Page 3 of The Rake is Taken

Lady Hamilton’s defiance seemed insignificant on the surface—stolen kisses; midnight fountain dips; ballroom floors covered in glass, a diversion he’d created to give her time to remove herself from an unfortunate situation with a debauched heir to an earldom.

Insignificant, when the stuff of Finn’s dreams was not.

In truth, the turmoil surrounding the lady captivated him. In his darkened midnight and outside it.

Perhaps he was lonely. Bored. Angry. Guilty. Emotions urging him to embrace chaos in a way he’d never felt the need to before.

Chaos. Which, in lethal tones of late, Julian claimed Finn was addicted to.

The thought of his brother slipped a forlorn cloak over Finn’s mood. Humphrey, another brother of sorts, would be even more cross with him. They were allowed. It had been months since he’d been home, ignoring pleas from a family worried, and with just cause. Months spent trying to forgive himself for misjudging a situation and costing a boy his life. A boy who’d come to the League, Julian’s community of supernatural outcasts, with the same challenge—saddled with a gift he couldn’t control.

Finn shoved his hand deep in his pocket to keep from reaching for the scar on his chest, a throbbing reminder of his failure.

Failure that had injected fear in his veins for the first time since Julian and Humphrey dragged him from that filthy hovel all those years ago. Made him stumble when he’d previously sauntered. Revealed a man struggling to hide his true self under layers of sickening but accomplished charm, a convoluted package he couldn’t take home to Harbingdon just yet. When someone loved you, they noticed things you tried to conceal. At leasthisfamily did. Julian, Humphrey, Piper…

They would see how bloody damaged he was, straight off.

As if on cue, Lady Hamilton gave the baron/marquess a jaunty half-wave and backed through the terrace doors. Finn smiled, lips curving against crystal, snagging the interest of Countess Ronson, who paused next to him with a wink. Although Finn warmly recalled herverytalented mouth, he was already on the move, his focus solely on his prey. The crowd’s hushed attention hammered him as he worked his way across the ballroom and out the terrace doors. A high-born bastard, he was considered acceptable entertainment, an appealing party favor.

The woman he chased seemed indifferent to him, however, having never once cast a look his way. Which was not the norm, he admitted with absolutely no pleasure. In any case, her disinterest made it easier to track her because she never looked back. That, and a gown the color of the hibiscus bush that bloomed beneath his bedchamber window at Harbingdon each spring. Would be blooming now, in fact. The hue glowed like a beacon, pulling him along in its silken grip.

The season was ending. It was time to retire to the country, to gohome. The smell of cut grass and turned earth and pine sap flowed from his memory to his heart. He palmed his aching chest as he trailed Lady Hamilton around the corner of the townhouse, her gown flaring like a wisp of smoke behind her. Her scent, piquant, spicy, close to cinnamon butnot, suffused the air, eroding the lingering note of cheroots, bergamot, and the moist promise of rain.

Mocking his endeavor, the storm chose that moment to announce itself with a soggy release that had everyone scattering, shrieking, through the terrace doors and back into the ballroom.

Not his lady, however.

Without hesitating, she slipped through a darkened servant’s entrance and into the private quarters of the house.Hell and damnation, he thought and followed, the smell of hearth fires, boiled cabbage, and mold sucking him into a narrow, uninviting service hallway. He hoped to avoid another rescue, especially as the damsel was unaware of his chivalry.

Traversing the deserted bowels of the house, that wisp of pale indigo silk was his guide. Halting before the room she’d disappeared into, Finn nudged the door wide. Gas sconces spilled light across the faded Axminster rug and revealed Lady Hamilton, thumbing through ledgers scattered across the imposing desk centering the room, her back to him, unaware.

He corrected his assessment, no passable thief, this one. Just an impulsive girl in the midst of calamity. Tossed into his world for no reason he could fathom.

But he would take the time to find out.

A book lay in his path, and he’d just enough brandy to take the edge off his balance. It went skidding into the wall with a thump. If he were back in the rookery, he’d be dead after tracking anyone this badly. He’d gotten rusty, lazy because larceny was only for sport now.

When she turned, his breath seized. Amber light fell in a tantalizing waterfall over a body drenched from the squall. Sodden silk clinging to each subtle curve, she exuded tempestuous beauty, an incomprehensible expression, and notonethought he could capture. Slim as a reed, andtall. More so than he’d judged from their chance encounter on St. James. Almost able, with a searching tilt of her head, a nudge to spectacles he’d never seen her wear before, to look him in the eye. Which, because he was feebly constructed, made him wonder what it would be like to take her while standing, with less concern over the always-present difference in height.

Pushing the suggestive thought from his mind, he moved a step closer, but let his arms fall out in supplication.Friend, not foe. At least he thought this was the case. His dreams hadn’t been completely clear on this point. “Searching for something?”

Adding additional appeal, curls the color of warmed honey had escaped her damp coiffure to gently frame her face. Light bounced off her lenses, drops of rain dusting the glass until he marveled she could see through them. He was impressed, he had to admit, by her calm acceptance of the intrusion. “I’m snooping since you barged in and asked,” she finally said. Her gloved hand flexed once where it lay on the desk, her only nervous tell.

“Dangerous business. Anyone could come along.” Finn brushed lint from his sleeve in what had become a habitual show of insouciance he wished he could jettison from his behaviors. “I wasn’t trying very hard to conceal.”

“Obviously,” she murmured with a look thrown to the book sitting topsy-turvy in the corner. Then she returned to her task as if he’d not come upon her sorting through Baron Samuelson’s correspondence. His gaze tumbled from her neck to her waist as she shifted, and he was no poet, but she reminded him of a sleek, meticulously crafted vase, delicate and tenderly rounded. Minute etchings waiting to be discovered if one inspected carefully. A crack, perhaps, to keep things interesting. Flaws you could run your fingers, your lips, and tongue over and settle in for the night.

At the continued silence, she lobbed a pointed glance his way. She had a mysterious look to her with the dark hair and eyes, until she appeared, except for the exquisite gown, like an urchin who’d stumbled in from a part of London she’d likely never even seen. He watched, mildly disappointed but not surprised, as she underestimated him with one painstakingly candid perusal, her decision rendered by the time she hit his polished Wellingtons.

Harmless rake who’d sought her out for the usual reasons.

A perfectly acceptable verdict about Finn Alexander, bed-hopping byblow of a deceased viscount. A role he’d perfected until evenhewas unable to separate fact from fiction. Which was noteworthy as his persona was a figment of his not-actually-blood-brother Julian’s rather creative imagination. Julian’s desire to protect Finn at all costs.

“Blue, since you’re here, you can assist,” she instructed and slapped a stack of correspondence in his hand. “We’re looking for anything from my father, the Earl of Hanschel, or Baron Rossby, my intended.”

He glanced at the letters, intrigued despite himself.Blue. So she knew who he was. Short for the Blue Bastard. Senseless, the nickname, but what could one do? He’d once been discomfited by his eyes, his looks because they seemed to halt people, not only women, in their tracks. Attractiveness that had made him somewhat infamous in the ton. Along the way, nonetheless, he’d found ways to use it. “I’m doing this, why?” he asked and slanted the envelopes into the light for better viewing.

She sighed through her nose, charm personified. “Wouldyouwant to marry Baron Rossby?”