Dare to Risk it All by Emma V Leech
Chapter 1
Louis,
I will not take no for an answer, I’m afraid. You are family now. Your brother and Eliza will be with us for Christmas, so I insist you come and stay, too. You must bring Agatha as well, naturally, as she is most entertaining and ought not miss out on the festivities.
We shall be a merry party and not the least bit dull, I promise.
I expect to see you without fail.
―Excerpt of a letter from Prudence Adolphus, Her Grace the Duchess of Bedwin, to Louis César de Montluc, Comte de Villen.
1st December 1840, Rowsley Hall, Derbyshire.
Raphe peered up at the roof over his head, or rather at the large hole in the roof over his head.
“Needs a bit of work,” Dare mused, tugging at his ear as he looked around at the remnants of what had been a tenant worker’s cottage.
At present, it more closely resembled a pile of stone, with a little thatch clinging boldly to the top.
“A bit?” Raphe repeated, raising his eyebrows. “Well, you ever were the optimist among us.”
Dare laughed and gave a shrug. “Well, no use weeping and wailing about it, is there? Besides, I’ve got someone who wants the bloody place, which is a miracle. Least I can do is get it back in order.”
Raphe nodded, experiencing a stab of guilt as he wondered what condition his own estate buildings were in, never mind the house itself. He had barely enough money to keep himself and his brothers clothed and fed. There was none left over for anything else, and he couldn’t even sell the damn thing, as it and the land were entailed. He’d been forced to abandon his home, sickened by sight of the place falling into disrepair when he could not afford to upkeep it.
“The walls appear to be solid enough,” Raphe said begrudgingly, tugging at a thick ivy branch that had crawled inside the building via the dilapidated roof. “And the timbers look sound, though how is beyond me.”
“Yes, and the windows just need new glass. The bottom of the door has rotted out, but that’s nothing major. So, we just need to strip the old thatch, clear it out, and do some repairs. Not half as bad as I thought it might be.”
Raphe snorted in amusement.
“Oh, come on. I’m sure you’re itching to get started. We did a great job at the cottage over at Upper Ox Pasture. You enjoyed it.”
The look Raphe returned was incredulous. “Did I sound like I was enjoying myself?”
“No,” Dare admitted. “You bitched and complained the entire time, but I could tell you were enjoying yourself all the same. Better than sitting about drunk off your head and bored to death, isn’t it?”
Yes. He could not say it to Dare, but Raphe had to admit—to himself, at least—that it was a good deal better than that. He’d lost his way some months ago, lost himself in a pit of despair so deep he’d not had the strength to climb out again. Thank God his friends had come for him. He owed them a great deal. Dare, August, and even Bainbridge had all stood by him. They’d hauled him down to Dare’s estate and got little thanks for doing it, Dare especially. The poor bastard, newly married and blissfully happy with his new wife, had taken Raphe in.
Raphe had been belligerent and angry and bloody ungrateful, and Dare had heeded none of it. He’d cared for Raphe as if he were his own brother, likely better than Raphe had ever cared for any of his.
Raphe sighed and began taking off his coat.
“What are you doing?” Dare asked, watching him in surprise.
“Well, if you’re serious about sorting this bloody heap of stones out, we’d best get on with it, though why you must do it with your own hands when you’ve got about two hundred workmen on the estate is beyond me.”
Dare grinned at him and followed suit, stripping off his own coat and waistcoat. Thankfully, they’d both worn old clothes to visit the dilapidated property. The crisp December day was chilly, but the sun glowed through the hole in the roof, turning the interior of the little cottage to gold and warming Raphe’s back through his shirt.
“I don’t know. Like to feel useful. It’s all Elspeth’s money getting the place back in order and… well, it makes me feel less of a parasite, I suppose. Besides which, I’ve found I enjoy it. Strange, isn’t it, to enjoy hard work?”
Raphe snorted. “Madness is what it is, and you’ve infected me with the same peculiar disease.”
Dare laughed, a familiar sound from the jovial fellow and Raphe’s conscience pricked. He was lucky to have such a friend. He owed Dare so much, more than he could ever repay.
“Dare,” he said, and then stopped when Dare turned to him. Heat crept up the back of his neck and the moment stretched out with increasing awkwardness, but he had to say something. Anything. “Thank you,” he managed, frowning down at the flagstones beneath his feet so he could avoid Dare’s penetrating gaze.
His friend stared at him, perplexed. “For bringing you down here to work in this dirty old hovel?”
Raphe rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, aware that Dare knew damn well what he was trying to say and was just being obtuse for the fun of it.
“No,” he said with exaggerated patience. “For — Oh, hell, for not abandoning me to myself. For putting up with me at my most disgusting. You’re a true friend, Dare, and I promise I’ll not make such a spectacle of myself again.”
Dare laughed and waved this off. “You’d better not. Rothborn will have your guts for garters, I reckon. Scary devil, isn’t he? He always makes me want to check my boots are shiny and adjust my cravat.”
