Chapter Three
Daniel Carstairs, the Fourth Earl of Rivington, had been drinking champagne with his house guests since lunchtime.
They were all men born to wealth and privilege, and during the two weeks they’d been here they had gone into the town most nights to drink at the inns and play cards for high stakes at Raggett’s club.
Dan had told himself he was having fun, though in the dark hours of the night, he wasn’t at all sure that he was.
But when some of his friends had suggested he hold a party, Dan had agreed.
More staff were hired, champagne and refreshments were ordered and there was no shortage of extra guests to invite because many of the London ton had already flocked here for the summer.
They weren’t short of female company either, because several of the men had invited the kind of women who came to parties like this with the intention of having fun rather than hunting marriage proposals.
The one called Bea, with her black hair and knowing eyes, had singled out Dan from the start. ‘My goodness,’ she’d said when she arrived, ‘aren’t you the handsome one? But you look sad. I can soon change all that.’
He wasn’t sad, Dan wanted to tell her. He was angry. Furious, in fact.
He was twenty-eight years old, and he led the kind of life people expected of a man of high rank.
No one had ever imagined he would marry for some time yet.
Indeed, most knew that his upbringing had not encouraged a fervent desire for matrimonial devotion, since his mother had fled to France with her lover when Dan was only nine and his brother even younger.
The boys’ father, bereft and bitter, had packed the boys off to their boarding school the day their mother left for France, and after that it was clear he could hardly bear the sight of them.
He said they reminded him of his wife’s treachery.
Dan was twenty-three when his father died and he became the new Earl.
His younger brother, Oliver, showed no inclination to marriage, so Dan knew that someday it was imperative he married for heirs and was aware of the kind of wife he should choose.
She would be a debutante who would match him in wealth and distinction; she would provide him with sons and would be an excellent Society hostess.
He needed, in other words. a marriage of convenience—but not yet, he kept telling himself.
He had no desire to submit himself to a lifelong commitment that he’d seen could often bring misery.
Everyone knew of Dan’s reluctance to marry, which was why his engagement to Cecily last year had been a Society sensation.
Lady Cecily Thorburn was a widow in her late twenties whose husband had left her a pretty house in Mayfair and a most generous income.
Had Dan loved her? He had been temporarily infatuated, that was for sure, and they’d soon become intimate, since Society was tolerant of a widow’s discreet taking of a lover.
Gradually Cecily had convinced Dan of her devotion, and in addition to being skilled in bed, she had all the social attributes a man of his rank could require in a wife.
When they became engaged, she begged Dan to have a house built in the fashionable resort of Brighton—but last month, when the house was finished and their wedding only weeks away, Dan had discovered Cecily in bed with a young army captain.
It was just the once, she told him. She swore it was a terrible mistake.
She begged him to forgive her, but Dan, furious though he was, realised it was his pride that was hurt, not his heart.
Even in the depths of his anger he recognised that he had never loved her, and the wedding was cancelled.
‘We have mutually decided,’ he told everyone, ‘that we would not suit.’
Naturally there was gossip, and Cecily was privately devastated, but she knew better than to fight Dan’s decision, since her reputation was the one that would be ruined if Dan revealed the truth.
So once more the debutantes began stalking Dan, but to no avail.
I’m not giving up my way of life yet, Dan told himself.
He had never spoken to anyone about Cecily’s betrayal, but he was furious that he had allowed her to trick him.
Tonight, at his party, he’d decided that Bea was exactly the kind of woman he needed for now—a woman who would demand neither commitment nor promises of eternal devotion, and that was fine, because he wasn’t prepared to give any.
As the party grew wilder, he assured himself that he was having fun.
When someone had suggested that each of the women throw jewellery into the lake for the men to retrieve in return for certain favours, Dan was a willing volunteer.
He was a free man again, and Bea was making it quite plain what she was after, so what could go wrong?
The arrival of this intruder and her companion, that was what.
Miss Summerby’s shapeless brown gown made her look as if she’d already adopted spinsterhood with a vengeance.
Her friend was watching him in a way he was more used to—in other words, with considerable female interest—but the lady in brown was still looking daggers at him.
