Wicked Rake, Defiant Mistress

Le Clere sat bolt upright in his chair. ‘You can’t mean it.’

The anger, always a slow simmer in his blood, rolled swiftly to a boil. He let it show in his face. ‘I certainly do.’

Bushy brows snapped together. Red travelled up his uncle’s neck and stained his cheeks, the same signs of anger he experienced himself. The old man opened his mouth and Garrick awaited the parade-ground roar that had cowed him as a boy, but now left him cold. Le Clere inhaled a deep breath and when he finally spoke, his voice rasped, but remained at a reasonable pitch. ‘What brought about this sudden decision?’

‘I found one of Father’s campaign diaries in the library in town. I’d forgotten how much he loved serving his country. I want to follow in his footsteps.’

Le Clere slammed a fist on the table. ‘I should have burned them. Your father should never have risked his life in that manner, neither should you.’

‘Father never got a scratch.’ Only to come home and die in a hunting accident. Garrick rose to his feet. ‘I have made up my mind. There is nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.’

Le Clere sagged against the chair back. ‘All these years I’ve worked to safeguard your inheritance and you treat it as if it is nothing.’ He pressed his fingers against his temple.

More guilt. As if he didn’t have enough on his conscience. ‘I have to go.’

‘Why?’

‘You know why.’

‘Nothing has occurred since that incident at school. You’ve been all right. Got it in hand.’

It. The Le Clere curse. Something they’d never spoken of since the day Garrick had learned what it meant.

‘No.’ He stared at his bruised knuckles. If his cousin Harry hadn’t pulled him off the bullying bastard beating Dan with a pitchfork, Garrick might have been facing charges of murder instead of spending every penny of his allowance to pay the man off.

‘I see,’ Le Clere murmured, his brow furrowing. ‘Then you’ve wasted these past few years. Learned nothing of the estate. The war cannot continue much longer, surely, and when you come home I may not be here. I’m getting old, Garrick.’

Garrick tugged at his collar. ‘I’m going.’

‘Wait until my trusteeship is over. Twelve months is not such a long time. Learn all you can. Set up your nursery, get an heir, then go with my blessing.’

The older man’s anxiety hung in the air like a sour London fog. If it hadn’t been impossible, Garrick would have sworn he smelled fear. He could not let his uncle sway his purpose. Staying in England as he was, a shortfused powder keg waiting to go off at a stray spark, was asking for trouble.

‘I’ve made up my mind.’

Le Clere ran a hand through his hair. ‘What if you are killed? What will happen to Beauworth?’

‘Cousin Harry is the heir.’

His uncle stilled. He seemed to have turned to a block of granite. His face reddened. The veins in his neck stood out above his neckcloth. Dear God, was he going to have an apoplexy? ‘Uncle, please. Don’t upset yourself.’ Garrick strode for the table beside the hearth and poured a glass of brandy from a decanter. He took it back to Le Clere. ‘Drink this.’

His uncle accepted the brandy with a shaking hand. It hurt Garrick to see the liquid splash over the side. Le Clere took a long swallow. He stared into the bottom of his glass. ‘How long will this visit last?’

He’d planned only to collect his mare and bid his uncle farewell. The loss of the signet ring meant a delay. It must be there for Harry. At least his cousin didn’t carry the Le Clere taint in his blood.

‘A week.’ Plenty of time to run the little vixen to earth.

Uncle Duncan straightened. ‘Then we will use what little time we have to good purpose.’

Inwardly Garrick grimaced. If the old man hoped to use the time to change his mind, he was in for more disappointment. More guilt. Ah, well, if he was going to be here anyway…‘All right.’

Le Clere beamed. ‘Good. Very good. Let us get started right away. After all, we don’t have much time.’

Garrick hid his sigh of impatience. What he really wanted to do was question the local people about the thieves. It would be hours before he could make his escape. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

Eleanor bore most of the weight of the basket swinging between her and her twelve-year-old sister, Sissy, as they trudged through Boxted toward their cottage. After the hour’s walk from Standerstead on a fine spring day, a trickle of sweat coursed down between her shoulder blades.

Her stomach tightened. Time was running out and here she was having to spend it buying supplies instead of doing something about her predicament.

As they passed the Wheat Sheaf across from the village green, a tall man with broad shoulders in snug burgundy velvet stepped into their path. The Marquess of Beauworth. No one but the local lord of the manor would cut such an elegant figure in the humble village of Boxted. And he looked lovelier in bright sunshine than he had beneath the moon.

Eleanor’s heart skipped and her breath caught in her throat as she fought not to stare at him, tried to pretend he wasn’t there. But when he bowed with elegance and a charming smile, she could pretend no longer. She halted.

‘Good day, ladies.’ His deep voice sounded intimate, seductive.

A disturbing surge of exhilaration heated her cheeks and sent shivers tingling from her chest to her toes. The man was downright dangerous if he could do all that with a smile. And she did not like the puzzlement lurking in his amber-lit brown eyes. Please, don’t let it be recognition.

She bobbed a small curtsy. ‘Good day, my lord.’

‘May I help you with that heavy basket, miss?’ he asked.

Before Eleanor could respond that he need not trouble, Sissy piped up with a cheeky grin and a look of relief in her dark brown eyes. ‘You can help me.’

Eleanor groaned inwardly. Why couldn’t the child hold her tongue for once? ‘Sissy, please. You must excuse my sister, my lord, she is too forward.’

‘Why, I believe she is just truthful. It would not be at all out of my way, you know.’ With a smile warm enough to melt an icicle in mid-winter, he grasped the handle of the basket.

Fate in the shape of a black-haired imp had taken the decision out of Eleanor’s hands. ‘Thank you, my lord.’ She released the handle and he hefted the basket as if it weighed nothing at all.

‘It is a remarkably fine day, is it not, Miss…?’

‘Brown. Ellie Brown, sir, and this is my sister, Sissy.’

‘Miss Brown, Miss Sissy Brown.’

He bowed politely to each of them in turn as if they were gentry and not simple village misses. If it was possible, her heart beat a little faster. For the first time in weeks, she felt valued. Her cheeks flared hotter than before. Lord, what would he think?

‘You have just come from the market?’ he asked.

‘Yes, my lord. For baking supplies.’

‘Ellie makes the best biscuits in the whole world.’ Sissy added, ‘I think she should sell them.’

Eleanor wanted to put a hand over her sister’s mouth. She was far too ready to confide anything to anyone. She quelled her irritation as the Marquess smiled winsomely at the vivacious child peeping admiringly up at him. Clearly he applied his charm to any female who crossed his path. She resented the pang of something unpleasant in her chest as he directed his lovely smile at Sissy.

‘I hope I might try some one day,’ he said.

Outwardly polite and ineffably charming, while inside there lurked the worst sort of rake. A man who had done untold damage to her family. The strangely weak feelings she had around him were inexcusable. She scowled at Sissy behind his back.