Anna Campbell: A Rake's Midnight Kiss

Richard identified his mother’s accuser. Lord Colby was just out of Cambridge and new in Town. Augusta always gathered a coterie of handsome young men although, to give her what little credit she deserved, she rarely accepted these greenlings into her bed. She saved that privilege for more experienced paramours like, reportedly, Benchley.

Richard might resent his mother, but some painful compulsion meant that he kept track of her admirers. To the world, he pretended not to care a fig for her or her behavior. Beneath his languid, fashionable shell, he reluctantly admitted that was far from the truth.

“And here comes her bastard,” the boy said bitterly as Richard approached. “Or at least the one we know about.”

Everyone in the glittering gathering seemed to release a combined gasp of horrified delight. The musicians scratched into silence. A lanky fellow behind Colby grabbed the youth’s arm. “Shut up, Colby. Harmsworth’s a crack shot. Do you want a bullet for your trouble?”

Colby shook him off. Now that Richard was near, he saw that the young lordling verged on tears. Blast her to Hades, yet again his mother wreaked havoc, as she’d wreaked havoc throughout her son’s life.

“Good evening, Mother. I see you still know how to make an entrance,” he said drily, pointedly ignoring the obstreperous cub. One would imagine that after being tarred a bastard so long, the word would lose its sting. Unfortunately the rancor knotting his stomach indicated that it hadn’t.

Knowing how closely they were observed, Richard bent over her hand in a show of respect. Long experience had proven that the slightest betrayal of genuine emotion would have society tearing at him like wolves.

His mother was even better at hiding her reaction, if any, to insults. Or to meeting her estranged son after such a protracted interval. She stared back at Richard steadily and her lips curved in the smile that had caused untold trouble among the masculine half of the population. Going right back to Richard’s father, whoever the hell he’d been.

Spiteful gossip had long speculated that a stablehand had tupped Lady Harmsworth while Sir Lester was away on a diplomatic mission to Russia. When Sir Lester returned to an heir after a sixteen-month absence, there was no hiding his wife’s adultery. The scandal didn’t upset the succession. Sir Lester had never openly questioned Augusta’s faithfulness and Richard was duly accepted as the next baronet, however dubious his bloodlines.

“One would so hate to be dull,” his mother said coolly.

Richard tilted an inquiring eyebrow at her as his rage coiled like a cobra. Since his schooldays, he’d suffered mockery, scorn, and violence because of his mother’s wantonness. Pride might have taught him to hide resentment but had done nothing to soften it. “Indeed.”

“Lady Harmsworth, a pleasure to see you.” Cam finally made it through the crowd.

“Your Grace.” Her exquisite curtsy conveyed a hint of defiance. Richard would dearly love to hate everything about his mother, but he couldn’t quite make himself despise her courage. He knew what it cost to hold one’s head up against the world’s contempt. “Here to pour oil on troubled waters?”

Cam smiled at her. “Merely to offer myself as a partner for this dance.”

Augusta turned to Richard. “And, my son, what are you doing here? Don’t tell me you mean to fight a duel over my honor.”

A faint titter from behind him greeted that outrageous statement. Richard read the devil in her eyes as she dared him to challenge her claim to honor. Part of the agony of all this was that he and his mother weren’t so different, even down to the way they deployed imperturbable elegance to discourage insolence.

Usually it worked.

His neutral expression didn’t falter. “I don’t shoot inebriated children, however naughty they are.”

Colby’s friend latched more firmly onto his arm. “Come away, Colby. And be grateful that you escaped with your life.”

“Yes, I’ll go.” Stubbornly Colby stood his ground and glowered at Richard. His voice was raw with emotion. “I’ll forsake the lady’s raddled charms and I’ll overlook the presumption of a blackguard who can’t name the man who sired him. Not even the Harmsworth Jewel could make either of you fit for decent society. Your names are filth.”

This time the snickers were more pronounced and the crowd surged forward like a turbulent sea, threatening to suffocate Richard. God rot Colby; why must he parade his broken heart in the middle of this crush? The urge to flatten the unmannerly whelp with one blow jammed in Richard’s throat, even as he forced out a light reply. “The Harmsworth Jewel? Good Lord, nobody’s seen that bauble since the Wars of the Roses.”

He was astonished that Colby knew of the jewel’s existence or the legend that its possession confirmed the Harmsworth heir. Richard exaggerated to say that the artifact had been missing since the fifteenth century, but it had certainly been lost to the main branch of the family for more than fifty years.

“Raddled charms?” At his side, Augusta’s silvery laugh rang out. “My dear Colby, you wound me.”

“You’re in remarkable looks, Lady Harmsworth. Ignore this puppy.” Cam, no stranger to family scandal himself, stepped forward, his air of authority cowing even the fuming Colby. “Shall we dance?”

Cam signaled to the orchestra as if he were the host rather than Lord Packham. A waltz began as he and Augusta proceeded to the floor with a regal assurance that dared anyone to utter an impertinent word. Not for the first time, Richard was grateful for his friend’s aplomb in a sticky situation.

With palpable disappointment, the eager audience began to disperse. Yet again, the Harmsworths had skirted outright disgrace, although Colby’s tantrum would provide a delicious on-dit to spice reminiscences of the ball.

“Take his lordship home,” Richard said to Colby’s companion. For once he couldn’t conceal his weariness. He was so bloody tired of all this. Tired of disdain. Tired of pretending that every insult slid off his immaculately dressed hide without leaving a mark. Tired of his mother’s sins crashing down upon his head. Tired above all of being the Harmsworth bastard.

The rage twisting in his belly cooled, set into a determination as hard as an iron bar. He’d find the deuced Harmsworth Jewel and he’d turn the gewgaw into a pin for his neck cloth. He’d brandish it beneath the ton’s noses like a banner of war until they admitted that while he mightn’t be the right Harmsworth, he was the only Harmsworth they were going to get.

Then let any man call him bastard.

Little Derrick, Oxfordshire, September 1827

Damnation!”

A thud followed by a low masculine curse stirred Genevieve from sleep. Even then she needed a few seconds to realize that she was slumped over the desk in her study upstairs at the vicarage. Her candles had gone out and the room’s only illumination was the dying fire. In that faint glow, she watched a dark shape below the windowsill lengthen upward until a man’s form blocked faint starlight from outside.

Choking fear held her motionless. Fear and outrage. How dare anyone break into her home? It felt like a personal affront. Her father and aunt were out, dining with the Duke of Sedgemoor at his local estate. The duke never visited this isolated corner of his vast holdings, so everyone was agog to see him. Genevieve had been invited too, but she’d wanted to stay and work on some research. The servants were away for the evening.