Читать книгу Nicola Cornick Collection: The Last Rake In London / Notorious / Desired - Nicola Cornick, Nicola Cornick - Страница 15

Jack was up early the following morning. He had slept poorly, tantalised by the knowledge that Sally’s room was just down the corridor from his own, so near and yet so far. More disturbing than his sexual frustration was the fact that he actually missed sleeping with her; he missed her warmth and her scent and the confiding way that her body curled closely with his, bringing a deep sense of peace and comfort to him. It was not a feeling that was familiar to him and it irritated him profoundly.

He wished he had not provoked her when they had parted the previous night. She had spoken so convincingly about her reasons for refusing Gregory Holt that he had almost believed her. Then he had kissed her and once again he had been swept by the need to have her, to hold her, to keep her close. He wanted to believe in her. He was hesitating on the edge of a precipice and it infuriated him that Sally could get under his skin like this because he knew he was losing control; after Merle, he had no wish to let a woman get that close to him ever again. It was impossible. He would not permit it. He would keep Sally with him on his own terms, but keep his heart locked against her. She had to be the corrupt and venal adventuress Churchward had shown him.

He took one of Stephen’s specially ironed newspapers and made his way to the library. It was quiet and the early morning sunshine dappled the carpet. One of the Labradors was dozing in a patch of warmth and raised its head when he walked past only to sink back down with a grunt again as Jack sat down. In the parlour the servants were laying out a gargantuan breakfast, but no one could eat until Lady Ottoline decided to put in an appearance and she was probably still in bed enjoying hot chocolate and toast. Jack wondered how anyone could eat as much as his great-aunt and still remain stick thin. She had an appetite like a Labrador and he was beginning to think that her much-vaunted frailty was merely a cunning trick to get her own way. It worked, he thought ruefully. He could imagine Sally being like that in fifty years’ time, still as beautiful, still as strong-willed and busy terrorising a younger generation. He realised he was smiling indulgently at the thought and stopped abruptly. His wits were definitely going begging that morning. He had never thought of any relationship in terms of such longevity before, not even his affair with Merle.

He paused. When had he started to think of his hastily arranged false engagement to Sally in terms of something more enduring? He had almost forgotten that it was meant to be a short-lived ruse. Even more disturbing was the fact that his family had warmed to Sally and taken her to their hearts, even Aunt Otto, who was notoriously hard to please. Sally had Gregory Holt’s loyalty too—Jack gritted his teeth—no, she had Holt’s love to the point he was prepared to stand as her brother to protect her when he clearly wanted a very different relationship with her. Yet she refused to take advantage of Holt’s devotion. But perhaps she was after a better catch, someone who would one day inherit a dukedom. The test would come if she sued Jack for breach of promise when they broke the false engagement. Then she would reveal her true colours.

He could imagine that happening. It would be another logical step in the Bowes sisters’ financial plan.

Yet still his doubts persisted.

Jack unfolded the paper and tried to distract himself with the news.

His business acquaintance Robert Pelterie had made a mile-long flight in a monoplane. Jack, who had financed some of Pelterie’s work in aviation, was impressed. There was much news on the last-minute preparations for the Olympic Games, which were opening at the White City stadium in London the following month. And at the bottom of the third page there was a not particularly sympathetic account of the miseries experienced by the suffragette campaigners in Holloway jail:

‘All the hours seem very long in prison. The sun can never get in … and every day so changeless and uninteresting. One grows almost too tired to go through to the exercise yard and yet one has a yearning for the open air …’ There was also a list of other suffragists who had been arrested trying to enter the House of Commons by concealing themselves in a furniture van. Jack perused the list casually, his interest sharpening when he saw the name of Petronella Bowes. He remembered Sally mentioning her other sister when they had taken dinner together and saying that Nell’s life was made miserable by lack of money for food and medicines and how the constant threat of imprisonment and the need to pay fines seemed sometimes to overwhelm her.

The breakfast gong sounded. Jack finished the article he was reading before casting the newspaper aside and striding out of the library. The others were already in the breakfast room; as he approached he could hear the sound of voices and his great-aunt’s cut-glass tones as she requested kedgeree and lamented the lack of properly brewed coffee.

‘Good morning, nephew,’ she said sharply, as Jack appeared in the doorway. ‘Late again, I see.’ Her gaze swept from him to Sally’s demurely bent head. ‘I trust that you slept well?’

‘Never better,’ Jack said untruthfully. He smiled a greeting at Charley and Stephen, managed a civil nod for Gregory Holt, then went to Sally and took her hand, pressing a kiss on the back of it. He was rewarded with a slight blush and a flicker of her eyelashes as she cast one, quick look at his face. Astonishingly, she seemed shy. It made Jack feel protective. He reached for his customary cynicism. She must be no more than an extremely accomplished actress, as he had always suspected.

‘Good morning, my love,’ he said, and saw Lady Ottoline, if not Sally, smile with approval.

Sally was dressed very plainly today in a blue blouse and panelled skirt, and if she had slept as badly as he it certainly did not show. She looked fresh and, to Jack’s eyes, exceedingly pretty.

