Days Of Rakes And Roses

Praise

‘Known for her sexy, smart, and often scandalous romances, Campbell doesn’t disappoint … Her intelligent characters and their sensual cat-and-mouse games add to the mystery and poignant emotions …’

– RT Book Reviews

‘An entrancing, evocative romance.’

– JoyfullyReviewed.com

‘Campbell immediately hooks readers, then deftly reels them in with a spellbinding love story fuelled by an addictive mixture of sharp wit, lush sensuality, and a wealth of well-delineated characters.’

– Booklist

‘No one does lovely, dark romance or lovely, dark heroes like Anna Campbell. I love her books,’

– Sarah MacLean, New York Times bestselling author

‘With its superbly nuanced characters, impeccably crafted historical setting, and graceful writing shot through with scintillating wit, Campbell’s latest lusciously sensual, flawlessly written historical Regency … will have romance readers sighing happily with satisfaction.’

– Booklist on What a Duke Dares

ANNA CAMPBELL was the sort of kid who spent her childhood with her nose buried between the pages of a book. She decided when she was a child that she wanted to be a writer. When she’s not writing passionate, intense stories featuring gorgeous Regency heroes and the women who are their destiny, Anna loves to travel, especially in the United Kingdom, and listen to all kinds of music. She has settled near the sea on the east coast of Australia, where she’s losing her battle with an overgrown subtropical garden.

Anna loves to hear from her readers. You can contact her through her website at www.annacampbell.info.

Days of Rakes and Roses

Anna Campbell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Copyright

Prologue

Fentonwyck, Derbyshire

July 1816

“I’ve waited my whole life to kiss you.”

Good heavens!

Lady Lydia Rothermere hardly credited what she heard Simon Metcalf say, nor the urgency in his manner while he said it. When he grabbed her hand, the heat of his touch sizzled right to her toes, left her feeling jumpy and needy.

As he lured her a step closer to the hay barn, her voice emerged high and breathy with excitement. “You’re utterly mad.”

“Not mad, merely desperate. You’ve avoided me all summer.” He gave her the dazzling smile that always made her yearning heart tumble against her ribs. “Now I’ve got you to myself, I intend to take full advantage.”

“A-advantage?” Nervously she glanced around the empty stable yard, but nobody was present to observe Sir Reginald Metcalf’s second son making inappropriate advances to the Duke of Sedgemoor’s daughter. His Grace was away in London and not due back until tonight. In his absence, the estate slumbered. The noon sunlight beat down on the cobbles with almost Mediterranean intensity.

Her senses reeled. Could this really be happening to her? Could Simon be staring at her as if she made the sun rise every day?

She’d been in love with Simon Metcalf since she was little when, as an impossibly grown-up eight-year-old, he’d comforted her after she skinned her knee on the drive. He’d been a handsome boy, tall and strong, with golden hair and laughing blue eyes. He’d matured into a strikingly handsome man, something she was miserably reminded of whenever she saw her uninspiring features reflected in a looking glass.

Hopeless pining had transformed into humiliating torment this last year until she’d turned seventeen and her fantasies had taken a disturbing direction. She’d spent her life praying for the boy from the neighboring estate to talk to her and smile at her and ask her to dance. Now her dreams, waking and sleeping, had become blatantly physical. Dreams of Simon touching and kissing her. Dreams that left her restless and unhappy and deeply ashamed. As a result, whenever she’d seen Simon this summer, she’d mumbled and blushed and generally behaved like a ninny. How she regretted that their easy friendship had deteriorated into awkward self-consciousness.

But now when she studied his vivid features, she read an intensity that trapped the breath in her throat. Even in her innocence, she knew that he meant to kiss her. A thrill shivered through her.

“Come with me,” he said with another daredevil smile, drawing her into the shadowy hay barn. Out of the sun, she should feel cooler, but her blood pumped so furiously, she felt likely to melt into a puddle of longing.

