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Rebellious Rakes: Rake Most Likely to Rebel
Bronwyn Scott
Rebellious RakesOutrageous hell-raisers let loose in Europe!Rake Most Likely To RebelHaviland North, Viscount Amersham, has come to Paris to prove his skill with the blade. But feisty Alyssandra Leodegrance is not the opponent he was expecting! As expert swordplay leads to sizzling sensuality it’s difficult to say who will win…or what they will claim as their prize!Rake Most Likely To ThrillArcher Crawford is in Siena to compete in its notorious horse race – only daredevils need apply! But on his first night, he meets beautiful Elisabeta di Nofri. Elisabeta is determined to savour one last taste of freedom before an unwelcome marriage is forced upon her. Can Archer and Elisabeta risk everything to win what they truly want…?
BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children (one boy and two girls). When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, www.bronwynnscott.com (http://www.bronwynnscott.com), or at her blog, www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com) She loves to hear from readers.
Rebellious Rakes
Rake Most Likely to Rebel
Rake Most Likely to Thrill
Bronwyn Scott
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08532-8
REBELLIOUS RAKES
Rake Most Likely to Rebel © 2015 Nikki Poppen Rake Most Likely to Thrill © 2015 Nikki Poppen
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u1ddc1376-c406-51ad-bc07-d0e5ba528547)
About the Author (#u3b38703c-801f-5ff2-bc71-e064e29ebdca)
Title Page (#u340712aa-e72e-5926-a51c-593140f94b7b)
Copyright (#u8eaeb230-c98c-5143-aae3-603183e1d192)
Rake Most Likely to Rebel (#uf2808276-6e94-5bc9-bb36-9cd0679ba24a)
Dedication (#u556b94ca-472e-5486-86e7-063264988aaf)
Chapter One (#u91794248-0941-565e-873a-283841bd3477)
Chapter Two (#udf0d1ec0-b990-5fdd-b36d-0db7d5e43e97)
Chapter Three (#u01733eed-0469-5516-afcb-f4e638eeb4d0)
Chapter Four (#u3be64ffa-33c3-5820-a785-a05a2dbb9373)
Chapter Five (#ud8c25f63-34f4-50c5-9e0e-7ebd31b40224)
Chapter Six (#u7f947024-418d-5003-8497-1f8d7cafdd81)
Chapter Seven (#ue32168e5-a564-5cc7-8b13-7401424d34d7)
Chapter Eight (#u2ab82b6c-9149-5e8c-88cb-fa28819b80cb)
Chapter Nine (#u446d6cda-c6b4-5610-ae96-69117d3f9f6e)
Chapter Ten (#ua1b4fa55-1296-5b03-9e96-5b44df89ac83)
Chapter Eleven (#u7119187e-2b5a-5ac5-b256-f2b2ff066cdb)
Chapter Twelve (#u4bcf0219-6ab3-5b53-8ad2-82ac97da158b)
Chapter Thirteen (#u0a4a0240-626c-5e78-a2d9-bcc3dad0a23f)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Rake Most Likely to Thrill (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Rake Most Likely to Rebel (#uda4e34eb-cb5f-5662-9883-a01b2747c530)
Bronwyn Scott
For Monsieur Rouse, high school French
teacher extraordinaire: Votre ardeur pour la langue insuffle mon fil. Merci. (Je regrette, I have not conjugated ‘to inspire’ for some time. I hope the form is correct on insuffle!)
And for Ro and Brony—we will see the City of
Light (La Ville Lumière) together soon
Chapter One (#uda4e34eb-cb5f-5662-9883-a01b2747c530)
Dover docks—March 1835
There were no pleasures left in London. One could only hope Paris would do better. Haviland North turned up the collar of his greatcoat against the damp of the early March morning and paced the Dover docks, anxious to be away with the tide.
All of his hopes were pinned on France now and its famed salle d’armes. If springtime in Paris should fail to stimulate his stagnant blood, the rest of Europe awaited to take its turn. He could spend summer among the mighty peaks of the Alps, testing his strength on their crags, autumn among the arts and graces of Florence, winter in Venice feasting on the sensuality of Carnevale and another spring, if he could manage it. This time in Naples, basking in the heat of southern Italy with its endless supply of the ancient. If those destinations did not succeed, there was always Greece and the alluring, mysterious Turkey.
The exotic litany of places rolled through his mind, a mantra of hopefulness and perhaps a mantra of fantasy. His father had promised him six months, not a year or two. It would all have to be managed very carefully. In truth, Haviland preferred it not come to that simply because of what the need for such lengths indicated about his current state—that at the age of twenty-eight and with everything to live for: the title, the vast fortune that went with it, the estates, the horses, the luxuries other men spent their lives acquiring—he was dead inside after all.
