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

She wore a white dress that seemed to float about her slippered feet, and her parasol cast shadows but could not dim the glow of her golden hair. Or her beauty. She was a woman in a million, a rare jewel. She took his breath away, scattered his wits, and left him in a state of permanent arousal, and that was the problem.

Olivia Monteith was the very last person he wanted to see right now, when he was at his lowest ebb. He felt as if he’d already said good-bye and relegated her to the past, and that was where he expected her to stay. That was what he’d done last time he felt threatened by her, when they used to meet by the stepping stones—the day he’d looked at the child and seen the budding woman.

Now here she was, and the fact that the sight of her made his chest tighten and his pulse give a little jump angered him.

“Lord Lacey.” She’d stopped before him, and he noted the cautious expression in her eyes as she looked down at him, as if she suddenly sensed danger.

Good! Let her beware. Let her turn around and run home as fast as her legs could carry her. But Olivia being Olivia, she didn’t run away. She stood firm and said what she’d come to say.

“I’m so sorry to see you hurt,” she said. “Is there any—any lasting damage to your—your—”

“My leg?” he demanded, furious and not bothering to hide it. “Am I even more of a cripple than I was before? Don’t try and wrap it up nicely, Olivia, ask away. There’s nothing I love more than to discuss my physical infirmities.”

She glanced to one side—a gesture he’d noticed before when she was embarrassed or anxious. “Don’t be cross, Nic. I was worried. I couldn’t come before, but I’m here now.”

“I’m surprised the faithful Theodore isn’t here with you, just to make certain I don’t contaminate you.”

Her eyes widened, but before she could accuse him of being jealous, he gave her thoughts another direction.

“Or ravish you.”

“Estelle is with me.” She looked over her shoulder at the empty walk, gave a shrug. “Somewhere. I think she went off with Abbot.”

“Somewhere?” With a groan he covered his face with his hands. “You need her here, by your side, Olivia. You’re not a fool. Do you want your reputation to be ruined?”

“Nic…you’re in pain,” she said, “but I know you’d never hurt me. I trust you.”

There was no way to reply to a statement as ludicrous as that.

“How did you break your leg?” she went on, when it seemed he wasn’t going to try.

He nodded beyond her, toward the end of the long walk where the ruins of the old bailey wall still stood. “I was climbing and I fell.”

“You were climbing?” She stared wide-eyed.

“My father was an enthusiast and he taught me from a young age. He climbed in Wales and Derbyshire. I was never as good as he, but I could scale that wall well enough. The last time…well, I was upset and probably a little drunk. I took a misstep and fell. They wanted to send me to London but I refused. My father had just died and my mother needed me.”

“You pretend to be wicked, Nic, but at heart you are a good man.”

“Olivia, I’m not your knight in shining armor,” he growled, sinking lower in his chair.

“Certainly not,” she replied with a shudder. “And I’m not one of those pitiable damsels in distress.”

Something in her words and her manner caught his attention, lifting him from his gloomy self-pity. “So how do you see yourself?”

“A free, independent spirit.”

He showed his teeth. “I hate to burst your bubble, but there’s nothing independent about a woman of your class and situation. Eventually you will see that and settle down and do as you’re told.”

“Never!”

She sounded fierce and determined, and he wondered if she could manage to escape the bindings and chains her family and society had already fashioned to snare her. Not maliciously, perhaps, but nevertheless their rules and unspoken laws were meant to stop her from being exactly what she wanted to be: free.

Now that he understood her situation a little better, Nic wondered if that was why she had fixed her sights on him, as an antidote to Theodore. Well, if that was so, then he would have to do his best to disabuse her of her foolish belief.

“I turned my back on you before,” he said bluntly. “Would a man with a good heart do that?”

Olivia was making herself a comfortable seat on the grass beside his chair, her skirts drifting about her, her parasol rolling to one side on its fringed rim. She looked up, surprised. “What do you mean?”