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BOOK
NEWS!
 ~ People
are loving the new The
Ultimate Reading List put out by the ever-popular Complete
Idiot's Guide series, and Kathryn made the list
with A
Lady's Guide to Rakes, the third book in her
Featherton series. (posted 8.01.07)
~ FINALIST! A Lady's Guide to Rakes, the third in Kathryn's Featherton sisters quartet, is a finalist for the National Readers Choice Awards for Best Historical Romance! (posted 5.01.06)
~ K.I.S.S
AWARD! Alexander Lamont, A
Lady's Guide to Rakes’ sinfully sexy hero,
received a K.I.S.S. award (Knight in Shining Silver)
from Romantic Times BOOKclub.
(posted 8.31.05)
A Lady's Guide to Rakes has been chosen as a featured alternate for the Rhapsody and Doubleday Book clubs.
(posted 6.30.05) |
 Highest
Rating!
“You will love the way Ms. Caskie weaves
us a tale that we will not want to put down. You will be so hooked by
Meredith and Alexander, that you will be glued to the pages.”
-- Debbie,
A Romance Review awarding A Lady's Guide to Rakes the highest rating review ~ Read the entire review. (posted 11.16.05)
Starred Review!
“The plot of Caskie's latest deliciously clever historical Regency, the third to feature the adorable matchmaking Featherton sisters, gracefully unfolds with plenty of sparkling humor and sizzling sensuality in a tale that will delight readers who relish bright, breezy, and witty romances.”
-- John Charles,
Booklist Reviewer awarding A Lady's Guide to Rakes a coveted starred review ~ Read the entire review. (a pop-up window will appear) (posted 10.13.05)
“A Lady’s Guide To Rakes is a fast-paced story with likable characters who will hold the readers interest throughout. Meredith is determined to not give her heart to another rogue, but her aunts, the Featherton sisters, have other ideas as they use their matchmaking skills to try to get Meredith and Alexander together. Alexander wants to find a wife so he will have control over his money again, but will he lose his heart in the process?”
A lively tale that will sure to please readers of Regency romances and Regency-set historicals.
-- Joyce Koehl
Reviewer from Romance Reviews Today reviewing A Lady's Guide to Rakes. Read the entire review.
(posted 10.13.05)
"...[a romance to] take great pleasure in...fresh and vivacious..."
-- Heartstrings Reviews A Lady's Guide to Rakes
(posted 10.13.05)
"A Lady’s Guide To Rakes is truly the most charming and delightful Regency romance of the year."
-- Sarah W.
Romance Junkies Reviewer awarding A Lady's Guide to Rakes a 4.5 Blue Ribbon rating. ~
Read the entire review.
(posted 9.13.05)
4 1/2 stars ~ TOP PICK!
“Liberally seasoned with her hallmark wit and unforgettable characters, Caskie's latest is a winner: a delectable, sensual Regency romp, refreshingly told and cleverly crafted. A Lady's  Guide is a pure joy to read!”
-- Kathe Robin
Romantic Times BOOKclub awarding A Lady's Guide to Rakes 4 1/2 STARS and TOP PICK! ~
Read the entire review in the September issue of Romantic Times BOOKclub.
(posted 8.04.05)
"...will have you laughing out loud and wishing for it never to end."
-- Kristal Gorman
Fresh Fiction Reviewer
Read the entire review.
(posted 9.13.05)
"Ms. Caskie pens a sparkling Regency romance filled with fun."
-- Suan Wilson
Fresh Fiction Reviewer
Read the entire review.
(posted 9.13.05)
"fine zany historical romance"
-- Harriet Klausner
The Best Reviews
Read the entire review.
(posted 9.13.05)
"breezy...daring...a fast
poolside read."
-- Publishers
Weekly
(posted 8.04.05)
“Skillfully, Caskie has
taken an old and used theme of the ‘reformed rake’ and
given it a fresh new slant in this delightful latest novel
in the Featherton sisters’ saga. The writing is well
done, well researched ... a very entertaining read. With a
background of colorful and fun secondary characters on top
of the very well-matched lead couple, Caskie scores big with
this latest entry!”
