The Rake (15 page)

She knew Esme missed her mother fiercely and
wondered if it distressed her to think of Demi becoming mistress of
the home that had been her mother’s. She could scarcely approach so
delicate a subject with Elizabeth Collins present, but she worried
that the marriage might create a rift between them.

Growing bored with the discussion of books,
Elizabeth detached herself after a little while and joined her
brother and Phoebe. Flemming took the opportunity to draw even with
Esme and Demi.

Demi sent him a deadly look. “We cannot walk
four abreast. The path is too narrow.”

“
Then walk with
me.”

“
Esme and I are discussing
books.”

His eyes narrowed. “As fascinating a subject
as that is, you and I have things to discuss, as well.”

“
Oh? I was certain you and
Aunt Alma had already made all the arrangements that needed to be
made.”

“
Traditionally, the bride
and groom plan their wedding trip together,” he said with
determined patience.

Demi lifted her brows. “Forced marriages are
traditional?”

Esme divided a frightened look between her
father and Demi. “I believe I will head back now.”

“
A very good idea,” Demi
said, turning with her and pushing past her aunt, who’d been forced
to drop back due to the narrowness of the path they’d been
following. To her relief, Jonathan made no attempt to stop her.
Instead, he offered his arm to Alma Moreland once more and the four
of them returned to the picnic site.

Except for the deadly looks her aunt sent
her way and Jonathan’s coldly assessing looks throughout the meal,
the remainder of the picnic went off fairly well. Demi looked
forward to the return trip to the Abbey with more than a little
dread, however, certain that she would once again have to fend off
Flemming’s attempts to get her alone. To her surprise and relief,
he didn’t.

The bad moment came when they arrived home
once more. Everyone had loaded up in the same carriages they’d
arrived in, but Flemming managed to see to it that theirs was the
last in the procession. Since the carriages ahead of them were
kicking up a good deal of dust, he dropped back. The end result was
that everyone had already entered the Abbey by the time they
arrived.

Demi knew Flemming had been roiling ever
since the walk along the lake, although he’d made every attempt to
appear completely oblivious to her determined snubs. He pulled the
carriage to a halt on the drive before the Abbey, set the hand
brake, looped the reins around it, then got down and walked around
to help Demi alight. When Esme would have followed them, he fixed
her with a look. “You will wait in the carriage. We will not be
staying.”

Grasping Demi’s arm, he walked her beyond
earshot of Esme and pulled her to a halt. “I have tolerated a good
deal from you, Demitria, but know this, I will expect complete
compliance from you once we are wed.”

Demi gave him a level look, despite the fact
that she was quaking in her shoes. “You will have nothing less …
and nothing more,” she said tightly.

“
You do not want to engage
in a battle of wills with me. I can assure you, you’ll
lose.”

Demi stared at him a long
moment. “I already lost or there would
be
no wedding, but don’t congratulate
yourself over it. Aunt Alma won the first round, not you,” she
said, snatching her arm from his grip and stalking into the
manor.

She had to stop to compose herself once she
was safely inside. Fully expecting to find that her aunt was laying
in wait for her to give her a thorough dressing down, she was
vastly relieved to discover that she’d retired to her room to rest.
Very likely it was only a short reprieve, however, and she decided
to retire to her own room to rest before she had to rejoin the
battle with her aunt.

In her room, she discarded her gown and lay
down in her shift, but she discovered that rest was not an option.
Jonathan Flemming had frightened her far more than she was willing
to let on, far more than he had when he’d attempted to inflict his
ardor on her. She reminded herself that she had known all along
that he was just as determined to control her every move and
thought as her Aunt Alma was, and would be far more dangerous, if
for no other reason than that he would be her husband. She
realized, though, that she had not fully accepted it before.
Somehow, she supposed in the back of her mind, she’d been certain
that she was exaggerating the situation because of her distaste for
him, that he couldn’t possibly be as bad as she’d imagined. The
conversation at the door had left her in no doubt that he was.
She’d gotten the distinct impression that he was looking forward to
breaking her to his will.

