Read an Excerpt
How to Rescue A Rake
By Jayne Fresina Sourcebooks, Inc.
Copyright © 2016 Jayne Fresina
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4022-8783-1
CHAPTER 1
1819
Just when Diana thought she was safe, hidden successfully from the biggest nuisance in Buckinghamshire, that shrill voice rang out. "Ah, here I find you, Miss Makepiece, perched in the corner, quiet as a church mouse."
For a petite woman, the parson's wife created a surprisingly large cloud of dust and a considerable rumpus as she plowed through the dancing crowd to collapse on a chair beside Diana.
"Gracious, you ought to make some noise and move about once in a while, or you might fade entirely into the wall plaster." The lady chuckled at her own wit. "That won't improve your sad lot in life, will it, poor dear?"
"Oh, I don't know, Mrs. Kenton," Diana muttered. "Sometimes the idea of invisibility is not without appeal."
"What's that? Such a timid little voice you have, when you use it at all. Your presence is so easily overlooked that I am surprised you have not been sat upon."
Apparently Mrs. Kenton paid no heed to her husband's sermons about the meek inheriting the earth.
Digging a fork into her slice of cake, she dramatically regaled Diana, and everyone seated nearby, with the story of her struggle at the refreshment table. In that place of greed, violence, and malice, she'd been elbowed in the eye, thumped about the head by a fiercely wielded reticule, had her slippers stamped upon until she was certain every bone in her foot was broken, and bravely thwarted the near theft of her best lace handkerchief. Any listener unaware that her quest had merely been for cheesecake might think she'd survived a riot at the Bastille.
Some people underestimated the advantage of being quiet and unnoticed, Diana mused, gazing up at the rafters. Woodworm larvae, for instance, were possibly burrowing away up there, munching tunnels capable of bringing the entire structure down upon the dancers' heads. Yet the stealthy little creatures went about their business without making a sound heard by the human ear.
If only certain people did the same.
The parson's wife choked on her cake and, in a wheezing breath, exclaimed, "I am underwhelmed by the selection of refreshments. Had they invited me to join their committee, I would have set them straight, but they must have been too afraid to ask me. I am always so busy with all the other duties I take on, I daresay they did not want to impose."
"Naturally. There could be no other reason for excluding you."
"Two shillings to get in and another sixpence just for tea and cake. Exorbitant prices for a small town hall! It's not the Upper Rooms at Bath, for pity's sake." Having set the empty plate in her lap, the parson's wife briskly fanned the underside of her chin. "You have eaten nothing and you are so very thin. It borders on unsightly. A lack of padding on one's bones is terribly aging, you know. Will you not have some cake?"
Yearning only for solitude and for her bones to be left in peace, Diana shook her head.
"Sarah Wainwright looks very well this evening," Mrs. Kenton continued in Diana's ear after only the briefest of pauses. "Such an amiable creature, now that I have pried her out of her shell. As I warned her — and as I tell you — a young lady who is painfully reserved and too often mute in company risks ending her days friendless and unloved."
There was a difference between being mute and choosing not to say aloud every stream of thought that came to mind, thought Diana.
The parson's wife continued. "But Sarah really ought to be told that shade of yellow does her no favors. With a sallow complexion one must be so careful, and if only she would take my advice for the dressing of her hair."
Oh, why did people feel the need for conversation, even above the music? Unless someone needed to warn of a fire breaking out in that crowded place or to inform her of a rampaging madman with an ax, Diana could think of nothing so urgent that it needed to be howled into her ear by Mrs. Kenton, who leaned close enough to disturb Diana's ringlets with the blast of every annoying word.
"She was such a gaunt little thing when she first arrived. Thanks to my intervention, she has grown into a handsome gel these past few years."
Handsome. Diana's jaw tightened. That particular tribute always felt begrudging to her, as if the givers couldn't bring themselves to say the object of their discourse was truly pretty. When used as praise for a younger woman, it was a consolation prize, one of which she had, on several occasions in her youth, been the recipient. Only once had a man called her "beautiful." And then look what had happened. Unaccustomed to such bold declarations, she hadn't known what to do with herself or how to respond.
And where was he now, for all his grand talk? Gone more than three years without a word to anyone he once professed to care about. Typical.
Some would say Diana only had herself to blame. Ha! As if it mattered to her where the most irritating, unreliable man went or why. It was no surprise at all that he'd taken himself off in such dramatic fashion. One could only stir up a modicum of astonishment that he'd left the place fully clothed, apparently with both boots still on his feet, and without bloodshed.
In an effort to relieve her headache, Diana relaxed her previously clenched jaw, tipped her head back very slightly, and let her gaze seek airy space above. This resulted in her sighting a trapped sparrow that fluttered about the rafters of the old hall. With every swoop of the confused bird, her own inner distress grew swiftly.
