The Rake Revealed by Kate Harper Read Free Book Online

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    Among the honeycomb of tunnels that wind and water had driven into the cliffs close to where, at that moment, Camille Durham was falling into sleep, Lucius Tapscott made his way carefully, guided by the discreet beam from a partially shuttered lantern.
    Despite the circumstances, for his business hardly concerned the fairer sex, he was thinking of the lady herself. The oh-so-intriguing new lady now residing in Kirkham Hall. Her presence was as delightful as it was a nuisance for he had plans for the hall that did not include the owner being in residence. Ideally, his agile brain should have been giving him ways and means of turning her out, but nothing short of intimidation or barefaced trickery came to mind as a means of doing so. And Lady Durham did not strike him as the kind of female it would be easy to dupe and he could not bring himself to frighten her.
    As he had discovered on their second meeting, Lady Durham was appealing in every way. The calm appraisal of his injury when she had found him in her parlor and the swift decision to help him had been the act of a courageous woman. Any other female would have screamed and called for help. He knew her circumstances to be unusual, she had weathered a difficult time in France, but it had left a mature woman who had been tempered by experience. A mature woman with the face of an angel, he thought wryly, remembering his first sight of her, standing in the doorway with a candle in her hand. He’d retreated to Kirkham Hall to regroup and dress his wound as best he could and had not expected to see anybody, let alone the vision of loveliness that had appeared.
    What kind of woman would have met the arrival of a strange man in her drawing room with such equanimity? What kind of woman would have known how to dress a wound? Even if he had sought out a surgeon, it was doubtful he would have found better treatment.
    After he had returned to Barstock Keep, and what a journey that had been, her face had remained in his head. A lovely, ethereal creature with a head of rich auburn hair restrained in a plait. The kind of hair that longed to be free so it could behave as nature intended; wild and thick and lush. For some reason she had made him think of a warrior woman, the Boadicea of polite drawing rooms everywhere. Even in the midst of his pain, he had wanted to free her hair and run his fingers through it.
    It had been Camille Durham he had thought of when he had finally fallen into bed and into an exhausted sleep. He was inclined to think she had saved his life.
    He paused, tilting his head to listen to the sounds of the night around him, but could hear nothing that did not belong. If he didn’t know for a fact that a French ship lay in the small, natural harbor not three hundred yards away, he would have assumed that the night was empty of anything but what nature had intended. He certainly hoped if anybody was about, that was exactly what they would think.
    He began moving again, placing his feet carefully while his unruly thoughts skittered back to Camille Durham. Tonight had merely reinforced those first impressions, for she had been every bit as beautiful as he remembered. Clearly, Morosett thought so too for Tapscott had caught the interest in those cool gray eyes when they had rested on Camille.
    He grimaced at the memory. I do not think so. She is most assuredly not the woman for you, my cold and uncomfortable friend.
    Not that Camille’s affairs had anything to do with him, but he was damned sure that they had even less to do with Morosett, no matter what the man might think. While it was a tragedy that Edward Durham had perished in France, his wife was still very young and very beautiful and it was likely there would be another man in her future, when she had recovered from her loss. A woman like that… Well, the concept of bees and sweet nectar came to mind. He hoped that whoever managed to capture her favor would treat her well, for life seemed to have been