by Anna Bradley
HER VERY OWN SCOTTISH RAKE
“I don’t know Lord Vale well, of course, but Lady Felicia was speaking of him, and I couldn’t help but think he sounds like just the sort of gentleman I need,” Lucy said.
Need? She needed Vale? Something dark and tangled rose in Ciaran’s chest and crowded into his throat until he was struggling to breathe past it.
“I know he’s a bit of a rake, but he’s warm-hearted, I think, and Lady Felicia says he loves mischief. He might think a pretend courtship was good fun.”
Ciaran’s hands clenched into fists. Oh, he’d find it good fun, all right. A pretend courtship with a beautiful lady was just the sort of fun Vale would appreciate.
“You are not,” he said, biting off each word through clenched teeth. “Asking Sebastian Wroth to pretend to court you.”
Her eyes went wide. “I’m not?”
“No.” He took a step closer, raising her chin higher so she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “Let me make myself perfectly clear, Lucy. Vale isn’t going to be your pretend suitor. Not Vale, and not any other man.”
“Well, why not?”
Lucy jerked her chin out of his grasp, and planted her hands on her hips. “Well, Ciaran? Why shouldn’t Lord Vale be my pretend suitor?”
“Because I’m going to do it.”
Books by Anna Bradley
LADY ELEANOR’S SEVENTH SUITOR
LADY CHARLOTTE’S FIRST LOVE
TWELFTH NIGHT WITH THE EARL
MORE OR LESS A MARCHIONESS
MORE OR LESS A COUNTESS
MORE OR LESS A TEMPTRESS
THE WAYWARD BRIDE
TO WED A WILD SCOT
FOR THE SAKE OF A SCOTTISH RAKE
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Table of Contents
HER VERY OWN SCOTTISH RAKE
Books by Anna Bradley
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Epilogue
For the Sake of a Scottish Rake
Anna Bradley
LYRICAL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2020 by Anna Bradley
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First Electronic Edition: February 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0970-8 (ebook)
ISBN-10: 1-5161-0970-8 (ebook)
First Print Edition: February 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0971-5
ISBN-10: 1-5161-0971-6
Printed in the United States of America
Chapter One
Brighton, England
May 1818
If a proper lady intended to engage in a shocking impropriety, a fashionable seaside resort wasn’t the place to do it. Lady Lucinda Sutcliffe had only arrived a few days ago, but she’d already discovered there were more gouty old men and phlegmatic old ladies in Brighton than there were grains of sand on the beach.
Dozens of aged invalids meant dozens of pairs of rheumy eyes, all in search of scandal.
Not in this part of town, though, and not at this time of day. It would be an hour or two before fashionable Brighton roused themselves from their beds, and when they did venture out, they wouldn’t come here. Lucy had been watching the tidy patch of sand behind their rented villa for days now. It was as close to a deserted beach as one could find in Brighton.
Location, timing, and privacy—these were the first three of the four necessary elements of any successful impropriety.
The final element? Don’t hesitate.
A lady had to seize her opportunities when she could. This might be Lucy’s first opportunity, her first adventure, and the first time she’d seized anything more exciting than an extra lump of sugar for her tea, but that didn’t make the rule any less sound.
She peered down the long stretch of beach to her right, then her left. She scanned the low outcropping of rocks to her east, but there wasn’t a soul to be seen. Ah, splendid! A smile spread across her face, and she rubbed her hands together in anticipation. This was the most brilliant idea she’d ever had—
“This is the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard of, Lucy.”
Lucy raised her gaze to the sky and prayed for patience before turning to face her accuser. She recognized the look on Eloisa’s face. It was a special look her cousin seemed to reserve for Lucy alone.
Two parts fascination, three parts horror. Even Eloisa’s eyebrows looked scandalized.
“You’ll get caught,” Eloisa fretted. “Then what do you suppose will happen? My father will keep us locked in our rooms for the rest of the month, and all our pleasure will be spoilt.”
Lucy didn’t bother to argue that point. Pleasure did seem to shrivel and die in her Uncle Jarvis’s presence. But surely that was reason enough to pursue it with single-minded determination behind his back?
Anyway, she wouldn’t get caught. “Who’s going to see?” Lucy waved a hand at the empty beach. “No one ever comes to this side of town.” If her uncle had understood just how unfashionable a neighborhood this was, he never would have taken the villa, but it was too late to change now.
Eloisa dropped the towels she’d been carrying onto a rock. “What if Father saw us leave the villa?”
“He didn’t. You said yourself he never rises before noon. You don’t suppose your mother saw us, do you?” Lucy’s aunt suffered from sleeplessness an
d was often awake at odd hours, but she usually kept to her room.
