Page 4 of How to Court a Rake (Wed Within a Year #1)

C aine threw the letters patent down on his grandfather’s polished desk with an angry flourish, disgust vibrating through his body, his words. ‘This is a prison sentence, to say nothing of an attempt at blood money to recompense us for the loss of Stepan.’ The King’s audacity knew no borders. The man sought to reward their efforts and sacrifice at Wapping with titles which would only be made hereditary if the three brothers married within the year. If not, the titles would revert to the Crown upon their deaths.

It was a rather neat deal for the King. He was able to give something with the hopes of getting something in return. Either he’d get the titles returned to him eventually or he’d see the remaining Horsemen tamed by matrimony. But it was clear to Caine that this generous offer did not truly reward the recipients.

‘Caine, please see reason.’ His father spoke from the sofa where he sat with their mother. ‘These are advantages that I cannot give you.’ Father was always apologising, in his own way, for being a third son, when Caine had never felt there was anything to apologise for. They’d been raised well and with love and they’d had more opportunity than most. Unlike his wild sons, their father was a quiet, country gentleman who liked his history, his horses and his books and left the wildness to his wife. Aside from his dark hair and Parkhurst brown eyes, his sons had taken after his vibrant, blonde wife, proving that opposites did attract on occasion. And when they did, they created rather extraordinary progeny.

Caine’s gaze slid towards his mother, pale and exhausted by the tragedy of having lost her third son, but her eyes remained sharp and alert, meeting her eldest’s gaze with covert encouragement. Mother had always understood him a little bit better than his father had. Mother understood this was a bribe.

‘I cannot sit here, even if the rest of you can—’ Caine gestured to his father and grandfather ‘—and pretend this is an incredible gift when the raw truth is that we are being prettily coerced to give up our freedom and toe the line of aristocratic decency.’

‘Are you finished?’ Grandfather Parkhurst, the Earl of Sandmore, spoke for the first time since introducing the subject, his tone one of regal patience. Even in his late eighties, the Parkhurst patriarch exuded shrewdness and authority. One crossed him at their own peril.

That was not to say the man was cold. The Earl of Sandmore loved his three sons and his grandchildren with a passion. He’d taken an interest in their lives from the day each of them had been born and that interest had continued into adulthood. In return, the family served the patriarch, each playing their parts and doing their duty according to their birth. Alex was in the heir line. He would eventually inherit. Sandmore’s second son had no children, but his third son, Caine’s father, had four sons and a daughter. The continuity of Sandmore’s spy network would carry on through Caine and his brothers.

Caine took his seat, trying not to feel as if he were ten again and Grandfather had caught him stealing cheroots during a summer visit. To be fair, Grandfather had followed the scolding up with, ‘Now, if you ever want to pick a lock properly , you need to know a few tricks so that you’re not caught.’

Perhaps that had been the day Grandfather had seen his true potential. Criminals weren’t the only ones who needed lock-picking skills. Gentlemen operating on the dark side of diplomacy did, too. Alex would always be the heir behind his father, but Caine had always felt that if Grandfather had a favourite grandson, it was probably him, which made any set down smart all the worse. Alex might be in the official heir line, but Caine was unofficially inheriting something far greater. Even at thirty-eight, the scolds could still sting.

Luce turned from the window, the summer light pouring in behind him, giving him the appearance of a dark angel with a halo. ‘Caine is right. No one in this room thinks the offer from the King is anything other than the opportunity of a gilded cage. The ton is tired of us raking through their ballrooms and their daughters. Now the King can look magnanimous by entitling three men who have no official prospects while addressing the need to bring us into line. Meanwhile, those who served and sacrificed for England are sacrificing once more.’ Luce gave a brittle laugh, his words infused with a sharp wryness. ‘This time on the altar of holiest matrimony. Make no mistake, we are not the winners in this scenario.’

The sharp sarcasm and harsh laughter were new, Caine noted, a sound most unlike his brother. The events at Wapping had hit all of them hard. It had been Luce’s first personal brush with loss and the aftermath had turned the smooth edges of Luce’s usual easy elan jagged. Caine nodded his appreciation to Luce for the support.

As for himself, Wapping had simply turned him angry. He was riddled with it—anger at those who’d perpetrated the crime and at himself. Why hadn’t he shot sooner? He played those moments over in his head tirelessly, looking for a solution or, more honestly, a way to turn back time, to stop those choices, those moments from happening at all. He was angry at the King, too. While he sat here in his grandfather’s home trying to go back in time, the King was pushing him forward into a future he didn’t want, a future he didn’t have time for.

‘The point is…’ Caine levelled a stare his grandfather’s direction ‘…there’s no time for courtship and all the social niceties that goes with it. The people behind the attack on…the cargo…’ it was easier to say that than to say the attack on his brother ‘are still at large. Their trail will only get colder the longer it takes us to search for them.’ And exact justice, Caine added silently.

There was a scold in his words for his grandfather. He’d wanted to start hunting immediately, but Grandfather had called their parents, insisting it was time to draw together as a family and required that the three brothers remain with him at the Sandmore seat while he sent out the elusive and anonymous Falcon instead.

