Gone with the Rake (Inglorious Scoundrels #1)

Chapter 9

T onight you can mourn.

When Honoria said that, she probably didn’t expect that tonight would extend into tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after that.

It’s been ten blasted years; why haven’t I moved on?

It had been so much easier to pretend she had when she barely caught glimpses of him. When she heard nothing about him except the little snippets she deliberately sought out. And it had definitely been easier to pretend he was miserable, angry, and lonely when he wasn’t betrothed.

You are the only one I’ll ever love.

Those words, coming from an eighteen-year-old boy’s mouth, had seemed like a dream come true all those years ago. Now they rang hollow.

Lies. All lies.

Perhaps he hadn’t lied then.

Perhaps he had been just as naive as she. Lydia shook her head, sinking deeper into the comfort of her leather chair.

None of it justified what he had done.

She would allow herself to mourn the love lost, but she wouldn’t allow herself to mourn him . He was the reason for all her troubles. He was the reason her life had turned out this way. And now, fate had handed her the perfect chance for revenge. She’d be damned if she didn’t take it.

Lydia jumped out of the chair and stalked out of the house, grabbing her cloak on her way out and wrapping it about her shoulders.

She couldn’t steal the jewel off his person; that much was obvious. But since he was betrothed now, she deduced that he would have given the jewel to his new bride, just as he had given it to her all those years ago. And stealing the jewel off a stranger would surely prove easier, wouldn’t it?

There was only one tiny problem.

Lydia didn’t know where Art’s new betrothed resided. She assumed it was Miss Prescott. After all, that was the only woman she had witnessed him dance with. And that fact only hurt more, because she was a commoner, and that was the exact reason he’d used for breaking off their young betrothal.

She saddled her horse and quickly mounted it, spurring it toward Mayfair.

She knew how to get that detail, though. There was bound to be some correspondence between Thorn and the Prescotts. Their deal couldn’t have been struck in one evening.

Since she couldn’t get Art’s fiancée’s location by conventional means, she would get it the way she got everything else in life.

She would steal it.

As Lydia reached Grosvenor Square, she tethered her horse behind a hedge several houses down from Art’s townhouse and made the rest of the way on foot. She kept to the shadows as she moved closer to his house, glad for the dark night and her black cloak to disguise her.

She reached Art’s townhouse in no time. While circling the building, she went through the floor plan in her mind. If she wasn’t mistaken—most of her time serving the marquess had been spent at his country estate, so her memory wasn’t perfect—this, the room right above her head, was where the marquess’s study was located. But both its windows were frustratingly out of reach, with no trellis or convenient architectural features to aid her climb.

No matter. She walked farther along the wall until she found the trellis leading up to the edge of a neighboring window. It would take some careful maneuvering, but she could reach it and then make her way to the study from inside the house. She wasn’t certain what room lay beyond that window, but first floor rooms were rarely if ever reserved for nighttime activities.

Lydia climbed the trellis, using the wall for balance as she stretched to grasp the windowsill. Pulling up, she managed to peer inside. From her vantage point, the room seemed narrow and empty. The majority of the room was cloaked in darkness, but she saw enough to deduce that it was not a sleeping chamber, based on the fact that there was no bed.

Lydia pulled out her knife and forced the latch open. Clamping the blade between her teeth, she eased the window up and rolled inside in one smooth motion. She landed softly on the balls of her feet and glanced around her surroundings.

She had been wrong. This room was not empty at all. What she had thought was a narrow room was merely a corridor between two massive bookcases, filled with leather-bound volumes.

Of course, a library! How could she have forgotten?

The realization sent an unwelcome pang through her chest. After all, it had been in a Wakefield library—though not this one, but the one in the country—where she had first discovered her love of books… and him.

She walked to one of the bookshelves, running her fingers along the leather spines and inhaling their familiar, musty scent. There were so many books. Lydia paused, looking around. There had never been this many books in either of Wakefield’s houses, had there?

With a little shrug, she purposefully strode away from the bookshelves. There was no time for maudlin reminiscence. Cracking the door open, she peered into the corridor.

The hallway lay dark and silent. This deep into the night, not even the servants were about.

Good.

She stepped out, turned left, and tiptoed toward the study. Moving as quietly as she could, she turned the doorknob. After one last glance around, she slipped inside.

Closing the door shut behind her, she let out a breath of relief. The easiest part was over. Now for the hard part.

Lydia quickly assessed the room and made her way toward the lone desk by the window. Moonlight spilled across the pile of correspondence.

Now what?

She needed to find the letters that contained any information about the betrothal. But how could she possibly find something like that without reading every single one? She eyed the candle sitting idly on the desk’s edge and shook her head. Lighting it was too risky—anyone passing by would see the glow under the door.

Lydia drew in a steadying breath and lowered herself into the chair. A mountain of letters lay before her, most still unopened. She picked up the topmost envelope and held it to the moonlight streaming through the window. Squinting, she read the scribbled name and subject line before immediately discarding it—just an invitation to a ball.

