The Art of Ruining a Rake (45 page)

“Without reason—!” But it wasn’t worth arguing. He must convince Dare he had only his best interests at heart, even if Dare taking over did mean extricating Roman from Letitia’s grasp.

“I do want something in exchange,” Roman said. “You must give up wagering entirely. Otherwise, there is little point in settling these debts.”

He thought it a reasonable request. Not a thing he actually expected Dare to agree to, but a way to steer the path to deeper conversation.

To his surprise, Dare began to shake. A decade aged him as he blanched and withered.

Sweat beaded on his brow. It trickled across his skin as his complexion turned a sickly sallow color. Without warning, he buried his face in his hands. A sob broke the silence.
“I can’t,”
he whispered.
“I can’t.”

Another heart-wrenching gasp tore from him. His head sank between his knees. Roman stared at him in distress. He didn’t know what to do. He’d never seen a man cry before. Did he pat Dare’s shoulder? Leave the room? Fetch them both a drink?
 

Numbness froze him in place. He hadn’t expected this. A minute passed. Then ten. All the sorrow in the world seemed to pour from his brother in silent, wracking sobs. Each wave broke Roman’s heart anew. He clutched the arms of his chair and tried not to weep for his own mistakes. He’d caused Dare to feel worthless. It was the last thing he’d meant to do, but he didn’t know how to do
better
. How did one dive into his brother’s despair and pull him up from its crushing depths, when he could barely tread water himself?

His hopelessness consumed him until he, too, wanted to surrender. He wasn’t the least prepared to lead. Look at this mess he’d made of things! He’d ignored his duties and now it was too late. His family was falling to pieces. Tony barely spoke to him. Dare was lost. Bart kept his distance and Constantine—Constantine had gone off with his new wife and son, despairing of his recalcitrant twin, whom Roman had failed to save.

Just like their father.

“I d-don’t want to b-be like th-this,” Dare stammered. “I
don’t
. But I can’t help myself. G-give up gambling? You ask me to stop b-breathing.”

Roman went cold. The admission shouldn’t have surprised him; he knew deep inside it was true. Dare
couldn’t
give it up. No amount of blustering and insisting would change his behavior. Dare’s vice owned him completely. It was too late. He was doomed to a life of penury and failure.

Roman slowly rose from his chair.
No.
He refused to admit defeat. He’d been wrong to turn his back on Father. The man who’d sired him had wasted away in a one-room shanty just outside the prison walls, dying of disease brought on by the pestilence of King’s Gate.

Tony
had bought him Liberty of the Rules and, along with it, the barest taste of freedom.
 

Tony
had sold the unentailed property, invested the meager proceeds, and paid their father’s debts after his death.

Tony
had seen to his brothers’ educations and done the best he could to steward the estate and their tenants.

Roman wouldn’t give up this time. He was the marquis.

“Darius.”

His brother’s shoulders shook again, but he attempted to get hold of himself. He looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “What.”

Roman balled his hands. He wasn’t going to let fear turn him away. Not this time. “You can do this.
We
can do this.”

Darius’s eyes fell to the carpet. “Easy for you to say.”

“Look at me. You’re going to make changes. No more carousing with the fast set. No more wagers.”

Dare bent his head. “You don’t understand. I have no choice. I am compelled to it.”

Roman inhaled. Slowly, he uncurled his fingers. “You must try. And we must find a way for you to wager safely when you cannot manage it entirely.”

His brother’s head snapped up. He looked so hopeful, Roman’s heart twisted. “Is such a thing possible?”

“I don’t know,” Roman admitted. But it was an idea. The first real solution he’d thought of in all these months of wishing for an escape. “There must be a way for you to put your appetite for risk to good use.”

Dare seemed optimistic for the first time in…years, probably. “Do you think so?”

 
“I do,” Roman said, wanting to believe for himself that a man’s faults could become his strengths. “It’s a notion, not a fully-formed thought yet, but there are men who make their living hedging bets against private ventures. Perhaps engaging in the ’Change is a form of risk that would satisfy your thirst for chance.”

“The ’Change?”

Roman was warming to the idea, new though it was. Funny it might solve everything, when he’d never heard of the ’Change traders before he’d begun to work with Tony.

“Yes, I’ll show you. Men buy, hold and sell shares of companies in the hope of earning returns. We could give you a stipend to start you with. I’d have our solicitor approve the transactions so you’d learn from him what to watch for. You might find you have a head for it.”

Dare appeared absorbed by this idea. “Do you think I can do it?”

Almost the same question Roman had asked Tony, when Tony had given him his first assignment. He knew his answer mattered.

“We all have something about us that is worthwhile,” he said, smiling encouragingly. “We do best when we work together. This may be your part to play.”

Dare’s shoulders straightened as if Roman had removed a great weight from them. The brothers sat like that in hopeful silence until Dare placed his hands on his knees, preparing to stand. “You’re different now,” he said. “Miss Lancester has rubbed off on you.”

Roman’s throat constricted too tightly for him to do anything but smile politely. If only he could fix things as easily with her.

“Don’t let her get away,” Dare said, standing. “She’s a pot worth winning. And that,” he said, “will be my last wager joke.”

Roman sincerely wanted to believe it.

Chapter 22

WITH HER MANUSCRIPT on the way to becoming a book, Lucy had little left to distract herself from the tempest brewing in her heart.

