The Rake's Vow

by Ruth Ann Nordin

  “The Duke of Lambeth is a notorious rake. Some say he was worse than Lord Edon, and considering how bad Lord Edon was before he married, that’s saying something.”

  “I’m well aware of the duke’s reputation.”

  He studied her for a moment, and upon not seeing whatever it was he expected to see in her expression, he asked, “His reputation doesn’t bother you?”

  She shrugged. “As long as he marries me, I don’t care what he does. Husbands run around with mistresses all the time.” Then, as an afterthought, she added, “I’ll demand he be discreet. That way, no one will be the wiser.”

  “If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t care what kind of person he is, but the fact that I do care should prove my concern for you.”

  Had she not made life impossible for him in the past, she might have believed his words. But she wasn’t one to fool herself. After Anthony jilted her, she had discovered some very unpleasant truths about herself, and though they were hard to accept, she finally had. She had not been a likeable person up to this point in her life.

  But what could she do about the past? She couldn’t go back and undo any of the hurtful things she’d done or said to others. All she could do was secure her reputation with the Ton and hope she could redeem herself in other ways.

  “Please do this for me, Brad,” she said. “This is my second Season, and I couldn’t get one gentleman interested in me last year, no matter how hard I tried.” And she had tried! Celia’s brother hadn’t been the only one she’d pursued. He’d just been the one she’d fallen in love with.

  “Maybe if you weren’t manipulative, you would have gotten someone to take notice,” Brad gently told her.

  “I’m well aware that I’m unlikable. Why do you think I’m not going to try to win the duke over with my charming personality? That won’t work. I need to use the one thing all gentlemen want from a wife: money. May I please have my dowry so I can buy my way into a marriage with him?”

  He let out a long sigh and drummed the arm of his chair. “I can’t talk you out of this, can I?”

  “Why would you want to?”

  “Because even if you don’t believe it, I do want you to be happy.”

  “I would have been happy with Anthony, but as you know, he married someone else. Since happiness is out of the question, I might as well be envied by the Ton.”

  He paused for a long moment.

  “You could refuse to do this for me,” she added, “but then I’ll be stuck here for the rest of my life as a pathetic lonely spinster who no one likes.”

  He threw his hands up in the air. “All right. We’ll do it your way, but don’t come crying to me when he doesn’t fall in love with you.”

  “I don’t care if he loves me or not.”

  “You say that now, but I have a feeling once your heartbreak with Anthony is over, you’ll wish you’d waited for a love match.”

  She rolled her eyes. A love match. When love was one-sided, there was no love match. All along Anthony hadn’t cared one whit about her. Had she been paying attention, she wouldn’t have humiliated herself by hanging all over him like a lovesick fool.

  Well, she was done being a fool. From this moment forward, she wasn’t going to suffer any delusions. She was going to approach the duke with an offer he—hopefully—wouldn’t be able to resist. And after that, Lady Eloise would be so impressed that she wouldn’t even think of throwing her out of the group.

  “When will you give me the money?” she asked her brother.

  “I’m going to transfer the money to his account,” Brad replied.

  “But it’s my dowry.”

  “That I will hand over to him.” His eyebrow rose. “You didn’t think I’d withdraw the funds from my account and let you carry the entire thing over to him, did you?”

  It had worked for Damara when she did it to Anthony. She bit her tongue so she wouldn’t say that. He didn’t need to know the details of the sordid ordeal. “How can I prove I have a dowry if I don’t show it to him?” she ventured.

  “I’ll be there when you make the offer.”

  Oh. She hadn’t expected this. “You will?”

  He nodded. “I wouldn’t let you make such an important offer without being there.”

  “Why? So you can warn him not to go through with it?” she asked in dread.

  “Why do you assume I’d make this difficult for you?”

  “Because you haven’t done anything to make things easy for me in the past.”

  “No?”

  “No. You weren’t willing to pay for the etiquette lessons I needed so I was ready for my first social engagement with Lady Eloise. You made me take one of Mother’s old dresses and have the maid refashion it. And you give me a very small amount to buy anything else Lady Eloise requires.”

  “Lady Eloise and that petty group of ladies she runs around with are snobs.”

  “I know they are, but they’re influential with the Ton.”

  He opened his mouth as if ready to protest but shook his head. “I’m not having this argument with you again. I’ll go with you when you want to talk to the duke. Then once you marry the duke, you can buy all the dresses you want so you can impress the Ton.”

  “I won’t need to spend all that money once I’m married to the duke.”

  “We’ll see.”

  She couldn’t blame him for not believing her. Lady Eloise had set surprisingly high standards for how ladies ought to dress and act. But once she had the duke, she would have a huge advantage.

  She stood up from her chair and glanced at him. “Brad, for what it’s worth, thank you for helping me in this matter.”

  “I just hope this is going to work out the way you hope.”

  That was one of the nicest things he’d ever said to her. With a smile, she thanked him and left the den. On her way out, she bumped into her younger brother, Stephen. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Stephen’s eyes grew wide. “I must be hearing things because I thought you just said you were sorry you bumped into me.”

