Page 28 of The Rake
“Well, I must say, I do pride myself on my success rate with my girls,” she said, her voice confiding but with an unmistakable edge of pride to it. “I always manage to find my charges someone, but even I would never have considered Langley. Ever.”
“Given what he himself has always said on marriage, you would never think he would fall prey.”
“It is always the most arrogant who fall in love the hardest,” Mrs. Bowley said. Langley froze, his eyes moving away from Margot and towards the plant, where his bad name was beingreformed. His well made, fortified, and long ago created aura as a libertine was being dissected and destroyed. Simply for helping Margot.
Weakly Margot cut in, “I’m sure I don’t know what they’re referring to. No one thinks we are… involved. They know you are simply?—”
Abruptly, Langley bowed to her, his movements stiff as he pivoted and walked away from Margot. He had clung to his bad name for all it was worth—it was something of a rebellion. He enjoyed, hell, he even loved being so free. Now it seemed as if thetonhad simply been waiting for him to break when the right woman batted her eyes at him. Fury beat through him as he reached the doors of the salon and flung them open. His mind whispering to him,surely you knew the risk of escorting her. And what?He had simply believed that no one would think him sincere. With a daunting, unpleasant realisation he saw that was precisely what he had expected. He had utterly overestimated his own abilities and underestimated theton’s desire to see everyone wed.
In the mansion’s hallway, there was a gathered collection of young bucks, one of whom Langley recognised as Laird Lionel Fleming, one of the frequent visitors to his previous orgies. Fleming’s eyes lit up when he spotted Langley, and he gave an ironic tilt of his head in greeting.
With forced sanguinity Langley ambled forward, trying not to think about the conversation he had just overheard. Not dwelling on his freshly ruined reputation, or the look Margot had just given him as he’d departed—one of hurt and reproach.
The gentlemen shifted to welcome him into their circle, and Fleming slapped his shoulder in greeting. Langley tried to feel as if he were pleased to be back in the masculine company, rather than simply wishing to hurry next door to Margot.
“Did you hear about the race on Friday?”
There were a few murmured voices, which Langley was only partly listening to as the talk moved away to bets that had been placed, and who had been humiliated.
“How about you, Langley?” an insolent voice drawled, and Langley turned to look at a gentleman he vaguely recognised. “Provided, of course, you are not too caught in the parson’s mousetrap by then.”
The other three gentlemen present laughed, but Fleming jumped to his defence. “No, no, not Langley. Perhaps Miss Keating is simply…” The laird cast a desperate look at Langley, but nothing witty occurred to him. That sort of anger at the implication of what had been said was beating through him—all he wanted was a moment where she was not on his mind, where he did not have to think about Margot.
With a diplomatic shrug, Langley did not reply. He was done with being laughed at, considered a lost romantic cause for a woman who whilst he sometimes thought might be attracted to him, had given him no real encouragement. She would leave when those keys were found or when Ashmore’s heir arrived, and Langley would be the one left behind, forced to rebuild himself and deal with a society now convinced he simply needed the right woman.
His movement caused an outbreak of laughter. There was a caustic ring to the guffaws as the men took whatever lewd meaning they wanted to from the gesture. Let them think he was tupping her. Let them think he was fucking Mrs. Bowley—what did Langley care? This had always previously been his attitude towards affairs, so why did it taste so bitter in his mouth now?
“Wait, wait… perhaps Langley is simply onto something special. I’ve never been with such a tall one,” slurred one of the men, Sir Patrick Elliot, a baronet that Langley did not know well, “or a chit who is so clearly on the shelf. I would imagine she is sufficiently eager, begging heh?”
As someone not often prone to violence, Langley could vividly imagine grabbing Elliot by the scruff of his neck and watching the baronet’s square face turning a glorious red, until the gentleman dropped to his knees, spluttering, and swore to never mention Miss Keating’s name again. That would be satisfying. But if Langley did that he might as well go and propose to Margot immediately.
So, he settled for a sneer as he tried to calm this new sort of anger festering inside him. It was a strange, painful rawness that was pumping through his body as he looked at the pitiful baronet. “Surely—” He looked around at the gathered gentlemen. “—you know me better than to think I would do anything to fuel such rumours. I never have before. With any of the others. Why would I now? There is nothing special about one woman.” It was Langley’s general line, to never talk about the ladies he had fucked. He never needed to—women liked to gossip about him enough on their own.
To this the remaining gentleman laughed, enjoying the full implication. Deciding he had had enough, Langley shifted and saw that the doorway had opened, and saw the tall figure hesitating at the frame. It was his Amazon, Margot. She must have overheard his comments to the group.
Cursing internally, Langley moved with quick steps, breaking away from the gentlemen and back towards her lingering form. She released the doorhandle and stepped away when their eyes met. Langley reached the door and walked through after her.
Margot stood still in the shadows and Langley was grateful to see she had not rushed away, nor had Mrs. Bowley, who was close by, moved nearer. He would resent Mrs. Bowley for this evening, but it was in part his fault for not making his position clearer. Not that he was entirely sure of his own position…
“I assume that you overheard a private conversation?” Langley asked.
Her bright eyes were sharp, and her face took on a judgemental consideration. “Did you try to keep it quiet? It is a public hallway in which you threw my good name to the dogs through implication. Isn’t it important that everyone know we are not attached? Perhaps you can stand on the musical stage now and declare far and wide you would never marry me? Would that make you happy?”
Guilt rumbled through his stomach, and Langley wished he had gone with his initial instinct and strangled Elliot. Perhaps that would have at least meant he didn’t have to face Margot’s reaction.
“What you seem to have failed to consider is that I would never agree to wed you,” Margot said as she moved a step closer to him. Her eyes were fixated on him, and he could see the ferocity alight, buried within the green shades. “I would much rather remain the stale old maid that I am than be married to a man who would never know the value of fidelity, or love, or any good thing that might come from such a union.”
“Then we are in agreement,” Langley said, ignoring any of her slights. After all, she was hurt, and women would frequently lash out when slighted. Besides, he didn’t care. She was simply stating something he had always agreed with—those were sentiments he himself clung to. No, he would never marry, he had never wished to. Yet his Amazon had rejected him out of hand, before he had even asked, which he thought now was a little brutal of her.
Margot stopped. She sniffed and adjusted herself. Smoothing out the gloves and then the skirts of her long gold dress. Unable to help himself, Langley admired her figure, all refined elegance. He realised he desperately wanted to explore her frame with his hands, fingers, mouth, and tongue. “Indeed,” she said, cutting into his lustful thoughts. “What a relief that we are both soaligned. Neither of us would ever be tempted to enter such a disastrous arrangement.”
He could see she might give him the cut direct and depart, but swiftly Langley held up his hand, stopping Margot in her tracks before she could scurry back to Mrs. Bowley’s side.
“No matter what the provocation?” he asked. “Do you think we will always be so aligned?”
“Given that I all but overheard you stating to your friends that I am your mistress?—”
“At most it was a lazy implication,” Langley defended himself, even though to his ears it sounded pathetic. “Besides, you knew the risk when you chose to involve me. I have never lied…” Other than about his blatant interest in her, but that did not need to be mentioned presently. “I always said I would never wed.”