“No. She dosed herself with laudanum last night. She’ll sleep for hours yet.” Eloisa sighed. “Her nerves are overset.”
Yes, well, they would be, wouldn’t they? Lucy’s own nerves had been forged in fire, but after days of being trapped in a coach with her Uncle Jarvis, she felt as brittle as glass and as liable to shatter. Traveling with her uncle felt very like how Lucy imagined being buried in her grave would feel—that is, cramped and airless, with mounds of damp earth pressing in on every side.
Except instead of earth, Lucy was pressed on every side by mounds of damp flesh.
She’d spent the past five days flattened against the carriage door, but as much as she squeezed, she couldn’t escape Uncle Jarvis’s creeping girth. No sooner did she inch away from him than a pudgy knee or fleshy arm would fling itself into the sliver of open space. He’d been chasing her across the seat since they’d left Devon. By the time they’d reached Brighton, Lucy was ready to hang by her fingernails from the window to escape him.
But she didn’t want to think of her uncle right now. The beach stretched before them, the waves flirting with the sand at the water’s edge. “Come, Eloisa. We’re here now.” She gave her cousin a hopeful smile. “The water looks lovely. Don’t say you’re not tempted.”
Eloisa gazed at the water for a moment, her mouth turned down in a frown. “I don’t see why we can’t simply go out this afternoon in a bathing machine. That’s how it’s done, Lucy. Ladies don’t simply hurl themselves into the ocean.”
Well, for pity’s sake, why not? Growing up in Devon, Lucy had spent many happy hours of her childhood splashing about in the waves. Oh, it had been years since she’d been swimming, but she had vague memories of how glorious it felt to float along, her body cradled by the cool water around her.
She couldn’t experience that joyous freedom if she was tethered to a bathing machine. “There’s no pleasure in being dragged from a bathing machine by a large woman who plunges you into the water and knocks you about like a pile of soiled linens while your skirts billow like hot air balloons.”
Eloisa folded her arms over her chest. “Well, I don’t know how to swim, so I’d just as soon have a dipper, thank you.”
“We’ll go in the bathing machines later, with your mother.” For her aunt’s sake, Lucy had dutifully submitted to an hour’s tedious dipping every afternoon since they’d arrived. “But floating about like an overdressed corpse isn’t swimming, Eloisa.”
“Lucy! What a ghastly thing to say!”
“For now, I’ll be your dipper.” Lucy ignored Eloisa’s outrage, and gave her cousin a wheedling smile. Poor Eloisa. A lifetime spent pinned under her father’s thumb had bled her of every last drop of spirit. It wouldn’t do. One way or another, something would have to be done about Eloisa’s listlessness.
“Come, Eloisa. You don’t have to swim. You can paddle about in the shallow part. I won’t let you drift out to sea. I promise. Not that there’s much chance of that in this secluded little cove.”
The look that flashed across Eloisa’s face this time was three parts affection, and two parts exasperation. “You’re a regular hoyden, Lucy.”
Lucy shrugged. If a chance to swim unencumbered made her a hoyden, then so be it. “Please come in, Eloisa. It won’t be any fun without you.”
Eloisa’s face softened. “Your father did you a grave disservice, Lucy, letting you run wild as he did, but you’ve a good heart, for all that.”
Lucy choked back a laugh. Run wild? She couldn’t remember the last time her father had permitted her to run at all, wild or otherwise. By the end he’d hardly suffered her to stir out of doors at all, even for a stroll in the gardens.
“I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, and perhaps the less said about your father the better,” Eloisa went on, “But he wasn’t well.”
The laugh died in Lucy’s throat. No, he hadn’t been well, but he’d been a loving father for all his flaws and freakish whims, and that was how she chose to remember him. There didn’t seem to be much sense in arguing about it now, however. Eloisa had made her mind up about Lucy’s father years ago, along with the rest of England.
“If we continue to stand about like this, we’ll lose our chance.” Lucy loosened the tie at the neck of her cloak, tugged it off, and tossed it down on the rock next to the towels.
When Eloisa caught sight of the dark blue linen bathing costume Lucy wore under her cloak, her face paled. “Oh, Lucy! You can’t really mean to do this? Someone will see you, and it will cause a scandal!”
Lucy sighed. Everything caused a scandal, it seemed. “Why should it? I’m wearing a bathing costume, for heaven’s sake.” It was prickly as a hedgehog, too. “Though I don’t see why the ladies must be bundled up in scratchy linen when the gentlemen are permitted to swim about nak—”
“Lucy! I will not stand here and listen to you talk about gentlemen who are…gentlemen without their…unclothed gentlemen. It’s not proper.”