Raphe returned a wry smile. “I know just how you feel. He said he’ll wash his hands of me next time and he’s been very good to me over the years. I won’t repay him by making an even bigger mess. I’ll not let him down again, or you.”
He grimaced, ridiculously uncomfortable with the conversation, but Dare only strode over and clapped him on the back.
“We’ve all got our demons, Raphe. Gifts from our estimable parents. You’ve got to fight them, is all. Took me a while to realise what I needed, but then Elspeth was there and… everything became clear.”
With a huff of laughter, Raphe strode out of the cottage with Dare at his heels.
“Well, you may have needed the love of a good woman to turn your life around. All I need is a bit of peace and—” He turned and stared up at the tumble-down cottage. “—a challenge.”
Later that day, filthy and exhausted, Raphe and Dare made their way back to the vast, sprawling estate that was Rowsley Hall for a well-earned wash and some dinner. Raphe’s stomach was already protesting vociferously. It relieved his mind to note that his desire to lose himself in the nearest bottle of brandy was no longer the God-awful temptation it had been. The last three months of sobriety and hard work had changed him inwardly as well as out. He was calmer and less likely to fly off in a temper; he had gained weight, and muscle, and he no longer looked like a three-day-old cadaver. An improvement, that.
As they approached the hall, Elspeth appeared, waving at them. Dare grinned and yelled a greeting, making his wife smile. Raphe squashed a surge of irritation. He did not like Elspeth around. Seeing her and Dare together made him uncomfortable and unaccountably annoyed, though he could not understand why. She was a pleasant young woman, and she had been very kind to him. She’d been a great deal more patient and understanding than he deserved. Most women would have been screaming at their spouses to have him out of the house months ago, but she had never reproached him.
As they got closer, Raphe realised she was looking at him.
“You have guests,” she said, her green eyes alight with amusement.
“Guests?” he repeated, wondering who the hell was visiting him. Only his friends knew he was here. Bainbridge lived just up the road and August was away dealing with the aggravating females in his family. Lord and Lady Rothborn, perhaps?
“Come along,” Elspeth said, leading him into the building.
“I can’t greet guests like this,” he said, gesturing to his dust-covered person.
“I don’t think these will mind,” she said as they reached the comfortable parlour where she had left whoever wanted to see him.
Raphe frowned as she opened the door and then gaped in astonishment as he caught sight of his stepbrothers.
“Sylvester!” Raphe exclaimed, hurrying into the room. “Oliver! What the devil are you doing here? Is anything wrong?”
“Yes, of course, the only reason we’d wish to see you was if something was wrong,” Sylvester said wryly.
Ignoring Raphe’s bewilderment, he gave him a hearty hug, slapping his shoulder and laughing as Raphe stared at them both. At twenty-six, Sylvester was only two years younger than Raphe. The two took after their mother, with hair of dark gold and light hazel eyes. They were handsome boys and—though they had dressed with care, everything clean and neatly pressed—Raphe could see their attire was not what it ought to be. The cuffs of Sylvester’s shirt looked worn, and poor Oliver’s coat was rather too small for him. Guilt punched him hard in the gut.
“It’s been ages,” Oliver grumbled. “We thought you were dead.”
Though Raphe could tell the boy was joking, he heard the reproach in the words with a bell-like clarity. They had feared for him, and with good reason. He had never been in touch with them. All his brothers could possibly have learned of his existence would have been gleaned from the scandal sheets that he so often starred in, for all the worst reasons. Raphe let out a breath, discomfited by the strange ache in his chest. Oliver looked so different from the last time Raphe had seen him. He could only gape at the brother he’d always thought of as a child. He must have sprouted at least four inches since their last meeting, and was clearly no longer a little boy. When had Raphe seen him last? Six months—no—a year or more! Christ, sixteen, Raphe realised as he did a quick calculation. Oliver was sixteen! How the hell had so much time passed?
“You’ve grown,” Raphe observed, a peculiar sensation tightening his throat.
Sylvester snorted. “He won’t bloody stop, the weed. At this rate, he’ll be taller than us both, and Mother already can’t find clothes to fit him before he’s outgrown the damn things.”
A familiar, prickling sense of resentment crawled down Raphe’s spine, but he remembered his manners and his promise to Rothborn. “How is Blanche?”
“A pain in my neck,” Oliver muttered, gaining himself a clip round the ear from Sylvester.
“Mind your tongue, cub,” Sylvester reprimanded him, though his tone was mild. “And I can’t say he’s wrong, to be fair.”
Raphe gave them a sympathetic smile, knowing all too well how trying their darling mama could be. “I’m sorry to hear it, but tell me, why are you here in Derbyshire?”
“Well, Mother has her sisters staying with her for Christmas—”
“And we simply cannot stand it,” Oliver piped up, earning himself another dark look from Sylvester, who tried again.
“So, we’ve—”
“Come to stay with you instead!” Oliver finished with a bright grin.
