The Rake's Retreat Read online

  THE RAKE’S RETREAT

  Nancy Butler

  Virtue is a smug estate, without the lure of vice.

  Ode to Persephone

  Lord Troy

  Chapter One

  Lovelace Wellesley was delighted with her name. Not her given name, mind, though she also thought Lovelace a particularly pleasing appellation. And so it should be, considering that the parents who had bestowed it on her were both actors. They knew full well how a name could capture the imagination of the paying customers, Irmengarde she could never have been. Or Agrippina.

  But it was her surname that brought a blush of pure pleasure to her fair cheeks. Wellesley. She adored it. Especially since, until two years ago, it had been just plain Potter.

  She had been Lovelace Potter of Professor Potter’s Peerless Players. But then an unfortunate series of circumstances, chief among them the accidental burning down of a boardinghouse by the current leading man in her father’s troupe, had necessitated their abrupt departure from the town of Basingstoke. Just to be on the safe side, her papa had prudently changed the name of his troupe to WELLESLEY’S WANDERING MINSTRELS. In honor of the Duke of Wellington, of course.

  Lovelace squirmed restlessly on the cot in the stuffy prop wagon, heedless of the fact that she was supposed to be sleeping off a sick headache. She peeked out through the small window toward the prosperous-looking gray-gabled inn, where Papa, Mama, young Charles, and the other two members of the Minstrels were having their luncheon. The inn’s sign appeared freshly painted. The Iron Duke, it proclaimed in bold red letters above a crisply painted silhouette of a beak-nosed man in a cocked hat.

  Lud, she thought crossly, these days everyone and his brother is fashioning himself after Wellington.

  She returned to the handbill she had been admiring as she lay sprawled on the cot. It was a printed flyer announcing the troupe’s latest offering, Virtue Rewarded, or the Rake’s Redemption. In letters beneath the title ran a credit line, Based upon the poem of the same name by Lord Troy.

  Lovelace sighed wistfully. She had a vague hope that England’s premier poet might attend the opening of the play in London. If rumors were to be credited, he was the most handsome man in the whole breadth of the land. And just to make sure that he would be compelled to attend the new production, she had insisted that her father include a drawing of Lovelace herself on the handbill. Her brother Charles was a dab hand with a charcoal stick, and she had to admit he had done her credit—even if he had made her nose appear ever-so-slightly skewed. She wished the portrait could have been hand-colored—it was difficult for a mere pencil sketch to convey the sheer luster of her dark gold hair or the shining clarity of her pansy brown eyes. But, all things considered, she judged it a telling likeness.

  Feeling heartily bored but unwilling to enter the inn and be subjected to her parents’ anxious questions on their daughter’s—and featured performer’s—health, Lovelace slipped out the back door of the prop wagon. After skirting her family’s traveling coach, she headed for the lane that ran along the side of the inn.

  As she ambled along, she admired the green pasture to her left and the waist-high tassels of ochre wheat that grew on her right. Lovelace knew that both those colors suited her admirably. A narrow stream trickled beside the lane, parallel to the split rail fence that enclosed the cow pasture. A little distance beyond her, on the far side of the fence, lay a wooded grove, shadowy and inviting.

  She hopped nimbly across the stream and, without any thought that she might be trespassing, clamored over the fence, careful that the handbill she still carried did not become creased during her transit. She went along the inside of the fence until she reached the grove. The little brook, she saw, had also followed a similar yen to be among the trees—just after the wood began, the stream verged off from boundary duty and entered the cool, sun-dappled glade.

  It was a delightful grove, carpeted with lacy fronds of fern and velvety moss. A fit setting for elfin revels in faerie cotillions. And for faerie princesses, she thought wistfully. She settled herself on a rock, letting the peaceful gurgling of the brook calm her tattered nerves.