She supposed she would have been far better
off if she had behaved meekly from the start and at least given the
impression that she would be easy to control. She didn’t think that
that would’ve made him not want her, because she was fairly certain
that she’d also been correct about him wanting her because her
family connections would raise his status in the community.

The fact that she’d shown herself to be
headstrong and willful had appealed to him on another level,
however. Before, it was possible that he had had no particular
interest in her beyond the connection, but she had challenged him.
He would make her life a living nightmare until he was satisfied
that he had asserted his dominance and completely broken her
spirit.

She wished desperately that she could go to
Garrett for comfort, but there was no chance at all of that before
everyone had retired for the night, probably very little even then.
She thought it very unlikely that Sarah would help her again as she
had the night before, not when she suspected what had happened
between her and Garrett.

If she had not been so fearful of being left
alone with Jonathan Flemming and yet another confrontation with her
aunt, the vigil in watching her might have been relaxed enough that
she could slip out of her room. Unfortunately, she had, and she
would be lucky if it didn’t transpire that she was right back where
she’d started--forbidden to leave her room at all, placed on bread
and water, with Sarah barred altogether from her room.

That thought reminded her of the yardman
that had been sent to nail her window shut. He hadn’t. He’d risked
his job by passing food to her … and he’d left the ladder under her
window. Slipping from the bed, she moved to the window and pulled
the curtains back. The ladder was still beneath her window.

She was surprised her aunt hadn’t noticed
and had it removed, but then her aunt rarely went outside.

She began pacing the room, trying to decide
if there was any way she might make use of the ladder. After
developing one scenario after another, however, she was obliged to
dismiss it. The ladder was too heavy, she was certain, for her to
move it, no matter how determined she might be. She could use it to
escape her room, but she would have to enter the manor once more in
order to get to Garrett.

Unless she could convince Sarah to help her
again, she would not be able to be with him. He thought she was a
maid. He would not take her into his bed if he knew.

It occurred to her after a little bit that
she might be able to borrow a maid’s clothing from the laundry. It
would most certainly be noticed if the clothing was gone for very
long, but Garrett was to be leaving soon. If she could figure out a
way to get the clothing to begin with, she could figure out how to
get it back.

Even such a disguise wouldn’t help her
escape her room, however, if her aunt decided to post servants in
the upper hall as she had before. One might succumb to weariness
and sleep as the one the night before had. If there were two or
more, most likely they would be too afraid of being reported and
having to face her aunt’s wrath to give in to the desire to
sleep.

She decided she could only tackle one
obstacle at the time. If she saw the opportunity to steal a
disguise from the laundry, she would seize it and worry about the
other things later.

She was surprised, but hopeful, when Sarah
came in to help her dress for dinner. At least her aunt hadn’t
tightened down on her as of yet.

Chapter Eleven

Demi stopped abruptly in stunned surprise
when she reached the parlor. Lord Wyndham, looking pale from his
ordeal, and no doubt the effort of negotiating the stairs, was
seated in a chair facing the door, a cane propped against the chair
beside his injured leg. His eyes gleamed with warmth when he spied
her, a faint smile hovering about his lips.

She smiled tentatively in return. “My lord!
It’s wonderful to see you up and moving about.”

“
Phoebe and I were just
expressing our delight in seeing him so robust again!” Alma
Moreland said at once, although it was obvious that she and her
daughter had only just arrived in the parlor themselves.

Phoebe sent her mother a
startled glance, blushed faintly at the sardonic glance Garrett
sent in their direction and added, “We were certainly
thinking
that very thing.
That is … mother and I were expressing how delighted we would be to
see you looking stout and hardy again on the way
downstairs.”

