Led Astray By A Rake: A Husband Hunters Book, page 1
Led Astray by a Rake
THE HUSBAND HUNTERS CLUB
BOOK ONE
SARA BENNETT
Copyright © 2009, 2024 by Sara Bennett
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design & Interior Format: The Killion Group, Inc.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
About the Author
Also by Sara Bennett
Prologue
Miss Debenham’s Finishing School
Graduating Ball of 1837
The ballroom was a kaleidoscope of color. Young girls and their families and friends, the staff of the finishing school and its supporters, and a sprinkling of local dignitaries, all in their finery and vying for attention. The girls in particular were dressed to be admired, because these were Miss Debenham’s latest crop of respectable and refined young ladies, ready to be set, like jewels, before the country’s eligible bachelors in the hope that those gentlemen would be dazzled into proposing marriage to them.
That was the object of the exercise, after all. That was why the families had spent good money to send their daughters to Miss Debenham’s Finishing School: to procure a good marriage. The school was renowned for it, and Miss Debenham was known to trot out the names of some of the highest in the land and claim them as her own successes.
Miss Olivia Monteith knew very well what was meant by “a good marriage.” Financial security, respectability, maybe even a title and the chance to raise herself and her family into the aristocracy. Marriage was like any other legally binding contract, written in language that was cold and precise. But nowhere in those close written lines was there any mention of the heart. Of love. Of happiness. Of desire.
“Miss Monteith, how do you do?”
Olivia smiled and replied to the greeting in her usual calm, cool manner, never for a moment betraying her inner agitation.
“I was speaking with your mother, Miss Monteith. She told me you will not long be a miss. Should I congratulate you?”
“No, please don’t, nothing is settled . . .”
“If you say so.” The smile was arch and disbelieving.
Olivia moved away, followed by the usual murmurs and stares. She was aware she had the kind of beauty that was currently much admired—fair hair and blue eyes and a porcelain complexion. Combined with English reserve and natural restraint, this caused others to believe she was devoid of emotion, almost cold.
Unfortunately for Olivia, this was very far from the truth. Beneath her cool and calm beauty beat a warm, passionate heart. In reality she was a woman who longed to seize life with both hands and live it to the full, with all its ups and downs. She wanted a husband who could share such a life with her, a man she could love wholeheartedly, and who would love her. She didn’t expect perfection, she wasn’t a fool, but better to be unhappy sometimes than to feel nothing. When she contemplated the future her parents planned for her she felt like a frightened child, because if she was to marry and live without emotion, then she truly would become the ice queen.
Olivia moved on through the crowded ballroom, smiling and bowing her head in acknowledgment to those who claimed her acquaintance, and all the time she was moving ever closer to her real goal. Escape. As she drew nearer to the side door, her heart began to beat harder and she found it difficult to breathe, although no one who did not know her well would ever have guessed her feelings from her demeanor.
She reached the door and slid out into the shadowy corridor, closing it softly behind her. At once the noise was muffled, and the air was blessedly cool against her flushed cheeks. For a moment she stood, simply enjoying being alone, and then with a laugh she picked up her white tulle skirts and began to run swiftly along the passageway in her satin slippers. One of her carefully arranged curls tumbled to her shoulder, another bounced over her eyes. She didn’t stop, climbing a set of narrow stairs toward the very top of the building, and a place where only a very few of Miss Debenham’s girls ever ventured.
The door at the end of a final short flight of steps was closed, but Olivia did not hesitate in opening it and entering the little room with its sloping ceiling and single small window. A candelabra covered the scene in soft light, picking out the figures seated in a circle on the floor, their beautiful dresses folded about them, their expectant faces turned to hers.
“Olivia! At last! Now we can begin.”
Olivia knelt down in the space they had left for her, arranging the yards of her expensive dress about her, tucking her truant curls behind her ears. “I couldn’t get away,” she said, and took a deep breath, pressing a hand to her tight stays. “I had to run.”
While most of Olivia’s acquaintances would refuse to accept that she would ever move faster than a ladylike stroll, these were her friends, and they understood. Fondly she looked about her, knowing that here she could be herself.
Miss Clementina Smythe—Tina to her friends—loyal and sweet; Lady Averil Martindale, selfless and good; Miss Eugenie Belmont, daughter of a rackety family; and Miss Marissa Rotherhild, a bluestocking with a wicked smile. They were all of them different, but their dreams and hopes were the same.
Marissa leaned forward, her dark eyes bright. “I bring this meeting of the Husband Hunters Club to order. Who wants to state our aims? Olivia?”
“Very well.” Olivia became serious. “Everyone knows a young lady must marry and marry well, but why shouldn’t the young lady have a say in the matter? We five have sworn to take our fate in our own hands, and to marry the men of our choice. That is what the Husband Hunters Club is all about.”
