Rapturous Rakes Bundle (2 page)

his favourite brother was Lucas, who was an Army

man and a great gun. By the time they turned into

Grosvenor Street, Rebecca’s ears were heartily tired

with the repetition of Lord Lucas Kestrel’s name. He

sounded to be precisely the sort of gentleman of fash-

ion that she instinctively disliked and she could only

be grateful that she would have no requirement to meet

him.

The coach drew up outside an elegant townhouse

and Lord Stephen peered out of the window, drawing

back with a curse.

‘Devil take it!’ He recollected himself. ‘I beg your

pardon, Miss Raleigh, but I do believe Lucas is at

home. What cursed luck! I was hoping he would still

be at his club for several hours and I could hurry inside

undetected.’

‘Could you not go around the back and go in at the

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servants’ entrance?’ Rebecca suggested. It was the

route that was most familiar to her, but the idea had

evidently not occurred to Lord Stephen before, for his

face lit up.

‘What a splendid idea! I say, you are up to all the

rigs, Miss Raleigh! I am most indebted to you—’ He

broke off.

There was an ominous click as the door of the coach

unlatched from the outside. An icy gust of air blew in,

bringing with it a spattering of rain. In the aperture

stood a man with a lantern in one hand. He looked

like an avenging angel with the light illuminating his

dark auburn hair and casting shadows across the hard

planes of his face. A cool hazel gaze swept over Re-

becca in challenging appraisal.

This man was older than Stephen Kestrel—ten years

older at a guess—but he had enough of Stephen’s

spectacular good looks to make him instantly recog-

nisable. Here there was a harder edge, something al-

together more intimidating than Stephen’s boyish

charm. This, Rebecca thought, must be the infamous

Lucas Kestrel himself.

It was clear that Lord Lucas had returned home for

the night, for he was dressed with an informality that

only befitted his drawing room. His jacket was unbut-

toned and his neck cloth loosened. The casualness of

his attire did little to soften the impression of uncom-

promising maleness. Rebecca shivered. This was the

sort of man about whom the chaperons would issue

dire warnings. Every instinct that she possessed told

her to tread very carefully. She had no difficulty at all

in identifying him as an out-and-out rake.

Nicola
Cornick

15

Rebecca drew back into her corner as the icy wind

whipped inside the carriage. Lord Stephen made a vain

grasp at the cloak, but it blew aside to leave him once

more half-naked and caught in the lantern light in all

his glory.

‘Stephen?’ Lucas Kestrel said incredulously. The

dark frown on his brow deepened. His gaze shifted

back to Rebecca and seemed to pin her to her seat.

She felt a strange, swirling sensation in her stomach,

a wariness with an edge of excitement. It set her heart

racing. She turned hot despite the icy draught.

‘Stephen,’ Lucas Kestrel said again, without taking

his eyes from Rebecca, ‘what the devil is going on?’

‘Hello, Lucas.’ Stephen Kestrel was stuttering. ‘I...I

do apologise. This must look quite bad...I... This is

Miss Raleigh...’

‘How do you do, Miss Raleigh,’ Lucas Kestrel said.

His voice was lazy and smooth and it sent a ripple of

awareness down Rebecca’s spine. A smile that was not

in the least friendly lifted the corner of his mouth as

he looked at her. ‘I do not believe we have met be-

fore.’

‘How do you do, Lord Lucas,’ Rebecca said. She

inclined her head politely. ‘I am sure that we have not

met. I would most certainly have remembered. Your

family do seem to make quite an impression.’

That earned her another look, hard and unsmiling.

‘Pray excuse me a moment,’ Lord Lucas said, with

exemplary courtesy. He took his eyes from her at last

and Rebecca managed to breathe again. She made a

small business of smoothing her skirt and adjusting

her gloves. It was unnecessary, but it helped to settle

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The
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Mistress

her nerves. She had been unprepared for the impact of

Lucas Kestrel’s presence and it had disturbed her far

more deeply than any man had done before.

‘Out of the coach, please, Stephen,’ Lord Lucas

said. ‘I shall see you in the library in half an hour.

Fully dressed, if you would.’

Rebecca watched as Stephen drew the cloak about

him with the forlorn dignity of a dethroned emperor

and descended the carriage as decently as he could.

Once he was standing on the pavement he turned back

to her and sketched a rather comical bow, hampered

as he was by keeping the cloak tightly wound about

him.

‘I am indebted to you, Miss Raleigh,’ he said. ‘If

you would give me your direction I shall call to con-

vey my sense of obligation. And to return your cloak,

of course—’

‘Enough, Stephen,’ Lucas interrupted. ‘I will deal

with Miss Raleigh.’

Rebecca did not like the sound of that. She arched

her brows haughtily. Ignoring Lucas, she turned to his

brother, who was now shivering in the chill autumn

breeze.

‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Lord Stephen,’ she

said. ‘I am glad that I was able to be of service.’

That brought Lucas’s eyebrows snapping down in

an intimidating stare. Stephen gave her a tentative nod

and sped away up the steps into the house, where a

blank-faced butler held the door open for him. Stephen

disappeared. Lucas did not. Despite the fact that her

insides were quaking, Rebecca turned a disdainful

gaze upon him.

Nicola
Cornick

17

‘I assure you that I do not require dealing with, Lord

Lucas,’ she said. ‘If you would be so good as to close

the carriage door, I will make my way home at once.

