Chapter Thirteen
By the time Reuben left Farrah as close to Dalton House as he could manage without the possibility of their being seen together, bright sunshine prevailed once more and the storm might almost never have been.
‘I assume you will spend the day examining your estate accounts once you have dried yourself off,’ he said, jumping from Brandon’s back and then lifting her down. He placed his hands on her slim waist for that purpose and saw no pressing need to remove them again quickly.
‘That was my intention,’ she replied, looking anywhere other than at him but making no attempt to release herself from his hold.
Reuben smiled at this confirmation of her inexperience and felt ashamed for the erroneous conclusions he had drawn about her conduct.
She looked bedraggled and yet temptation personified.
Ye gods, what was he to do about his growing awareness of the chit!
What was it about her that he found so damned appealing?
Sighing, he removed his hands from her waist and resisted the urge to kiss the end of her snub nose.
Instead, he picked up a strand of sodden hair and tucked it gently behind her ear.
‘Get away with you before I forget myself completely,’ he growled.
She blinked up at him and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I do not understand,’ she said.
‘I know.’ Reuben turned slightly away from her.
It was safer that way. He could think, after a fashion, when not distracted by the blinding faith she clearly felt in his abilities.
‘Is there somewhere on the estate where we can meet to discuss the accounts without your mother and sister being aware?’
‘What?’
He turned back to see her shake her head, clearly perplexed, which Reuben knew was his fault.
His behaviour had confused her and perhaps given her expectations.
He adjured himself to remain focused on their joint purpose.
The fact that no other young lady had managed to procure his attention and hold it for more than five minutes was neither here nor there.
Reuben was obliged to consider the wider picture and ignore his growing interest in the alluring, complicated and occasionally exasperating Lady Farrah Dalton.
If her father had involved himself in something illegal and was in over his head, which seemed increasingly likely, then the rest of his family would be ruined by association and ostracised by society.
It was a sobering thought that helped to bring Reuben to his senses.
The reputation of the duchy was everything to him and he would not knowingly do anything to risk bringing censure upon it.
Not that he was thinking the unthinkable, but he had been dealt a timely reminder that being born into a position of privilege sometimes came at a high personal cost.
‘Yes,’ she said, tilting her head and sending him a curious look, presumably because his concern showed in his expression as he drifted off into a reverie of personal regret while he awaited her response.
‘There is an empty woodman’s cottage about a quarter of a mile in that direction.
’ She pointed. ‘It is the only structure on that part of the estate and since we have no keepers, no one has any reason to go anywhere near it. We will be assured of privacy there.’
‘In that case, I will meet you there tomorrow at noon,’ he replied, wondering about the wisdom of knowingly entering into an engagement that would put them alone.
Her mother was supposedly anxious to locate her missing husband and so there was absolutely no reason for him not to meet with Farrah in the house and openly discuss the situation in Lady Dalton’s presence.
Except there was every reason.
Lady Dalton’s first consideration was not for her husband’s return to the family fold.
She had greater ambitions, and unless Reuben had lost all sense of reason her intention was to marry Sophia off – preferably to him – employing whatever tactics she deemed necessary to bring that union about.
For that reason alone, Reuben had absolutely no intention of entering Dalton House and placing himself at the mercy of a desperate and manipulative female.
‘Very well,’ she replied. ‘I shall see you then.’
‘Will that give you sufficient time to continue researching the books?’
‘Ample, I am sure, but now you really must excuse me. Mama will eventually realise that I have been missing for a long time, and I would prefer not to have to answer her intrusive questions about my activities. Or worse, indulge in a falsehood.’
Reuben raised her gloved hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. ‘Until tomorrow then, and once again I apologise for jumping to erroneous conclusions.’
She smiled, then turned away from him to walk the remaining short distance to Dalton House, not once looking back.
