Dangerous Lord, Seductive Miss

A grateful smile rewarded the vicar for his offer. ‘That’s kind, Gerard,’ Deborah said. ‘But I have already been to see him.’

‘Mr Savidge thinks that nothing should be done,’ Harriet told her brother flatly.

‘It’s a dreadful to do when even the local magistrate is too scared of the villains to act.’ Gerard Davenport sadly shook his head. He looked at Deborah for a response, but again her wide blue eyes were riveted elsewhere.

The tall gentleman had emerged from the smithy and she no longer was presented with his profile. He’d turned her way, causing a small gasp of disbelief to escape her soft lips.

Almost as though he sensed her eyes on him, he looked up. At first there was nothing, just the slightly sardonic, narrow-eyed interest of a gentleman who has caught an attractive young woman watching him. Then she saw the change in him, saw the hand that had been smoothing the sleek flank of the newly shod bay become still. He looked down before slowly raising his head to stare at her, and with such fierce intensity that Deborah felt her face flinch aside as though to evade a blow. A moment later she was aware of him approaching.

Chapter Two

‘Miss Cleveland?’

It was a long while since Deborah had been addressed so and it brought with it a poignant memory of her time as the débutante daughter of Viscount Cleveland. At eighteen she’d been the toast of the ton, and newly single, having broken her engagement to the heir to an earldom.

He’d spoken before reaching her, a query accenting her name. He’d thought, too, that his eyes might be deceiving him, Deborah realised. A darting glance at her companions confirmed they were swinging interested looks between the two of them.

George Woodville had been her stepfather, not her sire, but since she’d arrived in Sussex with her remarried mother, people had seemed to assume she would want to be a Woodville too. Her father had been a peer of the realm, but he was not known in these parts, whereas the Squires Woodville could trace their prominence in Sussex gentry back as far as Cromwell’s days. It had seemed trivial to Deborah to keep pointing out that her mother might now be a Woodville, but she was not.

Harriet was cognisant with her history and Deborah could see the young woman retrieving the relevant snippet from her mind. She turned with her brother to gaze up at the ruggedly handsome stranger who had joined them.

‘Why … Mr Chadwicke … what a surprise to see you,’ Deborah uttered in a stiff, suffocated tone. It was not at all the first thing she had promised herself she would say should their paths ever again cross. But her good manners dictated that she remain polite in company. She could tell that her friends were impatient to be introduced to him, but his relentless golden gaze remained unnervingly on her face, causing colour to seep beneath her cheeks.

‘I should like to introduce you both to Mr Chadwicke, he is …’ Debbie hesitated and her uncertainty on how to continue caused a skewing of his narrow mouth. ‘Mr Chadwicke and I … have mutual friends,’ she resorted to saying. ‘This is the Reverend Mr Gerard Davenport and his sister Harriet,’ she concluded the niceties.

Randolph enclosed Gerard’s extended fingers in a large brown hand and gave them a firm shake. Harriet received a courteous bow coupled with a murmured greeting.

‘Are you related to the Somerset Chadwickes, sir?’ Gerard asked brightly.

‘I’m not,’ Randolph replied. ‘I hail from the east of Suffolk.’

‘Ah,’ Gerard said. ‘A good part of the country; I have been to Yarmouth on several occasions and have found it most pleasant. But the cold winds nigh on cut one in half.’

‘It can be bitter there in winter,’ Randolph agreed.

At close quarters, and having surreptitiously studied him from beneath her bonnet brim whilst he conversed with the vicar, Deborah was astonished she had so easily recognised him. Apart from those hazel eyes seeming just as wolfish as she remembered, he looked quite different. His hair, once nut brown, had been made fair by a foreign sun and streaked here and there to colours close to caramel. His skin tone, too, was weatherbeaten and his features roughened. He looked to be a man who had been brutalised by life and the elements since last she’d seen him. There was no more of the debonair youth in him. Yet something in her first glimpse of his profile, of his physique, had been achingly familiar to her.

‘Are you staying long in Hastings?’ Deborah blurted as a silence developed between them all.

‘I’m not sure, Miss Cleveland. Are you?’

‘I reside here now, sir,’ Deborah informed him levelly. ‘I live at Woodville Place with my mother. My stepfather, George Woodville, died just over two years ago.’

