A Reformed Rake (33 page)

Sir Frederick’s murmurs could be heard by all. “My dearest love. My precious love. Don’t ever frighten me like that again, do you hear me? I’m getting too old for this sort of adventure. Oh, my dear heart, my girl, my Harriet ... Marry me? Please? I can’t stand this ... not ever again, Harriet. I must have you close. You don’t know how I feared for you. You must never leave my sight again. Harriet?”

Harriet turned up her face, looked at him. He looked at her. Then the two were reaching, clutching, their lips meeting in something very close to desperation. Frederick’s arms moved, his hands molding her into him as if he wished right then to make the two of them one flesh. Slowly the desperation turned to a gentler passion and then, slowly to love and affection. Finally, he lifted his face to look deep into her eyes. “Marry me?”

Harriet’s head cleared enough to look around. She blushed as she found Françoise cuddled next to Yves and smiling at her, a frowning Madame seated in regal dignity on a straight-backed chair someone had found for her, and Marie de Daunay with her mouth agape, obviously shocked nearly out of her wits by such goings on. The runner, Halford and Monsieur de Bartigues merely grinned.

“Now I’ve compromised you utterly, and you must marry me,” Sir Frederick whispered dramatically into one dust covered ear. Gently he brushed a cobweb from Harriet’s hair.

“
Utterly
compromised?” she returned, smiling mistily.

“Well, not quite, but it can be arranged if you wish it,” he answered. “
I
would prefer an outrageously extravagant wedding at Saint George’s, Hanover Square.”

Tears of happiness glistened in Harriet’s eyes. Somehow during her adventure, all her fears for their future had vanished. Now, in his arms, all was right with her world. “How amazingly conventional of you,” she teased.

“But how publicly I would proclaim to the world that, in the hands of the right woman, even the boldest of rakes may be reformed!”

“I think, Sir Frederick,” interrupted Madame, “that, given your current behavior,
reformed
may not be quite the correct word. You will unhand my servant at once—” Sir Frederick glowered, holding Harriet closer. “—until I myself may see to the immediate arrangement of a wedding.” Sir Frederick raised a brow, but Madame hadn’t finished. “
Disgraceful,
Harriet,” she scolded, her twinkling eyes contradicting her tone. “How could you lend yourself to such terrible impropriety in front of Françoise? My granddaughter, as well you know, has far too many rash notions in her head as it is. She is not in need of further instruction in improper behavior!” Françoise, flirting up at Yves, confirmed she did, indeed, have rash notions of her own. There was a distinctly speculative look in her eye, one returned by the young Frenchman holding her so comfortingly close.

Madame, observing this, modified her plan. There will be, she instantly decided,
two
weddings to celebrate—and then, with Françoise married and the comte at long last no more danger to anyone, she could retire to her beloved home on the banks of Lake Como and live out the rest of her life in splendid peace and quiet. Madame eyed Harriet and decided she’d have only one regret: she’d be unable to take the young English woman home with her.

Where, after all, wondered Madame la Comtesse, could she find another companion with a knowledge of English cant!

Dear Reader,

So! Sir Frederick turned out to be less of a villain than might have been expected when one finished Lady Jo’s story,
The Widow And The Rake
(Zebra, November, 1993 [ISBN, 0-8217-4382-1])!

My next book will be a Christmas Regency, available in November 1994: Ernestine Matthewson is sent to Portugal, charged with convincing her widowed sister to return to her father’s house in England, where she belongs. But Ernie’s older sister, Lenore Lockwood, insists that her missing-in-action, believed-dead husband still lives. Ernie is appalled to discover how the denial of grief has affected Lenore. She vows that
she’ll
never chance such misery by marrying a soldier—a vow which makes falling in love with Colonel Lord Summerton a serious error!

Happy reading!

Jeanne Savery

P.S. Letters sent to
Jeanne Savery, P.O. Box 1771, Rochester, MI 48308
will reach me. I would enjoy hearing from my readers; if you wish a response, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope!