Never Trust a Rake

by Annie Burrows

  Glaring at her.

  ‘If you wanted me to have some means of escaping our betrothal,’ she pointed out tartly, ‘then you should not have physically carried me out of the Twinings’ house, into the cab and brought me to your home.’

  ‘I know,’ he said grimly. Then he laughed harshly. ‘Even when I decide to reform, the best I can do is make my mouth say the right words. I am incapable, it seems, of preventing myself from behaving in a completely and utterly selfish manner.’

  ‘Are you telling me,’ she said, reaching behind her to close the door, ‘that you feel as though you ought to release me from this betrothal, but find yourself incapable of doing anything so … chivalrous?’

  ‘Yes, dammit.’ He tossed back the entire contents of the glass he’d been holding, then dashed the empty vessel into the fireplace. ‘I have taken ruthless advantage of the opportunity that idiot handed me to bind you to me irrevocably. Letting him run to his length, silently urging him to goad you into accepting my proposal has to be the lowest, meanest thing I’ve ever done. Just when I’d been congratulating myself these past few weeks for drawing the line at forcing you into marriage by taking your virginity, I went and did something just as underhanded. Just as manipulative.’

  ‘Wh …?’ She shook her head, thoroughly confused. ‘Underhanded? Manipulative? You sound as though you truly want to marry me, my lord.’

  ‘Of course I do, you little idiot! I’ve been besotted with you practically since the moment you erupted out from behind those plant pots with your hair all over dead leaves and your nose running, to rescue me from making the biggest mistake of my life …’

  She sank down on to the nearest piece of furniture, since her legs suddenly decided to give way.

  ‘Mistake?’ She shook her head again. ‘You said nothing would have induced you to marry Miss Waverley …’

  ‘That was not the mistake I was about to make. It was far worse. I had just decided that all women were so untrustworthy that it didn’t matter who I married. I had just decided to walk into the ballroom, ask the first relatively attractive one who batted her eyelashes at me to dance, and, if she didn’t bore me too greatly, to propose to her and get the whole wretched business over and done with.

  ‘But then you showed me that there are women who have a sense of honour and decency. And that if I married just any woman, I would doom myself, and probably my children, to a lifetime of regret. I decided that I wanted to marry a woman like you, Miss Gibson. A woman who would be loyal, and decent, and honest. Even painfully honest, if she didn’t agree with the way I tend to act as I wish. And before much longer, I didn’t want to just marry a woman like you,’ he bellowed. ‘I wanted only you.’

  ‘You have always wanted me? Even when I—?’

  ‘Wore the most ridiculous outfit and made a spectacle of yourself, just to teach me a lesson,’ he agreed gloomily.

  ‘So then, why are you trying to find ways to get out of it? I have said I will marry you. And I won’t go back on my word.’

  ‘It isn’t enough. I thought it would be, but it isn’t.’ He turned round and gripped the mantelpiece with both hands, his head bowed as though he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  ‘Dammit, you must be the only woman in London so innocent that you haven’t noticed how hard I’ve been trying to seduce you. The depths to which I’ve stooped to get you to this point. I wove a sensual web round you, lured you into that room, then reduced you to a state of mindless passion, deliberately, so I could take your virginity that night. Haven’t you realised it yet?’

  ‘No, I …’ She sat back, stunned. It hadn’t been farewell then, that night. He’d been trying to stop her from ending their relationship in the only way he knew how.

  And yet when it came to it, he hadn’t been able to go through with it.

  ‘Why did you stop, then?’

  ‘You smiled at me,’ he groaned. ‘You looked so trusting … How could I abuse that trust by robbing you of your right to choose? After you’d shown me how important it was? That was the moment I realised that I didn’t just want to possess you and make you do what I want. I wanted you to …’ He paused. His knuckles went white. ‘I want the impossible. I want you to love me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s …’ a little sob escaped her throat ‘… that’s wonderful!’

