Never Had a Dream Come True (27 page)

But when Devlin left for the military, Rake had more or less left that part of his life behind and instead spent most of his time helping his father and the rest of his family with the financial side of the estate, increasing the already enormous Berkeley riches.

He was a man with certain needs, of course, and he had not been without female company for more than a few weeks, over the past six years, and for a while he had even had a mistress tucked away in a house for him to visit when he felt so obliged. To his credit, he had never been with more than one woman at a time, never with unmarried ladies, and never, ever, had his heart in it.

And from the moment he laid eyes on Penny at the lake last August, he hadn’t even looked at another woman, much less bedded one. His body burned with need, but it was a fire only Penny could ease. Something he knew from experience, embarrassingly enough.

After Penny had tumbled into Francesca’s bedroom that night a year ago and then refused to talk to him about it, he had behaved in the most destructive way. Something had happened to her, something so awful it had turned her into a shadow of herself, and he was kept outside of it. By her choice.

He knew he had acted the reverse of what he should have, but in a desperate need to have revenge against Penny for shutting him out, he had flirted outrageously with every woman he met, not once caring about who she was as long as she could be a possible bedmate and for a short moment of time erase the image of the drenched and bruised Penny on the floor that night.

But in vain. It never went farther than him arriving at the woman’s bedroom and making a humiliated escape from it in a couple of minutes. Not because he wasn’t able to perform. No, it was simply because he felt like an ogre, thinking of being unfaithful to Penny, and he never got over that enough to be able to stay.

After a while he gave up his foolish quest for bodily satisfaction and let the truth sink in. Everyone always joked about how a reformed libertine made the best husband, and he guessed he was the living evidence of that.

Not that he knew what kind of husband he would be—probably suffocating poor Penny with his silly need of being near her, touching her, looking at her, loving her—but it was obvious he had no need for anyone other than her,
his
woman.

“Why don’t you just explain to her how wrongly she thinks of you?”

Rake scowled at his father. “Why? Because you all keep joking about me being the lover of all time, something you always have done, and probably always will. Is it so strange that she, who has heard about this her whole life, believes it to be the truth?”

“No,” his father admitted, looking a bit embarrassed. “I’ve never thought twice about it. We all have our place in the family, and I’m sorry to say that you, dear son, have always been the wicked libertine.”

“I might have been in my early twenties, but not for years, now. But to her that is all that counts.”

The memory of Penny’s words, that his mouth had kissed every woman of the
ton
,
rang in his head, and he sighed heavily. He had a sinking feeling that he had tried to fight a cause already lost. Penny loved him, something he had no doubt about, but for her that apparently wasn’t enough.

Telling her he wasn’t the man for her hadn’t been a complete lie, because he knew if she just opened her eyes and saw him for what he really was, and not what she had been told all her life, she would know too that they were meant to be together. But if she couldn’t get past the image of him that his family’s constant teasing had given her, he knew he had to let her go.

He would probably die a little every lonely day without her, but at least he wouldn’t live this strange half-life waiting for her to come around.

“Why don’t you just go to the foyer and talk to Penny? She’s been sitting there for hours, waiting for you to come back home.”

“She has?”

His father rolled his eyes dramatically. “You don’t have to look so happy over that. The poor girl is probably boiling mad right now, after sitting there in that drafty room all day. Last time I spoke to her she practically bit my head off. She’s not in the best of moods, I dare say.”

Rake felt a hope build in his chest as he heard his father’s words. So she had been sitting there all day, waiting for him to return, while he had been drinking in the stable across the courtyard? How nice.

“Oh, that smile I know.” His father chuckled and whacked him again on the shoulder. “Go on, get your girl. Become as ridiculously happy as you deserve, my son.”

Rake took a few steps toward the castle, but something in the back of his head kept nagging him. It didn’t feel right. Something inside him didn’t want him to go to the castle and take Penny in his arms and live happily ever after.

