Secret Lessons With The Rake. Julia Justiss

evoked.

      It was certainly a more enjoyable way to spend his time than facing the daunting task of charming some Virtuous Virgin, a species about which he knew almost nothing.

      They entered the bonnet shop, Ellie skirting around several clusters of patrons to reach the rack at the back that held hat-making supplies. Then, abruptly, she halted. Her breath escaping in a gasp, she stared towards the opposite corner of the shop, colour draining from her face.

      Following the direction of her gaze, he took in a stylishly dressed matron who’d frozen in the process of tying the ribbons of a bonnet beneath the chin of a young lady who must be her daughter—and caught his breath as well.

      Hell and damnation! The girl looked like Ellie—or a paler reflection of her. Younger, her hair lighter, her frame smaller, but with similar facial features and the same wonderful deep violet eyes. Before he could gather his rattled thoughts, Ellie brushed past him and almost ran out the door.

      He rushed after her, having difficulty keeping her in sight as she darted around knots of shoppers and out of the Bazaar. He had to wait for a group of ladies to pass through the entrance before he was able to exit himself. After looking up and down the street outside, he caught a glimpse of Ellie headed west, towards Green Park, and set out in pursuit.

      She didn’t slow until she reached the outer reaches of the park where, finally free from the street traffic that had hampered him, Christopher caught up to her. Her face ashen, her eyes wide and startled, she looked back over her shoulder at him and stumbled.

      He caught her and braced her against him as he led her to the nearest bench. ‘What is it, Ellie? What frightened you so? Breathe, now!’

      He sat her down and chafed her chilled hands, talking at her to make her focus her vacant gaze on him, all the questions churning in his head submerged as he worked to calm her.

      Finally, she took a shuddering breath and attempted a smile. ‘S-sorry,’ she said, her voice unsteady. ‘Running off like some mindless goose. You...saw the ladies I was looking at?’

      ‘I did. But you needn’t explain anything you don’t want to.’

      ‘The resemblance is so striking, I suppose much of the story must be evident to anyone with eyes. As I’m sure you already suspect, that...girl was my sister, and that lady, my mother.’

      Though Christopher was surprised by the connection, he wasn’t shocked. Given the strong resemblance between the two young women, he’d already figured Ellie must be the girl’s half-sister. It was deplorable, but sadly not all that unusual, for a peer to sire a daughter on the wrong side of the blanket, farm her out somewhere to give her a genteel upbringing, but never acknowledge her. Which would explain both Ellie’s ladylike qualities—and her ending up a viscount’s mistress.

      Until he realised the flaw in that explanation. Ellie had identified the girl as her sister—but the lady as her mother.

      ‘You’re not base-born?’ he exclaimed before he could stop himself.

      Infinite sadness in her face, she shook her head. ‘You know me as “Miss Parmenter”—my governess’s name, by the way—but until ten years ago, I was Miss Wanstead of Wanstead Manor in Hampshire.’

      Miss Wanstead of Wanstead Manor? So Ellie had been legitimately born a lady? Christopher thought, astounded. Then how under heaven had she ended up Summerville’s mistress?

      He looked down at her, her face expressionless as she stared into the distance.

      Pain twisted in his chest. He’d long suspected Ellie was either illegitimate, or the offspring of a wealthy cit educated with the daughters of the Upper Ten Thousand at some elite academy. An innocent beauty who’d been beguiled by a seducer or compromised by a man who refused to marry her, stripping her of reputation and respectability.

      But to be born a legitimate lady of quality and end up Summerville’s mistress? What an enormous loss of position that had been! No wonder she had that aura of sadness wrapped about her like a cloak.

      Though it was far from extraordinary for a family to disown a legitimate daughter who’d been ruined, he couldn’t quell a rising anger at Ellie’s father. No matter what she’d done, how could he have thrown her out to survive on her own, leaving her vulnerable to a man like Summerville?

      She looked at him then. ‘You’ve always been so kind to me, despite my...position.’

      Simple kindness that had cost him nothing, given to a lady who should never have required it. ‘I can’t even imagine how—why—’ he exploded, goaded into speech by anger and outrage. ‘Sorry, you needn’t explain,’ he said, raising a hand in apology. ‘It’s not my right to question, and I don’t want to pry.’

      ‘You wonder how I came to be with Summerville,’ she said quietly. ‘I suppose no one else besides your mama has better right to an explanation. Since I might well not have survived the experience, but for you.’

      He must have looked as puzzled as he felt, for before he could question that, she continued, ‘You probably don’t even remember the incident, but you...saved me once, from the depths of despair. At a masquerade ball, shortly after Summerville brought me to London.’

      ‘But I do remember it!’ he exclaimed. ‘Mama had sent me a note, begging me to come and escort her home. While looking for her, I found you, distraught. But—I didn’t do anything! I couldn’t even take you away, much as I would have liked to, for Summerville spotted you while you were helping me locate Mama, and bore you off.’

      With a look that said the younger man had better steer clear of the Viscount’s woman. He’d often wondered what might have happened had he been older, and sure enough of himself to have taken up that challenge.

      ‘On the contrary, you did something—everything—I needed,’ Ellie was saying. ‘Treated me like the lady I’d been born, reminding me of who I was, what I was. What I could in my own mind continue to be, despite my circumstances.’

      ‘I always knew you were a lady. What...did happen to make Miss Wanstead of Wanstead Manor end up with Summerville?’

      ‘Papa’s debts. Not all incurred by him, to be fair; the estate was already heavily encumbered when he inherited. Apparently many in Society knew he was dished. Summerville visited Wanstead to talk to Papa about buying some land—and bought me instead.’

      It took a moment for Christopher to comprehend that stark statement. ‘You mean your father accepted money from Summerville in exchange for allowing him to take you as his mistress?’ he said slowly, incredulous. ‘That’s...criminal! How could he?’

      She shrugged. ‘Papa summoned me to his study, told me he’d been offered one last chance to save the estate, provide my younger sister a dowry, and keep my mother from homelessness and penury. That it was my duty to the family to shoulder the bitter task of making all that happen. Then he left...and Summerville walked in.’

      Christopher strangled a curse, curling his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her as her expressive face revealed the absolute bleakness of that moment.

      ‘I didn’t really understand, at first,’ she said softly. ‘I drifted through the early days of the arrangement in a fog of disbelief, certain I was trapped in a nightmare from which I must awaken. But that night at the masquerade, the first public event I attended as his mistress...the crude comments, the groping hands of his friends as they fondled and kissed me, Summerville looking on, laughing, finally broke through the cloud of abstraction with which I’d been protecting myself from the truth.’

      She took a shuddering breath before continuing, ‘I was a viscount’s mistress. No longer a part of polite society, but a denizen of the demi-monde. A harlot. The future I’d always envisaged irretrievably lost. Feeling I must crawl out of my skin in torment, I fled the pawing hands and suggestive comments and took refuge in that anteroom. Where you found me, and asked how you could help. Though there was nothing you could do to put right the terrible wrong of my world, you treated me with