Free Waking Up With a Rake by Connie Mason, Mia Marlowe

that kiss, Olivia.” His masculine scent, all saddle leather and spicy bergamot, crowded her senses. “Haven’t you been wondering what comes next?”
    He was a libertine. A rake. A cad. How many women had lost their resolve to this whisky-voiced, blindingly handsome man? Olivia gave herself a stern mental shake.
    “Here’s what comes next, Lord Rhys.” She slapped his cheek in a stinging blow. Then she lifted her skirt and ran toward the main house, heedless of the falling snow.

Chapter 8
    “Absolutely harrowing, that’s what it was,” Mrs. Symon was saying to the aging Baron Ramstead at her right hand at the long dining table. Flickers from the centrally placed candelabra bathed Olivia’s mother in the most flattering light. Rhys suspected Mrs. Symon had been something of a village beauty when she was a girl and hadn’t ever gotten over not being the center of attention.
    Rhys occupied the place to her left “as a mark of special favor” Mrs. Symon had declared before the party settled into their chairs. After three courses of non-stop histrionics from his hostess, Rhys didn’t feel so favored. The only bright spot was that Olivia was seated next to the baron, kitty-corner across from him. She was close enough he could send her looks that made her squirm to his heart’s content.
    Rhys didn’t regard that slap she’d given him as a setback. In fact, it was proof positive he’d struck a nerve with his offer to educate her. If her occasional flush of color was any indication, he’d wager the entire contents of his wallet that Olivia had thought about his indecent proposal more than once since they sat down to dine.
    Lord knew he had.
    Mrs. Symon signaled for the footmen to clear the plates of poultry and bring on the beef. “I swear that girl scared a year off my life today.”
    “Mother, by the time you learned about the accident, I was standing right beside you,” Olivia protested.
    “But only think what might have been.” Mrs. Symon put a hand to her breast, no doubt believing it an affecting gesture of motherly concern. “And in the presence of His Highness’s representative too. Imagine how the Duke of Clarence would have taken the news if you’d tumbled into that horrid chasm. I told your father he ought to do something about that ravine. It’s not safe to have such a dangerous natural feature on the place. If I told the man once, I’ve told him a thousand times.”
    Rhys didn’t doubt that for a moment.
    Mrs. Symon kept talking, but Rhys was adept at only seeming to listen. Instead he surreptitiously swept the dinner party with his gaze, wishing he could ferret out their secrets simply by looking at them.
    After Olivia had stormed out of the stable and back to the house, he’d learned something that changed the nature of his business at Barrowdell completely.
    Oh, he still intended to bed the girl. That was a given and not just to meet Mr. Alcock’s requirements. Olivia Symon had done something no other woman had since he returned from Maubeuge.
    She made him feel something beyond mere lust.
    He had no name for it, but he thought bedding her was the best way to learn what it might be. Olivia was fast becoming an itch he couldn’t wait to scratch. But now he needed to protect her as well.
    Her riding accident hadn’t been so accidental.
    While he’d waited for Mr. Thatcher to return with Molly, Rhys had examined the sidesaddle. The leather was thin where the girth attached. It was likely to fail if undue pressure was put on it. For instance, if the horse should happen to begin to buck and rear.
    And a long thorn had worked its way into the padding under the saddle. If Rhys had found only one of those things, he’d merely have thought Mr. Thatcher was singularly unreliable. Together, the worn girth and the thorn suggested skullduggery. When Olivia took that jump over the hedgerow, as anyone who was familiar with her riding habits knew she would, the sharp spike would have jabbed the