One Night with a Rake (Regency Rakes) (4 page)

“I highly doubt His Highness is aware of my intentions. Noble or otherwise. We’ve never even met face to face.”

“I believe that’s the done thing when it comes to royal courtships.” Nathaniel strolled across the marble foyer, hands clasped behind his back, to inspect the large Gainsborough landscape her mother had recently installed there, opposite an equally large mirror. Georgette caught herself admiring the breadth of Nate’s shoulders and quickly darted her gaze away from his reflection. “A royal marriage is always arranged by proxy and the parties finally come sashaying together at the altar. When it’s too late for either of them to bow out.”

Georgette’s belly wriggled like a bucketful of eels. She’d never asked for this to happen. Some debutants would be in raptures over the possibility of joining the royal family, but to Georgette, the thought of becoming part of the royal family was far more daunting a prospect than wandering down Lackaday Lane had been this morning.

But her father was one of King George’s staunchest allies in the House of Lords and a champion of the Prince Regent once it became clear His Majesty would never regain his wits well enough to truly reign. It was only natural that Georgette would be first to be considered for the honor of becoming a princess of the realm.

“Georgette Frances Barclay Yorkingham,” a voice bellowed from the first landing of the stairs.

Drat!
When her father used all her names, she knew she was in deep trouble.

“Yes, Papa.”

“Don’t you ‘Yes, Papa’ me, young lady. What do you mean by gallivanting around, and in a dodgy part of the city, no less, before decent people are even out of bed?” The marquis stomped down the stairs.

Reuben peered over the banister at her for a blink, then disappeared.

Traitor!
Perhaps Mercy was right to refuse him. The footman had obviously scurried directly to her father’s study to report on her activities.

“The duke’s man was here again and I was forced to send him on his way without you having a chance to make anything but a woefully sorry impression,” her father scolded. “What have I told you about—Oh! Lord Nathaniel, I didn’t realize you were still here. Well, of course you would be after pulling my girl from harm’s way this morning.”

Evidently Reuben’s account of her trip to Covent Garden was thorough as well as timely. Georgette had all but forgotten Nathaniel’s presence in the face of her father’s verbal blistering, but now she realized he’d taken station behind her, off her right shoulder.

Almost
as
if
he
was
still
guarding
me.

“I’m gratified to have been of some small assistance, my lord,” Nathaniel said with a somber nod.

“No need for false modesty, son,” the marquis said, laying a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “I know full well what you did. It’s good to see you again. Been too long. Come up to my study for a bit if you’ve time. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

Georgette released the breath she’d been holding. If Nathaniel could divert her father’s attention long enough, perhaps he’d forget about dressing her down as thoroughly as she expected.

Georgette’s father turned to go back up the stairs, and then tossed her a glance over his shoulder. “And you, young lady. Take yourself straight to your room. I’ll deal with you later.”

Georgette lifted her skirts and hurried past him up the stairs.

No such luck. Looks like Father won’t forget I’m owed a tongue-lashing after all.

Nate watched Georgette climb the stairs to her room, head deferentially bowed. Once she passed her father, she lifted her skirts to ankle height and hurried up the rest of the flight, disappearing at the first landing.

It seemed strange to see her so cowed after the way her hazel eyes spat fire at him in the carriage. But then, plenty of peers in the House of Lords could attest to the intimidating presence of the Marquis of Yorkingham.

Why shouldn’t the peer seem just as intimidating to his daughter?

Nate’s chest ached strangely. It had been a mistake to kiss her on a whim. He was here to seduce her, and that sort of thing required planning and precision. All he’d done was put her on her guard.

And made his chest ache. He rubbed a palm across it, but the throb didn’t abate. He hadn’t expected to enjoy kissing her quite so much. It upset the devil’s bargain he’d made with himself. If he didn’t enjoy debauching this virgin, perhaps the act wouldn’t be counted as quite so despicable.

Instead his whole body pulsed with awareness when he was near Georgette, and this blasted tightness across his ribs danced on his last nerve. Obviously, he was going to enjoy bedding her far too much to rationalize it as a sacrifice he was prepared to make for the good of his family.

“Are you coming, Colton?” the marquis asked without looking back at him.

