How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3) (11 page)

It was typical of Nathaniel to follow them to their picnic, of course. The cad might not be a great reader, but no gathering was more attractive to him than one of ladies who professed not to want a man among them. He used to appear at the parlor window during their book society meetings and startle them all by suddenly knocking on the glass, pretending to be “spying on what wicked hussies get up to when gentlemen aren’t around.”

Mrs. Makepiece would later be infuriated by the smudge marks his knuckles left on her glass panes. All part of his amusement, naturally.

Once, too, he spoke to her. She had left the instrument on the dancing being over, and he had sat down to try to make out an air which he wished to give the Miss Musgroves an idea of. Unintentionally she returned to that part of the room; he saw her, and, instantly rising, said, with studied politeness,—

“I beg your pardon, madam, this is your seat”; and though she immediately drew back with a decided negative, he was not to be induced to sit down again.

Under the swaying shadow of Sarah’s parasol, Diana felt her pulse grow uneven and too fast, making her feel as if she might jump out of her own skin. Her injured eye kept tearing up, so she covered it with one hand and read on with only half sight and a mounting headache.

Anne did not wish for more of such looks and speeches. His cold politeness, his ceremonious grace, were worse than anything.

Success! She had read to the end of the chapter without rousing anyone’s suspicion of her scattered nerves. If only she might find some way to soothe her head.

“So this is the story that holds the Book Club Belles enthralled now,” Nathaniel exclaimed, setting his hat on the blanket and sweeping quick fingers through his gilded hair. “Another foolish heroine. And who is the love of
her
life?”

“There is none,” chirped Lucy. “She was once engaged to Captain Wentworth, but called it off when she heartlessly changed her mind. Now she’s just an old maid and he has come back handsome and rich. I really do not like Anne for she is very immature and always feeling hard done by.”

This was a hilarious comment considering the nature of the person who made it, but while the others fell about laughing, Diana and Nathaniel remained solemn.

“She sounds like a cowardly young woman who has no one to blame for her trials but herself,” he said. “There is nothing worse than a woman who wavers easily when she faces a little obstacle, who cannot stand up for her own passions and would rather pretend she has none.”

Diana felt such a hard pinch in her heart that it took her breath away. She moved Sarah’s swaying parasol aside to get a better look at his face, but immediately regretted it as they all exclaimed over her sore, squinting eye. She covered it again with one hand.

“But please, don’t let me spoil your enjoyment, ladies,” Nathaniel exclaimed as he saw her placing an embroidered marker in the page, ready to close the book.

“It is the end of the chapter,” she murmured, not wishing to share more of Anne Elliot’s sad story with him when he was so ready to dislike the character.

“But you must read on. I am anxious to know what happens next to this poor Anna girl and whether she will ever learn to speak up for herself.”

“Her name is Anne, and she can speak up for herself. She waits until she is certain of what she has to say. Unlike some people who speak the first thing that comes to mind and regret it later.”

Nathaniel shrugged, his eyes narrowed against the sun. “Some folk think too much. They become inert, unable to act out of fear. If we all worried about the dreadful things that might happen, nothing would ever be done, nothing good achieved, nothing new discovered.”

“But fewer mistakes made. Less pain caused.”

“I would rather risk some pain than close my heart away from contact and chance to keep it
safe
and therefore have no joy at all.”

“Anne Elliot has feelings. Many of them,” Diana exclaimed in defense of her favorite character. “She just does not care to expose them to the ridicule and derision of others. Especially when those feelings can do no good for anybody she cares about and it would be selfish of her to express them.”

“Then she is a fool, and as I suspected, her problems are her own fault,” he scoffed, chewing on a blade of grass. “I’m sure no one around her labors under such indecision and hesitation. There is selflessness and then there is martyrdom.”

With her unwounded eye, she looked up at his smug countenance and felt her temper rising. Carefully and with as much dignity as she could manage while somewhat resembling a pirate, she replied, “And to imagine, Captain, that I did not think you joined us to discuss books. I felt sure you were merely here to distract us and cause mischief.”

A gleam of surprise lit his gaze with an extra spark of clear, piercing blue. “No indeed, you mistake me. I am always reading!” He glanced at his sister. “Next to gardening, it is one of my favorite pastimes. I absorbed every word. Please, do continue.”

