Regency Rumour: Never Trust a Rake / Reforming the Viscount

‘Me?’ Goodness, but he looked cross. He was probably regretting talking to her so freely now and coming to stand in this rather private little recess. Oh dear, but she hoped he did not now suspect she was trying to entrap him, too. She had better put him straight, at once.

‘No! I mean, I had not thought about it at all. And I wouldn’t.’

She could not believe that women would actually try to entrap a man who’d rather shoot himself in the leg than settle down to marital fidelity. Were they mad? Although perhaps they didn’t know as much about him as she did.

‘Why? Because you consider me an irredeemable rake?’

Well, he was one. She knew that now. The bucks who’d swarmed into her aunt’s house had been incredibly indiscreet, letting slip all sorts of unsavoury facts about him. She hadn’t been able to believe how coarse their conversation had been. It demonstrated not only a lowness of mind, but also an insulting disregard for her sensibilities. They were so keen to discuss the latest exploits of the Devilish Lord Deben, that they’d reminded her of a pack of baying hounds, chasing down a poor unfortunate hare.

It had been years, they’d revealed, since he’d kept a mistress in the conventional sense. Since they’d seen him take one of them driving in the park. They’d been slavering to guess what this queer start of his might mean. Was he changing his tactics once more? For, after he’d severed connections to the last of his high flyers, he’d methodically worked his way through the willing married ladies of the ton. When he’d sampled all the most beautiful, he’d cut a swathe through the wanton widows. Had he now decided to pursue unmarried girls of questionable birth for sport? After all, everyone knew how easily he grew bored, once he’d made a conquest. His affaires, apparently, never lasted very long.

Yes, they concluded, he would have far more sport attempting to seduce respectable virgins. He must be looking for a challenge to pique his jaded appetite. A virgin was bound to attempt to hang on to her virtue for as long as possible.

Only the fat young lord had voiced a protest, so blackened was Lord Deben’s reputation. And then only to point out that if it were the case, surely he would at least start on a pretty girl.

Her cheeks heated, half with chagrin at not being thought pretty enough to warrant seduction, and half with guilt at knowing far too much about the man who stood so close to her. She ought not to know such things about him. Or about any man.

‘I beg your pardon. It is not my business to comment upon your behaviour. I … I think I had better return to my aunt,’ she said, lowering her eyes.

‘Yes, run back to the safety of a crowded room,’ he sneered. ‘You do not want your spotless reputation sullied by loitering too long in my presence.’

She glanced up at him in confusion. For a few moments she had felt as though she could say anything to him and he would understand. It had been an age since she had just been able to talk freely like this. Not since she’d left the all-male household in Much Wakering. Her aunt and Mildred set such store by only discussing acceptable topics that it had felt wonderful to let down her guard and just say whatever came into her head.

But of course he wasn’t one of her brothers. Or a man she had known all her life. He was practically a stranger.

‘You are correct, of course,’ she said woodenly. The one thing she did know about him was that he was a rake. No, make that two things. He was a rake and an earl. And she was a nobody. ‘A woman’s reputation is a fragile thing.’

‘Which you believe I am quite capable of casually destroying.’

‘No!’ Very well, she knew three things about him. The nonsense those bucks had spouted was so very far from the truth it was laughable. He had no intention of seducing her. His reasons for taking her out for a drive were completely honourable.

No, she corrected herself. She could not claim that anything Lord Deben did would be completely honourable, not in the way she meant it. He’d tempted her to take a course that she considered most dishonourable. But he had not suggested it to make sport of her, or ruin her. In his own way, he had extended the hand of friendship to her.

‘Not on purpose, anyway. I am quite sure that I have nothing to fear from you.’ He did not pursue innocent girls. ‘But don’t forget, I have already been subjected to a deluge of unpleasant gossip just because you singled me out for attention the once.’

She looked up at him again and what he saw in her eyes struck him like a blow over the heart.

Not on purpose, she had said, and she had meant it.

She trusted him.

And if she felt it was wiser to keep away from him, she did so with regret. It was all there in those eyes that were as transparent as the sky on a cloudless day.

‘I could put a stop to all the unpleasant gossip,’ he said, ‘by allowing it to be known that I do intend to make you my wife. And then, if I appear to pursue you, they will be falling over themselves to become your friends.’