He hesitated at the large stable door. He had always followed the voice inside him, and it had not once failed him. Now it told him to wait.

Or, to be honest, he had to admit it practically screamed to him that this wasn’t the time for him to erase everything in the past and throw himself into a happy life without remorse.

There were too many things that still bothered him when it came to Penny. Would he ever be able to let bygones be bygones?

Aside from everything else, he wanted her to know she had been wrong about him. Bloody hell, he needed her to know who he
truly
was before he could marry her. If she didn’t know the real him, how could they ever be completely happy?

How could
he
ever be completely happy?

And if she never told him what had happened that night six months ago, how could he ever completely trust her? He needed her to trust him. He needed her to feel she could confide in him, tell him anything that was on her mind, without restraint.

Like she had told Thomas…

The pain he’d felt when she admitted that had almost knocked him off his feet. His darling girl, his love, had confided the truth to that outsider, to that unimportant man she didn’t even love, and still she refused to tell him—the man she
did
love.

“What’s wrong?”

His father’s voice broke through his confused, wine-dazed thoughts, and he took a step back from the door, shaking his head slowly but nevertheless determined. “I can’t.”

“You can’t what?” Hannibal frowned. “Open the door? I can help you with that.”

Rake snorted. That joke was too bad even for his father. “No. I can’t go to her. Not yet, at least. I need to clear my head first and to think things through before I do anything else.”

Hannibal’s grey eyes, so much like Rake’s, looked up toward the castle and he sighed deeply in defeat. “Of course you have to. Why don’t you go out the other way and sneak up the back stairs? I’ll talk to Penny and tell her you’ll speak with her tomorrow—say, noon in the library?”

Rake nodded. It sounded fine to him. This would give him a respite, and he could gather his thoughts enough to be able to make a plan on how to solve the problem with Penny.

“Well, I can’t say I like it, but at least this shows me you are serious about the girl.”

His father put his hand on Rake’s shoulder and gave him a smile filled with love and encouragement, and for a second Rake put his own hand on top of his father’s, letting the old man know without words how much he appreciated him.

“Off you go,” his father grunted, obviously touched by the moment, and with a last smile, which felt more like a grimace, Rake left the stable and went to his room without being seen.

Not caring about how dirty he was, he stripped his clothes off and lay down on his bed, closing his eyes with a contented sigh as the soft sheets embraced his body. Before he had a chance to think things through, his head became empty and he fell promptly asleep, not waking up until shouting voices in the corridor roused him.

Just as he opened his drowsy eyes, the door to his bedroom flew open and his twin Jamie barged in, looking quite a mess.

“She’s gone.”

“Who’s gone?” Rake shook his head in an effort to force his sleepy brain to start work again.

“Penny. He took her.”

What?
Rake sat up in bed, suddenly wide awake. “Who took Penny?”

“Lord Nester.”

“Her father came here?”

Jamie shook his head. “No, she went to him.”

Rake stood and reached for his trousers in one single movement. What on earth had possessed Penny to go to Lord Nester? As far as he knew, she didn’t even want to talk about her father, let alone see him, and Rake had long ago guessed her tragedy had something to do with him. It didn’t make sense.

“Come, the others await us in the parlor.”

They rushed through the dark corridor, and when they passed a large clock, it told Rake the time was just past midnight. In the duchess’s parlor his whole family had gathered by one of the sofas—their faces worried.

When he came closer, he saw his mother on the sofa hugging Charmaine, who looked beautiful despite her disheveled appearance and her obvious need to throw up.

As his mother saw him, she put a finger against her lips, ensuring that he would stay quiet and not disturb the girl.

“There, there,” the duchess soothed, and with a deep breath Charmaine managed to compose herself again.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “It’s just been too much, and I didn’t know what to do.”

“You did the right thing to come here. Now, please tell us what happened when Penny arrived at Harveyfield.”

Rake watched Charmaine wring a soiled handkerchief between her slender fingers and wanted to throw himself upon her and shake her hard to force her to start talking. As if she felt his urgency, she looked up and met his eyes.