"Perhaps Miss Sarah Wainwright will have better luck than you, dear," Mrs. Kenton continued loudly, every unencouraged syllable clanging through Diana's sore head and causing several folk standing nearby to glance at her over their shoulders in pity and bemusement. "'Tis a great shame you never had the benefit of my friendship and advice when we were that age."
Diana thought that if Mrs. Kenton's "friendship" had been used upon Napoleon ten years ago, the war would have ended much sooner than it did. The lady's talents were wasted in Buckinghamshire.
"I would have found you a husband, Miss Makepiece, before it was too late and you'd lost your bloom. Now here you sit, twenty-seven and all hope gone." The lady began to hum loudly along to the music, causing several folk nearby to turn as if they thought a bee had invaded the room. Mrs. Kenton paused again and exclaimed, "That young fellow dancing now with Sarah Wainwright seems very keen and attentive."
Suddenly Diana could not sit silently any longer. "But young men can often appear to be something they are not. When the next prettier thing crosses his line of sight, probably with a larger dowry and a significant bosom, he will promptly forget Miss Wainwright and her amiable handsomeness. All men are duplicitous and fickle."
The parson's wife looked at her in surprise, pausing the rapid motion of her fan.
Diana sighed. "The perils of pushing a quiet person to speak, Mrs. Kenton. Unfortunately, you might not always want to hear what they're thinking."
After that, the lady kept her vociferous commentary mostly directed at the ears of the luckless soul on her other side.
Oh dear, thought Diana, I let my temper get the better of me in a public place. That was not proper and very unlike her. She decided it must be due to old age and the fault of this hall, where noise and memories persisted.
Compounding her weariness, Diana was recovering from a spring cold, which had left her not only in low spirits and with a pimple on her chin, but also with weakened patience for too much clamor and vitality. A most unfortunate circumstance since she was now surrounded by an abundance of both.
"You can take Sarah to the Manderson assembly on Tuesday, Diana, can you not?" Rebecca Wainwright, Sarah's stepmother and one of Diana's dearest friends, had exclaimed in a hurry as they'd left church on the previous Sunday. "It is to be the last dance held there until September, but I have too much to do. With the baby so fractious and teething, I do not like to leave him ... and Luke does not return from London until Wednesday, so he cannot escort his daughter. Justina has her hands full with her little tribe and cannot get out."
It was, of course, a well-known fact that unlike her friends, Diana had nothing else to do, having no husband, children, or house to manage. Unwed and past her youth — halfway to death, if one listened to the parson's wife — she was a woman in want of purpose, always reliable and available.
"Mrs. Kenton insists she can chaperone and she won't take no for an answer, as usual," her friend had added with an urgent whisper, "so you must go too, for balance, or I fear Sarah will not forgive me."
So there Diana was, trying to keep the peace and make everybody happy — a state for which any decorous, well-raised lady should always strive.
Diana raised her fan again to hide that stubborn, vexatious pimple. Still hoping to relieve her pounding headache, she was about to close her eyes when she heard a woman's voice above the music and stamping. A voice other than Mrs. Kenton's.
"Oh, Sherry! You are so very bad! What can one do with such a naughty fellow?"
Diana felt time stop. The music faded. Trying to hear more from the people standing somewhere behind her, she had tipped so precariously to one side that she almost fell out of her chair when Sarah Wainwright abruptly shot out of the crowd like an arrow from a longbow. "I broke my fan!"
Diana stood quickly, feeling as if she'd been caught doing something she should not. With a quick smile, she exchanged the broken fan for her own. "I'm sure you need the cooling benefit more than I do, since you are dancing."
Sarah thanked her profusely and then exclaimed, "You look very pale, Diana."
"Do I?" Raising an unsteady hand to her cheek, she pressed it there, hoping to encourage some color back again. "Perhaps I was not as recovered from my cold as I thought."
"You poor dear," Sarah exclaimed, grasping her hand. "I shall fetch you some cake."
"No. Thank you. Although cake is the cure for a great many ills, I have no appetite for it at present."
"How tired you must be. Your hand is so cold, even through your glove! We should go home at once. I will ask for our carriage to be brought around to the steps."
Cold? How could she be cold in this stuffy hall? Diana assured the girl that she was perfectly content to wait for the last dance. She didn't want to spoil the evening; these events were far too important for eighteen-year-old girls.
Having urged Sarah's return to her eager partner, Diana casually moved back toward the wall until she felt a sturdy beam at her shoulder.
Her mama was right, as she so often proved to be. Diana should not have come out to Manderson before she was fully recovered. She should have —
"Good God, it's been so long since I was here," a male voice exclaimed on the other side of the beam. "The old place hasn't changed though. Not a bit."
