Rake's Reform

“I’m sure you misjudge the fair maiden—I think she’d have settled for a horse whipping,” Jonathan said drily.

“I don’t!” Derwent said with feeling. “I can’t think why you offered to help.”

“No, not like me, is it?” Jonathan agreed, deadpan. “I must have succumbed to this fever for worthiness.”

“Succumbed to a weakness for perfect proportions, more like,” Derwent said darkly, “and I’m not referring to the portico.”

“Ah, Perry, you do know how to wound one’s feelings,” Jonathan said, grinning. “But you must confess, she was very easy on the eye.”

“And to think that, only two hours ago, you were telling me that you were going to give up women along with the tables.” Derwent sighed. “But I’ll wager you’ll get not that one past the bedroom door, Jono. These radical females are all the same—they only give their affections to ugly curates or longhaired poets who write execrable drivel.”

“No gentleman could possibly accept such a challenge.” Jonathan laughed. “So, what are your terms?”

“Triton against your chestnut stallion,” Lord Derwent said after a moment’s thought.

“Triton!” Jonathan’s dark brows rose. “I’d almost contemplate marrying the girl to get my hands on that horse before the Derby. Are you so certain of my failure?”

“Positive. I chased after a gal like that once. There I was, in the midst of telling her about my critical role in defeating old Boney and waiting for her to fall at my feet in admiration, and all she says is ‘Yes, but do you read the scriptures, Lord Derwent? Spiritual courage is so much more important than the physical kind, don’t you think?”’

“Poor Perry.” Jonathan sighed. “It must be a sad affliction to lack both good looks and natural charm—” He broke off, laughing as he ducked to evade a friendly blow from Derwent.

“And,” Derwent went on, “she’ll never forgive you for not saving her arsonist. You said yourself the local men were determined to make an example, so they’re not likely to listen to a newcomer to the district, not even you, Jono.”

“Who said anything about local men?” Jonathan smiled, a wide slow smile. “We are going to get some fresh horses, and then we’re going straight back to town and I am going to see the Home Secretary.”

“The Home Secretary! He wouldn’t intervene on behalf of an arsonist and thief if his mother begged him on bended knee. And you are not exactly in favour with the government after that speech—the front bench did not appear to share your sense of humour.”

“Oh, I think he’ll lend a sympathetic ear,” Jonathan drawled. “Remember I told you I was involved in a bit of a mill with the Peelers when the hell in Ransome Street was raided? Well, if I hadn’t landed a well-aimed blow upon one of the guardians of the law, our esteemed Home Secretary would have found himself in an extremely embarrassing situation.”

“Great God!” Derwent cried. “You mean you are going to blackmail the Home Secretary to win the admiration of some parson’s daughter! It’ll be you on the gallows next.”

“Blackmail—what an ugly word.” Jonathan grinned. “I’m just going to seek a favour from a friend. And she’s not the parson’s daughter, her name is Jane Hilton and she resides at Pettridges Hall,” he added, his grin widening.

“If she’s not a clerical’s brat, she must be a poor relation or a companion and they’re as bad,” Perry said huffily.

“You know the people at Pettridges?” Jonathan’s blue eyes regarded him with sharpened interest.

“Hardly describe ’em as acquaintances, but their name’s not Hilton, so she’s not one of ’em,” Derwent said lazily. “I met the offspring last season: sulky-looking lad who talked of nothing but hunting and a distinctly useful little redhead that Mama was doing her best to marry off before she got herself into a tangle of one sort or another. Now, what the devil was the name—ah—Filmore, that’s it. They must be comfortably off, though—Pettridges wouldn’t have come cheap. My father told me old Fenton never spared a penny when it came to improving the place.”

“Fenton? I don’t know the name.”

“Well, he was something of a recluse. He was a cloth manufacturer, worked his way up from millhand to owner and dragged himself out of gutter by clothing half the army and navy and, if the rumours were true, half Boney’s lot as well.

“By the Peace of Amien he’d made enough for a country estate and respectability, even had an impoverished earl lined up for his daughter. But she reverted to type and ran off with her childhood sweetheart, a millhand. Fenton was furious. He never saw her again and cut her off without a penny. Affair made him a laughing stock, of course, and he never made any attempt to take part in society after that.” Derwent sighed. “Damned waste of a fortune and a pretty face by all accounts. Wonder who did get his money? They say he had one of the biggest fortunes in Southwest England.” Then he brightened. “I think I might look into it, Jono. You never know, there might be a great-niece or something, and I might land myself an heiress.”

Jonathan laughed. “He probably left it all to the Mill Owners Benevolent Fund for Virtuous Widows, Perry.”

“Probably,” Derwent agreed gloomily. “I suppose it will just have to be Diana, then. My father has told me he wants to see his grandson and a generous dowry in the family coffers before next year is out or he will discontinue my allowances, and tell the bankers to withdraw my credit. You don’t know how lucky you are being the youngest son and possessing a fortune to match those of your brothers—it spares you no end of trouble.”

