The Lure of a Rake Read Free

stood still. She wandered over to the canopied bed and trailed her fingertips along the ivory coverlet. Why, even the upholsteries were the same. The only thing that had been missing from this nauseatingly cheerful room—had been the girl who’d slept within these walls. Setting her gloves on the rose-inlaid side table, she perched on the edge of the mattress and passed her gaze about. It collided with the only splash of green in this pink and white space.
    Shoving to her feet, her legs carried her unbidden over to that rounded, porcelain perfume bottle. With numb fingers, she picked up the piece, a gift given long ago, and liquid sloshed around inside. She fixed on the bucolic couple painted within the center of the bottle; a loyal love knelt at the feet of his sweetheart—their happiness forever suspended in time. How singularly wrong that any piece of him should remain in this room when she’d been sent away. Genevieve tightened her grip about the fragile piece; her knuckles whitening.
    A tentative rap sounded at the door and she yanked her head up. “Enter,” she called out, quickly setting the bottle down.
    The door opened revealing her maid, Delores—the one loyal figure she’d known these years. “Hullo, Lady Genevieve.”
    She mustered a smile. “Delores.” The foolish part of her soul where hope still dwelt had believed Gillian or her mother would be there. Yet, why should they? For the time that had gone, Genevieve may as well have been a stranger. Time had marched on. They’d lived their lives, and she…well, she had lived hers.
    Delores gave her a small, encouraging nod. “His Lordship has summoned you.”
    Genevieve’s weak attempt at a grin faded. Already ?
    “Yes, Lady Genny.”
    She gave her head a shake, not realizing she’d spoken aloud. Genevieve nodded. “I’ll be but a moment,” she assured the young woman who nodded and then backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.
    Genevieve stood there a long moment with the porcelain clock atop the mantel marking the passing seconds. Nothing her parents had ever done had ever been without purpose. The lavish wedding celebration they’d planned for their eldest daughter to the sought after Duke of Aumere. The abrupt and lengthy exile of that same daughter. Of course, her return would have been driven by some motives which could only be a product of her father’s wealth, power, or title. Nervousness twisted in her belly and she fixed on the passing ticks of the clock.
    With the powerlessness in her existence these years, and even in this impending meeting with her father, there was something so wholly empowering in keeping that same faithless, shameful parent waiting. She sighed. Alas, all good moments came to an end. Time had taught her that in spades. Squaring her shoulders, Genevieve stalked over to the front of the room and, unhesitant, opened the door. Silence reigned in the corridors.
    But she’d wager the remainder of her sanity that servants laid in wait, holding their breath and listening for that long-overdue meeting between father and daughter. Stepping outside, she picked her way along the carpeted halls, onward to an office she’d been summoned too many times to remember. She’d been summoned there as a girl who’d earned his displeasure for her scandalous sketches and paintings. And again as a young woman who’d secured the match of the Season and, for a fleeting moment, earned his pride and approval.
    Then there had been the last meeting in that dreaded office. The meeting when her father, the person who’d helped give her life, had spat at her and pledged to never let her set foot in these halls again. Genevieve reached his office and came to a stop. She stared at the silver handle.
    When she pulled that door open, she would reenter a world she’d never again wanted to be in. It would be like ripping open the bandage on the darkest mistakes of her foolish youth, and the resentments and pain she’d managed to bury