Never Resist a Rake (28 page)

Samantha Grace

Coming soon from Sourcebooks Casablanca

April 1817

Eve Thorne had no more tears to shed. Her body had become heavy, sinking into her bed as if it might swallow her. The coverlet beneath her cheek was damp and cool. Subdued afternoon light cast her normally cheerful bedchamber in shadow.

Her maid's sympathetic frown and the porcelain plate she held out to Eve made her eyes burn, dispelling the notion she had cried herself dry. The plate was filled with dishes meant for Eve's wedding breakfast, food that would spoil in a day with no guests to enjoy the feast.

“Lord Thorne will be cross if I cannot coax you to eat something, miss,” Alice said.

“Has he returned?” Speaking required more effort than Eve thought possible; her voice was raspy and her throat tight.

Alice shook her graying head. “May I speak freely, miss?”

“Please,” Eve said on a sigh.

“You don't want your brother to find you this way. The baron is on a tear as it is.”

Sebastian was scouring London for Eve's runaway groom now, determined to defend her honor. Finding her in tears would only make matters worse, but how did one hide the shattered pieces of one's heart?

She blinked up at Alice. “I will try.”

Her lady's maid answered with an encouraging smile and placed the plate back on its tray. “Very good, miss. Allow me to help you sit up.”

Eve leaned forward while Alice fluffed the pillows and watched in a numbing fog as her maid placed the tray across her lap. The sight of red grapes made her vision blur again.

“Oh, bother,” she mumbled. Why did everything have to make her think of Ben?

It was hard to believe it had only been last night when they had teased each other.

Ben's smoky blue eyes—the perfect blending of dark blue and gray—had twinkled with mischief as he'd wrapped her in his arms when Mama had allowed them a rare moment alone for Eve to bid him good night. It was to be their last good-bye, for tonight he should have taken her to his home. Her home.

Once we have spoken our vows, I will expect many things from you, Miss Thorne.

Is that so, Mr. Hillary? Let me hear these expectations, so I might decide if I wish to meet them.

She had been teasing. In that moment of blind devotion, she would have done anything he asked. His amused chuckle had washed her in warm tingles.

Do you want the entire list?

She had nodded, expecting him to recite the usual duties involved with managing a household. Instead, he'd made her laugh and planted the most delicious vision in her mind to take with her to bed: Ben lounging on a fainting couch like some hedonistic god, wearing nothing but a loincloth and laurel wreath in his golden brown hair, while Eve fed him grapes.

Eve had felt so cherished and happy when he'd stolen a kiss and whispered in her ear.
I love you,
Kitten
.

She swiped at the wetness leaking from the corners of her eyes. What could have happened between nightfall and this morning at the church to change his mind about her? Or had she been too smitten to recognize reservation in his actions?

He had come to St. George's Church, and by all accounts, seemed prepared to marry her. Surely the love she had felt in his touch last night was no lie. Yet her limited imagination didn't allow for any other excuse for what he had done. Ben left her at the church, humiliated her in front of her family and friends.

A soft knock sounded at her door and Alice swept across the room to answer. Eve's mother paused in the threshold. Her dark gaze flickered over Eve as a small frown formed on her lips. “Eve, there is a gentleman here to see you. Mr. Cooper says Mr. Hillary sent him.”

Eve's heart leaped. She knew Ben hadn't truly abandoned her. Something of the utmost importance must have occurred to make him leave so suddenly.

More important than your wedding?

She ignored the logic in favor of having Ben back.

“Should I have Milo tell him you are not receiving?” Mama asked.

“No!” Eve nearly knocked over the tray in her haste, but Alice grabbed it before it tipped. Eve mumbled an apology and scrambled from the bed. She stopped at the washstand to clear the evidence of her tears from her cheeks, although she wouldn't be able to hide the redness of her eyes and nose. “Did Mr. Cooper indicate how he knows Ben?”

