Nicola Cornick Collection Page 13

  ‘His reputation is worse than mine,’ Jack said grimly, and saw her smile in mock-disbelief.

  ‘Surely that is impossible?’ she said sweetly.

  Jack caught Sally’s hand just as they entered the drawing room. ‘Don’t forget that for tonight you are engaged to me,’ he whispered, ‘or I may be obliged to remind you.’

  Sally’s beautiful hazel eyes opened very wide. ‘And how might you do that, Jack?’ she enquired, in an even sweeter tone.

  ‘By kissing you in front of everyone,’ Jack said, and watched with pleasure as the pink colour came into her cheeks.

  ‘You dare,’ she hissed.

  ‘Don’t tempt me …’

  They stared at one another, captured in both the fierce mutual attraction and the equally fierce mutual hostility they could see in each other’s eyes and only broke apart when Stephen Harrington came up, cleared his throat loudly, and drew them into the room to introduce them to the other dinner guests who had come to Dauntsey for the evening.

  Between fending off his aunt’s enquiries into his moral character, being polite to Stephen and Charley’s neighbours when he did not feel like it, and watching Gregory Holt flirt with his fiancée, Jack was in a vile mood by the end of dinner. The whole meal seemed interminable: consommé, oysters, champagne sorbet, trout, venison, trifle, cheese … Each course was more elaborate than the last and seemed to take hours to serve and even longer to consume. And through it all Jack could do nothing but glower at Gregory Holt as he chatted easily and with the greatest of pleasure to Sally.

  ‘Drown your sorrows in a glass of Tokay, old man,’ Stephen Harrington said in his ear as the ladies rose to leave the men to their drink. ‘Must say, you have got it bad. You’ve been watching Miss Bowes all through dinner. Never thought to see you brought so low!’

  ‘Holt annoys me,’ Jack said, through his teeth, watching as Gregory Holt took Sally’s hand and placed a kiss on the back of it in a gesture of laughing gallantry. ‘He has a damned nerve to do that to my fiancée!’

  ‘Oh, Greg’s harmless,’ Stephen said calmly. ‘He’s only doing it to spite you, old fellow, and because he has always held a candle for Miss Bowes. He was a protégé of her father, you know, and I understand he wanted Miss Bowes to run away with him when matters became particularly grim between herself and her late husband. Not,’ he added hastily, seeing Jack’s glare, ‘that she gave him the least encouragement.’

  ‘She didn’t tell me,’ Jack said. He could feel the shreds of his control slipping. So Gregory Holt was an old flame of Sally’s. Their situation was uncannily close to his elopement with Merle all those years ago. Except that Sally had had the good sense not to run away and provoke the desperate kind of situation that he and Merle had found themselves in. He took a deep breath. At least he knew they could not have been lovers, though probably not for want of trying on Holt’s part. He wanted to go straight over and confront the man about it but bearing in mind that Greg was some distant cousin of Stephen, they had known each other for years, and it was bad form to cause an affray at a country house party, that was probably not a good idea. What the hell was the matter with him? he wondered. Where had his self-control gone? He’d been a friend of Greg Holt since their schooldays and never had the slightest inclination to ram the other man’s teeth down his throat before now.

  ‘Well,’ Stephen said, giving him a sympathetic smile, ‘I understood from Charley that—strictly on the quiet—there is some doubt over whether Miss Bowes really is your fiancée, old man, so perhaps she did not see the need to tell you. Seems to me,’ he added, ‘that you could do with sorting out your romantic life properly, Jack, before you explode with frustration. Always thought you had a reputation for conquest, but you seem to be making a dashed mull of everything at the moment.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jack said ruefully, reflecting that Stephen had hit the nail on the head. Before he had met Sally Bowes he had had no problem controlling his frustrations or ordering his romantic life successfully.

  He looked up as Greg Holt put his hand on his shoulder. ‘A word, Kestrel?’

  The smile faded from Jack’s eyes as he took in the other man’s demeanour. Greg had always struck him as being the most easy-going of fellows, rather like Stephen himself, but now there was no good humour in his eyes. Holt looked as though he was itching to take Jack by the throat and throttle the life out of him.

  ‘With the licence of an old friend,’ Greg said, his mouth a thin line, ‘I have warned Miss Bowes against marrying you, Kestrel. You would make the devil of a husband.’

