The Rake

by Suzanne Enoch

  Even. They were even. The word was somehow significant, but he was too furious to dwell on it. Tristan stalked to his door, slamming it open and striding down the hallway to the east wing of the house. He didn’t bother to knock on her door, but shoved it open. “Georgi—”

  She wasn’t there. Clothes lay strewn across the coverlet and the floor, but the bed hadn’t been slept in. Drawers hung half-open, clothes dripping from them to the floor in multicolored falls of silk and satin, and half the toilette items on her dressing table were gone.

  He assessed the chaos. She had gathered some things together quickly, not bothering to hide the fact. That meant she hadn’t packed yesterday, in advance of her little coup de grâce.

  Turning on his heel, he went back to his bedchamber. The note lay just inside the fireplace, and he picked it up, smoothing it out and brushing off smudges of charred coal. Her writing wasn’t as precise as usual, the ink smeared a little because she’d folded the missive before it was dry. She’d been in a hurry.

  The question was, why? Had she wanted to finish before he awoke, or before she lost her nerve? Shoving the note in the drawer of his nightstand with both stockings, he returned through the hallway and down the stairs. Dawkins stood in the foyer, yawning.

  “Why are you up already?” Tristan demanded, the frayed rein on his anger threatening to pull loose and run rampant over the next person he came across.

  The butler straightened. “Lady Georgiana summoned me nearly half an hour ago.”

  “Why?”

  “She requested that I call a hack, my lord, for herself and her maid.”

  She’d taken her maid. That meant she didn’t plan on returning. Tristan’s muscles were wound so tightly with fury and tension that he shook. “Did she say where she was going?”

  “She did, my lord. I—”

  “Where?” Tristan growled, taking a step closer.

  The butler took a quick step backward, stumbling into the hat stand. “To Hawthorne House, my lord.”

  Tristan reached around him and snatched his greatcoat. “I’m going out.”

  “Shall I have Gimble saddle Charlemagne for you?”

  “I’ll do it myself. Move aside.”

  Swallowing, Dawkins sidestepped, and Tristan then yanked open the front door. He took the steps two at a time, shrugging into his coat as he went. The stable was dark and quiet, since it was barely dawn. He was surprised to see Sheba still in the stall beside his gelding. She wouldn’t have left her horse if she’d been thinking ahead. She wouldn’t have brought her horse here in the first place, if she’d meant to leave as she had.

  He paused as he tightened the girth of Charlemagne’s saddle. Last night had not been a game. He’d felt her heat and her passion, and she’d been as moved as he had been. Whatever lesson she’d decided to teach him, then, had been an afterthought. Or at least the method had been.

  Or maybe that was wishful thinking, trying to justify why he’d once again been utterly unable to resist the lure of her body, damn all the consequences. Tristan swung into the saddle and urged Charlemagne out of the stable, bending low against the bay’s neck as they passed under the low doors and out to the street.

  Even this early, Mayfair was filling with vendors and wagons delivering milk and ice and fresh vegetables. He wove through them to Grosvenor Square, where the Dowager Duchess of Wycliffe’s manor stood amid the abodes of the oldest and wealthiest families in England. No groom appeared as he jumped down from the gelding; the duchess’s household was probably still abed.

  But someone would have had to let Georgiana into the house. He pounded on the door. A few long seconds passed with no response from inside, and he knocked again, louder.

  A bolt slid and the door opened. The butler, looking much more composed than Dawkins, stepped into the doorway. “The servants’ entrance is—Lord Dare. My apologies, my lord. How may I help you?”

  “I need to speak with Lady Georgiana.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord, but Lady Georgiana isn’t here.”

  Tristan waited a heartbeat, trying to draw his raw temper back under control. “I know she’s here,” he said, very quietly, “and I need to speak with her. Now.”

  “The…please…” The butler stepped back into the foyer. “If you will please wait in the morning room, I shall inquire.”

