The Rakehell's Seduction (The Seduction Series Book 2)

by Lauren Smith

  She blinked, trying to think of a response, but she had none.

  “And I shall also be attending Lady Darby’s picnic in a week, so if you’re in a mind to pester me into leaving, you’ll be sorely disappointed, my love.” He chuckled when she huffed in outrage.

  “I would never pester you into leaving, Mr. Worthing. You’re my father’s guest, and it’s not the sort of thing a lady with good breeding would do.” She raised her chin and met his amused gaze defiantly.

  “I believe it is the exact sort of thing you’d do, Alex.”

  She glowered at him, and before he could say anything else, she fled the room.

  *****

  The next week passed in a blur. Alex kept herself in check when it came to punishing her guest outright. She didn’t want him to know that she had been attempting to push him into leaving. That meant she’d played the dutiful daughter and a gracious hostess to the rakehell. And for the last seven days, she had to admit, the man had been charming and likeable.

  When they weren’t quarreling about everything, she realized they agreed on quite a few things. He too loved the outdoors, and more than once she’d found him catching up to her when she took her horse out in the mornings for a ride. Sometimes they talked, and sometimes they didn’t. The silence then was amiable too, and it reminded her of what he’d said about his friend Gareth and how friendships could form like this between two people.

  Was it possible for the daughter of an earl and a notorious rakehell to be friends? If she ignored his teasing hints that he would dearly love to seduce her, she could almost imagine that they were in fact becoming friends.

  Now, as she sat at the breakfast table contemplating how much she did in fact enjoy spending time with Ambrose, she realized her foolishness.

  It was like falling in love with Marshall all over again. If she wasn’t careful she might put her heart in danger, and that was the very last thing she wished to do. Ambrose had made her lower her guard, as any good rogue would do with an unsuspecting lady.

  She needed to fight back, regain control of the situation before she found herself embroiled in a scandal she couldn’t recover from. It was bad enough to be a friend of a rake, but it was even worse to be romantically tied to one, even by rumors and gossip.

  Whilst she was busy woolgathering, Ambrose had slipped into the dining room, his hand containing a single flower. He took the seat beside her and leaned over, delicately tucking the flower behind her ear. His fingertips burned her skin deliciously where he touched her ear, and then he caressed her cheek with the back of his knuckles.

  “I missed you on the morning ride. Why didn’t you wait for me?” he asked.

  Her heart gave a little treacherous leap as she carefully removed the flower from behind her ear and examined it.

  A snowdrop. Her favorite.

  “Why did you bring me this?” Her voice was soft, breathless.

  His gaze moved from the flower to her lips and then settled upon her eyes. “Because you said they were your favorite. Galanthus nivalis. The snowdrop. Pale and beautiful, alluring and sweet with a hint of winter, like you.”

  “A hint of winter?” She was staring at him, trying to decide if that was an insult or a compliment.

  “Hmmm,” he hummed. “Winter is a beautiful season. Everything is silver and light and filled with mystery. When I think of you, I think of those quiet mornings when snow has freshly covered the forest trails and everything feels different, new, and mysterious.”

  She knew just what he meant about the winter. It was why she loved winter above other seasons. So many ladies her age loved the springtime or the fall, but for her, winter and its mysterious moods had always captivated her—just like Ambrose was captivating her.

  “I…” She cleared her throat, still clutching the snowdrop and feeling foolish for not wanting to let it go.

  “Lady Darby’s picnic is this afternoon. I assume you’re attending?” He didn’t move away from her, but remained scandalously close.

  “The picnic? Of course,” she replied hastily. If she didn’t regain control of herself soon, she would make a mistake. It was time to return to her pranks and send this rakehell back to London before she did something stupid like fall in love. She had one more trick to play on Ambrose, and that thought restored her spirits.