  Jack was already half out of his seat when Stephen grabbed his arm to restrain him.

  ‘Easy,’ Stephen muttered, and Jack allowed himself to relax infinitesimally.

  ‘It’s none of his damned business,’ he said, through gritted teeth.

  Holt inclined his head ironically. ‘Miss Bowes is unprotected. It is my business when I stand in the place of a brother to her.’

  ‘Brother!’ Jack exploded with disbelief.

  ‘Just so,’ Greg said. ‘I hope for your sake that you will be an exemplary fiancé, Kestrel, because I would hate to ruin our long friendship by putting a bullet through you.’

  And with a curt bow he walked away.

  Jack let out the breath that he realised he had been holding for the whole encounter.

  ‘Damn it, he was in earnest,’ Stephen said, staring after Holt, his glass of Tokay suspended halfway to his lips.

  ‘In deadly earnest,’ Jack agreed. He realised that Gregory Holt must have been in love with Sally for a very long time. He wondered why she had turned him down. Holt was rich, titled, the perfect catch for a good-time girl on the make. Even if she had run off with him and had to weather the scandal of divorce, they could have been married by now.

  Jack was accustomed in business to weighing evidence, making quick decisions, trusting his own judgement. He looked at Gregory Holt’s ramrod-straight back and furious demeanour and wondered what it was about Sally Bowes that seemed to command the loyalty of all the people whose lives she touched. It did not square with the evidence that he had uncovered about her. Perhaps it was time to confront her.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, knocking back the rest of his Tokay in one gulp, ‘it’s time to join the ladies. I want to talk to Sally.’

  ‘Wait a moment, old chap!’ Stephen protested. ‘It’s only ten minutes since dinner! They won’t want to see you yet. And that’s no way to treat my best wine—’

  But it was too late. Jack had gone.

  ‘So, my dear,’ Lady Ottoline said to Sally, patting the seat beside her, ‘come and sit with me.’ She gestured to the deck of cards on the table. ‘Do you play?’

  ‘A little,’ Sally said, thinking ruefully of the gaming tables at the Blue Parrot. She wondered how Dan was getting on in her absence. She trusted him completely, but with the opening of the Crimson Salon a mere few days away she was extremely nervous.

  ‘Then perhaps we may have a game of bezique later,’ Lady Ottoline said. ‘But first I want to talk about you—and about Jack. He tells me that you met at the Wallace Collection.’

  ‘Indeed we did,’ Sally said, wondering how much truth and how many lies Jack had mixed together to describe their relationship.

  ‘Well, at least you must be a cultured gel,’ Lady Ottoline said. ‘Buffy, the current Duke, is an utter philistine, but Jack has the making of a good custodian of the Kestrel collection as long as his cousin don’t sell it off before Jack inherits.’

  ‘The Duke has no children of his own?’ Sally said.

  ‘No.’ Lady Ottoline gave her a sharp look. ‘Buffy don’t like the girls. Robert, Jack’s father, is heir to the dukedom of Kestrel and Jack after him.’

  ‘I see,’ Sally said, thinking that Jack Kestrel really was a great catch for any woman prepared to put up with his vile temper and inability to love her.

  ‘I hope,’ Lady Ottoline said disagreeably, ‘that you are not going to pretend you did not
know you had caught the heir to a dukedom?’

  ‘I do not really care,’ Sally said, with extreme frankness. ‘When I choose to wed, Lady Ottoline, it is the man that matters to me, not his title or his money.’

  Lady Ottoline’s plucked brows shot up towards her diamond headdress. ‘Well, upon my word!’

  ‘Having been married once before,’ Sally continued, ‘I have to be extremely careful in my next choice.’ Suddenly she felt reckless. If she could shock Lady Ottoline into repudiating her, it would serve Jack right for his machinations. ‘I do not wish to make as ghastly a mistake second time around as I did the first time,’ she said. ‘So the selection of a new husband is of paramount importance to me. He must have integrity and wit and be faithful, honourable and never, ever bore me. That is all I ask.’

  There was a long silence. Sally selected a bonbon from the dish on the table in front of her and popped it into her mouth, before daring to steal a look under her lashes at Lady Ottoline. Her ladyship was regarding her with a very shrewd expression in her dark eyes.

  ‘I see,’ Lady Ottoline said. She frowned slightly. ‘Your name is familiar to me, Miss Bowes. Now, why would that be?’

