Twice a Rake

by Catherine Gayle

  Quin took a step toward the window, both to put some space between them and to obtain the upper hand in these negotiations. “Let’s be completely honest, my lord. If we duel, nothing good can come of it for her.” He raised an eyebrow, daring the viscount to refute him.

  Hyatt huffed, but held his tongue.

  “If I should win, her honor would have been defended, but she would be left with no one to defend her in future.” His odds of winning a duel were about as good as a slow rat’s chance of escaping a hoard of hungry cats, but Hyatt need not know everything. “And if you should win, her honor will be restored—but she will never attain a suitable match, since her one reasonable opportunity at an offer would be six feet under.”

  The viscount clenched his jaw and his face filled with heat. “And what, pray tell, would you suggest take place instead? I hardly think you worthy of her.”

  Of course he wasn’t worthy of Aurora. Quin wasn’t worthy of anything good or decent. His father had made certain of that many years before. But he couldn’t allow that to stand in the way. “Whether I’m worthy of her or not is hardly the issue. The issue, as I’m sure you cannot deny, is that Miss Hyatt’s reputation has been tarnished—by me—and no one but me can restore her respectability.”

  Hyatt twice opened his mouth to offer a retort, only to snap it closed again a moment later. Clearly, he could not muster an argument that would hold any weight against Quin’s claim.

  As it should be. The man could not have honestly expected a duel would solve anything. Save, perhaps, protecting his pride as a father.

  “She needs the protection of my name,” Quin went on. “I am here to ask your permission to offer for your daughter. I intend to make right what I have made utterly and irrevocably wrong.”

  Neither man said anything for long minutes, Hyatt shaking and silently seething, Quin staring at the last embers of his freedom smoldering and dying in the hearth.

  Finally, Lord Hyatt sat in an armchair near the fireplace. “I’ve always known,” he said, “that the day would come when Aurora would marry. That my daughter would leave me for another man.” Tears filled his eyes. “What I never expected, though, was that this man would be no gentleman, that he would have no honor.”

  Not a gentleman? True enough. No honor? Quin could hardly point to any aspect of his character to refute that claim, either.

  He should leave. He did not deserve to have Aurora as his wife. Not after his behavior the prior night. Not after his behavior these last several years. Not after his behavior his entire life.

  His eyes darted to the door. Three steps to liberty. Four at most.

  Quin’s pulse roared in his ears.

  He could be free.

  Once more, he glanced at Hyatt.

  The viscount stared up at Quin, his expression filled with grief. “I’ve failed her,” he said.

  Damnation.

  ~ * ~

  Lengths of cream muslins, ivory silks, and white satins draped every possible inch of Aurora’s bedchamber. A number of them even enveloped Aurora and Rebecca as they toiled to choose which one should be used for a wedding gown.

  At a knock at the door, they tried to free themselves from the mountain of fabrics—to no avail. In fact, their exertions only resulted in their combined crash from the bed to the floor amidst a sea of white foam.

  Rose rushed inside. “Miss Hyatt? Lady Rebecca? Are you both quite all right?” She lifted layer after layer from atop them, digging down to their joint textile grave.

  “None the worse for wear,” Aurora said, taking hold of her lady’s maid’s hand and regaining her feet.

  Rebecca merely harrumphed from her spot beneath the lace she had been attempting to convince Aurora to use.

  “Lord Hyatt has requested your presence in his library, miss,” the maid rushed on. She pulled the random fabrics off her mistress and set to work straightening Aurora’s gown and correcting her coiffure. “He said it is a matter of great urgency.”

  “See?” Rebecca said, her eyes full of mischief. “I told you Lord Quinton would come.”

  Aurora rolled her eyes. “Lord Quinton! Father probably just wants to inform me that he’s shipping me off to a convent or some distant relative on the continent.”

  “Care to wager?” Rebecca asked. “Why else would your maid be taking such pains to be certain your appearance is just so?”

  A wager? Scandalous! And precisely what she needed that day.

  A pin jabbed into Aurora’s scalp as Rose wrangled a particularly stubborn curl into an exacting and precise position. “Ouch!” She reached up a hand to rub the sore spot before turning back to Rebecca. “Done. What would you care to wager?”

  “So sorry, miss,” her maid said as she continued to work. “We have no time to dally.” Once she had Aurora’s hair just so, Rose took hold of her arm and led her from the chamber, down the stairs, and to the library.

  “If Lord Quinton is here to offer for you,” Rebecca said, scurrying along to keep up, “you must promise not to speak poorly of Lord Norcutt ever again.”

  Aurora had no fear of that coming to pass, so it was easy to agree. “Fine. And if I am correct and he isn’t here to make an offer?”

  Rebecca pulled on Aurora’s arm hard enough to stop both her progress and Rose’s. They had just reached the double doors to Father’s library—Aurora’s last moment of freedom before whatever monumental change was about to take place in her life. The look in Rebecca’s eyes was sheer sincerity. “Then I’ll clean up the mess after your father rips you limb from limb, so he won’t be in trouble with Prinny.”

