Never Trust a Rake Read online

  ‘What did you think of the performance, Miss Gibson?’

  Henrietta started and pulled her attention back to her aunt’s guests. Or at least, the one guest who was trying to include her in a conversation to which she had not been giving her full attention. She had hoped that going to sit on a chair on the fringes of the room would have been enough to deter people from obliging her to talk. But Mrs Crimmer was not an easy person to deter from any course upon which she set her mind.

  ‘The performance? Oh, I, um …’ They had gone to the theatre the night before. In truth, if she were in a better frame of mind, she would have enjoyed the spectacle. But ever since Miss Twining’s ball there had been a cold lump of misery lodged just beneath her breastbone, which not even the most skilled of clowns could alleviate, and a fog of depression hanging round her through which everything she saw seemed grey and unappealing.

  As unappealing as she knew herself to be.

  The only thing that managed to make her haul herself out of bed in the mornings was the knowledge that if she lay there all day feeling sorry for herself, her aunt would worry. Mrs Ledbetter had done so much more than just accept the responsibility when her father had written to his cousin to ask if she might supervise a Season in London. Mrs Ledbetter had flung herself into the task with an enthusiasm which had taken Henrietta by surprise. At first, she’d been inclined to feel a bit offended by the way ‘Aunt’ Ledbetter had shaken her head and clucked her tongue as she’d watched the maid unpack her clothes. But then she’d never had a female relative supervise her wardrobe, at least not since her mother’s death so many years ago. And any offence soon melted away under the discovery that Mrs Ledbetter did not just enjoy shopping for clothes, but derived enormous pleasure from discovering which colours or styles became her the most. When she wasn’t taking her shopping for garments and all sorts of accessories Henrietta had no idea were absolutely essential, she had hired people to round her off in other ways. A friseur had come to the house to cut and style her hair. A dancing master visited regularly to teach her the steps of all the dances she had always wished she might be able to do, but had never had the opportunity to learn.

  And her kindness continued, day after day. She organised trips to the theatre or the latest exhibitions, and took her to musical evenings and dinner parties where she introduced her to all her friends and acquaintances. Nothing was too much trouble. And, considering her own daughter Mildred was at an age to be considering matrimonial prospects herself, she might easily have treated Henrietta as a rival, or a threat, or even just an imposition.

  Neither mother nor daughter had done any such thing. They had welcomed her into their circle with open arms.

  For their sakes, Henrietta drew on all her reserves of will-power and mustered up a wan smile.

  ‘We have nothing like it in Much Wakering, Mrs Crimmer,’ she said quite truthfully. ‘So many talented acts, one after another. It was quite, um …’

  ‘Overwhelming, was it, my dear?’

  Mrs Crimmer, the wife of one of Mr Ledbetter’s business contacts, nodded her head in a sympathetic manner. People who lived in London all year round, she had swiftly discovered, tended to look upon provincials with a mixture of pity and contempt.

  If Mrs Crimmer had spoken so patronisingly to her three days ago, she would have made a withering retort. Or at least, she corrected herself, she would have bitten one back, for the sake of Mildred’s prospects. For Mr and Mrs Ledbetter were hoping that Mildred would look favourably upon young Mr Crimmer’s suit.

  She glanced across the room to where the red-faced young man was paying court, rather bashfully, to Mildred, while Mildred was looking decidedly unimpressed.

  Her aunt and uncle, for so she had come to think of them, might have hopes in that direction, but Mildred was looking for more from life than a prosaic match to cement a business alliance. She was looking for romance.

  But then Mildred was pretty enough to have romantic aspirations. She had lovely golden hair, wide green eyes and a delicate little nose that made her look like an angelic kitten.

  Perhaps that was why they had all accepted Henrietta into the household so readily, she sighed. With her gawky figure and plain face, she posed no threat to her distant cousin. When the pair of them walked into a room, all masculine attention went to Mildred.

