Page 72 of The Rake's Daughter
His father had been driven mad trying to trace her movements until eventually he learned she’d drowned in the Mediterranean, along with her lover, when their yacht had sunk. It was the news of her death that had brought on the apoplexy. Yet it was clear to Leo that despite her infidelities, his father still loved her. Or at least was obsessed with her.
Leo’s biggest fear was that, like his father, he’d love not wisely but too well.
“Your disillusionment with your mother almost destroyed you. And then you fell into the toils of the beauteous but ghastly Lavinia. But you can’t judge all women by the example of your mother or the Ledbetter chit.”
“I know that,” Leo said.
“Really?” Race persisted. “And yet you condemned Miss Isobel out of hand simply because her nosy neighbor appeared out of nowhere while you were kissing her. It’s my guess that you enjoyed that kiss far too much for your own comfort. Which made you feel vulnerable. And so you reacted badly.”
Leo gritted his teeth. That was the trouble with old friends; they thought they knew you so well. But they weren’t always right.
Vulnerable? He hadn’t felt the slightest bit vulnerable. What nonsense.
He was perfectly entitled to be annoyed about that wretched female interrupting them in the summerhouse. And if he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion, well, it was understandable, given the way women stalked him.
Understandable, but unfortunate.
Anyway, Race was one to talk about trusting women—he was notorious for flitting from female to female like a buzzing bee. Race would never settle down with just one woman. At least Leo had tried once, even if it was a failure. Race had never even approached the idea of a betrothal.
“When I marry, it will be because I must, for the sake of an heir. And I decided long ago to choose with my head, not my heart. A girl with no particular beauty—someone ordinary but pleasant looking, a girl who won’t be a temptation to other men. A respectable girl, one that I can trust.”
“I’ve never heard anything so depressing.”
Leo rolled his eyes. “Says the deeply cynical rake. But you’ll marry eventually, won’t you?”
Race lifted a weary shoulder. “One must for the sake of the succession, but... I haven’t yet met the right woman.”
Leo frowned. “You’re not... not holding out for love, are you? You, the famous rake?”
Race gave him a dry look and sipped his coffee. “Don’t be ridiculous. And don’t change the subject. We’re nottalking about me. In any case, you and I are different. And it’s clear to me that you haven’t yet understood.”
“Understood what?”
“That love is the prize. The ultimate prize.”
Leo stared at him a moment, then snorted. It was rich, his famously rakish friend lecturing him about love. “You’re mistaken. Love doesn’t last. And worse, it’s dangerous. Look at my father—he was besotted with my mother and thought she felt the same about him. And how well did that turn out?” He swirled the coffee in his cup and added quietly, “Love destroyed him.”
Race inclined his head, conceding the truth of that. “It does have the power to destroy, but that only makes true love all the more precious.” He glanced toward the window and said reminiscently, “I remember my mother saying once that love is like a garden. If you neglect it, the bloom will wither on the vine, and love will die of starvation. That’s when the weeds creep in and take over.” He added with faint, sardonic amusement, “Naturally, having been one of those weeds, I understand how it works.”
Leo stared. His oldest friend and he’d never seen this side of him. “Good God, don’t tell me—you can’t be—you’re not aromantic, are you?”
Arching a cynical eyebrow, Race snorted. “What do you think?”
Leo nodded and sat back. Race, a romantic? It was a ridiculous notion.
Race added, “But you are.”
“What rot. I am not.”
Race shook his head. “Beneath that cynical shell you affect, there’s the beating heart of a romantic.”
“What rubbish! I’m as romantic as”—Leo looked around for inspiration—“as that coal scuttle over there.”
“Ah, but dust that coal scuttle off, polish it up—it’s brass and copper, I think—and it will shine. And set a light to its contents and the coal will glow with passion.”
Leo snorted. “You’re drunk. Or infected with poetry, and I don’t know which is worse.”
Race laughed again. “We’re drinking coffee. You forget that I knew the little boy who gallantly fought every schoolboy—no matter how much bigger—in defense of his sainted mother’s reputation.”
