Taming the Rake Read online

  Instead, he’d hurt the one person who’d truly believed in him.

  Yet even after how horribly he’d hurt her, she still hadn’t taken her revenge. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had shouted her refusal from the rooftops. Actually, he almost wished she would, perhaps it would ease the gnawing guilt twisting his insides.

  Why hadn’t she?

  That was the question that drove him mad. He’d hurt her. Acted unforgivably. Yet she protected him. Could it be that despite what she’d claimed, she still loved him?

  Could he dare to hope?

  Of course there was one problem with his theory. If she still loved him, why had she refused him? Clearly, she hadn’t believed his declaration of love. Was that it? Somehow he’d have to find the way to prove it to her. But how?

  He murmured his greetings to the men seated at the table, including Rockingham who he would rather have ignored, and proceeded to take a seat in an open chair. A glass of brandy appeared on the table in front of him before he even sat down. The cards materialized in his hands. Play began without thought; the motions instilled by repetition were now practically rote. And completely devoid of pleasure. He’d had enough.

  His thoughts must have shown in his expression.

  “Cards not to your liking?” Beaufort asked.

  “It’s not the cards,” he replied.

  He’d been bored and cynical before he met her. Now he was just plain weary. Tired of living the meaningless, dissolute existence he’d so painstakingly perfected. He wanted more.

  He wanted her.

  Hell, he needed her.

  Not for her household management skills, her organization, or to rid his house of alcohol—though those would not be without benefit. He needed her for her confidence and strength, and most of all for her ability to believe in him. No one else had ever cared enough to see what lay beneath the scarred shell.

  “Something else bothering you?” Rockingham taunted. “Your conscience perhaps?”

  Coventry turned his steely gaze to his friend, surprised by the venom he received in return.

  “Coventry doesn’t have a conscience,” Beaufort said with a laugh. The rest of the table joined in.

  “I’m surprised to see you here tonight, Rock.” Coventry tossed down a card carelessly. “Thought you might have other fish to fry… or poach.”

  The other man stiffened. His face turned red and his mouth fell into a tight line.

  “Yes,” Beaufort interjected, addressing Rockingham. “I thought you’d be at Almack’s pursuing St. Albans’s chit.” The duke sat back and stroked his chin. “Strange. Originally I thought she’d set her cap for Coventry.”

  Someone laughed, but Coventry couldn’t tell who it was as his eyes were fixed on Rockingham.

  “I fear she was disappointed in that regard,” Rockingham said. Lifting his stare from Coventry he turned to Beaufort. “But I’m confident I can make her forget any unpleasantness from the past.”

  Coventry could have slammed his fist into his friend’s smug face. He had no doubt how Rockingham would make her forget. Coventry bit back his scathing retort, doing his best to keep his temper in check. It would do no good to come to blows in Brooks’s. He didn’t want Georgina’s name linked with scandal.

  No one else seemed to be aware of the battle brewing between the two old cohorts.

  Another gentleman, an older member of the club, frowned. “Yes,” he said to Coventry. “Seems I heard something about you jilting the girl.”

  Coventry put down his cards. He’d had enough. He was done hiding behind his vices. He needed her, and he intended to fight for her. To hell with what anyone thought. He knew what would happen, but he realized it no longer mattered. “I’m afraid you’ve heard wrong, Lord Whiting. If anyone was jilted, it was me.”

  “What?” the table seemed to say in unison. To a man they stared at him with their eyes wide and mouths open.

  “I asked Lady Georgina to marry me and she refused. She might have set her cap for me, but it was only as part of a wager—to see whether she could make me fall in love with her enough to ask for her.” He paused and said unflinchingly, “She won.”

  Rockingham looked stunned.

  Beaufort moved forward across the table, his face a mask of fury. “What kind of challenge?”

  “A girls’ game, nothing more.” Before they could ask any other questions, he stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I believe I’ve had enough.”

  Heart pounding, he turned and walked away. He’d done it. In a strange way he felt relieved. He was no longer waiting for Madame Guillotine to fall, he’d taken control. Coventry knew the rumor mill would be buzzing, that he would be the butt of not a few jokes, but he no longer cared. He realized that if he had any chance of getting her back, he would have to start with the truth. This was only the first step.

  It was time to wrest control from the demons of his past and clean up the mess he’d made of his life. He’d show her he could change. And maybe, just maybe, she could find it in her heart to forgive him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Gina hadn’t told anyone, so how had this happened? The news of her refusal of Coventry’s offer had spread like wildfire through the ton. Even her father had come to her, and after voicing his displeasure over the wager, he had praised her for her good sense in refusing him. If only he knew. Good sense she could no longer claim.

  She’d won the wager, but it was a hollow victory to be sure. How would she be happy when she was so miserable and Coventry had become the laughingstock of the ton? Her own part in an unseemly wager had been largely ignored in favor of Coventry’s predicament.

  The door to the morning room opened, and Gina was shocked to see Augusta.

  “Augusta, dearest, what a wonderful surprise. I expected you to be home today deep in your preparations for tomorrow.”

  Augusta came forward and took her hands, her face a mask of despair. “Is it true, Gina? Did you truly refuse him?”

  The moment she’d dreaded had arrived. Gina dropped her hands and looked away, unable to meet her friend’s wounded gaze. “It’s true.”

  “And the wager?”

  Gina’s breath caught. She forced herself to meet Augusta’s eyes. “That is true as well.”

  Augusta’s face crumbled, her eyes a watery tempest of confusion. “How could you? You know how the scandal and gossip surrounding his first wife affected him. How could you humiliate him like this?”

  Shame swept over her. How could she make Augusta understand? “I swear to you I had no knowledge of his past when the wager began. It seemed harmless at the time. In time I learned it was too late. Please believe me, I did care for him. I had no intention of any of this ever coming out. I have no idea how it did.”

  All of the friendliness had vanished. Augusta’s expression turned hard. In that moment, Gina thought she’d never looked more like her brother. “Have you no idea?”

  “None,” Gina replied adamantly. She’d told no one of her refusal—not even Cecelia or Claire. Augusta’s eyes narrowed, challenging. Suddenly, Gina knew. “Coventry? He did this?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why? Why would he make himself the subject of gossip?”

  “Not just gossip, but ridicule,” Augusta corrected. “Did you see The Times yesterday?”

  Blood drained from Gina’s face. She had. She hadn’t missed the lampoon of a young woman with a whip taming a lion with a face that looked remarkably like Coventry.

  “I thought you cared for him.”

  “I did.”

  “Then why did you refuse him.”

  Apparently, Coventry had not shared everything with his sister. Suddenly, Gina grew defensive under Augusta’s one-sided attack. She understood that Augusta believed her brother had been wronged. But he was not the only one. “You’ll have to ask your brother that question.”

  Some of Augusta’s rectitude collapsed. She sighed. “I did. He said you had every right to refuse him, and that I was