The Taming of the Rake (5 page)

“I may never drink again,” Puck said quietly. “I mean, I actually think I understand this. But what could Lady Chelsea offer you that would help you? And to help you, it would follow that whatever she’d
offer would somehow revenge you against her brother in a way that makes up for the audacity you had as to come to his house and, bastard that you are, besmirch the family escutcheon by asking for his sister’s hand in—uh-oh. Beau? Do you even
know
the route to Scotland?”

Beau looked at Chelsea—the bane of his existence at fourteen, a ripe plum fallen out of the sky seven years later. The perfect revenge against Thomas Mills-Beckman and all of London Society, wrapped up like a lovely gift and dropped into his lap.

No. He couldn’t do it. Could he? He’d prided himself on being a gentleman in a world that, for the most part, had branded him as something all but inhuman. Yes, he was taking his revenge against Brean, but that was different; it was only money.

To elope with the man’s sister, bed the man’s sister? That was not only despicable, it would be akin to signing his own death warrant if they were caught before the deed was done, the girl was deflowered and her reputation already so ruined that killing Beau could only make a bad situation worse.

Brean would be disgraced, the entire family would be disgraced.

Madelyn? She’d said that he would “never be one of us.” It had never occurred to him that he could turn that particular table, make her one of him, that she could be made to know what it was like to be secretly laughed at, looked down upon, kept to the fringes of Society. Beau had become a student of Society since The Incident, and
he knew what would happen. Her sister’s ruin would be Madelyn’s final ruin, as well, even after all these years.

But that would be petty revenge, beneath him. He could never forgive her, but that was because he hadn’t been able to forgive his own youth, his own blind assumptions about the way the world worked. He could have friends, even a few real friends, among the
ton.
But rich as he might be, well-mannered as he might be, educated and affable as he might be, the Marquess of Blackthorn’s bastard son could never marry any of their sisters.

“Beau? You’re staring, and I have to tell you, it’s a little repellant,” Puck said, stirring his brother from his thoughts. “What are you going to do?”

Beau shook himself back to the moment and looked at Lady Chelsea, who returned his look as she nervously bit at her bottom lip.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry, but one of us has to think of the consequences. You’d be shunned by Society, disowned by your family. Perhaps this all seems romantic to you, perhaps you see it as some sort of adventure, the sort best reserved for the pages of a novel, but—”

“His mouth is always wet,” Chelsea said quietly. “He says a female on her knees is a woman who knows her place. He preaches that women are inferior in their minds and must be led, guided, or else be considered harlots who must be shown the staff.”

Puck pulled at his brother’s arm, leading him a short distance away to whisper, “Which one, brother mine?
The staff of obedience, or his own personal rod? Wet mouth, spouting religious nonsense, a girl as luscious as this one—I think we both know the answer. Not a pretty picture, and I would sleep nights, thank you. Damn it, Beau, we can’t let it happen, not now that we know. We can’t let her go back to her brother and this Flatley fellow.”

“Flotley,” Beau corrected distractedly, feeling Fate slipping its strong fingers around his throat, and squeezing.

“Doesn’t matter. Man’s a rotter, plain and simple. If you don’t marry her, I will. There are worse things than marriage to a rich, handsome and eminently affable bastard. That would be me, you understand. You’re just rich and passably handsome.”

Beau looked across the hallway at Chelsea and saw a single huge tear run down her cheek. The girl in tears, his brother threatening to sacrifice himself, the girl’s brother probably on his way to Grosvenor Square even now, armed to the teeth and with half his serving staff with him. If the girl were gone, Brean couldn’t try anything, but with the girl here, he could probably claim she’d been kidnapped, shoot both Puck and him and not be charged. After all, everyone knew their shared history; Brean would be believed.

But if Beau managed to put a hole in the earl? That would mean the gallows for him and probably for Puck, as well.

And the always-wet mouth for Lady Chelsea.

So why was he still standing here? There was only
one decision, only one route to travel, and that led straight to Gretna Green and marriage over the anvil.

“Damn it all to hell,” he said, grabbing Chelsea’s elbow and turning her toward the kitchens once more. “Puck, get yourself out of London. Leave now, with us. Take the yacht, and let your baggage follow you to Paris. Brean is most probably about to lose his newfound religion, and I don’t want you anywhere in the vicinity when it happens. Give me five minutes to instruct Wadsworth, and we’re off.”

