“I’m sure that’s not a story you’d be interested in.”
“On the contrary, I’m not only interested but intrigued.”
He closed his eyes, rather enjoying having her attention focused on him for the moment. “Perhaps another time.”
“No time like the present.”
He grinned, but then his grin faded as he thought about the events that had led to his transformation. And it had been a transformation. He had changed in the snap of a finger. “Are you certain you don’t want to walk back to the house? This might be the only night we can get a full night’s sleep.”
“No, I want to hear about your past as a notorious rake.”
“I was not a notorious rake,” he said.
“No?”
“No. A rake but not notorious. Too young, I suppose to have that sort of reputation.”
“How old were you?”
“Two and twenty or thereabouts. I’d made a name for myself in London—and not the sort of name any family wants associated with one of its sons—and so my father sent me and one of my cousins to the Continent.”
“A grand tour so you could sow those wild oats abroad where no one at home would have to hear about them.”
“Yes.” It wasn’t precisely accurate that no one had heard about his and Franz’s exploits in Europe. There’d been a story here and there in the papers. Following those had been the concerned letters from his mother and the disappointed letters from his father. Duncan had barely read them before tossing them in the fire. He’d had better things to do, things far more pleasant than reading lectures. He had soirees in Paris and balls in Brussels and nights at the theater in St. Petersburg.
There had seemed to be no end to the beautiful women he met. Married women, widowed women, young women with chaperones too cunning to ever allow him a moment alone with their charge.
He’d been a rake and a scoundrel in London, but he’d honed the craft on the Continent. He promised the moon and the stars to woo a woman into bed. Once he’d had her, no matter his good intentions, his interest faded. He was on to the next conquest. That was how he’d seen women—not as people but as prizes to be claimed. He wasn’t interested in whores, which was probably why he'd avoided catching the pox. A whore could be bought by any man. He liked a challenge. If a woman was selective or unattainable, that was the one he wanted.
He looked at Lucy now. She too liked a challenge, though he imagined she didn’t see taking a man to bed as one.
“I spent a wild year on the Continent,” he said, “and then I had to come home. My father wanted me to settle down. He knew I wasn’t a good fit for the clergy, but he thought perhaps a position in the army or the Navy. I declined but as we were having these conversations, a friend of his who was the British ambassador to Saxony came to dinner. That was a position that intrigued me.”
“Because you wanted a life of service or because you wanted to return to Europe and all the women you’d left behind?”
“I don’t have to answer that,” he said, and she laughed.
“I think you just did.”
“I wrote to the ambassador and asked how one might pursue a career as a diplomat.”
“And he told you to seek a position with the Foreign Office.”
“Exactly. My father and, er, uncle were more than happy to do whatever they could to assist. As my uncle is the Duke of Sterling, it wasn’t long before I had a promising opportunity within my reach.” He paused, not really wanting to continue the tale.
“And then?” she asked.
“And then...” Duncan looked at Lucy. Would she see him differently once he told her the rest of the story? Probably, but if he had any future with her—and he doubted he did—he had to be honest with her. That was part of the agreement he’d made with himself after the...after what had happened.
“And then there was a house party. It was a week long and held in the countryside, and I think my parents hoped I might meet the sort of woman they wanted me to marry.”
“Did you?”
“Of course, but I didn’t have marriage in mind. In fact, I treated every woman I met like a game to be won or tossed aside for another. But I rarely failed to make a conquest of any woman I wanted.”
Lucy made a sound of disgust. “Conquest? Now you sound exactly like a rake.”
“Then you know the sort of man I was when I met Dorothea.”
