Mandy Read online

  Distraught and grieving over their beloved grandfather’s death, they had not put up too much of a fuss at the time.

  The time came, however, for Ned to return to Cambridge, but Mandy’s plans to be brought out by her maternal aunt had to be canceled as she did not wish to be brought out during the first year after her grandfather’s death.

  Thus, Mandy had remained at the Halls. At first she didn’t mind. She loved the Dales countryside and there had been much at the estate to occupy her time.

  As the months progressed, however, Mandy’s youth pinched and made her restless. When Ned’s term at Cambridge came to an end and he returned to Sherborne and began displaying an interest in Celia, she became concerned. It had in fact, gotten on her nerves.

  Celia gave him very little attention when he had been with them during Easter and even as late as two weeks ago after Ned had been home for some weeks, Mandy could not recall Celia in the least interested in him.

  Mandy had thought it remarkable actually, as most of her acquaintances and friends considered him a fair Adonis. In addition to that, he was titled, and would soon be extremely wealthy.

  The secretive Celia had few prospects with her small dowry and her lonely location in the Dales. As Celia had been unable to afford a true London Season, she had somehow (for she was lovely) been passed over for marriage.

  Such things happened when a woman had no dowry or entre into society.

  Mandy had noticed the sudden shift in Celia’s attentions toward her twin only recently. It was as though her cousin suddenly woke up to the fact that she could do much worse for herself than Lord Edward of Sherborne.

  This could get complicated.

  * * *

  Ned had fallen into deep thought. He and Mandy were approaching their twenty-first birthday. She needed a Season, but their maternal aunt was away and unable to give her one this year. In addition to that, he would soon have to take over his vast inheritance. Was he up to challenge? He hoped so. His grandfather had taught him everything he needed to know.

  Celia had become a sudden problem. He had as Mandy said followed her about like a puppy early on. However, he had seen her flirting with so many different gentlemen that he soon realized, she was not who he had fashioned her to be.

  However, she was older, seductive and had a way of looking at him lately that made it difficult to resist her company. He wasn’t ready to get married. He liked women, all sorts of women and one day he would marry, but he was far too young and had not truly fallen in love, yet.

  He was, like his sister, a bit of a romantic. He wanted to be hopelessly ‘in love’ when he got married.

  Mandy was right. He had to avoid the lovely Celia.

  How to do it? He had not told Mandy everything. He had not told her that when he kissed her, she had taken his hand and put it to her breast and that for a moment, just a moment, he had actually fondled her. It had taken all his strength to pull away, and then he was able to only because she had asked in a whisper, “Do you love me, Ned?”

  His blood had immediately started to freeze and he had jumped away from her and said, “What?”

  She had repeated the question, “Do you love me?”

  “Love? Well, that is something quite…well, love is another subject,” he uttered and felt a fool.

  She had gotten up from the stone bench they had been sitting on by the reflective pool and huffed, “Think about that question the next time you try and make love to me.”

  He had thought about it, and the answer had been, no, I don’t love you. And then that same night she had crept into his room in a scanty nightdress.

  He had nearly been undone.

  Miraculously, a loud clatter down the hall, made them both jump. He ushered Celia to the door and down the hall to her bedroom, while he went the opposite way toward the noise telling Celia he had to investigate.

  At first he had thought he had been saved by a miracle, but it turned out to be Mandy. His sister had stood eyeing him oddly as she pointed to an armor shield lying on the floor. “I bumped into it in the dark and boom, it went down,” she said.

  He had eyed her suspiciously, but thankful all the same, he didn’t bother to ask what she had been doing walking at this end of the hall in the middle of the night. Instead, he said, “Ah.”

  She folded her arms across the cream colored shawl she hugged around her nightclothes and added, “I mean to lock my door tonight. You do the same, Ned…you just never know.”

  To this cryptic remark he said nothing because he did know. Mandy had surmised what was afoot. She was ever a knowing one. He knew she had saved him from Celia.