“Then…then you’ll do it? You’ll marry me.”

“Or die in the attempt, yes. You’ve left me no choice.”

Her smile nearly knocked him off his feet. “Yes,” she said sweetly, all trace of tears now gone. “I know. Escape is only a temporary solution. But marriage rids me of Thomas and will, even though you did not send Francis Flotley to us, probably go a long way toward pleasing you—as our marriage will make him positively
livid.
See? It’s all working out.”

“S
O, IT’S SETTLED
? I had supposed she might object. I prayed over that, entreating our good Lord to intervene, lead her feet down the correct path.”

The Earl of Brean looked up from the papers from his estate steward he’d been reading for the past hour or more without much hope of understanding them—something about yields per acre and a request to leave four of the fields fallow next season, which he most certainly would not allow, not if that had an impact on
his wallet in any way. He’d had some bad investments of late. He waved the black-clad reverend to a chair.

“She did protest with her usual heat. But she’ll come around,” he told the man with some confidence. After all, Chelsea was not raised to be prepared to live beneath London Bridge. Besides, she had no other recourse. When in doubt, always remember who held the reins, and the reins were in his hands.

“Your sister is willful, Thomas. I have prayed on this, as well, and the only solution is to take her most firmly in hand. I shall begin with her books. Too much education is not for women. Their intellect is too frail to fully understand complex ideas. I have, in fact, taken the liberty of preparing a list of the more laudatory works fit for her more limited sensibilities. Books on proper deportment, the efficient running of households. And a fine variety of sermons, of course.”

“Good, er, good,” the earl said, perhaps thinking of the book of sermons that had so lately come winging at his head. “My father let her run wild, you know. Thought it amusing that she wanted to learn Greek.”

“Heathens,” the Reverend Francis Flotley said flatly. “With unnatural sexual practices.”

Thomas perked up his ears. For the past few years, his sole knowledge of unnatural sexual practices was that he’d bedded only his stick of a wife, and although others might not think that unnatural, it still was damn boring. Prayer was fine, he knew that, but when the woman beneath you prayed aloud, asking
Oh, God, when will he be done?
No, there were times even prayer
hadn’t been able to rid his mind of memories of his last mistress, Eloise, and her willingness to do anything he asked. She’d cost him, but what were a few baubles when she’d helped dress him in her silk stockings and garters that one night—that had been quite the giggle. “Really? And what were they? Perversions, I suppose?”

Flotley ignored the question. “I have no fears that she will accept her lot, in time. Once we are wed. A woman must cleave only to her husband.”

“If muttering a few vows in church was all it took, Francis, Madelyn wouldn’t be tipping back on her heels all over Mayfair. It is my greatest fear that Chelsea will be just like her.”

“Yes, I know well your fears. Her husband is weak. I am not. Do you doubt me, Thomas? Have I not shown you the way?”

The earl seemed to think about this for a moment. “She throws things.”

“Not once under my roof, I assure you. Speaking of which, Thomas, you had promised me the deed once Chelsea and I were affianced.”

The earl may have found religion, but that didn’t mean he’d entirely given himself over to parting with his money unless he saw a good chance of receiving something in return. “When you two are married, Francis. On that day, I will turn the deed to Rosemount Manor over to you, as promised.”

“And the dowry? I do not ask for myself, as you well know.”

“The Flotley Haven For Soiled Doves. Yes, I remember. You are a good man, Francis.”

The reverend nodded solemnly. “I will have them on their knees, repenting of their sins so that their souls may be saved.”

The earl thought of a few other reasons the soiled doves he’d encountered over the years had been on their knees, but that was an evil thought and he needed to banish it. Francis was so pure, and he was still such a wretched sinner. “As you rescued mine, Francis. Yes?” he then said, turning his head toward the doorway, where the butler hovered, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere but where he currently stood.

“I am so sorry as to bother you, my lord, but it seems that Lady Chelsea has…disappeared.”

“What? In a puff of smoke? Don’t be daft, man.”

“No, my lord. That is to say she…it would appear that she has run off. She left a note.”

