Between a Rake and a Hard Place Read Free Page B

from Amelia countless times. “Besides, I can’t help it if you raised me to be the curious sort.”
    â€œCareful, child. You know what curiosity did to the cat.”
    â€œI’m no longer a child,” Serena said. Even to her own ears, that sounded a good bit more petulantly childish than she wished. “In any case, a cat has nine lives, you know.”
    Amelia’s lips pursed in a small moue of disapproval. “Then you well and truly used up one this day.”
    â€œTell me more about this list of yours.” Aunt Cleo wanted to know.
    â€œI have it here.” Serena crossed to the bed and retrieved a much folded bit of foolscap and a pencil from the beaded reticule lying next to her gown. She smoothed the paper flat on the side table.
    â€œItem one: Wear men’s clothing in public.” Serena struck through the words with her pencil. “Item two: Gain admittance to an exclusively male club.”
    She crossed that off as well. She could have added “Enter into an ill-considered wager and sign one’s name in the ledger of gambling records at said male club,” but she didn’t think she ought to tell Amelia and her aunt about that either. It had been enough for her to regale them with descriptions of the brass and waxed wood décor of Boodles and complain about the bitterness of black coffee. Serena’s expurgated version of her escape through the kitchen provided Amelia and her aunt with more than enough vicarious excitement for one day.
    Serena handed the piece of foolscap to Aunt Cleo while Amelia laced her stays and cinched them tight. She could recite the rest of the list in her sleep.
    Item three: Smoke a cigar.
    Item four: Ride astride.
    Item five: Drink until one is insensate at least once.
    Item six: Have one’s fortune told by gypsies.
    Item seven: Dance the—
    â€œDance the waltz?” Aunt Cleo said, aghast. “Don’t you know that’s positively indecent? I read all about it in the Times . Utterly disgraceful, they say. Why, you may as well add ‘Allow a gentleman to paw one in public’ to the list.”
    â€œIt’s a perfectly legal dance. The Prince Regent approves it,” Serena said.
    Aunt Cleo raised a wiry gray brow. “It may be legal, but the fact that His Royal Highness has embraced it is proof enough to me that the waltz is not respectable.”
    â€œNeither is any other item on the list,” Serena said, casting a quick smile to Amelia over her aunt’s head. Amelia’s help had come grudgingly, but she’d finally agreed to assist in fulfilling the list. “Come, Auntie Cleo. Don’t you remember what it was like to be young? No lasting harm will come if I indulge in a few small adventures. Discreetly, of course, and only once. After all, experience is the best teacher, Amelia always says.”
    Amelia shot her a pointed look. “And sometimes the most brutal.”
    So far she’d escaped her experience with nothing more sinister than a coating of cream. Serena shrugged and lifted her arms to let Amelia drape the gown over her head. The muslin fell in soft folds to her ankles. Men’s clothes were an adventure, but she was ever so much more comfortable in her own things. Wool chafing one’s unprotected thighs was indeed brutal.
    â€œAt least no lasting harm will come from fulfilling the list— if Serena’s more careful than she was on this day,” her governess amended.
    â€œI’ll be careful.” She took the list back, refolded it, and squirreled it away in her reticule. There was another item on the list, but she hadn’t committed it to paper.
    The Duke of Kent was much older than she, fifty if he was a day. Rumors of his cruelty in Gibraltar had led to his being removed from the governorship there. A life of dissipation did not lend itself to a healthy countenance. He may have demonstrated his potency by siring a gaggle of bastards on a