Breaking the Rake's Rules

In doing so, they’d turned marriage into something otherworldly, something Kitt had not thought possible when he’d made his sacrifice. But now, seeing that it was possible, well, that changed everything. Only it was six years too late to change anything for him. He was Kitt Sherard, adventurer extraordinaire, lover nonpareil, a man who lived on the edge of decency in his occupation as a rum runner among other things. He didn’t pretend all his cargoes were legal, just some of them, enough of them, to massage Bridgetown society into tolerating him among their midst. He had only what he’d created for himself: a home, a ship, even his name. He was a self-fashioned man who came from nowhere, belonged to no one, was claimed by no one. This identity as a man from ‘nowhere’ suited him, even if it made him socially questionable. It wasn’t the sort of background mamas wanted their daughters to marry into. Nor would he allow them to. That meant he should leave Bryn Rutherford alone. There was no need, no point, in tempting them both into foolishness.

She had been right today. More right than she knew. He wasn’t the marrying kind. She’d only been talking about his flirtatious behaviour. The life he lived was dangerous and unpredictable, enemies lurking in the shadows, as illustrated by the latest turn of events. But he didn’t have a choice, not a real choice anyway. It had to be this way. He was destined to be alone. Alone kept him safe, kept others safe.

His life kept him busy, made him rich enough to buy any pleasure he wanted, any distraction he needed to keep his mind off the past, because it wasn’t just the past he remembered, it wasn’t just the sacrifice he remembered, but also the guilt—he’d run to save himself when perhaps he should have stayed and saved others first.

Kitt poured a third glass, trying hard to push away the memories. He could not imagine bringing a wife and a family into the mire of his past or the peril of his present. Indeed, they would only be liabilities and they would always be at risk. He’d not be able to concentrate on his work if he was always worried about them. What was the point of having a wife, a family, if he didn’t care enough to worry about them? He knew himself well enough to know he’d want to worry. It had been concern over another that had brought him to this state of life in the first place. His thoughts went to the man Passemore had shot. Was there a wife and children waiting for the dead man even now? Were people wondering and worrying when he didn’t come home?

He saw his own family in the sad picture such an image painted; his once-brilliant, sparkling family. Had they learned to laugh again without him? He hoped so. He didn’t want to imagine them grey and wilted—the way they’d looked the last time he’d seen them. The scandal had broken them. Did they still wait expectantly for some small piece of news about him from Benedict the same way he coveted the mail packet?

Benedict’s letters were the only connection he allowed himself, the only risk he allowed himself where his family was concerned. He cherished each scrap of news. His brother, his twin, was courting Viscount Enderly’s daughter. An engagement was in the offing.

Kitt had rejoiced over that in the last letter. It proved his choice had been worth it. The scandal had been survived, by them at least. But there was pain, too. He wouldn’t be there for the wedding, wouldn’t be there to stand beside his brother as a witness, wouldn’t be there to act as uncle to the children that would follow. Only in the dark, fortified with brandy, did Kitt ever permit himself to admit how much he missed his brother. But to see him, to contact him, would be to condemn him and Kitt loved him far too much to risk it even if it had killed him to sever that tie. To those who suspected he still lived, he was a pariah. To those in London who believed him dead, his death was considered a good riddance and a just one.

Kitt couldn’t imagine a woman who would be willing to risk stepping into his life once she truly understood it. His bed, on a temporary basis, was one thing. A woman needn’t know too much about him to enjoy his bed. He had a woman in every port and in some places, he had two. But permanently? Therein lay the risk.

* * *

A hazy, brandy-induced thought came to him. What would Bryn Rutherford do if she knew how he’d amassed his fortune? Would she run screaming to her father or would she throw caution to the wind like she had yesterday? One had to wonder if Bryn Rutherford was in the habit of living recklessly when no one was looking or if it was merely a momentary lapse in judgement? Kitt hoped for the latter.

It had been rather heady business today in the garden, sparring with her, the lightness of their banter cleverly interspersed with a more serious hunt for information. She’d been a rather tenacious opponent, shrewd enough to know he was not all he seemed. He’d actually found arguing with her a bit arousing, watching those grey eyes flash, knowing her mind was working as they stood close enough to do something other than argue. He’d thought about it—about silencing her with a kiss—she’d thought about it, too. He’d seen it in her eyes. She’d been aware of his intentions when his eyes had dropped to those full, kissable lips of hers.