“What!” The earl leaped to his feet, his hands drawn up in fists. “Damn that girl! When I get hold of her I’ll—”

“Thomas? Sit down, Thomas,” the reverend said quietly but with an air of command. “Anger aids no man, and nor does violence. We will see this note, and we will find her. We will pray together for her safe return to the bosom of her family, and the Lord will guide us to her. But it is as I said, Thomas. She is female and therefore, willful. I promise you, this will be the last of the rebellion you will see from her. I will lead her steps to the Almighty, and with me to guide her, her husband
and master to show her the errors of her sex, she will learn well the pathways she must trod.”

“That’s all well and good, Francis,” Brean said with some hint of intelligence. “But first we have to catch her.”

A
FTER SNEAKING OUT
of London like thieves—Puck had seemed delighted to make that comparison—they rode southwest, the three of them, because Scotland lay to the north. It wasn’t a brilliant plan, but hopefully it would suffice for the moment. It wouldn’t do to tell his brother and Chelsea that he was making up his steps even as they were taking them, but in truth, other than getting himself shed of London and his brother, he really hadn’t thought of what step would come after that.

There had to exist some way of getting rid of Chelsea, as well.

Sadly, inspiration seemed to have deserted him.

They’d left Wadsworth behind to take the knocker from the door, signaling that the master was not in residence, and given instructions to inform any visitor rude enough to demand entry that he and a young lady were accompanying Mr. Robin Blackthorn to France, by way of Dover.

Indeed, Beau’s traveling coach had set off, heading southeast, for Dover Road, the coachman told not to spare the horses, as if the devil himself was after them. The earl and his entourage would surely overtake the
empty coach by the time it reached Rochester, but by then Beau and his small company would have arrived on the outskirts of Guildford, a lovely forty or more miles of countryside between the two points.

He considered it a brilliant diversion.

He hadn’t considered Chelsea’s horsemanship, or if she even knew one end of a horse from the other. He’d only rather rudely thrown her up onto the sidesaddle and told her to hang on and not complain or else he might be tempted to leave her to her fate.

Which, he had to admit several hours later, she had not done.

The same, alas, could not be said for Puck.

“I still don’t see the point of keeping the family yacht at Brighton,” he was saying now, for at least the third time. “Who goes to Brighton, anyway, except fat Prinny and his fat ladies tottering about that monstrosity of his, probably bouncing off one another. Minarets? What possessed the man, do you think? I mean—
minarets?
What’s wrong with good old-fashioned English turrets, I ask you? Ah, there it is, another fingerpost pointing the way to Hove. Since you probably won’t wish to go any farther south before turning north, I imagine we part company here.”

“Thank heaven for small mercies,” Beau said as the three of them pulled up their mounts at the crossroads and looked at the fingerpost. Brighton lay to the south, Blackdown Hills and one of their father’s lesser estates to the west; a good stopping point for the night,
and some serious thinking. “Although, of course, we’ll miss you terribly.”

“I won’t,” Chelsea said, half standing in the sidesaddle and none too discreetly rubbing at her derriere. “It’s not a proper elopement if one brings one’s brother along. Especially one who sings.”

“Ah, my dear soon-to-be-sister, I am known for my fine voice.”

“Not to me, you’re not. I imagine people are just being kind if they compliment you on it,” Chelsea said, settling herself once more, but not quite able to hide a wince of pain as she did so. She turned her head to look at Beau. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you? He can find the Channel by himself, without us accompanying him?”

“I’m not sure,” Beau answered, as he’d been considering an alternate plan these past two hours, ever since their hurried meal at an out-of-the-way inn, when he’d noticed Chelsea’s reluctance to remount her horse. “You’ve a good seat, Chelsea, but I don’t know that you’ll enjoy riding all the way to Scotland. I’ve been thinking we might leave Puck to his own devices once we reach Brighton, and take the yacht.”

“What? All along the Channel, ’round Cornwall, out into the sea and
up?
It would take forever,” Puck pointed out. “I can see you wanting to get to know your bride, Beau, but confined together like that on a small boat? I’d give you odds that by the time you reach Scotland you will have murdered each other.”

“He has a point,” Chelsea said, nodding. “I’m not
certain I like the idea. I’ll be fine as soon as you locate a coach for us.” She looked at him with some intensity. “You
are
planning to hire a coach, aren’t you, now that we’re safely away from London?”

“I’d
planned
to spend the day reclining on a comfortable couch, nursing this damned headache that still won’t quit. Instead, within the space of a heartbeat, you, madam, have turned my entire life, my orderly existence, upside down. But to answer your question, no, I have not considered hiring a coach.”

