The Rake to Rescue Her. Julia Justiss

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СКАЧАТЬ him was not Mannington’s fault. Like every child, to grow and thrive he needed love—of which, until now, he’d received precious little.

      For the first time in many years, she allowed herself to think about her own childhood—a time so idyllic and distant that it seemed to belong to another person, or another life. Despite losing his wife in childbirth at an early age, Papa had managed to submerge his own grief and create a home filled with love, security, joy and laughter. How had he done so?

      Settling back on the dressing-table bench, she stared at her image in the mirror, digging through the bits of memory.

      They’d certainly not had the material advantages available to a duke. As a younger son from a minor branch of a prominent family, no objection had been posed to Papa pursuing a career as an Oxford tutor, nor of his marrying for love a gentleman’s daughter of great beauty and small dowry. After Mama’s death, they’d taken rooms close to the university, where he might more easily mentor his students and pursue his own botanical studies. As both Mama and Papa had no other close kin, it had always been just the two of them.

      She’d learned her letters at his knee, studied her lessons in his office, painted and played piano for him in the adjacent studio. Picnics beside the river turned into treasure hunts, often enlivened by games of hide-and-seek, as she helped Papa search for rare plants. Every day ended with him reading to her, or telling her a bedtime story. Later, as his eyesight began to fail and his health grew more frail, she had read to him.

      First thing, then, she ticked off on one finger, she’d need to spend more time with Mannington...James, she corrected herself. No longer a tool of the Duke to control her, but simply a child. Her son.

      A frisson of long-suppressed tenderness vibrated deep within her, as barely discernible as the scent of a newly opening rose.

      Having deliberately avoided him since he’d been a toddler, she wasn’t sure where to start. Other than accompanying him to the park, what did one do with a young boy?

      Perhaps she could start by reading to him at bedtime. All children liked being read to, didn’t they? If he enjoyed the interaction, his happiness should warm her, too, and begin the difficult process of dismantling the barriers she’d put in place to stifle any feeling towards him.

      But the creation of a true home meant more than just spending time with him. Her father had not been nearly as prominent or powerful as her husband, but he’d been an enthusiastic, optimistic man who inspired love and admiration in everyone with whom he came into contact. Even students not especially interested in botany grew to appreciate the natural universe whose wonders he unfolded to them.

      He’d exuded an infectious joy in life, in every little detail of living, from lauding the warmth of the fire on a cold evening, to savouring tea and cakes with her in the afternoon, to the enthusiasm with which he read to her, altering his voice to play all the parts from Shakespeare, or emoting the sonnets with an understanding that brought the beauty of the words and the depth of their meaning to life. He’d loved being a scholar, never losing his excitement at finding and recording in meticulous drawings all the plants he collected.

      She could almost hear his voice, telling her how everything fit together in the natural world, with all having its place. She, too, had been designed with particular talents and abilities, her contributions unique, irreplaceable, and a necessary part to the whole.

      She swallowed hard and her eyes stung. She hadn’t remembered that bit of encouragement for years. Did she have a place and a purpose? Having lost first Alastair and then her father, was there something more for her than mere survival?

      She could start by saving her son from Blankford. She could try her best to unlock her feelings and love him again. She could attempt to create the kind of home he deserved, that every child deserved, where he was wanted, appreciated, nourished.

      The last would be a stretch. She wasn’t her father, or even a pale echo of him. Once, another lifetime ago, she’d been a fearless girl who loved with all her heart and met life with reckless passion...

      But how could she, who had forgotten what joy was, offer that to a child she might not find her way back to loving?

      Sighing, she raised an eyebrow at the image in the mirror. The reflection staring back at her, the only friend and ally she’d had during the hellish years of her marriage, merely looked back, returning no answers.

      She’d just have to try harder, she told the image. Once Alastair Ransleigh finished with her, she could close the book of her past and begin a new volume, with James.

      Pray God she’d have enough time to figure it out before Blankford made his move.

      But first, tonight, she must begin repaying the debt she owed Alastair. Her hands trembling ever so slightly, she rang for the maid and began to dress.

Chapter Four

      Alastair paused in his pacing of the parlour of the small townhouse he’d rented, listening to the mantel clock strike three-quarters past eight. Unless she’d changed her previous habit of promptness, in another fifteen minutes, Diana would be here.

      His pulses leapt as a surge of anticipation and desire rushed through him. Too impatient to sit, he took another turn about the room, then set off on yet another tour of the premises.

      He’d arrived at eight, wanting to ensure everything was as he’d ordered. The new staff dispatched by the agency, all with impeccable references, had done their jobs perfectly. The immaculate house gleamed, every wooden surface and silver object polished to a soft glow in the candlelight. Taking the stairs, he inspected the sitting room adjoining the bedroom, nodding dismissal to the maid who’d just finished setting out a cold buffet. In the bedroom itself, a decanter of wine stood on the bedside table, and two glasses reflected the flames of the lit candles on the mantel above.

      Wine to lend courage to him—or to her? he wondered with a wry grin. Maybe for consolation, if the joke was on him and Diana simply did not show up.

      Which would, he admitted, be a justifiable rebuke for his ungentlemanly behaviour.

      Even as he thought it, he heard the click of the front door opening, and a murmur of voices as the new manservant admitted a visitor.

      So she had come after all.

      Alastair descended the stairs nearly at a run.

      ‘I’ve shown the, ah, lady into the parlour,’ the servant told him. ‘Will you be needing anything else, sir?’

      ‘Nothing more tonight, Marston. Thank you.’

      Expression impassive, the servant bowed and headed off towards the service stairs. Alastair wondered, not for the first time, what the handful of employees thought of their new situation—and how much they’d been told when the agency he’d consulted had hired them. Certainly upon arrival, if not before, they would have realised they were being called upon to staff the love nest of some wealthy man’s chère-amie. He’d not been able to glean from the behaviour of Marston, the cook or the maid whether they disapproved or were indifferent to the situation.

      To tell the truth, he felt a bit uncomfortable. In his previous liaisons, after hiring a house, he’d simply given the lady of the moment the funds to bring or hire her own staff—and had never given the servants’ opinions a thought. But this was Diana—and how she was regarded by the СКАЧАТЬ