This Rake of Mine (7 page)

Certainly, his years in Town had been filled with vice, but Lord, how many ways did a man have to atone for his sins?

"Grrrr."

He looked down to find attached to his one decent pair of boots a small black dog of some misplaced origins.

"Get off," he said, shaking his boot to no avail.

"Brutus," one of the girls called out, snapping her fingers. "Enough! That is our host!"

The little beast promptly let go, sitting back on his little haunches and eyeing Jack like a stray piece of bacon. The dog's fierce expression and lionlike fur made him look much more furious than his small stature warranted.

The girl came forward and scooped up her wretched, snarling little companion. "My apologies, my lord. I fear Brutus is a bit overprotective." The girl covered her dog's ears and said in a soft aside, "He has the heart of a wolfhound but hasn't the vaguest notion that he's just the size of a sewing basket."

"Are you sure it is a dog?" Jack asked.

The coltish miss with her wide blue eyes looked askance. "Of course he is!" She held the animal up, pushing it forward to afford him a better view—as if Jack needed another close-up meeting with the growling, snapping mongrel. "He has the most royal of bloodlines. His grandsire belonged to Marie Antoinette."

He was being visited by a descendant of Marie Antoinette's dog? He must be fevered. It was the only explanation.

The girl continued with her recitation of her dog's merit, in tones that suggested he warranted a place in
Debrett's
. "Brutus was a gift for my eleventh birthday from the Austrian ambassador."

Jack wasn't so convinced of the dog's worth or his vaunted bloodlines. "Are you sure it was a gift, or was the poor man just trying to rid his country of some very ugly vermin?"

Before the young girl could say another word, Miss Porter rushed forward. "My lord, I am sorry that you weren't made aware of our arrival last night, but your butler assured us—"

Birdwell!
Jack's gaze swiveled in the man's direction, but the cagey fellow was busy tidying up the already perfectly set sideboard. Oh, yes, this certainly smacked of his meddling. If his brother wasn't pestering him to marry, Birdwell was always making it a point to mention the need for a mistress in the house.

A legitimate and properly married one.

Meanwhile Miss Porter was still nattering on. "—for you see we were caught in the storm and your secretary was reluctant—"

To have anyone about
, Jack would guess. By nature Bruno Jones wasn't the trusting type, least of all of women; the man had an unholy fear of the feminine sex, ladies especially.

"—but then your kind butler assured us—"

Leave it to Birdwell to ride to the rescue.

And risk so much. Jack's panic returned tenfold. If one of them took a wrong turn or overheard anything… Or worse, if Dash arrived…

"—I assure you, we had no intention of being—"

"Madame," he said, interrupting her before she could get any further in her polite explanation. "You and your charges are not welcome here. I want you to leave at once."

One of the girls, a tall, blonde creature, gasped at such outright rudeness, while the other pair—twins by looks of them—shared a determined glance that only spelled trouble.

And made him even more resolute to be rid of this pack of females and their toplofty dog.

"Our apologies, my lord," Miss Porter said, gathering her composure together with the dignity of a queen, all the while shooing her charges toward the door—most likely before he said something truly untoward. "We will be gone within the hour and intrude upon your… your…
hospitality
no longer."

The ice in her words would have chilled every bottle in White's cavernous and renowned cellars.

"Without breakfast?" the tall one whispered to Miss Porter.

"Yes, Pippin," her teacher replied in a tight voice. "Without breakfast. One doesn't remain were she is unwanted. We will be gone before his lordship decides to call the magistrate on us for pinching the sausages and rolls Mr. Birdwell went to so much trouble to provide."

Oh, he'd forgotten how peevish a woman could get. Not to mention the twinge of guilt he felt upon spying what appeared to be tears in this Pippin's big blue eyes over the loss of her breakfast.

Tears! Oh, gads, not tears from some soon-to-be debutante. A woman's tears he could guard against (well, at least he told himself he could), but a young girl's watering eyes were enough to melt his resolve.

