Ravished by the Rake Page 22

  ‘I remembered what you had said about Imogen and how she would have done what her parents expected of her. Those two in the conservatory renouncing each other out of a sense of duty—it made me feel about eighty.’

  It had affected him more than that, she could tell. There was something behind the light words and the laughter. Sadness, self-reproach and perhaps something that would help heal that old wound.

  ‘Never mind, it all came out well in the end.’ What Alistair was thinking about, she had no idea, but the thought of Evaline’s happiness warmed her right through.

  ‘Your little sister is marrying before you,’ Alistair said, moving along the chaise and closing the distance between them until she could feel the warmth of his thigh pressing against hers. ‘Why not make your parents doubly happy and give in? You know you will eventually.’

  ‘Why is what I want not enough for you?’ she demanded. ‘Why do you not believe that I think this would be very wrong? Are you so arrogant that you believe that women should have no opinions of their own?’

  ‘No!’ He flung himself to his feet and paced away from her. ‘You must know that I value your intelligence and your courage and your wit. But this is not a matter of choice, this is a matter of right and wrong. I did something unforgivable and it can only be righted by marrying you.’

  ‘I forgive you,’ she said starkly.

  ‘If you marry anyone else, he will not.’

  ‘You wanted to make love to me on the ship, even though you believed I had lost my virginity with Stephen. You didn’t appear to mind that!’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of marrying you then,’ he shot back.

  His words told her nothing that she did not already know. Why then did it feel as though he had slapped her? Because it came from his own mouth, she realised, the confirmation that he did not love her, despite the pitiful fantasies that came in the early hours, the dream that really, he did care with his heart and not just with his head and his honour.

  She felt the prickling heat behind her eyes and knew, horrified, that she was about to cry.

  Then the door opened and her parents came in with Evaline and James Morgan. Alistair stood up. ‘You will want to be alone. We’ll meet tomorrow, Morgan, as we agreed.’

  ‘My lord.’ The young man looked faintly stunned, Dita thought as she sat digging her nails into her palms in an effort to control the tears.

  ‘Lyndon, I insist,’ Alistair said, shaking hands all round as he made his way to the door. When he got to Evaline he stopped and kissed her. ‘You be happy now, even in ten years’ time when he is old.’

  Evaline blushed and laughed and came to sit next to Dita. Dita squeezed her hand and whispered, ‘What was that about?’

  ‘He overheard me saying he was old,’ Evaline hissed back. ‘Wasn’t that awful? I could have died, but he did this for us!’ They hugged tightly, then Evaline disentangled herself. ‘Dita, this is James.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ Dita said, kissing him on the cheek. Her own cheeks felt as though they were cracking with the effort to smile. ‘I know you will make my sister very happy.’

  ‘I swear I will, Lady Perdita. I confess, I am stunned by my good fortune. You know Lord Iwerne well, I believe? I heard how he saved you in the shipwreck. Is he always this generous?’

  ‘Call me Dita. I believe that he will always want to reward the deserving if it is in his power. You obviously impressed him, he is fond of Evaline and you seem to be the sort of man he needs to assist him. But he will not be an easy employer, I imagine—he sets his standards high and expects a lot.’

  ‘He’ll get it from me,’ Morgan vowed, his eyes full of passionate devotion as he looked at Evaline. ‘And I will never let Evaline down.’

  For two nights running she saw Alistair at the social events they both attended: a soirée followed by a ball one night, a full dress dinner the next. Dita noticed that he paid a great deal of attention to attractive widows in their late twenties and early thirties, of whom there were half a dozen in society this Season. She tried to tell herself that this was a good thing: well-bred, worldly-wise women who knew how to go on in society and who presumably knew enough to keep him faithful for more than a few months. The fact that she wanted to scratch their eyes out, especially the very lovely Mrs Somerton, was neither here nor there.

  Watching him made her feel restless and reckless. Perhaps, she wondered, eyeing the rakish-looking stranger who had been seated almost opposite her at Lady Pershaw’s dinner party, she should flirt a little herself. She always had flirted, and enjoyed it, but since she had been back in England, she realised she had lost the taste for it. It might take her mind off a certain amber-eyed gentleman who was watching Eliza Somerton with lazy appreciation.

