The Lure of a Rake (12 page)

She slapped her fingers to her gaping mouth. “My lord, I think even you would have the decency not to speak of your scandalous pursuits with another lady,” she said on a furious whisper.

Even him?

He blinked several times. Then his lips pulled at the corners. The lady thought he spoke of another. Though he was rightfully accused of all manner of black-hearted acts through the years, he’d not bandied about those intimate acts. “I was speaking of
our
meeting.”

High color flooded her cheeks, giving her an innocent look he’d long despised in a woman and, yet, on this one…it perfectly suited her and only added to her allure. “You were?”

Cedric nodded once. “I was.”

She cleared her throat. “I thought you spoke of another.”

“Oh?” he asked softly closing the remaining distance between them. He brushed his fingers down the smooth expanse of her cheek. “Which lady did you suspect?” His gentle caress brought her lashes fluttering closed.

“Th-the woman in the golden gown,” her faintly whispered admission earned a grin.

Did the lady realize how much she revealed with that? Despite her studious attempts at avoiding him last evening, she’d noted him. He couldn’t even recall a lady in gold or any other gown for that matter. He dipped his head lower, so close their lips nearly brushed. “Was there another?” he whispered. “I saw no one but you last evening.” Any other time those words would have been carefully crafted with the sole purpose of luring a coy lady to his bed. Now, they were words uttered in truth. Unease rolled inside him and he thrust it aside. This unwitting fascination came from the newness in dallying with an innocent and nothing more. For he’d no doubt, even with Montfort’s allegations, that the lady was, in fact, innocent. For the passion in her kiss, there had been an unbridled, unrestrained enthusiasm that spoke to her virtuousness.

Her breath hitched and any other woman would have tipped her head back to receive his kiss. “You should not be here.” This lady again proved herself remarkably unlike any other before. She stepped back, retreating until her knees knocked against the wrought iron bench and peered at him through endless, golden lashes. “Nor do I believe you ride,” she challenged, a faintly accusatory thread to that charge.

He rocked on his heels. How easy it would be to feed her a distracting lie that would drive back her suspicions and arouse her desires, but something about this young woman drew him—her honesty, her directness. They were sentiments he’d thought fabrications on the pages of whimsical books he’d never bothered to read. “No,” he acknowledged at last. “Rather, I
do
ride daily but not at this hour.”

Her lips twitched. “It is just past ten o’clock, my lord.”

He grimaced. “Ungodly hour, you know.”

Her mouth parted. “I find it beautiful,” she countered. “It is even
more
beautiful, when the orange and crimson horizon shove back the night sky.” She motioned to the distant sky. “It is like God has taken a paintbrush to a blank canvas and filled it with light. You should wake to see it before you so condemn it.” With those words, she spoke more volumes than all the works assembled in his father’s library. Yet, he stood transfixed by the wistful look on her face. Had he truly believed her ordinary? No splendorous work of art could dare compete with her plain-stated beauty. “And do you know the best part of it, my lord?”

Incapable of words, he managed to shake his head.

“There is no one here to intrude on the quiet splendor.”

Her gaze still fixed on the distance, he continued to worship her with his stare. Mayhap there was something to be said of this early time, after all. Mayhap the lady had the right of it. “I came to apologize,” he said quietly. It was hard to determine who was more stunned by that admission.

That snapped her attention back to him. Other ladies of his acquaintance would have tittered and offered veiled, and some not-so veiled, promises. “You came to see me in order to apologize?” She merely looked at him askance. “Why?”

Why? Why, indeed? Cedric tapped his hand against his thigh. What need or use had he of a desperately seeking proper miss, who snuck off to sketch in the gardens of Hyde Park? He could have, and frequently did have, naughty women who expected nothing and certainly didn’t ask questions. And yet, the only reason he could bloody well find was, “I like you,” he said honestly. She puzzled her brow. “And I don’t like anybody.”
Most times not even myself.
He thrust aside the maudlin thought. Rising early did nothing for his rational thinking. That thought, in and of itself, was proof enough.

“You
like
me?” A healthy degree of skepticism coated those three words.

