The Regency Season: Ruined Reputations: The Rake's Ruined Lady / Tarnished, Tempted and Tamed

‘I found I didn’t want to go home, Beatrice. I wanted to stay here for a while longer...’

Beatrice turned away, then bent down to dip her fingers into the cold water, sluicing off the soil stains. If he thought she’d ask him if he’d returned to see her, he was mistaken. She’d no intention of giving him an opportunity to scoff on that score.

‘Elise is worried Alex will pine for his mama as he has no brothers or sisters.’ She sent that over a shoulder before standing and drying her hands on her skirt.

‘Siblings can be more of a burden than a support.’ Hugh joined her on the bank of the stream.

Bea glanced at his harsh, chiselled features. She was sorry that he felt that way, considering how close she was to her beloved Elise. Hugh had a sister and a brother, and she wondered to which he’d referred when making that damning comment about his kin.

Curiosity loosened her tongue. ‘Are you not a close family?’

‘I visit my mother regularly, but my sister only rarely now she’s settled in the shires with her husband. We have no quarrel with one another.’ A chuckle grazed his throat. ‘Which is remarkable, considering how Sarah has tested my patience and my pocket in the past.’

‘And Sir Toby?’ Bea asked after a short silence.

‘The less I see of him the better I like it,’ Hugh replied. He jammed his fists into his pockets, turning his head to gaze out over the fields. ‘He is an unpleasant character and I would advise anybody to steer clear of him. My aunt Edith couldn’t abide him, so she said.’

Beatrice sensed the soft clod beneath her feet giving way and scrambled backwards. Hugh grabbed at her whirling hand, jerking her away from the water and to safety higher up the bank.

He didn’t immediately relinquish her and Bea made no effort to wriggle her fingers free of his warm grip. She blushed beneath the golden gaze she sensed scorching the top of her head, finally liberating herself with murmured thanks for his assistance. She was determined not to give the impression of being susceptible to his polished charm. And he was very attractive...more so than when she’d fallen in love with him...she grudgingly acknowledged while darting him a glance.

He had the height and dark good-looks that appealed to women and made lesser-blessed fellows resentful. He also now had the wherewithal to purchase expensive tailoring to enhance his broad shoulders... Beatrice abruptly curtailed her wild appreciation. It was now nothing to her how handsome his face, or how snug his clothes! But she could understand why women everywhere—even in exotic locations—might succumb to him...

‘I have been remiss in not offering you my condolences,’ Beatrice uttered briskly, in order to curb her annoying preoccupation with his attractiveness. ‘I had no idea that your aunt Edith had passed away till recently.’ She started to walk along the bank. ‘Elise told me the sad news when she came to Hertfordshire. I liked Mrs Vickers, although I spoke to her only a few times when in London.’

It had been during that particular sojourn in town three years ago that she had met Hugh Kendrick and almost disgraced herself with him.

With hindsight Beatrice was aghast at what she’d done. Why she had ever thought it a good idea to adopt the soubriquet Lady Lonesome when advertising for a husband in a gazette, or to arrange clandestine trysts with strangers to select her mate, she would never fathom. She’d matured in character since, with Colin’s staid influence, she was sure. But the memory of what she’d risked—and forced her younger sister to risk as her reluctant accomplice—horrified her.

Bea was very fortunate that her antics had not completely sullied her future and her family’s name, already tarnished by her parents’ divorce. Few people had ever been aware of her stupid scheme; the man at her side had known because he’d responded to her advert. As a lure she’d pretended to possess a dowry and Hugh Kendrick had been eager to lay claim to it, if not to her...

‘Ah...I do recall you first met my aunt and me at Vauxhall Gardens. You were attending a concert with your sister and the Chapman family.’

Hugh sounded as though he’d dredged up the details from the pit of his memory while strolling at her side. In fact he’d not forgotten a solitary thing about that first encounter. Neither had he forgotten that he’d replied to Lady Lonesome’s advertisement because of Toby’s refusal to loan him money to pay his rent and keep a roof over his head.

But there had also been the matter of Sophia Sweetman’s expensive tastes depleting his bank balance. Sophia had been under his protection then—until he’d found he couldn’t afford to keep her any longer. Now she was again his paramour, and he was able to give her all she wanted this time round, but Hugh wasn’t sure he wanted Sophia—or Gwen Sharpe for that matter—no matter what delightful tricks they dreamt up to keep his interest and defeat one another. Annoyingly, he knew that the coltish blonde at his side would have no such difficulty arousing him...

Hugh cursed beneath his breath at the direction his thoughts...and his loins...were taking. ‘My aunt liked you,’ he said in a voice roughened by frustration. ‘When you and your sister left town that year and returned to Hertfordshire she lacked your company.’

‘I expect Edith missed having the details of our hasty escape explained to her.’

