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

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

Christi Caldwell




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.”