Page 46 of The Rake is Taken
“Are you ready to tell me?” She gestured with a hunk of cheese to the scar on his chest.
He climbed to the bed and rested back against the bedpost, facing her but apart, worried he’d not be able to tell her if she touched him. “There’s not much,” he said, his voice raw, invalidating the assertion. “We found a boy with a tremendous gift. A runner assisting ships docking at the wharf. Freddie told the wrong people what he could do, and I didn’t get there in time when a group of sailors decided to brutally test him.” He took a weary pull from the bottle and circled his gaze to the ceiling, not ready to accept the sympathy he’d find coloring her eyes. Not prepared to let her see the guilt that surely lay heavily in his. “You know, the rookery where Julian and Humphrey found me isn’t far away. Part of the reason my living here vexes them. Why return to a slum once you’ve managed to crawl out of it?”
“It’s a good question,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes. Let the sound of her breathing, a shift in a floorboard belowstairs, the rustle of silk against her skin settle in his mind. “I was an undisciplined hooligan with a nasty mouth, spewing threats I couldn’t possibly defend. Beatings were routine, even expected. Learning my lesson, as it were, was out of the question. Not when I couldn’t reconcile my despair, not while being dipped in everyone else’s. Walking through the market, down the alleys, the fateful stories, the private misery revealed to me. The cloistered thoughts rushing through my mind were consuming me. And then there were the men.” Tilting his head, he opened his eyes to find the pitying expression he’d hoped to avoid paling her cheeks. He shrugged though the pain was still intense after all this time. “It’s what happens to the beautiful boys.”
She swallowed, her throat clicking. A tear streaked unchecked down her face, and she scrubbed it away. “But they…Julian, he saved you.”
“They mostly saved me, yes.” He took another sip, the wine storming his empty stomach. “Never fear, Humphrey’s punishment when he found them was brutal. In all honesty, it made me realize what crimes I hadn’t been born to perform. A shock to the system about how unprepared I was to live my life in a rookery. Though I was a very skilled thief, a decent enough lockpicker, I was no killer, and to survive, with this gift, one needed to be. Or standing behind someone who was. Anyway, that was that. I was removed from the vicinity. Finley Michel, unknown grandson to a marquis, became Finn Alexander, beloved half-brother to Viscount Beauchamp.”
He flinched when she leaned in, seeking to comfort. One touch and he would shatter. “The only person to truly suffer was my sister. Belle lost everything while I gained. A family, wealth, even if I stepped down a few levels societally, unbeknownst to me.”
Victoria ran a knuckle beneath each eye but had the sharp insight not to approach him again. Then, with a drawn breath, she stilled, her brow pulling in thought. “Ashcroft is downstairs,” she said, smoothing her fingertips together as if they’d just gotten hot.
Finn took another drink, the wine beginning to slacken his awareness. “The troops have arrived. I suspected Humphrey would ferret us out at some point. Ashcroft is a bit of a surprise.”
Victoria scrambled to his end of the bed, her hands going to cradle his jaw, drawing his somber gaze to her frantic one. “I can’t do this with someone else. Iwon’t. You’re happy to bed every woman in this city but I—”
“Do you think this is like anything I’ve ever experienced?” He shoved to his feet, wine splashing down his arm and to the faded carpet. At her weak smile, he growled, “I don’t know why my anger always seems to goddamn amuse.”
She scooted to the edge of the mattress, her adorable body covered by almost nothing, sending his thoughts in a stupendously lascivious direction. “Because it’s real, Blue. Not that tedious mockery you show the ton.” She wiggled her elegant little toes and cast a shy glance his way. A tender look that melted his heart right where he stood. In a puddle with the bloody wine.
He found himself saying in desperation, “If Ashcroft offers, accept.” Ignoring her startled gasp, he stepped back, creating distance in the only way he knew how. “You would make a wonderful duchess and instantly decrease the odds of Mayfair going up in flames. It’s a win-win, as they like to say on the gaming floor two stories below. Earlier, I woke from a nightmare with a knife in my hand, Tori, which should tell you all you need to know about how far apart our worlds are.”