Just past the entrance, Lydia stumbled to a halt and blinked up at Simon in shy astonishment. Her grip tightened on the red rose he’d presented to her when he’d persuaded her to abandon her work in the stillroom. A thorn pricked her thumb, but she hardly noticed the sting amongst all the turbulent sensations assailing her.

Her fear momentarily outweighing Simon’s powerful attraction, she made another unconvincing attempt to pull free. If her father learned she’d been alone with Simon, there would be the devil to pay. Horror of scandal had been drummed into her from the cradle. “You know we can’t.”

He laughed softly, his teeth white against his tanned face. “Of course we can.”

With a blatantly bold gesture, as if he set great events in train, he reached behind her to shut the door. She jumped when the latch clanged down, enclosing them in a world fragrant with last summer’s grass. Persistent sunbeams pierced the cracks in the joinery, lighting the strangely intimate twilight and tracing Simon in gold.

Her heart racing so frantically that he surely must hear it, Lydia let him lead her toward the rear of the barn. She was overwhelmingly aware of their joined hands. The slight roughness of his palms. The firm grip of his long fingers. The soft friction of skin on skin. Excitement trilled through her like a melody.

“Papa would have a fit if he saw us.” Scandal had shadowed the Rothermere family for years. To counter the notoriety, her father had always insisted on perfect behaviour from Lydia and her older brother Camden.

“Papa’s not here,” Simon whispered, stopping and turning to face her.

He lifted her trembling hand and pressed it flat against his chest. Beneath her palm, his heart hammered as hard as hers did. Bedazzled, she stared up at him, conscious of his height and the radiating heat of his body and how close he stood.

“What do you want, Simon?” she summoned courage to ask, staring into eyes that burned like sapphire flame. The prospect of Simon kissing her slammed down, and settled with unfamiliar weight at the base of her belly.

His eyelids fell as he studied her lips. As if he took in her scent, his nostrils flared. She’d known him all her life, but the sexual charge that buzzed between them now was unfamiliar. Both frightening and alluring.

“I want you,” he murmured.

Her startled exhalation emerged as a squeak. “You do?”

“More than the hope of heaven,” he said raggedly, meeting her gaze. In his eyes, she read an ardor that she’d never imagined she’d arouse in any man, let alone her beloved Simon.

“Oh.” Her stomach churned with unbearable anticipation. Constructing a complete sentence demanded too much of her flustered mind.

“Now be quiet and kiss me, Lydia.” The laughter that was so much a part of the man she loved bubbled beneath his low command.

“But—”

He caught her face between his palms and pressed his mouth to hers. She’d imagined this moment so often, never thinking it would happen outside her fantasies. She quivered as unfamiliar sensations shimmered through her. The satiny brush of his lips created delicious warmth. He tasted like salty honey. His musky scent, tinged with horses and leather, made her head spin.

She hovered on the verge of succumbing to the pleasure when he raised his head. His blue eyes were so dark, they looked black. “Any more buts?”

“Please … don’t stop.” She sighed, sagging against him and letting the rose drop to the dusty floor.

She caught a flash of what might have been triumph in his face. “Never, love.”

A daring she didn’t know she possessed made her curl her hands over his powerful shoulders. It was difficult to believe that he gave her permission to touch him. More, that he wanted her to touch him. He’d always seemed so impossibly out of reach. Not just because of the four-year gap in their ages, but because he was beautiful and brilliant and all the girls wanted him. Whereas she was quiet and serious and liked to play the observer.

Yet astonishingly, it seemed that he was within reach, after all. So within reach that his body pressed close to hers, awakening all sorts of delicious, unprecedented reactions.

When he bent his head, his kiss was all purpose. His tongue teased the seam of her lips, coaxing her toward something which she instinctively knew related to those forbidden feelings that kept her awake every night.

A muffled sound of enjoyment escaped her and he took advantage of her parted lips to spear his tongue inside her mouth. The act was bizarre, discomfiting. Then even as the urge to withdraw pricked at her, strangeness melted into wonder.

