Dauntsey Park: The Last Rake In London

She shrugged and a shade of reserve came into her eyes and he wondered if she was remembering his earlier threat to ruin her business. She would not want to show any financial vulnerability to him.

‘I own the building,’ she said. ‘That is the important thing.’

Jack waved the waiter aside and filled her champagne glass himself. ‘And how did you come by it? It seems an unusual venue for a lady to own.’

‘My grandmother left it to me,’ Sally said. ‘It was a private house then, of course, but I had no money to maintain it, so I turned it into a business.’

She had, Jack thought, a tough financial head on her shoulders to have made a success of it.

‘Do you think your grandmother would have approved?’ he asked.

‘I doubt it.’ Sally laughed. ‘She was a very conventional Victorian lady, Mr Kestrel, and she disapproved of everything about me, from my liberal upbringing to my political persuasions.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘I belong to the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, Mr Kestrel. My sister Petronella is a militant suffragist.’

‘Of course.’ Jack remembered the name of Petronella Bowes from the newspapers. ‘She was one of the women who chained themselves to the railings in Downing Street earlier this year.’

‘Yes.’ Sally ran her fingers reflectively up the side of her champagne glass. ‘Nell supports the cause vigorously. After her husband died her support turned more active. I think that it filled a void for her and she is very passionate in her beliefs.’ She looked at him. ‘Do you dislike political opinions in a woman, Mr Kestrel? Many men do.’

Jack smiled at her. ‘I believe I have sufficient self-confidence to deal with it, Miss Bowes.’

Sally gave a spontaneous peal of laughter. ‘Yes, I suppose it is only men who feel threatened by intelligent women who object to such matters.’

‘And as such their good opinion is not really worth a great deal,’ Jack said. He leaned forward. ‘Tell me, Miss Bowes, what do you look for in a man?’

He saw the bright light fade from her eyes. ‘Despite what happened just now,’ she said, ‘I would say that I do not look for a man at all, Mr Kestrel.’ Her voice was strained.

Jack touched the back of her hand lightly. ‘Because of your politics? But surely not all suffragists are opposed to the opposite sex?’

‘No.’ She withdrew her hand from beneath his. Her gaze, as it met his, was direct and very candid. ‘It is not because of my political persuasions, Mr Kestrel. I was married once and I am afraid that it did not encourage me to view affairs of the heart in any positive light.’

‘If that is so,’ Jack said, ‘how do you explain what happened between us?’

‘Oh …’ She shifted a little, shrugged. ‘That was … what would one call it? Chemistry? Physical attraction?’

‘Lust?’ Jack said helpfully.

‘Lust. Yes, I suppose so.’ Once again she ran her fingers thoughtfully down the stem of the wineglass and this time it was Jack who shifted on his seat.

‘I heard,’ Sally added, ‘that you, too, have little inclination towards romance, Mr Kestrel.’ She gave him a slight smile.

Jack raised his brows. ‘I see that someone has been talking about me,’ he said. He was not particularly surprised. Everyone in London seemed to be talking about him. He wondered what they might have said.

Sally smiled. ‘Surely you are accustomed to that—a man like you?’

‘A man like me?’ He looked a challenge. ‘What sort of man is that, Miss Bowes?’

She did not appear discomfited by his bluntness and took her time replying. ‘A man who is rich and powerful, and successful in business and with women, I suppose.’

Jack laughed. ‘You account me that?’

‘Are you not?’

The waiter brought asparagus for them at that moment, wrapped in damask napkins and served on a silver platter. It saved Jack the trouble of replying. He had no intention of raking over his past affairs with Sally Bowes. He was only interested in their mutual future. And he never spoke of his unhappy romantic past and his relationship with Merle. Not to anyone.

He found that he wanted to ask Sally about her marriage, but he sensed it was too soon and she would rebuff him. She was consciously keeping him at arm’s length. He did not intend to stay there for the whole evening. He might not believe in romance, but he definitely believed in physical attraction and the attraction he had for Sally was going to be satisfied.

