TWENTY
When Sara came into the drawing room, she still looked peaked, but Reath was so relieved to see her up that he paid no attention to it.
“Miss Whately, I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you looking so well.”
Sara smiled up at him as he took her hands. “Thank you, sir I am feeling much better, thanks to your extreme good care.”
She led him to the sofa and sat down in a way that it was obvious that she wanted him to sit next to her.
“Now was it my imagination, or did you not call me Sara after I had fallen?”
Reath was caught off guard for a moment, but then gave her a small apologetic smile. “I do beg your pardon. In my concern for your well-being, I might have inadvertently called you by your given name.”
“You need not beg for my forgiveness. I would like you to call me by my name, and I shall call you Reath, if you do not mind. I am certain that calling you Sinclair would be much too intimate, would it not?” She smiled sweetly at him.
Reath felt his face relax into a smile. He felt drawn to her in a way he could not explain. Her behavior was much more kind and gentle than he had ever seen before. It was much more . . .
Reath sought for the word he was looking for . . . normal. That was it. She was acting like a normal female, not the strong, sometimes abrasive young lady he had come to know. Perhaps this knock on her head had somehow changed her.
“My closest friends call me Sin, but I believe Reath would be just fine.”
Reath wasn’t sure, but he thought she was batting her eyelashes at him. Either that or she had something in her eye.
“And is there a reason why they call you Sin? Some youthful folly—or your reputation, perhaps?” she said looking up at him from under her eyelashes, which she had now stopped fluttering.
Reath felt his lips twitch at her innuendo but he held back his laughter, certain that she knew nothing about what she was implying. And he was definitely not going to tell this young innocent about his sinful past.
“No, it is simply the first syllable in my name.”
“Oh.”
Was it possible that she looked disappointed?
She looked down at her hands. “You know, you have never told me much about yourself. I told you all about my childhood last week at my aunt’s Venetian breakfast. But you somehow managed to tell me very little about your past. All I truly know about you is that you are a viscount.”
There was something definitely odd here. Sara Whately had never even hinted that she was interested in him, let alone shown any curiosity about his life.
The hair on the back of his neck prickled, warning him that something was afoot. His instincts had never been wrong in this regard. And yet here was a beautiful young woman wanting him to tell her about himself and ready to hang on his every word. What more could any man want?
“What is it that you want to know, Sara?”
Sara shrugged and then looked up at him with wide innocent eyes. “I don’t know. Tell me about your interests, your hobbies. Do you hunt? Gamble? Own race horses? Do you consider yourself more of a Corinthian or a dandy?”
Reath laughed. “I suppose I might fall more into the Corinthian category, but I am no longer so much of a sportsman.”
“Were you?” Sara asked, moving herself closer to him.
“Oh, yes, at one point in my life. Merry, Fungy, and I were quite well known for challenging other young gentlemen to races and other such tomfoolery,” Reath said, beginning to feel rather warm. He looked over at the fireplace, but it was empty. The heat was not coming from there.
Sara laughed a sweet tinkling little laugh. “And did you win?”
“Of course! We always won.”
“But you do not race any more? Why not?”
Reath thought about the last race he had run—he had won a race to Bath and back and had then taken his winnings to the card tables at Brooks. There, his luck held out, but that of Lord Wynsham had not.
Reath forced the smile back on to his face. “I do not gamble any more. I suppose I lost a taste for it.”
“I see.”
There was an awkward silence. Sara smiled up at him again and said, “Then tell me about your estates. Do you own more than one?”
“I own three. Rathergreen is my family’s seat. Then there are two other smaller estates that I own,” he said, deliberately not naming Wyncort.
“Are any of them close to London?” She leaned closer to him. As she did so, the low neckline of her dress gaped open a bit to show her soft white flesh, which disappeared into the dark recesses of the fine white cotton bodice.
Reath swallowed and pulled his eyes from her bosom, forcing himself to focus on her face. It was indeed a lovely face, although there were two spots of color on her cheeks just now. But that only emphasized her full pink lips and her vibrant blue eyes.
Reath wondered why she was flushed.
“I enjoyed myself so much out in the country yesterday,” Sara continued. “It would be lovely if we could do it again—only perhaps we could lunch at your estate instead of a public inn?”
Even knowing that she was up to something, Reath could not help but admire the beautiful, delicately feminine woman sitting so close to him. Her subtle scent of roses teased his senses, and he realized with chagrin that she was not smelling of lemons today. Her soft womanly body was mere inches from his hands, which he had clasped tightly against his legs. It would be so easy to reach out and . . .
He stood up abruptly and moved as far away from her as he could while still being polite. He knew that it was obvious that she had affected him. He rested one foot on the empty fire grate to hide his discomfort. Then he quickly analyzed the situation.
She was being much too transparent in her attempts. Reath suddenly felt as if someone had slapped him in the face, forcing him to wake up to the reality of the situation he was in. Sara was trying to use her womanly wiles in order to influence him.
Perhaps she had thought to be coy by asking about his hobbies and having that lead to his gambling. But when that didn’t work, she had turned to asking about his estates. They both led to one thing—Wyncort.
