How To Build The Perfect Rake (9 page)

‘Ah!’

‘Not too many of them, if you please,’
Olympia said severely, as he also poured a glass of lemonade. ‘You
need to keep your wits about you. Don’t drop your persona now. And
I will not have lemonade, thank you very much. I would prefer a
glass of Madeira.’

‘Nice young ladies do not quaff wine,’ but
he poured her a glass anyway.

‘Of course they do. And if they have enough
there is a fair chance they will become a great deal nicer. That
poetry was…was…’

‘Utterly bilious?’

‘Yes,’ she sighed, ‘but at least it got the
job done. Our Carisse has seen you in an entirely new light.’ She
took a plate and began to put some food on it. Pastries and some
bread and butter, along with a scoop of salmon mousse. ‘You’d
better go back with her lemonade.’

‘But I’m frightfully hungry,’ he said,
eyeing some slices of beef.

‘Deliver first, eat after.
It’s for
Carisse
.’

He sighed. ‘Are you coming?’

‘No,’ she said, taking several slivers of
roast chicken, ‘I need to feed my soul after such suffering. I
shall find a nice quiet place to have my supper and try to pretend
that the past half hour never happened. I do wish that our Endymion
would take up poetry in the style of the limerick. It would be so
much more amusing.’

Luc grinned. ‘And a great deal shorter.
Don’t forget, you’re supposed to be hanging on my every word.’

‘After food,’ she said, speaking around a
mouthful of salmon mousse, ‘I shall sigh and gasp and partake in
all manner of girlish swooning. Just let me feed myself first. One
cannot live by swoon alone.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ Luc muttered, with a
longing look at the table.

Returning with Miss Houghton’s drink, he
reflected that Ollie had a point. It was so much easier to be
focused when one had a full stomach. He wondered if he could
persuade Carisse towards the buffet table. After listening to such
stuff, she must surely feel the need for refreshments.

Carisse accepted her glass of lemonade with
a pretty word of thanks but it turned out that she was used to
being waited on by eager males, many of which offered their
services in providing suitable morsels for her celestial glory.
Mindful of his newly acquired – and still very fragile – status of
rake, Luc wondered what Howe would do. The answer came back to him
immediately. He would go and find somebody else to flirt with. A
rake did not settle on one woman, even if one woman was his
intended objective. He cultivated all manner of ladies, as long as
they were attractive, or amusing or – in Howe’s case – well off. So
Luc stepped back and looked around him. There were quite a few
pretty girls about, sadly neglected because Carisse was taking the
lion’s share of the masculine attention. He glanced towards Olympia
who was watching him with some interest. When she caught his eye,
she raised her glass and an eyebrow.

Luc gave an inward shrug and headed towards
a buxom, doe eyed brunette who was pouting in the corner. He needed
some practice and there never appeared to be a better time. He
fixed a smile on his face and prepared to practice the art of
rakish charm.

Chapter Five

Ten days after Lucien St James’ return to
town it was generally agreed upon by Society that he was not the
young man it had assumed him to be. And it didn’t quite know what
to make of the situation. Yes, he was still very wealthy, always a
desirable trait in a man, but at social events it quickly became
apparent that he had an eye for the ladies. And that they had an
eye for him. In fact, after ten days back in London, Lucien St
James was causing something of a stir.

‘Olympia?’ Aunt Flora said, coming into the
drawing room where her niece was writing a letter to her mother.
‘Do you know what Mrs. Flemington said to me?’

‘I can’t imagine. But then, she is a very
peculiar woman.’

‘She said that Mr. St
James has been making up to Helena Monkhouse. And Alice
Fotheringham.
And
Lucy Carmichael.’

‘Good heavens,’ Olympia murmured, ‘he has
been busy!’

‘Yes, but is it true? Lucien is such a quiet
young gentleman I can scarce believe it.’

‘I suppose it might be true. He has been
rather occupied of late.’

