Nicola Cornick Collection: The Last Rake In London / Notorious / Desired. Nicola Cornick

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СКАЧАТЬ in her bare feet. ‘Usually you don’t see me,’ she continued, ‘as you never wake until eleven.’

      ‘Don’t ask me where I’ve been,’ Connie said crossly.

      ‘All right.’

      ‘I was with Bertie Basset,’ Connie said. She reached the landing and stopped defiantly in front of her sister. ‘I have been with him for the last couple of days.’

      ‘I see,’ Sally said. Bertie Basset. She felt a cold dousing of shock as she remembered Jack’s original suspicions about Connie trying to fleece the Bassets one way or another and her own conviction that her sister was up to something. She had hoped against hope it might not be true.

      Connie was frowning at her. ‘You look different,’ she said. ‘More … pretty.’ She scowled. ‘Anyway, don’t scold me. I’m too tired.’

      Sally touched her sister’s elbow. ‘I need to speak with you, Connie. Urgently.’

      Connie pouted. ‘Must you? I’m too tired to talk now! We dined at Grange’s last night and then we went dancing.’ Connie smiled mistily. ‘Then we went to Bartram’s Hotel. It’s very expensive.’

      ‘I see,’ Sally said drily, wondering if Connie would have been less free with her favours had Bertie proposed to take her somewhere cheaper.

      ‘I dined with Mr Kestrel last night,’ she added.

      Connie’s eyes opened very wide. ‘Mr Jack Kestrel? He wanted to dine with you?’ Her face crumpled with disappointment and jealousy. ‘Oh, I would have liked to meet him!’

      ‘He would like to meet you too,’ Sally said grimly.

      Connie smiled, good humour restored. ‘Naturally he would. Everyone who is anyone in London wishes to meet me.’

      ‘In order to take back the letters Mr Basset wrote to you, which I believe you have been trying to use to blackmail Mr Basset’s father.’

      Connie bit her lip. A shade of colour had crept into her cheeks and she looked defensive. ‘That was a mistake.’

      ‘It certainly was.’ Sally tapped her fingers on the banister. ‘What are you up to, Connie?’ she said softly. ‘I know there is something going on. You have been with Mr Basset all night and yet you were trying to extort money from his father.’

      Connie sighed exaggeratedly. ‘Oh, Sal, you are so naïve!’ Her hair swung forward, hiding her expression. ‘Bertie and I had a falling out. I thought it was all over.’

      Sally’s heart sank at this confirmation of her sister’s guilt. ‘So you tried to make some money out of the affair.’

      ‘Why not?’ Connie straightened up. ‘He owed me something.’

      ‘And now that you and Mr Basset are reconciled, what are you planning to do?’ Sally asked sarcastically. ‘Write Lord Basset a letter of apology?’

      Connie brightened. ‘Oh, that is a splendid idea! We may pretend that the whole matter never happened.’

      ‘I was joking,’ Sally said. ‘Mr Kestrel is hardly the man to let the matter go, even if Lord Basset is. And does Mr Basset know that you threatened his father, Connie?’

      The colour deepened in Connie’s cheeks. ‘No! But he would forgive me if he did. We love each other.’

      This unlikely declaration made Sally raise her eyebrows, but she managed to repress the expressions of disbelief that jostled on her lips. ‘Best to make a clean breast of it, then,’ she said, ‘and tell him everything before his cousin does. Mr Kestrel will no doubt come back later. You could try to convince him of your good faith, although I think,’ she added drily, ‘that he will be less easy to persuade than Mr Basset.’

      ‘Oh, I will win him around,’ Connie said airily. ‘He is supposed to have an eye for a pretty face.’ She yawned. ‘I must go to bed, Sally darling, or my complexion will look dismal tonight.’

      With a vague wave of the hand she scampered along the corridor, and Sally heard the decisive click of the door behind her. Sighing, she walked back to her own room and started, rather listlessly, to hunt for something to wear. Talking to Connie about her attempted extortion had depressed her spirits. Even if Connie and Bertie were reconciled, it seemed likely that Lord Basset would think the connection highly unsuitable and try to separate the pair, using Jack as his messenger. And Connie’s feelings for Bertie did not appear to go very deep.

      Anxiety gnawed at her. In the heat of the night with Jack she had forgotten all about Connie and her extortion and blackmail. She had given herself to him with a passion and a hunger that had driven everything else from her mind. Now, however, she remembered that they would not have met at all had Jack not come to the Blue Parrot to find Connie. And he would not have forgotten his original intention, no matter how hot the desire that burned between them. She thought of Jack, and their fledgling affair, and the fact that her bed was cold and empty in the morning. She thought of her newly discovered love for him, how fragile and foolish it was, and then she felt afraid, and she could not quite shake the superstitious conviction that something was going to go terribly wrong.

      ‘Mr Churchward has called to see you, Mr Kestrel,’ Hudson, the butler, intoned. ‘I told him that you were still at breakfast and he is awaiting you in the library.’

      Jack threw down his napkin and got to his feet. He had taken breakfast alone as his uncle’s poor health left him bedridden and Lady Basset never rose before midday even though she was as fit as a fiddle. The house in Eaton Square was gloomy and quiet as a tomb now that his uncle was so ill and the Bassets no longer went out or entertained. Jack felt a strong urge to move out again to his club for the rest of his stay in London.

      Bertie had made no appearance at the table that morning and Jack had assumed, a little grimly, that he had not come back the previous night. Not that he could talk. These days the milk was being delivered when he arrived home. Once again he had forced himself to leave Sally sleeping and had crept out like a thief. This time the impulse to stay with her had been even stronger than the night before. Their intense lovemaking had not quenched the need he had for her. The reverse was true. He had tried to satisfy his desire by slaking his body, but it only seemed to make matters worse. He wanted to possess Sally Bowes’s soul as well as her body, bind her to him as his alone. He had thought it no more than a physical urge. He had been profoundly wrong. The urge to propose marriage to her after a whirlwind three days was growing ever stronger. But that was madness. He had wanted to marry Merle, but there had never been another woman since whom he wished to wed. He could not love Sally as he had loved Merle. He did not want to expose himself to that sort of pain again. Surely this instinct he had to claim her was no more than a combination of old-fashioned guilt and primitive possessiveness.

      Frowning, he crossed the hall and went into the library. He had forgotten about Churchward’s visit. Several days ago, when his uncle had first told him about Bertie’s indiscretion and Connie Bowes’s blackmail, he had asked the lawyer to look into her history. Now he felt vaguely uncomfortable about this, as though he was in some way being disloyal to Sally. He thought of Sally’s candid eyes, of the honesty that she had shown him. Whatever her sister’s duplicity, Sally had surely been telling the truth when she had said she knew nothing of it. All he could do now was to try to deal with the matter as best he could without hurting her.

      Mr John Churchward, of the firm Churchward, Churchward СКАЧАТЬ