50 Ways to Ruin a Rake
Read 50 Ways to Ruin a Rake Online
Authors: Jade Lee
Thank you for purchasing this eBook
.
At Sourcebooks we believe one thing:
BOOKS CHANGE LIVES
.
We would love to invite you to receive exclusive rewards. Sign up now for VIP savings, bonus content, early access to new ideas we're developing, and sneak peeks at our hottest titles!
Happy reading
!
Copyright © 2015 by Jade Lee
Cover and internal design © 2015 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover art by Anna Kmet
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systemsâexcept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviewsâwithout permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
Fax: (630) 961-2168
eBook version 1.0
Make a plan, be sure of it, and do not deviate.
There are certain things a woman knows. She knows what the weather will be based on how easily her hair settles into the pins. She knows when the cook has quarreled with the butler by the taste of the morning eggs. And she knows when a man will completely upset her day.
And right now, that man was walking up her front drive as easy as if he expected to be welcomed.
Melinda Smithson bolted out of her bedroom where she'd been fighting with her curlsâagainâand rushed downstairs. “I'm just going for a quick walk!” she said much too brightly to their butler as she made it to the front door. Rowe hadn't even the time to reach for her gloves when she snatched her gardening bonnet off the table and headed outside. She had to get to the odious man before he rounded the rock and came into view from her father's laboratory. If her papa saw him, she would be done for. So she ran as fast as her legs could carry her.
She rounded the bend at the same moment he arrived at the rock. One step more, and she was doomed.
“Oh no, Mr. Anaedsley. Not today. You cannot come here today.” She said the words breathlessly, but she punctuated with a severe tug on her bonnet. So hard, in fact, that three pins dug painfully into her scalp.
Mr. Anaedsley had been whistling, but now he drew up short. “You've punched your thumb through your bonnet.” He spoke with a charming smile that made her grind her teeth in frustration. Everything about the man was charming, from his reddish-brown hair to the freckles that dotted his cheeks to the rich green of his eyes. An annoyance dressed as a prince of the realm, for all that he had no courtesy title. He was the son and heir of the Duke of Timby, and she hated him with a passion that bordered on insanity.
Unfortunately, he was right. She'd punched her thumb clean through the straw brim of her bonnet.
“Yes, I have,” she said as she stepped directly in front of him. He would not pass around the rock. He simply wouldn't. “And that is one more crime I lay at your feet.”
“A crime?” he replied. “To poke a hole in that ugly thing? Really, Miss Smithson, I call it more a mercy. The sun should not shine on something that hideous.”
It was hideous, which was why it was her gardening bonnet. “The sun is not supposed to shine on my face either, so it is this ugly thing or stay inside.”
“Come now, Miss Smithson,” he said as he held out his arm to escort her. “I am well aware that you have dozens of fetching bonnetsâ”
“But this was the one at hand.” She ignored his arm and stared intimidatingly at him. Or at least she tried to. But he was a good six inches taller than her. Average for a man, but for her he was quite the perfect height. Not too tall as to dwarf her, but large enough to be handsome in his coat of bottle-green superfine. It brought out his eyes, which were made all the more stunning by the sunlight that shone full on his face.
“Shall we amble up your beautiful drive and fetch you a pretty bonnet?”
“No, Mr. Anaedsley, we shall not. Because you shall not come to the house today. Any other day, you will be very welcome. But not today.”
His brows drew together in worry. “Is your father ill? Is there something amiss? Tell me, Miss Smithson. What can I do to help?”
It was the right thing to say. Of course it was because he
always
knew the right thing to say. Her father's health was precarious these days, a cough plaguing him despite all attempts to physic him. She might have ignored his words as simple politeness, but she saw genuine worry in his eyes. She couldn't help but soften toward him.
“Papa is the same as before. It's worst at nightâ”
“The gypsy tincture didn't help then.” He took her arm and gently eased her hand into the crook of his elbow. Her fingers were placed there before she even realized it. “I'll ask a doctor friend I know as soon as I return to London. He mayâ”
She dug in her feet, tugging backward on his arm. He raised a perfect eyebrow in query, but she flashed him a warm smile. “An excellent idea. You should go there right now. In fact, pray fetch the doctor here.”
His eyebrows rose in alarm. “I shall write down the man's direction and a message. You can send a footmanâ”
“No, sir. You must go yourself. Right now. It is most urgent.”
