The Ruthless Rake Read online

  “To London!”

  There was sheer astonishment in the exclamation.

  “I was thinking last night,” the Earl continued, “that it was a mistake for me to have brought you here to King’s Keep. You will not mention to anyone that you have stayed here unchaperoned.”

  “But why? What does it matter? Who would be interested?”

  “Let me finish,” the Earl said and his tone was severe. “You will go to London as my Ward. Our story is that you were left in my charge by your father on his death.”

  “I don’t understand,” Syringa murmured. “Why are all these falsehoods necessary?”

  “I have already sent a groom ahead,” the Earl continued as if she had not spoken, “to ask my maternal grandmother, the Dowager Lady Hurlingham, to chaperone you. You will stay at Rothingham House and from there you will make your debut into Society.”

  “No! No!” Syringa cried.

  She moved across the room towards him.

  “I have no desire to enter Society,” she declared. “I am ignorant of the Social world and the people who inhabit it. Why should you wish me to go to London? Why should you take me away from here?”

  “I have decided it is for your good,” the Earl replied in a lofty tone. “You must have a chance, Syringa, to get to know the world in which you have been born and to meet men. After all, your acquaintance with the species until now has been somewhat limited.”

  “Why should I want to meet men?’’

  The Earl did not answer and after a moment she asked in a low hesitating voice,

  “Are you – suggesting that I should – marry? Is that a – way of being – rid of me?”

  “I did not say that,” the Earl answered sharply. “I merely pointed out that in your sheltered almost cloistered life you have met very few people and certainly not any eligible bachelors.”

  Syringa stared at him, her eyes searching his face.

  Then she walked across the room to the window to stand staring out blindly at the beauty of the lawns and the sunlit blossoms.

  The Earl stood gazing at her back and then sat down in a high-backed armchair still with his eyes on her. She turned round suddenly and ran towards him falling down on her knees beside his chair.

  She threw back her head to look up at him.

  “Please – let us – stay here,” she pleaded, her voice intense and passionate. “We have been so – happy, it has been so – wonderful just to be with you! Don’t – spoil it! Let’s remain at – King’s Keep.”

  The Earl looked down into her face for a moment and then he said, his voice surprisingly harsh,

  “And do you really think such happiness would last? Would it not become boring for both of us?”

  Syringa’s eyes were stricken, it was almost as if he had hit her.

  “You mean that – you would be – bored,” she said in a whisper.

  Very slowly she rose to her feet.

  “I thought you seemed – happy and I made you – laugh. It has been so – marvellous for – me, but of course I– understand you want other – things.”

  “There are indeed a diversity of entertainments in London,” the Earl said.

  “For you,” Syringa replied, “but not for – me. I will – stay here.”

  The Earl’s lips tightened.

  “I have already explained, Syringa, that no one is to know that you have been here even for two nights. You may be innocent but not so innocent as to think that a lady should stay alone in a gentleman’s house unchaperoned.”

  There was silence until Syringa replied in a very low voice,

  “But you said that I could not – stay at the Manor House. Where can I – go?”

  “You will obey me, Syringa,” the Earl answered. “You will come to London, you will meet the Beau Monde under the chaperonage of my grandmother and you will enjoy yourself immensely. I have already given orders for the carriage to be brought round to the door in an hour’s time. Go and change into a travelling dress.”

  Syringa turned to look at him and she lifted her chin.

  “I can give you, my Lord, a very good reason why I cannot – come to London. I have no – clothes!”

  “That is something which will be easily remedied. You will be dressed as befits your position as my Ward.”

  “And you will – pay for my – gowns?” she asked in a shocked voice. “But of course not! How could I accept such a suggestion?”

  For the first time she appeared to surprise the Earl.

  “My grandmother will meet the accounts, if that is what is troubling you,” he said.

  “But you will be paying!” Syringa said. “It is a gift I naturally cannot take from you.”

  The Earl still looked at her in continuing surprise, but she went on,

  “Mama has told me that a lady may accept flowers and bonbons as a present from a gentleman. But never, never anything else and certainly not an – article of clothing!”

  For the first time since he had entered the library, there was a faint smile on the Earl’s lips.

  “Surely that is somewhat splitting hairs?” he asked. “You have already, Syringa, involved me in quite considerable expense. A few gowns can hardly matter one way or am other.”

  “It is not just a question of money,” Syringa replied with dignity, “I am sure that you are wealthy enough not to notice a few guineas expended in fripperies. But I cannot accept, as a point of principle, even one gown from you.”

  “Your principles make life very difficult,” the Earl complained. “First you attempt to starve yourself to death. Now apparently you wish me to take you to London and present you to the most critical Society in the world, dressed, charmingly I admit, but in what will undoubtedly be considered a beggarly fashion.”

  “I should have thought, my Lord, that you are of such consequence that my clothes are of little import,” Syringa retorted.

  There was a flash of anger in her eyes, which the Earl did not miss.

  “Unfortunately,” he replied and now he was drawling the words, “I have a rooted objection to being thought niggling or cheese-paring, especially towards someone who is my protégée and under my Guardianship.”

