The Taming of the Rake (8 page)

Chelsea mentally shook herself back to the moment—as she really didn’t wish to pursue the thought she was
having—and steered the conversation back to the bizarre revelation that the marchioness had been Beau’s aunt. She’d avoid thinking about the other relationship that followed, that the marchioness had been sister to the marquess’s mistress.

“Shall we return to the subject of your recently deceased aunt? We seem to be constantly sidetracked, which tells me perhaps this isn’t as
logical
as you would like me to believe.”

He took her hand in his, companionably—or at least that was what she told herself. “Let’s see, where shall I begin? Ah, I have it. Once upon a time—”

“If you refuse to be serious…” She attempted to tug her hand free, with no success.

“I am being serious,” he protested. “Or as serious as any of us gets, I suppose. All right, stop frowning. Once upon a—sorry. Over thirty years ago my mother, Adelaide by name, by the way, was the unhappy daughter of the local squire. She had one father, one mother and one sibling, the aforementioned Abigail. They all lived together quite unhappily in a tumbledown manor house about five miles distant from Blackthorn. One day, a handsome young man rode up the lane on his snow-white charger and—you’re squeezing my hand rather hard, Chelsea.”

“Be happy I’m not banging you about the head and shoulders with my reticule. I said I wanted to hear the story. Not a fairy tale.”

“I’m telling it the way it was told to me, by my mother, and innumerable times, so that I’ve committed
most of it to memory. Almost romantic, rather than seedy and strange. May I continue?”

Chelsea struggled to control herself. The man was enjoying himself entirely too much and all at her expense. “Please.”

“Thank you. Now, where was I?”

“The snow-white charger.”

“Ah, yes. The
limping
snow-white charger, which is why the handsome young man had stopped at all, hoping for some assistance with his injured mount. He got as far as the small stables when he encountered a lovely young thing, ethereally beautiful. Waiflike, delicate, almost as if she belonged in the heavens or some other celestial sphere. In a word, she was exactly like something out of a fairy tale. She came running toward him, not because of the sight of his handsome self, but because the fair maiden was dismayed to see the injured steed.”

Chelsea nodded. “Your mother.”

“My aunt. Close on Abigail’s heels, however, was my mother, yes. And where the younger sister was a delicate sprite of a thing, the older sister was clearly the one who saw the danger, pulling her sibling back just in time from being stomped on, as the startled white charger had reared up at the sound of said younger sister’s cries of dismay.”

He turned to smile at Chelsea. “I think what my mother had been trying to say, without actually using the words, was that Abigail ran at the horse screeching like a banshee.”

“Probably,” she agreed, fascinated in spite of herself. “Then what happened?”

Beau crossed one long leg over the other and rested his hand on one strong buckskin-clad thigh, and as he was still clasping it, Chelsea’s hand, as well.

“As I said, the horse reared. The handsome yet hapless young man, dumbstruck—by the combined beauty of the two young ladies, of course—toppled off the white charger and lay, stunned, at their feet. One, my mother, immediately grabbed at the white charger’s bridle and kept the handsome young man safe, and the other, by deduction Abigail, promptly fainted across his prone body.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Chelsea said, trying not to smile. “I know I’m asking you to deviate from the story, but did the horse survive?”

“It did. As did my father, my aunt and my mother. Relatively speaking. I’ll spare you the details of the romance, but the upshot was that my father and mother fell in love, my father asked for her hand in marriage, and she turned him down flat.”

Chelsea’s eyes widened in astonishment. “So he shrugged his shoulders, told himself one was as good as the other and married your aunt?”

“Hardly. My father was devastated, for he truly loved his Adelaide. But Adelaide truly wished to be an actress, traveling the countryside with a troupe, one day performing at Covent Garden. She was, and is, quite dedicated to what she calls her craft. She knew that a man who would one day rise to the title of Marquess
of Blackthorn could not possibly be wed to a common actress, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love her dearest Cyril with all of her being—that’s nearly a direct quote, by the way.”