While there had been comfort in having his father and mother near, it had been a difficult week for Caine having nothing to do but cool his heels and grieve the whereabouts of Stepan. He would not let himself think of Stepan as dead. Not yet. As long as there was no body, there was still a chance.

That phrase had become a mantra for him. What had not been foremost in his mind was returning to London in order to spend his evenings dancing with debutantes. Unless it was with one debutante particularly: Lady Mary Kimber with her wide smile and her hair starting to fall free from its pins as they danced. Not that she’d have anything to do with him now. He’d left her on the dance floor, her face briefly stricken as she recognised the damage done to her though none of it was of her own making.

And there had been damage. He might have looked at a scandal sheet or two during the past week—out of sheer boredom, of course—and noted her name had appeared in less than congenial references. If he returned to London, he owed her reparation. But that was hardly any more reason to go back to town than the King’s whim that he start bride hunting. Marriage was out of the question for a Horseman.

It was the height of selfishness to ask a woman to share the life he led—a life full of darkness and danger. He would not drag a woman and children into that lifestyle, to have them used as leverage against him. It would put them in peril and it would make him vulnerable, incapable of doing the job he did so well.

Grandfather gave each of them a strong look, his gaze lingering on Caine the longest as if reading his mind. ‘Perhaps you are looking at the King’s offer of titles in the wrong way. Let me remind you of what we know about the events in Wapping.’

He ticked each item off on long, elegant fingers. ‘First, we know that the mission was a success. The cargo was secured as was our commitment to Greece under terms amenable to our government.’ Which meant, unofficial aid had been rendered without exposure. ‘Second, we know that the explosives expert whose body was dragged from the harbour is merely a pawn. The mastermind is at large. Third, we know from Falcon’s reports that the mastermind is someone who moves within society’s higher echelons. He will be hard to catch and even harder to prosecute if he is indeed a peer.’

Grandfather paused for effect, spearing them with the Parkhurst dark gaze. ‘The man you want to find is lurking in plain sight in the very ballrooms you want to eschew. What better way to hunt than to hunt under the cover of being ambitious bridegrooms? Can you imagine it?’

Caine could indeed imagine it. Once word got out he and his brothers had received titles for patriotic services rendered, they would be seen as men with prospects. Their usual rakish shield would be stripped away. Every hostess in London would target them and now they wouldn’t be able to refuse. The King had all but commanded they seek out brides. Caine had not considered being able to use that command as subterfuge.

Grandfather nodded, validating his point. ‘Perhaps the King is not so single-minded in his reward after all. He wants the culprits caught as much as you.’ Grandfather gathered up the letters patent from where Caine had tossed them. ‘Now that’s settled. Let’s settle this.’

He handed one to Luce. ‘You should be Viscount Waring. It comes with a nice estate in Surrey not far from your father’s and the library has an excellent collection of the classics. You and your father will have a good time with that, it needs some work.’ Grandfather smiled and clasped Luce on the shoulder.

He moved on to Kieran. ‘You should be the Earl of Wrexham. The estate is on the border of Wales and Cheshire and it needs a sense of itself. It has coal and other untapped resources, the key being untapped. It’s lain fallow too long. It will be a good exercise for your mind and your body and I know how much you like a challenge, for all your easy ways, my boy.’

‘Well, isn’t this rich?’ Caine scoffed when Grandfather reached him. ‘What do you have for me? Another run-down estate in need of an heiress? These estates compel us to marry. We can’t possibly sustain them without endless coffers. Surely you see how the King has connived this to his benefit.’

Grandfather coolly tolerated the rebuttal and carried on. ‘You shall fashion yourself the Marquess of Barrow.’ He handed Caine the letter. ‘There’s a horsing estate that goes with it and you’re not far from Newmarket. I thought that would please you. Sometimes, I think you like horses more than you like people, present company excluded.’ Grandfather cleared his throat and gestured for Luce to pour them and their parents a drink from the decanter on the sideboard.

‘No one can make you marry. You may choose to not keep the titles beyond your lifetimes. You may even choose to not interest yourself in your estates. You will still have the use of the Parkhurst town house in London unless it suits you to live elsewhere. But these are all decisions that are up to you.’

He waited until Luce had put a drink into each of their hands before raising his glass. ‘All I ask is that you use this opportunity to find the traitors who have done harm to your missing brother and who would have done harm to the image of England abroad and bring them to justice. I wish my grandsons happy hunting wherever their endeavours take them. The clock is running, gentlemen.’

‘To the clock.’ Caine raised his own glass. ‘Horsemen, saddle up and be ready to ride within the hour. London calls.’ And with it, the next adventure. His blood was already humming now that he had purpose once more. The traitor would not elude him again and time was of the essence.

