The Art of Ruining a Rake (13 page)

Remorse crossed Ashlin’s face, as if he’d just realized his predicament. “I made my choice because I thought she was settled. Never would I have sacrificed her reputation for anything.”

Roman was heart-struck. “But you love Celeste.”

The answer was evident in Ashlin’s stricken expression. He did worship his wife. If Roman hadn’t already felt like the greatest bounder, he would have then. How could Ashlin doubt he’d made the right decision? How could Roman have given him cause to think it?

“My sisters are my blood,” Ashlin said. “It is my responsibility to think of them first.”

Roman stepped forward. “Then trust me with her. Lucy cherishes her independence. She craves experiences. I can provide them for her. I can give her what she wants.”

Ashlin grimaced.

“Let me have this chance to court her,” Roman pressed. “On my terms, without you telling us what we must and mustn’t do.”

Ashlin’s countenance turned bleak. “What if you hurt her?”

A bead of sweat formed on Roman’s brow. If Celeste was to be believed, Lucy had judged him correctly. Banalities fell from his lips too easily. He didn’t love her. Not yet.

What if he set out to woo her, and learned he couldn’t be the steadfast man she needed?

He almost retreated.

Then he recalled her misery at being forced to live under Ashlin’s roof, all because of him.

What if he learned…

He could?

He stood taller. Celeste had said he must have conviction. He did like Lucy. That much he did not doubt. She was intelligent and strong-minded. His fixation was more than he’d ever felt for anyone. It must be. Why else would he question himself? He’d never done so before.

“Your sister is improving me,” he said to Ashlin. “An endless task. I can’t promise never to hurt her, because I’m just learning what traits of mine are repugnant to the people I love most. But I swear, Ashlin, I will try. I want to be deserving of her.”

Ashlin’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he considered Roman’s vow. “I suppose that’s the most honest speech you’ve ever made. I’ll ride out tomorrow and fetch her. If she’s in Gloucester she must be with Delilah.”

“I believe so, yes,” Roman answered, his body shaking with the enormity of what he’d just vowed to see through. “Thank you. I won’t let you down. I won’t let
her
down.”

Ashlin turned to leave, then stopped. “When we arrive in London, I’ll send for you. I dearly hope you know what you’re doing.”

Roman’s laugh rang hollow. “If there is one thing I do know, it’s how to charm a woman.”

“But this time,” Ashlin said, “it must be real.”

DELILAH RAN HER fingers over the frilled pillow on Miss Conley’s bed. “I do wish you’d reconsider, dearest. In the three weeks you’ve been here, we haven’t heard a whisper about Lord Montborne. Mayhap word will never reach these parts.” Her limpid brown eyes implored Lucy to agree. “Is that too much to hope?”

Lucy balled a chemise and pushed the garment into a corner of her valise. She couldn’t bear to watch her sister grow melancholy over her forthcoming departure. “It is, quite possibly, the most fanciful notion you’ve ever had. Gossip will always find a way. Furthermore, I have a plan now. There is no reason for me to stay and risk the girls’ reputations anymore than I have already done.” Truthfully, she was so excited by her idea, she just wanted to push on.

Delilah’s eyes went wide. “Can you truly earn your keep writing novels? In the country I suppose it’s possible, but London is ghastly expensive.”

“Miss Edgeworth does it, and Mrs. Radcliffe, and Miss Hays. The latter less successfully, but I shall do better.”

“I don’t mean to be critical,” Delilah said doubtfully, “but your weekly posts consist of unembellished statements. I know how your teachers rank in performance, and which ones squabble. But I have no sense of what they look like. Why are they schoolteachers, rather than seamstresses or governesses? I don’t think
you
know.”

“I was much too busy for tittle-tattle,” Lucy replied, shrugging away her sister’s uncertainty. “In London I shall have time aplenty to write letters full of flowery prose and extraneous detail. You’ll see.”

Delilah’s lips formed a moue. “I’m sure there is more to it than that.”

Lucy gave her a wry look. “I’m not delusional, darling. It will be difficult at first, but I’m a quick study. In London, I shall have access to all the best minds. When I have questions, I shall ask Mrs. Radcliffe herself. Any task can be learned, if one is determined enough.”

“I suppose,” Delilah replied dubiously.

Lucy paused in her folding. “I
must
go to London. The opera, the theater, Vauxhall… Especially the salons. One does not need her reputation to gain
entrée
to those sorts of places.”

The cotton chemise in her hand morphed into an amethyst ball gown. With no reputation and no one to answer to, what was to stop her from enjoying life to its fullest? It seemed the perfect solution for a woman who’d always known her own mind.

“The clientele occasionally suffers for it,” Delilah reminded her. “Although, perhaps you are just as likely to meet someone terribly dashing as you are a cutthroat.” She picked at a loose thread on her skirt and sighed wistfully. “I’ll worry. And it will be so lonely here without you. I do wish you’d reconsider.”

 
Lucy shoved her plain chemise into her valise. Reconsider her plan? The one that sent her heart racing at the thought of it? Absolutely not.

“Don’t be silly,” Lucy said. “I’ll be quite safe, and this house is a beehive of activity. You won’t miss me at all.” She pasted a smile on her face, for it wasn’t Delilah’s fault she was increasingly looking forward to the solitude of a hired hack.

Her sister beamed beatifically. “It
is
ever so much more agreeable than Trestin’s house, isn’t it? At least, the way I remember it. Perhaps he’s changed.”

Lucy wadded another chemise. She, too, hoped Celeste had improved Trestin’s disposition. That he’d kept a mistress at all, let alone married her, was a testament to the lengths he’d come since their parents’ deaths. Nevertheless, he couldn’t have changed so much that he’d calmly allow Lucy to evade marriage to Roman. He certainly wouldn’t let her come and go as she pleased.

