The Taming of the Rake (16 page)

It might also be that he’d felt honor-bound to protect a clearly distraught young woman from a fate such as the Reverend Francis Flotley.

But, mostly, he was fairly certain, it was the way she called him Oliver. He would have cheerfully murdered anyone else who would dare such a thing, and yet each time she said his name something strange and unique happened inside of him.

She was bossy and unpredictable, a mix of intelligence and naiveté. Resilient, vulnerable, funny and determined. Curious, long-suffering, brave to the point of fearless.

She didn’t know what love was, she’d told him as much. She’d dared him to say the same. He’d thought he had an answer for her, the one that had taken up residence in his brain as he’d been recovering from the whipping her brother had delivered to him that day, the same one his mother had quoted for him as a warning as she’d tended to his wounds, begging him not to die from his fever and his injuries: “Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”

He had vowed then, as he lay on his belly for a fortnight because he could not lie on his abused back, that
he would not die for love, not then, not ever…because he would never love again.

But he did very much like the way Chelsea said
Oliver.

A
S SHE WANDERED
rather aimlessly through the rabbit warren maze of rooms that was The Baited Bear Inn, doing her best to avoid other people as she awaited Beau’s return, Chelsea berated herself for being such an absolute fool.

She should have pressed Emily immediately on what she’d said, this business about she and Jonathan anticipating their vows. Even Madelyn hadn’t been mean enough to tell her younger, motherless sister that kissing a man more than three times would give you babies. But that’s what Emily believed, thanks to her older sisters, who all should be very ashamed of themselves, because it was partly because of them that their sister was on her way to Gretna Green in the first place.

Jonathan truly believed himself to be in love and had no interest in seeing the Continent. Emily, on the other hand, only had been flattered to have gained the attention of the baron’s son when her older sisters had not and was now frightened spitless that she was about to become a mother while Jonathan was romancing pretty
mamzelles
in Paris.

Of course, now that Chelsea had corrected Emily’s
misconception—Misconception! Ha!—Emily had locked herself in her room—hers and Chelsea’s room—and refused to come out, or even to speak with Jonathan through the door. The innkeeper and his wife were both looking at Chelsea strangely and would soon be asking for answers, probably fearing an abduction was in progress.

What a fine mess.

Well, there was nothing else for it, she would have to tell Beau everything the very moment he returned from Gateshead. Then she’d have to tell him that she’d decided Emily and Jonathan must not continue on to Gretna Green with them, now that they knew the truth, but be turned over to their worried parents as soon as possible. Yet this very day, if they could.

She promised herself not to watch as the dratted man then danced a jig, or else she might be tempted to do him an injury.

Poor man. All things considered, she had certainly complicated his life.

It had all seemed so simple when she was formulating her plan in her bedchamber in Portland Place. Find the man, offer him his perfect revenge, ride to Scotland, marry and frustrate Thomas. She’d put much more thought into frustrating Thomas than she had the rest of it, most pointedly Beau, and what it would mean to be his wife.

But he was a good man. He was a gentleman and a gentle man, not to mention an extraordinarily patient one. She still believed she could have done a lot worse.
He, on the other hand, probably could have done considerably better, for now he was to be doubly an outcast, having absconded with the sister of an earl.

She wondered if he minded that part of it all that much. After all, he’d been accepted on at least the fringes of Society, thanks to his natural father’s name, his considerable wealth and even his service with Wellington. He might never be invited to Almacks or be allowed within ten feet of his friends’ sisters, but he’d long ago recovered from the hideous public humiliation Thomas had visited on him.

At least Chelsea thought so, for she’d seen his name in the daily newspapers on many occasions, as part of a party of gentlemen that traveled to Newmarket for the races or attended a boxing match at some country inn. She’d seen him from a distance as he’d ridden his horse through Hyde Park, and he’d certainly not been shunned.

So perhaps, once the gossip had taken its course, he would continue to be accepted by those who were his friends. It was she who would be given the cut direct when and if she dared to show her face in Bond Street or at some recital or the theater.

She still wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that but was fairly certain it fell under the category of cutting off one’s own nose to spite one’s face—hurting herself in order to hurt Thomas. But she’d made her bed, and now she would lie in it.

