The Lure of a Rake

by Christi Caldwell

  Boy. For the hell of his own making he’d lived these past four weeks, a faint smile pulled at his lips. He’d never truly thought of himself as a boy. His father had shattered all vestiges of youth when Cedric had bedded that whore in the schoolroom.

  “Well, are you going to sit?” Genevieve’s grandfather snapped impatiently, motioning to the seat beside him.

  And Cedric, a man long accustomed to giving dictates and never so much as receiving orders…sat.

  The earl said nothing for a long, long while. Instead, he continued to study Cedric in that assessing way. The old man’s piercing green eyes bore through him and he had no doubt the man could see inside to his every sin, every crime, he was guilty of. Not for the first time since Genevieve had stumbled into Montfort’s ballroom and saw the world he was part of, shame filled him. It was fast becoming a familiar, deserved sentiment. He shifted in his seat and broke the silence.

  “I’ve come to see my wife,” he said quietly.

  “And it only took you four weeks.” There was a firm reproach in that statement that sent heat spiraling up Cedric’s neck. The earl didn’t allow him a chance to respond. “If you were deserving of her, you would have been here the day she arrived.” He snorted. “In fact, if you deserved her, she would have never reached my doors.”

  His throat worked spasmodically. Yes, the man was right on so many scores; the loathing in his eyes, the reproach in his words. Nonetheless… “I am not deserving of her. I never was,” he said, more to himself. He held his palms up. “But I love her, my lord. I love her as I’ve never loved a person, and I need her.”

  By the unyielding lines of his face, the earl was wholly unimpressed with Cedric’s short speech. “And what about what she needs?” He folded his arms at his sunken chest and lifted an eyebrow.

  Cedric flinched, as the man’s words struck their appropriate mark. What she needed…well, it surely wasn’t him. “I believe…” He looked beyond the man’s shoulder to a rose-inlaid table stacked neatly with leather books. Wordlessly, he climbed to his feet and strode over to them, coming to a stop beside the pile of sketchpads. Pulling off his gloves, he absently stuffed them inside his jacket and then brushed his palm over the surface of the top book. A shock of heat met his touch and filled every corner of him that had been previously cold with her leaving. She’d caressed these pages. While his life had continued to crumble about him with her departure, she’d loved these sheets and transformed them. A hungering filled him to flip through the pages and steal a glimpse into the daily thoughts of her world as it had existed without him. Except, he didn’t have the right to be a voyeur on her thoughts. “She deserves more than me,” he said finally, turning slowly back to find the earl still intently studying him. “I hurt her,” he said, forcing those words out into existence.

  The earl tightened his mouth again. “You certainly did.” Agony lanced Cedric’s heart. “But Genevieve is a strong girl. It would take more than a shiftless rake to destroy her.”

  “Indeed,” he automatically agreed, as memories assailed him. Genevieve tossing her glass of water in the face of the first man who’d wronged her in a public display of beautiful fury. Genevieve slipping away from a ballroom and removing her slippers in her host’s home. He turned his palms up. “But I want to begin again with her. I want to have a real marriage with your granddaughter.”

  “And your wicked parties?”

  He winced. The man was relentless but it was just another jab Cedric deserved. “I’ve grown weary of them.” How had he ever found pleasure at those crude, soulless affairs?

  “What happens when you crave them again?”

  Most husbands would take umbrage with another interfering in his marriage. By the laws, a wife belonged to and with her husband. Cedric, however, would never have Genevieve in that way. He’d not force her to him. And any person, man or woman, who’d so protect her, had his unending gratitude. “I can give you my assurances that there will never be another beyond her. But what reason have I given you,” or more importantly, Genevieve, “to trust me?” Shame spread through him. “I have not lived an honorable existence,” he said, after he’d found proper words. “I have drunk too much and wagered even more.” That brought the other man’s eyebrows snapping together. “I enjoyed scandalous affairs, no respectable man or woman should even know about.”

  The earl scrutinized him with hard, relentless eyes.