  The stranger was a little taller than Francis Wynstanley, although of much the same colouring, and he had well-defined cheekbones, a square chin and deep blue eyes which, just now, were staring back at her. Their eyes locked and Dita let hers widen a little, just enough to show interest, before she looked away and began to discuss church politics with the nice, and very dull, rural dean who sat on her left. Was that enough to pique his interest? Well, time would tell.

  Chapter Twenty

  The gentlemen rejoined the ladies less than an hour after the covers were drawn, for Lady Pershaw liked a lively party and had given her husband strict instructions not to dally over the port.

  Alistair, Dita noticed, went straight to Mrs Somerton, who was looking particularly lovely in golden brown silk with cream lace accentuating white shoulders and an adventurous degree of décolletage. She was making him laugh.

  Out of patience with her own inability to forget, and wishing she did not care about either him, or his amours, Dita looked for the blue-eyed stranger and found he was watching her.

  She looked sideways and caught the full force of a very blatant stare. ‘Who is that?’ she asked Maria Pershaw, a young lady who could be relied upon to know all the gentlemen. ‘By the music stand.’

  ‘Sir Rafe Langham,’ Maria said. ‘Delicious, is he not? He is said to be highly dangerous and Mama has strictly forbidden me to flirt with him, which is so provoking of her.’ She laughed and moved on and Perdita deliberately turned her back and drifted over to the long windows that were ajar on to the terrace to let in some fresh air.

  ‘Lost, my lady?’ a deep voice enquired.

  ‘You know Latin or perhaps you are a Shakespearian scholar?’ Dita responded, turning slightly to find Sir Rafe beside her.

  ‘Both. Perdita, the lost princess of The Winter’s Tale, cast adrift upon the coast. Apt, I thought, in view of the shipwreck.’

  ‘Wrong coast, however.’ She kept her shoulder a little turned and her voice cool. It would not do to seem overeager.

  ‘Indeed. It is warm in here, is it not?’

  Ah, a very fast worker! ‘I do not believe we have been introduced, sir.’

  ‘Sir Rafe Langham. I have been out of town for some time otherwise …’ He let his voice trail off. ‘I knew who you were, of course—your beauty had been described to me.’

  Nonsense, you heard I have a shady past and you thought you would try your luck, Dita thought. But it was so tempting to play with fire, just a little. ‘You make me blush, Sir Rafe. Or perhaps it is the heat in here.’

  He needed no further encouragement. He opened the window wide and Dita stepped through and into the cool night air. ‘How refreshing,’ she said. The edge of the terrace was not far. It was well lit by the spill of light from the uncurtained windows, and should be quite safe, even with a gazetted rake such as this one.

  ‘And what a delightful fragrance in the air. I wonder if it is this shrub.’ Before Dita could get her balance she was swept off to the side, out of the light and into the shadows of a little gazebo.

  ‘Ah, no. It is your perfume and not a flower at all.’ He gathered her to him with alarming competence.

  ‘Sir Rafe! Stop it—’

  He kissed her and his right hand fastened on her breast while the left, spread over her behind, trapped her intimately close to his body. Dita tried to raise her knee, but he had her too close. Alistair’s lesson came back to her vividly: ears are very sensitive. She reached up, seized an earlobe and twisted, hard.

  He released her mouth with an oath, grabbed her wrist and yanked her deeper into the shadows. ‘You little hellcat! So you like to play it rough, do you?’

  I am going to castrate you with blunt scissors, Dita thought as she fought him. If I can just get my fingers round this loose stone … But she knew, with a sinking heart, that the only way she was going to get out of this was at the cost of another, possibly ruinous, scandal.

  Where the devil was Dita going? Alistair removed his gaze from Mrs Somerton’s face, which was lovely enough to compensate a trifle for her frivolous conversation, and saw Dita slip through the window on to the terrace with a man. The mouse-brown hair looked like Winstanley’s. The devil! He thought she had stopped encouraging that milksop.

