The Lord I Once Loved (Ravishing Rakes Book 1) by Lucy Sinclair

Author:Lucy Sinclair [Sinclair, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2022-08-19T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Will

I had hoped that sleep would get her out of my head. When that didn’t do the trick, I figured it would only take a nice hot bath. Perhaps a stiff drink, or a spot of breakfast.

Alas… it did not.

After Amelia and I’s encounter, I tossed and turned, sleep eluding me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her smiling at me, and I felt the soft touch of her baby-pink lips against my own. I couldn’t erase the memory of her in my lap, that mousy light brown hair falling around my face. Even her smell, a simple fragrance of clean ivory soap, was like a phantom, haunting my dreams.

What in the hell was wrong with me?

I had been with plenty of women. I had seduced Italian opera starlets, French courtesans, and dark Spanish beauties… I had even stolen the virtue of England’s finest roses.

But somehow, little Amelia Allen – my childhood best friend, a bloody wallflower – was stuck in my brain. And all we had really done was kiss.

Indeed, there was something wrong with me.

Rakes weren’t supposed to feel this… attached. Especially not to women they had barely touched.

But I couldn’t deny that it felt… good. Despite how we’d left things the night before, I felt oddly at peace. As if something that was missing before was somehow in place. I couldn’t say what that was, exactly, or what it even meant. I didn’t have the will nor desire to examine it any deeper.

All I knew was that I couldn’t get Amelia out of my head.

I sat down to an early breakfast, my appetite ravenous. My eyes fell on the liquor cart in the corner of the breakfast room, filled to the brim with finely-cut glass decanters of amber liquid. My immediate reflex was to fill a glass and swallow it whole, as I did every morning. Like clockwork, I found my arms reaching out for the bottle.

But, just as my fingers were about to enclose around the stopper, I froze. The memory of the night before came rushing back to me, like a soft punch to the face. Amelia’s small, bare hand, prying the gin from my own… Her sweet, measured voice, informing me of how I’d been sober all day, without even realizing it…

I stared at the gin. It was only inches away from my fingers, and there was no Amelia to stop me now. What was the harm in a drink? My habits had never bothered me before.

Why should they now?

I took a breath, suddenly noticing how my head felt… clearer. Brighter and more awake. There was no nagging headache. I’d woken up hungover for so long, I’d forgotten what it was like not to. But here I was, completely sober… and it felt alright. Perhaps, if I could begrudgingly admit it to myself, better than alright.

A sober William Thorne? No, scratch that – a sober Viscount Marsden? Neither I nor my father could claim that title. But here I was, very much sober.

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