Rake's Honour (3 page)

“So nearly there and yet not quite,” murmured her pirate, discreetly withdrawing his hand from beneath her skirts and tidying her clothes as he helped her to her feet.

 
 
“Aye, we’re at t’other side, now,” announced the riverman with a sly look as he jumped out to steady the craft.

She rose shakily, as if the foundations of her life had shifted.

And they had, for just now she’d experienced what no unmarried young woman ought to have experienced. Certainly not a respectable one.

As they reached level ground, he bent to kiss her lightly on the lips before signalling to a jarvey waiting nearby with his hackney carriage.

Fanny’s mind whirled. She’d felt excitement like she’d never known, cruelly truncated. Then she felt ill as she imagined allowing Lord Slyther access to her nether regions like she’d allowed this handsome…
stranger,
whom she leaned against while he held open the door for her.

She had no one to rely upon for support—never had—so it was ridiculous to lean against handsome strangers like some helpless, lovelorn creature. She murmured, “Tonight you showed me the only excitement I will ever know, for I am destined to marry a man I do not love.”

He helped her into the carriage, his smile disbelieving. “Goodnight, mystery lover,” he whispered as he leaned through the window to brush her lips once more with his. “I wish you every happiness.”

Fanny returned his smile, then knocked on the roof to signal the jarvey’s departure. She would not give her address. The house her mother had leased for the season was lowly and the danger to her reputation unknown. What she did know, however, was that her life would never be the same.

Chapter Two

Fanny tiptoed across the threshold, her heart pounding as much from fear of being discovered by her mother as from exciting and disturbing recollections of her river crossing.

That evening she’d had both the disappointment and the thrill of a lifetime, and at that moment she wasn’t sure if she would ever recover from either.

The door that Mary, her maid, had left unbolted by special arrangement, made little noise as she closed it behind her. All was silent and dark within. If she was lucky, her mother would never even know she’d left the house.

She was not lucky. She felt the stinging slap of her mother’s hand across her cheek as she rose from shooting the bolt.

“Little fool!” hissed Lady Brightwell, flinging her daughter into the hallway. “Where have you been? Certainly not playing cards with Miss Brownhill in that scandalous rig-out! Helen of Troy, indeed. It’s a gossamer web that leaves nothing to the imagination! Answer me, girl! Have you brought our good name into disrepute?” Lady Brightwell, her thin lips pressed into a bloodless line, hustled her daughter into the dim, candlelit drawing room, slamming the door behind her.

“I told you Mama would find out.” Appearing out of the darkness from the other side of the room, Fanny’s younger sister resembled a pale ghost in her plain nightrail, her shining, golden hair cascading over her shoulders. “But I swear I didn’t tell her.”

  
“Quiet, Antoinette,” Lady Brightwell snapped as Fanny shrugged out of her grasp and stalked towards the dining table.

“Courtesy of Alverley, Mama!” she said, tossing a simple silver ring set with a garnet onto the table.

In tense silence, they watched its spiralling progress across the mahogany surface.

“Alas, the ring comes without security. It was merely a sop.” Pain scoured her heart and lanced her pride, but of course losing Alverley was not the cause. She’d relegated him to her distant past. Had to, if she was to carry out her mother’s orders.

With a challenging look, she said, “Invite Lord Slyther to call, mother, but do not blame me if he does not make an offer. I’ve lost my touch. Perhaps you’ll have to look to Antoinette to fill the family coffers. Or Bertram.” Her voice broke.

She was suddenly desperately weary, though she felt she’d never sleep again—and not because of Alverley’s humiliating betrayal.
 
She’d developed a small fondness for him during the past year, but there’d been no danger she’d lose her heart to him.

“Don’t be saucy with me, girl.” Lady Brightwell pocketed the ring. “We may be poor but we are respectable. You asked for this chance with Alverley on account of the interest he’d already shown and I had every reason to hope you would fulfil our expectations.” Her face looked haggard in the guttering candlelight as she sank into her chair. “Now let us hope Lord Slyther will be as forthcoming in
his
interest as he was three months ago. You know we depend on you, Fanny. Bertram is a wastrel, just like your father was.” She fixed her sharp eyes on the last of the glowing coals. “And Antoinette’s beauty won’t make up for the fact she is a pea goose. She’ll likely take her pleasure in a haystack with a footman and ruin us all.”

“For goodness’ sake, Mama, it’s only because of
me
we’ve been invited to the Earl of Quamby’s ball the night after next.” Antoinette, warming her hands by the fire, looked up, offended.

“That was luck, not cunning, Antoinette, and I helped him as much as you,” Fanny objected, kneeling beside her sister, for the room was freezing and their breath clouded in the guttering light.

“You only returned his walking sticks. It was my screams which frightened away the footpads.”

“Girls, girls!” Lady Brightwell admonished wearily.

Antoinette giggled, pushing aside the curtain of her glorious hair as she simpered, “Lord Quamby likes me immensely. I make him laugh.”

“I’d rather you made him your husband”—Lady Brightwell’s lip curled—“though I fear Lord Quamby is not about to marry anyone. Otherwise I’d relent, Fanny, knowing the aversion you feel for Lord Slyther, and send you after the earl instead.”

“I’d infinitely prefer Lord Quamby, with his frightful red wig and his crippled legs and his brilliant wit.” Despite herself, Fanny smiled, recalling her last spirited exchange with the eccentric earl who sometimes sent for the Brightwells at the oddest times, merely so Fanny could play cribbage with him—an excuse, Fanny knew, for some lively banter—or when he was in the doldrums because he’d been required to bail out his detested nephew and heir, George Bramley, once more.