  “Thank you.” Tristan strode into the house. He was tempted to continue up the stairs and straight to Georgiana’s bedchamber, but he wasn’t certain if she still slept in the same one she’d kept six years ago—and angry as he was, he knew questions would arise if others realized that he knew precisely which bedchamber out of twenty was hers.

  Too angry to sit, he paced back and forth across the morning room, hands clenched into fists at his sides. His skin still smelled faintly of lavender. Damnation. He should have taken the time to scrub her scent off himself, before it drove him mad.

  According to the clock on the mantel, it was forty-eight minutes past five. If she’d left Carroway House half an hour before he awoke, in a hired hack, she’d probably been there for perhaps fifteen minutes. He’d taken less than ten to cross through Mayfair, since he’d been on horseback and furious.

  Another curse broke from him. If she didn’t come down soon, he was going to go and find her. Escape was not going to be that easy. Not after what he’d felt between them last night. Not after the plans he’d made.

  “Lord Dare.”

  “What in hell…” He trailed off as he faced the doorway. “Your Grace,” he said, sketching a bow.

  “You’re here early,” the dowager duchess said, cool green eyes assessing him from the doorway. “Would you care to finish your sentence?”

  He swallowed down a retort. She was dressed and her hair put up; she’d likely awoken the moment Georgiana returned. Had Georgie expected him to come by and ruin everything? To make this little escapade of hers into his fault? “No, Your Grace, I would not. I am here to see Lady Georgiana.”

  “So Pascoe informed me. You appear to be highly agitated, my lord. I suggest that you return home, shave, get control of yourself, and return at a decent hour for visitors.”

  “With all respect, Your Grace,” he snapped, as he stalked back and forth, “I need to speak with Georgiana. I am not playing games.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “No, I can see that you’re not. I have already inquired of Georgiana, however, and she does not wish to speak with you.”

  Tristan took a deep breath. Everything meant something, he reminded himself. His days as a gambler had taught him that much, and he had learned it well. “Is she…all right?” he forced out.

  “She is in a state nearly identical to your own. I will not speculate, but you need to leave, Lord Dare. If you do not do so voluntarily, I will call my footmen to see you out.”

  He nodded stiffly, his muscles beginning to ache from being held so tightly. Pushing through a wall of her aunt’s footmen might be satisfying for a moment or two, but it wouldn’t serve his cause. “Very well. Please inform Georgiana that her message was…received and understood.”

  The curiosity in the duchess’s eyes deepened. “I will do so.”

  “Good morning, Your Grace. I won’t be returning today.”

  “Good day then, Lord Dare.”

  She vanished from the doorway, and Tristan returned outside to Charlemagne. This wasn’t over. And if his growing suspicions were correct, the way Georgiana had left things might be the best news he’d received in six years. All he needed to do was keep himself from killing her for long enough to find out.

  “He’s gone, my dear.” Aunt Frederica’s quiet voice came from the hallway.

  Georgiana pulled in her breath with a gasping sob. “Thank you.”

  “May I come in?”

  The last thing she wanted was to face her aunt, but she was acting like a madwoman, and the duchess deserved some sort of explanation. Wiping her tears, Georgiana stumbled to the door, slid the latch off, and opened it. “If you wish.”r />
  Frederica took one look at her face and brushed past her. “Pascoe! Send up some herb tea!”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  The duchess shut the door behind her and leaned back against it. “Did he hurt you?” she asked, very quietly.

  “No! No, of course not. We…argued, is all, and I just…didn’t want to be there any longer.” She drew a shaky breath, retreating to the reading chair by the window. Curling into it, she drew her knees up to her chin and wished with all her might that she could become invisible. “What did he want?”

  “To speak with you. That’s all he would say to me.” Her aunt stayed by the door, no doubt to intercept a maid before she could barge into the room with the tea and witness the duchess’s niece looking like an escapee from Bedlam. “Except for one thing he asked me to tell you.”

  Oh, no. If he was angry enough, he would be quite capable of ruining her. “What…what was that?”