  And they were quite tattered, she vowed, as she fanned herself with the handbill. Rows with her parents were becoming all too frequent for her taste. And the one they’d had that morning had been a dilly. It wasn’t her fault that, in addition to being blessed with looks and talent, she drew young men to her like bees to a honey jar. She had no say in the matter. And she certainly had not encouraged that silly squire’s son back in Grantley to pursue her. Well, maybe just a tiny bit. She had no way of predicting he would tell his irritable father that he fully intended to wed his blond divinity.

  The result of that ardent and impetuous disclosure had been the eruption of the outraged squire onto the stage during the troupe’s final performance of Letitia, or the Governess Among the Banditti. The squire had all but wrung down the curtain.

  It was really most unfair! Letitia was one of her favorite roles, and the landslide scene in the final act was quite taxing. It was hard enough to keep your mind on your lines, she reflected with a frown, without the distraction of your mother shrieking from the wings or watching your father—in full bandit regalia—bulldog a squirming, sputtering squire off the stage.

  At least that unpleasant episode was behind her. It was on to London and the production of the new play. And her much-longed-for introduction to the illustrious Lord Troy.

  The brook’s trilling sound had taken on an unusual undertone, and Lovelace halted her daydreaming to listen. The noise was low-pitched and staccato; like the voices of men engaged in a heated argument.

  She left her rock and went whisper-soft through the trees toward the source of the sound. Sure enough, in a small clearing some forty feet beyond her, two men were locked in verbal combat, their muffled voices rising and falling in the cadence of discord.

  She crept closer and then peeked around an oak trunk, noting their hostile posture for future reference—she intended to write a play herself one day, and made a point of gathering interesting scenes for her opus. The man facing away from her was tall and dark, she observed, and wore a boxy blue jacket. His hands were fisted at his sides. The other man was fair, of medium height, and wore a claret-colored riding coat beneath a caped greatcoat. As she watched, his face twisted into a scowl. He spat out a word Lovelace had never heard before, his anger palpable even from such a distance, and then he snarled out, “This is all I found, I tell you!”

  The dark man responded in a low voice—Lovelace could not make out his words. The fair-haired man immediately launched himself at his companion and they began to fight in earnest, grappling hand to hand. Seconds later a knife appeared in the dark man’s hand and, under Lovelace’s disbelieving gaze, he plunged it into his adversary’s chest. A scarlet stain spread across the pristine whiteness of the victim’s shirt until it blended with the darker crimson of his coat.

  Lovelace screamed then. A nice, carrying theatrical scream. If she’d had time for reflection, she would have realized it was not the most politic thing to do in that situation.

  The tall man swung around, his gaze darting through the trees. He started at once in Lovelace’s direction, heedless of the man who now lay unmoving at his feet.

  Lovelace spun and thrust herself back against the tree, tucking her skirts close around her. She waited, heart pounding, for what seemed like an aeon. It was quiet in the wood—either the man had gone away or he knew how to move with great stealth.

  “Got you!” A hand reached out to grab her wrist.

  She gasped and turned to him for only a second—had a brief glimpse of a tanned face and pale eyes—before she twisted violently, wrenching free from his hold, and pelted off toward the
field. Lifting her skirts to free her legs, she ran as though the very hounds of hell pursued her. When she broke free of the wood, she ran close along the fence, gasping raggedly for breath with each stride.

  In the distance she could see the slate gables of the inn drawing ever closer. What she didn’t see was the grass-covered rabbit hole that lay beside the fence. Her right foot slid into it up to the ankle and she went down, tumbling headlong over the grass.

  She lay on her stomach, winded and unable to move, waiting breathlessly for the tall man to come up with her and stick his knife in her back. Her heart began to beat a rapid tattoo in her chest as she sensed something large moving over the grass toward her, its shadow blocking out the sun. She closed her eyes and scrunched up her face in dreadful anticipation.

  A large, wet, raspy tongue slithered over the back of her neck.

  “Aoow!” she wailed, sitting up and pushing the amorous heifer’s head away from her. “Go, bossy!” she cried, slapping at the sleek brown neck. The cow blinked at her several times and then moved slowly away to graze.

  Lovelace shrank back as another shadow fell over her. This time it was a tall man, backlit by the sun, sitting on a rangy red horse.

