Led Astray by a Rake (The Husband Hunters Club 1)

His manner was strange, and she stopped and looked at him. “I don’t think Lord Lacey wants me to call again, Abbot.”

“Lord Lacey has so few visitors. He is a troubled and lonely man in need of company.” He seemed to be trying to tell her something, and when she didn’t answer, he spoke even more forthrightly. “Miss Monteith, you are exactly the sort of young lady he needs to have visit him more often.”

Well, at least someone appreciated her, Olivia thought, as she began her walk home. But she couldn’t help feeling a little down. Did you really expect him to say yes this soon? She must prepare herself for a long campaign rather than a swift skirmish. And surely that was the whole point of husband hunting? The more difficult the hunt, the more satisfying the happy ending.

Wicked Nic was a good man—he’d been generous and kind to her during a difficult part of her childhood—but according to his manservant, he was also a lonely man. He’d admitted he found her attractive. Perhaps it was time to bring into play some of her feminine wiles, Olivia thought, with a little smile. If cool, rational argument did not work, then an appeal to the senses might.

And Nic Lacey was a very sensual man.

Nic, shaken, bemused, and enchanted, swallowed his tea without tasting it. Olivia Monteith was a beauty, with the sort of glacial air that spoke of little emotion. Except that Nic had seen a great deal of emotion in her sapphire blue eyes. It bubbled and seethed below the tranquil surface like a volcano that might erupt at any moment.

When he had met her before, she’d been a child—amusing and charming, yes, but a child nonetheless. Three years ago he’d realized she was growing up. It was at one of their innocent little trysts when he’d seen that they must stop. It was the turn of her head that did it, the curve of her cheek, the soft pout of her lips. All of a sudden he’d seen that to continue meeting was to invite the sort of trouble he didn’t want. He’d been thinking of her as a child but she was nearly seventeen, and showing promise of the woman she’d become—intriguing, delicious, and oh so tempting.

Clearly she’d now fulfilled that promise.

A hot wave of lust made him shift uncomfortably in his chair. What he wouldn’t give to be the one to bring about the full transformation from virgin to woman. To have the cool and lovely Olivia Monteith squirming and panting in his arms. Could he make her scream with pleasure? He thought he could; at any rate he’d like to try.

Regretfully he set down his cup. Fantasies were all very nice, but in this case they were a waste of time and energy. Olivia was not for him, and the less he thought about her the better.

But how the devil could he have forgotten that long-ago interlude by the stream? The memory seemed idyllic now, the scents of summer and the splashing water; the child with her golden hair and dark-lashed blue eyes, and his own youthful idiocy. Later, they met as friends. How could he ever have imagined that she would de

mand he honor his reckless promise? Any union between them, sanctioned by the church or otherwise, was completely and utterly out of the question.

Nic had vowed long ago never to marry and place himself in the power of someone else. He’d been burned too badly by circumstance and was determined to live his life on his own terms, asking nothing and being asked for nothing in return.

Delicious as Olivia Monteith was, he would have to forgo her. There were plenty of other women available to him, the sort of women who knew exactly what he wanted—a monetary transaction for physical release and a very little conversation. Nic found himself looking forward to the approaching demimonde ball, an event he attended every year, and made a determined effort to put the tempting Olivia Monteith from his mind.

Chapter 2

Olivia poured coffee, added cream, and sipped the delicious brew, her elbows impolitely propped on the table. It didn’t matter. The breakfast room was empty, her father having long ago retired to his study to answer letters, and her mother was busy elsewhere about the house. Sunshine slanted in through the narrow windows.

It promised to be a fine day for her enterprise.

Olivia smiled to herself as she imagined what was to come. She’d composed the note and sent a servant to deliver it to Castle Lacey the evening before. A reply had come back with the same servant, a scrawl in Nic Lacey’s hand.

What do you mean meet you by the stepping stones at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon? I do not make assignations with respectable young ladies. You say the matter is urgent. I don’t believe you.

Olivia didn’t answer him; silence was the best option. He might say he wasn’t coming but she was certain he would. And if he didn’t? Her certainty wavered, but she refused to let doubt color her optimistic mood. The Nic Lacey she believed him to be would meet her at the appointed place at the appointed time. Unless he had changed a great deal in the past three years, he wouldn’t be able to resist the word “urgent.”

Olivia set down her coffee cup, just as her mother entered the room, and the smile of anticipation she’d been unable to repress turned into a smile of welcome.

“My dear, there you are.”

“I’m sorry, Mama, did you need me for something?” Olivia pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. She was taller and more slender than her mother, and her smooth face did not have the markings of grief that were deeply etched upon her mother’s.

“No, nothing in particular. I just wondered where you were. I like to see you and know you are safe, Olivia. It gives me comfort.”

It was the same old story. Ever since her sister had died her parents seemed to be in a constant state of anxiety and fear that something equally tragic would happen to Olivia. Her mother in particular clung to her, worried about her—it had been a battle to remain at Miss Debenham’s for the whole year—and now she wanted Olivia to marry Mr. Garsed and live in the same village forever and ever. Although Olivia understood her parents’ pain and loved them, she found such constant watchfulness and attention suffocating.

Life, she thought, couldn’t be lived properly if one was constantly afraid of making a wrong move or believing something bad was about to happen. Olivia didn’t want to be always frightened and she didn’t want her parents to be always frightened for her. It didn’t seem fair that her sister’s death should result in her own demise. They did their best, but their insistence on taking the safe route was choking the life out of her, and Sarah wouldn’t have wanted that. It was Sarah who had taught Olivia that life was for living and that one should never take second best. Olivia’s family wanted her to marry Mr. Garsed, but in Olivia’s eyes Mr. Garsed was very much second best.

Her mother was watching her, the familiar crease between her brows, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. “Olivia, have you thought about Mr. Garsed—”

But Olivia didn’t let her finish.

“Shall we look at the cloth I had sent up from London?” she asked brightly. “I thought you might like a new dress, Mama. And the color would suit you.”

“If you are certain, my dear,” her mother said with a forced smile, “though I rarely go anywhere where there is a need to wear pretty things. It still does not seem quite right.”