A Rake To The Rescue

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It was wrong of her to wish he hadn’t changed his mind and his mood, she reminded herself, as she tucked away a fantasy of being locked in his arms until they both forgot the season and everything else on a lazy afternoon in the middle of the sun-sleepy Heath. Magnus had been brought up at Carrowe House with a bullying father and a mother wilfully mired in scandal by her own husband, so it was silly of Hetta to feel sorry she had never had a real home to go to. Her father’s country house had been let out ever since he inherited it in order to cover the costs of his mother’s grand London home. And Magnus Haile’s own home was so tumbledown and faded she wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy. She kept her suspicion that someone was slipping in and out of Carrowe House to herself. It was only a prickly feeling of being watched from shadowy corners and once fancying she heard a soft footstep where feet should not be able to go. She had no proof and if she mentioned it the impulsive idiot could gallop off there to lie in wait for a murderer. Hetta shivered and was more glad than ever to be out of the poor old house, despite Magnus Haile’s drunken revulsion at the sight of her.

‘Yes, I suppose it did feel damp and a little depressing in the rain yesterday, but I doubt you need a stranger to confirm its shortcomings,’ she said almost politely.

‘Gresley says most of it was habitable when he was a boy, but nobody should have to endure the place now if they don’t really need to.’

‘Although you wish he had sent us somewhere else?’ she asked, and as he said nothing she knew she was right. ‘I suppose you will be glad when Carrowe House is torn down,’ she said to fill an uncomfortable silence.

‘Aye, and Gres will have to pay someone to do it and that will delay matters. There isn’t a shred of gold leaf worth more than a farthing to salvage after my father stripped it bare to fund his excesses, so at least my brother and your father should be safe from thieves there since there’s precious little left to plunder.’

‘Couldn’t your brother stop your father doing so? He was the heir.’

‘You never met our father,’ he said with a gesture of that fine-boned hand to distract her again. ‘Although Gres was wild in his youth and closer to our father than the rest of us back then. Shortly before he married he seemed to wake up to the folly of it all, though...’ He paused and they avoided one another’s eyes as Lady Drace’s bitter parting words reminded them of a possible reason why. ‘As the heir he was the only one who could rescue the rest of the family fortunes from the same ruin. Our father would have picked everything clean and mortgaged the land as well and I have to admire Gres for stopping him, but I’m not so sure about the way he did it now.’

Hetta could hardly agree out loud, but she managed to school her features to her best imitation of a marble statue in spectacles. She would never have agreed to stay under the new Lord Carrowe’s roof if Lady Aline Haile had not made it virtually impossible to refuse until something more suitable came along. The Earl’s sister was back for a fleeting visit when Hetta had called to ask her father’s advice on suitable lodgings when the affair of the rat made her and Toby homeless at short notice. She had been away from England so much of her life she had no idea which areas were respectable and which only looked so by daylight. At the time it seemed sensible to seek his help, even if her father would rather not be distracted when he was hunting a murderer of aristocrats because the King thought the idea might be catching and he must be next on any revolutionary’s list.

Sir Hadrian and the Earl of Carrowe had been out when Lady Aline insisted Hetta and Toby stay at Carrowe House rather than take the first place on offer. Lord Carrowe had tried to pretend they were welcome when he returned, but Hetta never quite managed to believe him. This morning Lady Aline left for Worthing and Toby grew bored in the small range of rooms the family had kept watertight and nailed up against the ruin everywhere else. Of course, she should never have fallen asleep in an almost comfortable chair after a disturbed night, but it could have been worse. The dream she had been having about sneering ghosts and stalking murderers could have come true. Instead she woke up to hear Lord Carrowe shouting and ran out of the room just in time to watch her son take that fall into the attics as their reluctant host stood looking horrified and stared up at the chimney where Toby had been clinging. To give him his due, his lordship soon awoke from his horrified stupor and ran upstairs while she was still trying to make her legs stop wobbling long enough to follow. Before she could stop shaking like a leaf Lord Carrowe had come downstairs as fast as he could go whilst towing her son behind him with every last iota of the fine Haile temper he must share with his brother flashing from his dark eyes and a scowl even Magnus Haile could not outdo. What a relief to find the worst damage her son had suffered was to his pride—oh, and a few scratches and bruises he richly deserved and yet another set of his clothes waiting to be patched and mended when she had time. Lord Carrowe let her know he had only kept his hands off her boy because Toby fell through his lordship’s rotten roof on to his lordly rotten floor and landed on his merely genteel backside. Even in a fine Haile temper Lord Carrowe could hardly give the boy a beating for going where he was expressly told not to go when he was already bruised and a little bit chastened.

Once she had got over her reluctant host’s impressive show of temper and made sure her son wasn’t really harmed, Hetta had been secretly delighted to leave Carrowe House. If not for her father’s vague order to go where she was bid and keep the boy out of trouble, she would have resumed her hunt for another lodging straight away. That wretched promise again. Why the deuce had Papa invoked it simply to get them out of his way as fast as possible? She frowned at the thought there was something real and a little bit anxious behind her father’s irritation today. She was almost glad Magnus was staring at the wall as if he wished he was alone, so he couldn’t read her thoughts. However hard she tried to tell herself he and his family mysteries were nothing to do with her, she felt involved. Somehow, she couldn’t simply put the Haile family to the back of her mind and carry on with her life as if she had never met any of them.

And poor old Carrowe House had felt so oppressive and strange she could easily believe a man was murdered there. It felt as if the tremors of such a violent crime lingered there like the aftershocks of a great earthquake. Fanciful to even think such a thing and she blamed her fascination with Gothic romances she picked up during long, lonely nights sitting up with Toby as a baby as he grew teeth or was fretful or simply his usual ravenous self. A series of shocking events happening at a distance to timid, yet recklessly curious, heroines seemed an ideal diversion when the rest of the world was fast asleep and hired lodgings could feel soulless by candlelight. Except last night, as she lay listening for the next creak or moan the old house made as if it tried to settle on its ancient foundations and couldn’t get comfortable, her secret vice had not seemed such a good idea. Even the latest chilling tale she had picked up could not divert her from the fancy she was living inside one and could be silently, watchfully observed from places that looked perfectly innocent in daylight.