Wicked Rake, Defiant Mistress. Ann Lethbridge
silence filled the empty hall. It pressed down on Garrick’s shoulders with the weight of a granite mountain. He started up the stairs.
In Garrick’s chamber, Nidd eased him out of his coat and went to work on his waistcoat. Garrick gestured at the boy hovering by the door. ‘My wits were begging. I should have sent him to the stables with Johnson.’
‘Leave him to me, my lord. I’ll see he gets there. Johnson was only saying the other day as how he could use more help.’
That was another thing. Why so few servants in the house? In the old days there had been a footman stationed in every corridor. Was something wrong? Did he care?
Sometimes he did, and then the old anger he worked hard to contain erupted.
He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, seeking distance. ‘Take him now, Nidd. I can manage the rest.’ Since he had no boots to be pulled, undressing presented no difficulty. He opened his eyes as Nidd headed out of the door with his hand on Dan’s bony shoulder. ‘Tell Johnson to treat him gently. He’s had a rough go of things.’
Eyes closed, he unbuttoned his waistcoat. His fingers sought his fob. Gone. He stared down at his right hand in horror. His signet ring, a family heirloom handed to him by his dying father, had also been stolen. Rage surged in his veins like a racing tide. This time he let it flow unchecked.
To lose the family signet ring now, when he’d finally made his decision. Damn the woman to hell. Damn him for falling under the spell of her kiss.
He pulled off his shirt and glared at the tester bed with its carved insignia of the Beauworth arms, the shield and white swan, a motif repeated on the moulded ceilings here and in the dining room. The same as the insignia engraved on his ring. He would have it back if he had to search the length and breadth of England. And when he found the woman, she’d rue the day she’d crossed his path.
Chapter Two
The next morning after an early breakfast, Garrick traversed the second-floor gallery and made his way down the sweeping staircase. Marble pillars rose gracefully to support the high carved ceiling above a chequerboard floor he couldn’t look at without cringing. He took a deep breath, determined to keep his composure. He was twenty-four, not a scared child. Nor would he allow his uncle’s cautious solicitude to get under his skin.
He knocked on the library door out of courtesy and entered. A polished oak desk dominated one end of the long room. Immersed in the papers before him, Uncle Duncan did not look up.
While Garrick waited, memories curled around him like comforting arms. He could almost hear the sound of his father’s voice, the feel of his arm heavy on Garrick’s young shoulders as they poured over maps or Father told him stories of military engagements.
On a warm spring day like today, the bank of French windows leading to the balcony would have been thrown open, a breeze heavy with the scent of roses from the garden beyond billowing the heavy blue curtains into the room.
He hated the smell of roses.
Garrick blinked, but the recollections remained imprinted in his mind like a flame watched too long: a young boy wide-eyed with imagination, his father, jabbing at the air with his cigar to emphasise some important point of strategy, until Mother chased them out into the fresh air. How his father’s face lit up at the sight of her as she swept in, her powdered black hair piled high, her hands moving as she talked in her mix of French and broken English.
Mother. Like an icy blast from a carelessly opened door in mid-winter, the warmth fled, leaving only a cold, empty space in his chest. Hell. He would have sent Le Clere a note if it had not been cowardly.
It seemed to require every muscle in his body, but somehow Garrick slammed the door on his memories. He locked them away in the same way his father’s old maps were locked behind the panelled doors of the library bookcases and focused his attention on Le Clere instead. Uncle Duncan, as Garrick had called him since boyhood, had grown heavier in the past four years. His ruddy jowls merged with his thick neck. His hair was greyer, but still thick on top and he looked older than his fifty years, no doubt dragged down by responsibility. As if sensing Garrick’s perusal, he raised his flat black eyes. Garrick resisted a desire to straighten his cravat. Damn that the old man could still have that effect on him.
‘Well, Garrick.’ The deep voice that had once reached to the far reaches of a parade ground boomed in the normally proportioned library. Garrick winced as the harsh tone reverberated in his still-sensitive skull. ‘What can you tell me about these villains that set upon you last night? This is the second time they’ve robbed a neighbourhood coach.’
Le Clere took his responsibilities as local magistrate seriously, but Garrick was not going to let the morons who stood for local law and order frighten off the cheeky rogues before he recovered his property.
He shrugged. ‘They were masked. I barely caught a glimpse of them before I was struck.’ He was certainly not going to admit being bested by a woman and he trusted Johnson to say nothing about that kiss. Damnation. Was he smiling at the memory?
A sour expression crossed his uncle’s face. ‘I had hoped you would be of more help. The last man robbed babbled on about a ghost.’ He inhaled deeply. Garrick recognised the sign. Control. Uncle Duncan hated it when things did not go according to plan. Apparently in command of himself once more, Le Clere smiled. ‘No matter. I am simply glad you are here, ready to devote yourself to duty at last.’
The old man’s hopeful expression twisted the knife of guilt in his gut. He didn’t like to tell him that the command to come back to Beauworth and take up his responsibilities had tipped the scales on his decision.
‘I’ve decided to join the army.’
Le Clere sat bolt upright in his chair. ‘You can’t mean it.’
The anger, always a slow simmer in his blood, rolled swiftly to a boil. He let it show in his face. ‘I certainly do.’
Bushy brows snapped together. Red travelled up his uncle’s neck and stained his cheeks, the same signs of anger he experienced himself. The old man opened his mouth and Garrick awaited the parade-ground roar that had cowed him as a boy, but now left him cold. Le Clere inhaled a deep breath and when he finally spoke, his voice rasped, but remained at a reasonable pitch. ‘What brought about this sudden decision?’
‘I found one of Father’s campaign diaries in the library in town. I’d forgotten how much he loved serving his country. I want to follow in his footsteps.’
Le Clere slammed a fist on the table. ‘I should have burned them. Your father should never have risked his life in that manner, neither should you.’
‘Father never got a scratch.’ Only to come home and die in a hunting accident. Garrick rose to his feet. ‘I have made up my mind. There is nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.’
Le Clere sagged against the chair back. ‘All these years I’ve worked to safeguard your inheritance and you treat it as if it is nothing.’ He pressed his fingers against his temple.
More guilt. As if he didn’t have enough on his conscience. ‘I have to go.’
‘Why?’
‘You know why.’
‘Nothing has occurred since that incident at school. You’ve been all right. Got it in hand.’
It. The Le Clere curse. Something they’d never spoken of since the day Garrick had learned what it meant.
‘No.’ He stared at his bruised knuckles. If his cousin Harry hadn’t pulled him off the bullying bastard beating Dan with a pitchfork, Garrick might have been facing charges of murder instead of spending every penny of his allowance to pay the man off.
‘I see,’ Le Clere murmured, his brow furrowing. ‘Then you’ve wasted these past few years. Learned nothing of the estate. The war cannot continue much longer, surely, and when you come home I may not be here. I’m