“Then I suggest you consider it now,” Chelsea said, rolling her eyes at what she clearly believed was a horrible overreaction to her brilliant plan. “Honestly. I had only a few minutes to come up with my plan, so, of course, it wasn’t complete in all areas. But you’ve had entire
hours
now. I should think you might be able to pass beyond the idea of us riding all the way to Scotland on horseback, and I don’t think spending the next several weeks bobbing up and down on the water during spring storms could possibly be considered a laudable plan in any case.”

“Yes, Beau, for shame,” Puck said, gleefully joining his voice to Chelsea’s. And then he frowned and put a hand to his ear. “This is the main road to Brighton, correct? We didn’t take some lesser highway, because we didn’t have to worry about pursuit? Because that doesn’t sound like a coach barreling toward us. We’ve heard plenty of those.”

Beau, who had not been precisely jolly from the moment he’d first set eyes—and ears—on Lady Chelsea
Mills-Beckman, opened his mouth to say something cutting about his brother damn well knowing what road they were traveling. The words died halfway to his tongue, however, and he quickly leaned over, grabbed the bridle of Chelsea’s horse and turned both mounts into the trees, Puck urging his own horse off the road on the other side.

“What on earth do you think you’re—”

She got no further, because he’d unceremoniously dragged her out of the sidesaddle, holding on to her as he kicked his feet free of the stirrups and rolled the two of them onto the ground.

“You had to wear red,” he gritted out just as he rolled on top of her, covering as much of her riding habit as he could with his body even while reaching up one hand to grab on to the bridles of both horses, to keep them in place. “Lie still, damn it.”

He could feel the rumble now, and by the way Chelsea’s magnificently expressive eyes widened, he was sure that she, lying on her back in the weeds, could feel it even more.

Horses, at least a dozen, were approaching rapidly. There had been other travelers along the way, but this was different. This was like the advance of a small troop of soldiers. If he sniffed the air, he could almost smell the stink of pursuit; he imagined a cavalry charging down a hill and into the fray of battle.

Beau lifted his head slightly, peering through the long grass and underbrush, hoping he would not see any hint of his brother on the far side of the road. He
didn’t. What he did see, about ten seconds later, were a dozen horsemen, four of them wearing the Brean livery, pounding past them, not sparing their horses.

“How?” he asked, not really addressing Chelsea, who still lay beneath him, her complexion gone rather pink. “How did he know?”

“I think I can answer that, and I apologize for not thinking of it sooner,” she said, pushing at his shoulders. “Thomas loathes you, most especially so since he has been losing money while you, so clearly his inferior, are also so clearly odiously wealthy. I’ve heard him go on for hours about you with Reverend Flotley, as you are the one sin Thomas can’t seem to expunge with prayer. How he detests you. Your father’s money. All those unentailed estates the marquess plans to gift you and your brothers with upon his demise. The Grosvenor Square mansion. The hunting box in Scotland, the townhouse in Paris. The box at Covent Garden.”

“The yacht berthed at Brighton,” Beau supplied dully, shaking his head, cursing himself for his stupidity. “He’s probably got men riding to each of my father’s properties. Damn.”

“Yes, well,” Chelsea continued, still pressing against his shoulders. “Now that that’s explained…?”

Beau looked down into her face once more, belatedly becoming aware—very aware—of her body beneath his. “I was attempting to cover up your red habit,” he explained, still not moving. “Are you all right? Am I crushing you? You seemed uncomfortable.”

“I’m fine. I’ve…I’ve simply never been this…close to a man before.”

“Is that so?” he said, smiling…and still not moving.

“Oh, don’t look so smug. I didn’t say I
liked
it. Now get off me!”

“Ah, getting to know each other better, I see,” Puck said from somewhere above them. “Good for you.”

Beau rolled himself away from Chelsea and got to his feet, helping her up, as well. “You can’t go to Brighton,” he told his brother unnecessarily. “And I can’t take Chelsea to Blackdown, damn it.”

Puck sat himself down on a tree stump, taking off his curly brimmed beaver and slapping at it with one of his riding gloves to rid it of road dust. “You know, Beau, I’ve always looked up to you and Jack. The elders, the ones I’d turn to for assistance and advice. I probably shouldn’t have done that. You’re no smarter than I am, and Jack, probably considerably less. May I make a suggestion?”

“No,” Beau barked just as Chelsea said, “Yes, please.”