Diana had no inkling what he meant by the remark about gardening, but clearly it was a joke between him and Rebecca. He sat casually on the blanket, one knee up, his arm resting across it, his fingers loosely linked. The scene might have been an oil painting, she thought. A moment captured for posterity of a privileged, golden young buck with no cares in the world.

With a taut sigh, Diana declared that she would concede defeat to the sunny day and the pleas of the children who wanted the picnic basket opened.

Since Nathaniel’s gleaming presence was a novelty that made Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth’s problems dull in comparison, no one else made a convincing protest against pausing the story for now. As Lucy declared, “On such a sunny day, who wants to read a book?”

“If it were not for books,” Sarah sharply reminded her, “you would not even be allowed out of the house. It is only because of the book society that your papa let you out.”

Nathaniel swiftly turned to Lucy and offered his sympathies for the demise of her grandmother.

“Well, she was ancient and terribly mean to everybody,” Lucy replied. “She always thought my mama could have done so much better when she married my papa, and she took it out on all of us. Oh, what sort of cake did you bring, Jussy?”

“How dreadful,” Nathaniel muttered. “I have never understood why people shouldn’t marry as they please. A great deal of unhappiness would be avoided in the world if people married for love.”

“I agree,” said Lucy firmly. “But some folk don’t like others to be happy because they are miserable themselves.”

“Precisely.” Nathaniel smiled dashingly at the young woman. “Miss Bridges, hold very still.”

She froze, eyes wide. “What is it, Captain?”

He raised a hand to her shoulder and captured a ladybird that was about to crawl onto her fair ringlet. As Lucy gushed with gratitude, he examined the creature on his finger, then blew gently until it took flight.

No one seemed to notice that the ladybird next landed on the crease of Diana’s open pages. She moved it carefully to the safety of a blade of grass before she closed the book. She had just done so, when one of Justina’s daughters launched herself at Diana’s back, clung around her neck in a stranglehold, and refused to let go.

Diana cajoled the little girl to let her breathe again, but she was not heeded. Across the picnic blanket, Justina was preoccupied with arguing with her other daughter about whether or not the child could have more than one biscuit. The other ladies paid no attention to Diana’s struggle, too busy examining the contents of the picnic hamper. Packed by the Wainwrights’ excellent French chef, it was a veritable feast of delights.

Diana’s head throbbed and her desperation mounted. The child, assuming this was merely a game, was heavy on her back, her arms tight. To throw the giggling bundle off her could result in injury, and to discipline a child who was not one’s own was always a difficult business.

Then suddenly she was rescued. The naughty girl was plucked from her back by strong hands and tossed playfully into the air. Squinting, Diana looked up and found Nathaniel behind her, his tall form outlined by the sun’s bright glare. She had not even known he was on his feet or standing nearby until that moment.

No word passed between them, but a glance of hesitant thanks and one of mildly surprised acceptance were exchanged following this simple act of kindness.

He had come to her rescue yet again, and from his expression, he didn’t know why he had done it. She could not imagine why he had either.

The spiteful sun stung her eyes as she watched Nathaniel’s tall silhouette spinning around, letting the naughty child “fly” through the air. How strong he was. Of course the children loved him because he was fearless and knew how to tease them. Unlike some men, he did not mind how silly he looked while doing it.

Diana fought to compose herself, hoping none of the others had seen her hot face. She needn’t have worried, for there was soon a much larger disturbance.

Convinced a wasp had invaded her petticoats, Lucy Bridges began a squealing pantomime that provided more entertainment than anything else that day. Having turned in a rapid series of flapping spins, Lucy suddenly tripped over a tuft of grass and appeared to faint. Which, of course, required Captain Sherringham to put down the child and tend to her immediately.

The “wasp” was found to be an almond sliver from the top of a bakewell tart. Lucy suffered nothing more than a bump to her forehead, and the moment of madness was over. But the young lady was so shaken that she could only be consoled by requisitioning Sarah’s parasol to keep the sun off her face and having Captain Sherringham sit beside her to valiantly fight off the advance of menacing insects.

Not wishing to be thought peevish about the parasol or antisocial by leaving the picnic blanket, Diana suffered quietly for a few minutes and then stood.

“I think I will enjoy a little walk,” she said. “Do excuse me.”