  “You mean people would criticise – you?” Syringa asked. “But surely no one would expect you to pay for the – very clothes I wore?”

  The Earl did not answer and after a moment she went on,

  “I will not allow you to do such a thing – whatever you may say! Mama would not approve and I know, however – persuasive you may – sound, that it is – wrong.”

  She gripped her fingers together as she spoke because it was hard to defy him, very hard not to accept what he asked.

  The Earl looked at her for a moment and then he turned and walked towards the door.

  “Where are you going?” Syringa enquired.

  “As I have already told you, Syringa, I am going to London,” he replied. “I will make arrangements for you and your Nanny to return to the Manor House. If we do not meet again, I thank you, Syringa, for the amusing hours I have spent in your company.”

  “If we do – not meet – again,” Syringa repeated the words almost beneath her breath.

  The Earl had put out his hand towards the door before he heard her footsteps running across the room behind him.

  He waited and then a very small frightened little voice said,

  “I will – come to London with – you, my Lord. I will accept – your offer of some – new gowns.”

  *

  A week later Syringa, standing in Madame Bertin’s salon in Bond Street, thought that fitting gowns was more exhausting than spending a day in the saddle.

  But the Dowager Lady Hurlingham, old though she might be, seemed impervious to fatigue when they were shopping.

  Syringa felt at first that the Earl’s grandmother was very awe-inspiring, but the Dowager had been a beauty in her youth and, if her looks had faded, her personality had become more perceptive.

  She was autocratic
but charming and extremely amusing with a caustic wit that spared neither friend nor foe.

  She had liked Syringa as soon as they met and was determined to make her a social success, not only because her grandson had demanded it of her.

  “You are a good child,” she said, “and that is more than I can say of most young wenches today!”

  “What do they do that offends you?” Syringa enquired and received a voluble reply that made her laugh.

  Her first days in London had been mostly spent in shops. She had never dreamt that a Lady of Fashion would require so many garments or such a varied collection of them.

  But the Dowager Lady Hurlingham had been insistent that they must carry out the Earl’s orders.

  There were morning gowns and afternoon ones. There were magnificent and entrancing robes de soir to wear at balls, assemblies and routs.

  There were negligées in which to rest before dinner. There were riding habits and mantles, shawls and wraps and dozens of accessories that seemed to Syringa to grow and multiply day by day.

  She could not help being thrilled at the difference such gowns had made to her appearance and it seemed to her that not only the Dowager but everyone in the household was interested in seeing the country mouse transformed into a town bird of paradise.

  It was worth everything, even the discomfort of fittings, Syringa thought, to know that she had the Earl’s approval.

  The very first day when the Dowager had taken her shopping she had driven back to Berkeley Square wearing a gown of pale jonquil yellow gauze which, fashioned by a Master hand, seemed to transform her from an unobtrusive little figure into a ray of sunshine.

  The large straw hat that accompanied it was tied under her chin with yellow satin ribbons and decorated with tiny yellow feathers encircling a low crown.

  When she had looked at herself in the mirror at Madame Bertin’s shop, Syringa had hardly recognised herself.

  She had known then for the first time that women could use clothes like a weapon to enhance their loveliness and to get their own way!

  As she stepped out of the carriage, she thought that there was a gleam of admiration even in old Meadstone’s eyes.

  “Is his Lordship in?” she asked the butler as he took the Dowager’s wrap.

  “His Lordship’s in the library, miss.”

  Without waiting Syringa ran across the hall and, before a footman could open the door, she entered the library, her eyes alight with excitement.

  The Earl was standing with his back to the chimneypiece and she flung wide her arms.

  “My Lord, behold a miracle!” she cried. “Do you know me? For if I met myself in the street, I swear I should not recognise myself.”

  It was only as her voice rang out gay and excited that she realised that the Earl was not alone.

  “You look entrancing,” he said.

  Turning to his grandmother who had just entered the room behind Syringa he added,

  “My congratulations, Grandmama, I always knew that your taste was infallible.”

  “You did not set me a very difficult task,” the Dowager replied. “Syringa looks attractive in everything.”

  Syringa glanced round gratefully, but she was conscious all the time of the woman sitting on the sofa beside the hearth. She was a vision of beauty, more elegant and more attractive than anyone she had ever seen in her life before.

  “Is this your little Ward, Ancelin?” the vision enquired.

  Syringa was aware that behind the gentleness of the tone there was a touch of acid.

  “Yes, indeed,” the Earl replied. “Let me introduce you. Miss Syringa Melton – Lady Elaine Wilmot, and I think, Elaine, you know my grandmother.”

  Lady Elaine rose gracefully to her feet.

  “Yes, of course,” she said, “we met last year, ma’am, when you were staying here with Ancelin, but not encumbered with so much responsibility as now.”

  “A responsibility I much enjoy,” the Dowager replied, as if she had been challenged.

  “Well, I for one am thankful that I am too old to be wearied by the cheeping of unfledged chits at debutante balls,” Lady Elaine declared. “And so is Ancelin, unless he intends to sit amongst the Dowagers.”