“Making my vote the tiebreaker,” Puck pointed out happily, “and I vote that I make the suggestion. Let’s head back to Grosvenor Square. It will be nightfall by the time we get there, so no one will see us if we keep to the same dank alleyways we employed for our exit. A good meal, soft beds, Wadsworth and his fellow former soldiers keeping guard. Yes, it’s brilliant.”

“It is, you know,” Chelsea said, tugging on Beau’s arm. “Thomas has everyone out hunting us, with
him self leading one of the groups, I’m sure. No one would think to look for us back where we started. Besides, then perhaps I can sneak back into the house and gather more clothing. The servants all dislike Thomas, but they seem to like me. They’ll help, I’m certain of that. Because I checked when we stopped at that inn a while ago, and all Beatrice seemed to pack for me was some clean under—well, she didn’t pack much at all, not even my tooth powder. And I do want to apologize if Beatrice was punished in any way.”

“I should have allowed you to figuratively throw yourself on the sword, Puck, and sent you two off to Gretna Green while I stayed behind to fend off Brean. You suit each other so well, the both of you missing several slates off your roofs. Go back to London? Sneak into the house you’ve just escaped in order to pack your tooth powder?” He rubbed at his forehead. “I’m never going to be rid of this headache, am I?”

“Don’t be such a stick,” Puck told him. “My part of the plan is brilliant.”

“It is, you know,” Chelsea said, smiling at Puck. “After all, who looks for something twice in the same place, when the something you were looking for wasn’t there when you looked the first time. I mean, it would be rather pointless, wouldn’t it?”

“Beau? Did you hear that? Beau? It’s getting on toward five, and we really should be on more familiar roads before dark. Because you’re right when you say I can’t continue on to Brighton, and you certainly would
be all kinds of a fool if you took Chelsea to Blackdown. Where else is there you’d have us go?”

“I’d answer that,” Beau bit out, feeling rather abused, “but supposedly there is a lady present. All right, let’s go.”

“I
STILL DON’T SEE
why
I
must be involved,” Madelyn said as she stripped off her gloves and tossed them in the general direction of her long-suffering maid. “For pity’s sake, Thomas, just go get her, you and your conscience over there, hulking like some great black crow. You have to know where she’s gone. And I, God help me, know why. Marry her to
that?
It wasn’t enough for you to have destroyed
my
life?”

“I think you did that rather effectively on your own, Madelyn,” Thomas said, although he retreated to the mantelpiece before he said it.

Lady Madelyn sat herself down in the drawing room of the mansion in Portland Place, slapping at her maid’s hands as that woman attempted to relieve her of her short, fur-trimmed pelisse. “Will you just
go away? I
decide whether or not I wish to be shed of my clothing, and I do not.”

“For which you have my eternal gratitude, dear sister,” the earl told her. “Now, if we could only keep you from shedding it as do trees their leaves each fall, and with all and sundry, I might consider my prayers answered.”

“Prayers? I liked you better when you were godless,
dear brother,
not that I ever liked you much at all. It
wasn’t as if you were actually going to
die,
you know. None of my brats did, now did they? This man here has sold you a bill of goods. Or should I say that’s the other way round, hmm? How much lighter
are
your pockets since the black crow here pecked his way into your life promising salvation?”

The Reverend Flotley bowed to the earl. “I should retire, my lord. This is clearly a family matter, and I should not wish to intrude, as I am not family.”

“No, but you’re as near as such, and when we get Chelsea back from that arrogant, encroaching bastard, you will be.”

Madelyn had taken a small mirror from her reticule and at that moment was examining her reflection, clearly pleased with the look of her new bonnet with the dark blue ribbon as it contrasted so well with her white-blond hair while highlighting her blue eyes. “Yes, yes, Thomas, and who is this encroaching bastard? Some half-pay officer with a winning smile and empty pockets, I’d suppose. That would be just like my silly sister. You
play
with the ineligible if they take your fancy, but you don’t
marry
them. Do I know him?”

The earl pushed away from the mantelpiece. The Lord punished, the Lord prodded…and the Lord sometimes rewarded. Thomas could have included the name in his note, but he’d wanted to see Madelyn’s reaction when she heard the news. He’d do penance for that small sin later, but he would enjoy the sin. “The bastard is Beau Blackthorn. Our sister, it would seem, has allied herself with our old enemy.”