I have already been delayed far too long.’

In response, Lucas held the door open a little wider.

‘If
you
would be so good as to come inside, Miss

Raleigh,’ he said, with unimpeachable politeness,

‘then we might continue this conversation in the

warmth.’

‘No, thank you,’ Rebecca said.

Lucas’s lips almost twitched into a smile. Rebecca

felt herself warm to him slightly. She did not seem

able to resist. The man evidently had a sense of hu-

mour, deep though it might be buried.

‘It was not an invitation,’ Lucas said gently.

Rebecca smiled. ‘It was not an acceptance,’ she

said.

Lucas’s eyes narrowed on her face. ‘Step down,

Miss Raleigh,’ he repeated, his tone harder this time.

‘No, thank you,’ Rebecca said again. ‘A lady would

need to be quite mad to agree to enter the home of

gentlemen she had only just met.’

Lucas’s lips set in a thin line. He said a few words

to the coachman and then swung himself up into the

coach and slammed the door behind him. Immediately

the space in the carriage seemed to shrink and become

nerve-rackingly small. Rebecca had not found Stephen

Kestrel daunting even when he was half-naked. Lucas

was another matter. He was just plain intimidating,

fully dressed or not. Rebecca tried to calm the erratic

tripping of her heartbeat.

The coach set off with a small jerk, the horses’

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The
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Mistress

hooves striking loud on the cobbles. Rebecca felt

panic rise in her throat and once again tried to quieten

her nervousness. She could not pretend that the situ-

ation looked promising. The servants of the Archangel

Club were accustomed—and well paid—to take orders

from gentlemen without any argument. For all she

knew, Lucas Kestrel could be a member of the Club

himself. So if she were to call out, or demand that the

carriage be turned around, the coachman would very

likely ignore her. She could be dead in the Thames

before anyone lifted a hand to help her.

Despite her attempts to keep such thoughts from

showing on her face, something of how she was feel-

ing must have penetrated the mask, for Lucas Kestrel

put a hand out to her and said silkily,

‘Have no fear, ma’am. Since you would not join me

I thought it easier to join you. I have merely instructed

the coachman to drive around for a while to prevent

the horses from becoming chilled. This will all be over

quickly if you choose to oblige me.’

His tone was even, but Rebecca could not miss the

threat implicit beneath the words. She raised her chin,

an angry spark in her blue eyes, her own voice cutting.

‘And in what way may I assist your lordship?’

Lucas’s gaze slid over her lazily, from the thick

chestnut hair beneath her plain round bonnet to her

feet encased in nankin half-boots. He considered her

with insulting thoroughness and Rebecca felt her tem-

per catch beneath the scrutiny. She was not accus-

tomed to tolerating the impertinent inspection of a

rake.

‘I can think of many ways you might assist me,’ he

Nicola
Cornick

19

murmured, ‘but for the moment I am concerned only

for my brother. For the moment.’

The angry colour had come into Rebecca’s face at

his words and now she subjected him to a scrutiny of

her own. It proved a mistake, for once she had started

looking, she found it difficult to tear her gaze away.

Lord Lucas Kestrel had a striking face, thin and

sunburnt, with high cheekbones, dark auburn hair that

was almost brown and very dark hazel eyes beneath

strongly marked brows. He was not conventionally

handsome, but the sum of all the elements was so un-

usual that it had a potent impact. Rebecca found that

she wanted to go on looking at him and not just be-

cause he was shockingly attractive. She made her liv-

ing as an engraver, and as such she had an eye for a

striking image. Lucas Kestrel had a face an engraver

could lose herself in, all hard lines and angles. As for

his body, he had a compact elegance that would trans-

late well into a sculpture or picture. That powerful

body would be quite magnificent without its clothes...

Rebecca felt herself blush all over, as though someone

had locked her in a hothouse. This sort of instant re-

action to a man never happened to her normally. An

artist of any discipline, be they painter, sculptor or

engraver, was accustomed to viewing the human body

as an art form. They were accustomed to being com-

pletely detached. Alas, detached was not the word to

describe her response to Lucas Kestrel.

He was watching her with one of those dark brows

raised quizzically and a smile lingering on his lips, as

though he knew what she was thinking. It turned Re-

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The
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Mistress

becca hot with annoyance, rather than awareness, to

have been caught staring.

‘So you should be concerned for your brother,’ she

snapped, to cover her embarrassment. ‘A youth who

gets drunk at his club and indulges in foolish pranks

with other young men running riot in the streets—’

‘And ends up in the arms of a Cyprian from the

Archangel Club, having sexual congress in a carriage,’

Lucas finished softly for her. ‘Yes, Miss Raleigh—if

that is indeed your name—I do so agree with you.

Stephen’s exploits are a matter for alarm. Boys will

be boys, but I wish Stephen had chosen another place

to indulge himself than in the dangerous hands of the

Angels. They will ruin him.’

Rebecca felt a violent flash of outrage that almost

got the better of her. She calmed herself with a deep

breath and when she was able to speak she was

pleased that her voice was almost steady.

‘I fear that you are labouring under a series of mis-

apprehensions, my lord,’ she said. ‘I first made your

brother’s acquaintance when he climbed into the car-

riage in Bond Street only a half-hour ago. On learning