Rapturous Rakes Bundle (11 page)

growing progressively more difficult, but this new sit-

uation was both unexpected and utterly confusing. She

did not wish to feel beholden to Lucas Kestrel and she

was very afraid of where his charity might take her.

When Lucas returned a surprisingly short time later,

Rebecca was still sitting on the sofa. She got up

quickly when he came in and wiped her eyes with the

back of her hand, hoping that he had not seen her tears.

The wood merchant’s assistant followed him into the

workshop, hefting a very heavy sack of logs. The man

took the sack through to the store, as he had done in

Rebecca’s uncle’s time, and received a coin for his

trouble from Lucas before he went out. It was then

that Rebecca also spotted the parcel that Lucas had

laid on the table containing a fresh loaf of bread, a pat

of rich yellow butter, some cheese, a ham and half a

spit-roasted chicken. Her stomach, treacherously, gave

a loud rumble at the sight of food.

Nicola
Cornick

81

She seized a few logs and threw them higgledy-

piggledly into the fireplace, venting her frustration on

the inanimate blocks of wood until Lucas put out a

hand to stop her.

‘Wait! It will never light if you build it like that.’

‘I know!’ To her horror, Rebecca could feel the

tears closing her throat. ‘I know how to make a fire!

I am also quite capable of feeding myself. I have man-

aged perfectly well on my own for the past six months

and I do
not
require some high-handed, arrogant

lord—’

‘That is tautology,’ Lucas said.

Rebecca stared, jolted out of her train of thought. ‘I

beg your pardon?’

‘Tautology. Gilding the lily. If I am high-handed,

then the arrogance goes without saying...’

Rebecca gave an exasperated squeak. ‘Arrogant,

high-handed, conceited, self-important—’

Lucas raised a hand. ‘Please, Miss Raleigh. I have

taken your point. I am going to make some tea. Oh...’

he paused ‘...and the food is for me to take home for

supper...’

‘I do not believe you!’ Rebecca said sulkily.

Lucas shrugged. He disappeared into the scullery

and Rebecca did not even trouble to try to stop him.

Instead she took the logs out of the fire again, swept

it clear and built it painstakingly from scratch. By the

time the flames were taking hold, Lucas had returned

with the tea and some Bath Oliver biscuits that Re-

becca suspected might be stale.

He placed the tea on Rebecca’s desk much as Sam

had done the previous day, and came to sit beside her.

82

The
Rake’s
Mistress

The tea, Rebecca was surprised to discover, was al-

most as good as Sam’s brew had been.

‘Now,’ Lucas said, ‘I would like you to tell me

something about yourself, Miss Raleigh, and how you

have ended in this situation. You said that you had

managed very well on your own for the last six

months. What happened before that?’

Rebecca looked at him. She was tempted to tell him

everything, not just about the hardship following her

uncle’s death, but about her family and how her

brother Daniel was the only one left, and he was a

hunted man in as much trouble as she. She teetered

on the brink of disclosure and then drew back a little.

Lucas did not prompt her. He watched her steadily,

but with so much gentleness in his eyes that she caught

her breath to see it. It was grief and tiredness, she

warned herself, that had weakened her. She needed to

tell someone. She took a deep, refreshing gulp of the

tea, set down her cup, and started to talk.

Lucas had not been entirely sure that Rebecca

would answer his question. He recognised that she was

living within her work at the moment; that it was the

thing she used to blot out the grief. There were no

signs of her personality at all in her studio, although

it was the place where she lived as well as worked.

He concluded that she had withdrawn into herself so

much that nothing else could reach her. He wanted to

be the one to break through that shell and touch her.

He wanted it so much that it frightened him.

For his own sake he had to draw back. He had never

felt like this before and it was the very devil. Even as

Nicola
Cornick

83

he was questioning her and trying to gain her confi-

dence, he felt the veriest traitor, the greatest betrayer

in the whole world.

He had never met a woman like Rebecca Raleigh

before. Affairs of the heart—he did not like to think

in terms of love—had never been difficult for him in

the past. Yet his current feelings prompted him to take

Rebecca away from this hovel of a place where she

tried so desperately to scrape a living. He wanted to

cherish her, care for her and protect her. He pushed

aside all the complex and unfamiliar emotions that

pressed in on him and tried to concentrate.

He watched her face as she took a scalding mouthful

of tea, watched the pure line of her throat as she swal-

lowed and set down her mug. There was a slump to

her shoulders, but she would never admit defeat. His

heart swelled with an emotion he tried to dismiss as

pity.

He sat quietly drinking his tea—a beverage that had

never been his favourite drawing-room tipple—and

listened whilst Rebecca talked. Her face was drawn

and her blue eyes were full of pain, and it took every

ounce of Lucas’s self-control not to touch her.

‘My uncle and aunt died of the sweating sickness

four months ago,’ Rebecca said, fiddling with the han-

dle of her mug. Lucas noted that it had been broken

and affixed again, slightly off centre. Presumably she

could not afford to throw things away.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘So recent a grief must be

very painful for you.’