“Would you know the truth?” He continued before she could speak. “I know you despise my title.” They were of like opinions in that regard. “I know you’re refreshingly frank when everyone else stinks of lies and falsity.” He held her gaze squarely. “And I would not have you believe that my intentions last night were of the dishonorable sort.” He grimaced. When had his intentions ever been of the honorable kind? “There you have it,” he finished, lamely.

A sad smile curved her lips. “You did not know last evening that you waltzed with the Farendale doxy? This is the only reason you are here, now?” she asked softly, drifting closer.

Ah, so for the lady’s innocence she was not so naïve that she’d be wholly truthful of his motives. What gentleman was responsible for that cautiousness? Tension snapped through his frame. “I’ll not lie and say I don’t desire you, Genevieve, if that is what you’re expecting. For I do. Want you.” Her mouth parted on a moue of scandalized shock. He scoffed.
A doxy
. This one was as innocent as a debutante in white skirts with a shy eye. And even with that, he wanted to lay her down on the dew-covered earth, haul her gown about her waist, and bury himself in her honeyed warmth. “But I also like you.” How bloody
peculiar
. An inexplicable need to drive back that sad glint in her eyes filled him and he took a step forward, closing the distance between them. “Furthermore, you’re no more a doxy than I am a respectable, noble hero.”

And what terrified the bloody hell out of him, was that he craved the company of this only faintly pretty, most suspicious, young lady.

B
y his very admission, Cedric, the Marquess of St. Albans, was a dishonorable sort whose motives in being here even now should be questioned. He was the manner of man who shamefully took what he wished and who kissed nameless strangers in his father’s library.

And yet, in this instance, with those self-deprecating words, his admission nobly raised Genevieve from the mire and gossip that had swirled around her for five years. Her heart caught in a way that belied the wary walls she’d constructed about her after Terrance’s betrayal.

On the heel of that, Genevieve thrust aside that foolish weakening. As he continued his forward approach, she held her book up staying him. “By your own accounts, being not at all respectable, you are here, anyway.” She hooded her lashes. “All to apologize?” Heavy skepticism coated her words. “Why would you do that?” Why, when the men of his lofty rank had proven themselves self-serving enough to destroy a lady’s reputation on nothing more than a whim and fancy? A morning breeze pulled at the fabric of their cloaks and the garments tangled in a noisy dance.

A muscle jumped at the corner of his eye. “You are, indeed, correct,” he said stiffly. “I should not be here. I came to make my apologies, which I have since done. Because, even as I don’t give a bloody damn on Sunday about anyone, I’d have you know that my intentions last evening were not to embarrass or draw attention to you.” Yet, that is what he’d done, whether inadvertent or intentional. The angular planes of his cheek went flush and he sketched a hasty bow. Neither reactions of a man who’d deliberately sought to make light of the Farendale lady. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, his tone coolly detached. “I’ll allow you to return to your…” His gaze fell to the book gripped tight in her hands.

Following his stare, Genevieve furrowed her brow.

Wordlessly, he took a step forward and as though he’d forgotten her presence, slipped the book from her fingers and rustled through it. He paused on a page creased at the top. “You are an admirer of Turner’s work, madam?” he asked not picking his gaze up from the painting she’d previously studied.

Her heart stuttered. Gentlemen did not speak of art or artists and if they did, well, they certainly did not draw from memory J.M.W. Turner’s work. That this man did unsettled her already rather faulty, where he was concerned, world. He looked up questioningly and she quickly cleared her throat. “Yes. Are you familiar with his work?” she asked, turning his question on him, not knowing what to do with that discovery about this whispered about rake. Of course, he could have merely read the inscription at the top. Wasn’t that the way of rakes? To learn a lady’s interests and manipulate them to suit their desires.

“I am.” Returning his focus to that page, Cedric trailed a long finger over the dark clouds of night on the page. “I would take you for an admirer of Friedrich’s
The Watzmann
and not the darkness of Turner.”

A thrill of a connectedness drove back all better reason in being alone with him still. “Do you believe because I am a woman, I should favor pastel, peaceful landscapes?” she countered. How long had she been alone, when these artists’ glorious masterpieces had been her company, and now there was another who knew those same wonders?