‘Miss Bowes tells me that you are both to leave today for a pressing engagement,’ Lady Ottoline said, her smile fading into a look of disagreement. ‘That does not suit me at all. In fact, I absolutely forbid it, nephew. Tonight is my birthday dinner and if my own nephew and his fiancée cannot be present, then it is a sad day for the family. As it is, neither your papa nor Buffy can join us, which I consider shows a deplorable lack of respect. That boy does not deserve to be a duke.’

Jack was saved from replying by a sudden rapping at the main door. Patterson, the butler, who had been overseeing the breakfast arrangements, hurried out, adjusting his livery as he went and wearing a faintly disapproving expression. Visitors were not expected to have the bad manners to arrive at ten when the family was still at table. It was the height of discourtesy.

There was a commotion in the hallway with the butler’s voice raised in surprised greeting and then a cacophony of voices. Jack looked at Charley and raised his brows. She got to her feet and hurried out, closely followed by Stephen.

‘You had better run along too, Jack,’ Lady Ottoline said, digging her knife bad-temperedly into the lime marmalade. ‘I would hate any of you to preserve good manners and remain at table with me.’

‘That sounds like Connie’s voice,’ Sally said. She sounded suddenly nervous. She put down her napkin. ‘Excuse me, Lady Ottoline.’

Jack followed her out into the hall. The familiar dapper figure of his cousin Bertie Basset was crossing the marble floor towards him. There was a blonde woman with him, achingly fashionable in a suit of cerise with a wide-brimmed hat framing her china-doll face. She was speaking in a light, drawling voice to one of the hapless footmen who was attempting to bring in what looked like vast quantities of luggage.

‘Be careful with that bandbox, you oaf! No, don’t hold it like that—you will squash my hat! And mind little Herman the Dachshund. He does not care for motorcar journeys and may well be sick on you …’

‘Connie!’ Sally said, in failing tones. ‘What are you doing here? Where have you been?’ She flashed Jack a look. ‘We thought—’

‘Sally darling!’ Connie wafted towards her sister on a cloud of expensive perfume. ‘What fun to find you here! We looked for you at the club yesterday, but Matty said that you had gone with Mr Kestrel.’ Her perfectly arched eyebrows rose in a look of wide enquiry. ‘I thought it most odd since I understood that you barely know one another.’ She pouted. ‘Indeed, it was most thoughtless of you not to be there to greet us when we were newly wed and simply aching to share the good news with you!’

‘I am sorry that I missed you,’ Sally said politely.

Connie waved a dismissive hand. ‘No matter. We saw Nell instead, and she was very happy for us.’ She frowned. ‘She was at the club. Apparently she had come to find you to thank you for the money you sent her.’

Jack’s stomach dropped. He looked sharply at Sally. She met his eyes for a brief, guilty moment and then looked away with a studiously feigned lack of interest, fidgeting with the cuff of her blouse before glancing quickly back at him again. Jack raised his brows and smiled at her and she blushed. She looked the picture of guilt. Some of the tight, angry feeling inside Jack eased. He knew now where his two hundred pounds had gone the previous morning. He knew what Sally had wanted the money for. He knew that his original instincts about her had very probably been sound. He felt an overpowering urge to confront her there and then, but unfortunately his new cousin was still holding the floor.

‘I thought Nell looked quite frightful,’ Connie was saying, blithely ignoring everyone else as she gossiped to her embarrassed sister. ‘She was all ragged and thin, but perhaps now that I am Mrs Basset I may be able to help her. It is good to be in a position where one can be charitable … Yes, what is it, Bertie?’ She spoke to her husband in tones of extreme irritation.

‘Sorry to interrupt you, darling,’ Bertie said uncomfortably, ‘but I wanted to introduce my cousin Charlotte Harrington and her husband Stephen, and also my cousin Jack Kestrel—’

‘Mr Kestrel!’ Connie ignored Charley and Stephen completely, but held out a hand to Jack upon which glittered the largest diamond he had ever seen. She was smiling winsomely at him, but it left Jack singularly unmoved. Looking from her little painted face to Sally’s, seeing them together for the first time, he was struck by how very different the two of them appeared. Connie, with her vapid airs and sharp tongue, was exactly how he had imagined her. He thought his cousin an even bigger fool than previously.

‘How do you do, Mrs Basset,’ he said, and Connie preened herself.

‘Connie,’ Sally intervened, ‘what are you doing here? This is Mrs Harrington’s home, you know, and everyone is here for a family party.’

‘Great-Aunt Ottoline’s birthday,’ Jack said helpfully, turning to Bertie. ‘You will have remembered that it is her party, of course, Bertie? She will be delighted to meet your new bride, I am sure.’ He had the pleasure of seeing his cousin turn a gratifying colour of white.

‘I had no notion Aunt Ottoline would be here,’ Bertie choked. ‘Came to see Charley, to ask that she might help smooth our way into the family, don’t you know.’ He looked askance at Jack. ‘Didn’t know you would be here either, Jack, for that matter.’

‘No,’ Jack said. ‘I dare say that if you had you would have thought twice about coming. I have been looking for you on your father’s behalf for the past week.’