-- Marilyn
Rondeau
Historical Romances Reviews
Read the entire
review.
(posted 6.30.05)
top
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The maddening heat from the aged balloon’s fire sent sweat trickling beneath Meredith Merriweather’s corset. Still, she held the lens of her spyglass ever firm, and focused squarely on the impeccably dressed gentleman strolling along the bank of the rippling Serpentine, some forty feet below.
“Oh dash it all, can’t you bring the basket any lower?” she shouted to her pilot as she momentarily lowered the spyglass. “Look there, he’s getting away!”
“I’ll see what I can do, Miss Merriweather, but I’ll not be promisin’ a thing,” the Irishman droned, and Meredith was sure she saw him roll his eyes at her.
Movement caught her notice then and abruptly she lifted the glass to watch a sable-haired woman who approached from the north. “Go to it, Giselle,” Meredith urged beneath her breath. “Work your charms.”
Meredith held her breath and waited. Surely the man would not be able to resist the French courtesan’s dark beauty or the seductive sway of her hips. No man could. Giselle’s allure was studied. Perfect.
A huge onion-shaped shadow fell over the gentleman as the balloon passed between him and the sun. He turned, and cupping the edge of his hand over his brow, peered upward, squinting at the balloon’s massive silhouette.
Meredith’s muscles tensed briefly, but then relaxed. Even if he saw her, she reasoned, there was nothing to fear. Balloon ascensions in Hyde Park were commonplace these days, and seeing a great floating orb, while extraordinary, was certainly nothing to warrant suspicion.
She turned the glass on Giselle once
more. “Oh, no.” Why
was she beckoning him into the trees. Meredith whipped the spyglass
from her eye. Hadn’t she bade Giselle to stay to the footpath—in
plain view?
Meredith jerked her head around to be
sure the balloon’s pilot
understood the urgency of the situation. “We’re going to
lose sight of them! Bring us lower, please.”
The leather-faced pilot stared back at
her with his queer, unblinking, insect-like eyes. Why wouldn’t
he do as she asked? She had paid him four times his normal fare, after
all!
“Beggin’ yer pardon, miss.” He shot a nervous glance over the edge of the basket’s frayed woven lip. “But another few feet and we’ll be sittin’ in the oak tops—or worse. How badly do you need to spy on that bloke? Is it worth crashin’ through the bloomin’ branches?”
Meredith gasped at his effrontery. “How dare you accuse me of spying! I am conducting a scientific experiment—one
which you, sirrah, are about to ruin.”
Tipping her gaze over the edge of the basket, she peered at the new
leaves unfurling on the jutting branches just below, then turned and
looked hard at the impertinent pilot. “We have at least six feet
to spare. Drop her three, please.”
With a resigned shake of his capped head, the pilot waved to his tether handler, who stood squinting up at them from the ground below, and raised three stubby fingers.
The basket jerked and Meredith’s hip struck the wall hard. “Thank
you,” she
growled, leveling a narrowed eye at the pilot, who was working quite
diligently to conceal the amused grin on his lips.
Spreading her feet wider for balance,
Meredith rested her throbbing hip against the foremost corner of the
basket. This was the closest she’d ever been to London’s
most notorious rake, and even floating above the treetops was too close
for her comfort. Already a lacy red rash was working its way across
her chest, and as she nervously scratched at it, she noticed that her
palms were damp too.
Having had her own heart and reputation shattered by one of his ilk just two years past, Meredith knew what sort of damage Alexander Lamont and his kind were capable of wreaking.
She rested her elbows on the lip of the basket rail and raised the
glass to her eye, trailing her view down the gentleman’s well-shaped
form.
My
word, even from this height, the rake’s appeal was plain. His jaw was firm, angular and lightly gilded from the sun. He was taller than most men, certainly. His muscular shoulders were broad, his waist trim and—oh
dear. Swallowing hard, Meredith hurried the spyglass downward so that
only his thighs, his delightfully sculpted thighs, were in her sight.