  “I saw you take a tumble,” he remarked evenly in a refined voice. “Never a good idea to run beside a fence. All sorts of creatures burrow along there.”

  “Someone was chasing me,” she said, holding back a sob. “With a knife.”

  The man dismounted with a graceful motion and came forward to kneel beside her. His hair was dark and his face was tanned. His coloring was not unlike the murderer’s, she realized with a shock. But he was dressed more elegantly than the stranger in the woods, and his eyes were full of concern, though in a detached way.

  “Sprained it, have you,” he said, as he touched his fingers to her swelling ankle, which was revealed beneath the twisted hem of her gown.

  Lovelace looked down horrified. A sprain could take weeks to mend, and she had to be treading the boards in the new play in just over a fortnight. Tears began to course down her cheeks.

  “Hey, none of that,” the man said. He looked beyond her across the field. “At least your pursuer seems to have cleared off. Not that I saw anyone chasing you, mind.”

  Lovelace felt an overwhelming relief that the man with the knife had opted for caution rather than pursue her across an open meadow where anyone might see him. But she also recalled, with a sickening lurch of her stomach, that she had dropped her handbill as she ran from behind the oak tree. The man had seen her face, and now he knew her identity.

  Oh Lord! she groaned to herself. If only Charles had made the portrait a bit less accurate. Given her a hooked nose, sunken cheeks, or beady little eyes. Anything that would have obscured the fact that Lovelace Wellesley, the pride of Wellesley’s Wandering Minstrels, was the same young woman who had seen foul murder done.

  She was crying full out now in panic. It wasn’t fair! She had her whole life ahead of her.

  Without so much as a by-your-leave, the stranger hoisted her into his arms and lifted her up onto the back of his tall horse. “Is there someone nearby who can look after you?” he inquired once he had settled her in the saddle.

  “My family is at the Iron Duke,” she sobbed through her raised hands.

  The man made no response, so she lifted her eyes. He was staring back at her, a look of perplexity on his lean face.

  “Over there,” she said weakly, pointing in the direction of the inn. “Those gray gables.”

  “Oh, there,” he said, as a wry smile of comprehension twisted his cheek. “It was called the Tattie and Snip until last month.” He began to lead his horse along the fence. “I don’t know what old Tolliver was thinking, to change the name. It’s been the Tattie and Snip since I was a lad.”

  Looking down at her rescuer, Lovelace judged that to have been some time ago. There were strands of silvery gray scattered in the man’s dark brown hair—she could see them clearly from her vantage point in the saddle—though she had to admit the loose curls which tumbled over his brow were not without a certain charm. Percival Lancaster, the leading man in her father’s troupe, had to resort to heated tongs to cajole his hair into such fashionable disarray.

  The man led the horse through a gate in the fence, and then over the brook into the narrow lane. Even before they reached the inn, Lovelace saw with a sinking heart that the troupe’s two vehicles were gone from the front yard. She began to cry even louder, for once not caring that tears positively blighted her creamy complexion.

  The man stopped. “What the devil is it now?”

  “They’re gone!” she wailed. “My family’s gone.”

  He followed the line of her vision, saw the empty yard, and then looked up at her. “What sort of people are your parents, that they would hare off and leave their daughter behind?”

  “Ac-tors,” she hiccupped raggedly, and then realized she hadn’t precisely answered his whole question. “I was supposed to be resting in the prop wagon,” she explained. “But I went for a walk instead. They clearly thought I was still napping in there and set off for London.”

  The man rubbed the back of one hand across his chin. “Stay here,” he snapped. “I’ll go talk to Tolliver.”

  Lovelace sat in the shadow of a tall beech tree, every so often casting fearful looks behind her. When at last the man came around the corner of the inn, his expression of distemper hadn’t lessened.

  “They’re gone, sure enough. Your mother wanted to look in on you, but Tolliver heard your father say that you needed your rest. You’ll just have to wait here until they discover you are missing and come back for you.”