Oh, she tried to ignore her doldrums. She read. She walked. She wrote letters to her sister, most of which she crumpled and tossed in the fire, for they only revealed the misery she wanted very much to forget.

Nothing helped.

Finally, after two unrelenting weeks of vacillating between wanting to throw herself into Roman’s arms, and vowing never to see the immoral rake who’d stolen her heart, she decided the only way to prevent herself from going completely mad was to leave her house.

“Whoa now,” Mr. Edward Barton-Wright said, cautioning his two mares later that afternoon. He was more than willing to distract her on short notice, she’d learned.

Edward’s two beauties stamped their feet at the entrance to Rotten Row, seeming to know they were about to be driven by a stranger. “Here,” he said, covering Lucy’s icy hands with his warm ones as he placed the reins in her palms. The sun shone clear and bright and she was wearing the new leather driving gloves Edward had gifted her just a half hour ago, but it was March and she was cold nonetheless. “Give the beasts their heads enough to settle them,” he said, “but don’t let them forget for a moment who is in command.”

She’d always wanted to drive a proper team. “Like this?”

She loosened the reins. The high flyer lurched forward, causing her to squeal with delight.

His thigh was pressed against hers. At the sudden give, he clamped his hand onto her knee. She was too busy reining in the horses to be concerned with propriety. But as the team calmed to a steady walk, Edward didn’t remove his hand from her person.

“That’s it,” he murmured encouragingly, “no need to be skittish.”

She flicked an irritated glance over her shoulder. He seemed to be talking to her, rather than the mares. “I shan’t go akimbo at this pace, sir,” she said tightly.

His thumb caressed her knee. “Then we ought to pick it up a bit.”

She glared at him. “Sir. Your
hand
. I find it more than a bit offensive.”

“Watch the horses,” was all he said in response.

Without warning, she drew sharply on the reins. The phaeton stopped abruptly. She was prepared for it; he was not. He tumbled forward, breaking his fall against the footboard. “Oof!” he gasped, glaring at her.

Her bosom heaved as she looked daggers at him. “Don’t touch me again.”

He swiped the reins from her hands. She released them without a fight.

“That is enough funning, Miss Lancester. Driving a high-spirited pair is not a joke.”

She tilted her nose in the air and edged as far away from him as possible. “Your manners are deplorable, Mr. Barton-Wright. I am no fancy piece to be groped in the middle of the park.”

He fumed at her set down. “I’ll do as I please.”

“Mr. Barton-Wright!” Her heart raced. She could almost believe he was prepared to raise his hand to her, when
he
was in the wrong! “Take me home. To
my
home,” she added, lest he try to deliberately misinterpret her.

“Ah, yes,” he said coldly. Not at all like the man who’d been so willing to let her drive his team. “Montborne’s good enough, but not a lowly fellow like me. I should have known it.”

She looked at him with all the loathing she could muster, given her very real fear he’d attack her here in the park. “Let me down. If you don’t, I’ll make a scene.”

He didn’t acknowledge her threat.

She glanced around, preparing to make good on it. Not enough people were out today. If she cut across the lawn, she could reach the two dowagers feeding pigeons by the pond, or that lone gentleman walking near the far tree—

“Perhaps when my uncle finally shuffles off this mortal coil, you’ll look this way,” Edward said hatefully. “I’ll have a title then. I’ve already enough money to purchase your precious marquis four times over, so that can’t be it. He knows it as well as I do.”

She had no desire to be groped in the park by Edward, but when he began maligning Roman she as good as forgot about her plan to flee. “Lord Montborne is a
gentleman,
” she said hotly. “He has never propositioned me, let alone tried to grope me. While my reputation may be compromised in Polite Society, that does not give you leave to further besmirch my character by fumbling with my skirts!”

Rather than appear chastened, Edward’s color rose. “You defend him and chide
me
. I might have married you. But you’ve had eyes only for him, haven’t you? That rat’s
arse
put me in the shade. You’ll believe any rubbish he whispers in your ear.”

“Yes,” she started to say, but Edward interrupted her. His eyes were narrowed slits.
 

“He’s a reprobate, through and through. While you dream of him at night with your warm, wet cunny, he’s out whoring himself with Lady Letitia Linden. Did you know that?”

Lucy froze. No.

No!

“Ha!” Edward crowed, his eyes brightening. “You
didn’t
know.”

She tried to compose herself. Because she
did
know. He’d told her himself. This wasn’t a surprise.

Don’t let Edward gain the upper hand with facts Roman already shared.

She reached behind her backside and felt for the metal handhold on the phaeton’s exterior.

Forget what he just said. Forget everything but what you know you must do.

“You’ve never given me a fair go,” Edward went on, seemingly unaware she was groping for the latch, intent on escape. “Why did you send for me today? That contemptible rogue! He’s not worthy of you. He’s not worthy of anything, not even his bloody title. There’s a great chasm between his ears, and a hole in his pocket through which his money disappears. And yet you want
him
.”

She almost had the lever. “He does care for me. And he’s not a featherbrain.”

“I don’t understand you,” Edward said, his venom seeking the wounds he’d opened. “Montborne’s made himself into a filthy whore and yet he still gets
you
.”

Her lips parted. She didn’t know how to respond to that vile description. All she could think of was that this would be her life, were she to wed Roman. He’d warned her there were members of Society who were vulgar. She could be pitied everywhere she went, or scorned, or subjected to the spite of other women.