Another breeze pulled at his cloak. Lowering the book to his side, he briefly cupped her cheek. “No, because I can imagine you alone on those steep, lonely hills. You are a solitary creature, on the side of ballrooms, and hidden in libraries, and in hedge mazes, and yet there is a brightness to you that commands notice.” Rakes and rogues were clever with their words and charm. They employed whispered endearments designed to break down a lady’s defenses and she was wise to not fall prey to such senseless drivel. Cedric’s words, however, had a weight and wealth and meaning to them that sucked at her breath.

Oh, God. As she leaned into his gentle caress, she tried to make sense of the warmth seeping into her heart. Men such as he did not see more than was there. They saw surface beauty and did not delve to the hidden, most important parts that made a person, them. That had been the case with her betrothed and even her parents. But this man saw…and it roused equal parts terror and wonder in her.

“There is beauty in it,” she managed, as his hand fell to his side. Her skin pricking with the heated intensity of his gaze, Genevieve slipped the book from his grasp.

Standing so close their shoulders brushed, she flicked through the pages of collected oil paintings and sketches. At the intimacy of this stolen exchange, her fingers trembled and she sought the specifically folded page. She stopped abruptly and ran her palm down the
Fishermen at Sea
masterpiece that she’d studied well into the morning hours on countless lonely evenings in her exile.

“There seems such a loneliness to it,” she murmured, more to herself. “As you said, a darkness.” In those earliest days following the Duke of Aumere’s betrayal, she’d stared bleary eyed at that darkly ominous image, lost in the impending doom hinted at. “Until I came to realize the fisherman was not alone. For the threatening waves that loom, there is the calm of the moon’s presence and it lights the sky, showing that there are others there.” As much as she’d mourned being cut off from her family, she’d found a soothing balm in the quiet countryside; in the star-studded night skies and the snowy winters days. Through it, she’d let herself believe that there would one day be another. Aware of Cedric’s attention trained not on the page but on the top of her head, Genevieve stumbled back a step and knocked into the bench with such force she tumbled into a seated position.

“You were right to order me gone.” His cerulean gaze threatened to bore through her. “You are suitably wary, Genevieve.” Was his a warning? She’d be a fool to not heed it.

“I have reason to be,” she whispered. Not many had given her reason to trust.

“Ah,” he stretched out that syllable. “The former betrothed.”

Genevieve jolted as his words hit her like a jab to the solar plexus. People did not freely speak of the Duke of Aumere’s defection. Their whispers had somehow conveniently omitted that man’s identity, while heaping all senseless blame on her. She tried to dredge up a suitable reply, should again send Cedric on his way, but there was…an ease around him. A falseness and sincerity all at the same time. Having spent the better part of five years insulating herself from hurt, she recognized Cedric’s own artful attempts. With his effortless grin and guarded eyes, the Marquess of St. Albans may as well construct an entire fortress about him.

Another breeze filtered the air between them. It rustled his too-long, thick golden tresses, sending one tumbling over his brow, softening him, making him real—approachable, and not the sculpted model of masculine perfection able to command with a single look. He motioned to the wrought iron bench. “May I?”

She curled her fingers tight, hating this desire to run her hands through his tresses to explore their texture. “If I said no, would you leave?”

“Yes,” he said automatically. “But I’d attempt to convince you otherwise.”

Perhaps her soul
was
as wicked and wanton as she’d been accused, for she wanted to know what that convincing would entail. He stared at her pointedly and with a hesitant nod, she slid over onto the corner of the bench.

The marquess settled his tall, heavily muscled frame beside her, shrinking the space between them so that their legs touched. His cloak gaped slightly open. She swallowed hard. Unbidden, she stole a sideways look at the muscles of his thighs straining the fawn fabric of his front-flap breeches. Cheeks afire, she swiftly lifted her gaze, praying he’d not noted her scrutiny, and promptly stilled.

Head tipped back, with his eyes closed, the morning’s rays bathed Cedric’s face in sunlight. “Who was he?” he asked, unmoving from his repose so much that she blinked several times believing she’d imagined his question.