She had to admit, without question he was the perfect physical specimen
of the human male.
Still, if tearoom chatter was to be believed-and when was it not? -- he was also the perfect example of a rogue...and the absolute worst sort at that. His name had been linked with scores of ladies, from the upper echelons of society down to the lowest rungs of the theatre chorus girls. This, however, is not the achievement that elevated him to the veriest pinnacle of rakedom. Being caught in bed with the young wife of a highly respected minister in the House of Commons had given the rotter that distinction.
Not for a moment did Meredith believe, as others seemed to, that Alexander, the licentious Lord Lansing, had given up his rakish ways and truly reformed.
It wasn’t possible. And Meredith would prove it by observing Giselle’s progress in bringing out the rake’s
true nature.
Lud, now she was leading him toward a bench beneath a massive oak!
“Please, just a little lower,” Meredith implored the pilot.
He shook his head solemnly. “Not wise.”
A growl pressed through Meredith’s lips as she crouched down to the flooring and removed the last four gold coins from her reticule. Rising, she pressed back her shoulders and made her final plea. “Another
guinea per foot you manage to lower this contraption.”
The pilot hesitated for nearly a full minute, but it was clear by the tattered condition of the basket and the way that he kept licking his withered lips that he could already taste the money.
With her thumb, Meredith moved the coins around in her palm, making them clink together irresistibly.
“Oh, very well. Four feet,” the pilot called out to the man below. “Not
a finger more.”
As if hearing the pilot’s instructions, Alexander Lamont looked up at the
great red balloon, which now hovered only thirty feet above.
Meredith quickly hid her spyglass low inside the basket and gazed out over the Serpentine, as if studying the water birds on its glistening surface. Suddenly, she felt a horrifying scraping sensation beneath her feet.
The basket was descending into the treetops! Her gaze shot upward in time to see a limb gouge the red bulb of fabric, tearing savagely into it. There was a deafening flatulent outpouring of air and the basket lurched and fell. Sharp protruding branches sprouted up around her.
With a frightened squeal, Meredith dropped low and cowered down deep inside the basket, protecting her face with her hands.
“The skin’s been punctured. She’s comin’ down.” The pilot’s voice was thin with fear, heightening her own terror. “Hang
on!”
“Hang on?” Meredith whipped her hands from her eyes and frantically searched the innards of the basket. There was nothing to grip. “To
what, sir?”
“The rail, you twit. The rail!”
Crawling on her knees toward the pilot, Meredith slid her hands up the rough
hewn wicker wall, scrabbled for the rail’s lip and clung to it.
But the shift in weight was too abrupt. The basket, already deep inside the tree canopy, tipped to the side, pouring her out of its pot like a last drop of tea.
Her back struck a thick limb and pain sucked the breath from her lungs. She gasped for air as she slipped from the branch and plummeted downward at a horrific speed, branches tearing at her gown and scraping her tender skin.
Meredith registered the wide-eyed shock in Alexander Lamont’s eyes as she
careened toward him. Heaven help me! She squeezed her eyes shut.
Bloody hell.
His ribs were cracked. Maybe his spine too.
At the very least his new blue cut-away coat was ruined. He was lying in the dirt after all.
What in Hades had happened?
Alexander lifted his head from a clod of grass and focused his eyes on as most intriguing sight—a pair of bare female thighs traversing his middle.
Damn it all. No sooner had he vowed to remain celibate, to remain the veriest picture of decorum until marriage—or his father’s passing—when women bloody well started dropping from the sky.
Laying flat on his back, Alexander shoved a heavy branch from his shoulder and blew at the dew-dampened leaves sticking to his cheek. Every muscle smarted.
Slowly, he raised himself onto one elbow and marveled at the shapely woman who lay across his body in a crumpled mass of dark blue silk.
She wasn’t moving, and for a clutch of seconds, Alexander was quite certain that she had gone and died right there atop him. But then he noticed the rapid rise and fall of her chest, and was able to breathe easier himself.