  ‘What?’ He spun round so quickly that for a moment he lost his balance and had to clutch at the mantelpiece to regain it. ‘What is wonderful?’

  ‘That you want me so much you were prepared to go to those lengths. That you cared enough about me to put my wishes before your own for once. I know how much that must have cost you.’

  ‘Yes. You know me for the selfish bastard I am,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘But if all this is true,’ she said, suddenly puzzled by one glaring inconsistency in his argument, ‘why on earth didn’t you just propose to me in the conventional manner? Why did you have to make it all so complicated?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have accepted,’ he said with conviction. ‘Why would you? You hadn’t been in town five minutes before you learned of my reputation. How could a girl with such high moral standards stoop to consider an alliance with a serial adulterer?’

  She looked thoughtful. ‘It has often occurred to me to wonder why you consider yourself so very bad. You don’t frequent brothels, or keep a string of mistresses, tossing them and their offspring aside once you’ve grown bored, like so many other men of rank. And I have never seen you the worse for drink.’

  He grimaced with distaste. ‘I do not like having my wits addled. Drink dulls the senses and makes fools of men I could otherwise respect. Do you think I wish to figure in society as a fool?’ He made a slashing motion with his hand. ‘But like all men of my class I did commence my sexual career in a brothel. It was just that I soon found out I’m too fastidious to frequent such establishments. I graduated to keeping a string of mistresses, though that …’ he snorted in derision ‘… palled swiftly, too. There is something so very mercenary about the arrangement.’

  ‘Oh, I see! At least a married woman genuinely wants you for yourself, not for what you can buy her.’

  ‘You are elevating those encounters to something they never were,’ he grated. ‘They didn’t want me. They just wanted someone in their bed to alleviate the boredom they experienced with their own husbands. Don’t make excuses for me. I treated them all abominably. I demonstrated how much I despised them for breaking their marriage vows even while I stripped them naked. They liked it,’ he said with a curl to his lip. ‘The more brutal I was with them, the more my reputation for being an exciting lover spread,’ he said with disgust.

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand how you can have driven yourself into such a miserable state. Why did you not—?’

  ‘What?’ He laughed bitterly. ‘What alternative did I have? I have a healthy sexual appetite, but I dislike women intensely. As people,’ he added swiftly when he saw her eyes widen in surprise. ‘I enjoy women’s bodies. I hunger for the satisfaction that I can find only in bed. But as for forming any kind of connection outside the bedroom …’ He shook his head. ‘I cannot believe I am talking to you about such a sordid topic. I could excuse myself by saying that right from the first, you have had the power to make me blurt out thoughts I have never had any trouble concealing from everyone else. But it is not sufficient. Instead, it is just one more sin,’ he drawled darkly, ‘to chalk up to my name.’

  ‘We are going to be married,’ she said softly. ‘We should be able to talk about anything. And from what you have just told me, it sounds as though you have been at war with yourself for quite long enough. There is nothing wrong with wanting a woman to love you, and only you. Nor in disliking visiting brothels. Nor keeping a mistress, if you have not been able to find a deep and fulfilling relationship with a woman. Lord Deben,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye, ‘I rather think you have more moral values than you like to let the world suspect you of harbouring.’
>
  ‘Nonsense!’ He drew himself up, affronted that she should suspect him of harbouring moral values. ‘This is just one more example of why it would be quite wrong to make you marry me. You won’t face the truth. You keep looking for the good in me, and there isn’t any!’

  ‘This, from the man who drew back from taking my innocence when he was so aroused his breeches must have been positively painful? A man with no good in him would have taken what he wanted and probably tossed his victim aside afterwards.’

  ‘What would you know about such things?’