  Cedric held his hands out. “But then I met your granddaughter. She stepped inside my father’s library and in that moment, she forever transformed me, even as I did not recognize it at the time, and even as I did not allow myself to accept that…until I lost her.” Memories of her laughter, her smile, her teasing words whispered around his mind, so tangible, so very real, it gutted him, making it impossible to drag forth words. Unnerved by the intensity of the earl’s probing stare, Cedric moved over to the floor-length window that overlooked the rolling Kent countryside.

  …The sky is bluer and when you lay on the grass and stare up at the sky you see nothing but an endless blue, so that you think you can stretch your fingers up and touch the heavens…

  His gaze snagged on the slender figure. Her head was bent over a blanket of bluish-purple flowers and his heart tripped a beat. He leaned forward; a starving man hungering for the first glimpse of her. “I love her,” he said again, his voice hoarse. Cedric pressed his brow against the warm lead pane as Genevieve continued to work. “And I will not lie and say I will ever be deserving of her, because I won’t. But if she’ll let me, I will fill her life with love.”

  Silence met his profession and he forced his gaze away from Genevieve to look back at the earl.

  The old man cracked his first smile. It was a faint, but genuine, expression. “Then, what are you doing with me, boy? Go find your wife.”

  Chapter 29

  Genevieve bent over the earth, digging a small hole. Working as she’d been without interruption so long the sun had made its high climb to the sky above, the muscles of her lower back screamed in protest. She straightened and paused to rub the dull ache, before returning to her task of splitting and replanting the bulbs.

  She set to work digging the next home for the blooms, when a shadow fell over her. Ever faithful Delores who came to assist each day. “Will you hand me another bluebell from the basket, Delores,” she called, as she finished making the next hole. Genevieve held her palm out. At her maid’s silence, she looked back, and froze.

  With a bluebell held in his large, tanned fingers, Cedric studied her in an inscrutable manner.

  The world froze in this peculiar moment that dreams were made of. For all that had come to pass between them, not a day had gone where she’d not thought of him and ached to see him. His garments rumpled, his eyes bloodshot, and a thick set of stubble on his chiseled cheeks, he was somehow even more splendid in his masculine perfection. Why is he here? The shovel slipped forgotten from her fingers.

  Her husband inclined his head. “I suppose I might say hello.”

  Oh, God. Those words, some of the first she’d ever uttered to him, brought her eyes momentarily closed. They harkened to a time when she’d still secretly clung to fairytales and the hope of love. Those dreams had long since been slayed—by him. “Why are you here?” she asked, when she trusted herself to speak.

  Cedric flexed a hand. “I came to see you,” he said flatly.

  After he’d shattered her world, did he expect she’d greet him with arms flung about his neck? Genevieve climbed to her feet. Following his betrayal, and their loss…nay, her loss, she’d lost herself in enough tears to fill the Thames. In the recent weeks, she’d managed to wake without feeling her heart was being slowly whittled away with a dull knife. Now, in being here, he’d kick out the shaky foundation of a new world she’d begun to build for herself. “For what purpose?” she asked tiredly.

  He caressed her face with a warm gaze. “How can you not know when you left, you took my heart and very reason for being?”

&
nbsp; Her lower lip shook and she caught it hard between her teeth to stop that faint tremble. How very beautiful those words were. And at one time she would have sold her soul on Sunday to have them from him. Then there had always been beautiful words between them…just never substance. “I…” she searched her mind, “appreciate you coming here, Cedric. Too much has come to pass for there to be anything more between us.” She hated that truth, but she’d come to, at least, accept it.

  Shock contorted his face and he shook his head. “I don’t believe that.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “But you wouldn’t, would you? Because that child was nothing to you. To me, he…” or she “was. And beautiful words will never be able to take back the pain of all I lost.” The air lodged painfully in her chest as all the agony of that loss assaulted her senses.

