Ravished by the Rake Read Free

again. She
never
blushed. ‘He left home when he was twenty, or thereabouts.’
    Twenty years, eleven months. She had bought him a fine horn pocket comb for his birthday and painstakingly embroidered a case for it. It was still in the bottom of her jewel box where it had stayed, even when she had eloped with the man she had believed herself in love with.
    ‘He is Viscount Lyndon, heir to the Marquis of Iwerne, is he not?’
    ‘Yes. Our families’ lands march together, but we are not great friends.’ Not, at least, since Mama was careless enough to show what she thought of the marquis’s second wife, who was only five years older than Dita. With some friction already over land, and no daughters in the Iwerne household to promote sociability, the families met rarely and there was no incentive to heal the rift.
    ‘Lyndon left home after some disagreement with his father about eight years ago,’ she added in an indifferent tone. ‘But I don’t think they ever got on, even before that. What is he doing here, do you know?’ It was a reasonable enough question.
    ‘Joining the party for the
Bengal Queen
passengers. He is returning home, I hear. The word is that his father is very ill; Lyndon may well be the marquisalready.’ Chatterton looked over her shoulder. ‘He is watching you.’
    She could feel him, like the gazelle senses the tiger lurking in the shadows, and fought for composure. Three months in a tiny canvas-walled cabin, cheek by jowl with a man who still thrived, she was certain, on dangerous mischief. It wouldn’t be frogs in pinafore pockets these days. If he even suspected how she felt,
had
felt, about him, she had no idea how he would react.
    ‘Is he, indeed? How obvious of him.’
    ‘He is also watching me,’ Chatterton said with a rueful smile. ‘And I do not think it is because he admires my waistcoat. I am beginning to feel dangerously
de trop.
Most men would pretend they were not observing you—Lyndon has the air of a man guarding his property.’
    ‘Insolent is indeed the word for him.’ He did not regard her as his property, far from it, but he had bestowed his attention upon her just now and she had snubbed him, so he would not be satisfied until he had her gazing at him cow-eyed like all the rest of the silly girls would do.
    Now Dita turned slightly so she was in profile to the viscount and ran a finger down Daniel Chatterton’s waistcoat. ‘Lord Lyndon might not admire it, but is certainly a very fine piece of silk. And you look so handsome in it.’
    ‘Are you flirting with me by any chance, Lady Perdita?’ Chatterton asked with a grin. ‘Or are you trying to annoy Lyndon?’
    ‘Me?’ She opened her eyes wide at him, enjoying herself all of a sudden. She had met Alistair again and the heavens had not fallen; perhaps she couldsurvive this after all. She gave Daniel’s neckcloth a pro-prietorial tweak to settle the folds, intent on adding oil to the fire.
    ‘Yes, you! Don’t you care that he will probably call me out?’
    ‘He has no cause. Tell me about him so I may better avoid him. I haven’t seen him for years.’ She smiled up into Daniel’s face and stood just an inch too close for propriety.
    ‘I shall have to try that brooding stare myself,’ Chatterton said, with a wary glance across the room. ‘It seems to work on the ladies. All I know about him is that he has been travelling in the East for about seven years, which fits with what you recall of him leaving home. He’s a rich man—the rumour is that he made a killing by gem dealing and that his weakness is exotic plants. He’s got collectors all over the place sending stuff back to somewhere in England—money no object, so they say.’
    ‘And how did he get hurt?’ Dita ran her fan down Daniel’s arm. Alistair was still watching them, she could feel him. ‘Duelling?’
    ‘Nothing so safe. It was a tiger, apparently; a man-eater who was terrorising a village. Lyndon went after it on elephant-back and the