Hesitantly she moved her tongue against his. Simon groaned with wordless satisfaction. And for the first time, she truly believed that he wanted her as she wanted him.

Startled joy swelled in her heart, swamping caution. Confidence flooded her, and with it a burning curiosity to discover where these caresses might lead. Lydia closed her eyes and sank into darkness sparking with bliss like twinkling stars in a midnight sky.

Her inchoate longings flared into a blaze of delight. Her hands curved around his neck, bringing that marvellous, skillful mouth closer. His taste invaded her senses. The scent of his skin, familiar and yet not, made her giddy as if she’d imbibed too much claret.

His hard, strong hands—hands that she’d seen catch cricket balls and untangle fishing lines and calm a hundred fractious horses—trailed up her ribs to cup her breasts. The distant reaches of her mind rang with warning, but all promptings of self-preservation faded under pleasure.

She clung to him, running her hands up and down his long back. She loved his lean power, the hard lines of muscle and bone, so different from her own soft curves. Her nipples tightened into aching points as his caresses ventured nearer to her breasts. Heat pooled between her legs. Blindly she rubbed against him. She was innocent, but not so innocent that she misunderstood the hardness pressing her belly.

She moaned a protest as he drew slightly away. “Lydia, we need to stop. You’re everything I want, but on my honor, I didn’t mean to go this far.”

He sounded breathless and shaken, not at all like the brash university buck who had so daunted her this summer. She’d counted every day he’d been at Oxford. Then when he’d finally returned, she’d hardly mustered courage to say hello.

All her life, she’d been afraid; of displeasing her father, of tarring the family name, of breaking her heart over a man who didn’t want her. But now she knew Simon did indeed want her. His unabashed desire banished all fear, created a new, brave Lydia who scorned her previous self’s timidity.

She cupped his cheek, staring into eyes opaque with need. He looked strained and unsure as she’d never seen him before. “Kiss me again.”

His laugh was unsteady, and he stroked her jaw with a tenderness that set her heart somersaulting. “You test my control to the limits, lovely girl. If I kiss you again, it won’t stop at a kiss.”

Knowing she was about to make a decision that could destroy her life, but unable to relinquish this enchantment, she snatched a shallow breath. She was more frightened that Simon would never touch her again than she was of any consequences. “I don’t want you to stop.”

Happiness transfigured his face. “Lydia …”

Brazenly she rose on her toes until her lips touched his. She felt him struggle for control, even as his hands drifted down to clasp her waist and bring her near again. She knew the precise moment when he gave in. His mouth ravished hers with a passion that made her toes curl in her half boots while his hands deftly released the hooks on the back of her gown.

Carefully, as though she might break if he handled her too roughly, he drew her down to kneel with him on the soft hay. She clasped her sagging bodice to her chest and met his eyes.

He looked at her as if he loved her. She could deny him nothing when he looked at her like that.

The last of her uncertainty evaporated and her heart began to bang hard against her ribs. She slid her hand free of her gown so that her dress slipped to her waist, revealing her transparent shift. Simon’s eyes burned as they focused on her body.

“Oh, my darling—” He reached out to trace the lacy edge of her shift, slowly dragging it lower. Her eyelids fluttered down as she ceded herself to the promise of rapture.

Then, when finally everything in Lydia’s world miraculously turned right, the barn door crashed open and everything in her world shattered into irredeemable disaster.

Chapter 1

Rothermere House, London

April 1826

The ball to celebrate a woman’s forthcoming wedding should be one of the happiest events in her life.

Suppressing a sigh, Lady Lydia Rothermere surveyed the throng crowded into her brother Cam’s white and gilt ballroom and told herself that of course she was happy. This mightn’t be the night she’d dreamed about as a foolish adolescent, but she’d long ago relinquished her dreams. She was a mature, sensible woman of twenty-seven marrying a mature, sensible man of forty-one. She was content with her decision. For a woman well past her debut, contentment was something with which she should be, well, content.