“Quite literally,” she said aloud, realizing she was blushing. There were a multitude of small, unimportant
losses she could consider, but her experience of last night clearly made up for them. She couldn’t do more than begin to imagine what losing her virginity would have been like with Francis Flotley, what it would be like to have his mouth on hers, his hands exploring her most intimate places, and just that small bit of imagining had threatened to make her nauseous.

With Beau, it had been…so many things. All of them unexpected, all of them fairly wonderful. She was so very grateful to him, for his gentleness, his kindness, his understanding and patience. Especially when she considered that she had been the aggressor.

She was not like Jonathan or Emily. She had little patience with the idea of being in love, unable to consider life apart from one another, always thinking about the other person, behaving stupidly, sighing deep sighs and all of that drivel. It was enough that she and Beau seemed reasonably compatible, and that alone was much more than most Society marriages could boast of, from her observation.

And then Chelsea, alone in an upstairs hallway, smiled. She really did like him, though. Very much.

“Your pardon, madam.”

Chelsea roused her mind from its wanderings and looked rather blankly at the gentleman now standing in front of her, holding a large traveling bag. She was surprised to see that such a fashionably dressed man would be staying in such an out-of-the-way inn.

She nodded mutely and stepped aside, then watched as he entered the room next to the one assigned to Beau
and Jonathan. She could hear voices through the thin walls, both of them masculine. Fellow travelers, she supposed, perhaps on the hunt for yet another eloping couple. They certainly were becoming more thick on the ground the closer they came to Scotland.

And then she gave the incident no further thought as she heard the door at the base of the stairs slam shut and hastened to see if Beau had returned.

He had.

“Oliver, you’re back,” she called out as she carefully descended the steep, narrow flight, pleased beyond measure to see him standing there, smiling up at her. Her heart gave a small flutter, and she had to hold herself back or else she would have sought his embrace or some such silly thing. She hadn’t known she could be so pleased to see someone she had last seen only a few short hours ago. And didn’t he look fine? The man would probably look wonderful clad in flour sacks. “I see you’re carrying packages. Please tell me you found some soap that doesn’t smell of lye.”

“I did,” he told her, holding up the string-tied packages. “Do I merit a reward?”

She tipped her head to one side and contemplated his smile. He looked awfully pleased with himself. “I suppose so. Put those packages in your chamber, where your clothing awaits you, clean and well-pressed—well, pressed, at least—and we’ll walk outside. I have some very good news for you.”

“News? Hmm, it seems I’ll have to readjust my vision of a reward. I was rather hoping for a kiss.”

“Oh, you were, were you?” she said as he brushed past her, bounding up the stairs two at a time, suddenly looking as young as Jonathan. But that was the most telling difference in the two eloping couples: Jonathan was a mere boy. Beau was a
man,
from the top of his blond head to the tip of his muddy boots. And she, as of last night, was no longer a girl, but a woman. “Hoping for a kiss? So was I,” she added under her breath.

By the time he had changed and come back downstairs, Chelsea was standing outside in the late afternoon sun, thrilled to be sprung from the confines of the inn, which smelled of many things, but mostly of cabbage, which she detested.

“What the devil is going on upstairs?” he asked immediately, offering her his arm and heading them toward a path that led into the trees and probably to a spinney or some such thing. “The chit is crying, the twit is on his knees outside her door, begging, and another guest, damnably encroaching woman, stopped me to say that she thinks the constable should be called. I fobbed her off, saying it was a lover’s quarrel and none of her concern. Am I right? Are our lovebirds having a spat? Please say yes. I believe I saw their fathers while I was in town. I could have them here in an hour if you just give me the word.”

Chelsea stopped on the path. “You saw them? Really? Are you quite certain?”

Beau looked at her quizzically. “I can’t say so with complete assurance, but the one had a pack of hounds on his heels and the other looked amazingly like our
Romeo, which, by the way, should have been enough to give our Juliet pause before she agreed to this adventure.”

Chelsea told him then, slapping his arm only once when he laughed a little too long during part of the telling. “If you’re correct, Beau, we could have them out of here by nightfall. I mean, not that I mind sharing my chamber with…that is, now that we know these two should be anything but wed, we could reunite them with their parents, assure them that nothing untoward happened because we were with them at all times. They’ll thank us. Jonathan and Emily, I mean. Although probably not right now.”

“They can thank us or curse us,” Beau told her, turning to face her, his hands on her upper arms. “Go back to that first part, if you please, the part where you wouldn’t be sharing your chamber with a hysterical Juliet. That’s the part that interests me most, and figures most in my plan.”

