Ravished by the Rake (Danger and Desire 1)

‘You know Latin or perhaps you are a Shakespearian scholar?’ Dita responded, turning slightly to find Sir Rafe beside her.

‘Both. Perdita, the lost princess of The Winter’s Tale, cast adrift upon the coast. Apt, I thought, in view of the shipwreck.’

‘Wrong coast, however.’ She kept her shoulder a little turned and her voice cool. It would not do to seem overeager.

‘Indeed. It is warm in here, is it not?’

Ah, a very fast worker! ‘I do not believe we have been introduced, sir.’

‘Sir Rafe Langham. I have been out of town for some time otherwise …’ He let his voice trail off. ‘I knew who you were, of course—your beauty had been described to me.’

Nonsense, you heard I have a shady past and you thought you would try your luck, Dita thought. But it was so tempting to play with fire, just a little. ‘You make me blush, Sir Rafe. Or perhaps it is the heat in here.’

He needed no further encouragement. He opened the window wide and Dita stepped through and into the cool night air. ‘How refreshing,’ she said. The edge of the terrace was not far. It was well lit by the spill of light from the uncurtained windows, and should be quite safe, even with a gazetted rake such as this one.

‘And what a delightful fragrance in the air. I wonder if it is this shrub.’ Before Dita could get her balance she was swept off to the side, out of the light and into the shadows of a little gazebo.

‘Ah, no. It is your perfume and not a flower at all.’ He gathered her to him with alarming competence.

‘Sir Rafe! Stop it—’

He kissed her and his right hand fastened on her breast while the left, spread over her behind, trapped her intimately close to his body. Dita tried to raise her knee, but he had her too close. Alistair’s lesson came back to her vividly: ears are very sensitive. She reached up, seized an earlobe and twisted, hard.

He released her mouth with an oath, grabbed her wrist and yanked her deeper into the shadows. ‘You little hellcat! So you like to play it rough, do you?’

I am going to castrate you with blunt scissors, Dita thought as she fought him. If I can just get my fingers round this loose stone … But she knew, with a sinking heart, that the only way she was going to get out of this was at the cost of another, possibly ruinous, scandal.

Where the devil was Dita going? Alistair removed his gaze from Mrs Somerton’s face, which was lovely enough to compensate a trifle for her frivolous conversation, and saw Dita slip through the window on to the terrace with a man. The mouse-brown hair looked like Winstanley’s. The devil! He thought she had stopped encouraging that milksop.

It would only be flirtation, the man was to be trusted, surely, and Dita could look after herself. He himself had been flirting, blatantly, hoping that he could provoke a reaction from her. It seemed he had succeeded rather too well.

Alistair shifted, uneasy for some reason. The thought of her in another man’s arms, another man’s bed, made his stomach churn. He swore softly under his breath.

‘My lord?’ Mrs Somerton must have been chattering on for minutes while he brooded.

‘I beg your—’ Francis Wynstanley strolled out from behind a large plant on a stand. Whoever Dita was outside with, it was not her lukewarm admirer. ‘Excuse me.’

He crossed the room as unobtrusively as he could, stepped out on to the terrace and closed the window behind him.

There. Alistair strode across the flags towards the gazebo and the flutter of pale fabric he could just see in the darkness.

‘Take your hands off me, you reptile, before I hit you again.’ Dita’s furious voice had him grinning despite his anxiety. The again sounded promising. He should have trusted her to fight back.

‘I warn you, drop that stone or I’ll make such a scandal out of this—’

Alistair didn’t recognise the voice, but his night vision had recovered enough to make out the two joined figures clearly. He sent a crashing right over Dita’s left shoulder. The man slumped back, Dita staggered into Alistair’s arms and dropped something painfully on his toes.

‘Alistair! Oh—thank you!’

Alistair hauled the fallen man to his feet. ‘You, sir, will meet me for this. Name your seconds.’

‘No, he will not meet you,’ Dita said, all the gratitude gone from her voice. ‘I can do without the scandal, thank you very much. And I have hit him with that rock, wherever it has gone, and I twisted his ears as you showed me, Alistair.’

‘It is not enough.’ Alistair said through his anger. He wanted to kill this lout. ‘What is his name?’

‘Rafe Langham,’ Dita said. Langham had one hand clamped to his bleeding nose and was in no fit state to say anything.

‘Langham,’ Alistair gave the man a shake. ‘Apologise to the lady, now.’