Rake Beyond Redemption

‘No.’

‘You promised you would come to ask after my health. You didn’t.’

‘No. I didn’t.’ Still he stood, uncivil and unwelcoming.

‘Did you even care?’

‘You had wet feet and a ruined gown, nothing more. A gown that Venmore could afford to replace out of the loose change in his pocket. I doubt you would succumb to some life-threatening ailment.’

So callous. So unreasonably impolite. But Marie-Claude kept the eye contact, even when it became uncomfortable. ‘As you see, I am perfectly well, but I was raised to honour my obligations,’ she stated, her demure words at odds with her galloping heart. ‘So since I am indebted to you, I have come to pay a morning call to offer my thanks in a formal manner.’

His lip curled. ‘I was clearly not raised to honour my obligations, my upbringing being lacking in such finesse,’ he retaliated, giving no quarter.

‘Frankly, sir, I don’t believe you.’

That shook him. She saw the glint in his eye, but his response was just as unprepossessing. ‘What you believe or disbelieve is immaterial to me. I thought I made it clear our—our association was at an end. I am not available for such niceties as morning calls. As you see, madam, I’m working and you are disturbing me.’

She would not be put off. ‘Then I will say what I wish to say here, Zan. It will not take but a minute of your so very valuable time.’

‘Say what you have to say, madam, and then you can leave.’

He would be difficult. He was deliberately pushing her away. Well, she would not be pushed away in that manner. ‘My name is Marie-Claude,’ she informed him with a decided edge.

‘I know your name.’

‘You called me Marie-Claude before.’

‘So I did. I should have treated you with more respect.’ His tone was not pleasant.

‘But as you have just informed me, your upbringing was lacking in social niceties. So why should you cavil at using my name? I did not think Englishmen were so stiff-necked as to be so rigid over etiquette. Frenchmen, perhaps.’ She paused, then delivered her nicely judged coup de grâce. ‘Since you kissed me, more than once, and I think did not dislike it, I would suggest you know me quite well enough.’

He breathed out slowly, unfisted his hands, but only to slouch in an unmannerly fashion. ‘What do you want from me?’ Still bleak and unbending.

‘I’m not sure quite what it is I wish to say,’ she admitted. How hard this was, how intransigent he was being. ‘You saved me from drowning, or at least a severe drenching. I think I didn’t thank you enough.’

‘As I said—it’s no great matter. I happened to be there—and I would have saved anyone in your predicament.’

‘I think it does matter. Would you deny that some emotion flows between us? Even now it does. It makes my heart tremble.’ She stretched out her hand to him, but let it fall to her side as the stony expression remained formidably in place. Indeed her heart faltered, but she drove on. She would not leave here until she had said what was in her mind. ‘I think I should tell you that I don’t usually allow strange gentlemen to kiss me—or any gentlemen at all, come to that. Just as I don’t believe you kiss women in inn parlours—unless it’s Sally who showed willing. Then you would.’

‘I might,’ Zan admitted.

‘I envy her.’ She raised her chin higher. ‘What I don’t understand is why you went into fast retreat when you learned my name, as if an overwhelming force had appeared on the horizon.’

His eyes released her at last. Turning from her, Zan picked up a wizened apple from the shelf and offered it to the stallion, who crunched it with relish. ‘What did Meggie say?’ he asked, stroking his hand down the satin neck.

‘That you are a smuggler and I shouldn’t associate with you. But that’s not it. Everyone seems to have some connection with smuggling here. Harriette was a smuggler. George Gadie is a smuggler and Meggie doesn’t disapprove of him. Or not much.’

His eyes snapped from the stallion back to her, fierce as a hawk. ‘You don’t want to know me.’

‘I choose whom I wish to know. I am not a child.’

‘Your family would disapprove.’

‘But why?’

A pause. Would he tell her? ‘I’ll not tell you that.’

‘Then you must allow me to make my own judgements. Do I go, Zan? Or do I stay?’

It was a deliberate challenge. If he wanted her to go, he must tell her so. She would not move one inch otherwise. She could read nothing in his face, anticipate nothing of his thoughts. And so was surprised when she heard him issue the invitation.

‘Since you’re here, I suppose I must take you into the house and provide you with the tea that never materialised at the Boat.’

Something had changed his mind. She inclined her head graciously. ‘It would be polite.’

He retrieved his coat from the stall partition and remarked drily, ‘I know the form after all. My mother was a stickler for good manners. I was at least raised as a gentleman.’

‘I never doubted it. And I would like to see your house.’ She fell into step beside him.

‘You’ll be disappointed.’

He took her hand, drew it through his arm, to lead her out of the stable courtyard towards the main entrance.

Until she hesitated. Looked up at him, head tilted.

‘What’s wrong? Have you changed your mind after all? Not willing to risk stepping into a smuggler’s den of iniquity?’

‘Not at all. I simply wondered why you led me to think that you were raised as an unmannered lout. Not that you will tell me, of course.’

He laughed at her prim reply. ‘You’ll prise no secrets from me, Madame Mermaid!’

Abruptly he opened the door into the entrance hall and stood back so that she could enter.

Marie-Claude stepped into his home. ‘Do you live here alone?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Are you changing your mind again?’

‘No. Are you? Do you not want me here?’

‘I invited you. I have a housekeeper. Mrs Shaw.’

‘I did not think I would need a chaperon, Zan,’ she chided gently. She stood in the centre of the entrance hall and turned slowly round, taking in her surroundings. ‘Will you show me around?’

‘If you wish. It won’t take long.’

He opened the doors that led off the entrance hall, into the library, two small parlours, a withdrawing room, a little room with an escritoire that still held traces of his mother who had used it for her endless letter-writing. He watched Marie-Claude with some amusement as she inspected each room without comment. Without expression. Finally, calling along a corridor to an invisible Mrs Shaw for tea, he led her back into the library, where she sat on the dusty cushions of the sofa, hands neatly folded in her lap.

‘Well? What do you think?’