Page 25 of Scoundrel Take Me Away (Dukes in Disguise #3)

Chapter Eleven

Thorne bolted up from the table, knocking into it and causing the already ruined supper things to rattle and clank together. He froze, staring down at the mess he’d made.

Mrs. Forrest shot him an entirely unimpressed look. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go after her, you fool!”

Thorne’s body, already in open revolt against his mind and will, obeyed her.

Heedless of the startled waiters and the avidly watching guests, he stormed from the dining room.

His muscles burned and throbbed as though he was on his way to a duel, every nerve and sinew screwed to the highest pitch of awareness.

One look at Lucy’s face after more than a week of seeing it only in his restless dreams. One look was all it had taken to undo ten days and nights’ worth of effort.

All the defenses he’d shored up with midnight revelries and debauches, too much drink and not enough sleep—all swept away in an instant.

Not that the revelries and debauches had done him much good.

After depositing Lucy on her doorstep, he’d gone straight back to Sharpe’s. In something of a daze, Thorne had found himself sitting alone at one of the small tables reserved for whist.

Apart from a tentative serving girl bringing him a full bottle of brandy and a glass when he asked for them, he was left severely alone. Thorne had set about getting thoroughly drunk, until a dark, hulking form had slid into the seat next to his.

“Rook,” Thorne had said, tipping him an acknowledgment with his overfull brandy snifter.

The owner of Sharpe’s had regarded him silently while he knocked back the exquisite French cognac like it was cheap gin.

“That girl,” Rook said, slow and deliberate. He always spoke like he was being charged ten pence per word. “Saw her with a man, before Chicheley got at her.”

“Chicheley,” Thorne hissed, his vision going scarlet for an instant while he thought of all the ways he’d like to make that monster pay for putting his hands on Lucy.

“ Not Chicheley,” Rook repeated, with the impatience of a man unused to being forced to repeat himself. “Before him, she spoke with someone else.”

“Who?”

“An agent of the Crown. Home Office. Sir Colin Semple. Not a member.”

Suddenly alert, Thorne set down his glass. The fact that Sir Colin wasn’t a member was worrisome—it meant he wasn’t one of the Home Office boys Rook could count on to look the other way when it came to the illegal gambling that took place at Sharpe’s. “He’s looking into the club?”

But Rook shook his head. “Don’t think so. Never approached me. Only her.”

“Why would such a man want to speak with Lucy? Aside from the obvious, of course.”

“Beautiful,” Rook agreed briefly, as impassive as if Lucy’s beauty was a quality that interested him no more or less than any other. He might just as easily have said tall . Or female .

“But he didn’t proposition her,” Thorne surmised. “Or at least, if he did, she didn’t mention it to me. Perhaps his advances were overshadowed by Chicheley’s more odious behavior.”

Rook didn’t think so. Thorne could tell by the way the man barely lifted that scarred brow. “Be careful, Thornecliff.” And with that dire warning, he left Thorne alone to brood into his brandy glass.

Accordingly, Thorne brooded and drank and brooded some more, and still the only conclusion he could come to was that it would be better for all concerned if he were to distance himself from Lucy and whatever this Home Office fellow wanted from her.

It couldn’t have anything to do with Thorne, or The Gentle Rogue. Only a paranoid narcissist would assume any conversation Lucy had must be about him.

But Thorne had learned at the tender age of twenty that there was no such thing as paranoia—his worst fears could and would manifest themselves, without warning. At around the same time, he’d also learned to put himself first, because no one else was going to.

So, call him a paranoid narcissist, but he was staying away from Lucy Lively. And if that decision just so happened to feel more like fleeing in panic than a strategic retreat, so be it. Thorne gave up on bravery and heroics a long time ago.

Since that night at Sharpe’s, he’d tried everything he could think of to banish Lucy Lively from his thoughts. But she wasn’t only lodged immovably in his mind, she seemed to have taken over his loins as well.

She was a witch. And his damned prick was under her spell.

Thorne knew himself to be a man of strong appetites. When he finally rebelled against his strict upbringing, he’d plunged wholeheartedly into hedonism and never looked back. His body craved pleasure—a lot of it.

But since that night at Sharpe’s, it had done nothing but betray him.

The most beautiful opera dancers and actresses left him unmoved. Coquettish young matrons and merry widows did nothing for him. He hadn’t even bothered visiting his favorite brothel.