  “He said to tell you that he’d received and understood your message.”

  She straightened a little from her fetal curl in the chair, nearly ill with relief. “That was it?”

  “That was it.”

  The tea arrived, and the duchess went into the hallway to get it herself. Georgiana took a deep, sniffling breath. He hadn’t ruined her. He hadn’t brought her stockings back and flung them to the ground and shouted that he’d bedded Lady Georgiana Halley twice now and that she was a hoyden and a lightskirt.

  “Oh, and he said he wouldn’t be returning here today. He emphasized ‘today,’ which I took to mean that he would be calling at a future date.”

  Georgiana tried to pull her thoughts together, still too relieved with the present to let the future frighten her. “Thank you for seeing him.”

  The duchess poured a cup of tea, dropped two lumps of sugar and a large measure of cream into it, and brought it over to her. “Drink.”

  It smelled bitter, but the cream and sugar smoothed the taste, and Georgiana took two large swallows. Warmth spread from her stomach out to her fingers and toes, and she took another drink.

  “Better?”

  “Better.”

  Her aunt sat in the deep windowsill, far enough back that Georgiana didn’t have to look at her if she didn’t want to. If Frederica Brakenridge was one thing, it was intuitive.

  “I must say, I haven’t seen you in hysterics for…six years, it must be. Dare had something to do with that, as well, if I recall correctly.”

  “He just upsets me.”

  “I can see that. Why associate with him, then?”

  Georgiana looked into the tea, at the slow swirls of cream in the delicate china cup. “I…I was teaching him a lesson.”

  “He seems to have understood it.”

  Georgiana managed to summon a degree of indignation. “Well, I should hope so.”

  “So why are you crying, my sweet?”

  Because I’m not sure he deserved it, and because I really don’t hate him, and now he hates me. “I’m just tired. And mad at him, of course.”

  “Of course.” The duchess stood. “I’m going to send my Danielle in to get you into your nightgown. Finish your tea, and get some sleep.”

  “But it’s morning.”

  “Just barely. And you have nothing to do today, no obligations, no appointments—nothing to do but sleep.”

  “But—”

  “Sleep.”

  The herb tea was definitely doing something, because her eyes were drooping shut. “Yes, Aunt Frederica.”

  Frederica Brakenridge sat in her office, addressing her correspondence, when the door opened.

  “What the devil is going on?” a deep voice snapped.

  She finished the letter and lifted a paper to begin her next missive. “Good afternoon, Greydon.”

  She felt her son’s large form hesitate, and then cross the room to her. Tawny hair entered the corner of her vision as he leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Good afternoon. What’s going on?”

  “What have you heard?”

  With a sigh he dropped into the overstuffed chair behind her. “I ran across Bradshaw Carroway at Gentleman Jackson’s. When I inquired about Georgiana, Shaw told me she’d left to return here, and that Tristan was rabid about it—or about something, anyway.”

  “Bradshaw didn’t say?”

  “He said he couldn’t say, because Tristan wouldn’t say.”

  Frederica continued with her letter. “That’s just about all I know, as well.”

  “It’s the ‘just about’ I want to hear from you, Mother.”

  “No.”

  “Fine.” Material rustled as he stood. “I’ll ask Tristan.”

  Hiding a frown, Frederica turned in her chair to face him. “No, you won’t.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Stay out of it. Whatever it is, it’s between them. Not us.”

  Grey didn’t bother hiding his scowl. “Where’s Georgie, then?”

  The duchess hesitated. She disliked not knowing all the facts; it made treading through the mess all the more difficult—and delicate. “Sleeping.”

  “It’s nearly two in the afternoon.”

  “She was upset.”

  Greydon met her gaze. “How upset?”

  “Very.”

  The duke turned for the door. “That’s it. I’m going to beat the answers out of Dare.”

  “You aren’t going to do any such thing. From what I saw of him this morning, he’s itching to beat something, himself. You will lose his friendship over this, if you interfere.”