“Of course.” Nathaniel bounded up the steps till he came almost even with Lord Yorkingham. They marched together in companionable silence toward the marquis’s study.

The richly masculine room was paneled in dark walnut and smelled faintly of tobacco and fine cognac. Nathaniel’s father was always careful to keep those masculine pleasures confined to the smoking room at Colton House.

Rather than settle behind his throne-like desk, the marquis sank into one of the burgundy leather wing chairs. A pair of them flanked the fireplace, where an aromatic cherrywood fire blazed in the grate. He motioned for Nathaniel to take the other.

“Sit,” the marquis said when Nate didn’t comply quickly enough to suit him.

Nathaniel settled into the opposite chair and immediately sank into the cushion. There was at least a couple inches difference in the heights of the two seats. He was taller than the marquis when they were both standing, but now his lower seat reversed the situation neatly. The effect was subtle, but anyone conversing with the marquis in these chairs would of necessity feel smaller.

“Thank you for receiving me, my lord.”

“Come, there’s no need to stand on ceremony between the two of us. Call me Yorkingham.”

“I’m honored.” Nathaniel nodded, surprised. The marquis was notorious for keeping people of lower rank at a distance. As a second son, Nate was almost beneath his notice. Except for their history together.

“After all, we were once almost family,” Yorkingham said, giving voice to Nate’s thoughts.

Anne.
Her sprightly presence shimmered between them. The second daughter paired with a second son. At the time, their match was approved all around since the marquisate of Colton was a well-respected and ancient peerage and the families had been friendly for generations.

Of course, that was before the scandal of Maubeuge tainted Nathaniel’s reputation. And before scarlet fever had claimed his Anne.

“How have you been?” the marquis asked.

“I’m sure you know the answer to that question better than I do myself.”

A man of Yorkingham’s stature had a web of informants to keep him apprised of everything of note within the realm of England and beyond. The marquis would know all about the disaster at Maubeuge, France, and about the way Nate had squandered his time since returning from that military debacle. There was no point in trying to hide any of it.

“We all grieve in different ways,” the marquis said, steepling his fingers before him. “I do not reproach you. It’s natural for a young man to turn to pleasures in order to forget.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“I know.” Sadness made the corners of the marquis’s eyes droop. “None of us have. When my marchioness isn’t decorating the house to within an inch of its life, she’s become a gardening fanatic, trying to pick up where Annie left off, I suppose. I keep myself buried in the business of the House of Lords and the affairs of the estate, but there are days when…” He waved a hand toward his desk with its piles of papers and reports. “Well, it all seems rather pointless sometimes.”

Nate nodded in agreement. When Anne died, he almost hadn’t known how to keep breathing in a world where she did not. It was part of why he’d bought a commission and went blithely to war. Before the defeat at Maubeuge, his daring in the face of danger won him a long string of commendations.

Nathaniel didn’t consider himself brave. The truth was he hadn’t cared if he lived or died.

Why not accept the most risky assignments and hazard his life as often as possible? It had saved countless other men who had wives and sweethearts waiting for them.

“In some ways,” the marquis went on, “I believe Georgette has suffered most over her sister’s death.”

Nate’s brows shot up in surprise. “How so?”

“She survived the fever when Anne didn’t,” Yorkingham said, his gaze directed to the fireplace flames. “She feels guilty for living.”

Nate had heard that Georgette retired to the Yorkingham country estate to recuperate for a couple years afterward. It was just as well. She’d have been publicly shunned by Society at first in any case.

“So now my Georgie has launched this benighted campaign to do good for the downtrodden whores of Covent Garden.” The marquis shook his head. “Honestly, I fear for the girl’s mind sometimes.”

“I don’t,” Nate said. “Lady Georgette is perfectly sensible and whatever you might think of her methods, her goal is an admirable one. But I think she needs help directing her efforts so she doesn’t put herself at unnecessary risk.”

“Ah, now you’ve hit upon it. She needs protection, but if I hire a guard for her, she’ll rail against it and declare that I don’t trust her.”

“That sounds like her.” Nate smiled.

