A Lady's Guide to Rakes (22 page)

Within a moment, One had placed beside him a fine mahogany lap desk with ebony inlays. Alexander flipped open the lid and set about writing. “Bit low on ink.”

“Bit low on everything these days, my lord,” murmured One.

Alexander glanced at the butler. “Hmm, yes. So we are. Well, I hope to remedy one situation quite soon.”

Very soon, in fact. The Eustons’ annual ball was to be held at Euston Hall, home of the esteemed duke and duchess of Euston. He knew this without actually reading anything more, for he’d successfully skipped the event, despite his father’s protests, for the past ten summers.

But he was about to put an end to that right now.

Yes, the first card would go to the duchess of Euston, thanking her and accepting her gracious invitation to the ball.

Alexander grimed as he touched ink to paper, for he knew his acceptance would do wonders in the eyes of his father. It would prove his worth as head of the family, and would serve as yet another solid example to all that he had indeed reformed.

The duke’s boundless acres abutted the Lansing family lands, and as he grew up, it had been no secret to Alex that his father had always coveted the duke’s wealth and had wished some connection between the families.

The duke’s lone daughter, Ursula, was a true beauty, indeed. For a time, Alexander shared his father’s hope that some connection would lie in their mutual futures. That is, until they were seated beside one another at a gala supper one eve. Alexander realized then that the chit’s beauty and, sadly, great interest in him far exceeded her intelligence.

The night was surely the longest in Alexander’s memory, for the girl seemed not to possess a command of more than nine words. And though his father was displeased that his son did not take a fancy to the lovely young miss, neither could he fault him for passing her by. Alexander, after all, reminded him that such a union would produce Lansing heirs who may or may not inherit then-mother’s wit

He handed the first card to One, then began his second. This one was for Meredith, asking her—nay, beseeching her—to join him in a carriage ride to Hyde Park this day—for he had something of great import to discuss with her. The third card was for the Featherton sisters, inquiring about their intentions to attend the Boston ball— with Meredith. He could scarcely coax the idea from his mind. How he longed to take her hand and dance with her before the appreciative gaze of all. He fought the urge to sigh as the image played out in his mind.

He wasn’t quite sure why he so strongly desired her attendance at that particular event, and he pondered it for several moments.

Perhaps, he wanted his father to see the future… and to be pleased.

Perhaps, he really had reformed, and after troubling Meredith at Tattersalls, then ruining her bodily at Harford Fell, he owed her the chance to hold her head up again—
Owe her my name.

Or… perhaps, it is because
—Alex’s eyes suddenly widened.
Well, now, this is quite the surprise, isn’t it?

He shoved his hand through his hair and exhaled, knowing he had indeed come upon the shocking truth of the matter.

It was because, damn it all… he loved her.

———

Beth Augustine handed the reins of tier curricle to the waiting footman, hurried inside her home, then turned the key in the lock.

She rushed up the stairs to her bedchamber and filled the ewer with water. She dropped a cloth in the chilled liquid and slapped her hand to it, sinking it to the bottom of the bowl and swirling it about before hauling it out again.

She looked up in the mirror over the wash table and a pale ghostly visage peered back at her. Wringing out the excess drips of water from the cloth, she briskly rubbed it over her face, then looked into the mirror again.

Meredith was right. There were deep, shadowed crescents below her eyes, making her look at least five years older than her two and twenty years.

“You made me do it, Meredith!” Beth hissed at the mirror. “Why should you be the one to keep your youth… to marry a peer? You don’t deserve it. You had your chance.”

Her words were too loud, and she realized it at once, for in the next room, her baby let out a grating wail. Anger gurgled up inside her.

“Mrs. Redding, can’t you quiet the babe?” She pressed the cloth to her head, then sat down on her mattress as she waited for the wet nurse to see to her duties. The woman seemed to be taking her sweet time about it. “Hurry, will you! My head is pounding.”

Beth gazed out the window to the square below. Looking out at the square, and the memories it held, always calmed her.

