Page 9 of How to Court a Rake (Wed Within a Year #1)

C uriosity was one thing. Encouragement was another. Mary was in danger of overstepping that carefully drawn boundary. She could allow herself some private curiosity about Caine Parkhurst in the solitude of her bedchamber. But she should not encourage him in public.

Yet today had been spectacular. The ordinary had become extraordinary all because of a vase of flowers and a tool through the park—things she’d experienced many times over her Seasons. She was used to bouquets and callers, used to rides through the park and strolls with gentlemen. But nothing had prepared her for Caine Parkhurst’s way of doing things.

She hummed a bit under her breath, twirling the little wildflower posey in her hand as she climbed the stairs to her chamber, the thrill of the afternoon still lingering. How dashing he’d been in the drawing room, pushing aside the protests of the Earl’s heir with his words to establish his place at her side. She’d felt as if she was at the centre of a fairy tale, special, swept off her feet.

Normally, when a man looked at her, she could see him calculating the pound notes. When Caine Parkhurst looked at her, there was something else entirely in his eyes—secret promises, mysteries to uncover, decadence to explore and an invitation to traverse all of it together with an experienced guide beside her. What a temptation he posed against the backdrop of her current circumstance.

She must choose a husband, but they all seemed lacklustre when measured against Caine. None of them made her pulse race, her blood heat, her mind challenged. Yet she could expect nothing from him. He did not wish to marry, a wish he clung to so strongly that he was willing to forgo a hereditary marquessate. The universe was playing games with her again. Of course she was attracted to the one man who had no intentions of marrying when she must absolutely marry and soon.

‘You’re happy, my lady.’ Her maid came up behind her, having stopped for a moment downstairs to exchange a word with a footman. ‘Shall I take your wildflowers and find a vase for them?’

‘No, no vase for these. I’ll see to them myself.’ Mary already had a container in mind for them. Once inside her room, she took a clear glass jar down from a shelf and poured some of the fresh water from her washing ewer into it. ‘There,’ she pronounced, putting the flowers in the jar and setting it on her dressing table. Like magic and fairy tales, they wouldn’t last long, a day or two at most. She would dry them and press them later to keep as reminder of the day she was a princess for an afternoon with a most inappropriate man and how she’d thrilled to it, how she’d felt alive perhaps for the first time.

‘They’re pretty, my lady…’ Minton paused to appreciate them ‘…especially the deep pink ones.’

Mary studied the posey of Sweet William. ‘Hmm, there’s something missing.’ She opened a drawer and pulled out her box of ribbons. She held up one length and then another, considering, before she settled on a dark rose. ‘This one, I think.’

‘Very nice, my lady,’ Minton complimented. ‘You’ve got so many interesting gentlemen.’ She stepped into the wardrobe and Mary could hear her rummaging through the gowns.

‘Just one interesting gentleman,’ Mary replied absently, still allowing her mind to exist in the throes of the afternoon, replaying every word, every nuance of their conversation which had been as scintillating as last night’s kiss. She’d never talked with a man the way she’d talked to Caine Parkhurst. ‘The others in the drawing room were just the same as always.’

Minton reappeared with two gowns in hand. ‘And the one coming to dinner tonight, my lady. Your father’s special guest. Do you prefer the cream or the pale pink? There’s the theatre to follow dinner, so perhaps the pale pink and the opal set. We can do your hair with the tiara.’

Mary hardly heard Minton’s suggestions. Her mind was fixated on the first announcement. Her father had a guest for dinner? Just one. There was no one else invited. It was the first she’d heard of it. The implications were unnerving. A single man coming without his wife meant only one thing: he was being invited explicitly to meet her. Going on to the theatre with them meant he was also being encouraged to spend time with her. This man was meant to be one of her father’s candidates for her hand. The realisation was horrifying.

She pressed a hand to her stomach and calmed her breathing. Horrifying,yes. Unexpected, no. He’d warned her and she knew he’d make good on his word. It was all suddenly just so real . She might be sitting down to supper with a man who would become her husband in a few short weeks.

Mary gripped the edge of her dressing table and sat down. ‘The pink will do, Minton.’ She tried to sound as if the fairy tale she’d surrounded herself with last night and today hadn’t come crashing down. ‘What do we know of our dinner guest?’ Right now, she needed information, not panic. Lady Mary Kimber was a cool, self-assured debutante, not a woman given to flights of fancy. But there was no denying that the tide she’d held back this afternoon was now fully in.

