The Wildest Rake: a stunning, scandalous Restoration romance Page 7

  Then he spoke, but in so bored, so remote a tone that she lifted her head in stunned bewilderment. ‘Madame, will you marry me?’

  She stared at him, her jaw dropping.

  Why did he ask at all if he cared so little what her reply might be?

  Or was he pretending indifference?

  The bubble of her vanity burst. She did not know why he was proposing, but it could not be out of passion, and with that realisation, anger began to take the place of triumph.

  ‘You are most flattering, sir,’ she said in a voice icy with dignity. ‘But I think I must refuse.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  His eyes were fixed on her face, their colour darkened by the intensity of his gaze. He was very pale. The skin was drawn tight across his cheekbones, his lips pressed together, as though in anger.

  Altogether, he puzzled her. She could not help a stab of rage at the remembrance of her recent triumph, so short-lived. She almost felt that he had tricked her, had lured her into indulging in a shameless emotion and then pricked her little balloon of vanity with the sharp pin of his irony. For, surely, his proposal was ironic? He could not seriously expect her to accept so pallid a gesture?

  Had passion driven him, as she had at first supposed, he would have used more impassioned words and expressions, she was sure of it.

  ‘I think,’ he said slowly, in a cool voice, ‘you must not answer me yet. Speak to your father. I will return tomorrow.’

  ‘I do not need time to think,’ she said, her temper soaring like a rocket. ‘Nor need I consult my father. He has always told me that I may choose my own husband, and although I might have to bow to his decision if I chose against his will, he would never coerce me into a marriage I found as distasteful as I would this. ‘

  As calmly as if he had not heard her, he repeated, ‘I will come back tomorrow for my answer.’

  She stamped her foot, her dignity dissolving in a wave of rage more violent than any she had ever felt in her life before. She felt she hated him as she had not thought it possible to hate.

  ‘I will never marry you, sir. Never. ‘

  He walked to the door without reply. She pursued him, her skirts flouncing around her, and caught at his arm, furious that he should walk out of the room leaving her in such a turmoil.

  He looked down at her, his mouth rigid.

  She panted, ‘I mean what I say. You need expect no other answer, sir. I would die rather than marry you. ‘

  He gently removed her hand from his arm and dropped it. ‘My dear,’ he said flatly, ‘events have moved too fast. You must marry me.’ '

  Then, with a slight bow, he left her, and she stared in total bewilderment at the closed door. What did he mean? Must marry him?

  After a moment, the door opened and her parents hurried in, their faces anxious as they stared at her.

  ‘Why has Sir Rendel gone? Why did he not stay to see us?’ The Alderman’s voice was sharp.

  ‘I have refused him,’ she said in a voice which, for all her determination, shook.

  ‘Refused him?’ He repeated the words as though he did not understand her. Her father stared at her blankly. Slowly the colour drained out of his face and he swayed on his feet. ‘My God, child,’ he said, his voice rising shrilly. ‘My God, you have ruined us all.’

  He stepped towards her, his hands shaking. She thought for one terrible moment that he was going to strike her. Then he gave a choked cry and fell heavily, his hands scrabbling at his chest, making a horrid sound in his throat.

  Mistress Brent screamed, her hand at her mouth. Then she knelt down beside him, sobbing. ‘Husband, what is it? God have mercy, husband. Speak to us!’

  But he said nothing.

  Cornelia watched in stupified horror. Her mother, loosening the Alderman’s cravat, looked up at her in bitterness. ‘You selfish, wicked girl. You have killed your father.’

  Her outburst made Cornelia shrink back, white-faced and incredulous. Her mother had never spoken to her with such hostility before.

  ‘Fetch the doctor,’ Mistress Brent added, after a pause in which they stared at each other dumbly. Her tone had slackened, become weary, and she rubbed a hand over her eyes as she spoke. ‘Hurry!’

  Cornelia found Thomas in the pantry, polishing the pewter, and sent him running for Andrew. She fetched some water, mixed it with wine and went back to her mother. Mistress Brent had placed a pillow beneath her husband’s head. One of the maids was standing, watching with bulging eyes, while Mistress Brent fanned a small bundle of burnt feathers under the Alderman’s nose.