‘My lord,’ she declared at last, ‘I cannot believe you are telling me the truth. My aunt would never have given permission for this to happen to her land!’
At his side Bea giggled again. ‘Hark at her, Dan. Who on earth does she think she is?’
‘Bea,’ he said, ‘go back to the party, will you? Leave this to me.’
Bea sulkily hitched up the bodice of her gown to cover her breasts and returned to the others.
Dan’s guests were playing another game they’d devised, where the men threw the women’s hair ribbons or garters high on to a larger than life-sized statue of Hercules for the women to clamber up and reclaim.
They were all shrieking with laughter while the footmen scurried among them with trays of champagne, and Miss Honeywood’s niece looked dismayed by the whole scene.
Especially, Dan guessed, by the sight of him in nothing but his soaking wet boots and breeches.
‘My aunt loved the peace of her land,’ she said at last. ‘The woods and the wildness of it. All this would have broken her heart.’
Dan was starting to feel angry. Who did she think she was, this odd nobody who had arrived out of the blue to castigate both him and his friends? He said, ‘Are you accusing me of lying about a perfectly legal transaction?’
Her hands, he noted, were clenched tightly now. ‘I still find it impossible, my lord, to accept that she could have sold her precious land to you. Especially as there is no wall or fence to mark a legal boundary!’
‘That’s because I’m awaiting a delivery of Portland stone. If you’ve the magical powers to conjure it up, I would build a wall immediately.’
‘If I had magical powers,’ she muttered, ‘I’d make the lot of you vanish into thin air—and that monstrosity of a house as well.’
He put his hands on his hips. ‘Too bad for you, then, that you haven’t those powers. I repeat—I did not cheat your aunt, and anyway, who are you to cast judgement?’
This woman had inherited Jemima Honeywood’s house, and yet she didn’t appear to know a thing about her aunt’s final years!
He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal.
‘I really have no wish to debate the matter further. All I can say is—this property is mine now, and you have no right to be here. I recommend that you leave.’
She was silent a moment. Then she said, quietly but steadily, ‘I am going nowhere, Lord Rivington, until you promise to show me proof of your legal right to this land.’
Damn. She was going to be trouble. She was also well-spoken and, heeding the old advice to know your enemy, he found himself inspecting her more closely.
What he saw surprised him rather, because she had dark-lashed, wide-set green eyes that sparked with defiance.
Her hair was silvery-blonde and he guessed that with some attention to her awful clothing, she could actually be quite pretty.
But it was clear she was one of those women who had no intention of attracting any man, least of all him.
Miss Summerby. He’d noted that. Perhaps she was bitter because she’d failed to find a husband.
He folded his arms across his bare chest, knowing it really was time he put his shirt back on. ‘So you are doubting my word,’ he said coolly. ‘Very well. I shall call on you tomorrow with the relevant legal documents. I take it you won’t have any pressing social engagements elsewhere?’
It was a sarcastic jibe, but she didn’t flinch. ‘I shall,’ she said, ‘be ready for your visit. Come, Harriet. It’s time for us to leave.’
She turned to go and with her first few steps he noticed that she walked with a slight limp. Had she perhaps injured herself recently? But he had no time to wonder further, because some of his guests had come to join him, led by Angus Gascoyne.
Gascoyne had arrived from London a week ago and had been drunk every night since.
Now he was pointing at Miss Summerby’s departing figure and asking, ‘Who the devil is that prim miss, Dan? Bea told us she was cross with you, but maybe she and her friend just wanted to join in the fun.’ Gascoyne cupped his hands and called out, ‘Hey, don’t go!
You can always come and try your luck with me, you know.
I don’t like to see any lady feeling lonely! ’
Dan saw Jemima’s niece halt and turn to face Gascoyne. ‘Oh,’ she said, widening her eyes. ‘An invitation! How sweet!’
Gascoyne looked taken aback. ‘Well, yes, you could call it that, I suppose.’
‘Yet I fear, sir, that I must refuse.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘You see, I believe you are very drunk. That must be the case—because otherwise, I think you would have noticed that the buttons of your breeches are undone.’
Gascoyne grabbed furiously at his crotch. ‘Eh? What?’