The Art of Ruining a Rake (49 page)

Brixcombe-on-the-Bay, Devon

June 20th, 1816

ESTABLISHING THE BRIXCOMBE granite quarry was the single most arduous undertaking Roman had ever accomplished. After months of design, decision-making, forms, records and letters—a blasted
unending
stream of administrative details—the new site would open tomorrow to as much fanfare as could be expected, for what amounted to hauling large rocks from the earth.

Roman fell into his chair, exhausted at the end of a very long day. Most of the attendees invited to tomorrow’s ceremony were now guests of Plymbridge Hall. They had begun trickling in as early as the prior morning, and today had been especially taxing as he’d worked to see them settled and entertained.

Tomorrow would be another arduous day. He had speeches planned, and a tour, followed by a picnic spread overlooking the quarry site. He looked forward to thanking the men who’d devoted their time and effort to the development of the quarry, and to congratulating his most loyal capitalists on what was sure to be a good investment for years to come. Especially those financiers who’d provided the small seed fund Dare had used to begin his work on the ’Change. Without that pool of money, they’d never have managed to replace Barton-Wright’s large investment when he’d pulled out his stake and stormed away.

Tomorrow, after hours in the sun, the festivities would move from the covered tent on the moors to the large dining room inside the house. The long day of celebration was to be capped off by a ball.

A ball in honor of Lucy.

He’d planned the ball just for her. He hoped this time…

She’d say yes.

He looked at the clock. Half twelve. Had her carriage had arrived from London, per schedule?

She was to stay at Worston for the week. Ashlin had allowed her the short visit in the hopes she’d regain her reputation soon enough as Roman’s marchioness.

Roman wasn’t as sure.

He knew she loved him. For the last two months, she’d allowed him to court her in London. He’d done so with gusto, escorting her to the theater and poetry readings and Vauxhall, to name a few places he’d had her against a wall. But marriage? She’d never spoken of it. She seemed happy to hold his hand and kiss him in darkened corners and laugh with him. He wasn’t convinced she wanted to
marry
him.

He was physically ready to collapse into bed, yet his mind wouldn’t calm. It buzzed with a steady hum of particulars that yet must be seen to, anticipation that wouldn’t quiet, and fear.

The last was something he must learn to live with. He couldn’t see what lay ahead. Granite futures could fall—his biggest concern. There would be weather delays. Competing quarries could undercut his own in price, and unscrupulous employees could embezzle funds or reveal their strategies.

His own brother had sabotaged their initial method of transport. The same brother might invest their profits poorly—although Roman would always take care not to allow Dare access to more funds than they could afford to lose, and really, he’d done surprisingly well so far.

Beyond all of these fears lay Roman’s greatest worry: that Lucy might decline his offer of marriage. What would any of this mean, without her?

He was too bone-weary to rise and pour himself a brandy. Idly, he thumbed the pages of the pricing guide he’d approved the day before. Numbers swam together. Weights, fees, percentages, grades, deductions and so on, figures that had been meaningless to him just a few months ago, but which were now his sole focus.

Lucy was proud of him. He needed no other impetus.

He looked at the clock again. Surely, she had arrived at Worston by now.

Perhaps he should go there tonight. He glanced at the clock again. Late, but not too late to be let in. One interminable week had passed since he’d last seen her. Even one more night seemed intolerable.

He’d see her tomorrow. But the knowledge wasn’t enough to sate him. She’d be there, as would fifty others. She’d be lost in the crowd, not by his side where she belonged.

What a brilliant day it would be if he could share it with her as his future wife! She’d inspired and encouraged him, and look what he’d accomplished. More than he’d ever dreamed possible.

He wanted her there with him. Not just in the crowd, but on the stage. He wanted her beside him. He wanted her to look out over the moors and see the roads and machinery and workmen and know…

He’d done it all for her.

He reached the bottommost page of the pile. With tantalizing slowness, he nudged the pamphlet he’d been perusing aside and exposed the leaflet he’d torn from an edition of the
Ladies’ Companion
.

Lucy’s name wasn’t on the excerpt, of course. Despite its lack of authentication, Polite Society was wild with speculation that the author was none other than Lord Trestin’s spinster sister. Her first two volumes had been impossible to keep stocked, as Tewsey had predicted, the regular snippets included in the
Companion
proving too titillating to await patiently. The third and final volume was to be printed by the end of the month, though Lucy no longer counted the days until her newest release returned a profit, as she was doing very well managing on the four payments she’d received thus far.

Polite Society might need to guess the identity of their author
du jour,
but he knew it was she. Even had he not known Lucy was the mind behind
Whitefield Hall,
he would have guessed it. He’d recognized the phrases he’d spoken, rearranged and edited for context. He wouldn’t have missed the hero’s name: James Valerius Allard.

Idly, as he’d done so many times before, he ran a finger across the neat typeset, tracing the sentences that so adequately expressed his devotion.

I’ll show you how much I adore you. Again and again, for days and months and years. Until you come to see it for yourself. I’ll wear you down, Caro. I’ll never cease pursuit.

The door opened. Quickly, he tugged the pricing guide over the page. His brothers were in residence for the ceremony. The last thing he needed was for them to start ribbing him again about his mooncalfing. Even Constantine, who had kept busy with his wife and son for the last year, had taken one look at Roman and asked him which lady had stolen his heart this time.

The shadowy figure who entered wasn’t one of his brothers. She wasn’t tall enough. She wasn’t broad enough. She smelled of lavender and sunshine and Lucy.

His heart leapt. She’d come.

