Page 105 of A Story of Love

“I’m in no hurry, Fast.”

He sighed and resumed his story, “From a young age Percy was always a bit fragile. If there was an influenza in the neighborhood, he would catch it. And his afflictions were always more severe. When he was seventeen, he developed scarlatina and we thought he was going to die.” Fast still felt an anxious clenching in his belly at the memory—even though it was more than twenty years ago, and his twin was long dead.

“He recovered but he was bedridden for months. He was never robust afterward and the doctors said his heart had been damaged by the long illness. They said he would have a longer life if he lived more carefully.” He snorted. “I’m sure you can imagine how that advice was received by a seventeen-year-old man who carried the expectations of his entire family on his shoulders. Rather than comply with the advice, he rebelled. He was determined to live life to the fullest. I know it’s no excuse for his behavior, but—to be fair to Percy—he never wanted me to assume any of the responsibility for his offspring; I was the one who insisted. By the time the first child was born I had already been thrown out of Eton and refused to go to university. Instead, I was embracing a life of reckless hedonism and getting up to far more trouble than Percy ever would. I was running headlong into disaster as my father had done before me. I refused to listen to anyone and had a head like a brick”—he smiled when she laughed— “that’s not an exaggeration. I was like a wild animal, out of control and heedless of any attempts to rein in my behavior.”

He raised his empty glass. “Would you like another?”

She shook her head.

Once he’d refilled his drink he dropped into his chair with a sigh. “Unlike me, Percy rarely gambled, never outspent his allowance, didn’t engage in public—and scandalous—wagers, and obeyed our grandfather like a good grandson should. The only arena in which he could not seem to exercise any restraint was when it came to women.”

Fast sipped his whiskey, allowing thoughts of his twin to take possession of his mind, not something he permitted very often as it always left him feeling gutted and dispirited.

“My brother loved women, and they loved him right back.” He smiled wryly. “He was the handsome one.”

“Oh,” she said, clearly nonplussed. “I thought you were identical.”

He chuckled. “I was jesting; we were identical, although after he was ill it was easy to tell us apart. When I say he was the handsome one, I mean that he had a sweetness—a gentleness—about him that attracted people.”

He swirled the amber liquid in the glass, his eyes on the past. “Women were mad for him, and because my grandfather kept him close—denying him a university education to keep him swaddled in cotton wool at home—the women he met were those who lived on the family estates.” Fast looked up and met her gaze. “I can see the disapproval in your eyes.”

“It’s not for me to approve or disapprove,” she said, but didn’t deny his accusation. “But I still don’t see why you thought you should take the blame?”

“At first, I did it for our mother. She’d had such a horrid time with my father and her greatest fear was that we’d both turn out to be just like him. Percy was her favorite—and my grandfather’s as well—and it would have killed her to know he’d followed in our father’s footsteps. She was very ill for most of our childhood and died when we were barely sixteen. By that time my reputation as a hell-born babe was fixed and it was just easier to go on as I’d begun.”

“You mean with you taking all the blame because you were the King of the Rakes,” she said, the irony in her voice telling Fast that she had gone from thinking him a complete villain to shifting a large part of the blame to his dead brother.

“Believe me, Lorelei, while I did not father any children, I committed plenty of other sins to justify my reputation.”

She pursed her lips, as if she were holding something in.

“What is it?”

“I’m starting to question your King of the Rakes façade entirely. For days I’ve spoken to the women who work here. I’ve heard horrific things—stories of degradation, exploitation, and tragedy. But not once have you figured into any of those stories as anything other than a port in a storm. In fact, you most often feature as a savior.”

“Keep in mind they are my employees, so they have to say that, or I might decide to sack them.”

“That’s a lie, too. It took me a good deal of time and effort, but I finally got the truth out of Catherine Marlowe. She started off insisting you were the owner here. Only when the holes in her story began to grow did she finally confess that you signed this business over to her, with an agreement that she share any profits with the other employees, regardless of how humble a position they occupy. All you have ever asked for is that this set of rooms be at your disposal while you do whatever it is that you are doing down here at the docks. Which is not smuggling or anything else illegal as far as I can tell. Just what are you doing?”

“I’m disappointed in Catherine,” he said, ignoring her question. “I asked her to keep our business arrangement confidential. And yet you managed to weasel it out of her.”

“Why do you want people to believe the worst about you?”

“I never said I did.”

“You certainly don’t try to set anyone straight.”

“No, that is true.” Fast knew he shouldn’t encourage that admiring glitter in her gaze, but he had to admit that it was far better than the way she’d looked at him before she knew the truth. “I might not be the villain others believed me to be, but my thoughts about you—and the things I’d like to do to you—are less than sterling.”

The ivory column of her throat flexed as she swallowed hard. And then swallowed again. “You mean things like the night before you left?” she asked, her voice amusingly squeaky.

“That was only the beginning of what I want to do to you.”

Her lips parted and Fast could hear the hitch in her breathing even from where he sat.

“Is Lady Mansfield your lover?”

“If you’re asking me whether I engaged in sexual relations with her while I was at her house party, the answer is no. Nor did I visit anyone else’s room. The only woman I want is you, Lorelei.”