Bertie gulped. ‘Deed’s done now,’ he said, ‘signed and sealed. We were married yesterday.’

Connie skipped up to Sally and thrust her hand under her nose. ‘Look at my diamond! Is it not tremendous!’

‘It is extraordinary,’ Sally said. ‘We thought that you might have headed for Gretna Green for your runaway match, Connie.’

‘Gracious, no!’ Connie wrinkled up her nose. ‘I could not possibly get married in such a hole-in-the-corner way! We had a special licence. Bertie bought it weeks ago.’ She caught Sally’s arm, smiling beguilingly. ‘I am sorry to have deceived you about my intentions, Sal, but it was the only way to keep the whole matter secret. I know you would have tried to dissuade me with your tiresome scruples.’

Jack looked at Sally again. She was pale and her face was set. ‘My tiresome scruples,’ she said. ‘Yes, they have always been such a trial to you, have they not, Connie?’ Again, she met Jack’s eyes for a brief moment, but there was no triumph in her own to have been vindicated. She looked hurt and regretful, and Jack felt a sudden fury that Sally could care so much for other people when Connie clearly cared nothing at all for her sister’s feelings.

‘Well, you cannot help yourself, I suppose,’ Connie said, smiling blithely. ‘You always were prim and principled. It was fortunate that I had Bertie to conspire with instead!’

Bertie flushed bright red. ‘I say, old thing,’ he protested, ‘it was not really like that! All we did was plan to raise a bit of cash.’

Jack turned to his cousin.

‘Congratulations on a stunning piece of duplicity,’ he said icily, and watched Bertie wither beneath his contempt. ‘You have nearly driven your own father to his grave with your blackmail, leaving aside the anxiety you have both caused Miss Bowes.’

‘Only wanted enough money to get married, what,’ Bertie said plaintively. ‘Papa wouldn’t countenance it, don’t you know, so Con and I had to think of something.’

‘I’m glad to see that in the end a shortage of funds didn’t stand in the way of true love,’ Jack said bitingly.

‘Papa will probably stop my allowance now it’s happened,’ Bertie said gloomily, ‘but he can’t disinherit me because of the entail.’

‘And his health is poor—’ Connie started to say, then stopped as Bertie shot her a look and Jack realised that even Connie Bowes did not quite have the brass neck to come out with the bald statement that she was merely waiting for her father-in-law to die.

‘I do apologise,’ Sally said, turning to Charley and Stephen, who had been standing watching the exchange in fascinated horror. Jack was not sure whether she was apologising for her sister’s behaviour or Connie’s very existence.

Charley shook her head and gave Sally a squeeze of the hand, which seemed to convey sympathy and support together, then stepped forward hospitably to smooth things over, offering breakfast and to show the newcomers to their room.

‘For if you have travelled from London this morning you must have set off extremely early and be very hungry …’

‘Oh, we stayed in Oxford last night,’ Connie said airily, ‘at the Randolph, you know. Nothing but the best.’

‘She’ll ruin you within a month,’ Jack said to his cousin in an undertone.

Lady Ottoline’s querulous tones, floating from the breakfast room and demanding to know what was going on, put an end to further discussion. Connie picked up a small bag from the floor and thrust it into Sally’s arms. From inside peeped the smallest and most bad-tempered-looking dog that Jack had ever seen.

‘You are far better with dogs that I am, Sally darling,’ she said. ‘Could you take him to the kitchens and feed him? And whilst you are there, would you secure me the services of a personal maid as well? I simply cannot manage on my own.’ Her face brightened. ‘Oh! But since you are here, perhaps you could attend to me yourself?’

Jack felt his temper snap comprehensively. ‘Out of the question,’ he said. He grabbed the bag with the dog in it and handed it to the butler, who recoiled with a look of horror on his face. ‘Keep him away from the Labradors,’ Jack said. ‘They’ll think he is a rabbit.’ He took Sally’s hand in his.

‘Your sister is here as my fiancée, Mrs Basset,’ he said, ‘so you will have to make shift for yourself.’ And he pulled Sally’s hand through his arm and marched her back into the breakfast parlour, with Connie’s indignant voice rising and falling like a siren behind him.

Sally’s head was aching by the time that breakfast was over. Connie had chattered non-stop about her wedding and about how utterly marvellous it was to be Mrs Bertie Basset now. Lady Ottoline had sat in ominous silence, her sharp gaze going from Connie’s animated face to Bertie’s embarrassed one and back again. After the meal she had announced that she wished to speak with Bertie and when Connie had tried to accompany them into the drawing room had uttered the chilling words, ‘Alone, if you please!’

Connie had looked mutinous, but Charley had persuaded her to go and inspect her bedchamber instead and they had disappeared upstairs with Connie’s fluting tones floating back down to Sally as she commented on the dowdiness of Charley’s colour schemes.

‘You didn’t tell me,’ Jack said in her ear, ‘just how unlike you your sister is.’

‘Connie was not always this way,’ Sally said, sighing. ‘Before her broken love affair with John Pettifer she was a sweet girl.’ She looked at him. ‘I did try to tell you about that, Mr Kestrel, but, as I recall, you were not interested in listening.’