She shot to her feet and caught him in the shoulder, a glancing blow that nonetheless sent him stumbling. “Oh, you would love to fob me off on the Fireball Duke, wouldn’t you? Tie everything up in a tidy package, no remorse, no bother. Victoria placed in a proper, agreeable situation and everyone’s ecstatic!”
He smacked the wine bottle atop the sideboard and grasped her shoulders. “Actually, I wouldn’t.”
“It’s my choice who I give myself to. Not in marriage, perhaps, but inthis.”
She didn’t realize. Much of anything.
That her family had more control over her future than she would have liked. That he’d never been able to play in bed. Be spontaneous. Be himself. Laugh, smile, tease,enjoy. She didn’t realize how awful it was going to be to watch her marry someone else. The Fireball Duke, the Grape, anyone but him. “I want you,” he growled and shook her to help the words sink in, “but you’re not mine. I want to spend the next year inside this room, insideyou, discovering every hidden piece of you, bodyandmind. Talking and touching and baring my soul. But I’m not changing who I am, not taking the potential avenue of escape that’s been offered by claiming the Laurent name, grandson of a marquis, which would never be accepted anyway. The byblow of a viscount I’ll remain, untouchable for you. Let’s be clear on this point. I’d be untouchable no matter the circumstance.”
As tears flooded her eyes, he pressed his brow to hers, so he didn’t have to see them shimmer and flood molten gold. “You don’t understand the level of ruin you would face should you link yourself to me. You can’t possibly imagine what it’s like to be an outcast in every room you enter.”
“Was this”—she gestured to the rumpled bed—“because you can’t read my mind?” He felt her tears dampen his skin, the faint hiccup as she tried to hold them back wrecking him. “Is my blocking the attraction, a talent I don’t want or know how to use?”
He wanted to lie, it would be the easiest way to push her in the right direction, but he couldn’t do it. “No,” he whispered and curled his hand around the nape of her neck, bringing her lips to his in a graceless kiss born of all the things he couldn’t admit. Offer.Do.
She was crowding him into the wall, arms rising to circle his shoulders, deepening their exchange and weakening his resolve, when the knock sounded. Very light, more of an announcement than an interruption. Finn turned to see an envelope sail under the door and skate across the floor. With leaden steps, he stepped away from her and went to retrieve it.
La fin de l’amour, the end of love, Finn thought as he read the note.
“Finn, for pity’s sake, tell me what it says.”
“You were seen kissing Ashcroft at his summer party. The Earl of Hester stumbled upon the two of you behind a fountain, and he couldn’t help but share the scandal—though he fingered the wrong man, the senseless bloke—and it ended up in the gossip sheets. Which had Rossby notifying your family posthaste that he wants to move up the wedding date.”
“Move up the date,” she whispered, her hand going to her throat and holding tight.
“Despite the scandal, he still wants you. Knowing that a duke mightily trumps a baron should you feel the need to amend your selection, Rossby sent a rather threatening note to Ashcroft telling him to back off, or he would make things exceedingly difficult for your family. If he cares for you, don’t make this scandal worse seems to be the extract.”
It was insanity that Finn felt a hot lick of rage becausehe’dnot been the man Hester connected Victoria to. The man who’d kissed the life from her behind that damned fountain. When his name had been splashed across those sheets more times than he could count, and he’d never cared about misrepresentation before. “If we only knew what Rossby held over your family, we could easily clear the path for Ashcroft.”
He glanced up to find Victoria clinging to the bedpost, her fist clutching his shirt to keep it from sliding off her shoulder. Fury stained her cheeks a most becoming shade of cherry as her lips drew into a fierce line he’d come to know well. “Even if you clear the path, I won’t do it,” she vowed, her words dropping like stones in a still pond. “I won’t marry either of them.”
“Yes, you will,” he said quietly and crumpled the sheet in his fist. “Because I’m not offering another option. Not when a bloody dukedom, the most secure future imaginable, is possible with a little reconnaissance. You’ll be safe from anyone who hoped to find you, respected, secure. With the most impressive title in the ton. Deep down, you know I’m right.”