  Cedric pressed his palm to his mouth and then he let his arm fall faltering to his side. Rocking on the balls of his feet, he glanced around the garden. “I never wanted children,” he spoke so matter-of-fact that grief scissored through her. Odd how that admission should still shred her. A sad, humorless grin turned his firm lips. “Why should I want a child? He would be an extension of me.”

  Genevieve hugged her arms close. How peculiar, she had wanted a babe from him, for that very reason.

  Cedric wandered over to the pink roses in bloom and studied the satiny petals as though they contained the answer to life. “That child would have been an extension of me, just as I am an extension of my father.”

  Then his words registered. And with them, the most revealing ones he’d ever shared in the course of their rushed meeting and marriage. It is too late for more with him… It is too late for more… She trailed the tip of her tongue over her lower lip. “Is that why you didn’t wish to have a child? Because you saw your father in yourself?”

  “I spent my whole life believing I was my father,” he said quietly. “That I allowed myself to become him.”

  An agonized groan climbed up her throat. The man who’d entered their home, a man who’d so manipulated his son, was nothing like the humbled man before her now. “That is not true.”

  “Isn’t it?” he said, giving her another sad look. “Even with my being here, when you do not wish to see me, I prove myself a selfish bastard.”

  A protest sprung to her lips but then, in that gentle caress that was so patently his, Cedric brushed his knuckles up and down her cheek. How wrong he was. How could he not know her happiness had been so beautifully linked to him? “But I needed to see you.” His throat muscles moved. “Every day you’ve been gone, I’ve thought about what I would say if…when, I saw you again.”

  A vise-like pressure squeezed about Genevieve’s heart as she sought to resurrect the fortress she’d built these past weeks. But with his every word and gesture, he toppled those walls.

  He looked to her and so much love blazed from within the fathomless blue of his irises, it robbed her of words. “I didn’t want to love. I didn’t want a wife. And I certainly didn’t want a child.” His voice cracked and he let his arm fall to his side. Agony wrapped her heart in a familiar vise with the mention of the babe that had almost been. He gave a jerky nod. “And my life was moving along in a splendidly predictable way, just as I wanted, as I liked. I didn’t want anything more from life.”

  She again folded her arms, hugging herself in a lonely embrace.

  “Until you,” he said hoarsely. He closed the space between them, his boots noisily crunching the earth. Cedric captured her chin and tipped her gaze up to his. “I never realized everything my life was missing until you were gone from it. You opened my eyes to the person I was and he was a man I didn’t much like. You made me see that I want so much more…with you.”

  “Cedric,” she pleaded. Because with every utterance, he made her long for things she’d managed to convince herself would never be.

  He was relentless, battering at her defenses. “I want to lay beside you looking at the country sky you described.” Her husband tilted his head back and took in the crisp blue above, with bilious, white clouds floating by. “Because I forgot how beautiful it is.” A frantic laugh spilled from his lips. “No doubt, because I’d never taken the time to appreciate it…” He returned his gaze to her. “Until you. I want it all. I want a family.” His words were a ragged plea.

  She clutched at her throat. He was a master of words. He’d proven that since their first meeting. “I do not want you to want a child because you believe that is the only way I’ll be yours.”

  Cedric drifted closer and dropped his brow atop hers. “I want a child with you because she’ll be a brave, beautiful girl in her mother’s image and she’ll have been made in love.” Oh, God. “I want to sit in a garden and sketch, not because you want me to change, but because I have changed.” He stepped away and dragged his hand through his hair, tousling those too-long locks all the more. With a jerky movement, he fished around the front of his jacket and withdrew a gold chain. The ruby heart pendant glimmered bright in the afternoon sun.

  The column of his throat worked. “It was my mother’s. My sister said it was a gift, given in love. She shared it with me, to share with you.” He extended that precious treasure to her.

  A shuddery sob built in her throat and she pressed her fingertips to her lips.

  “Will you not say something?” he asked hoarsely, letting his faltering hand fall to his side. The chain twisted and danced in a slight circle.

