This Rake of Mine by Elizabeth Boyle Read Free Book Online Page A

up by Mr. Birdwell. If anything, the butler's fine manners eased Miranda's misgivings.
    It was only after she'd gotten the girls settled in their beds and sought the sanctuary of her own adjoining room that she realized one very important thing.
    She'd forgotten to ask
who
the master of the house was. Unfortunately, the gloomy portrait of an unhappy woman glowering over the mantel gave little hint to a family name.
    "Oh, heavens, this is a tangle," she muttered up at the dour-faced woman.
    But instead of giving over to worries, she turned to more practical matters. The room was cold, and there was no wood for the hearth, so she pulled on her nightrail, threw her favorite blue shawl around her shoulders, and climbed into the chilly, narrow bed.
    Wind rattled the windows, while torrents of rain beat against the panes, only adding to her bleak plight. She thought she'd never fall asleep, but it had been a long day and before she knew it, she drifted into an uneasy spate of dreams, only to be jolted awake some time later by the sound of voices from deep within the house.
    From the tenor and pitch, she could tell that an argument was ensuing, and before she could discern anything that was being said, a door slammed shut, and heavy footsteps echoed down a walkway somewhere beneath their rooms.
    She rose from her bed and went to the window, cautiously parting the thin curtains. It was hard to see anything at first, but aided by a flash of lightning, she thought she saw a man go striding into the night, as if the storm were but a tiny tempest in a teacup, his great cloak swirling about him.
    There was something about his stance, his fortitude in the face of nature's onslaught that made her tremble… made her back away from the window as her breath quickened. And when she looked again, there was no sign of him, and the entire episode left her wondering if he hadn't been but a lingering figment from her dreams.
    That is, until the chill of the floorboards started to nip at her toes and she shivered.
    "Miranda, you are chasing shadows," she muttered under her breath as she tugged her shawl tighter around her shoulders.
    This, she told herself, was what came from letting Tally read to them in the afternoons from her collection of forbidden novels.
    Turning to get back into bed, determined to dream of something wholesome and sensible, Miranda instead found herself drawn once again to the window, if only to convince herself that her mysterious phantom was just that—a figment of her imagination.
    Yet all she could see was the storm raging outside, the rain pelting against the panes, the wind howling and buffeting the old house.
    Not unlike the turmoil within her that had started when Mad Jack Tremont had held her once again, leaving Miranda, the most proper of spinsters, wondering how long she would continue to have to weather the storm left in the wake of a rake's kiss.
     
    Jack Tremont had yet to go to bed for the night, but that wasn't unusual for him. Luckily for him, his years in Town had left him fit for the haphazard schedule of Thistleton Park, a legacy inherited from his great-aunt, Lady Josephine Tremont.
    It made him wonder sometimes whether he would ever have left London if he had known what this inheritance would have in store for him.
    Not that he'd had much of a choice at the time. It was flee to the south of England or off to debtor's prison. Thistleton Park had seemed the lesser of two evils.
    Little had he known.
    He came to a side door and shrugged off his greatcoat, which was soaked all the way through. It had been a wretched night out in the rain, and all for naught. He glanced back at the path that led to the cliffs and the sea.
    Where the hell was Dash? Why hadn't he arrived last night? Even a storm like that would hardly cause his contact concern. The foolhardy American would probably take the challenge of landing ashore in such conditions as nothing more than a jolly good time.
    The fact that Dash hadn't arrived