Page 12 of Scoundrel Take Me Away (Dukes in Disguise #3)

Clearly unable to contain herself, she blurted out, “Oh dear, I am sorry, Mr. Selwyn. You must be shocked at our squabbling like a pair of ill-mannered children.”

Selwyn was far too well-trained to do more than incline his head the merest fraction to acknowledge Lucy. Thorne stepped in to rescue him by saying, “Nonsense. Selwyn has witnessed far more shocking things while in my employ than a bit of banter between two fully clothed adults. Shall we?”

She hesitated for an instant, looking at her maid settling in to wait for them, but did finally take his arm. Thorne felt a rich curl of satisfaction deep in his chest at the touch of her slender fingers.

“I daresay you think it’s awfully common of me to speak to your driver as though he’s a human being,” she said with another lift of that defiant little chin.

He briefly weighed his response. It certainly was not the done thing to address one’s servants for more than brief commands, nor even to notice their presence.

But Thorne remembered kind, twinkling eyes, gentle reproofs and soft praise. His uncle’s butler, Farthingdale, whom Thorne hadn’t seen in years but still missed.

“Speak to whomever you like,” he said, glossing over the odd pang the memory caused. “But Selwyn, at least, won’t thank you for the consideration. He would prefer to have no involvement whatsoever in my affairs—a position for which he can hardly be faulted.”

“You and I are not having an affair,” Lucy hissed as a waiter bypassed several waiting patrons to lead them to the best table, situated directly before one of the bow windows.

“Cream tea for two, please,” Thorne said to the waiter, who bobbed his head and hurried off to placate the annoyed customers who’d been left waiting to be seated.

An unassuming gentleman with thinning brown hair caught Thorne’s eye for a brief moment, causing Thorne to raise a supercilious brow.

The man turned away, and Thorne settled back in his chair in satisfaction.

Lucy was biting her delectable bottom lip, Thorne observed with interest. She clearly wished she could apologize to those whose table they’d taken. Thorne couldn’t help but be a little fascinated. She seemed to feel everything so deeply.

“You mustn’t mind it,” he told her. “They understand the waitress had no choice but to attend to the highest ranking individual in the room. Perhaps they do things differently on the Continent.”

“Highest ranking individual.” Lucy snorted.

Thorne leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankle to better display the gleam of his perfectly shined Hessians.

“Since I was six years old, I’ve been the highest ranking individual in almost every room I enter.

Tiresome, I know, but there’s nothing to be done about it. ”

He expected her to make some observation about that perhaps being the reason for his interest in pursuing a friendship with her brother—there was a rarified group of dukes in London at any given time, and most of the others Thorne knew were in their dotage. Perhaps she would even be correct.

But what she said instead was, “Six years old? Is that when you lost your father?”

Lost him. As though Father had wandered off like a stray kitten. Thorne made a conscious effort to relax his jaw enough to speak. “Both my parents died when I was six.”

She visibly struggled with reluctant sympathy for a moment before her innate sweetness won out. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

To Thorne’s surprise, the words tightened something in his chest. Ignoring it, he arched a cynical brow.

“Many people would say I gained far more than I lost. I’ve known men who had to wait so long to inherit, they were too old to enjoy it when it finally happened.

I had a dukedom to play with when other boys had only wooden soldiers. ”

The sympathy faded from Lucy’s eyes, replaced by frank dislike. “You are truly terrible.”

Feeling himself back on solid ground, Thorne smirked at her. “Why? Because I don’t make a show of grieving for a family I barely even remember?”

She shook her head. “No one could be as heartless as you pretend to be.”

That sounded like a dare. Thorne never could resist a dare. He smiled at her. “I assure you, dear girl, it is no pretense.”

He could have played on her sympathies, he knew; could have sighed and slumped his shoulders and gazed off into the distance while holding back a manly tear.

He could’ve told her about his uncle’s cold, difficult lessons in what was expected of the Duke of Thornecliff.

Or he could’ve told her what happened to him in his first year at Cambridge—though the very idea was laughable, because he never spoke of it, nor of the dreams that still plagued him.

But it would have made it so easy. No matter how much she hated him, Lucy wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to comfort him.

No. Thorne would not stoop to dramatics. That would be boring, and Thorne despised being boring above all else.

So he would seduce her, without ever kissing her—he hadn’t forgotten what she’d told him the night before, that the Rogue would be recognized by his kiss.

Lucy would fall, without being kissed…and hating him all the while.

That was what would make it exciting.

He wouldn’t pretend to be anything other than what he was—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t lay the groundwork for Lucy to begin to believe there was more to him than met the eye.

Women loved to think they saw something more in a man, something deeper and more honest than the face he showed the world.

