The Art of Ruining a Rake (4 page)

 
Shuffling noises ensued as Mr. Mowry attempted to back Wilhelmina’s parents out of the room. Lucy and Roman were still joined. What felt like years was only the blink of seconds. Oh, this was a disaster. She’d
known
not to trust herself with him. She could never resist him. She was too much like her mother, intoxicated by the allure of a handsome man.

Lucy squeezed her eyes shut. One discomforting tear leaked anyway. She held her breath, willed herself not to tremble, and tried to convince herself it wasn’t as bad as all that. Why, she and Roman might have been doing anything. There were perfectly valid reasons for her legs to be wrapped around his hips, weren’t there?

Mrs. Strickett’s voice faded as she followed her husband into the hall. “I
will
say. I’ll tell everyone I see. This school is a disgrace. Wilhelmina!
Willie!
You, there—Mowry, is it? Come away from that horrid room and find my daughter. No, I’ll find her myself. Wilhelmina!”

A man’s footsteps hurried away from Lucy’s office. Then the door closed.

Roman withdrew.

Lucy began to laugh. The guffaws burst from her, absurd and uncontrollable. She laughed hard at first, then harder still as Roman went to the door and slid the bolt home. Far, far too late. Everything she’d worked for, everything she’d planned was destroyed. She laughed until she had tears streaming down her face.

“What the devil is so funny?” he asked sharply.

Her hand covered her mouth, but it was no help. She couldn’t stop laughing. “I’m
ruined
.” Her throat closed around a sob. “I’ll never be welcome in Society again. And my school—it’s ruined as well. Mrs. Strickett is
highly
placed. Word will reach the uppermost circles, and then
no one
will send their daughter to the School for Accomplished Young Ladies.”

Lucy choked back another sob. Her hands were shaking. Just a small vibration at first, but then her shoulders quaked. She pushed her skirts over her knees and buried her face in her hands, the situation made all the worse because Roman was witnessing her humiliating display of hysterics. “I shall be forced b-back to Worston in d-disgrace. Everyone will know I allowed my passions to lead me. Trestin will n-never let me out of his s-sight again.”

The threat of her brother’s hawk-eyed supervision was worst of all. She yearned for adventure in the city. He demanded her docility in the country. She’d dreamed up her School for Accomplished Young Ladies precisely because living as a spinster in his household had become intolerable.

She wiped away her tears and drew several shaky breaths. If only she hadn’t lost her head! That glorious night last spring when she’d given herself to Roman had gone nothing like this. She’d disappeared from his life and her lovely little school had opened precisely as planned, all because the door to Mrs. Galbraith’s spare bedchamber had been perfectly
locked
.

Her cheeks heated as her temper flared. Her first assignation with Roman hadn’t escaped Trestin’s attention. Her brother had demanded marriage before. She’d barely convinced him of the hazard in chaining her to a reprobate like their father.

Trestin wouldn’t
be as understanding when he learned of her mistake this time. After he discovered she’d returned to Roman’s arms, he’d insist upon a wedding. When she refused, he’d become even more insufferable. And what was to become of her school? Her teachers, her students? The women who depended on her for wages and board, and the charity girls who had nowhere else to go?

And what of Celeste, her sister-by-law and friend? She’d generously donated thousands of pounds to found the school. What would
she
think? She’d made Lucy promise to guard her reputation; it had been a stipulation of their joint venture. Surely, she’d be saddened when she learned Lucy had ruined everything, even after Celeste had warned her not to let this happen.

Lucy sat straighter, forcing herself to consider her options rationally. If only things could be kept quiet! But she had no hope of that. Those people who weren’t told by Mrs. Strickett or one of her tale-telling friends would see it in the scandal sheets. Lucy was going to be publicly humiliated.

She’d lose her school.

She’d lose her reputation.

She’d lose her brother’s sympathy, however scarcely it had been doled before.

Most importantly, she’d lose her autonomy.

Another sob burst from her.

Roman pivoted to face her. His clothing had been returned to its proper place. He stood at an indolent angle, regarding her with just a hint of a smile. A picture of carefree gentility, as if her world hadn’t just broken apart around her. “We do need to quit meeting like this, Miss Lancester.”

She swiped at her tears with ink-tipped fingers and tried to forget the taste of him on her lips. “I needn’t ask how you can be so cavalier, given your history.”

“It’s not polite to refer to the other young ladies you think your lover has compromised.” Despite his flippancy, his tone had an edge.

She pushed herself from her desk and began to pace. Focusing her thoughts had always been the best course to settle her high spirits. What to do, what to do? Did she need to hold an audience with Mr. Strickett and his wife? Was it better if she left them to collect their daughter and leave, or should she try to explain? What
was
there to explain? Even if they didn’t think she and Roman had been in flagrante delicto, they’d been kissing, and her legs had been wrapped around his hips, and—Zeus, but there was
no hope
Mrs. Strickett could be brought to believe anything chaste had been occurring.

“Lucy, stop.” Roman strode toward her and grabbed her hand. “You’re panicking. Don’t panic. It can’t help us.”

She stopped and pinned him with a black look, hating that he was right. She was quickly going mad. “
I’m
the one whose reputation has been served to the wolves. You’ll do what you always do. Walk away.”

His jaw tightened. “Is that what I did before?”

She faltered, remembering how quickly he’d offered her marriage last spring. “No.”