The coach hit a hole in the road, and Beau instinctively reached over with his free arm at chest level to hold Chelsea in her seat.
Her
instinctive response was to slap her free hand against her chest before realizing that, yes, the man’s palm was all but cupping her breast…and she was
helping
him by holding it there.

“Now, that’s interesting,” Beau drawled maddeningly, clearly amused. And not moving his hand, even as she dropped hers in her lap.

“Take it off,” she said quietly, knowing she both looked and sounded the fool.

“Oh, yes, definitely. Would that be my hand, or your jacket?”

“I will count to—”

“Not again,” he said, withdrawing his hand. She struggled not to touch herself again, to ease the tingling burn his touch had caused. “You know that was an accident.”

“For three seconds, it was an accident,” she corrected primly, at last succeeding in withdrawing her other hand from his grip. “After that, it was deliberate. You’re no gentleman, Oliver Blackthorn.”

“Once again, you point out the obvious. I would also point out that I don’t care to be called Oliver, but that’s probably why you’re doing it, so I won’t. But I do apologize.” He was silent for the space of three heartbeats.
“At least I suppose I should. We are going to be married, remember.”

“There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip, Oliver. We may find a way out of this yet.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished them back. “I mean, yes, of course. We’re going to be married. But I don’t think we should…that we should
anticipate
our vows.”

“In case you change your mind,” Beau said quietly.

“In case circumstances change,” she put forth, hoping she sounded reasonable. “Thomas might realize that he was wrong to demand I marry Francis Flotley and be racing even now to Gretna Green, to apologize. You…um. You may not have to sacrifice yourself. I mean, this was all my idea, and I am coming to realize that I have put a terrible imposition on your, um, your…”

“Good nature?” Beau supplied, which made her want to slap his grinning face for him. “Then again, if Thomas were to, as you say, catch us up before we reach Gretna Green and jump over the anvil or whatever the devil it is we have to do, and shoot me straight through my heart, it might put a crimp in his plan to sneak you back to London with nobody the wiser if you were to present him with the bastard’s bastard nine months later.”

Chelsea’s cheeks went hot, as did other parts of her she would only think about later when she was alone. “I cannot believe we are having this conversation.”

“I can’t believe I’m on my way to Scotland to wed my enemy’s sister, which probably makes us even if
either one of us is keeping a tally. Again, I apologize. I hadn’t realized I’ve been skulking about England for the past day and night, and risking my life, by the way, although I’m confident you feel that is only a secondary consideration.”

“Oh, stop it,” Chelsea demanded, not needing him to point out all the flaws in her plan. They’d been presenting them to her almost hourly since she’d first stepped foot in the mansion in Grosvenor Square. “If you’re that concerned, simply have the coachman turn the coach and take me back to Portland Place. I will say I took the public coach yesterday and then thought better of it once I ran out of pin money. Thomas will accept that explanation as he believes what he wants to believe. Marriage to Francis Flotley surely can’t be any worse than marriage to a
martyr.
Although I will say, you are not exactly an uncomplaining martyr, are you?”

Beau was silent for so long that Chelsea had all but concluded that he was going to do exactly that—return her to her brother’s house. Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. She shouldn’t have gotten so starchy, all because he’d innocently touched her…not so innocently continued to touch her. After all, he was making a very large sacrifice for her. Even if she was, in a way, rather blackmailing him into it. And at least his mouth wasn’t always wet…

“So, although they were in love, and knew they could never really be apart for long,” Beau said at last, just as if the uncomfortable interlude hadn’t taken place, “they both realized that marriage was out of the question. At
the same time, Cyril knew he could not have an easy moment if Adelaide were to be running about England with no real protection save a gaggle of actors who wore tights and simpered and would probably squeal and run away if any danger came near them. In the end, a compromise was struck. Cyril would finance Adelaide’s adventure upon the stage, and Cyril would wed Abigail, who would otherwise never marry.”