He flashed her his dimple. Damn him for having such a very attractive dimple. “Now why do I get the feeling that you're trying to rush me away?”
“Because the first thing I said to you was go away!”
He cocked his head, and his expression grew even more delightful. She would swear she saw a twinkle in his eyes. “Miss Smithson, I thought you were a scientist. The first thing you said to me was, âOh no, Mr. Anaedsley, not today.'”
“Well, there you have it. Go away. We are not receiving callers.”
And then, just to make a liar of her, her uncle's carriage trotted up the path. Four horsesâmatched chestnutsâstepping smartly as they pulled her uncle's polished, gilded monstrosity. And inside waving cheerily was her cousin Ronnie. Half cousin, actually, and she waved halfheartedly at the wan fop.
“It appears, Miss Smithson, that we have been spotted. I'm afraid politeness requires that I make my bow.”
“No, we haven't!” She'd used the distraction to pull them back from the rock. They were, in fact, completely shielded from all windows of the Smithson residence including the laboratory. “Ronnie doesn't count. And he certainly doesn't care if you greet him or not. The most powerful snub only seems to inspire him to greater heights of poetry.”
“A poet is he?”
“Yes,” she groaned. “A good one too.” Which made it all the worse.
“Ah. Your suitor, I assume?”
“Suitor” was too simple a word for her relationship with Ronnie, which involved a lot of private family history. “He's my cousin. Well, half cousin, as my father and uncle had different mothers. But he has convinced himself that we are fated to be wed.”
“And as a practical woman of science, you do not believe in fate.”
She didn't believe in a lot of things, but at the top of the list was Ronnie's fantasy. He thought fate had cast them as prince and princess in a make-believe future. She thought her cousin's obsession with her silly at best, but more likely a dark and dangerous thing. “I do not wish to wed the man,” she said baldly.
“Well, the solution is obvious then, isn't it? I shall join you today as an afternoon caller, and Ronnie will not be able to press his suit upon you.”
“That would be lovely,” she said sourly, “if you actually did as you say. But we both know what will really happen.”
“We do?” he countered, all innocence.
She tossed him her most irritated, ugly, and angry look, but it did absolutely nothing to diminish his smile. “Oh leave off, Mr. Anaedsley, I haven't the time for it today.”
“Butâ” he began. She roughly jerked her hand from his arm and stepped away to glare at him.
“Five minutes after greeting everyone, my father will be excited to learn about your latest experiment.”
“Actually, it is your father's experiment. I only execute the task he requestsâ”
“Two minutes after that,” she continued as if he hadn't spoken, “the two of you will wander off to his laboratory. Uncle will follow, and I shall be left alone. With Ronnie.” She spoke her cousin's name as she might refer to one of her father's experiments gone horribly wrong.
“Perhaps your uncle will remainâ”
“Uncle desires the union above all things.”
Clearly, she'd flummoxed him. He didn't even bother denying his plan to disappear with her father. And yet the more she glared at him, the more his expression shifted to one of charming apology. That was always the way with him. She'd even taken to calling him Lord Charming in her thoughts, and as she was not a woman prone to fairy tales, the name was not a positive one.
“I see your problem, Miss Smithson,” he finally said. “Unfortunately, when I said we had been spotted, I wasn't referring to your half cousin.”
She blinked. “What?”
His eyes lit up with genuine warmth as he gestured behind her. Then, before she could spin around, he opened his arms in true delight.
“Mr. Smithson, how absolutely wonderful to see you out and about. Why your daughter was just telling me that she feared for your existence. Was begging me to bring in a London physicianâ”
“What?” her father said as he strolled down the drive toward them. “Mellie, I've told you I'm right as rain.”
“Papa? Where did you come from?”
“Down at Mr. Wilks's barn. Been looking at the sheep to see if the lice powder worked.”
Damn it all! She should have known he'd be inspecting the neighbor's sheep. They were the subjects of his current experiment, after all. And naturally he'd be there instead of in his lab where he'd
promised
to look at what she'd done. “But you have been ill,” she said, rather than snap at him for ignoring her latest chemical experiment. “You complain of the rain. It makes your joints ache.”