George Bramley. Fanny’s lip curled, just like her mother’s but with far more reason. Small wonder Lord Quamby detested his nephew, a boorish young man with not one redeeming quality she could think of.

Fanny was always carefully chaperoned during her visits to the earl, though never had she gained the impression he was even slightly interested in her feminine attributes. It was all quite confusing.

Her mother grunted, her shoulders slumping as if she really was preparing for the end. “If Lord Slyther declines my invitation to call, Thursday’s ball is your last chance, girls. We’ve received no further invitations.”

Both daughters looked at her. For the first time, their mother appeared weak, her usually hard, flinty tone a mere whisper as she added, “The truth is, unless one of you contracts a good marriage by the end of this season, we have not the funds to maintain the household.”

Antoinette gasped. “You mean—”

“I mean that if you girls are determined to be ape-leaders like hatchet-faced Aunt Hester, we’ll have no choice but to accept her charity—or else you will both have to seek employment.”

* * * *

But Lord Slyther did accept, with alacrity. The gleam in his eye hinted at victory as he shuffled into the drawing room, puffing at the exertion expended by his bloated body. Fanny and Antoinette had watched from the window as he’d been delivered to the front portico by sedan chair. He’d then been all but manually hoisted up the steps, causing Antoinette to remark happily, “He’s unlikely to live long, Fanny. Look at him!”

Fanny did, then covered her face with her hands as she turned back from the window and sank into a chair with a groan. “Oh, Mama, what if he doesn’t? He’s so repulsive!”

“Doesn’t what? Doesn’t live long or doesn’t offer?” Antoinette asked with another giggle, prompting their mother to snap, “It’s of no account whether you find him repulsive, provided he does not find Fanny so. Now, my girl, pinch your cheeks and remember everything I’ve taught you. Hush!” For his laboured breaths could already be heard from halfway down the passage. “This is our last chance.”

Within a few minutes Fanny found herself alone in the drawing room with her erstwhile suitor, abandoned by her mother and siblings at the request of the ageing viscount who had ‘something of importance’ he wished to say to Miss Brightwell.

She felt like slumping from…what? Disappointment at her likely success? There’d been a time when she’d have done anything to evoke the gleam in her mother’s eye that had been in evidence before Lady Brightwell had unctuously acceded to Lord Slyther’s request for privacy.

Lord Slyther was about to make her an offer and she should be overjoyed. At the very least, she should take consolation from Antoinette’s remark regarding his imminent demise. Until last night she would have—but until then she’d not known the liberties, the intimacies that would become the preserve of her new husband. In return for the Brightwells retaining their position amongst the ton, Fanny must give herself to this disgusting, odious man mind, body and soul.

As she straightened in her spindly, uncomfortable little chair opposite Lord Slyther, striving for the demure pose required, she thought of the thrilling events of last night and nearly wept. That was what she wanted—mutual excitement in a meeting of two well-matched minds and bodies coming together…

“Come here.”

Fanny blinked with surprise. The viscount was leaning forward, indicating with an imperious wave of one bejewelled hand that she should seat herself on the footstool on which he rested his bandaged foot.

From their first meeting at a dinner three months ago, he’d made no secret of his interest in her, and within the week had spoken to Lady Brightwell.

“You wish me to sit by you, my lord? On the footstool?”

He grunted his agreement.

It was irregular and not very courteous, Fanny thought, as she transferred herself and awkwardly lifted his leg so she could sit down. Not knowing what to do next, she gingerly replaced his heavy, swollen limb across her lap. With an effort she managed not to wrinkle her nose at the unpleasant odour of ulcerating flesh, which all the bandaging could not disguise.

Lord Slyther grunted again as he shifted himself more comfortably in his chair. “So, you know why I’m here, and you’re prepared, are ye, Miss Brightwell?”

Despite herself, Fanny blushed. Was she that transparent? Yet it was hardly a crime. She was no different from any other penniless young woman seeking security in a perilous world that offered little to those whom fortune failed to smile upon. Yet most gentlemen making an offer in such circumstances would maintain the charade required by good manners.

She hesitated before saying demurely, “I do not know what you mean, my Lord.”

“I think you do.” He chuckled. “Well, keep up the play acting, my lovely Miss Brightwell. The prospect of tutoring an innocent pleases me…for all you were not so innocent last night.”

She was unable to disguise her gasp, not at his manner of speech but at the thought of what he might be referring to. The shock surely blanching her skin white and bloodless would be a testament to her guilt.

“It’s pleasing to observe genuine contrition for such unladylike behaviour, but you failed, did you not, Miss Brightwell?” He leant down, bringing his face close to hers, and she smelt the stink of his breath, like there was something rotting within him. Forcing herself not to recoil, she braced herself for his next words.

“You accompanied young Alverley to Vauxhall, alone and unchaperoned, but he did not make you the offer you took such risks for, did he?”

Fanny hung her head, the weight of Lord Slyther’s bandaged leg making her thigh hurt. Like her heart, her dignity…

“Who told you this, my lord?” There was no point denying it. Survival depended upon knowing what else and how much else he knew.

“Never you mind, my dear. Suffice it to say it was a friend. A friend I did not know I had until he came to me shortly after your mother’s surprise and welcome visit to see me yesterday.”

She felt rather than heard him chuckle, his body creating ripples of movement that increased her fear like a rising tide.

“Your friend must dislike me very much.” What else could Fanny say? Somehow she had to discover the identity of her enemy if she was to salvage what was left of her reputation.