Page 44 of Her Rake Fiancé

She looked over her shoulder but saw only an empty bench with a rosebush on either side. She peered into the darkness, trying to decipher if there was someone in the shadows. When she glanced at Richard, his eyes were filled with pain and regret.

“What is it?” she asked, moving closer.

He chuckled and shook his head slowly, moving past her and stopping a few steps away from the bench. “You’re right. We shouldn’t have come into the garden. I wasn’t thinking… It happened here in this exact spot.”

“What did?” she asked as she watched his broad back.

“Lady Charity.”

Jane’s gaze swept over the weathered bench, realization hitting her like a club.

“Do you mean that was where you saw her with her lover?”

He nodded. She came to stand by his side and looked up at him. His profile was in darkness, his gaze wide and haunted.

She bit her lip. “She didn’t deserve you. Betraying someone like you… I can’t imagine any woman doing that.”

He turned to her, his eyes big and intent on her. “She didn’t deserve me…?” he repeated, his voice cracking. “Jane, you have no idea how much that means to me…”

Jane could see the pain and hurt in Richard’s eyes. She wanted to comfort him, to take away his pain, but she didn’t know how.

“Only,” he said, “I did not think that I deserved her. I blamed myself. I thought I was too agreeable. That she found me boring. Men like my brothers—mysterious, commanding, always ready for a fight—were more interesting.

“My whole life I felt like I was hiding in the shadows of the two handsome older brothers that everyone talked about. They were the center of attention. Spencer, brilliant and charming. Preston, brooding and mysterious. I was always a shoulder to cry on. If my brothers weren’t available for a dance, I was.”

Jane’s heart broke as she imagined that younger version of Richard. Shyer. Calmer. Sweeter. Someone to whom she could take an immediately liking.

“She was perfect.” He took three slow steps towards the bench and sat down. “An angel the whole ton talked about. The diamond of the Season, the clearest of purity. And she chose me. Me, who’d never been as dashing as either of my older brothers, who’d always been the peacemaker in the family. The responsible one, the wise one, the boring one.”

And Jane would have liked that version of him just the same. The responsible one, the wise one, the boring one… The latter was not true. But the first two spoke to what he was in his very core.

She could describe herself in the exact same way.

Wise. Responsible. Boring.

“And then she entered,” he said as he watched her approach the bench and take a seat by his side. “The debutante everyone talked about, with her perfect skin, big eyes, and thick strawberry hair. Everyone wanted her. She would have made a highly successful match for any eligible bachelor. But she picked me.”

He chuckled. “I couldn’t believe it. I dreamed of her. All I could think about was her. Everything I could talk about was her. I proposed and she accepted. Her papa was quite happy, too. The wedding was set to be in two months. She was my first and only love. I was flying on wings.”

Jane hated it. Hated hearing he had loved someone else. And here she had thought the rake he was now was incapable of love. That all he wanted were conquests.

She swallowed hard. “Do you think she loved you back?”

He met her gaze and blinked. “I thought so back then, yes. But now I realize I don’t think she loved me at all. I should have noticed that our conversations were stilted. That she smiled and looked just as much into other men’s eyes as she did mine…and one man in particular.”

“Who was he?”

“Viscount Simpson. As dashing as one of my brothers. It was during Lady Brewster’s soirée right here. I walked into the garden looking for her, and I found her. Sitting on this bench, in his arms”—his pained eyes met hers, as deep and bottomless as a well—“kissing him. His hand was on her breast, something I’d never have dared to do, afraid to dishonor the woman I loved.”

He cleared his throat. It pained her to hear of him being hurt like that. If Jane had seen him with another woman… Just imagining him that way felt like a piece of broken glass stuck deep in her heart.

“Shocked, I watched another man holding my betrothed in his arms,” continued Richard. “When they saw me, she said nothing. She didn’t deny it. Didn’t plead. She didn’t even look guilty. ‘I will marry her, Lord Richard,’ said Simpson. ‘The engagement is over between us,’ said Lady Charity. Perhaps I was just someone she used to get Simpson. I never found out. I never wanted to. I wasn’t good enough for her.”

He swallowed, and Jane laid her hand on his, large and warm. He turned his palm over to hers, and they laced their fingers together. The touch was soothing and comforting. Friendly.

She saw it in his eyes. The decision he must have taken then. “Was that when you decided you’d never marry?”

“It was. To show Lady Charity, my brothers, the whole ton—but mostly, to show myself—that I wasn’t a rug to walk all over, I became just like Simpson. Like my brothers. I learned to shut down that young man who was shy and friendly and honorable. I copied my brothers and did what they did, talked like they talked, dressed like they dressed. Soon, I was another seducer. An irresponsible rake. I took lovers—bored, unloved wives, widows in need of male attention, spinsters who knew what they were doing. I went to whorehouses. All to drown myself in female attention, to forget that my heart still bled and ached.”