Sinfully Ever After (Book Club Belles Society) (26 page)

Skilled at giving him as many as they took away.

It hadn’t escaped his notice that she wore her most chaste gown today with lace all the way to her throat. That was, he supposed, to keep him at a distance. Women placed a vast deal of trust in lace, when all it did was entice a man to peer through it. “Why don’t you get on this bed with me? I’m feeling remarkably rejuvenated already.”

“I thought you were a reformed man.”

“I tried that. Didn’t like it.

“You tried it for…what was it now? Two days?”

He laughed. “I can’t help myself. Not around you.”

Rebecca had just trailed her fingertips across the linen that covered his aching shaft. He stared up at her, saw her bite her lip and blink guiltily. “I wish you’d put that away,” she muttered.

“Can’t. It has its own mind. Just like your hand, eh?”

She shook her head, but he knew she was trying not to laugh.

She was a difficult, stubborn, argumentative wench, completely and utterly different from any other woman he’d ever fancied. He liked talking to her, making her smile and roll her eyes. Yes, his brother would be proud of him, for he admired far more than the shape of her body under that gown.

But it didn’t stop him wanting to rip the muslin and lace aside, throw her down on the bed, claim her for his own.

There would never be another woman for him but her. He knew it. She’d know it too soon.

“What are you smirking at?” she demanded.

“Thinking about the clever hands of my nurse.”

“They do seem to have surprisingly restorative qualities, never before suspected,” she murmured, gazing down at his rising cockerel.

“And there are some things I could do for her in return.”

Her face was too honest and open to hide the fact that she was interested.

He raised one arm, placed his hand on her waist. “You could say this old stallion is feeling his oats.”

But the doorbell rang before he could elaborate, and she instantly became all business again. “Behave yourself, or I’ll fetch you a bridle,” she warned sharply, eyeing the twitching mound under his borrowed nightshirt one last lingering moment before dashing out of the room.

The rogue had a devastating effect on her pulse and her lungs, she decided, hurrying down the stairs, hot, flushed, and distinctly short of breath. But as she flew by the hall mirror, she glanced over and caught herself smiling.

She hastily wiped that off her face—what was it doing there, anyway?—but the bell was ringing again now, someone tugging on the rope with rude impatience. There was no time to tidy her appearance.

Expecting the visitor to be one of her friends, she was startled, and then alarmed, when she discovered Charles Clarendon on her doorstep. Oh, if only Mrs. Jarvis was back and had gone to open the door. But alas, it was all left up to her, and there she was, perspiring, with her sleeves folded up and a stained apron over her frock. Her mind in some dark, velvety, hot place.

Charles swept off his hat. “Miss Sherringham, might I come in?”

Where were her manners?
Perhaps
I
left
them
with
this
fine
fellow
on
Raven’s Hill in the rain
, she thought scornfully. “Of course.” She took the visitor through to the front parlor.

At once, he began. “My dear Miss Sherringham, please say you can forgive me. I acted like a cad that day…I should never have let you walk home alone. I have been wracked with guilt ever since.”

Wracked with guilt for two days and yet not enough to actually make inquiries and be certain she returned home safely and in one piece.

A loud bang against the ceiling above warned Becky that the patient was out of bed. Charles glanced upward. “What was that?”

“Oh, I was”—she looked down at her apron—“spring cleaning. Moving furniture. I expect something fell over.”

The sooner she got him out of the house the better, before there was another crash above stairs or the unpredictable patient decided to come down. In only his nightshirt. So she said, “I forgive you for leaving me to walk home in the rain, Mr. Clarendon. Is there anything else? I’m rather busy, as you see.”

He frowned. “Yes. I wanted to let you know I have been called home. To Oxford. My father needs me there.” Charles spoke now in rushed, clipped, angry sentences, and his gaze flitted about the parlor, unable to meet her eyes. “I wish I could have stayed longer, but my father will hear no excuse.”

“I see. Well, I hope you have a safe journey.” She wondered why he made a special visit to tell her when he thought so little of her anyway. Then she found out.

“I wanted to let you know that my brother sent a gift for your friend, the colonel. He sends the message that he hopes it was appreciated.”

A frisson of panic passed over her skin as she worried that he might know Luke was upstairs. If
he
knew, the Book Club Belles had not kept their secret very well.

But with a hard, spiteful gleam in his eye, he added, “By the way, that girl he pretends is his daughter is not anything of the sort, you know.”

“Oh?”

“She’s Kit’s bastard. My brother told me. He said Wainwright always was a fool and easily tricked by the various little slatterns who fell into his lap, but surely even he knows she’s not his blood. You can tell him he needn’t think to get any money out of us. If that’s what his plan is in keeping the girl.”

