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Authors: Mary Jo Putney

BOOK: The Rake
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He stood halfway across the room, tall and unyielding. “Don't confuse desire with love. You're a woman of rare passion, and for years that nature has been denied. Don't throw yourself away on me merely because I was the one who helped you find yourself. How long would it be before you became curious about greener pastures? I won't bind you to promises that you won't want to keep.”
He was thinking in terms of promises? This was definitely progress. She began walking across the room toward him, her steps slow and provocative. “I am no green girl, Reggie. I don't have to sleep with half the rakes in England before I can properly appreciate what you and I have. Would you be talking this fustian if I were still Alys Weston?”
He was silent for a long moment. “I was on the verge of asking Alys Weston to marry me when I deduced who you really were. But there is an enormous difference between Mr. and Mrs. Davenport, and the Duchess of Durweston and her commoner husband, Mr. Davenport. You can't turn away from your heritage again, Lady Alyson. That cat's out of the bag and won't go back in.”
In fact, the cat was still stropping her ankles, Alys realized absently. So Reggie had actually wanted to marry her. How could she get him back to that point? “Is all this nobility because you have too much pride to take a wife who is wealthier than you?”
“That's one factor,” he admitted, “but there are others. Good God, Allie, think of what everyone would say! That you were seduced by a fortune hunter who took advantage of your isolation and inexperience to trap you into a disgraceful marriage.”
“That might be said,” she agreed, “but, in fact, you're the only man I can really trust, because you were interested in me when I wasn't an heiress.” She smiled. “Whose reputation are you most concerned about, yours or mine?”
“I'm concerned for both of us, blast it!”
As she covered the last few paces, she shook her head sorrowfully. “I'm disappointed in you, Reggie. What kind of a rake cares what anyone else thinks?”
She stopped directly in front of him and looked up into his aquamarine eyes. “Will you be more agreeable if my father disinherits me? He half threatened to when I said I was coming here.”
He stared down at her, raw emotion in his eyes. “Could you bear it if he does disinherit you?”
“Yes,” she said flatly. “Could you bear it if he doesn't?”
He let his breath out in an explosive sigh. “I don't know.”
Too much money was a problem that could be solved, she thought. On the more important questions, it was time for a new tack. “Reggie, I am quite ridiculously in love with you.” She slowly scanned him, admiring every lean, muscular inch. “And not just for your body, beautiful though that is. I love your honesty and your deplorable humor and the sense of honor you pretend not to have.”
She raised her gaze to his, and asked the hardest question of all. “Do you love me?”
He took a shuddering breath. “Of course I do. That's why I don't want to see you make a decision you'll regret.”
He didn't move, but his whole body radiated tension, and in his eyes she saw a love and craving as intense as her own. Reggie had always walked a lonely road, living by his own iron code, sustained by pride. Now that pride divided them. Also, perhaps, the small boy who had been shunted aside and taught that his wishes were of no account could not believe it possible that he was loved.
Her heart ached for him. For both of their sakes, she must convince him they belonged together. To overcome the barriers of pride and self-denial, she must return the humor and passion he had given her, as well as offering her own love.
She reached out and deftly unbuttoned his waistcoat, then began on his shirt.
He grabbed her hands between his and held them away from him. “Good God, Allie, what are you doing?”
“Trying to compromise you,” she explained. “Then you'll have to marry me, or not have a shred of reputation left.”
For a moment he stared. Then his tension dissolved into laughter, his blue eyes brimming with warmth. “You are the most impossible woman I've ever met, and far too much like me for my peace of mind.”
Since he had released her, she neatly undid some more buttons, then laid her hand inside his shirt against his chest. His skin burned beneath her touch.
He gasped and trapped her hand against his chest. “My capacity to be noble is limited,” he said, deadly serious. “If you don't leave here in the next ten seconds, I am never going to let you go again. The infinity of choices that you have now will be reduced to only those that include me.”
“Splendid,” she whispered as she tugged his shirt loose with her free hand. “That is exactly what I want.”
He held her gaze for one taut, endless moment more. Then he surrendered, crushing her to him as their mouths met with savage hunger.
No longer denied by logic or propriety, the desire that had bound them from the start flared into consuming fire. She gloried in the remembered feel of hard muscle and bone, fierce strength and aching tenderness. There was none of the hesitance of new lovers, but rather an absolute recognition of kindred spirit and yearning flesh, as if they'd known each other for a thousand lifetimes.
Their clothing came off in a tangle of crushed and ripped fabric. Then they lay down together before the fire, and she learned that lovemaking could indeed be better than what they had already shared. Flame and sweetness, gift and demand, they joined with a searing emotional resonance that spiraled them up to new heights and depths and widths of loving.
And when he whispered ragged words of love, the greatest joy of all was knowing that they both had found their homes in the shelter of each other.
 