  It would only be flirtation, the man was to be trusted, surely, and Dita could look after herself. He himself had been flirting, blatantly, hoping that he could provoke a reaction from her. It seemed he had succeeded rather too well.

  Alistair shifted, uneasy for some reason. The thought of her in another man’s arms, another man’s bed, made his stomach churn. He swore softly under his breath.

  ‘My lord?’ Mrs Somerton must have been chattering on for minutes while he brooded.

  ‘I beg your—’ Francis Wynstanley strolled out from behind a large plant on a stand. Whoever Dita was outside with, it was not her lukewarm admirer. ‘Excuse me.’

  He crossed the room as unobtrusively as he could, stepped out on to the terrace and closed the window behind him.

  There. Alistair strode across the flags towards the gazebo and the flutter of pale fabric he could just see in the darkness.

  ‘Take your hands off me, you reptile, before I hit you again.’ Dita’s furious voice had him grinning despite his anxiety. The again sounded promising. He should have trusted her to fight back.

  ‘I warn you, drop that stone or I’ll make such a scandal out of this—’

  Alistair didn’t recognise the voice, but his night vision had recovered enough to make out the two joined figures clearly. He sent a crashing right over Dita’s left shoulder. The man slumped back, Dita staggered into Alistair’s arms and dropped something painfully on his toes.

  ‘Alistair! Oh—thank you!’

  Alistair hauled the fallen man to his feet. ‘You, sir, will meet me for this. Name your seconds.’

  ‘No, he will not meet you,’ Dita said, all the gratitude gone from her voice. ‘I can do without the scandal, thank you very much. And I have hit him with that rock, wherever it has gone, and I twisted his ears as you showed me, Alistair.’

  ‘It is not enough.’ Alistair said through his anger. He wanted to kill this lout. ‘What is his name?’

  ‘Rafe Langham,’ Dita said. Langham had one hand clamped to his bleeding nose and was in no fit state to say anything.

  ‘Langham,’ Alistair gave the man a shake. ‘Apologise to the lady, now.’

  ‘Sorry. Carried away.’ It sounded as though he had teeth loose as well as a broken nose.

  ‘You will certainly be carried away, if you so much as whisper a word to this lady’s detriment,’ Alistair said, twisting his hand into Langham’s neckcloth. ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘Iwerne,’ Langham choked out.

  ‘Indeed. If you are not out of London by this time tomorrow I will find a reason to challenge you and then, I swear, I will kill you. Is that quite clear?’ There was a nod. ‘In fact, I find you so unpleasant that I think that if I ever see you again I will have to challenge you anyway. Clear?’ Another nod. ‘Then go now, and if there is the slightest rumour about this evening I will find you.’

  Langham stumbled off into the darkness, leaving them alone in the gazebo. ‘Thank you,’ Dita said, putting out both hands to him. ‘I really thought only to take the air and enjoy a mild flirtation—and it got quite out of hand.’

  Alistair clasped her hands in his. ‘You are cold, you are not used to these temperatures.’ She shook her head, not meeting his eyes. ‘Dita, if you want to flirt, flirt with me.’

  ‘I should join the queue, you mean?’ she asked. He should have felt triumph; she had seen him flirting with other women and she was jealous, but something of her unhappiness reached him. This was not petty, she really was distressed.

  ‘Dita?’ he put his arm around her shoulders, not amorously, but gently, His palm rested on the soft skin of her shoulder; as he pressed he felt the slender bones, the beat of her pulse. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I cannot play these games any more, Alistair. I will not marry you, do you not understand? If you care for me at all, even the slightest bit, you will stop asking me.’ She sounded bitterly in earnest, a woman at the end of her tether.

  ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘I know you talk of love, but you enjoy making love with me, you cannot deceive me about that. We share so much history, we are old friends. We could have a good marriage. What is it, Dita?’ He tipped her face up and the light from the reception room flooded across it, unsparing on the tears glittering unshed in her eyes. He had seen her cry with grief over Averil, but never like this. ‘Dita, is there someone you love?’

  ‘Yes. Now let me go.’