  “I’m afraid I must go early to assist Perdita with a personal matter. You’ll need to be careful in finding your way to the picnic spot. It’s not at Darby House, you see, but on some land a mile north. There’s a lovely hill, and you can see much of the village below. I would be happy to draw up some directions for you.” Her voice was falsely cheerful as she inwardly hated the thought that she was renewing her plans to drive him away, but it was for the best.

  His eyes narrowed but his lips curved. “Thank you, I’d like that.”

  He doesn’t trust me. She could see it in his eyes, but he was attempting to fool her. Clever man.

  “I’m surprised you aren’t trying to convince me not to come to the picnic,” he mused.

  She shrugged. “It’s not as though you’d do as I wished, and your being here has enlivened my father in a way I’ve not seen in quite some time. I’d be a terrible daughter if I drove you away when he was so happy.” That was true—she was a terrible daughter for wishing Ambrose gone when he did make her father so clearly delighted. But Ambrose was tempting her, and she didn’t want to be tempted. Not after Marshall had broken her heart. She was done being a fool in love.

  “I am glad to be visiting. Your father was a good man to me when I was a lad,” Ambrose admitted. More honesty. That continued to surprise Alex. “It’s strange to think that I came here as a child while you were tucked away in a crib in the nursery.” He chuckled softly, and the sound was rich and inviting.

  It was indeed strange to think of it. Alex hadn’t been able to get it out of her head that one of London’s most infamous rakes had been scrambling about Rockford House as a lad, likely carrying frogs in his pockets and chasing geese down the garden path that led to the small pond where her father loved to fish in the summer. The image made her smile.

  “You’re smiling,” Ambrose observed as he took a sip of his coffee.

  She was, and she wouldn’t deny it. “I was picturing you as a boy, wondering what sort of trouble you likely got into while you were here.”

  Ambrose lifted his chin loftily. “Nonsense. I was the most perfectly-behaved boy in all of England.”

  There was no helping it—she giggled. “Liar.” She covered her mouth to stifle more giggles. She’d never met a man who made her laugh so much. It was delightful.

  “Fair enough, I was a terrible little boy, full of tricks, but I had a good heart, I assure you of that. I never struck a bird with a slingshot or threw stones at stray cats,” he replied in all seriousness.

  “That I do believe.” She couldn’t picture him as a wild and cruel child, no matter that he was a breaker of hearts now.

  “And what of you, Alex? What were you like as a child?” He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers as he studied her. “Buried up to your nose in books? Or were you dashing about the hills, dirtying your dress?” He said this in such a warm, genuine tone she found she wanted to reply honestly.

  “I’ve always loved to read, but I was very much a girl who did dash about the hills, dirtying more than one dress.” She smiled fondly, thinking that she was still that sort of woman who ran through the fields. “Perdita and I used to read a lot together as children when we weren’t getting into trouble in the fields. Her father and mine built us a house among the branches of a tree at the edge of the garden. It was a quaint little place where we tucked ourselves away and read for hours.” Those sunny memories of the little house in the trees had been some of her favorite days.

  “You and Perdita are close?” he asked, leaning forward slightly.

  She nodded. “We are as close as sisters, but without the competition that some sisters have. Neither of us has any desir
e to marry, and we’ve never been jealous over gentlemen. We just…” She struggled for the right word. “We make sense together. I’m afraid I can’t explain it.”

  Ambrose nodded. “I know what you mean. You can sit together in a room for hours in silence and simply enjoy each other’s company. My friend Gareth is like that for me. I could sit late into the night in his evening room with him, drinking brandy and not having to speak a word. But that’s changed…” His face darkened with emotion.

  “In what way?” she prompted, wondering if he’d answer or if he’d lock his secrets back up in his heart.

  “He’s married now. Wonderful woman, Helen, but it’s not the same when I’m with him. There’s a part of him that misses her even for a moment when she’s out of the room. I can see it in his eyes. It’s not that he’s unnaturally attached, per se…I’m bungling this.” He chuckled wryly. “But it’s more that they so complete each other that they miss the other when they are separated.”

