Read Online Redeeming a Rake by Cari Hislop - Free Book Online

meant less than a new hat. Something
inside me snapped. I turned on her like a mad dog. I hate myself
for what I did.”

    “If you’d loved her, you would never have
hurt her.”

    “You don’t know what I felt.”

    “Perhaps not, but it wasn’t love.”

    “You can’t know that!”

    “There’s no need to shout Geoffrey.”

    The cool tone of her voice made him feel
worse. “Please don’t hate me! I’ve never ravaged another woman…not
like that…” He cursed his tongue as her eyes narrowed. She was
going to keep digging until she knew the worst and then she’d never
speak to him again. He was going to die a friendless wretch after
all.

    “What do you mean, not like that?”

    He sucked in his breath as the pain
deepened. “I didn’t hurt the young ladies I won, not intentionally.
Please don’t look at me like that!” Geoffrey cringed as she ogled
him like a spilled chamber pot.

    “What do you mean you won them?”

    “I had the women in lieu of other
winnings.”

    “Did the young ladies offer their bodies as
collateral?”

    “No.”

    “Who instigated the substitution?”

    Geoffrey eyes were closed against the look
on her face, his mouth a thin line of self-contempt. “I did. The
first time I was playing with Lord Standish. He’d lost everything.
I owned him and he owned his pretty sister, Lady Penelope, who
counted my father as one of her admirers. Being addressed as Lord
Worm was irritating, but her interference in my search for love
made me…enraged. Every time I tried to make myself pleasant to any
decent female she’d soon be whispering in the lady’s ear my
father’s stories of my unsuitability and then the young lady who’d
previously found my company agreeable would have nothing to do with
me. Lady Penelope was so proud of her success she made sure I knew
how many women she’d saved from my repulsive company. After I
offered to exchange his debts for his sister Lord Standish offered
to make her marry me, but I only wanted to…”

    “Rape her?”

    “No, I wanted to make the proud harpy moan
with pleasure from my touch. I wanted her to willingly purchase her
old life with her body.”

    “You wanted to degrade her and make her feel
like a prostitute.”

    “Yes…it’s ugly and I hate myself for even
suggesting it. I wish I’d never met the cursed female.”

    “And did she come willingly?” The words had
a choking sound that made Geoffrey’s empty stomach heave. Placing
his hands on her desk for support, he hung his head in shame. “I’ve
never seen a woman so bruised and battered outside the slums of St.
Giles. I told her to put her clothes back on and leave. She begged
me to take her; said her brother would kill her if she returned a
virgin. There was a doctor waiting. She was hysterical. I told her
to consider the debt paid, but she wouldn’t listen.”

    “You didn’t…?”

    “God knows I didn’t want to! I tried to get
her to put her clothes back on, but she wouldn’t. I didn’t know how
else to end it. I just wanted her to leave.” Geoffrey felt his
whole being throb with pain as his only friend dropped her quill
and covered her face. “Tolerance?” Panic flooded his senses; the
thought of losing her warmth and sunlight sent him half mad with
fear. “Forgive me!”

    A few minutes later she looked up with wet
eyes. “It isn’t my forgiveness you need to seek. How many ladies
did you win?”

    “Five if you count Lady Clara Farley. I was
undressing and the next thing I knew she was trying to slit my
throat. I disarmed her and sent her home a virgin. After that I
decided there were safer ways to get…revenge.”

    “And the other three? You bed them?”

    “Yes.”

    “Their names?”

    “Lady Bernice Michael, Lady Sarah Edgely and
Miss Catherine Foley.” Geoffrey closed his eyes as the pen
scratched his sins onto the paper and spoke without thinking, “What
would you have done?” The pen was abruptly lifted from the paper,
but her