Page 2 of Raked Away in September

He wasn’t alone.

He was backed against a brick wall, his large hand buried in the hair of a woman Tamsin didn’t recognize—a woman whose bodice was dangerously low and whose skirts were bunched in Haversham’s grasp.

Tamsin knew she should turn away. She should flee in the opposite direction. But the scene before her was nothing like the chaste, stilted dances at Almack’s or even the kiss between Rose and Lord Cedric. Haversham’s mouth moved against the woman’s throat with raw, primal hunger, and the low groan that escaped him made the fine hairs on Tamsin’s neck stand up.

She watched, mesmerized by the sheer power in his shoulders and the way the woman clung to him, breathless and wanton. It made something low in the pit of her stomach clench with need. For a heartbeat, she allowed herself to wonder what it would feel like to be held with such terrifying intensity by a man as handsome and brooding as this one.

Haversham shifted, his profile catching a stray beam of light. He looked fierce, his dark eyes hooded and alight with a passion Tamsin had never imagined existed. As she continued to watch, hypnotized, the woman sank to her knees in front of him, giving him a wicked smile as she undid the placket of his trousers, and then… she was holding his member, stroking it, and… Dear Lord… she took him in her mouth, making him moan with obvious pleasure.

Tamsin put a hand to her lips, unable to even comprehend what she was seeing. Did people really do things like this with each other? So intimate? So carnal? She took an unconscious step back, and a twig snapped under her slipper.

Haversham’s head snapped up, his gaze piercing the shadows exactly where she stood. Their eyes caught and held, and for an instant, time stood still. The look in his eyes… He didn’t seem upset that she was watching. He seemed… excited. Worse yet, he seemed to recognize her.

Tamsin gasped and spun on her heel, sprinting through the trees, her hood falling back, and her breath coming in jagged gasps. She burst out onto the Grand Walk, causing a group of passersby to turn and stare at her. Ignoring them, she raced back toward the supper boxes, determined to get as far away from what she’d witnessed—and what she’d felt!—as possible.

She had saved Rose. At least for now. But Tamsin realized with a jolt of dread that she might have just ruined herself.

Rowan Blackwood’s current paramour, an opera singer named Elena, was a delectable distraction, all silk and perfume and eager sighs. However, the moment he heard the twig snap, his world narrowed to a single point of light in the darkness.

Miss Tamsin Fairchild.

She stood frozen at the edge of the yew thicket, a vision in midnight blue. He knew that face, though he had spent years pointedly ignoring her in crowded ballrooms. She was the sister of Nicolas Fairchild—a man Rowan had spent his school years clashing with, a man whose rigid, tiresome morality made Rowan’s own lifestyle feel hedonistic in comparison.

But Tamsin was not her brother. She had inky-black hair, a pale, elegant face, and cornflower-blue eyes that had widened not with the expected horror but with a startling, breathless intensity.

She wasn’t looking away. She was watching.

A jolt of heat, sharper and more dangerous than the simple lust of a moment ago, slammed into Rowan’s gut. He felt a flash of stinging embarrassment—he was a rake, but he was not a boor, and being caught like this by a well-bred chit felt like a violation of the very rules he pretended to despise. Yet, seeing her gaze riveted upon him, her lips parted in a soft, stunned ‘O,’ he felt a dark, forbidden thrill. She was intrigued. The virtuous Miss Tamsin was fascinated by his depravity. Which, in turn, fascinated him.

Their eyes locked for a heartbeat that felt like an hour, and a ruinous understanding passed between them.

Then she blinked. Her common sense obviously rushed back in, and she spun on her heel, vanishing into the September mist with the speed of a frightened doe.

“Haversham?” The woman on her knees before him removed her warm, wet mouth from his cock, sensing his sudden inattention. “What is it? Did you see someone?”

“I have to go,” Rowan blurted, his voice rasping. He pulled away, wincing as he hastily tucked himself back in his trousers.

“Go? But⁠—”

“I’m sorry, Elena. I truly am.” He didn’t wait for her protest. He strode toward the thicket where Miss Tamsin had stood, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

He didn’t know why he was chasing her. To see if that spark of interest was still in her eyes? To defend his nonexistent honor to a woman who belonged to a family he detested?

He burst through the yew trees and onto the path that led toward the Rotunda. The lights of the Grand Walk blurred before him, a dizzying array of color and sound. He scanned the crowd, looking for a dark-blue cloak, for a glimpse of black hair, for anything that would lead him to her.

But the path was empty, save for a pair of laughing dandies and a cluster of women with their heads bent together. A violin played mournfully in the distance, but Miss Tamsin was gone.

He bit back a curse, fighting the urge to search for her. No matter how lovely and intriguing he found her, she wasn’t for him and never would be.

Chapter Two

The morning sun streamed through the tall windows of Wilding House, burning Tamsin’s eyes as she sat before her vanity. Her reflection looked the same—pale skin, shiny black hair, blue eyes that betrayed nothing—but something inside her felt wrong. Shaky. Raw.

He saw me.

The memory of Rowan Blackwood’s dark, piercing gaze sent a traitorous shiver down her spine. She had spent half the night staring up at the canopy of her bed, alternating between a mortifying heat at what she had witnessed and a cold dread that the earl might tell someone he’d seen her in the Dark Walks. But he wouldn’t, surely. Rakes thrived on discretion, and he had been as compromised as she. Even more so. He wouldn’t want anyone to know what that woman had been doing to him, would he?

Her cheeks grew an embarrassing shade of red, and she turned away from the mirror. She couldn’t get that image out of her mind. It equally repelled and intrigued her. She’d never dreamed people did such things with each other. One thing was for certain: Her knowledge was woefully lacking.