The Rake's Mistress Read Free

swung himself up into the coach and slammed the door behind him. Immediately the space in the carriage seemed to shrink and become nerve-rackingly small. Rebecca had not found Stephen Kestrel daunting even when he was half-naked. Lucas was another matter. He was just plain intimidating, fully dressed or not. Rebecca tried to calm the erratic tripping of her heartbeat.
    The coach set off with a small jerk, the horses’ hooves striking loud on the cobbles. Rebecca felt panic rise in her throat and once again tried toquieten her nervousness. She could not pretend that the situation looked promising. The servants of the Archangel Club were accustomed—and well paid—to take orders from gentlemen without any argument. For all she knew, Lucas Kestrel could be a member of the Club himself. So if she were to call out, or demand that the carriage be turned around, the coachman would very likely ignore her. She could be dead in the Thames before anyone lifted a hand to help her.
    Despite her attempts to keep such thoughts from showing on her face, something of how she was feeling must have penetrated the mask, for Lucas Kestrel put a hand out to her and said silkily,
    ‘Have no fear, ma’am. Since you would not join me I thought it easier to join you. I have merely instructed the coachman to drive around for a while to prevent the horses from becoming chilled. This will all be over quickly if you choose to oblige me.’
    His tone was even, but Rebecca could not miss the threat implicit beneath the words. She raised her chin, an angry spark in her blue eyes, her own voice cutting.
    ‘And in what way may I assist your lordship?’
    Lucas’s gaze slid over her lazily, from the thick chestnut hair beneath her plain round bonnet to her feet encased in nankin half-boots. He considered her with insulting thoroughness and Rebecca felther temper catch beneath the scrutiny. She was not accustomed to tolerating the impertinent inspection of a rake.
    ‘I can think of many ways you might assist me,’ he murmured, ‘but for the moment I am concerned only for my brother. For the moment.’
    The angry colour had come into Rebecca’s face at his words and now she subjected him to a scrutiny of her own. It proved a mistake, for once she had started looking, she found it difficult to tear her gaze away.
    Lord Lucas Kestrel had a striking face, thin and sunburnt, with high cheekbones, dark auburn hair that was almost brown and very dark hazel eyes beneath strongly marked brows. He was not conventionally handsome, but the sum of all the elements was so unusual that it had a potent impact. Rebecca found that she wanted to go on looking at him and not just because he was shockingly attractive. She made her living as an engraver, and as such she had an eye for a striking image. Lucas Kestrel had a face an engraver could lose herself in, all hard lines and angles. As for his body, he had a compact elegance that would translate well into a sculpture or picture. That powerful body would be quite magnificent without its clothes… Rebecca felt herself blush all over, as though someone had locked her in a hothouse. This sort of instant reaction to a man never happened to hernormally. An artist of any discipline, be they painter, sculptor or engraver, was accustomed to viewing the human body as an art form. They were accustomed to being completely detached. Alas, detached was not the word to describe her response to Lucas Kestrel.
    He was watching her with one of those dark brows raised quizzically and a smile lingering on his lips, as though he knew what she was thinking. It turned Rebecca hot with annoyance, rather than awareness, to have been caught staring.
    ‘So you should be concerned for your brother,’ she snapped, to cover her embarrassment. ‘A youth who gets drunk at his club and indulges in foolish pranks with other young men running riot in the streets—’
    ‘And ends up in the arms of a Cyprian from the Archangel Club, having sexual