  ‘I have four brothers,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘And the two older ones have not always been as discreet as they might be when embarking on their own adventures of that nature. They talk to each other and forget that, in the dead of night, when they roll back from the tavern, my window might be open and I might not be asleep.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, pushing himself away from the fireplace and walking across to the sideboard, ‘I should not have exposed you to my lust.’ He picked up the decanter. ‘It was wrong.’ He slammed it back down again. ‘I am not good enough for you. That was, in the end, the only thing upon which your father and I could completely agree,’ he finished morosely.

  ‘My father? How do you know my father?’

  ‘Where the hell do you think I’ve been these past two weeks? Or do you still maintain it is of no concern to you?’ he said bitterly, swinging round to scowl at her.

  ‘No,’ she said, completely entranced by the sight of the self-contained, suave, sophisticated Lord Deben in the throes of an emotional crisis.

  Over her.

  ‘I should like to know, very much, where you have been and what you have been doing, now that I begin to suspect,’ she said shyly, ‘that you might not have spent the whole time in some secluded love-nest with a woman who was able to give you what you didn’t seem to want to take from me.’

  He looked at her sharply, his brows lowering even further.

  ‘You thought I didn’t want you that night? You thought I was with another woman?’

  ‘Never mind that,’ she said, making a dismissive motion with her hand. ‘You said you were going to tell me how you met my father.’

  ‘So I did.’ He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘After allowing you to escape me, at the Swaffhams’, I indulged in a fit of despair that lasted almost two full days.’

  ‘Really?’ She curled her feet up on the sofa and made herself comfortable. ‘Go on.’

  His eyes flew to where his coat, still slung over her shoulders, gaped to reveal a hint of her figure, then rested for a few seconds on the rapt expression on her face.

  ‘I took myself off to Farleigh Hall. And strode about the estate, hacking at the undergrowth with my cane, cursing the fates that had me falling for the only woman I’d ever met who was completely immune to me. And then I began imagining one of those bucks who’ve been hanging about you finally breaking through your indifference and persuading you to marry him instead of me. Then I realised that it was not as far from Farleigh Hall to Much Wakering as it is from London to Much Wakering, and I could do no worse than start all over again with you, by going to visit your father and asking for his permission to pay my addresses to you on a formal basis. Once I had that, I thought, you would have to see that I was in earnest. That you would have to at least think about me as a potential husband, and not … well …’ He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I do not know how to describe the relationship we’ve had so far. But I knew that it would be the devil’s own job to change it from what it had been to the kind of conventional courtship you deserved.’

  She swallowed. It took only two days to reach London from Much Wakering. That left a lot of time unaccounted for.

  ‘Should I enquire where you were for the rest of the time?’

  ‘I have just told you,’ he replied with a touch of impatience. ‘I have spent the entire time in Much Wakering, trying to persuade your father that I would make you a suitable husband.’

  ‘He argued about it?’

  ‘I made the error,’ he said, ‘of assuming he would be flattered to think an earl …’

  ‘Two earls,’ she corrected him.

  ‘Oh, God, you can just picture it, can’t you? I went up there all full of myself, announcing my intention to make you my wife, boasting of my titles, my lands, my income …’

  She couldn’t help it. She giggled. ‘He n-never set much store b-by such things.’

  ‘I am glad you find this amusing,’ he snapped. Then sighed. ‘But there. A more intelligent man would have known it was the wrong approach to take with your father from the snippets you had told me about your childhood. All those scientists and inventors thronging his house, then the way he appeared to think the Ledbetters were suitable people to introduce you to London society …’

  ‘Oh, my goodness. What did he do?’

  ‘He looked at me over the top of his spectacles and said it was all very well, but he would never give his consent to let you marry an idiot. Told me you were a highly intelligent girl, used to using her mind, and that a stupid man would never make you happy. Then he wrote something on a sheet of paper and told me he would consider my suit if I returned with the correct answer.’

  ‘Oh, how wonderful.’

  ‘It bloody well wasn’t. It was in Greek!’

  She had meant, how wonderful that her father had not just granted the first man to ask for her hand permission to marry her, but had set him a test. She’d begun to think he did not love her overmuch. But he did, in his way. He wanted her to marry a man who would make her happy.