No, he was made of sterner stuff. He was disreputable. A ruined man, living a lonely, bitter exile. Jack wasn't about to be turned by the sight of a girl's tears.

And over sausages, of all things!

"Yes, well, see that you are gone by then," he told Miss Porter, pointing at the clock on the mantel as if to mark their agreement. "Or I will send for the magistrate."

"Really, milord. Without their breakfast?" Birdwell interjected, echoing Pippin's lament and stepping into their guests' paths. "It seems a dreadful waste—"

Jack's jaw worked back and forth. Then he made the mistake of looking over at Pippin, with her great big dewy blue eyes.

"Fine," he ground out. "Breakfast for our guests. But then please see that Miss Porter and these young ladies are well on their way to—"

"To your folly," one of the twins said brightly.

"My what?"

"Your folly." The girl had the cheek to sidestep her teacher and bound forward.

Jack suspected he was standing before one of the future patronesses of Almack's or some other denizen of Society. Give this chit a few years and she'd have the
ton
following in her determined wake.

"We are quite keen on sketching your tower," she said. Really, it was more of a command than a request.

And he wasn't about to be ordered about by some schoolgirl. "My folly is not a tourist vista."

"Actually it is," she had the nerve to say. Turning to Pippin, she said, "Cousin, do you have the guidebook?"

Pippin nodded and handed over a thick leather-bound tome. "The description is on page seventy-four."

His all-too-determined and unwanted guest thumbed through the book until she came to the page, then she handed the entire thing over to him. "If you please, my lord, read what Mr. Billingsworth says."

She pointed at a passage and looked at him with such a sweet, compelling look that he found himself, against his better nature, reading the text.

Albin's Folly is a spectacular example of classical architecture and should not be missed by any traveler intrepid enough to venture into such a lonely reach of the Sussex coastline. Lady Josephine Tremont, the owner of Thistleton Park, is a fine hostess and all too willing to entertain guests. Though some view her as eccentric, this author knows from firsthand experience, she is a rare and charming lady who loves nothing more than to regale visitors with local histories and…

The passage continued on at great length, but he had neither the time nor the patience to read such nonsense.

Lady Josephine's charms, indeed! What was it about his aunt that had left every man between the ages of fifty and one hundred blathering on about her as if she were some octogenarian Venus?

"Miss?…" he said to the girl before him.

"Miss Felicity Langley, my lord," she replied very properly. Then she nodded over her shoulder, "My sister, Miss Thalia Langley, and my cousin, Lady Philippa Knolles."

"Yes, nice to make your acquaintance, but I have only two things to say about your"—he flipped the book over and read the name of the author—"Mr. Billingsworth. Thistleton Park is under new ownership."

"Yes, but—" the girl began.

"And unlike my aunt, I have no time for entertaining or 'recounting local histories.' Furthermore, my folly is not open to visitors. So I will say it again, you and your teacher are not welcome."

"There goes breakfast," he heard Pippin mutter, her great blue eyes turned in covetous longing toward the sideboard.

The Misses Langley cast him glances that all but branded him the worst curmudgeon this side of the House of Lords, while their beast of a dog was once again eyeing his boots with a renewed interest.

Even Birdwell had the nerve to make a disloyal "
tsk-tsk"
behind his back.

But it was the scathing look from Miss Porter that sliced into his gut. It said only too clearly that she had expected nothing less of him.

And that cut Jack to the quick.

Wasn't that what he wanted? To be left alone to the tasks at hand? Not to have a bunch of curious cats nosing about his estate?

The ruder he was, the more likely these ladies would flee Thistleton Park and spread the word of his inhospitable and ungentlemanly ways from one end of England to the other, or wherever it was their travels took them.

Which was exactly what he wanted. Not some spinster's regard—even if she was a redhead with an enchanting form hidden beneath her dour and proper gown.

Jack ground his teeth together, trying to remember he was now a disreputable boor, not a gentleman, and in no way the rake who had once charmed the
ton
.

It was a battle he won only partly.