***

Caine’s roses in their magnificent Bohemian crystal vase had been removed from the drawing room. Mary noticed their absence immediately when she appeared downstairs at twenty minutes to seven. Her parents and their guest were already assembled. But Mary had wanted some time to herself, arguing that she didn’t want to appear over-eager and give the impression of waiting on their guest’s arrival. She hoped the roses hadn’t been thrown out, but perhaps they had been once her mother had realised who had sent them.

‘Mary, dear.’ Her mother swanned over, meeting her at the door and taking her arm, the gesture designed to draw the gentlemen’s eyes to the new arrival. ‘There you are, looking lovely.’ Under her breath she said, ‘Isn’t your father’s friend handsome? And young? He’s so eager to meet you.’

‘Where are my roses?’ Mary replied sotto voce, offering their guest a polite, demure smile at a distance.

‘In the music room. They were too ostentatious to leave out here in the public rooms. Showiness is so gauche. One can always tell a gentleman by the flowers he brings.’

They approached her father and their guest, her father making the introductions. ‘Your Grace, allow me to present my daughter, Lady Mary Kimber. Mary, this is His Grace the Duke of Amesbury.’

Amesbury, blond, blue eyed and sleekly elegant in dark evening clothes, reached for her gloved hand and pressed a brief kiss to her knuckles. ‘ Enchanté , Lady Mary. I’ve hoped we might meet for a while.’

‘How is it that we have not, then? It seems everyone in society knows everyone.’ But she did not know him. She was sure of it. Mary carefully retrieved her hand with another polite smile. A third duke and something of an unknown. She wasn’t sure how that made sense in the social circles of London. An unmarried duke did not escape scrutiny for long.

‘It’s a bit complicated,’ Amesbury demurred, which only intrigued her more. Where in the world had her father unearthed a duke?

‘We have time before supper.’ Mary offered her arm. ‘Take a turn with me about the drawing room and tell me, the short version at least. I love puzzles.’ Amesbury could not refuse, not in front of her parents and certainly not if his claim to wanting to meet her was to be believed. The offer pleased her parents who exchanged a knowing look as Amesbury took her arm. Perhaps it made up for driving out with Caine.

‘Once London gets wind of you, you will be quite popular,’ Mary began the conversation. ‘How is it you’ve managed to escape social attentions until now?’

‘I was never expecting to be found, if I may be blunt?’ He raised a polished, practised blond brow in enquiry. ‘My cousin, the Duke, died in an accident a few years back, leaving no heirs, very unexpectedly. I was abroad and it took a while to determine who the heir was and then time to locate me.’

‘I am sorry,’ Mary offered.

‘As am I. Being a duke is a lot of work.’ He gave a short chuckle. ‘Between transferring the title, mourning, going through the paperwork and figuring out the estates, there has been no time for socialising.’

‘But now all is in order?’ Mary asked as they stopped before one of her father’s prized Constable paintings.

‘Yes, all is in order so that I might begin to set up my town house, responsibly sit in the Amesbury seat in the House of Lords and set up my nursery, of course, to ensure that such a disaster does not happen again.’ So, the man was wife-hunting.

‘How do you know my father?’ That seemed the next logical question. If the man had truly been buried in paperwork, how had her father found him?

‘We have a few mutual investment interests. We met at a shareholders meeting, actually.’ He smiled to reveal straight white teeth. The Duke of Amesbury was certainly well appointed, which was all to the good. He would turn heads and mamas still reeling over losing Harlow for their daughters would be more than appeased by this consolation prize.

‘My mother and I would be more than happy to make introductions for you. We can begin tonight at the theatre. If you’d care to share some of your interests, I might be able to make some suitable recommendations.’ The sooner she could deflect his attentions, the sooner she would not have to endure him. There was something too sleek about him, too perfect, as if she could not quite see behind and beyond the mask of all that perfection. That made her nervous. Caine was honest and blunt. He didn’t put on airs. He walked through a ballroom as God made him.

Amesbury placed an overly familiar hand atop hers and gave another chuckle, eyes smiling with a facsimile of kindness. ‘There is no need for that. You do surmise correctly that I am wife-hunting. But the hunt is over. I have already settled on the woman I want.’ A frisson of ice snaked down her back. She did not miss the unspoken implication that the woman he’d decide upon was her .

