Sinfully Ever After (Book Club Belles Society) (15 page)

She glared at him. “You are truly ready to settle down here in sleepy Hawcombe Prior?”

“Why not?”

“You will be bored and restless in a matter of days.”

“Bored of you? Don’t hold yourself in very high regard, do you?”

“In many respects, Colonel, you are just like my idiotic brother. He too escaped marriage for years and then finally asked the one woman too clever for him. Well,
Lucky
, you too have chosen to pursue the wrong woman, because you will not wear me down or charm me. I have scant patience for fools.”

“Me neither. Best hold on even tighter, Romantic Rebecca. We’re going over a bump.”

He was very much enjoying her warm curves crammed in beside him in that little seat, her hand on his arm. But now, of course, she let go of his sleeve, because he brought it to her attention. Luke sped up again and she clung to the edge of the seat instead of to him, staring ahead with a face like a thundercloud.

“What’s that place backing onto the river?” He pointed to a small farmhouse with a snow-capped thatched roof and two dormer windows peeping out. He’d noticed it the night he arrived because it was the one place with no smoke blowing from its chimney or candles lit on that cold evening.

“That’s Willow Tree Farm. One of my father’s tenants died there recently and it stands empty.”

“Looks a good place.”

“Although it’s pretty on the outside, it needs a great deal of work on the inside. Not many would want to take that on.”

Luke wondered why the major did not pay for those repairs himself since he was the landlord, but fearing that would give her something else about which to be angry and insulted, he changed the subject. He slowed the horse again to a gentle trot. “Tell me how your father came to settle here. He said something about the village holding fond memories for him of your mother?”

Reluctantly, her lips snapped open to reply, “My mother was born on a dairy farm near here at Hawcombe Mallow, a hamlet on the other side of that hill. My father met her when he was encamped at Manderson. After they married, she never came back here, although he says she often talked of visiting one day.” Then, as if she thought she’d told him too much or sounded too wistful, she added peevishly, “I don’t remember, of course. I was only a very little girl when she died.”

“I’m sorry.” He thought of his own mother’s death and how that sorrow had darkened his childhood. Sometimes he wondered if his life might have turned out differently had his mother lived longer to keep him in line. When she died, his father and brother had hidden their sadness away, and since Luke had no one else with whom to share his tears, he’d let his anguish and grief out in other ways.

“I suppose he felt closer to her again by bringing us here, to where they met.” She wiped a hand quickly across her cheek. “I’m glad he brought us here. It’s very quiet and mostly peaceful. A welcome change of pace after so many years of traveling.”

Evidently
she
needs
someone
to
look
after
her
, he thought. The young lass had been doing all the looking after ever since her mama died, as far as he could see. But the sudden glitter of potential tears was gone already, that glimpse of vulnerability swiftly masked again.

Luke struggled for something else to say. He’d never bothered to converse at length with a woman, but this was all part of his reform. So he tried not to think too much about the soft parts of her that were made for man’s enjoyment, and he concentrated instead on the vexing components inside her head. It was a challenge to keep his thoughts steady, to be sure, especially with her body in such close proximity.

“You’re not the only one with reservations about this marriage you know,” he muttered, teasing to see if he could get a smile from her sulky lips. He’d know where he was then; if he could make her laugh, he’d be on solid ground. “You should try being sweeter to me or I’ll go off the idea.”

She turned her head again, one hand still holding her bonnet, her eyes wide, cheeks pink. “Please
do
go off it!” There was a pause and then she added, “You ought to consider someone like Mrs. Makepiece instead.” The words had rushed out of her fiercely.

“Makepiece? The woman with the ham?”

He went over another bump and she grabbed his arm again. “She’d suit you better than I would.”

He squinted, pretending to consider it. “She’s on the thin side. I like my wenches with a bit more flesh on ’em. Something round and soft and warm to welcome a man home of an evening.” He grinned slyly. “Don’t want to be ruttin’ with a wench who might snap in two, do I?”

She shook her head, sighing in disgust.

“I still don’t know what you have to be cross about, woman. I’m doing you a favor with this marriage.”

“Of all the rotten cheek! You will let me out of this gig at once! I told you I’m not interested in being part of your act. I will not be responsible for uprooting my dear friends from their home so you can claim your inheritance. And my father and brother need me.”

