Ravished by the Rake (Danger and Desire 1)

‘What did he say when you reached the deck again? Was he angry? I would have sunk with mortification, but then you are much braver than I am.’ Averil bit her lip in the silence as Dita, words to describe what had happened next completely deserting her, shook out her petticoats. ‘It was rather romantic and dashing of Lord Lyndon, don’t you think?’

It was and she would have died rather than admit it, even if what had happened next was anything but romantic. ‘He lectured me,’ Dita said, her head buried in her skirts as she pulled her sprig muslin gown on. Instinct was telling her to dress as modestly as she could. ‘He thinks of me as a younger sister,’ she added as she pinned a demure fichu over what bare skin the simple gown exposed. ‘Someone to keep out of trouble.’

And that’s a lie. That teasing near-kiss and the feeling of Alistair’s hard, aroused body pressed against her had told her quite clearly that whatever his feelings were, they were not brotherly. He had felt magnificent and just thinking about it made her ache with desire. What would he have done just now if she had bent her head and kissed his bare throat, trailed her tongue down over the salty skin to where she could just glimpse a curl of dark hair?

She remembered the taste of him, the scent of his skin. But there had not been so much hair on his chest eight years ago. He’s a man now, she reminded herself. What if she had reached out and cupped her hand wantonly over the front of his trousers where his desire was so very obvious?

‘What a pity,’ Averil surprised her by murmuring as she stood up to tie the broad ribbon sash. ‘Perhaps he’ll change his mind. It is a long voyage.’

‘He will do no such thing,’ Dita said. ‘He knows about my elopement. Bother, I must have an eyelash in my eye—it is watering. Oh, thank you.’ She dabbed her eyes with Averil’s handkerchief. ‘That’s better.’ I am not going to weep over him, not again. Not ever.

‘But you are Lady Perdita Brooke,’ Averil protested. ‘An earl’s daughter.’

‘And Alistair is about to become a marquis, if he isn’t one already. He can look as high as he likes for a wife and he won’t have to consider someone with a shady reputation. If we were passionately in love, then I expect he would throw such considerations to the wind. But we are not, of course.’ Merely in lust. ‘Not that I want him, of course,’ she lied. Marriage isn’t what either of us wants; sin is.

‘I can’t imagine why not,’ Averil said with devastating honesty. ‘I would think any unattached woman would be attracted to him. He might fall in love with you,’ she persisted with an unusual lack of tact. Or perhaps Dita was being better at covering up her feelings than she feared.

‘Love?’ Dita laughed; if Averil noticed how brittle it was, she did not show it. ‘Well, he had plenty of opportunity when we were younger.’ She brushed out her hair and twisted it up into a simple knot at her nape.

Not that it had occurred to her that what she felt for him was more than childish affection, not until that night when he had been so bitterly unhappy and she had reached out to him, offering comfort that had become so much more. But now she realised that he had hardly cared who he was with, let alone been concerned about her feelings, whatever endearments he had murmured as he had caressed the clothes from her body. If he had, he would never have rejected her so hurtfully afterwards.

It was a blessing that he had not understood, simply seen the innocent love that burned in her eyes, the trust that had taken her into his arms.

She could still feel the violence with which Alistair had put her from him that last day, the rejection with which he had turned his face from her. He had been upset about something, desperately, wordlessly upset, and he had been drinking alone, something that she had never seen him do before, and her embrace had been meant only to comfort, just as the eight-year-old Dita would hug her idol when he fell and cut his head. But it had turned into something else, something the sixteen-year-old Dita could not control.

He had yanked her into his arms, met her upturned lips in a kiss that had been urgent on his part, clumsy and untutored on hers. And then it had all got completely, wonderfully, out of control and she had discovered that, however innocent she was, he was not and that he could sweep away her fears, melt them in the delight of what he was teaching her body—until he had pushed her from him, out of his bedchamber, his words scathing and unjust.

For several months she had thought she had driven him away by her actions, had shocked him with her forwardness. After a while she had made up stories to console herself and blank out what had really happened; then she overheard her parents talking and learned that he had left after a furious quarrel with his father.

‘When Alistair left home,’ she told Averil as she stuck in combs to hold her hair, ‘I had this fantasy that his father had refused to allow him to pay his addresses to me. Wasn’t that foolish? There was absolutely no reason why we wouldn’t have been a perfectly eligible couple then. In reality, they had a row over Alistair taking over one of the other estates, or something equally ridiculous to fall out about.’

‘So you were in love with him then?’ Averil asked.

‘I fancied I was!’ Dita was pleased with the laugh, and her smile, as she made the ready admission. ‘I was sixteen and hopelessly infatuated. But I grew out of it and I would expire of mortification if he ever found out how I had worshipped him, so you must swear not to tell.’ Hero worship, affection, calf love and desire: what a chaos of feelings to try to disentangle.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Averil assured her. ‘I would hate it if a man guessed something like that about me.’

‘So would I,’ Dita assured her as she adjusted her shawl. ‘So would I.’

They managed a brisk walk around the deck, which Dita thought would account for any colour in her cheeks, and then went straight in to breakfast. Alistair was already at table, seated between the Chattertons; Dita deliberately sat opposite. The men half-rose, greeted them and resumed their conversation.

/> ‘I was going to try some singlestick exercises early this morning, but I got distracted,’ Alistair said, continuing his conversation with Callum.

So that was what he was doing, up so early. Dita accepted a cup of coffee and took a slice of toast.

‘I think I’ll do that every morning,’ he went on, without so much as a glance in her direction to accompany the warning. ‘Why don’t you two join me? We could box, wrestle, use singlesticks.’

‘Good idea,’ Callum agreed, with a nudge in the ribs for Daniel who was grumbling about early rising. ‘We will be sure to avoid the ladies by doing that.’

And that put an end to any dawn exercise on her part, Dita recognised, slapping preserve on her toast with a irritable flick. It was easier to be angry with Alistair than to confront any of the other feelings he aroused in her.

‘What a charming picture you two ladies make.’ Alistair again, smiling now. Beside her Averil made a small sound that might have been pleasure at the compliment, or might have been nerves. ‘So English in your muslins and lawns and lacy fichus.’

‘You do not like Indian female dress, my lord?’ Dita enquired. She was not going to allow him to needle her and she rather thought he knew exactly why she had changed into something so blandly respectable. It had been an error to show him that she cared for his opinion. She had morning dresses that would make him pant with desire, she told herself, mentally lowering necklines and removing lace trim from the contents of her trunk.

‘It is suitable for Indian females, but not for English ones to ape.’

‘But English gentlemen resort to Indian garb to relax in, do you not? Why should ladies not have the same comforts? But of course,’ she added, ‘you do not appreciate the wonderful freedom of casting off one’s stays.’