Taming the Rake (32 page)

Cecelia studied her with that look that said she knew there was more. Finally, she asked, “Where’s your lap dog? I thought he’d be here tonight.”

It took Gina a moment to realize whom she was referring to. “Lord Rockingham?”

“Who else?”

Gina giggled. “I hardly think he qualifies as a lap dog, though he has been inordinately attentive of late.” He was the perfect suitor: charming, humorous, and handsome. If he were Coventry, everything would be perfect. “But to answer your question, I don’t know where he is. He was quite evasive when I asked, saying simply that he had a business matter to attend to.”

Cecelia snorted. “Is that what they call it now? Business? Humph!”

Gina looked at her questioningly.

“There is a Hellfire ‘meeting’ at Wycombe tonight,” Cecelia explained. “Though
meeting
is hardly the term I’d use. Drunken orgy is probably more accurate.”

Gina glanced around to make sure no one had heard. “You shouldn’t say such things.” But her reproach was only halfhearted. Were they not standing in the middle of Almack’s, she might be inclined to ask more. “Is that where Mr. Ryder is tonight?”

“From what I gather,” Cecelia said, not bothering to hide her disgust.

“He told you as much?”

“No,” she admitted. “I have my ways of finding out.”

Gina cocked her brow.

“Oh, very well, Beaufort told me.”

Both brows lifted at that one.

“Gina, there’s been something I wanted to ask you…” Cecelia looked momentarily flustered, then apparently thinking better of what she was going to say, switched the subject. “Oh look, here comes Claire.” Gina glanced in the direction Cecelia indicated, picking Claire out in the horde of dancers dispersing from the last country reel. “Perhaps she’ll help us find your missing rake.”

“About Claire…”

“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Though I don’t think you’ve confided the real secret,” Cecelia said, clearly hoping for more.

But she was to be disappointed.

Gina looked around the crowded room, anxious for a glimpse of him. Augusta had assured her that he would be here tonight. Patience had never been one of her stronger virtues and the uncertainty of his intentions was killing her.

She was going to find him tonight. Even if he didn’t want to be found.

Coventry had just about given up on his search for Georgina. He was slowly making his way back to the main assembly room after a discreet check of the balconies upstairs when he fell in line behind a gaggle of giggling girls—debutantes by the look of them—exiting the retiring room. He shook his head, marveling at the way young ladies managed to “retire” in groups.

At first he didn’t understand what they were saying—the conversation of prattling eighteen-year-olds was best left to far more perceptive ears than his—and then he wished he hadn’t.

“I think it will be Lady Cecelia. She’s the most beautiful.”

The name of Georgina’s friend barely registered.

A minute blonde in a puff of pale pink tulle shook her head. “You’re wrong, Sylvie, I’m confident it will be Lady Georgina.”

His ears sharpened. Now they had his full attention.

Unaware that their conversation was being carefully attended to she continued, “Have you seen the way he watches her and follows her everywhere? He’s like a wolf salivating over a tasty sheep.”

They broke out into great peals of high-pitched laughter. He wondered who the poor fool was to inspire such ridicule. Obviously, one of Lady Georgina’s admirers. He was more amused than jealous, the man sounded like a real toady.

Still, Coventry found himself drawn into their conversation. He lagged far enough behind as to not draw attention to himself, occasionally ducking behind one of the columns that lined the hall to stay out of view.

There were four of them. The blonde and three brunettes of varying shades. He may have recognized one or two—but then again perhaps not. He found most debutantes largely indistinguishable.

“I wish I could be a Rake Slayer.”

What the devil was a “Rake Slayer?”

He couldn’t tell which one spoke, but it might have been the one addressed as Sylvie. With their heads bent together and their shrill, girlish voices, they even sounded alike.

But it was the blonde, obviously their leader, who answered. She stopped long enough to toss back her shoulders and turn down her nose. “You’re hardly mature or sophisticated enough, Sylvie. You must have at least one full season under your belt to be a Rake Slayer.”

His pulse increased. He was beginning to get a very uneasy feeling about this.

“Who says?” one of the others asked.

The blonde put her hands on her hips and answered with a patronizing clip. “It’s well known.”

