Rapturous Rakes Bundle (10 page)

danger of trampling that very gallantry underfoot.

‘Devil take it!’ Lucas said bad-temperedly, slapping

his glass down so hard that the table shook. He had

come out to drown his sorrows and yet it seemed there

was nowhere to hide. He felt the greatest scoundrel in

the whole world.

With two commissions to complete, Rebecca rose

each day when the bleary London dawn spread across

the sky and worked late into the night. During daylight

she would throw the shutters wide to draw as much

natural light into the workshop as possible. When

night came she would light the candles and continue

until her head ached and her eyes itched. There was

no sound in the studio but for the diamond scribe

scratching the glass as she meticulously picked out the

pattern of the wicked angel. Beneath its point the fig-

ure came to life, wings folded neatly, the line of cheek

and jaw giving the impression of strength and grace,

head bent, as if in devout contemplation of sin. On the

evening of the fourth day she laid her scribe aside and

considered the engraving. She knew at once that there

was something wrong with it. The problem was not in

the execution, but in the finished picture. She had

given the wicked angel Lucas Kestrel’s face.

It was undeniable. The detail was perfect: the high

cheekbones, the hard line of the jaw, the watchful

eyes, the mouth... Rebecca put her head in her hands

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The
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Mistress

in despair. All this time she had been shutting Lucas

out of her thoughts by concentrating on her work. She

had refused to think of him, refused to dream of him.

Yet he had come to haunt her nevertheless, taking life

beneath the point of the scribe and showing her just

how foolish she was to think that she could dismiss

him.

Rebecca pushed the bowl away dispiritedly. She

knew she should have spent longer practising on old

glass before she started work on the crystal, but she

had been desperate to finish the commission, desperate

for the money, if she were truthful. And there was no

real need to despair, for Lord Fremantle was likely to

be very pleased with the work. She would deliver it

to the Club in the morning. It was undoubtedly

amongst her best work. Technically it was beautiful

and perfectly executed. It was what it told her that was

worrying.

Rebecca stood up, wiped the palms of her hands on

her apron and walked restlessly across to the window.

Night had fallen long since and the lights of the Je-

rusalem Tavern twinkled faintly in the dusk. A distant

murmur of voices drifted on the night air.

Rebecca turned away. She knew that she should put

in some time on her accounts, which consistently re-

fused to add up. The mere thought of it made her head

ache.

She wished with fierce longing that her uncle,

George Provost, was here with her now. She had never

felt so alone as she did these days, not even when she

had been a child and her parents had died and she and

Daniel were obliged to go their separate ways. George

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75

and his kindly wife, Ruth, had taken her in and over

the years she had become much attached to them, but

now she had no one. She knew that she had tried to

bury her grief in her work, but every so often it would

bubble up as it did now, making her eyes sting and

her heart ache.

Rebecca had never minded working on her own be-

fore. Engraving was a solitary profession, but she was

beginning to realise that there was a difference be-

tween working on her own commissions with the buzz

of the workshop going on around her, and working in

silence because she had lost all her colleagues.

With a little sigh, she went into the storeroom and

took out an old wineglass that she used for practice.

Now that the angel was completed, she needed to start

practising birds of prey. She went back to her desk,

sat down and picked up her diamond-point scribe and

the little hammer. Stipple work engraving was slow

and expensive, for each dot was placed individually

on the glass with utter precision. For Lord Lucas Kes-

trel’s commission, however, nothing but the best

would do. Her professional pride demanded it.

She picked up her engraving scribe and the little

hammer that she used for stipple work. She placed the

scribe against the glass and tapped it gently.

An agonising pain shot through her left wrist, so

sharp that it felt as though she were hammering into

her own bones. Rebecca cried out, dropping the ham-

mer so that it spun away across the bench. The glass

fractured all the way around the top and broke off

cleanly in a band half an inch wide. Rebecca felt sick-

ness rise in her throat. She grabbed the edge of the

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The
Rake’s
Mistress

desk to steady herself, then sat down and clutched her

wrist with her other hand. The pain was receding a

little now, a whisper of agony along her nerves. Even-

tually the faintness caused by the pain receded suffi-

ciently for her to stumble across to the sofa and sit

down.

She sat there for a very long time.

It had happened before, and she had dismissed it as

an unlucky vibration from the hammer. Now, how-

ever, she knew she could not deceive herself any

longer. She had seen it happen to other engravers, seen

them work until the pain shadowed their every move-

ment and they were obliged to give up their livelihood.

The doctors shook their heads and said that nothing

could be done and charged a guinea for the privilege

of breaking the bad news.

Rebecca had worked at her craft since she was four-

teen years old, and now, a decade on, the pain had

come to take her too.

She looked around the dim workshop, at the light

glancing off the crystal on the shelves and the tools

of her trade lying discarded on the bench. She loved

her work so much that she could never bear to let it

go. The loneliness welled up more powerfully than

before. She went across to the shelf and lightly

touched the glass with the engraved anchor, as though

it was a talisman. Beneath the elegant chase work was

a motto.
Celer
et
Audax
—Swift and bold.