  “That’s not fair, Stephen. I was trying to be nice.”

  “Nice? You? You’ll have to do better than a simple apology in a hallway if you expect me to believe you’re nice.”

  She scowled at him. “Very well. Next time I bump into you, I’ll be sure not to apologize.” She stormed off down the hallway.

  Behind her, Stephen laughed. “That’s the Loretta we all know,” he called after her.

  Heat rose up in her cheeks as she lifted the hem of her dress and started up the long staircase.

  ***

  Tad rolled the chess piece in his hand as he stared out the drawing room window in his townhouse. Did he dare take a loan? Yes, it was possible he could yield enough from the captain’s expedition to pay Malcolm back and be able to start a successful business of investing more money. It would take two or three years of careful planning to restore his estate to its former glory…but that was only if he could manage to make a profit off of everything he invested in.

  He leaned his head against the back of his chair and closed his eyes. There was no way he could guarantee success for every single investment. The odds of gaining profits without some losses along the way just weren’t realistic.

  He rolled the chess piece over in his hand. Maybe he should seek a wife. Ideally, the lady would be a widow who’d endured a painful marriage, and because of that, she would want to live in separate places. Only then could such a marriage work. But what widow in her right mind would give up some of her money to marry a gentleman who couldn’t offer her anything in return?

  “Your Grace.”

  Tad opened his eyes and glanced over at his butler who stood in the doorway. He straightened up and urged him to continue.

  “Lord Youngtown and his sister wish to speak with you,” the butler said.

  Tad frowned. “What is his sister’s name?”

  “I believe he referred to her as Miss Bachman.”

  Tad thought
over all the ladies he had ever been with. He didn’t recognize her name. But there had been a couple he’d had dalliances with who had never told him their names. Maybe Miss Bachman was one of them.

  Taking a deep breath to strengthen his resolve, he rose to his feet. “See them in,” he replied. “Then bring some tea.”

  The butler nodded and left the room.

  Tad gripped the chess piece in his hand, and had it not been made of wood, it might have snapped in two. He released his breath and forced himself to relax. If this was one of the ladies he’d wronged, then he would make it right.

  The butler brought in a gentleman around his age into the room, followed by a lady who was a few years younger. Immediately, he relaxed. She was much too young to have been with him in the past. Thank God! He nearly fell into the chair with relief.

  “Please, have a seat,” Tad encouraged them as he sat back down.

  The two settled into the other chairs as the butler left the room.

  “We apologize for coming unannounced. My sister,” Lord Youngtown glanced at her with a slight eye roll, “was insistent we get to you before any other ladies did.”

  His sister’s cheeks went bright pink, something that complemented the strawberry blonde of her hair. To her credit, however, she didn’t protest. She only clasped her hands in her lap and offered Tad an apologetic smile.

  Tad’s attention went back to her brother. “What is it you wish to discuss?”

  Lord Youngtown glanced over his shoulder at the open doorway.

  “We can close the doors if you wish,” Tad offered.

  “That might be best, given the nature of the conversation,” he replied.

  Tad rose to his feet and glanced at the lady. “We’ve never met, correct?”

  “No, we haven’t,” she replied, sounding surprised by the question.

  His gaze went to her brother. “And we don’t have any grievances I don’t know about?”

  Eyes wide, he shrugged. “I’ve never met you before today.”

  Good. Then whatever this was about, it couldn’t be bad. He set the chess piece on the board then went to the doorway. Seeing the butler with the tray full of tea and scones, he paused and let him enter the room. The butler put the tray on the table between the chairs, offered them all a bow, and headed out.

  Tad offered him a smile to say thanks and then shut the doors. On his way back to the chair, he overheard Lord Youngtown whispering to his sister.

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “I already made up my mind.”

  “But he doesn’t seem like an honorable gentleman if he’s asking us about past grievances,” he replied, his voice still so quiet that Tad had to read his lips in order to fully understand him.

  Deciding not to hide the truth, Tad sat in front of them and said, “Lord Youngtown, you’re right. I’m not honorable.”

  This time her brother’s face turned as red as hers.

  “I see no reason to hide the truth,” Tad continued as he poured tea into their cups. “Once upon a time, I was a rake, and I did all the things you would expect a rake to do.” He held their cups out to them. “Would you like some tea?”

  Mouth hanging open, her brother accepted his cup. The sister, on the other hand, didn’t look shocked at all by his words. She just took the cup and offered him another smile. She was a charming thing. Not strikingly gorgeous, but she was attractive in her own right.

  He wasn’t sure why she kept smiling at him as if all her hopes rested on him, but he suspected he was going to find out soon enough. He poured tea into his own cup and settled back into his chair. “Help yourself to the scones. I recently ate, so I won’t be having any.”

  Her brother gave her a look that seemed to plead with her to reconsider. She, on the other hand, shook her head in a way that could only mean she fully intended to proceed with whatever had brought them here to begin with.