Now who could argue with that? But her next words stopped him cold.

“I, for one, will be happy to see that wicked Lord Coventry brought to his knees. With all the women he’s ruined, it’s high time someone taught him a lesson.”

Coventry felt something inside him drop. A vague conception of what they might be talking about began to form. The already warm room turned stifling.

He gave up trying to figure out who was talking and simply listened as if his life depended on it. In a way, he supposed it did.

“How soon do you think it will be before he offers for her?”

“I don’t know, but I’d love to see his face when she refuses.”

Refuses?

“Perhaps you might. That’s part of the game is it not?”

The words shuffled together in his head.
A game. Rake Slayers. Lady Georgina and her friends. Offer
. His chest squeezed.
Refusal
. The squeezing intensified.
Public
refusal.

Coventry jerked to a halt as if he’d been shot, frozen in the heart-stopping limbo between confusion and comprehension. If only he could stay like this forever. If only he could hold on to the shock, he wouldn’t have to understand. But the implacable truth closed in around him.

The girls turned the corner and made their way toward the assembly room. He let them go. He didn’t need to hear anymore. It was all painfully clear.

He’d been made a fool of—a very public fool of.

Again.

Betrayal stuck like a dagger in his back.

It had all been a game. A vicious little game of revenge meted out by a devious assailant in the guise of a prim and proper lady.

The oddities of her behavior now made horrible sense. The aggressive way she’d pursued him seemingly out of the blue, the separation of his friends at parties, the way she wouldn’t back down in the face of his apparent indifference. It was all a plan to make him propose and then refuse his offer. To bring down a rake.

She was only trying to teach him a lesson.

She didn’t love him.

And he was a fool, because he’d believed that she did. He believed that she’d found something in him to love. He’d allowed himself to hope, forgetting the lessons of the past, and had fallen in love with a lie… again.

You’re worthless… Pathetic…

How could it have happened? But he knew the answer to that. The sudden wave of self-loathing made him cringe. He despised this weakness inside him. The damned neediness that made him susceptible to the wiles of a beautiful woman.

How could he have allowed himself to believe that she was any different? She was just another whore willing to use her body to get what she wanted.

But not this time, he vowed.

His uncharacteristically honorable intentions were a thing of the past. He’d never marry her now. He would never give her the satisfaction of knowing how well her game had worked. How well she’d made him believe. He’d make her think she was just another conquest to a notorious coldhearted rake. Only he would know the extent of that lie.

He hated this excruciating pain that he’d sworn to never feel again, that he’d fought so hard to forget. Pain that burned and gnawed.

He closed his eyes, forcing himself to block it all out. Her smell, the touch of her soft skin on his, the way she’d made love with such passion. Each memory cinched his heart a little more. Making him long for what he could not have. He wanted her, but he would not do anything about it. She could pursue him until the end of time, and he still wouldn’t marry her.

Like fragments of a broken dream, his illusions and hopes for a future shattered. The fleeting moment of happiness gave way to the familiar cold darkness. He wrapped himself in the black blanket of oblivion where no one could enter and nothing could penetrate. The flickering light inside him was snuffed. This time, he vowed, for good.

He would never yield to temptation again. Temptation only brought betrayal.

Yet everything about her tempted.

He shook his head, clearing the provocative image. He had to find a way to forget.

He needed a drink. A real drink, not this slop they served at Almack’s. And he knew just where to get one.

And anything else he had a mind for.

Gina breathed a heavy sigh of relief. At last she’d caught sight of him. In the vestibule. Shifting impatiently near the door like a man bursting to escape. A footman approached with his cloak. Her heart skipped. He was leaving. Didn’t he intend to speak with her? She’d held on to Augusta’s words like a precious lifeline. One that was quickly sinking beneath the crushing waves of reality.

She couldn’t let him leave without having the opportunity to explain. She quickened her step, pushing through the crowd, hastening toward him.

Something about his stance gave her pause. The wispy hairs on her arms flared. He seemed different. Dangerous. Radiating hostility. As if every muscle in his body strained to tell her not to approach.

It was a warning she chose not to heed.

