CHAPTER 4

Fleet slowed the curricle to a pace that required little concentration and turned his head to look at her directly. “Perhaps,” he added dryly, “you will satisfy my curiosity when the time is right?”

Clara’s throat was suddenly dry. Feeling nervous was an unusual experience for her.

“I have a proposition for you.” Clara looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He was starting to look a little exasperated.

“You are dissembling, Miss Davencourt,” he said. “Could you be more specific?”

Clara swallowed hard.

“I need a rake,” she said bluntly, “so I sent for you.”

It was impossible to shock the Duke of Fleet. He was far too experienced to show any reaction to such a statement. After a pause, he said, equally bluntly, “why do you need a rake?”

Clara drew a deep breath. “I need a rake to teach me how to outwit all other rakes and scoundrels,” she said. “I used to think I was up to all the tricks that a rogue might play, but I am sadly outwitted. I was almost abducted in broad daylight by Lord Walton the other day, and at the theater Sir Peter Petrie tried to back me into a dark corner and kiss me. If I am not careful I shall find myself compromised and married off to save the scandal before I have even realized it. It is intolerable to be so beset!”

Fleet gave a crack of laughter. “You are a sensible girl, Miss Davencourt. I cannot believe you unable to depress the pretensions of the worst scoundrels in town! Surely you exaggerate?”

“Sir, I do not,” Clara said crossly. “Do you think I should be asking you for help were it not absolutely necessary? Now that I am an heiress, matters are threatening to get out of hand.”

“How thoughtless of your godmother to die and leave you so much money,” Fleet said sardonically. He dropped his hand lightly over her gloved ones. “If only you were not so pretty and so rich, Miss Davencourt. You have become irresistible!”

Clara turned her shoulders to him. “Oh, I should have known better than to ask you for help! You always laugh at me. But you know it is true that one is seldom the toast of society if one’s parents are poor.”

Fleet’s grip tightened for a moment and she looked up to meet his eyes. “I do understand,” he said. “Your situation is not so different from being a duke subject to the wiles of matchmaking mamas and their daughters. You would be astounded at the number or young ladies who have twisted their ankles outside the portals of Fleet House,” he added ruefully. “The pavement must be unconscionably uneven.”

Clara stifled a giggle. “I do recall that you are unsympathetically inclined toward twisted ankles. When I sprained mine that day we had the picnic at Strawberry Hill you refused to believe me, and I was left to hop back to the carriage!”

She thought Fleet looked suitably contrite. “I apologize. That was very uncivil of me.”

Clara sensed a moment of weakness. “So you see the difficulty I face,” she said, spreading her hands in a gesture of pleading. “Will you help me?”

The weakness had evidently been an illusion. Fleet gave a decisive shake of the head. “Certainly not. This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to trap me into marriage.”

Clara was outraged. Her lavender blue eyes flashed. “I might have known you could not disabuse yourself of the idea that I might still wish to marry you, your grace! Despite everything I have said you cannot believe yourself resistible! Of all the arrogant, conceited, vain self-satisfied old roues!”

There was a look in his eyes that suggested he admired the spirited nature of her outburst—but it was clear that the word “old” had stung him.

“That is most unfair of you,” he said. “I am only three and thirty. Hardly in my dotage!”

Clara gave an exaggerated sigh. “Let us ignore your tragic obsession with age for a moment, your grace.

The whole point of what I am asking is for you to teach me how to outwit a rake, not fall into his arms. You need have no concerns that I intend to importune you. I have no romantic feelings for you whatsoever!”

There was a heavy silence between them. The horses had slowed to a standstill beneath the bare branches of an oak tree as Seb Fleet turned his full attention towards her. Despite the cold air, Clara felt a fizzing warmth inside her that was not merely irritation. Under his slow and thorough scrutiny the color rushed to her face in an even hotter tide. Breathing seemed unconscionably difficult.

“No feeling for me,” he drawled. “Can that be true?”

“No,” Clara said, gulping down a breath. “I lied. I feel exasperated and infuriated and downright annoyed and you are the cause of all of those feelings.”

“Strong emotions indeed.”

“But not of the warmer sort.” Clara evaded his gaze and picked at the threads of the tartan rug. “I have everything I desire in life at the moment. Why should I wish to marry anyone, least of all you?”

She saw the flash of something hot and disturbing in his eyes and added hastily, “Do not answer that! It was a rhetorical question!”

“Of course.” Fleet’s smile was wicked. I doubt that you would appreciate my answer anyway.”

“Very likely not. It is bound to be improper.”

“What do you expect when you are talking to a rake? You cannot have it both ways, Miss Davencourt.”

Clara sighed sharply. “Which is exactly why you would be the perfect person to help me,” she said. “You are an out-and-out rogue. When we met, you took my hand before I was even aware of what you were doing. You charmed my companion into giving you time alone in my company. Those are precisely the things I wish to learn to avoid.”

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