‘I had a communication from Marcus that your father had died,’ Randolph said gently. ‘I was very sad to hear that news. I knew, too, that your mother had remarried, but not that she was once again a widow. Neither was I aware you had permanently quit London for the country.’

‘My stepfather kept a small town house in Chelsea. Before he passed away we used it quite often in the Season. Now I believe his son lives there.’

A silence again strained, but it seemed that Mr Chad-wicke had no intention of taking his leave and returning to his horse. The blacksmith had emerged from his forge, looking for his customer; seeing him socialising, he’d tethered the magnificent beast more securely to a post before returning inside.

‘Are you away from Suffolk to visit relatives in the area?’ Gerard asked amiably.

‘I have no relatives in the area,’ Randolph once more told him. ‘I’ve travelled to the south coast on a business matter.’

‘And will it keep you here long, sir?’ Harriet asked politely.

‘Possibly,’ Randolph replied succinctly.

After a pause that vainly begged a better explanation Harriet reminded her brother, ‘Well…we must be going. You’ve promised to take me to Rye this afternoon and I’ve not forgotten. Are you sure you won’t come with us, Debbie?’

‘I must be getting along home,’ Deborah replied huskily, but with a small smile for her friend. The ruthless golden gaze was again savaging the side of her face and instinctively she raised a hand to touch her hot cheek.

‘Is there somewhere we can talk privately without being gawped at?’ Randolph said whilst watching the vicar and his sister strolling away towards their dogcart.

Deborah, too, had noticed that they were under observation. In London well-bred people would mask their inquisitiveness behind concealing lashes or fluttering fans; these simple country folk employed no such sophisticated tactics. They stared quite openly as they passed by.

‘Strangers always stir interest hereabouts,’ she explained to him. Deborah knew, too, that undoubtedly news was travelling on the grapevine that her driver had been involved in a brawl whilst protecting her.

‘Is there a tearoom we can go to?’

She had heard nothing from him in almost seven years. Now he wanted to sit and chat over tea!

Oh, there was much they could discuss that need not touch on the very thorny subject of their brief romance. They might swap news about their mutual friends, the Earl and Countess of Gresham. They could reminisce on the couple’s glittering wedding when she had been a bridesmaid and Randolph had been Marcus’s groomsman. It had been the last occasion they’d seen one another, seven years ago. The last time he’d kissed her passionately before forgetting about her.

‘There is a teashop, but I’m not sure that visiting it, or prolonging this meeting, is necessary, sir,’ Deborah rebuffed him coolly.

‘Not necessary?’ he ground out. ‘Have we nothing to say to one another after so long?’

‘If you had something to say to me, I imagine you would not have waited seven years to air it,’ Deborah snapped. She took a deep breath and looked away, striving for composure. She would not give him the satisfaction of guessing that she’d pined for him for years after he went away. She would never let him know that she’d wanted to write to him in the Indies but had felt unable to abase herself and beg an address from his friend, the Earl of Gresham, so she might do so. Nor would she have needed to do so if Randolph Chadwicke had been true to his parting words on that glorious day when Marcus Speer had married Jemma Bailey.

At the reception, away from prying eyes in an alcove in the hallway of Marcus’s magnificent mansion, Randolph had kissed her and told her that he must go away to sort out pressing family matters, but that he would write to her as soon as he could. Obviously he had never found the time or the inclination to put pen to paper and say where he was, or how he was doing, or when he would return and issue that unspoken proposal that had thrilled in the air between them. But no disaster had befallen him to prevent a communication. She had heard through her friends that Randolph Chadwicke was still in the Indies with his older brother.

‘I didn’t wait one year and well you know it,’ Randolph muttered viciously through his teeth. He’d deliberately put too little volume in the words. He was equally keen not to reveal he’d been wounded by their ill-starred attraction. ‘You sound as though you might have missed me, Miss Cleveland,’ Randolph drawled as his eyes roamed over her classic pearl-skinned profile.

This time she heard very well what he’d said, just as he’d intended she should. A bubble of laughter met his conceit, but she swallowed the immediate denial that sprang to her tongue. It would sound false however she expressed it. ‘Perhaps I did at first, sir,’ she insou-ciantly agreed. ‘But a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.’ A smile was forced to her lips. ‘I was just a girl of eighteen when last we spoke.’ She raised cornflower-blue eyes to his, held his narrowed gaze for a significant long second whilst adding, ‘Now I am a woman.’ Her brashness withered beneath lupine eyes. She felt suddenly uneasy for having implied something that was quite untrue, and she was at a loss to know why she’d done it.