  He had walked her to her room and she touched his hand, “You will lock your door?” she had asked.

  Mandy was right and it was precisely what he did. Now, he thought, he would do well to remember this incident and steer clear of Celia—no matter what.

  * * *

  As they worked their horses out of the field and back onto the country road just outside their village, Amanda sighed happily, “Lud, but I thought the rain would never leave us. ‘Tis good to have the sun smiling, even if it is a bit sultry.”

  “Eh, oh, I suppose,” Ned replied absently.

  “Aunt Agatha drove me insane the last few days. I wish she would go home and leave us be at Sherborne, I mean after all, it has been well over a year!”

  “Lord yes!” Her brother agreed. “Gadzooks, that woman does chatter on forever. Grandpa could never abide her company for long and she was his daughter.” Ned sighed. “At least you had a respite a few months back when she went home to see to her place for a bit. I tell you what, Mandy…think I’ll ask her to leave. I am Lord of Sherborne, I can do that. ‘Tis my right. That would solve all the problems, wouldn’t it? I’m not worried about hurting her feelings, you shouldn’t be either. She has never worried about hurting ours.”

  Mandy gave him a rueful look and a low chuckle, “Indeed, yes. But she will need to be booted out if you want her to leave, as she won’t go willingly. I know because I have tried hinting at it often enough and I am loathe to come right out and tell her to go.”

  “Aye, but I am weary of her, think I’ll ask her to leave, give her a week or so to get her things together, after all Mandy, she has a home to go to, it isn’t as though we are putting her out in the cold,” Ned said on a groan. “Have you noticed the way she walks about the Halls as though she owns the place? I tell you what—one day soon, no doubt as soon as the beaus of London see you, you will get an offer that suits and off you will go and I will be stuck with her.” This so upset him that he seethed, “I won’t have it, I tell you! I think it best to ask her to leave immediately…while you are about to back me up.”

  “Yes, Ned, but we don’t want to be cruel,” Mandy offered on a heavy sigh.

  “I’ll think of something,” he answered.

  “Will you?” she laughed.

  “Bound to, for I tell you roundly, I have made up my mind on the matter. Sending her off. Will do it your way at first and if she doesn’t go, then we’ll do it my way. How is that?”

  Mandy beamed at him, well pleased with this, “You are quite right. As to me getting an offer, I don’t look for that happening any time soon.” She shook her head, “I think I might just end up an ‘old maid’, Neddy.”

  “Zounds girl, you look like me, you know, and I am very handsome,” he returned with a bright smile and a tease. “We have to do something though, for it is now or never. You’ll be twenty-one, and you are right, people will start thinking of you as a spinster.” He winked at her, his eyes alight with his banter.

  “Odious thing,” she answered with half a smile. The thing was she was truly beginning to feel like an old maid. Her friends were for the most part married and those unmarried were engaged and in her immediate circle. They were forever comparing notes about just what to do with a man in bed.

  It was at the very least, shocking although she admitted to herself that she was more than curious. Ho
w could she not be? She listened to them always with longing because her body had been telling her for more than a year that it was overdue for a man’s attention. Nature was insisting she take her body on its natural course…morality be damned. This thought made her smile.

  “What of Sir Owen?” Ned asked with one brow up. “I have been thinking you have an eye in his direction.”

  “Ned!” she objected. “But, you are right. He is rather attractive…yet…?”

  “Well, don’t Ned me, I have seen you two together, so where is the rub?”

  “I admit he is a charmer, but there is a but in the equation.”

  “Why, what does that mean? Why do women forever have to over-think everything and then speak in riddles?”

  She eyed him archly, “Over-think? Wherever did you get such a notion?”

  He grinned sheepishly, “From m’friends. They are forever saying it and on occasion Mandy, I have found it true.”