Mama came up behind her to place her hands on Eve's shoulders. “He only said he made his acquaintance at the docks this afternoon. Mr. Cooper was seeing his cousin off to India on one of Benjamin's ships.”

Why would Ben be at the docks on their wedding day? Eve swallowed against the panic welling up at the back of her throat. There must be a reasonable explanation, and it appeared Mr. Cooper was here to deliver it. She couldn't get ahead of herself.

Draping the cloth over the side of the basin, she took a deep breath. “I suppose I should see what the gentleman has to say before drawing conclusions.”

Emily Greenwood

Coming soon from Sourcebooks Casablanca

Miss Anna Black gave a silent cheer as the carriage she was riding in lurched and came to an abrupt stop at an angle that suggested they'd hit a deep ditch.

Perhaps, she thought hopefully from the edge of her seat, where she'd been tossed, they'd be stuck on the road for hours, which would delay their arrival at the estate of Viscount Grandville. She had reason to be worried about what might happen at Lord Grandville's estate, and she dreaded reaching it.

It was also possible she was being pursued.

Or not.

Perhaps nothing would happen at all. But the whole situation was nerve-wracking enough that she had more than once considered simply running off to live in the woods and survive on berries.

However, several considerations discouraged her from this course:

1. She had exactly three shillings to her name. Though admittedly money would be of no use in the woods, she would at some point need more than berries.

2. She had agreed to escort her traveling companion, Miss Elizabeth Tarryton, to the home of Viscount Grandville, who was the girl's guardian.

3. If Anna abandoned her duty, along with being a wicked person, she wouldn't be able to return to the Rosewood School for Young Ladies of Quality, her employer.

Anna was nothing if not practical, and she was highly skeptical of the success of the life-in-the-woods plan, but the dramatic occurrences in her life of late were starting to lend it appeal.

“Hell!” said the lovely Miss Elizabeth Tarryton from her sprawled position on the opposite coach seat. Her apricot silk bonnet had fallen across her face during the coach-lurching, and she pushed it aside. “What's happened?”

“We're in a ditch, evidently,” Anna replied. Their situation was obvious, but Miss Tarryton had not so far proven herself to be particularly sensible for her sixteen years. She was also apparently not averse to cursing.

Surrendering to the inevitable, Anna said, “I'll go see how things look.”

She had to push upward to open the door to the tilted coach, and before stepping down, she paused to tug her faded blue bonnet over her black curls, a reflex of concealment that had become second nature in the last month. The rain that had followed them since they left the school that morning had stopped, but the dark sky promised more.

The coachman was already seeing to the horses.

“Had to go off the road to avoid a vast puddle, and now we're in a ditch,” he called. “'Tis fortunate that we're but half a mile from his lordship's estate.”

So they would soon be at Stillwell, Viscount Grandville's estate.
Damn
, Anna thought, taking a page from Miss Tarryton's book. Would he be a threat to her?

After a month in a state of nearly constant anxiety, of waiting to be exposed, she sometimes felt mutinously that she didn't care anymore. She'd done nothing of which she ought to be ashamed—yet it would never appear that way. And so she felt like a victim, and hated feeling that way, and hated the accursed book that had given two wicked men such power over her.

She gathered up the limp skirts of her faded, old blue frock and jumped off the last step, intending to see how badly they were stuck.

The coachman was seeing to the horses, and as she moved to inspect the back of the carriage, she became aware of hoofbeats and turned to see a rider cantering toward them. A farmer, she thought, taking in his dusty, floppy hat and dull coat and breeches. He drew even.

“You are trespassing,” he said from atop his horse, his tone as blunt as his words. The sagging brim of his hat hid the upper part of his face, but from the hard set of his jaw, she could guess it did not bear a warm expression. His shadowed gaze passed over her, not lingering for more time than it might have taken to observe a pile of dirty breakfast dishes.

“We had no intention of doing so, I assure you,” she began, wondering that the stranger hadn't even offered a greeting. “The road was impassible and our coachman tried to go around, but now we are stuck. Perhaps, though, if you might—”

“You cannot tarry here,” he said, ignoring her attempt to ask for help. “A storm is coming. Your coach will be stranded if you don't make haste.”