  Which had not bothered Henrietta in the slightest. She did not want masculine attention. Or at least, she had only ever hankered after the attention of one man.

  But even he was beyond her reach now. Three nights ago, he’d finally forced her to accept the fact that she’d been a complete fool to follow him to London. And now she could no longer even pretend to herself that, deep down, she did mean something to him.

  She could never have meant anything to him, for him to treat her as he had. She reached out and took a biscuit from the plate set on the table between her and Mrs Crimmer.

  She was stuck in town until the end of June, at the very earliest, for she could not bring herself to slink home. Especially not in the light of what he’d said.

  You belong in the country, not in a rackety place like London, had been the opinion he’d expressed upon the only occasion he’d called upon her. I shouldn’t wonder at it if you aren’t soon aching to get back to Much Wakering.

  It was galling to admit that, in a way, he was correct. She did miss the trees and the tranquillity, and the fact that everyone knew everyone else.

  But that didn’t make her a country bumpkin.

  It had been a shock to hear Richard—her Richard, as she’d still been thinking of him then—speak to her in such patronising tones. She had only been in town one week, after all, and of course she’d still been a bit wide-eyed and excited.

  But that did not mean she would never be able to cope with the sophistication of London society. Why, Richard himself had only acquired his town bronze after several trips. At first, the difference had only been apparent in his appearance. He’d begun to look very smart in clothes bought from a London tailor. And then the way he’d had his hair cut, well, it had drawn gasps of admiration all round. That shock of unruly curls had been tamed into a style that took much of the boyish roundness from his freckled face. He’d no longer looked like the easy-going son of the local squire, but, well, just as she’d always envisioned Paris, the man so handsome goddesses had squabbled over him. But, gradually, she’d sensed an inner change, too. She’d begun to feel uneasily as if he was drawing further and further away from her. And this last Christmas there had been a veneer of sophistication about him, expressed in languid mannerisms which were so unlike those of the blunt, honest boy who had run tame in her house for years that he had made her feel positively naïve and tongue-tied.

  She ought, she reflected gloomily as she snapped her biscuit in half, to have taken heed of his withdrawal then and spared herself the humiliation she’d endured at Miss Twining’s ball. Or recognised his reference to her return to Much Wakering as a hint that he didn’t want her in town. Instead, she had persuaded herself that his words were an awkward expression of concern for how she would cope. Oh, why was she so stupid? Why hadn’t she seen? If he had really been concerned about how she would cope, he would have escorted her everywhere. Haunted the Ledbetters’ house and taken steps to shield her from all the undesirable elements he warned her stalked London society.

  Well, now she knew better.

  She popped one half of the biscuit into her mouth, consoling herself with the fact that at least she had not confided her romantic aspirations with regard to Richard to anyone. Which meant she was the only one who knew what a stupid, pathetic fool she’d been.

  Unfortunately, it also made it quite impossible to go home. If she were to start talking about leaving, everyone would want to know why she wanted to cut her stay short. And she had no plausible excuse to give. She couldn’t possibly offend her dear Aunt Ledbetter by letting her think she was in any way responsible for her present unhappiness. And she was absolutely never going
to let anybody know what a fool she’d made of herself over Richard. Her heart might be bruised, but at least her pride was still intact.

  And that was the rub. If she insisted on going home without confessing the full truth, they would all assume she wanted to go back to the countryside because town life was, indeed, too much for her.

  Given the choice between looking like a silly girl who’d pursued a man who didn’t love her to London, or a feeble-minded ninny who couldn’t cope with being more than five miles away from her parish church, or putting a brave face on it and staying in town when all the lustre had gone from the experience, Henrietta had decided on the latter course. She would stay in town.

  Besides, she owed her aunt and cousin even more since her ignominious departure from Miss Twining’s ball. They had been so gracious about it. They had fussed over her in the coach when they’d seen her tears, and expressed the kind of sympathy for the fictitious headache she’d claimed which she had never in her life experienced before. She would never have invented a headache to explain her distress if she’d known how concerned they would be. She had just assumed they would pat her hand and send her to her room for a quiet lie down, like her brothers or her father would have done.

