The Rake's Bargain Read online

  ‘What about Ned?’

  Ned? He almost laughed when he remembered. ‘Your pony.’

  ‘Yes—my pony! What will happen to him?’

  ‘Naturally,’ he said, ‘I shall arrange for him to be...reunited with your friends.’

  ‘But that will cost a... You would really go to so much trouble?’

  ‘To defeat your objections, Miss O’Hara, yes.’

  At first, he thought she wasn’t going to say anything at all. She walked to the end of the room and stood there a moment with her head bowed, and only then did she turn back to him.

  ‘What can I say?’ There was a hint of bitterness in her voice. ‘You seem to have everything planned, Mr Beaumaris.’

  ‘It’s essential that I have everything planned,’ he replied, ‘since I’m going to be the one taking you back to London. I’m going to be the one who has to explain to society that you have finally summoned the strength to return to the public eye in order to pay my dead brother the respect he is due.’

  ‘And to get back those jewels.’ Her voice was harder now.

  ‘Let’s call it all a matter of my family’s honour, Miss O’Hara. Now, I believe there’s a housemaid waiting out in the main hall to show you your room upstairs—it’s been prepared for you. Will you dine later?’

  ‘With my uncle and aunt?’ She shook her head. ‘I think I’d rather starve.’

  ‘Then I’ll have your supper sent to your room. And we’ll have no more talk about starving, if you please. Let me make it clear from now on that you can save your melodramatics for the stage.’

  She smiled sweetly up at him. ‘Oh, you’ve seen very little of my melodramatics yet—Mr Beaumaris.’

  And Beau realised something else he’d forgotten.

  Damn it all. She still didn’t know who he really was.

  * * *

  Beau dined with Palfreyman and his wife that evening, in an over-furnished dining room that shouted of new wealth. The fellow had gone mad for chinoiserie—there were dragons and nodding mandarins painted on the walls, with blue-and-white porcelain pots on every possible surface. The footmen were icily efficient, the food was elaborate and the wine rich—but Beau would rather have had supper in his room, like the girl, or a meal in the nearest alehouse with William Barry, come to that.

  To have to spend even one night under the roof of the man whose daughter had trapped Simon into marriage churned like acid in Beau’s gut.

  The liveried footmen brought in course after course, and during the progress of the meal Palfreyman veered in his attitude to Beau between downright sycophancy and barely concealed hatred. His thin-faced wife—she struck the girl, thought Beau, she struck the girl—ate very little and hardly spoke a word.

  Shortly before the meal, Beau had gone to visit Deborah O’Hara in the bedroom that had been allotted to her. He’d asked for pen and paper to be provided in there, and he wasn’t surprised to find that she’d already made use of it. ‘I’ve addressed my letter to Francis Calladine,’ she said tonelessly as she handed him the sealed envelope. ‘He is the longest-serving member of the Lambeth Players, and I’ve told him that he’s in charge now. I had to lie, of course. I told him that I heard in Oxford today that a relative of my mother’s had been taken very sick, and that I needed to visit her. I told Francis that I hoped to rejoin them all soon.’

  ‘I’ll make sure your letter reaches him,’ he promised. ‘And, Miss O’Hara—I’ll certainly ensure that all this is worth your while.’

  She stared at him. ‘Are you talking about money? I thought I was doing all this to save myself and my friends from a prison sentence or worse.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ll reward you as well. I assume some money would be useful?’

  ‘And I used to think,’ she said softly, ‘that there were limits as to what I’d do to earn it.’

  Damn it, she ought to be grateful. This girl wrongfooted him at every turn, and he couldn’t afford to let her. Beau was still brooding an hour later as he tinkered with the dishes of food that Palfreyman’s servants set before him. Yes, she should be grateful; apart from anything else, there was the fact that he wasn’t prosecuting her companions. And she would see London in style, wouldn’t she?—all right, so she would be in mourning, but for a few weeks she would be able to lead the kind of life she wouldn’t normally even dream of!

