Ravished by the Rake Page 13

  Doctor Melchett had taken command of the wagers, which were growing prodigiously. As no one, except Daniel Chatterton, had any idea of the proficiency of either of them, it was hard to know on what basis people were staking their money.

  ‘You are the favourite,’ George Latham, one of the more senior Company clerks, remarked as he passed Alistair on his way to a place at the rail. ‘Everyone’s heard about the tiger, no doubt.’ He glanced at Callum, who had discarded his coat and was rolling up his shirt sleeves. ‘Chatterton looks competent though.’

  ‘I am sure he’ll give me a good bout,’ Alistair said. He did not care if the man was the East India Company’s foils champion, he was not teaching Dita to fence and getting his hands all over her in the process.

  ‘How is the winner to be decided?’ someone called.

  ‘It is in the nature of a masquerade,’ Daniel said. ‘Lord Lyndon plays the villain, my brother the hero. They fight over the heroine, played by Mrs Bastable, who sits here.’ He indicated a chair at the foot of the main mast where the lady dimpled and waved to her friends. ‘She is the villain’s captive. To win, one man must either disarm the other, or land a hit that in the opinion of our learned medical advisor—’ Dr Melchett bowed ‘—is fatal or incapacitating, or must obtain the other’s surrender.’

  Callum picked up his foil, walked forwards and took his position. Alistair faced him and raised the foil for the salute. As Chatterton’s blade came up Alistair saw the focus in the other man’s eyes and blanked everything beyond his opponent from his mind; however this had started, it was not a game now.

  ‘En garde!’ Daniel called and the blades touched. Alistair stepped back sharply and Callum cut to his right. So it begins, he thought, watching the other man for balance and strengths, knowing he was being assessed in the same way as they cut and parried, shifting around their circle of deck.

  He let his guard waver deliberately, took a touch to the arm that would have been a slash with an unguarded weapon and confirmed his suspicion that Chatterton was weaker on the left foot. But it was a damnably close match. Alistair pinked his opponent on the left shoulder, took another hit on the forearm and then, as Callum was extended from that lunge, shifted his weight and drove him back hard towards the hatch cover.

  In a flurry of blows they were toe to toe, face to face, their hilts locked. On either side the spectators drew back, uncertain which way they might move.

  ‘Just what are your intentions towards Lady Perdita?’ Alistair asked between clenched teeth as they each thrust forwards against the weight of the other.

  ‘My what?’ Callum gave ground and recovered.

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Entirely honourable—if that’s any of your damned business,’ he retorted. ‘What are yours?’

  Alistair stepped back, lowered his weapon without warning and Callum stumbled, caught out by the sudden shift in weight. Alistair ducked under his guard, there was a sharp flurry of strokes and he had the button of his foil against Callum’s jugular. What the hell are my intentions? ‘Neighbourly,’ he said, showing his teeth. And that’s a lie.

  For a long moment his opponent stared into his eyes as though trying to read his mind. Then Callum gave a half-smile, let his foil fall to the deck and spread his hands in surrender. ‘You win,’ he said, then dropped his voice, ‘Just don’t try and run me through if I smile at her, damn it. She’s a delight—and I freely admit that it would take a stronger man than I to take her to wife.’

  They went to get their coats, the antagonism between them vanishing as rapidly as it had built. Doctor Melchett was besieged by those who had laid wagers and the two duellists were buffeted from all sides by well-wishers.

  When Alistair finally made it to the comparative peace of the poop deck, he found Dita sitting scribbling in her notebook. ‘Was that helpful?’

  ‘Yes, it was. And extremely exciting.’ She closed the book and looked at him, her green eyes dark and troubled despite the steadiness of her gaze. ‘You have a forfeit for me, I believe.’

  ‘Yes.’ He had been thinking about that, ever since he had thrown the challenge at her. ‘You will allow me to show you how to defend yourself.’

  ‘I am not likely to be carrying a sword if I find myself in trouble, Alistair!’