“Listen, missy, I may be an old man in your eyes, but I’ll be a rich old man when I get what’s coming to me.” He laughed and quickened their speed again. “Perhaps that’s what you thought about when you trapped me in your kitchen just as that nosy warbler happened by. Hmm? Very convenient, eh?”

“Why would I… I didn’t even know who you were, you dreadful man!”

“Don’t get yourself all puffed up and irate. Calm your titties, I told you I’ll marry you. We’ll make the best of it. Somehow.”

As they raced along the road, she tried wresting the reins from his hands, to take control of the horse, yelling at him that he would kill them both with his reckless driving.

“Enjoy yourself for once, woman,” he shouted, tugging the reins away from her and laughing. “Don’t you ever have fun?”

“Fun?” she cried. “I have had it several times but found that the jollities invariably conclude with someone’s eye being poked out or a terrible case of indigestion.”

He made a disapproving clicking sound with his tongue. “You’re a young woman, for pity’s sake! You should be enjoying yourself, not fussing over your father and brother as if they’re your children!”

“I do no such thing!”

They were racing along now, struggling over control of the reins.

“You’re hiding from life, missy. Hiding behind your father and brother. Hiding from your true self and your own passions.”

“If you don’t stop this horse at once, I’ll—”

“Trust me, for pity’s sake! I know how to drive a horse and gig. I’ve raced many times. Do you think I’d put you in danger?”

But she wasn’t listening. She was still stuck on something else he’d said. “Hiding, indeed! At least I don’t run away from my troubles! I don’t run away for a dozen years when life gets challenging!”

Her words did not quite sink in all at once, for Luke was partially distracted by a lock of hair caught across her lips and the warmth of her gloved hands on his bare knuckles.

Fortunately, he heard a warning rumble and retrieved the presence of mind to swerve rapidly. The larger vessel coming around a bend at reckless speed made no move to avoid them, but Luke smartly veered to the verge.

The small gig bumped hard over the verge. Disaster was narrowly averted, but the right wheel groaned and buckled, leaving them tilted at a treacherous angle over the ditch.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Rebecca cried, her bonnet dislodged, her body half hanging out of the seat. Even as she shouted, a wheel strut snapped, dropping her side of the gig another few inches.

Luke jumped down and then stopped to recall his injury. Feeling her furious gaze fastened upon him, he grabbed his cane and limped around the back of the damaged gig to help her out. “If you hadn’t been fighting me, we wouldn’t have ended up like this. Let that be a lesson to you.”

With her bonnet, she was still swiping at his shoulders and hands—and anything she could reach—resisting his attempts to help her down, when the larger vehicle stopped just a short way on and one of the passengers looked out to observe the scene of the broken gig and the yelling woman.

“Is that Miss Sherringham’s voice I hear? Miss Rebecca Sherringham?”

She finally stopped beating him with her hat and looked over at the very smart black coach.

Luke also looked.

A young man in shiny boots stepped down and trotted over, grinning. “I thought I recognized that pretty hair. Miss Sherringham, how lovely it is to see you again.”

Back at the carriage, a woman peered out. “Who is that, Charles?”

Meanwhile, Rebecca’s demeanor changed at once. She stopped cursing at Luke. This time, when he raised his arms again to help her down, she did not resist. But he might as well be a stable lad helping the lady of the house down after her afternoon jaunt. She stepped on his foot and didn’t even apologize.

“Mr. Clarendon, isn’t it?” She smiled, turning to face the other man, wiping that stray lock of hair from her cheek and giving the new arrival a curtsy. Luke’s hands and presence were dismissed from her person in the same moment.

“Miss Sherringham,” the young man exclaimed again, removing his hat and bowing smartly. “What good fortune!”

“Good fortune?” Luke snapped. “Aye…that we weren’t bloody killed.”

“Really, Colonel,” she interjected coolly over her shoulder, “your language! We were as much to blame, I’m sure.”

His
language? She dared say that after the barrage of insults she’d just rained upon him?

Luke’s good foot throbbed where she’d trodden on it. In fact, there was more feeling in his entire body now than there had been in years, and this time it was not a pleasant sensation. He scowled at the other man. At first he’d been slow to recognize that well-chiseled face, but hearing the name was like another jolt in the bouncy gig.

