Nicola Cornick Collection: The Last Rake In London / Notorious / Desired

‘Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack!’

A young woman of about twenty-five or six ran down the broad steps behind her, threw herself into Jack’s arms and planted a smacking kiss on his cheek.

‘Jack! It is you! How absolutely marvellous!’

Sally watched as Jack’s face broke into a broad smile. He bent and picked up the child and spun her around whilst she screamed with excitement and pleasure. There was a strange hollow feeling in Sally’s heart as she looked at the tableau. Seeing Jack looking like that was like looking at an entirely different man. His affection for his sister and niece was so open and uncomplicated. He looked relaxed and happy.

A nursemaid appeared and tried to take the excited child from Jack. She clung on tenaciously, her little fat arms clasped tightly about his neck until Jack tickled her and ruffled her hair, saying that they would play later when she had had nursery tea. Only then would his niece—Sally had by now gathered that her name was Lucy—condescend to let him go and only then with many a backwards glance.

As the child was reluctantly carted off to tea, Sally turned her attention to the young woman who was hanging on Jack’s arm and laughing. So this was Jack’s sister. They both had the same intensely dark eyes and high cheekbones, but the good looks that were so hard and masculine in Jack were softened in Charlotte by the roundness of her face and an open, friendly expression. If this was indeed the cousin in whom Bertie Basset confided, Sally could see why he might choose her. She exuded a warmth that soothed Sally’s battered soul.

‘Hello, Charley!’ Jack said. ‘How are you?’

‘All the better for seeing you,’ Charlotte Harrington said, beaming. ‘Oh, this is too, too splendid, Jack darling! I was so sure that you would have forgotten!’

There was a moment of absolute silence, during which Sally registered the surprise and uncertainty on Jack’s face and the fact that he was too slow to hide it, and then Charlotte said accusingly,

‘You did forget, didn’t you?’

‘Charley—’ Jack began, but his sister was already smiling again.

‘Never mind!’ she said. ‘You are here anyway. We are having a Saturday-to-Monday party in honour of Great-Aunt Ottoline’s birthday—’

‘Great-Aunt Ottoline! She is here too?’ Now there was something approaching fear in Jack’s voice and Sally bit her lip to stop the smile that was coming. It seemed that in his haste to track Bertie down, Jack had walked straight into a family party he had been invited to join, but had forgotten about entirely. To see his discomfiture was interesting when he had appeared to be a man who could take most things in his stride. His Great-Aunt Ottoline must be fearsome indeed, Sally thought.

‘Aunt Otto has not arrived yet. We expect her in time for dinner.’ Charley was frowning at her brother’s slowness. ‘I told you—it is her party! Papa and Cousin Buffy may also be attending—I am not sure yet.’

‘Papa! Buffy?’ Jack’s tone was failing. Sally’s enjoyment of his discomposure was growing in commensurate leaps and bounds. She had never seen Jack so at a disadvantage in their short acquaintance and it was rather gratifying.

‘Hello!’ Charley said suddenly, sticking out her hand and shaking Sally’s own with great enthusiasm. ‘I do apologise—I have been very remiss in greeting you. I was so excited to see Jack, you see, as was Lucy. I am sorry!’ She paused expectantly and after a moment Jack said, with cold courtesy, ‘Charley, this is Miss Sally Bowes. Miss Bowes, my sister Mrs Harrington.’

‘Splendid to meet you!’ Jack’s sister said, beaming. ‘Only fancy Jack bringing you to a family party, Miss Bowes! I assure you, that has never happened before.’

‘How do you do, Mrs Harrington?’ Sally said, lips twitching. ‘I think,’ she added, ‘that Mr Kestrel would not have considered bringing me here for a moment had he remembered that he was engaged for a family gathering.’ She glanced at Jack’s stony face. ‘I am little more than an acquaintance.’

‘Exactly so,’ Jack said drily. His sideways glance at her reminded her of the precise nature of their acquaintance and made her skin prickle with awareness.

