Ravished by the Rake Page 17

  At least if anyone tried to take liberties she was prepared now. Dita thought about Alistair’s lesson, the strength of his hands on her body, the feel of him, pressed so close to her, and sighed.

  ‘He’s ever so handsome, isn’t he, my lady?’ Martha, with her back to the horses, must be able to see Alistair riding behind the post chaise.

  ‘Martha, if you have ambitions to become a lady’s maid in a big house—my maid, for example—you must learn not to make personal remarks about gentlemen, or to gossip. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ The girl bit her lip. ‘Might you take me, my lady? If I’m quiet enough?’

  ‘I’ll give you a fortnight’s trial and see how you manage my hair and clothes,’ Dita said, yielding a trifle. Martha’s references from the agency were good and at any other time the maid’s pert observations would have amused her, but she was in no mood for chitchat about Alistair now.

  It had been a long day’s journey, broken only by the need to change horses and to snatch a bite to eat at two o’clock. Alistair must have been saddle-sore, but he rode on, attentive to her needs at each stop, but as impersonal as a hired courier. His eyes promised that this silence would not last.

  ‘We are almost there,’ Dita said as the light began to fade. ‘Here are the gates.’

  Her brothers appeared on the threshold as the party drew up, her parents and Evaline just behind them. Dita tumbled out of the chaise without waiting for the step to be let down and the family ran down to meet her, catching her up in a chaotic embrace. They had never been a family to stand on ceremony, or to hold back on displays of physical affection, and it was several minutes before she emerged, tear stained and laughing, from her father’s arms. He had forgiven her a little, it seemed.

  ‘Mama, Papa, here is Alistair Lyndon—Lord Iwerne, I should say. You must know that he saved my life not once, but twice—in the shipwreck and in India, from a mad dog.’

  The Earl of Wycombe strode over to where Alistair stood at his horse’s head, apart from the family reunion. ‘My dear Lyndon!’ He enveloped him in a bear hug that, after a moment, Alistair returned. ‘We can never repay you for bringing us our Dita home safely.’ Her father held the younger man by the shoulders and regarded him sombrely. ‘You have been through a most terrible ordeal, and now to come home to the news of your father instead of the reunion you must have longed for so much—it is a bad business. You may rely upon me for any assistance I can give you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I appreciate your generous offer.’ He looked directly at Perdita and then, with reluctance, it seemed to her, came across and took her hands in his. ‘Home safe, Dita. Your courage will see you the rest of the way. We will talk later.’ He bent and kissed her cheek, bowed to her mother and walked back to his horse.

  ‘But, Lord Iwerne,’ Lady Wycombe called, starting across the gravel towards him, ‘will you not stay tonight with us? I know it is only a matter of a few miles, but you must be so weary.’

  It was one mile by the direct route: jumping the stream, scrambling up and down wooded slopes, cutting through the kitchen gardens. Dita had done it often enough as a child and she guessed that that was the way Alistair would take, not troubling to ride the six miles round by road, through the lodge gates and up the winding carriage drive to the castle.

  ‘Ma’am, thank you, but I should go home.’ It seemed to Dita that he hesitated on the last word, but perhaps it was her imagination. ‘And, besides, you will want to be alone with your daughter now.’

  He swung up into the saddle, touched his whip to his hat and cantered off down the drive. Off into his new life, Dita thought. His English life. A new title, a new role and a new wife when I can persuade him that I am not his responsibility.

  ‘Oh, I am so glad to be home,’ she said, turning and hugging George. ‘Tell me absolutely everything!’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Alistair kept the tired horse to a slow canter across the Brookes’ parkland, then slowed as they entered the woods. The ride had narrowed to a narrow track now, proof of the lack of recent contact between the two estates. He wound his way through, then cut off to send the horse plunging down to the boundary brook, up the other bank. On this side, his land, the track became a path that eventually led him to the high wall of the kitchen gardens.

  Strange how it all came back, he thought, as he leaned down to hook up the catch on the gate with the handle of his whip. It creaked open as it always had and he ducked his head as they passed through. It was almost dark now and no one was working amidst the beds and cold frames, but there was a light in the head gardener’s cottage.