  ‘Oh, Mistress Brent,’ the maid wailed. ‘Is the master dead?’

  Mistress Brent gave her a sharp look, but before she could snap in reply the Alderman choked and stirred, and she returned her attention to him in relief. His eyes remained shut. There was no colour in his face at all.

  Cornelia placed the cup of wine and water on the floor beside her mother. Mistress Brent looked at it dully.

  ‘He cannot drink while he is not conscious,’ she said.

  ‘It is for you,’ Cornelia said gently. She signed to the maid to leave them. The girl reluctantly slipped out, but listened at the door, sensing that something was afoot. The Alderman must have had some great shock to bring about this collapse —and the girl was determined to find out what had happened.

  ‘I hope you are pleased with your work,’ said Mistress Brent savagely, her hand clasping her husband’s limp fingers.

  ‘You are unjust, Mother,’ Cornelia whispered. ‘How could I know that to refuse Sir Rendel would bring on such an attack? You said nothing to me beforehand. The whole matter was suddenly sprung on me.’

  Her mother sighed wearily and said in gentler tones, ‘No, you could not know, I suppose. We had not wished to worry you. Your father has, as you know, been rather extravagant lately. We hoped to recoup when the Eagle put into port. She was carrying a cargo of silk for your father. We heard today that she had gone down in a storm. All hope that we might come about has now gone.’

  Cornelia listened, trying to understand. ‘You mean it’s true? My father really meant that we are ruined?’

  Mistress Brent closed her eyes briefly, her face wrung by despair. ‘Ruined,’ she repeated.

  Cornelia could not take it in, could not visualise the many consequences that must follow. She sat on the floor, staring at her father. Was he going to die?’

  Andrew hurried in and knelt down beside the Alderman. He drew up the pale lids, opened his mouth and peered down his throat, listened to his heart.

  Then he rose. ‘He must be carried to bed at once. Where is Thomas? We can manage it between us, I think.’

  Cornelia followed the slow progress up to her father’s chamber. Her mother seemed more in control of herself now, but Cornelia wished to be on hand should her mother need her.

  She was ashamed. She should have noticed her mother’s anxiety. Indeed, she had noticed it, but she had brushed it aside in her own preoccupation, not conceiving that Mistress Brent could have any serious worries. She had known of her father’s extravagance. The arguments between husband and wife had been noisily conducted at times. Everyone in the house had known of them. But Cornelia had barely listened. All her life her father had provided substantially for his family. She was too accustomed to comfort even to have suspected that the solid foundation of their lives might ever give way beneath them.

  Standing in the main chamber, dominated by the great bed, she watched Andrew’s face as he bent over her father. What was he thinking? She tried to guess by the expression on his fine-drawn features, but he had already assumed the professional mask with which he protected himself and his patients.

  He turned away from the bed and drew Mistress Brent towards the door. ‘There is nothing to be done at the moment,’ he said quietly. ‘He will not be conscious for a while. Is something worrying him? I heard of the loss of the Eagle— he was heavily involved with her? He must be reassured, in which case. You must lie to him if necessar
y.’ A gentle smile warmed his face. ‘Can you do that? Lie convincingly?’

  Mistress Brent returned the smile reluctantly. Apart from her anxiety for her husband, she was also thinking that, if Andrew did not exist, Cornelia would have accepted Sir Rendel, and the hostility she felt could not be excluded from her eyes.

  Andrew frowned, watching her. ‘I will have to bleed him,’ he went on. ‘It is best to do that while he is unconscious. Will you heat some water?’

  Mistress Brent, relieved to have some task to perform, nodded and went out of the room. Andrew looked across the room at Cornelia. Her hazel eyes were enormous in her white face.

  ‘Has your father been under some strain recently? What brought about his collapse?’

  She told him simply, as she had always told him everything in their earlier years. He walked to the window and stared out, his back to her, while she faltered through her story.