“What is our motto?” Marissa declared.
Five voices answered. “The only husband worth having is the husband you hunt yourself.”
“What is our quest?”
“To find the perfect husband and to pursue him with all the feminine weapons at our disposal.”
There was laughter and excitement, until Olivia’s words cut through the froth like a knife. “This is our last night at Miss Debenham’s.”
Silence fell as the girls remembered that the time had finally come for them to leave this safe nest and put their stated plans into action.
“The rest of our lives begins now, and if we don’t want to end up like poor Barbara JonesHolt, we must fight for our future happiness,” Olivia urged.
There was a silence while they all remembered Barbara JonesHolt, another of Miss Debenham’s debutantes, who had made a brilliant marriage to a duke, a man old enough to be her father. Barbara came to visit before the wedding, and her eyes were the saddest they had ever seen. Like a trapped bird that knows it has no hope of escape from its cage.
Olivia shuddered now at the memory. “Win or lose,” she said, “we have to try.”
From the heartfelt murmurs of agreement it was clear the others were also remembering poor Barbara.
And then Marissa gave a laugh and the atmosphere lightened. “This is the night we vowed that each of us would name our quarry,” she reminded them with a wicked smile. “The names will be written down in the club book, and when we meet again in one year’s time we will see who has caught the husband of her choice.” She looked about her. “Who will go first? Olivia?”
Olivia leaned forward, her blue eyes shining as she met her friends’ expectant gazes. “Yes, I will go first.”
“Oh Olivia, tell us do, who is your perfect mate?” Tina whispered, holding in a nervous giggle.
Olivia hesitated, wondering if she dared speak aloud the dream she was carrying with her.
But Marissa was having none of it. “Tell us who it is!” she declared impatiently.
Olivia knew now was not the time to be coy, and yet the name on her lips felt dangerous and risqué, and her cheeks grew hot again as she spoke: “I want to marry Lord Dominic Lacey.”
“Wicked Nic?” Tina squeaked loudly, while the reactions of the others ranged from amazement to dismay. Of course, they had all heard of Wicked Nic Lacey.
“He is very handsome,” unshockable Marissa said thoughtfully, “but then most rakes are. It goes with the nature of the beast.” She tilted her head to one side as she observed Olivia. “But I think there must be more to your wanting to marry him than his face.”
“Yes. There is.” Her cool deme
“When I was ten years old Lord Lacey promised to marry me, and since then I’ve never met another man I liked half as much.”
Appreciative laughter, and Lady Averil gave a mischievous grin. “If anyone can tame Wicked Nic, then I believe it is you, Olivia.”
“And after all, a promise is a promise,” agreed Tina, “even if you were only ten.”
Eugenie produced a bottle of champagne with a flourish. “Compliments of Miss Debenham’s!”
Eagerly glasses were held out as she poured the sparkling liquid. “Let us make a toast,” she said.
“To the Husband Hunters Club!”
Their voices lifted with their glasses, while below in the ballroom the graduation went on, the guests and families all innocently unaware that their worlds were about to be turned topsy-turvy.
Chapter
One
Two weeks later, in Hampshire
Olivia held her hands tightly folded at her waist, refusing to fidget. She was not a fidgeting sort of girl, but right now she would have loved to straighten her sleeves or pat at her hair or twitch her skirts. The walk to Castle Lacey, rather than calming her, had only given her more time to worry.
What if he rejected her?
She’d known Lord Lacey all her life, and had called him a friend for most of those years, albeit a secret friend. Until three years ago they’d met now and again to chat—a habit that was formed when Olivia’s sister died—and he’d seemed to genuinely care about her. Yes, he’d thought of her as a child, and if he noticed the stars in her eyes when she looked at him, he pretended he didn’t. The very fact of the secrecy—innocent though their meetings were—made their meetings more special, and knowing that her parents would have been horrified if they knew what she was doing gave them an extra deliciously dangerous quality.
The Monteiths and the Laceys had lived in the same village for centuries, but that did not make them socially compatible. The wealthy Monteiths had risen from humble country folk to country gentry, and were keen to rise further. The Laceys were aristocrats, blue bloods, and aloof—although what they had to be so proud about Olivia had never been able to fathom. Yes, they did live in a castle, but it was large and drafty and reputedly cost them a fortune. Yes, their name was tangled up with kings and queens and the more important dates in British history, but being mentioned in history books meant they were cunning enough to be on the winning side, not that they were brave or particularly loyal.
Setting aside Wicked Nic’s reputation, and apart from the social differences, the match would be a good one. Entirely suitable. Perfect in fact. With the Monteith fortune and new blood, and the Lacey lands and old blood, the two families would combine forces.
