The Perfect Rake

by Anne Gracie

  “You’re killing me, Prue.”

  “Mmm,” she purred against his chest. She licked his nipple once more, then bit him there lightly, experimentally. His body bucked beneath her, and all his restraint dissolved.

  His mouth took hers, his hands caressed her feverishly, running down her back, her sides, her buttocks. Each time he shook and arched against her, an echoing response rippled through her, and a growing tension and a kind of aching hollowness intensified deep within her. And he had taught her last night, and again this morning, what that had meant. She felt her skirts being pushed higher.

  “Gideon? In a carriage?”

  “Yes, love, in a carriage.”

  Prudence smiled to herself. She had a lot to learn, she could see. She would not have to wait for the shift and glide of his body deep within hers. How quickly it had become familiar. No, not familiar—necessary. She craved it, craved his touch, craved their joining. With eager hands she unbuttoned his breeches. No nervous conversation this time. Softly, tentatively, she reached out to touch him. He groaned with pleasure and pushed against her hand. With growing confidence she explored him, explored his heat and power, silk over steel.

  He moaned, and without warning lifted her to settle over his lap. He still amazed her with his ability to lift her as if she weighed nothing at all. But then she forgot to think anything at all, as gently, surely, he guided her to where she wanted him to be. He lowered her onto him and showed her how to move.

  Rhythm. Power. Passion. Possession.

  She flung back her head and let it engulf her…

  “Dereham always was a dreary, joyless creature, but this is appalling, even for him.” Lady Augusta hugged Prudence yet again. She’d done it frequently since Prudence and Gideon had arrived home several days before. “But you’re safe and sound now with those who love you.”

  Prudence hugged her back, unable to say a word. She’d come a long way since the gray days at Dereham Court. Her world was brimming with love. She was surrounded by it, filled with it, incandescent with it. In truth she had almost forgotten the terrible trip with Grandpapa. It was days ago now. Blissful days, awash with love and stolen moments of ecstasy. Gideon loved her. She was going to marry him.

  “Bats in the belfry!” Great-uncle Oswald announced. He had arrived from Norfolk a few minutes before. They were all gathered in the front room at Lady Augusta’s house. He shook his head. “Goes to show!”

  Prudence and Gideon looked at each other blankly. “I don’t follow you, Sir Oswald,” Gideon said.

  “Rats in the attic!” he explained. Then, when they still looked blank, he said, “My brother, Theodore. Talkin’ all sorts o’ rubbish. Ravin’ on and on about Prudence and the others! Mixin’ Prudence up with her mother.” He shook his head again.

  “He hated my mother,” Prudence commented. “He blamed her for enticing my father away from Dereham Court, never to return.”

  Great-uncle Oswald snorted. “Your mother had nothin’ to do with it. Your father left the Court for the same reason I did: because Theodore was such a demmed impossible swine to live with!”

  There was a short silence.

  “You’re all thinkin’ I should never have let him take charge of five little gels, and you’re right.” He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Thing is, he was a difficult fellow to get along with then, but it was a natural difference of opinion. I couldn’t stand havin’ m’brother lordin’ it over me as if he were my father. He got worse over time. Losin’ your father—his sole heir—put him in a rage for years.” He looked at them ruefully. “Maybe that’s when he started to go peculiar. Maybe the rats have been gnawin’ at his upper stories all this time.”

  “You mean you think he is insane?” asked Gideon bluntly.

  Great-uncle Oswald nodded. “That’s the word with no bark on it. Thought he was a little unbalanced when I saw him in London, but he’s always hated being thwarted. Now—” He grimaced. “Ravin’ on about Prudence. Threatening to kill her. Swearin’ about her breedin’ bastards—forgive the language, m’dear.” He turned to Gideon. “He’s even carryin’ on about Prudence putting him in debtors’ prison, for heaven’s sake, and if anyone’s to blame for that, it’s himself!”

  “Yes, he mentioned debtors’ prison,” Prudence said. “I don’t understand.”