“Oliver,” Chelsea said accusingly, lowering her chin, but then looked up at him through her lashes even as she felt her cheeks flaming. “Is that why you’re so hot to be shed of them?”

“It’s better the second time,” he told her softly, rubbing her arms. “I mean, I’ve heard it said.”

Chelsea had to concentrate on standing very still, for her body was reacting quite strangely, growing warm and tight between her thighs, her breasts tingling and aware. “You…you don’t have to, you know. I’m already sufficiently ruined.”

He took her hand and led her deeper into the trees, out of sight of the inn. “I loathe that expression. Ruined. Do you feel ruined, Chelsea?”

She shook her head, finding it difficult to find her voice. “No.”

He stopped again, looked back in the direction of the inn and then gently maneuvered her backward until she felt the trunk of one of the large old trees at her back. “Then what do you feel?” he asked her, his voice soft, his expression anything but, as his eyes seemed to be searching her face for some sort of reaction to his question.

Her heart was suddenly pounding so hard she was amazed he couldn’t hear it beating. What was he doing? What did he want to hear her say? Why wasn’t she joking, pushing him away, telling him to stop teasing her with inappropriate questions? Why was her mouth suddenly so dry, her breathing so quick and shallow? “I…I don’t know. I mean, it’s difficult to…to put into words.”

Beau leaned in close, his mouth just beside her ear, and whispered one word. Just one. “Try.”

She closed her eyes, concentrated on what her body was trying to tell her. Felt a new shock of awareness as Beau moved closer, took advantage of the divided skirt of her riding habit and cupped her, pressing his hand against her, his strong fingers pushing upward with gentle yet firm pressure.

She should have been shocked.

She wasn’t.

She should tell him to stop.

Had to remind herself that she should tell him to stop.

“Don’t…” she said breathlessly as he nibbled on her earlobe, ran the tip of his tongue in small circles inside the lobe, softly blew on her now moist skin.

“Tell me,” he whispered, just his voice sending delicious shivers down her spine. “I want to hear. What do you feel?”

“You…can’t be serious. Not. Here. Not like—Oliver. Oliver? Oh…”

She couldn’t help herself. She leaned back against the tree and spread her legs wider, inviting what she’d so unsuccessfully protested they couldn’t do. Thank God the man didn’t give up easily, at the first hurdle.

But had he no knowledge of logistics? They were outside, where they could be discovered at any moment. He was delighting her, yes, but she knew there could be so much more. Needed to be so much more.

“We’re wearing too many clothes,” she told him, not caring if she’d just damned herself as not only willing but eager.

He laughed softly against her ear. “I was just thinking the same thing. Come on,” he said, abruptly taking her hand and leading her deeper into the trees, farther away from the path.

She laughed as he pulled her along, turning his head back to grin at her like a carefree, naughty boy. She didn’t know how far they’d come when he finally stopped in the middle of a small, sunlit clearing and
pulled her hard against his chest as he swooped down to capture her mouth.

Laughing, gasping for breath, holding each other, they dropped first to their knees, and then lay down fully in the soft, fragrant grasses, tumbling over and over as their hands became busy, greedy, as their mouths sought and tasted and bit and explored.

“Don’t…don’t rip it,” Chelsea managed as he pushed down her chemise after opening the buttons of her riding habit. “I only have the one.”

“I’ll buy you a dozen,” he promised as at last he was able to cup her bare breasts. “Two dozen—hundreds. Just so I can rip them off. Oh, God, Chelsea, you’re so perfect…”

He kissed her again and again. Her eyes, her nose, her mouth…and then turned his attention to her breasts, stealing her breath as he roused her, causing small explosions deep in her belly that warned of delights still to come.

He kissed her belly, even as his hands worked to rid her of her riding skirt, even as she raised her hips to assist him, even as she struggled with the maddening buttons of his buckskins.

Laugher died, words evaporated into the air, until there was just their mingled breathing. Quick, shallow, fraught with tension, frustration, small advances, minor successes that at last became long sighs of release as the last scraps of clothing that had impeded their growing passion were dispensed with, cast aside.

Chelsea lay on her back, looking up at him as he
levered himself over her, his hand busy between her legs, his expression so intense she could only wonder what he was thinking. He was doing things to her she would not have been able to imagine even a single day earlier, and she was not only allowing him but encouraging him.