  Chapter Seven

  2 April, 1811

  I’m off to face my executioner. Wish me luck in ending up wherever one can receive kisses. I’d hate to spend eternity somewhere that sins of the flesh are not permitted, particularly after having only experienced the one kiss in my earthly body, not any true fleshly-sins. Oh, and one other thing: Do you suppose that there is chocolate in heaven? Or hell, since I’m likely on my way there. What would eternity be with no chocolate? Let us all hope we never have to learn.

  ~From the journal of Miss Aurora Hyatt

  The frogs were back. Leaping around in her stomach and threatening to pop straight up through her throat and out of her mouth at any moment. And, quite frankly, Aurora couldn’t decide whether they were more from an excited anticipation or dread. Either would be appropriate in this situation.

  Any moment now, Lord Quinton would come through the doors of her father’s library and ask her to marry him.

  She wanted to accept him. Desperately so, in fact. And she knew it was what her father wanted for her.

  But another part of her was very, very afraid.

  he part of her that remembered her parents’ marriage. The part of her that remembered how unhappy her mother was for as long as Aurora had known her. The part of her that had resolved, upon the death of Lord Dodsworth (the moment when she was freed), that she would never marry a man who was not as desperately in love with her as she was with him.

  When Father had called her in to his library moments before and informed her of Lord Quinton’s intentions, she told him that she would accept. She wanted to wash away the shame that swallowed her father’s face when he looked at her. She wanted to be certain he would not suffer due to her actions. At least not any more than he already was.

  But now…

  Now she was not so certain.

  How could she go through a life married to a man whom she did not know? Oh, sure. She imagined herself in love with him. Aurora was in love with the idea of Lord Quinton. And he did excite her in a way she’d never imagined possible, when he pulled her into his embrace and kissed her until she thought a shipwreck was taking place inside her head.

  But was that really love? She doubted it.

  Aurora doubted even more that he could love her. He didn’t know her at all. He’d only pulled her onto the ballroom floor and waltzed with her and spun her head around and kissed her an
d turned her life into a complete shambles and left her.

  That was not love.

  So if she went through with this—if she accepted him—she’d be making her father happy, but making herself deplorable in the bargain.

  She simply could not become her mother.

  The door opened and Hobbes announced, “Baron Quinton to see you, Miss Hyatt.”

  The man in question came through the door, bleary-eyed with an unshaved jaw, his hair falling about his shoulders in an untamed mess. Aurora’s breath caught in her throat. Even when he looked wretched, he could somehow send her heart to fluttering and her insides to thrumming. She must put a stop to that, and with a great good deal of haste, else she find herself in precisely the same scrape her mother had spent so many years in.

  He bowed low to her and was slow to rise. “Good morning, Miss Hyatt. I trust you slept well?”

  “Scarcely a wink, no thanks to you.” Blast. She really needed to think before she spoke. Not to mention before she acted. It would save her a world of problems.

  In the infinitesimal span of half a second, if that, his entire expression changed. Yet instead of looking contrite or abashed, Lord Quinton’s eyes shot through her like flaming arrows, devouring their target in an inferno of lust. Oh, dear good Lord—she was the target!

  His lips curled in a carnal grin surely designed to turn her knees to jelly. She said a silent prayer of thanks that she was already sitting.

  “Then we have at least that in common.”

  Her lips formed a soundless O. If she wasn’t careful, he could charm her into doing anything.

  Lord Quinton gestured to the open seat on the sofa beside her. “May I sit?”

  Aurora nodded. That seemed safer than opening her mouth and allowing more gibberish to spew forth.

  He sat entirely too close to her. The side of his thigh brushed against hers, tickling her senses with heat. She could smell him again—no brandy this time, but ample heat and a hint of oranges mingled with his musky cologne.

  She had to put some distance between them so she could think. But when she scooted a few inches away, he just turned his body so that he was facing her more fully, and then his knee was virtually on top of hers.

  “I must apologize for my behavior last night,” he said. His voice was rich and rough, like velvet caught sliding over tree bark. “What I did to you is unpardonable.”

  “Indeed,” she said, to fill the lengthy silence following his pronouncement.

  Still, the second-hand’s ticking on her father’s Bornholm clock cut through the tension in the room, each stroke being outpaced two-to-one by her pulse. Or maybe three-to-one. She couldn’t tell anymore.

  Lord Quinton cleared his throat. “I have come to make what amends I can. Your father has allowed me to speak with you, so that I might make my intentions known.”

  With each word he spoke, the tiny dimples in his cheeks came and left. She hadn’t noticed them before now. Perhaps the extra growth of beard accentuated them. Aurora fought the very strong urge that engulfed her (one she feared might be a losing battle) to reach out a hand and touch one of his dimples.