  Great-uncle Oswald looked grave. “No easy way to put this, so I’ll just spit it out. It seems he’s embezzled your fortune, Prue—your sisters’, too. That’s why he kidnapped you. With your twenty-first birthday next week, and you assumin’ guardianship of your sisters, Theodore thought if he locked you away, he’d get ’em all back and nobody would find out!”

  Prudence started. “You mean we have no money? My sisters and I are—”

  “Calm down, missy. You’ll have your inheritance. I’ll sort it all out and put everythin’ back in place, never you fret. Everything invested in the funds, safe and sound, and a little more besides.”

  “Oh, but you cannot be expected to—”

  “Pish, tosh!” He waved his hand in airy dismissal of her objections. “You gels will inherit my fortune when I pop off, so what’s the difference? Besides, I’ve got a lot to make up for, leavin’ you with Theodore all these years. I ought to have kept a closer eye on you, but I didn’t, and I’ll have to live with the guilt of that. I can’t make it up to you, but I can do this, at least, so no argument, missy.” He blew his nose again, a long, definitive blast.

  Lady Augusta put the question in all their minds. “So what will happen now?”

  Great-uncle Oswald sighed. “I’ll not put my brother in Bedlam for all the world to gawk at, but I’ve got him safely locked away at Dereham. Get some reliable staff in to take care of him. A Dr. Gibson has agreed to oversee the matter.” He looked around the small gathering and said, “Well, I can’t have him wanderin’ loose, the way he’s behavin’. He’ll kill someone! He’s stark-starin’ mad, m’dears.” He paused, looked at his nails, and added casually, “Why, you wouldn’t believe what Theodore did to young Clotterbury when he came callin’.”

  “Otterbury called on him!” exclaimed Gideon. “Whatever for?”

  Great-uncle Oswald shrugged. “Seemed to think Theodore owed him somethin’ for tellin’ him that Prudence and the gels were in Bath.”

  There was an outbreak of indignation at this.

  “I hope you showed the vile little tick the door,” exclaimed Lady Augusta hotly.

  “Oh, no,” Great-uncle Oswald said innocently. “I agreed with him. He was owed somethin’.”

  “Oswald! How could you?” Lady Augusta exclaimed in disgust.

  “So I showed him in to see Theodore.” He buffed one nail carefully with a tiny chamois buffer and added, “And locked the door, of course. Can’t let m’brother roam free, y’know.”

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, well, there was a lot of shoutin’ and bangin’ and crashin’ around, but I’m not the sort of fellow who listens at doors. Manners, you know. I came back, half an hour later, thinkin’ they’d finished the interview, and when I opened the door—the most peculiar thing! Young Clotterbury had got himself all dirtied up. Shockin’, the state he was in. Bleedin’ from the nose—I fancy Theodore broke it for him—and one of his ears looked bitten. Most odd! He’d lost a tooth or two, and the rest of him was black and blue. His natty outfit was in shreds, too, positive shreds. And all the buttons ripped off.” He shook his head in sorrow. “Beautiful clothes they were, too. Must have cost him a pretty penny. And Theodore ruined them. Clotterbury staggered out of there and scuttled off home, lookin like somethin’ the cat coughed up.” He gave them all a smile of wicked innocence. “Got his reward, didn’t he? Never let it be said that a Merridew didn’t pay his debts.”

  Gideon gave a crack of laughter and hugged Prudence.

  Lady Augusta clapped her hands. “Excellent work, Oswald. I, too, have taken young Otterbury’s future in hand. Maudie’s friends are his employers, you know, and we’ve
arranged a nice posting for him. A small island in the southern hemisphere, rather distant, but delightfully peaceful. Supervising sheep, I believe. Sadly, his wife and child-to-come won’t be able to accompany him…I’m told the island is hideously wind-blasted…”

  There was another outbreak of laughter.

  Lady Augusta nodded in satisfaction. “Now, enough about those dreary men. Oswald, we have a wedding to plan!”