“You handle yourself well, Colton. The incident at Covent Garden this morning proves that.” The marquis leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. “Could you see your way clear to acting as her protector, without her knowledge, of course?”

“Today I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.” Nate’s conscience pricked at the lie, but it was going to have to bear far more later. “I rather doubt Lady Georgette would appreciate me spying on her.”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. I had in mind that you’d take up residence here at Yorkingham House. Join her in her public outings. Help her with her little crusade,” Lord Yorkingham suggested. “As a friend.”

“As a friend,” Nate repeated. Guilt reared its pointed little head again, but he tamped it down. This was just the opening Mr. Alcock would insist he exploit. “But what about the Duke of Cambridge? Might not His Highness frown upon your daughter spending so much time with another gentleman?”

“If it were anyone else but you, I’d say yes,” the marquis said. “However, but for ill chance, you would have been Georgette’s brother. I don’t think the duke’s emissary will complain when I explain matters to him.”

“I don’t know.” Nathaniel cast the marquis a doubtful glance. Royal dukes were nothing if not territorial. One seeking a virginal bride was bound to be extra vigilant about his intended’s activities. And it wouldn’t do for Nate to jump too quickly at this chance, lest he arouse the marquis’s suspicions.

“Let me handle His Highness. Besides, it’s not as if the Season were in full swing. Most of the
ton
is still in the country. Only those of us heavily involved in Parliament and this whole sorry business surrounding Princess Charlotte’s unfortunate death are out and about here in London,” Yorkingham said. “It’s not as if you’ll be seen together. If I know Georgette, she’ll drag you to places not fit for Polite Society.”

“You might simply put your foot down and demand she abandon her work.”

“If I thought it stood a ghost of a chance of success I would, but I know my daughter. If she’d been born a man, my Georgie would have been a general.” The marquis chuckled. “There’s no turning her once she’s set her sights on something. She’s like me in that regard.”

Yorkingham leaned back in his seat, his eyes shifting as if searching for the right words. “There’s another matter as well.”

“What is it?”

“It’s come to my attention that someone may be trying to sabotage Georgette’s chances with the Duke of Cambridge.”

The hair on the back of Nate’s neck rose. The marquis was very well informed indeed.

Nathaniel cleared his throat. “Do you have any idea who might dare that?”

“Not yet,” he acknowledged. “But I will keep digging. In the meantime, that is another danger from which Georgette needs protection. Can I count on you?”

Part of Nate wanted to confess all, then and there, to tell the man who would have been his father-in-law about Alcock’s plot. But if he did, his own family was sure to suffer. Alcock would make certain of it.

What
a
perfectly
wicked
little
circle.

“Yes, sir.” Nathaniel stood and nodded correctly to the man he was deceiving. “I’ll protect Lady Georgette from whatever outside threats might assail her.”

Of
course, no one will protect her from the inside threat—me
.

The second-floor ballroom wasn’t Georgette’s favorite place in Yorkingham House. She liked dancing well enough, but only if there wasn’t anyone there to see her do it. The music room, with its butterfly-style grand, held little charm for her since it could not be said that she played the piano. It was more as if she pounded the keys into submission.

No, Georgette’s favorite place in her family’s spacious home was the library on the ground floor. The walls, lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves, held more books than she could read in a lifetime.

Her secret haunt was a darling little windowed alcove fitted with a banquette of tufted cushions. She could slip into that lovely corner with an apple and a couple travel books and be off to Zanzibar or South America or the frozen land of the czars. Or she could lose herself in a Sir Walter Scott poem and weep into her lacy handkerchief for his unhappy lovers who must only adore each other from afar.

Her father seemed to have forgotten about coming to finish railing at her. So after taking a luncheon tray in her room, she slipped out. With any luck at all, Georgette would have the library to herself all afternoon. She pushed through the tall double doors with hope in her heart and an apple in her pocket.

But the library was not empty. Nathaniel Colton had spread out one of her father’s detailed maps of the city on one of the large tables. He was leaning over it, tracing the winding streets with his finger.

He must not have heard her, for he didn’t look up. Instead he frowned down at the map. The years since she’d seen him last had scraped all excess boyishness from his face, leaving him lean and hard.

