A Rake for Christmas
Autore
Ann Lethbridge
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Chapter One
December 24, 1813 8 o’clock ante meridiem
Dear Lord Townsend,
It is with regret I must once more write to you on the matter of neighborly consideration. I recognize, as you so kindly pointed out in your last letter, that your duties as host required you to ensure your guests enjoy their visit. Nevertheless, I remind you of your responsibility to respect the sensibilities and peace of the individual who has the misfortune to share your walls.
After yet another disturbing night of revelry, I must humbly insist you use your obviously inventive abilities to find a way to muffle the sounds which permeate through to my side of the house.
Your neighbor, Eugenie Hartwick
P.S. I have only one cat and if your gardener would simply repair the gaps in the hedge I am sure he would not stray onto your side of the garden.
Richard eyed the neatly penned missive delivered by a footman at some ungodly hour that morning. The cat lady who occupied the other half of his rented Hampstead accommodation and therefore shared a wall with him, clearly had not a scrap of Christmas good cheer. What bad luck.
And they were paper-thin walls as he knew to his cost.
In the early hours of each morning, around seven o’clock as near as he could judge, sounds of her life began drifting through his walls. Often he lay in bed, with one lady or another fast asleep on his chest, and listened in some odd haze of fascination to those peaceful ordinary sounds. The quiet quick tap of her footsteps. The modulated voice used for servants and the warm tones as she spoke to her infernal cat. Tones which stirred interest in his blood.
At night, though, after a bout of sensual acrobatics with his latest mistress, in that moment of silent satiation between waking and sleeping, the sounds from the other side of those walls were quite different. Thumps on a pillow. Sighs. And finally muffled moans. Then silence. In that silence, he imagined the flushed skin and pounding heartbeats of release.
And every damned time, he became hard as steel. It was like making love to a woman with none of the benefits. No touch or sight and worst of all, no culmination. Sensual torture. He was beginning to think she did it on purpose.
And it was getting worse. Now, in the throes of making love to his mistress, he’d started thinking about the spinster who lived next door. The cat lady’s imagined responses to what she was hearing, anticipating how she would sound when he was done. Distracting to say the least.
Once or twice, he’d toyed with the idea of inviting her over, but Sonya was far too jealous to allow another woman in his bed. He sighed. Sonya was no fun at all, anymore. In fact, she bored him to tears.
And he could not look to his neighbor to enliven his nights. She was a lady, not a light skirt. One slip and he’d be taking the road to hell. A forced marriage.
So he satisfied his urge for congress through their acrimonious correspondence. The fine art of written sparring. He found her acerbic wit amusing and her intelligence an unexpected challenge.
He reread the note. How to respond today? The clock struck the hour. He lifted his gaze from the precise elegant script to stare out of the window overlooking the lawn, gazing over the low privet hedge between her house and his with a sense of anticipation and, dammit, a growing arousal.
Right on time, the orange cat slunk from her side to his through a break in the greenery.
Pen in hand, Richard leaned back to watch. Daytime voyeur instead of nighttime eavesdropper.
Clad in a dark blue gown he could only describe as drab and sensible, her shoulders wrapped in a gray wool shawl, her head enveloped in a wide-brimmed bonnet, Lady Eugenie tripped down her garden path. He hated that shawl and that bonnet. They hid her hair and her face and much of her figure. If he could only get a look at a sharp spinster face, or perhaps a stick-thin body, he might not have this throbbing ache in his groin.
An ache neither his hand, nor even another go with Sonya would entirely dispel.
The thing was, while he tried to imagine her as a crone, the sway of her hips, the lithesome stride of her long legs, made every hair on his body stand to attention. Along with his other unruly part. She walked like a woman in tune with her body. She moved with the sultry grace of a siren.
And that sent his thoughts right back to the sweetly soft sounds she made on the other side of his chamber wall.
His erection demanded a meeting. It insisted he seek an introduction. It didn’t care if turned out she had the face of an old boot. It wanted those legs wrapped around his hips. It wanted that slender body beneath him.
At a break in the hedge she halted, her annoyance quite evident in her posture and the tilt of her head.
He leaned forward.
