My Fake Rake

by Eva Leigh

  Dedication

  For Zack, who believes in me, always

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Announcement

  About the Author

  By Eva Leigh

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Eton College, 1797

  It’s just the library door, not the entrance to Hell. Stop delaying.

  Sebastian Holloway tugged on his jacket cuffs, but no matter how much he pulled, his bony wrists protruded, proclaiming him to be firmly in the awkward stage of adolescence.

  Logically, he understood that this period in a young man’s life was temporary. Countless volumes had been written about it and not one of those esteemed scholars ever mentioned that some boys remained permanently fourteen. So it stood to reason that eventually, he’d stop growing like a dandelion and his clothes might fit properly for longer than two weeks.

  “You going in,” a voice growled behind him, “or are we going to stand here all day like a couple of sapskulls?”

  Seb whirled around to face Theodore Curtis, who glared at him from beneath a heavy fringe of dark hair.

  “I . . . uh . . .” Seb swallowed. Those two syllables were the first he’d ever spoken to Curtis. Normally, Seb gave the other boy a wide berth, given Curtis’s propensity for destroying school property and getting into fights.

  “For fuck’s sake.” Curtis rolled his eyes. He reached past Seb, grunting when Seb flinched, and planted his hand on the door. “We’re going to get extra punishment if we’re late.”

  Doubtless, Curtis spoke from experience. He was always being called before the headmaster, always being placed On the Bill for infractions, always getting flogged, but no matter how much penance he was forced to endure, it didn’t stop his unruly behavior.

  “Sorry,” Seb muttered. “First time here.”

  “I know.” Curtis pushed open the door. “I’d say do as I do, but you had better not. Unless you want a cane across your arse.”

  Seb followed Curtis into the library, but the rows of books didn’t calm his racing heart, and the neatly arranged tables didn’t stop the film of chilled sweat slicking his back.

  Three boys sat at tables scattered around the library, and they all turned toward him as he shuffled into the room.

  Paste seemed to fill his mouth as he looked at the boys he knew only by name. They were all in the same house, and were all of them in E block, but it didn’t matter—Seb had almost no interaction with them. There was Noel Edwards, Lord Clair and heir to the Duke of Rotherby. Though Clair was the same year as Seb, the other boy practically ruled the entirety of Eton, but not by force. Everyone, from students to teachers, sought his good opinion. If Clair decided that mutton pie was his favorite supper, all the boys would insist on eating mutton pie. He once showed up to class without tying back his hair, and the next day everyone’s hair was loose. Those boys who were part of Clair’s inner circle were an elite and favored few.

  Seb doubted Clair knew his name. Judging by the disinterested look in his eyes, it was a safe assumption.

  Sitting nearby was Duncan McCameron, a Scottish earl’s second son. McCameron sent a brief smile toward Seb. The football match they’d played together the other day had been a high point of the week, with their team trouncing the other boys. On the pitch, Seb didn’t feel like a tongue-tied clod, and the match’s win had gained him a measure of McCameron’s respect.

  The third boy gave Seb a tiny nod of recognition. Naturally. Seb and William Rowe weren’t friends, but they both dwelt on the edges of school society. At least Seb had a few chums. No one talked to Rowe. He rarely spoke, and when he did, it came out in an unintelligible mutter. A few whispered that he was mad, and most of the boys found him to be too eccentric to warrant an attempt at friendship.

  Seb took off his spectacles and rubbed them on the corner of his jacket. The gesture was so habitual, he barely noticed.

  Curtis strode past him, then threw himself into a seat and propped his feet up on a table.

  “Sit, Holloway,” McCameron said, not unkindly. “Eddings is going to be here any minute.”

  Seb grabbed the nearest chair and dropped into it. A strained silence fell.

  The door to the library opened again and Eddings, a senior boy, marched into the room. He went to stand in the middle of the chamber, planting his hands on his hips and gazing sourly at each of the boys. Seb sat up straighter.

  “As you can well imagine,” Eddings said without preamble, “I am decidedly unhappy that, rather than enjoying the half holiday, like everyone else at this sodding school, I am instead consigned to supervising you five miscreants.”

  Not once in his life had Seb been called a miscreant. Bookworm, perhaps. Misfit was favored by his brothers and cousins. But to be lumped into the same category as the lawbreaker Theodore Curtis? Appalling.

  Clair must have also taken offense to the term, because he raised his hand. “Sir, I don’t think I belong here.”

  “You most certainly do, Lord Clair.” Eddings sighed. “Like the others in this library today, you have committed serious offenses, and like the others, you will accept your punishment with grace. Can you guess what that punishment might be, Holloway?”

  Everyone looked at Seb, and a choking panic clutched him. Self-consciousness grabbed hold as he struggled to put words together. It was as though he was back at his family’s dining table, with his father’s sneering words ringing in his ears.

  “You can’t get respect in this world if you’re scribbling in that notebook all the sodding time. Always watching. Never taking charge. What do you have to say for yourself? Speak up, boy, or you’re hardly fit to call yourself my son.”