She thought for a moment, all the facts slipping and sliding again, coming up in yet another new way. “I don’t believe he ever plans anything, Mr. Clarendon. I understand the colonel tends to fly by the seat of his breeches.”

“Don’t be taken in. The man is a menace. My brother has three wooden teeth because of him.”

“Well, perhaps he deserves them.”

There was a pause while he glowered at her.

She held out her hand, offering to say good-bye, even though she wasn’t feeling very civil.

His pinched lips snapped open to say, “A lady is supposed to give a gentleman her hand to kiss, not to shake.”

“Just as well I’m not a lady.”

He screwed up his face. “How very witty.” But when he finally took her hand, he exclaimed, “What on earth is this on your hands? They’re all slippery.”

“It’s…polish. Furniture polish. I was trying to put the shine back in some…old wood.”

He wiped his hands furiously on a kerchief. “I’ll bid you good day, Miss Sherringham. Perhaps next time I return, you will be prepared to receive my attentions and appreciate them fully. We will discuss the terms again and reach some compromise, I hope.”

She could hardly believe her ears. He still thought she would consider his offer to make her his mistress. “To quote a certain gentleman of my acquaintance, sir, I don’t compromise.”

He squinted and sucked in his cheeks.

“Good day, Mr. Clarendon.”

As she showed him out of the house, he was still wiping his hands.

She closed the door behind him and exhaled with relief, knowing she wouldn’t have to try anymore.

* * *

“What was that chinless brat doing here?” Luke demanded, standing at the window, looking out.

“Get away from there!” She dashed across the room and tugged on his nightshirt sleeve until he stepped out of the light.

“So what if he sees me? Serve him right. Gone home, has he?”

“Yes. Now come away from the—”

She cried out in surprise when he slid an arm around her and pressed her hard against him. “I like the feel of you and the taste of you and the scent of you. I know you like plain talking. Is that good enough for you, madam?”

“Well, isn’t that nice?” She laughed, sounding short of breath. “I daresay you’d feel the same about a slab of bacon.”

“Perhaps. But I wouldn’t want to do to that what I want to do to you. Not everything, anyway.” He lowered his mouth to hers while it was open to argue with him again and he kissed her greedily. Her felt her body melting against his, responding to his kiss. “But I can’t, of course. Until the wedding night.”

She groaned, ducked out of his arms, and walked around the bed. Wiping her hands on her apron, she said briskly, “Since you’re up and about and clearly have your bearings back, you may as well come down to dinner tonight. My father will enjoy your company. He has been ill-tempered of late.”

“And will you enjoy my company too?”

“I don’t know yet.”

He laughed. “Still haven’t decided yet, eh?”

“Some people like to think things through before they leap in with both feet,” she exclaimed.

“Why? The details can always be sorted out later.”

Shaking her head, she walked out of the room, shouting over her shoulder that some of her father’s clothes were behind the screen for him.

She stood a while outside the door, thinking about Sarah and Kit Clarendon and why Luke would claim a daughter who was not his. Not many men would do that.

Especially not a man who had avoided responsibilities and attachments for so long. Unless he really was ready to change.

* * *

It didn’t take long for the news to spread that Mr. Charles Clarendon had left, taking himself back to Oxford with his painted curricle bought on the proceeds of winnings at the tavern. When Becky entered Mr. Porter’s shop one morning, she heard Mrs. Kenton holding court. “So there goes that young man, pretty sharpish indeed, back to his father, who no doubt got wind of his attentions to the major’s daughter and cut that off.”

She froze. Apparently a great many people had seen Charles flirting with her and read more into it than she did.

“I always knew his attention was fleeting, but Rebecca Sherringham never listens to anyone. I tried to advise her, but she is so sharp-tongued and knows best. And now the colonel has disappeared too, after paying court to her since before Christmas. Heaven knows where he’s gone. In any case, these young girls…”

As her father had always said, one found one’s true friends in a time of trouble. The Book Club Belles rallied around, defending Becky against every bad word they overheard. Justina and Diana came to the house every day and helped her fuss over the much recovered colonel.

When Becky told Luke that he had become their mission, his expression of horror and trepidation made them all laugh. And all the more determined.

Justina arranged her husband’s barouche to take Luke—wearing more borrowed clothes—into Manderson on the sly, to be measured for those new clothes he badly needed, and as the first assembly dance was fast approaching, it became time to give the colonel a few dancing lessons. In his own words, he had been “out of commission” for more than a dozen years, and the idea of standing up on another dance floor made him want to reach for the brandy bottle.