But… He
might
have changed. Delilah had done. Under Trestin’s roof, she’d been bored and sulky. With Mr. Conley by her side, her spirit bubbled and she laughed often.

Lucy did hope Trestin was happy with Celeste. How odd to think her brother could be any different than the man she’d known the whole of her life.
 

She stilled. Delilah and Trestin had found love, but they weren’t cursed with Mother’s temper.

They weren’t in love with a faithless rogue.

She gave Delilah another forced smile and reached for a stocking. It unfurled halfway to the floor as it slipped through her fingers. With a muttered curse, she scooped it up, then crammed it, too, into her valise.

There would be advantages to leaving Gloucester, all told. She wouldn’t have to watch her sister and Mr. Conley make eyes at each other. She’d be beholden to no one, and have rooms of her own. While her sister’s close-knit family was charming, Lucy chafed to have privacy again. She was certain Miss Conley did, too. And Lucy missed having assistance. Even at her school, she’d had a maid to help her dress and bring her meals. She looked forward to having a cook again—surely an authoress could afford a cook.

A terraced house of her own. A cook. A lady’s maid. A few pretty dresses and a quiet place to write in the sunshine. Surely these conveniences weren’t beyond her budget.

“What about Roman?”

The question barged into Lucy’s woolgathering like a runaway carriage. She forced herself to appear calmly disinterested. “What about him?”

“You could marry him.”

She could also try flapping her arms to see if her feet left the ground. “You and Mr. Conley have made your opinion on that quite clear.” She crushed the stocking in her hand into a satisfying little ball.

“Because we can’t stand to lose you when Society turns you out,” Delilah chided her. “Is there no forgiveness in your heart?”

Lucy stopped wreaking havoc on the stocking and tossed it into her valise. Whether she forgave him or not was irrelevant. It wasn’t about his peccadillos. Not really. Many men kept mistresses, and plenty of wives were grateful for the distraction, or so she’d observed in the scandal sheets. But she was not one to sit idly by while her disloyal husband cavorted from bed to bed.

She would rather see him dead.

Should she explain as much to Delilah? How could she? Mr. Conley would send her to Bedlam, as someone ought to have done for her mother.

“Now that you’re married, you must see why I can’t accept Roman,” Lucy reasoned in an even tone that didn’t give rise to the turbulence in her mind.

Delilah’s brows arched. “What has my husband to do with him?”

Lucy reached for another woolen stocking and turned it out. “Roman isn’t the type to settle into cheerful monogamy. Not like Mr. Conley did.”

The relief she felt knowing her sister would never experience her predicament was tainted by her certainty that she’d never experience Delilah’s happiness. For even if Lucy did decide she wasn’t capable of anything so heinous as murder, the fact remained—Roman was a rake.

Men did not change. No matter how much one screamed and cried and threatened bloodshed. If anything, jealous rages pushed men further into dissolution. An endless cycle that ended only when one, or the other, or
both
parties were dead. Lucy did not want to die.

Delilah grabbed the valise and shook out the wadded garments, then began folding the laundry into neat piles. The chemise in her outstretched arms created a barrier between them. “This is about Papa, isn’t it?”

Lucy grabbed a rumpled night rail and shoved it into the leather case. “No.”

Delilah dropped the chemise into her lap. Her eyes were sad. “Mother, then.”

Lucy gripped the opening of the valise so tightly, the buckles dug into her palms. “Mother was mad.”

“Oh, dearest. Mother
was
mad. Grandmama said she was maudlin and sullen even as a little girl. Surely, you don’t think you’d…?” Her sister’s concern broke over her unsaid words.
Surely you don’t think you’d murder Roman, like Mother murdered Papa.

The squares of fabric nestled inside Lucy’s valise blended together into a different time and place. Gunshots. Screaming. A vase breaking, shattering like her mother’s mind. “I can and I would. I’ve dreamt it.”

“No!”

Lucy closed her eyes so she couldn’t see her sister’s horror. “I know why Mother killed him. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t sound, but… She did what she was obliged to do.”

Delilah made a noise of disbelief. “So you think Roman deserves to be shot.”

Lucy opened her eyes. “No one
deserves
to be shot. But certainly, some people are easier to shoot than others.”

Delilah’s lips quirked. She paired two stockings and began to roll them. “Perhaps the rumors surrounding Roman are exaggerated.”

Lucy could almost feel the tickle of his lips along her neck. Her face warmed and she seized a petticoat from the bed, rolling it over one hand. “I am living proof that they are not.”

Delilah folded four more stockings before she spoke again. “London frightens me. So many strange men, and you without a chaperone. I do wish you’d reconsider returning to Trestin’s house.”

Lucy’s eagerness to be on her way doubled. At Worston, there would be no Vauxhall, no theater, no opera. Certainly, no sentimental novel-writing. It seemed even her devoted sister might not let her go to London without a row. “Trestin will stifle me. You said so yourself.”

The fact that he had more than enough reason
not
to trust her made it all the more galling.

Delilah gave her a look that at once said she sympathized—and didn’t. “As a girl, I thought him insufferable, until I saw how disconsolate Mr. Conley becomes when his sisters refuse to heed his well-intentioned advice. Trestin is bound to be cross with you at times, but anyone would be, in his situation.”

Lucy gaped at her sister. In his situation? What about
her
situation? She’d lost her reputation and her purpose in one go. She was condemned to spend eternity as a lonely spinster in their brother’s care, unless she took matters into her own hands.