Page 23 of The Rake is Taken

Simon rotated a coin between his fingers, sunlight glinting off the metal and casting sparks on his striped waistcoat. At one time, he’d been the most renowned cutpurse in London, to this day able to perform sleight of hand better than any magician could hope to. “You’re starting to sound just like him. A boring, old toff.”

Finn felt his second sizzle of temper, the first occurring when Humphrey dragged him from the kitchens. He rarely got angry in London, but his family had the uncanny ability to rouse him in seconds flat. It broke his heart to imagine the ‘racket’ Simon had to sleep through before the League found him living in St. Giles, a hellhole even worse than the one he, Julian, and Humphrey had escaped from. The fact he had to endure daily conversations with ghosts—orhauntsas he called them—had made for an unbearably troubling childhood. Losing patience with himself and Simon, Finn ripped into an envelope like he was slitting a throat. “Do you imagine my dissolute lifestyle is a suitable model for a young man to witness? We’re trying to separate you from depravity, Si, not draw it closer.”

Simon’s face took on the rosy shade of a beet as he shoved to his feet. He gave his nose a vicious swipe. “You could change your life if you wanted to. Less debauchery, less everything, for your family. Find a wife and make a proper home, then take me with you. You’re my brother, too, not just his, and you left when I needed you! Do you think it’s easy with all these people in my head, standing by my side? Living life with me! Telling me things I don’t want to hear?” With a hand that trembled, he shoved the coin in his pocket. “But the blasted women mean more than I do, I guess,” he said on a tear-laden breath and sprinted from the room, slamming the door behind him.

“Brilliant,” Finn ground out and yanked his hand through his hair. The tender age of fourteen was proving to be a difficult one for Simon to navigate. The scar on Finn’s chest chose that moment to throb, reminding him of Freddie and therealreason he’d been keeping his distance for months. One boy reminding him of the other. A venomous circle of guilt and worry, and then more guilt.

It was frightening to love someone and still be unable to make everything better. Make everything perfect. Smooth their path so they’d never stumble.

When Simon joined their family, he’d been a filthy, willful eight-year-old rescued from a flash house crawling with thieves, vagrants, prostitutes. Abused and tormented, he’d trusted no one. Stolen almost every piece of silver in the house, picked every lock, every pocket, told every lie, before finally letting someone—Finn—into his heart. Two orphaned gutter rats who recognized something desperate in the other.

Simon mistakenly believed Finn would choose anything,anyone, over his family, when he loved the boy like a son, with his every breath. Finn swore and hurled his knife at the door, where it stuck deep, quivering.

He was on his feet to retrieve it when the knock sounded. “No,” he snapped, caring little who stood on the other side. Although he knew who stood on the other side. He could feel the ripple beneath his skin, the warning squeeze in his gut. And no one’s thoughts intruded. His mind was clear.Damn her.

She knocked again, tenacious to the end. “Let me in, Blue,” she pleaded. “I need a moment without a roomful of people staring at me with dreamy eyes. Oh, here they come. Just five minutes without being anyone’s savior. Please, I beg of you.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, groaned, laughed.Hell. Opened the door to find Victoria Hamilton, fetching in a gown the color of the roses crowding the estate flowing over her supple, elegant body. Her skirts brushed his legs as she passed, a delicious tickle, her perfume—delicate and dreadfully feminine—trailing just behind. It astounded that nothing came to him but the look and scent of her. Not one private thought, not one. Like a normal, pathetic man, he was left to figure out what a woman was thinking for the first time in his existence.

She watched in enthrallment as he yanked the knife from the door, snapped it shut, and slid it neatly in his pocket. “Our research appointment with Julian isn’t scheduled to begin for another half-hour,” he said.

“Yes, yes, I know. I’m early. And remarkably, you’re here.” She tipped her shoulder toward the door. “Close that, will you? Maybe then they won’t find me.”

