How to Sin Successfully (Rakes Beyond Redemption) Page 3

  The butler announced dinner and he offered Miss Caulfield his arm, secretly pleased she was as discomfited with his show of propriety as she’d been with his earlier impropriety.

  ‘Such formality,’ she commented, taking the chair Riordan held out for her at the table. ‘I apologise for being under-dressed. I wasn’t sure...’ Her voice trailed off and Riordan imagined her upstairs in her room debating the merits of the green poplin or the one good silk gown she owned. ‘You were right to save the silk for a better occasion,’ he said lightly, taking his own seat.

  ‘How did you know?’ She shot him a sharp look, her thoughts evident. He’d bet odds of two to three she was imagining peepholes secreted in the walls of her room. It was a fairly worldly thought for a governess, or any young lady, and it did make him wonder.

  Riordan dismissed her fears with a laugh. ‘Have no worries, Miss Caulfield. It’s all very simple. To understand women, a man must understand their clothes.’

  He’d learned that particular skill a long time ago and it had served him well in the intervening years.

  She settled the linen napkin on her lap and gave him a doubtful look that said she didn’t believe him. Riordan leaned back in his chair, letting the footmen serve the soup while he studied the effects of candlelight on Miss Caulfield’s features.

  This morning, much of her hair had been hidden under her bonnet, but this evening it was pinned up in a pretty twist that hinted at its thickness and length while it exposed the delicate arch of her neck. The effect was enough to make him imagine what it would be like to take all that hair down and sift it through his fingers. ‘The light turns your hair into red-gold; very lovely,’ he commented as the footmen moved away.

  ‘And what does that tell you about me?’ She shot him another sharp look with her green eyes.

  ‘You don’t believe me about the clothes, do you?’ Riordan set down his soup spoon, starting to enjoy himself. He was good at this. Observation and subsequent conjecturing had always come easy for him. Most women loved his little ‘fortune telling’ game. ‘Allow me to demonstrate. You wear shades of green often. With your colouring, all that red hair and those emerald-green eyes, it makes sense.

  Greens would be your best palate. I’m right, am I not?’

  ‘Yes.’ Even discomfited, her manners were impeccable. She sipped from her soup spoon without spilling a drop. His governess was very well bred indeed.

  ‘You’re intrigued now. I can see it in the way you’ve subtly leaned forwards.’

  Riordan lowered his voice, giving the conversation a private allure.

  Her eyes sparked, a good sign. She was warming. ‘All right, if you’re so good, tell me why a governess has a silk gown.’ But any further conversation had to wait a moment while the fish was served.

  ‘You have more than one,’ Riordan said when the footmen had retreated. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but it seemed right. She was born for fine fabrics and delicate trimmings. Riordan reached for her hand and traced a lazy circle in the palm. ‘Tell me I’m right.’ A woman who wore silk gowns and imagined peepholes in her room was an exciting mystery. ‘You’re not the usual governess.’

  She stiffened and withdrew her hand. ‘You’re not the usual earl.’ All her attention went straight to her neglected fish. He’d touched a nerve there.

  Intriguing, but not surprising. Her clothes were too well made. He’d seen it instantly. Pretty and young with well-made clothes and a bold demeanour with a man she should view as her superior suggested there was more to Miss Caulfield than she let on.

  ‘I don’t hold it against you, Miss Caulfield. The “usual” has never held much of my attention.’ He would leave it at that. No sense frightening her off. If she thought he guessed at more, she might be compelled to run and that was the last thing he needed. He needed a governess to stay and he was willing to overlook any secrets said governess thought she had.

  Miss Caulfield finished her fish without a single faux pas. He always watched women during the fish course at dinner parties. It was the perfect chance to see if they were all they claimed. Miss Caufield was definitely more. Unlike many a pretender, she’d kept a piece of bread in her left hand and the fork in her right, never once reaching for the very taboo knife. Anyone of any true social refinement knew fish juice stained knives if they weren’t silver. It confirmed what he’d noted earlier: she had excellent table manners, as if she ate at candlelit tables complete with china, crystal and the requisite earl every day.