  ‘No, but you have your teeth, your feet and your elbows and you will usually have a hat pin, or a glass of wine or your reticule.’ He regarded her seriously. ‘You are too attractive, Dita. That and the scrape you got into mean that men will try to take advantage of you when you get to London.’

  She shifted uncomfortably. ‘Surely not. I am not pretty—’

  ‘I know that. And you know perfectly well how attractive you are, which is an entirely different thing—you didn’t get that way without working at it.’ Dita opened her mouth and closed it again. ‘I will teach you a few fencing moves, as Chatterton could have done perfectly well, but I will teach you to fight dirty, too.’

  ‘Where, might I ask?’ She sounded outraged, but looked intrigued.

  ‘In my cabin—if you dare.’

  ‘You are teaching me how to repel unwanted advances—aren’t you worried that you might find your own lessons turned on you?’

  ‘Of course, you can try. You won’t best me though. Besides, my advances are not unwelcome—are they?’ he said with a deliberate arrogance designed to provoke.

  Dita shook her head at him, but a smile she could not control twitched at the corner of her mouth. He felt something shift inside his chest, something almost like a twinge of fear. Damn it, what am I getting myself into? He gave himself a mental shake: she was not a virgin, he was not going to risk getting her with child, she was willing. What was there to worry about?

  Dita stood up. She felt curiously shaken. It was probably the fight. Even though she knew there were buttons on the foils and that it was essentially a game, there was something primal and stirring about two men fighting with deadly skill and elegance. Especially, she had to admit, over her. Even more so when one of them was Alistair. She did not want to investigate that thought too deeply.

  ‘Would you care to try the foils now? You do not mind an audience?’

  She hardly had time to nod before he was gone, to return with the swords and Mrs Bastable, both Chatterton twins and Averil at his heels. Alistair placed one foil in her hand and she exclaimed at how light it was.

  ‘The point is to impale your opponent, not bludgeon him to death,’ he said, and she snorted with nervous laughter as he put his hand over hers to adjust her grip. ‘Good, check the button is secure, you do not want to run Mr Chatterton through just yet.’ Callum grinned, picked up the other foil and stood opposite her. ‘Now stand sideways, with your feet like this …’

  Alistair nudged her into position, his hands warm yet impersonal on her shoulder, at her elbow. She had thought he would need to hold her more closely and found herself oddly piqued that he did not. ‘En garde,’ Callum said, bringing his foil up, and she imitated him.

  ‘Now lunge.’ Alistair moved behind her, his body suddenly as close as she could have wished, one arm bracketing her, his hand over her fingers. Their weight shifted together, Callum moved, his foil coming across to deflect her blade, and Alistair pulled her back. ‘Bring up your foil; he is going to counter-attack.’

  ‘Oh!’ It was alarming, seeing that blade coming towards her, even slowly. Hers met it at right angles. ‘Push,’ Alistair said in her ear and she did, as he twisted her wrist, moved their balance and Callum, caught unawares, found his foil flicked out of his grasp.

  ‘Now, in for the kill!’ Instinctively she straightened the blade, let her body go with the thrust of his and Callum was standing there, the button of her foil pressed against his heart.

  ‘I’ve killed you!’ She jumped up and down in glee before she realised what she had said. ‘Oh! I am so sorry, Mr Chatterton, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘You, Lady Perdita,’ he said with a grin, ‘are quite lethal, with or without a weapo
n. I think I will let my brother stand as your opponent in future—he has no reputation as a swordsman to lose.’

  ‘I think that is quite enough,’ Dita said. ‘I know what it feels like to hold a sword now, and I would like to learn more—but I do not think that proper lessons would be quite—’

  ‘Proper?’ Alistair released her and reversed the foil over his arm for Callum to take before he went to retrieve the fallen one. ‘Thank you,’ he added, holding out his hand to shake the other’s. ‘That was good sport.’ He nodded to Dita and strode off.

  ‘What was that about?’ Dita demanded when she found herself alone for a moment with Callum while Daniel wiped the blades with an oiled cloth and laid them back in their case. He looked at her blankly. ‘Mr Chatterton, one minute you and Alistair are bristling at each other like two tom cats on a wall and the next you are shaking hands and appear to be friends for life.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ He took her arm and strolled to the rail where they could look down on the main deck. ‘He thought my intentions towards you might be less than honourable, I suspect. Now he believes me when I tell him they are simply those of friendship and I believe him when he tells me that he is acting purely as a concerned neighbour.’

