Rake's Honour

Chapter One

Vauxhall Gardens, 1818

One balmy summer evening in Vauxhall Gardens, the irresistible but impecunious Miss Fanny Brightwell made the biggest miscalculation of her life.

She realised it as she tore herself from the arms of her evening’s unsatisfactory escort, choking on a sob as she stumbled from their supper box onto the Druid Walk. She knew the repercussions would be very terrible unless the discretion of her deficient admirer could be relied upon—which was scant consolation since Lord Alverley’s notion of honour was the very reason she was in such a predicament.

Yes, there would be consequences for her surprising lapse.

She just had no idea how terrible they’d be.

“Forgive me, Fanny!”

Alverley’s voice, desperate and disembodied, competed with the distant strains of the orchestra as he hurried after her. “Lady Georgiana has been my intended bride since we were children… I thought you knew that.”

Alverley wanted her to forgive him for such a betrayal when her future lay in tatters? Her mother would never forgive
her
.

Clutching the spider-gauze fichu of her daring costume, Fanny turned with a glare, stepping back to avoid his open-armed approach.

He wanted her, but not as his wife. Could he really imagine she’d sacrifice her reputation, and that of her family, to be his
mistress
?

Fighting back tears, she delivered her parting words, more a hiss than the dignified approach her mother would have counselled. “You deceived me, Alverley.”

The thought of being in his embrace ever again made her stomach churn. He had betrayed her, wasted more than a year of her precious life. A year, when she had less than weeks…

“Fanny, wait—” His eyes were beseeching.

Cow’s eyes
.

She’d thought it from the start, so why had she persisted in this futile courtship, knowing, yet refusing to acknowledge, that his outward charms were illusory, his address gauche and his intentions—she trembled at the indignity—
so extremely dishonourable?

The answer taunted her before she’d even finished asking herself the question.

Because the alternative was worse than death.

She thought of fat Lord Slyther, with his moist skin and his repulsive breath, and trembled even more.

Yet it wasn’t only Alverley’s deception that had landed her in this predicament. She had to take responsibility for her own gullibility. The normally careful, calculating Miss Fanny Brightwell had miscalculated, and wouldn’t her mother remind her that Lord Slyther was both just punishment and more than a girl like her could have hoped for?

She would, and Fanny couldn’t bear it.

“Fanny, I—” He was right behind her. Quickly, she spun away, her flimsy-soled slippers skidding on the gravel, her ankle giving way beneath her. She felt the brush of leaves, the scratch of branches, and thought of the pitiful sight she would make as her mother vented her fury upon her.

Fanny was to have made the Brightwells’ fortunes. She amended this in the split second available for thought.
Fanny had begged to be given this last chance before the ghastly alternative that would ensure the Brightwells’ survival…

…but Fanny had failed.

The ground rushed to meet her. So! This was to be the final indignity—to land in the dirt at his feet!

She closed her eyes, throwing out her hands and tensing as she anticipated the pain, wishing the price of her failure could be similarly condensed.

Instead, strong, unfamiliar bare arms scooped her up and an amused voice murmured in her ear, “Young lady, I think you’d be far safer tucked up in your own bed than consorting with this obviously unsatisfactory gentleman.”

She was pinioned against a hard chest clad in fine linen. When she looked up, a pair of dark eyes glinted at her through the slits of his demi-mask. Instinctively, Fanny struggled, causing her rescuer to chuckle. “It seems your companion has bitten off more than he can chew.”

His levity in the face of her humiliation, still so fresh, swept away the gratitude Fanny might otherwise have felt.

“Put me down,” she demanded, as Alverley appeared beside the hanging lantern and, with tragic, bovine eyes, regarded her clasped to the stranger’s chest.

“Your intervention, sir, is appreciated…” When the stranger made no move to set Fanny on her feet, Alverley’s voice became diffident. “However, we must rejoin our party. Please…put the lady down.”

Was he afraid? For her? Her reputation? Or did Alverley fear for his own safety, since her saviour’s piratical costume revealed that this was a man who did not resort to padding to bolster his masculine attributes?

The man who held her sounded amused. “I had gained the impression the young lady has no wish for your company, sir.”

She was not going to deny it. Having realised the futility of her struggles, she could enjoy the intimate warmth he radiated. How different to feel a man’s arms around her, instead of Alverley’s, a boy’s…or Lord Slyther’s.

She shuddered again and the stranger held her closer. “You are cold, madam, and this man has caused trouble enough.”

Fanny could not make out his features clearly in the gathering dusk but his voice was rich with humour, his confidence far more appealing than Alverley’s post-adolescent arrogance. Alverley, who now asserted himself, shouting, “Sir, I must object!”

She gasped as Alverley sprang forward and she was swung wide, her bare arm feeling the brush of Alverley’s vainly grasping fingers before she was borne into the gloom. A crowd of revellers rounded the bend, sweeping Alverley into their midst as Fanny was carried in the opposite direction. She did not struggle as his shouts faded into the distance.

“Shouldn’t you scream?” The stranger’s voice was conversational as he traversed the serpentine walk that led to the river.

The strong beat of his heart through her fine muslin gown made Fanny’s beat all the more erratically, as he went on, “Isn’t that what ladies do when they’re kidnapped?”

“I thought you were rescuing me.” Despite her uncertainty, she found his sardonic humour appealing. She consoled herself with the thought that indeed she need only scream and he would set her back upon her feet. She would be free.

It was not a liberating thought. Free to tell her mother she had misjudged matters? Free to become an object of pity—if not ridicule—to her so-called friends?

Clinging to him more tightly as he negotiated a hazard upon the footpath, she added primly, “Besides, bringing attention to my predicament might injure my reputation.”