[Cornick Nicola] The Last Rake in London(Bookos.org) (15 page)

‘You could have saved me,’ Greg said, with a straight face. He sighed. ‘I know that you never needed me,’ he added, his blue gaze steady on her face. ‘I understand that.’

‘I do need you,’ Sally said. ‘I need you as a friend.’ Fleetingly she thought of the two hundred pounds that she had sent to Nell. If only she had asked Greg to give her a loan, not Jack. But then she had always been damnably independent. It was one of her besetting sins. She would not have wanted to go cap in hand to Greg and ask for money. She had only thrown the request for two hundred pounds in Jack’s face because he had incensed her.

‘That must be the kiss of death on a romance,’ Greg said cheerfully, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet. ‘Come along. Time to dress for dinner.’

A shadow fell across them and Sally put up a hand to shade her eyes from the low afternoon sun. It was inevitable, she thought, that Jack should be standing there with a face like thunder as he took in the sight of her hand clasped once again in that of Gregory Holt’s.

‘Hello, Jack, old man,’ Greg said easily, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth as he registered Jack’s stony expression, ‘your lovely fiancée and I were just discussing romance.’

‘I see,’ Jack said coldly. He turned pointedly to Sally. ‘Charley sent me to show you around the place,’ he said, ‘but it seems that you are already quite at home.’

‘Sally is certainly among friends,’ Greg said, and Sally felt the unspoken but unmistakable threat in his words and saw Jack square up to the challenge.

‘Excuse me,’ she said hastily to Greg, freeing her hand from his and slipping past both men. ‘I shall go and prepare for dinner.’ And she walked away without a backwards glance to either of them. Let them sort out their differences without her. She could already feel the unresolved tension in Jack that could surely escalate into violence with one deliberately careless word from Greg. And it made no sense to her at all, for how could Jack be so possessive when she was no more than his temporary fiancée and he certainly did not love her?

J
ack fiddled irritably with his cufflinks whilst the long-suffering valet he had borrowed from his brother-in-law put the final touches to his wing collar.

‘If you could just keep still a moment longer, sir,’ the man said resignedly. Jack sighed and tried not to tap his foot. The dinner suit, shirt and tie were all borrowed as well as the servant. It was fortunate that he and Stephen were of a height. He was a little broader across the shoulder and could feel the material straining a little, but it was not a bad fit. He hoped he did not split the jacket. It was no wonder his brother-in-law had given him a tuxedo rather than his best tailcoat to wear, but he thought that Lady Ottoline would probably cut up rough when she saw that he was not in formal evening dress.

He wondered what Charley would find for Sally to wear to dinner. Whatever it was, it would not be able to eclipse that luscious pink gown she had worn two nights before. He rubbed a hand across his forehead. He felt a sudden, bitter flash of emotion that their previous nights together had been so different. He had thought her honest then. Now all that was left was the devastating passion that had flared between them.

And for tonight, at least, she was also his fiancée. A smile that was more satisfied than rueful lifted his mouth. He liked the idea of being engaged to Sally very much, far more than he had expected when he had made the impulsive announcement. He knew it was a gesture of somewhat primitive possession. Her sexual capitulation to him had the unforeseen consequence of making him want to claim her formally and show her to be his own. He realised that his need for her had been one of the reasons why he had been so angry with her for her duplicity. His feelings were engaged—desire and wanting, if not love—and so her betrayal was so much more acute.

His previous affairs had had the reverse effect on him to this; all he had wanted to do was walk away from them. Now he was determined not to let Sally walk away from him until he was ready to let her go. He acknowledged that it was a very basic reaction. He had wanted Sally from the very first and now he wanted everyone else to know she belonged to him, especially Gregory Holt, who had made his interest in her so plain.

‘There you are, sir,’ the valet said, stepping back to admire his handiwork. ‘Not bad, if I say so myself.’

‘Thank you, Jeavons,’ Jack said.

As he emerged from his bedchamber he saw his sister and Sally descending the stairs in front of him. Charley had evidently gone to fetch Sally from her bedroom and take her down to dinner in case she was nervous. Jack shook his head cynically over Charley’s naïvety. Could she not see that Sally Bowes was supremely capable of taking care of herself? But perhaps not—after all, he had made a serious error of judgement about Sally himself.

He hurried down the stairs to catch up with them and as they reached the hallway Sally turned towards him.

He stopped dead.

She looked utterly divine.

Tonight Sally was wearing a gown the colour of rich autumn leaves, with layers of taffeta and silk chiffon embroidered with tiny little sequins around the square neck. Charley had lent her a ruby drop necklace and it glowed richly in the hollow of Sally’s throat, a vivid counterpoint to the creamy pallor of her skin.

And she
rustled
. Whenever she moved, the layers of petticoats beneath the taffeta and chiffon whispered together sensuously, setting all of Jack’s senses on edge. He could imagine the ruffles and lace beneath the sparkling gown and Sally’s warm, smooth skin beneath that.