  “I might even do that,” the Earl said with a smile.

  “And leave me alone?” Lady Elaine asked plaintively. “You could not be so unkind! Besides how should I fare without you?”

  She looked up at him provocatively, her dark eyes glinting and her red lips pouting.

  Syringa suddenly felt gauche and very unsophisticated.

  She was aware of the exotic perfume that Lady Elaine used. She realised that every gesture of her white hands weighed down with rings and every movement of her sinuous body was a deliberate calculated allure.

  And she? She could only be herself – a green girl from the country.

  She looked towards the Dowager for guidance and, as if the older woman understood her plea, she said,

  “We must not interrupt you, Ancelin. Syringa and I have many things to do. We have only just begun our shopping,”

  “How amusing it must be for you,” Lady Elaine said. “I have always longed to be able to shop knowing that the price was of no consequence and there was a long purse to meet my every need,”

  There was no mistaking the sting behind the words and the Dowager replied,

  “I am sure that you have little cause to complain. I noticed at Madame Bertin’s quite a number of boxes awaiting delivery that bore your name,”

  Lady Elaine flashed her a glance of sheer hatred and then said too quickly to sound plausible,

  “A few gowns I am having altered! And one that was most regrettably torn the other night at Carlton House,”

  “Of course,” the Dowager replied, “we all have to practise these little economies. Come, Syringa!”

  Syringa hurried to open the door.

  As the older woman swept out, she looked back at the Earl. She had hoped that he might be looking at her, but Lady Elaine’s hand was on his arm and her face was upturned to his.

  “I was going to ask you, Ancelin,” she heard Lady Elaine say, “to be very generous and give – ”

  Syringa waited for no more. She hurried out of the library and followed the Dowager upstairs.

  As they reached the first floor and were out of hearing of the footmen in the hall, the Earl’s grandmother said,

  “A most forward young woman! I always disliked her father.”

  “She is very – beautiful,” Syringa commented and wondered why her voice sounded so miserable.

  “Beauty can often be a snare and an illusion,” the Dowager observed, “as many a good man has found to his cost.”

  Syringa longed to ask if the Earl too would discover that, but she knew that she could not bring herself to say the words.

  Besides was it not obvious that he found Lady Elaine very attractive?

  She found herself wondering over and over again what Lady Elaine was asking the Earl to give her. She knew that she would never be brave enough to ask him what it might be.

  In the afternoons she was taken by the Dowager to receptions and to call on Ladies of Quality.

  In the evenings there were dinner parties at Rothingham House and usually the Earl accompanied them afterwards to the great houses of London – Devonshire, Lansdown, Chesterfield, Londonderry, Dudley.

  Syringa found herself often overawed, but at the same time interested and delighted by the grandeur, the tradition and the pageantry of these mansions.

  The flunkeys with their plush trousers, white silk stockings and powdered hair, the Major Domos resplendent in their gold lace, the tables and sideboards groaning with gold and silver, the huge dining rooms and the silk panelled salons all provided a dramatic background for their owners.

  Never had she imagined that women could be so beautiful or men so witty and elegant.

  She was quiet and unassuming in her manner as befitted a young girl, but both the Earl and his grandmoth
er noticed that she could talk charmingly and without being tiresomely shy to anyone who wished to converse with her.

  It also seemed that people naturally gravitated towards Syringa. It was as if she drew them to her side and they would discuss serious subjects rather than the frivolous frothy gossip with which the rest of the party passed the time.

  “What were you talking about to the Prime Minister?” the Earl asked.

  They were driving back from a reception at Stafford House.

  “Mr. William Pitt was explaining to me the difficulties of the local elections,” Syringa answered, “and telling me what he is advocating for electoral reform.”

  “Are you interested in such issues?” the Earl asked in amazement.

  “I think any subject is interesting if the person is knowledgeable and vitally concerned with it,” Syringa replied. “Mr. Pitt was extremely interesting and he has promised that next week, if your grandmother will permit it, he will arrange for me to visit the House of Commons so that I can watch the proceedings from the Ladies’ Gallery.”

  “I will take you to the House of Lords if that would interest you,” the Earl offered.

  “Oh, will you really?” Syringa cried. “I would love that!”

  “You are in London to enjoy yourself,” the Earl answered, “and I should have thought that dancing was more to your liking.”

  “I enjoy that too,” Syringa said, “but you never ask me to dance.”

  “I do not dance,” the Earl answered firmly. “Like Grandmama, I prefer a game of cards while you and the young are enjoying themselves.”

  “Perhaps I could learn to play with you,” Syringa suggested.

  “No, you are too young,” the Earl replied. “Keep to the dance floor, Syringa, which is where you should be.”

  At the next ball to which he accompanied Syringa, he noticed that while at first she danced obediently with the gentlemen who asked her, she later disappeared into the garden with the young Marquis of Thanet.

  His first impulse was to warn her that such conduct might give rise to unfavourable comment.

  Then he restrained himself from interfering and the effort made him exceedingly disagreeable.

  *

  It was two days later that the Earl heard the library door open and a voice say,