Lucy was tempted to laugh at Eloisa’s prudery, but then Eloisa would get into a snit, and Lucy would never be able to coax her into the water. “Then let’s not stand here at all. Are you coming in?”
Eloisa glanced at the water again, hesitating. Lucy waited, hope surging at her cousin’s longing look, but then Eloisa’s teeth sank into her lower lip and she shook her head. “No. I’ll go in later this afternoon, the proper way. I should never have let you lure me into this mad scheme in the first place.”
Lucy’s heart sank. Her childhood had been a lonely one, and she’d always longed for a sibling. When she found she had a cousin only a few years younger than she was, she’d dreamed they’d grow to love each other like sisters. But at eighteen years of age, Eloisa behaved as if she were already an old maid. She was prim and cautious, whereas Lucy was…
A hoyden? Perhaps, but there were worse things one could be.
A recluse, for instance.
She was twenty years old. Twenty years, and she’d hardly set foot beyond her father’s estate for the last four of them. So far, she’d seen little else since they left Devon aside from the inside of a cramped coach, and the row of graying teeth at the back of Uncle Jarvis’s gaping mouth each time he released a deafening snore.
Now, by some miracle she was here, mere steps away from the ocean.
After years spent wandering the halls of a dusty house with no one but her father and the servants to talk to, new adventures had at last presented themselves. Lucy intended to seize them with both hands.
But perhaps it was for the best if Eloisa didn’t join her. Despite all her planning, Lucy couldn’t be certain no one would see them. Risk couldn’t be entirely eliminated—that was what made this an adventure. If they did get caught, Eloisa would suffer for it far more than Lucy would.
After all, Uncle Jarvis wasn’t her father.
Lucy seated herself on the rock and kicked off her shoes. “Very well. You may as well go back then, before someone sees you. I’ll follow soon.”
Eloisa looked ready to scurry away that instant, but she hesitated. “Are you sure? If the water should become rough—”
Lucy waved a hand toward their villa. It was close enough to the slice of secluded beach Eloisa might be able to see her from their bedchamber window. “Watch me then, if you like, but it’s all right, Eloisa. I’ll be careful, and I won’t go far.”
“If anyone should ask for you, I’ll tell them you haven’t risen yet,” Eloisa said, anxious now to be helpful.
“Fine. I’ll return within the hour.” Lucy didn’t wait for Eloisa’s response, but picked her way over the sand in her bare feet, her bathing costume flapping around her shins. She closed her eyes and sucked in a quick breath when her toes touched the cold water. When she opened them again and turned around, Eloisa was gone.
Lucy moved forward until th
e gentle waves rose to her knees, then her waist, and then in one dive she went head first into the water. She kicked her legs until she was close enough to the bottom to grab a handful of sand in her fist. The water wasn’t deep, but deep enough when she was upright her feet dangled into a void. Water surrounded her on all sides, a flowing, surging cocoon. The cold waves caressed her skin, leaving a spray of sparkling wet goose bumps in their wake.
When she broke the surface the second time, a shout of sheer joy burst from her lips.
She’d been quiet all her life, it seemed, but now her cry echoed in the clear silence of the morning. Exhilaration shot down her spine and stole her breath for a moment, but in the next instant she filled her lungs and dove under again. She pushed against the gentle current, each strong stroke taking her farther away from the beach. Her limbs burned with restless energy, and she went under again and again, surfacing only to grab a few breaths before she plunged again, making a game out of diving deep enough to touch the sandy bottom with her fingertips.
When she surfaced at last, she swept the wet hair from her eyes and tipped over onto her back for a long, lazy float, her gaze fixed on the rosy sky above her. The sun had just crested the horizon. She’d have to go soon, but goodness, how delicious it felt to be in the outdoors, to spread her arms wide and feel the silky glide of the water against her back.
She’d come back tomorrow, and every day afterward for the month they were to remain in Brighton. How silly Eloisa was! Despite her cousin’s dire warnings, no harm had been done this morning. Now Lucy had had her swim without all of Brighton erupting in a scandal, perhaps she could coax Eloisa to—
“Oh!” A shocked cry tore from Lucy’s lips. God in heaven, what was that? Something had brushed against her leg. Seaweed? No, it felt like…it felt like…
A creature of some sort had taken hold of her foot! For one terrified moment visions of enormous octopi swam through Lucy’s head, but no, it wasn’t an octopus. That was impossible, because this creature had wrapped its fingers around her ankle. Octopi didn’t have fingers, only tentacles.