Never Had a Dream Come True (19 page)

“Maybe a Christmas wedding sounds better?”

She was the worst of actors, but Thomas didn’t notice the duchess’s badly hidden satisfaction over the outcome of things.

“A Christmas wedding would be perfect,” Thomas breathed, relieved. “By then I will have had plenty of time to take care of the more important tasks and will have all the time in the world for Penny.”

For being such an educated man, he was quite miserable with expressing himself, Penny thought with an affectionate smile. Their Graces stared openmouthed at the poor man who had unknowingly insulted his wife-to-be in the worst way, but she didn’t care.

“Christmas it is,” she agreed and hugged his arm lightly as he smiled just as happily back.

“Only a few more months…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but she knew what he meant and blushed. Only a few more months and she was his.

Memories of the one kiss they had shared in the carriage from Sandhurst made her feel warm and longing for more. It hadn’t been as shattering as the kisses Rake had given her in the Darling townhouse, but it had been enough for her.

It had felt nice and comfortable. All her senses had still worked and she hadn’t needed time to catch her breath at all.

“Maybe you two would like to take a stroll in the garden?” The duke nodded toward the small stair which led through the rosebushes and down into the maze where Penny had spent many hours as a child.

“What?” His lovely wife gasped, but he ignored her outburst.

“I think you two need a little solitude, and as you now are engaged to be married, I think we should offer you a bit more room to get to know each other.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.” Thomas immediately moved toward the steps, dragging Penny with him. By the time they reached the bottom, the arguing voices of the married couple on the terrace could no longer be heard. Completely alone, they entered the magnificent maze that generations of Darlings had contributed to, creating these grand walls of mystery.

When Thomas hesitated at the opening, not knowing whether to walk left or right, Penny grabbed his hand and, with an inviting smile, ran to the right. With him close behind her, she didn’t stop until they reached the opening in the middle of the maze.

“This is marvelous,” Thomas breathed, as he feasted his eyes on the little pond with its small wooden bridge leading to a fanciful gazebo on a man-made island.

“Fanny and I have spent most of our summers as children here, playing and laughing, and I always love coming back. I have been so happy here I can’t help but feel good standing here.”

“This must have been heaven for two little girls with great imaginations.”

“Indeed it was.” She laughed, took his hand again, and led him over the bridge to the gazebo.

As soon as they were inside he let go of her hand and instead grabbed her waist, hauling her closer to him.

“Hello, my lovely wife-to-be.” He smiled warmly at Penny, and she put her arms around him, lifting her face up toward his invitingly. Slowly he leaned down and placed his lips gently against hers. She closed her eyes, waiting for more to come.

“The hell you will!”

The menacing roar tore through the comfortable silence of the gazebo, and before either of them had a chance to react they were ripped apart.

As Penny stumbled across the floor, she saw Thomas fall and heard a large thud as his head banged against the hard wood. The air went out of him with a moan as he fell unconscious.

Openmouthed with horror, Penny stared at Rake, who hovered over Thomas looking more like an avenging soldier than a fashionable gentleman of the
ton,
his handsome face twisted with hatred and his hands clenched threatening.

“Are you hurt?”

Not until he turned his head and his dark eyes settled upon her person did she understand it was she he meant.

Speechless, she numbly shook her head, too outraged to find the right words—or any words, for that matter. What on earth was he thinking? Why had he attacked them like he was some sort of savage from the darkest of medieval times?

“I knew he would try something, when I spotted the two of you entering the maze,” Rake said through his teeth. “I could see it by the way he followed you so close.”

“You hit him,” Penny accused, when she finally found her voice again. “You…Hit…Him…”

“Of course I did. You can thank me later, when you feel better.”

“Thank you?” There it was—he had finally lost his mind. “Why on earth would I thank you for hitting Thomas unconscious?”

He arched a perfect eyebrow as he looked down at her. “He was attacking you.”

“He was not!”

“Yes, he was. I saw him throwing himself all over you, when I reached the centre of the maze.”