“Miss?” He gave his hip a bit of a buck. Still she didn’t budge. “You’ve cut off the flow of blood to my legs. I say, can you move?”
No answer. This was looking worse by the moment.
He raised his right hand, and found it caught in a fine web of copper ringlets. Unable to disentangle himself, he finally wrenched his fingers through the hair, but his golden signet ring caught and snagged a long tendril.
He heard a groan, and suddenly he was looking into the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. Glaring blue eyes, the color and hardness of polished sapphires.
“Sir, do you intend to rip every strand from my head, or might you leave me a few?”
He didn’t reply. He knew better, for there was no right answer. Women were shrewd that way.
Besides, her delicate hands, the color of sweet cream, were already working to free her hair. When finally liberated, she pushed up from his chest—with unnecessary force, Alexander decided, for at once unbelievable shards of pain knifed through his ribs.
Leaning back on her boot heels, she stared down at him, wincing ever so slightly as she bit into her full, pink lower lip.
Framed by vibrant flaming hair, her oval face seemed unnaturally pale, save a scarlet scrape traversing her left cheek.
“Can you stand?” Her voice was soft with concern now and she lifted a hand to him. But there was anger in her eyes. Indeed, as well as something more palpable. Loathing?
How curious.
Planting his freed palm in the soft earth, Alexander raised himself to a painful sitting position, willing himself not to grimace.
A look of relief eased across the young woman’s delicate features. “I...I thank you for...cushioning my fall.” As she spoke, she rested her thumbs at either side of her waist and tentatively pressed her fingers to her spine. She sucked in a pained gasp. A twig snapped, and she raised her eyes to a point behind Alexander’s head. Then, he heard his new French acquaintance’s lilting voice.
“You and your pilot are lucky to have been spared, mademoiselle. Look at the balloon.”
Alexander glanced up into the guts of the oak, where he saw a large wicker basket, skewered by a thick limb.
There was a sudden thrash of leaves, and a weather-worn pilot dropped down from a wide branch and thudded down on a patch of damp earth nearby.
A burly fellow with a coil of rope looped around his shoulder and armpit, whom Alexander took to be the man’s tether handler, rushed forward through the trees, panting with exertion. “Is everyone w-well?”
“Aye, but we were just damned lucky.” The pilot turned any angry gaze on the fiery-haired lass. “I told ye we were too low,” he snarled, then shook a wild finger at the basket and the deflating balloon blanketing the tree’s soaring canopy. “And look at my Betsy now! Ye owe me, miss, owe me quite a lot!”
The young lady turned her frantic blue eyes from the pilot to Alexander.
“I. . .I—oh, dear.” She brought a hand to her cheek where three tiny beads of blood oozed up from the scarlet scrape, then her eyes turned back in her head and she crumpled back down atop him.
Forgetting his own pain, Alexander cradled her limp body in his arms. He looked from her wan features, rouged with that smear of blood upon one cheek, then gazed up to the pilot. “Do you know her name? Where she lives?”
“‘Er name’s Miss Merriweather,” the pilot offered. “Hails from Hanover Square or somewhere thereabouts.”
“Mon Dieu, is she going to die?”
Alexander looked up at the French woman as she collected then handed over what he took to be the miss’s belongings. “No, my dear. But I fear she requires assistance without delay.” Digging into his coat pocket, he fingered a cool coin and flipped it to his lovely new acquaintance. “This should see you home. I am sorry that I cannot help you with the stone in your boot, as you requested.”
“Merci, monsieur.” The dark-eyed mademoiselle caught the coin and with a grin, stuffed it into her bounteous cleavage. “And do not worry yourself about my boot. The stone will dislodge itself.” She flashed a coquettish smile his way. “But then, perhaps it won’t. Maybe you will be so kind as to come to ten Portman Square later this eve and check for me, oui?”
Alexander grinned, but kept to task and lifted the pale young lady into his arms. Stepping over the clutter of broken limbs and leaf-sprigged branches, he started down the footpath.