‘Touché,’ Jack said. ‘I think we have rather a lot to talk about, Miss Bowes.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘Shall we walk for a little?’

‘I do not wish to discuss matters with you,’ Sally said coldly. She wanted nothing more than a bit of peace and a corner in which to hide away from Connie’s presence. She supposed dully that she should be grateful to her sister, whose artless prattle had confirmed so comprehensively that all the things she had told Jack were true, but she was too heart sore and too miserable to appreciate it.

Jack tucked her hand through his arm and steered her out on to the terrace. ‘Too bad, my love,’ he drawled, ‘for I need to talk to you urgently.’

They did not speak again until they were well away from the house, across the moat and in the arboretum, where the huge pines and redwoods spread their shade and the sharp and sweet scent of the pine needles was all around them. It was warm and tranquil, but Sally did not feel very peaceful. Connie was no doubt wreaking havoc even as they spoke, Lady Ottoline would probably have a heart attack and Jack was looking so unyielding that she quailed to see it.

‘I think,’ he said mildly, ‘that you owe me an explanation.’

Sally’s overtaxed nerves snapped. ‘Oh, do you!’ she said. ‘Well, I think that you owe me an apology!’

Jack nodded. ‘That too,’ he said pleasantly. He drove both hands into the pockets of his trousers and faced her directly. Sally’s heart started to pound.

‘First,’ he said, ‘I want to know why you did not tell me that you wanted the two hundred pounds for your sister Nell. You let me think you were selling your own virtue—’

‘I let you think nothing,’ Sally interrupted. She was incensed that instead of a polite apology he was trying to blame her for his own misjudgements. ‘You chose to think that I was venal and grasping because you had already decided to believe it,’ she said. ‘I tried hard enough to tell you that you had your facts wrong, but you chose not to listen.’

Jack raked his hand through his hair. ‘But if you had told me the truth I could have helped you.’

‘You were in no mood to help,’ Sally said. ‘Have you forgotten how severely we had quarrelled, Mr Kestrel? Besides, I barely knew you. I was not going to ask for a loan from a man I had met only two days before.’

‘You knew me well enough to sleep with me when we had met only two days before,’ Jack said. His gaze was hard and narrow. ‘So instead of requesting a loan you let me think you a grasping harpy who had sold her virginity.’

Sally shrugged, trying to pretend she did not care. ‘You offered the money.’

‘So you took it.’

‘I did not think it would make a whit of difference to your opinion of me, given that it was already so low.’

Jack shook his head in exasperation. ‘What did Nell need two hundred pounds for?’

Sally turned away to hide the naked emotion in her face. She had been hurt too badly by him to want to reveal the depth of her feelings and explain how desperately she had needed to help her sister.

‘She needed food and rent and money for medicine,’ she said. ‘The fines have crippled her financially and many of her friends are in gaol so she cares for their children too. They are all sick with a fever—’ Her voice broke and she put her hands up briefly to her face, letting them fall so she could look at him with defiant eyes. ‘That is why.’

‘So you sent the money to her directly before we left London?’ Jack asked.

‘I …’ Sally hesitated, but she knew there was no point in further prevarication. ‘Yes, I did.’

Jack cursed softly. ‘I knew it! I saw you give it to Alfred to deliver. But when I asked you and you denied it, I thought …’ he shrugged ‘… well, I assumed it was for some pressing debt.’

‘Nell’s debts were pressing. As I said, her children were sick and near starving.’

‘And once again,’ Jack said, ‘you took responsibility for helping your sisters.’

Sally did not answer. Taking care of Nell and Connie was something she had always done.

There was a silence. ‘And Connie,’ Jack said. ‘She plotted this whole elopement scheme with Bertie’s help, not yours, didn’t she?’

‘It seems so,’ Sally said. ‘I did not realise that Bertie was involved.’

‘I am sorry that I doubted you,’ Jack said.

Sally smiled bitterly. He sounded as though the words were sticking in his throat, but she knew that any sort of apology was a major concession from Jack. Perhaps in time she would be able to accept it, when her feelings were not so raw.

‘Thank you,’ she said politely.

‘The evidence about Chavenage and Pettifer seemed so strong,’ Jack continued. ‘I read the court papers.’

‘It is true that the Chavenage family tried to pay me off, but I would not accept a penny,’ Sally said. ‘Whoever gave you that information had their facts quite wrong, Mr Kestrel. As for John Pettifer, Connie loved him. You may find that hard to believe—I do myself when I see her now—but I think he was the only man she has ever truly loved. He used her very badly and when he jilted her it seemed only fair to sue him for breach of promise, to make the world see what a cad he was rather than to extract any money from him.’

‘The judge agreed with you,’ Jack said.

‘Yes. But in the end it was a hollow victory because Connie had been badly let down,’ Sally said. ‘I am sure it was then that she turned cynical towards men. She had always been flighty, but there was an innocence in her too. Now, though …’ Sally sighed ‘… she is as hard as nails.’

‘Your sister,’ Jack said grimly, ‘is the most conniving little piece it has ever been my misfortune to meet and she does not deserve your love and support.’