Mary steadied herself against the shock of the realisation and the subsequent shockwaves that followed. When a woman was settled on sight unseen, it meant only one thing. This had been arranged between him and her father. Without her consent. This was the height of male arrogance and egoism.

‘And the woman in question? Has she settled on you?’

‘I am sure she will.’ He smiled easily, his eyes teasing as if this were all a grand bit of humour, as if they both knew who the ‘she’ was and both of them had agreed to the arrangement. ‘We’ll have a few weeks to get to know one another, but even so, we’ll have a lifetime to discover each other.’ A lifetime in which there would be no choice to leave if that ‘knowing’ didn’t turn out favourably. That sounded ominous, not optimistic. It called to mind Caine’s advice that a person could not change another person.

‘How can you be so sure?’ Even a man was trapped, although to a smaller degree, by marriage. ‘Sometimes we learn unsavoury things. It would be unfortunate if something unpalatable came out once it was too late to turn back.’

He laughed and leaned close for a moment, invading her space. It was not at all a pleasant sensation to have him so close…yet she’d enjoyed such a gesture when it was Caine Parkhurst leaning in. ‘That’s what asylums are for, aren’t they?’ He gave her a wink as if they’d exchanged a joke. But Mary knew such things weren’t joking matters. A woman could be put away on grounds of the least provocation as long as there was a doctor’s concurrence.

Then he sobered and patted her hand. ‘I know a very nice place up in the Yorkshire Dales. My wife would have the best of care. But I don’t anticipate that would be a problem. My wife will be biddable and loyal.’

Of course his wife would be those things if she knew the consequences that awaited her rebellion. Mary felt another shiver crawl down her spine. Amesbury embodied a different kind of boldness. A comparison arose organically in her mind, the afternoon still a vivid recollection, and the man she’d spent it with. Caine Parkhurst was bold because he gave a woman a choice—the chance to choose him and what he offered. But the Duke of Amesbury, whom she knew by title only, was bold simply because he believed no one would stop him.

‘By the way, Lady Mary, you are all your father said you’d be and more. Quite impressive, actually. I am looking forward to the theatre tonight, are you? I am told Blackmantle’s The English Spy is quite intriguing.’

‘I have seen it before. It’s a farce, so I think intriguing might be overstating it a bit,’ Mary said coolly, casting a swift look towards the doors. She’d never wished so fervently for the butler to announce dinner. Surely, it would be any minute now.

These had been the longest fifteen minutes of her life and perhaps the most frightening.

‘My mistake,’ he said affably. ‘I can see I will need your guidance as I enter society. I will appreciate your expertise in this particular matter.’ This optimistic cheerfulness of his set her nerves on edge. While his words might sound congenial, she sensed a darker message lurked beneath—the innuendo of a barter: that she might guide him in the matter of the play’s storyline and, in exchange, he would guide her in other more intimate pursuits, as a husband with experience might guide an untried bride. There was much not to like about the insinuation, not least of all the subjugation they implied. There was nowhere to run. She was trapped in her own home.

Panic began to well. She fought it back. She would not let Amesbury see her falter, see her fright. He would feed on it, use it to dominate her. She forced her mind to work. She had nowhere to run to, but perhaps there was someone to whom she could run? ‘If you would excuse me for a moment? I’d like to collect myself before supper.’ Lady Mary slipped away before he could protest. She’d only have a few minutes. Upstairs, she scribbled a note with a trembling hand and rang for her maid.

‘Minton, I need your utmost discretion.’ She folded the paper. ‘This must be delivered to Parkhurst House. Can you send a footman who won’t be missed while we’re at supper? And if not, can you manage to go yourself?’ She thought for a moment. ‘In fact, the latter would be best. I won’t need you for hours yet and you won’t be missed.’ The fewer who knew a note had left the house, the better. Secrets among many were hard to keep.

‘I can go, my lady.’ Minton looked worried. But there was no time to explain. Caine had suggested he’d stand as her friend. Tonight she needed an ally, perhaps someone to dissuade Amesbury’s interest. More than that, tonight she needed the presence of a friend. She was still reeling from the realisation that her father had sold her in marriage, that her home had become a prison where her wants held no sway and she sensed this was only the beginning. She’d not hit bottom yet.