  “Bloody…Then what am I supp—”

  “Don’t do anything. Be patient. That’s what I’m doing.”

  He tilted his head at her. “You really aren’t certain what’s going on, are you? You’re not just keeping it from me on principle.”

  “No, I don’t know everything, despite my reputation to the contrary. Go home. Emma will probably have heard the rumors by now, too, and I don’t want to have to go through this again.”

  “I don’t like it, but all right. For now.”

  “That’s all I ever ask.”

  “Like hell it is.” With a brief, concerned smile, he left the room.

  Frederica bent her head over her letter again, then sat back, sighing. Whatever was going on, it was serious. She’d thought that Georgiana had begun to forgive Tristan for the equally mysterious misstep he’d made before. Now, she wasn’t certain. She would have allowed Greydon to interfere if Georgiana had been the only one hurt this time. She would have insisted on it, in fact. But Dare had been in pain, himself. Deep and obvious pain. And so she would wait and see what happened next.

  “I really don’t want to go out tonight,” Georgiana said, as her aunt reached the first floor.

  “I know you don’t. That’s why we’re going to dinner with Lydia and James. It’ll be a small gathering, and an early evening.”

  Frowning, Georgiana joined the duchess at the front door. “It’s not that I’m afraid to see him or anything.”

  “That’s none of my affair,” her aunt answered. “I’m just glad you’re back home.”

  That was the problem, Georgie reflected. She wasn’t back home. She really didn’t have a home. Her parents were in Shropshire with her sisters, her brother was in Scotland, Helen and her husband Geoffrey were in York, and she was welcome to stay with Frederica or even with Grey and Emma, if she wished it. Where she had most enjoyed staying, however, had been at Carroway House, spending afternoons chatting with the aunts and playing Commerce with Edward and talking about faraway lands with Bradshaw. And, of course, seeing Tristan.

  “Georgiana, are you coming?”

  “Yes.”

  Despite her aunt’s assurances, she was on edge all night. If Tristan had been as angry as Frederica had intimated, he wouldn’t just let this go. She hadn’t, when he’d hurt her before. She had been awful, saying things to him that other people probably found amusing, but that he had to know meant she hated and despised him. Would he do
the same thing to her?

  For the next two days she stayed close to the house, and he didn’t come calling or send her a note. She wondered whether he’d gone to call on Amelia Johns, but quickly pushed the thought away. If he had, then good. That had been the reason for all this mess, anyway.

  She was supposed to attend the Glenview soiree with Lucinda and Evelyn, and while she didn’t want to go, neither did she want to become a hermit. The wisest thing to do would have been to return to Shropshire, as she’d initially planned. That would mean that she was a complete coward, though. Besides, she had nothing to run from. He hadn’t retaliated, and she hadn’t done anything wrong, anyway. Well, she had, but no one but Tristan knew that, and he deserved what had happened.

  “Georgie,” Lucinda said, hurrying across the room and grasping her hands. “I heard you’d returned to your aunt’s. Is everything all right?”

  Georgie kissed her friend on the cheek. “Yes. Fine.”

  “You did it, didn’t you? You delivered your lesson.”

  Swallowing, her gaze on the crowd beyond Lucinda’s shoulder, she nodded. “I did. How did you know?”

  “You wouldn’t have left Carroway House, otherwise. You were very determined.”

  “I suppose I was.”

  Evelyn approached them from the music room. “Everyone’s saying that you and Dare fought again.”

  “Yes, I would have to say that we did.” Though since she hadn’t set eyes on him in three days, she didn’t know how anyone could know they were fighting. Possibly because they were always fighting.

  “Well, then you should probably know th—”

  “Good evening, ladies.”

  “That he’s here,” Evie finished in a whisper.

  Georgiana froze. With all of her being, she didn’t want to turn around. Yet she couldn’t keep herself from doing so. Tristan was just a few feet away, close enough to touch. She couldn’t read his expression, but his face was pale, and his eyes glittered.

  “Lord Dare,” she said, her voice not quite steady.