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  FOUND: BARE WITH A BARON

  CALLING ALL RAKES

  TAMMY ANDRESEN

  Copyright © 2022 by Tammy Andresen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Vacancy: Viscount Preferred

  About the Author

  Other Titles by Tammy

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  www.tammyandresen.com

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  Hugs!

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Honourable Alexi Starlight skulked about the edge of the ballroom, trying very hard not to be seen.

  As a debutante and the daughter of a viscount, skulking was strictly forbidden. Gliding effortlessly was strongly encouraged, as was standing demurely. But neither of those skills came naturally to her, as evidenced by the disastrous dance she’d just shared with the Earl of Rathbone.

  She’d smashed his toes twice, missed her step a half dozen times, and knocked him in the chin with the back of her head just the once. The spot still throbbed, and she reached up a hand to lightly massage it as she let out a heavy sigh. Momentarily hidden behind a potted plant, Alexi attempted to compose herself.

  This night was shaping up to be an epic disaster.

  The earl had only danced with her as a favor to her mother. A fact that neither the earl nor her mother had bothered to hide. In fact, they’d discussed the subject at length in front of Alexi, which was surely part of the reason for her clumsiness.

  People discussing her always made her shrink into herself, her limbs growing numb and heavy as she fought the urge to hide.

  She swallowed hard, closing her eyes as bits of their conversation drifted back to her. “Poor girl, always on the outskirts…”

  “Never quite able…”

  “Tongue-tied…”

  “Two left feet…”

  She drew in a ragged breath, fighting the urge to cry as her hand fluttered to her throat.

  On the other side of the cluster of ferns, she heard the laughter of several women. Thankful for the large fronds that hid her, she dipped her head so she might continue wallowing in peace. But their words made her chin snap back up once again. “Did you see her?” one cried, her voice high and tight with excitement. “Of all the fumbling dances, that one had to be the worst.”

  A fan snapped open, the noise ringing in her ears, as more laughter punctuated the sound. Her hands lifted to her face, trying to block out the words and the feelings, but both slapped at her chest.

  “Can you believe her mother was a princess?”

  “How does that happen? A graceful princess births an ungainly girl?”

  “A blundering buffoon.”

  They all laughed again as Alexi choked on her own grief. The worst of it was that they were right. Her mother never criticized Alexi for her shortcomings, at least not directly. But even her sympathy made Alexi inferior. She shouldn’t need it.

  If her mother were here now, she’d likely say something like, Alexi, it was just one dance. Why allow it to ruin your entire night?

  And perhaps Alexi did allow these things to hurt far more than they should, but when they happened time and again…

  Not able to bear another moment with her own thoughts, she edged along the wall again, intent upon leaving the laughers far behind.

  For once, a bit of luck was on her side. Just to her right was an open set of terrace doors. Without a backward glance, she slipped out the door and into the shadows, skirting along the back of the house and into a side garden, where the sounds of the night filtered into her ears, replacing the distant noise of the party. The low hum of insects calmed her racing pulse.

  She breathed a sigh of relief, glad for the reprieve, until the evening began to replay in her thoughts once again.

  And then tears burned hot and fresh behind her lids.

  She dropped her face into her hands, trying to hold back the emotion that threatened to overwhelm her.

  This night…

  She would never marry at this rate. Her mother would forever be parading her about, that look of sympathy darkening her clear blue eyes.

  A moan of despair escaped her as she leaned against a low garden wall enclosing a small section of the larger garden. Just behind it, a row of bushes. The sound echoed back at her with all the mocking an echo could encapsulate.

  She lifted her head, her hands clasping together. She’d like to tell that echo just how condescending it was to repeat someone’s grief like that, when she heard it again.

  Another moan.

  Louder, longer, and definitely not an echo off the brick of the house, Alexi froze, her body holding perfectly still as only her gaze searched for the source of the noise.

  And that’s when she saw it. Just over her shoulder, on the other side of the wall, the pale silk of a skirt tumbling from behind a bush and out onto the grass.

  And then another gasping moan filled the night. Feminine, punctuated with several quick breaths—and then a shrieking wail that made Alexi cover her mouth with both hands, her eyes surely so wide they threatened to fall out of her face.

  What had she stumbled into?

  Was someone injured? Being murdered? Should she rush to her aid or return to the house for help?

  She took a slow step forward attempting discern the problem as she kept her gaze trained on the moaning bush.

  A more masculine rumble joined the noise and she pressed her lips together, her teeth clenched, to keep from yelping out her shock. It was a tryst!

  The last thing she needed was any more trouble and so she took another tentative step back, intent on exiting as unnoticed as she’d arrived. But the heel of her slipper caught on a stone.