“Monsieur, where are you taking her?” the French woman called out, a tinge of worry licking her thickly accented words.
“Home,” Alexander shouted back over his shoulder. “I’m taking her home.”
Home, he’d said.
Sweet heavens, Meredith only hoped he meant her home—and not his own beastly lair. Lud, what a pickle she’d be in then.
As he strode quickly forward, his muscled arm excruciatingly tight around her sore back, Meredith held her eyes tightly closed and continued feigning unconsciousness.
Yes, it was deceitful, but there was no help for it. Only, she wished she had been brave enough to fling her herself onto her bruised back, instead of straight onto Lord Lansing’s middle again.
But the balloon pilot was about to expose her experiment, wasn’t he? She had to do something to stop him, and well, fainting was the first method that came to her mind. Her great aunt Viola, a kindred spirit if ever there was one, used this method whenever necessary and with great success. So why shouldn’t she?
Of course, Meredith hadn’t taken the time to think what events her fainting episode might set into motion. And now here she was in the arms of the most dangerous man in London, being...oh no. She sniffed the air and cringed inwardly. Anything but that.
Horses. She smelled horses. She heard the grunts and scuffles of the beasts. Her heart began to pound a terrified tattoo inside her chest.
He’d taken her to a stable of all places! Well, this little folly of hers had gone on long enough. She must end it this very instant!
In a most calculated manner, she allowed her head to loll lazily forward, until it struck a heavy button. Time for a murmur.
Add a little sigh. Lovely, lovely.
Eyelids flicker and . . .open.
Oh hellfire.
As she lifted her lids, Meredith found herself staring into dark mossy green eyes, ringed with a tea-hued band. The combination was not unique. Meredith was sure that she had seen it before. But somehow the welcoming warmth of these particular eyes made her want to plunge into their depths and wade there a while longer.
“I see you’ve come back to me.” Lord Lansing’s lips lifted and he leveled her with a smile that made her blood fizz and her body go all jelly-like.
A jolt of nervous realization skated through her limbs. Heavens! It was happening. She was being taken in by a rake—again!
Well, this time she wasn’t about to give herself over so easily. The humiliation and heartache had nearly killed her before. But it shan’t again!
Meredith glared up at him through narrowed eyes. “Sir, I implore you. Return me to my feet at once.” She snapped her fingers twice, as she’d seen her great aunt do when the servants were dawdling, but this only earned her an amused grin.
“‘Ere ye are, my lord. Brushed him down for ye, just how ye like.”
Meredith turned her head to see a stable hand leading forth the most gargantuan horse she’d ever seen. Its black hide gleamed almost blue, and even Meredith, who possessed an unnatural wariness—in truth, a horrible fear—of the beasts, had to admit this one was...well, rather spectacular.
In the next instant, Lord Lansing raised her up, as if she were no more than a feather (which with her heavy thighs and plump bottom, Meredith knew the reality was far from the truth)and settled her upon the great equine’s back.
“N-no!” Her hands shot outward and her fingers frantically clawed Lord Lansing’s sleeves. Her lips were quivering now.
“There, there, miss. You shan’t ride alone.” With that he cuffed his foot in the stirrup, swung a well-shaped leg over the horse’s back and came down on the saddle behind her. Then the rake scooted close and pulled her tightly against him.
Against him. Yes, that part of him. Why, against her thigh she could feel every heated...curve through those tight deerskin breeches men favored these days.
Heat washed across Meredith’s face, and given the milky whiteness of her countenance, she knew her cheeks probably glowed like hot embers in a hearth.
As he nudged the horse into a trot, Meredith reluctantly leaned her shoulder against his broad chest, and, resting one hand on his thigh for balance, she clutched his coat with the other.
He smiled down at her and sat up straighter in the saddle. It was at this moment that Meredith noticed his hair. Judging from the bit she could see beneath his hat, it was every bit as black as the horse’s swishing tail.
“Hanover Square, is that correct?”