Here in the dim room, the darkness encroaching, the memory had the power to pleasantly rouse him. But Kitt decided against it. Kissing her would have been the easy answer and a belittling one for such a fine opponent. If he couldn’t have her trust, he’d at least have her respect. It was a starting point at least. Ren had used his title, his English influence via Benedict back in London, to get his name on the list of potential investors. Kitt would not let the opportunity go languishing for the sake of a few kisses.

Kitt shifted in his chair to a more comfortable position, letting his mind drift. Bryn Rutherford was something of a conundrum. She’d been fire in his arms, eager to meet him on equal ground. Yet the woman he’d encountered at the dinner party had been concerned with propriety, which posed a most certain dichotomy to passion. Under usual circumstances, such juxtaposition would be worth exploring, intriguing even. But circumstances were not ‘usual’, not even for him. He had a cargo of rum to trade, new investments to consider and an assassin on his heels.

As tempting as an affaire was, it was too distracting for him and too dangerous for her. His safety and hers demanded he keep her at arm’s length. If ever there was a time to pursue a new flirtation, this was definitely not it. He needed all his wits about him.

Chapter Six (#ulink_5e3135f8-74e5-5d81-9b1f-8187dc497e9b)

One certainly needed their wits about them to keep up with the Selbys, or even just to be up with them. Bryn had awakened to the surprise—and not the good sort of surprise either—of finding James and his mother at the breakfast table. Breakfast had become a time of day reserved just for she and her father, a time to talk plans. Having the Selbys present felt like an intrusion into intimate territory.

But there they were, with plates filled full of eggs and sausage and more than enough talk to go around. James and his mother leapt from topic to topic with lightning speed in an attempt, no doubt, to show off their conversational acuity. But it was bloody difficult to follow, with an unladylike emphasis on the ‘bloody’. It was a dizzying array of subjects, really, ranging from butterflies to weather to books and back again to butterflies. The book had been about butterflies so perhaps they’d never truly left the topic.

‘Butterflies are a rarity in Barbados, which makes studying them a challenge. It has something to do with our position in the Atlantic that I don’t pretend to understand.’ James waved a fork in the air to punctuate his point. ‘But it does make their presence here special. The Mimic is one of my favourites. It looks like a Monarch, but it’s the story behind it that makes it so extraordinary. Scholars believe it came from Africa and was brought over on the slave ships or perhaps it was blown here on the currents of a storm.’

Not unlike many of the people who’d sought the sanctuary of the island, Bryn thought. Certainly there was the literal application of the idea. The recent abolition of slavery meant that many of the freedmen had come here as slaves. There was a figurative application, too. People like she and her father, people looking for a fresh chance, blown here metaphorically on the winds of their personal storms. Men, perhaps, like Kitt Sherard.

‘I’ve just recently been able to add an Orion to my collection,’ James told the table at large. ‘An Orion is grey and blends in terrifically with things like old leaves, which makes catching one difficult.’

For an instant, the image of a butterfly garden filled Bryn’s mind. It was the first interesting thing James Selby had said. She was rather surprised he had such a garden. She wouldn’t have guessed it of him. A butterfly garden would be so bright and colourful, a perfect tropical accessory. She could imagine all the little butterflies gaily fluttering around.

Selby’s next words shattered the image. ‘I finally caught one up near Mont Michael a few weeks ago. I took it home and pinned it in the centre of my display case, I’m that proud of it.’

Pinned. Trapped. Dead. Bryn discreetly lowered her fork of eggs and opted for a sip of tea instead. Her vision had been a moment’s fancy. She silently chastised herself. James Selby didn’t have a butterfly garden, it had been silly to think so. Lepidopterists pinned things. It was what they did. It was what men like Selby did. He wasn’t a cruel man, merely young and shallow. He’d probably not even thought to consider what his actions would mean to the butterfly even though they’d impact the butterfly considerably more than they’d ever impact Selby.

She’d met men like Selby before. They were thick on the ground in London’s ballrooms. Selby would waltz through life never considering the impact he would have on others. He was an earl’s grandson. He didn’t have to. No one would expect it of him, not even his wife, who would only be a butterfly of a different sort to Selby; something to pin to his arm, to display in his home, another decoration along the same lines as his fine taste in carpets.

She must have had a distasteful look on her face. When she looked down the length of the table, her father gave her an inquisitive arch of his eyebrow. She immediately pasted on a smile and received one from him in return. In fact, his was positively beaming. Uh-oh. She didn’t like that smile. She scaled back hers to something more aloof and polite.

