The Lure of a Rake Read online

  The Lure of a Rake

  By

  Christi Caldwell

  Copyright © 2016 by Christi Caldwell

  EPUB Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  For more information about the author:

  [email protected]

  www.christicaldwellauthor.com

  Dedication

  So much goes into the creation of a book. I often say, it takes a village. From beginning to the literal and figurative end, there is plotting and writing and revising and editing.

  To my editorial team, Sandra Sookoo and Scott Moreland.

  Thank you for your brilliance. Be it phone calls or emails or late night Facebook messages, when I absolutely must talk to someone about my story, you’re always there. Cedric and Genevieve’s story is for you.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Other Books by Christi Caldwell

  Biography

  Prologue

  London, England

  1813

  Mayhap they won’t find me here.

  Lady Genevieve Farendale sat in the corner of the schoolroom with her knees drawn to her chest. The hum of quiet in the darkened room was faintly calming.

  She laid her tear-dampened cheek upon the soft satin fabric of her ivory wedding dress. Mayhap, they’d know the last place to look for an eighteen-year-old young lady on her should-have-been-wedding-night would be in a child’s schoolroom.

  The door opened. “Genny?” Her just fourteen-year-old sister, Gillian, stuck her head inside the room and scanned the darkened space. The girl hesitated and Genevieve held her breath, hoping her sister would turn on her heel and leave. “Are you in here?” Gillian called out again and stepped inside. The door closed with a decisive click.

  She should have known better. Especially given the rotted turn of events that day where invariably, nothing went right—at least for her, anyway. For one moment born of cowardice, she contemplated saying nothing. But this was Gillian; devoted, loving, and all things kind in a world that had proven how elusive those sentiments were. “I’m here,” she said quietly, discreetly brushing her hands over her tear-stained cheeks.

  Squinting in the dark, Gillian located Genevieve with her stare. Then, with an uncharacteristic guardedness, she wandered closer. She came to a stop, hovering beside her older sister. “Are you all right?” There was a singsong, almost haunting quality to her words.

  For her sister’s benefit, Genevieve mustered a smile. Or she tried. She really did.

  Gillian’s eyes formed round moons. “Oh, dear,” she whispered, sailing to the floor in a noisy ruffle of skirts.

  With the hell of the day whirring around her mind, Genevieve wanted to yell for her to leave. She wanted to snap and snarl and hiss and demand Gillian allow her to her misery. “What is it?” Alas, she’d never been able to yell at her loving sibling.

  “You are crying.”

  “No, I am not.” She had been crying. Well, sobbing, really. The noisy, ugly kind of sobs producing tears that left a lady with a hopelessly red nose and bloodshot eyes. Nothing really pretty about those tears. Now, she’d not a single drop left to shed.

  Gillian leaned forward and peered at her. “But you were,” she insisted, worry filled her usually hopeful, cheerful tone.

  With a sigh, Genevieve stroked the top of her sister’s head. “But I was.”

  Capturing her lower lip between her teeth, Gillian troubled the flesh. “Is it because of your wedding?” The inquiry emerged hesitant.

  It was because her heart had been ripped from her chest in the most public of ways. Her honor and virtue had all been thrown into question by the very same man she’d loved. Alas, one couldn’t say all of that to a young girl still untainted by life. Genevieve searched for words.

  “I overheard Mother and Father,” the girl supplied.

  “Ah.” For really, what else was there to say? What, when she didn’t truly wish to know what, was being discussed between her previously proud mama and papa? Her mother was a leading Society matron, who prided that position above all else. Her Papa loved…well nothing, except his title and power.

  “You are not getting married then?” Her sister’s question pulled her back from her useless musings. For even a girl of fourteen, who could not know the precise details, at least registered the ramifications and knew—Genevieve was ruined.

  Tears welled once more. Unable to form a reply, Genevieve opened her arms and Gillian threw herself into them. Closing her eyes, Genevieve took comfort in the slight, reassuring weight of her sister’s small form. She dropped her chin atop her sister’s head and blinked back tears.

  “I do not understand why he would not marry you,” Gillian whispered.

  “Because…” Because he was a cad. A liar. A blackheart.

  But the truth was, she didn’t know why the Duke of Aumere had jilted her. With a missive delivered by his closest friend, no less. That note that had been turned over to her parents.

  Her stomach churned. Words that threw aspersions upon her character and marked her a whore. Lies. All of the words, lies. But it mattered not. When a duke whispered, everyone listened, and ladies were ruined.

  And Genevieve was well and truly ruined.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall and both girls looked up. The door opened and their mother stepped inside. In her fingers, she carried the same damning piece of vellum she’d raged over in the return carriage ride from the church. With sure, determined footsteps, she entered deeper into the room and Gillian hopped quickly to her feet. Genevieve, however, moved with a greater reluctance. “Moth—”

  “Gillian,” their mother snapped.