Not, she reminded herself, that the suitability or otherwise of the alliance of their families was what had brought her to Castle Lacey this morning. Not directly, anyway. The Laceys would mean nothing to her if it wasn’t for the identity of the current heir. Rake and wastrel, the sort of man respectable mothers warned their daughters about, and respectable men secretly envied. The sort of man women sighed over and longed to tame, even knowing they’d more than likely end up brokenhearted.
Lord Dominic Lacey was known far and wide as Wicked Nic for good reason.
But the respectable Miss Olivia Monteith didn’t entirely agree. Over the years she’d seen a very different Wicked Nic, a man capable of great kindness, a man who would make a good husband, and she was determined to have and hold him, from this day forward, till death did them part.
Lord Dominic Lacey dipped his pen into the ink pot and tried to pretend his leg wasn’t hurting like the devil. Usually that grinding ache meant a change in the weather, but outside his windows the sky was a cheerful blue and the birds were singing maniacally.
He paused to admire the walled garden, reaching down to try to rub some of the pain away. The broken bone had never healed properly—he hadn’t sought treatment until it was too late, and this had been the result. He supposed his mother would say he’d had his just deserts for all the chaos he’d caused; a selfinflicted punishment. He knew that in his heart he believed her to be right. The tap on the door turned his thoughts away from a past he preferred to forget, and gratefully he looked up as it opened. Abbot, his manservant, valet, and—although neither of them would admit it or overstep the social boundaries—his friend, stood watching him with keen gray eyes.
“My lord. There is a visitor come to see you.”
“A visitor? What sort of visitor?” Nic threw down his pen, the estate books forgotten.
“A very attractive young lady visitor,” Abbot replied, with a smile that creased the lines about his eyes. Although he was only ten years Nic’s senior, Abbot’s hair was almost entirely gray.
Nic was genuinely surprised. “Surely she’s not here alone? No attractive young lady would dare come visiting me alone. I might lose control and ravish them.”
Abbot snorted.
“At least, that is what they think.”
“Or hope,” Abbot said wryly. “What will I do with her? Send her away?”
“No, don’t do that. I want to see this brave and attractive young lady. Show her into the parlor. Do you think tea . . . ? Or something stronger?”
“Tea, my lord, definitely tea.”
Nic nodded. “Tea it is then. Oh, and Abbot, does this brave and beautiful young lady have a name?”
But Abbot, by error or design, had already closed the door.
Olivia sat straightbacked on the very edge of the chair. Her bonnet was set at a jaunty angle, the feather curled just so, and her dark blue dress flattered her, and was perfectly suited to a morning visit. She felt confident, which was just as well because she needed all the confidence she could muster. She might appear to be her usual calm self, but beneath her serene exterior was a maelstrom of turbulent emotions.
Her anxious state wasn’t just because she was about to put a marriage proposal to Wicked Nic Lacey. There was the additional worry that since she’d come home her parents had been putting increased pressure upon her to marry Mr. Garsed, their choice of a suitable husband. Try as she might to hold firm against them, they were beginning to wear her down.
Mr. Garsed was handsome and rich, and if he was vain about his appearance, there were worse faults in a man. He would look after her and spoil her, basking in her beauty and good taste and her suitability as his wife. And—the main reason for her parents’ eagerness for the match—his home was on the other side of the village, which meant that apart from occasional visits to London, it would be as if she had never left them. Her life would hardly change.
She loved her parents dearly and she understood their anxiety to have her close, but such a tame, mundane existence wasn’t what Olivia wanted at all.
Where were the passion and the excitement? Where were the racing pulse and pounding heart and desperate longing? Mr. Garsed inspired none of these things in her, and she knew he never would. If Olivia married him she would wither away within the year, and become a shell of the vibrant girl she was now. She must fight to prevent it; she must find the courage to reach out for what she wanted.
The door opened and a gentleman entered.
Tall, broadshouldered, his dark hair a little shaggy, his features saturnine, and his dark eyes deepset, he was staring back at her boldly, rudely, and when he didn’t speak she was obliged to stand up and hold out her gloved hand.
“Lord Lacey, how do you do?” she said politely, showing him how it was done.
“Good God.” He took her hand in a hard, warm grip. “It’s Miss Monteith.”
Well, he remembered her. That was a start.
“What can I do to help you, Miss Monteith?”
He still held her hand, and as he raked his gaze over every inch of her, not restrained by any idea of impoliteness or impropriety, his eyes were lit by a spark deep within. Olivia knew this was one of the reasons she liked him so much. He was so different from everyone else she knew. Wicked Nic said and did exactly as he liked, and the rest be damned. It must be very restful not to feel compelled to mouth meaningless platitudes and offer compliments you didn’t mean. It must be very liberating.