The deep tone of his voice rumbled inside Meredith’s chest, sending a vibration clear through to her...well, never mind.
“I am quite capable of walking, sir. So if you’ll just let me—”
“Wouldn’t think of it, Miss Merriweather. I’ve made it a practice. Whenever a woman tumbles out of the sky into my lap, I always see her home to the safety of her family.” He turned his mesmerizing gaze upon her. “And the name is Lord Lansing.”
“I know who you are.” Meredith cocked her head and met his gaze. “All of London, those of the gentler sex anyway, know you. You, Lord Lansing, are London’s most notorious rogue.”
He laughed at that. “I fear you have me confused with another.”
“I daresay, I do not.”
“Ah, but you do. The Lord Lansing you refer to no longer exists. For you see, Miss Merriweather, I have reformed.”
Meredith snickered at his gall. “Well, nevertheless, given your former reputation, and my gentle status as an unmarried woman, it would be imprudent of me to remain in your company. So if you will just stop and let me down—”
“I do apologize, Miss Merriweather, but I will see you to your home. Remember, women falling from the sky?” He poked a single finger into the air. “It is a rule with me. I cannot divert.”
There was laughter in his voice, and in any other circumstance—and were he any other man—she might have smiled. But here she was, intimately pressed against London’s worst rake, riding toward Mayfair. And there was nothing she could do about it!
“When you were in the balloon, I could hear you urging the pilot into the trees. What were you doing up there?”
“W-what?” As Meredith readied a plausible excuse on her tongue, the rake reached beneath his coat and withdrew something brass. The minute the sun glinted on the lens, the blood inside her veins stopped flowing and for an instant, she was sure she really would faint.
“This telescope was beside you. Were you perhaps spying?”
“C-certainly not!” As the horse trotted along, the pain in Meredith’s back intensified, along with her anxiety. “I was… bird watching. Yes, and I thought I saw a very rare species in the trees.”
His lip twitched upward. “Really, I have done a bit of bird watching in my day. What species do you mean?”
Heat pulsed in Meredith’s earlobes. “The um… the scarlet rogue… finch.” Hesitantly, she glanced up at him and caught the last remnants of a grin.
“I can’t say that I am familiar with the rogue finch.”
“Well, as I said, it is quite rare.” Meredith turned her gaze and began to study, with utmost fascination, a narrow row house they were passing.
Heavens. Did she just see Lady Ashton peering through her parlor window at them? Why, if her own reputation was not already in the dustbin, this jaunt through Town would have confirmed her status as a ruined maid. It was only her aunts’ lofty standing in society that had prevented every drawing room door from being closed in her face—even though the event that had led to her downfall was not even the least bit her own fault.
Lord Lansing passed a handkerchief to Meredith. “For your cheek.”
Meredith nodded and silently pressed the linen to her face and dabbed away the blood.
“There, now I can see your pretty face.” He turned his smoldering gaze upon her, making Meredith feel rather warm. “Looks like the bleeding has stopped.”
“I am not surprised. The scratches are quite minor.” Meredith raised her finger.
“Turn here.”
Lord Lansing tugged gently at the right rein and his massive horse trotted into Hanover Square. Meredith at last felt a modicum of relief, which heightened the moment the rake stopped before Number Seventeen and leapt from the horse.
That is until she realized she’d been left atop the great beast, alone, with only the rake standing beside her.
Her fingers scrabbled for the saddle’s pommel and there she sat, trembling even as Lord Lansing raised his broad hands to her.
“Allow me to assist, Miss Merriweather. Just let go of the saddle.”
Her eyes went wide in her head. “I...I...cannot,” she stammered. The horse was going to bolt, she just knew it.
Suddenly, she felt his warm hands encircle her waist.
“I’ve got you now. Just relax your fingers.”
But Meredith could not reply. She was shaking so badly that her teeth were chattering inside her head.
Just then the front door opened and her two great aunts, the ladies Letitia and Viola Featherton stepped outside.