  Then, as now, Seb found himself struck mute. Each word was weighted, and he couldn’t heft them to construct even the most basic sentence. He’d been thrown from all his prepared scripts, and he didn’t know what to say.

  “Gone dumb, Holloway?” Eddings jeered.

  Clair glanced sharply at the senior boy. “Give him a chance to speak.”

  “It’s all right, Holloway,” McCameron said with surprising gentleness.

  To Seb’s utter surprise, Curtis added, “Take your time.”

  Rowe nodded encouragingly.

  Heat prickled Seb’s eyes, and he blinked back surprised tears. These four boys whom he barely knew offered him patience and acceptance—exactly what he could not find within his own blood family.

  Finally, Seb managed to ask, “What is our punishment?”

  “The house captain felt flogging was rather clichéd, so he decided that the five of you are to spend the next—” Eddings consulted his timepiece. “Eight hours and fifty-four minutes contemplating what brought you here today.”

  Clair and McCameron groaned, while Curtis snorted in derision. Both Rowe and Seb remained silent.

  “In addition,” the senior boy continued over the sou
nds of protest, “you will each pen an essay, the topic of which will be your thoughts on who you believe yourself to be. Said essay shall be no fewer than a thousand words.”

  Seb felt a little lighter. Essays were his forte. He could write an essay, and it wasn’t uncommon for other boys to pay him to write papers for them. Such an endeavor helped to pay for books he ordered from the shop in the village, books his father would never buy him since they had nothing to do with the British iron industry—the only topic John Holloway considered worthwhile.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” Eddings said. He walked briskly to the door.

  “You’re not staying?” McCameron asked.

  Eddings paused on the threshold. “God, no. Like hell will I imprison myself in this library until nightfall. But I will check on you—at irregular intervals so you cannot predict if it’s safe to leave. Anyone caught by myself or the ground staff will be subject to more severe punishment. Flogging will seem delightful by comparison.” His lips curled into an acrid smile. “Enjoy your day, gentlemen.”

  The door closed, and Seb and the other boys were alone.

  Curtis surged to his feet and regarded each of them with his habitual smirk. “My, my. How droll. Trapped in the library with”—he looked at Clair, McCameron, Rowe, and Seb—“Lord Perfect, the Honorable Corinthian, Sir Bedlam, and Professor Lanky.” He chuckled at his sobriquets.

  “A poet as well as a criminal,” Clair drawled. “Well done, Curtis. Or should I call you Mister Newgate, since that’s where you’re headed.”

  “Shut your goddamned mouth.” Curtis stalked to the young nobleman, who jumped up with fists at the ready.

  McCameron shoved himself between them. “Quiet, both of you, or Eddings will come back and cane us raw.”

  Five minutes hadn’t passed, but already chaos had erupted. Seb looked over at Rowe, who hunched down in his seat and mumbled to himself.

  Seb grimaced. Was the kindness the other boys had shown him an aberration? Or were they all simply too different to be cordial, let alone friendly?

  It was going to be a very long day.

  Chapter 1

  London, 1817

  Reptile or human, you were guaranteed to make a cake out of yourself when mating season arrived.

  No, that wasn’t fair—to reptiles.

  Take the eastern fence lizard, Stellio undulatus. When it came time for the creature to attract a mate, a male performed a series of charming head bobs to show off its lovely bright blue stomach and throat, all of this done in complete silence.

  But the human male—more specifically, aristocratic human males of London Society—sported garish clothing while striking poses in conspicuous places and making harsh, barking noises that guaranteed any female in the vicinity had no choice but to take notice.

  As she approached the Benezra Library in Kensington, with her maid Katie in tow, Grace Wyatt’s naturalist’s eye couldn’t help but observe the trio of young bucks congregated on the corner of Knightsbridge and Sloane Street.

  Dandium vulgaris. The Common Dandy.

  Grace neared the three men who appeared to be between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five years old, of average height and coloring, possessing no distinguishing facial features, and notable only for the expense of their coats and waistcoats, which let prospective mates know that at the least, their material comforts would be assured.

  Their sexual and intellectual comforts, however . . . those were less certain.

  “Did you clap peepers on the selection of beauties last night at the Haverfords’?” one of them bleated.

  “A few rum morts, that’s certain,” another said. “Quite a bevy!”

  “Jolly right,” the third added.

  As Grace drew closer, she realized she knew the men, having encountered them at numerous galas and fetes over the years. She couldn’t recall their names—one overbred lordling was much the same as another—but was fairly positive she’d danced with two of them as they had considered her potential as a wife.

  Earls’ daughters were infrequent, their dowries substantial and bloodline impeccable. At twenty-six, she was somewhat old for an unwed woman, but she was healthy and all the women in her family lived long, fertile lives, bearing their husbands several sons. A few daughters, too. But the sons usually lived into adulthood, and there was no reason to assume she also couldn’t bear healthy heirs to whomever she granted breeding privileges to. Having assessed her physical features as they’d developed over the years, she’d determined that she was, by most standards, reasonably attractive.