She had to be careful here. She didn’t want to foster false hopes and she knew exactly what was afoot: a match and one, that on paper, would be regarded as perfect in every way. Selby was young, in his mid-twenties, not unattractive in a well-kept sort of way, someone who with the right guidance could be moulded into a successful gentleman. She’d seen his file before they’d left England. She’d seen all of the investors’ files. She’d spent the voyage studying each of the recommended investors and there’d been countless letters and communications between them and her father even before that. When she’d met Selby it wasn’t as if she was meeting a stranger. In many ways she’d known him months before the actual meeting.

He was the grandson of an earl with a small inheritance of his own from his father. He was in the Caribbean managing the family’s sugar interests, cutting his teeth before taking over properties in England that would come to him upon his thirtieth birthday. His prospects were not much different than those of a second son and entirely respectable. His situation and expectations were very much akin to hers.

Oh, yes, she knew precisely where this was going and why. She wasn’t the only one who’d made promises to her mother. Her father had made them, too. But she’d also made a vow to herself, one that would inevitably collide with her father’s plans. She only hoped when it did that her father would concede. He’d always been the permissive parent, growing up. He’d been the one who allowed her to ride astride, to swim in the swimming hole, to spend the afternoons hunting with Robin Downing, the squire’s son, although he probably shouldn’t have.

Selby kept talking. It was easy to smile when she thought of those afternoons with Robin. They’d both been reckless sorts—it was what had made them such good friends. As they’d grown up, though, that recklessness had transformed from dares over climbing trees to something wilder, more dangerous. More than one kiss had been stolen on those adolescent hunting trips. Perhaps there had even been a time when she’d fancied marrying Robin, but a squire’s son wasn’t an adequate match for the Earl of Creighton’s niece and her mother knew it. Young Robin turned twenty-one and found himself off on a Grand Tour. Then her mother had taken ill and her little family was off on a tour of their own, albeit less grand, from spa to spa searching for a cure that didn’t exist.

Now she and her father were here. This was to be a new beginning for them both. Bryn was honest enough to admit she didn’t know what she wanted from that new start, but she did know what she didn’t want and that was a copy of London only with different scenery. She could not be James Selby’s latest butterfly, no matter what promises had been made.

‘I think Selby’s plantation opportunity sounds like the perfect investment.’ Her father’s words drew her back into the conversation with an alarming jolt, the words ‘Selby’ and ‘opportunity’ reminding her rather poignantly of Kitt Sherard’s comment in the garden. Selby wouldn’t know an opportunity if it jumped up and bit him in the arse. Now here were those same two words again in a different, even contradictory context. They couldn’t both be right. What had she missed while she was busy letting her thoughts wander behind a pseudo-smile?

Selby took her silence for ignorance and leapt into the breach with an explanation couched in slightly patronising terms as if she couldn’t be expected to fully understand. ‘Plantation stocks are a popular method for making money. One doesn’t have to do more than write the cheque. We invest, someone else manages and we pick up the profits at the end of the season. There are countless smaller islands that might support a single large plantation if one can stand the isolation.’ Selby gave her an indulgent smile. ‘The best part is, we might never have to set foot on the island. All the work is done by someone else.’

‘If it works out—’ her father picked up the conversation, his face more animated than it had been in a year ‘—we could have the board look into a larger investment once it’s assembled. This will be a trial run.’

We. She didn’t think for a moment her father meant her in that pronoun. By ‘we’ he meant Selby. He’d certainly taken to Selby quickly enough. She supposed it was natural. He’d exchanged letters with many of the investors months before leaving England, Selby included. Only Sherard had not written directly. All of his correspondence had come through the Earl of Dartmoor’s brother-in-law, Benedict DeBreed. Like her, her father felt that he knew many of the men before actually meeting with them in person. The two of them had spent countless hours on board ship discussing each one until the faceless investors had taken on a certain familiarity.

She might have been jealous of all the attention her father lavished on James Selby if it wasn’t for the fact that she knew her father needed her. They were partners in this venture—silent partners: the men were not the kind to tolerate the presence of a woman in finance. But she had a job to do that only she could do. She was to vet the ladies and determine what sort of wives and lives these potential investors had.

Investors had to be more than the sum of their chequebooks. Money might get one in the door, but one needed ethics and a particular quality about oneself to stay, especially when they would be putting other men’s money on the line. That’s where the mystery of Kitt Sherard came in. He had money and connections. Did he have the ethics, too? Those were the questions she’d be attempting to answer today on her shopping trip with Martha Selby, Alba Harrison and Eleanor Crenshaw.

