Page 40 of The Rake is Taken
Wild-eyed. Well-loved. Wrecked.
And there was no need to contemplate how shefelt.
Humphrey and Agnes were not going to believe a single word she said when she lied to them about the evening’s events.
Victoria barely slept, wrenching awake with every shift and settle of Julian’s townhome until she gave up and did puzzles until dawn, then went down to the kitchens to shock the staff and ask to be allowed to bake. They were stunned but cordial—and ungifted, according to Humphrey—likely only thinking how odd the titled class was, working when one didn’t have to. Baking, of all things.
She learned nothing new while preparing cinnamon waffles and blueberry scones to accompany the standard fare of kippers, beans, and eggs. Humphrey was respected but solitary, Finn adored but forlorn. Imagine living above a gaming hell when he could reside in Mayfair, where rubbish didn’t litter the streets, and the stink of the Thames was beaten down by the scent of lemon and vinegar. The consensus was, with notably engrossed looks thrown her way, that both men needed wives to straighten out their regrettable existences.
Victoria pressed dough and sprinkled spice and slid tray after tray into the oven—only burning herself once—as the previous night rotated through her mind like the wheel of an overturned carriage. Finn’s fingers cupping her breast, teeth nipping her bottom lip, hips grinding, pressing his long, hard length against her. Eagerly pleasurable perfection, all of it. Raw and spontaneous, gasping breaths, trembling limbs, moist skin. Amazingly, she’d come close to securing that intense feeling she’d found in her darkened bedchamber, her hand tucked between her legs in exploration.
My, what would it—he—feel like if they had greater access? Free of clothing, lying on a bed or a sofa or the floor, where she didn’t have to stretch to reach his mouth? Or any other part of his body. She pressed her fingertip to a cooling scone and shivered. The landau she’d traveled home in last night was extremely spacious. The brocade settee in her bedchamber big enough for two if the two were pressed close together. One atop the other would undoubtedly work. Before the hearth, on the sweeping marble staircase, in the linen closet she’d passed this morning.
Her imagination overflowed with possibilities.
However, men didn’t crawl into linen closets with women they compared to dynamite.
A statement she had no idea whether to consider a compliment or an insult.
As she was pulling the last of her scones from the oven, Humphrey stomped into the room, took one look at her and snapped, “I’ll be damned.”
Placing the tray on the metal shelf at her side, she swiped her hand across her brow. “Excuse me?”
Humphrey yanked his hat from his head and beat it against his thigh. “I was worried when I couldn’t locate you after last night’s fiasco, Ashcroft’s piss-poor job of management, you coming back without that crying maid of yours, looking like you’d been tossed over someone’s shoulder. Look in the kitchens, Finn tells me when he arrives, flecking a spec from his sleeve, cool that one. I ask myself, how does he get that if he isn’t pocketing your thoughts, which we all understand he’s not. But here you are—like he knows you better than you know yourself. Like my suspicions about the two of you are on the money, a safe bet I’m feeling close to crying over because it gives me that itchy, fated feeling I haven’t had since Julian and Piper got tangled up. But a gentleman is supposed to forego stating the obvious, isn’t that the way it works? So I’ll be a gentleman and not say what I honestly think is going on here.”
Her temper sparked. “As I told you and Agnes—”
“I know what you told me.” He exhaled and jammed his hat on his head. “What you told that unfortunate woman whose job it is to corral you.”
“But—”
“Listen, princess, are you going with us or not?” He grabbed a scone and bit into it, squinted at her as if doubting she could make something so delicious, then took another bite. “Having Finn’s mind on the task at hand and not on the usual confusion cluttering his brain is a crafty idea. Even if you used it as leverage to get to London, you were right to suggest it.”
She stilled, her heartbeat tripping into a mad rhythm. “He’s letting me go,” she breathed.
Humphrey regarded her with a penetrating gaze as he polished off the scone and reached for another. “Only if you want. No one’s forcing.”
Oh, she wanted.
So many delicious things she’d never get.
Chapter 13
The dwelling Ashcroft’s investigator directed them to was a hovel.
Located in an area by the docks Finn guessed Victoria had never set foot in. Likely her servants hadn’t even stooped to crawling this far down society’s ladder, even for blood oranges or Moroccan coffee straight off the boat. He almost laughed when absolutely nothing about this was amusing. They weren’t far from where he’d taken a knife in the chest trying to save Freddie. Maybe this woman Victoria claimed was his sister had even scurried by him that day, rushing past another person bleeding out on the wharf.
A putrid gust lashed his back, giving him an unsolicited nudge toward the door he stood before. One knock against pitted wood to change his life. Conversely, he could turn to the woman standing close behind him and change it in another way entirely.
Both choices terrified him.
Drawing an agitated breath, he identified the scent of hyacinth and cinnamon riding above the rank aroma of charred meat and coal smoke.Tori. His sweet-smelling companion hadn’t uttered one word this morning—the carriage ride had been tense and joyless, propelled by his somber countenance—but he felt what could only be called protective support radiating from her. From Humphrey, which was his norm. Maybe even from sniffling, woebegone Agnes. She likely worried about everyone and then some, the hapless woman.
With a resigned sigh, Victoria reached around him and knocked, her gloves worth more than a year’s lease on this dilapidated space. Finn heard the tumblers shift without the occupant asking who stood on the other side of the door, and the questions raced through his mind.
Who am I? What if I can’t live with what I find out?
And finally…how do I know this is real?