Page 16 of From Rakes to Riches

Guy lita cheroot and leaned back in the comfortable chair in a small chamber at Brooks’s club. He’d found a relatively quiet corner here by the fire, away from the noise of the card room, where gentlemen won and lost fortunes in the space of a moment.

In another part of London, Gemma Cooke, who’d attended the theatre tonight with her stepdaughter and aunt-in-law, now must be home preparing to retire. Guy tried and failed to keep his thoughts from straying to Gemma unlacing her dressing gown and letting it fall, firelight silhouetting her body through a thin nightdress. Tried not to imagine her sliding beneath the covers, resting her head with a little sigh, her hair in a thick braid flowing across the pillows, her breasts rising as she drew a breath.

He took a furious puff of the cheroot and willed his body to calm.

Guy knew Gemma had been to the theatre because Helena Ashford had mentioned it when he’d seen her earlier this evening.

Helena had smiled widely after she’d casually relayed this interesting fact, then kissed Guy’s cheek, fluttering away with a lovesick Ash behind her. Lovesick Ash appeared to most people very much like the usual Ash, but Guy, who knew him well, had noted how Ash’s gaze followed his wife, his eyes soft.

Ash had fallen like a giant oak in a gale for the chatty Helena, and good thing too. Ash might have forced himself to marry an insipid stick in order to give his three children a mother, which would have been a tragedy.

Good thing Ash hadn’t found Gemma first, or he might have fallen hard for her instead. Guy would have had to bow out, brokenhearted.

Guy stared into the fire’s red and gold flames as he examined this feeling. He, brokenhearted. Over a woman.

It was not possible. He would not allow it.

Guy had proved his self-control by retiring to his club and studiouslynotrushing to Covent Garden tonight on the chance he’d encounter Gemma.

He had no need to sit in her box, hold her fan, laugh at her quips about what played on the stage, or steal his fingers to her hand in her lap.

No, much better that he hunched in a sitting room at Brooks’s and envisioned her smile, the sparkle in her eyes, her lilting voice, while he smoked his throat raw. Much, much better choice.

“Is it you, Lovell?” The slurred voice of Hector Wakefield interrupted Guy’s reverie.

Guy jerked himself from his contemplations with an ill-tempered growl. “You have been asking me this each time you see me, Wakefield. How is your eyesight? Or is the port to blame?”

“Always so droll.” Wakefield heaved himself onto a settee, removed a flask from his coat, and took a heavy dollop. “Are you not rushing about pursuing the lovely Mrs. Cooke? I heard of your performance in her drawing room. Or has she forbidden you the door for too many wrong notes? Ha ha.”

Guy restrained himself from rising and punching Wakefield in the nose. “I think we should not speak about the lovely Mrs. Cooke.”

Wakefield waved his flask. “On the contrary, I think we should speak much of her. If you have no wish for her, old boy, then kindly step out of the way. I cannot lay hands on her with you always beside her.”

Guy’s rage bubbled up inside him swiftly and strongly. “Careful, Wakefield.”

“About what?” Wakefield pulled out a cheroot and lit it from the candle beside him. The lock of hair he let droop poetically to his forehead nearly ignited.

“Do not speak of Mrs. Cooke,” Guy said in a hard voice. “Do not speaktoher. Do not even walk near her.”

Wakefield’s eyes widened. “Good Lord, Lovell. Are you saying you have a tendresse for dear Gemma?” He snorted with laughter. “Is she your mistress then? Sir Ronald Pugh seemed to think so.”

Guy stifled a snarl. Sir Ronald’s gossip could damage Gemma’s reputation faster than fire through a dry field.

“No,” Guy said firmly. “Mrs. Cooke is a family friend, and I do not like to hear her name bandied about. I’d feel the same about my own sister, had I one.” A lie, and Guy knew it. The dreams he’d had about Gemma last night were definitelynotsisterly.

“Well, then, if you have no claim on her, perhaps I will offer her a chance for entertainment.” Wakefield drew on the cheroot and sent a thoughtful wisp of smoke to the ceiling. “She must be starved for it. A year she’s gone without a husband, when she likes husbands so very much.”

Guy clenched his fingers around his own cheroot. “You plan to propose to her, do you?”

“Pardon?” Wakefield coughed. “No, indeed, no indeed. I’m no more a marrying chap than you are. I mean, I’ll have a tumblewith her, if you want to be so crude. More than one. She’s a fetching woman.”

“Family friend, remember?” Guy’s voice held steel. “The same as my own sister.”

“Oh, very well, I’ll tumble your sister too, into the bargain. If you’re such friends with Mrs. Cooke, tell her she can look forward to a mighty ramrod.”

Guy was out of his chair, cheroot in a bowl, before Wakefield’s laughter had faded.

Lord Guy Lovell had fashioned himself into an uncaring man-about-Town, living for whatever was on offer, from horse racing to dice to beautiful women. But once upon a time, he’d been a cavalry officer, hardened by the long war against Napoleon and his years in Iberia. The things he’d seen at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz had made him decide to put aside violence and embrace the soft things in life—wine, women, music.

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