Sneed entered the breakfast room to announce the arrival of her shopping guests and her pulse speeded up. Time to go to work and, if she was lucky, time to play a little, too. Her outing today wasn’t just about vetting the women. At the very least, she hoped to draw the women out about him and where he fit in all of this. If she had her way—and she almost always got her way—she’d ‘accidentally’ meet up with the captain. Bryn rose and smoothed the folds of her white-sprigged skirts. This was one of her favourite gowns with its tiny apple-green flowers and wide matching green sash that set off her waist. She had a certain effect on men when she wore it. She was confident Kitt Sherard would be no different. She was very good at getting what she wanted and today she wanted answers.

* * *

She needed to be careful what she wished for. Three hours into shopping, Bryn had all the answers she wanted and more. Alas, none of them were about the more interesting subject of Captain Sherard. However, she had all the impressions she needed of Eleanor Crenshaw, Alba Harrison and Martha Selby, which also meant she had got more than an earful of the merits associated with her son. She’d not quite believed someone could be bored to death, but she was a believer now.

Selby’s mother had spent a good portion of the day chattering about James’s attributes, a sure sign that whoever married him would have to answer to Martha. It was also clear that Martha was more than happy to turn the financial aspects of life over to her son. She’d mentioned more than once what a relief it was to have James manage everything for her. ‘A proper woman should never have to worry over things like money,’ she said with a flutter of her fan. Bryn could almost hear the unspoken words that followed the statement: and I am a most proper woman, thanks to James.

To that, Alba Harrison had given a soft smile and agreed. ‘Edward handles everything except my household budget.’ There was pride behind that smile, as if ignorance was anything to be proud of. Bryn’s temper started to rise. It might have been fuelled by her disbelief that wives of investors could be so blasé about their own financial ignorance or it might simply have been that she was in a peevish mood, brought on by Martha Selby’s incessant prattle.

Couldn’t they see such ignorance wasn’t in their best interest? The lessons of her childhood surged to the fore. Her mother had schooled her early in life on the subject and importance of a woman’s financial independence. That was one lesson that had taken. When men lost fortunes they could rebuild them or put a gun to their heads in a discreet room at a gambling hell, but it was the women who paid, the women who lost their homes, their security. A woman risked far more by relying on a man’s good sense. For that reason alone, a woman should be an informed and active participant in a family’s financial dealings.

Bryn knew her attitude wasn’t popular, but her temper had the better of her. Before she could rethink the wisdom of her comment, the temptation to goad their thoughts was tumbling out of her mouth. ‘Don’t you ever want to know where your money comes from and where it goes? How much it makes? Isn’t it a little bit dangerous to be so blind?’ In her opinion, it was more than a little bit dangerous. Both her parents had instilled in her the belief that a strong financial acumen showed no preference in gender. Her father had been proud of how quickly she’d grasped the concepts of investment banking.

The ladies stared at her with identical looks of confusion. ‘No, it’s a relief really, my dear. It’s one less thing to worry about,’ Mrs Harrison said softly, her tone somewhere between polite correction and gentle instruction. Mrs Selby seemed to be making a mental note, probably something to the extent of her being an unsuitable bride for James. That stung.

Bryn squared her shoulders, stood a little taller and told herself it was for the best. She had no intentions of being a suitable bride for James. But it still hurt. She was a Rutherford. As such, she was used to being found eminently suitable. That James Selby’s mother, a woman who had only a few of the barest claims to true society, would find her lacking was a bit of a blow to the ego.

They stepped into a shop on Swan Street that handled imported European furniture. The interior was dim after the brightness outdoors and it took a moment for Bryn’s eyes to adjust. Even with her wide-brimmed hat on for protection today, the sun had played havoc with her vision, something she had yet to get used to after the perpetual grey skies of London.

She was still blinking when the man at the counter finished his discussion with the proprietor and turned towards them. ‘Ladies, good day.’ He gave them a little bow she’d recognise anywhere for its slightly sardonic nature, even in the interior of a dim little furniture shop. Then he turned the full force of his attentions in her direction, so urbane, so polite, it was hard to reconcile him with the ruthless seducer-interrogator he’d been in her garden, challenging her with his words, his body. ‘Miss Rutherford, how are you besides sun-blinded?’

Kitt Sherard! Her first thought was that the fates had decided to smile on her after all. She was beginning to think they’d deserted her entirely after enduring three hours of tedious discussion and