Rapturous Rakes Bundle (19 page)

the one for the collector.’

Lucas stiffened. ‘Are you certain, Bradshaw?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

Lucas felt his stomach knot. ‘Did you overhear their

conversation?’

‘A little, my lord. He was not there for long. He

paid Miss Raleigh two hundred guineas and left with

a package—’

‘Two hundred guineas!’ Lucas could not stop him-

self. He was remembering Rebecca telling him that the

market rate for six glasses was twenty guineas. Either

she had provided a great many items for the mysteri-

ous collector or... The logic was obvious. Or he was

paying her for more than the commission. For her si-

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lence, perhaps... Lucas shook his head sharply. He

could not believe it. He simply did not believe it of

Rebecca.

‘Are you sure?’ he said harshly.

‘Yes, my lord.’ Bradshaw looked nervous. ‘I heard

him say so himself.’

‘It is a great deal of money,’ Justin said mildly.

Lucas thrust his hand through his hair. ‘Is there any-

thing else, Bradshaw?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ the servant said. He swallowed. ‘I

followed the man when he took the package away.’

There was a silence.

‘Where did he go?’ Lucas asked.

Bradshaw looked up. ‘To the Archangel Club, my

lord,’ he said.

Lucas and Justin exchanged a look. Lucas could see

sympathy in his brother’s eyes and it made him angry.

The implication was obvious. Justin thought that he

had been taken for a fool by Miss Rebecca Raleigh.

He thought that he had lost his head and his judge-

ment, and, to be fair, the evidence against Rebecca

was strong. Yet instinct, deeper than any logic, told

him that she was honest.

‘Do you wish me to bring the servant in, your

Grace?’ Bradshaw was asking, cautiously. ‘He rents a

room in the Feathers in Cheapside.’

Justin shook his head. ‘Nobody in the pay of the

Archangel is going to talk to us. All it will do is raise

the alarm. I shall go to the club and make the most

discreet of enquiries, though I imagine I shall find pre-

cisely nothing. Lucas—’

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‘Yes,’ Lucas said. ‘I shall go to Clerkenwell and

speak with Miss Raleigh.’

‘She is all we have,’ Justin said. Lucas could hear

the pity that tinged his brother’s voice. ‘We need you

to bring her here for questioning, Luc. Innocent or

guilty, she has to help us.’

There was a sharp silence. ‘If you do not care for

the idea, then I shall go myself,’ Justin added.

Lucas could feel Justin watching him, weighing him

up, deciding if he could be relied on or not. He squared

his shoulders.

‘I should prefer to go,’ he said quietly.

Justin nodded. He turned to Tom Bradshaw. ‘Thank

you, Bradshaw. You have done very well.’

‘Thank you, your Grace,’ Bradshaw said politely.

He nodded to Lucas. ‘My lord...’ He backed hastily

from the room when he saw the look on Lucas’s face.

Lucas stared at the door panels after Bradshaw had

left and silence had descended on the room. The con-

nections that he had been too tired, too preoccupied to

make, were clicking into place in his head.

‘You knew where I was last night,’ he said slowly.

‘Bradshaw has already told you that I was with Miss

Raleigh.’

Justin gave the ghost of a grin and waved the coffee

pot at him. ‘May I offer you some more? I am sorry

there is nothing stronger.’

Lucas shook his head impatiently. ‘Well?’

Justin shrugged. There was a twinkle in his eye.

‘You put the poor fellow in the devil of a position,

Lucas. After all, you had set him on to watch Miss

Raleigh’s premises in the first place, and then he finds

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himself spying on his employer’s amorous entangle-

ments! He left directly to preserve discretion.’

Lucas sighed. ‘I did not even think of it.’

‘It seems that there were a number of matters that

you did not give consideration to last night.’

Lucas flung himself down onto one of the hard din-

ing chairs. ‘Miss Raleigh is no courtesan,’ he said.

Justin paused in the act of pouring himself another

cup of coffee. ‘I never imagined for a moment that

she was,’ he said mildly. ‘Indeed, your crisis of con-

science this morning rather suggests that the reverse

is true. I take it that you still wish to marry her?’

‘Yes, I do.’

Lucas waited in explosive silence for the Duke to

suggest that an engraver’s niece was not a seemly

match for one of the Kestrels. Instead Justin merely

said,

‘You still believe her to be innocent.’

‘Certainly.’ Lucas shifted on the seat. ‘Nothing that

I have heard from Bradshaw this morning changes my

opinion.’

He saw a flicker of expression cross Justin’s face

and felt his temper tighten at the thought that it might

be pity. His brother thought he had gone soft and lost

his judgement. ‘I may be suffering the pangs of guilt,’

he said angrily, ‘but I assure you that my reasoning is

still sound.’

Justin made a pacifying gesture. ‘I agree. My only

concern is that you should not offer for Miss Raleigh

out of a misplaced sense of chivalry. Something may

be arranged.’

‘You mean you will pay her off, as though she was

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a harlot?’ Lucas was on his feet before he even knew

he had moved. ‘I
told
you she was no courtesan—’

‘Hold your peace,’ Justin said, undisturbed. ‘I meant

no such thing. I merely do not wish you to tie yourself

to a loveless marriage through a sense of honour. It is

not fair for a man to spend his life paying for one

mistake.’

Lucas understood what he meant. ‘That is not why

I am offering for Rebecca.’