“
Then I am glad that I
spent the past several days hobbling about in my room so that I
could impress you. I can see I wouldn’t have made nearly as
favorable an impression if I’d allowed the footmen to carry me
down. My apologies for not rising, but I had the devil of a time
getting downstairs.”

Lady Moreland waved that away. “We will
certainly excuse so understandable a lapse. We know very well that
you’re not as recovered as you would have us think. I suppose this
means you are, in truth, to be leaving us soon?” Alma Moreland
added but apparently decided the comment sounded far too hopeful.
“We shall miss your excellent company! I would that we could
prevail upon you to stay a little longer.”

“
Alas, I’ve a great deal of
business that needs attending,” he responded coolly. “And, in any
case, I have trespassed upon your hospitality far too long as it
is.”

Lady Moreland smiled. “As to that, there was
certainly no trespass. We have been delighted to have you. You’re
certain we can’t persuade you? I know of at least one here at
Moreland Abbey who will be very sad indeed to see you go,” she said
archly, leaning over to pat Phoebe’s hand.

His gaze flickered from Lady Moreland to
Phoebe and finally settled on Demi. Swallowing with an effort, she
moved to a chair and sat, staring at her hands while she focused on
subduing the knot of misery in her chest. It wasn’t as if she
hadn’t known that he would be going after all. Despite that,
however, she couldn’t deny that it was an unpleasant jolt to see
the actuality of preparations. She supposed it wouldn’t have been
so had not some dark corner of her mind held on to hope that the
unhappy fate that seemed to be rushing upon her would somehow be
diverted, perhaps in the eleventh hour, and she would discover that
happiness was to be hers after all.

It might have been easier to bear if she
could simply have quelled the tiny spark of hope that refused to be
extinguished, but she supposed it sprang from the happiness she’d
felt in seeing and being with him. It was like a hunger. When fed,
it sprang to life more readily. Whereas starvation dampened it to
the point where one rarely even expected to have it appeased.

She had her memories, though. She could
nurture them and keep them alive and they would bring her a taste
of happiness whenever she brought them out. If she had not been so
fearful of pain before, she would have had the memories of her
parents to cherish. Instead, she had thrown up a wall that had
sealed both the good and the bad away from her forever.

Geoffrey was the last to arrive. He took one
look at Lord Wyndham and looked as if he wanted to whirl and flee
upstairs again. Unfortunately, unlike Lord Wyndham, he had not
arrived under his own steam. He had been carried down by the
footmen, and she supposed the indignity of ordering them about to
carry him upstairs once more outweighed his reluctance to endure a
confrontation with Lord Wyndham.

In point of fact, tension was rife in the
room, but Lord Wyndham soon set them at ease by conversing with
Geoffrey as his host, rather than the man who’d shot and nearly
killed him. Dinner was almost convivial. Demi strongly suspected
that there was as much hysterical relief in Geoffrey, Phoebe, and
Lady Moreland’s banter as there was good cheer, but the liveliness
lifted even her flagging spirits.

It also silenced, or at least quieted, the
voices of reason in her head. She’d managed to slip into the
laundry and borrow one of the upstairs maid’s work dresses and cap,
but she’d been assailed by guilt as much as fear as she’d scurried
back upstairs to hide it. What she was doing, and intended to do,
was wrong, if possible even more wrong than before. She had not
intended that anything happen between them when she had slipped
into Garrett’s room, and even though she’d given in without a
whimper of protest, she might have been able to salve her
conscience with a lack of intent.

Borrowing the maid’s dress to go back,
knowing what would happen, in fact hoping that it would, was as
premeditated as one could get.

Two wrongs did not equal one right and never
would. In point of fact, as her legal guardian, her aunt had every
right to settle her as she saw fit. Most guardians would have given
at least some consideration to their ward’s wishes, but certainly
not all, and even those who did considered their age and experience
were more likely to produce a compatible match than the unstable
and inexperienced young could manage, given the right to
choose.