  Clearly a similar thought had gone through Palfreyman’s mind, since after Vera had left them to their port, Palfreyman dismissed the servants and said to Beau, ‘You’ll have to watch that girl, if you ask me. Letting her loose in London. Her mother had little sense of morality, and you know what they say. Like mother, like daughter.’

  ‘Her mother,’ Beau said, ‘was your sister. And be careful what you say about your niece. Do I really have to remind you about your daughter’s truly scandalous behaviour?’

  After that he left Palfreyman almost immediately and headed up the stairs towards his allotted rooms. By his own estimation, family loyalty and family devotion did not tend to be universal qualities. His father and mother had detested one another, and been completely indifferent to their two sons.

  But the girl bothered him. He couldn’t forget her voice as she’d whispered to him, ‘You’re not making me stay here?’

  She’d appeared vulnerable—even innocent. That had to be an illusion. But she had been so sweet to hold, and her lips were shy, almost...

  She’s an actress, he told himself bleakly. A fine actress. That’s all. But the way back to his own room led past her door, and some wayward impulse made him stop—and listen.

  What the devil did he expect to hear? The sound of her sobs? He knocked, then again, harder. ‘Miss O’Hara?’ His voice was almost harsh. ‘Miss O’Hara?’

  There was no reply. With a darkening brow, Beau put his shoulder to the door and found himself inside an empty room, lit only by the glow of a low fire in the hearth. The bed itself was pristine. The black cloak, the dress and the bonnet lay neatly upon it. But—she wasn’t there.

  Chapter Eight

  Beau felt filled with a furious frustration that his plan might yet go wrong. He’d thought—surprising himself with his verdict—that he could trust her. Then suddenly he remembered the room lined with portraits, one floor down, where she’d sought refuge from Palfreyman—and from him—earlier today. She’d been looking at a picture there when he came in...

  Guessing that Palfreyman would be surlily intent on finishing that bottle of port by himself in the dining room, Beau descended the stairs and strode along the corridor, working out where the room was. When he reached it, the door wasn’t shut. And she was inside.

  He could see her sitting cross-legged on that old chintz sofa, gazing in the soft light of a single candle at the small framed picture she’d been looking at before. She was wearing the white shirt and black velvet breeches that she’d worn to play Viola. Loose tendrils of chestnut curls curtained her forehead and billowed around her shoulders.

  He felt the blood start to beat heavily through his veins. She looked lovely. Quite lovely.

  He must have moved slightly, because she suddenly looked up to see his figure blocking the doorway and she sprang to her feet. ‘Mr Beaumaris...’

  She still didn’t know who he was. He came slowly into the room. ‘I thought you might have run away,’ he said.

  She was certainly standing as if poised for flight, glancing at the door behind him. But her words were stalwart enough. ‘I told you,’ she said. ‘I keep my word.’

  He nodded and cleared his throat. ‘Have you had a meal?’

  ‘A maid came with some supper. And then I had a bath, and got dressed again. But I didn’t want to wear that black gown. I’m much more comfortable in my old clothes.’

  He said, more tersely than he meant to, ‘You must wear mourning. You must w
ear a veil. From now on, you must be Paulette, always.’

  ‘I know.’ She met his eyes unflinchingly. ‘I know, and I didn’t intend to break the promise I made. No one has seen me like this tonight except you, but you’re right. I’d better go back to my room.’ But she was still clutching the picture close to her chest, just as she had when he came in.

  He said, ‘Hadn’t you better put that picture back first?’

  She gave a start, then nodded and made for the alcove, where the picture had hung; Beau followed her. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Let me.’

  She didn’t want him to see it, he could tell. She didn’t want him to even touch it. He hung it carefully back on the wall, giving himself time to take it in. It was a portrait of a young girl whose chestnut hair was pulled back tightly beneath a plain straw bonnet. She had a strained, unhappy look on her face. And both her bonnet and her gown were of the type that was fashionable thirty or more years ago...

  The girl had to be Palfreyman’s sister. This girl’s mother. He turned to her and said, ‘Are you very tired, Miss O’Hara? Can we talk for a while?’