The waiter delivered their tiered cake stand loaded with iced biscuits and sugared almonds and finger sandwiches, topped up the hot water in their teapot, and left them to speak to the lady sitting alone at a table near them.

Spying an opportunity, Thorne tilted his chin in the direction of the single lady and said, “I didn’t bring you to Gunter’s for the tea cakes. I think you’ll find this interesting. Do not crane your neck, if you please—you can manage a little subtlety, surely.”

Shooting him a glare, Lucy angled her head to study the lady.

Thorne would put her in her early thirties, perhaps, with fair skin and ash-blonde hair styled in a severe chignon rather than the frivolous curls that were all the rage these days.

Quite prim, Thorne thought, sitting there with her spine ramrod straight as she sipped her tea slowly, as though trying to make it last.

“What about her?” Lucy asked irritably. “She looks like any other proper lady to me.”

“Just watch.”

The waiter had bent down to have a quiet word with the fair lady.

Thorne watched Lucy’s curiosity kindle as the lady’s pale cheeks took on a becoming flush.

Cautious excitement made the woman’s eyes sparkle as she followed the waiter’s subtle gesture across the tearoom to another lady sitting alone.

The second lady was of about the same age as the first, though her dark hair was already shot through with strands of gray that lent her an earthy air that was only enhanced by the tanned hue of her face.

She looked like a woman who spent a lot of time outdoors—gardening, perhaps, or…

Thorne glanced at her sensible boots tucked under the small table. Horses, he decided.

After exchanging nods and smiles across the room, the fair lady rose hesitantly and made her way toward the horsey lady, joining her at her table. The waiter poured them both new cups of tea from the same pot and left them.

“What just happened?” Lucy asked, her brows knit. “At first I thought the waiter was letting her know her friend had arrived, but then they seemed not to know each other well.”

“I would be surprised if they ever met before today.”

Lucy glanced again at the table where the ladies sat, now chatting amiably, leaning in toward one another as though they were the only two people in the room.

“So why did the waiter…?”

“Gunter’s is a terrific bore,” Thorne said, not bothering to modulate his tone.

Patrons at the nearest tables shot him disgruntled glances, until they saw who’d spoken and hastily averted their eyes.

“It’s all the things I abhor, and that you have indicated you detest also—a place where the eminently respectable members of the Ton go to see and be seen, in a vain attempt to combat the dullness of their trivial lives. ”

“Would you please lower your voice,” Lucy hissed, rather red in the face. “You are insulting. If you hate it so much, why did you bring me here?”

He tilted his head, aware of the angle of his jaw and the fall of sunlight from the window that would glint off the gold in his hair.

“Because that is not all Gunter’s is. It is also a place where ladies of a certain persuasion can be discreetly introduced to other ladies who share the same tastes. ”

Surprise widened Lucy’s eyes, but her voice was nothing but admiring when she said, “So…if a lady takes a table for two, but is seated alone, it means she is open to being invited to join another single lady at her table? How clever! Though it is very stupid that anyone need go to such lengths to hide who they wish to love. In Paris?—”

“Yes, the Continental attitude toward these sorts of arrangements is decidedly more open. I daresay the only place in England that rivals the City of Light for sheer decadence and sexual freedom is one of my house parties.”

Thorne’s own sister, Rosalie, had been engaged in a torrid affair with her best friend, Lavinia, these seven or eight years. Both ladies were married to men who didn’t give a damn what their wives got up to and the feeling was entirely mutual, to the satisfaction of all concerned.

“But given that London is awfully staid and stuffy about such things, it’s wonderful that a place like Gunter’s exists with this fascinating, secret aspect to it!”

“There is a shadow side to London, if one only knows where to find it,” Thorne said softly, casting his lure. “This city holds many secrets.”

“And you know all of them, I suppose.” Lucy regarded him with a narrow stare, clearly aware that the bait he’d set out was bait, yet tempted nonetheless.

Thorne let a smile spread slowly across his face. “Of course. I’ve sampled every illicit pleasure and explored every corner of the underworld.”

“In a vain attempt to combat…what was it? The dullness of your trivial life?”

Turning his own words back on him. Thorne acknowledged the hit with a single dip of his chin. “Just so.”

“And I suppose you are offering yourself as a tour guide? To show me the illicit delights of your secret London?”

“Give me a chance to show you what London has to offer, and I promise to make it an experience you will never forget.”

He regarded her across the table from under his lashes. When quite young, he’d perfected the art of studying someone intensely while affecting careless unconcern, and the habit did not fail him now.

In Lucy’s expressive face, Thorne saw the exact moment she fell to temptation; saw her decide to reach out and take hold of the apple. But before she took her first bite, she said, “I only have one question… Why?”

Thorne arched a brow and told the truth.

“Because squiring you about to gambling dens, boxing matches, and masked demimonde balls will give me plenty of opportunities to seduce you.”