  That was something she had understood once, long ago…with Marshall. That need to be with him, even when he was across the room. After he’d left for London, she’d felt as though she’d wasted away without him. But in time, she’d realized she’d been too young, too foolish. A girl of seventeen didn’t always know the difference between infatuation and love. And while one was more lasting and deeper than the other, the pain of the break was same. She had vowed never to let another man hurt her like that again.

  Even now she sensed her foolish heart wanting to give Ambrose a chance, let him inside so he might shatter her when he left. It was too dangerous, this sharing of memories and talk of childhoods.

  She rose from her chair, and he stood as well. “Please, sit, finish your breakfast.” She gestured to his chair, and he did so reluctantly. Even rakes could still be gentlemen every now and then.

  “I’d be happy to go with you to the Darbys’ early,” he offered.

  Shaking her head, she backed away. “No, I insist, please stay. I’ll write some directions for you to the picnic spot and leave them with a footman.”

  “Very well.” He was still watching her, and she knew that the intimacy between them was thinning again, as though both she and Ambrose were fortifying the walls around their hearts.

  She inwardly shook herself at the thought as she slipped from the dining room into the corridor. Who knew I would have so much in common with a rake?

  Chapter 6

  Bloody hell.

  Ambrose was standing in a cow-covered field.

  The sloping hill he stood upon was filled with cows, a breed he recognized from his father’s talk of livestock whenever he came back from school for weekends in the country. White Park cows had curved horns and rich white hides speckled with faint black dots. They were fairly docile beasts, but being in the midst of them was unsettling.

  Lifting the scrap of parchment again, Ambrose stared at the directions the footman had provided him. He hadn’t been foolish enough to trust Alex’s word, so he’d asked the footman to confirm the directions.

  South down the lane, past the wooden gatehouse, turn right onto the garden path, and straight into the forest for a quarter of a mile…then climb the hill…

  He muttered the last few words aloud and wiped at his brow. The hike had brought on a sweat. Not that he was unused to physical exertions—he boxed and fenced regularly—but he wasn’t dressed for walking about the hills and valleys of Lothbrook.

  “Where the bloody hell is the picnic?”

  “Sir? Are you lost?” A little voice drew Ambrose’s attention, and he found a lad standing at the edge of the field about fifteen feet away. He carried a makeshift fishing pole and a cloth bag full of fish.

  “Lad, do you know the way to Darby House?” he asked, walking toward the lad.

  Squelch!

  Ambrose slid and nearly fell onto his backside. He recovered his balance and stared down to see his new boots covered in cow manure.

  The boy chortled and then gasped, covering his mouth. Ambrose almost started laughing too.

  “Darby House is…” The boy was holding his stomach now with one hand to keep from laughing. “About a mile in the other direction, sir.”

  He should have known. “Of course it is.” Ambrose wiped one boot on the grass, trying to remove the essence of the cows, but it was no use. He was going to show up at the Darbys’ picnic smelling like cow dung.

  Had the footman given him the wrong directions? Ambrose searched his mind, playing back that moment when the young man had stared at the directions Ambrose asked him to verify and he’d quickly nodded.

  “That looks true to me, sir!” the footman had said before he’d rushed off to his duties.

  Surely Lady Alexandra Rockford did not stoop to involving her own staff in plots to make him angry. Lady Alexandra might not…but his cunning little Alex certainly would. And after all that talk this morning, when he’d felt he was coming to know her. He crumpled the directions in his palm. When he got hold of her at the picnic, he was going to get his revenge for this.

  The entire walk back, Ambrose plotted his revenge for Alex’s trick. How he would get her alone away from the rest of the country folk and show her just what it meant to be the full focus of his attention. By the time he found Darby House, the rest of the town and the surrounding gentry had assembled on the lawn in front of the large Georgian country house. Tents had been erected, and tables with tea were already crowded with ladies and gentlemen. The light breeze tugged at the ladies’ skirts, making the fabric shape to their bodies. It was quite a sight when he noticed Alex by the tea tables, talking avidly with Perdita. Both ladies were distractedly pulling at their skirts while laughing.