  *

  By the time the beef was served, his thoughts had taken a more erotic turn. He found he could not contemplate her manners without also contemplating her delectable mouth with its kissable lower lip, or the column of her throat as she swallowed. This led his eyes lower to her bosom, which the cut of her gown showed to advantage, which gave way to a bevy of illicit thoughts, most of them involving all the ways he could get her out of that gown and on to the table.

  ‘Is everything to your liking?’ he asked in low tones that were more seductive than solicitous. ‘Would you like some more wine?’ He was flirting deliberately now, his hand provocatively caressing the stem of his own empty wine glass, and wondering if she’d call him on it. She did. It was bravely and boldly done of her.

  Not every employee would dare. Good for her. He had little use for people without spines.

  ‘Tell me, Lord Chatham, do you flirt with every woman you meet or just the governesses?’

  Riordan reached for the wine and refilled her glass as an excuse to lean close and make some more mischief. ‘I assure you, this is not flirting. If I were flirting with you, Miss Caulfield, you’d know it.’ But of course he was flirting with her, just a little by his standards, and they both knew it.

  Riordan laughed and filled his glass. ‘A toast, Miss Caulfield, to our, ah, relationship. Cheers.’

  *

  Maura clinked her glass gently against his. It was impossible not to get swept up in Lord Chatham’s bonhomie. He couldn’t help it, she realised. But she could. She could have enough sense for the both of them. He might not be flirting with her by his standards, but society would see it otherwise. No wonder Mrs Pendergast had called him a dissolute rake. Women probably swooned in his wake and he likely didn’t lack for female attention. Handsome, charming and personable, he could have any woman he wanted and not have to work that hard at it.

  Well, he couldn’t have her if that’s what he was intending with all this light flirtation. She would make that clear over cheese and fruit as their dinner came to a close. It would be just the right note to end the evening on. Two bites into a sharp cheddar, she began her campaign. ‘I thought the purpose of dinner was to discuss the children. Here we are, at the end, and the children haven’t even been mentioned.’ She couldn’t be more direct than that.

  ‘What would you like to know about the children?’ He filled his glass again and Maura began to wonder if that was his third or fourth. Wine disappeared from his glass like water.

  ‘We could start with their schedule and perhaps move on to their education,’

  Maura prompted. This was the most extraordinary discussion she’d ever had. She wasn’t supposed to be the one asking the questions. She’d expected to be told.

  ‘Their schedule?’ Lord Chatham stabbed at his cheese as if the question irritated him. His tone became frosty, as it had been that afternoon. ‘They don’t have a schedule, Miss Caulfield. Their lives have been turned upside down, they’ve lost their trusted guardian, they’ve been through five governesses in as many weeks.

  They’ve had no stability in their lives since my brother’s death.’

  Maura refused to be intimidated. ‘They’ve had you. Surely you have imposed some order on their lives in the absence of a governess.’ Her own parents had been active participants in her life.

  ‘Some, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a schedule.’ Lord Chatham sat back in his chair, wine glass empty again and dangling negligently in his hand. ‘I can se
e you’re disappointed in me. Perhaps your standards are too high.’ He wasn’t flirting now. His tone had taken on a self-deprecating note. ‘Don’t forget, I’m a bachelor with bachelor ways. If I knew how to raise children, you wouldn’t be here.’

  He set down the wine glass and rose. ‘If you’ll excuse me, the hour is later than I anticipated and my presence is required elsewhere, as tardy as it is. Feel free to partake of the cheese and fruit without me.’ He offered a short bow and left. It was quite possibly the most expedient exit she’d ever witnessed and most definitely one of the rudest.

  *

  His bachelor ways indeed! Maura fumed up in her room afterwards. Everything he did, everything he said, reminded her of his ‘bachelor ways’. Even his departure from the dinner table had reeked of them. Apparently he was expected at the Rutherfords’ ball and the Duke of Rutland’s fête before meeting up with some fellows at a gambling hell on St James’s. He wouldn’t be back until early morning.