  Genevieve flung her arms around him with such ferocity that he stumbled backward and toppled to the ground, her form coming down hard over him. “I love you,” she rasped, taking his face between her hands. “I want all of that with you, too.”

  “Oomph.” His breath came fast from the force she’d knocked into him. He closed his eyes a moment and then rolled her under him. “Oh, God, I have missed you,” he whispered. That forever errant, golden curl tumbled over his brow.

  A whispery half-laugh, half-sob spilled from her lips. “From the moment you slid my slippers on my feet, I was hopelessly and irrevocably yours.” Her mouth quivered in a smile as she brushed the loose strand behind his ear. “The lure of a rake is a strong one.”

  His lips turned up in that charming half-grin that altered the beat of her heart. He lowered his mouth close to hers. “But not nearly as powerful as the lure of a lady.”

  Cedric claimed her lips in a kiss that promised forever.

  The End

  Coming Soon

  June 21st

  To Woo a Widow

  A Heart of the Duke novella

  A Wary Widow:

  Lady Philippa Winston will never remarry. While her family, and the world around her see a brokenhearted widow, the truth is that after her late husband’s cruelty, she has no desire to turn control over to any man. Her dreams of a happily ever after died long ago.

  A Gallant Gentleman:

  Years ago, Miles Brookfield, the Marquess of Guilford, vowed to wed his mother’s spinster goddaughter if he reached his thirtieth year and was still unwed. He’s resolved to honor that promise—until one morning, he meets Lady Philippa in the park.

  A Fateful Meeting:

  Philippa knows all too well the cruelty men are capable of. But the more she comes to know Miles, the more he breaks down every belief she’s carried about gentlemen. Now, Miles must prove to Philippa that not only is love real, but that he’s the man deserving of her heart.

  Other Books by Christi Caldwell

  “The Lure of a Rake”

  Book 9 in the “Heart of a Duke” Series by Christi Caldwell

  A Lady Dreaming of Love

  Lady Genevieve Farendale has a scandalous past. Jilted at the altar years earlier and exiled by her family, she’s now returned to London to prove she can be a proper lady. Even though she’s not given up on the hope of marrying for love, she’s wary of trusting again. Then she meets Cedric Falcot, the Marquess of St. Albans whose seductive ways set her heart aflutter. But with her sordid history, Genevieve know
s a rake can also easily destroy her.

  An Unlikely Pairing

  What begins as a chance encounter between Cedric and Genevieve becomes something more. As they continue to meet, passions stir. But with Genevieve’s hope for true love, she fears Cedric will be unable to give up his wayward lifestyle. After all, Cedric has spent years protecting his heart, and keeping everyone out. Slowly, she chips away at all the walls he’s built, but when he falters, Genevieve can’t offer him redemption. Now, it’s up to Cedric to prove to Genevieve that the love of a man is far more powerful than the lure of a rake.

  “To Trust a Rogue”

  Book 8 in the “Heart of a Duke” Series by Christi Caldwell

  A rogue

  Marcus, the Viscount Wessex has carefully crafted the image of rogue and charmer for polite Society. Under that façade, however, dwells a man whose dreams were shattered almost eight years earlier by a young lady who captured his heart, pledged her love, and then left him, with nothing more than a curt note.

  A widow

  Eight years earlier, faced with no other choice, Mrs. Eleanor Collins, fled London and the only man she ever loved, Marcus, Viscount Wessex. She has now returned to serve as a companion for her elderly aunt with a daughter in tow. Even though they’re next door neighbors, there is little reason for her to move in the same circles as Marcus, just in case, she vows to avoid him, for he reminds her of all she lost when she left.

  Reunited

  As their paths continue to cross, Marcus finds his desire for Eleanor just as strong, but he learned long ago she’s not to be trusted. He will offer her a place in his bed, but not anything more. Only, Eleanor has no interest in this new, roguish man. The more time they spend together, the protective wall they’ve constructed to keep the other out, begin to break. With all the betrayals and secrets between them, Marcus has to open his heart again. And Eleanor must decide if it’s ever safe to trust a rogue.