The Lure of a Rake Read Online Free PDF

haven’t decided,” he said noncommittally.
    The other man choked on his drink. “Yes, no doubt,” he said with droll humor after he’d finished his sip. “I am certain the first place you’ll care to be is at that miserable bastard’s polite affair.” He spoke as one who knew Cedric; who knew the lifelong loathing he’d carried for his sire. He knew the only places Cedric had ever truly been comfortable were those dens of sin, where he felt less alone in the evil in his blood.
    Finishing off his first whiskey, Montfort promptly consumed the other in a long, slow swallow. He grimaced and then set his empty glass aside. “Shall we?” he asked, climbing to his feet.
    Neither was the earl above trying to influence the wager, it would seem. Then, Cedric had long ago ceased being shocked by a person’s depravity and weakness. “Perhaps, I will join you later,” he said.
    Despite the low he’d sunk to in life, he’d not enter the living looking like he’d been roused from the streets of London.
    A grin formed on the other man’s lips, which Cedric wagered had not a jot to do with his actual promise of company. “Splendid,” Montfort said and thumped him on the back as he passed.
    After he’d gone and Cedric was, at last, alone, he gathered his black jacket and shrugged into it. When had joining his clubs bore the same appeal as spending an evening amidst polite Society? Forbidden Pleasures and the other hells he’d frequented over the years had been the few places he’d felt he belonged, with other like people—equally emotionless and jaded. He’d studiously avoided those polite balls and soirees. Somewhere along the way, there’d become a tedium to both.
    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
    S he 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