He’d always been a bit of a peacock, even when he was betrothed to her sister, dressing in tasteful, elegant lines. The cut of his jacket emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, and if she were close enough, Georgette was certain she’d see her reflection in his tall, gleaming Hessians.

Not
that
I
wish
to
be
that
close
to
Nathaniel
Colton.

“Come in if you wish, Lady Georgette,” he said without a glance toward her.

She blinked in surprise. “How did you know it was me?”

“Your scent. Even if two ladies are wearing the same perfume, every woman creates her own distinctive fragrance. Something to do with the oils in her skin, I’m told.” He slanted his gaze at her. “You wear that violet water well. I find some perfumes a bit overpowering, but yours is just sweet enough to catch a man’s nose.”

A little tingle crept down her neck, wiggled along her spine, and stayed to torment the small of her back.

He could
smell
her. There was something a tad indecent about that. It seemed far too intimate a thing for a man to tell a woman in a library.

“I have no wish to catch anything about you,” she said with a sniff. “Least of all your nose.”

“Then perhaps you should confine your toilette to carbolic soap.”

The man had no sense of boundaries whatsoever. “My toilette is none of your concern, and you
will
keep your nose to yourself.”

“You forbid me to smell your perfume?” He laughed. “I’d have to be a bit of a wizard to do that. A man may avert his gaze or stop his ears, but short of holding my nose whenever you’re around, which would undoubtedly occasion much comment, I can’t help but smell you.”

A frisson of irritation replaced the tantalizing tingle at the small of her back.

“Why are you still here?” she demanded.

He smiled at her as though her tone was welcoming. She’d made sure it wasn’t, but Nathaniel seemed impervious to her snubs.

“Your father invited me to stay at Yorkingham House as his guest for a bit. Since my family is still in the country till the Season officially starts, I suppose he thought the Colton town house seems a bit large for one person to rattle around in.”

“That’s an exaggeration, isn’t it? Even if your family isn’t in residence, there are no doubt any number of servants who keep the place,” she said as she advanced to the far side of the table and squinted down at the map. “So it couldn’t be said that you were properly alone.”

“Or perhaps I’d be
improperly
not alone.” He arched a brow at her.

She glowered at him. What was her father thinking to invite Nathaniel Colton to stay with them? Didn’t he know what Nate had become? She’d overheard whispers about his many light dalliances. And amorous abilities most men wished they possessed.

She swept those thoughts away with a stiff mental broom. Nate’s reputed bed skills were the last thing she should contemplate.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “A man like you is never alone.”

“A man like me? Are you inferring that I’d have feminine company?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I seem to have feminine company now, don’t I?”

He actually had the effrontery to wink at her.

“You won’t have it long,” she said with a huff. “Good day, milord.” She started toward the door. Sir Walter Scott and Zanzibar would have to wait.

“No, stay, Georgette. I apologize. I shouldn’t tease you,” he said. “But you make it so deucedly easy, you know.”

She shot him a glare that made him raise his hands in mock surrender.

“All right. You win. I promise to behave.” He turned his attention back to the outspread map, but lifted his hand in a summoning gesture. “Come. I’ve discovered something that may interest you, actually.”

She hesitated. Nathaniel’s kiss that morning wasn’t the sort of thing she could easily dismiss. She ought not to spend time with him.

Of course, it wasn’t as if that had been her first kiss. Last Christmas, Lord Roger Fishwick had stolen a kiss from her under the mistletoe at her family’s house party. Even with copious amounts of rum punch thrown into the mix and the frivolous holiday atmosphere, the kiss wasn’t very remarkable. Roger’s lips were wet and slippery, like the underside of a lily pad. The memory of his kiss certainly didn’t make her toes curl inside her shoes.

Not like her toes curled now just looking at Nathaniel Colton. She didn’t dare lower her guard with him, but his absorption with the map piqued her curiosity.

“What is it you think will interest me?”

“I believe I am the proud owner of the property across the lane from that brothel you and I exited in a hurry this morning. Take a look at this.”

Against her better judgment, she drifted back toward the table and the outspread map. “How did you come by this property if you don’t know for certain where it is?”

“I won it in a poque game at White’s.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not surprised in the slightest.”