He rose to his feet as she turned. Her skirts swished as she closed the door behind her. She caught his gaze. The one that devoured her hungrily from across the room. The one that sparkled with delight that she’d chosen to see him straightaway.

The one that longed for her to stay and share his bed.

His everything.

She stopped just short of his cluttered desk. The light was better near the fire and sconces, bright enough to show the blush across her cheeks. She held his speaking gaze with one of her own.
I love you.
I couldn’t bear another moment of being away from you.

She’d taken a risk in coming here, or so she believed. She didn’t realize how desperately he wanted her in his home, in his
life—

“Roman.” Dressed in creamy muslin, she looked like an angel. He knew better. She was intrepid and clever and passionate. More minx than saint. The woman who’d looked at him and and refused to accept any less than the man he could become, the man she deserved.

“My love.” He saw the change in her, the dilation of her pupils as her eyes devoured him like a hungry feline’s.

Slowly, he approached her. Her nostrils flared. His heart slammed so hard against his chest his entire body shook, and he hoped upon hope as he drew closer that she’d come to him in the middle of the night because she needed him.

Because even one more night apart was too much to ask of her.

The closer she allowed him to come, the faster he closed the distance, until he loomed over her, his chest rising and falling with barely pent hope.

Her neck crooked back so she could look up at him. Tip-tilted, vulnerable eyes met his.

“I’ve missed you so,” he said as he stole her hand and brought the gloved treasure to his lips. He pressed a long, unhurried kiss against her knuckles. “You’ve come to me, my sweet.”

“Trestin allowed a carriage.” Her luminous eyes drank in Roman. She didn’t withdraw her hand, but allowed him to hold it awkwardly in the air between them, as though she’d forgotten the limb entirely. “I needed to speak with you. It couldn’t wait.”

Roman’s heart pounded in his ears so loudly, he almost couldn’t hear the words he’d waited for days and weeks and months to hear.
Please, let her have realized this torment is too much. We should be together. Always.

He kissed her hand again. “I’m listening.”

She met his eyes over their clasped hands. Her blush deepened, staining the alabaster of her complexion. He thought he would die if she didn’t tell him what she’d come to say.

“I love you, Roman,” she admitted breathlessly. “I’ve missed you more than I ever thought possible. Seven long days of misery. I did not think it could hurt this much.”

She pressed her cheek to his knuckles. Her eyes glistened as she pulled away and kissed his fingers again. “I ought not to have let you leave London without a promise—”

He pulled her into his embrace, unable to wait any longer. She was lithe and feminine and his. So fragile, he might have feared hurting her. But he knew her strength.

He held tighter, crushing her to him until she molded perfectly against him. “Don’t apologize.”

“Roman…”

He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed. Knowing, feeling, sensing her lips were mere centimeters away, he brushed the bow of his upper lip against hers. “I don’t deserve you,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “But oh, how I want you to be my wife. Say no more—”

He tried to kiss her, but she placed her fingertips against his lips. Her eyes beseeched him to listen. “No, Roman. I must have my say first. Before you spend another moment believing one of us is more deserving than the other.”

He didn’t speak. If he could hear her he would; blood rushed through his head so loudly, he was half deaf.

She removed her fingers from his lips. Hesitantly, she rested them against his chest. She must be able to feel the thumping of his heart through the many layers of cloth.

“I loved you. Thoroughly. When you were a boy, and when you were an ungainly man of two and twenty just returned from university.” She looked at him with those upturned brown eyes, stopping his breath with the intensity of her expression. “I
ached
for news of you. Later, when you went to London, I pined for you. I imagined our moments in excruciating detail, and I hung on your every word when you deigned to return to Devon. I even dreamed of you. But…”

She looked down, her brow creasing with remembered pain. “Then Mother gave into her madness. She took Papa’s life, then hers, following him into the grave. And…I understood. I was trapped in the country, while you were gallivanting in London. I read the accounts in the scandal sheets from afar. I felt her frustration, her rage, her jealousy, every time I thought of you. I wanted to hurt you, but first, I wanted to have you. I craved your attention with a vengeance so powerful, it drove me to despair.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding her closer. “Would that I had known.”

She reached up and touched his cheek gently. “Even I didn’t realize how fearful I was of myself until after the masquerade ball, when I was quite determined to throttle you.”

Roman chuckled. “Like as not, you aren’t the only one who would have enjoyed a chance at me. The
Ladies’ Companion
has always been quick to make a penny off my back. There must be half a dozen jealous husbands in London alone.”

Lucy pulled a face. “But I
was
murderous. You never looked at me before my Season, and even then, I wasn’t remarkable enough to be recognizable with a half mask. I was exactly like every other woman, in your mind.”

He arched a brow at her, unable to resist the chance to tease her. “Demi-masks are meant to conceal, are they not?”

Her eyes widened in good-humored affront. “I would have recognized
you
in a full domino! You didn’t recognize me
naked.
I was Trestin’s baby sister. A prickly, tiresome chit you thought of in pinafores and braids.”

He pulled her even more securely against him. “I didn’t think of you like that.”

She huffed in mock annoyance. “Because you never thought of me at
all
.”

He belted out a belly laugh. He couldn’t help it. She was here. She was preparing herself to discuss marriage with him; he could sense it. He was as giddy as a schoolboy.

“Is there more,” he asked, “or may I kiss you now?”

“No!” She settled her arms about his waist and tipped her head back to look into his eyes. “I haven’t told you how I felt when you finally, finally saw me, that day on the shore. It was glorious. As I rowed our little skiff—”

“
I
rowed the skiff,” he corrected, just to see her bloom with indignation.

“You did not! Your shoulder was still tender from being thrown!”