“Yes,” Jonathan said beneath his breath, “and leaves you no end of time to fill.”

Janey sat in the window-seat of the morning-room, the copy of Cobbett’s Register in her lap, still at the same page she had opened it at half an hour earlier. She stared out at the gravelled sweep of drive that remained empty but for the gardeners, raking up the fallen leaves from the beeches that lined the drive. Surely Mr Lindsay would send word today, even if he had been unsuccessful. It was eight days now, and time was running out. In five days’ time Jem would be led out from Dorchester Gaol and hanged.

She dropped her eyes unseeingly to Mr Cobbett’s prose. At least she had not told Mrs Avery, at least she had not raised false hopes there—

“Jane! Have you heard a word I have said?”

She started as she realised that Annabel Filmore had entered the morning-room. “I’m sorry,” she said absently, “I was thinking.”

“You mean you had your head in a book as usual,” the red-haired girl said disparagingly as she studied her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror above the mantelpiece. “Mama says so much reading and brainwork ruins one’s looks,” she added as she patted one of her fat sausage-shaped curls into place over her forehead.

“You need not worry, then,” Janey said, not quite as quietly as she had meant.

“I have never had to worry about my looks,” Annabel said blithely, utterly oblivious to the insult as she turned upon her toes in a pirouette to admire the swirling skirts of her frilled pink muslin. “Just as well, with Jonathan Lindsay coming to live at Southbrook.”

“He is coming!” Janey’s face lit up. “When?”

“Oh, in a week or two, I think Papa said,” Annabel replied carelessly still admiring herself in the glass.

“A week or two!” The brief flare of hope she had felt died instantly. A week and all would be over for Jem. No doubt the promise had been forgotten as soon as made. So now what was she to do?

“Yes, but whatever has Jonathan Lindsay to do with you?” Annabel asked, suddenly curious as she turned to look at Jane. “You have gone quite pale.”

“Nothing, I met him in Burton’s Lane a few days ago,” she said tersely, Mr Cobbett’s Register fluttering unnoticed from the lap of her lavender muslin gown as she got to her feet. “That’s all.”

“That’s all!” Annabel’s blue eyes widened in exaggerated despair. “You meet the most handsome man in England in Burton’s Lane and you did not say a word to anyone!”

“I did not think him so very handsome,” Janey said, not entirely truthfully. “He was a little too much of the dandy for my taste.”

“Not handsome!” Annabel groaned and flounced down upon a sofa. “When he is so dark, so rugged—and that profile! Why, he could be Miss Austen’s Darcy in the flesh.”

“That is not how I see him,” Janey said, half to herself, as an unexpected image of his face, chiselled, and hard, lightened only by the slant of his mouth and brows, and the lazy amusement in the cool blue eyes, came instantly into her mind. Oh, no, she thought, Mr Lindsay was definitely no Mr Darcy. He was far too incorrect—far too dangerous in every sense.

She doubted he was afraid of breaking conventions, or anything else for that matter. In fact, strip him of his dandified clothes and put him in a suit of buckskins and he would not have been so out of place among the backwoodsmen among whom she had grown up. Whether or not someone would survive on the frontier was the yardstick by which she always found herself assessing people; in Mr Lindsay’s case, she found her answer was a surprising “yes”.

“It’s so unfair that you had to meet him in Burton’s Lane instead of me,” Annabel complained as she toyed with one of the flounces on her gown. “You should have invited him back here. Do you have any idea of how hard I tried for an introduction when I was in Town last Season?” Then her sullen round face brightened. “Mama will not possibly be able to refuse to allow us to be introduced now he is to be a neighbour.”

“Your mother would not allow you to be introduced to him? Why ever not?” Janey asked, curious in spite of herself. The son of an Earl, even if he were the younger could usually do no wrong in the eyes of Mrs Filmore.

“Because of his reputation, ninny,” Annabel explained patiently, as if she were speaking to a child. “He is the greatest rake and gambler in England; at least, that is what Miss Roberts told Mama. She said that there were a dozen husbands with cause to call him out, if duelling had not been banned, and another twenty wives who would willingly give their spouses cause to do the same.

“And she told me that he quite broke Araminta Howard’s heart—and very nearly her reputation. Miss Roberts says he cares for nothing but his pleasure—” Annabel’s lips parted upon the word and she gave a little shiver.

“I can scarcely believe that of the man who made the speech that was printed in the paper,” Janey said, feeling a peculiar distaste about hearing of Jonathan Lindsay’s apparently numerous amours.

“The speech about the poor!” Annabel gave a shriek of laughter as her brother entered the room, and came to lounge sullenly against the mantle. “Piers! Piers! Jane admires the speech Jonathan Lindsay made on behalf of the poor.”

“Then, once he has settled in, we must be sure to call so she can congratulate him in person,” Piers drawled, an unpleasant smile on his rather too-plump mouth. “I am sure he will be delighted with her admiration.”