***

The next time Mary saw Caine Parkhurst, rake, rogue and rascal extraordinaire, he was a marquess, surrounded by young women at the Carfords’ ball. The inequity of the universe could not be clearer. He’d left her on the dance floor and her reputation suffered the snub while he’d been elevated to one of the elite titles of the peerage. Now, he outranked even her father—a fact that just maybe she took a little perverse private pleasure in.

She might also have taken a bit of pleasure in knowing that Caine Parkhurst would resent being put in the position of eligible parti . Perhaps the universe had a sense of humour, after all, although she wished it was a little more discriminate in where that sense of humour was aimed. She could use a good turn these days.

Since her father’s ultimatum, she’d taken a more proactive hand in the offerings on her dance card, paying careful attention to the young men on it: who could she cultivate with tolerable results? Who had the potential to be a life partner without causing her grief and regret? Because if there was one thing her father was not, it was flexible. Once he decreed something, it was the law. He never backed down from his position once it was staked.

She knew other men admired this about him, called him steadfast and reliable for it. She rather thought it stemmed from a fear of being wrong. She often felt that minds should be free to change if new information came to light that impacted a previously held opinion. Not that her belief mattered. If he was determined she would wed by Season’s end, she was determined to at least have a hand in the matter.

She sipped her lemonade and watched Caine from across the room. His shoulders seemed broader, his near-black hair more tousled, his profile more darkly handsome. There was something different about him. Or was that simply because he’d become respectable in the ton ’s eye? Now that the Duke of Harlow was all but off the market, matchmaking mamas were scrambling to refocus their attentions. For them, the timing of the Parkhurst elevations could not have been better. The one eligible Duke had been replaced with three suddenly eligible gentlemen—a viscount, an earl and a marquess.

How lovely, Mary thought acerbically, that a man could have his future arranged so neatly. With one flick of the royal wand the three dastardly Parkhursts had joined the ranks of the decent Parkhursts. But at a price, she reminded herself. The papers had been rather tight-lipped about what had happened in Wapping and why the brothers had been there in the first place, but everyone knew Stepan Parkhurst had been lost. Just as everyone surmised without saying it aloud that the titles were a recompense for whatever had happened. It had been two weeks since their dance, since Wapping. Still, it was something of a surprise to see him out at a ball with the loss of his brother so raw. But perhaps the titles had something to do with that as well.

Caine’s dark head with its thick tousled waves swivelled in her direction, his eyes resting on her. She nearly choked on her lemonade. Perhaps she’d been staring too long and he’d somehow felt her gaze. She’d heard that some people could do that—feel when others were looking at them. Or perhaps she was being fanciful and this was nothing more than chance.

She took another sip of her lemonade and this time she did choke when it was plain that it wasn’t chance at all that kept his gaze on her—on her lips. He was looking at her lips. A delicious frisson took her as she watched a slow, stalking smile take his mouth. He was coming for her, seeking her out, and every eye was trained in his direction, especially the eyes of the women he’d left behind. Drat the man. He was bringing her to attention in a ballroom once again.

‘Lady Mary.’ He bent over her hand, kissing her knuckles while his dark eyes remained fixed on her face, lingering on her lips. A warm wave of awareness moved up her arm at his touch. How was it that his touch was so noticeable ? There were other noticeable changes, too. His eyes were darkly serious—more serious than they had been the last time—a silent reminder that he’d lost a brother not long after leaving her on the dance floor. Against her better judgement, her heart went out to him. She wanted to acknowledge that loss, wanted to offer words of comfort, but she didn’t know him well and a ballroom was not the place to do it. Here, all she could do was flirt.

‘Lord Barrow.’ She made a small curtsy, remembering his new title. ‘To what do I owe the honour of your presence?’

His mouth quirked at her emphasis on honour and the implication that the honour was indeed a dubious one. ‘My lady, I believe I owe you a dance.’ Ah, he was here to make reparations.

‘You think a dance will repair my reputation after last time?’ she replied coolly, playing the ballroom game. Her heart wanted a different conversation altogether—what happened in Wapping? Her pride wanted to send him packing. She didn’t need a pity partner. Her dance card was full enough. But the thrill of pleasure his touch sent through her argued otherwise. No one on her dance card tonight moved her like this.

‘I’m decent now,’ he bantered, his words light, although his gaze remained dark. His actions belied those words. He had not relinquished her hand as a decent gentleman would have done and the low rumble of his voice was too intimate and entirely more appropriate for a bedchamber than a ballroom. All of which suggested he was mocking those that thought so.

She laughed, too, a low throaty, conspiratorial chuckle. ‘Are you now? I’m not sure a title can change a man. A wolf in sheep’s clothing will always be just that.’ That was too much, she reprimanded herself the moment the words were out of her mouth. He had a way of making her say things, do things, she’d otherwise keep to herself.

The response seemed to please him. He tucked her hand through his arm. ‘Dance with me and find out.’ The dare glittered in his eyes—the first light she’d seen in them—and hovered unspoken on his lips. Mary knew she’d never really had a choice in the matter now any more than she’d had a choice the first time. From the moment he’d taken that first step towards her, the matter had been decided. When one was Caine Parkhurst, asking was a mere formality.