He seriously considered carrying her straight back up the stairs and into the nearest bedroom.

‘Are you quite well, Jack?’ Charley enquired, laughing. ‘I have never seen you struck dumb before.’

‘I…ah…’ Jack pulled himself together quickly.

‘Sally has been explaining to me that the two of you are always at odds, so I have put you at opposite ends of the table,’ Charley said, fixing him with a blithe smile. ‘Aunt Otto asked particularly that she should be placed next to you, Jack. I believe she wishes to check on your moral fortitude and suitability for marriage.’

Jack cursed under his breath. ‘And I suppose Gregory Holt has offered to escort Sally,’ he said tightly, fighting down the wave of possessive fury that gripped him.

Sally merely smiled placidly and his jealousy tightened a notch. ‘How clever of you to guess!’ Charley said admiringly. ‘That is exactly what he suggested!’

‘Lord Holt has always behaved as a perfect gentleman to me,’ Sally said, her tone reminding Jack pointedly that he had not. ‘I am sure I shall be perfectly safe with him.’

‘His reputation is worse than mine,’ Jack said grimly, and saw her smile in mock-disbelief.

‘Surely that is impossible?’ she said sweetly.

Jack caught Sally’s hand just as they entered the drawing room. ‘Don’t forget that for tonight you are engaged to
me
,’ he whispered, ‘or I may be obliged to remind you.’

Sally’s beautiful hazel eyes opened very wide. ‘And how might you do that, Jack?’ she enquired, in an even sweeter tone.

‘By kissing you in front of everyone,’ Jack said, and watched with pleasure as the pink colour came into her cheeks.

‘You dare,’ she hissed.

‘Don’t tempt me…’

They stared at one another, captured in both the fierce mutual attraction and the equally fierce mutual hostility they could see in each other’s eyes and only broke apart when Stephen Harrington came up, cleared his throat loudly, and drew them into the room to introduce them to the other dinner guests who had come to Dauntsey for the evening.

Between fending off his aunt’s enquiries into his moral character, being polite to Stephen and Charley’s neighbours when he did not feel like it, and watching Gregory Holt flirt with his fiancée, Jack was in a vile mood by the end of dinner. The whole meal seemed interminable: consommé, oysters, champagne sorbet, trout, venison, trifle, cheese…Each course was more elaborate than the last and seemed to take hours to serve and even longer to consume. And through it all Jack could do nothing but glower at Gregory Holt as he chatted easily and with the greatest of pleasure to Sally.

‘Drown your sorrows in a glass of Tokay, old man,’ Stephen Harrington said in his ear as the ladies rose to leave the men to their drink. ‘Must say, you have got it bad. You’ve been watching Miss Bowes all through dinner. Never thought to see you brought so low!’

‘Holt annoys me,’ Jack said, through his teeth, watching as Gregory Holt took Sally’s hand and placed a kiss on the back of it in a gesture of laughing gallantry. ‘He has a damned nerve to do that to my fiancée!’

‘Oh, Greg’s harmless,’ Stephen said calmly. ‘He’s only doing it to spite you, old fellow, and because he has always held a candle for Miss Bowes. He was a protégé of her father, you know, and I understand he wanted Miss Bowes to run away with him when matters became particularly grim between herself and her late husband. Not,’ he added hastily, seeing Jack’s glare, ‘that she gave him the least encouragement.’

‘She didn’t tell me,’ Jack said. He could feel the shreds of his control slipping. So Gregory Holt was an old flame of Sally’s. Their situation was uncannily close to his elopement with Merle all those years ago. Except that Sally had had the good sense not to run away and provoke the desperate kind of situation that he and Merle had found themselves in. He took a deep breath. At least he knew they could not have been lovers, though probably not for want of trying on Holt’s part. He wanted to go straight over and confront the man about it but bearing in mind that Greg was some distant cousin of Stephen, they had known each other for years, and it was bad form to cause an affray at a country house party, that was probably not a good idea. What the hell was the matter with him? he wondered. Where had his self-control gone? He’d been a friend of Greg Holt since their schooldays and never had the slightest inclination to ram the other man’s teeth down his throat before now.

‘Well,’ Stephen said, giving him a sympathetic smile, ‘I understood from Charley that—strictly on the quiet—there is some doubt over whether Miss Bowes really
is
your fiancée, old man, so perhaps she did not see the need to tell you. Seems to me,’ he added, ‘that you could do with sorting out your romantic life properly, Jack, before you explode with frustration. Always thought you had a reputation for conquest, but you seem to be making a dashed mull of everything at the moment.’

‘Thank you,’ Jack said ruefully, reflecting that Stephen had hit the nail on the head. Before he had met Sally Bowes he had had no problem controlling his frustrations or ordering his romantic life successfully.

He looked up as Greg Holt put his hand on his shoulder. ‘A word, Kestrel?’

The smile faded from Jack’s eyes as he took in the other man’s demeanour. Greg had always struck him as being the most easy-going of fellows, rather like Stephen himself, but now there was no good humour in his eyes. Holt looked as though he was itching to take Jack by the throat and throttle the life out of him.