The second letter was another invitation. The third was correspondence from the estate manager. She cast it aside and reached for the next one.

Perhaps she was going about this the wrong way. Why sift through letters when there was almost certainly a betrothal contract somewhere?

She flung the letter she was holding aside, ready to move on, until a familiar name caught her eye.

She picked the letter back up and squinted, reading it again.

Miss Penelope Prescott.

Oh, so they had exchanged correspondence directly… Somehow, she expected the letters to be between Penelope’s father and Thorn. Lydia squirmed from the uncomfortable twinge in her heart.

The sudden slam of a door somewhere upstairs jolted her back to reality, followed by loud, purposeful footsteps.

Damn .

What if Thorn had woken and decided to visit his study for some odd reason?

She couldn’t be caught here.

Slipping the letter into her pocket, she pulled her hood over her head and rushed out of the study. She reached the library quickly and closed the door behind her. Pressing her ear to the wood, she listened to the rapidly approaching footsteps, waiting for him to enter the study.

Instead, the footsteps grew louder and louder, until they stopped right outside the library door.

The handle squeaked and began to turn.

Lydia darted away, pressing herself into the shadows between the bookshelves. She stood as still as she could, her breath caught in her throat.

The door opened, and Art stepped into the room.

Lydia froze, her feet rooted to the floor. Her first thought was to stay perfectly still so he wouldn’t hear her. Her second thought was that it was a stupid plan because he might not hear her, but if he moved between the shelves, he’d definitely see her. Her third thought was that she needed to jump out the window as quickly and quietly as possible, preferably without breaking any bones in the process.

Beyond that, her mind ceased to function, and her body refused to move.

Art was here, in the library, with her.

Just like the first time they had spoken.

And just like the first time, Lydia was hiding in the shadows.

She couldn’t see him from where she stood, but she heard his soft footsteps, followed by the scrape of the tinderbox igniting. Moments later, flickering light started dancing on a tiny candle. The shadows stretched and shifted as he moved closer to the bookshelves. For every step he took, Lydia crept backward, inching closer and closer to the window, carefully matching her steps to his to mask the sound.

Art continued along the shelves, studying the book spines, drawing nearer and nearer to her hiding place.

Finally, he stopped on the other side of the shelf she hid behind. She could see him through the narrow gaps between the books, the candlelight bathing his face in a golden glow yet leaving her side cloaked in darkness. Art stepped even closer, his gaze scanning the rows of books.

Lydia held her breath.

The candlelight illuminated his features perfectly—the concentrated frown on his forehead, his piercing onyx eyes catching the glow. His eyes were always his most striking feature. Usually as dark as night, they now caught the light, making them shine like two gemstones. Her gaze drifted lower, to his full lips pressed together in thought, and lower still to the strong column of his neck, exposed by the loose neckline of his half-open banyan. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her breathing quickening despite herself, her palms growing clammy within her gloves.

Then something glinted.

Her gaze dropped further, and her heart gave a jolt. It couldn’t be.

The ring!

There it was, hanging from a silver chain around his neck, catching the candlelight’s gleam in the darkness. Lydia blinked, her mind racing. So, he hadn’t given it to his new fiancée. But why?

Her thoughts scattered when she realized he had gone still.

She raised her eyes to find him staring intently through the gap between the shelves.

Her heart stopped.

No, he couldn’t see her. The candlelight would blind him to the shadows where she stood. When Art craned his neck, peering harder into the darkness, Lydia’s limbs finally unfroze.

She couldn’t be caught. Not here. Not now. Not by him.

In one fluid movement, she lunged for the window and slipped through it. Down the trellis she slid, and moments later, her feet hit the ground. Running. Away from him.

* * *

It was her!

Thorn stared into the darkness, his heart racing. He’d seen her—hadn’t he?

He could have sworn he had.

For a moment, he questioned his sanity.

Was it a ghost? A shadow? Just candlelight playing tricks?

Whatever it was had vanished without a trace. At first, he’d dismissed it as candlelight falling oddly behind the shelf. But when he brought the flame closer, he saw her face… Or thought he did. Though shadows from the books obscured most of it, those eyes—her beautiful, expressive eyes—and that hint of red in her hair… He couldn’t have imagined all that!

Thorn stood frozen. He’d dreamed of seeing her again so many times… He even thought he’d seen her once before, back in Yorkshire a few years ago. He’d thought her a ghost then, too. Had he truly seen her either of these times? Or had that, too, been a dream?

Was he still asleep now as he stared into the darkness?

If this had happened a sennight ago, he’d think it a drunken hallucination. Yet, he was refreshingly sober.

Thorn rushed to where the shadow had been, his pulse thundering in his temples. Nothing remained but curtains billowing in the breeze.

The breeze. The window was open.

He approached the window and looked down. The moonlit street lay empty below, stripping away his last doubts.

A maid must have left the window open. He had probably mistaken a curtain for her presence. Or perhaps a bird had flown in.

A bird.

Not a ghost. Not her.

Thorn turned away with a deep sigh, yet he could swear her scent lingered. The scent of lilies.