“Gracious, gel,” her turnip-shaped aunt Letitia quipped, “What are you doing atop that huge horse, Meredith? Come down at once!”
Still Meredith could not manage a single word in reply. Instead she stared mutely back at her aunts and clacked her teeth at them.
“Sister, look at her fingers. They’re as white as frost. The poor child is frozen with fear.”
“I can see that, Viola. Which is why I wish for her to dismount.” Then her aunt Letitia caught the rake in her sights. “You, sir. You’re a big fellow. Will you pull her from the saddle? Just give her a good hard yank. We’ve seen her like this before. I fear there will be no talking her down.”
Lord Lansing gave her aunt a curt nod then looked at Meredith. “Are you prepared?”
Meredith’s teeth played castanets in response. Lud, how mortifying!
“Very well then, off you go.” His fingers tightened around her waist and with one clean jerk, Meredith’s grip on the saddle broke.
An instant later, she was standing on her own two feet on the flag way before her aunts’ fashionable Mayfair townhouse.
In perfect rakish form, Lord Lansing offered Meredith his arm, which she had no desire but little choice to take. Then, appearing to be the most well mannered of gentlemen, he escorted her up the few steps to her aunts.
Not wishing her aunts to fret, Meredith turned her face toward Lord Lansing, hoping hide her injured cheek from the old ladies.
“Though I reside not far from here,” the rake spoke to Letitia and Viola as they reached the top of he stairs, “I daresay, we have not traveled in the same circles. My ladies, allow me please to introduce myself. I am Alexander Lamont...Lord Lansing.” He bowed before the two old ladies, and they each bobbed a quick curtsy in response. “I believe you are acquainted with my father, the Earl of Harford.”
“But of course. I vow, it’s been several years since our paths have not crossed since he moved to the country.” Aunt Letitia turned to her sister. “Viola, of course you remember young Lord Lansing here.”
“I do indeed. And I own, you are the mirror image of your father in his youth. Quite remarkable, really.” Viola smiled brightly, even as Meredith noticed the briefest look of horror on Lansing’s handsome face and surmised that her aunt’s well-meant compliment had not been taken as such. “How do you do, Lord Lansing?”
“Quite well actually. Though I fear that my visit this day is not a pleasant one. Your—” He nodded toward Meredith then.
“Our grandniece.” The snowy-haired pair replied together.
“Your grandniece suffered a tremendous fall less than thirty minutes past and I am not convinced she did not sustain some degree of injury.” With great boldness, he reached out a hand and laid it, comfortingly, upon Viola’s bony arm. “You see, she fell from a hot-air balloon, through an oak tree.”
Both aunts snapped their heads around to Meredith.
“Are you injured, dear?” Aunt Viola asked, reaching out and drawing Meredith away from Lord Lansing and to her side.
Meredith opened her lips and, to her great relief, her teeth were no longer marching. “No Auntie. I merely scraped by cheek a bit, and my back is a little sore. Otherwise I am perfectly well, I assure you.”
Aunt Viola studied Meredith for a moment, as if doubting her wellness.
There was no hiding the scrape on her cheek, but Meredith was not about to let her aunt know that her throbbing back burned like a branding iron. Viola, who always worried overmuch, would see her to abed for a week or more. And she had to much to do.
“Do not fret about me, Auntie. It is true, I might have been gravely injured when I fell from the balloon...had this brave gentleman not cushioned my landing with his own body.” She turned her gaze to Lord Lansing and forced a smile.
“Oh, how gallant you are, Lord Lansing!” Her aunt Letitia exclaimed, moving forward to squeeze his forearm. But then, she took note of the man’s earth-marred coat beneath her fingers and grimaced. “I do hope young Meredith did not cause you any distress, my lord. I daresay, she is a spirited gel and is always getting up to some mischief or another.”
Meredith softly groaned her displeasure, quieting when her Aunt Viola gave her a hard, covert pinch.
“Why after all you’ve been through, my lord,” her twig-thin Aunt Viola began, “you must come inside and join us for a restorative.”
