The Rake of Hollowhurst Castle. Elizabeth Beacon

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      ‘Indeed?’ she replied with a haughty look that was probably wasted in the gloom. ‘Then I’ll call for a groom to light you to your destination.’

      ‘No need, it’s a fine starlit night and I have my private servant and a groom with me. It’s more than time we were on the road if we’re to reach my friends’ house before they retire for the night, so I’ll wish you a good night, Miss Courland,’ he replied, and she could just discern his quick bow of farewell before she could ring for a lantern to guide his way. ‘Rushmore will have acquired a light by now,’ he assured her shortly.

      ‘Goodbye then, Sir Charles,’ she said, wishing there was the slightest hope he wouldn’t return to haunt her.

      ‘Until tomorrow,’ he confirmed, and she listened to his assured steps as he found his way down the hall and into the early darkness, seemingly without the slightest hesitation.

      She waited until she heard three sets of hoofbeats retreat down the drive before she rang the bell for candles and all the help she could muster. There was a great deal to do before she could sleep tonight if she was to be all but gone when Sir Charles arrived in the morning. Another encounter like that and she might do something even more ridiculous, and suddenly there were worse things than being evicted from her beloved home, after all.

      While Hollowhurst Castle was jolted out of its accustomed calm by a mistress who’d become a whirlwind of frenetic energy, a dozen or so miles away Westmeade Manor was serenely comfortable. Charles tried not to envy his old friend Rob Besford, the younger son of the Earl of Foxwell, his contented domesticity with his lovely wife and smiled as he contemplated what Miss Courland would think of such a disgrace to the rakehell fraternity as he was proving to be. Not a great deal, he suspected, and absently contemplated the intriguing task of changing her mind.

      ‘So will you do it, Charles?’ Caroline Besford asked him.

      Charles wondered cautiously what he was being asked to do, but luckily Rob took pity on him and explained.

      ‘My wife is asking you to be godparent to our next offspring in her own unique manner, Charles. On the principle that you’ve already committed most of the follies he or she will need to steer clear of if they’re to grow into an honest and sober citizen, I suppose,’ Rob Besford told him, looking lazily content as he lounged beside his very pregnant wife.

      ‘Couldn’t you ask Will Wrovillton instead? After all, you plan to give this one his name,’ Charles argued half-heartedly.

      ‘Only if it turns out to be a boy,’ Caro said with a wicked sparkle in her eyes as she encouraged him to imagine the fate of a girl called William. ‘If it does, we want to name him after Rob’s brother and James insists it must be a second name as it would cause too much confusion if there were two James Besfords, even though James is Viscount Littleworth as well, and I can’t see it myself. We thought Charles James unkind, since Charles James Fox has only been dead for a decade or so. So we couldn’t name this one after you and Rob’s brother, Charles. Maybe next time,’ she ended with a teasing look at Rob that he carefully ignored.

      ‘With Fox having been so fiery a Whig and notoriously profligate with it, it’d be a backhanded turn to serve any brat to name him so, I suppose, but did Will turn down your offer to make him the child’s godfather after landing him with William James as a name instead?’ Charles asked suspiciously.

      ‘He couldn’t turn us down because we can’t find him. No doubt he’s knee-deep in some daft venture,’ Rob replied with exasperated resignation.

      ‘With his wife at his side,’ Charles agreed with a reminiscent smile, for if ever he’d come across a fine pair of madcaps they were Lord Wrovillton and his highly unconventional lady.

      ‘That’s a certainty, I should say,’ Caro confirmed.

      ‘She’s as bad as he is,’ Charles pointed out.

      ‘Worse,’ she agreed placidly, considering Alice, Lady Wrovillton, was her best friend, ‘and it’s my belief you never forgave Alice for marrying Will instead of you, Charles.’

      ‘No, it’s Rob I’m furious with for wedding the one woman I’d gladly sacrifice my single status for,’ he argued solemnly and for a moment Caroline looked horrified, until she noticed the wicked glint in his brilliantly blue eyes and threw a cushion at him.

      ‘Boy or girl, your coming child has no more chance of growing up a sober citizen with you two as parents than its big sister has, and she has my sympathy, by the way,’ Charles informed her with mock severity. ‘It’s clearly my duty to set a better example to your children and, as little Sophia is halfway to being as big a minx as her mama, I might as well start earlier with the next one.’

      ‘More than halfway, if you ask me—so you’ll do it, Charles?’ Rob asked, as if the answer really mattered to him, despite Charles’s rakehell reputation and apparent unsuitability as a spiritual guide.

      ‘Gladly,’ Charles agreed at last, touched to be asked, watching the besotted look on Rob’s face as he smiled at his wife and feeling the lure of seeing a wife of his own great with his child.

      First of all he’d need to marry one, of course, and that might prove more of a challenge than he’d expected. Rosie Courland with her ardent dark eyes and wild midnight curls had become a strong woman with guarded dark eyes and tightly restrained midnight curls, so what of his promise to win and wed her that he’d made Davy Courland now? An idea born of guilty conscience on Davy’s side and convenience on his, perhaps, but he needed a capable wife to help him run his new house and estates, even if tonight it had all felt much less convenient and more urgent. Memory of their kiss in the twilight threatened to spin him into a world of his own again, so he forced himself to concentrate on the matter in hand.

      ‘If she’s a girl, you might run off with her yourself one day, of course, so we’d best find you a wife to save Rob killing you,’ Caro teased roguishly.

      ‘You, my girl, haven’t improved at all with marriage and motherhood,’ he replied sternly, hoping pregnancy would stop Caro from introducing him to half the neighbourhood when he’d just met the woman he was going to marry.

      ‘Never mind that,’ Rob told his wife impatiently, obviously sharing Charles’s fears. ‘Here’s your maid come to cluck over you and quite right for once. It’s high time you were in bed, Caro.’

      ‘Only if you’ll take me there,’ she said with a wicked smile and a shameless lack of hospitality Charles could only applaud.

      To watch them now, who’d think the Besfords’ marriage had got off to an appalling start? Charles suppressed a shudder at the memory of that stiff and chilly ceremony, with bride and groom as loving towards each other as the Regent and his unfortunate princess must have been at theirs. Luckily they came to a better understanding once Caro had grown bored with being Rob’s despised and neglected wife and pretended to be Cleo Tournier, courtesan to one very particular, stubborn aristocrat, who looked as if he loved being stuck fast in his devious wife’s toils nowadays.

      ‘I’d like nothing better, my Cleo.’ Rob answered her brazen encouragement to take her to bed forthwith with a scorching look that made Caro blush like a peony, Charles was amused to see.

      All the same, he felt a sneaking envy of their delight in one another. He’d never love Miss Courland as Rob undoubtedly loved his Caroline and she loved him, yet he’d seen enough of the closeness and fire between them to wonder what such СКАЧАТЬ