  Sally glanced at Jack across the room. He and Stephen had rejoined the ladies a scandalously short ten minutes after dinner was finished, having certainly not had time to consume a leisurely glass of port or luxuriate in a cigar, but when he had shown every sign of wanting to speak with her, Lady Ottoline had told him curtly to take himself off.

  ‘I wish to talk to your fiancée, Jack,’ she had said imperiously. ‘You may speak to her later.’

  And so Jack had been obliged to make small talk with the other guests, but Sally was very conscious of his gaze resting on her from time to time, dark and serious but without the edge of anger that she had become accustomed to seeing there since their terrible confrontation that morning.

  ‘Miss Bowes?’ Lady Ottoline’s tone was sharp, but with a betraying edge of indulgence. ‘It is all very well to stare at one’s own fiancé, but I would like an answer as well, if you please.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, my lady,’ Sally said, hastily dragging her gaze away from Jack. ‘Perhaps you recognise my name because you have heard that I own the Blue Parrot, which is a nightclub on the Strand in London?’

  There was another silence whilst she waited for Lady Ottoline to explode with shock. Surely, this time, she had overstepped the mark. No respectable great-aunt could contemplate such an alliance for her nephew. But Lady Ottoline was made of sterner stuff. She pursed her lips and shook her head. There was a steely light in her eye now as though she had realised just what Sally was about and was determined to thwart her.

  ‘No, that wasn’t it,’ she said. Her dark eyes brightened. ‘Do you, though? How marvellous to own a nightclub! You must tell me all about it, Miss Bowes. I do admire a gel with a bit of spirit, having been one myself.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Sally said, realising she had underestimated the opposition. ‘I am sure that you were.’

  ‘You were married to Jonathan Hayward, were you not?’ Lady Ottoline said abruptly. ‘He was a dreadful cad, a total rotter. My late brother always said that it made him feel quite nauseous to think of him.’

  Sally laughed. She was starting to like Lady Ottoline rather a lot. ‘Thank you, my lady. He had much the same effect on me.’

  ‘We have much in common,’ Lady Ottoline said drily. ‘I suppose Jack thought I’d cut up rough if I knew all about your history?’ Her eyes gleamed with suppressed amusement. ‘Silly boy, just because I never married he must think I am as cosseted as a baby!’

  ‘I imagine he might have been a little wary of telling you,’ Sally said, smiling. She was enjoying this conversation a lot now. ‘After all, owning a nightclub is scarcely respectable, and nor is potential divorce.’

  ‘Well, who cares a fig about that?’ Lady Ottoline demanded. ‘Sometimes it is more fun to be scandalous. I remember my mama telling me that being respectable all the time was a dashed dull deal. She worked as a spy for the British government, you know, and eloped with her husband. She was quite a woman.’

  ‘I saw her picture at the Collection,’ Sally said. ‘She was stunningly beautiful.’ She smiled. ‘You were a very pretty child yourself, Lady Ottoline.’

  Lady Ottoline gave a spontaneous chuckle. ‘Changed a bit since then, eh!’

  ‘Not so much, I imagine,’ Sally said, smiling.

  Briefly Lady Ottoline’s beringed hand clasped Sally’s own. ‘I like you, Miss Bowes. I’m glad your experiences didn’t put you off men.’ She looked across at Jack. ‘Jack’s a good boy. You mustn’t listen to all the gossip about his past.’

  ‘He hasn’t told me much about that,’ Sally said truthfully.

  ‘Terrible scandal,’ Lady Ottoline said gruffly. ‘Ran off with a married woman when he was barely out of his teens. Robert banished him abroad, the fool. Not that I didn’t think Jack needed to grow up, but it was a terrible tragedy to cast him out like that. Broke his mother’s heart and Charlotte’s too.’

  ‘I am sorry for that,’ Sally said. ‘Charley is a lovely person.’

  ‘Well, she’s got him back now,’ Lady Ottoline said. She squeezed Sally’s hand. ‘You’ll be good for him, my dear. I can tell. And as I say, don’t listen to any gossip. He’ll tell you everything in his own good time.’

  Sally doubted it. Whatever had happened between Jack and his mistress was part of the dark secrets that he kept locked inside. There was a lump in her throat as she though how little she and Jack deserved Lady Ottoline’s good opinion.

