The Last Days of a Rake by Donna Lea Simpson Read Free Book Online

(Eleanor, in 1812, who had lost her parents a year earlier, and so was still soft from the emotions) or one whose chaperone was bribable (Diane, in 1819, whose chaperone was greedy and poor, and so amenable to some gold to look the other way while Lankin took Diane walking, then took her innocence). This year, they had chosen, as the object, a particular frozen beauty who they judged to be both more intelligent than the previous “Susans” and less emotional.
    Miss Harriet Lascelles, at twenty-one, was beautiful and haughty. Ambitious men sought her for the grandeur of her family’s estate, which rivaled an earldom in its sweep and wealth, and for the connections she could bring to a marriage. Her father was one of those rare men of the gentility to whom “trade” was not an epithet, and so, for the new breed of ambitious young man who haunted High Change, she was a pearl beyond price. Lankin didn’t want any of that, he just wanted her maidenhead.
    Brooding about his eviction from White’s, Lankin was in a care nothing mood. Even ruining the heirs of members was not soothing his wounded sense of privilege. It was doubtful that the wager still stood, as all the bettors were club men, but once Lankin made a bet he would accomplish it or die trying. He had made what he thought was progress on Miss Lascelles. She did not glare through him, as she had at first, nor did she ignore his overtures. In a reckless mood one night, he approached her more openly than was his habit. Her chaperone, a beady-eyed beldame, made sure to guide Miss Lascelles away from Lankin, but the young lady would not be so sternly directed.
    She evaded the chaperone. “Walk with me, Mr. Lankin,” she said in her bored, cultured tone.
    From there the night progressed speedily, until by the end, Lankin had agreed to be outside her London townhouse at three in the morning. He wasn’t even sure he liked Miss Lascelles. She was unfeminine in her manner, he thought, too bold, too openly aware of her ability to manipulate the male population. But if she wished to aid him in winning his bet in such an audacious manner, he would not fight it. It would allow him to flaunt his victory, collect his winnings and then gladly be shed of London for the season. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he was sick of the city, his former friends, and even of himself, though he would never admit it.
    Change was in the air, but Lankin had never been equipped to recognize or adjust to transformation.

Part 8 - The Lights Dim
    Lankin began coughing, and Hamilton offered him laudanum once more, because the pain was wracking him most terribly.
    His gaunt face drawn with suffering, Lankin gasped, “No, John, no laudanum! I don’t expect to see dawn, but I will not go from this life without a struggle, nor will I die in a drugged haze. I spent my life running from the truth, but this final certainty I shall stare in the face like a man and accept.”
    “My dear friend,” Hamilton said, his voice thick with pity. “You don’t know you are at death’s door. You may yet rally. You’ve done so before, or so you’ve told me.”
    Lankin lay shivering and retching with his body’s perturbations. When he could speak again, he said, “I wish that were so, but this time is different.” He paused, staring at the ceiling, his lean face gray even in the warm light of the candles Hamilton had lit. “I felt something different coming over me that night. If I had understood myself better, I might have changed the course of my life.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “That night, with Miss Lascelles. Oddly enough, though it was her idea to meet me, and I knew she was in a reckless mood and felt sure of winning my bet, I quailed at the thought. One more maiden to despoil should not have mattered, but I had begun to be a little sick of myself by then. I glimpsed the truth; men were using me, making sport of me, but the true cost was borne by others, by the young ladies and fellows.