Raphe’s mouth fell open. “B-But you can’t,” he said, wishing that they could, that there was something he could do to give them a better Christmas than they’d have with their blasted mother. Memories of Christmases past, when his father was alive, sprang to mind unbidden, and he forced them back into the locked box where he kept such things. “I wish things were different truly, but I am only a guest here and—”
“Oh, that’s no trouble,” Oliver said, with all the insouciant carelessness of a sixteen-year-old boy. “We already asked Lady Roxborough, and she said we were welcome to stay as long as we wanted. So, we’re staying for Christmas!”
Greer glanced at her friend Aisling, who sat quietly and apparently content beside her, hands in her lap as she stared out of the carriage window. She was Greer’s opposite in every way. Her hair was black, where Greer’s was blonde, her eyes were a very dark brown where Greer’s were a pale green, and Aisling brought calm where Greer brought pandemonium. Despite this, they were the best of friends, and it had delighted Greer when Aisling had accepted her invitation to come for Christmas. Admittedly, she had begged a little—more than a little—but facing Christmas at her married sister’s beautiful home, with Elspeth’s handsome husband and her perfect life, seemed a little daunting. As much as Greer had longed to visit, she knew there was an inherent risk in being here. She did not want to misbehave and cause a row, but she and Elspeth had always bickered and fought. So she hoped that Aisling’s lovely, calming presence would be a beneficial influence. Now, though, Greer fidgeted on the carriage seat, craning her neck to see if she could glimpse Rowsley Hall from the window. Her younger sister, Alana, who sat on her other side, aimed a swift elbow at her.
“You’re squashing me!” Alana squawked, her dark green eyes glittering with irritation.
“Well, you ought not to take up so much space,” Greer retorted, gesturing to the books, sketchpads and pencils that cluttered the scant inch of room remaining on the seat.
She had borne with it for most of the journey, for it was far better fourteen-year-old Alana did not suffer an uncontrollable urge to do anything rash. Not that she was a naughty child, she was simply a magnet for trouble. Well, she was a Campbell like their mother, like Greer and her twin sister Elspeth. The respectable Cadogan blood on their father’s side tried to keep them all in order, but mostly it failed. As Papa was the wildest of the Cadogans, it was probably fighting a losing battle. Elspeth was the only one who kept propriety in mind and behaved properly, and even she attracted trouble, though unwillingly. Greer looked for it, and Alana—well, bad things happened when she grew bored. Greer was far too excited to reach the Hall. She wanted no unforeseen disasters to delay them.
“Don’t squabble, girls,” their father said, blue eyes glittering at them from over the top of a racing journal. “Not long now.”
“How long?” Alana and Greer cried in unison, waking their mother, who had been dozing peacefully against their father’s shoulder.
“What! What? What did you do?” she demanded, sleepy and disorientated.
“There, there, Bonnie, love,” Papa soothed, setting aside his journal to put his arm about his wife. “No one did anything.”
“Really? No explosions?” she asked, blinking at him in surprise.
“Not one.”
“No furious innkeepers?”
“Not even a mildly disgruntled one.”
Their mother turned her keen gaze upon them both, narrowing her eyes. “They’re saving it up. I bet they are. They’ll do something dreadful and embarrass the family,” she said thoughtfully. Then, instead of giving them a warning to behave, as most mothers would, she grinned. “Oh, I am so looking forward to this.”
Greer heard a soft chuckle from Aisling whilst Papa snorted and kissed their mother’s head of unruly dark curls.
“Dreadful creature,” he murmured affectionately.
Greer sighed. That was what she wanted. She wanted a man to still look at her with adoration after so many years of marriage, even if she was a handful. More of a handful than most men seemed to want, at any rate. Though Greer and Elspeth were twins, they were very different. Elspeth had always been well-behaved, which was why it had been such a shock when she had become embroiled in a scandal. Everyone had always assumed it would be Greer, not practical Elspeth. Things had worked out marvellously, though. She had married Dare, Lord Roxborough, one of the wildest young men in the ton. The family had immediately recognised a kindred spirit, and he had fit right in with their chaos without blinking an eye.
Greer was pleased for her sister. She really was. Terrifically pleased. It was so lovely that Elspeth was so blissfully, marvellously, revoltingly happy. Though if she were being completely one hundred percent honest, it was possible she was the teeny, tiniest bit jealous. Just a smidgen. A—oh, drat it all, she was green with envy. Dare was handsome and funny, and he clearly loved Elspeth to her bones. Greer was terribly afraid no one would ever love her that way. After all, men like her father and Lord Roxborough simply did not come along every day. Most men wanted a placid, biddable bride, a woman who would agree with their every word, have acceptable hobbies, be an elegant hostess, and do nothing to embarrass them in public. Greer knew she could do none of that. She didn’t want to do any of that. Well, she would never deliberately embarrass her husband in public, but she knew herself well enough to realise it would happen eventually.
“Oh! There it is,” Alana exclaimed, bouncing on the seat with a flurry of skirts and sending pencils and books tumbling to the floor.
“Thank heavens!” Greer muttered under her breath and watched with growing anticipation as they drew closer to Rowsley Hall.
