One Night with a Rake (Regency Rakes) by Connie Mason, Mia Marlowe Read Free Book Online Page A

friend,” Nate repeated. Guilt reared its pointed little head again, but he tamped it down. This was just the opening Mr. Alcock would insist he exploit. “But what about the Duke of Cambridge? Might not His Highness frown upon your daughter spending so much time with another gentleman?”
    “If it were anyone else but you, I’d say yes,” the marquis said. “However, but for ill chance, you would have been Georgette’s brother. I don’t think the duke’s emissary will complain when I explain matters to him.”
    “I don’t know.” Nathaniel cast the marquis a doubtful glance. Royal dukes were nothing if not territorial. One seeking a virginal bride was bound to be extra vigilant about his intended’s activities. And it wouldn’t do for Nate to jump too quickly at this chance, lest he arouse the marquis’s suspicions.
    “Let me handle His Highness. Besides, it’s not as if the Season were in full swing. Most of the ton is still in the country. Only those of us heavily involved in Parliament and this whole sorry business surrounding Princess Charlotte’s unfortunate death are out and about here in London,” Yorkingham said. “It’s not as if you’ll be seen together. If I know Georgette, she’ll drag you to places not fit for Polite Society.”
    “You might simply put your foot down and demand she abandon her work.”
    “If I thought it stood a ghost of a chance of success I would, but I know my daughter. If she’d been born a man, my Georgie would have been a general.” The marquis chuckled. “There’s no turning her once she’s set her sights on something. She’s like me in that regard.”
    Yorkingham leaned back in his seat, his eyes shifting as if searching for the right words. “There’s another matter as well.”
    “What is it?”
    “It’s come to my attention that someone may be trying to sabotage Georgette’s chances with the Duke of Cambridge.”
    The hair on the back of Nate’s neck rose. The marquis was very well informed indeed.
    Nathaniel cleared his throat. “Do you have any idea who might dare that?”
    “Not yet,” he acknowledged. “But I will keep digging. In the meantime, that is another danger from which Georgette needs protection. Can I count on you?”
    Part of Nate wanted to confess all, then and there, to tell the man who would have been his father-in-law about Alcock’s plot. But if he did, his own family was sure to suffer. Alcock would make certain of it.
    What a perfectly wicked little circle.
    “Yes, sir.” Nathaniel stood and nodded correctly to the man he was deceiving. “I’ll protect Lady Georgette from whatever outside threats might assail her.”
    Of course, no one will protect her from the inside threat—me .

Six
    The second-floor ballroom wasn’t Georgette’s favorite place in Yorkingham House. She liked dancing well enough, but only if there wasn’t anyone there to see her do it. The music room, with its butterfly-style grand, held little charm for her since it could not be said that she played the piano. It was more as if she pounded the keys into submission.
    No, Georgette’s favorite place in her family’s spacious home was the library on the ground floor. The walls, lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves, held more books than she could read in a lifetime.
    Her secret haunt was a darling little windowed alcove fitted with a banquette of tufted cushions. She could slip into that lovely corner with an apple and a couple travel books and be off to Zanzibar or South America or the frozen land of the czars. Or she could lose herself in a Sir Walter Scott poem and weep into her lacy handkerchief for his unhappy lovers who must only adore each other from afar.
    Her father seemed to have forgotten about coming to finish railing at her. So after taking a luncheon tray in her room, she slipped out. With any luck at all, Georgette would have the library to herself all afternoon. She pushed through the tall double doors with hope in her heart and an