Sally shot him a startled look. He sounded so grim, and his mouth was set in an angry line. She supposed that his fury was no great surprise. He had maintained all along that Connie was an adventuress and now they had all seen and heard the proof of it. Connie had been out to make an advantageous match and had no respect for Bertie, who had only been the means to an ambitious end.

‘At least we are saved the trouble of travelling to Gretna,’ Sally said, sighing. ‘I might have known that we would be too late.’ She shook her head slightly. ‘It always was too late to talk sense into Connie. She always did do exactly want she wanted.’

‘And now,’ Jack said, ‘they are married—’

‘Thereby removing the necessity for us to be engaged,’ Sally said. This, she thought, was the end between them, and it had come sooner than she had thought. ‘I think I shall go back to London,’ she said. She looked at him. ‘If you would be so good as to convey me to the nearest station, Mr Kestrel? I think it is the least that you could do under the circumstances.’

Jack did not answer immediately. ‘I am not really minded to let you go so easily,’ he said.

Sally stared at him, her thoughts in a sudden spin. ‘Whatever do you mean by that?’ she demanded.

‘Exactly what I say.’ Jack sounded maddeningly arrogant. ‘I wish to keep you here at Dauntsey with me as my fiancée.’

‘Well,’ Sally said, her temper flaring abruptly again at this further display of high-handedness, ‘I do not think that you are in a position to make any further demands upon me, Mr Kestrel.’

‘I accept that you have a right to be angry with me—’ Jack conceded, but Sally did not let him finish. It felt good to let all her indignation and anger and pain at last have free rein.

‘Oh, you accept that, do you?’ she said. She put her hands on her hips. ‘You drag me here on what turns out to be a wild goose chase, you insult me by suggesting I am in league with my sister to fleece your family, you calmly announce that we are engaged, and you think I have a right to be angry with you! Well, thank you for that!’

‘I have said that the fleecing accusation was a mistake,’ Jack said. Infuriatingly, he looked amused rather than annoyed at her show of temper and Sally realised with a sudden pang that it was because he was still supremely confident, still utterly sure that he could persuade her to his point of view. She wished desperately that she were not so vulnerable to him. But she was strong too. She had no intention of succumbing to his practised charm ever again, not when it was accompanied by no deep emotion.

‘It is handsome of you to admit it,’ she said, her eyes flashing. ‘You can trust your own judgement, but you cannot trust my word! And what did your “evidence” amount to anyway? Some trumped-up report from your lawyer? You did not even give me a chance to defend myself!’

‘No,’ Jack said slowly, ‘I did not.’

Sally’s temper flickered again. She warmed to her theme. ‘You have been intolerably rude to me, you tried to break the bank at my casino, you threatened to destroy my business, you seduced me—’

‘Please, Sally …’ Jack put out a hand towards her as a nervous-looking gardener’s boy came through the trees pushing a wheelbarrow and went swiftly into reverse on hearing the word ‘seduced’.

‘And now you decide that you are not minded to let me go!’ Sally finished. ‘You are intolerable!’

‘Given the disparity in our experience, as a gentleman I must take responsibility for what has happened between us,’ Jack said. ‘Therefore you remain as my fiancée.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t!’ Sally said furiously. ‘Just because you have exonerated me of blame you do not need to take responsibility for my actions! I knew what I was doing even if—’ She stopped, embarrassed, as the heated memories swamped her mind again.

‘Even if you were a virgin,’ Jack said softly. ‘Which we both know that you were.’ He took her hand and drew her into the shelter of one of the trees. His touch was warm and insistent. She could feel her resistance to him melting and tried desperately not to weaken. He was standing close to her and she could smell the fresh scent of his cologne. She felt a little light-headed.

‘I … This …’ Sally struggled to regain her self-control. ‘This is nothing to the purpose,’ she said. ‘The point is that now Connie and Bertie are married we no longer need to pretend to be engaged and, as I said, I would like to go back to London.’

‘I cannot allow it,’ Jack said, with every appearance of regret. ‘I want you to stay here with me.’

Sally stared at him. ‘You want me to stay here? Just what is it that you are suggesting, Mr Kestrel?’

‘I am proposing marriage.’ Jack thrust his hands moodily into his pockets. ‘I dislike the idea of your silly little sister having precedence over you just because she is married and you are not.’

Despite herself, Sally laughed. ‘A lamentably bad reason for marriage, Mr Kestrel. I assure you that even if Connie insists on entering every drawing room in London before me, which no doubt she shall, I can still deal with her.’ She shook her head. ‘And I have to say that that is without a doubt the worst proposal of marriage that I have every heard.’

‘No doubt you have heard a few.’ Now Jack sounded even more bad-tempered.

‘Certainly enough to know that yours was extraordinarily inept.’

‘I suppose that Gregory Holt was more proficient?’

‘He said some very pretty things,’ Sally conceded, ‘but I still refused him. As I do you, Mr Kestrel. The idea is absurd.’

‘If we call off our engagement now, Aunt Ottoline will be extremely disappointed,’ Jack said.

Sally raised her brows. She found that in spite of everything, she was starting to enjoy this litany of the worst possible reasons to wed. ‘Another poor basis for marriage,’ she said. ‘I like your aunt, but I am not tying the knot with you simply to oblige her.’