‘But didn’t you tell me he was interested in
Miss Houghton?’

‘I did indeed.’

‘So why,’ Aunt Flora demanded, flopping into
a chair. Her cheeks were pink for it was rather hot outside, the
temperature having climbed up in the past few days and then stayed
there, ‘is he paying attention to all these other young
ladies?’

Olympia shrugged.
Truthfully, she had only seen Luc once or twice since the poetry
recital but she had
heard
a great deal about him. He was fast becoming
something of a rattle, the way he whizzed about the place, flirting
here, flirting there, casting his newfound abilities far and wide.
If she didn’t know any better she would say that his sudden
popularity had gone to his head. ‘Perhaps he is teasing Miss
Houghton. She does love a challenge. I daresay he thinks it is a
way of piquing her interest.’

‘A very odd way. If Mr. St
James is interested in securing the girl’s interest then he should
make his intention clear. I had Lady Carmichael demanding to know
what Lucien was up to, as if
I
should know. I am always the last person to know
anything.’

This was not at all true.
Aunt Flora and her cohorts spent their days with their noses firmly
planted in other people’s business. They probably knew before time
who was getting engaged to whom, which young ladies were in a
‘delicate’ condition or the ins and outs of every illicit affair in
London. Olympia believed the problem was that they had all been
thrown into confusion by Luc’s change of status. He had gone from
being a very ‘nice young man’ to that dreaded category of
unquantifiable. Nobody knew quite what he was anymore and it was
making people uneasy because, if there was one thing the
ton
liked to know, it
was where a person stood.

‘It is probably no more
than a means of making Miss Houghton realize what a prize he is,’
Olympia suggested, signing her name with a flourish at the bottom
of the page. It was not a missive of any great significant, more
just idle chatter about what had been happening and how she had
been spending her time. More and more, she had been pining for
Warwickshire. She would not admit that her feelings had anything to
do with Luc and his new preoccupation but she could not help but
long for the way things had once been. She had known where she
stood then, as his friend and confidant. He had told her things he
had not told his male friends, knowing full well that she would
have more sympathy with his feelings and they had gotten along
famously together. Now she felt as if she were on the outer, cut
off from the action because she had suddenly become redundant. Of
course it might be a great deal too much to expect, having Luc
include her in his pursuit of the Houghton. But his behavior of
late had been a whole other thing. She had watched him flirt with a
bevy of young – and on several occasions – not so young beauties,
startled to observe how well he played his part. This was
not
her
Luc. Her
Luc would never have been able sound so suggestive while making the
most innocuous comment, or eye a girl as if she were a delicious
little morsel he was eager to taste. She barely recognized the man
who had teased the startled, but appreciative, debutantes into
ready blushes.

It was all very disconcerting and try as she
might to feel glad for Luc – for really, she had not thought this
whole endeavor could possibly work – there was no denying watching
her friend transform into somebody else entirely was a very
unpleasant feeling.

‘It seems a very strange way of going about
things.’

Olympia could not help but agree. Not only
was it peculiar to watch her friend behave in manner that was
completely at odds with his usual behavior, but she was finding her
friend’s burgeoning popularity to be a dreadful bore. The amount of
girls that came to her in the hope that she could promote their
interests, all because she was Luc’s friend… Olympia had been
astonished to discover that she herself had suddenly become more
popular, all because she could claim Lucien St James as a
friend.

Much as it might pain her to admit it, she
suspected that part of her problem with the situation was that she
was jealous. She did not care to lose her friend, nor did she care
for the way the other debutantes were now discussing him. Much as
Luc could make it appear that he found the female he was with
deliciously tempting, he was making a great many females regard him
in the same light. As if he were a particularly luscious cake that
they would like to take a bite out of.

Luc, of all people. Staid, dependable and so
much more sensible than Olympia.

It was depressing and it was making her
cross. Usually she enjoyed the sunniest of outlooks and could see
the humorous side of most things, but she did not find the current
situation in the least bit funny.

