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An Excerpt from Days of Rakes and Roses
An Excerpt from Seven Nights in a Rogue’s Bed
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Prologue
Packham House, London, March 1827
The whole world knows you for a slut, madam.”
The impassioned declaration dropped into one of those lulls that occasionally affected a crowded room. Like everyone else crammed into Lord Packham’s ballroom this uncommonly warm spring night, Sir Richard Harmsworth craned his neck to see who had spoken. And, more interesting, to whom.
His height offered an advantage and he quickly identified the players in the conflict. Then wished to God he hadn’t. Damn it to hell, the family dirty linen endured another public washing.
Near the main doors, a pale-haired stripling faced down a beautiful older woman with dark hair. A faintly pitying smile curled the woman’s lips and she betrayed no trace of chagrin. While Richard couldn’t place the furious boy, he had no difficulty identifying the lady labeled a trollop.
Augusta, Lady Harmsworth, was his mother. Much good it had ever done him.
From long habit, Richard plastered an affable expression on his face, as if none of this could possibly matter. Still, his gut clenched with old, futile anger as he started toward the brouhaha. What a dashed pity that he was thirty-two years too late to prevent scandal.
The extravagant crowd parted before him as if he was Moses contemplating a seaside stroll. He felt hundreds of eyes burning into his back. As an acknowledged arbiter of fashion, he was accustomed to attention. Tonight, that attention contained no admiration. Instead the avid interest indicated that society scented blood. Richard and his mother knew better than to give it to them. He wasn’t so sure about the distraught young man.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his best friend Camden Rothermere, Duke of Sedgemoor, striding in the same direction. Then his gaze focused on his mother. It must be five years since he’d seen her and she’d hardly aged a day. Clearly sin was good for the complexion, he thought sourly.
“No need for that, Colby.” Lord Benchley, one of his mother’s regular escorts, raised his quizzing glass and subjected the trembling youth to a derisive inspection. “Take your dismissal in good part and don’t make a fool of yourself.”
Richard identified his mother’s accuser. Lord Colby was just out of Cambridge and new in Town. Augusta always gathered a coterie of handsome young men although, to give her what little credit she deserved, she rarely accepted these greenlings into her bed. She saved that privilege for more experienced paramours like, reportedly, Benchley.
Richard might resent his mother, but some painful compulsion meant that he kept track of her admirers. To the world, he pretended not to care a fig for her or her behavior. Beneath his languid, fashionable shell, he reluctantly admitted that was far from the truth.
“And here comes her bastard,” the boy said bitterly as Richard approached. “Or at least the one we know about.”
Everyone in the glittering gathering seemed to release a combined gasp of horrified delight. The musicians scratched into silence. A lanky fellow behind Colby grabbed the youth’s arm. “Shut up, Colby. Harmsworth’s a crack shot. Do you want a bullet for your trouble?”
Colby shook him off. Now that Richard was near, he saw that the young lordling verged on tears. Blast her to Hades, yet again his mother wreaked havoc, as she’d wreaked havoc throughout her son’s life.
“Good evening, Mother. I see you still know how to make an entrance,” he said drily, pointedly ignoring the obstreperous cub. One would imagine that after being tarred a bastard so long, the word would lose its sting. Unfortunately the rancor knotting his stomach indicated that it hadn’t.
Knowing how closely they were observed, Richard bent over her hand in a show of respect. Long experience had proven that the slightest betrayal of genuine emotion would have society tearing at him like wolves.
His mother was even better at hiding her reaction, if any, to insults. Or to meeting her estranged son after such a protracted interval. She stared back at Richard steadily and her lips curved in the smile that had caused untold trouble among the masculine half of the population. Going right back to Richard’s father, whoever the hell he’d been.
Spiteful gossip had long speculated that a stablehand had tupped Lady Harmsworth while Sir Lester was away on a diplomatic mission to Russia. When Sir Lester returned to an heir after a sixteen-month absence, there was no hiding his wife’s adultery. The scandal didn’t upset the succession. Sir Lester had never openly questioned Augusta’s faithfulness and Richard was duly accepted as the next baronet, however dubious his bloodlines.
“One would so hate to be dull,” his mother said coolly.
Richard tilted an inquiring eyebrow at her as his rage coiled like a cobra. Since his schooldays, he’d suffered mockery, scorn, and violence because of his mother’s wantonness. Pride might have taught him to hide resentment but had done nothing to soften it. “Indeed.”
“Lady Harmsworth, a pleasure to see you.” Cam finally made it through the crowd.
“Your Grace.” Her exquisite curtsy conveyed a hint of defiance. Richard would dearly love to hate everything about his mother, but he couldn’t quite make himself despise her courage. He knew what it cost to hold one’s head up against the world’s contempt. “Here to pour oil on troubled waters?”
Cam smiled at her. “Merely to offer myself as a partner for this dance.”
Augusta turned to Richard. “And, my son, what are you doing here? Don’t tell me you mean to fight a duel over my honor.”