Hastily she walked away to find shade.

Nathaniel was never very good at sitting still and was almost as restless as the children. Consequently, as she moved away from the picnic blanket, Diana heard him suggest a game of hide-and-seek.

“You will not play, Diana?” Jussy called out.

“No, no.” She waved. “I am on the hunt for bluebells.”

Soon she had put a fair distance between herself and the joyful shrieks of the others. Her headache began to ease a little as she moved through the cooler, quieter shade, and her pulse settled into a more familiar rhythm. Her eye had ceased to smart, although her lashes felt damp.

For some reason the lashes of both eyes were moist, not just the one that had been wounded by Sarah’s parasol.

The game of hide-and-seek would have been over very quickly if Nathaniel had not pretended to miss the excited squealing of the children. Rather than spoil the fun, he good-naturedly remarked upon the curious calls of so many rare birds among the trees as he walked along with Sarah—the two of them nominated to hunt.

“There must be a great many exotic birds nesting here this spring,” he said with a wink.

She laughed and grabbed his arm. “Come on, Sherry. I think Lucy went this way. You must seek her out and I will find the others.”

He realized that Lucy Bridges was the potential bride that Sarah had picked out for him. His step-niece was not subtle and clearly had little experience with matchmaking, although she fancied herself skilled in the art. Unfortunately he had exposed himself to this by taking an active interest in getting Lucy out of the house and telling Sarah that he remembered the young lady favorably. It was not, of course, the first time one of his spontaneous good deeds had caused him trouble.

Aware of this error, he quickly let Sarah know that her intentions for Lucy were misaimed. “I am fond of Miss Bridges. She is amusing company, but she is not the girl for me.”

Sarah put her nose in the air and replied, “Aunt Jussy says that men never know what’s good for them.”

“I can assure you that your aunt is wrong about me.”

“But we women,” she said haughtily, “spend a great deal more of our time in deep thought and we see things that you do not.”

“Do you indeed?”

“My stepmama said that you were once very keen on Diana Makepiece.” She bent over to pick some daisies and seemed thoroughly unaware of the cannonball she’d just shot into his chest.

There! He should have known his sister would never be able to hold her tongue. Good thing she didn’t know about his marriage proposal. Diana would never have told her; he knew that.

Nathaniel cleared his throat. “It was a passing fancy. Many years ago.” He was beyond it now. Quite beyond.

“Yes, I did think it must have been a hundred years in the past. Diana is resigned to spinsterhood. She has even stopped curling her hair. William Shaw broke her heart when he ended their engagement. Horrid man.”

He said nothing. He still had doubts about Diana’s guarded heart ever being in danger from anyone. From that dry crust Shaw? Not likely.

“Mrs. Kenton, the parson’s wife, says nobody will notice Diana now because she’s too restrained and meek. Men don’t see her. She says it’s a great shame that poor Diana lost her one chance because she won’t have another.” Sarah studied the daisy she’d picked. “In truth, I don’t think Diana really wants another. If she did, she’d make more effort. She could still be quite pretty if she tried, but she’s given up and it does take greater effort the older one gets.”

Nathaniel nodded. “And why did William Shaw abandon her?”

“He found someone else.” She looked over her shoulder and then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Lucy says it’s because Diana wouldn’t let him kiss her, even after they’d been engaged two whole years.”

“And how would Miss Bridges know this?”

“She saw them once, walking in the Bolt. William Shaw tried to kiss Diana, and she pushed him away so hard that he almost fell over. Lucy heard Diana say something about memories and how she didn’t want them spoiled. William was very red-faced. A short while after that, the engagement was called off.”

“I see.” Nathaniel’s heart was tentatively warmed by this news. It didn’t mean that the memories Diana cherished were of him, of course, but he wanted to believe they were. She wasn’t the sort of girl to make a habit of kissing gentlemen under the arches of the Bolt.

“But unlike Diana, Lucy is eager to find a husband and she believes it’s miserly to withhold one’s affections. She would kiss anyone who asked.”

“How altruistic of the lady,” he murmured, amused.

“Lucy may seem somewhat shrill at times and silly, but she is a sweet girl underneath it all.”