The lad might only have been ten or so when Luke last saw him and he would never remember Luke, but that deceptively angelic face was unmistakably Clarendon. He must now be close in age to Miss Sherringham, Luke realized dourly. She would have been about ten too back then. Thus, he was reminded again of her dreadful, unsuitable youthfulness.

“We are on our way to visit our cousin,” the boy chirped, not in the least put out by Luke’s remark and focusing on Rebecca. “Since your vehicle is damaged, you must allow us to take you home.”

“Oh…” She glanced at the snapped struts of the wheel beside them. “Well, I…” Now her gaze lifted and caught Luke’s. “Mr. Clarendon, may I introduce Colonel Wainwright.”

“Good morning, Colonel. We can take both of you, of course. I’m sure we can find room.” The young man had a merry, never-fading grin that made Luke’s jaw hurt and his foot throb even harder.

“That’s very kind of you,” she replied.

“You can tie the horse to the back of our carriage and we’ll—”

“No,” Luke interrupted, terse. “I’ll fix this.”

Rebecca swung fully around to glare at him. “Don’t be foolish. Look at those clouds. It’s going to rain.”

Foolish?
He wrenched open his lips just enough to tell her, “You go on with him then. I’ll manage. Alone.” He didn’t need anybody, did he? He was perfectly happy alone on his castaway’s island until she and her pert bubbies drifted by. How dare she accuse him of running off and hiding for a dozen years? Ah, yes, now the words she’d shouted at him a few moments ago finally sank fully in. Challenges? What could she know of life’s challenges? She was two and bloody twenty, a wench raised by an indulgent, distracted father.

“You’ll get wet, Colonel. How will you manage to get back to the manor? You can’t…” He caught her anxious glance directed at his walking cane. “You must accept Mr. Clarendon’s offer.”

“You go on,” he repeated, his voice low. “I don’t need anything from Mr. Clarendon.”

“You’re being rude,” she whispered. “
Un
gentlemanly!”

He looked over her head at the other man. “It’s good of you to offer, but I’ll manage here. You take the lady home.”

“If you say so, old chap.” Charles Clarendon replaced his hat and held out his arm. “Come, Miss Sherringham, before it rains.”

After one last frown in Luke’s direction, she went with the young man back to the fine coach that waited.

He watched her go as the first spots of hard, cold rain hit his forehead and the sky darkened.

Luke didn’t know what he was most angry about. The icy rain, the broken wheel of his brother’s gig, or the bloody Clarendons. That family was everywhere, it seemed. Like woodworm and fleas. If the two youngest were out and about, Kit Clarendon, the elder brother, a brutish, indolent drunk, may not be far behind. Did he know about the existence of his daughter, Sarah? In all likelihood, he wouldn’t give a farthing. Sally Hitchens, with her strong survivor’s instinct, had wisely chosen the Wainwrights instead to raise the little girl.

Luke looked down at his fist, remembering when he used it to decorate Kit Clarendon’s face after he found out how the boy had violently forced himself on Sally. Other folk assumed the brawl was caused by jealousy—a spat over one woman. Only the two men, and Sally, ever knew the real reason for Luke’s fury. The elegant coach and horses trotted away toward the village, and the freezing rain gathered a sudden burst of energy, falling harder, blown directly in his face by an impish God. The same deity that continually threw these people and coincidences in his path, like challenges, and called them fate.

First came Gingersnap, marching into his life, tipping it all upside down, and then claiming she wanted no part of it. Now the Clarendons.

Could a man not get a moment’s peace?

All he wanted was to come back, make his apologies, clear his slate, and have a nice funeral. As he looked down the road again in the direction of the disappearing carriage, he thought of how her face had lit up when she saw that brat Charles Clarendon. His foot still damn well hurt where she stepped on it in her haste to greet the younger man.

He’d only offered to marry her to save her reputation, and she wasn’t even grateful about that. These young folk, he sniffed angrily, what did they know about anything?

Luke quickly unharnessed the horse, and once that fancy carriage was out of view, he tucked his cane under one arm, mounted the unsaddled horse, swinging himself up easily, and took off at a wild gallop toward that abandoned farmhouse.

* * *

Becky wound the ribbons of her bonnet around her fingers, wishing she’d taken a moment to replace it over her windblown hair before she entered the smart carriage. “Perhaps you had better drop me at the wheelwright’s place and I can send Sam Hardacre out there to find him.”

“If you wish. I would take you wherever you desire.”