A faint titter from behind him greeted that outrageous statement. Richard read the devil in her eyes as she dared him to challenge her claim to honor. Part of the agony of all this was that he and his mother weren’t so different, even down to the way they deployed imperturbable elegance to discourage insolence.
Usually it worked.
His neutral expression didn’t falter. “I don’t shoot inebriated children, however naughty they are.”
Colby’s friend latched more firmly onto his arm. “Come away, Colby. And be grateful that you escaped with your life.”
“Yes, I’ll go.” Stubbornly Colby stood his ground and glowered at Richard. His voice was raw with emotion. “I’ll forsake the lady’s raddled charms and I’ll overlook the presumption of a blackguard who can’t name the man who sired him. Not even the Harmsworth Jewel could make either of you fit for decent society. Your names are filth.”
This time the snickers were more pronounced and the crowd surged forward like a turbulent sea, threatening to suffocate Richard. God rot Colby; why must he parade his broken heart in the middle of this crush? The urge to flatten the unmannerly whelp with one blow jammed in Richard’s throat, even as he forced out a light reply. “The Harmsworth Jewel? Good Lord, nobody’s seen that bauble since the Wars of the Roses.”
He was astonished that Colby knew of the jewel’s existence or the legend that its possession confirmed the Harmsworth heir. Richard exaggerated to say that the artifact had been missing since the fifteenth century, but it had certainly been lost to the main branch of the family for more than fifty ye
ars.
“Raddled charms?” At his side, Augusta’s silvery laugh rang out. “My dear Colby, you wound me.”
“You’re in remarkable looks, Lady Harmsworth. Ignore this puppy.” Cam, no stranger to family scandal himself, stepped forward, his air of authority cowing even the fuming Colby. “Shall we dance?”
Cam signaled to the orchestra as if he were the host rather than Lord Packham. A waltz began as he and Augusta proceeded to the floor with a regal assurance that dared anyone to utter an impertinent word. Not for the first time, Richard was grateful for his friend’s aplomb in a sticky situation.
With palpable disappointment, the eager audience began to disperse. Yet again, the Harmsworths had skirted outright disgrace, although Colby’s tantrum would provide a delicious on-dit to spice reminiscences of the ball.
“Take his lordship home,” Richard said to Colby’s companion. For once he couldn’t conceal his weariness. He was so bloody tired of all this. Tired of disdain. Tired of pretending that every insult slid off his immaculately dressed hide without leaving a mark. Tired of his mother’s sins crashing down upon his head. Tired above all of being the Harmsworth bastard.
The rage twisting in his belly cooled, set into a determination as hard as an iron bar. He’d find the deuced Harmsworth Jewel and he’d turn the gewgaw into a pin for his neck cloth. He’d brandish it beneath the ton’s noses like a banner of war until they admitted that while he mightn’t be the right Harmsworth, he was the only Harmsworth they were going to get.
Then let any man call him bastard.
Chapter One
Little Derrick, Oxfordshire, September 1827
Damnation!”
A thud followed by a low masculine curse stirred Genevieve from sleep. Even then she needed a few seconds to realize that she was slumped over the desk in her study upstairs at the vicarage. Her candles had gone out and the room’s only illumination was the dying fire. In that faint glow, she watched a dark shape below the windowsill lengthen upward until a man’s form blocked faint starlight from outside.
Choking fear held her motionless. Fear and outrage. How dare anyone break into her home? It felt like a personal affront. Her father and aunt were out, dining with the Duke of Sedgemoor at his local estate. The duke never visited this isolated corner of his vast holdings, so everyone was agog to see him. Genevieve had been invited too, but she’d wanted to stay and work on some research. The servants were away for the evening.
The man at the window remained still, as if checking that the room was empty before launching his nefarious activities. The charged silence extended. Then the tension eased from his lean body and he stepped toward the fire. From her dark corner, Genevieve watched him set a candle to the coals.
Blast his impudence, he’d soon learn he wasn’t alone.
Quickly her hand found the desk’s second drawer and tugged it open, not bothering to conceal the noise as she grabbed what lay hidden inside. The candle flared into life, the intruder turned his head sharply in her direction, and Genevieve lurched to her feet.
As she stepped around the desk on shaky legs, she forced a confidence she didn’t feel into her voice. “You’ll find nothing worth stealing in this house. I suggest you leave. Immediately.”
Instead of reacting with the horrified dismay she sought, the man took his time straightening. Still with that leisurely air, he raised his candle to illuminate Genevieve where she stood. His face was covered with a black silk mask such as people wore to masquerade balls. Not that she had any experience of such events. “You’re dashed well protected if there truly is nothing worth stealing.”
Her hand steady, she raised the gun she’d taken from the drawer. “We live on the edge of the village, as you no doubt noted when you chose this house as your target.” A horrible thought struck her and she waved the pistol at him. “Are you armed?”
He stiffened with shock, as though the question offended. To demonstrate his nonviolent intentions, he spread his hands wide. “Of course not, dear lady.”