He’d had to fight hard for this Grand Tour, abbreviated as it might be. His well-meaning father had relented at last, perhaps understanding the need for his grown son to spread his wings beyond London and see something of the world before settling down. Haviland had won six months of freedom. But it had come at a great cost: afterwards, he would return home and marry, completing the plans that had been laid by two families three generations ago.
He could hear his father’s voice, see him behind his massive desk in the estate office as he delivered his verdict.
‘Six months is all we can spare. You’re different than your friends. They don’t have your expectations. Even Archer is a second son and when it comes down to it, his duties are different than yours. They can be gone for years. We can’t possibly spare you that long. The Everlys are eager to see the marriage done, and why delay? You’re twenty-eight and Christina is twenty-one. She’s been out for three Seasons, which is very respectable at this point, but to make her wait any longer will arouse unnecessary suspicions where there are none.’
His marriage, like everything else in his life to date, had been arranged for him. Everything had been accomplished for him. He simply had to show up. He often thought it was the very idea that there was nothing to turn his hand to, nothing that required his effort that had spawned this dark yawning gap in him. He’d struggled for nothing, been denied nothing, not even good looks. He’d managed to snare the lion’s share of the family’s handsome genetics along with the fortune. Perhaps that was why fencing appealed to him so intensely—it was something he could work at, something he could personally excel at on his own merits.
Excel he had. Haviland touched his booted toe to the long, slim case lying at his feet to assure himself it was still there, the one piece of luggage he hadn’t allowed to be stowed out of his sight: his rapiers, specially made for him from the fit of the grips to the weight of the thin blades. There wasn’t a gentleman in London who could touch him in the art of the foil and still it wasn’t enough. There was more to know and he hungered for the excellence that would come with new knowledge. He would go to Paris and study. With luck, he’d move on to the Italian masters in Florence. He knew six months wouldn’t see him to Italy. It wasn’t near enough time. He would need a miracle, but anything could happen if he could just be off.
Haviland took out his gold pocket watch, a gift from his grandfather upon completing Oxford several years ago, and flipped it open to check the time: quarter past five. His companions should have been here by now, which meant they’d show up any moment. None of them were extraordinarily concerned with punctuality but all of them were as eager as he for this journey, for reasons of their own. He closed the watch, his thumb running over his grandfather’s carefully chosen, although not highly original inscription: tempus fugit. He’d wasted enough time already. This journey was a chance for the clock to start again, however briefly, for his life to start again.
Haviland’s gaze strained in the lifting gloom, trying to make out the arrival of his companions. Who would come first? Perhaps Archer Crawford, his oldest friend. They’d suffered Eton together and then Oxford before moving on to the Season, exhausting the joys of London year after year after endless year until the pleasure had become de rigueur. Only loyalty to his mother had kept Archer in London this long. Now that anchor was gone and Archer was as anxious as he to be off.
Then again, the first to arrive might be Nolan Gray, depending on whether or not he’d had a good night at the rough tables of Dover. Nolan had ended more than one night with a tersely offered invitation to duel. His extraordinary skill at cards left many gentlemen lighter in the pockets. Over their years on the town, Nolan had developed the ability to defend his talent and his honour from the business end of a pistol at twenty paces.
Whoever arrived first, it wouldn’t be Brennan Carr. He would most definitely be last and he most definitely hadn’t spent his last night in England sleeping. If he knew Brennan, the night had been spent in the arms of a willing woman. Haviland chuckled to himself at the thought. Brennan could always make him laugh. Brennan had made London survivable long after it had lost its appeal.
Hooves and wheels clattered on the docks, a coach emerging from the lifting fog. Two men jumped out, coats swirling about them. One of them barked an order in a deep commanding baritone that carried in the morning air. Haviland smiled, recognising the voice. Nolan and Archer had come together and it looked as if Archer had brought a horse. Or the horse had followed Archer, which wouldn’t surprise Haviland at all. Archer was always collecting stray horses the way some people collected cats or dogs. In the gloom, Haviland could see Archer tying the beast to the back of the carriage. He heard Nolan’s voice carry across the pier.
‘I win!’ Nolan shouted as they approached. ‘Haviland is already here and he has his case.’ Nolan clasped him on the shoulder affectionately. ‘Good morning, Old Man. Is everything loaded? I told Archer you’d be here overseeing.’
Haviland laughed. ‘You know me too well. I saw the two coaches go on an hour ago and they loaded our trunks last night.’ They’d decided the best way to make haste to Paris and then to destinations beyond would be to supply their own private coaches for travel. They’d have to buy or rent horses in Calais, but Calais was prepared for such purchases. Travellers who could afford it crossed the Channel with their own carriages. Those who couldn’t afford to were reliant on public transport or whatever vehicles were for sale. Haviland had been more worried about finding two coaches for sale at prices that didn’t border on extortion when they arrived.
‘You trusted them with your trunks, which, may I emphasise, contain all your necessary belongings for the duration, but not with one small fencing case?’ Archer pointed to the case at his feet.