  She was lovely—there was no denying that now. He’d thought her passingly pretty before, but the more time he spent around her, the more times she frustrated him and challenged him, the more he found he admired her…admired and desired her. He wanted to cup that little chin of hers and brush his thumbs over her cheeks and watch her eyes darken as he bent his head to kiss her.

  When she glanced his way, he flashed her a wolfish grin before he headed toward where a group of men stood by one of the large fountains.

  “Ambrose, my boy, over here!” Rockford waved him over, a broad smile and merriment dancing in his eyes.

  It was impossible to ignore the sudden blossom of warmth in his chest at being welcomed so openly by the older man. Rockford was very much like his own father, a kind man who never went without friends. A little voice in the back of Ambrose’s mind raised a question.

  Why aren’t you the same? What made you so cold and distant?

  He and his friend Gareth had once been happy young men at Eton together and later at university, but somewhere between leaving school and growing up they’d lost their inner joy. Gareth had of course married and lost his wife in childbirth. That would break even the strongest of men. But now he had Helen and was the old Gareth that Ambrose believed he’d never see again.

  I haven’t lost anyone. I was never in love or married. So what makes me so cold?

  He stilled just as he reached the group of men by the fountain. He had lost someone. He and Gareth had been close friends with Vaughn, who was now Viscount Darlington.

  Vaughn’s father had passed away, leaving Vaughn with a mountain of debt, and he’d sought to recover himself in whatever way he could, often through winning small fortunes from other men during games of chance—not that it worked well in the long term. The Darlington estate was still impoverished. And when Vaughn had slipped into this less honorable means of obtaining coin, it had pushed both Gareth and Ambrose away from him. They hadn’t been able to stomach his harsh methods of keeping his family estate intact. It was hard to stand by a man who would financially break other men with gambling debts. But it was never enough to keep Darlington House safe from creditors. Vaughn needed a rich wife who would provide him with plenty of funds.

  More than once Ambrose and Gareth had sought to convince Vaughn to pa
rt with his family’s home and sell it. But he’d refused to even entertain the idea and had severed ties with them.

  Losing his friend had been dreadful, and his heart had turned to ice.

  “Glad to see you found your way! Didn’t get lost, did you?” Rockford teased as he clapped a hand on Ambrose’s shoulder when he fully entered the circle of men.

  “Lost? No, definitely not.” He chuckled and cast one knowing glance toward Alex, who was still watching him.

  Soon he’d catch her alone and they would have a discussion about her devilish tactics to upset him. A discussion that would involve a fair amount of kisses.

  *****

  Normally Alex would have enjoyed Lady Darby’s picnic, but not today. She was sleep-deprived and grumpy.

  “You look dreadful,” Perdita murmured when Alex joined her by the tea tables.

  “Do I? I certainly feel it.” She knew she must look poorly if her friend was telling her so. Her reflection this morning had been that of a pale woman with dark circles under her eyes. It had been impossible to sleep with Ambrose down the hall. And this morning they’d talked again as they had the night before in the kitchens, sharing parts of themselves with each other. The intimacy of those moments had frightened her. The man had shown her a great affection for his mother and sister and a childhood full of happy memories that matched her own.

  We each guard our own hearts. That common ground unsettled her.

  “But I do have something that will cheer us up. I’ve set in motion plans to drive Mr. Worthing back to London!”

  Her friend covered her mouth. “Oh no, Alex, what have you done?”

  “Just a few things…I gave him false directions to send him to Mr. Merryweather’s cow field rather than to your house. If my plans succeed, he might miss the picnic altogether.”

  Perdita and Alex both started laughing.

  “That’s terribly wicked of you. But I don’t understand. I thought perhaps you and Mr. Worthing might have decided you rather liked each other and were not mortal enemies.” Perdita looked down, running a palm over her pale-green walking dress.