She closed her eyes for a moment and slowed her breathing; within seconds, she was remembering… remembering a beautiful evening only two years ago. The night when Lord Pomeroy had kissed her and touched her, and made all sorts of sweet lover’s promises to her— Beth’s eyes snapped open then—before offering for Miss Merriweather the very next day. And she knew why too.

It was all because of her
Society connections.
Just because the Featherton ladies, Miss Merriweather’s great-aunts, were daughters of an earl, everyone seemed to be under the impression that Meredith’s blood was blue as well. Except it wasn’t. She was little more than a milkmaid, fresh from the countryside.

A splash of red snared her notice and she narrowed her dark eyes to focus. Roses…just beginning to bloom on the far side of the square’s wrought-iron boundary fence.

A slow smile spread over her lips as the vibrant color brought to mind a certain red book that had recently— quite fortuitously—come into her possession.

Meredith’s scandalous secret book of notes.

Well,
Beth pondered, chuckling softly,
it isn’t going to remain a secret for much longer.

She’d seen to that little detail that very morn.

A rake never says, “I love you,” for it leaves him no possibility of escape.

Meredith smiled as she read the card from Lord Lansing. For a morning that began so abysmally—her worries about the missing book of notes had left her weary and not at all eager to leave her bed—the afternoon promised a basket of delights.

“I am to await your reply, miss.” Herbert… oh yes, who preferred to be addressed as One, stood before her, as starched and pressed as ever. Meredith could not help but be impressed by the man’s industry and loyalty to Lord Lansing. ,Why, it seemed Alexander counted upon the man for everything, whether it be dressing a woman as a gentleman, driving a coach, or… as it would seem, delivering cards to ladies.

“Very well.” Meredith hurried into the parlor, opened the secretary and readied the ink bottle.

And then she finished off the card with a large, swirled flourish of an M. Alexander ought to like that. Showed her true self, did it not? Or at the very least, the part of her he wished to see more of.

Meredith returned to the front door, where Mr. Herbert waited patiently. “Here you are, One.” She held the card out to the white-haired servant as Mr. Edgar opened the door to the square.

One did not take the card right away. Nor did he move. He paused for several seconds. “Oh, I’m not One. Though I see why you might think it.”

There was a shout from the street, and Meredith looked up to see
another
Mr. Herbert sitting on the coach perch. “He’s Two. I am Three. One is tendin’ to his lordship just now,” called the man atop the carriage.

“I beg your pardon.” Meredith felt all of her facial features constrict as she stared at the Mr. Herbert who stood before her. “There are…
three
Mr. Herberts?” She looked at the man in the dark suit standing before her.

“
Four,
if ye truly want to know. Except our youngest brother—a reverend—is not in service like the rest of us.”

“And you are all… identical?”

“No, miss. Not truly, though we all greatly favor our da, so people often mistake us fer one another.”

Meredith looked very closely at the man before her, then at the carriage driver. If they were not twins, they certainly could be. There was nothing different about them—except their clothing. “So you are not One, the valet. You are—”

“Two, the butler.,.. and footman when his lordship is conductin’ important business.” Two long, gloved fingers shot out and snared the card between them. “Me thanks, miss. Oh, and this would be a card for the two ladies—from his lordship, as well.” He handed her the last card, then bobbed his head in a manner that almost had her believing he’d bowed, and headed down the walk and boarded the carriage with the Lansing coat of arms emblazoned on its side.

Three tipped his hat and grinned before he set the team into motion, then edged the square on the way to Brook Street.

Meredith started up the stairs for her chamber, when her Aunt Letitia tottered into the passage.

“Did we have a visitor, dear?” Aunt Letitia poked her head into the parlor. Then, obviously finding it empty, she looked back to Meredith, perplexed.

“Lord Lansing sent around a card. He wishes an interview with me this afternoon. He thought we’d stroll through Hyde Park. Oh! Wait a moment. There is a card for you and Aunt Viola as well.” Meredith leaped down the two steps she’d climbed and snatched the card from the entryway table. “Here you are.”

Aunt Letitia caned her way into the parlor and took her lorgnette from the secretary. Meredith did not move from the marble threshold as her aunt’s eyes whisked this way and that across the crisp card.

