The Wildest Rake: a stunning, scandalous Restoration romance Read online

  Cornelia listened, but she did not quite believe Lavinia’s impassioned protests. The story explained, for her, many things which had puzzled her; why Rendel had suddenly desired to marry her, why he had delayed so long in taking her to be presented at Court, why, for all his passionate lovemaking, she always felt him to be somehow withdrawn, aloof, almost as though he were watching her from a distance.

  Being a man, he had no hesitation in pursuing the desire he felt for her, but she was convinced that he felt nothing else for her than that. Desire sometimes looked at her from his eyes, but the love which glows like a candle flame had never shone at her from his face. Even at his most tender he said no words of love, revealed nothing of himself.

  They were strangers in their bed at night, exchanging passion for passion, wordless and apart despite the intimacy they shared.

  She looked at Lavinia sharply. ‘If the gossip is not true, why does the King permit it to go unanswered? Surely he would silence such scurrilous rumour?’

  Lavinia shrugged. ‘The King, as you will discover, is a lazy man. He does nothing, out of preference. He only wants a quiet life and to be left alone.’

  Lavinia helped her to choose a design for the gown she was to wear at Court. Rich, lustrous peach-coloured satin, full and sweeping in the skirts, the sleeves bound with thin ribbon in a deep green shade, the neckline fashionably low and revealing, it enhanced the healthy bloom of her cheeks and gave added sheen to her chestnut curls.

  Rendel’s coach was silvered over, the horses had their tails and manes plaited with scarlet ribbons which fluttered in the breeze as they drove along, and the leathers and brasses were polished to a mirror-like brilliance for the occasion.

  Rendel himself chose to wear the black satin which gave him so magnificent a presence, sombre and magnetic in his full-skirted coat, his cascading lace falling over the long hands.

  Cornelia was nervous; her throat dry, her nerves jumping. Rendel, noticing, made her drink a glass of wine before they left for Whitehall. The reassurance of his manner soothed her more than the wine could do.

  They walked in the galleries of Whitehall so that she might admire the beauties of the palace which, sprawling near the river, was always somehow filled with the freshness of the park beyond, the windows overlooking green walks and leafy trees.

  In the Long Gallery, bowing to the many curious looks they received, Rendel suddenly nipped her arm. ‘Here’s the King,’ he hissed softly.

  She knew His Majesty at once, recognising the ugly mouth, sleepy eyes and sauntering gait. The King, as she had suspected at the time, had indeed been one of the revellers who, on that windy autumn night, had stopped her and her mother in Thames Street.

  He came towards them, like a great galleon escorted by a flock of little ships, a small dog in his arms, his courtiers walking with him on either side.

  Cornelia, as he drew near, looked down and, at Rendel’s silent gesture, made her deep respectful curtsy.

  ‘Well, well, Rendel—so this is your new little wife?’ The drawling voice was filled with amusement.

  She looked up, very flushed, and met the sleepy eyes. He smiled. ‘Damn.’ He glanced at Rendel, raising one crooked eyebrow. ‘I fancy I have seen that pretty face before!’

  Rendel bowed without replying. A lady slightly out of earshot laughed loudly. Cornelia saw Rendel shoot a look across at her. She looked, too, receiving an impression of dark-red hair, clustered in curls under a broad-brimmed, feathered hat; a cold, lovely mouth, high bony nose, and eyes which darted hostility at her.

  Her swift suspicion was confirmed when the King, lazily turning his head, said, ‘Germaine, your husband is looking for you, I think.’ Beneath his amiable tones flashed a hint of sternness.

  The woman dropped a brief curtsy, her cheeks red, and rustled away without a word.

  Another woman pressed closer to the King, her hand on his arm. He looked a little nervously at her, smiling in a conciliatory fashion. She pouted back at him and whispered something, then smiled at Cornelia, to her surprise.

  ‘You must bring your wife to sup with me, Rendel,’ she said very sweetly.

  Rendel bowed. ‘You are very kind, Lady Barbara.’

  The King nodded. ‘Aye, do so, do so.’