Her head turned, sending a quick glance at the back of his house. He grabbed up the telescope he’d placed, handy. He cursed foully. Too late. She’d already fallen to her knees, stretching her arm through the break in the hedge, her delectable bottom suggestively raised.
His cock swelled more than ought to be possible inside his clothes. He glanced down. “I know,” he rasped. “But it isn’t good form to approach a lady without a proper introduction.”
He fixed his gaze back on that delicious derriere, his ears imagining her calling in the low throaty tones he heard at night, but could not possibly hear from this distance.
The cat strolled back, rubbing its length under her hand, undulating with pleasure. Richard groaned softly.
The cat leapt up on her shoulder and curled around her neck like an orange swansdown scarf. She shot to her feet and, head down, scurried indoors.
Damn it all. He pulled a sheet of vellum towards him and dipped his quill in the ink.
December 24, 1813 2 o’clock post meridiem
Dear Lady Eugenie,
He paused to flick the tip of the quill across his bottom lip, then smiled.
I wish you all the joys of the Christmas season. Your condescension in communicating with your humble neighbor, to wit myself, is, as you may imagine, deeply appreciated.
I am gratified by your confidence in my abilities. Sadly, since it is my duty, nay my extraordinary pleasure, to ensure my visitors receive only the most exquisite enjoyment while in my company, it must come as no surprise to you that such expressions of delight are music to my ears. To silence such harmony would create a most unpleasant discord. I am sure you must agree such an act could only be considered cruel.
I am, therefore, devastated that I am unable to fulfill your request.
With deepest regards, Yours truly Townsend.
He paused for a moment, gazing out of the window at his lawn. Then bent his head to finish the task.
P.S. My gardener is most pitiable in his laments at the loss of yet another rosebush in my lawn’s central flower bed. Humbly, I seek your assurance that you will restrain your animal from depositing any more of his gifts amid the plants.
P.P.S. If you would care to take a dish of tea to discuss these matters in person, it is possible I could be convinced to accommodate your desires.
P.P.P.S. You are right, I can be extraordinarily inventive given the right incentive.
That should do very nicely. Not that he expected her to accept his invitation to tea. But it was pleasant to fantasize.
On her way up the path to her front door after Christmas Eve services, outrage at her neighbor’s impertinent reply once again filled Eugenie’s person.
Accommodate her desires, indeed. Heat blossomed in places she should not be aware of. Places she had tried her best to ignore these past few years. She almost groaned aloud from the ache.
How dare he imply… Or did he know? But no. It wasn’t possible. Everything had been kept so very quiet by the enormous sum paid by her brother to stem any hint of scandal.
In the distance, St. John’s bells continued to announce the first day of Christmas to the village of Hampstead. In Lady Eugenie Hartwick’s opinion, they heralded twelve of the worst days of the year. Twelve days of Christmas. Empty days and lonely nights. There would never be a partridge in a pear tree for her. Because she would never have a true love.
The brave garland of evergreen on her front door failed to raise her spirits. But she hadn’t expected it would. This was always the time of year she missed her family the worst. Knowing her banishment was her own fault did not make it any easier to bear.
Squaring her snow-dusted shoulders against a rush of self-pity, she turned on the top step with a smile pinned to her lips. “Good night, Tobias. My best wishes to you and your family.”
The footman who had escorted her to church and back looked up at her, his face anxious. Anxious about leaving her. Worried she might change her mind. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay, my lady?”
“No, Tobias. Your mother is expecting you. Ginger and I will be fine. Run along, do.”
The boy whirled, ran down the short path and disappeared through the front gate into a curtain of swirling snowflakes. With a wry grimace, she glanced at the green-painted door beside her black one. A brass plate reflecting the light of the porch lantern declared it to be number 2A Plane House. No lights showed in the windows as she walked up the path. Her licentious neighbor must be out. Apparently, even a disgraceful rake had family obligations on Christmas Eve. She stepped inside and closed her door.
Ginger mewed a welcome and twined around her legs, reminding her she was never completely alone. She bent and picked him up, burying her face in his silky fur. “Well, puss, it is time for bed. Are you ready?”
The bang of a door reverberated through the wall partitioning the two halves of the house, little more than wooden screen in case the landlord should ever need to make it one house again.