‘Despite all that water and experience you recognised me straight away,’ he reminded her very quietly.

‘As you did me,’ she returned in a snap and then swiftly turned to stare at the sea sparkling in the distance. Her mind was in turmoil. She felt unprepared and unequal to dealing with this meeting. Once she had longed for it to occur; she had prepared in minute detail what she would wear and what she would say. But the event had sprung up defiantly when she’d believed the chance of it doing so had expired. She was at a loss to recall any of that witty conversation that had for years whirled in her mind, and her outfit was sensible rather than seductive. ‘I didn’t intend to sound brusque a moment ago,’ she hastened on. What was she thinking of? Seductive? She no longer wished to attract him, she reminded herself. ‘I have rather a lot to do. I expect you, too, have a lot to do as you are in the area on business.’ She inclined her head towards the forge. ‘I see Donald Smith is again looking for you. He is a stickler, so I’ve heard, for having his bills immediately settled.’ She imagined Donald would not be too worried that this gentleman might abscond without paying. She ran a discreet eye over the impressive masculine figure beside her. His tailored jacket and snugly cut buff breeches were of obvious quality and the long leather riding coat that carelessly covered them looked to have been topstitched by a master craftsman. She remembered that she’d always admired how well his lofty, muscular body suited formal attire when they’d socialised together at balls and parties.

But all that was gone and forgotten. Charming and elegant he might have contrived to be, but she knew it all for a sham. He’d been a practised flirt and she’d been naïve enough to take his empty promises seriously. She extended gloved fingers. ‘It is nice to have met you again, Mr Chadwicke. I hope your business in the area goes well.’ It seemed he was not going to match her polite farewell. A firm clasp tightened on her hand as she made to slip it free after an appropriate time had passed.

‘I have to go home now. My mother will wonder what has become of me.’ Deborah again wriggled her fingers against the warmth of his palm whilst scouring her mind for a polite yet meaningless remark. ‘Of course, if you find business ever again brings you this way, sir, you must come and see us.’

He looked down at those fidgeting digits and slowly released them. ‘Thank you for the invitation,’ he said softly. ‘I shall call on you tomorrow afternoon.’

‘I didn’t mean this time—’ Deborah blurted before her pearly teeth nipped at her lower lip. She hadn’t intended to sound quite so inhospitable, but she wasn’t sure she could cope with again being tormented with his presence. This impromptu meeting had set her pulse accelerating alarmingly; she couldn’t countenance sitting and politely taking tea whilst brooding on memories of what had happened seven years ago. The disturbing knowledge that just ten minutes of his company had the power to stir to life embers of emotions she’d believed withered to ashes made her heart constrict beneath her ribs. ‘It would be better to leave a social call till your next trip to Sussex,’ she insisted, dipping her head in readiness to step away.

‘Why next time? I should like to see the Viscountess before I leave the area.’

‘She is plain Mrs Woodville now and not always in the best of health.’

‘Then I should certainly like to have the opportunity to pay my respects to her, if I may. I remember both your parents with fondness.’

Deborah looked about as though hoping something might catch her eye and allow her to distract him.

‘Where is your house?’

‘Oh … not far. It takes me only about twenty minutes if walking briskly towards Rye.’

‘You have no carriage or servants accompanying you today?’

‘I did set out with a vehicle and a driver …’ Deborah hesitated, feeling oddly reluctant to disclose to him the tale of her servant’s misfortune. She concluded there could be no harm in recounting what had happened to Fred. ‘My driver was set about by some bullies whilst I was shopping.’ She grimaced in a mix of regret and disgust at the memory of it. ‘I sent Fred on ahead in the trap so he might rest in case he is concussed.’

‘I’ll walk with you,’ Randolph said, quietly adamant.

‘There’s no need,’ Deborah immediately countered. ‘I’m quite able to look after myself. But thank you in any case for your concern.’

‘I’ll walk with you,’ Randolph repeated with such grit in his voice that Deborah blinked nervously at him. As though to impress on her that he meant what he said, he took her elbow and moved her determinedly with him towards the forge.

