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Cornick
    45
    enter the married state for any of those reasons. Not
    even when her aunt and uncle had died and, lonely
    and almost destitute, she had received three offers of
    marriage and had been tempted to take them simply
    for security... She had held out because a stubborn
    instinct had told her that, despite her cynicism, there
    had to be something better. She hoped it was true, yet
    in her heart she did not really believe it.
    Rebecca drew a piece of paper towards her and ex-
    tracted a pencil from the drawer of her desk. She
    started to sketch idly—little cherubs, larger angels
    with grave faces, wings folded, hands held piously in
    prayer. The angel motif was the perfect engraving for
    her commission. But perhaps a saintly face was not
    the correct image for the Archangel Club. Angels with
    wicked faces would be more appropriate, angels that
    looked like Lord Lucas Kestrel...
    Rebecca bit the end of her pencil and tried to con-
    centrate.
    ‘Lord Fremantle was asking for you,’ Nan said. ‘He
    was most impressed when he met you last night.’
    The pencil broke between Rebecca’s fingers but she
    did not look up. ‘By my engraving, I hope,’ she said
    colourlessly.
    Nan drummed her fingers on the brocaded edge of
    the sofa. ‘You understand precisely what I mean,
    Becca.’
    Rebecca sighed. ‘I hope that you told him that I was
    not interested,’ she said.
    There was a pause. ‘Rebecca,’ Nan said, ‘will you
    not at least consider it? Fremantle is rich and gen-
    erous—’
    46
    The Rake’s Mistress
    And depraved and revolting, Rebecca added, though
    she did not voice her thoughts aloud.
    Nan waved a hand to encompass the workshop.
    ‘What are you trying to prove here? You know that
    you cannot continue. This week, next week, it will all
    be the same in the end.’
    Rebecca looked up and met the steely blue of her
    friend’s eyes. She felt angry and upset. So this was
    why Nan had called so early. Lord Fremantle,
    Bosham’s crony and one of the gentlemen of the Arch-
    angel Club, had made no secret of his admiration for
    her when they had met the previous night. Rebecca
    had ignored his veiled hints and had concentrated on
    business, but now the inevitable had happened. Fre-
    mantle wanted her to be his mistress and he had sent
    Nan as a go-between, to negotiate the arrangement.
    Perhaps there was even a financial reward in it for Nan
    herself, when Rebecca complied. The thought made
    her skin crawl.
    Nan was still looking disparagingly around the
    empty workshop. Rebecca knew there was no point in
    pretending. Her friend had seen the desperate state to
    which she had descended. Nan had even checked that
    Daniel, Rebecca’s brother, was not inconveniently on
    hand to defend his sister’s honour, and then she had
    passed on Lord Fremantle’s proposition. And the
    worst of it was that Nan was right. Sooner or later
    Rebecca would lose the roof over her head and would
    need to find alternative employment, although she was
    utterly determined that it would not be in a house
    of ill repute, even one so exclusive as the Arch-
    angel Club.
    Nicola Cornick
    47
    Rebecca thought about Lord Fremantle and felt her
    skin shudder. He had been everything that was cour-
    teous the previous night, but his dead fish eyes and
    his waxy hands had repelled her. Even had she been
    starving she could never have accepted his offer. The
    thought of those hands on her body was so repellent
    that she felt sick.
    ‘His lordship is very kind,’ she said, trying to swal-
    low the lump of nausea in her throat, ‘but I fear I must
    decline his proposal. Even if I cannot continue with
    my own workshop I am certain I shall find employ-
    ment elsewhere.’
    ‘As a drudge in someone else’s workshop?’ Nan
    asked, the derision clear in her voice. ‘You are too
    good for that, Becca.’
    Rebecca almost said, ‘Better a drudge than a
    whore’, but managed to hold back, both out of friend-
    ship and also because she was not at