The Rake to Rescue Her. Julia Justiss

      ‘I never thought it was.’

      ‘I don’t expect your respect. I’m rather certain you despise me, and I can’t blame you. Nor is there anything I could ever do to make up to you for the embarrassment and humiliation of the Coddingford ball.’

      The words exited his lips before he was even aware he meant to speak. ‘Well, since I’m currently between mistresses, you could fulfil that role until I tire of you.’

      Aghast, he waited for her to gasp with outrage or slap his face. To his astonishment, after staring at him for another moment, she said, ‘Very well. Make the arrangements and send me word. Fifteen Laura Place.’

      Before Alastair could respond, two small boys pelted up from behind them, one grabbing his hand. ‘Can we go for cakes now, Uncle Alastair?’ Robbie asked. ‘James and I are powerful hungry.’

      ‘Yes, Mama, may I go today?’ Diana’s son asked her.

      ‘Today you may go,’ his mother responded. While the two boys whooped and slapped each other’s backs, without another glance at Alastair, Diana turned and walked away.

      Stunned, incredulous—and incredibly tempted—Alastair gazed after her until the turn in the pathway took her from view.

Chapter Three

      After admonishing the boys that the hoydenish behaviour allowed in the park would not be tolerated in an establishment that served cakes, Alastair shepherded his young charges and Lord James Mannington’s nursemaid across Pulteney Bridge, down High Street, around the Abbey and into the bakery off North Parade that served the famous buns. In a mechanical daze, he ordered cakes for the boys and the blushing maid, dismissing with a distracted wave her protest that he need not include her in the treat.

      It was good that both boys had learned their manners well—or that the presence of the nursemaid restrained them. For with his mind whirling like a child’s top, he could not afterwards recall a single thing they’d said or done at the shop.

      Melted butter congealing on the bun set before him, Alastair went over again and again in his mind the exchange between himself and Diana—particularly the last bit, when he, incredibly, had offered her carte blanche and she, even more incredibly, had accepted.

      If he’d had more time after that fraught final exchange, he probably would have retracted the hasty words, perhaps covering the naked need they’d revealed by delivering the stinging response that he’d only been joking, for Diana did not meet the minimum standards for beauty, wit and charm that he required of a mistress.

      Instead, he’d done nothing, standing mute as a statue while she walked away.

      Regardless of how he felt over her former treatment, he should be ashamed of himself for tendering such an insulting offer. To a dowager duchess, no less, who now outranked him on the social scale by several large leaps! As soon as he arrived back at his room at the Crescent, he should write her a note of apology, recanting the offer.

      And yet... For the first time, he admitted to himself what meeting Diana again had made only too painfully clear. Despite the bold assertion to the contrary he’d given his sister, he had never really got over losing her. Every woman he’d met since had been measured against her and found lacking; every mistress he’d bedded had been physically reminiscent of her, unconsciously chosen to blot her out of his mind and senses.

      None ever had.

      Since Diana had accepted his offer, maybe he should go through with it. After all, there was no way the real woman could measure up to the romantic vision his youthful, poetic soul had once idolised...especially after how she’d treated him. Marrying a duke to ‘save’ him? What kind of dupe did she take him to be?

      Maybe possessing her now would finally burn out of him the pain and yearning that had haunted him so long.

      Like a thief lured into a dwelling through an unlocked window, now that his mind had tumbled on to the possibility of an affair, he couldn’t keep himself from exploring it further. The desire she so readily evoked, banked rather than extinguished, raged back into flame.

      Anticipation, excitement and eagerness boiled in his blood, and only by reminding himself that two young innocents and their virginal nursemaid sat mere feet away, was he able to restrain his mind from picturing himself possessing her.

      He’d do it, then. Unless Diana sent a note rescinding her acceptance, he would go through with it.

      After sending her son and the maid home in a sedan chair, Alastair hurried the now-sleepy Robbie up to the heights of the Crescent. As soon as he’d dispatched the boy back to the nursery, he descended the stairs at a run, bent on finding the most exclusive leasing office he could.

      It was imperative to find just the right property for their rendezvous—in a location elegant enough for the purpose, but well-enough hidden that the ever-vigilant Jane was unlikely to discover it.

      * * *

      An hour later, the bargain concluded, he was escorted out by the beaming proprietor, whom he’d paid double his usual fee for his silence and to obtain possession of the property immediately. Holding the key to a fine townhouse in Green Park Buildings, a respectable address but one well to the west of the most fashionable streets, Alastair set off back to the Crescent.

      He’d wait one night, to see if a note arrived from Diana, reneging on her initial acceptance. If he did not hear from her by tomorrow, he’d send her a note, arranging to meet after supper that night.

      Excitement shivered and danced in his blood, sparkled in his mind. He couldn’t remember ever being this consumed by anticipation.

      An exalted state that was sure to end in disillusion, once he became better acquainted with the real Diana. Which was exactly what he wanted.

      The sooner the affair began, the sooner it would be over—and he would be free of her at last.

      * * *

      In the evening of the following day, Diana sat at her dressing table, a note in hand. As she glanced at her name inscribed in Alastair’s bold script, another memory pierced her chest like an arrow.

      How many times during their courtship had she opened just such a note, finding within a beautiful verse in honour of her? Praising her wit, her virtue, her loveliness.

      How unworthy of them she’d felt.

      How unworthy of them she’d proved.

      This current missive could hardly be more different. Instead of elegantly penned lines of clever metaphors, similes, and alliteration, there wasn’t even a complete sentence. Merely an address and a time—this evening, nine o’clock.

      Despite her hard-won self-control, uneasiness and something more, something dangerously like anticipation, stirred within her. Stifling it, she debated again, as she had off and on since receiving the summons this morning, whether or not to dispatch a last-minute refusal of his shocking offer.

      It was risky, allowing him to be near her. Graveston had possessed the power to restrict her activities and movements, to hurt her physically, but had never been able to touch her soul—a failure that had maddened him and represented her only victory in their battlefield sham of a marriage. Alastair Ransleigh would never touch her in anger...but it was the touch of tenderness, the touch of a man she’d once desired above all else, that threatened her in a way the Duke had never managed, despite his relentless cruelty.

      She’d certainly have to be on guard, lest he get close enough to threaten her emotional reserve. Still... Once, she’d been so happy with Alastair. Might giving herself to him bring her a glimpse of that long-vanished happiness?

      But then, she was reading much too much into this. The insulting nature of Alastair’s offer was proof he despised her.

      Would it have made any difference, had she explained just how the Duke intended