  To Prudence’s surprise, Great-uncle Oswald just stared at Lady Augusta and blushed. “Oh, Gussie.”

  To Gideon’s amazement Aunt Gussie blushed, also. She said testily, “I meant these children here, Oswald! Prudence and Gideon! Their wedding, not…any other one.”

  “Oh, oh, yes, of course,” Great-uncle Oswald agreed. But he did not stop gazing at Lady Augusta. And Lady Augusta’s blush didn’t go away for the longest time.

  Prudence looked at Gideon, her eyes wide. Great-uncle Oswald and Lady Augusta? He grinned, winked, and lifted her hand to kiss it.

  Sir Oswald cleared his throat. “St. George’s, Hanover Square, I trust.”

  Gideon looked at Prudence, a question in his eyes. “Wherever you want, my love.”

  Prudence smiled back. “Bath Abbey, a week from today—if we can get word to Charity and Edward. I would like them there with us.”

  “Does nobody wish to get married in St. George’s?” grumbled Sir Oswald. He darted a look at Lady Augusta.

  She colored up again but addressed herself to Prudence and Gideon. “And where do you plan to take Prudence for her bride trip, nephew?”

  Gideon looked down at his bride and grinned. “Into Italy, of course.”

  Prudence gasped. “Italy?” was all she could say. She hugged his arm and gave him a wavering, brilliant smile, knowing her eyes were filling again. “Italy.”

  “But why Italy?” asked Lady Augusta, amid general exclamations of excitement.

  Gideon sighed, theatrically. “It seems I must instantly flee the country. My tailor is pursuing me because of certain bills someone impetuously dashed into the fire.”

  Later that afternoon, Gideon and Prudence were ensconced in the cozy back parlor at Lady Augusta’s. He was sprawled, loose-limbed, on the sofa; she was snuggled next to him. A fire crackled in the grate. Outside, wind and sleet pelted the windows.

  Gideon said, “You know, Imp, looking back, I have idled away the years and wasted myself in folly. And all to no purpose.”

  “What do you mean no purpose? Can there be purpose to idleness and folly?”

  “Oh, there can, indeed. In the shallow life I adopted, I was trying to avoid love. I thought it a weakness, you see, a point of extreme vulnerability. I thought love killed my father. But I was wrong. It wasn’t love that caused him to kill himself—it was loss of love.”

  Prudence took his hands in hers and said passionately, “No, he was wrong. He may have lost your mother, but he had you, his son, to love and to love him back. If he had thought of you, instead of himself, he would have remembered that love. And it would have healed him. Even when no one loves you, there is always someone to love, someone who needs to be loved. Always. You just have to look outside yourself.”

  “As I did.” He kissed her tenderly. “And I saw you, sitting on the edge of an Egyptian chair, scared stiff, clutching that ugly, great reticule, and I fell in love. And then you defended me from your great-uncle, and I fell even more deeply, in a way I never believed possible.”

  “I did, too, though I fought it for the longest time,” she said shyly. “I thought it was your rakish wiles I couldn’t resist, but it was you, just you. I love you, Gideon, more than even I believed possible.”

  His grip tightened around her. “And I love you. I’ll never let you go, Prudence, never. If you ever run away from me, I’ll want to come with you.”

  Nestled within his arms, she hugged him back. “Good, I would insist upon it, anyway. I never believed Mama’s promise would come true for me, but it has. Sunshine and laughter and love and happiness.” She laid her face against his throat. “And see, it has all come true.”

  “All of it? What about the sunshine?” Gideon looked out at the gray sleet still hammering against the windows as it had for the last hour and then down at the bright head of the woman in his arms. She looked up at him and smiled.

  “Ah, yes,” he said softly. “I can see the sunshine now.”

  Award-winning author Anne Gracie spent her childhood and youth on the move. The gypsy life taught her that humor and love are universal languages and that favorite books can take you home, wherever you are. In addition to writing, Anne teaches adult literacy, flings balls for her dog, enjoys her tangled garden, and keeps bees.

  Visit her website at www.annegracie.com.