Misinterpreting this melancholy humour as cordiality, Rupert Mayhew’s arrogant bearing relaxed. One blackened tooth was displayed centrally in an otherwise surprisingly clean set as he smiled widely. His eyes narrowed to gleaming yellow dots as he purred insinuatingly, ‘You barely look old enough, Miss Nash, to have acquired the teaching experience to which you lay claim.’ His unpleasant smile was back as he noticed her reaction.
An attractive blush immediately rimmed Rebecca’s high cheekbones, accentuating the sculpted contours of her ivory-skinned oval face. Her youthful looks were a constant source of embarrassment to her. But her chin tilted defensively.
Rupert Mayhew’s avid appraisal continued, his beastly eyes targeting full, shapely lips that hinted at a promise of sensuality. A small straight nose was skipped past as he examined a pair of wide, lustrous eyes of the most extraordinary and exquisite colour. He stared into glossy turquoise depths, lushly fringed with lengthy dusky lashes before his voracious interest roved on to her thick dark-gold hair. Loosely wound ringlets dropped to curl like honeyed silk against the crisp sprigged cotton of her serviceable travelling dress.
But for Rupert Mayhew, the most outstanding feature of this delectable young woman was that she chose to earn her living by running a young ladies’ academy situated in the backwoods of a small Sussex coastal hamlet. He had travelled widely and visited the fashionable spa towns of Bath and Harrogate, yet he was hard pressed now to recall a face as classically beautiful. Her figure was too slender for his profligate taste. Yet even so, he knew of skinnier wenches who had procured wealthy protectors and opulent lifestyles only dreamed of by most young women in straitened circumstances.
He regretted now not having taken the time to visit her and her poky establishment at Graveley. He knew from the meagre fees she charged that the business she ran must be struggling to survive and had accordingly negotiated even more favourable terms through their correspondence. Rupert Mayhew knew himself for nothing if not an astute businessman.
And he’d imagined her to be some spinsterish blue-stocking! Undoubtedly she kept herself hidden away in that wooded copse, for Graveley was little more than that as he recalled from passing through. Or did she? he reflected with quickening pulse, his tongue flicking out to moisten thin lips. She resided on the Ramsden estate. Robin Ramsden was her landlord. He could have hardly overlooked her.
‘Wily Old Ram’, as he was nicknamed, was reputed to exercise his droit de seigneur at every opportunity. The last laundry maid he had impregnated had been ejected from Ramsden Manor and bundled off into a labourer’s cottage as second wife and mother to that widower and his brood. Bawdy jesting had abounded amongst Rupert Mayhew and his cronies, especially when gossip had it that the newly wed girl had been sneaked back into the house for a repeat performance. The labourer now, by all accounts, had two brats undeniably resembling the lord of the manor.
His darting, foxy eyes pounced on a glimpse of ankle as Rebecca shifted on her chair. She seemed a haughty chit, though. Perhaps increasing her prospects by lowering her principles—and certain items of clothing, he inwardly smirked—was beneath her. How he’d like her beneath—
‘I am twenty-five years old, Mr Mayhew, as I believe I mentioned to you in our earliest correspondence,’ Rebecca cut coldly into his lecherous musings, having conquered her indignation. ‘I believe my qualifications also met with your approval at that time.’
‘My dear Miss Nash, don’t feel you have to be defensive with me,’ he smugly dismissed, waving a bloodless hand. ‘You come most highly recommended. I contacted Mr Freeman as you suggested I might. He continually regaled me with the successes his daughter has enjoyed since leaving your establishment two summers ago. She has bagged a Viscount as fiancé, no less. Mr Freeman was generous enough to credit your establishment with helping them snare the quarry.’
‘I’m pleased to hear—’
Rebecca’s mild approval was cut short as Rupert Mayhew interjected bitterly, ‘Should you be able to achieve anything similar with the lazy, sullen minx skulking upstairs, I shall be above contentment.’
At the mention of her prospective new pupil, Rebecca stood up with a purposeful finality. A hint of genuine amusement hovered about her full, soft mouth as she was abruptly made aware of two things. Firstly, that her ex-pupil, Alexandra Freeman, a girl of little talent and even less to recommend her in the way of either looks or personality, had done so well for herself. Secondly, that the odious little man, who now rose from his chair to stand over-close to her, had little liking for his eldest stepdaughter. Rebecca sensed an immediate empathy with the fifteen-year-old girl she had yet to meet. Judging by the barely concealed envy in Rupert Mayhew’s tone as he recounted Alexandra Freeman’s excellent prospects, he was now anticipating some similar good fortune to befall the Mayhews.
‘Well, the sooner your stepdaughter and I are able to set upon the road, the nearer we come to achieving your ambitions,’ Rebecca announced, striving to banish mockery from her tone.
Rupert Mayhew’s ochre eyes were on a level with her own and she was certainly not regarded as tall for her sex. Yet she had misjudged in thinking him perhaps frail. There was a wiry strength about him which was now apparent close up. A squat, corded neck and thick expanse of collar bone were exposed by his open-necked linen shirt. The same sparse greying hair that streaked his scalp poked from the unbuttoned collar.
The weather recently had been uncommonly hot for late September, but even so, she wished he had made some effort to dress in the manner as befitted a wealthy gentlemen farmer in the presence of a lady caller. Perhaps he classed her as just an employee and unworthy of any special considerations. Well, she was just such, she supposed, and the sooner he settled his account for Lucy’s board and lessons and the sooner they were on their way to Graveley, the happier she would be.
Rebecca tore her offended gaze away from the coarse hairs sprouting from his throat and distanced herself from him by wandering to the large casement window. She gazed out. Heat was beginning to shimmer across the meadow just glimpsed beyond the formal gardens of Rupert Mayhew’s house. A splendid house it was too, she realised, rather forlornly, because its solid graceful character was so at variance with that of its master.
When she had alighted from the London post here in the village of Crosby some forty-five minutes ago, the house’s classical porticoed façade set in mellow stonework had seemed welcoming and auspicious. At that time, she had imagined cordial introductions between herself and her new pupil, perhaps an opportunity to discuss with Lucy’s fond parents any matters of special interest concerning their daughter’s ultimate refinement before she was launched into society. And then they would travel on to the Summer House Lodge, her home for the past five years.
She remembered Rupert Mayhew informing her of his wife’s delicate condition. But nothing in any of his correspondence had prepared her for the vile man she had met today. From his letters, she had guessed him to be perhaps a little pompous. And she recalled thinking it a trifle odd that the girl’s parents had not taken it upon themselves to visit her establishment to assess its suitability for their daughter. The hamlet of Graveley and the village of Crosby were, after all, barely fourteen miles apart along the coast road. Rupert Mayhew had obviously been content to settle his stepdaughter’s future on the strength of his neighbour’s success. Rebecca couldn’t grumble at that: such recommendations were what kept her small, thriftily run establishment in business. No doubt the low fees she charged had also been a consideration. Rupert Mayhew didn’t seem a man generous in spirit or coin.
An abrupt noise from behind splintered Rebecca’s musing, jerking her attention from the tranquil garden scene into the spartanly furnished parlour. Rupert Mayhew was overlooked as Rebecca gazed towards the polished mahogany door which now gaped wide on its hinges.
The auburn-haired young lady who slouched in its opening was quite lovely, despite the aggressive glower, the sulky, slanted mouth and the livid purple bruising which shadowed one sapphire eye.
Luke Trelawney’s dark head fell forward to momentarily rest in his cupped hands before long, blunt fingers threaded through thick, raven hair, drawing it away from his damp forehead.