  “But what of the man with the knife?” She whimpered. “This is the first place he will look for me.”

  “There is no man with a knife,” the gentleman bit out, his patience clearly on the wane. “You must have banged your head when you fell, which has given you this addled notion that someone was chasing you. It’s most unlikely that a man with a knife would be lurking in my cow pasture waiting to do harm to young scamps like you.”

  In spite of her tears, Lovelace drew herself up. As a reigning goddess of the boards, she had never, ever, been referred to as a scamp. “He was chasing me,” she uttered in her most acid tone, “because I witnessed a murder.”

  The man below her rolled his eyes. “In my cow pasture?”

  “In the woods,” she pronounced. “He was arguing with another man, and then he pulled out a knife and stuck it in the other fellow’s chest.”

  “You’ve a lurid imagination, I’ll give you that.” He looked even less convinced than before.

  “Take me there,” she ordered. “And I will show you where it happened.”

  The stranger shrugged. “I suppose I can put off inspecting my cattle for another half hour, but if we don’t find anything, you’re coming right back to the Tattie and Snip.”

  “You mean the Iron Duke,” she huffed, as he led his horse back up the lane.

  * * *

  Lady Jemima Vale held up her drawing of the lightning-struck tree that lay at the edge of the field and frowned deeply, setting a line of wrinkles across her smooth white brow. No matter how much she smudged the pencil marks or even erased them altogether, the sketch still looked more like a skeletal hand reaching up from the ground than a towering, majestic oak. In frustration she turned her sketchbook completely upside down. Now it was a skeletal hand reaching down from the sky.

  She sighed. It was a trial to be so absolutely lacking in artistic ability. Especially coming from the family she had been born into. No, that wasn’t fair. Some people were blessed with creative talent, and others possessed more practical gifts. At least that was what she told herself when she was feeling blue-deviled. Which was an all-too-frequent occurrence lately.

  She closed her sketchbook, folded her canvas stool, and looked about for a more inviting subject. She had already sketched the inn where she was staying, and the wheat field on her left off
ered little inspiration. As she cut across the field, brushing back the waist-high, tasseled grass, she caught sight of the rider leading a packhorse beside the small wood that lay in the distance. A picturesque subject to be sure—the bearded peddler with his loose blue coat and wide-brimmed felt hat, his pack of goods slewed over a second horse and bound with rope. But, Jemima reasoned, even the best artists found horses a tricky subject, and anyway, the man would be out of sight by the time she reached the lane.

  Perhaps she would find something worth sketching in the wood, she thought, as she came out onto the narrow track. A collection of trees might prove less taxing than a single one. She climbed nimbly over the rail fence—an easy feat for a tall, long-limbed woman—and wandered along a chuckling brook, searching for a good vantage point. She had just settled her stool in a small clearing, which offered a pleasant view of quaking aspens, when someone called out, “Hullo there!”

  She swiveled on her stool. A man was standing at the edge of the woods, some distance behind her.

  In the general way of things, she was quite stouthearted, but there was something about the man’s tall silhouette that made her heart lurch.

  “Nitwit!” she chided herself. Is this what happens when you near your thirtieth year? she wondered crossly. Did all the missish behavior you detested in others come rising up in your own character at that time? It certainly seemed to be the case.

  “Excuse me,” the man called out. “But have you seen anyone in the woods?”

  Jemima got up from her stool. “I’ve only just gotten here,” she called back. There was a chestnut horse standing behind the man with a young woman clinging to its saddle. She said something to him and pointed to Jemima’s right. He then tethered the horse to a branch and came toward Jemima, brushing back the foliage with his riding crop. The closer he came, the more she had to resist the urge to run off.

  Not that he looked particularly ominous. He was tall and dressed like your garden-variety country squire, in the fawn buckskins, narrow top boots, and long-tailed riding coat of the sporting gentleman. His cravat was carelessly knotted about his throat. He was hatless, and his breeze-tossed hair had settled into wayward curls over his brow. She imagined the face of such a man would be hearty, open, and a bit vacant around the eyes.