The bracing lecture didn’t notably raise her spirits. She muffled another sigh and plastered a smile on her face. This party was in her honor and she intended to enjoy it, even if it killed her. She wore a new dress to mark the occasion, dark blue brocade with Brussels lace, and her maid had twined red and white rosebuds through her thick auburn hair.

“I’m neglecting you, my dear.” Sir Grenville Berwick turned from the political cronies who had occupied his attention for the last half hour and took possession of her white-gloved hand.

Her fiancé’s touch aroused no frisson of anticipation. But then only one man had ever made Lydia tremble with desire, and that had been so long ago, she now viewed the events of that summer day as an aberration in an otherwise blameless life. She didn’t pretend to love the man she’d promised to marry, but she respected him. And God willing, she’d have children, lots of children, to whom she would devote the vast well of frustrated love in her heart.

Please let it be so.

As she turned to Grenville, she kept the smile on her lips, even though it felt like a rictus grin. Tonight he looked the perfect parliamentarian in his sober, dark coat, with his graying brown hair combed back from his high forehead. “I’m not some giddy young thing. You don’t have to fuss over me.”

Sir Grenville’s square-jawed face didn’t lighten and his brown eyes remained grave. “You deserve to be fussed over, Lydia. I still find myself astounded that you consented to be my bride.”

“You’re too good for me.”

She meant it. If Grenville knew how once she’d verged on surrendering her virtue to a scoundrel, he wouldn’t place her on a pedestal. Since that calamitous day at Fentonwyck, her behavior had been exemplary, unless it was a sin to lie awake reliving the only passion she’d ever tasted. To lie awake regretting, wicked creature she was, that her father had erupted into the hay barn before Simon had ventured beyond kisses.

“Your modesty does you credit.” Grenville surveyed the gathering with a satisfied air. “The world wishes us well. It’s quite a turnout.”

Hundreds had gathered to celebrate. Sir Grenville was a rising political star and Lydia was much admired for her charity work. She’d even caught sight of the brooding and scarred Jonas Merrick in one of the card rooms. Her brother who hosted the ball was an acknowledged leader of society. This was despite questions shadowing Cam’s legitimacy. It was common knowledge that his mother had shared her favors with her husband and his younger brother. The identity of Lydia’s sire was never in doubt—the late duke’s dashing, rakehell brother had died well before her arrival—but both Rothermere children had grown up weathering scandal.

From habit, Lydia sought Cam in the crowd. Her brother was so tall, she easily spotted his glossy dark head over the heaving sea of people. Beside him stood the ever elegant Sir Richard Harmsworth, her brother’s closest friend and as golden fair as Cam was dark.

Distantly, she was grateful that so many people offered their congratulations. Since consenting to Grenville’s proposal a year ago, she’d felt as if a thick wall of glass separated her from the world. She supposed the sense of disconnection would pass. Eventually.

The passionate hoyden who still lurked in Lydia’s heart insisted that she was more than this staid, benevolent cipher. Except that after ten barren years of acting as the sedate woman the world considered her, the bleak suspicion lurked that she had in truth become this dull creature. At least the dull creature was safe and respected and armored against the anguish of strong emotion.

If she hadn’t entirely conquered her longing for something … other, she would do so by the time she walked up the aisle of St. George’s in Hanover Square in two weeks’ time. This marriage to Grenville was right for her, promising a calm haven and a useful future. She’d spent her life holding her head high against spiteful whispers, the cruel assumption that, like mother, like daughter, bad blood would eventually tell. It was only a matter of time before her true nature would surface. Only once had Lydia kicked over the traces. And hadn’t that been a complete disaster?

“Shall we dance?” Grenville asked. The musicians had just struck up a waltz, the scratch of the violins barely audible above the chatter.

