Page 36 of The Rake is Taken
Men, she concluded with a sigh.
He stared for a long moment, opened his mouth as if he would say more, then shook his head, bowed with more elegance than a barefooted, half-dressed man should’ve been able to, and entered the house through the door located just beneath her window. She heard it shut with a dull thump.
Conversation complete.
Victoria slid down the wall and dropped her head to her knees, drawing a breath to slow her racing heart. She didn’t like what Finn Alexander was doing to her usually steady equilibrium. “Fig,” she whispered as the image of Lucien wiping jam across his cheek came to her. Gorgeous, infuriating Fig.Kind, infuriating Fig. A man who thought to have a horse provided for her pleasure, riding an interest he knew she desperately wanted to do again but was afraid to try. And tormented, by a gift he couldn’t completely control. By his past. In some respect, by his bleak future. Whip-smart and sincere and funny—
“I’m sitting here listing the Blue Bastard’s attributes when I should be listing the Grape’s. If he has any.” Lady Grape had to be able to list the positives, didn’t she?
The real problem at the moment? Victoria felt outfoxed, skillfully cornered, cleverly maneuvered. Finn expected her to set this bit of fraternal theatre in motion. Alert the house to his departure. Provide details about her dreams. Patiently await his return while he solved the mystery. As if he’d tapped her politely on the head and said, “Be a good girl, and I may come back for more of those tantalizing kisses.”
She shoved to her feet with a reckless burst of umbrage, the scheme coming together in her mind.
She was going to alert the house to Finn’s departure.
Provide details about her dreams.
Then convince Julian—enlisting Piper’s assistance if necessary—that Finn needed his mind free of other’s thoughts when and if they found his sister. Keen, Victoria’s ability to block and thereby protect him.
She would present it just so.
While hiding her desperate desire to be by his side during what could be the most significant event of his life. She only knew, a soul-deep feeling, that she must be there.
And she wasn’t up to talking herself out of the decision.
Which meant she and the long-suffering, sniffling Aggie were going to accompany Humphrey on the chase.
Turning her back on the beautiful man and his beautiful plan, Victoria went to pack.
“Another daft scheme, this one. And I couldn’t talk you out of it. The years are catching up with me, it’s certain. Absolutely certain.”
Victoria turned from her penetrating review of the countryside outside their swiftly-moving carriage to her perturbed companion. Agnes looked as if she’d not only bitten into a lemon but swallowed it whole. “I have no idea what you’re referring to.”
“Don’t try that with me, young lady. Not when I’ve been around for all your heedless life. I won’t be easily fooled.” Agnes yanked a handkerchief from her reticule and sniffed into it. “As if discussing your prank with a clairvoyant viscount wasn’t bad enough, now we’re loping off after his equally-magical brother, a blue-eyed devil who gawks at you like a sweetmeat when he thinks no one is looking. He’s not so skillful at secreting, that one, even with all the stories. And the way you look at him”—she jabbed the scrap of lace-edged linen like a sword—“not much better.”
Victoria huffed, hoping it sounded like outrage when inside, a warm glow traveled from her chest to her knees. She would like to be Finn Alexander’s sweetmeat, which was a hopelessly pathetic aspiration. As for what she’d like to do tohim, it didn’t bear repeating to a woman who’d slept on a cot in her nursery for the first two years of her life. “We’re colleagues of sorts. Friends. Research associates.”
Agnes stuffed the handkerchief in her reticule and closed it with a snap. “Is that what they’re calling it now? I’m not so old that I don’t remember those blistering looks. Or the menace they bring.”
Victoria laughed and dropped her puzzle book to the velvet squab. She didn’t know much, not nearly enough, about Aggie’s past. “Care to tell me about that, Aggie? More interesting than the scenery.”
Her companion’s cheeks flushed the same color as the crooked initials embroidered on the corner of her handkerchief. “Not on your life, missy. I wouldn’t want to give you any ideas.”
Finn’s lips covering hers and setting fire to her body was something Victoria would never forget for as long as she lived. His long fingers curving around her hip and drawing her against him. The stunned look on his face when he finally drew back and looked into hers.
She needed no one to give her ideas when she had so bloody many herself.
“This is against my better judgment.”
Victoria peered at her puzzle book without seeing one word on the page. “Understood.”
“We could stay with your cousin, Alphonse,” Agnes chirped in that way she did when she knew she was fighting a losing battle. Like air was trapped between her tongue and her teeth. “I had no idea your father would let the house in Belgravia the moment we headed to Oxfordshire and your mother to Scotland. The situation must be even more dire than we thought.”
Victoria groaned and dropped her head to the seat. “Alphonse pinched my bottom the last time I shared a drawing room with him.” The thought of it still made her skin crawl.
Agnes tapped her reticule with a sigh. “He’s out then.”
“Beauchamp House is fully staffed. Finn doesn’t live there. We won’t be occupying the same house. It’s perfectly suitable.” She said the words, having no idea if they were entirely true.