  Tad took a sip of the tea and waited for them to make up their minds. As long as he hadn’t personally wronged either one of them in the past, he didn’t care what the whole silent exchange was about.

  Finally, her brother let out a long sigh. “This is a very unusual request, but my sister is determined to go through with this.” Though she didn’t seem particularly pleased he had worded things the way he did, she let him continue. “My sister would like to marry you.”

  Before he had time to even consider the weight of the gentleman’s words, Tad burst out laughing.

  “I’m afraid she’s serious,” Lord Youngtown said.

  “I am,” she agreed.

  “What is the scandal you’re wishing to hide?” Tad asked her. “Are you with child and need to save your reputation?”

  “No,” she replied. “I don’t know the first thing about being with a gentleman. Beyond dancing or being escorted at dinner parties, I haven’t had any interactions with them unless they were one of my relatives.”

  “Since that’s the case, then you would be better off with a gentleman who doesn’t have my past,” Tad told her. “It would be best for your reputation.”

  “It’s because of my reputation that I wish to marry you,” she insisted.

  “I know I haven’t been in London for a long time, but I don’t understand how marrying a scoundrel can be good for your reputation.”

  “The very fact that you were a rake, went into hiding, and then lived the life of a saint is exactly why you would be good for my reputation.”

  He shot her a skeptical look.

  “It’s true,” she said. “The Ladies of Grace are especially impressed with you.”

  “Ladies of Grace?” He’d never heard of such a thing. “What is this? A religious order?”

  “Hardly,” Lord Youngtown said, glancing heavenward before he drank his tea.

  “Ladies of Grace is a very prestigious social group in London,” she told Tad. “Only the best of the best are allowed to be in the group, and the lady who manages to marry you will secure her position forever in it.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, waiting for her to tell him she was only joking, but she held his gaze without flinching. His eyebrows furrowed. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” she replied.

  “I’ve never had anything to do with Ladies of Grace,” he said. “Why would anyone in the group care about me?” Especially if they were, as she put it, made up of the best of the best. Those hadn’t been the ladies he had sought. He had sought those who were bored with social propriety or their husbands.

  “You’re a challenge,” Miss Bachman said. “You’re a very handsome gentleman, and the fact that you haven’t been with a single lady since you left London makes you even more impressive.”

  He had a hard time believing it, so he glanced at her brother.

  “It’s true,” her brother said. “Lady Eloise and the others are captivated with you.”

  Lady Eloise? “I don’t know who Lady Eloise is,” Tad told her brother.

  “Well, she knows who you are, and she says you’re the most marriageable bachelor in London.” When Tad stared at him in disbelief, he shrugged. “I don’t understand a lady’s logic any more than you do.”

  “What’s there to understand?” Miss Bachman asked. She turned her gaze to Tad. “You’re impossible to obtain. That makes you desirable.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Tad replied.

  “I agree,” her brother said, “but I can’t talk my sister out of wanting to marry you.”

  Tad sighed. He didn’t want to tell her that theirs could never be a real marriage, but perhaps it was the only way to convince her to give up this foolish idea. “Lord Youngtown,” he began with a glance at her brother, “would you mind if I had a moment alone with your sister?”

  Chapter Four

  Just as Loretta was ready to say she’d be more than happy to speak with the duke alone, her
brother shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice firm. “I can’t allow her to be with you unsupervised. She’s a virgin, and I fully intend for her to stay that way until her wedding night.”

  Cheeks warm, she directed her gaze to Brad. “I’m not a simpleton. I’ll scream if he tries to touch me.”

  Which might not be the truth. She was so determined to make this deal work that she might allow him some liberties. Not all of them, of course. She could never go all the way with a gentleman she wasn’t married to, but she needed to seal the deal somehow and if it took a little slip of the hand or passionate kiss to make it go through, then the end justified the means. Or at least that is what she had to tell herself over the warning her conscience was giving her.

  After a moment, Brad let out a low groan and rose to his feet. “All right, but if he does anything, you must scream,” he told her.

  Since he was relenting, she offered him a nod. She could only hope he believed her. It must have worked since he left the room. The entire time, the duke didn’t say anything. He only stared at her with those amazing blue eyes that seemed to pierce right through her. No wonder he had the reputation of a rake. He was absolutely gorgeous.

  Afraid he might read her thoughts, she looked away from him.

  The door shut, and she glanced over at the doorway to make sure her brother really had left the room. He had. It was now just her and the Duke of Lambeth.

  She supposed it was up to her to say something. She cleared her throat to get ready to speak, but her mind went blank. Now that her brother wasn’t sitting right beside her, she didn’t feel as brave as she did before.

  The duke moved over to the chair Brad had just been in. She shifted away from him. Could she really allow him to take liberties with her? It sounded easy enough when she thought about it, but now that he was near her and her heartbeat had picked up, she wasn’t sure she could go through with it.

  “I don’t know exactly what these ladies in that social group told you, but I’m the worst husband you could have,” the duke told her.