Rebecca nodded. ‘They had brought me up from the

time I was a child. It was my uncle who taught me

84

The
Rake’s
Mistress

my profession.’ She glanced quickly across at the

workbench. ‘He was a master engraver, one of the

most talented men in the profession, though he never

truly gained the recognition he deserved. I think...’

for a moment she smiled ‘...I think that he taught me

well.’

‘I am sure that he did,’ Lucas said, ‘judging by the

work on display here.’

Rebecca shot him a glance that had a tiny sparkle

in it. Lucas noticed with a jolt how she came alive

when she spoke of her work. ‘And you are suddenly

an expert, my lord?’ she teased. ‘You, who did not

even know that the profession existed a week ago?’

Lucas gave a self-deprecating shrug. He felt guilty.

‘I am a quick learner.’

The sparkle died from Rebecca’s eyes. ‘Whether or

not I am good at my work is irrelevant now. When

my uncle died, the business died with him. It was na-

¨ıve of me to think that I could keep it running single-

handed. One of the journeymen and the two appren-

tices took work elsewhere, for they did not wish to be

employed by a woman. The other journeyman...’ she

hesitated ‘...he thought to persuade me into marriage

as a way for me to continue the business.’

Lucas clamped down on his instinctive violence at

the thought of some buffoon forcing himself on Re-

becca and kept his voice level. ‘You did not care for

the idea?’

‘No, I did not,’ Rebecca said. ‘I cared even less for

the way that he tried to persuade me, and
he
disliked

the means I took to dissuade him from his amorous

advances.’

Nicola
Cornick

85

Lucas bit his lip on a laugh. He remembered her

threatening him with the diamond scribe. ‘What did

you do?’

‘I used the fire irons,’ Rebecca said. ‘They have a

slight dent in them now.’

Lucas shook his head. ‘So you used the fire irons

on him and your engraving scribe to defend yourself

against me... You are a dangerous woman, Miss Ra-

leigh.’

Rebecca did not look at him. ‘You were different,’

she said softly.

Lucas felt his body tighten. He did not feel different.

He wanted exactly what her journeyman and no doubt

many another man had wanted from Rebecca Raleigh,

and it was the devil’s own job not to demand it from

her.

‘Not so different,’ he said, wryly truthful. ‘I wanted

the same thing.’

Their eyes met and the tension seemed to spin out

between them for an eternity. Rebecca broke the con-

tact with an effort.

‘You were quicker to understand,’ she said drily,

‘for with you I did not have to resort to physical vi-

olence.’ She shifted a little. ‘So once Malet had left,

muttering of retribution, I was on my own but for

Emma, the servant girl. I soon realised that when the

men went they took all the work with them. So then

I had to let Emma go too, since I could not pay her.’

Lucas’s gaze narrowed with incredulity. ‘You have

been living here
alone
for four months?’

‘Three months.’ Rebecca’s gaze flicked to his face

and then away. ‘Emma was with me for a few weeks

86

The
Rake’s
Mistress

after my uncle’s death. I have managed well enough

on my own. I have some work in hand...’ She smiled.

‘Quite a lot, thanks to you, my lord. And to the Arch-

angel Club.’

She had given Lucas the opening he needed. He was

astounded to feel himself hesitating to take it. At each

step he became more deeply mired in deception. He

was trying to obtain information from her under false

pretences and his honour revolted at the thought. He

ignored the squirming of his conscience and forced

himself to press on.

‘Do you have any other clients currently?’ he ques-

tioned, allowing his gaze to range about the workshop

as though the answer did not really matter to him.

Rebecca’s gaze flickered. She rubbed a hand across

her forehead. ‘No, I have none,’ she said.

‘And no business outstanding from your uncle’s

time?’

Rebecca rubbed her eyes. It made her look like a

child and it smote Lucas’s heart. ‘There are a few

pieces still to be collected,’ she said. ‘My uncle com-

pleted some work for a gentleman who is a prodigious

collector, but he has yet to send for it. I have it in the

storeroom.’

Lucas’s nerves prickled. If this mysterious collector

was part of the Midwinter spy circle and he had yet

to collect his order, then they might be about to catch

him red-handed.

‘What sort of engraving interests your collector?’

he asked, as casually as he could.

Rebecca raised her brows. ‘Why, all sorts of de-

signs, my lord. Ships and birds and anchors... My

Nicola
Cornick

87

uncle did an entire set for him with an astronomical

motif—the phases of the moon, and the sun and stars.

He has a wide interest.’

Lucas’s attention was riveted. He had one of the

Midwinter glasses in the pocket of his coat at that very

moment and it was a match for a design he could see

on the display shelves. He could feel the hard edge of

the glass pressing against his thigh, reminding of the

exact reason why he was in this studio, questioning

Miss Rebecca Raleigh, glass engraver.

‘What manner of man is he, this collector?’ he

asked, hoping he was not pressing too hard and raising

her suspicions. It was difficult to tell what she was

thinking. She gave him a direct look from her very

blue eyes, but he could not read her expression.

‘I have no notion, my lord. I never meet him. He

sends his servant to place the orders and collect the

finished engraving.’

Lucas shrugged, as though the matter was of no

further interest to him. He would instruct Tom Brad-

shaw to keep the shop under observation until such

time as the servant came to collect his order, and then

he would have the man followed and see where that