Justin arched a disbelieving eyebrow. ‘Then name

your reasons.’

Lucas stared at his brother. It felt like a challenge

to combat. In his mind were all of his own conflicting

emotions; before him, Justin’s implacability.

‘I want her,’ he said. ‘I want to marry her.’

He saw Justin’s expression shift as though his

brother had read something in his face that he had not

intended to be there.

Justin nodded. ‘Then I wish you good fortune, Luc,’

he said quietly.

It was only when Lucas had gone out that Justin

raised his cup in mocking tribute to the oil painting of

the previous Duke, whose portrait hung above the fire.

‘So my little brother is in love at last, though he

does not realise it,’ he mused. ‘Thank God you did

not ruin everything for him, Father, with your endless

infidelities.’ His face sobered as he put the cup down.

‘But of course Miss Raleigh may refuse him when she

knows the truth. If she is half the woman I suspect her

to be, I rather think she will.’

Chapter
Six

Rebecca had been engraving for two hours when the

sharp ache in her wrist reminded her that if she did

not rest she would be unable to continue. With a sigh

she laid down her engraving scribe and went into the

scullery to make herself a pot of tea. Whilst the kettle

sang on the hearth she leaned against the sink and

thought about Lucas and the night before; of his hands

on her body and his mouth on hers and the searing

intimacy of sleeping with her body entwined in his.

The room had filled with steam before she recalled

herself to the present.

Back in the studio, the fire was already burning low,

subdued by the wind that was drawing down the chim-

ney. The sun had gone in and the room looked dark

and cheerless. Rebecca went to fetch more candles.

She had just lit two of them when the door banged

and another blast of autumnal air swept into the work-

shop, blowing them out in a puff of smoke.

Rebecca swung round. Lucas was standing just in-

side the doorway, shaking the droplets of rain off his

magnificent caped driving coat. Rebecca could not

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The
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Mistress

help herself. Her heart gave a huge leap of gladness

and a smile burst from her that she had neither the

means nor the will to control.

‘Good morning, Lucas—’

She broke off. Lucas had not returned her smile and

now he bowed very slightly. In the dim light his face

looked tense and unyielding.

‘Good morning, Rebecca.’ He sounded strained. Re-

becca’s smile wavered slightly.

Lucas closed the door behind them with quiet de-

liberation.

A chill touched the top of Rebecca’s spine and

crawled down her back. She frowned slightly, looking

at him. There was something dreadfully wrong. She

could read it in his face. The fear began to crystallize

about her heart.

‘My lord?’ she said warily. She jumped as Lucas

shot the bolt home and reached behind her, groping

on the desk for her diamond engraving scribe. Her

hand grasped open air. Lucas, seeing the gesture, put

out a hand to stop her.

‘Do not be afraid. We need to talk, you and I, and

I would prefer it to be uninterrupted.’

Rebecca searched his face, instinctively seeking re-

assurance, but there was none. His expression was as

closed as a shuttered house. Rebecca felt fear and

sheer disbelief swamping her like a tidal wave. Last

night this man had held her in his arms and made love

to her with single-minded passion. Now he wore the

face of a stranger. The change from that man to this

was almost too great to comprehend.

‘I thought—’ She broke off. ‘Last night...’

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147

She saw a bleakness come into Lucas’s face, colder

than the snow on the winter streets.

‘Rebecca,’ he said again, taking her arm and guid-

ing her towards the
chaise-longue,
‘I need to speak

with you.’

He spared neither of them. Rebecca listened in

mounting disbelief and disillusion as he told the whole

tale—that he was involved in a quest to discover and

unmask a spy ring and the engraver who had been

working for them, that he had set a man to watch her

premises, that he had deliberately sought her out and

set out to gain her confidence. She started to tremble.

Her hands were so cold she could barely feel them.

She wrapped her arms about herself, but it could not

quell the shaking. The fearful discovery that Lucas had

betrayed her from the very start cut to the very heart

of her.

‘Last night...’ she said again. She stopped and

cleared her throat, wanting to hide the worst of her

pain from him. ‘You need not have taken your mas-

querade so far, my lord.’

Lucas put out a hand and she flinched away from

him. She saw the hurt in his face and it lacerated her

own pain. So he had some feelings for her after all,

just not enough to have told her the truth from the

start.

‘That was no pretence,’ he said, in a hard voice.

‘Rebecca, I care for you. I want to marry you.’

Rebecca stood up violently. Rage, fierce and pri-

meval, stormed through her. ‘
Marry?
You wish to

marry a woman you do not even
trust?
’

Lucas rubbed his brow with exasperation. ‘Rebecca,

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Mistress

it is not that I do not trust you. I never believed you

to be a part of the espionage.’

Rebecca made a sound of disgust. ‘Of course not!

You merely chose to keep from me the fact that you

were here with a secret purpose!’ Her voice broke and

she swallowed hard. ‘Oh! You are detestable, Lord

Lucas! I despise you!’

Lucas’s face was white and tense. ‘I understand that

you are upset to know the truth, Rebecca—’

‘You have no notion how I feel!’ Rebecca said, as

white as he. ‘How could you imagine that I would ever

accept your proposal? I do believe that one of us is

run mad here, and it is certainly not me!’

Lucas got to his feet. ‘What else could I do?’ he

said. ‘If I had asked you to marry me first and then