The Rake

by Suzanne Enoch

  As Tristan went downstairs for dinner, the house seemed uncommonly quiet. True, his family was gathered in the dining room to eat, but the silence didn’t seem to be the usual chaos-removed calm. Rather, it almost felt as if Carroway House was holding its breath.

  Or more likely, he decided as he straightened his coat and pushed open the dining room door, Lady Georgiana Halley’s visit had set his perceptions out of kilter. He stepped inside the room—and stopped.

  She sat there, at his table, chuckling at something Bradshaw had said. The surprise must have shown on his face, because Georgiana lifted an eyebrow as she met his gaze.

  “Good evening, my lord,” she said, her smile unaltered, though her green eyes cooled.

  He doubted anyone but he had even noticed the change. Tristan snapped his jaw closed. “Lady Georgiana.”

  “You’re late for dinner,” his youngest brother, Edward, piped up. “And Georgie says that’s rude.”

  The Runt had never met the chit before today, yet they were already on a first-name basis. Tristan took his seat at the head of the table, noting that some idiot had placed Georgiana just to his right. “So is staying for dinner without being invited.”

  “She was invited,” Milly stated.

  As she spoke, he realized that both his aunts were present for the first time in days. Cursing Georgiana under his breath for taking his attention away from his family, he stood again. “Aunt Milly. Welcome back to the chaos.” He rounded the table to kiss her on the cheek. “But you should have called for me. I would have been happy to carry you in here.”

  Blushing, his aunt flipped a hand at him. “Oh, nonsense. Georgiana came back with that wheeled contraption over there, so she and Dawkins just rolled me into the dining room. It was quite fun.”

  He straightened, returning his gaze to Georgiana. “‘Came back?’” he repeated.

  “Yes,” she said sweetly. “I’m moving in.”

  His mouth started to fall open again, and he clenched his jaw against it. “No, you’re not.”

  “I am.”

  “You’re n—”

  “She is,” Edwina interrupted. “She’s come to help Milly, so be quiet and sit down, Tristan Michael Carroway.”

  Ignoring the snickers from his younger brethren, Tristan slid his gaze back to Georgiana. The minx smiled at him again.

  Evidently, the evil that he’d done in his life was so excessive that his eternal punishment was getting started early. Eternity simply wasn’t long enough in his case. Pasting an uncaring smile on his face, he dropped into his chair again. “I see. If you think she can truly be of assistance to you, Aunt Milly, then I have no objection.”

  Georgiana scowled. “You have no objection? No one asked—”

  “I would like to point out, though, Lady Georgiana,” he continued, “that you have decided to stay in a household with five single gentlemen, three of them adults.”

  “Four,” Andrew broke in, coloring. “I’m seventeen. That’s older than Romeo was when he married Juliet.”

  “And it’s younger than I am, which is what counts,” Tristan countered, sending his brother a stern look. The lack of discipline usually didn’t bother him, but damn it all, Georgiana didn’t need any more ammunition to use against him. She’d already collected bucketfuls.

  “Don’t worry over my reputation, Lord Dare,” Georgiana said, though he noted that she avoided his gaze. “The presence of your aunts provides me with all the respectability I require.”

  For some damned reason, she was determined to stay. He’d figure out why later, when he didn’t have a half dozen people hanging on every word he and Georgiana exchanged. “Then stay.” He sent her a dark look. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Though he was far from immune to Georgiana’s considerable charms, he had developed the talent of appearing to be unmoved. Bradshaw, two years younger and with a reputation vying for the blackness of his own, wasn’t nearly as skilled. On the other side of the spectrum, Robert, twenty-six, might have been dining alone for all the response he made. Andrew simply drooled, while Edward suddenly seemed fascinated with learning table manners.

  Tristan made it through dinner without suffering an apoplexy, then escaped to the billiards room to smoke and curse. Anything between himself and Georgiana was finished; she’d made that abundantly and repeatedly clear. Whatever in damnation was going on, he didn’t like it. And he liked even less that he was going to have to go to Georgiana to get his answers—unless he could pry them from Milly and Edwina, who had no doubt succumbed to the chit’s charms as well, and had no idea what she might be up to.