Following her directive, he closed the door and rested against it, knowing he shouldn’t but doing it anyway. “How untoward, Lady Hamilton. What would poor, devoted Agnes say about you shutting yourself in a library with a man of my reputation?”

“She would faint, more than likely. Although with my reputation, maybeyoushould be frightened. As it is, she’s in bed with a garlic poultice. The peculiar inhabitants of Harbingdon are giving her the vapors. A saltshaker slid across the table by itself at breakfast, and that was that. She’s having none of what she calls the spooks at the moment.”

Finn lifted off the door with a startled chuckle. “Oh, my, is she going to have a horrendous summer. Wait until Simon tells her about the haunts who reside on the estate, the ones likely sitting beside her at dinner.”

“Indeed,” she agreed, her gaze tracking him as he circled the desk and collapsed to his chair with a squeak of stiff leather. Her regard lit him up, a modest glow, a sensation he didn’t remember feeling before. Possibly because thoughts were rampaging his mind, and they’d dulled his reception.

Not comfortable being honest with her, he released a practiced, flat smile. The Blue Bastard’s façade firmly in place, which made him feel secure and dejected.

What do you want, Tori? Rest assured I may not care. I’ll undoubtedly act like I don’t.

She gave her spectacles a boost, pinched her lips together, contemplating her words, sweetly nervous, which perversely made his cock stiffen even as a dart of dread at what she might say pierced him. She was patient, a thinker. A strategist, as he was, even if he didn’t look the part. Evidently, intelligent women appealed when he’d been settling for senseless ones all this time. “You seem troubled,” she finally decided on with a pointed glance at the gash in the door.

His erection wilted. Solid choice of topic, he thought grimly. “Family matters.”

She walked to the bookshelf, freed a slim book of poetry, and turned it over in her hand. “Troubled, when I would give anything to have so many people care about me. You’re the most popular person in Oxfordshire. Sincere affection, too, unlike the rabid thirst in London. That’s not a burden, it’s a godsend.”

The third jolt of anger this morning raced through him. “Did I say it was a burden, my lady?” Swallowing tightly, he smoothed his hand over his chest, the thought too close to the one he’d had when he threw the damned knife.

She pivoted to face him, her eyes highlighted in the sunlight, a mix falling somewhere between the color of spring soil and autumn leaves. They were changelings, altering with her mood. As they stared, lost, a gust raced through the window and sent papers drifting about the room like snowflakes. “Would you like to talk about it?”

It.The scar. She’d seen the mark that night at the Blue Moon. Her gaze had lingered on the open collar of his shirt and the angry slash beneath for long enough. “Not without a lot to drink, no, I don’t think I would.”

She replaced the volume and circled the room, stopping before a stack of books he used when translations were getting complicated. “Medieval Latin,” she murmured. “I have to admit, Blue, I’m impressed. What a mind you’ve been hiding. A fantastic gambit. You’ve fooled them all.”

His skin heated—no way to admit it was anything but pleasure—just enough to let him know what a daft fool he was. Enough to let him know much he liked this snappish, enchanting, clever woman and her incidental observations. “Not bad for a gutter rat, I suppose.”

Signaling an impending storm, another breeze lashed the room, ripping a strand from her wobbly chignon and slinging it across her cheek. England surely couldn’t let them have more than two hours of sunlight without recompense. Tipping his head against the curled tuft of the chair, he let his lids slide low though he could still see every delicious inch of her. “Your hair has a mind of its own. As feral as your temper.”

He watched her reaction unfold, fascinated to his toes. A slight lift of her hand to smooth the errant strands, then stubborn denial of the impulse. Brave girl. With a playful smile he’d give a thousand pounds to be allowed to decipher, she crossed to the desk, steepled her fingertips on the edge and leaned in. “Now that you mention it, do any of those desk drawers hold a pair of scissors?”

Scissors? But he found a pair readily enough, offered them with the sharp edge flattened against his palm. No need to encourage treacherous behavior.

“Turn,” she ordered and drew her finger in a tight air-circle. “And take off the jacket.”