A Rake's Vow (52 page)

“Hmm.” Vane looked ahead. “So, the question is, when would you like to marry?”

Patience considered. She looked at Vane, at his profile, puzzled when he kept his eyes forward and refused to meet her gaze. “I don’t know,” she said. “You pick a date.”

He looked at her then. “You’re sure? You won’t mind what I decide?”

Patience shrugged. “Why should I? The sooner the better, if we’re to go on as we are.”

Vane let out a breath, and whipped up his horses. “This afternoon.”

“This after . . .” Patience swiveled on the seat to stare at him. Then she snapped her mouth shut. “You’ve already got a license.”

“In my pocket.” Vane grinned—wolfishly. “That was where I was yesterday, while Sligo was hunting high and low.”

Patience slumped back against the seat. Then their pace, Gerrard’s wide grin, and the distance they’d already traveled, registered. “Where are we going?”

“To get married. In Somersham.” Vane smiled. “There’s a church in the village by the ducal estate, which you could say I’ve a connection with. Of all the churches in this land, I’d like to be married there. And the vicar, Mr. Postlethwaite, will fall over himself to do the honors.”

Feeling slightly dizzy, Patience drew in a deep breath—then let it out. “Well, then—let’s be married in Somersham village.”

Vane glanced her way. “You’re sure?”

Meeting his eyes, reading the uncertainty, the question, in the grey, Patience smiled, and slid closer. “I’m overwhelmed.” She let her smile deepen, let her joy show. “But I’m sure.”

Tucking one hand in Vane’s arm, she gestured grandly. “Drive on!”

Vane grinned, and complied. Patience clung close, and listened to the wheels’ steady clatter. Their journey together had already begun. Their dream was waiting—just beyond the next bend.

T
heir wedding was small, select, intensely personal; their wedding breakfast, held one month after the initiating event, was enormous.

Honoria and the other Cynster ladies organized it. It was held at Somersham Place.

“You took your time!” Lady Osbaldestone poked Vane with a skeletal finger, then wagged the same finger at Patience. “Make sure you keep him in line—there’ve been too many Cynsters loose for too long.”

She stumped off to speak to Minnie. Vane breathed again—Patience caught his eye. “She’s a terror,” he said defensively. “Ask anyone.”

Patience laughed. Gowned in silk the color of old gold, she tightened her hold on Vane’s arm. “Come do the pretty.”

Vane smiled, and let her lead him into the throng, to chat with the guests gathered to wish them well. She was all he could ask for, all he needed. And she was his.

He was perfectly willing to listen to congratulations on that fact until the sky fell.

Circulating through the guests, they eventually came up with Honoria and Devil, doing the same.

Patience hugged Honoria. “You’ve done us proud.” A pleased and proud matriarch, Honoria glowed. “I think the cake was the highlight—Mrs. Hull surpassed herself.” The many-tiered marzipan-covered fruit cake had been topped by a weather vane, delicately executed in spun sugar.

“Very inventive,” Vane commented dryly.

Honoria humphed. “You men never appreciate such things as you ought.” She glanced at Patience. “At least there’ll be no wagers for you to contend with.”

“Wagers?” A great many cheers, and ribald and raucous suggestions, had flown when they’d cut the cake. But wagers? Then she remembered. Oh.

Honoria smiled tightly, and flicked Vane a darkling glance. “Hardly surprising your husband has a fondness for the church in Somersham. He, after all, helped pay for its roof.”

Patience glanced at Vane—his expression all innocence, he looked at Devil.

“Where’s Richard?”

“Gone north.” Deftly snagging Honoria in one arm, Devil anchored her to his side, preventing her from embroiling them in further social conversations. “He got a letter from some Scottish clerk regarding an inheritance from his mother. For some reason, he had to be present in the flesh to collect.”

Vane frowned. “But she’s been dead for—how long? Nearly thirty years?”

“Almost.” Devil looked down as Honoria tugged. “It was a ghostly whisper from the past—a past he’d thought long buried. He went, of course—out of curiosity if nothing else.” Looking up, Devil shot Vane a pointed glance. “Town life, I fear, has begun to pall for our Scandal.”

Vane met Devil’s gaze. “Did you warn him?”

Devil grinned. “Of what? To beware storms and unattached ladies?”

Vane grinned. “Put like that, it does sound a mite farfetched.”

“No doubt Scandal will return, hale and whole, safe and sound, with nothing more than a few battle scars and several new notches on his—”

“That’s the duchess of Leicester to your right!” Honoria hissed. She glared at Devil. “Behave!”

