Page 2 of The One With the Scoundrel of a Duke (Wicked Widows’ League #31)

L UCAS SAT IN THE Pig and Fiddle tapping his drink.

Wallace was certainly taking a long time with that piss he had gone to take—Lucas checked his pocket watch—thirty minutes ago.

That couldn’t be right. What was the man doing?

He had tripped, fallen, and knocked himself out?

Lucas wouldn’t put it past the man. He’d heard the story of Wallace singeing his eyebrows off last winter jumping over a bonfire.

Or had it only been one eyebrow? Either way…

the real question was what the deuce the man had been doing jumping over a bonfire.

It didn’t bode well that Wallace hadn’t been seen for the past thirty minutes.

Lucas’s hand migrated from his drink to his thigh where he started patting out a rhythm.

This was taking far too long. But did he really want to go after the chap?

That seemed a bit…motherly. Wallace was a grown arse man and didn’t need a duke checking up on his welfare.

But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to just get up and walk about. He felt a touch the fool sitting with two drinks in front of him at an open table. And then he felt a real touch. A lingering finger dragging along his shoulder across the back of his neck and over to the other side.

“Lucas,” the sultry voice drawled out. “So nice to see you here. In the daytime.”

Lucas looked up at the buxom blonde, a woman he had regretfully (and recently) almost spent a night with.

“Carlotta,” he greeted her with a curt nod and the briefest of glances.

Much the way a person acknowledged a sign post that meant nothing to them, and one they only planned to ride on by and ignore. Or disobey. Whichever fit the moment.

The widow, Carlotta, had spent ages seducing him while he refused. Her not so subtle glances at dinner parties. Her not so discreet pawings on his forearm. And her grossly ostentatious (not to mention audacious) requests to take him home. They had all been in good fun—or something like it—for her.

She was a widow, so yes, she was fair game for his rakish behavior. But she had a way about her that warded him off. That way was a clingy habit otherwise known as showing up in the daytime where a man retreated looking for peace.

One fateful night last week, with alcohol ever so subtly slipping over the edge of his threshold, he had almost acceded to her seductive request. They had made it as far as her front door when he found some excuse to head home.

Even that much acquiescence gave her too much hope, and now he was paying the consequences.

And, yes, he was trying to manage the mounting regret as well, not to mention the annoyance that she was, in fact, invading his place of retreat. In the daytime.

Well, thankfully, he had the perfect out. He gestured toward the other drink, which she mistook (intentionally or ignorantly) as an invitation to take a seat.

“As you can see,” he decided to speak past the faux pas, “I have a guest who has not yet returned. I really must go find him.” Hopefully not face down in his own—

“A guest?” She gave a coquettish smile that turned his stomach, but not in the good way.

It felt like the kind of night where a man was trying to find some peace and simply go to sleep, but couldn’t find slumber due to indigestion, a rolling stomach, insides in turmoil that really ought to be spewed outside.

“Yes.”

“A woman, you mean?” she narrowed her eyes as she spoke. Yes. Clingy. And apparently untrusting. He shuddered.

Not wanting to repeat the gender, or reveal any other information, about his guest, he stood. “Please, order what you like and put it on my tab, but I must go in search.”

“I’ll go with you—”

He put up his hand, a command exactly the sort to be used on a dog. “Please, no. I couldn’t trouble you with that.” He took off before she could respond and exited the tavern desperate for a breath of fresh air.

His steps beat down the cobblestone road when he merged onto the main street, it was a rhythm he meant to keep to avoid Carlotta from following him. She would just be the kind to do exactly that.

And he didn’t have time or energy to manage Carlotta. Much as he disliked his ever-deteriorating reputation, Carlotta was not the answer. In fact, she might not be the answer to any question. That was rude. She was the answer for someone, he was almost sure, just not for him.

Being a rake hadn’t been so bad when he was younger.

He had embraced the label and encouraged other young men to follow his lead.

But now that he was half way through his thirties, it was growing a bit tedious to manage woman after woman after woman.

Especially when said woman was a wheedling widow that he wanted to ward off.

Never mind his reputation, he had enough worries with his estate.

His man of business, the one looking after all his affairs was in desperate need of some kind of vacation or break.

He was working himself senseless. And although Lucas knew that a simple vacation was not the answer, he wasn’t quite sure what was.

Trying to think of a solution was taking up quite a few of his daytime hours since he needed this man to stay stable and dependable if he wanted his estates to continue running smoothly.

It was enough to drive a man to drink. And to wooing widows. Hence his current predicament.

Increasing the distance between him and Carlotta, he truly hoped that if the road was busy enough, she wouldn’t make a move.

It had been a mistake to almost spend the night with her.

He knew it. He knew it was going to be a regret, so why had he given in even as far as he had?

Ugh. He drowned the hint of vulnerability that attempted to seep to the surface, opting instead to distract himself with his surroundings.

He plodded past the modiste’s shop until he thought he had gone far enough away from the tavern.

His ears perked up at the sound of a song, and he headed in its direction. He arrived just in time to hear the performer start his song, If e’er there were a time to love…

The music captured his full attention, including a depth that he ignored. The lyrics were…well, they were about love. What a powerful message to share on a crowded street. He applauded the man once the song finished, and that’s when he noticed he wasn’t the only one enraptured by the song.

There.

A woman stood in a frumpy dress that did no justice to her lithe frame. Her blonde locks partially covered her face and her hands clapped lightly in front of her, acknowledging the talent they had both witnessed.

She was…it felt ridiculous to think it…but the tug on his skin was undeniable. She was different. There was a profound beauty about her, but also an expansive melancholy.

But perhaps it was more severe than melancholy.

He studied her face, the glimmer in her eyes, the way her hands touched in their claps but didn’t produce much sound.

Just barely able to make out the toes of shoes when her skirts swished, he saw her toes pointed slightly inward, as though she were on guard.

She was languishing.

In plain sight.

And the tug on his skin went deeper. Almost…to his heart.

Heart? What heart? He wasn’t sure his existed anymore.

In fact, he was pretty sure that whatever heart he had was long gone with the rest of his family.

Growing up as an orphaned duke, he had been surrounded by servants and staff.

Never love. Despite all of that, he was confident that he had done well for himself so far.

Happy enough. Wealthy enough. Enough was enough.

It always had been and it always would be.

Besides, the land was first and foremost in his mind. An heir would be his next priority. With that came a marriage-mindset. Perhaps by then people would release him from their gossiping grasp as the leading rake in England.

All in good time he would find what he needed.

A clap on his back shocked him out of her musings. Damn it! Had Carlotta found him? He didn’t want to look. Wait. She wouldn’t have slapped him so hard. It couldn’t be her.

“There you are! Been looking for you, ol’ man,” Wallace said with another clap between his shoulders.

“You’ve been looking for me. That’s rich.”

“I have been. And then I saw the widow Carlotta heading in this direction and thought surely she must be following you.”

With dread, Lucas’s eyes darted around. But Wallace slapped him out of his apprehension.

“Don’t worry. I told her I thought I saw you duck into the bookshop. When she doesn’t find you there, perhaps she’ll be distracted long enough for you to get away.”

Lucas sighed in relief.

“Told you I’ve been looking for you.”

“Odd since you’ve been gone for over an hour to take a piss.”

“That’s not all I did,” Wallace said with a wink.

“Right. I don’t want to know.”

Wallace’s laugh rang out on the street causing several heads to turn in their direction. But when Lucas looked up to see if the laugh had captured the attention of the beautiful blonde woman, she was gone.