  ‘A neighbour?’ Dita stared at him. ‘Lord Lyndon has been no neighbour of mine for the past eight years.’

  ‘He obviously feels he still has a responsibility to look after you, Lady Perdita,’ Callum said with a perfectly straight face and laughter in his eyes. ‘If you will excuse me.’ He bowed and left her a victim to considerable confusion.

  Why on earth did Alistair feel he had to warn Callum off, and why did he want to teach her to defend herself? Was he a rake or a reformed man? Or a rake who was trying to lull her into a false sense of security? Whatever the answer, it was intriguing. Not that she should give in to her regrettable attraction to him again.

  She was still leaning on the rail and brooding when Alistair came back. ‘That empty cabin is still unoccupied and no one is around down there. Do you want to attempt to disarm me now?’

  Dita followed him warily, but the space was brightly lit by three lanterns and there were an array of props on the unmade bunk. It seemed he really did have a self-defence lesson in mind.

  After ten minutes he had her in fits of laughter as he demonstrated the best way to wield a hat pin to deter a pest sitting next to her in a pew at church, the easiest way to tip a glass of wine down a gentleman who was standing too close whilst making it seem like an accident, the most painful part of the foot to stand upon with a French heel and how to free one’s hands if they had been seized. It was all fun and extremely useful.

  ‘Girls ought to be taught this sort of thing instead of endless embroidery,’ she remarked as Alistair rubbed a twisted thumb.

  ‘That will deal with the pests,’ he said. ‘What I will show you now is how to deal with an over-amorous gentleman who completely oversteps the bounds of decency.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Dita raised an eyebrow. ‘You intend to stop kissing me and … other things, do you?’

  Alistair studied her without amusement. ‘Tell me that anything I have done has been unwelcome and I will not speak to you, or approach you, for the remainder of this voyage.’

  That was handing her her own with a vengeance. Dita searched her conscience, then shook her head. ‘You have done many things that are shocking, unwise and outrageous, and I have not been unwilling.’ It was difficult to meet his eyes, but when she did the tension had vanished from his face.

  He nodded. ‘After this, should you change your mind, you will be able to give me a very pointed hint. There are a number of places where a jab or a blow is extremely painful and will win you time to get away. If you will allow me to take you in my arms, like so—’

  Dita knew she was still flushed, and it was hard to remember that she was supposed to be fighting and not yielding.

  ‘Make your fingers stiff and jab here, then raise your knee …’ Her hand and knee hardly made contact before he twisted away, eel-like. ‘You have it to perfection. Now, let’s try again.’ Alistair took her in a firm embrace, turning so his broad shoulders were to the bunk. ‘Try for the solar plexus.’

  ‘You are holding me too tightly,’ she protested. ‘That isn’t fair!’ It was no longer a game, but she could not have said quite why not. She felt hot and bothered and far too close to him. Her nipples, she could feel, were peaking hard against her bodice, her breathing was all over the place and the wretched man was stroking his fingers down her spine.

  ‘Rakes don’t play fair, Dita,’ he murmured, bending to nibble her ear. ‘Stop palpitating and think about what I showed you. I have all the time in the world while you decide what to do.’ His tongue traced hot and moist down to the lobe and she jumped as though he had pinched her.

  ‘You …’ Think, Dita, your hands are free. He said something about ears … Oh my lord, he is sucking my earlobe … She raised her hands, grabbed both Alistair’s ears and twisted. The result was instant.

  ‘Aagh!’ They stood, a foot apart, glaring at each other, then Alistair began to laugh. ‘Excellent.’ He rubbed his ears with a grimace. ‘You see, there is no point pussyfooting about. If you are serious, then act and put everything you have into it. What you should have done, the moment I released you, was to use your knee. If you had done it hard enough, I would be rolling about on the floor by now and you would be out of the door.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Dita said. ‘If I ever encounter a wolf, I will know what to do now.’ She still felt unsettled and aroused and simmering beneath that there was anger with herself for feeling that way—and with him for manipulating her so. She turned and opened the door. ‘A wolf, or any other kind of deceiver. Good day, Alistair.’