  ‘What will I tell her?’

  Both Sally and Lady Ottoline jumped as Jack spoke from right beside them.

  ‘Shouldn’t go creeping up on deaf old ladies, nephew,’ Lady Ottoline said crossly, ‘or you’ll be enjoying my fortune before you know it.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘Perhaps that’s the plan, eh! Scare me into my grave and take the money!’

  ‘I’d prefer to enjoy your company rather than your money, Aunt Otto,’ Jack said, and Lady Ottoline looked pleased, although she did not say anything.

  ‘I thought,’ Sally said, ‘that it was Mr Basset who was your heir, ma’am, not Jack?’ She smiled challengingly at him. ‘Surely he has enough money of his own?’

  ‘I’ve decided that I don’t want to leave my money to that silly widgeon Bertie Basset,’ Lady Ottoline said astringently. ‘My money—I can do as I please with it. He would only spend it on gambling and loose women.’

  Jack caught Sally’s eye. A faint smile curled his firm mouth as though to remind her that Bertie had already done precisely that.

  ‘I’ve remembered!’ Lady Ottoline said triumphantly. ‘Knew I’d heard the Bowes name before. I heard your father speak once at the Sheldonian in Oxford. He was a fascinating speaker and a most talented architect.’ She glanced around. ‘I believe Gregory Holt was a pupil of his.’

  ‘He was.’ Sally could feel Jack’s gaze on her and was annoyed to feel herself blushing when she had nothing to blush about.

  ‘If you will excuse us, Aunt Otto,’ Jack said, ‘I wondered if I might take Sally for a short stroll on the terrace.’

  Lady Ottoline smiled. ‘Oh, very well. I suppose you may steal Miss Bowes away now.’ She looked up at him. ‘Seems you have more sense than I gave you credit for, nephew. I like your fiancée. The only miracle is that she likes you.’

  Sally avoided Jack’s gaze. He offered her his arm and she put her hand on it gingerly, as though it might burn her. She wished she were not so shockingly conscious of Jack’s physical presence. Her awareness of him always undermined her defences.

  ‘How the hell did you do that?’ Jack asked abruptly as they stepped through the door on to the darkened terrace. ‘She likes you more than she likes me!’

  ‘I answered her questions honestly,’ Sally said. She saw his look of patent disbelief and added, ‘That may surprise you, Mr Kestrel, given your opinion of me, but your great-aunt is a good
judge of character by my estimation, and she liked me.’

  She expected Jack to make some cutting remark, but he was silent; glancing at his face, she saw he looked pensive. They walked along the terrace to where the moat opened out into a broad lake fringed with reeds.

  ‘Gregory Holt warned me off a little while ago,’ Jack said, after a moment. ‘He told me that he was standing as your brother and if I hurt you he would kill me.’

  Sally shot him a look of surprise. She was not sure whether she was annoyed or amused at Greg’s interference.

  ‘He should mind his own business,’ she said. ‘He knows I can look after myself.’

  ‘So I thought,’ Jack said. He paused. ‘He is in love with you,’ he added, and there was an odd tone in his voice.

  ‘Yes,’ Sally said after a moment. ‘I suppose he is.’

  ‘Has he asked you to marry him?’

  ‘Now you should mind your own business,’ Sally said.

  Jack laughed and put a hand over hers where it rested on his arm. ‘It is my business. I am your fiancé.’

  ‘My temporary fiancé,’ Sally said. ‘Until tomorrow only.’

  ‘So my guess is that he proposed and you refused him,’ Jack said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Must you be so persistent?’ Sally let her breath out on a sigh. ‘I do not like you, Mr Kestrel, and I do not particularly wish to speak with you.’

  ‘Indulge me,’ Jack said. ‘I want to know.’

  Sally freed herself and went to stand on the edge of the terrace, looking out over the darkened garden where the topiary shapes were silhouetted against the deep blue of the summer night sky. She was very conscious of Jack, still and waiting, behind her.

  ‘I refused him because it would not be fair to make so unequal a match,’ she said, after a moment.

  ‘In terms of wealth and status?’ Jack sounded incredulous. ‘But you are a baronet’s daughter.’

  ‘I was speaking in terms of affection,’ Sally said. ‘Not everything can be measured in pounds and pennies, Mr Kestrel.’