My Fake Rake

He was the son of a man who’d made his fortune from mining and selling iron, and his grandfather had been a blacksmith with barely any literacy.

Her pin money was likely ten times the amount of the pittance that was his quarterly allowance.

In four years, not once had she looked at him with anything warmer than friendliness.

She was besotted by Mason Fredericks and only Mason Fredericks.

She owed Seb nothing. He couldn’t feel anger or resentment that she considered him strictly a friend.

But, damn, none of that made it easier to hear about her infatuation.

He neatly dodged around a liveried messenger hurrying down the street, and sidestepped around a fallen meat pie someone had dropped. Physical action came so easily and without thought. He could settle into the movement, confident that his body would perform as it needed to, even excel in the motions required. At least in that regard, he had full confidence.

Oh, and thanks to the fact that he couldn’t secure money to fund field research, he knew his way around a library.

That totaled up to two areas of expertise. When it came to talking—more specifically, wooing—he devolved into a stammering blancmange.

Which was one of the reasons why he never tried to say anything remotely flirtatious with Grace. He’d never tell her that her gray-blue eyes reminded him of the sea at dusk. Or that he could spend hours contemplating the curve of her neck. Or give voice to the fact that when he saw her, he forgot anything unpleasant that had happened to him earlier in the day and it was as though the sun had broken out from behind a heavy cloudbank, brightening everything within him.

The reason—the only reason—why he could talk to Grace at all was because she thought of him merely as a friend. He didn’t lose his awareness of her as a woman, but so long as she valued his platonic companionship, he’d keep all thoughts of kissing his way across her collarbone to a minimum, thank you very much.

The sign for McKinnon’s came into view. He breathed out, letting the last of tension slip from his body.

“Afternoon, Mr. Holloway,” the bookseller called from behind a table laden with tomes of every size. “A moment, and I’ll head back to fetch your order.”

“At your leisure, Mr. McKinnon.” Seb slipped between the bookshelves, which, along with the Benezra Library, formed the walls of his spiritual home. He had to content himself with other people’s research, since having the funds to actually go out into the field—outside of England—and conduct research of his own was a distant dream.

Grace stepped into the foyer of her home, her face heating as she recalled her mortifying conversation with Mason. Then Sebastian had listened so patiently to her bemoaning that humiliating interaction. He always listened—one of the reasons why she was so grateful to call him a friend.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re home, my lady!”

She paused in the act of handing Katie her bonnet as Grenville, the butler, hurried forward. Grenville’s mouth was tight, and creases of worry fanned out from the corners of his eyes.

Considering how he had once calmly announced at teatime that a fire had broken out in the kitchen, the butler’s tense expression shot alarm through Grace.

“What is it?” she demanded.

“The earl . . . your father . . .” Grenville’s gaze lifted to the top of the staircase, toward her father’s bedchamber.

Grace shot up the stairs, hiking up her skirts to take them two at a time. Every stride made her heart pound harder as countless disastrous scenarios played out in her mind.

In the hallway outside her father’s bedchamber, she nearly collided with a middle-aged man in dark and serious clothing. A servant carrying a covered basin was on his heels. It took her addled thoughts a moment to recall that he was Dr. Campbell, the family physician.

“Lady Grace.” Dr. Campbell bowed. “I’ve just been attending the earl.”

“Tell me what’s wrong with him.” She gripped the physician’s sleeve, dimly noting the whiteness of her knuckles.

“I’ve bled him, and he’s resting now.”

“But what happened?”

Dr. Campbell hesitated. “I don’t want to overset you. Young ladies can have delicate temperaments.”