Ginger tensed, flexing his claws against her coat. She sighed. It seemed her neighbor was home after all. She scratched the cat behind the ears. “No peace for the wicked, I see.”
“Bastardo,” a female voice yelled, followed by a string of incomprehensible Italian.
Eugenie closed her eyes. “One,” she counted. “Two. Three. Four. Five.”
Crash.
Ginger struggled. To avoid his flailing claws, Eugenie set him down. Tail stiff, the cat shot upstairs. Another crash shattered the silence. Eugenie huffed out a breath. The horrid man next door and his equally horrid opera singer mistress were having another argument. It was a wonder he had any china left.
It wasn’t the noises from the other half of the house she objected to so much as the unbridled emotion resonating through the wall, vibrating the very air she breathed. After years of struggling against her wicked desires, night after night she was assaulted by the sounds of their ungoverned passion.
The faceless image of the man next door making love to his paramour set her body quivering and aching until she thought she would go mad with need. Always she succumbed to the ache at her core. Pleasured herself until she could finally sleep.
It was a sin, what she did alone in her bed. Embarrassing. Wrong. And terribly unsatisfying compared to the fulfillment she’d once known with a man.
But sleep and a quieter mind followed the release.
She removed her coat and hat and started up the stairs. Heading for her cold lonely bed.
A low male chuckle caused another round of female shrieking. No matter how upset his females got, and there had been several over the past two or three months, he always responded with that seductive laugh. It made them furious and struck a chord deep inside Eugenie she couldn’t seem to ignore.
“Decide, mio amore,” the woman yelled. A contralto, Eugenie had decided. The one before had been a soprano. She was becoming quite an expert on female opera singers.
“Molto bene.” This from outside on the front step.
Good. Perhaps the cold air would cool their tempers and send them back to the warmth of their bed.
She groaned as the thought of what they would do in that bed heated her blood and made her feel itchy beneath her skin. For years, she thought she’d conquered her need for passion, but since his arrival as her neighbor, it had returned with a vengeance.
Not that she had ever seen him or the mistresses he collected like pearls on a string. He and his companions came and went after dark. People of the night. Hot-blooded people who let their emotions run free.
“It has been a delight,” a deep male voice called out in cultured accents. The outside door slammed.
Eugenie glanced out of the window on the landing and glimpsed a female in the pool of light from the porch light. Her hair flying wild about her head, her cloak swirling about a magnificently endowed body, she stormed out of the gate, a small figure, head down, lugging a heavy valise scuttling along behind.
“Oh,” she whispered with relief. There would be no noisy forgiveness tonight. No giggles and low seductive murmurs sliding around the boarded-up dressing room between their chambers on the second floor. No squeaking of bed ropes and cries of fulfillment.
In turn, there would be no rousing of her desires tonight. Thank goodness. With luck, it would take him a long time to find a replacement. Or even better, perhaps he’d give up the house and take his pleasure elsewhere, leaving her to the peace he’d shattered. Him and his women.
She just wished she didn’t envy them.
If he left, she’d be thrilled. She certainly would not miss his sardonic replies to her requests to respect his neighbor’s right to quiet. She’d been foolish in the extreme to look forward to crafting those letters, to matching her wits to those of a man she did not know or want to know.
She waited at the window, wondering if the dissipated rogue would chase after the woman and bring her back. But he didn’t. Disappointed she was not to have the satisfaction of a glimpse of the devil next door, she resumed her trudge up the stairs and into the bedroom where she knelt to entice Ginger out from under the dressing table. “Come on out, puss. It’s all finished.”
Loud knocking on her front door brought her to her feet. Surely the woman wasn’t seeking refuge here? Should she let her in? Would he follow? The thought made her shiver. With fear. It could not be excitement.
She’d had enough excitement in her life. And trouble. Her brother would be mortified if she did anything else to drag his name through the mire. She was lucky she hadn’t ruined his life as well as her own.
The knocking sounded again. How dare they involve her in their argument? Anger a hot bite in her veins, she rushed down the stairs and flung open the door. Angry words died on her lips at the sight of the bent old liveried servant standing on her threshold.