When she had disappeared from sight, Reuben remounted and pushed Brandon into a canter as he turned him in the direction of home. Mud flew up from his hooves as he ate up the ground with his long stride, Percival loping alongside.
Before meeting with Farrah the following day, Reuben needed to know a great deal more about Templeton’s association with Dalton ? if there was one.
It didn’t do, Reuben knew, to take anything Templeton said at face value.
There was every possibility that he had invented his history with Farrah’s father in order to get her alone and make her desperate for his help.
Reuben ground his jaw at that very real possibility, aware that confronting him now from a position of weakness would be a miscalculation.
As things stood, he had nothing specific to accuse him of other than being a bounder.
Worse, he concluded, slowing Brandon to a trot as he neared his own stableyard, it would prove that Farrah had confided in him, effectively telling Templeton that his relationship with his neighbour was more than …
well, neighbourly. And it so very easily could be, Reuben conceded, which explained why he’d been fit to be tied when he saw her voluntarily meet Templeton alone.
His adversary had clearly noticed that certain something about Farrah that set her apart from the others and had played upon her desperation in order to make her dependent upon him.
In all respects.
Reuben felt his anger rising as he contemplated the man’s audacity.
He and Templeton had been on friendly enough terms prior to Reuben acceding to the dukedom, but that had changed when Templeton failed to honour a gambling debt in a timely fashion.
Reuben’s poor opinion of the earl was cemented when he openly boasted in male company about having compromised a pretty housemaid in his employ.
Reuben subsequently discovered that he had thrown her out when her condition became apparent.
Reuben knew it was not uncommon for unscrupulous men to take advantage of their servants, but in the event of their impregnating them, there was a code of conduct that required them to support them financially.
Templeton hadn’t done so, claiming the situation was not of his making since the girl was friendly with a footman and the brat she carried could well have been fathered by him.
He would have succeeded in turning his back on her but for the fact that the girl’s brother worked as a keeper on Reuben’s estate.
He came to Reuben with the sorry tale and wild ideas about getting his revenge upon Templeton.
Reuben knew the young man would finish up swinging for his crime if he laid so much as a finger on Templeton, so he took up the fight in his stead, insisting that Templeton find the girl a cottage and ensuring that he paid for her and his child to live modestly.
Templeton turned the air blue with his protests, telling Reuben to mind his own damned business.
But as a duke, and through his connection via the brother to the girl’s family, it was very much his business, and both men knew it.
Templeton grudgingly did the right thing and Reuben had told her brother to let him know if the support dried up.
He visited the girl occasionally to ensure that Templeton had kept his word.
It transpired that the girl, Alice, had been a senior parlourmaid, a position she had risen to despite her youth, since she was bright, articulate and very pretty.
Reuben understood why Templeton had noticed her, but he had made no allowance for the fact that Alice was intelligent.
He apparently spoke indiscreetly in front of her when entertaining his friends and she understood everything that was said.
She told Reuben that despite his ostentatious show of wealth, he was always short of funds and not above using devious means to increase his fortune.
That was why Reuben had no trouble in believing that he had either been drawn into Dalton’s moneymaking scheme, or more likely drawn Dalton into one of his own.
They were kindred spirits in that respect, but Reuben had decided against telling Farrah what he knew about the man’s character, at least for the time being.
He needed to find out a little more about his schemes first, and he knew just how to go about it.
Arriving home, he strode through the kitchen door and took the servants’ stairs to the first floor. Divesting himself of his wet clothing, he absently redressed himself and retreated to his library, summoning his brother by rapping at his door as he passed it.
‘Wake up, Ezra,’ he shouted, accurately guessing that his brother would be snoozing the afternoon away. ‘You’re needed.’
‘No peace for the well behaved,’ Ezra replied, emerging from his room with dishevelled hair, yawning behind his hand.
Ensconced in Reuben’s library with Percival stretched full length in front of the fire, snoring softly as his wet coat steamed, Reuben related the events of the morning to his brother.