She couldn’t stop a snort. “He wasn’t throwing himself all over me. He was hugging me.”

Rake frowned at her as he reached to grab her chin, forcing her to look into his smoky eyes. “Are you sure he didn’t hurt you? You sound a bit distraught.”

“Of course I’m distraught, you snake. You almost killed him.”

“Come on, Penny,” Rake grinned as he lost the last of his earlier anger. “You know me—I’m too good a boxer to kill anyone. He’s only a bit knocked out. He will be just fine when he wakes up, even though he doesn’t deserve it.”

He tenderly caressed her chin for a brief moment, and then before she had a chance to react he pulled her into his arms.

“I was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to save you this time either,” he whispered into her hair. “All I could think about was how you looked in Fanny’s room that night, all messy and bruised. I was too late then, but not this time. This time I saved you.”

“For goodness’ sake,” Penny muttered, not really listening to him as she tried to free herself from his too-enticing embrace. He didn’t yield. Instead he held her even closer to him, and she was starting to feel lightheaded as she felt his body against hers.

“Please, let me go,” she begged, desperate to get away from him and the emotions he awakened in her. Thomas was lying unconscious on the floor, and here she was burning for another man.

What kind of woman was she?

“I will never let you go.” His lips touched her neck and she lost her ability to breathe. “You are where you belong—in my arms.”

“I don’t belong in your arms,” she squealed as his lips moved closer to her chin and her lips, creating waves of excitement throughout her body. “I belong in Thomas’s.”

He lifted his head and gave her an amused grin. “Really, Penny, I thought you had given up that stupid wish by now, about becoming Mrs. Boring Saint Thomas.”

“Don’t call him that.”

“Why not? He is boring. He spends his days farming and his evenings reading and detests anyone who likes to do something more frivolous. How much more boring can a man get?”

“I don’t find him boring at all, especially as I too love to read.”

Rake shook his head, amused over her stoic siding with Thomas. “You don’t have to defend him to me, Penny. He was the one who was molesting you, right?”

“He wasn’t molesting me at all,” Penny gasped in outrage as she once again tried to rip herself loose from his grip, but he stubbornly refused to let her go.

“Your gasping drives me crazy,” he whispered hoarsely. Eyes smoldering, he leaned forward. With a cry of distress she threw herself backwards, away from his full lips that sought hers, to save herself from her traitorous body that wanted to give in to his gentle demand.

She managed to surprise him enough to get loose, and quickly she scooted to the side and ran over to Thomas who still lay unmoving on the floor.

“Oh, my God, Thomas,” she moaned as her hands caressed his head in search of any wounds. “Please wake up.”

“Penny, don’t feel bad about him. He’s the one who acted wrongly, not you.”

She looked back at Rake over her shoulder and knew he had misunderstood the whole situation when she met his compassionate eyes. He still thought he had saved her.

“No, Rake, you are the one who did wrong. Thomas is the one who did everything right.”

Rake snorted. “He has no right to fondle you.”

“I beg to differ,” she snapped. “He’s my fiancé and it was with your father’s approval we walked to the maze without a chaperone.”

Rake froze and his face lost all color. “Your fiancé?” he echoed with an odd hollow voice, and she nodded, glad the truth finally was out.

“Yes, my fiancé. We are to be married at Christmas. Your mother is quite happily arranging the occasion as we speak.”

Penny looked down at Thomas to hide her face and the lie about his mother’s happiness. She knew the duchess would plan the event if she had to, but not with pleasure, and definitely not happily.

“Married…”

She almost missed his broken whisper, but as she caught the one word he never had mentioned between them, bitterness rose inside of her.

Before she had a chance to think twice, she lashed out at him, still without turning around. “Yes, married. Funny thing, you know? Thomas admits to wanting me, too. But he doesn’t humiliate me with proposals of hidden houses for as long as he’s interested. No, Thomas wants me for the rest of his life.”

When Rake didn’t answer, she turned around to see how her words had affected him, but to her surprise she found the gazebo empty. Only she and Thomas remained, as Rake silently had left without another word.