Diana froze, clutching Sarah's broken fan so tightly that the horn cut into her palm through her glove and would leave a red dent in her skin. For one startled intake of breath she thought he had addressed his comment to her, but he had not, of course. He was not even aware of her presence. Thankfully. She wished for the wall to absorb her completely, as Mrs. Kenton had warned her it would. The pimple on her chin throbbed, and she was sure it grew larger by the second.
"And are your memories of the place sweet, my dear Sherry?" his companion inquired. "I daresay you charmed many young ladies in this room, you sly devil."
"A great many."
"But never one in particular?" the woman demanded, her tone coy.
Diana stared at the nearest candle flame as it stretched tall, undisturbed by the slightest draft while she held her breath.
"No one in particular," he said. "You know me, the more the merrier."
Their voices moved away, merging with the general commotion, and Diana finally exhaled with such a hard sigh that the bold candle flame nearby was nearly extinguished. Still partially wedged behind her beam, she slowly turned, scanning the crowd for a sight of his sun-kissed head and that ridiculously well-carved physique.
A stout gentleman moved aside, taking a cluster of women with him, and Diana found the owner of the name — and the laugh — that had plucked her attention out of the weary void. For the first time in more than three years, there he was, his fine, foolishly arrogant profile smudged by candlelight.
He was back. Of course he was, she thought scornfully. He'd returned after all that time, just when she looked her very worst and had a pimple the size of a holly berry on her chin. When else might he possibly return but at that very moment? She would have laughed out loud at her own misfortune, if she'd had no fear of being heard and looked at.
Yes, there he stood. It was him, and no denying it.
Captain Nathaniel Sherringham, "Sherry" to his closest friends.
The most frustrating, infuriating man she'd ever known. A man who dared accuse her of having vinegar in her veins and a heart like an icehouse.
The irreverent, imprudent gambler who once in utter madness — and very probably in his cups — had proposed marriage to her.
The man who had once called her beautiful, but to whom she was now apparently "no one in particular."
CHAPTER 2
He sipped his punch, his gaze traveling swiftly over the dancers. No faces he recognized tonight. Had they all moved on in his absence? Three and a half years was a long time to be gone, he supposed, but he had not expected this hollow sense of sadness and loss in his gut. As he'd said to his companion, the town hall assembly room hadn't changed at all. Only the people had.
Nathaniel knew he should have written to his sister, Rebecca, and let her know he was traveling into the county. Had she come there to meet him, at least there would have been one face he recognized, even if she did immediately start nagging him about being gone so long and never sending a letter to let her know where he was. Letters were not his forte, and she ought to know that.
He watched a young girl in a yellow dress as she skipped beside her partner in a country jig, laughing and pink-cheeked, glowing with the spirit of youth. Made him smile.
"Don't you want to dance?" the woman at his side demanded.
"No. It's too late, Caroline. This is the last dance of the evening."
His companion looked around in disappointment because they'd arrived when the ball was almost over.
"Oh, I suppose it's just as well," she exclaimed with a weary droop of her shoulders. "I am feeling sick and my head is spinning. This dreadful crowd has a very peculiar, unpleasant odor ..." She covered her nose with her small fingers, wincing.
"That is the scent of the country, Caroline."
"But indoors too?"
"Inevitably someone brings the outdoors indoors. On their shoe."
She shuddered and clutched his arm.
Darkly amused by her performance, which seemed to suggest she'd been raised in a palace rather than three small rooms above a shop in Cheapside where her father was a glove maker, he reminded his companion, "Well, you wanted to experience a dance among the rustics, as you call them."
Nathaniel's fingers drummed slowly against his punch cup, recalling this tune and a time, long ago, when he'd danced to it. Turning his attention back to the dancers, he gazed beyond the faces of the people there and saw those that used to be present. Ghosts of his past.
* * *
A graceful hand in a white silk glove, its touch so light, like a fledgling bird uncertain about its perch.
A coolly knowing glance from shining green eyes beneath black, curling lashes.
Ebony hair, so startling against translucent, ivory skin.
"My mama says you're a good-for-naught scapegrace, so you needn't try to flirt with me. I'm only dancing with you because your sister is my friend and she asked me to. Please don't try to impress me. It will only embarrass us both."
Well, that told him where he stood from the start.
"Oh, I do love to be danced with as a favor to Rebecca," he had replied with teasing hauteur as he rose from his bow. "Nothing fluffs my vanity and pride more than to know my little sister must bribe and cajole her new friends into standing up with me, Miss Makepiece."
She'd eyed him warily, but with just a touch of curiosity and bemusement. "Your vanity requires fluffing? It seems every bit as plumped up already as a proud songbird's chest feathers."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from How to Rescue A Rake by Jayne Fresina. Copyright © 2016 Jayne Fresina. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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