When her aunt looked up, there was an elated sheen in her eyes. “It seems our Lord Lansing wishes to ensure our attendance at the Euston ball on Friday… for he has an announcement of some import to make.”

Meredith’s brows pulled toward the bridge of her nose. “What sort of announcement?”

“He might have mentioned something about it when he paid a call early this morn, but I am old, gel, and cannot recall.” Aunt Letitia’s white brows arched artlessly.

Meredith squinted her eyes at her aunt, as if doing so might enable her to see through the clever woman’s mask of innocence. “Lord Lansing was h-here this morn? I did not see him. Where was I?”

“Still abed, I fear. But he was most determined to speak with you, which is why, I own, he sent around his numbered men with these cards.” Aunt Letitia waved Lansing’s cream card, to and fro, through the air.

“Why do you believe he so urgently wishes an interview?” Meredith’s skin seemed to go a bit clammy, for in truth she had a very good idea of why he wished to see her.

“Who can say what goes through a young man’s mind when he is in love?” Aunt Letitia glanced sidelong at Meredith, and the comer of her mouth twitched cheekily.

Meredith raised her chin and cast her most serious-looking gaze at her aunt. “Lord Lansing is most certainly not in love with me.”

“Whatever you say, gel. Of course, Sister and I will attend the Euston ball, for I do not wish to miss this so-called announcement.” Aunt Letitia’s mouth was wriggling like bait fish in a barrel as she tried not to smile. “Of course, you will join us, love, hmmm?”

Meredith held her reply on her tongue for several seconds, but saw no reason why she should sit at home while her family merrily kicked up their heels at a Society function. “Now that Mr. Chillton is no longer in my future, I would be delighted to attend the ball. Besides, staying at home would only give Beth Augustine something to gloat about.”

“No doubt.”

Meredith knew that her aunt was just humoring her now, but she just couldn’t seem to stop rationalizing her reasoning for going to the ball. “Good spot for research too, you know, even without my book of notes. I should think there is bound to be one or two rakes there, don’t you agree?”

“At least
one
we know of will be there.”

“Indeed.” Meredith smiled weakly at her aunt, then turned back and started for the staircase.
The only one who matters.

As Meredith slowly ascended the stairs, she was sure she heard an excited giggle coming from the parlor.

———

Three turns of the hour hand later, Meredith was dipping the plump brown end of a cattail into the Serpentine. She turned away from the dripping, soggy head of the reed to look at Alexander, who was sitting on a rock at the water’s edge.

She furrowed her brows. “My aunts have already agreed?”

Alexander pitched a flat stone and watched it skitter across the water. “First thing this morning; so you see, there is no reason why we should not marry.”

Meredith returned her gaze to the cattail. She forced a hard laugh. “Except for the obvious one.”

Sliding from the rock, Alexander drew up behind her and gripped her shoulders. He nuzzled his mouth just below her earlobe. “And what might that be?”

The hum of his voice at her throat made her feel warm, and without really thinking about it at all, she leaned back against him and closed her eyes. “Oh… well, that we don’t love each other.”

His arms came around her and held her snuggling against him. “Is that so?”

“ ‘Tis.” She spun around in the wreath of his arms. She gazed up at him through her thick lashes and set a saucy
little
smile upon her lips. “Because, Lord Lansing, rakes
never
fall
in love. And I have taken an oath never to fall in love with a rake.”

“But, darling, have you forgotten? I have reformed.”

“Have you now?” She looked quizzically up at him. “So, I should simply reverse my belief: ‘Once a rake, always a rake’?”

Alexander leaned in and kissed her, and there went her knees, as weak as the soggy reed. Something in the back of her mind sounded in warning, and she halfheartedly heeded it.

Meredith snapped her head back. “No, no, no. You cannot change my mind.” She pushed against his chest and broke his embrace with a smirk. “You see, it is a rule with me. I cannot divert.”

“Ah, you mock me.” Grinning, Alexander caught her wrist as she sought to whirl away, making her drop the sodden cattail. “I am certain I have reformed, for there is no other explanation.” He cupped Meredith’s chin and positioned her mouth beneath his.