  “Well, it isn’t true. We women like to get to the heart of the matter and be certain…men skirt over it when it is uncomfortable to deal with. Men don’t like to face their emotions, but women do. That is not over-thinking.” She sighed and added, “Have you never wondered what a rakehell…and make no doubt about it, Sir Owen is a rakehell, is doing in the Dales of Yorkshire?”

  “Don’t need to wonder. Know!” her brother returned quite lording it over on her.

  She eyed him, “Did I call you odious before? Yes and well, you are. Now tell me at once.”

  “He is on a repairing lease. Surprised you didn’t guess. Thought you were up to snuff.”

  “Repairing lease? He doesn’t look burnt to the socket—from wine or any other questionable pleasures.”

  “Ha!” Ned declared and then chuckled, “You may be a few moments older than I, but you aren’t any more knowing though you try and make yourself out to be. He is hiding out from dun territory. Heard about it whilst I was at Cambridge. Lud! Nearly everyone is these days, what with taxes what they are, and the banks so damn tight-fisted.”

  “You mean Sir Owen is in debt?” Mandy asked feeling almost stunned. Sir Owen had been an ardent admirer and now it would appear, it was her inheritance that he had been admiring. She was not a fool.

  “Indeed. Not a sou to his name. Lost most of it on the gaming tables, they say. He’ll come about. His kind usually does.”

  “Brummell did not,” Mandy pointed out.

  “No, shame in that, but the Beau made an enemy of Prinny. Unwise.” He sighed, “‘Tis why I honestly have not encouraged a match between you and Owen. However, if we can’t get you a season, he may be the answer.”

  “Oh-ho!” Mandy’s hands nearly went to her hips. “I would rather be a spinster than marry a man who only loved my money.”

  “Right, then what you need is a London Season and although our aunt Tess is away and can’t manage it now. I will arrange something else, see if I don’t.”

  “I did so want a season; at least I did, once upon a time. Now I fear, I shall be looked upon as ‘too old’,” Mandy sighed wistfully.

  “Good Lord then girl, that settles it! I will arrange it all…for you are not too old. Not at all—at least not yet.” He saw the worried look on her face and frowned as he added, “With your looks, Mandy…for even if you are m’sister, I must say all m’friends think you are a ravishing beauty. That being said and there is the fact that you have a sizeable dowry, well… it stands to reason you’re bound to attract every single bachelor in London.”

  She smiled at him, “Neddy, you are the best brother any girl could have, but one needs a female sponsor for a season and for admittance to Almack’s and for invitations to routs and balls…”

  “I shall hire you a chaperone and I’ll be there. Fancy going to London.”

  “Oh, if only it could be contrived.”

  He pondered this problem, “Told you, mean to apply to our guardian. After all, he is a duke. If anyone can see to it that you are well established, he can.”

  “Yes, but will he?” Mandy was not so sure. After all, she thought, he had not bothered with them since their grandfather’s death fourteen months ago.

  “He must. His duty, you know,” Ned answered, but his sister heard the doubt in his voice.

  “Yes, but remember that note of his that we received just after Grandpapa’s funeral. It was filled with all sorts of good intentions and then we never heard from him again,” Mandy said. “So odd, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I do, because I remember Grandpapa mentioning him when he was ill. Said he was the best of good fellows,” Ned agreed.

  “Yes, it galled me that he never bothered with us after that very nice letter he initially sent. It doesn’t make a lick of sense, does it?”

  They had at that juncture arrived at a tavern whose weathered exterior was relieved by brightly filled flower boxes and a huge red sign depicting it as the Cock Pit, to all who looked to enter.

  Among the Cock Pit’s many charms, it boasted the best sport to be had for miles, which meant it held the very popular cock fights in its back courtyard.

  Ned dismounted hurriedly and told his sister, “Well Mandy, old girl, I’m off. If you want m’company home, you’ll have to keep yourself occupied for at least two hours or more, for depend upon it; that is how long I shall be.”

  She grimaced at him, “‘Tis a horrid sport.”

  “Now don’t be missish, not like you at all to be missish.”