“I thought you’d never hear me,” he said. Snow glistened on his hat as he thrust a paper into her hand. “No reply needed.” The man touched his fetlock and walked down the steps.
Heart sinking, she stared at the sealed note. Messages in the middle of the night brought only disaster. Something must have happened to her brother or his family. There was no other reason to communicate. Not even at Christmas.
At the bottom of the steps, the servant glanced back. “Tell his lordship it’s urgent.”
His lordship? She turned it over. Townsend, Plane House, Hampstead. “Stop!” she called out, her words whipped away by the wind. “You’ve come to the wrong door.” The man was already opening the gate. “Wait!” she called again, but he continued on, oblivious to her cry.
Blast. Could her neighbor be any more troublesome?
His black-painted door huddled to one side of the porch, whereas hers faced the quiet street. It wasn’t the first time someone had knocked on her door instead of his, but usually her servants dealt with it. She’d have the note sent over as soon her staff returned in a day or so.
The servant said it was urgent.
Oh, she really didn’t want to knock on his door. But if an urgent message for her went astray and a neighbor shrugged it off for two days, how would she feel?
Eugenie grabbed her old gray shawl from its hook by the door where she kept it ready for when she had to fetch Ginger in from the garden, wound it tight around her shoulders and closing her door behind her, marched the five steps across the portico. The wind drove wet snow into her face and she huddled closer to the wall as she raised the iron knocker and let it fall with a bang.
She’d just give the letter to his butler, the man who delivered the nobleman’s carelessly scrawled mocking replies to her perfectly reasonable letters, and go.
Nothing happened. No sound of movement. No footsteps. Nothing. Well she had tried, hadn’t she? She looked at the note clutched in her cold fingers. What if someone needed him desperately? It was hard to imagine, given his disgraceful behavior, but who was she to judge?
One more try and then she’d go home. She knocked harder and longer.
“Did you forget something?” a deep mocking voice said to the sound of a bolt sliding back. “I’ll send it along in the morning.”
Blown back by the wind, the door flew open.
Mouth open, she stared at the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, caught in the lamplight. A blond blue-eyed archangel. Elegant of stature, he looked thoroughly masculine in his shirtsleeves and open collar. Perfection in a state of disreputable undress. Not the raddled roué she’d expected, but a Greek god and a dangerous pirate all rolled into one.
A gust of wind drove snow in through his door and flakes clung to his long golden lashes. So pretty. So enticing. Heat rushed through her body. Like a bolt of hot lightning, longing trembled in her bones.
The same unquenched longing she’d been feeling since the day he arrived.
Yearning for something she could not have.
Oh how she wished she’d worn something less shabby than her old cat-catching shawl.
He frowned, peering into the shadows where she stood. Summer-sky eyes tracked down her length from head to toe. “Who the devil are you?”
“I—”
“Did Heaven send you?” A smile of appreciation curved his sensual mouth. “How fortuitous. Well, come on in before you freeze.” He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her over the threshold and closed the door.
Astonished, she gazed up at him. Before she could utter a protest, his hands went to her waist and he brushed his warm dry lips across her mouth. A sigh of appreciation forced its way up her throat. She barely managed to contain it.
Instinctively, she placed her free hand on his shoulder, intending to push him away, parting her lips to tell him to stand back. She was sure that was what she meant to do, but when his tongue swept her mouth, warm and silky and tasting of brandy, the spicy scent of his cologne filling her nostrils, instead of pushing, her fingers curled into the soft cambric of his shirt and pulled him closer. Memories of the pleasure of kisses and caresses melted any thought of resistance.
Slowly, lingeringly, he kissed her, exploring her mouth with the leisurely strokes of a master seducer. Finally he broke the kiss and she stood breathless, dizzy, held up only by the strong hands in the indentation beneath her ribs. It was all she could do to keep her feet, to not collapse from the delicious assault on her senses.
His kiss had set free all the pent-up desires of the past few weeks. Her core ached and fluttered.
He looked down at her, a lock of unruly tawny hair falling over his brow, a wicked smile curving his sensually carved mouth. “I just had to see if you tasted as good as you looked.” His smile broadened. “You do. Lucky me.”
