Rapturous Rakes Bundle (25 page)

becca said, shifting away from him along the seat.

‘Mutely devoted. Then I need not have to tolerate your

conversation.’

Lucas’s smile was genuinely amused. ‘You cer-

tainly have the wit to carry this off, Miss Raleigh.’

‘Thank you. I am not entirely sure that you have

the charm to do so.’

‘We shall see. I can play your devoted lover with a

great deal of conviction, I assure you.’ He gave her a

quizzical look. ‘There is one other thing, of course.’

Rebecca looked enquiring.

‘You will have to call me Lucas, and I will call you

Rebecca. A greater formality would cause suspicion.

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Now I need you to tell me a little of your family his-

tory, Rebecca.’

Rebecca looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why?’

Lucas sighed. ‘Why do I always have the feeling

that you are withholding something from me? Because

we need to stick to the truth as closely as possible and

keep matters simple. And as your cousin, I will nec-

essarily know your history.’

Rebecca nodded reluctantly. She did not want to tell

Lucas anything but she could see the point of what he

was saying.

‘I was born in Somerset and lived in that county for

the first eight years of my life,’ she said. ‘My father

was in the army and he was killed in India. My mother

went into a decline and died later the same year. Dan-

iel—my brother—joined the navy and I was sent to

live with my mother’s cousins, the Provosts. The rest

you know.’

It was true, as far as it went.

‘A succinct history,’ Lucas commented. His hazel

eyes were keen. ‘It must hide a multitude of experi-

ence for you, however. It is a difficult thing to lose

both parents so young and be uprooted from your

home.’

Rebecca felt a treacherous rush of affinity for him

and crushed it down. It was not fair that Lucas under-

stood her so well and that his sincerity could under-

mine her already shaky defences.

‘It was,’ she said, unconsciously twisting her hands

together in her lap, ‘but I was very happy in Clerken-

well.’

There was a strained silence, then Lucas dropped

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his hand over her clenched ones and for a moment she

did not free herself.

‘I can see no reason why we need to change your

past history to suit our purposes,’ he said, ‘other than

to suggest that you have been living quietly in the

country until the death of your aunt. In Somerset, say,

to add authenticity.’

Rebecca nodded. ‘Very well. And perhaps I could

have been betrothed to a curate who felt it his mission

to travel to the Indies and subsequently died of fever,

leaving me inconsolable.’

Lucas’s smile deepened the lines at the corners of

his eyes. It would be difficult to imagine anyone who

looked less like a sickly curate, Rebecca thought.

‘Is that the sort of man who would attract your en-

during love?’ he asked.

Rebecca looked at him. She felt unseasonably hot

as he kept his eyes on her face.

‘I have enduring love for nothing other than my

engraving,’ she said.

‘I thought so.’ Lucas nodded. ‘One cannot imagine

a fever-stricken curate inspiring the sort of passion that

features in your work, or indeed that we experienced

last night.’

Rebecca’s eyes kindled. She had been afraid that he

would raise the subject once more, and that her reac-

tions would betray her. She snatched her hands away

from his. ‘Pray make no mention of that, Lord Lucas.

You are no gentleman even to think of it.’

Lucas stretched, reminding her all too vividly of the

lithe body beneath the elegant clothes. ‘I fear that you

cannot prevent me from doing that, Rebecca,’ he mur-

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The
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mured. ‘Or, more accurately, you cannot prevent me

from remembering every last moment of it.’

‘Then if you cannot control your own unruly

thoughts, pray do not seek to provoke mine,’ Rebecca

snapped. ‘I have no wish to remember.’

‘And I am pledged to remind you,’ Lucas said.

‘Such affinity as we achieved, Rebecca, happens

rarely. It was the single most sweet and passionate

experience of my entire life—’

‘Stop it!’ Rebecca said, the pleading note audible

even to her own ears. ‘It was false pretences.’

‘It was no such thing.’ Lucas leaned forward. ‘I

wanted you, Rebecca, and you wanted me, and if we

are to marry—
when
we marry—I suspect that it will

become even more pleasurable.’

Rebecca put her hands over her ears. She was scar-

let, mortified to feel herself aroused by his words and

by the heated memories of the previous night that

flashed across her mind in a series of shockingly ex-

plicit pictures. How was it possible to dislike some-

one—to be so angry with them and feel so disillu-

sioned—and yet long for their touch? Would she ever

cure herself of the love she held for Lucas Kestrel? In

the cold light of day, with the truth and its betrayals

clear between them, she still loved him and it was

hopeless to deny it.

She could feel her body warming, melting, the ex-

citement growing in the pit of her stomach, and when

Lucas gently touched a finger to her bottom lip she

almost gasped aloud.

‘You see...’ his eyes were bright with desire ‘...you

feel it too. Why deny it?’

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He was leaning forward to kiss her and every in-

stinct in Rebecca’s body urged her to meet his em-

brace and lose herself in that blissful, sensuous pleas-

ure. When his lips were a bare inch from hers she

finally found the strength to draw away.

‘I think not.’

She saw the admiration in Lucas’s eyes and knew

also that he saw her resistance as a challenge. It

seemed that to deny his advances only served to in-

crease his determination and she could see no way past

that. He smiled at her and she felt the warmth of it

tingle through her entire body.