  The girl looked back and forth between mother and daughter, indecision in her eyes. Genevieve mustered a smile, gave her sister’s fingers a slight squeeze and said, “Go.”

  Eyes lowered, Gillian skirted the seething marchioness and took her leave, shutting mother and daughter alone.

  She tried again. “Moth—”

  “What have you done?” her mother’s clipped words shook with
fury.

  What had she done? The more apropos question would have been; what had he done? Or why? How? Anything was surely more appropriate than “what have you done?” Squaring her shoulders, she held her mother’s furious stare. “I did nothing.”

  Her mother brandished the page. “You’ve done nothing?” she squeaked. “You lay with the duke—”

  “I did not lie with anyone,” she bit out. She’d had but two kisses from the man who’d been her betrothed and those were brief, chaste ones upon her lips. Never anything more.

  Her mother scoffed. “Are you calling the duke a liar?”

  She stiffened. Is that the way of this coldly reserved world they lived in? A mother would believe lies upon a page over her own daughter’s words? “I am.”

  Her mother’s broad nose flared and she studied Genevieve. Fury burned from within her eyes. Then, she quickly smoothed her features. Of course, one must never show emotion. How shameful for her mother to drop that mask for even a sliver of a moment. “You are ruined.”

  Yes, she was quite ruined. Beyond marriageable. What happened to women such as that? Rumored virtue-less, may as well, in fact, be truly without virtue. What happened to those ladies? A panicky laugh built in her chest.

  “You cannot stay here.”

  That decisive, emotionless statement snapped her back from the precipice of her silent ramblings. “No,” she agreed. There had, however, been something oddly comforting in the schoolroom. A peace. A quiet. The schoolroom had been the one place she’d felt accomplished. She’d earned the praise and pride of her nursemaids and governesses. Of course, on the day of her greatest failure, this place harkened to the time in her life when she’d done right. Genevieve made to step around her mother, when the woman shot a hand out, and wrapped it around her forearm. “I am leaving,” she said with a frown, wincing at her mother’s painful grip.

  “Not this room, Genevieve.”

  A pebble of dread knotted in her belly. Perhaps it was the events of the morn. Perhaps it was the shock of betrayal. And yet, she could not make sense of those decisive four words. “I don’t understand.”

  “Surely you see that you cannot remain here. You will be a visible blight upon your sister’s future. As long as you are here, people will talk and whisper. But your sister is young enough that she might make a respectable match in four years.”

  Did her mother truly believe her absence would make all of that go away? It was madness. Her mother spoke as though, in leaving, Genevieve’s very existence would be forgotten. By the firm set to her mother’s mouth, she knew. She’d be banished to the country. She smoothed her shaking palms over the front of her rumpled wedding dress. “Very well,” she said, proud of the steady quality of those words. But inside, she was shaking with equal parts rage and hurt betrayal—first her betrothed and now her mother. Was there loyalty, anywhere? “We will return to the country and when we return—”

  “Not us,” her mother put in impatiently. “You need to leave.”

  A dull humming filled her ears. She shook her head. No.

  “Yes.” The marchioness took a step closer.

  She imagined living in a world away from Gillian and tears flooded her eyes. Even though she’d so often deliberately needled her sister through the years, those bothersome sibling behaviors were now gifts she’d not give up. Ice traveled along her spine. Her teeth clattered noisily and she hugged her arms close. “Wh-where would you send me?” she croaked as the reality of her mother’s cold disdain stole the last of her logic. Her mother sought to snip her from the fabric of the family as though she was nothing more than a bothersome thread dangling from an embroidery frame.

  “Your grandfather’s property in Kent.” Her mother pursed her lips. Rumored to be as frigid and unyielding as a winter freeze, her parents would send her there. “I do not hold you entirely to blame. I attended Mrs. Belden’s when I was young.” She peeled her lip back in a disappointed sneer. “Perhaps you would have been best served by attending that institution. Instead, we indulged you with lax governesses and nursemaids.” She gave a flick of her hand. “Regardless, the mistake was mine for allowing you to remain here with those who encouraged your flights of fancy. Now we are to live with those circumstances.”

  We. A familial equation Genevieve no longer fit within. She turned her hands up and managed but one word. “Please.” The entreaty emerged garbled and hoarse.

  Her mother scowled and ignored the outstretched offering. “Would you be so selfish as to steal your sister’s right to a respectable marriage?”

  Guilt sliced at her heart. Even though it wasn’t her fault. Even though the duke’s words were all lies. They belonged to a Society where women had no voice and certainly one that would never be believed against a duke. And yet, for that, she would be sent away and never again see Gillian. She let her arm fall to her side. “I cannot leave,” she whispered.

