The Lure of a Rake (The Heart of a Duke #9)(9)

Attending tonight would serve to, no doubt, silence his father’s pressuring—even if temporarily. However, he’d never lived to placate the Duke of Ravenscourt. Nor would he ever live for that man. His father could go to the devil and someday when Cedric drew his last breath, he’d, no doubt, join his miserable sire in those fiery depths.

With a hard grin, he started from the room.





Chapter 3





She hated gray.

It was a horrid color that conjured overcast skies and dreary rain. It was miserable and depressing. And it was the color her parents would insist she don. She stared at her reflection in the bevel mirror. Her pale skin, devoid of even the hint of rouges her mother had once insisted on. The painfully tight chignon at the base of her skull accentuated her cheeks in an unflatteringly gaunt way. The high-necked, modest, gray gown concealed all hint of feminine curve.

Odd, she’d spent so many years missing this place and now what she wouldn’t give to return to her grandfather’s property in Kent.

From within the glass panel, her maid’s sad visage reflected back. “You look lovely, miss.”

“You are a dreadful liar, Delores.” She gentled that with a wan smile. “But thank you.”

Perhaps had they been any other maid and lady, there would have been further protestations. The close relationship formed by them through the years, however, kept Delores silent and Genevieve appreciated that. She did. For she didn’t need lies and platitudes to tell her anything different than what she felt in her heart and saw in this very mirror. She was bloody miserable.

It had been a fortnight since she’d returned and, in that time, she’d gone through the motions of proper daughter. She’d gone to dreadful fitting after fitting for equally dreadful gowns. She’d been schooled on the lords she might speak to during dinner parties.

The Earl of Primly. Polite, proper, and safe.

The Marquess of Guilford. Respectable, loyal brother and son, and also safe.

The Earl of Montfort. Rake, nearly impoverished, and dangerous.

And she’d been instructed to not dance.

Her toes curled reflexively within the soles of her too-tight slippers. Of everything she’d missed of London, the strains of the orchestra and exuberantly moving through the intricate steps of the waltz and quadrille had been some of them. But then, that thrill had come from a long ago time when she’d carried a foolish girl’s dream of a love that conquered all.

The door opened and she looked to the front of the room.

Her sister, Gillian, hovered in the entrance. With her pale lavender satin and artfully arranged whitish blonde curls, she could rival the angels in one of da Vinci’s murals. Then Gillian gave her a hesitant smile that transformed her from magnificent to otherworldly in her beauty. “May I come in?” she asked tentatively. But that was just Gillian’s beauty; it transcended mere physical looks and delved deep to a purity and goodness that Genevieve had forgotten existed.

“Of course.” Genevieve motioned her forward and, with a curtsy, Delores ducked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Her sister glided over and her satin skirts swirled about her satin slipper-clad feet. She stopped before Genevieve and shifted on her feet.

Strangers. That was what time had turned them into. Two girls who’d once giggled under the covers after Genevieve had returned from balls and put on pretend performances where they’d taken on the role of their proper marquess and marchioness.

Gillian cleared her throat. “You look…” Her expression grew strained. The youngest Farendale sibling had always been incapable of artifice.

“Horrid?” Genevieve supplied, in a bid to break the stilted awkwardness that had existed since she’d returned.

“Never.” Her sister gave her head an emphatic shake. “It does not matter what color skirts you wear or your hairstyle, it is who you are,” she said with the most meaningful of words to pass between them in two weeks. Gillian captured her hands and gave them a slight squeeze. “And I’ve missed you so, so much.”

Her throat worked. This had been the one person who had missed her. Just as Genevieve, tending the gardens in Kent with the sun as her daytime companion and her gruff grandfather in the evening, had missed the friendship of her sister. A sister who now, for Genevieve’s shameless flirting and subsequent scandal, found herself uncourted and unwanted. “I am sorry,” she managed on a soft whisper.

Her sister made a sound of protest. “Oh, do not do that.” She squeezed Genevieve’s hands again. “Do not. I would never, ever want a gentleman who’d so judge you and, through you, me.” Gillian gave her a wider smile. “I will find a gentleman who loves me regardless of anything and everything. And you will, too.”

Find love? The best she could hope for in this old world she’d been dragged back into was a quiet existence devoid of whispers and gossip. There would be no champions or heroes because…they didn’t exist. She shook her head sadly. “Oh, Gillian.” Had she ever been so hopelessly optimistic in love and the belief in a good, honorable gentleman?

Her sister’s smile dipped. “You don’t believe,” she observed.

Not anymore and not because she’d been in love with the Duke of Aumere. She hadn’t. She’d been charmed, and in love with their forbidden flirtation and, even just a little bit, the promise of pleasing her parents and securing that coveted title. She was saved from replying and offering any darkly realistic truths to her still-innocent sister by a soft rapping at the door.