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  The Reluctant Rake copyright © 1987, 2019 by Jane LeCompte

  How to Beguile a Baron copyright © 1985, 2019 by Jane LeCompte

  Cover and internal design © 2019 by Sourcebooks

  Cover art by Alan Ayers

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  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—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  sourcebooks.com

  The Reluctant Rake was originally published as The Reluctant Rake in 1987 in the United States of America by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, Inc. This edition issued based on the paperback edition published in 1987 in the United States of America by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, Inc.

  How to Beguile a Baron was originally published as The Irresolute Rivals in 1985 in the United States of America by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, Inc. This edition issued based on the paperback edition published in 1985 in the United States of America by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, Inc.

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Reluctant Rake

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  How to Beguile a Baron

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  About the Author

  A Sneak Peek of An Inconvenient Duke

  One

  Two

  Three

  Back Cover

  The Reluctant Rake

  One

  Sir Richard Beckwith emerged from his elegant town house on a chilly spring evening wearing a black silk domino over his dark gray pantaloons and long-tailed coat of dark blue superfine. Any one of his friends would have been astonished to see him in this guise, still more to see him out of evening dress at nine o’clock. Had they known that a pocket of the domino held a black mask, they would have been dumbfounded.

  None of Sir Richard’s exclusive circle was likely to see him tonight, however. When he hailed a hackney cab and climbed in, he directed it to a part of London little frequented by the haut ton. If certain of its men from time to time made their way through these unsavory streets, they did not mention such excursions in polite society.

  A cold mist rose from the greasy cobblestones, enlivened here and there by hoarse laughter and singing as the hack rattled past some gin mill or bawdy house. One victim of blue ruin went so far as to grab for the cab, hoping to jerk its occupant into an alleyway and fleece him. He missed his target, however, and fell flat in the garbage-filled gutter with a curse.

  Through the ride, Sir Richard sat impassive, his regular features immovable as stone, his gray eyes cold. If his goal was amusement of the type his class usually sought in this neighborhood, he went about it with an odd implacability.

  The hack pulled up before a broad, soot-stained building that turned a blank facade to the street. Its windows were obscured with bars outside and heavy draperies within. Wooden double doors, firmly closed, revealed only a carved peephole at eye level.

  “You sure of that h’address, guv?” wondered the driver.

  “Yes.” Beckwith handed him a small coin, allowing him to see one of larger denomination in his hand. “Wait for me nearby. I’ll call when I want you. There’s a guinea for you if you come when I call.”

  The man stared at the money, greed warring with his desire to return to safer streets. “Right,” he said finally.

  Beckwith pulled up the hood of the domino and put on his mask, then knocked sharply on the wooden door with the head of his cane and waited.

  The peephole opened, and a bloodshot blue eye surveyed him with suspicion. Abruptly, the hole closed, and the bolts were shot back, allowing the door to open a crack.

  “I am here for the meeting,” Sir Richard declared.

  “Password,” came a hiss from the dimness.

  “Chaos,” he answered, in a tone that suggested he found the word offensive.

  The door swung open. Inside was a sharp contrast to the dirty street. A rich, red Turkey carpet covered the floor, and the narrow hallway boasted French wallpaper and gilt sconces. Though the individual in charge of the door was distinctly rough-hewn, the footman who indicated that Sir Richard should follow him would not have looked out of place in Grosvenor Square.

  He ushered Sir Richard into a large room at the back of the building. It was furnished with the armchairs and side tables of a gentleman’s club, but the inhabitants were not so familiar. Many wore domino and mask, like Sir Richard. Others had clearly cast off these disguises with their third or fourth brandies and were loud with the effects of drink. The buxom young women who served them endured their fondling and leers with good-humored impertinence, and a sharp eye for the banknotes that were co
ntinually being folded and thrust lingeringly into bodices.

  The din was significant, and the air was heavy with the fumes of alcohol and candlewax and the clashing scents of pomades and cheap perfume.

  Sir Richard found a vacant chair in a dim corner and sat down. When one of the serving girls came up to him, he ordered brandy, but he spoke to no one else. He had come with a purpose, his demeanor said, and he would allow nothing to distract him from it.

  At last, there was a stir at the back of the room, and one of the other masked guests stepped from a chair to a tabletop there. “Gentlemen,” he cried above the din. “Gentlemen!”

