“She wants two thousand pounds, devil take her,” Freddie lamented. “If I cannot come up with the blunt, she’s threatened to go to my father. You must save me, Rayne. Not only will my quarterly allowance be cut off, I’ll be banished to the wilds of Yorkshire.”
It was not an idle threat, Rayne suspected, knowing Freddie’s high-stickler sire. If Lord Wainwright learned of his son’s rakish escapades with the Frenchwoman, he would doubtless cut him off without a penny.
Thus when Freddie had written and implored him for help, Rayne had willingly extricated himself from the house party in Brighton where he was dancing attendance on his grandmother.
Since their early school days together at Eaton, he’d shielded Freddie from bullies and the sly cruelties that boys perpetrate on one another. It was a habit that continued through Oxford and long into their adulthood—in part because Rayne had always had an outsized protective streak from the time he was a mere youth, but also because he felt obligated by Freddie’s connection to his late mother’s family. And in truth, Freddie was charming, good-natured, fiercely loyal, and often entertaining, if not overly bright. Furthermore, his cheerful optimism was the perfect antidote to the darkness and death Rayne saw far too frequently in his career.
However, he barely had time to reassure Freddie of his intention to save him from the widow’s attempt at blackmail before Madeline Ellis reappeared in the doorway. She had spent little time dressing—doubtless in an effort to be prompt, Rayne suspected.
Scanning her drab attire, however, made him frown. She wore a plain brown cloak and black bonnet that did nothing to enhance her pale complexion, while her black-gloved hands carried a small bandbox in addition to the greatcoat he’d loaned her.
Inexplicably, Rayne couldn’t help feeling a measure of guilt that she had fallen on hard times, even though he was certainly not responsible. But his protective streak had asserted itself powerfully in her case. Honor, too, would not permit him to abandon the daughter of the army officer who’d once saved his life. At the very least he intended to shield her from the Baron Ackerbys of the world.
“I am ready, Lord Haviland,” she murmured a little breathlessly.
“Then we should be on our way,” he answered, rising along with Freddie.
After donning the greatcoat she returned to him, Rayne escorted Miss Ellis down to his waiting carriage. When she stepped out into the chill, foggy night, she shivered—and when he put a hand at her back to guide her to his waiting coach, he realized the likely reason.
“Your cloak is wet through,” he commented, his tone holding disapproval.
“Yes. I was caught in a rainstorm this afternoon.”
Rayne immediately called to his coachman to stow her bandbox and provide her with a carriage lap robe, then handed her inside. After speaking briefly to Freddie to ensure he would follow them, Rayne settled on the seat opposite her.
She had removed her cloak and bonnet, he saw in the light of the interior lamp, and had wrapped the woolen blanket snugly around her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she murmured as the coach began to move. “That was kind of you.”
“You needn’t keep thanking me, Miss Ellis,” Rayne said more sharply than he intended, disliking her gratitude as much as she disliked having to accept it.
She stiffened almost imperceptibly
before saying rather tartly, “Very well, I won’t.”
At her retort, Rayne reminded himself that she was not precisely a damsel in distress. Madeline Ellis was no meek, submissive miss. Indeed, she was feisty and brave and, apparently, every inch her father’s daughter.
It was almost amusing that she looked so staid and unassuming, he decided.
“Why the black garb?” he asked about her unbecoming bombazine gown as the well-sprung coach settled into a gently rocking rhythm.
“I am wearing mourning in honor of my late employer,” she replied.
Her attire was appropriate to a governess or a companion, he supposed. Additionally, she now wore her hair pulled tightly back from her face in a coiled braid, with no curls to soften the angular lines of her features. The severe effect was rather unbecoming, yet her large gray eyes saved her from being completely plain. And her full, red-ripe lips were sin itself.
Rayne shifted uncomfortably in his seat, remembering the taste of those sensual lips and her ardent response. From outward appearances he never would have guessed such a colorless-looking creature would have such a passionate nature.
He regretted his own lustful physical response to her, however. In the interest of distracting his mind, Rayne decided he might as well occupy the hour-long journey learning more about her.
“Your mother was French, I understand?”
A soft smile curved her lips. “Yes. Maman’s parents fled the Revolution and settled near Chelmsford in Essex, a district that is heavily populated with émigrés. She met my father there when he was on leave from the Army, and they were married a fortnight later. It was a case of love at first sight, yet the haste was also necessary since he had to return to his post.”
“I thought your father owned a farm.”
“He did … an inheritance from his late uncle, which was passed down to my brother. But it is neither very large nor very profitable. I lived there until I was eighteen, when my father died, but with Gerard to support and his schooling to fund, I decided to seek outside employment in order to make ends meet. And Lady Talwin’s estate was only three miles away.”
“Can you not return now to your farm to live?”