‘If you go now, I will sue you for breach of contract.’

‘That,’ Sally said ruefully, ‘sounds much more like you, Mr Kestrel.’

Jack smiled at her. ‘Have you noticed,’ he said conversationally, ‘that when you are trying to keep me at arm’s length, you always call me Mr Kestrel?’

Sally’s heart skipped a beat at the intimacy of his tone. ‘You are at arm’s length,’ she said. ‘You are practically a stranger to me.’

‘Rubbish.’ Jack straightened. ‘You have met my family. You have slept with me.’

‘Yet another bad reason for marriage.’

Jack took her hand and pulled her to him. ‘Sally,’ he said, ‘we were both a little carried away these past two nights, and as a result I have a need to protect you and your reputation—’

‘Nonsense!’ Sally said. She spoke abruptly to quell the little quiver of feeling that his words aroused in her. ‘I can look after myself.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You said it yourself, Mr Kestrel. I am a widow, I was almost a divorcée, I own a nightclub, and I have a scandalous reputation already. It was one of the reasons why you—’ She stopped.

‘Why I took you to bed,’ Jack said helpfully.

The gardener’s boy, who had stuck his head around the tree again to see if the coast was clear, disappeared with a strangled squeak.

The colour flooded Sally’s face. ‘You thought me experienced,’ she whispered.

‘I did. And now I know you are not. So—’

‘No,’ Sally said, before he could finish. ‘No one knows what happened. No one will know, least of all your strait-laced great-aunt. And even if they did, my reputation, such as it is, could stand it. It is the height of hypocrisy only to propose when you have it proved to you that I am virtuous.’

‘Could your reputation stand having a child out of wedlock?’ Jack asked softly.

Sally caught her breath. It was not that she had not acknowledged the possibility to herself already, but she was not ready to talk to Jack about it. She gritted her teeth.

‘That will not happen,’ she said.

‘Do you know that,’ Jack enquired, ‘or are you just burying your head in the sand and hoping that you are right?’

Sally looked at him. She wanted a child. She had wanted one for a long time, with a desperate ache that she had sublimated in her work. But she did not want one like this. She thought of little Lucy Harrington and the love and happiness that surrounded her and the fact that Jack was so indulgent and adoring an uncle and her throat ached with tears at the thought of what might have been. He would be a good father. But she wanted him to be a good husband first and she was not sure he had it in him to give her that, not when he could not love her because his heart was already long given to another woman.

‘That must be at least the fifth bad reason you have given me for marriage,’ she said.

Jack sighed. ‘Sally—’

‘No,’ Sally said. ‘You do not love me.’

Jack did not contradict her. ‘I want you,’ he said. ‘I need you. It is enough.’

‘It is not enough for me,’ Sally said stubbornly.

‘It will have to be because I will not let you go.’

Sally shook her head.

‘I will court you.’

‘You make it sound like a threat,’ Sally complained. ‘Jack, be sensible. You have loved only one woman in your life. Perhaps you are still in love with her and, because she is dead, she is untouchable. How do you think I would feel as your wife, knowing that I was competing with a ghost? I have made one bad marriage in my life and I do not intend to make a second. And when the physical passion between us dies, as it surely will, we would have nothing left.’

‘Very well,’ Jack said. He loosed her and stood back, still holding her hands. There was a bright, challenging light in his eyes, the same light Sally had seen there that night at the Blue Parrot when he had been on a winning streak. She looked at him with misgiving.

‘Give me this weekend to court you,’ Jack said. ‘Don’t reject me outright. Give me two days in which to make you change your mind. Give me your answer on Monday.’

‘Two days!’ Sally said incredulously. ‘You think you can win my consent in only two days?’

‘Yes,’ Jack said. He did not smile. The intensity of his regard rocked her to the soul.

‘And if I do not succumb?’ Sally questioned. ‘Then will you accept defeat and not press me to wed you?’

‘I will.’ The touch of his hand gave her a different answer.

‘You lie,’ Sally accused.

Jack laughed. ‘All right. I will continue to try to persuade you, Sally, for the need I have for you burns me up. But I swear I shall not press you.’ He raised one of her hands and kissed the tips of her fingers. ‘It is your call now.’

They had the whole day together. They went riding in the park and took a picnic luncheon. It was scandalous, of course, because they went out without servants or chaperonage, but even Lady Ottoline smiled indulgently. They spread a blanket beneath the broad oaks of the park and ate their fill of cold ham and chicken pie and cream pastries with strawberries, washed down with champagne. The drink and the warmth made Sally sleepy and she lay back in the dappled sunshine and watched the shadows of the leaves dancing over her head.

‘It is nice to experience an English summer again,’ Jack said. He was lying beside her, his body relaxed, hands behind his head as he too looked up at the trees silhouetted against the sky. ‘I had almost forgotten what it was like, so fresh and cool after the heat of southern France.’

‘Tell me about what happened when you left England all those years ago,’ Sally said sleepily. She turned her head to look at Jack. His face seemed tranquil enough, but there was some tension now in the long lines of his body. She knew he hated talking about the past, but she thought that if he was not prepared to let her into even a small part of his history then there really was no hope for them. She could not marry a man who kept his innermost thoughts locked away.