‘You are a very strong-willed woman, Rebecca Ra-

leigh,’ he said. ‘It is one of the many things that I like

about you.’

‘Whereas I sadly cannot compile a long list of

things I like about you, my lord,’ Rebecca said un-

truthfully.

‘Not even my kisses?’

‘I can live without them.’

‘We shall have to change that,’ Lucas said, with a

look that made her tremble.

Rebecca caught sight of Rachel and Cory Newlyn

lurking in the window of the drawing room and stu-

diously pretending that they were not watching them.

She sighed.

‘What we have to change, my lord, is my ignorance

of the Kestrel family and this business of espionage. I

have much to learn and little time. Please enlighten

me.’

But as Lucas complied and started to lay out the

complex history of the Midwinter spies, Rebecca

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The
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found that her most difficult task lay not in learning

but in concentrating on the information he was im-

parting rather than on Lucas himself.

When Lucas came down for dinner that evening he

found Rebecca already ensconced in the drawing

room, dressed in a scandalously attractive gown of

aquamarine crepe that seemed to hint at every curve

of her figure without doing anything so vulgar as mak-

ing them obvious. Making a mental note that Rachel

Newlyn had done her job rather too well for his peace

of mind, Lucas took a glass of wine and, rather than

joining Rebecca, went across to the window alcove,

the better to observe her. She was sitting with Stephen

on one side of her and Rachel on the other and, for

the first time since she had arrived in Grosvenor

Square, she looked happy and at ease. Stephen, for his

part, was clearly smitten. There was an eager light in

his eyes and his ears were bright pink with excitement

as he exerted himself to entertain Rebecca. Lucas was

obliged to admit that Rebecca looked flatteringly

pleased with his company, encouraging his conversa-

tion with exactly the right degree of friendliness with-

out flirtation. It was very different from the wary dis-

like in which she held him. Lucas felt a violent surge

of envy towards his younger brother, which both

amazed and disconcerted him. It was not so much the

fact that he had never been possessive of a woman

before, for he had already established that Rebecca

Raleigh could do things to him that no one else was

capable of doing. What shocked him more was that

Stephen, whose innocuous admiration of Rebecca was

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so very innocent, should be the victim of his own in-

discriminate jealousy.

‘Rachel has played Pygmalion very successfully,

has she not?’ Cory Newlyn said in his ear. ‘Miss Ra-

leigh looks every inch the ducal cousin. Not,’ Cory

added thoughtfully, ‘that a great deal of work was re-

quired in the transformation. Miss Raleigh has a cer-

tain natural assurance.’

‘Yes,’ Lucas said. He had been giving some thought

to Rebecca’s antecedents, based on the meagre infor-

mation that she had given him and the poise she had

unexpectedly shown. ‘Her father was in the army. I

wonder... If he was a commissioned officer and the

son of a gentleman, then there may once have been

family money.’

‘She has not told you?’ Cory asked.

‘Miss Raleigh would not willingly tell me anything

now,’ Lucas said, with an expressive lift of his brows.

Cory smiled broadly. ‘Ah. You have your work cut

out, then.’

Lucas watched as Stephen offered Rebecca his arm

into dinner and she laughingly accepted. She glanced

across at him and their eyes met, the brimming laugh-

ter in hers dying away and being replaced by a chill

edge. Had it only been that morning that he had ar-

rogantly thought he did not wish for the responsibility

of seeing love for him reflected in Rebecca’s eyes? He

would have given a great deal already to see that cold

disdain replaced by something warmer. He thought he

had not wanted her love. Now that he had her anger

instead, he realised how empty it made him feel.

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*

*

*

Dinner felt like a huge test. Rebecca had not ex-

perienced such a long and formal meal for years and

was obliged to dredge up every memory of etiquette

that she had ever possessed to get her through the meal

without mishap. She knew that everyone was watching

her; Justin and the Newlyns were assessing how well

she could carry off the role of the duke’s cousin, whilst

Lucas’s eyes were upon her frequently and he attended

to her every need with disquieting promptitude. It put

Rebecca on her mettle and she carried off the evening

with the gracious authority of a duchess. Only Ste-

phen’s shy admiration and Rachel’s friendship helped

to ease the situation, and by the time that the ladies

had withdrawn and tea had been taken, she was utterly

exhausted. When she went up to bed she had no time

to dwell on the extraordinary developments of the day,

but, rather to her surprise, succumbed immediately to

a deep and dreamless sleep.

Downstairs in the Duke of Kestrel’s study, Justin

and Lucas were sharing a nightcap and a desultory

game of chess.

‘I have not yet had chance to ask how you fared at

the Archangel Club this morning,’ Lucas commented.

‘Any progress?’

Justin grimaced. ‘Very little. I had a glass of very

fine port with that unpleasant fellow, Fremantle. He

offered me membership of the Club, but declined to

tell me the names of any other members. So we have

no notion for whom Miss Raleigh’s parcel was des-

tined.’ He frowned. ‘Miss Raleigh puzzles me, Lucas.

She shows remarkable confidence for one not raised

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in this style of environment. And I have never yet met

a woman who insisted on frugality in her dress! She