  ‘Wait.’ He took her arm and pulled her back into the cabin, pushing the door to with the flat of his other hand. ‘What exactly do you mean by that? Who has been deceiving you?’

  ‘Why, you, of course. You make love to me and then you lecture me on defending myself against rakes. Are you a lover or a seducer? A friend or is this just a game? You made love to me here before and you know full well you could have ravished me if you had wished it—I had no defences. You caressed me on deck until I was a trembling wreck and you held me in your arms just now and made me melt for a foolish second. You know how to make me react to you, you seem to understand me all too well, but I do not know who you are any more.’

  ‘I am an awful warning, that is what I am,’ he said with no humour whatsoever. ‘I want, Dita my dear, to make love to you and because I know you are not a virgin I want to take advantage of that. So far, I have had enough self-control not to risk leaving you with child. So, yes, I am a rake and a seducer. And yes, I know I should not make love to you and I know I will try to kill any man who does, because part of me remembers that I grew up defending you. So that makes me a hypocrite as well.’

  ‘You remember me as a child?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do! We have discussed this—how could I forget the trouble you got me into, time and again?’

  ‘I was sixteen when you left. Do you remember me then?’

  ‘Not really.’ He frowned. ‘I’d been to Oxford and then I was away—London, travelling, staying with friends—for much of the time after that. When I came back you were still too young for parties and balls, so I didn’t see you at those. You had grown up, I can remember that: all eyes and hair and gawky long legs.’

  ‘We kept bumping into each other, though,’ she reminded him. ‘Out riding and walking, in the grounds. You seemed happy. Excited even.’

  His face became expressionless. ‘Oh, yes, I was in wonderful spirits.’

  He had been different, she had sensed that. Laughing, light-hearted, even, she could see in retrospect, just a little flirtatious. She had been falling in love with him, all unknowing that that happiness and flirtation had not been for her. Another woman?

  ‘The last day. The day before you left,’ she persisted. ‘Do you rememb
er … meeting me that day?’

  He frowned, troubled. ‘No. I was angry and I was devilish drunk by the evening, that I do know. I woke up with one hell of a hangover. It is all very fuzzy. You were there though, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she conceded. ‘And, yes, you were angry and a little drunk.’

  ‘I am sorry. You obviously went away and left me to it—very wise. I got a lot drunker.’ Alistair turned and began to put the cabin to rights.

  He did not remember. He did not recollect her finding him in the garden of Lyndonholt Castle with a bottle in his hand and another at his feet, distracted, both furious over something and desperate with grief. She had pulled him towards the house, worried that he would stumble into the moat, and somehow had towed him up the stairs to his bedchamber. As she had pushed him in through the door he had turned and the pain in his face had torn at her heart. Her friend was hurting. And so she had stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, for comfort. Only she had missed and found his mouth and feelings she had never known flooded through her and she had put her arms around his neck and he had pulled her to him and into the room and.

  As she stood there now, all she wanted to do was walk into his arms and turn up her face to his again. He would kiss her, she was certain. She should leave, she knew that. He was no longer a desperate, drunken young man who did not care what he was doing. But there was a question she had to ask, even though she dreaded the answer and knew that if she asked it, things would never be the same again.

  ‘If you want me so badly,’ she said before she could lose her nerve, ‘why not marry me?’

  It rocked Alistair back on his heels. She saw him recoil and found she had bitten her lip. It hurt, but not as much as his reaction.

  He recovered in the blink of an eyelid. ‘Is that a proposal?’ he drawled.

  ‘No, it is a rhetorical question; there is no need to panic. When I marry—if I marry—it will be a love match. I do not have to settle for less.’ She put up her chin and stared back into the cynical amber eyes that watched her. ‘I want you, but I do not love you. Half of the time I do not even like you, as the child I was did.’