 
Much later they lay drowsing together in front of the fire, covered by her velvet cloak. She smiled dreamily. The first night they had made love, Reggie had said that she deserved better than the library floor, but actually the library floor was an absolutely marvelous place. Attila was curled up against her right side, and from the sound of canine breathing, she guessed that Nemesis was lying by Reggie. A scene of perfect domestic bliss.
Her bittersweet red silk dress would never be the same, not after the way Reggie had torn it off. Well, she was an heiress, and she couldn't think of a better self-indulgence than buying gowns that the man she loved wanted to tear off.
She chuckled at the thought, then explained when Reggie asked what she found so amusing. He laughed, his hand moving in a lazy caress down her body. “For a woman who was convinced that no man could want her a fortnight ago, you have come an incredible distance.”
That distance had been the first steps on a journey that would last a lifetime. She studied the relaxed expression on his face, the strong bones sculpted by firelight, and thought that she would dissolve with tenderness. “That's because you make me feel that I am the most beautiful, desirable woman in the world.”
“You are.” He leaned forward and kissed her, very gently, his lips warm and firm against hers. “And, my beloved, you have performed the miracle of your reforming career in changing me from a care-for-nobody rakehell into a faithful, adoring husband.”
He traced the edge of her ear with his tongue, than moved downward. She arched against him like a cat. With a soft puff of breath that caressed her throat, he murmured, “Don't complain that I've become too boring and proper, because it's entirely your fault.”
It was a freely given pledge of fidelity. For the first time in her life, she believed the old saying that a reformed rake made the best husband, believed it with visceral knowledge and trust. He had just given her a gift worth more than all the treasures of Durweston. She wanted to weep with joy.
Then his lips moved to her breast and his hand lightly feathered across her abdomen, stirring embers into fire. Catching her breath at the wonder and excitement of him, she gasped, “You, boring?”
He raised his head with a deliciously wicked smile, and she pulled him to her for a proper kiss. As they went tumbling once more into delight, she whispered huskily, “Somehow, I don't think there is any danger of that.”
Epilogue
News of the marriage of the greatest heiress in England and the Despair of the Davenports was received with mixed reactions. A red-haired tart named Stella shrieked and hurled a hairbrush across her bedroom, smashing a mirror. A dignified madame called Chessie whooped with delight when she read Reggie's letter, then drank a toast to the lady who had tamed him.
Junius Harper grieved. If he had known that Alys Weston was the heiress of Durweston, and that she was so desperate to marry that she would accept
Davenport,
he would have courted her more assiduously instead of secretly hankering after Miss Spenser. Gloomily he wrote letters to all his grand relations and told them to find him a different living, and the sooner, the better.
As Caroline, Countess of Wargrave, happily told her husband, it proved that miracles did happen. Looking no further than his wife, Richard fondly agreed.
Lord Michael Kenyon, who had once secretly admired the outrageous young Reginald Davenport, smiled at the news, and wondered if there was any chance that he and a sober Reggie might become friends. He would make a point of finding that out.
Jeremy and Elizabeth Stanton rejoiced. Anne's son was now back where he belonged, and behaving exactly as he ought. Their duty as godparents was finally discharged.
Mac Cooper thought it perfectly reasonable that a future duchess had the discernment to appreciate his master. As he cuddled Gillie in their cozy stone cottage, Mac told her rather complacently that a man needed a wife. She couldn't have agreed more.
Peter and William had the best of both worlds. They were back among their friends at Strickland, but they now had holidays in London and Cheshire. As William said, the Duke of Durweston was quite a good old bird. It was as well, perhaps, that his grace never heard the compliment.
Merry agreed, regretfully, that it would not be politic to have Reggie give her away at her wedding, but she and Julian made sure the Blakeford-Davenports were the first guests invited to the Markhams' new home at Moreton.
The Duke of Durweston grumbled when his only daughter married by special license, though he knew it would have been ridiculous for Davenport to formally ask for the girl's hand when the rogue already had the rest of her. Hot irons could not have persuaded him to admit it, but as he came to know his son-in-law better, the duke had to admit that he rather liked the impertinent rogue.
Evicted from the master's bed, Nemesis and Attila took to sleeping together in one entwined mass of fur. Occasionally the tomcat would nip the collie, but apart from a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger yip, Nemesis never retaliated.
Reggie claimed that the collie was a born victim, but in her secret romantic heart, Alys thought they were seeing an unlikely love between two improbable creatures. She herself knew quite a bit about such things.
Dear Readers,
 
Of all the books I've written, this one is closest to my heart. Reggie Davenport started as a minor character in my very first Regency,
The Diabolical Baron
. He was, frankly, an obnoxious jerk, rude and selfish and usually drunk. But at the end of the book, he surprised me by showing intriguing glimpses of humor and honor. I started wondering who Reggie was, and what made him behave as he did.
 
The result was
The Rake and the Reformer
, a Super Regency written in the purest burst of creativity I've ever experienced. Naturally I was pleased when the book became an instant classic and won numerous awards, including a RITA from the Romance Writers of America. But what meant far more were the letters from readers who told me how profoundly the book had moved them.
 
Now I'm delighted that this story is again available to the historical-romance audience. The title was changed to
The Rake
and I did some polishing, but the essence of the story is exactly the same: It's about Reggie Davenport, a self-destructive man, leavened by wit and humor and painful honesty, who is making one last, desperate bid to change his life. And it's equally about Alys Weston, a strong, independent woman who is far better at giving love than receiving it. Together they discover laughter and healing, and a passionate love that transforms them forever.
 
I don't pretend to be objective about
The Rake
. I simply hope that Reggie and Alys touched your heart as they have touched mine.
Sincerely,
Mary Jo Putney

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