  “She’s gone up to bed.”

  Tristan jumped. Bit leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, and Tristan scowled at him, wondering for a brief moment how long his brother had been there. “What? Robert the Sphinx has decided to speak, unasked? Is it a miracle, or are you trying to make trouble?”

  “I just thought you should know, in case you were tired of hiding. Good night.” Robert pushed upright and vanished back into the hallway.

  “I am not hiding.”

  He simply had rules for himself where Lady Georgiana Halley was concerned. If she attacked, he would respond in kind; if she insinuated herself into a group of which he was already a part, he would not object. And she could break her damned fans across his knuckles whenever she pleased, because it was his private opinion that for some reason she continued to want to touch him. The contact rarely elicited more than a wince, and it gave him the opportunity to purchase replacements for her, which, of course, annoyed her even more.

  But this insistence of hers on living under his roof was different. There were no pages in this rule book, and he bloody well needed to make some before anything happened.

  Tristan resignedly snuffed out his cheroot and headed upstairs.

  Georgiana sat before the fire in her bedchamber, an unopened book on her lap. She hadn’t slept at all last night; contemplating her plan had kept her up and pacing until dawn. Tonight, though, was even worse. He was in this same house, perhaps only a floor away, perhaps only a hallway away.

  A quiet knock sounded at her door, and she nearly leapt out of the chair. “Calm down, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered to herself. She’d asked Dawkins the butler for a glass of warm milk; it wasn’t as though Dare would come calling at her private rooms in broad daylight, much less at this hour of the night. “Come in.”

  The door opened, and Dare strolled into her bedchamber. “Comfortable?” he drawled, stopping before the fireplace.

  “What—Get out!”

  “I left your door open,” he said in a low tone, “so keep your voice down unless you want an audience.”

  Georgiana took a deep breath. He was right; if she succumbed to her sudden panic at being in a room alone with him, she would both ensure her own ruin and destroy any chance of teaching him the lesson he so desperately needed to learn. “Fine. I’ll say it more quietly, then: Get out.”

  “First tell me what the devil you’re up to, Georgiana.”

  She’d never been a very good liar, and Dare was far from being a fool. “I don’t know why you think I’m ‘up to’ anything,” she retorted. “My circumstances have changed over the past year, and—”

  “So you’re here out of the goodness of your heart, to care for the aunties,” he said, resting one arm along the mantel.

  “Yes.” She wished he didn’t look so much at ease in her bedchamber, and so full of sin at every blasted minute. “What else would you suggest I do, under the circumstances?”

  He shrugged. “Get married. Go torture your husband, and leave me out of it.”

  Georgiana set her book aside and rose. She didn’t want to press that particular topic; she would, in fact, have preferred that he’d never mentioned it. If she didn’t address it, however, he would never believe any kind word she said to him now or in the future, let alone fall in love with her. “Marriage, Lord Dare, is not an option for me, now i
s it?”

  For a long moment he looked at her, his expression dark and unreadable. “To be blunt, Georgiana, the state of your virginity would be less important to most men than the size of your income. I could name a hundred men who would marry you in a second, given the chance.”

  “I hardly need—or want—a man who desires only my money,” she said hotly. “Besides, I have made an agreement with your aunts. I do not break my word.”

  Dare pushed upright from his lazy slouch. He seemed taller than she remembered, and before she could stop herself, she took a step backward. A muscle in his lean cheek twitched, and he turned for the door.

  “Get me the invoice for that rolling chair,” he said over his shoulder, “and I’ll reimburse you for it.”

  “No need,” she returned, trying to regain her composure. “It’s a gift.”

  “I don’t take charity. Give me the invoice tomorrow.”

  She stifled an irritated sigh. “Very well.”

  After the door closed, she stayed where she was for a long while. The night he had taken her virginity, as he put it, she had thought herself in love. To discover the next day that he’d done it to win a wager—one of her stockings, yet—had hurt more than she thought possible.