Charles Clarendon had not changed. The sun still seemed to touch him, even on a dull, dreary day like this one. He and his sister, Elizabeth, sat across from her as the barouche rumbled steadily toward the village.

Becky’s heart was racing, but from the result of her accident in the gig, not from seeing Charles again. It was fortunate that Justina wasn’t with her, she thought, for the mischievous woman would instantly think her warm cheeks and thumping heartbeat—surely loud enough for all to hear—were symptoms of that foolish, impractical emotion called love.

She caught Elizabeth eyeing her boots. Alas they were filthy, and the hem of her gown was ripped and sagging where her toe caught it as she stepped down from the gig. What her hair and face looked like she could only imagine. She hoped no one would ask her why her bonnet appeared to have been trampled by a cow. Oh dear, she had really lost her temper again and beaten the colonel with it in a very unladylike manner. So much for maintaining dignity!

The Clarendons were both so clean, dry, and tidy that her own dishevelment felt multiplied.
This
, she thought sadly,
would
never
happen
to
Diana
.

Becky decided there was no point in pretending or trying to ignore her sorry state. “You find me at my worst. What an impression I must make.”

Elizabeth said nothing. Charles, with a dashing smile, kindly replied, “Now we are even then, for you must recall that the first time we met, Miss Sherringham, I was in a very bad way, quite covered in mud and drenched to the skin.” His eyes twinkled merrily at her. “If not for you, what would I have done?”

She was grateful that he didn’t cast scornful eyes on her wretched appearance. Instead he put her at her ease, as a gentleman should.

“This time I can repay the favor,” he added. “Every man likes to find a damsel in distress, Miss Sherringham.”

“Rather than be the damsel himself,” his sister muttered dryly, her cool eyes mildly pained as she assessed the trail of icy slush that Becky had tracked into the carriage.

Elizabeth Clarendon was the sort of woman who never went out of her house unless dressed in the very latest fashion and with her hair carefully primped. Charles too was always elegantly attired, his boots polished, his fair curls artfully tousled just enough to make it seem as if he didn’t bother. But in Elizabeth’s case, one got the sense that she spent hours bothering about it, that her appearance was a chore she worked at ceaselessly. As a consequence of straining that hard to follow every trend, she quite failed to find any joy in fashion and had no natural style or elegance of her own.

“It was very good of you to bring me home,” said Becky, tucking her feet as far under her seat as they would fit.

“We were going this way,” said Elizabeth, her voice quiet and weary.

“It was the least we could do,” Charles assured her with more warmth. “I must say how well you look, even in disarray, Miss Sherringham,” he exclaimed gallantly. “I always feel so much better when I see a pretty face, do I not, Elizabeth?”

His sister screwed up her own features as a tiny sneeze took hold of her entire person. “I’m afraid you do.”

He laughed. “I was just saying to Elizabeth how much I hoped to find you still here.”

“Where else would
she
be?” his sister remarked, staring blankly out of the other window and dabbing a silk handkerchief to her small, pink nose.

“Why, any number of gentlemen might have swept her away by now, and I would not have been able to enjoy her company again! How devastated I should be to find her gone.”

His sister’s snide remark was instantly erased from Becky’s mind as she once again basked in the rays of Charles Clarendon’s smile. His company was an uplifting burst of sunshine on that grim, cold day.

“You are staying at Lark Hollow, I understand?” she asked. “Mrs. Makepiece was not expecting you until Christmas morning.”

Charles nodded and his sister merely looked weary, slowly plucking at the fringe of her shawl with long fingers and keeping her gaze on the passing scenery.

“Admiral Vyne very kindly invited us for a house party,” Charles explained. “But we found it all rather…tedious. Elizabeth couldn’t wait to see our cousin Diana again, so we decided to call in a few days early.”

His sister threw him an odd look—part irritation, part curiosity—which he ignored.

“The admiral is a generous host,” he added, beaming. “But it can get a trifle wearing and exhausting, don’t you know?”

“Admiral Vyne fills his house with pretty young ladies, the way a spider builds his web,” Elizabeth drawled, “and then lurks in wait to catch a—”

“My elder brother is in his element,” said Charles, impatiently cutting over the tail end of his sister’s sentence. “We could not draw Kit away today, but I’m sure we shall make him join us for dinner with our cousins on Christmas Day.”