  “Of course you will,” her mother said with a matter-of-factness that froze her on the inside. “For Gillian, you will.” Then, turning on her heel, she started for the door.

  A burgeoning panic clogged Genevieve’s throat. “Wait,” she managed to cry out, as her mother gripped the door handle. “When can I return?” Her body trembled with the force of terror spreading through her.

  Her mother cast a look over her shoulder. “Why, when your sister makes a respectable match.” On that sure pronouncement, the marchioness left, closing the door behind her.

  And just like that, the thread was cut.

  Chapter 1

  London England,

  Spring 1818

  As Lady Genevieve Farendale stepped through the front doors of the lavish London townhouse, she wondered just exactly how parents decided going about ending an imposed exile on one’s daughter.

  Was it a certain number of days or hours? Or was it something more arbitrary? As simple as waking up one day and realizing that there was, indeed, a fabric of the family missing that needed to be restored. Given their remarkable absence from her life all these years, she’d venture it certainly wasn’t the latter.

  Whatever precipitated the reinstatement into one’s family, however it had come about, five years had been the amount of time. Five years of remaining in the country while her family spent the Seasons in London. Five years of no letters or words. And five years marked the end of her penance. Penance for an imagined crime.

  “My lady?”

  Genevieve blinked at the butler, Dunwithy. Time had left wrinkles at the corners of his rheumy eyes and upon his cheeks. And yet the spectacles perched on his slightly crooked nose were the same. Odd, a servant should be more a member of the household than the marquess’ oldest daughter. The man stared expectantly at her, startling her into movement.

  Wordlessly, she shrugged out of her modest cloak and turned it over to his waiting hands. Other servants, unfamiliar, young footmen rushed forward to collect the trunks and valise. Of course, they would not have been in her father’s employ all those years ago. As such, they’d not remember the shame of that long ago day.

  “May I show you to your chambers, my lady?” the butler offered.

  With the servant’s question echoing through the soaring foyer done in Italian marble, she looked about. What had she expected? A warm, familial greeting from an abjectly broken mother and father who pleaded her forgiveness? An exuberant reunion from the younger sister, whom she’d not spoken to in years?

  “My lady?” the butler urged again.

  How long had she remained silent with no one but her ancient grandfather? He was now given to sleeping his days away and leaving her to her own thoughts for company. And so, she lifted her head and followed behind the butler. As she began the long walk to her once familiar rooms, one of the liveried footmen stole a sideways glance at her and then quickly looked away. A dull flush marred his cheeks.

  Her lips twisted in a bitter, humorless smile. So they’d heard the whispers, too. What had they heard exactly? Tales of the shamelessly wanton lady
who’d spread her legs for her betrothed and the gentleman’s friends? That had been a popular one bandied about. In fact, it had been the one that had found her standing alone at the altar with a collection of intimate guests looking on. Or mayhap it had been the rumor spread that she’d slept with her betrothed’s younger brother. That had caused quite the stir among the gossips…and even the non-gossips.

  The thick carpets muffled the sound of her footfalls. As she walked, Genevieve passed her gaze over the familiar in some ways, altogether different in other aspects of her home. The gilt frames bearing the proud Farendale ancestors remained fixed in the very spots they’d always been. Those pompous bewigged lords stared down their long Roman noses. However, the wallpaper was different. Pale satin, that harkened to the country skies of Kent, and as much as she’d thought she despised her banishment and abhorred the country, she’d been wrong. So wrong. A hungering gripped her to go back to that remote estate where she could paint and write and sing and simply be—without any of the whispers and only the servants for company.

  But alas, it was not to be. Because as time had proven once before, the dream of simplicity was all imagined. Proper betrothals; broken and shattered. The allure of anonymity, ended in one six-hour carriage ride.

  “Here we are, my lady,” the butler murmured and opened the door.

  Genevieve tugged off her gloves. She lingered in the doorway. “Thank you. That will be all,” she said dismissively, her voice hoarse from ill use.

  Relief flared in the servant’s eyes. He backed away and rushed down the hall with a speed reserved for a man twenty years his junior. She hovered in the doorway. Passing her soft leather gloves into one hand, she brushed the other over the doorjamb.

  Five years. It had been five years since she’d last stepped foot out of these chamber doors. One thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days to be precise. Her throat worked and she damned the weakness that came rushing back from simply being in this godawful place. But she’d braved isolation from her family and Society. Endured cruel whispers and lewd offers. Given all that, stepping inside her bedchambers really was rather insignificant. Willing her legs into movement, Genevieve forced her feet over the threshold. Her breath caught and she looked around.