He watched as she speared a stalk, dipped it in butter, and ate it with delicate relish.

‘I hope you do not mind that I ordered for both of us,’ she said, ‘as I know what is the very best from the kitchens.’

Jack tilted his head thoughtfully. ‘So do you also consider me a man who allows a woman to take charge?’

Their eyes met and locked. Sally licked butter thoughtfully from her fingers and Jack felt the lust spear through his entire body again. Perhaps, he thought ruefully, they should get back to talking about politics. Generally it was something of a passion killer, although with Sally Bowes it seemed that any topic of conversation could incite an almost ungovernable rush of desire in him. So far he had managed to keep it battened down, restrained, but it was the devil’s own job.

‘I doubt that you are a man to relinquish control in general,’ she said. ‘The way that you behaved earlier does not suggest a very … tractable nature.’

A mocking smile twisted Jack’s mouth. ‘I believe you understand me very well, Miss Bowes.’

‘I believe I do,’ Sally said composedly.

Her coolness, her frankness, her authority, sent Jack’s blood pressure rocketing further. The dining room seemed extremely hot.

‘And are you not going to ask what I think of you in return?’ he asked.

Once again the dimple showed in Sally’s cheek as she smiled. ‘No, I do not think so, Mr Kestrel. You see, I am confident enough to have no need for your approval. Nor your censure.’ Her tone changed. ‘Indeed, as I said, I get plenty of that elsewhere.’

Jack raised his brows. ‘Because of the politics?’

‘And many other things.’ Sally waved a careless hand. ‘A single woman running a club like this? And a widow to boot?’ She looked at him. ‘You may not be aware, Mr Kestrel, that I was on the point of divorcing my husband when he died suddenly. The police were called in to make sure that I had not murdered him to save myself the cost and disgrace of the divorce courts. I do not think one can get any more scandalous than that.’

‘Only if you had murdered him,’ Jack agreed smoothly. He was not shocked at her disclosures—he had seen far too much of the world to be shocked by most things—but he was curious as to what sort of man her husband had been. What had Sally Bowes looked for in a man, before her dreams of romance and marriage had turned sour and ended in death and disgrace? It was no wonder, he thought, that she was more careful of giving herself than most women in the glittering, amoral world of high society.

Sally gave a little snort of laughter. ‘I assure you I did not murder Jonathan. Not that the idea was not tempting at times. He died of influenza. It was a most virulent outbreak that year. I was sick, too, but I survived.’

‘What was he like?’ Jack asked.

The amusement fled Sally’s face and her lashes came down to veil her eyes. ‘He was weak and dissolute and he gave me grounds enough for divorce with his flagrant cruelty and his infidelity,’ she said. For a second Jack saw a bleak chill of loneliness reflected in her eyes and then she shrugged and picked up her champagne glass again. ‘Forgive me. I was forgetting that you have been abroad and so know nothing of my scandalous affairs.’ She looked up at him. ‘It was something of a cause célèbre at the time, as all divorces are, I fear.’

Jack could imagine that it might have been. Whether or not she was the injured party, divorce ruined a woman’s reputation and deprived her of her place in polite society. To have gone as far as the courts, even if her husband’s timely death had saved her the final disgrace of going through with the divorce action, would have been the end of Sally’s good reputation. It was no wonder that she had had to carve out a new role for herself here at the Blue Parrot and she had done it with great style.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry that you had to endure that.’

She shrugged lightly. ‘Fortunately I had my inheritance. It could have been worse. But you will understand now why the club is so important to me.’

There was a warning there, Jack thought. She had not forgotten his threat to take away from her everything she valued. She did not trust him. He doubted that she trusted anyone after everything she had experienced. She might have been as stunned as he by the physical attraction that had flared between them so violently, but it did not mean that she was entirely swept away. Once again the challenge she presented, the excitement of the chase, lit his blood.