How to Tame a Rake

HOW TO TAME A RAKE

By

Maggi Andersen

© copyright by Maggi Andersen, February 2009
Cover Art by Alex DeShanks, February 2009
ISBN 978-1-60394-281-2
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

England

Northumberland

Summer, 1850

Willy threw the ball back to the tow-haired boy. “I declare you have finally exhausted me, Andrew,” she called. “I beg you allow me retire to rest. I am not as young as I once was, you know.”

This remark drew a laugh and a shake of the head from the gardener pruning the shrubbery. Eight-year old Andrew caught the ball and ran back to the neighboring house through a well-worn hole in the hedge.

Willy walked across the lawns towards the two-storey farmhouse where late-blooming pink roses climbed a trellis on its creamy walls. She heard her father call her name and gathered up muslin skirts, running lightly over the ground, her bonnet bouncing on her shoulders by its green ribbon.

Jeremy Corbet, a tall, lean man with the greying, fair hair, stood in the doorway.

Willy put a hand to her chest and gasped. “What is it, Father?”

“Come into the library, Wilhelmina.” He held a letter in his hand. “I have news for you.”

“My, you look so grave. I hope no one has died?”

He stood aside for her to pass. “It’s wonderful news, Willy.”

Her serious grey eyes searched his. “Then why don’t you look pleased?”

“Come, I wish to talk to you alone. When your inquisitive sisters get wind of it, I won’t get a word in.”

Willy raised her brows. When he offered no more information, she hurried into the library.

London, Autumn

Blake, Viscount Dangerfield rolled over in bed. The movement of the sheet uncovered a breast and he bent to kiss it.

“You’re not leaving?” a sleepy voice asked. The woman turned her head toward him. He thought her face pretty, if a bit too knowing. She always made him laugh, and laughter did not come easily to him these days. She tossed her red hair off her shoulders, displaying her best assets to his gaze.

“I have to go into the country and I’m late already.” He ran his hands appreciatively across her soft belly.

“Not quite yet.” She leaned over and touched him, smiling at his immediate response.

He threw off the sheet, his intention made clear in his expressive blue eyes, causing her to gasp with delight.

Blake rode out of the woods into a kaleidoscope of autumn color. Wind-blown clouds sent shadows racing across the massive roof of Hawkeswood as it perched on a ridge below a washed-out sky. The majestic house had housed his ancestors for centuries. Four stories of gray and redbrick decorated in ivy were reflected in the ruffled waters of the lake. He knew every detail of the view from its six-foot paned windows, the woodlands, the deer park and the green fields dotted with the estate’s grazing sheep and cattle.

He rode up the lane toward the stable quadrangle. When he reached the avenue bordered by clipped hedges, he dismounted and walked his horse. All this was now his after the recent death of his detested father. Apart from sound of birdcalls and the clip-clop of his horse’s hooves, it was quiet after the rumble of London, but that just allowed sad memories of a lonely childhood to crowd his thoughts.