Beatrice had sensed his irritation. If he were already bored with her company she’d not impose on him longer. She retraced her steps towards Molly, hoping he might offer to assist her in remounting rather than watch her scramble in an ungainly fashion onto the mare’s back.

‘I missed you too.’

‘Did you?’ Beatrice jerked around. ‘You had an odd way of showing it, Mr Kendrick, as I recall.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I believe you were paying attention to Fiona Chapman before I had unpacked my case in Hertfordshire.’

‘Were you jealous?’

Beatrice whipped a biting glance to his rugged profile but found a denial refused to trip off her tongue.

Slowly he turned his head, his hawk-like eyes trapping her, bringing her to an involuntarily halt.

‘It is a shame you have become arrogant and conceited,’ she whispered. ‘I think I liked you better as a penniless fortune-hunter.’ She marched on, but had covered very little ground when a hand clasped her wrist, jerking her back.

‘And I liked you better when you were a country miss keen to please me.’

‘That silly girl no longer exists.’ Bea twisted her wrist in an attempt to free herself.

‘I think she could be resurrected, given time...’ he growled.

‘And I think you might now be rich, thanks to your aunt’s bequest, but the Indian sun has addled your wits.’ Beatrice forced a fist between them to prise herself away from him.

Hugh grunted a laugh, dipping his head as though he would kiss her. But he skimmed his mouth past her mutinous face, letting her go. ‘Quite possibly something’s addled my wits,’ he muttered, and walked on.

Inwardly he mocked himself for feeling like a randy youth. He’d been burning with desire for her yesterday and only the thought of an audience with her father had checked his lust. If a roomful of mourners at a wake hadn’t put him off pursuing her he knew he should quickly distance himself, in case he lost control while they were alone. He should have gone home yesterday, he realised, and straight to Gwen and a long night of release.

There was nothing to be achieved by wanting her; he was tormenting himself for no reason. Alex would kill him if he seduced his sister-in-law, and Hugh was sure he wasn’t ready for a wife. Inwardly, he mocked himself that if he did propose Beatrice Dewey would throw the offer back at him. But she’d accepted Burnett, and Hugh knew there’d been a suitor before the doctor...

‘Did Mr Vaughan propose to you?’

Beatrice quit gazing at the mud underfoot. ‘Mr Vaughan? How do you know of him?’ she gasped in surprise.

‘Because you told me,’ Hugh replied dryly. ‘Don’t you remember that conversation, Beatrice?’

Bea bit her lip. No doubt when in Hugh’s arms, in a blissful haze, she had confided her secrets to him. Mr Vaughan had been the first gentleman for whom she’d formed a tendresse. The lawyer had pursued her when she was eighteen, then repaid her shy devotion by dropping her like a stone to wed the fiancée he’d omitted to mention.

‘No...he did not propose. Rather like you, he enjoyed flirting while chasing a dowry to make taking on a wife worthwhile.’

Hugh strode back towards her, caught her face in a fierce grip when she avoided looking at him. ‘I told you at the time I was wrong to mislead you when I had nothing to give. If things had been different we would by now have been man and wife. Things for me are different now.’

Beatrice would have pulled back but Hugh caught the tops of her arms, keeping her against him. Oddly, he was calmly certain that whatever he thought he knew about himself, whatever secrets he’d be obliged to expose, he was on the brink of asking her to marry him.

‘Things for me are different now, too,’ Bea retorted, glaring into hard hazel eyes. ‘Once home that year I fell in love properly, with a decent man, and soon realised that I’d felt mere infatuation for you.’

‘Is that so?’ Hugh asked softly. ‘I wonder if I’m able to infatuate you again now your decent man has disappeared...’

This time his mouth closed with hers relentlessly, tracking every evasion until she ceded with a little gasp and allowed their lips to merge. She felt his long fingers forking into her hair, dislodging her hat and a few pins. But though she struggled Bea knew she was defeated. Since the moment he had turned up at her father’s house with news of Alex’s mother she had unconsciously craved this. Within a second of his caress skimming her silhouette she had melted closer.

Hugh sensed her need and immediately deepened the kiss, manoeuvring her jaw to part her mouth. His tongue teased the silk of her inner lip, sliding and circling with slow eroticism, while a determined hand stroked from her back to her buttocks, jolting her into awareness of the effect she was having on him. His hands cupped her face, forcing her back from him so he could gaze at her features. A flush had spread across a soft cheek where his stubble had grazed her and her mouth, moist and temptingly slack, was scarlet and plump from his passionate assault.

But she was not the sweet ingénue she’d been before. He could read behind the desire in her large eyes that her response was reluctant...measured...and he wondered just how much the doctor had taken before he’d gone away.

‘You’re easily infatuated, sweetheart,’ Hugh murmured. ‘I’m beginning to wish I’d bedded down at the Hall last night, after all, and got to know you again.’