Grenville danced well, if without particular flair. But then, Simon’s desertion had taught Lydia to mistrust flair. What she needed was steadiness and kindness and a devotion to shared ideals. Grenville offered her all of that. She ignored a jeer from her inner woman as she circled the ballroom, her heart beating as steadily as if she sat alone at her embroidery.

From long habit, she made sure that her troubled thoughts didn’t show on her face. For so many years, she’d presented an appearance of unruffled calm that it was second nature to her now. Perhaps after another ten years, the appearance would be truth, not pretence.

“I apologize for bringing House business to our party, my love.”

“No need,” she said calmly. She didn’t mind that Grenville had devoted the weeks before their wedding to political maneuvering, although something rebellious inside her carped that she should mind.

Not really listening to his travails with the current bill, she made encouraging noises. With unwelcome grimness, it struck her that this would form the pattern of conversation for the rest of her life. She would be a witch to cavil at what fate arranged. She went into this marriage with her eyes wide open. If Grenville’s company lacked something in excitement, excitement was overrated.

Or at the very least, it was dangerous. And she’d decided at seventeen that she’d never do anything dangerous again. Her blood still ran cold when she remembered her father’s contemptuous tone as he’d called her a brainless slut like her mother.

As if the memory alerted long buried instincts, Lydia glanced over Grenville’s shoulder to the staircase sweeping down into the ballroom. A tall man in immaculate black tailoring paused on the landing and surveyed the room. A cynical smile curved familiar lips. Light from the chandeliers slanted across gilded hair. He stood loose-limbed and relaxed, as if the entire world offered him welcome.

“Lydia, are you well? Lydia?”

Grenville’s worried voice pierced her blind distress. She realized that she’d stopped dead in the middle of the dance. She hadn’t blushed for years, but uncomfortable heat flooded into her cheeks now.

Dear God, let her misstep go unremarked. And what had caused it. She glanced around nervously, the old horror of scandal gripping her. Nobody seemed to have noticed her stumble.

She made herself move again, but her feet felt like bricks and she staggered against her partner. Grenville’s hand tightened around her waist. “My dear, are you feeling faint? The room is close and the night is warm. You’ve been working such long hours, getting that new soup kitchen running. Should I take you onto the terrace?”

“Yes … yes, please take me outside.” She hardly recognized the stammering reply as her own. To remain upright, she curled her hand over Grenville’s shoulder. Her heart raced so fast, she felt light-headed, as though the ground shifted beneath her.

She was addled to think that the man on the staircase was Simon. Not after all this time. Not now when she had finally come so close to severing the chains of her past.

For years she’d pined after him. Then when he didn’t contact her after her father’s death, she’d finally understood that Simon had no intention of returning for her. Stupid girl. Five years before that without so much as a note should have indicated his indifference.

Even after acknowledging at last that Simon cared nothing for her, no man could compete with the ghost of her first amour. Until she’d met Grenville and realized that life could offer rewards separate from Simon’s unattainable love. Independence. A family. A life dedicated to service.

Deliberately she didn’t look toward the staircase again. She had to be mistaken. The illusion resulted from wedding nerves and the fact that so close to her nuptials, memories of her long-lost love would inevitably resurface. Simon had left England immediately after the incident in the barn. She’d only rarely heard about his doings—Simon Metcalf’s exploits were considered too outré for the ears of an unmarried girl, even one past first youth. He’d fallen in with a rakish crowd on the Continent; raffish women, louche aristocrats, penniless adventurers. If polite society mentioned Simon Metcalf, it was in censorious terms. The last report Lydia had had of Simon was from somewhere in the remote reaches of the Ottoman Empire.

Still the merest idea that he could be back in London made her heart flutter like a bird longing to break out of its cage. Would she never be free of him?

With his usual aplomb, Grenville steered her through the crowd to where the French doors opened to the fine night. With the unseasonal warmth, many guests had resorted to the garden. Lydia and Grenville’s progress toward the terrace aroused no curiosity, thank goodness.