  How fortunate she was in him. Many parents, from what she’d gathered during her time in town, had ambitions for their daughters which did not take their happiness into account at all.

  Lord Deben began to pace up and down. ‘I did not attend university. I was educated at home. I have a passing acquaintance with Latin, but my father saw no need for me to learn Greek. He wanted me to learn how to manage my estates and behave like a gentleman, that was all. I was in flat despair. I considered going to Farleigh Hall and employing my secretary to translate it for me. But then I thought your father would consider that cheating. So I asked if I might borrow a lexicon and set about attempting to decipher the symbols, at least.’

  ‘Gosh. That is very impressive.’

  ‘There you go again. Imputing me with virtues I do not have. I could make neither head nor tail of it!’

  ‘I didn’t mean …’ that she assumed he’d managed to translate it. She was just impressed that he’d spent the better part of two weeks wrestling with some Greek epigram in order to win her father’s permission to court her.

  ‘And then,’ he said as he got to the end of the room and was turning to pace back, ‘at the end of the first week, he informed me that he’d been lenient setting me a riddle to solve written in Greek, since he might well have done so in Aramaic. Eventually, well, you know me better than anyone has ever done. You must already have guessed that I gave up. And gave up in the most dramatic style,’ he said in self-disgust. ‘I tore the cursed thing to pieces and stormed out into the orchard.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘He followed me outside, sat me down and told me that although I would not be his choice of husband for you, that at least I appeared to be very much in earnest about you. And that if you wanted to marry me, he would not forbid the match, because there was no accounting for women’s tastes, after all.’

  She could just imagine the dry way he’d said it. He always did think women a very great puzzle.

  ‘That was when I confided that I wasn’t at all sure you did want to marry me, which was why I’d gone down to see him. I had hoped if I could win him over, that would count in my favour, seeing how very highly you regard his opinion.’

  ‘Oh. Did … did that win him round?’

  ‘Not really. He just said he was glad to hear you had not entirely lost your head, just because you’d gone to London. Nor did he wish me lu
ck with you when I left. He just said I must not be as big an idiot as I looked, since I had fallen for a girl with as much sense as you, and that at least if you married me I was bound to improve.’

  ‘Oh … dear.’ Henrietta put her hand over her mouth. What a very unpleasant time Lord Deben had been having.

  ‘But I won’t,’ he said grimly. ‘Tonight’s performance has proved beyond all shadow of doubt that I am beyond redemption. I came to town determined to court you in form, and what did I do instead? The very first chance I got, I made it impossible for you to do anything but marry me.’

  She shucked his jacket aside, uncurled her legs and crossed the room.

  When she reached him, he caught her hands. ‘I have done only one thing tonight of which I’m not ashamed. And that was to show that oaf that you have brought a peer of the realm to his knees. At least if you had chosen him, that might have made him treat you with just a little more respect. He was the one, wasn’t he? The one over whom you were weeping, the night we met?’

  ‘Yes. But I got over him remarkably swiftly. Because,’ she admitted shyly, ‘I met someone who cast him completely in the shade.’

  She squeezed his hands, encouraging him to understand she meant him. He gripped them hard.

  ‘I taught you to want me, physically,’ he said. ‘I know that, but …’

  ‘It has always been more than that. But I dared not let anyone know how I felt about you. There was already so much gossip flying about. I did not want to appear in it all as a lovesick fool.’

  He searched her face. ‘I always thought I could tell exactly what you were thinking.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You were so often cross with me,’ he persisted.

  ‘I have never been so angry with anyone in my life as I have been with you. You made me want things I thought were impossible. I …’ She flung up her head and looked him straight in the eye. ‘I didn’t want to love you, because I thought you could never love me back. But I couldn’t stop loving you, no matter how hard I tried. Can’t you see what a deleterious effect that might have had on my temper?’