  When she was silent there was a long pause. She listened to the sound of Andrew’s breathing. All her life lay in the hollow of his hand. Her whole being was concentrated upon him. Her eyes traced the stoop of his shoulders, the lift of his neck, the shape of his skull under his sunny hair. The light, falling duskily through the lattice, showed her a few white hairs among the gold. He is past thirty, she thought. Her heart ached with tenderness and concern.

  Then he turned and smiled, a pale, cold movement of the mouth, which did not reach his eyes.

  ‘What will you do now?’ he asked.

  She knew that he already knew the answer to his own question. ‘I shall do as my father wishes,’ she answered, in a tone as calm as his own, betraying nothing of the pain which twisted like a snake deep inside her.

  If he had only shown some regret, some sorrow, given her a crumb of comfort to take with her into the darkness of the future.

  Her eyes searched his face, saw the hollows at the side of his throat, the weary droop of his mouth, the bluish shadows beneath his eyes. A pulse beat at his temple. She stared at it.

  He slowly flushed under her scrutiny. His voice came, stiff and reluctant, as though dragged up from the deepest part of himself. ‘Yes, you must marry Sir Rendel as your father wishes. It is your duty.’

  She turned without answering and walked out of the room.

  She heard her own footsteps on the wooden stair, the creak of a board, the rustle of her skirts. They were the sounds of despair. She listened to the sound of herself walking out of Andrew’s life.

  Below stairs the maids banged doors, whispered, ran to and fro. Her mother came upstairs with a bowl of hot water steaming in her hands. Cornelia passed her, sightless as a blind beggar, moving slowly and carefully, as one moves when every step means a stab of agony.

  The Alderman awoke during the night. Andrew had bled him and he was very weak, his mind wandering. He did not know his wife. Mistress Brent watched his glazed eyes and looked back down an endless tunnel to the day of their marriage. She wanted to speak to him. He had so nearly gone for ever. She had a sense of urgency, a need to communicate, but he closed his eyes again, and the heavy sound of his breathing went on in the quiet room.

  Andrew came and went softly, his black gown noiseless as a bat’s wing at night. Cornelia saw him, passed him. They neither spoke nor looked at each other.

  Sir Rendel came at eleven the next morning. She received him alone, in the parlour. He walked quietly into the room, the ribbons fluttering at his knee, a cane in his hand, and bowed to her, his hat over his heart. He was sombre, magnificent, in black and pink.

  She looked at him, hands folded demurely at her waist, and felt nothing. She seemed to exist in another world, removed from feeling of any kind, frozen in the realisation that she would never marry Andrew.

  ‘I have come for my answer,’ he said coolly. His grey eyes were penetrating. His mouth closed in a thin line while he waited for her to speak.

  ‘I will marry you, sir,’ she said.

  The words were easy to speak now. They meant nothing. She had achieved that, at least. There was a comfort and a dignity in being so remote, placed above the pain which had first struck her yesterday.

  He stared at her without replying for a moment.

  Then, with a savage gesture, he threw his hat and cane into a chair and walked across the room. ‘What is it?’ he asked abruptly. ‘What have they said to you?’

  She was surprised and vaguely annoyed. She felt as though, having written a scene for him, he was refusing to play it by her rules. As her irritation pricked, she was suddenly afraid. She did not want to be forced back into facing life. It hurt too much. She looked at him with dislike. It was typical of him that he should somehow make her come down from the pinnacle of self-sacrifice on which she had isolated herself. From their first meeting he had been jabbing and prodding at her, making her say and do what she would never normally consider.

  He seized her shoulders and stared into her face. ‘You look like a four-day-old corpse,’ he said. ‘Have they bullied you? I did not think they would do that.’

  ‘Did you not?’ she asked, her words biting. ‘Oh, I think you relied upon it.’ Then, remembering that her father was fighting for his life upstairs, she sighed. ‘They have not bullied me,’ she said quickly. ‘My father is ill. I am worried about him. That is all.’

  ‘He was well enough yesterday. What ails him?’