  “Bloodthirsty lot, but at least you don’t let them fight to the death like they do at that horrid place down the road. I’ll give you that.”

  “Well makes no sense to let your favorite cock be killed, now does it? Always obvious when one is superior…just pull him off,” her brother agreed amiably. “Right then, I’m off.”

  She smiled and called out, “Good luck to you and Skip for I assume he will be meeting you here and do give him a hug for me.”

  “I’ll say hello for you, but I’ll be dashed if I hug him for you,” he brother grinned over his shoulder.

  She laughed and headed her horse to Harrowgate’s small but busy center.

  Chapter Two

  DUSK WRAPPED ITS smoky billows over the Dales and though it was a warm summer evening. Celia Brinley hugged her blue shawl tightly about her shoulders. She fidgeted on the cold stone bench as she peered thoughtfully into the blackness of the lily pond that reposed less than a few feet from her dainty boots.

  Her reflection looked back at her in the dark water before her gaze and she smiled, much pleased with herself. Her plan would work because it was perfect.

  She had them all arriving just in time to witness Ned in a compromising position with her. She would see to it that is what it would look like. Then no one would have any doubts about their relationship and he would have no way out. He would have to marry her and he would, because he was a kind hearted lad.

  She had sent Ned a note demanding he meet her here this evening. He would not refuse for she had told him she would make a scene if he did not. He would come, if only to tell her gently that he was not ready to take on a bride. She knew that and that was why she was driven to desperate measures. She meant to undo his pants and climb on before he knew what she was about. She wouldn’t scare him off this time by talking of love…only desire.

  Even if he resisted her and did not give into her seduction, she would make it look as though he had. That wouldn’t be hard. She would ask for a parting kiss and she would make certain it was timed perfectly. She would tear her dress and expose herself…

  He was young, so young and innocent. He would not know her game until it was too late. She knew he would never love her, but he was young, and he could be easily seduced.

  Her stepmother wanted her to marry Ned because of the position and wealth she would attain. However, though she needed and wanted those things, she had quite another reason for wanting to marry Ned.

  Her hand went to her still very flat stomach. Flat now, but in a few months…? It
was an unthinkable situation to be in. She had thought she had timed herself before going to his bed. How had she been so wrong?

  How could she have been so wrong about him? She really believed he loved her. She had thought he would stand by her and acknowledge that she was worthy to be his bride and the mother of his child.

  He was a cad. He told her he didn’t want her or the child. He meant to leave her to fend for herself.

  He was a wretch—wicked and deceitful. She had loved him, probably still did love him, wantonly so, but when she told him she carried his child…he had told her he would never marry her. Why had she fallen for his earlier lies?

  She had been stunned at first, but now, now she had to protect herself and get her revenge. She had the means to destroy the blackguard and she would, but not until she was safely engaged to Ned.

  She had forced a meeting with her lover the day before just to watch his expression when she told him what she knew, and what she would do with what she knew.

  His eyes had filled with hate and had she not been so exultant at the prospect of getting her measure of blood, she would have probably been hurt. A part of her still wanted him—loved him. She hoped he would change his mind and take her as his bride. She knew she was a fool.

  Now, her only hope was that Ned would be naïve enough to be seduced this night, and then believe he was the father of her child.

  A sound behind her made her turn and thinking it was Ned, she put on a forced smile.

  Surprise arched her brows. “What are you doing here?” she exclaimed.

  * * *

  Ned had excused himself from the dinner table earlier than was his habit, leaving Mandy to suffer their chatty aunt alone, as Celia had taken dinner in her room.

  Soon, Mandy’s manners ebbed and she rose, making a vague excuse as she left her Aunt Agatha to linger over her second helping of peaches and cream alone.

  Mandy wandered to the front parlor, a room that jutted out onto the front lawns at a right angle. It had a window seat where a collection of plants reposed in green array and she slipped in amongst these and gazed out the diamond panes at the dimly torch lit drive.