Charlotte looked from one to the other, a frown puckering her brow. ‘Then if you forgot all about my invitation and did not bring Miss Bowes here to meet us, why are you here, Jack?’ She demanded.

‘We are here to look for Miss Bowes’s sister,’ Jack said. His gaze was enigmatic as it rested on Sally. ‘We have reason to believe that Miss Connie Bowes has eloped with Bertie Basset and we were wondering whether they had come here, Charley. I know Bertie always turns to you first in moments of crisis.’

‘Oh!’ Charlotte looked taken aback. ‘Well, no, I—’ She looked at Sally and her expression softened into genuine concern. ‘My dear Miss Bowes, I am so sorry! What a worry for you. But I am afraid I haven’t seen Bertie for over a month. It is true that he does rather treat me as an elder sister and confide in me.’ She smiled. ‘Lady Basset is not the type one can speak to—far too interested in her own affairs, you understand—and poor Bertie is an only child—’

‘Charley, you are a terrible rattle,’ Jack interrupted. ‘The only point of importance is that Bertie is not here.’

There was a rather awkward silence.

‘Never mind,’ Sally said. ‘I am sorry to have troubled you, Mrs Harrington.’ She tried to keep her disappointment from her voice. Jack had been so sure that Charlotte would be the first person that Bertie would turn to and it was only now, when their search had drawn a blank, that Sally realised how much hope she had been placing on finding Connie at Dauntsey Park. Now, let down and weary, she felt absolutely flat.

‘We shall have to look elsewhere,’ she said, and turned back to the car.

‘Wait!’ Charlotte caught her arm. ‘You cannot travel on today! Where would you go? Stay with us and rest, and then we may all put our heads together and decide what is to be done.’

She turned to her brother with an engaging smile. ‘Jack? Miss Bowes is exhausted. Surely you can stay here tonight?’

Jack was slapping his driving gloves thoughtfully in the palm of his hand. It was clear to Sally that Charlotte’s suggestion found very little favour with him and she suspected that it was because the last thing he wanted was to have to introduce her to the rest of his family, or explain to them the story of Bertie and Connie’s elopement. He could not have made more clear to her the contempt in which he held her.

‘I could not possibly impose on you, Mrs Harrington,’ she said. ‘I suggest that Mr Kestrel takes me to the nearest town, where I may find some lodgings, and then he may return here to join your family party. We can always continue our search in the morning.’

Charley looked horrified. ‘Oh, that would be far too shabby, Miss Bowes! Jack would not dream of treating you thus, I am sure.’

Jack, Sally thought, looked eminently capable of treating her far worse than that, but whatever he was about to say was forestalled by the appearance of a couple of gentlemen from around the side of the house. They were dressed in tennis whites and carrying rackets and were deep in conversation, but when they saw the three of them—and, more specifically, the Lanchester—they hurried over.

‘I say,’ the taller and fairer of the two exclaimed, ‘what a corking piece of machinery, Kestrel! Makes my Model T Ford seem positively sedentary!’ He smiled at Sally and shook her hand. ‘Hello! You must be Jack’s latest. He always did have excellent taste in women as well as motor cars.’

‘Stephen!’ Charley Harrington said reprovingly. ‘This is Miss Sally Bowes.’

Sally smiled, but her attention had almost immediately gone to the man who had been playing tennis with Stephen. She had had no idea that her old family friend Gregory Holt was a connection of the Harringtons, but if this was a family party, then he must be.

Greg was smiling at her, but his cool blue eyes were thoughtful as he looked from her to Jack and back again. ‘How do you do, Miss Bowes?’ he said formally. ‘It is a delightful surprise to see you again and so unexpectedly.’

Sally’s heart was thudding. She could feel Jack’s gaze on her face. If he had looked tense before, now he was looking positively thunderous.

‘Miss Bowes,’ he said, even more coldly than before, ‘I believe you are already acquainted with Stephen’s cousin, Gregory Holt?’