“As much as I would enjoy joining you, madam, I am afraid I have another pressing matter that requires my attention.”
No doubt, Meredith mused. Pressing a certain French courtesan to a mattress would be her guess. Oh, she knew his sort all too well. No matter, Giselle would tell her all about it the next morn.
Lord Lansing pulled a visiting card from a concealed pocket in his dirt-encrusted coat and pressed it into Meredith’s hand.
“Should you have further need of my services, Miss Merriweather, please do not hesitate to send for me.”
He flashed her a brilliant, knee-weakening smile.
With a slow nod to her and a quick one to each of her aunts, Lord Lansing, the rake, bid them all farewell, leapt upon his massive horse and galloped from the square.
Her elderly aunts released pleased sighs.
Aunt Letitia caught Meredith’s shoulder and hobbled along beside her toward the door. “My, he is a handsome devil, isn’t he?”
“Indeed he is,” Meredith murmured. “But then, they always are.”
“Still, I feel I must caution you against forming a connection with the gentleman—for any reason—as I have heard rumors that in truth he is no gentleman at all.”
Aunt Viola wrapped her thin fingers around Meredith’s upper arm, but as they entered the house and turned into the parlor it was her sister she addressed. “What a thing to say, Letitia. You must have heard, Lord Lansing has reformed. And you know what the ladies say...a reformed rake makes the very best husband.”
“Nonsense!” Meredith exhaled her breath. “I for one do not believe it for a moment.”
Aunt Letitia widened her faded blue eyes then shook her head at her sister, who winced when she took her meaning.
“Of course a good, sensible gentleman, like your Mr. Chillton, dear, should always be a lady’s first choice.” A wisp of a giggle slipped through Viola’s lips then. “I only meant that a reformed rake, might know how...well...to please his wife.”
Aunt Letitia chuckled heartily at that, until she toppled back against the settee beside her sister and gasped for breath.
Finally, as the two elderly ladies quieted, Meredith crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin proudly.
“That may be, Auntie, but I am afraid no woman will ever know for certain—because there is no such thing as a reformed rake.”
Aunt Letitia lifted her thick white brows. “You seem quite sure of that, my dear.”
“I am.” Meredith gave herself a secret little smile. She crossed the room, withdrew a red leather book of notes from the desk and laid it on the table before her aunts.
Aunt Viola wrinkled her nose. “Dear, I thought when you met Mr. Chillton, you gave up all notions of your guidebook.”
“Yes, Chillton is truly a good and responsible gentleman and I was lucky to make his acquaintance,” Meredith began with a sputter, absolutely shocked that her aunts had so underestimated her dedication to her cause. “But my recent good fortune doesn’t lessen the need to warn other young ladies of the dangers London’s rakes and rogues may present. You cannot have forgotten what Lord Pomeroy did to me.” A tremor vibrated through Meredith the moment she spoke his name, making her feel vulnerable, making her feel weak. How she hated that a man and one horrible moment from her past could hold such dominion over her.
“No, dear, we have not forgotten. Viola and I know that focusing on your guidebook helped you through some very painful, desperate times.”
Then her aunts exchanged ‘the glance’. Meredith hated that even more than feeling weak. For it was the same look of pity Society gave her whenever she had the courage to leave the house. It was also all the more reason for her to finish the guidebook. Why, if she could spare even one woman the pain of being pitied, of being shunned, all of her hard work, her scandalous research, would be well worth it.
Aunt Letitia rose and lifted the book of notes from the table. “But you are happy now, dear. You have the eye of a most respectable man of business.” Aunt Letitia opened Meredith’s notebook and read the heavily inked title page. “And yet still you are continuing to research A Lady’s Guide to Rakes.”
“I am.” Meredith pinned her aunt with the most serious of gazes. “Don’t you understand? I must continue my investigations. Indeed, I must amplify them. For after more than two years of hard work, my guidebook is nearly complete. And with Lord Lansing—the most notorious rake of them all—as my final subject, I intend to finish before the season ends.”
End of excerpt.
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