  Lord Quinton lowered himself to one knee and took her hand into both of his own. “Miss Hyatt, would you do me the very great honor of becoming my wife? I cannot undo what I have done, but I can give you the protection of my name. Please accept me.”

  She’d hoped he wouldn’t ask her so suddenly. She’d hoped that she could have a few more moments to settle her thoughts and decide how to answer.

  But that was not to be. Instead, he was kneeling before her and frowning up at her, waiting for an answer.

  She could marry him. She could become his bride and they could both satisfy their lust (for what else could her fascination with him truly be?), and then he would become indifferent to her and she would grow unhappy with him, and they would end up as unhappy as her parents had been and live on opposite ends of their home.

  Or she could decline. She could send him on his way and manage on her own. Rebecca, at least, would still speak to her. Aurora would not be left to fend for herself at every turn.

  But she must also consider Father. He would be ostracized if she refused. How could she allow that to happen? After all that he’d done to be certain she had the best in life, she owed him at least this one small favor, like he’d asked. All right, it was a gargantuan favor. But still—he’d asked. And Father almost never asked her for anything.

  The longer it took for Aurora to make up her mind, the more Lord Quinton’s dimples started to twitch. Before long, the twitching moved to encompass the eyebrow above his right eye.

  “Miss Hyatt?” he eventually asked. “Will you marry me?”

  She really ought to answer him. But goading him was proving to be far too diverting. “My lord, you are quite gallant to make such an offer. However, we hardly know anything about each other. Could you tell me a bit more, so that I can make a wise decision?”

  “Such as?” Lord Quinton’s lips pressed together into a firm, white line.

  “Such as where I could expect to live, for example.”

  He let out a ragged sigh. “We shall live at Quinton Abbey in Yorkshire. Wetherby, to be exact. It is a vast estate, and you will have your hands full with the running of it, I’m certain. Until, of course, you become the Countess of Rotheby. At that point, we would have our choice of any number of grand estates.”

  Rotheby. That sounded familiar. “I was unaware you would inherit an earldom, my lord.”

  “As there are many things we are each equally unaware of concerning the other.” He rose from the floor, where she’d left him kneeling the entire time. After a moment spent stretching his legs, he spoke again. “We will learn, in time. But time is not in our favor at the moment, Miss Hyatt. I urge you—nay, I beseech you—please accept my offer. I daresay your reputation is in tatters at the moment. There is no time to waste. We must marry as hastily as possible.”

  Lord Quinton took both of her hands, forcing her to look up at him. Oh, dear, it was a long way up to his eyes. She stood to see him better, but still her eyes only reached his chin.

  “You must accept me, Miss Hyatt. There is no other option.”

  The twitching of his dimples drove her to distraction. Pulling one hand free, she stroked the back of it along his cheek and stopped with her fingers trailing over the dimple. It stilled on contact.

  “Fascinating,” she whispered, not even certain she’d said the words aloud at all.

  Before she could stop herself—before she even gained awareness of what she was doing—she leaned up into him, stretching on her toes, and placed a chaste kiss where her fingers had just been. Stubble tickled at the softness of her lips. She drew back slightly and laughed, a gentle, nervous sound, then kissed him there again. More insistently, this time.

  There was no tickling, no laughter this time. It felt scratchy and abrasive. Aurora reveled in the sensation—particularly in the liquid pull in her belly from the contact.

  Lord Quinton’s grip tightened against her other hand and he growled low in his throat. His blue eyes looked stormy and turbulent and grey.

  And then his lips were upon hers. The warmth of his tongue slid along the crease between her lips, questing for entrance. Her knees did turn to jelly then, so she slipped her free hand up and around his neck, gripping tightly into the mass of hair at his nape and praying she could hold on—because, dear Lord, she never wanted this moment to end.

  Somehow, her other hand was free and joined the first to keep her upright. His lips left her mouth and trailed along her chin and jawbone and neck, scratching her tender flesh with his beard. His hands pulled against her bottom, pressing her belly up against something hard and hot and entirely too enticing for her unfettered curiosity.

  Her breasts felt heavy, the tips taut. With each shuddering breath, they rose and fell against his chest. She wanted more. She wanted to be closer. His heat drew her in like a ship’s anchor. She could no longer think.
All she could do was seek something that only he could give to her.

  Aurora’s legs gave out. She fell into Lord Quinton, knocking him backward. They landed on the sofa, her body sprawled atop him. Still, his lips never left her neck.

  “Good God, your skin is like heaven,” he said into her mouth as his lips returned. His hands slid over her legs, lower, pulling at her gown until he reached the hem and his fingers slipped beneath to roam across her bare thighs. She’d never experienced anything so scandalous before—and that was saying something, considering recent events.

  Even with the chill of the library air breezing across her naked flesh, she felt like she could catch fire at any moment. Everywhere his fingers or lips trailed, a blaze burned in their wake.