Once the bill had been paid, and Donald had tugged at his forelock several times before ambling back in to the smithy, they set off along the lane that led to Rye with the magnificent stallion clopping docilely at his master’s heels.

At first they proceeded in silence, both seemingly deep in their own thoughts. Debbie’s feverish mind had been occupied in searching for an innocuous topic of conversation that would skirt any past intimacy between them, yet be absorbing enough to fill the twenty minutes that stretched ahead. The most obvious subject was settled upon. Their mutual friends would provide all that was needed to fill the time until they reached Woodville Place.

‘I have recently had a letter from Jemma—’ ‘What caused those louts to attack your driver?’ They had spoken together and fell silent together too. Deborah realised she’d had no reason to fear he’d been brooding on their past and might increase her uneasiness by referring to it. She was unsure whether to feel relieved or indignant that Fred’s misfortune seemed of more interest to him.

Randolph indicated with a polite gesture that she should carry on.

‘I … I was just saying that I have recently had a communication from Jemma. She and Marcus have been visiting relations in Ireland since the early summer. They hope to return by late November and have invited us to join them at Gresham Hall for the Christmas holiday.’ Deborah slid a look up at him. ‘Do you regularly keep in touch with Marcus? I imagine you know they have a son as well as a daughter?’

‘The boy is named after me … at the end,’ he qualified wryly, a smile twitching his lips.

‘John Solomon Bailey Randolph Speer,’ Deborah recited softly the name of their friends’ infant son. ‘He must be toddling about now. His sister, Violet, is nearing her fifth birthday,’ she added, naming her sweet goddaughter.

‘You are one of Violet’s godmothers, I believe,’ Randolph remarked, slanting a look down on the top of her bonnet. He could see just a glimpse of her beautifully carved profile. A lock of honey-gold hair had tumbled forwards to dance against her cheek as she walked. Randolph’s left hand clenched as he suppressed the urge to brush back the curl, caressing her complexion. Once he would have touched her and she would have welcomed it. But not now. He’d sensed the frostiness in her from the first word she’d spoken to him. Whatever infatuation she’d had with him had long gone. Perhaps he shouldn’t have expected a woman as young and as stunningly lovely to wait for him while he went overseas. But, of course, she hadn’t waited, had she? he savagely reminded himself. She’d quickly forgotten him, and in time had become engaged to an army officer. But for the unlucky fellow’s demise she’d be a married woman.

She was presently tolerating his company because of good manners and because they shared mutual friends. Now he was back in England it was likely they would from time to time be thrown together whilst guests of the Earl and Countess of Gresham. She saw potential embarrassment in their forced proximity and was struggling to feel indifference for him. Unfortunately he knew he’d never manage to have such lack of feeling for her, much as he might want to.

Not for the first, or the thousandth, time in his life Randolph cursed his brother Sebastian to damnation. But for his selfish, licentious ways he wouldn’t be in this part of the country at all and Deborah Cleveland would still be just a shadow in his past. Gone … if not completely forgotten. Now she was again by his side and it seemed the most natural place for her to be. An unbidden curse broke beneath his breath at such maudlin romanticism and with enough volume for Deborah to hear his frustration.

‘I was asking about the men who set about your servant,’ Randolph reminded her to cover his lapse. ‘Did some sort of quarrel erupt between them?’

‘Yes,’ Deborah said and gazed into the distance, uncertain whether to admit that she’d been the unwitting cause of poor Fred getting a beating.

‘Over what did they quarrel?’ Randolph probed, a ghost of a smile acknowledging her reticence in informing him.

Deborah sighed. ‘As you are new to the area you probably know nothing of the horrible things that go on around these shores,’ she began. ‘My servant was simply protecting my reputation by remonstrating with some ruffians for being disrespectful. He got a beating for being loyal to me.’

Randolph stared straight ahead, his eyes narrowed to slits against the afternoon sun low in the sky. ‘And why would these ruffians want to be abusive about you?’ he asked exceedingly softly.

‘Because I hate them, and I make no bones about letting them know it,’ she returned forcefully. ‘I’m not going to act blind, deaf and dumb so that they may carry on unchallenged. But for them I would now be Edmund’s wife.’