‘I was twenty-one when I left,’ Jack said, after a moment. A rueful smile twisted his lips. ‘Until the business with Merle I had thought myself so much a man, but when my father banished me I felt no more than a lost boy, though I would have fought with my last breath to keep that weakness hidden.’

‘You had not expected him to send you away,’ Sally said.

‘No.’ Jack shifted a little. ‘Oh, I could see that I had let my family down monstrously, but in my youthful arrogance I had thought that I could have it all—a glittering future, the support of my family, and … Merle.’ His voice fell. ‘And then I lost it all. Merle died and I was disgraced and my privileged and golden future disappeared.’

Sally shifted so that she could look at him properly. His gaze was thoughtful and dark with memories.

‘I heard,’ she said, ‘that you joined the army.’

‘I fought against the Boers,’ Jack said. ‘I tried to get myself killed in a glorious way that would make my father proud, but all I succeeded in doing was living when I wanted to die.’

His voice was devoid of expression, but his face was grim. Sally’s heart ached for him. After a moment she slipped her hand into his and felt his fingers, long and strong, close about hers. His touch brought a sense of relief and peace to her. If she could only reach him, she sensed she could thaw some of the bitter chill in his heart.

‘Life has an inconvenient habit of thwarting you,’ she said, and saw him smile.

‘Yes. After the war, when I realised that I was not only going to live, but needed to make a living, I went into the aviation business. The rest you know. I came home at the end of last year.’

‘Did you never come back before?’ Sally asked. When he shook his head, she protested, ‘But Charley must have missed you terribly! And you would not have seen Lucy when she was a baby, and when your mother died …’

Jack’s fingers tightened cruelly on hers for a second before he let her go. ‘I could not return until I had wiped out the shame of what I had done.’

Sally shook her head slightly, trying to understand the demons that drove this complex man. There was something here that he was not telling her. It had been a long and bitter struggle for him to come to terms with the past; even now, she suspected there were matters he still could not forgive himself for.

‘They have welcomed you back with open arms,’ she said. ‘Both Charley and Lucy dote on you, and I think Lady Ottoline probably likes you much more than she pretends.’

‘Oh, everyone has treated me like the prodigal son,’ Jack said, and once again Sally heard the thread of bitterness in his voice.

‘You do not feel that you deserve it,’ Sally said.

Jack shook his head, but he did not speak and after a second Sally leaned over to kiss him, wanting to comfort him in the only way she could. For a moment he was still beneath her and then his mouth moved on hers and his hand came up to clasp the back of her head to hold her still so that he could kiss her more deeply. He tumbled her over on to the rug beside him and raised himself on one elbow to look down into her face. There was a hard glitter of desire in his eyes, barely leashed, and it lit an excitement like wildfire in her blood.

‘Jack,’ she whispered.

His expression was dark. ‘This was not how I had planned my courtship of you to be.’

‘I don’t care,’ Sally said recklessly. ‘I want you.’

Somewhere deep within her she did care; she loved him and wanted his love in return, wanted it to wash away all the doubts between them and the pain of the past. But this was all that Jack could give her, this intense, sensual need that could not be denied, but threatened always to rule her.

‘When I am with you I feel alive,’ she said. ‘I want that, Jack. Make me feel alive.’

He was on her in an instant, kissing her deeply, his hand buried in her hair. His tongue thrust, demanding a response as though he owned her and wanted to taste every inch of her. Her body felt hot and heavy as though they had been apart a long time and she could not wait to welcome him back. The champagne fizzed through her veins and the sunlight danced against her closed eyes, hot on her skin. Jack’s hair felt warm and silky beneath her fingers. She felt him shift, his hand coming up to clasp her breast and tease her nipple beneath the material of her riding habit. She writhed against him, desperate to be free of the constriction of her clothes, and he started to unbutton the bodice of her gown and unlace the chemise beneath. The summer air played across her heated skin and Sally moaned with pleasure.

Then, suddenly, shocking her, Jack stood up and bent to lift her in his arms. Her head spun and the green darkness of the tree cover closed about them.

‘What—?’ she began, but Jack silenced her with another searing kiss that stole her very soul. He placed her gently on her feet, giving her a gentle push so that her back came up against the warm, rough bark of a tree. Understanding came to her then and she gasped, but he silenced the sound with another searching kiss, his mouth moving over hers, then dipping to taste the hollow above her collarbone and the sensitive skin at the base of her throat. Sally leaned back and felt the bark score the palms of her hands. Jack pulled open the bodice of her habit and dipped a hand inside, warm against the silk of her chemise. Her nipple hardened against his palm and he pushed the silk aside. Her bodice fell down, leaving her naked to the waist.

‘Thank goodness,’ he murmured, ‘that you wear no corset for riding.’

‘I protest,’ Sally said weakly, ‘that I am losing my clothes and you are still fully dressed.’