"Very well. Give them their breakfast, Birdwell. But no tours, no folly. After you've picked my poor larder clean, ladies, I want you gone so I can have some peace in
my
house."

From the shocked looks on all their faces, that had probably done the trick, but to shore up his case, and before he took another glance at that one stray red tendril that was threatening to spill from Miss Porter's otherwise tight chignon, he stormed out of the room.

There were times when even a rake knew to flee.

With the impossible Lord John well and gone, it was much easier for Miranda to take charge of the situation.

As long as she could also take charge of herself—still her beating heart, calm her ruffled sensibilities.

What was it about this rakish man that put her at sixes and sevens?

His kiss, perhaps
, a tiny voice teased from some dark, unbidden place in her heart.

His kiss, indeed!

No, she'd been right back at Miss Emery's. He truly was a dreadful man. How she had ever thought him capable of possessing a thread of honor, she knew not. Why, his state of
déshabillé
suggested a night spent… well, it was best not speculated how Mad Jack Tremont had spent the night.

However, now that she was over the shock of seeing him yet again, she couldn't help but think his rude display would serve well to dispel any more of her ridiculous notions about him.

And with his departure it was easier to think straight. First and foremost, she knew she must let Pippin eat or they would have to endure her complaints until another hot meal could be procured.

Who knew, in this remote and obviously inhospitable section of England, when they would find another willing host with a decent kitchen?

So they ate quickly, Miranda prodding the girls along so they could meet their deadline to be gone from the house in less than an hour.

"I don't think he'd call the magistrate, Miss Porter," Pippin said, glancing over her shoulder at the still laden sideboard.

Felicity looked up from her notebook, probably amending her notes regarding Lord John's eligibility. "I wouldn't be so sure," she said, taking a quick bite of a roll from her sister's plate and washing it down with a hasty drink of tea. "I have it on good authority that men of his age tend to be given to bouts of melancholy."

Men of his age?
Miranda bit her lips together to keep from laughing. But then to these girls, Lord John probably did look ancient.

To Miranda, he looked… oh, bother, she didn't care how he looked. He certainly wasn't the same handsome gadabout he'd been years ago, but time had only added a fine patina to his carved features, giving them a craggy, hewn look, the gray at his temples, an air of mystery… leaving her wondering how he'd spent the last nine years.

Really, Miranda
, she told herself,
that is no mystery
. As if a rake like Mad Jack Tremont could ever change his stripes. Not even a storm as horrendous as the one last night had been able to keep him caged up and away from his sinful pursuits.

Tally, it seemed, didn't share her sister's aversion to Lord John's thirty some years. "I still think he looks like a pirate," she said as she folded her napkin and set it on the table beside her.

Miranda was about to chide her for such a remark, but the girl's words echoed like a church bell, tolling a warning that sent a chill down her spine.

I still think…

Still?

Miranda turned a slow, inquiring look at Tally. Suddenly their arrival at Thistleton Park took on a less innocent and accidental quality. "Still think. Miss Langley? What other time did you meet Lord John?"

Tally's hand paused as it reached for the teapot. The telltale blush rising on her cheeks answered the question better than if the girl had tried to come up with a handy fib to cover her misstep or even a believable fiction to conceal it entirely.

Felicity continued scribbling in her
Chronicles
as if nothing were amiss, but then again, Miranda suspected the girl could brazen her way out of a charge of high treason.

Still, there was Pippin as the final side to this devious triangle, and being the weakest link, she proved Miranda's suspicions quite handily. The girl looked ready to toss up her precious and hard-won breakfast.

Confirmation enough for Miranda.

They'd tricked her. They'd plotted to come to Thistleton Park—all along, she dared imagine—and it hadn't been for the reasons they'd professed.

Oh, Miss Porter, may we go to Thistleton Park to sketch the folly. It sounds terribly romantic. Oh, please may we go?

How innocent their pleas had sounded yestermorn. And how foolish she'd been to believe them!

But why? Why Thistleton Park? She glanced once more at Felicity and her meticulously kept
Chronicles
, and the answer bore down on her like a runaway mail coach.