  ‘If you like.’ Her expression told him, I’d much rather not.

  Beau said, ‘I do like, as it happens.’ He gestured towards the small sofa. ‘Please sit down. Please make yourself comfortable.’

  She cast him a glance that expressed pure incredulity at the idea of being comfortable in his presence, then she crossed the room to sit on the sofa again. Beau dragged up a chair and sat opposite her, then pointed across to the portrait he’d just replaced and said without expression, ‘Was that your mother?’

  ‘My mother, yes.’ She was gazing at the picture. ‘My uncle—Hugh Palfreyman—was twelve when she was born, and my mother told me that he never forgave her for the fact that their mother died while giving birth to her. Eight years later, a winter fever carried their father also to his grave, and Hugh became the master of Hardgate Hall. My mother ran away when she was seventeen.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘I thought I’d told you, back at the inn. I gathered—though she spoke of it only rarely—that Palfreyman drove her away, with his coldness and his emotional cruelty.’ She looked up at him with her wide, anguished eyes. ‘And then—he banished her a second time when she visited him with me, years later.’

  ‘So she brought you here?’

  ‘When I was six.’

  ‘Had she come for money?’

  This time her look was full of contempt for him. ‘Far from it, Mr Beaumaris. She had come to propose a reconciliation, because she knew she was dying.’

  Now, that shook his composure at last. ‘She was what?’

  ‘She knew she was dying,’ she repeated. ‘Of a lung sickness. My mother thought—’ and a small, bitter laugh escaped her ‘—that Hugh Palfreyman might feel a little actual regret, if he heard some day that his only sister had died, while he and she were still estranged. I was six years old, and I shall never, ever forget that visit.’

  Silence fell, except for the distant steps of a servant carrying coals and hot water to some bedroom upstairs. ‘Please,’ said Beau. ‘Tell me more.’

  ‘Do you really want me to?’

  ‘I do.’

  He saw her shiver, then she continued, ‘My mother had put me in my very best dress for that visit. She had brushed my hair till it shone. She knew that she had only a few months to live, but I didn’t realise it at the time, though I used to be upset because she couldn’t stop coughing.’ Her gaze went to that picture, then she looked back at him. ‘I didn’t want to enter this big, strange house, even though my mother told me that her brother and his wife were bound to be kind to me.’

  ‘And were they?’ Beau prompted gravely.

  Her voice was steady again. ‘We were allowed in as far as the entrance hall. But my uncle stopped us there. My mother—her name was Emily—said something like, “This is my daughter, Hugh. My only daughter, Deborah. I thought you might have been thinking of her.” Hugh Palfreyman almost pushed her away. He said to her, “Thinking of you? Are you mad? You made your own choices, Emily. And now you’re no sister of mine. Get out of my house, and take your brat with you.”’

  Beau was silent for a moment. ‘So you and your mother had to leave? That was it?’

  ‘Almost,’ Deb said quietly.

  ‘Almost?’

  ‘Palfreyman told a footman to see us off the premises. We’d nearly reached the door, when suddenly Paulette appeared, with a woman who was her nurse. This nurse clearly realised that we weren’t to be spoken to, and tried to drag Paulette away.

  ‘I remember thinking, when I saw Paulette there in the entrance hall, how very pretty she was, and how lovely her clothes were. My mother had told me about my cousin the night before. “You are almost the same age,” my mother said to me. “And you might become friends.”

  ‘Paulette wore a turquoise dress trimmed with satin ruffles and lace—I can still picture it—and I smiled at her. But she scowled at me and said to her nurse, “Who is that dirty girl who’s staring at me so?”’

  Mr Beaumaris appeared to be absorbed in some unspoken thought or memory. ‘That sounds like Paulette,’ he said at last. ‘Did you leave after that?’

  ‘We left, yes. Although we were just setting off to walk away down the drive when the old housekeeper—she must have retired from here long ago—came hurrying after us with some little cakes. I remember her whispering to my mother, ‘‘The master, Miss Emily—he’s not changed one little bit. God bless you and your daughter!” My mother died six months later.’

