Page 37 of The Rake is Taken

“Doesn’t matter where he lives if you plan to run him to ground the minute you get to London.”

“You’re going to make me wish I hadn’t told you about the dreams. I’m not going to let him meet his sister without me there to block the thoughts. I won’t make him go through that when I can help.”

Agnes gestured to the hulking man riding his stallion alongside them. “What doeshethink of this?”

Not much, Victoria could have admitted. Humphrey had reacted precisely as Finn said he would. Requesting every detail about the dreams, swiftly packing his bag, arguing with Piper and Julian about taking her with him, then giving up with a furious look that said someone—likely Finn Alexander—was going to pay for his predicament.

Finn knew the exact second they caught him.

Shecaught him.

It was three days later, when he stood on the lawn of Ashcroft House and Lady Parchant-Bingman’s lurid thoughts dribbled away like tea through a cracked cup, leaving his mind crystal-clear. He’d only come to discuss his sister’s whereabouts with the duke’s investigator and had instead gotten coerced into attending a soiree he’d no wish to attend. One he wouldn’t have been invited to if not for his unusually close relationship to the host. Now, he could only gulp a breath of night air scented with a wretched combination of lemon verbena and the Thames while accepting that the unstoppable flood of relief and joy at Victoria’s arrival meant he was truly buggered.

I’ve missed her, he realized and threw back the champagne he hadn’t wanted and had, damn it to hell, promised himself he wouldn’t drink.AndI’m not surprised she joined the chase.

Incredibly dangerous, the game they played.

One he nonetheless found himself very much wanting to play.

Lady Parchant-Bingman glanced over her shoulder, and upon seeing she and Finn stood behind a fountain that hadn’t filtered water in centuries, a nifty distance from the celebratory horde gathered on the lawn, hooked her finger beneath his shirt cuff and tugged him a step closer. He went, well, not willingly, but obligingly. It was hard to break old habits when he had absolutely no intention of doing anything else.

Of course, that’s how Victoria found him.

Standing too close to a woman he didn’t know in a biblical sense but appeared to. Her greedy finger tucked in his starched cuff, her gaze lifted as if she expected a kiss and wasn’t leaving without one. Finn stepped back awkwardly, surprising himself and the lady, while two foreign concepts peppered his unfettered mind. Shame at being caught in this situation when it was what hedid. And jealousy, a spiky flush that stung his skin as he noted Victoria’s fingers resting securely on Ashcroft’s forearm as he guided her around the fountain.

Moonlight and mist washing over them, the gorgeous couple, a first-rate example of refinement and culture, all the things he wasn’t even though he faked it very, very well.

One look at Tori, and he knew. She would make a marvelous duchess.

It was an odd feeling to shatter inside but remain standing. Julian’s words filtering through and making it worse.Cracks are how the light gets in, boy-o.

Victoria’s eyes were the color of a leaf frozen in ice when they met his.

“Julian worked quickly,” he murmured and glanced again at her fingers draped over Ashcroft’s elegant linen coat.Mine, shot through his mind as he shoved down the savage urge to yank her away from the duke, which would have been entertaining as all hell. A former soldier and chance mercenary when the instance called for it, Ashcroft would pummel him to within an inch of his life if he so much as breathed on him. Finn was an excellent marksman and damn good with a knife but a soldier of fortune he was not.

Ashcroft glanced between them, sensing unrest but looking too poleaxed to do much about it. He rubbed the fingertips of his left hand together, his cheeks ashen. Victoria’s gift was blocking his, as they’d expected, as he’d warned the duke earlier in the evening it might.

How long, Finn wondered, before Ashcroft asked for her hand in marriage? Forget love when your duchess could bringnormalcy.

A talent more valuable than the Queen’s jewels for those in their world.

Lady Parchant-Bingman studied each member of the group, searching for a salacious tidbit to impart later in the evening. Ashcroft rose to the challenge, releasing Victoria and turning to the inquisitive lady with a smooth laugh Finn knew to be the height of deceit. Though he considered him a friend, Ashcroft had the temperament of a caged lion and smiled only on the rarest of occasions. Humor was not in his repertoire. “Come, my lady, I have a better spot where you may view the pyrotechnics.”

Finn coughed into his fist. It always amazed him that a man consumed by flames wanted to entertain with fireworks. Of course, a passion for them did explain the blazes that occurred rather often at the duke’s estates.

Ashcroft threw Finn a droll look. “Mr. Alexander is going to escort Lady Hamilton to her companion, who was taken with a sudden bout of sneezing and retired to the resting room.” He slipped his watch from his waistcoat pocket and checked the time. Gave Finn another look, not so droll this one. “Fifteen minutes until the festivities begin if the rain holds off. Lady Parchant-Bingman, will you assist me in gathering everyone on the south lawn? I would appreciate it, and you are well-acquainted with most of those attending, I believe.”

Lady Parchant-Bingman preened, flashing Finn a molten look that said,later, my darling, but I must go, he’s a duke!

He watched them cross the sloping lawn, Ashcroft’s head bent toward the lady’s in resigned consideration, while the lady at Finn’s side stood silent and seething. Knowing no other way to approach the situation, he started with humor and a smile. Idly, he wondered how much the chipped tooth was affecting his presentation. “I neglected to inquire about your travels. Did Humphrey regale you with all the times he’s gone haring off after me? Mad dashes in the middle of the night due to my transgressions? How he’d rather discuss the plague than Julian’s chronology?” He snaked his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “When did you decide you’d rather leap from the carriage than listen to him bemoan his torturous fate for another bumpy mile? That usually hits me before we’ve made it to the end of Harbingdon’s drive.”

Victoria turned to him then, and he got his first good look at her in seventy-two hours. Enchanting in a lavender gown that flowed over her body like a waterfall, hair tucked in a lustrous arrangement she and Agnes certainly couldn’t take credit for, eyes glowing more hazel than green. That star-freckle next to her lip, his weakness, bringing him home like a beacon. She looked young, guileless, a little skittish. More than a shade vexed. Vulnerable, in a way that unwelcomely captured his heart—a verdict that would nurture her ire when she sought to present a vastly contradictory portrait. As he’d come to know her, her troublesome behavior had shown itself to be a way to protect a generous and intelligent heart. A way to prepare for a dismal future, much as he was doing. She was stubborn and impetuous, true, but nothing like Piper’s confident, devil-may-care comportment, which he’d confused Victoria’s with at first.

How could the mistake be helped when he’d never known another female before Piper? Not really, as his clandestine encounters had involved little actualinvolvement.

Surprising him, as he stood there debating how to lighten the mood since his chipped smile wasn’t doing the trick, she slipped her finger in his cuff and made a very unflattering mewing sound. “Oh, Mr. Alexander, you’re the most handsome man! Dreamy. Simply enough to make me lose my breath…and the microscopic thought contained in my tiny brain.”

Finn stilled, raw heat traveling from the point where kid leather grazed the underside of his wrist straight to his groin. “You’re jealous.” He followed this pronouncement with a bracing laugh that had her snatching her hand back and jamming it against her hip.