Together, they must decide what they’re willing to risk for love.
THE RUIN OF A RAKE
Cat Sebastian
Releasing July 4, 2017
Avon Impulse
Rogue.
Libertine. Rake. Lord Courtenay has been called many things and has never much
cared. But after the publication of a salacious novel supposedly based on his
exploits, he finds himself shunned from society. Unable to see his nephew, he
is willing to do anything to improve his reputation, even if that means
spending time with the most proper man in London.
Julian Medlock has spent years becoming the epitome of correct behavior. As far as he cares, if Courtenay finds himself in hot water, it’s his own fault for behaving so badly—and being so blasted irresistible. But when Julian’s sister asks him to rehabilitate Courtenay’s image, Julian is forced to spend time with the man he loathes—and lusts after—most.
As Courtenay begins to yearn for a love he fears he doesn’t deserve, Julian starts to understand how desire can drive a man to abandon all sense of propriety. But he has secrets he’s determined to keep, because if the truth came out, it would ruin everyone he loves. Together, they must decide what they’re willing to risk for love.
Julian Medlock has spent years becoming the epitome of correct behavior. As far as he cares, if Courtenay finds himself in hot water, it’s his own fault for behaving so badly—and being so blasted irresistible. But when Julian’s sister asks him to rehabilitate Courtenay’s image, Julian is forced to spend time with the man he loathes—and lusts after—most.
As Courtenay begins to yearn for a love he fears he doesn’t deserve, Julian starts to understand how desire can drive a man to abandon all sense of propriety. But he has secrets he’s determined to keep, because if the truth came out, it would ruin everyone he loves. Together, they must decide what they’re willing to risk for love.
Excerpt
London,
1817
Julian pursed his lips as he gazed at the
symmetrical brick façade of his sister’s house. It was every bit as bad as he
had feared. He could hear the racket from the street, for God’s sake. He pulled
the brim of his hat lower on his forehead, as if concealing his face would go
any distance toward mitigating the damage done by his sister having turned her
house into a veritable brothel. Right in the middle of Mayfair, and at eleven
in the morning, when the entire ton
was on hand to bear witness to her degradation, no less. Say what one wanted
about Eleanor—and at this moment Julian could only imagine what was being
said—but she did not do things by halves.
As he climbed the steps to her door, the
low rumble of masculine voices drifted from an open second story window.
Somebody was playing a pianoforte—badly—and a lady was singing out of key.
No, not a lady. Julian suppressed a sigh. Whoever these women were in his
sister’s house, they were not ladies. No lady in her right mind would consort
with the sort of men Eleanor had been entertaining lately. Every young buck
with a taste for vice had made his way to her house over these last weeks,
along with their mistresses or courtesans or whatever one was meant to call
them. And the worst of them, the blackguard who had started Eleanor on her path
to becoming a byword for scandal, was Lord Courtenay.
A shiver trickled down Julian’s spine at
the thought of encountering the man, and he could not decide whether it was
from simple, honest loathing or something much, much worse.
The door swung open before Julian had
raised his hand to the knocker.
“Mr. Medlock, thank goodness.” The look of
abject relief on the face of Eleanor’s butler might have struck Julian as
vaguely inappropriate under any other circumstance. But considering the tableau
that presented itself in Eleanor’s vestibule, the butler’s informality hardly
registered.
Propped against the elegantly papered wall,
a man in full evening dress snored peacefully, a bottle of brandy cradled in
his arms and a swath of bright crimson silk draped across his leg. A lady’s
gown, Julian gathered. The original wearer of the garment was, mercifully, not
present.
“I came as soon as I received your
message.” Julian had not been best pleased to receive a letter from his
sister’s butler, of all people, begging that he return to London ahead of
schedule. Having secured a coveted invitation to a very promising house party,
he was loath to leave early in order to evict a set of bohemians and reprobates
from his sister’s house.
“The cook is threatening to quit, sir,”
said the butler. Tilbury, a man of over fifty who had been with Eleanor since
she and Julian had arrived in England, had gray circles under his eyes. No
doubt the revels had interrupted his sleep. “And I’ve already sent all but
the—ah—hardiest of the housemaids to the country. It wouldn’t do for them to be
imposed upon. I’d never forgive myself.”
Julian nodded. “You were quite right to
send for me. Where is my sister?” Several unmatched slippers were scattered
along the stairs that led toward the drawing room and bedchambers. He gritted
his teeth.
“Lady Standish is in her study, sir.”
Julian’s eyebrows shot up. “Her study,” he
repeated. Eleanor was hosting an orgy—really, there was no use in pretending it
was anything else—but ducked out to conduct an experiment. Truly, the
experiments were bad enough, but Julian had always managed to conceal their
existence. But to combine scientific pursuits with actual orgies struck Julian
as excessive in all directions.
“You,” he said, nudging the sleeping man
with the toe of his boot. He was not climbing over drunken bodies, not today,
not any day. “Wake up.” The man opened his eyes with what seemed a great deal
of effort. “Who are you? No, never mind, I can’t be bothered to care.” The man
wasn’t any older than Julian himself, certainly not yet five and twenty, but
Julian felt as old as time and as irritable as a school mistress compared to
this specimen of self-indulgence. “Get up, restore that gown to its owner, and
be gone before I decide to let your father know what you’ve been up to.” As so
often happened when Julian ordered people about, this fellow complied.
Julian made his way to Eleanor’s study, and
found her furiously scribbling at her writing table, a mass of wires and tubes
arranged before her. She didn’t look up at the sound of the door opening, nor
when he pointedly closed it behind him. Eleanor, once she was busy working, was
utterly unreachable. She had been like this since they were children. He felt a
rush of affection for her despite how much trouble she was causing him.
“Eleanor?” Nothing. He stooped to gather an
empty wine bottle and a few abandoned goblets, letting them clink noisily
together as he deposited them onto a table. Still no response. “Nora?” It
almost physically hurt to say his childhood name for her when things felt so awkward and
strained between them.
“It won’t work,” came a low drawl. “I’ve
been sitting here these past two hours and I haven’t gotten a response.”
Banishing any evidence of surprise from his
countenance, Julian turned to see Lord Courtenay himself sprawled in a low
chair in a shadowy corner. There oughtn’t to have been any shadows in the
middle of the day in a bright room, but trust Lord Courtenay to find one to
lurk in.
Julian quickly schooled his face into some
semblance of indifference. No, that was a reach; his face was simply not going
to let him pretend indifference to Courtenay. He doubted whether anyone had
ever shared space with Lord Courtenay without being very much aware of that
fact. And it wasn’t only his preposterous good looks that made him so . . .
noticeable. The man served as a sort of magnet for other people’s attention,
and Julian hated himself for being one of those people. As far as he could
tell, the man’s entire problem was that people paid a good deal too much
attention to him. But one could hardly help it, not when he looked like that.
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