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

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