  Instead, they’d come to her room with her, with vials of lavender water to dab on her temples, and had stayed with her while she drank a soothing tisane, sharing anecdotes about their own monthly fluctuations in health until she’d been almost crushed with guilt.

  Particularly as they’d both been so thrilled to get an invitation to the house of a genuine baronet—Aunt Ledbetter so that she could gossip over the details of the interior of a baronial town house with her circle of friends and Mildred because she hoped to attract the attention of one of the sons of the lower ranks of the nobility who were bound to fill the house. She had robbed them both of at least half their pleasure, just because she’d been unable to control her temper when she’d seen that cat Miss Waverley attempting to snare yet another poor unsuspecting man in her clutches.

  Even when she’d tried to apologise, their response had heaped coals of fire on her head.

  ‘We would not have spent even that one hour in such elevated company had you not become friends with Miss Twining,’ Aunt Ledbetter had said. ‘In fact, I thought it most gracious of her to include us in your invitation at all.’

  ‘Yes,’ she had replied weakly. ‘Miss Twining is a lovely person.’ Which short statement had been the only truthful remark she could make about the entire affair. For she really had liked Julia Twining for the way she had not looked down her nose at Henrietta’s London connections, nor made any disparaging remarks about their background.

  Unlike some people.

  ‘I cannot help wondering where on earth your father dredged up this set of relatives,’ Richard had said, eyeing her aunt askance on the one visit he’d paid to this very drawing room. ‘Never heard of ‘em before you took it into your head you wanted a Season. And now I’ve met ‘em, I’m not a bit surprised. Oh, not that there’s anything wrong with them, in their way. Cits often are very respectable. It’s just that they’re not the sort of people I want to mix with, while I’m in town. And if your father ever took his nose out of a book long enough to notice what’s what, he’d have known better than to send you to stay with people who can’t introduce you to anyone that matters, or take you any of the places a girl of your station ought to be seen.’

  Had she really been so idiotic as to interpret that statement as an expression of concern for her? He was not in the least bit concerned for her. He was just worried that she might pop up somewhere and embarrass him with her humble relations, or perhaps her countrified ways, in front of his newer, smarter, London friends.

  But, she consoled herself, stuffing the other half of the biscuit into her mouth, at least she’d had the spirit to object to the disparaging way he’d spoken about her father.

  ‘Papa cannot help being a bit unaware of what London society is like,’ she had said, firmly. ‘You know he hardly ever comes up to town any more, and when he does it is only because he has heard that some rare book has finally come on the market.’ After all, she could not deny that Richard’s accusation was, in part, justified. She had not been a week in town before realising that because his cousin had married a man of business, she did not have, as Richard had so scornfully pointed out, the entrée into anywhere even remotely fashionable. ‘And anyway,’ she’d continued, loathe to admit to her disappointment, ‘if he did know, he would probably think it highly frivolous. He never judges a man by his rank or wealth, as you should know by now. How many times have you heard him say that a man’s real worth stems from his character and his intellect?’

  She reached for another biscuit, feeling rather pleased with herself for taking that stance, even when she had still been Richard’s dupe. But then nothing would make her tolerate any criticism of her father, from whatever quarter it came.

  Besides, he already felt badly enough about the discovery that she had somehow attained the age of two and twenty without him having done anything about finding her a husband.

  The slightly bewildered look had crossed his face—the one he always adopted when forced to confront anything to do with the domestic side of life—when she had first tentatively broached the subject of having a London Season. ‘Are you quite sure you are old enough to want to think of getting married?’ He had then taken off his spectacles, and laid them on his desk with a resolute air. ‘But of course, my dear, if you want a Season, then you must have one. Leave it with me.’