The object of so much
fluttering female attention paid a call to Martin Street that
afternoon and found Olympia by herself, Aunt Flora having gone for
a nap for the heat made her even more lethargic than usual. Olympia
was reading, but in a half hearted way, the story unable to hold
her interest. When Luc was announced she lay the book aside
carefully and sat up straighter, schooling her face into a mask of
polite interest although in truth, she had been thinking about him
even as she had tried to focus on the story. When Luc walked in she
decided that he
looked
different, his jacket of blue superfine and dove grey
breeches fitting him with snug self-assurance which she was sure he
had never worn before. Why, even his clothing fancied themselves as
something else, she thought indignantly. Although she had a
sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t the clothing but the newly
acquired confidence of the man wearing them.

‘Hello,’ she said, with
some reservation. After all, he
had
been neglecting her for days. And she had been
subjected to the most ridiculous interrogation from girls who she
had thought had more sense. (and quite a few that she knew
didn’t).

‘Hello yourself,’ he returned, coming to sit
beside her. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be at the Elford’s ball last
night?’

‘Was I? Why is that?’

‘Carisse said you were going.’

Oh, it was
Carisse
now, was it? ‘I
don’t know why she should have said anything of the kind.’ Although
Olympia did, really. She had been invited and had mentioned that
she would probably be there but somehow, she hadn’t been in the
mood for a ball, much to her aunt’s dismay.

‘I missed you.’

‘You did no such thing. You’ve been far too
busy to miss anybody.’

Luc arched an eyebrow in a
thoroughly roguish way. Apparently even eyebrow raising had taken
on a certain
je ne sais
quoi
. And was that really a wicked sparkle
in those blue eyes? ‘Are you all right Ollie?’

‘Of course I’m all right. How is your
pursuit of the Season’s Beauty going?’

He gave a careless shrug. ‘Very well. She
seems to be interested.’

Olympia gave him an
exasperated look. ‘Oh
do
shut up with all that
I’m-so-bored-I-can-barely-breath nonsense. It’s all a pose and you
know it!’

This surprised a laugh out of Luc. ‘Sorry. I
forgot who I was talking to. I think it’s becoming a habit.’

‘A ridiculous habit. Kindly do not practice
it around me. I am not one of your silly debutantes.’

‘Of course you’re not. Is there a problem?
You seem very cross with me. And don’t pretend otherwise,’ he
added, when she would have protested, ‘ I know you too well.
Clearly, I’ve done something to offend you.’

Had he? Truthfully, he had done nothing in
particular apart from stay away. But as to him knowing her well…
She would have said the same thing not so long ago but now she
wasn’t so sure. It felt a little like he did not know her at all.
She sighed. ‘I am out of sorts. It’s this wretched weather and…
and… well truthfully, I’m thinking of going home for a few weeks
for a visit. I’m finding London rather dreary.’

‘Going home?’ he repeated, surprised. ‘But
the Season has not ended yet.’

‘I know that.’

‘So why do you want to go home?’

Olympia looked at him. How to explain when
she wasn’t at all clear on why she wanted to leave London herself?
She could mention that she was sick of hearing how her best friend
was making sheep’s eyes at every pretty girl in town, but that
would never do for why should it matter to her? Really, she had no
desire to discuss why she wished to get away, only that she did. ‘I
am feeling homesick, I suppose. Summer is very wearing in London,
is it not? It’s never quite so awful in the country.’

‘I suppose not,’ he was
frowning, clearly uncertain what was going on. Well let him
be
uncertain, Olympia
thought pettishly. She didn’t have to explain herself. Besides, he
would hardly notice she was gone, what with romancing Carisse and
keeping up with his social commitments. ‘When do you plan to
go?’

She shrugged. ‘In the next few days.’ After
she had mentioned it to her aunt, who would be as surprised as Luc
about this sudden decision and a great deal more vocal in her
disapproval.