  Then, with another lazy smile, he walked on and Cornelia could finally relax.

  She stared after the Court party, watching the many waiting parties bow and try to catch the King’s roving eye. So, that was the infamous Lady Castlemaine? She had been very friendly. It seemed surprising, for she was rumoured to dislike all women.

  Rendel led her down the gallery, acknowledging coolly the greetings which came from those he knew, introducing her to some of his friends here and there, and then out into the cool fresh air.

  They drove back to their own house in silence. She looked secretly at her husband now and then, wondering what dark thoughts possessed him to make him scowl out of the window. Was he thinking about Germaine, Countess of Wolverton? She could imagine that a man who had once been in love with her might find it hard to forget that strong, possessive face, with its classic beauty and arrogant assurance.

  ‘It was kind of Lady Castlemaine to invite us,’ she ventured to say.

  He turned upon her a hard, angry face. ‘You will not mention that name. We shall not sup with her, nor will you be at home if she should call. Do you understand?’

  Cornelia, puzzled and hurt, nodded without speaking. Why did he use that harsh tone? What had she said to make him so angry?

  Lavinia and George were supping with them that evening. While the men remained over the supper table, passing the wine, the two girls withdrew for a cosy gossip about Cornelia’s impressions of the palace of Whitehall.

  Lavinia laughed at Cornelia’s description of the brief meeting with the King. ‘So Barbara was very kind to you? Well, that is not so surprising. ‘

  ‘I thought she disliked other women. ‘

  Lavinia looked half-pityingly at her. ‘She detests all of her own sex, especially the pretty ones. But you have been useful to her.’

  ‘I? How?’ Cornelia gazed in innocent confusion.

  ‘Germaine has caught the King’s eye. Therefore Mistress Barbara detests her. When Germaine laughed at you today, the King grew angry with her and dismissed her from his presence.’

  ‘Is that why he sent her to find her husband?’ Cornelia’s eyes opened wide in comprehension.

  ‘That is why,’ Lavinia nodded. ‘Oh, you’re such an innocent. Don’t you see? You brought the King’s wrath down upon Germaine, so Barbara was pleased with you. Her pleasure would not last. She will remember, when next she sees you, that you are young and pretty, and may amuse the King. Then she will hate you.’

  Cornelia grimaced. ‘I do not think I would like Court life. It is too complicated and too immoral. I am not cut out for a life of intrigue and deceit.’

  Lavinia gazed thoughtfully at her. ‘I do not think Rendel intends you should have much to do with the Court. I know him. He is too serious to enjoy dissipation for long.’ She laughed. ‘He is even beginning to take his parliamentary duties seriously.’

  Cornelia was content that it should be so, but she was not as confident as Lavinia. Rendel was still too much of a mystery to her.

  She had other things on her mind very soon. Certain signs she began to notice in herself made her suspect that she might be pregnant, but, too shy to confide in Lavinia, she had only a very vague knowledge of her own body to guide her, and could not be sure. She had never discussed such matters with her mother. Nan, when she mentioned it, tended to agree with her but could not be certain.

  ‘You must visit a doctor,’ Nan told her. ‘Ask Sir Rendel to take you to his doctor.’

  Cornelia was reluctant. She did not want to confess her suspicions to Rendel until she was certain of the facts, and, too, she disliked the idea of visiting a strange doctor.

  The one thought in her head was to see Andrew. She had always been his patient. She tr
usted him, and, at this time, she felt an overpowering need for his comforting presence.

  Her parents had visited her, in her new home, on several occasions, delighting in the wealthy surroundings of her new life, enjoying the luxury, the many servants, the elegance of her furniture.

  She had not yet paid them a return visit. For one thing Rendel’s parliamentary business kept him so busy, for another her parents had not encouraged her to do so. They were proud of her new status as a gentleman’s wife. They did not want her to retain any of her old friends in the city in case such low associations should harm her reputation. Cornelia had laughed at such an idea, but, since she had been so absorbed by the new pattern of her days, she had not yet found time to return to her old home.