She sat down on the floor beside her fiancé and stared out through the empty doorway. A part of her regretted the harsh words, but another felt strangely satisfied over being able to throw back his selfish behavior at him.

She had shed too many tears over Rake in the last year, and for the first time she felt as if she had reached him, that she finally had made him understand how insulted she felt over his unconventional proposal.

Thomas moaned, and she looked down at him, watching him slowly come back to consciousness. This man was her future. Rake was her past. She had to learn to live with both, and maybe now she finally would have a chance.

Rake had been taken quite by surprise when she told him about her engagement to Thomas, and she could only hope this meant he wouldn’t persist in chasing after her, relentlessly trying to seduce her. She didn’t want to end her visit with her friends at Chester Park out of distress at the possibility of meeting him.

Maybe, in the long run, they could become friends again? She didn’t want to lose him forever; she appreciated him too much for that. Could Rake knocking Thomas unconscious turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to her?

“I can’t believe you knocked him out.”

Howling with laughter, William raised his glass toward his younger brother, who grinned in response, looking extremely pleased with himself.

“I’m so embarrassed.”

No one answered the duchess. She had been moaning all day because of her youngest son’s barbaric behavior.

“Only one hit?” the duke asked, clearly impressed. When Rake nodded, he leaned back with a satisfied sigh. “I wish I had been there. It must have been quite a punch.”

“Sent him sprawling.” Rake oozed with manly satisfaction, and his mother moaned again.

“Oh, lord, how will we ever survive this?”

Charles patted his stepmother’s hand reassuringly. “We have survived worse. Remember George when he found Caroline kissing that vicar in the chapel?”

“Oh, my God,” the duchess moaned even more dramatically. “The embarrassment. The humiliation!”

“Rake or George?”

The duke put a hand up, effectively stopping Charles from disturbing the duchess in her moment of utter shock. “Please leave your mother alone. As soon as she has come to terms with what happened this morning, she will become her normal obnoxious self again.”

“I can’t believe you knocked him out!”

All the men laughed and cheered for Rake, the barbarian gentleman. Only the two women in the room stayed quiet, the duchess because she was still too occupied with the scandal of it, and Penny, who felt smaller and smaller every passing minute.

Thomas had been quite furious with Rake for attacking him—which he had every right to be—and had demanded an apology. But as Rake was nowhere to be found, he had slowly calmed down, and in the end he had been quite civil about the whole thing.

“I guess I should at least be grateful he was trying to rescue you, but the throbbing pain in my chin is a bit too much right now for me to be able to forgive him on the spot,” Thomas had admitted to Penny before he left, and she had almost cried over such a heroic stance.

The rest of the day she had pondered over what she would say to Rake when she met him later at dinner. The depths of his rage had stunned her, but what had disturbed her the most was his obvious need to rescue her. She had been completely surprised by it.

So maybe he wasn’t the knight in shining armor she used to transform him into in her most vivid daydreams. At least he was a knight at heart, even if his armor had become a bit tarnished over the years.

For a moment she had started to doubt her decision to marry Thomas, the very sane and practical decision she’d made out of a desperate need to belong and be close to someone.

She had settled for friendship, but what if love awaited her around the corner? What if a life together with Rake was reachable?

In the end she had come to the same decision as before; life with Thomas would be right for her. But even so she still dissected Rake’s every word, trying to make sense of what it all meant.

When she finally joined the Darling family for dinner, she was quite nervous, and she had stopped for a minute outside the massive door to the dining room to calm her pounding heart.

Would Rake be there?

And if he was, would he ignore her, or lash out with all the repressed anger she had sensed in him? She had held her breath as she walked into the room, prepared to her teeth for anything to happen.

But she hadn’t prepared herself for the old Rake, the wicked libertine who arrogantly bickered with his family and chuckled, amused, with an arched eyebrow, whenever he felt so obliged.

Gone was the consuming rage.

Gone were the strange sadness and the unusual moodiness. Back was the lighthearted and laughing scoundrel who lived life to its full with a wink and a grin.