The Regency Season: Wicked Rakes: How to Disgrace a Lady / How to Ruin a Reputation. Bronwyn Scott
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An image of Alixe’s face, alight with excitement over the translation, came to mind. Tonight had been an unlooked-for surprise. He’d not expected to enjoy the work so much. In fact, there’d been a point where he’d forgotten about the stupid wager altogether. For Alixe’s sake, he couldn’t forget himself like that again. To a woman of her standards, it wouldn’t matter that while many of the rumours were true, a few of the most damaging were false.
* * *
Alone in his room, Archibald Redfield drank a silent toast. St Magnus would be gone by sunrise. A man like him had no particular code of honour. With the matrimonial noose dangling over his head, St Magnus would run as fast as he could, leaving the path to Alixe open. Archibald would be on that path, ready to approach Folkestone with an offer to rescue Alixe. Who knew what kind of rumours St Magnus would spread? It had been an expensive victory, but worth it. In one move, he’d managed to eliminate St Magnus from the house party and he’d put Alixe Burke in a corner from which he would gallantly offer to rescue her.
Archibald took another swallow of brandy. An engagement would scotch any blemish to Alixe’s reputation. Archibald was certain after this last débâcle, Folkestone would be eager to marry Alixe off to the first man who asked, even if he was a mere mister, and Archibald would be there, only too ready to comply. Folkestone would be grateful and that could be useful, too, in perpetuity. Everything was working out brilliantly at last. He couldn’t make Alixe marry him, but Folkestone could.
* * *
‘You cannot make me marry anyone,’ Alixe said evenly, matching her father glare for glare across the expanse of his polished mahogany desk. So, this was his plan, the plan she’d waited all night to hear. Merrick St Magnus was to marry her or find someone else to do the deed for him. It was implicitly understood that was the only reason for being made over into the Toast of London.
‘I can and I will. We’ve tolerated your foibles long enough,’ came the reply.
Her foibles? Alixe’s temper rose. ‘My work is important. I am restoring history about our region. This is as much the history of Kent as it is the history of our family.’ Her family knew that. ‘You think it’s important as long as Jamie’s the one doing it.’
‘It’s not appropriate for a woman. No man wants a woman who is more interested in ancient manuscripts than she is in him.’ Her father stood up and strode around the desk. ‘I know what you’re thinking, miss. You’re thinking somehow you’ll get out of this, that you’ll reject every suitor St Magnus finds and you’ll find a way to run him off at the very last. If you do that, I’ll cut you off without a penny and you can see exactly how it is for a woman on her own in this world without the protection of a man’s good name.’
That was precisely what she was thinking: the driving-the-suitors-away part anyway. The last bit worried her. Her father would do it, too. He was furious this time. If it was possible, he was even more furious over this than he had been about her rejection of Viscount Mandley.
She had to throw him a proverbial bone if she meant to renegotiate this. ‘I’ll go to London after the house party and finish out the rest of the Season, without St Magnus.’ That should appease him.
‘No. You’ve had a chance, more than one chance, to turn London to your favour.’ Her father sighed, but she did not mistake it for a sign that he might be relenting. ‘The arrangement isn’t all bad. St Magnus has a certain savoir-faire to him; he’s stylish and charming and he’s risky without being a full-fledged black rake, although he skates pretty close to the edge. Being with him will bring you a cachet of your own, it will help others see you in a different, in a better light. There’s no real chance of actually marrying him, thank goodness. Use him and drop him, Alixe, if he’s so distasteful to you. Everyone has a place in this world. It’s time you learned yours.’
So much for her father’s version of sympathy.
Alixe cast a beseeching glance her mother’s direction, only to receive a slow shake of the head. ‘Your father and I are together on this, Alixe.’ No help from that quarter. Perhaps she could cajole Jamie into pleading her case. There were any number of stories he could likely tell that would persuade her father to keep her as far from St Magnus as possible.
‘One more thing,’ her father added. ‘We are to say nothing of this to Jamie. It would create a grievous rift in his friendship. We’ve all agreed to keep this incident quiet.’ There went her last hope. Now all that was left was to appeal directly to St Magnus. Surely he was no more enamoured of the tangle they found themselves in than she was.
It was over. Her bid for freedom was truly over this time. Alixe sank down on a stone bench in the flower garden, setting her empty basket beside her. She was in no mood to pick flowers for the vases in the house, but it gave her a useful excuse to be away from the gaiety of the party. Most of the guests were still lingering over breakfast before preparing to ride out on a jaunt to the Roman ruins.
Her father had meant it this time. There would be no reprieve. In all honesty, he’d been generous in the past. He’d tolerated—she couldn’t say forgiven—tolerated her rejection of Mandley and, before that, her rejection of the ridiculous Baron Addleborough. He’d tolerated—she couldn’t say supported—what he viewed as her oddities: her preference for books and meaningful academic work. She knew it had all been done in the hope that she’d come around and eventually embrace a more traditional, accepted life.
Only it hadn’t worked out that way. Instead of deciding to embrace society on her own after realising the supposed error of her ways, she’d retreated. The retreat had started simply. At first, it had been enough to stay in the country and devote her efforts to her history. Then it had become easier and easier to not go back at all. Or perhaps it had become harder to go back. Here, she was less bound by the conventions of fashion and rules under the censorious eyes of society. Here she could avoid the realities of an empty, miserable society marriage. Here, she was happy.
Mostly.
The truth was, for all the solace the country offered, she’d been restless even before St Magnus’s foolish wager. She’d spent the summer roaming the countryside, looking for...something. Restlessness and loneliness were the apparent going prices for the relative freedoms afforded by the isolation of the countryside. Now, all of that was about to change and not for the better. She should be more careful what she wished for.
‘There you are.’
Ah, her unlikely fairy godmother had come to make a silk purse out of sow’s ear. She met St Magnus’s easy demeanour with a hard stare. In that moment she hated him, truly hated him. After a night that had upended whatever future he had imagined for himself, he looked refreshed and well dressed, a rather striking contrast to the picture she knew she presented with her dark circles and plain brown gown.
She hadn’t slept at all and she hadn’t taken any pains this morning to disguise the fact. But St Magnus was impeccably attired for riding in buff breeches, polished boots and deep forest-green jacket. The morning sun glinted off his hair, turning it platinum in the bright light. It was the first time that she had noticed his hair was almost longer than convention dictated, hanging in loose waves to his shoulders, but not nearly long enough to club back. Or was it? Hmmm.
‘Is something wrong with my face?’ St Magnus enquired, lifting a hand tentatively to his cheek.
‘No.’ Alixe hastily dragged her thoughts to the present. Wondering about his hair would serve no purpose, no useful purpose anyway.
‘Good. I’ve come to discuss our predicament.’ St Magnus set her empty basket on the ground and sat down uninvited beside her on the little bench. She was acutely aware of his nearness in the small space and of the other time they’d been so close.
‘Do you think this is a good idea?’ She tried to slide apart, but there was no place left to slide.
‘Discussing