Page 9 of A Relentless Rake

He pulled on the fresh shirt and let it hang loose around his hips as he headed for the door.

“Sir, at least put on your banyan!”

“I already have one mother waiting in the drawing room, Thompson,” he reminded the valet as he strode from the room. “I don’t need a second one.”

He sauntered down the hall toward the stairs. Around him, St James House was quiet. Like him, it wasn’t yet fully awake to face the day, and he preferred it this way. The property was one of the grandest houses in London and his prize jewel. He’d inherited it, the ancestral home at Pelham Park, the title, and what very little was left of the family fortune six years ago when his father died unexpectedly. In bed. In a prostitute’s bed.On topof the prostitute, to be exact, while the woman lay spread-eagle with her wrists and ankles tied to the bedposts. Alec had been serving in the army on the Continent when word of his father’s death reached him.

Thank God the message had arrived too late for him to attend the bastard’s funeral.

He’d returned to England to discover that the old earl had secretly wasted the Sinclair fortune. Gambling, whores, bad business ventures—his father had put liens against whatever property he could, sold whatever wasn’t entailed, and endangered the estate’s ability to maintain itself. To make matters worse, his mother had suddenly withdrawn twelve hundred pounds shortly after the funeral from what little was left in the bank accounts. When Alec questioned her about it, Isabel Sinclair claimed she’d spent it on new mourning clothes for the family.

A lie. There wasn’t enough black crepe in England to account for such a large sum, but she refused to tell him the truth. He’d been furious with her for putting their family’s future further into jeopardy, on top of the already simmering resentment that she’d not been aware of the full extent of her husband’s debaucheries and corruptions. To this day, he still had no idea what she’d done with the money.

So at twenty-four, Alec sold his army commission and dedicated himself to salvaging what was left of the family fortune. He was able to squeeze out enough profits to invest in solid ventures, pay off his father’s debts, and make repairs to neglected properties. But even then, once the family’s fortunes were returned, he didn’t stop. He was driven on to do more. In just six years, he’d doubled the family’s fortune and become one of the most powerful men in England.

Just like everything else in his life, he’d done it simply to spite his father.

“Mother.” He flung open wide both doors to the drawing room. “How lovely of you to call.” He grumbled as he came into the room, “And so early, too.”

Isabel Sinclair, Countess of St James, stood by the tall windows overlooking the street and smiled lovingly at him.

As usual, she was dressed impeccably. The pale green day dress with its matching pelisse made her hair appear not just blond but golden, as befitting a countess. So did the pearls around her throat and at her ears. Her skin was still as smooth and pale as porcelain despite her five decades of age, and her complexion still glowed pink from a lingering youth that even marriage to Rupert Sinclair hadn’t diminished.

“Alexander.” She admonished both his appearance and his greeting in that single word.

He softened her chastisement—but only slightly—by dutifully kissing her cheek. Then he crossed to the tea tray that his butler, Bivvens, had already brought up. He poured himself a cup of tea and silently cursed that it wasn’t the strong American coffee he preferred in the mornings. He didn’t wait for her to sit before slumping down into a chair.

He couldn’t stomach false proprieties at the best of times. This morning, he was simply too exhausted for them.

“To what do I owe this visit?” He grimaced into his cup as he took a long swallow of the hot liquid. Good Lord, how could Englishmen stand this stuff?

Not letting him hurry her into answering, she sank gracefully onto the settee across from him. Her back remained impossibly straight even as she reached to refill her cup of tea. Then she raised it slowly to her lips and studied him over the gold-edged rim.

She narrowed her eyes at the bruise on his cheek. “You’ve been in a fight.”

“It’s nothing.” He dismissed the painful knot with a shrug. “It’ll be gone by evening.”

Her lips tightened as she took inventory of the rest of his appearance. “Slept in your clothes, too, I see.”

“But I put on a clean shirt just for you.”

She gave his flippant comment a scolding lift of her brow. “I didn’t expect you to be home yet at all, actually.”

Ah…sothatwas why she’d arrived so early. She’d wanted to catch him in the act of stumbling home, foxed to the gills. Thank God he’d cheated her out of the opportunity. He loved his mother, but her interference in his personal life wasn’t at all welcome.

He replied with a touch of sarcasm, “It was a slow evening.”

She leveled a hard gaze on him and asked bluntly, “Did you spend your night in the stews?”

“I don’t visit brothels.”

“That’s not what the gossips say.”

“The gossips are wrong.” After all, men like him didn’t pay for sex. They didn’t need to. Half the wives and widows in Mayfair were panting to be his next conquest just so they could whisper behind their fans to each other that they’d tupped him.

“Then perhaps you’ve been preoccupied with a mistress,” she countered.

He fought back a laugh at her roundabout attempt at interrogation. “You know I don’t keep mistresses either.”