  Whatever his reasons for not boasting of his victory to the ton, she had never forgiven him. So now she would teach him exactly how much it hurt to be betrayed. Then, perhaps, he would understand what it meant to be honorable, and he could make a decent husband to a poor, naive girl like Amelia.

  With that in mind, she climbed into bed and tried to fall asleep. Amelia Johns needed to be let in on the game, or she herself would be as guilty of heartlessness as Tristan Carroway was. Perhaps she should do so at once; waiting until the Ibbottson ball would only give Dare an additional three days to ruin Miss John’s life.

  Miss Amelia Johns seemed surprised to see Georgiana when she called at Johns House the next morning. Her brunette hair in a fetching bun with strategic curls escaping to caress her neck and cheeks, and garbed in a muslin day dress the color of sunshine, she looked the portrait of fairy-tale innocence. “Lady Georgiana,” she said, curtsying, her arms full of flowers.

  “Miss Johns, thank you for seeing me this morning. I can see that you’re busy; please don’t let me keep you from your task.”

  “Oh, thank you,” the girl replied, smiling, as she set down her burden beside the nearest vase. “These roses are Mama’s favorite. I would hate for them to wilt.”

  “They’re lovely.” The girl hadn’t asked her to sit, but Georgiana didn’t want to appear impatient, so she slowly took a seat on a couch halfway across the wide morning room.

  Amelia stood over the vase, her alabaster brow furrowed as she tilted the yellow blooms this way and that, searching for the perfect angle. Good heavens, the girl didn’t stand a chance against Dare.

  “May I offer you some tea, Lady Georgiana?”

  “No, but thank you. Actually, I wanted to discuss something with you. Something of a…personal nature.” She glanced at the maid fluffing pillows of the overstuffed furniture.

  “A personal nature?” Amelia giggled engagingly. “My goodness, that sounds so intriguing. Hannah, that will be all for now.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  Once the maid was gone, Georgiana relocated to a chair closer to Amelia. “I know this will seem highly unusual, but I do have a reason for asking,” she said.

  Amelia paused in her flower arranging. “What is it?”

  “You and Lord Dare. There is a connection between you, is there not?”

  Large blue eyes filled with tears. “Oh, I don’t know!” Miss Johns wailed.

  Georgiana hurried to her feet and put an arm around the younger girl’s shoulders. “There, there,” she said, in her most soothing voice. “This is what I was afraid of.”

  “A…afraid of?”

  “Oh, yes. Lord Dare is famously difficult.”

  “Yes, he is. Sometimes I think he means to propose to me, and then he’ll twist the conversation around until I don’t know whether he even likes me or not.”

  “You do expect a proposal, though?”

  “He keeps saying that he needs to marry, and he dances with me more than any of the other girls, and he took me on a drive through Hyde Park. Of course I expect him to propose. My entire family expects it.” She sounded almost indignant that Georgiana might have any doubt regarding Dare’s intentions.

  “Yes, I should think that’s quite reasonable.” Georgiana stifled a scowl. He’d done the same with her, six years earlier, and she’d expected the same thing. All she’d received, though, was ruin, a stolen stocking, and a broken heart. “And in that case, I have something to confide in you.”

  Amelia wiped at her eyes with a pretty embroidered handkerchief that matched her dress. “You do?”

  “Yes. Lord Dare, as you may know, is the dearest friend of my cousin, the Duke of Wycliffe. Because of that, I have had numerous opportunities over the years to observe the viscount’s behavior toward females. I must say that without exception I have always found it appalling.”

  “Exceedingly appalling.”

  So far, so good. “And so, I have decided that Lord Dare needs to be taught a lesson about how to comport himself toward the gentler sex.”

  Puzzlement showed on Amelia’s innocent face. “A lesson? I don’t understand.”

