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

Sally raised her brows. She found that in spite of everything, she was starting to enjoy this litany of the worst possible reasons to wed. ‘Another poor basis for marriage,’ she said. ‘I like your aunt, but I am not tying the knot with you simply to oblige her.’

‘If you go now, I will sue you for breach of contract.’

‘That,’ Sally said ruefully, ‘sounds much more like you, Mr Kestrel.’

Jack smiled at her. ‘Have you noticed,’ he said conversationally, ‘that when you are trying to keep me at arm’s length, you always call me Mr Kestrel?’

Sally’s heart skipped a beat at the intimacy of his tone. ‘You are at arm’s length,’ she said. ‘You are practically a stranger to me.’

‘Rubbish.’ Jack straightened. ‘You have met my family. You have slept with me.’

‘Yet another bad reason for marriage.’

Jack took her hand and pulled her to him. ‘Sally,’ he said, ‘we were both a little carried away these past two nights, and as a result I have a need to protect you and your reputation—’

‘Nonsense!’ Sally said. She spoke abruptly to quell the little quiver of feeling that his words aroused in her. ‘I can look after myself.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You said it yourself, Mr Kestrel. I am a widow, I was almost a divorcée, I own a nightclub, and I have a scandalous reputation already. It was one of the reasons why you—’ She stopped.

‘Why I took you to bed,’ Jack said helpfully.

The gardener’s boy, who had stuck his head around the tree again to see if the coast was clear, disappeared with a strangled squeak.

The colour flooded Sally’s face. ‘You thought me experienced,’ she whispered.

‘I did. And now I know you are not. So—’

‘No,’ Sally said, before he could finish. ‘No one knows what happened. No one will know, least of all your strait-laced great-aunt. And even if they did, my reputation, such as it is, could stand it. It is the height of hypocrisy only to propose when you have it proved to you that I am virtuous.’

‘Could your reputation stand having a child out of wedlock?’ Jack asked softly.

Sally caught her breath. It was not that she had not acknowledged the possibility to herself already, but she was not ready to talk to Jack about it. She gritted her teeth.

‘That will not happen,’ she said.

‘Do you know that,’ Jack enquired, ‘or are you just burying your head in the sand and hoping that you are right?’

Sally looked at him. She wanted a child. She had wanted one for a long time, with a desperate ache that she had sublimated in her work. But she did not want one like this. She thought of little Lucy Harrington and the love and happiness that surrounded her and the fact that Jack was so indulgent and adoring an uncle and her throat ached with tears at the thought of what might have been. He would be a good father. But she wanted him to be a good husband first and she was not sure he had it in him to give her that, not when he could not love her because his heart was already long given to another woman.

‘That must be at least the fifth bad reason you have given me for marriage,’ she said.

Jack sighed. ‘Sally—’

‘No,’ Sally said. ‘You do not love me.’

Jack did not contradict her. ‘I want you,’ he said. ‘I need you. It is enough.’

‘It is not enough for me,’ Sally said stubbornly.

‘It will have to be because I will not let you go.’

Sally shook her head.

‘I will court you.’

‘You make it sound like a threat,’ Sally complained. ‘Jack, be sensible. You have loved only one woman in your life. Perhaps you are still in love with her and, because she is dead, she is untouchable. How do you think I would feel as your wife, knowing that I was competing with a ghost? I have made one bad marriage in my life and I do not intend to make a second. And when the physical passion between us dies, as it surely will, we would have nothing left.’

‘Very well,’ Jack said. He loosed her and stood back, still holding her hands. There was a bright, challenging light in his eyes, the same light Sally had seen there that night at the Blue Parrot when he had been on a winning streak. She looked at him with misgiving.

‘Give me this weekend to court you,’ Jack said. ‘Don’t reject me outright. Give me two days in which to make you change your mind. Give me your answer on Monday.’

‘Two days!’ Sally said incredulously. ‘You think you can win my consent in only two days?’

‘Yes,’ Jack said. He did not smile. The intensity of his regard rocked her to the soul.

‘And if I do not succumb?’ Sally questioned. ‘Then will you accept defeat and not press me to wed you?’

‘I will.’ The touch of his hand gave her a different answer.

‘You lie,’ Sally accused.

Jack laughed. ‘All right. I will continue to try to persuade you, Sally, for the need I have for you burns me up. But I swear I shall not press you.’ He raised one of her hands and kissed the tips of her fingers. ‘It is your call now.’

They had the whole day together. They went riding in the park and took a picnic luncheon. It was scandalous, of course, because they went out without servants or chaperonage, but even Lady Ottoline smiled indulgently. They spread a blanket beneath the broad oaks of the park and ate their fill of cold ham and chicken pie and cream pastries with strawberries, washed down with champagne. The drink and the warmth made Sally sleepy and she lay back in the dappled sunshine and watched the shadows of the leaves dancing over her head.

‘It is nice to experience an English summer again,’ Jack said. He was lying beside her, his body relaxed, hands behind his head as he too looked up at the trees silhouetted against the sky. ‘I had almost forgotten what it was like, so fresh and cool after the heat of southern France.’

‘Tell me about what happened when you left England all those years ago,’ Sally said sleepily. She turned her head to look at Jack. His face seemed tranquil enough, but there was some tension now in the long lines of his body. She knew he hated talking about the past, but she thought that if he was not prepared to let her into even a small part of his history then there really was no hope for them. She could not marry a man who kept his innermost thoughts locked away.

‘I was twenty-one when I left,’ Jack said, after a moment. A rueful smile twisted his lips. ‘Until the business with Merle I had thought myself so much a man, but when my father banished me I felt no more than a lost boy, though I would have fought with my last breath to keep that weakness hidden.’

‘You had not expected him to send you away,’ Sally said.

‘No.’ Jack shifted a little. ‘Oh, I could see that I had let my family down monstrously, but in my youthful arrogance I had thought that I could have it all—a glittering future, the support of my family, and … Merle.’ His voice fell. ‘And then I lost it all. Merle died and I was disgraced and my privileged and golden future disappeared.’

Sally shifted so that she could look at him properly. His gaze was thoughtful and dark with memories.

‘I heard,’ she said, ‘that you joined the army.’

‘I fought against the Boers,’ Jack said. ‘I tried to get myself killed in a glorious way that would make my father proud, but all I succeeded in doing was living when I wanted to die.’

His voice was devoid of expression, but his face was grim. Sally’s heart ached for him. After a moment she slipped her hand into his and felt his fingers, long and strong, close about hers. His touch brought a sense of relief and peace to her. If she could only reach him, she sensed she could thaw some of the bitter chill in his heart.

‘Life has an inconvenient habit of thwarting you,’ she said, and saw him smile.

‘Yes. After the war, when I realised that I was not only going to live, but needed to make a living, I went into the aviation business. The rest you know. I came home at the end of last year.’

‘Did you never come back before?’ Sally asked. When he shook his head, she protested, ‘But Charley must have missed you terribly! And you would not have seen Lucy when she was a baby, and when your mother died …’

Jack’s fingers tightened cruelly on hers for a second before he let her go. ‘I could not return until I had wiped out the shame of what I had done.’