“I’m sure she is.” They had walked up the slope and now came to the old stone ruins of a shepherd’s hut on the brow of the hill. “Amazing that this place still stands,” he remarked. “It takes a battering from the weather up here and has no one to maintain it, yet here it has stood for so many years.”

“My papa says that if something has a strong foundation and is well-built in stone, it will stand forever.”

“Unless it is deliberately destroyed, of course.”

“Deliberately?”

“By someone wielding a very powerful hammer. Someone who knows where the vulnerable spots are.”

“Even if the walls are knocked down, the foundation will still be there to show where it once was. Papa says that land holds memories much longer than people do. Think of all the people who have lived up here. They must all have left their mark in some way.”

“Possibly.” Nathaniel ran his hand over the mossy stone wall of the old hut. “But this place is lonely now and sad with no one to live in it, no one to put light in the windows at night. It has lost its last inhabitant and will never have another. Not now. It has been left to the elements and ghosts too long with no one taking care of it. There is no heart alive within it anymore.”

Suddenly he felt a deep and heavy grief, as if he were mourning for the shepherd who had last lived there. He shook his head. “Enough of this grim talk. We should be hunting.” But the weather had turned to match his mood. Clouds had gathered seemingly out of nowhere, and the first prickles of rain touched his cheek when he looked up. “But I fear rain will bring a premature end to our game.”

Sarah agreed and they turned back down the hill toward the cart.

* * *

She heard their voices growing fainter and exhaled with relief that they had not seen her inside the hut, standing just on the other side of the wall. Diana had been resting there in the cool shade when she first caught the sound of people approaching. Not wanting to be found, she’d stayed where she was and prayed they would not destroy her solitude. Then she overheard their discussion about memories, followed by Nathaniel’s somber speech regarding the shepherd’s hut no longer having lights in its windows at night, and people taking a hammer to cause deliberate destruction. The symbolism was not lost on her.

Raindrops, fat and slow, began to spit on her through holes in the old rafters. Thankfully, Sarah and Nathaniel had already begun to move back down the hill when Diana sneezed. It exploded so suddenly that she had no time to cover it with her handkerchief, but she thought they must be far enough away not to hear.

The rain quickened, pitter-pattering against her bonnet brim and soaking through the shoulders of her muslin, for she’d left her coat on the picnic blanket. The ground at her feet was soft, and a puddle soon formed around her toes. Typically, the rain had waited until people ventured bravely outside before pelting them with spiteful glee.

Diana left the shepherd’s hut and started picking her careful course down the soggy slope, but when she looked up, squinting against the rain, she saw a small blob in the distance, rushing away down the turnpike road toward the village. The Wainwrights’ cart.

They were leaving her behind in their haste to get home and dry.

Was she so easily forgotten, just as Mrs. Kenton had told her?

Your presence is so easily overlooked that I am surprised you have not been sat upon.

Another sneeze bubbled out of her. If she were Justina, she would laugh at her misfortune and run home, jumping in all the puddles on her route. If she were Rebecca, she would shake her fist at the rain clouds and curse. But Diana felt no such strength today. She had no one waiting at home except her mother, who would probably shout at her as if the rain were her fault. She considered—for just a moment—sinking down onto the grass and letting the flood sweep her away.

Until she heard hooves pounding uphill toward her.

He had not gone with the others. He shouted her name, bellowed it through the rain in an uncouth manner as if he would bring her to heel. The rake who called her a fool, thought her weak, and had the audacity to set his cap at one of her friends while keeping an adulteress mistress had ridden back to find her.

Why? So he could tell her again how ill she looked? To advise her to eat cake?

Her pulse renewed with determination, she set her face against the rain and walked on.

* * *

“Miss Makepiece,” he called out to her as he slowed his horse. “I told the others I would find you. They were anxious to get back because one of the children had indigestion and Miss Bridges worried for her new bonnet. She did not want her father to know she’d been out so far in the rain, and flattened ribbons with running black dye would most certainly give her away.”

Her small, pale face winced up at him. “I can find my way home, Captain. I was not lost. It was not necessary for you to stay.”

Just as he expected. Damnable, stubborn, predictable woman. He reached down, offering his hand. “Come up behind me, Miss Makepiece. I won’t bite.”