He took another step toward her. Her heart stuttered.
 

“Whose fault is it we aren’t married?” he asked her, his body rigid with tension. “We could be doing this—” He tugged her hand hard enough to bring her stumbling into his chest. Her palm splayed across his waistcoat, holding him back as his handsome face filled with disconcerting seriousness. “Every night. Without consequences.”

Oh, but he was wrong. There would be consequences. Her broken heart, for one. His cold, dead body for another. When she looked at him, all she saw was his blood on her hands.

She tried to pull away, but he held her tightly against him. “Release me.”

“Trestin won’t let us out of it so easily this time. Marry me before he leaves us no choice.” Roman’s smile didn’t meet his eyes. “I’ll be the happiest man in the world.”

She pushed so hard against his chest, he finally freed her. She spun away and moved behind her desk. The papers concealing her letter knife had been disturbed by their lovemaking. Its silver blade gleamed in the sunlight. “A woman would have to be mad to marry you.”

He cocked his head as if trying to make sense of her words. “Then your answer is no?”

Her breasts heaved against her desire to say
yes. Yes, yes.
“No matter how many times you ask me, the answer is the same. Now, you’d best go before my staff returns. There is no longer any point in holding Mr. Mowry back.”

“You want me to leave?” he asked incredulously. “When your future is so uncertain? What kind of man do you think I am?”

What kind of man, indeed. She knew exactly what kind. The sort best kept far, far away from her. “I would rather be ruined than bound to you.”

His laughter rang hollow. “Pray, Lucy-love, what the devil have I done to earn your contempt? Doesn’t a fellow deserve to have his crimes read aloud to him?”

Rage built to a thunderhead inside her. She hated when he called her Lucy-love. She hated more that he appeared genuinely perplexed. He’d
wronged
her. He ought to remember it. “It is the very fact of your not knowing that causes me to doubt your sincerity.”

He stepped forward. Sunlight glinted off him in little golden deceptions, flashing from his brass buttons, his watch fob, his sapphire signet ring. More lies, for he was as impoverished as she. “Is it because you believe there have been others? My Innocents, as they’re called. Perjurers, the lot of them. I’ve despoiled no one but you.”

Oh, he was
bold
to attempt such a blatant falsehood. Hundreds of women had set their cap at him. Dozens more had found their way into his bed.

“You were chaste, then?” she shot back. “I was your first?”

He blinked. “Certainly not.”

His surprisingly honest reply drove into her heart like the letter knife. “Your constancy, then,” she needled him. “You were devoted to my memory these last months while you pined for my company?”

His lips thinned. “No.”

She flinched though this admission, too, was only the truth. “Can you doubt my answer then?”

His black look spoke volumes.

Good. He deserved to feel put out.

She stood taller and looked down her nose at the scoundrel standing in her office. It was time for him to leave. She needed to collect the shattered pieces of her life and reassemble them into an acceptable solution before she was turned out on the street, forced to slink back to her brother’s house for lack of option. She could hardly be expected to concentrate on anything if Roman Alexander was standing there looking daggers at her.

“Your coat likely cost what your home farm turns over in a year,” she said, indicating to his blue superfine coat, “yet you purchased it anyway. Your creditors chase you from London to Devon and back again. You’re charming, gifted with a silver tongue, and spoiled. If you want to marry, find a woman who appreciates your many fine qualities. I do not.”

His nostrils flared. He drew himself up to his full height, more than a foot above hers. “
Miss Lancester
. I came here to prove something to myself, and it has been proved. I cannot break your heart as you broke mine, because you
have
no heart.” He bowed curtly at the waist without waiting for her response. “I bid you good day.”

With that astounding speech, he left her.

Alone.

Chapter 2

ROMAN ALEXANDER, the eldest of five brothers and thereby the marquis of Montborne through no intention of his own, crossed the cobbled street in several long strides and merged onto Bath’s main thoroughfare. He didn’t stop until Miss Lancester’s whitewashed school disappeared behind a tree, then a low wall, then a ring of market stalls.

He still didn’t stop. He
seethed
. If he had a carriage at his disposal, he’d return to London straightaway. Put as much distance between himself and Miss Lancester as he could before he made the mistake of trying to win her adoration a third disastrous time.

He stormed up one street and down another. Up, down. Up, down. Always keeping her little school at a safe distance. He liked to walk. It cleared his head. Why, he was already feeling less horrified at having been caught
en dishabille
with her. It wasn’t going to be the first time he was accused of defiling an innocent, but he hadn’t misled her.

This was the first time it was actually true.

For all that was holy, he hadn’t meant to
ruin
her. Confound it, man, this day hadn’t gone as planned at all.

He clamped one hand on the brim of his beaver hat. Tried to tug it low enough to hide his dishonor. He should have stayed in London with his miserable blue devils instead of going through the effort and expense of hiring a carriage and coming here. Had he really thought he could change her mind? When he’d known in his heart she didn’t give a fig for him?

You
like
abject misery,
she’d said. As if he tortured himself with uncomfortable, expensive carriage rides just to savor the agony of rejection!

His heart pounded in time with his breakneck pace. And if he
had
looked forward to their repartee with excruciating anticipation, must he feel
ashamed
? Calf love was wonderfully distracting. There was nothing wrong with enjoying a good bout of suffering. Miss Lancester made it sound like a bad thing.