The Rake's Inherited Courtesan. Ann Lethbridge

      Christopher paused on the front step of the inn and lit his cigar. The night air cooled his cheeks after the Bird in Hand’s blazing fire and his argument with Miss Boisette. Abstracted, he ran a hand over the thick wooden door, the raised studs and black iron bands rough beneath his fingertips. Hard to imagine that the man who had built this door had died more than two centuries ago and the tree from which he carved it had probably grown for two centuries before that. Those were times of knights and lords and deeds of daring. What would those men think of this world now?

      The faint haze of his smoky breath drifted in front of his face. He drew on his cigar and savoured the acrid burn on his tongue and the mellow aroma in his nostrils. He needed a walk to restore some sort of order to his body and his mind before he retired for the night.

      He left the warm light of the inn and strode down the tree-arched lane, stretching muscles cramped from the journey. Amidst the sparse spring leaves of the canopy above his head, stars winked their steel-bright messages in a stygian sky.

      A wooden stile broke a gap in the dense hedgerow and he leaned against its rail. The full moon hovered yellow, fat and lazy above the horizon. Scattered lights twinkled along the dark slash of river valley meandering through rolling meadows.

      He’d wandered this countryside as a boy while quarantined from disease-ridden London and his family. They had visited him here at his grandparents’ estate from time to time, but his father had insisted on residing in London.

      He stared into the gloom, trying to identify boyhood haunts. He and Garth had ridden this country hard during school holidays. He grimaced. More often than not, Garth had been flogged for some of their more daring exploits, always taking the punishment for leading Christopher astray. He hadn’t needed much leading. But deemed too sickly to receive his share of the blame, Garth had taken it for both of them. Garth never seemed to care, but he had ceased to spend much time at Hedly Hall once he went away to school and Christopher hadn’t visited it in years. Too busy keeping on top of his business interests.

      An owl hooted. Distant hooves beat the familiar rhythm of a gallop on the hard-packed earth. The drumming stopped, heralding a late-night visitor to the inn.

      His mind flew back to Sylvia, the gorgeous vision of sensual womanhood he had seen in Dover, the frightened, but determined, girl at the Sussex Hotel. He smothered a curse. Stubborn woman. She had him out here pacing in the night air while she no doubt was tucked up in bed, dreaming of London, with a gown of the sheerest muslin covering every lithe inch of her. He grimaced. He didn’t care what kind of gown she wore; he wanted to see it on her. He wanted to slide it from her alabaster skin the way she’d stripped off her gloves. He wanted what lay beneath.

      His arousal, a low controlled thrumming during dinner, spiked with urgent need. What the hell was the matter with him? He never had any trouble controlling his base urges when confronted with members of the opposite sex. Not even the most famous of London’s courtesans had heated his blood to the point he could think of nothing but slaking his lust inside her delicious body.

      No matter how dull the attire covering her enticing curves, the longer he spent in her company, the more he wanted to explore her swells and hollows.

      He groaned. He’d have more success knocking out Gentleman Jackson than battering his loins’ demands into submission. Damn John Evernden for foisting the wench on him.

      No one need know if she became his mistress. The idea lit in his mind like a beacon. In London the news would make the rounds in a heartbeat, but tucked away at his country house in Kent, their liaison would be discreet enough. No one would know he’d taken his uncle’s ward under his protection.

      He would know. And Garth would accuse him of hypocrisy the moment he guessed. He closed his eyes in silent contempt. Was he as bad as the rest of the Evernden men when it came to loose women?

      Damn. There had been enough scandal in the Evernden family and he had sworn not to add to it.

      He dropped the remains of his cigar, a smouldering red spark in the night, and ground it beneath his heel as if quenching the fire in his veins. If only it were that easy. He turned and strode for the inn.

      What the hell should he do with her, then? The thought of a bordello chilled his blood. A lady’s maid? A seamstress? Apparently, she had some talent in that direction.

      Idiot. She was French. A married friend had complained bitterly about the cost of his French governess. If, as Christopher suspected, this friend in London proved to be a hum, why not palm her off on some country squire seeking to elevate the prospects of his hopeful brood?

      Because he wanted her.

      Hell fire. A wry smile twisted his lips at the way his mind bent towards the urgings of his body.

      He rounded the bend. A lantern lit the sign of the Bird, a clenched fist with only the head of a bright-eyed robin visible. The door lay open, but the parlour window was dark and blank.

      What would Mrs Dorkin say if he requested a tub of cold water to be sent to his chamber? She’d likely think he’d run mad and predict his death from pneumonia.

      Tension locked his spine and he rubbed the back of his neck. A good strong brandy before bed would relax him and take the edge off the want clawing at the heart of his resolve.

      Maybe two.

      A brown gelding lifted its head from the trough on the stable wall. A nice beast, perhaps a little long in the leg, it had been ridden hard judging from the steam rising from its flanks.

      Christopher ducked his head beneath the lintel and made his way through a narrow passage to the back of the house and the dimly lit taproom. Behind the long bar, Jack Dorkin, jolly and fat on his wife’s cooking, greeted him with a nod.

      Dorkin put down a pewter tankard and his drying cloth. ‘Something for you, Mr Evernden?’

      ‘A brandy, please. Make it a double.’

      Dorkin lifted a bottle and shook it. ‘I’ll have to go to the cellar,’ he muttered. ‘Won’t be but a moment, sir.’ He swung up a trapdoor in the floor and clattered down the steps.

      Christopher leaned one arm on the battered oak bar. A couple of country labourers in traditional smocks, clay pipes clamped in whiskered jaws, clacked domino tiles in swift sure movements. An occasional chuckle or mutter indicated the state of play. A shepherd, his dog at his feet, nursed a tankard on the settle beside the red brick medieval hearth. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement in the shadows at the far end of the bar. In a pool of light cast by an oil lamp, a square strong hand, the wrist covered by the cuff of dark green coat, lifted a mug. The horseman.