  The horse plodded along the grass paths to the opposite gate, patient as Alistair remembered the knack of flicking the catch open, then it was a short ride to the looming bulk of the stable block.

  The grooms were just finishing for the night; most of the doors were closed, the yard almost deserted, although there was light spilling from the tack room door and the sound of someone whistling inside. A lad was filling buckets at the pump and looked up at the sound of hooves.

  ‘Sir? Can I help you?’

  Alistair rode closer, then dismounted where the light from the tack room caught his face. The boy gasped. ‘My lord?’ So, his resemblance to his father had strengthened as he had grown older. He had thought it himself, but it was interesting to see the confirmation in the lad’s face.

  ‘Yes, I am Alistair Lyndon,’ he said. Best to be clear, just in case the lad thought he was seeing a ghost.

  ‘And right welcome you are, my lord,’ said a voice from the tack room door as a burly man came out. ‘You won’t remember me, my lord, but I’m—’

  ‘Tregowan,’ Alistair said, holding out his hand. ‘Of course I remember you, you were a groom here when I left. Your father taught me to ride.’

  ‘Aye, my lord.’ The groom clasped his hand and gave it a firm shake. ‘He died last November and I’m head groom now.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear he is gone, but he’d be proud to know there’s still a Tregowan running the stables here.’

  ‘Fourth generation, my lord. But you’ll be wanting to get up to the house, not stand here listening to me. Jimmy, lad, you run ahead and let Mr Barstow know his lordship’s home.’ The boy took to his heels and Tregowan walked with Alistair towards the archway.

  ‘I did hear that your letter arrived yesterday, my lord, all about the shipwreck. I’m powerful sorry to hear about that—you’ll have lost friends, I’ve no doubt.’ Alistair gave a grunt of acknowledgment. ‘Her ladyship took a proper turn. As bad as she was when your father died, from what they say.’ His rich Cornish burr held no shade of expression.

  ‘Indeed. Well, I had better go and reassure her that I am safe and alive.’ Alistair kept his own tone as bland. ‘Goodnight, Tregowan; I look forward to seeing the stables tomorrow.’

  As he rounded the corner the front of the castle came into view. In 1670 the Lyndon of the day had extended and fortified the old keep that had suffered so badly at the hands of Cromwell’s forces. His grandson had added an imposing frontage in the taste of the early eighteenth-century and successive generations had added on, modernised and improved until any lover of Gothic tales would have been hard put to find a draughty corridor, a damp dungeon or a ruined turret in the place.

  Alistair thought about Dita’s sensation novel, lost now, and wondered whether she would try to rewrite it. He stopped to get the feelings that thinking about her evoked under control. How could he have done that—and how could she not have told him? What did it take to preserve a perfect social façade with a man who had so brutally taken your innocence?

  The thought had come to him on today’s interminable ride that perhaps she had gone to his arms on the ship in order to prove something to herself, to lay a ghost. Or perhaps, when his thoughts had been darkest, she intended him to fall in love with her so she could punish him by her refusal.

  She was certainly punishing him now; his conscience and his honou
r demanded he marry her, but without her consent he was left with few options. He could tell her father, he could abduct her, he could seduce her and get her with child.

  His face must have been grim as the massive front doors opened and he strode up the steps and into the Great Hall. The butler, who was a stranger to him, froze and then stammered, ‘My lord. Welcome back to Lyndonholt Castle, my lord. I am Barstow.’ He looked beyond Alistair, into the gloom. ‘Your luggage, my lord? Your man?’

  ‘I have neither. If there is one of the footmen suitable, I’ll have him as valet for the moment; he can find me evening wear in my father’s wardrobe, I have no doubt. My compliments to her ladyship and I will join her at dinner. I would like a fire lit in my room and hot water for a bath immediately.’