Holt took Sally’s hand and held it for far longer than form dictated. ‘Miss Bowes and I have known each other a long time, Kestrel.’

‘Indeed,’ Jack said icily. Sally could feel the anger and tension in him. She felt even more awkward imposing on this family party now that Greg Holt was here. She had known Holt for years—he had been a pupil of her father’s at Oxford—and many years before, when she had been so unhappy with Jonathan, Greg had offered more than just friendship. He was looking at her now with the same warm admiration that he had always shown her and he had also picked up on Jack’s antagonism. Not that it seemed to bother him. He merely cocked a quizzical eyebrow and tightened his grip on Sally’s hand.

‘Well, this is splendid!’ Charlotte was saying, beaming at them. ‘You see, you are already amongst friends, Miss Bowes! Stephen!’ she added, seizing her husband’s arm and dragging him away from his appreciation of the car, ‘Do tell Jack that he simply cannot be so ill mannered as to disappear when he has only just arrived. He has some cork-brained idea of not stopping here because he is looking for Bertie, and Bertie is not here.’ She caught Jack’s meaningful glare and stopped abruptly before the whole story of Bertie’s elopement tumbled out. ‘Anyway,’ she added indignantly, ‘poor Miss Bowes is very tired and cannot be expected to be dragged off on some wild goose chase this evening.’ She spread her hands appealingly. ‘Oh, Stephen, do something! Make them stay!’

It seemed to Sally that Stephen Harrington was well able to cope with his wife’s melodrama, for now he merely thrust a hand through his tousled fair hair, smiled at Sally and remarked placidly that if Jack had decided to leave he doubted there was anything anyone else could do to change his mind.

‘For you know he is as damnably obstinate as you are, my love,’ he said to Charlotte, ‘and once you have set your mind to something, there is no arguing with you.’

‘And I,’ Charlotte said with spirit, ‘have quite set my mind to the fact that they must stay.’ She turned back to Sally. ‘At the least you must come inside and take some tea before you go dashing off again.’ She slipped her hand through Sally’s arm. ‘This way, Miss Bowes. I am sure you will appreciate the chance to have a rest. Travelling by automobile is all very fashionable, but it can be wearisome, especially when accompanied by a bad-tempered brute!’ She shot Jack a look of reproach. ‘Stephen darling, Gregory, do take Jack away and give him a big drink of something in the hope of improving his temper, or, if that does not work, in the hope of making him incapable of driving that car!’

In Charlotte’s opulently decorated blue-damask drawing room, Sally removed her hat and veil and sank with relief into a seat. She felt exhausted. Charlotte rang for tea and came across to sit beside her on the satinwood sofa.

‘I am most dreadfully sorry about this, Mrs Harrington,’ Sally said, as Charlotte turned, smiling, to face her. ‘Mr Kestrel was certain that Mr Basset would have brought Connie here.’ Her face fell. ‘I was so disappointed to find that we had not guessed right.’

Charlotte patted Sally’s hand comfortingly. ‘I am sorry for your distress, Miss Bowes. It must be very difficult for you trying to do the right thing by your sister. Do you have any other relatives or are you alone in the world?’

‘I have another younger sister,’ Sally said, thinking of Nell, ‘but our parents are dead.’

‘And I suppose that you have always been the one to look after the others,’ Charlotte said, nodding. ‘It must have been lonely for you. Being the eldest can be a burden sometimes, can it not, Miss Bowes?’

‘It can be,’ Sally said, realising with a rush just how lonely she had been sometimes. She looked up to meet Charlotte’s compassionate gaze. ‘I do feel a sense of responsibility. Nell—my sister Petronella—is a great supporter of women’s suffrage. She is a widow without two pennies to rub together.’ She just managed to stop herself before she blurted out the whole tale of Nell’s debts and her own despair. Charley’s warmth of manner was so soothing after Jack’s contempt that Sally was terribly afraid she might tell her everything on the strength of ten minutes’ acquaintance.