  ‘You … you won’t forget?’ It would have been just like him. And he knew it, too, for instead of reprimanding her for speaking in such a forthright manner, he had smiled and assured her that, no, when it came to something as important as his only daughter’s future, he most certainly would not forget.

  And he hadn’t forgotten. He just hadn’t got it quite right. But since she had not the heart to disillusion him about the wonderful time he hoped she was having, she had kept her letters home both cheerful and suitably vague.

  Mrs Crimmer was still chattering away, but Henrietta had not heard a word for several minutes while she had been alternately woolgathering and munching her way methodically through the entire plate of biscuits. Her mind had not been able to do much more than go over and over the night of Miss Twining’s ball for days. It had all been so very much more painful, she had decided, because she’d pinned such hopes on it. And on Miss Twining herself. She really had hoped they might be friends. It hadn’t seemed to matter to her that she was staying with unfashionable relatives in the least. Miss Twining had even said she might call her Julia, she sighed, reaching for the last biscuit.

  But the incident at the ball had destroyed any possibility that friendship could blossom between them, even if they’d had anything in common, which there hadn’t been time to find out, for she had left the ball before Miss Waverley, so that it would be Miss Waverley’s version of events that everyone would hear. And she knew such a schemer would not waste the heaven-sent opportunity to blacken her enemy’s reputation.

  Not that she cared. She had no wish to step outside her aunt’s social circle ever again.

  What was the point?

  ‘I say, what a bang-up rig,’ remarked Mr Bentley, who was lounging against the frame of the other window, amusing himself by watching the passing traffic. He was a friend of Mr Crimmer junior. She rather thought his role today was not only to provide moral support during the gruelling ordeal of attempting to make Mildred smile on him, but also to bear him company to the nearest hostelry, once they had stayed the requisite half-hour, to help revive Mr Crimmer’s battered spirits.

  ‘Pulled up right outside, as though he means to pay a visit here. By Jove, he does, too. He’s coming up the steps.’

  On receipt of that information her aunt, to everyone’s astonishment, leapt from the sofa upon which she had been sitting and reached the window in one bound.

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ sh
e exclaimed, having thrust Mr Bentley aside and peered out. ‘He said he would call, but I never dreamed for one moment that he meant it. Even though he asked so particularly for our direction.’

  Henrietta froze, the last biscuit halfway to her mouth. From her vantage point she, too, had seen the stylish curricle pull up in front of the house and had already recognised its driver.

  ‘Henrietta, my dear,’ said Aunt Ledbetter, whirling round to face her, ‘perhaps I should have mentioned it before, but …’ She paused at the sound of the front door knocker rapping. ‘Lord Deben said he might call, to see how you were, after …’ She checked, as though only just recalling that her drawing room was full of visitors. ‘After you were taken ill at Miss Twining’s ball.’

  Voices in the hall alerted them to the fact that Lord Deben had entered the house.

  Aunt Ledbetter sprinted back to her sofa and sat down hastily, arranging her skirts and adopting a languid pose, as though she had earls dropping in upon her every day of the week.

  All conversation ceased. Every eye turned towards the door.

  ‘Lord Deben,’ announced Warnes, their butler.

  Lord Deben strode into the room and paused, looking about him down his thin, aristocratic nose.

  Henrietta’s hackles rose. He’d walked into Miss Twining’s house wearing just the same expression, as though he couldn’t quite believe he’d graced the place with his presence. Back then, she hadn’t known who or what he was, but the impression he had made on the others, his knowledge of it and his contemptuous reaction, had given her an instant dislike of the man.

  His gaze swept her aunt’s drawing room with an air that somehow conveyed the impression he did not see anyone until his eyes came to rest on her.

  ‘Miss Gibson,’ he said, crossing the room to where she sat, ‘I trust I find you in better health today?’

  It was all Henrietta could do to bite back an enquiry as to whether he had ever had any manners, or whether he just did not see the need to employ them today. What kind of man ignored his hostess, let alone the other occupants of the room?