Page 3 of One Night with a Rake

“How dare you, sir.” Alcock puffed up like an enraged peacock. “I am trying to save the throne. There is no matter more important to the Crown. We absolutely cannot leave King George’s successor up to some mad race by his sons to find a bride.”

Nathaniel ignored Mr. Alcock and stared down at Anne’s headstone. He waited for the familiar hollow ache to begin, but even grief refused to surface. He was a dry husk.

Maybe it was better this way. If his heart shut down completely, it would be easier to do what he must.

“I said I’d do it and I will,” Nathaniel said testily. “Now leave me be.”

“Good. That’s all I wanted to hear.” Alcock turned to go. “Oh, my sources tell me the lady is paying a visit at a house in Covent Garden this morning. Unsavory place, what? But it seems Lady Georgette is a bit of a crusading prig. Out to save the world. Perhaps you’d do well to track her down before she gets into trouble on her own.”

Nathaniel grunted, leaving it to Mr. Alcock to decide if the sound constituted agreement. Actually it was simple surprise. The house he’d won from Gobberd that morning was in the same unsavory neighborhood.

Fate, it seemed, had a sense of humor.

He waited till the man’s retreating footsteps vanished completely. Then Nate knelt next to Anne’s grave. He wished he’d thought to bring flowers. She’d always loved them.

For a moment he imagined her as he’d seen her for the last time, arms full of irises to arrange in a crystal vase. Fresh-cheeked, eyes bright, brimming with health and such innocence, Anne was sweet as the armful of blooms she carried.

The memory of his first love caused his chest to constrict painfully.

There it was finally. A genuine feeling. Like the fellow who’d stumbled into White’s that morning, Nathaniel was still alive.

At times, there was reason for doubt.

Merely forcing air in and out of one’s lungs didn’t constitute living. Even when Nate buried himself in hedonistic pleasures, he rarely felt that rush of guilty exhilaration sinning was supposed to deliver. A part of him watched from outside his body and wondered if his soul had already died and was merely waiting for the rest of him to cease to function.

Nothing would be gained by further stalling. He stood upright. “I won’t be back for a while, dearest. Maybe never. I doubt you’d want me here in any case,” he told Anne. “You see, I have to seduce your sister.”

Two

The Marquis of Yorkingham’s barouche rattled through Covent Garden. It was the only conveyance stirring except the night-soil wagon which was making its rounds and accepting pungent offerings. From her perch on the forward facing squab of the barouche, Lady Georgette peered through the opening in the velvet curtain at the slatternly houses. Their shuttered windows reminded her of half-closed eyes, as if they, like their occupants, were done in by the previous night’s debauchery and needed their beauty sleep.

No Covent Garden streetwalkers were about, so far as she could tell, but Georgette could picture them. Imagining things was something in which she’d always excelled, so it was no stretch for her to visualize the piteous creatures wandering in desperation as they plied their trade on these narrow streets.

Georgette shivered a bit but was careful not to let Mercy, her maid, see that the neighborhood distressed her. If she lost courage now, she’d be mortally ashamed of herself. She was the daughter of a marquis. It was her duty to help those less fortunate than she, no matter where they might live.

Her carriage clattered to a halt on the uneven cobbles. Like Georgette, it was as out of place in this spotty neighborhood as a diamond in a pig’s snout.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, milady, but are ye certain sure ye wish to be here?” Reuben Darling, her footman, handed Georgette down from the elegant equipage. A concerned frown marred his handsome face. Footmen were hired for their height and pleasing features, and Reuben didn’t disappoint on either score, but he’d never demonstrated an overabundance of good sense.

Until now.

“I don’t like the looks of the place,” he said. “Not by half, I don’t.”

“He’s right for once,” Mercy chimed in.

Georgette’s lady’s maid clambered down from the carriage without waiting for Reuben’s assistance. In fact, she often made a point of ignoring him completely, which only made poor Reuben even more anxious to capture Mercy’s notice.

“Let us take ye home, yer ladyship, and Mr. Darling and me’ll come back and see to things here,” Mercy said. “Perhaps he can make himself useful for once instead of being just what ye might call ornamental.”

“Too right.” Reuben beamed at being included in Mercy’s plans.

When Georgette first noticed the footman’s growing attachment to her lady’s maid, she was mildly amused, but now she often pitied Reuben’s bungling attempts to win Mercy’s favor.

Mercy was much less amused by them. She considered him “dumb as a bag o’ feathers” and didn’t mind saying so.

Often.

“If ye won’t listen to reason, ye’ll have to walk a bit then,” Mercy said. The barouche wouldn’t fit down the narrow lane where the house that was their ultimate destination was located. This sordid corner was the closest the driver could manage. “I fear for your slippers, milady.”