  ‘My lord.’ The butler stepped forwards as Alistair made for the stairs. ‘Her ladyship gave no orders about his late lordship’s bedchamber. It is exactly as he left it, the bed is not made up—’

  ‘Then see that it is,’ Alistair said, allowing his displeasure to show. He had no fear of ghosts and he had every intention of stamping his ownership on this house from the start.

  ‘Her ladyship is still occupying the adjoining suite, my lord. And she has taken over his late lordship’s— your—sitting room and the dressing room,’ the butler said, looking wretched.

  ‘I see.’ Alistair put one booted foot on the bottom step. ‘I have no wish to inconvenience her ladyship at this hour. I will take whichever of the guest chambers is easiest, Barstow.’

  ‘My lord, of course. The Garden Suite would be most comfortable, I believe.’ He began to gesture to footmen. ‘Gregory, you will act as his lordship’s valet for the time being. Fetch his lordship whatever he needs from the Marquis’s Suite. I will have the decanters sent up, my lord. Her ladyship dines at eight.’

  Alistair began to climb past the lavish trophies of arms and armour on the wall. So, she had won the first round, had she? Even as he thought it there was a flurry of rustling silk and the patter of slippers on the stair. He looked up as he reached the first turn and saw the black-clad figure of his stepmother.

  ‘Alistair!’ She held out her hands and waited while he climbed the stairs to her side. It allowed him ample time to appreciate the picture she presented, as no doubt she intended.

  ‘Stepmama,’ he said, bowing over her hand. ‘My condolences.’

  ‘So cold, so formal,’ she said, but there was something very like fear in the wide blue eyes. ‘There was a time when you called me Imogen.’

  ‘Indeed, but that was before you married my father,’ he pointed out politely.

  ‘I know I broke your heart,’ she murmured. ‘But are you still angry after all this time?’

  ‘Do you really wish to discuss it here?’ he asked. ‘Allow me to walk you back to your retiring room. Or, should I say, mine?’

  ‘Alistair, are you going to grudge me one tiny room?’ The fear had gone, perhaps when she realised he was not going to treat her to some Cheltenham tragedy. Where had the affected wide-eyed manner come from? Eight years ago Imogen had been sweetly naïve—or so he had thought.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said with a smile as he opened the door for her. ‘You will have the whole of the Dower House all to yourself.’

  ‘What?’ She turned like a cat as he closed the door behind them. ‘You cannot throw me out of here!’

  ‘I most certainly can require you to move to the Dower House,’ Alistair said. ‘I will have it overhauled for you immediately.’

  God, but she is lovely, he thought, studying her dispassionately. For over a year the thought of her had torn his heart. Petite, vivid, with big blue eyes and glossy black hair, she had a certain something that transformed her piquant little face from merely pretty to a loveliness that took men’s breath away. She had certainly deprived him of both breath and sense as an idealistic twenty-year-old.

  ‘But how can you exile me? After all I have been to you!’ The flounce was new as well, although it gave the most excellent opportunity for any onlooker to admire the curves of her figure.

  ‘A stepmother?’ he enquired, deliberately obtuse. ‘Do sit down, Imogen, because, frankly, I would appreciate the chance to.’

  ‘You loved me,’ she declared in throbbing tones as she sank on to the chaise. ‘I know I broke your heart, but—’

  ‘I was infatuated with you eight years ago when you were nineteen,’ Alistair said flatly. ‘Young men are liable to be taken in by lovely faces and you are, my dear, very lovely.’ She cast her eyes down as though he had made a passionate, but slightly improper, declaration. ‘It was a shock to discover that you had been—shall we say, flirting?—with me when all the while you were in my father’s bed. I had not thought myself so unobservant, I must confess.’

  ‘Alistair! Must you be so crude?’ Imogen lifted one hand as though to ward off a blow. ‘I had no idea of the depth of your feelings and my lord was so … passionate and demanding.’

  ‘Let us be frank, Imogen.’ He found he had no patience with her games. ‘You thought my father might not come up to scratch, so you strung me along as your insurance policy. Either that or you thought a marquis in the hand, even if he was old enough to be your father, was a more certain bet than the heir.’