‘And that is the way that it is going to be,’ Jack said. He bent his mouth to hers again, stifling her protests, his kiss deep and hungry. His hands moved. Sally heard something give. Her legs felt weak and she leaned back against the tree for support, held there by the press of Jack’s body against hers. When he released her mouth abruptly, she swayed, her body hot and melting, her mind dark with wanting.

Jack moved a little away from her and she looked down to see that he had caught hold of the hem of her riding habit, looping it over his arm. Beneath the habit she wore only her bloomers, which were no protection as they were designed to be open. Jack lifted her, then slid her down so that he held her by the hips, forcing her back against the tree trunk even as his erection pushed just inside her. Sally screamed at the unbearable and pleasurable tension within her.

‘Hush, my sweet.’ Jack’s tone was laced with wickedness. He thrust lightly. ‘You would not wish the gardeners to hear you, I am sure.’

Sally sobbed as he bent his head to her breasts and slid inside her a few inches further. She squirmed against his body, needing nothing now other than the intense satisfaction of being impaled on him. He continued to tease her breasts, nipping and biting gently whilst she writhed desperately, seeking release. And when he finally buried himself within her, thrusting deep again and again, the pleasure overwhelmed her and she gave another choking cry and hung limp in his arms.

When she could breathe again, and move, and look at him, she found that she was lying once more on the rug beneath the trees, her body boneless with bliss. Jack wrapped his arms about her and drew her close to his body and she listened to his breathing slowing and felt the gentleness in his hands and a part of her felt exultant to be so close to him. But even in her physical satiation a small part of her felt lonely too, because she knew that Jack had given everything that he could and she still wanted his love, but perhaps he would never be able to give it to her.

It was Lady Ottoline’s birthday dinner that night and because they were a small family group they were seated at a round table exquisitely decorated with pale pink and old gold roses amongst asparagus fern and ivy. The main course of pheasant was decorated with its tail feathers and Connie laughed herself into a fit at the fact that Lady Ottoline was wearing osprey feathers in her hair.

‘Two old birds together that are well past their best,’ she whispered to Sally.

There was dancing after the meal. Jack behaved with impeccable propriety, the attentive fiancé, always at Sally’s side, his attention on her alone. But for all his surface decorum the touch of his hands would remind her of their encounter in the park and her whole body would flush with the heat of remembered desire as she wondered if he might come to her room that night.

Connie was in her element, so full of her own importance as Mrs Bertie Basset that Sally could see even the kind-hearted Charlotte was rueing the day Bertie and Connie had decided to come to Dauntsey. Connie flaunted herself in a dashing gown of purple silk, draped herself all over Bertie in a very public display of affection and insisted loudly on taking precedence over her sister as a married woman, just as Jack had predicted. Lady Ottoline, who had greeted her godson and his new wife that night with a cool civility that, Sally thought, had fooled Connie into thinking she was an insignificant old relative, was watching Connie very sharply with her shrewd dark gaze.

It was late that night when the dancing was over that Connie sought Sally out as she was on her way to bed and fitted yet another cigarette into her mother-of-pearl holder.

‘I suppose Mr Kestrel is very handsome,’ Connie said, drawing daintily on her cigarette as she tripped up the stair beside her sister, ‘and he is rich, of course. I can see why you might wish to marry him.’ She sighed. ‘But really, Sally, I could kill you for causing such a scandal! I wanted to be the centre of attention.’

‘Well,’ Sally said, her borrowed shoes pinching and her irritation just as sharp, ‘I do not think you need to fear that, Connie. You have managed to make a profound impression on everyone in a very short space of time. Besides,’ she added, ‘this weekend party is to celebrate Lady Ottoline’s birthday and it is for neither of us to steal her thunder.’

Connie brightened. ‘Yes, and Bertie has just told me that he is the old lady’s heir! Why he chose to keep that piece of information from me until now is a mystery, for I have wasted a whole day when I could have been making up to her, but never mind.’ She caught Sally’s arm, dropping cigarette ash on to the sleeve of the gown Sally had borrowed from Charley. ‘But you must tell me what she is like, Sal, and how best I can get into her favour.’

‘I cannot help you,’ Sally said. She felt furious at this further example of her sister’s barefaced greed. ‘Lady Ottoline will make her own judgements.’

Connie’s face was working like boiling milk. ‘Well, upon my word! You have become very high and mighty all of a sudden! I suppose this is because you are engaged to Mr Kestrel. Well, I shall become a lady long before you are a duchess!’ She looked down the stairwell to where Jack and Stephen Harrington were standing chatting in the hall. ‘You know, Sally darling, I think I am happier with my Bertie than you will be with Jack.’ She fidgeted a little with the cigarette. ‘Bertie made me promise not to say anything, but I think you should know …’

‘Know what?’ Sally said. Her attention was half-distracted because Jack had just looked up and smiled at her and her heart turned over in her chest in the sweet and poignant way to which she was becoming accustomed.

‘That Jack Kestrel murdered his mistress, of course,’ Connie said. She looked with satisfaction at Sally’s shocked, horrified face. ‘There! I told Bertie that you would not know. It is scarcely the thing a man tells his new fiancée, is it?’ And, having delivered her barbs, she slipped past Sally with a sinuous little slither of silk.