  Now she asked Rendel if she might visit her parents. He was working on a sheaf of papers and frowned absently. ‘I cannot spare the time at present. Some other day.’

  ‘I could go alone,’ she said quickly, too quickly, for his dark head lifted at her urgent tone and his eyes narrowed on her face.

  ‘Why?’ he asked sharply, and she felt her heart race at his suspicious look.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When she did not immediately respond, Rendel pressed her. ‘You have not had any bad news, have you?’

  She shook her head, fighting for composure. ‘Oh, no—but I have not been to the city since our marriage and I am longing to see it all again.’

  ‘The city?’ he asked slowly. ‘Or Doctor Belgrave?’ And his face was suddenly planed smooth of all expression, only his grey eyes alive in the mask of his face.

  Her consciousness of her secret reason for wishing to see Andrew made her blush hotly, looking away from those probing eyes.

  ‘Is there any reason why I should not visit my parents? Must I never go out without your company? I do not ask where you are all day. You come in and go out as you choose without question. You might extend to me the same courtesy.’

  ‘I think I have told you before, Madame—I have an old-fashioned view of marriage. I will not tolerate cheats.’

  ‘You must excuse me if I am surprised,’ she said crossly. ‘What I have heard of you does not give me that impression.’

  He looked at her, eyes narrowed into mere glittering slits. ‘You have been listening to gossip, my dear. You must not believe all you hear.’

  ‘If I believed only half,’ she said unwisely, ‘I should still have cause for complaint.’

  He stood up and looked down at her, smiling lazily. ‘Can it be that you are jealous?’

  Very pink now, she put up her chin defiantly. Her heart thudded. She met the challenge of his glance head on, saying, ‘All this fuss because I asked if I might visit my parents. A dog would be less unreasonable.’

  ‘My lady, I am a dog. Did you not know?’

  He bent and softly kissed the hollow of her throat, pushing one hand into her hair and curling a lock around his fingers in a proprietorial gesture. Involuntarily, she closed her eyes and submitted, turning into his arms, her mouth raised blindly for his kiss.

  He made, however, no further objection to her visiting her family, and next day she drove to the city in her coach. Nan, when she confided her decision to ask Andrew’s advice, was hostile to the idea.

  ‘You should not do so. You know very well Sir Rendel will not like it. ‘

  Cornelia looked obstinate. ‘Andrew has been my doctor since I was a child. How can it be wrong for me to consult him now?’ Her mouth folded in a soft smile. ‘Oh, Nan, now more than ever, I need Andrew’s support.’

  Nan looked fiercely at her, but said no more, grumbling under her breath in little gasps, her head shaking in distrust.

  The coach stopped outside Andrew’s house and Cornelia knocked upon the door. Ellen opened it, exclaimed joyfully and held out her arms.

  When the laughing and crying was over, they went up to Andrew’s dark study, and Ellen happily opened the door. ‘You have a visitor, sir. ‘

  He was mixing some physic at a bench, his hair tumbled in disorder. Turning absently, he stiffened at the sight of Cornelia. Slowly, he put down the beaker he held and came towards her.

  Ellen, smiling, went out.

  ‘Andrew.’ Cornelia forgot everything but joy in seeing him. She flung herself, weeping, into his outstretched arms, and he held her fast against his chest, stroking her curls.

  After a moment, he held her away from him. ‘So,’ he said gently, ‘you have not forgotten your old friends. Marriage becomes you. You have lost the air of delicacy which used to disturb me. You look stronger.’

  She smiled at him, damp-eyed, and wiped the back of her hand across her face. Then, in her turn, she studied him, and the smile went from her face.

  He was as thin as ever, his skin so pale it was almost transparent, his eyes deep-set and very bright.

  ‘You have been working harder than ever, I see,’ she accused him. ‘Oh, Andrew, what will come of it if you do not relax more often? No man could continue at such a pace. It will kill you.’ •

  He smiled comfortingly. ‘Doctors do not die,’ he said lightly. ‘Instead, they get drummed out of town when their patients die.’

  ‘Don’t make a joke of it,’ she protested. ‘You must know how ill you look.’

