A Rake for Christmas. Ann Lethbridge

“I know,” he rasped. “But it isn’t good form to approach a lady without a proper introduction.”

      He fixed his gaze back on that delicious derriere, his ears imagining her calling in the low throaty tones he heard at night, but could not possibly hear from this distance.

      The cat strolled back, rubbing its length under her hand, undulating with pleasure. Richard groaned softly.

      The cat leapt up on her shoulder and curled around her neck like an orange swansdown scarf. She shot to her feet and, head down, scurried indoors.

      Damn it all. He pulled a sheet of vellum towards him and dipped his quill in the ink.

      December 24, 1813

       2 o’clock post meridiem

      Dear Lady Eugenie,

      He paused to flick the tip of the quill across his bottom lip, then smiled.

      I wish you all the joys of the Christmas season. Your condescension in communicating with your humble neighbor, to wit myself, is, as you may imagine, deeply appreciated.

      I am gratified by your confidence in my abilities. Sadly, since it is my duty, nay my extraordinary pleasure, to ensure my visitors receive only the most exquisite enjoyment while in my company, it must come as no surprise to you that such expressions of delight are music to my ears. To silence such harmony would create a most unpleasant discord. I am sure you must agree such an act could only be considered cruel.

      I am, therefore, devastated that I am unable to fulfill your request.

      With deepest regards,

       Yours truly

       Townsend.

      He paused for a moment, gazing out of the window at his lawn. Then bent his head to finish the task.

      P.S. My gardener is most pitiable in his laments at the loss of yet another rosebush in my lawn’s central flower bed. Humbly, I seek your assurance that you will restrain your animal from depositing any more of his gifts amid the plants.

      P.P.S. If you would care to take a dish of tea to discuss these matters in person, it is possible I could be convinced to accommodate your desires.

      P.P.P.S. You are right, I can be extraordinarily inventive given the right incentive.

      That should do very nicely. Not that he expected her to accept his invitation to tea. But it was pleasant to fantasize.

      On her way up the path to her front door after Christmas Eve services, outrage at her neighbor’s impertinent reply once again filled Eugenie’s person.

      Accommodate her desires, indeed. Heat blossomed in places she should not be aware of. Places she had tried her best to ignore these past few years. She almost groaned aloud from the ache.

      How dare he imply… Or did he know? But no. It wasn’t possible. Everything had been kept so very quiet by the enormous sum paid by her brother to stem any hint of scandal.

      In the distance, St. John’s bells continued to announce the first day of Christmas to the village of Hampstead. In Lady Eugenie Hartwick’s opinion, they heralded twelve of the worst days of the year. Twelve days of Christmas. Empty days and lonely nights. There would never be a partridge in a pear tree for her. Because she would never have a true love.

      The brave garland of evergreen on her front door failed to raise her spirits. But she hadn’t expected it would. This was always the time of year she missed her family the worst. Knowing her banishment was her own fault did not make it any easier to bear.

      Squaring her snow-dusted shoulders against a rush of self-pity, she turned on the top step with a smile pinned to her lips. “Good night, Tobias. My best wishes to you and your family.”

      The footman who had escorted her to church and back looked up at her, his face anxious. Anxious about leaving her. Worried she might change her mind. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay, my lady?”

      “No, Tobias. Your mother is expecting you. Ginger and I will be fine. Run along, do.”

      The boy whirled, ran down the short path and disappeared through the front gate into a curtain of swirling snowflakes. With a wry grimace, she glanced at the green-painted door beside her black one. A brass plate reflecting the light of the porch lantern declared it to be number 2A Plane House. No lights showed in the windows as she walked up the path. Her licentious neighbor must be out. Apparently, even a disgraceful rake had family obligations on Christmas Eve. She stepped inside and closed her door.

      Ginger mewed a welcome and twined around her legs, reminding her she was never completely alone. She bent and picked him up, burying her face in his silky fur. “Well, puss, it is time for bed. Are you ready?”

      The bang of a door reverberated through the wall partitioning the two halves of the house, little more than wooden screen in case the landlord should ever need to make it one house again.

      Ginger tensed, flexing his claws against her coat. She sighed. It seemed her neighbor was home after all. She scratched the cat behind the ears. “No peace for the wicked, I see.”

      “Bastardo,” a female voice yelled, followed by a string of incomprehensible Italian.

      Eugenie closed her eyes. “One,” she counted. “Two. Three. Four. Five.”

      Crash.

      Ginger struggled. To avoid his flailing claws, Eugenie set him down. Tail stiff, the cat shot upstairs. Another crash shattered the silence. Eugenie huffed out a breath. The horrid man next door and his equally horrid opera singer mistress were having another argument. It was a wonder he had any china left.

      It wasn’t the noises from the other half of the house she objected to so much as the unbridled emotion resonating through the wall, vibrating the very air she breathed. After years of struggling against her wicked desires, night after night she was assaulted by the sounds of their ungoverned passion.

      The faceless image of the man next door making love to his paramour set her body quivering and aching until she thought she would go mad with need. Always she succumbed to the ache at her core. Pleasured herself until she could finally sleep.

      It was a sin, what she did alone in her bed. Embarrassing. Wrong. And terribly unsatisfying compared to the fulfillment she’d once known with a man.

      But sleep and a quieter mind followed the release.

      She removed her coat and hat and started up the stairs. Heading for her cold lonely bed.

      A low male chuckle caused another round of female shrieking. No matter how upset his females got, and there had been several over the past two or three months, he always responded with that seductive laugh. It made them furious and struck a chord deep inside Eugenie she couldn’t seem to ignore.

      “Decide, mio amore,” the woman yelled. A contralto, Eugenie had decided. The one before had been a soprano. She was becoming quite an expert on female opera singers.

      “Molto bene.” This from outside on the front step.

      Good. Perhaps the cold air would cool their tempers and send them back to the warmth of their bed.

      She groaned as the thought of what they would do in that bed heated her blood and made her feel itchy beneath her skin. For years, she thought she’d conquered her need for passion, but since his arrival as her neighbor, it had returned with a vengeance.

      Not that she had ever seen him or the mistresses he collected like pearls on a string. He and his companions came and went after dark. People of the night. Hot-blooded people who let their emotions run free.

      “It has been a delight,” a deep male voice called out in cultured accents. The outside door slammed.

      Eugenie glanced out of the window on the landing and glimpsed a female in the pool of light from the porch light. Her hair flying wild about her head, her cloak swirling about a magnificently endowed body, she stormed out of the gate, a small figure, head down, lugging a heavy valise