“Well, that's what old men do, my dear.” Then her papa turned to Lord Charming and embraced him as if the man were a lost son. It had always been this way between them, starting from when her father had been Mr. Anaedsley's tutor more than a decade ago. The two adored each other, and it was so pure a love that she couldn't even be jealous of it.
Well, she
shouldn't
be jealous, but she was. Especially as she knew that her plans for the day were doomed. The two would go off with her uncle and leave her with Ronnie. And worse, the main purpose of the dayâthe sole reason she had asked for her uncle and cousin to visit this afternoonâwas completely destroyed.
And it was all Mr. Anaedsley's fault.
* * *
Trevor Harrison Anaedsley, grandson to the Duke of Timby, was not a fool, though he often chose to appear one in public. In truth, he had an engineering mind-set that led him to see how people fit together, one with another, such that society marched at a steady, appropriate, even mechanical pace.
And today, Miss Melinda Smithson did not fit. Her cogs were out of orderâlikely a female thingâand would rapidly be put to rights with the correct application of lubricant. Except, of course, he had already tried compliments and charmâhis usual method of easing the social machineryâand she was even more out of sorts, glaring at him even as he embraced her father.
“Papa,” she said with a false amount of cheer, “I know it's lovely that Mr. Anaedsley is here, but today isn't a good day. It's a family reunion of sorts, and he would be bored to distraction.”
“What?” her father asked, blinking owlishly at his daughter.
“Family reunion. Mr. Anaedsley is
de
trop
.” Her words were heavy with extra meaning, and for a moment Trevor feared he was about to be tossed out. That would be a problem for him. A massive problem, in fact, as he could not return to London for two days at a minimum. Three would be better.
But he needn't have feared. Her father blinked dumbly at his daughter, then waved away her concerns with a snort of derision. “Don't be ridiculous. Honestly, Mellie, I don't know why you fuss so. I'll talk to your uncle while you younger folk entertain yourselves.”
“A capital idea!” Trevor cried.
“A terrible idea,” Miss Smithson snapped, her voice much more strident than usual. “Papa, I wish to be there when you speak with Uncle.”
“Nonsense. I can tell him all about your frippery.”
“It's not frippery!”
“Of course not, dear. I shouldn't have suggested such a thing.” And then in the way of a very absentminded father, Mr. Smithson touched Trevor on the arm and guided him toward the house. “I'm so glad you're here, my boy. I want to tell you about my latest experiment. Do you recall my cream against ticks? I was just now inspecting the effects on the sheep, and I'm afraid the results are rather disappointing. I thought perhaps you could give my formula a once-over.”
“It would be my great pleasure,” Trevor answered honestly. He fell into step with the man while stifling the guilt he felt at Miss Smithson's glare.
Once, he would have found a polite way to delay her father, thereby restoring peace between the three of them, or at least to Miss Smithson. But his circumstances had become so desperate that a woman's temper barely caught his attention anymore.
How low he'd sunk to feel such a way. And how desperately he needed a solution beyond food and lodging for three more days.
But this was all he had right now, so he embraced it with good cheer, entering into a scientific discussion about sheep ticks and softening wool before it was even sheered. Ten minutes later, the discussion was so detailed that he barely noticed their arrival at his mentor's home. If it weren't for the interruption by something the size of a small bear, he might not have noticed at all. But a behemoth did push him aside, Mr. Smithson's notebook went flying, and then the massive man abruptly pushed Miss Smithson right back out the door. His voice brooked no disobedience as he cried, “Quick! Outside. Right now!”
“Ronnie!” Miss Smithson exclaimed, and she might have toppled if Trevor hadn't grabbed her elbow. As it was, he dug his fingers too deeply into her arm, and she would likely sport bruises. But at least she didn't tumble into the dirt. Or become completely flattened by the beast of a man whom he now gathered was her cousin and suitor, Ronnie.
Meanwhile, the behemoth in question was tilting her head up toward his face. Miss Smithson gasped, and for a moment Trevor thought the man intended to kiss her. Right there, on the doorstep in front of family and servants.
“I say, Ronnie,” began Mr. Smithson.
“Silence!” the man commanded.
Trevor felt his fists bunch as he calculated the most vulnerable spots on the beast's body. He might not have interfered, but Miss Smithson had made her desires to
not
wed this man quite clear. If this Ronnie intended to make inappropriate advancesâand on the front step, no lessâthen Trevor intended to set the man straight.