His speech was clipped, but it sounded surprisingly refined.
Ha
. That was surely the only refined thing about him. Aside from his lack of manners and the shabbiness of his clothes, there was an L-shaped rip in his breeches that gave a window onto pale skin and thigh muscles pressed taut, and underneath his coat, his shirt hung loose at the neck. She supposed it was his broad shoulders that made him seem especially imposing atop his dark horse.

A stormy surge of wind blew his hat brim off his face, and she realized that severe though his expression might be, he was very handsome. The lines of his cheekbones and hard jaw ran in perfect complement to each other. His well-formed brows arched in graceful if harsh angles over dark eyes surrounded by crowded black lashes.

But those eyes. They were as devoid of life as one of her father's near-death patients.

Several fat raindrops pelted her bonnet.

“We shall be away momentarily,” she said briskly, turning away from him to consider the plight of the coach and assuming he would leave now that he'd delivered his warning.

The rain began to fall faster, soaking through the thin fabric of her worn-out frock. She called out to the coachman, who was doing something with the harness straps. “Better take off the young lady's trunk before you try to advance.”

“No. That's a waste of time,” said the stranger from atop his horse behind her.

She turned around, deeply annoyed. “Your opinion is not wanted.”

The ill-mannered man watched her, a muscle ticking in his stubbled jaw.

A cold rivulet trickled through her bonnet to her scalp and continued down her neck, and his empty gaze seemed to follow the little stream's journey to the collar of her dampening frock. His eyes flicked lower, and she thought they lingered at her breasts.

She crossed her arms in front of her and tipped her chin higher. Not for nothing had she sparred with her older brother all those years in a home that had been more than anything else a man's domain. Her father had been a doctor who had valued reason and scientific process and frowned on softness, and she'd been raised to speak her mind.

Jade Lee

Coming soon from Sourcebooks Casablanca

There are certain things a woman knows. She knows what the weather will be based on how easily her hair settles into the pins. She knows when the cook has quarreled with the butler by the taste of the morning eggs. And she knows when a man will completely upset her day.

And right now, that man was walking up her front drive as easy as if he expected to be welcomed.

Melinda Smithson bolted out of her bedroom where she'd been fighting with her curls—again—and rushed downstairs. “I'm just going for a quick walk!” she said much too brightly to their butler as she made it to the front door. Rowe hadn't even the time to reach for her gloves when she snatched her gardening bonnet off the table and headed outside. She had to get to the odious man before he rounded the rock and came into view from her father's laboratory. If her papa saw him, she would be done for. So she ran as fast as her legs could carry her.

She rounded the bend at the same moment he arrived at the rock. One step more, and she was doomed.

“Oh no, Mr. Anaedsley. Not today. You cannot come here today.” She said the words breathlessly, but she punctuated with a severe tug on her bonnet. So hard, in fact, that three pins dug painfully into her scalp.

Mr. Anaedsley had been whistling, but now he drew up short. “You've punched your thumb through your bonnet.” He spoke with a charming smile that made her grind her teeth in frustration. Everything about the man was charming, from his reddish-brown hair to the freckles that dotted his cheeks to the rich green of his eyes. An annoyance dressed as a prince of the realm, for all that he had no courtesy title. He was the son and heir of the Duke of Timby, and she hated him with a passion that bordered on insanity.

Unfortunately, he was right. She'd punched her thumb clean through the straw brim of her bonnet.

“Yes, I have,” she said as she stepped directly in front of him. He would not pass around the rock. He simply wouldn't. “And that is one more crime I lay at your feet.”

“A crime?” he replied. “To poke a hole in that ugly thing? Really, Miss Smithson, I call it more a mercy. The sun should not shine on something that hideous.”

It was hideous, which was why it was her gardening bonnet. “The sun is not supposed to shine on my face either, so it is this ugly thing or stay inside.”