  In sickening slow motion, she began to fall through the air, her arms going wide as they attempted to grasp something, anything. Because not only was she about to tumble, but the couple she’d happened upon would know she’d witnessed—well, not seen so much as heard—their dalliance.

  But her efforts were in vain and she fell back, her derriere landing on the hard stone as a gasp tore from her lips.

  The night seemed to go very still. Even the insects stopped for the span of a moment.

  And then the bushes erupted with activity, a figure rising up and fleeing in the slim beam of pale moonlight. Alexi caught a glimpse of dark hair and pale skirts as the figure ran, moving with a speed Alexi found surprising considering the dark. The coordination that lady must have to be able to move so in the night.

  “Oh,” she gasped, attempting to rise, only to find her skirts twisted all about her legs. They’d likely be ruined too. Scratched and stained, the fabric was something she could add to her list of failures for the evening.

  Reaching down, she started to untangle them, so that she might remove herself from the garden and the scene of the tryst and…

  She stopped attempting
to untangle herself. And what? Return to the party? Beg to leave?

  With a sigh, she shook her legs free and prepared to stand.

  “Good evening,” a deep masculine voice said from her right. It was seductively smooth and just a bit playful, tickling at her ears.

  She bit back a yelp of surprise as her chin snapped up. Just on the other side of the wall, where the skirts had just been, stood a man. He leaned his hip casually against the stone, lending his narrow hips and broad shoulders a devil-may-care look that made her knees weak. Good thing she wasn’t standing on them. “Good evening?” she replied, her voice breathy from her surprise and some other emotion she didn’t understand.

  “Are you a garden nymph?” he asked, giving a bit of a hiccup.

  She blinked, realizing two facts at once. One, this man was the second half of the tryst she’d just happened upon. Two, he was completely inebriated.

  Which led her to a third realization.

  The trouble this evening had only just begun.

  Dillan tried to focus his gaze as he looked down at the woman on the ground.

  Was that the lady he’d just been sharing a very enjoyable little tête-à-tête with? Between the dark and the level of his intoxication, he couldn’t be certain. He dropped an elbow to the wall, placing his chin on his fist as he squinted into the darkness, giving the lady on the ground a long stare which produced no answers.

  He’d know the lady by her taste and her scent.

  Each woman’s skin had a different flavor; the one he’d just been entertaining had been especially earthy.

  Not that he minded. But the particulars of how she looked had completely escaped him. Would it be rude to ask if he might give her a little lick in the name of identification?

  It must be her. She’d jumped up, fled, and then fallen.

  What else made sense? Then again, so little actually seemed to be logical these days.

  For example, he was at a ball. Him. The most debaucherous of barons, a failure as a brother, son, and lord, had actually attempted to care and had brought himself to this wretched event.

  He could still see his grandmother’s condemnation as she’d given him a hard stare not an hour before. “Can’t you remain sober for all of one evening?”

  The old woman had a point.

  He’d tried.

  For Laurel’s sake, he’d really put in his best effort. He’d managed the first two hours completely sober. But one drink for fortification during dinner had led to a second, just to make certain it didn’t wear off, and then a third, because—well—he wasn’t entirely certain.

  But a few more later, a set-down from his gran, and the look of disappointment on Laurel’s face and he’d grabbed the first woman who’d made eyes at him, along with a bottle of wine from the kitchen. Then, pulling her out in the garden, he’d promised her quick and satisfying carnal pleasure for her and her alone. He was too pissed anyway but that didn’t mean he couldn’t give a lady a hand…or a tongue.

  She’d accepted.

  Distantly, Dillan knew he was failing at life. Drinking more and more often, hardly sober in fact.

  But the drink was the only thing that quieted the memories and the shame.

  “Do you need assistance, my lady?”

  “Oh, I’m not a lady,” she answered back. “And no thank you.”

  “Not a lady?” He squinted his eyes, noting her fine gown, shimmering in the moonlight. She wasn’t a servant.

  “Miss Starlight,” she said as she attempted to rise. “The Hon if I prefer to be more formal. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I think.”

  Wasn’t she clever to know that being with him was a poor idea. Still, he slid over the wall, nearly toppling to the ground himself, to come to her side. He’d abandoned his gloves at some point that he couldn’t quite remember, so he reached out a bare hand, letting his fingers brush the achingly soft skin of her upper arm before he clasped his hand around her delicate arm to help her rise.

  She stood, and then gently pulled away from his grasp, took a step back. “While this was delightful…” She paused, cocking her head to the side as though waiting for something. Then with a sigh, she continued on. “But I really should be going. It wouldn’t do for us to be discovered.”