Now that he allowed himself to acknowledge this truth, it was as obvious as it was painful to see. He was amazed at how hurt and stunned he was that she would do this.
Yet she was a woman, and she was simply using him to further her own ends, just like every other woman he had ever known. He felt betrayed.
He had thought that she was different, but she wasn’t. How could he have been so taken in? His anger at her attempts to trick him was growing rapidly.
He had thought that he loved this woman. He had been planning on proposing to her this very afternoon. What a fool he was! She had played him so well, he hadn’t even seen it coming.
“How dare you!” he snarled, not even trying to hide his anger. “How dare you attempt to use me! Your feeble attempts at using your feminine wiles will not work. Yes, you were convincing for a few moments, but you went too far.”
He felt his hands clench into fists. He could barely hold on to his sudden rage. “Why, you are no better than the lowest light skirt! A trollop, that is what you are. You should be ashamed of yourself! Displaying your body to me, batting your eyelashes and practically sitting in my lap, as if you were trying to convince me to take you to my bed.
“Or is that indeed what you want?” It took only three long strides and he was standing directly in front of her.
Her mouth was hanging open, and her bright blue eyes looked up at him, filled with undisguised fear and unshed tears. Her entire face was bright red with embarrassment.
He reached down and grabbed her arm, hauling her up onto her feet. Roughly he crushed his lips to hers. How he wanted her. To touch that beautiful soft body she had been displaying to him just moments before. Reath could now feel his heart pounding, hear the blood rushing through his veins. He was filled with a desire that demanded immediate release.
Somehow reason still held sway in his brain. She was an innocent.
She had to learn, however, that she was playing with fire and she would get burned. He forced his tongue into her mouth and pressed his hard body to hers. But there he stopped. He did not truly want to hurt her, just to give her a good scare.
She pushed hard against his chest and he let her go.
“No! No, that’s not what I want,” she said, tears running freely down her bright red cheeks.
“Then what is it? Do you try to trick me into marriage? Is your aunt going to walk in on us at any moment to catch us in an indecent posture? Your maid is just sitting there, doing nothing. Not much of a chaperon, is she?”
Sara looked over at her maid, who was sitting in the corner quietly watching everything that took place, her mouth hanging open. Was that an apology on Sara’s face? It was hard to tell through his anger.
“I must say, Miss Whately, I had thought you better than this. I had thought that you were different from other young ladies who were simply out to trick me into marriage for my money and my title. But you—you disgust me!
“No, do not argue with me. I know what it is you want. All you want is to get to Wyncort. How long have you known that it was I who owns your family’s estate? How long? From yesterday? From a week ago? From the day I met you in Portsmouth? Was that deliberate too?”
He was shouting now, but he could not help it. The pain from her betrayal seared through his heart, even as he tasted the bile of his anger in the back of his mouth.
“You have played me for a fool, Miss Whately, but you will do so no more, I can assure you! Good-bye, Miss Whately. I hope I never have the pleasure of your company again.”
He strode out of the room and then out of the house.
He flipped a coin to the boy who was holding his horse, mounted his curricle, and took off as fast as city traffic would allow.
He drove faster as soon as the roads began to clear, urging his horse on, and soon he was speeding down a near empty road. How could he ever have thought himself in love with that deceiving, conniving chit? He had thought that she was different from other women he had known. But she had proven herself just as petty, just as cunning and devious as the rest. She had used him for her own ends without a care to his feelings or thoughts on the matter.
He allowed the thundering of his horse’s hooves on the road to drive all thoughts of Sara and her duplicity from his mind. Miles later, as his anger eased, he realized that his horse was nearly blown. He would never do anything to harm his prized gelding, so he slowed down and continued at a more reasonable pace until he reached a posting inn.
He did not pause long there, only to see that his horse would be properly cared for and another horse hitched to his equipage to take him to Wyncort.
Once there, his mood was not improved when he learned that when he was not expected. The caretakers had left the stable hand in charge and had taken themselves off to the local town for a few days. He sent the poor boy off with a fly in his ear to fetch the wayward Mr. and Mrs. Tate back to their duties.
Reath paced through the empty rooms of the house, for once happy at the lack of obstacles in his way. Slamming through doors and kicking at stray chairs and tables that had been left behind, Reath stalked from one end of the house to the other, upstairs and down.
How could he have been so taken in? He had loved her. Loved her! And she had used him.
It was obvious to him what she had been up to from the moment she had him sit down next to her. Why else would she have wanted him to sit there? It wasn’t as if she had any softer feelings for him.
He wondered how long she had been stringing him along. How long had she been building up to this little trick of hers to make him bring her here to Wyncort? Had she tried to attract him from the beginning, by being rude? And when that didn’t work, had she changed tactics and tried the direct approach she had used today? He did not know what to believe anymore, nor what to think.
One thing was certain—she did not know that he had followed her to Drury Lane the day she had met with the fence. So he still had that ace up his sleeve.
He knew why she wanted to come to Wyncort. Her jewels must be hidden here.
Reath started tapping on walls, listening for a hollow sound. He had no idea where they might be hidden, but surely that was what she was after.