‘With the licence of an old friend,’ Greg said, his mouth a thin line, ‘I have warned Miss Bowes against marrying you, Kestrel. You would make the devil of a husband.’

Jack was already half out of his seat when Stephen grabbed his arm to restrain him.

‘Easy,’ Stephen muttered, and Jack allowed himself to relax infinitesimally.

‘It’s none of his damned business,’ he said, through gritted teeth.

Holt inclined his head ironically. ‘Miss Bowes is unprotected. It is my business when I stand in the place of a brother to her.’

‘Brother!’ Jack exploded with disbelief.

‘Just so,’ Greg said. ‘I hope for your sake that you will be an exemplary fiancé, Kestrel, because I would hate to ruin our long friendship by putting a bullet through you.’

And with a curt bow he walked away.

Jack let out the breath that he realised he had been holding for the whole encounter.

‘Damn it, he was in earnest,’ Stephen said, staring after Holt, his glass of Tokay suspended halfway to his lips.

‘In deadly earnest,’ Jack agreed. He realised that Gregory Holt must have been in love with Sally for a very long time. He wondered why she had turned him down. Holt was rich, titled, the perfect catch for a good-time girl on the make. Even if she had run off with him and had to weather the scandal of divorce, they could have been married by now.

Jack was accustomed in business to weighing evidence, making quick decisions, trusting his own judgement. He looked at Gregory Holt’s ramrod-straight back and furious demeanour and wondered what it was about Sally Bowes that seemed to command the loyalty of all the people whose lives she touched. It did not square with the evidence that he had uncovered about her. Perhaps it was time to confront her.

‘Come on,’ he said, knocking back the rest of his Tokay in one gulp, ‘it’s time to join the ladies. I want to talk to Sally.’

‘Wait a moment, old chap!’ Stephen protested. ‘It’s only ten minutes since dinner! They won’t want to see you yet. And that’s no way to treat my best wine—’

But it was too late. Jack had gone.

‘So, my dear,’ Lady Ottoline said to Sally, patting the seat beside her, ‘come and sit with me.’ She gestured to the deck of cards on the table. ‘Do you play?’

‘A little,’ Sally said, thinking ruefully of the gaming tables at the Blue Parrot. She wondered how Dan was getting on in her absence. She trusted him completely, but with the opening of the Crimson Salon a mere few days away she was extremely nervous.

‘Then perhaps we may have a game of bezique later,’ Lady Ottoline said. ‘But first I want to talk about you—and about Jack. He tells me that you met at the Wallace Collection.’

‘Indeed we did,’ Sally said, wondering how much truth and how many lies Jack had mixed together to describe their relationship.

‘Well, at least you must be a cultured gel,’ Lady Ottoline said. ‘Buffy, the current Duke, is an utter philistine, but Jack has the making of a good custodian of the Kestrel collection as long as his cousin don’t sell it off before Jack inherits.’

‘The Duke has no children of his own?’ Sally said.

‘No.’ Lady Ottoline gave her a sharp look. ‘Buffy don’t like the girls. Robert, Jack’s father, is heir to the dukedom of Kestrel and Jack after him.’

‘I see,’ Sally said, thinking that Jack Kestrel really was a great catch for any woman prepared to put up with his vile temper and inability to love her.

‘I hope,’ Lady Ottoline said disagreeably, ‘that you are not going to pretend you did not know you had caught the heir to a dukedom?’

‘I do not really care,’ Sally said, with extreme frankness. ‘When I choose to wed, Lady Ottoline, it is the man that matters to me, not his title or his money.’

Lady Ottoline’s plucked brows shot up towards her diamond headdress. ‘Well, upon my word!’

‘Having been married once before,’ Sally continued, ‘I have to be extremely careful in my next choice.’ Suddenly she felt reckless. If she could shock Lady Ottoline into repudiating her, it would serve Jack right for his machinations. ‘I do not wish to make as ghastly a mistake second time around as I did the first time,’ she said. ‘So the selection of a new husband is of paramount importance to me. He must have integrity and wit and be faithful, honourable and never, ever bore me. That is all I ask.’

There was a long silence. Sally selected a bonbon from the dish on the table in front of her and popped it into her mouth, before daring to steal a look under her lashes at Lady Ottoline. Her ladyship was regarding her with a very shrewd expression in her dark eyes.

‘I see,’ Lady Ottoline said. She frowned slightly. ‘Your name is familiar to me, Miss Bowes. Now, why would that be?’

Sally glanced at Jack across the room. He and Stephen had rejoined the ladies a scandalously short ten minutes after dinner was finished, having certainly not had time to consume a leisurely glass of port or luxuriate in a cigar, but when he had shown every sign of wanting to speak with her, Lady Ottoline had told him curtly to take himself off.

‘
I
wish to talk to your fiancée, Jack,’ she had said imperiously. ‘
You
may speak to her later.’