  It had been on the tip of her tongue to reprimand him for his less-than-fatherly behaviour, but she’d already

  angered him once today and she knew he wasn’t the only man who habitually spent the night on the town while leaving his children in the hands of others.

  That didn’t make it right. Maura didn’t hold with the laissez-faire parenting of the aristocracy. Her own upbringing had run quite counter to the norm and for that she would always be grateful.

  She’d also be grateful for her bed. Maura began taking down her hair and stowing the pins carefully in a little trifle box on her bureau. It had been an eventful day and she was beyond tired. She smiled to herself as she went through her evening toilette. Maura pulled a white nightgown over her head and surveyed her room. It was smaller than what she was used to, but it was a nice room on the third floor. There was a window overlooking the garden and it was hung with fresh curtains. The walls were papered with a tiny pink-floral print and the bed was covered in a pink-and-white counterpane. A clothes-press stood in one corner and a small chest of drawers in another. It would do, and after three days on the mail coach it seemed like heaven.

  She might not be living the life she’d been born to, but she’d done well today.

  She’d got a position, navigated the streets of London and met the intriguing Earl of Chatham.

  Not bad for a gently bred girl from Devonshire. But she would need to tread carefully. The earl might flirt, he might raise his wards with the same benign insouciance with which he lived his life, but that didn’t mean he didn’t see far more than he let on.

  The perceptive Lord Chatham had implied correctly that she wasn’t the usual governess. She hadn’t meant to give herself away and yet she had in ways she couldn’t control. Hopefully he had guessed nothing more and was not interested in guessing anything more. As long as she did her job with his wards, she hoped he would look no further. The last thing she needed was for someone to get too curious about her origins.

  Maura hopped into bed, revelling in the cool sheets and the fluffy pillow at her head. That was one thing Lord Chatham might have in common with her; she wasn’t the only one with secrets. That was all right with her. He could have his secrets as long as she could have hers.

  It had not escaped her notice when she’d stepped down from the mail coach that morning that it was to have been her wedding day. If she’d stayed in Devonshire, she’d have been married to Wildeham by now and subjected to a lifetime of his obscene attentions, a fate certainly worse than throwing in her lot with the Earl of Chatham.

  Maura blew out the candle beside her bed and whispered in the darkness, ‘A toast, Lord Chatham. Here’s to our, ah, relationship. Cheers.’

  Chapter Three

  Acton Humphries, known to most in that part of Devonshire as Baron Wildeham, watched the scene unfold from his favourite position, recumbent on Lucas Harding’s divan, post-dinner brandy in hand. Across the room, Harding fiddled distractedly with the heavy paperweight on his desk. Harding could split the messenger’s head with the leaded-crystal ornament and he was mad enough to do it. The man’s colour was high and it wouldn’t be the first time rage had driven his actions. ‘You mean to tell me that my niece has managed to elude you and disappear entirely?’ Harding ground out when the messenger finished his report.

  Acton sat up to join the proceedings. ‘Surely you must understand how improbable it seems. Miss Caulfield is a gently bred young lady who hasn’t been beyond Exeter in her entire life and you gentlemen are trained professionals,’ he drawled lazily, but only a stupid man would be drawn in by his apparent nonchalance. Acton was as angry over this latest development as Harding was.

  His long-standing relationship with Lucas Harding had developed a certain tension in the last week, ever since it became obvious Harding’s ungrateful niece had simply disappeared a coincidental four days before she was due to become his wife and Baroness Wildeham to boot.

  ‘I am sorry we don’t have better news.’ The messenger shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, sensing that anger was indeed boiling just beneath the surface in a barely disguised simmer.

  ‘Better news? You don’t have any news!’ Harding exploded. The explosion was justified, Acton mused. Maura’s disappearance had put her uncle in dire straits and she’d made him look the fool. She was contracted to marry him in exchange for erasing a gambling debt her uncle had rather rashly acquired. Harding had never believed his stallion, Captain, would lose to Acton’s Jupiter. Most fortunately, Acton was willing to take payment in the form of a bride as opposed to cash, especially when that bride was the delectable Maura Harding.