Rebecca wrapped both arms about her, as though to

keep out the cold. If only Daniel was here. But Daniel

had his own way to make. They had a made a pact

when they were children and found they were to be

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77

apart. If ever the one needed the other, they had only

to send a token...

For a moment, Rebecca was tempted. Then she

sighed and moved back to the workbench. She would

need to be in a great deal worse situation than this

before she contacted her brother and drew him into

danger.

She blew out the candles and made her way up to

bed.

Early the next morning, on the basis that the longer

she put it off the worse it would be, Rebecca picked

up her engraving scribe and set to work. She was ten-

tative at first, but when no pain troubled her, she soon

fell into a rhythm again as she chipped delicately at

the fragile glass. The work was absorbing and when a

shadow fell across her workbench she realised that she

had not even heard the knock at the workshop door.

She looked up to see Lucas Kestrel there and her heart

skipped a tiny beat. The strong morning sunlight from

the window made his hair gleam conker brown rather

than auburn.

‘Miss Raleigh. How are you?’ He smiled at her and

Rebecca’s heart did another quick flip.

‘I am very well, thank you, my lord. How are you?’

‘I am tired, I thank you,’ Lucas said. He looked

straight at her. ‘I do not appreciate sleepless nights.’

Rebecca blushed. ‘I suppose that you have some-

thing preying on your mind?’

‘You suppose correctly, Miss Raleigh.’

Rebecca bent her head over the glass and polished

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The
Rake’s
Mistress

the surface with unnecessary vigour. Her hand was not

quite steady. She tried to calm her singing nerves.

‘I did not expect you to call again so soon, my lord,’

she said. ‘I fear that your commission is barely begun.

We did agree a week and it is only five days.’

‘I know it.’ Lucas drove his hands into the pockets

of his great coat. ‘I did not wish to wait that long to

see you again, Miss Raleigh, and as I may not meet

you socially, this seemed the only way.’

Rebecca picked up the scribe and the hammer again.

‘You are, of course, quite welcome to look around my

studio, my lord. If you choose to spend more money

here, then I shall not attempt to stop you, but not all

the items are for sale.’

Lucas laughed. ‘My dear Miss Raleigh, I believe

we have established that already.’

Rebecca relaxed slightly. ‘Very well, then...’

Lucas glanced towards the fireplace. ‘You do not

have a fire today?’

‘I had not got around to building one,’ Rebecca said

evasively. She did not wish to tell him that she had

run out of firewood and that her accounts had shown

her it was something she could not afford to buy.

‘If you show me where the wood is stored then I

am happy to build one for you,’ Lucas said. ‘It is too

cold today to be without a fire.’

Rebecca stared at him in the liveliest astonishment.

‘
You
will make a fire? You cannot!’

Lucas looked amused. ‘I assure you that I am quite

capable of it, Miss Raleigh. I have been in the army

for years and have taken on far more challenging tasks

than the building of a fire.’

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79

Rebecca frowned. ‘That was hardly what I meant,

my lord. You would spoil the set of your jacket for a

start and might even get soot on your pantaloons.’

Lucas’s face lightened into a smile. ‘Oh I see! You

feel that I
should
not make the fire rather than that I

could
not. You relieve me, Miss Raleigh. I thought for

a moment that you considered me the sort of frippery

fellow who could not remove his boots without the aid

of a valet.’

‘You cannot make the fire because I have no wood!’

Rebecca snapped. She put the wineglass down on the

desk with a slap. ‘Are you happy now that I have

confessed it? I have no wood and I cannot afford to

buy any more at present and whilst you distract me

from my work I have no prospect of making any

money that will enable me to buy firewood. Now will

you go away?’

‘I shall certainly go and purchase you some logs to

build a fire,’ Lucas said, ‘and then when I return we

may talk.’

Rebecca spread her arms wide with frustration.

‘About what, my lord? There are plenty of penniless

craftsmen working in London who cannot afford a fire.

Why do you have to interest yourself in my case?’

Lucas shrugged. ‘It is your misfortune that I am

more interested in you than in the others, Miss Ra-

leigh. I shall see you shortly.’

‘Pray do not trouble to return!’ Rebecca called, as

he reached the door. ‘And do not spend any money

on me for I cannot repay you—’

‘Please save your breath,’ Lucas said, with scrupu-

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The
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Mistress

lous politeness. ‘There is an entire crowd of people

out here hanging on your every word.’

Rebecca ran to the window. She was distraught to

see that it was true. Housewives with marketing bas-

kets had gathered outside the door, their faces sharp

and eager for entertainment. A group of shabby ur-

chins was trailing Lucas along the pavement and ap-

parently begging for money. The vintner was standing

outside his shop in the sunshine, wiping his hands on

a rag as he exchanged information with the silver-

smith. Rebecca gave a cry of aggravation and threw

herself down on the
chaise-longue,
her face in her

hands. Over the last six months her life had been