Even as he uttered the words, it occurred to him that he could do worse than really marry Miss Gibson. At least she would not bore him. He would not wish to limit his intercourse with her to the bedroom. She would be a charming companion. The prospect of marrying her was so very appealing that when she laughed it was all he could do not to flinch.

‘Oh, heavens. You cannot really think that anyone would believe I am the kind of girl who would really tempt a man of your … well …’ She felt herself blushing as she thought of some of the remarks the yahoos had made about his love life. ‘Your … experience, shall we say? If you ever do decide to marry, they will expect you to pick someone … exceptional. She will be beautiful, at the very least. Probably wealthy, too, and with far better connections than mine.’

A wonderful feeling came over him as he saw that he had absolutely no need to make her recant. It was her own powers of attraction she was calling into question, not the entire concept of marrying him.

With any other woman, he would have wondered if she was fishing for compliments. But Miss Gibson was honest. Brutally honest, at times. So he could just take her remark at face value.

God, what a novel experience that was!

Another thing she had said he could take at face value … what was it she’d said, earlier? She had never considered the thought of marrying him. She really had not. There had been no speculative gleam in her eye when he’d taken her out driving. There was no coquettishness about her now. No, Miss Gibson was treating him as though he was her friend.

‘Come, now. In the spirit of our friendship, what say you we have a little fun at the expense of all those yahoos,’ he said, ruthlessly using her own terminology to bring her round to his way of thinking. She was not ready to think of him in terms of marriage. But he could soon change her mind, had he unlimited access to her. There had never yet been a woman he could not bring to eat out of his hand.

‘I have already told you that you are eminently marriageable. And now that my godmother has made your connections known, people will be ready to believe in our courtship. Next to scandal, it is the one thing people love to think they can see brewing.’

She shook her head. ‘I have already told you, I have no interest in playing such games. Though,’ she admitted, ‘I am flattered that you think I could figure as the kind of woman you might lose your heart to.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted with a delightful blush. And then ruined it all by adding, ‘Because even an ignorant girl from the country like me can see what a coup it would be, socially, to get an offer from a man of your rank and wealth.’

A coup. Socially. Had ever a man been so neatly put in his place?

And there was he thinking she’d actually started to like him.

His disappointment was out of all proportion to the slap she’d administered, particularly since she’d not done it deliberately.

‘Then you had better,’ he said coldly, ‘return to your aunt, had you not, Miss Gibson?’

He watched her scurry away, like a mouse relieved to have escaped the paws of the kitchen cat. And he pretended the same indifference as would the kitchen cat, balked of its legitimate prey.

But behind his lazily hooded eyes his mind was racing. There had to be some way of making her change her mind about marrying him. He just had to discover what that might be. He would have to observe her closely, surreptitiously if need be. Until, like a hunter stalking its prey, he would find the optimum moment to pounce.

And take her.

Chapter Six (#ub861d4fe-0b2e-55f0-bbc1-5b1f638d1c16)

‘Miss Gibson!’

Henrietta faltered to a stop at the malice evident in the speaker’s tone, turned, and saw Miss Waverley emerge from the doorway from where she must have been watching her tête-à-tête with Lord Deben.

‘I might have known you would seize this opportunity to corner Lord Deben and thrust yourself upon his notice yet again.’

‘It was rather the opposite,’ retorted Henrietta, recalling how Lord Deben had accosted her on her way to the refreshment room.

‘You would say that, you brazen hussy,’ hissed Miss Waverley, bearing down upon her. ‘I know what you are about. But it won’t work.’ She raked Henrietta with a contemptuous look. ‘You are making a spectacle of yourself by pursuing him like this. Lady Susan only invited you here so that we could all watch you trotting after him, like some lovesick puppy. So that we could all laugh at you.’

She did laugh then and it was one of the most unpleasant sounds Henrietta had ever heard.

‘He is not really interested in you,’ she said. ‘How could he be? You are just an ugly … nobody. He is very choosy about the females he permits into his bed, you know. They all have to be titled, for a start, and incredibly beautiful. And accomplished, too.’

‘Then,’ said Henrietta quietly, ‘that certainly rules you out, does it not?’