She should slap his face. Call him a monster. It was all she could do to remember to breathe. “I—”
“Don’t let us linger here talking. My bed awaits.” He took her by the hand, leading her down the hallway and up the narrow stairs at the back of the house.
His bed. Her heart raced. Her head swam. He thought her a barque of frailty. Sent for his entertainment.
She pulled her fragmented mind together. “Stop!”
He halted. Looked down at her from two steps up, his blue eyes hot. “What game are we playing then, love?” His gaze ran over her, more critically this time. “Governess? Shy schoolgirl?” His eyes narrowed. He frowned, a new expression crossing his face. Puzzlement. Perhaps even wonder.
“No game,” she said quickly, backing away. “I brought you this letter.” She held it out.
A deep frown marred his elegant beauty as he glanced at the paper she waved in his face. “Unlike Heaven to send a gift of nectar laced with poison.”
What on earth was he talking about? “The message is urgent.”
He plucked the letter from her hand by the corner, holding it the way one might pick up something unpleasant, and peered at the seal. Then, with an elegant flick of his wrist, he tossed the letter onto the hall stand.
Surprised, she stared at it. “Aren’t you going to open it after all the trouble I took to bring it?”
His expression hardened. He waved a careless hand. “No doubt it is a summons I do not care to answer.” He grinned then, wickedly, boyishly mischievous. “Don’t you wish you could ignore the demands of others?”
“Frequently, but it would only lead to problems later on.”
He chuckled, the familiar low sound she’d heard so many times beyond her walls, and her insides clenched. “Only if you let it,” he said.
Was that what she had done? Let the demands of others dictate her life? Or was her life what she had made it? “Duty and responsibility must be attended to.”
“Must they?”
“Of course, or there would be anarchy.”
The mocking expression on his face said he didn’t think anarchy was such a bad idea at all. He glanced at her sharply and a sensual smile played about his lips. “You are not one of Heaven’s usual girls. Too bright by half.”
The compliment warmed her. Fool. Such a fool. “I only came to deliver the note,” she said, turning back for the door.
He leaped down and dodged around her, cutting her off. She found her gaze level with the open V of his shirt. The sight of the light dusting of golden hair on silken skin weakened her knees and left her breathless.
He grabbed her hand, pressed a small kiss to the back of it, his blue eyes watching her face with a piratical gleam. “I can’t let you leave. Not alone. Not so late.”
The warmth of his touch sparked such a deep need for companionship, her very bones trembled with longing. How unfair that he should be so unutterably tempting. “I must.”
“Does someone wait for you, then?” His eyes held regret. He turned her hand over and kissed the inside of her wrist.
She should have worn gloves, she thought dazedly as she felt the heat of his breath and the sweet gentle touch of his mouth. “No one is waiting,” she whispered.
“Then the two of us are alone on Christmas Eve. Why not stay?”
She couldn’t think of a good reason right at that moment, but she knew there had to be one. “It is Christmas Day.”
He curled his hand around hers. “You are freezing. You must at least warm yourself by the fire.”
Gently, inexorably, he pulled at her hand, leading her into a drawing room lit by candelabra on a low table and a blazing fire. The oak-paneled walls glowed softly. The warm welcoming ambience drew her in.
Glass crunched beneath her feet. “Oh, goodness.”
“My last visitor had a habit of throwing things at my head.” The hand at the small of her back encouraged her towards the chaise longue beside the hearth. “Fortunately, her aim was abysmal.”
“You probably deserved it,” she said tartly, a twinge of jealousy surprising her.
He laughed. “More than likely.” And with practiced ease he relieved her of her shawl. He stared down at it, fingering the wool. A small smile played about his lips. “Christmas wishes do sometimes come true,” he muttered rather mysteriously. He tossed the shawl over the back of the sofa with a quick shake of his head. “Sit down. Warm yourself. You will take a glass of brandy with me, won’t you?”
It wasn’t really a question. He was so sure of his charm. Of his allure. And damn him, resistance was beyond her power when he gazed at her with such warmth in those summer-sky eyes. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at her with such undisguised admiration. She felt like a girl again. Giddy and shaking inside as if something momentous was about to occur.
“It is the least I can do after you went to such trouble,” he continued.
