters such as your little governess a
carte blanche
, I find myself questioning your sanity—apart from which, I should have thought that those two little beauties you already have in your keeping were more than enough for any reasonable man to contend with!’

Giles’s pointed reference to Livvy Rayner and Cynthia Bedlington brought Marcus’s pacing to a sudden halt. ‘Not that it’s any of your damned business,’ he returned curtly, ‘but it just so happens that arrangements are already in hand to discontinue both of those associations.’

Giles let out a long low whistle. ‘You’re paying ‘em off—just like that?’ he asked incredulously. ‘A touch on the heartless side after all these years, don’t you think?’

‘Hearts have no place in business arrangements of that sort,’ retorted the Viscount, striding over to the mirror to inspect the damage to his face. Grimacing at the livid scratch across his left cheek, he picked up a towel and proceeded to dab at his blood-streaked visage. ‘Surely the whole point about setting up a mistress is that one is able to do away with all the emotional claptrap and enjoy a purely physical relationship without any unnecessary ties. Both Livvy and Cynthia were well aware that the association would end some day. And, in case you are wondering, I have made sure that neither one of them will be the loser. I have arranged to have
the deeds of their houses made over to them both, along with suitably generous dowries commensurate with their past efforts on my behalf.’ A slightly cynical smile crept across his lips. ‘I take leave to doubt that it will take either lady long to find herself a new protector.’

Turning to face his brother, he offered him a slightly rueful grin. ‘In fact, one could say that both of the little minxes have been shoring up their futures at my expense for quite some time now—if the recent accounts from Rundell and Bridge are anything to go by!’

Although Giles was somewhat taken aback at Marcus’s relatively casual parting with his two paramours, both of whom, insofar as his brother was aware, had been under Helstone’s protection for well over three years, it took the Major no time at all to realise that this sudden decision of the Viscount’s was yet another indication of his growing preoccupation with the Crayfords’ impoverished governess.

‘So, having disposed of both Miss Rayner and Miss Bedlington to your satisfaction,’ he said, eyeing his brother in some disapproval, ‘I take it that you were assuming that Miss Pendleton-Flint would be falling over herself to step into the vacancy—which, I must assume from your rather crushed demeanour earlier, is the opposite of what actually occurred when you put the suggestion to her?’