He turned and caught her eye. At first she didn’t think he’d seen her. He held his expression impassive, without a flicker of recollection in the fathomless cerulean sea of his gaze. She held up her hand. Pointedly, he turned back toward the door.

Gina felt the cut direct deep in her soul. For the first time, she truly realized that she might have misjudged his intentions. “Lord Coventry,” she called out.

His back stiffened. Slowly, reluctantly, he turned around.

“You’re here,” she said dumbly, stating the obvious.

“Briefly,” he replied. “As you can see, I’m leaving. I have a meeting to attend.”

She twisted her brisé fan in her fists so tightly, the delicately carved sticks of horn crunched. “But”—she hesitated, looking around and noticing only a few footmen—“Augusta said you intended to speak to me tonight?”

His eyes bore into her like hot coals. “Augusta was mistaken. I have nothing to say to you.”

His animosity took her aback. “But your promise?”

His lips curled in a harsh semblance of a smile. “Did I promise you something?” A devious twist curled his lip at her sudden gasp. “Oh, yes. Now I recall. Our little agreement.” His eyes slithered down the length of her, with all the emotion of a cobra. “I’m afraid we won’t suit,” he said flatly. “Once, I’ve decided, was quite enough.”

His words hit like tiny arrows in her heart. This cold, uncompromising man wasn’t the same person to whom she’d given her body and soul. This was the man she’d heard about. The ruthless man who ruined ladies for sport. Ladies like Lady Alice.
And me,
a tiny voice whispered.

Where was the man she’d fallen in love with? The Coventry she loved had withdrawn to the point where she wondered if he’d ever really existed.

She refused to believe that this cold, emotionless stranger was the man who’d made love to her with such wild, uncontrollable passion. He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t mean it. He was angry, coiled, and ready to strike.

“You must forgive me. I never intended to put Augusta in any danger. Please,” she begged. “I love you.”

Her plea seemed to only further infuriate him. “That, I’m afraid, is your misfortune.”

The sharp pang in her chest would not go away. “You can’t be so dishonorable!”

He held her gaze. “Dishonorable? I hardly think you are in any position to discuss the vagaries of honor, Lady Georgina. Is my conduct any less honorable than coercing an offer of marriage with every intention of refusing?”

The blood drained from her face. Her heart stopped short.

He noticed. “You’re shocked? Yes, I heard about your little game and I decided to teach you a lesson.”

No. He couldn’t have found out. They’d been so careful. “My game?” she croaked.

He laughed, a harsh sound that sent icy shards of fear shooting through her. “What do you call yourselves? The Rake Slayers?” He looked down his nose at her in that arrogant way she remembered. The arrogance and disdain that had always made him seem so distant and untouchable. “Quaint,” he continued. “But did you and your friends really think you had any chance of bringing experienced, sophisticated men up to scratch? An army of inexperienced, silly girls is hardly very threatening.” A devious grin turned his lips. “Though, I admit inexperience has its benefits.”

Her chest squeezed so tight with fear and horror, she could barely find her voice. “You know?”

His jaw locked. “Of course. You didn’t think I truly cared?” He studied her stricken expression. “Oh, I see you did.”

Gina couldn’t believe this was happening. Had he known all along? It wasn’t possible. He did care for her. She couldn’t have been so horribly wrong. “When?”

He shrugged, as if it held no importance. “Some time ago. I wanted to see how far you would go to win. You were laced up so tight, so nauseatingly prim and proper, the challenge to make you succumb was irresistible. I was pleased when my initial estimation of you proved true. You’re so certain of your own opinion you’ll risk everything just to prove you are right—even your so-called virtue. But when I think of what your inflated sense of your judgment nearly cost my sister…” His voice dropped off menacingly. “A silly, puffed-up-with-your-own-importance chit like you could never hold my interest.”

Her voice strangled in her throat. She felt beaten. Stunned into rare silence by his cruel rejoinder.

Their eyes met. Donning his hat and cloak, he held her gaze as he delivered his parting blow. “What do you really have to offer a man, Lady Georgina, except for the prize between your legs?” He laughed harshly. “But now you don’t even have that, do you?”