A firm grip on her arm spun her about so she stood before him. ‘Explain exactly what you mean by that,’ he roughly demanded. His hands were on her shoulders, drawing her close; through the cloth of her cloak he could feel her quivering.

‘My fiancé was on coast watch and they killed him.’ Deborah’s voice shook with distress. ‘More recently another dragoon, Lieutenant Barrow, was wounded. He has a dreadful head injury and it is feared it will prove fatal.’

Randolph’s hands dropped away, then were again refastened on the soft tops of her arms. ‘Your fiancé was killed in a clash with smugglers?’ he said hoarsely.

Deborah nodded and her huge blue eyes glistened at him.

‘I’d heard from Marcus that you were betrothed to an army officer and that he’d been killed on duty,’ Randolph said softly. ‘That’s all I knew. I wasn’t aware how he’d died.’

‘He was murdered by the outlaws who infest this area,’ Deborah said querulously. ‘They hate me because I won’t forget or keep quiet about it.’

Randolph pulled her close, stilling her agitation against the warm, solid strength of his body. A hand was raised to tilt up her chin; slowly it slid to cup a cheek and to keep her looking at him.

Deborah felt her breath wedge in her chest. For a moment it seemed the years were peeled away and she was dressed not in sturdy outdoor clothes and chipstraw bonnet, but a pastel silk gown with gardenias threaded in her hair. She was not in an autumnal setting, serenaded by birdsong, but in the Earl of Gresham’s pale marble hallway with strains of a lilting melody drifting from the ballroom. But the gaze that was bathing her face with golden warmth was the same and her lids drooped as she anticipated Randolph’s lips bruising hers with a passion she recalled had left her feeling weak and dazed and so wonderfully happy. A second later the spell had been whipped away.

‘Hope we’re not interrupting.’ sneered a male voice.

Chapter Three

‘You are very much interrupting,’ Randolph returned in a lethal tone. He moved Deborah behind him and anchored her there with an unshakeable hold on her wrist. ‘So go away.’

‘You!’ Debbie spat whilst squinting against a gilded western sky to see the youngest Luckhurst brother grinning at her. She’d immediately recognised the owner of that coarse voice. Behind him were two other men of about the same age whom she’d noticed accompanying him on other occasions. ‘I know it was you who set about my driver, Seth Luckhurst—’ she began, before pressure on her wrist insisted she keep silent. She heeded Randolph’s warning and her teeth sank into her unsteady lower lip to stem further wrathful accusations. Thereafter her loathing was limited to glaring at the three men who were emerging from a thicket a few yards away. All were dressed in rough country garb, although a neckerchief knotted about Seth’s throat brightened his drab figure.

‘Are you deaf as well as stupid?’ Randolph enquired mildly. ‘I said your presence is unwelcome. Do you not understand English?’

A look of surprise passed between the men. They were used to issuing threats, not receiving them, but all of them were ready for a fight.

‘Don’t reckon it’s us wot’s stupid.’ Seth smirked as he swaggered closer. ‘You’re not from round here, are you, friend? If you was, you’d know not to cross me.’ One of his thumbs jabbed arrogantly at his chest. It rose to tip his hat back on his head in a cocky gesture, then both brawny fists were jammed on his hips. ‘If you fancy being a hero for Miss Woodville, I’ll give you a fight. Or you could just get going, y’know.’ Something about the stranger’s cool confidence was unsettling Seth Luckhurst despite the odds being stacked very much in his favour. ‘It’s her I’m after. I need to … talk to her,’ he finished on a lewd chuckle.

Randolph gave a sigh, as one might when one’s patience is being tested to its outer limit. ‘Unfortunately you can’t,’ he replied with weary courtesy. ‘I want to talk to her and my need is greater than yours.’ He let go of Deborah’s wrist and started to shrug off his leather coat as though readying himself to take up Seth’s offer of a fight.

Deborah immediately sought and gripped hard at one of his hands, unsure whether she did so to seek his security or to stop him brawling. He had little chance of success against three adversaries. She was as worried as much for Randolph’s safety as she was for her own. A finger traced a soft, secretive caress on her palm—a wordless instruction that she remain quiet and trust him. Randolph turned to his horse to deposit the garment over the saddle and pivoted back with a pistol in each hand.