  ‘But you still had your father?’

  ‘I had my stepfather, Gerald O’Hara. I don’t actually know who my real father was, and I have no desire to know. As far as I was concerned, Gerald was the best father I could hope to have, and the Lambeth Players were—are—my family.’

  She looked up at Beau with clear, open eyes. ‘I hate this house. I hate Hugh Palfreyman and his wife. And although I’ve promised that I’ll do exactly as you say, I’m...I’m afraid of going to London, as Paulette.’

  Beau thought to himself, This should have been easy, damn it. This girl—this travelling actress—was completely in his power thanks to her men’s assault on him. Anyone else would have been grateful for his leniency, and been eager to explore the opportunity her new situation would offer along the way. Any other woman might even have slyly tried to raise her price—one way or another.

  Instead she was sitting there in her boy’s clothes looking as if the proposal he’d made was every bit as bad as being thrown in gaol.

  He acknowledged now that he’d misjudged her, in many ways. He could see why she hated her uncle, and who could blame her? Hugh Palfreyman had treated both mother and daughter quite shamefully...

  And he himself, Damian Beaumaris, was treating her no better.

  His mouth hardened. He needed to do this. His whole life centred around doing this.

  ‘You will be in mourning,’ he reminded her sharply. ‘You will be a grieving widow, and in my care. You will be very much protected, in my London house—’

  ‘I’ll have to live with you?’

  ‘Where else? You’re my sister-in-law, after all. Though I’m afraid that in the circles in which I move it’s inevitable that you’ll face a certain amount of curiosity. Shall I remind you again of the story you must tell if questioned?’

  She sat down again and leaned back on the sofa. ‘If you wish.’

  ‘You were taken ill in January, three months after your wedding. There were, I believe, rumours of a miscarriage. You retreated to the countryside to convalesce. When the news was brought to you of your husband’s accidental death in April, the shock made you so overcome with grief that you weren’t even able to attend the funeral in London. Since then you’ve remained in rural retreat, too stricken to face
society. Will you be able to remember all that?’

  She said wearily, ‘I regularly have to remember whole plays, Mr Beaumaris.’

  He nodded. ‘I shall let it be known that at last you feel strong enough to come to town, to make your appearance as my brother’s grieving widow and to accept society’s condolences.’

  ‘And to reclaim those jewels,’ Deb added quietly.

  ‘And to reclaim the jewels.’ His voice was iron-hard again. ‘I told you, I think, that I’ve reason to believe Paulette left the jewels secretly in London before she went to Venice early in March. She perhaps did it as a kind of insurance for herself—in case her plans didn’t work out. It appears likely that Paulette gave them to a London jewel-dealer for safekeeping.’

  ‘But how do you know that? Oh, I was forgetting. Your minions.’ She was still looking at him in that way that unsettled him. ‘But I thought you said Paulette would never return to England.’

  ‘And nor will she—openly. But it’s just possible she might come to London secretly, to collect the jewels and return swiftly to her new husband, her new life. I want to make sure she doesn’t get them.’

  Deb felt a rush of sudden dread compressing her lungs. This man was pitiless. Heaven help anyone who was his enemy. ‘May I ask you a question, Mr Beaumaris? How many hours of sleep has Paulette Palfreyman cost you?’

  ‘I want justice for my brother,’ he replied.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ she answered him coolly. ‘It’s your pride making you do this. It’s my belief that you just cannot bear anyone getting the better of you.’

  Beau’s eyes were narrow slits. ‘My motives, Miss O’Hara, aren’t yours to question.’

  ‘But your strategy is, since I’m to play a major part in it! How can I seriously pretend to be Paulette?’ Her composure appeared to be cracking at last. She got to her feet and walked to and fro.

  He too rose and came slowly towards her, and she was utterly shaken by the lithe movement of his lean body, by the sense of his power and strength. She’d never met anyone like him, and she knew she was in deep, deep trouble.