“Don’t be so gloomy, Georgette. It doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m not gloomy.” She wished his hair didn’t curl behind his ears in a way that made her fingers itch to smooth it down. “I’m disapproving. There’s a difference.”

“Is that another way of saying you care that I waste my time gambling?”

“It matters not a bit to me how you waste your time.”

“Then if you don’t care, stop frowning. Your face will grow like that and it’d be a shame.” He shot her a quick grin before looking back down at the map again. “It’s such a pretty face, you know.”

Was he teasing her again or did he mean it? He’d seldom been serious as a boy. Now that he was a man, it was hard to tell when to take him at his word.

“Well, your frown over my gambling aside, this was one game of chance that wasn’t wasted. Here’s the legal description of the property.” He dropped a yellowing piece of parchment on top of the map. “If I’ve interpreted this correctly, its location is here.” He pointed to a parcel on Lackaday Lane, that same narrow alley in Covent Garden where Mercy’s friend was trapped at Madam Bouchard’s House of Pleasures for Gentlemen of Quality.

“You seem inordinately enthusiastic about a property that is likely in a sad state of repair,” Georgette said.

He shrugged. “A property can always be improved. I’m a second son, remember, which means I must make my own way in the world.”

He fisted his hands at his waist and for a moment, Georgette imagined him at the prow of a pirate ship, piloting his own future.
He’d make a proper rogue with an eye patch
, she decided with an inward sigh. Then she resolved to put her imagination in a drawer while she was with Nathaniel Colton.
Could
be
dangerous
.

“Collecting rents strikes me as a fine way to support my gambling habits,” he said, obviously trying to get another rise out of her.

“Congratulations,” she said dryly, refusing to take the bait. “You probably own a house of ill repute.”

“You may be right.”

“Which means the rents you receive will come at the cost of abject misery for those young women who are bound to that degrading life.”

“As I recall, you are enthusiastic about women making their own choices. If this property is a brothel, the women who work there made theirs.”

“No, not all of them. Many have no other way to survive,” she said.

Nathaniel looked up from his map again. A frown marred his brow. “You seem to know a great deal about this subject. How is that?”

“I’ve read accounts.”

He snorted. “Mostly in tabloids and scandal sheets, I’ll be bound.”

He was right, drat the man! Frustrated, she began to pace, knotting her fingers together as she went. “Usually I ignore those gossipy rags, but occasionally even a blind squirrel finds a nut of truth.”

He left the map and fell into step with her around the spacious room. It made her feel like a rabbit in a walled garden, cornered by a large dog.

“I suspect most of those stories have been highly romanticized in order to touch soft hearts like yours,” he said when she stopped by the bust of Cicero on a waist-high Doric column.

“Next I suppose you’ll claim I’m softheaded, too.”

“No, just too naïve to know better. People generally do what they want to do. If it eases their conscience to say they were pressured or tricked into bad behavior, I’ll let them say it.” A hard expression flicked across his features, a tightening of his mouth and a tick of the muscle in his cheek. Then it disappeared as quickly as it came. “But I won’t be fooled by it. We all make our own choices and must live by them.”

He advanced on her slowly, boxing her into a corner between her father’s collection of rare medieval codices and her mother’s copious gardening books.

“But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to help those girls out of that life,” Georgette said, trying to ignore the fact that it was hard to draw a deep breath. She really ought to have had Mercy loosen her stays.

He leaned a palm on the bookshelf near her shoulder and Georgette’s bum pressed against the book spines. He ran the knuckles of his other hand over the hollow of her cheek and then brushed the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. The sensitive spot tingled in his wake.

“Georgette.”

She’d never much cared for her name. It had always seemed too harsh, too masculine. But when he caressed the syllables with his deep bass, he made it sound soft and feminine.

“You’re getting yourself in a tizzy over something you can’t change,” he said.

He was so close she could smell
his
scent—all spicy bergamot with an undernote of burnished leather. She inhaled him all the way to her curled toes.

“Saying I can’t change things isn’t a very effective way of trying to silence me. It only makes me more determined.” She met his gaze and her insides melted at the heat of it. “Or do you intend to kiss me again to keep me quiet?”