This rapscallion was a most bizarre burglar. Her knowledge of the criminal fraternity was limited, but this man’s assurance struck her as remarkable. He spoke like a gentleman and didn’t seem particularly concerned that she had a weapon. Her lips tightened and she firmed her grip on the pistol. “There’s no ‘of course’ about it. In your line of work, you must expect opposition from your victims.”
“I make sure the house is unoccupied before I start work.”
“Like tonight,” she said coldly.
He shrugged. “Even master criminals make the occasional mistake, Miss Barrett.”
Her belly knotted with dread. This time not even her strongest efforts steadied her voice. “How do you know my name?”
The lips below the mask twitched and he stepped closer.
“Stay back!” she snapped. Her heart banged so hard against her ribs, surely he must hear it.
Ignoring her pistol with insulting ease, he lifted the candle and subjected her to a lengthy and unnerving inspection. Genevieve’s sense of unreality built. Everything around her was familiar. The shabby comfort of her favorite room. The jumbled items on the desk. The pile of pages covered in her writing. All was as it should be, except for the tall masked man with his indefinable air of elegance and his smile of indulgent amusement. She had an irritating intuition that the reprobate played with her.
Bracing under that assessing regard, she made herself study him like she’d study an artifact, although with his face covered she would never be able to describe him to the authorities. Candlelight glinted on rich gold hair and found fascinating shadows under the open neck of his white shirt. He wore breeches and boots. Despite this basic clothing, his manner screamed privilege. And while she couldn’t see his face, something about the way he carried himself indicated he was a handsome man.
A most bizarre burglar indeed.
“A good thief does his research.” He answered the question that she’d forgotten she’d asked. “Although research occasionally lets one down. For example, village gossip indicated that you attended a soiree at Leighton Court tonight.”
“I wanted to—” She realized she responded as if to any polite enquiry. The hand holding the gun showed a lamentable tendency to droop, pointing the barrel harmlessly at the floor. She bit her lip and hoisted the gun in what she prayed was a convincing gesture. “Get out of this house.”
“But I haven’t got what I came for.”
He shifted closer, making her feel more at risk than at any time since he’d arrived. At risk as a woman was at risk from a man. Her skin tightened with awareness of their isolation. She hadn’t missed how his gaze had lingered on her body. Before recalling that any show of vulnerability delivered him the advantage, she backed away. She pointed the gun at his chest. “Get out now or I’ll shoot.”
His frown indicated that her demand galled his sense of decorum. “Dear lady—”
She stiffened. Somewhere she’d lost control of this encounter. Which was absurd. She was the one with the gun. “I’m not your dear lady.”
As if acknowledging that she’d scored a point, he bowed. “As you wish, Miss Barrett. I’ve done you no wrong. It seems excessive to menace me with murder.”
Astonishment almost made her laugh. “You broke into my house. You threatened me with—”
He interrupted. “So far, any threats have emanated from your charming self.”
“You mean to steal,” she said in a low, vibrating voice.
“But I haven’t. Yet.” The expressive mouth above the intriguingly hard jawline curved into a charming smile. “Temper justice with mercy. Let me go free to seek redemption.”
“Let you go free to find some other innocent to rob,” she said sharply. “Better to lock you in the cellar and summon the local magistrate.”
“That would be unkind. I don’t like small, confined places.”
“In that case, you’ve chosen the wrong profession. Somewhere someone will catch you.”
Disregarding the gun, he took another step forward. “Surely your compassionate heart abhors the thought of my imprisonment.”
She retreated and realized that he’d boxed her against the desk. She tightened her grip on the gun to counteract her slippery palms. “Move away or I swear I’ll shoot.”
He lit one of the candles on the desk and blew out his own smaller candle, dropping it smoking to the blotter. “Tsk, Miss Barrett. You’ll get blood on the carpet.”
“I’ll—”
Words escaped on a gasp as with surprising speed he grabbed the hand holding the gun. A few nimble turns of that long body and he caught her against him, facing the open window. Pressed to him, she was overwhelmingly conscious of his power. His leanness was deceptive. There was no denying the muscles in the arms holding her or the breadth of the chest behind her. He embraced her firmly across her torso, trapping her arms. While she still held her weapon, she couldn’t shift to aim it.
The barbed but oddly flirtatious conversation had calmed immediate dread. Now fear surged anew. What in heaven’s name was she thinking, bandying words with this scoundrel? As if she enjoyed herself, when if she despised anything in this world, it was a thief.
She caught her breath on a frightened hiccup and struggled. “Let me go!”
His arms tightened like straps, controlling her with mortifying ease. Genevieve was a tall, strong girl, no frail lily, but the thief was taller and stronger. She’d never before measured her strength against a man’s. It rankled how easily he restrained her. She’d never been so aware of another person’s physical reality. The experience was disturbing beyond her natural terror of an intruder. “Hush, Miss Barrett. I give you my word I mean no harm.”
“Then release me.” She panted, her wriggles achieving nothing beyond the collapse of her never very secure coiffure.
“Not unless you put the gun down.”
She maneuvered to elbow him in the belly, but his grip made it impossible. “Then I’ll be at your mercy,” she said breathlessly.
A Rake's Midnight Kiss (Sons of Sin) Page 1