  She explained what had happened and he pulled in his mouth at the corners, his thin brows jerking together in a frown.

  ‘You must not worry,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I’ll have the best physician in London for him.’

  ‘He already has the best physician in London,’ she said, irritable on Andrew’s behalf.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Ah,’ he murmured. ‘For a moment, I had forgotten the beloved physician. Is he above stairs with your father now? He has been here all night, I suppose? His devotion would be redoubled in your father’s case.’

  ‘He has gone to another patient,’ she said flatly, ignoring the slight sarcasms. ‘He will come back later.’

  He watched the expressions shifting over her pale face. ‘Does he know what caused your father to collapse?’

  She looked up at him, resenting the question. He had no right to probe into what had happened between herself and Andrew. His constant watchfulness angered her. ‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘I told him everything.’

  He made a contemptuous sound. ‘I see—your grief is not all for your father. You are mourning your lover.’

  ‘He is not my lover. ‘

  ‘But how you wish he were.’ His smile taunted.

  She gave him a seething, furious glare. The cocoon with which she had tried to insulate herself from pain had been ripped to pieces in his hands. She stood exposed, and felt naked under his probing scrutiny. The fact that what he said was true made it no easier. Shame at her own self-interest only added to her misery.

  ‘I would not have wasted my pity, Madame,’ he sneered, ‘had I realised for whom you put on those tragic airs.’

  She reached out blindly to slap his mocking face, but he was too quick for her. He caught her wrists and held her, smiling thinly at her angry face, then his hands slid quickly up her arms to her shoulders, and, as he had done at their first meeting, he bent her backwards and kissed her, his lips slow and hot on hers, forcing a response which she could not disguise or control.

  When at last he raised his head she stood, lips parted, eyes shut tight, hating him almost to the point of frenzy.

  ‘The beloved physician has never kissed you like that, I’ll swear,’ he whispered thickly. ‘Uproot him from your stupid little heart. I’ll have no ghost in my marriage bed, I warn you.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  From the street, the house seemed to blaze with light. The sound of fiddle and lute floated out into the darkness, entwined in joyful melody, and the watch, passing on their way, paused to listen enviously, and to watch the passing shadows of dancers through the leaded windows. Their silks were jewel-bright beneath candlelig
ht, their swaying bodies like those of brilliant moths fluttering to-and-fro around the rooms.

  Cornelia danced with her head held proudly, a fixed smile upon her lips. No casual stranger, looking at her, would have guessed what emotions ran beneath that vibrant surface.

  The lustrous ivory satin of her gown was cut low, laying bare her shoulders, and swept behind her as she moved, her generous train brushing the floor. Her chestnut curls were dressed with tiny seed pearls. Diamonds glittered at her throat. But the hand which lay limply in Rendel’s was as cold as a fish, and it was only by the exercise of every ounce of will-power that she contrived to look calmly radiant.

  It was curious, she thought, as she went through the rhythmic steps of the coranto, that the one person in this room who, perhaps, thoroughly comprehended her feelings at this moment was her husband himself.

  At dinner, they had drunk together from the silver-gilt loving-cup. Over the rim, their lips within touching distance, he had looked unsmilingly into her eyes.

  A small muscle had twitched in his lean cheek. The long mouth had been hard, taut, reined in by anger or distaste.

  For a second she had felt something stir deeply in her heart. Pity, curiosity, she was not sure what; an unidentifiable flash of emotion, which had flickered out again at once.

  But she had known, then, that he was not as casually assured as his manner led an observer to believe.

  They were both of them pretending. Faintly, she wondered what it was that Rendel hid.

  She still did not know why he had chosen to marry her. He gave her no clue and she was too proud to ask. It would have marked a curiosity which must imply an interest she was reluctant to admit.

  One of the ribbons with which the loving-cup was traditionally tied had fallen into her bodice. Before she could remove it, Rendel had fished it out, his fingers cool against her flesh. The guests had shouted in half-drunken amusement, adding lewd suggestions to which, blushing, she had shut her ears.