The Rake. Mary Jo Putney

on the wet ink, then pushed the documents across the desk. “Just sign these, and Strickland is yours.”

      Even furious, Reggie took the time to scan the papers, but all was in order. He scrawled his name across the deeds. As he signed the last one, the sound of a light footstep caused him to look up. A small, delicately blond young woman entered the study. Caroline, Lady Wargrave, had a dreamy face and an extraordinary talent for musical composition.

      Both men rose as she entered, and the earl and countess exchanged a glance that gave Reggie a pang of sharp longing. He envied his cousin’s inheritance of the wealth and power of Wargrave, and even more he envied the warmth that hummed between the earl and his wife. No women had ever looked at the Despair of the Davenports like that, nor ever would.

      After that brief, silent interchange with her husband, Lady Wargrave turned and offered Reggie her hand.

      The last time they had met, Reggie had been very drunk and behaved very badly, and Wargrave had damned near killed him for it. In spite of his lurid reputation, terrifying shy virgins was not something Reggie made a practice of, and he felt some awkwardness as he bowed over the countess’s hand. Mustering his best charm, he straightened and said, “My felicitations on your happy news, Lady Wargrave.”

      “Thank you. We are very pleased.” She smiled with quiet confidence. Marriage clearly suited her very well. “I never properly thanked you for the wedding gift you sent. Where on earth did you find one of Handel’s original music scores? Every time I look at it, I feel awe that he actually drew those notes and wrote those words.”

      Reggie smiled for the first time in this unsettling visit. The young countess had written him a formal thank-you for the wedding gift, so her desire to greet him in person must mean she had forgiven his boorish behavior. Perhaps that was one less sin that he would fry for. “I came across the score years ago in a bookshop. I knew that someday I would know who it was for.”

      “You could have chosen nothing that would please me more.” She started to turn away. “I’m sorry to have interrupted. I will leave you to your business.”

      “I’m about to depart,” Reggie said. “Unless you had something else you wished to discuss, Wargrave?”

      The earl shook his head. “No, there was nothing more.” Reggie hesitated, knowing he should thank his cousin. Not all men in the earl’s position would have the honesty to compensate for the sins of their predecessors. But Reggie was still far too angry about his uncle’s duplicity to be gracious. He gave an abrupt nod of farewell and left, barely aware of the butler, who ushered him from the house.

      Outside, Reggie tossed a coin to the footman who had been walking his horses, and vaulted into his curricle. But after settling in the seat, he simply held the reins in his strong hands as the horses tossed their heads, impatient to be off.

      Strickland. Bloody, bloody hell. He now owned the place that had been the site of his greatest happiness and most profound grief, and he had no idea whether he felt pleasure or dismay.

      His lips tightened, and he snapped the reins over the horses, turning the carriage neatly in the street. He needed a drink.

      Better yet, he needed a dozen.

      Caroline Davenport drew aside the curtain and watched her husband’s cousin depart, noting the tension in the whipcord lean figure as he drove away. Dropping the curtain, she asked, “How did he react to the news?”

      “Fortunately I didn’t expect gratitude, because I received none. Cousin Reggie is not a man who likes surprises. If I had simply cut off his allowance, it would have been easier for him to accept.” Richard limped to the window and put an arm around his wife’s waist. “He was also understandably furious to learn that my late, unlamented grandfather had illegally deprived him of his own estate.”

      Settling herself against her husband, Caroline said, “Do you think that becoming a man of property will make a difference to him?”

      Richard shrugged. “I doubt it. My grandfather must bear much of the blame for ruining him. Reggie once told me that he had wanted to go into the army, but the earl would not allow it. Instead my cousin was kept on a short leash, his debts paid but his allowance insufficient to give him any real freedom.”

      “What a horrid old man your grandfather was.”

      “True. But Reggie must take some of the blame himself. He’s highly intelligent and almost uncannily perceptive about people. Becoming a rake and a drunkard were not his only choices.”

      Caroline heard the regret in her husband’s voice. He took his responsibilities very seriously, and the part of him that had made an exceptional army officer grieved at the waste of Reginald Davenport’s potential. More than that, Reggie was the nearest relation on the Davenport side of the family, and Richard would have liked to be on friendly terms with him. But that was an ambition unlikely to be fulfilled. “Do you think he is too old to change his way of life?”

      “Reggie is thirty-seven years old and very well practiced in vice and outrageousness,” Richard said dryly. “Rakes sometimes reform, but drunkards almost never do. Lord knows, I commanded enough of them in the army. Most drank until they died of either bullets or whiskey. I expect my cousin will do the same.”

      Caroline rested her head against her husband’s shoulder. Reginald Davenport had once terrified her, but today she had seen him sober and polite, and for just a moment he had revealed a quite devastating amount of charm. There was good human material there, and she understood Richard’s desire to help his difficult cousin. It was an effort likely to fail. Still . . . “Miracles do happen. Perhaps one will this time.”

      “If Reggie really wants to change, I’m sure he is capable of it. But I doubt that he will try,” Richard said pessimistically. He drew his wife’s slim form more closely to his side and forced himself to put aside all thoughts of his wastrel cousin.

      He had done what he could. Hard experience had taught him that there was only so much one man could do for another.

      Chapter 2

      It was a bad day even before she awoke; whenever Alys had the nightmare, she was out of sorts for hours. Thank God, it came only two or three times a year.

      In the nightmare she was always just outside the French doors, hearing the drawling voice ask with bored malice, “Why on earth are you going to marry a bossy Long Meg like her? Ten feet tall and all bones. Not exactly the sort to warm a man at night, and with her managing ways she’ll keep you under the cat’s paw for sure.”

      After a brief pause her beloved would reply, not defending her, not mentioning the love he had eagerly proclaimed to her face. “Why, for money, what else? She’ll do well enough. Once I’m in control of her fortune, you’ll see who rules the roost.”

      The words triggered the familiar nausea and the shattering pain that had driven Alys to fly from the only life she had ever known. But this morning she was in luck. Before the dream could continue to her nadir of degradation, something tickled her nose. She sneezed, a sure way of waking up when one is near the surface of sleep.

      She opened her heavy lids to see a radiant nymph of dawn. The shining vision perched on the bed had guinea-gold curls, a flawless heart-shaped face, and eyes of a guileless cerulean blue. The sight of Miss Meredith Spenser, Merry to her intimates, had been known to gladden the hardest of hearts. While Alys’s heart was by no means hard, it took a great deal to gladden her at this hour of the morning. The sight of a young lady looking so ruthlessly cheerful, so early, was not enough.

      Before she could do more than glare balefully at her ward, a soft furry object fluttered across her face. Alys sneezed again. “What the devil . . .” She heaved herself up in the bed. “Oh, it’s you, Attila. I warn you, cat, the next time you wake me up with a tail in my face, I’m going to find a dog to feed you to.”

      Dividing her scowls impersonally between Merry and the cat, Alys pushed her heavy hair from her face. The braid she used at night had come untied as she tossed in