Bringing the note he hadn’t bothered to read. “It was only right that I do so,” she protested, weakly sinking into the plush cushions.
Long clever fingers brushed her cheek and his mouth curled in a smile that was both dangerous and boyishly charming. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
Better? How was it better? She was alone with a rake. A man with appetites for dissipation and vice. She’d been listening to him for weeks. Feeling his presence like electricity in the air before a storm. She swallowed against the dryness in her throat. “I really can’t stay long.”
Amusement filled the startling blue of his eyes while firelight flickered across the carved lines of his starkly beautiful face. A shiver ran down her spine.
“You really are unexpectedly delicious.” He hesitated, then touched her jaw with his thumb. “A feast for the senses.” His eyes grew smoky. “Perhaps my tastes are not so jaded after all.”
Now she really should leave. Instead her limbs felt heavy, made languorous by his words and her own wicked longings. Clearly, he had no idea she was the woman to whom he’d written such sharp protests about her cat. And he was right about them both being alone.
Fascinated, she watched his long-limbed grace as he prowled to the console to pour two glasses of brandy. “This will warm you.”
She was quite warm enough, thank you. On the inside, where her pulse beat wildly, and her heart seemed unable to find the right rhythm.
He handed one glass to her and lowered himself to the other end of the chaise, stretching out his legs, so clearly at ease when she felt like a spring wound too tight. The liquid in her glass rippled in answer to the earthquake inside her body.
“To my unexpected but welcome guest,” he toasted with his glass.
The brandy would fortify her will. She sipped. The fiery liquid traveled down her throat in a warm comforting rush. A very fine smooth brandy, she noted. If she wasn’t careful it would go to her head and she was quite dizzy enough. She set the glass on the side table near at hand.
As if sensing her desire to escape, he captured her hands in his. She gazed into eyes as bright as sapphires and as deep as an ocean and wanted…
Wanted so much more than her life had to offer.
Excitement. Passion. A mingling of spirits.
Her heart thudded.
Her pulse tripped.
It was this need of hers for excitement and passion that had brought her to this life of isolation in the first place. Cut her off from her family, lest by association she further taint their good reputation. Had she learned nothing from her past mistake?
Jerkily, she reached for her threadbare shawl. “Thank you for the brandy. I really must bid you good-night.”
He put his hand over hers, stilling her movement as her fingers grasped the soft wool, his expression full of genuine regret. “If I said something wrong, I apologize.”
“There was no one else to bring the note.” Why on earth was she continuing this charade? Pretending to be the woman he wanted. Did she fear seeing the warmth in his gaze turn to ice when he realized who she was? Wasn’t she the proud fool?
He tipped her chin with his fingertips, his gaze searching her face. “You really are lovely.” He sounded awed.
Her cold lonely soul gazed longingly at his exquisitely carved features, at the glitter of gold in the curl of his hair where it fell over one eyebrow, at the heat in his gaze, and tried to remember that years of cold lonely nights were no one’s fault but her own.
“Stay,” he whispered seductively. “It is what we both want.”
A predator could not eye his prey with more understanding than showed in his eyes. He had guessed at her weakness with unerring instinct. A weakness she didn’t have the strength to combat, for she released her grip on the shawl and he smiled just a little. Knowing.
“Finish your drink, then decide,” he said.
He leaned over her, the heat of his body warming her skin, as he reached for the glass she’d set down. He pressed it into her hand.
Breathless, she took a sip and let the slide of warming liquid soothe her jangled nerves while she searched her mind for words to fill the crackling silence.
“Your lady friend left in rather a hurry.”
A slight frown creased his forehead above his aquiline nose, then he shrugged. “Ran into her, did you? She wanted something I found myself incapable of providing.”
He must have seen her shock, because, clearly unabashed, he laughed, deep and rich. “She wanted marriage.”
“I suppose she wasn’t good enough for you,” she said with some asperity, thinking of the fury in the other woman’s steps as she hurried down the path.
He looked back at her without guile. “Quite the contrary. She deserves better than me.” He took a long sip of his brandy, as if giving the matter further thought.
Eugenie could only gape at his admission, because if he hadn’t said the words, she would have. But now she wasn’t quite so sure.
