The Rake to Reveal Her

‘At seven-and-twenty, I imagine society already considers me at my last prayers,’ she evaded. Though it had been more than five years now, she still couldn’t speak of the horror of losing Marshall. Loving so intensely had led to intolerable pain, all she could endure. She had no intention of subjecting herself to that ever again.

Besides, she could never marry someone without telling him the truth—and she didn’t dare risk that.

‘I’ll not argue the point—for now!’ her aunt said. ‘But I would like to persuade you to come to London. Though I perfectly understand why you felt it your duty to remain with Charles’s mother during her Hour of Need, I was so disappointed when you didn’t come stay with me as we’d planned. I’ve hoped since then we’d have another chance for me to spoil you a bit, after all the time you’ve spent in the wilds, billeted who knows where, never knowing where your next meal might come from, and with the worry of impending battle always weighing on you!’

‘One never completely escaped the worry,’ Theo admitted, ‘but battle was the exception. Most of the time was spent training, moving between encampments, or billeted in winter quarters. Provisions were generally good, with game to supplement the soup pot. As for accommodations...’ she chuckled, remembering ‘...Papa and I shared everything from a campaign tent to cots in a stable to the bedchamber of a marquesa’s palace! It was a grand adventure shared with marvellous companions, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’

It had also brought her Charles, and, she thought as a stab of grief gashed her, a fiery passion she didn’t expect ever to experience again.

Which also reminded her that not all the companions had been marvellous. After the devastation of her fiancé’s death, one officer who was no gentleman had sniffed at her skirts, certain she must eventually succumb to the blandishments of a man of his high birth and social position.

The only benefit of leaving the regiment was she’d never have to deal with Audley Tremaine again.

‘Game in the soup pot and a cot in a stable!’ her aunt cried, recalling her attention. ‘Call me pudding-hearted, but I prefer a bed with my own linens under a sturdy roof, awakened by nothing more threatening than the shouts of milk-sellers.’

‘Campaigning would not have been for you,’ Theo agreed. ‘But I must leave you now to check on the children. Constancia—you remember Constancia, the nursemaid I brought with me from the convent after Charles was born?—will show you to your room. I hope you’ll make a long visit!’

‘I am due back in London shortly, and you’ll have much to do, getting your establishment put together. Unless I can dissuade you from this enterprise? Coax you to leave the children with those used to dealing with orphans, and concentrate on your own future?’

‘Abandon them to a workhouse?’ Theo’s heart twisted as she thought of those innocents turned over to strange and uncaring hands. ‘No, you cannot dissuade me.’

Lady Amelia sighed. ‘I didn’t think so. You’re as headstrong as Richard when you get the bit between your teeth. The whole family tried to talk him out of going to India, but no one could prevail upon him to remain at home, tending his acres like a proper English gentleman, once he’d taken the idea in his head.’

‘I do appreciate your wishing to secure a more suitable future for me,’ Theo assured her. ‘But having never lived in England and being so little acquainted with the society’s rules, I fear I’d be an even greater disappointment than Papa, were you to try to foist me on the Marriage Mart.’

‘A lovely, capable, intelligent girl like you? I don’t believe it! Though I admire your desire to aid those poor unfortunates, I refuse to entirely cede my position. I still think marriage would be best for you and them, and I shall be searching for a way to make it happen!’

Theo laughed. ‘Scheme, then, if it makes you happy.’

‘It’s your happiness I worry about, my dear. You’re still so young! I want you to find joy again.’

Joy. She’d experienced its rapture—and paid its bitter price. She’d since decided she could make do with contentment, as long as Charles was safe and happy.

‘I expect to be happy in my life, helping those “poor unfortunates”,’ she told her aunt firmly as she kissed her cheek.

So she must be, she thought as she walked out of the room. It was the only life left to her, a choice she’d sealed years ago when she left that Portuguese convent with a swaddled newborn in her arms.

Chapter Two (#ulink_7dbf69b2-24dd-5c76-98d0-76231bd4581c)

By the time Dom, beyond exhausted by the long walk home, arrived back at Bildenstone Hall, all he wanted was a glass of laudanum-laced brandy and something soft on to which he could become horizontal. Instead, he was met at the door by the elderly butler, Wilton, who informed him the Squire, Lady Wentworth and Miss Wentworth awaited him in the parlour—and had been waiting more than an hour.

‘Send them away,’ Dom ordered, limping past the man, desperate for that drink to ease the headache that was compounding the misery of his throbbing wrist and shoulder.

‘But, Mr Ransleigh,’ Wilton protested as he trailed after Dom, ‘the Squire said the matter was urgent, and he would wait as long as necessary to see you today!’

The words trembled on Dom’s lips to consign the lot of them—the Squire, Lady Whomever, the girl in the lane, Diablo and the butler—to hell and back. With difficulty, he swallowed them.

While Dom hoped to socialise as little as possible, he’d known that, once the Squire learned the owner of the most extensive property in the county had taken up residence, courtesy demanded he pay a call at Bildenstone Hall. Though his head pounded like an anvil upon which a blacksmith was hammering out horseshoes, he knew that it would be the height of incivility to send away sight unseen so distinguished a neighbour.

