Rake Beyond Redemption. Anne O'Brien

you are a smuggler and I shouldn’t associate with you. But that’s not it. Everyone seems to have some connection with smuggling here. Harriette was a smuggler. George Gadie is a smuggler and Meggie doesn’t disapprove of him. Or not much.’

      His eyes snapped from the stallion back to her, fierce as a hawk. ‘You don’t want to know me.’

      ‘I choose whom I wish to know. I am not a child.’

      ‘Your family would disapprove.’

      ‘But why?’

      A pause. Would he tell her? ‘I’ll not tell you that.’

      ‘Then you must allow me to make my own judgements. Do I go, Zan? Or do I stay?’

      It was a deliberate challenge. If he wanted her to go, he must tell her so. She would not move one inch otherwise. She could read nothing in his face, anticipate nothing of his thoughts. And so was surprised when she heard him issue the invitation.

      ‘Since you’re here, I suppose I must take you into the house and provide you with the tea that never materialised at the Boat.’

      Something had changed his mind. She inclined her head graciously. ‘It would be polite.’

      He retrieved his coat from the stall partition and remarked drily, ‘I know the form after all. My mother was a stickler for good manners. I was at least raised as a gentleman.’

      ‘I never doubted it. And I would like to see your house.’ She fell into step beside him.

      ‘You’ll be disappointed.’

      He took her hand, drew it through his arm, to lead her out of the stable courtyard towards the main entrance.

      Until she hesitated. Looked up at him, head tilted.

      ‘What’s wrong? Have you changed your mind after all? Not willing to risk stepping into a smuggler’s den of iniquity?’

      ‘Not at all. I simply wondered why you led me to think that you were raised as an unmannered lout. Not that you will tell me, of course.’

      He laughed at her prim reply. ‘You’ll prise no secrets from me, Madame Mermaid!’

      Abruptly he opened the door into the entrance hall and stood back so that she could enter.

      Marie-Claude stepped into his home. ‘Do you live here alone?’ she asked.

      ‘Yes. Are you changing your mind again?’

      ‘No. Are you? Do you not want me here?’

      ‘I invited you. I have a housekeeper. Mrs Shaw.’

      ‘I did not think I would need a chaperon, Zan,’ she chided gently. She stood in the centre of the entrance hall and turned slowly round, taking in her surroundings. ‘Will you show me around?’

      ‘If you wish. It won’t take long.’

      He opened the doors that led off the entrance hall, into the library, two small parlours, a withdrawing room, a little room with an escritoire that still held traces of his mother who had used it for her endless letter-writing. He watched Marie-Claude with some amusement as she inspected each room without comment. Without expression. Finally, calling along a corridor to an invisible Mrs Shaw for tea, he led her back into the library, where she sat on the dusty cushions of the sofa, hands neatly folded in her lap.

      ‘Well? What do you think?’

      ‘Disreputable,’ she remarked immediately. ‘What are you thinking to allow this?’

      He gave a crack of laughter at the directness of her censure. Then Zan sobered, frowned. ‘No money to spend on it.’

      ‘I was thinking soap and water, rather than money. What is your housekeeper doing? And is smuggling not a lucrative trade? I was under the impression there were fortunes to be made if a smuggler was not too nice in his choice of companions. We hear talk of the vicious rogues in the smuggling gangs even in London. I know all about rogues…’ She shivered as if a draught had touched her arms.

      ‘It can be lucrative, as you say, with the right contacts,’ he offered.

      ‘Are you a member of a smuggling gang?’

      ‘No. I am not.’

      ‘Forgive me. I did not mean to pry.’

      ‘I’m sure you did mean it! But I forgive you and I assure you I’m not a vicious rogue. When I organise a run, I use my own operation from the bay, and my own cutter.’ The door opened to admit the spare form of the housekeeper, bearing a tray. ‘And here’s Mrs Shaw with refreshment.’

      Whilst Zan leaned his weight back against the edge of the desk, arms folded, Marie-Claude removed her gloves and took charge, murmuring her thanks despite the housekeeper’s chill disapproval of an unchaperoned female visitor, then proceeded to dispense tea with skilled assurance, measuring the amount from the inlaid box, pouring the pale liquid into fragile china cups. Zan took the cup offered to him.

      ‘I can at least guarantee the quality of this,’ he remarked drily.

      ‘I’m sure you can.’ She sipped. ‘And doubtless your brandy too. Has it paid any duty?’

      ‘Not that I know of!’

      ‘Tell me what you do when you are not smuggling.’

      Zan cast himself into one of the chairs and proceeded, against all his good intentions, to tell her the trivial nothings of life on the run-down Ellerdine estate whilst Marie-Claude sat and listened, asking a question when it seemed appropriate. How strange it was. How surreal. There they sat and exchanged polite conversation as if they were in a London withdrawing room, certainly not as if an intense undercurrent throbbed on the air between them. Later Marie-Claude had no clear idea of either her questions or his answers. Only that he had not taken his eyes from her.

      Mon Dieu. How confusing this all was. Marie-Claude felt like a butterfly on a pin. His replies were brusque, his dark beauty and stern demeanour never exactly encouraging, yet she felt astonishingly at ease in his company. Eventually she put down her cup. Replaced her gloves. Rose gracefully to her feet and held out her hand to him.

      ‘I must go. Morning calls should only last half an hour, should they not?’

      ‘So I understand. I’m sure you’re well versed in such social niceties.’ He bent his head in a formal salute to her knuckles, a glint of humour lighting his dark eyes at last. His lips brushed softly against her skin.

      ‘You have been most hospitable.’ She managed a smile as her heart jolted with desire. ‘Will you come to Lydyard’s Pride one afternoon? For tea?’

      ‘No. I will not.’

      The humour vanished. The whole pleasant house of cards they had just constructed collapsed around them.

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘I would not be made welcome there.’

      ‘But why would you not? What on earth have you done to cause this impasse? Meggie will not say, and neither will you. How can I accept what I do not understand?’ She frowned at him, her dark brows meeting in frustration. ‘You don’t like the Hallastons, do you?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘There! Again! That’s no answer, Zan.’ Her fingers gripped hard when he would have released them. ‘Why won’t you tell me the truth?’

      ‘Because I choose not to. Goodbye.’ He kissed her fingers once more with an elegant little bow. ‘You have made your morning call and reprimanded me for my lack of duty in fulfilling my own obligations to you. You have seen and disparaged the way I live. Let that be an end to it. Whatever is between us—it can be explained away as a momentary foolishness. We should acknowledge it and bury it. It’s good advice, Madame Mermaid. I advise you to take it.’

      ‘No.