Her eyes widened, the flare of emerald quite spectacular while raindrops hovered in her long, thick lashes and reflected the color like tiny prisms. “I certainly cannot ride with you.” Walking hurriedly around his horse, she stumbled onward down the hill.

Nathaniel rode after her. “I can get you home in less than half the time it will take you to walk, yet you would rather drown yourself than take my hand and sit on my horse for ten minutes.”

“It would not be proper,” she sputtered, her gaze fixed on the wet grass, her heels slipping as she quickened her pace to escape him. “What would my… What would people think?”

“I’ve heard of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, but I’ve never seen it demonstrated quite so vividly.”

“Please go away.” She tripped but stayed upright. Only her bonnet was dislodged, slipping back off her head and hanging around her neck by its wet ribbons.

“Don’t be so damn foolish, Diana!” He lost his temper. Drawing alongside the anxious woman, he reached down again. This time he scooped her up with one arm, hoisted her over his lap, and set his horse for the road. Even sopping wet she weighed little more than a bundle of kindling wood. She was desperately in need of a few good meals, which angered him even more.

“How dare you,” she gasped.

“Be still or you’ll scare the horse.”

He had given her the option of riding behind him and she had rejected it. Now she would have to suffer riding in front of him on the horse, with both her legs laid over his right thigh and his arms closed around her. Served her right for being stubborn and putting herself in danger. She could have tumbled down the slope, fallen under his horse, and broken a limb or worse.

At least his body gave her some shelter from the rain, he thought, trying to calm his pulse and remember that he shouldn’t care about this woman. So what if she ran around getting soaked and endangering her health? It was not his concern.

Yet he could not stop caring.

“This is just like one of those novels you like so much, is it not?” he shouted wryly above the clattering hooves as they finally hit the stone road.

“No, it is not,” she replied, her voice as stern as possible through chattering teeth. “The gentlemen in Miss Austen’s novels would never capture a lady against her will.”

“Then it’s no wonder her books are so long—if everyone tiptoes around, quibbling and fussing before they reach a conclusion. A good, sound kidnapping, and possibly a spanking, would bring smart resolution to the heroine’s fate.”

From what he could see of her face it was pinched and tense, any sign of humor hidden. “You will kindly put me down as soon as we get to the bridge, Captain. The rain is easing already.”

“Indeed I shall not. Kindness would mean delivering you to your gate, madam. I cannot leave you to walk that distance in this weather. As a gentleman, it is my duty to—”

“As a gentleman, you would put me down.”

“Stop squirming or you might fall.”

“Look, it is little more than a drizzle now.”

That was true. The heaviest rain had passed quickly and remained now as nothing more than a damp mist with hazy, diffident sunlight slipping through the clouds.

Nathaniel warned her, “Those clouds could darken and split open again at any moment. Such are the joys of an English spring and summer. Have some caution, madam.”

“Caution?” she sputtered. “
You
talk to
me
of caution? I did not think you knew the word.”

When he urged the horse into a gallop, the sudden thrusting, forward motion pushed her light, slender form back into his arms, her shoulder against his chest. She seemed determined to keep her face turned away from him, but with her crumpled bonnet hanging at her back, her pale, vexed brow was not far from his lips. He could smell the soft violets of her perfume, could taste it on his tongue. Unleashed by the rainwater, the fragrance was even stronger than usual.

Struggling to keep her balance, she had placed one hand on his buckskin-clad thigh. Almost at once she took it off again, curling her fingers into a fist in her own lap. But the touch had ignited a spark of flame inside him, and despite the wet weather, that bright, hot, quivering light grew and stretched.

Before he even knew the thought was in him, he said, “If you give me a kiss, Miss Makepiece, I will do as you ask and set you down before we are in sight of your mama’s house. There, see? I am being reasonable.”

He felt her stiffen against his body as if she held her breath. But then the words came out of her in a rush. “My mama was right. You have not changed at all, Captain.” She shook her head. A lock of black hair had fallen loose from her pins and it tickled his cheek, catching on his stubble.

“Some things about me
have
changed. Some never will. No matter how I might wish they would.” He stared at the road ahead, trying to remember his determination to despise this woman. But it was hard.
Very hard indeed
, he thought, grinding his jaw. Especially while she was a captive in his lap and he had her at his mercy. “It seems I am destined to be the villain in your story, Miss Makepiece.”