  “You can come back behind the wall with me,” he said, leaning closer to try to catch a whiff of her scent. The nearby rosebush completely permeated the air, not allowing him the chance.

  “Sir,” she gasped, taking another step back. “That is just… How could you…”

  “See, Harold.” Another voice pierced into their entertaining little bubble. “I told you I came out to the side garden because I heard voices.”

  Miss—he’d forgotten her name—spun on her heel, facing the intruders as they came on down the path from the main terrace. She wobbled as she spun, her arms going out again, and so he stepped up behind, placing a light but protective hand at her waist. He wasn’t certain what he protected her from or why he had the urge to do so, but who was he to question instinct?

  He blinked several times as two figures stepped out of the darkness.

  “Well, I’ll be. Elsie, you were right,” a deeper male voice replied.

  “Right?” Dillan’s little starlit fairy squeaked. “My lord, I doubt very much the countess is right. I promise, this isn’t how it looks. I simply stepped out for air. I didn’t—”

  He shook his head. “Didn’t take a tumble with me behind the wall?” The fog around his brain threatened to clear. Which would be a tragedy. Under any circumstance, he preferred to be drunk. But he got the impression that momentary sobriety tomorrow morning would be even more painful than usual. The quiet that followed his last comment pricked at his ears. He’d said something wrong, hadn’t he?

  The gasp that followed told him that he was correct. Tomorrow was sure to be terribly painful. There was only one solution.

  More drink was in order.

  A little pixie face looked up at him, the bow of her mouth tempting him to stay and worship the supple flesh.

  But he had some serious drinking to do and champagne waited for no man.

  Wait. Was that right?

  Who cared?

  Dropping his arm from around her waist, he stumbled toward the party.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alexi woke early, having tossed and turned most of the night.

  The dance with the earl was now a distant memory…like a dream that had mostly been forgotten.

  In its place, the sort of nightmare that etched itself onto one’s very soul. She shivered as she pulled the covers tighter about her chin.

  In short order, she’d learned that the man in the garden, the one she’d caught trysting, had been none other than the notorious rake Baron Brightmore.

  Her mother had been called to Lord Parkhurst’s study and informed, by Lord Parkhurst himself, about how he and his wife had discovered Alexi and Brightmore alone in the garden.

  Alexi had attempted to plead her case.

  She’d told her story of the other woman who’d escaped just before the lord and lady had arrived. When that hadn’t worked, she’d cited the dance with Lord Rathbone and the lack of time between that dance and the tryst. Surely it took longer than a few minutes to plan and implement such an event.

  She’d thought her logic sound, worthy of even her intelligent and investigative friend, Lady Charlotte Westmoreland. But she hadn’t swayed her audience, not entirely.

  The most she’d been given was a reprieve of time.

  Lord Parkhurst had assured her mother that he didn’t want to see her daughter falsely accused, and once he found Baron Brightmore, he’d speak to the man himself.

  His frown had told Alexi all she needed to know about what sort of man he considered Lord Brightmore. But his words had made something else clear: she had to prove her innocence or be found guilty by her peers.

  And so she had no choice but to find the actual tryster in order to prevent any possible scandal.

&nbs
p; Fortunately for Alexi, she needn’t complete this investigation alone. Her friends could help her. Charlotte—now the Countess of Westmoreland—in particular had even helped the police with a murder investigation. Surely, that meant she was up to the challenge of finding one mystery tryster.

  If she could prove that the other woman had been in the garden with Brightmore, then she’d not be ruined and she could…well, best not to think about her future. Much as she’d like to say that she would continue being a successful debutante, everyone knew that wasn’t true, past, present, or future.

  But perhaps she’d have the chance to find a man who suited her. Alexi wasn’t always clumsy, just in large gatherings. A quiet man might suit her, one who enjoyed the country? But certainly a person who didn’t care for society and wouldn’t mind living his life outside its narrow confines.

  Finally, with a long inhale for fortification, Alexi slipped from the bed and donned her dressing gown, cinching the belt tight around her waist. She left her bedchamber, heading to the morning room, where she seated herself at her desk and began to pen Charlotte a missive.

  Dipping her pen in ink, she began to write, the words and her desperation pouring onto the page. Just as she dusted the ink, the door clicked open and then closed again.

  Looking up, she saw her mother standing with her arms crossed over her stomach, her dressing gown also wrapped about her.

  “Mama,” she said, rising from her chair. “What are you doing up so early? It was such a late night.” She crossed the room to kiss her mother’s cheek in greeting. While her blonde hair was now streaked with grey, her blue eyes were an exact match to Alexi’s.