  When he’d struck the deal, Harding had had a bride to offer. Now, he had neither bride nor money and the deadline was looming. If Harding didn’t retrieve Maura soon, he’d be destitute. Acton knew very well Harding was a mere knight and his property wasn’t entailed. If he took the house, Harding’s family would be left unsettled: his wife, the young twins and the two older sons. Maura was a fair trade for her uncle’s continued stability. The man had cared for Maura since she was sixteen and this was how she repaid him? Acton would never tolerate such disobedience. It was a woman’s lot in life to serve her family. Marrying him had become Maura’s duty, her service for the four years of living under her uncle’s roof.

  ‘Find her,’ Harding ground out, his temper cooling a bit. ‘Expand your search.

  Try the coaching inns again in case anyone remembers her.’ Acton privately disagreed. If she’d gone to a coaching inn, chances of finding her became slimmer.

  Hundreds of travellers passed through those inns and people’s memories could be dulled as time went on. The Runners could end up chasing false leads. But Acton knew Harding had honestly thought they’d find her in a nearby village or attempting to get work in Exeter. Harding had guessed wrong on that score and her trail was growing cold. Now it was time to do things his way.

  ‘What about London?’ Wildeham offered. ‘It seems a logical choice if someone wanted to hide and we haven’t tried there yet.’ It had only been a handful of days. By his calculations she would only just have arrived. A trail in London, if there was one, would still be very warm.

  Harding shook his head in disagreement. ‘Unlikely, Wildeham. Maura has little to no money that I know of and no skills. Even if she could have afforded coach fare or begged a ride, she’s got nothing to live on once she reaches the city. She’s a gentleman’s daughter. She’s been raised to marry, not to labor.’

  Wildeham saw the logic in Harding’s argument. If a girl like Maura thought to find employment in London, she’d be quickly disappointed. The town would devour a girl like her, and that worried him very much. He didn’t want Maura dead. He wanted her alive and penitent, very penitent.

  Wildeham shifted in his seat to accommodate the early stirrings of arousal.

  Penitence conjured up all sorts of images of Maura on her knees before him. If anyone was doing any devouring, it was going to be him. He’d spent quite a few hours imagining the fant
asies he’d play out with her once she was his. She would be sorry she’d run. There was nothing like the thrill of laying a rod across the smooth white expanse of untouched buttocks... But he digressed. Wildeham pulled his thoughts back to the situation at hand.

  Maura Harding had run and he was more certain with each passing day she’d gone to London. Her uncle only saw a pretty, well-mannered girl. But he’d had the occasion to see much more. Harding and the Runner could talk all they wanted about searching the larger towns of Devonshire, but they’d never seen Maura with her temper up. They’d never seen her try to slap a man after he cornered her in the pantry for a little bit of slap and tickle. They’d never been on the receiving end of her tongue, and not in the French way he preferred. The little vixen had bit him when he’d tried to kiss her, nearly severing his tongue in two. That was all right with him. He liked it rough and he always hit them back.

  Nothing too hard, mind you, but enough to make his position on the matter clear.

  The more Maura fought, the more he wanted her, and he was going to have her.

  It was time to do things his way.

  ‘Are you two still debating a local search?’ He interrupted Harding and the Runner. He was growing impatient with their theorising, although this ‘treasure hunt of sorts’ could be fun in a tantalising, torture-pleasure scheme of things.

  ‘It’s what makes the most sense.’ Harding sighed. ‘She can’t have gone far.’

  Acton warmed to the game. ‘By all means, continue with your efforts. It’s your coin, after all. I’ve got my own man for odd jobs like this. I’ll send him to London at my expense and see what he turns up. We’ll make it a wager, fifty pounds on the side to whoever finds her first.’

  Harding smiled tolerantly as if he wasn’t the one faced with losing something more substantial than fifty pounds if the girl wasn’t retrieved. ‘All right, fifty pounds it is.’