  ‘I have looked just so for years,’ he said, shrugging.

  Ellen came in with wine and some pewter cups. She smiled at them both, encouragingly, as though they were children.

  ‘Drink this right away,’ she urged. She glanced at Andrew, searchingly, and her eyes brightened even more. ‘Ah,’ she said to Cornelia, ‘You have done him good. He looks better.’

  Then she went out again and Andrew laughed, boyishly. ‘She nags like an old hen. She is almost as bad as you.’

  ‘I am glad someone is taking care of you,’ Cornelia said. She remembered, with a bitter pang, that Nan had prophesied that Ellen would marry Andrew. She had jealously resisted the idea, but now she saw that such a marriage might be good for him.

  She drank the wine he poured for her, looking around the untidy, cluttered room, thinking heavily that if marriage could put colour into Andrew’s cheeks and make him look less worn, she would bear it somehow, at whatever cost.

  Andrew watched her. ‘You have been to your father’s house, I suppose?’

  She looked at him, flushing. ‘Not yet.’

  He frowned. ‘That was not wise. You should not have come here first.’

  Their eyes met and held. She saw, in his, a strange brilliance, a secret pleasure that she should have come to him. Then his lids dropped and hid the look.

  ‘I had to see you,’ she said slowly. ‘I think I am going to have a baby.’

  He looked up quickly, a smothered exclamation on his tongue. A round red spot came into each cheek. He turned and walked away, head stooped.

  She watched him nervously, suddenly aware of the deeply buried emotions which were coming to the surface in this moment of stress. Her own feelings were tortuous. She was torn between joy in the realisation that Andrew was not as indifferent as he had pretended, and a strange feeling of hesitation, of indecision.

  She had not, she knew now, come to Andrew with the old love. Her fondness for him had brought her, it was true, but it was to Andrew as a doctor that she had come. Her pregnancy had made her long for the security and comfort which he had always given her when she was ill as a child. No stranger could have reassured her natural fears so well.

  She did not want him to reveal his passion to her. She wanted him to be calm, gentle, soothing.

  She felt, unfairly, that he was failing her.

  He turned round again, his face under control, and smiled. She felt her spirits lift in relief. That brief, revealing torment had gone from his face, from his eyes. He looked as he had always looked: sure, confident, impassive.

  ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

  ‘No,’ she said eagerly. ‘I wanted you. I was not certain. I thought you would tell me if it was true or not.’

  ‘
I cannot examine you,’ he said, almost harshly, staring at her. ‘You are not my patient now. You must get another doctor.’

  Her lower lip trembled. She stared at him, desolate. ‘But, Andrew, that is why I came—you cannot refuse me.’

  His features tightened as though she had struck him. ‘You must know why I cannot do it,’ he said very quietly. •

  She drew a sharp breath, taken by surprise, and turned away, tears stinging at her eyelids.

  When she came to him she had thought that he would react to her news with quite different emotions, and his veiled reference to their relationship dragged down from her eyes the scales she had worn there for so long, showing her how much she had misunderstood and wrongly interpreted in the past.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said faintly. ‘I have been selfish.’

  He took her hand, rubbing it in an absent manner. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I have never known you to be selfish.’

  ‘Then you have never known me. I have behaved like a child. Only a child would have so thoughtlessly come here today.’

  He smiled, then, watching her. ‘I know you better than anyone could,’ he said softly.

  She looked up at him in surprise, and felt a sudden dizziness at what she saw in his eyes. It was like looking into the heart of a pure, cold flame, a burning whiteness. All that Andrew was lay open to her. A sense of her own weakness filled her with desolation. She had come to him, chattering her own need, her childish desire for comfort, when he was already carrying so many burdens. She had even thought that he failed her when he let his own needs show. But it was she who, knowing his selfless courage, his strength and compassion, had failed him by being blind to the possibility that even Andrew had a human weakness.

  All her life Andrew had been in the background, an adult while she was still a child, and she had allowed that fact to hide from her the truth about him. Even now she did not understand him. Why had he allowed her to think he did not love her? Why had he let her marry another man?