  These factors alone made her a good catch. Any gentleman would be lucky indeed to marry her.

  But did she want to marry them?

  “Lady Grace,” one of the men chirped as she neared. The three bucks all bowed.

  “Gentlemen,” she replied.

  A second dandy added, “Looking charming—as usual. Are you out for a bit of shopping?”

  “Headed to the library, in fact,” she said.

  A look of profound bafflement creased the men’s faces.

  “Er, with books?” the first dandy asked.

  “Generally,” she answered levelly, “the thing that qualifies something for being called a ‘library’ is the presence of books.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather buy a bonnet?” the third dandy said with a hint of desperation. “My mother and sisters love the things. Always getting new ones.”

  “Much as I enjoy new bonnets,” she said, “they are not repositories of information about amphibians, nor reptiles.”

  “I suppose not,” the second dandy said glumly.

  After a long pause, Grace said, “Thank you for the charming conversation, but I’ll be on my way now. To the library. With books. Not bonnets.”

  The trio of men bowed again, wishing her a good day, before she moved on.

  A wry smile tilted the corners of her mouth. Evidently, she wasn’t missing much by failing to land a husband from the ranks of Society.

  Grace and Katie mounted the stairs leading up to the Benezra Library. Pleasure rushed through Grace’s body as she climbed higher and her fingers itched with the knowledge that soon she’d be thumbing through the pages of the latest books in natural philosophy.

  She reached the columned portico, then pushed open the heavy door and stepped into the marble-floored foyer. The smell of paper and leather and the faint musk of aged vellum filled her lungs.

  Her smile widened with genuine happiness. Far more than any ballroom or parlor, this was her home.

  Leonidas Benezra was an extraordinarily prosperous textile merchant with a fascination for the sciences, and his personal collection of natural philosophy texts was so substantial that he’d opened a private circulating library. Its members were vetted by Mr. Benezra himself. Once a person gained entrance, they had access to both ancient tomes and current volumes, covering topics as varied as botany, astronomy, anthropology, and zoology, with occasional forays into mechanics, mathematics, and folk dance, because Mr. Benezra proclaimed himself to be inordinately fond of dancing.

  The best part about the library was its policy of admitting anyone, male or female, white or black, young or aged, impoverished or wealthy, provided that the person seeking entrance displayed a genuine love of the sciences.

  Grace moved into the library itself, a former house that had been renovated to contain thousands of books. The walls between the rooms had been taken out, with columns added to bear the weight, so that the main chamber was the entire ground floor. Rows of bookshelves lined the perimeter, and stacks took up half of the room. Long tables where one could read undisturbed made up the rest of the chamber’s furnishings.

  Upstairs, the living quarters now held specialized subjects, which patrons could either peruse themselves or request a librarian to fetch particular volumes.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Grace.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Pagett.” She nodded as she passed the library assistant, wheeling a cart down th
e central aisle.

  “Greetings, Lady Grace,” Mrs. Sanford murmured from where she sat at one of the tables.

  Grace paused and smiled at the older woman, whose freckles dotted her fair skin with little rosy constellations. In a lowered voice, Grace asked, “How fares your inquiry into orthogonal trajectories of curve families?”

  “I’m beginning to believe that Bernoulli wasn’t entirely correct.” Mrs. Sanford patted the open book in front of her. “But I’m not concerned. I know I’ll get to the bottom of it. Won’t we, Khayyam?” She petted the library’s orange tabby cat, curled up on a nearby stack of papers.

  “I’ve every confidence in your abilities.” With that, Grace moved on, eager to reach the circulation desk.

  “Your parents want you home for supper with Lord and Lady Pugh,” Katie said in a whisper. “Shall I fetch you at three?”

  “If you must.”

  Following their usual routine, Katie veered off to find a place to read the novel she pulled from her reticule. Grace pressed her lips together to hide her smile when she saw that the author was the Lady of Dubious Quality. Grace herself owned four of the unknown author’s works, but she kept them in her bedside table for late night—solitary—enjoyment. If Katie wanted to read erotic tales in public, well, that was her business.

  “Lady Grace.” Chima Okafor, the head librarian, smiled at her from behind his desk. His whispered words were lightly accented with the music of the Igbo language. He bowed. “What a pleasure.”

  “You always greet me as though I’ve been away for twelve months, not twelve hours.” She set her reticule on the desk, pencils and the edge of a small notebook poking out from the top.

  “Because I am always glad to see our most dedicated patron.”

  She laughed quietly. “Somehow I doubt that I hold that honor.”

  Mr. Okafor inclined his head. “Perhaps there is a small cadre of individuals who vie for the title.”

  “Biggest Bookworm. That’s what the trophy shall read.”

  “Don’t mention bookworms here. Mr. Benezra is most particular about the health of his books and has a hatred of anything that feeds upon paper and bindings.”