  The volume of sound decreased somewhat.

  “Gentlemen,” said the man again. “We have a rare treat for you this evening. Indeed, I think I may safely say we have a unique entertainment in store. Its like hasn’t occurred in our time, at least. I couldn’t vouch for our grandfathers.”

  This elicited a roar of laughter and vulgar sallies from the crowd, which was beginning to gather around the table. Beckwith joined them; he had recognized the voice of the speaker, and his lips were drawn tight in a thin line.

  “May I present to you,” continued the self-appointed master of ceremonies, “Bess Malone.” He jumped lightly down from the table and offered a hand to someone. In the next instant, a slender girl had stepped from chair to table and stood facing the audience.

  She wore nothing but a thin, white cotton shift, as banks of candles behind her readily revealed. Her hair, jet black, tumbled over her shoulders in wild abandon. And when she raised wide eyes to the crowd briefly, they were shown to be vivid blue. Her skin was pale and dusted with freckles over the nose and cheekbones. She was exquisitely beautiful, and certainly not yet eighteen years old.

  “Bess,” declared the man, who had leapt upon another of the tables, “will go to the highest bidder tonight. And we expect the price to be high, don’t we, Bess?”

  The girl tossed back her hair, her breasts rising and falling with the movement and drawing ribald comments. She didn’t look frightened, but neither was she at ease, particularly as the men began pushing forward and reaching up to caress her ankles and calves.

  “Ah, ah, gentlemen,” chided the master of ceremonies. “Bess comes untouched to her purchaser. Stand back and start the bidding.”

  “A hundred guineas,” said a deep voice on the left.

  “Two,” responded a man in the front.

  “Three,” said Beckwith.

  The master of ceremonies raised his head as if startled and turned to stare at Beckwith.

  “Four hundred,” said the first voice.

  The bidding went on a full twenty minutes, one man after another dropping out reluctantly as the amount went above his touch. At last, only two were left—Sir Richard Beckwith and a nobleman of fifty or so in the front row, whose face was a map of debauchery and bitterness.

  Silence spread through the room as the numbers mounted. When they reached fifteen hundred guineas, all conversation stopped. Only the quiet bids of the two stirred the smoky air, and the tension rose with each new offer.

  At two thousand, the roué in front turned and stared pointedly at Sir Richard, gauging him. The older man’s face looked devilish in the flickering candlelight. The room waited breathlessly to see what he would do, for most there knew him for a cruel and ruthless opponent. But after an interminable moment, he lowered pale lids, made a dismissive gesture, and walked away, signifying his withdrawal from the auction.

  “Sold,” said the master of ceremonies immediately, “to the gentleman in the rear, for two thousand guineas.”

  A sigh passed over the crowd as the tension released; then someone called for brandy, and the group began to disperse. A footman appeared at Beckwith’s elbow to escort him to a small study off the front hall. The masked master of ceremonies and Bess Malone joined him there. “Sir,” said the former, “my sincere felicitations. You have acquired a diamond of the first water.”

  Bess took Sir Richard’s arm and pressed herself up against him.

  “I assume you have clothing,” said Sir Richard. “Put it on.” The girl drew back, piqued. The master of ceremonies laughed. “Protecting your property? Or merely eager to depart for some more private place? I can’t blame you for that. Hurry and dress, Bess.” The girl ran out. “And now, sir, there is the matter of two thousand guineas.”

  Beckwith pulled a fat roll of bills from an inner pocket. “Who gets the money?” he asked.

  But the other’s eyes were riveted on the banknotes. “You carry such a sum on your person? In this part of London?”

  “It is not my habit. Who gets this money?” He began to count it out, and the other man watched, fascinated. “Who?” repeated Beckwith with some asperity.

  “Eh? Oh, half to the club, half to the girl.”

  “I see.”

  His tone made the other defensive. “It was her idea, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Indeed. She came to, er, a member and proposed the plan not two weeks ago. I… He was taken aback, I may tell you.”

  Sir Richard laid the bills on the desk. The man snatched them up and fingered them as if they had the texture of velvet. “Two thousand,” he murmured.

  “I’ll wait for the girl at the front door,” said Sir Richard.

  “What? Oh, to be sure. I’ll have her sent to you there,” was the reply. But the man’s eyes did not waver from the money.