Unless he wished Wilton to tell that worthy and his party that, having fallen off a horse and been forced to walk home, Mr Ransleigh was in no fit state to receive them.

He might not have resided at Bildenstone Hall for years, but beyond doubt, every member of the gentry for miles around knew of ‘Dandy Dom’ and his exploits on the hunting field and in the army. Call it foolish pride, but even more than being branded as churlish, he dreaded being considered a weakling—a conclusion his injuries might make strangers all too quick to draw.

Dredging up from deep within the will that had kept him in the saddle through the fatigue and strain of many long campaigns, Dom said, ‘Very well. Tell them I’m just back from...riding the fields and will need a few moments to make myself presentable.’

‘Very good, Mr Ransleigh,’ the butler said, obviously relieved not to have to deliver a message of dismissal to a man of the Squire’s stature.

Hauling himself up the stairs, he rang for Henries. He had his mud-spattered garments removed by the time the batman arrived to help him into clean ones. Battle-ready within minutes, he squared his tired shoulders and headed for the stairs.

Though he ached for a soothing draught and a deep sleep, he figured he could stay upright for the length of a courtesy call. He was too tired to wonder why Lady Somebody and her daughter had accompanied the Squire.

A few moments later, he forced a smile to his lips and entered the drawing room.

‘Squire Marlowe, how kind of you to call! And whom do I have the honour of addressing?’ He gestured to the ladies.

‘So good to see you, too, Mr Ransleigh, after so many years!’ the Squire replied. ‘Lady Wentworth and Miss Wentworth, may I introduce to you our illustrious neighbour, Mr Dominic Ransleigh. A captain in the Sixteenth Light Dragoons who charged into the teeth of Napoleon’s finest, one of the heroes of Waterloo!’

‘Ladies, a pleasure,’ Dom said as the callers curtsied to his bow.

‘We’ve heard of your gallant deeds, of course, Mr Ransleigh,’ Lady Wentworth said. ‘Everyone in the county is so proud of you.’

‘We were all of us delighted to learn you intended to take up residence at Bildenstone Hall again,’ the Squire said. ‘Your father and mother, God rest their souls, were sorely missed when they abandoned Suffolk to settle at Upton Park.’

Had the neighbourhood felt slighted by his father’s removal to Quorn country? Dom wondered, trying to read the man’s tone.

‘When she learned I meant to call today,’ the Squire continued, ‘Lady Wentworth, head of the Improvement Society for Whitfield Parish, begged leave to accompany me. With her lovely daughter, Miss Wentworth, the ornament of our local society who, sadly, is soon to join her godmother for the Season in London.’

So that was why Lady Somebody had come, Dom thought, his mind clearing as he caught this last bit. As closely as news about his family was followed, he suspected that word of his broken engagement had already made it to Suffolk. The nephew of an earl with a tidy fortune and important family connections would be considered an attractive prospect by country gentry like Lady Wentworth, regardless of his physical shortcomings.

Equally obvious, the enthusiasm engendered in her mother by his matrimonial assets was not entirely shared by the daughter. Dom noted her gaze travelling from the pinned-up sleeve to his eye patch and back, her expression a mingling of awe and distaste.

First the girl in the lane scolding him for making excuse of his limitations, and now Miss Wentworth’s fascinated disdain. As if he were the prime attraction in a raree-show.

He had the ignoble urge to sidle up to her and see if she would flinch away. When his continued attention finally alerted her that he’d caught her staring at him, she coloured and gave him what he supposed most men would consider an enticing smile.

With her pretty face and glossy blond locks, she was as lovely as the Squire had pronounced her—and he felt no attraction at all.

Perhaps he ought to relieve her anxiety by assuring her he was in no danger of falling for the charms of an ingénue who’d probably never set foot outside her home parish. Then, rebuking himself for his uncharitable thoughts, he turned his attention back to the mother, who was nattering on about her reasons for accompanying the squire.

‘...take the liberty of accompanying Squire Marlowe, when in the strictest sense, I should not have called until my husband, Sir John, called first. However, there is a matter of urgency at hand. My society oversees the parish poorhouse, where honest folk in need are offered assistance. As I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s imperative that such unfortunates, their morals already weakened by low birth and squalid surroundings, not be made more vulnerable by exposure to additional corruption. As they certainly would be, were children of that sort allowed to reside here!’

‘Children of that sort?’ Dom echoed. ‘Forgive me, Lady Wentworth, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Have you not yet been informed of the matter?’ the lady cried, indignation in her tones. ‘Infamous!’

Resigning himself to the fact that, though Lady Wentworth’s main purpose might be to show off her attractive daughter, her secondary one was not likely to be quickly accomplished, Dom said, ‘Shall we be seated? I see Wilton already brought tea; can he refresh your cups?’

Resisting the devilish urge to seat himself close to Miss Wentworth, and see whether the inducements of his wealth and lineage won out over her distaste for his damaged person, he took a chair opposite the sofa.