  “Well, I happen to be staying at Carroway House for a short time, to help Lord Dare’s aunt recuperate from the gout. I plan to take this opportunity to demonstrate to Dare just how poor his behavior toward you has been. It may look a bit strange. It may even appear for a short time that Dare is fond of me, but I assure you that my only purpose is to teach him a lesson which in the end will both encourage him to propose to you and will make him a better husband.”

  It sounded logical—to her, anyway. She watched Amelia’s transparent expression to see whether the girl thought so, as well.

  “You would do that for me? We don’t even know one another.”

  “We are both females, and we’re both appalled at Dare’s behavior. And it would give me immense satisfaction to see that at least one man has learned how properly to treat a lady.”

  “Well, Lady Georgiana,” Amelia said slowly, going back to fiddling with the bright roses, “I think if you could teach Tristan a lesson that would convince him to marry me, that would be a very good thing.” She paused, a small frown furrowing her brow. “Because we are being honest with one another, I have to admit that he confuses me very often.”

  “Yes, he excels at that.”

  “You know him better than I, and you are closer to his age, so I suppose you must be wiser, as well. So I am glad if you can teach him this lesson. The sooner the better, because I have my heart set on becoming his viscountess.”

  Ignoring the insult to her advanced age, Georgiana smiled. “Then we have an agreement. As I said, at first things may seem a bit strange, but be patient. Everything will work itself out in the end.”

  Georgiana hummed as she and her maid climbed back into her hired carriage and returned to Carroway House. Dare wouldn’t know what had hit him until it was far too late. Once she was finished with him he would never even think of lying to vulnerable young ladies about his feelings, or of stealing stockings from them while they slept. After this, he would be glad to take Amelia Johns for a wife and never even think of looking elsewhere.

  “So, Beacham, tell me your news.”

  The solicitor looked ill at ease as he took a seat opposite Tristan at the office desk, but Dare didn’t consider that a bad sign. He had never seen Beacham when the fellow didn’t look nervous.

  “I have done as you requested, my lord,” Beacham said, thumbing through a stack of papers until he found the one he wanted. “At last report, in the Americas barley was selling for seven shillings more per hundred pounds than it does here.”

  Tristan did some quick figuring. “That’s 140 shillings per ton, with shipping costs at what, a hu
ndred shillings per ton? I hardly think it’s worth the time or the effort for an overall profit of twelve pounds, Beacham.”

  The solicitor grimaced. “That’s not the precise fig—”

  “Beacham, we’re moving on now.”

  “Ah. Yes, my lord. To where are we moving, my lord?”

  “To wool.”

  Beacham removed his spectacles, wiping the lenses with a handkerchief. Spectacle removal was frequently a good sign. “Except for Cotswold sheep, the wool market is quite sluggish.”

  “I breed Cotswold sheep.”

  The spectacles returned to the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I know that, my lord.”

  “We all know that. Get on with it. My entire summer yield to the Americas, less expenses.”

  The spectacles didn’t come off this time, and Tristan reflected that he’d spent far too much time wagering, looking for his opponents’ weaknesses and give-away signs. On the other hand, over the past year he’d made more money for the estate through wagering than by regular means.

  “I would anticipate a profit of approximately 132 pounds.”

  “Approximately.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Tristan let out his breath, then caught it again as a feminine figure in yellow-and-rose muslin crossed in front of the open office door. “Good. Let’s proceed, then.”

  “Ah, it is still a risk, my lord, once time and distance are figured into the equation.”

  With a brief smile, Tristan pushed to his feet. “I like risk. And yes, I know it’s not enough to make any difference at all in my situation. It will look as though I’m making money, though, which is at least as important.”

  The solicitor nodded. “If I may be blunt, my lord, I could wish your father had had as keen an understanding of income.”

  They both knew that his father had spent where he should have saved yet had pinched pence on small, insignificant items, which had served only to alert and alarm both his creditors and his peers. The result had been an unmitigated disaster.

  “And I appreciate your being the only solicitor in Dare’s employ not to spread rumors.” Tristan headed for the door. “Which is why you’re still in my employ. Prepare the correspondence, if you please.”