The soul of injured innocence, he put his hand to his heart. “I thought I was.”

Honoria made a distinctly rude sound. Winning free of his hold, she whirled and pushed him toward the duchess. She nodded over her shoulder at Patience. “Take him”—her nod indicated Vane—“the other way, or you’ll never meet everyone.”

Patience grinned, and obeyed. Vane went quietly. His gaze dwelling on Patience’s face, on her figure, he found it no chore to play the proud and besotted groom.

From the other side of the ballroom, Vane’s mother, Lady Horatia Cynster, watched him, and Patience, and sighed. “If only they hadn’t married in such a rush. There was obviously no need for it.”

Her second son, Harry, better known as Demon, to whom this was addressed, shot her a glance. “I suspect your notion of ‘need’ and Vane’s differ in certain pertinent respects.”

Horatia humphed. “Whatever.” Deserting the sight of her firstborn, so well and appropriately settled, she turned her sights on Harry. “Just as long as you never try the same thing.”

“Who? Me?” Harry was honestly shocked.

“Yes—
you
.” Horatia jabbed his chest. “I hereby give you fair warning, Harry Cynster, that if you
dare
marry by special license, I’ll never,
ever
, forgive you.”

Harry promptly held up his hand. “I swear by all that’s holy that I will never marry by special license.”

“Humph!” Horatia nodded. “Good.”

Harry smiled—and completed his vow in silence.
Or any other way.

He was determined to be the first Cynster in history to escape fate’s decree. The notion of tying himself up to some chit—of restricting himself to one woman—was ludicrous.
He
wasn’t getting married—ever.

“Think I’ll go see how Gabriel’s doing.” With a sweeping, ineffably elegant bow, he escaped his mother’s orbit, and went in search of less scarifying company. People who weren’t fixated on weddings.

The afternoon passed; the shadows slowly lengthened. Guests started to take their leave, then the bulk left in a rush. The long day drew to a close with Vane and Patience on the front porch of the Place, waving the last of the guests away. Even the family had departed. Only Devil and Honoria remained at the Place—and they’d retired to their apartments to play with Sebastian, who’d spent much of the afternoon with his nurse.

As the last carriage rumbled away down the drive, Vane glanced at Patience, close by his side.

His wife.

The four-letter word no longer shook him, at least, not in the same way. Now, in his head, it rang with possessiveness, a possessiveness that satisfied, that sat well with his conqueror’s soul. He’d found her, he’d seized her—now he could enjoy her.

He studied her face, then raised one brow. And turned her back into the house.

“Did I tell you this place has an extremely interesting conservatory?”

Richard Cynster answers a legal summons to the wilds of the Scottish border, only to discover a well-laid trap, with the most succulent bait he’s ever laid eyes on. The bait, however, has other ideas—Catriona, a certified disciple of The Lady, needs no man to help her rule her lands. She does, however, need to obey the prophesy The Lady sends her—and spend the night in Richard Cynster’s arms. Several nights, actually. Complications arise—in both their plans. Despite their best intentions, Catriona and Richard again and again find themselves turning to each other—until they realize that only with the other, in partnership with the other, can they fulfill their destinies as fate has planned.

Romances set against the backdrop of Regency England were the first STEPHANIE LAURENS ever read, and they continue to exert a special attraction. On escaping from the dry world of professional science to carve out a career as a writer, Stephanie published eight Regency romances, then turned to longer historical romances set in the Regency period. Her first was
Captain Jack’s Woman
, published by Avon Books in 1997. Subsequent books have told the tales of the Bar Cynster-a group of masterful, arrogant cousins of the ducal Cynster dynasty.
Devil’s Bride, A Rake’s Vow, Scandal’s Bride, A Rogues’ Proposal, A Secret Love,
and
All About Love
have documented the inevitable surrender to love of the devastatingly handsome Cynsters.
All About Passion
extends the series.

Residing in a leafy bayside suburb of Melbourne, Australia, Stephanie divides her free time between her husband, two teenage daughters and two cats, Shakespeare and Marlowe. Stephanie loves to hear from readers. Letters can be sent c/o The Publicity Department, Avon Books, HarperCollins Publishers, 10 E 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299, or via email to
[email protected]
, or via Stephanie’s website at
www.stephanielaurens.com
. Updates on the continuing Cynstar series can be found on the website.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

A R
AKE’S
V
OW
. Copyright © 1998 by Savdek Management Proprietory Ltd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

ePub edition November 2001 ISBN 9780061762710

First Avon Books Printing: October 1998

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