  Sir Richard made his way back to the entrance, conscious, now that the business was concluded, of spreading whispers behind him. He hoped that they concerned his identity, and that none here knew him well enough to recognize him behind a mask.

  At last the girl he had purchased appeared at the back of the hall and moved slowly toward him. Bess now wore a shabby dress of white sprigged muslin and a threadbare blue cloak, both garments clearly the long-ago castoffs of some more prosperous lady. But her dark hair remained unbound, and her eyes flashed as she examined him. Looking at her face, one forgot the clothes.

  “Come,” said Beckwith. “I have a hack waiting.”

  Someone in the room behind snickered, but Bess merely walked forward and took Sir Richard’s arm, molding herself to his side and gazing up at the mask he still wore. Side by side, they went through the door the footman was holding open for them.

  Outside, the mist had thickened, and the chill was even greater. Beckwith disengaged his arm and looked for his cab, hoping the driver had not lost his nerve and deserted him.

  The jingle of harness and the sound of hooves on the cobblestones relieved him of this worry. The hack emerged from the mist and pulled up before the pair, the driver eyeing Bess Malone with amused appreciation. “A good night, then, guv?” he said.

  Sir Richard merely stated his address in Mayfair and helped Bess into the carriage. In a moment, he had followed and shut the door, and the sound of hooves muffled by mist resumed.

  Bess nestled close to her new protector, one small hand slipping over the buttons of his waistcoat. “Aren’t you going to be rid of that mask, then?” she asked, in a lilt that called up visions of Ireland.

  “We will talk when we reach my house,” replied Sir Richard, removing her hand from his chest.

  Bess straightened and eyed him. “Talk?” she echoed. “Aye, if you like. I’ll be pleased to get acquainted before… what comes after talk. I’ve not done such a thing as this before, you see, and ’tis unnerving.”

  Beckwith merely grunted.

  “Do you doubt me then?” flared Bess. “I swear I’ve never in my life…”

  “No one has doubted you,” interrupted Beckwith, and she subsided to watch his silhouette in the dim light filtering through the hack’s window.

  They made the journey in silence, broken only by Sir Richard’s instructions to the cabbie when they reached the quietly elegant street whe
re he dwelt. The driver steered into the mews at the back and deposited them before a narrow, slatted gate next to the stables before departing with the promised guinea.

  Bess pulled her cloak closed and gazed about with disfavor. “Why do we come here?” she asked.

  “I should think that would be obvious,” replied Beckwith, taking a key from his pocket and unlocking the gate. “Follow me.”

  The girl glared at his back, but did so.

  He led her along a narrow walk to a cobbled yard, then through the back door into the kitchen. The servants had gone to bed, and the fire was banked for the night. Beckwith turned to face the girl, pulling off his mask and letting the domino fall onto a wooden chair.

  “Ah,” breathed Bess, “a fine handsome man you are, too.”

  “Come here,” said Sir Richard.

  Two

  At the same hour that Sir Richard set out on his surprising quest that evening, a stream of carriages before the Earl of Leamington’s Berkeley Square mansion paused to allow a very handsome family party to alight. The daughter first drew the eye, for she was a remarkably lovely girl of twenty with smooth black hair and large, pale green eyes strikingly set off by sooty lashes. She was above medium height and slender, dressed in a white brocade gown that proclaimed its cost even as it avoided all extremes of fashion. Her parents were similarly clad—well but conservatively—and rather older than most progenitors of hopeful debutantes. Their faces were amiable, and they clearly derived much pleasure from their daughter’s beauty and success.

  They left their wraps and walked together up to the landing where the Countess of Leamington and her newly presented daughter waited to greet them. “Sir George and Lady Devere. Miss Julia Devere,” intoned the butler.

  “Julia!” cried the countess, surging forward. “Allow me to be the first to wish you happy. I’m sure I shan’t be the last tonight. Such a fine match! When I saw the announcement in this morning’s paper, I said at once to Alice, ‘If only you do so well, my dear.’ Did I not, Alice?”

  “Yes, Mama,” murmured Lady Alice.

  “Sir George, Lady Devere, you must be delighted,” the countess went on. “A positive paragon—wealthy, well born, without a hint of that distressing unsteadiness so common in the young men today. All London wondered where Sir Richard Beckwith would find a wife to match his high principles, I vow. Until Miss Julia appeared, of course. ’Tis like a fairy tale.”