“I know how to dance,” he grumbled. “Our mother paid five shillings and sixpence a lesson for me when I was thirteen. I just didn’t take to it and now, with this leg…”

Oh, the leg excuse again.

“Nonsense,” Becky replied curtly. “Dr. Penny says the more you use that leg the better. No, you will not skulk around the edge of the dance. You will join in with your daughter and you will not embarrass her by not knowing the steps. If it’s been so long since you last blessed a dance floor with your…talents”—the other girls chuckled—“I suggest we get to work.”

Thus began his lessons at the hands of the Book Club Belles. Or three of them, at least.

For the next few days, the Sherringhams’ back parlor rang with shouts and laughter as the three ladies took delight in pushing him about.

“No, Colonel, turn
right
hand star first and then back with the left!”

“Allemande, Colonel! That means back to back. Oops. Mind the dog!”

Ness ran about barking in confusion when he wasn’t burying his face in his paws, apparently overcome with his master’s shame.

One day, the other ladies were late and since Becky could not dance with him
and
play the pianoforte, she brought out her mother’s music box to accompany them.

“So this is the magical music box.” He picked it up and studied it, smiling.

“Don’t get it dirty!” She snatched it back and set it down on the sideboard.

He laughed, took her hand, and with the music box tinkling gently beside them, he led her into a dance she did not recognize. “I’ll get you dirty instead then.” It was too intimate to be proper.
Mrs. Makepiece would never approve
, she thought.

“What are these steps called?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Lady Big Bottom’s Fancy? Miss Fanny’s Frolic?

“You’re making it up. This is your excuse to grope me again.”

He winked. “No pulling the fleece over your eyes, just as you warned me once.”

Luke spun her around the parlor until she felt dizzy, and only later did she realize he hadn’t once complained about his leg.

But he did not kiss her today. She was not sure how she felt about that.

Abruptly he dropped down at her feet, and she let out a light squeal, fearing something dreadful had happened. Or else he was trying to get under her skirt again.

“It’s Sarah,” he hissed wildly from the carpet.

Becky looked out of the window and saw his daughter walking up the back path and heading for the kitchen door. “Don’t fret, Colonel. Your face isn’t so bad now. The bruises have almost faded.”

He looked up at her. “Don’t you suppose she’ll be curious as to what I’m doing here when I’m supposed to be in Manderson?”

So she rushed him upstairs out of sight and then went into the kitchen to greet the surprise visitor.

“I’ve brought you a pork pie, Miss Sherringham, as I know you are without a cook at the moment and Monsieur Philippe has been busy.”

“That is kind of you, Sarah.”

As she reached for the basket, the young girl laid a hand on hers and said solemnly, “Miss Sherringham, although my father has gone away, I want to promise you that he will return. I know he will.”

Becky’s heart swelled at this simple, innocent faith the girl had in her father. The man she thought was her father.

“He likes you very much, Miss Sherringham. He just doesn’t know the proper way to show it, but he can learn, can’t he?”

Choked with emotion, Becky felt incapable of reply. So she merely nodded.

“Will you walk with me to the book society meeting this afternoon, Miss Sherringham?”

In truth, Becky had lost interest in Willoughby and Marianne. Their love story could bring her no comfort now, but she may as well get out of the house. Close and extended proximity to Lucky Luke was perhaps not a wise thing to encourage.

* * *

From the upstairs window, Luke watched the two young ladies leave for the book club meeting. It was good to see them walking together, hand in hand, these two ladies he cared about the most.

He went downstairs again, now the coast was clear, and expected to find the major sitting by his fire, reading the paper, but the old man was on his way out.

Apparently he went out quite a lot on his own, a fact Luke had discovered since staying at the house. He was surprised by it, for Rebecca spoke of her father as if she thought he spent most of his time in a chair, napping and safely staying out of trouble. She flitted in and out so often herself that the major’s absences went unnoticed.

“Just off to catch the mail coach,” he said to Luke as he pulled on his coat. “If Becky is home before me, tell her I shall be back for supper, there’s a good chap.”

Luke and Ness, therefore, were left alone in the house.

It was raining again, tapping lightly at the windows. Standing in the hall, he scratched his chin and realized he was going to have to sit there waiting around for a woman to come back. He didn’t like it one bit. What was he supposed to do without her?

Hmm, perhaps he could make good use of his time alone—look for that list of husbandly attributes she supposedly kept. So he went back upstairs and opened the door to her chamber. The sweet but very soft fragrance of violets hovered in the air and drew him further in. He opened her drawers and rummaged among her silky underthings, lifting them to his face, enjoying the buttery softness. She certainly had a lot of lacy pieces, he mused, for a woman who called herself sensible and not at all romantic.