“Why couldn’t you just have married her?” she accused him hoarsely. “It would have made everything so much easier, and she would have been safe.”

Rake could feel his family’s probing eyes on his person as if they wondered the same thing. Instead of answering her question, he asked her one back.

“Where is Penny?”

“I-I don’t know. He took her with him.”

“Who took her? Your father?”

Charmaine nodded, and her delicately beautiful cheeks paled even more. “H-he caught her when she tried to sneak into Mother’s bedroom. I think she thought he was at his usual weekly card game, as he always used to be before. She couldn’t possibly know that he stopped going to them when he ran out of…”

Her voice trailed off, but there was no need for her to continue, as every last person in the room knew about Lord Nester’s extensive gambling and the pile of debts he collected wherever he went.

“What happened when Penny and Lord Nester met?”

“When I woke up because of the raised voices outside my room, father was already carrying her down the stairs, bellowing for the carriage. I-I ran as fast as I could, but I was too late. The carriage was already moving by the time I got outside, and I had no means to stop it.”

The duchess patted Charmaine’s blond hair soothingly. “Did he say anything about where he was taking her?”

Charmaine shook her head slowly. “No. But it’s not so hard to guess.”

To Rake’s frustration, the duchess only nodded, obviously knowing what Charmaine meant, and he couldn’t stay silent any longer. “
Where
exactly did he take her?”

Charmaine glanced at the duchess, who sighed. “There is no way I can continue to honor Penny’s wish for us to stay quiet about it. He took her to London.”

“To London? Why? What’s in London?”

“Not what—who. The man to whom Lord Nester gave Penny and from whom she managed to escape.”

Rake had to sit down. His head was spinning so fast he couldn’t think straight. What was his mother talking about? Had Lord Nester given Penny away? But that was unheard of. A father didn’t give a daughter away, at least not without a ring on her precious little finger.

“He’s been pestering Father with letters demanding Penny’s immediate return, and Father has been so frustrated at not being able to fulfill the request. Finding Penny alone in the house must have seemed as manna from heaven to him.”

“That man is pure evil.” Hannibal’s voice was full of hate, and Rake felt something build up inside, as well, something so ugly and dark that he felt it would consume him.

“Who?”

Nobody answered his clipped question. Tired of all the secrecy he had lived with for the last year, he strode to Charmaine and, without caring whether he frightened her, leaned forward until his nose almost touched hers.

“
Who?
”

She started to shiver compulsively, but he didn’t care. He ignored his mother, who begged him to step back, and he grabbed Charmaine’s chin and forced her to look at him. He didn’t have to ask his question again, as her weak voice whispered the only thing he wanted to know.

“Lord Bolton.”

When he let go of her chin, she fell backwards with a sigh, fainting into his mother’s embrace, but he didn’t stop. Hatred filled his heart and his soul, and the only thing he could think of was to get to London. Without a word, he snatched the jacket Ivanoff held out to him and went straight to the stables, where he grabbed the closest horse.

As he fastened the saddle, he saw the youngest three of his brothers had gathered and were also saddling horses, and he closed his eyes briefly, thankful they would be going with him. He needed someone to be with Penny while he slowly killed the two men who had hurt her—Lord Nester and Lord Bolton.

It didn’t take the four Darling brothers more than a couple of hours to reach London, horseback being a quicker mode of travel than a carriage, and soon he stood outside a large stately townhouse, one he had passed many times without knowing what horrors Penny must have endured under its roof. Lord Nester’s carriage stood outside, and the driver, who recognized the determined four, pointed at the house without uttering a word.

Afterwards, Rake couldn’t remember what had happened inside Lord Bolton’s house or what he had done to the vile man. All he knew was that his knuckles were sorer than they had ever been before and that he had a whimpering Penny in his arms when the hackney he’d found came to a halt at the Darling townhouse at Berkeley Square.