Susannah Forrest had been a last resort. It was said that she could bring a dead man to attention—and Thorne was far from dead.

Death would have been a sweet release from the torment he was in.

Mrs. Forrest was currently under the protection of Lord Offaley but Thorne knew, without vanity, that she would never turn down the chance to trade in a mere lord for a duke.

So he’d sent her an invitation to dine at The Grand, ordered a dozen oysters and a bottle of French champagne, and grimly prepared to make love to a famed courtesan whether he wanted to or not.

Instead, he’d been accosted by the woman who was the cause of all his problems, he’d no doubt mortally offended Mrs. Forrest, and he’d made an utter arse of himself in front of half of fashionable London.

A red haze filmed his vision. He could barely see where he was going, but some unerring instinct drew him after Lucy.

As if she’d put a leash round his neck.

He lunged after her like a coursing hound, maddened into ferocity and angry at the entire world as he raced through the lobby and out to the street. When he caught sight of her rounding the corner at the rear of the hotel, he bellowed, “Lively! Stop running, damn you!”

Half a city block between them, he still saw the way she stiffened. For a moment, he was certain she would bolt—but no. Not his Lucy.

Not his Lucy. Damn it all to hell! She would ruin him.

She whirled to face him, her face white in the flickering glare of the new gas lamps that had begun to crop up all over London. A strong breeze whipped tendrils of dark hair from her intricate coiffure to lash about her cheeks.

“Go back to your lovely companion,” she spat, “and leave me alone.”

When she would have spun away, Thorne reached out and grabbed her by the arm.

And she turned into a wild cat, thrashing against his hold with such desperation, he was terrified for a moment that she would break her own wrist.

Letting go, he took a step back with his hands held up as though to gentle a frenzied animal. Lucy stared right through him for a moment, the whites of her eyes showing, before she blinked and seemed to come back to herself.

“Don’t grab at me like that,” she rasped, winding her arms around her own chest as if to keep herself from flying apart. “I don’t— I don’t like it since Chicheley…”

She broke off, leaving Thorne to fill in the unspoken words.

Since Chicheley assaulted me and attempted to force himself on me.

He hadn’t realized that incident had affected her so deeply. Thorne’s stomach roiled, and all the anger in him coalesced to focus on a single point—himself.

Who’s the monster now? The taunting voice in his head sounded very like the grim baritone rumble of his uncle’s voice. Or perhaps that was the thunder that rolled ominously overhead.

But this moment wasn’t about Thorne, and Lucy hadn’t fled his presence the moment she was free. Perhaps she would allow him to… Damnation, he didn’t know. Comfort her? He wouldn’t have the first idea how.

He had to make the attempt anyway.

“I won’t touch you,” he promised through the thickness in his throat. “Not if you don’t wish it. Lucy, I’m sorry. So sorry about what happened that night.”

He was talking about Chicheley and those no doubt terrifying moments when she’d found herself at the mercy of a man too drunk and entitled to have any.

Thorne should never have let her leave his side. Should never have gambled with her safety like that. It was unforgivable.

Add it to the long list of Thorne’s unforgivable sins.

But Lucy went pinched about the lips and her eyes snapped blue fire. “Oh, I know you have regrets. You’ve made that more than clear, Thornecliff.”

No longer Gabriel, he noted with a foolish pang. He’d been ignoring her for more than a week; of course she was angry.

She’d only said his name that one time. He shouldn’t miss hearing the sound of it in her voice this badly.

“Regrets are for people who want to be better,” Thorne said, attempting to recover his poise. “I am what I am, and I have no interest in changing.”

It was something he’d said before, an attitude he’d struck with his followers and friends, who had greatly admired it and repeated the sentiment far and wide. Lucy, however, merely lifted a skeptical brow.

“Change comes for us all, whether we will it or no. Even dukes.”

A frisson of something cool skated down his spine. The new plan. He had to stick to the new plan.

If he couldn’t cut Lucy out of his heart and mind, he could at least use what had happened tonight to keep her out of his life.

For both their sakes.

“I suppose you’re right,” he said deliberately. “After all, I’ve never before cared to take a mistress. But Mrs. Forrest is, indeed, extraordinarily lovely.”

The words landed between them like he’d flung a handful of dung at her feet. Lucy took a step back, her expressive face closing down as though she’d drawn the curtains across a window.

“Is that what you followed me out here to say?” she asked through bloodless lips. He was distantly, perversely proud of her steady tone, the dignified tilt of her chin.