“Come now, Miss Smithson,” he said as he held out his arm to escort her. “I am well aware that you have dozens of fetching bonnets—”

“But this was the one at hand.” She ignored his arm and stared intimidatingly at him. Or at least she tried to. But he was a good six inches taller than her. Average for a man, but for her he was quite the perfect height. Not too tall as to dwarf her, but large enough to be handsome in his coat of bottle-green superfine. It brought out his eyes, which were made all the more stunning by the sunlight that shone full on his face.

“Shall we amble up your beautiful drive and fetch you a pretty bonnet?”

“No, Mr. Anaedsley, we shall not. Because you shall not come to the house today. Any other day, you will be very welcome. But not today.”

His brows drew together in worry. “Is your father ill? Is there something amiss? Tell me, Miss Smithson. What can I do to help?”

It was the right thing to say. Of course it was because he
always
knew the right thing to say. Her father's health was precarious these days, a cough plaguing him despite all attempts to physic him. She might have ignored his words as simple politeness, but she saw genuine worry in his eyes. She couldn't help but soften toward him.

“Papa is the same as before. It's worst at night—”

“The gypsy tincture didn't help then.” He took her arm and gently eased her hand into the crook of his elbow. Her fingers were placed there before she even realized it. “I'll ask a doctor friend I know as soon as I return to London. He may—”

She dug in her feet, tugging backward on his arm. He raised a perfect eyebrow in query, but she flashed him a warm smile. “An excellent idea. You should go there right now. In fact, pray fetch the doctor here.”

His eyebrows rose in alarm. “I shall write down the man's direction and a message. You can send a footman—”

“No, sir. You must go yourself. Right now. It is most urgent.”

He flashed her his dimple. Damn him for having such a very attractive dimple. “Now why do I get the feeling that you're trying to rush me away?”

“Because the first thing I said to you was go away!”

He cocked his head, and his expression grew even more delightful. She would swear she saw a twinkle in his eyes. “Miss Smithson, I thought you were a scientist. The first thing you said to me was, ‘Oh no, Mr. Anaedsley, not today.'”

“Well, there you have it. Go away. We are not receiving callers.”

And then, just to make a liar of her, her uncle's carriage trotted up the path. Four horses—matched chestnuts—stepping smartly as they pulled her uncle's polished, gilded monstrosity. And inside waving cheerily was her cousin Ronnie. Half cousin, actually, and she waved halfheartedly at the wan fop.

“It appears, Miss Smithson, that we have been spotted. I'm afraid politeness requires that I make my bow.”

“No, we haven't!” She'd used the distraction to pull them back from the rock. They were, in fact, completely shielded from all windows of the Smithson residence including the laboratory. “Ronnie doesn't count. And he certainly doesn't care if you greet him or not. The most powerful snub only seems to inspire him to greater heights of poetry.”

“A poet is he?”

“Yes,” she groaned. “A good one too.” Which made it all the worse.

“Ah. Your suitor, I assume?”

“Suitor” was too simple a word for her relationship with Ronnie, which involved a lot of private family history. “He's my cousin. Well, half cousin, as my father and uncle had different mothers. But he has convinced himself that we are fated to be wed.”

“And as a practical woman of science, you do not believe in fate.”

She didn't believe in a lot of things, but at the top of the list was Ronnie's fantasy. He thought fate had cast them as prince and princess in a make-believe future. She thought her cousin's obsession with her silly at best, but more likely a dark and dangerous thing. “I do not wish to wed the man,” she said baldly.

“Well, the solution is obvious then, isn't it? I shall join you today as an afternoon caller, and Ronnie will not be able to press his suit upon you.”

“That would be lovely,” she said sourly, “if you actually did as you say. But we both know what will really happen.”

“We do?” he countered, all innocence.

She tossed him her most irritated, ugly, and angry look, but it did absolutely nothing to diminish his smile. “Oh leave off, Mr. Anaedsley, I haven't the time for it today.”