  ‘Does he love you?’ Who the devil could it be? Who had she met that he had not noticed?

  ‘No. Now, are you satisfied?’

  ‘Not if you are unhappy. Never, then.’ He felt sick and shaken. ‘Dita, what can I do?’ He would bring her the man on his knees if it would wipe that bleakness from her eyes.

  ‘Leave me. Stop asking me to marry you.’

  For a long moment he could find no words. He was not used to defeat and he had not expected it here, or to find it so crushing. But a gentleman did not rant or complain; he had asked her what she wanted and she had told him with a sincerity that was utterly convincing.

  ‘Your scarf, Dita.’ He picked up the gauze strip and put it around her shoulders, his fingers brushing the soft skin. That was probably the last time he could legitimately allow them to linger like that, he realised, and gave himself one more indulgence, as he touched the back of his hand to her cheek.

  The party was still animated and the room crowded as he let himself back into it. No one appeared to be looking for Dita so he stood there feeling lost and wondering at himself while he massaged the bruised knuckles of his right hand.

  She was out there thinking about the man she loved. The bastard who obviously did not care for her, or he would be with her, protecting her from rakes. Protecting her from Alistair Lyndon.

  His vision clouded and it took him a moment to realise it was with tears. Appalled, Alistair strode from the room, into the hall, snapped his fingers for his hat, cane and cloak. ‘Tell my coachman to drive home, I’ll walk,’ he said.

  When he reached the street he strode out, uncaring where he was going. Damn it, she was his. He loved her—what was she doing, wanting another man? He loved her. Alistair stopped dead in the middle of the pavement.

  So that was what this was, this restlessness, this feeling of peace when he was with her, the mingling of thoughts and the shared laughter. The passion. The need to protect her. Love, the emotion he did not believe that mature, clear-headed men felt.

  ‘Want to be friendly, ducky?’ He glanced down to find a sharp-faced girl looking up at him, her right arm crooked in the time-honoured invitation to take it and walk with her to some dark alley.

  ‘No,’ he said as he fished in his pocket and found her a coin. ‘No, I am not inclined to be friendly at all.’

  The street-walker bit it and walked off, casting a coquettish look over her shoulder, her skinny figure swaying in her tawdry finery.

  On the ship Dita had asked him why he didn’t marry her and then, without waiting for his answer, had told him why she wouldn’t take him, even if he offered. I want you, but I do not love you. I do not even like you, half of the time, she had said.

  And he had pressed her to marry him, over and over so that the passages between them when the old, uncomplicated friendship had seemed to return were marred by his insistence, her resistance. And for him that lingering friendship, the passion, the sense of duty, had changed into something more, so slowly, so naturally he hadn’t even been aware of it. Perhaps that love had always been there, waiting to emerge.

  Could he convince her? Woo her? But if she had given her heart to another man she would not settle for anything—anyone—less.

  ‘Hell, I have made a mull of this,’ he said to the empty street. How was he going to live without Dita?

  He had gone, without protest, and left the field to some unknown man, Dita thought bleakly. Of course, he didn’t even know there was a field. He didn’t know she loved him, didn’t know she longed for him to love her, too. Like the honourable man he was, he had rescued her from Langham, made sure she was safe and then walked away, finally accepting her refusal because she was in love. The perfect gentleman.

  But that touch, that lingering, gentle caress … Had that been a farewell or a blessing? Both, perhaps. She stared, unseeing, into the darkness. It had always been Alistair, all her life. Now, she had lost him for ever.

  She shuddered, but it was not the cold that made her shiver, it was the thought that there was nowhere in London to get away from Alistair, and the knowledge that she could not bear to see him find someone else to marry and to live his life with.

  In the end she was too cold to think properly. She went inside to where her mother was deep in conversation with two friends. ‘I thought St George’s, Hanover Square, and the wedding breakfast at Grosvenor Street. They’ll be going down to the house in south Devon, I expect, and then—Ah, Dita dear, I was wondering where you had got to.’

  ‘Mama, I’m sorry, but I am not feeling very well. I think I might have caught cold. May I take the carriage and send it back?’

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