  Her guilty colour was proof enough. The daughter of the local squire three parishes away, Imogen Penwyth had been an acknowledged local belle and her parents were avid in their ambition for her. At the time he had been too angry and wounded to think this through, but he had had time since to realise just what had been going on.

  ‘Mama was simply anxious to do the best for me,’ she whispered. He wished he could believe she had not been as ambitious and unscrupulous as her parent. Between them his father and this woman had made him deeply cynical about love, but he knew how gullible he had been. An idealistic young idiot, in fact, he thought with wry affection for his youthful self.

  That young man had been serious, rather studious and puzzled about where his life was going to lead him, given that he had a vigorous, tough father who had shown no desire to hand over any part of running the estates to his only child. He knew then that he wanted to travel, to explore. His interest in botany was already leading him to read widely on the subject, but it never occurred to him that he could—or should—leave England.

  His duty was to be at his father’s side, he had assumed, aware that the other man despised him for not being the hard-drinking, wenching gambler he was himself. The marquis had been unable to condemn his son for being a milksop, however, not when Alistair was acknowledged to be the best shot in the county, rode hard and even, much to his father’s loudly expressed relief, conducted a number of discreet affaires.

  But he had paid off his current mistress when he had come face to face with Imogen Penwyth at a dance. She was too lovely, too pure for him to even look at another woman when he loved her.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Imogen said, petulant now.

  ‘I understood perfectly well what was going on when I walked into the library and found my father with his breeches round his ankles and you spread all over the map table with your skirts up to your ears,’ Alistair replied. He was too tired for this, but if he didn’t make it quite clear to Imogen that he was no longer a slave to her charms life was going to get even more complicated. ‘And don’t try to tell me he forced you, or your parents forced you or you had no choice in the matter,’ he added. ‘Frankly, I don’t care.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Let us be clear,’ he said, getting to his feet and wishing he could just fall into bed and sleep for a month. ‘I will spend a week or so here to deal with the most pressing business and I will put the refurbishment of the Dower House in hand. I will then go up to town for the Season. When I get back I expect you to have moved out.’

  She turned huge, imploring eyes on him and he noticed the sapphires, just the colour of those eyes, dangling from her ears and adorning her neck. ‘And I expect to be able to account for every item of ent
ailed jewellery when I get back,’ he added. ‘My wife will be requiring them.’ Her mouth dropped open, probably the first genuine expression he had seen on her face that evening. ‘I will see you at dinner, Stepmama.’

  As he closed the door behind him something hit the other side—a dainty slipper, no doubt.

  Gregory was bustling round the Garden Suite, looking nervous when Alistair reached it. ‘Your bath is ready, my lord.’ He gestured towards the dressing room door. ‘Are these clothes acceptable, my lord? And shall I assist you to undress, my lord?’

  ‘They look fine.’ Alistair gave them a cursory glance. His father, he was sure, had kept his lean figure to the end and they had been much of a height. ‘I am quite capable of undressing and dressing myself, thank you. And one my lord every twenty minutes will be adequate.’ The footman bit his lip and Alistair smiled, getting a grin in response. ‘I’ll shave myself, too.’

  He glanced at the clock. Half past seven. No time for dozing in the bath then. ‘Get a jug of cold water, Gregory, in ten minutes.’

  He sank into warm water, soaped himself lavishly and felt himself drift off. Dita. How would Imogen have coped with everything that Dita had been through over the past few months? He thought of her in that hut on the island, soaked, shivering, courageous and the most desirable woman he had ever seen.

  And the most pig-headed and defiant and proud, too. She was his whether she wanted to be or not. Or whether he wanted it either. God, life would be hell with Dita, resentful and furious and intelligent enough to get up to any madcap scheme that took her fancy. Her face seemed to shimmer on the inside of his closed lids—

  ‘Aagh!’ The cold water was like a slap in the face. Alistair reared up out of the tub, spluttered and shook himself like a large dog as Gregory backed away, clutching the jug like a shield. ‘Good man,’ Alistair said as he climbed out and grabbed for a towel.