Ravished by the Rake by Louise Allen Read Free Book Online

fear of the sea at close quarters had never left her.
    ‘It has not prevented you from taking risks,’ Alistair said dispassionately.
    ‘Lyndon.’ Chatterton’s tone held a warning.
    Alistair raised one eyebrow, unintimidated. ‘Lady Perdita prizes frankness, I think.’
    ‘It is certainly better than hypocrisy,’ she snapped. ‘And, no, it did not stop me taking risks, only, after that, I tried to be certain they were my risks alone.’
    ‘My leg is much better.’ Alistair delivered the apparent
non sequitur
in a conversational tone.
    ‘I cannot allow for persons equally as reckless as I am,’ Dita said sweetly. ‘I am so glad you are suffering no serious consequences for your dangerous riding.’
    ‘We’re here,’ Chatterton said with the air of a man who wished he was anywhere rather than in the middle of a polite aristocratic squabble.
    ‘And they are lowering a bo’sun’s chair for the ladies,’ said Alistair, getting to his feet. ‘Here! You! This lady first.’
    ‘What? No! I mean I can wait!’ Dita found herself ruthlessly bundled into the box-like seat on the end of a rope and then she was swung up in the air, dangled sickeningly over the water and landed with a thump on the deck.
    ‘Oh! The wretched—’
    ‘Ma’am? Fast is the best way to come up, in my opinion, no time to think about it.’ A polite young man was at her elbow. ‘Lady Perdita? I’m Tompkins, one of the lieutenants. Lord Webb asked me to look out for you. We met at the reception, ma’am.’
    ‘Mr Tompkins.’ Dita swallowed and her stomach returned to its normal position. ‘Of course, I remember you.’
    ‘Shall I show you to your cabin, ma’am?’
    ‘Just a moment. I wish to thank the gentleman who assisted me just now.’
    The ladies and children continued to be hoisted on board with the chair. Most of them screamed all the way up.
At least I did not scream,
she thought, catching at the shreds of her dignity. What had she been thinking of, to blurt out that childhood nightmare to the men? Surely she had more control than that? But the tossing open boat had frightened her, fretting at nerves already raw with the sadness of departure and the apprehension of what was to come in England. And so her courage had failed her.
    Dita gritted her teeth and waited until the men began to come up the rope ladder that had been lowered over the side, then she walked across to Alistair where he stood with Callum Chatterton.
    ‘Thank you very much for your help, gentlemen,’she said with a warm smile for Callum. ‘Lord Lyndon, you are
so
masterful I fear you will have to exercise great discretion on the voyage. You were observed by a number of most susceptible young ladies who will all now think you the very model of a man of action and will be seeking every opportunity to be rescued by you. I will do my best to warn them off, but, of course, they will think me merely jealous.’
    She batted her eyelashes at him and walked back to Lieutenant Tompkins. Behind her she heard a snort of laugher from Mr Chatterton and a resounding silence from Alistair. This time she had had the last word.

Chapter Four
    D ita sat in her cabin space and tried to make herself get up and go outside. Through the salt-stained window that was one of the great luxuries of the roundhouse accommodation she could see that they were under way down the Hooghly.
    Every excuse she could think of to stay where she was had been exhausted. She had arranged her possessions as neatly as possible; thrown a colourful shawl over the bed; hung family miniatures on nails on the bulkhead; wedged books—all of them novels—into a makeshift shelf; refused the offer of assistance from Mrs Bastable’s maid on the grounds that there was barely room for one person, let alone two, in the space available; washed her face and hands, tidied her hair. Now there was no reason to stay there, other than a completely irrational desire to avoid Alistair Lyndon.
    ‘Perdita? We’ll be