Chelsea had thought she didn’t care anymore about the man, the wife and the mistress. But she was wrong. “Why would Abigail never marry? You said she was beautiful.”

“Yes, she was. Very beautiful, although quite fragile in her health. And good, and sweet, and kind. And always a child. Some call people like Abigail simple, but that’s either mean or misleading, I’m not sure which. Adelaide only stayed home because of Abigail, as their parents were rather old, and her father had no real patience with Abigail. My mother needed to see her sister settled, and that also meant she needed her married, out from under the control of their father, who often threatened to put Abigail
away
somewhere when she made small mistakes. And some larger ones I’m afraid, such as accidentally starting the house on fire. Three times.”

“Your mother is right. That is a fairy tale. One with a very sad ending, considering that you and your brothers are bastards because of what she and your father did together. That is, what they planned together,” she added quickly, when Beau laughed. “For the good of her sister, which although quite commendable in some ways, could
be looked upon as—oh, stop that! You know what I mean.”

Beau sobered, nodding his head. “Yes, I understand what you mean. But that was our life, and as it was the only life we knew, it made sense to us. My father never went to London again, never wanting to take the chance of missing one of Adelaide’s stops at the estate. He never stepped foot inside the Grosvenor Square mansion after he met Adelaide, save for a single time, about ten years ago, when he took Abigail there, seeking medical advice. Abigail, of course, couldn’t possibly be exposed to Society. She was much too fragile.”

“You did say that her health was a concern. Is that how she died? Did she become ill?”

“According to my father’s note, she slipped away quietly in her sleep. Thank God. But back to the fairy tale. My father set my mother up in a cottage on the estate—Mother insisted on a real cottage, complete with a thatched roof and goats in the yard—and my brothers and I grew up running the entire estate, and as Abigail’s beloved nephews. Actually, we were very often in charge of her, because she adored playing games and dancing on the lawns, things like that. She was like a sister to us, I guess you’d say. A happy, beloved, wondrously beautiful and pure little sister who may have grown older, but never grew up.”

“And now she’s gone. I’m truly sorry for your loss, Oliver, I’m sorry I was so difficult about it, and I’m sorry most of all that I won’t ever get to meet Abigail.”

Everything else could wait its turn. Thomas, Francis
Flotley, the elopement and its consequences. None of that was important right now. They were going to Beau’s family home to help say a final farewell to his sister.

Chelsea slipped her hand back into his and rested her head against his shoulder. Hoping to in some way comfort him in his real grief.

The coach traveled on toward Blackthorn.

B
EAU WOKE AS THE COACH
turned from the road onto a private drive; he knew the feel of it, the singular sound the wheels made on the smooth surface. He didn’t have to lower the shade, peer out into the darkness for his first sight of lighted windows somewhere ahead. His soul sensed it; he was almost home.

Back where he belonged.

His body relaxed, the façade he was forced to wear in London no longer necessary. Here, in this special small part of the world, nobody cared which side of the blanket his mother had been lying on when she’d conceived her three sons. Here, even now, as he’d just reached the ripe old age of thirty, he was still Master Beau, and Puck was Master Puck. Strangely, the servants several years ago had taken to calling Jack Mr. Blackthorn. Jack, the middle child, the one his brothers had dubbed Black Jack.

Beau wondered if Jack knew about Abigail. The man disappeared for months at a time, doing what only he knew. But he always seemed to turn up when he was needed, and sometimes when everyone only wished he would go away again.

Puck would be the worst, as he’d always been Abigail’s favorite. He’d dance with her, and compose silly songs that made her laugh, and read to her when she was ill and confined to her bedchamber. They none of the three of them thought of Abigail as their father’s wife. Mama was his true mate, any fool could see that.

But Mama was gone more often than not, still chasing the glorious dream she’d had since she’d been a child, never making it to London and Covent Garden, but only really happy when she was trodding the boards. She’d be ecstatic whenever she returned to Blackthorn, full of hugs and tears and kisses for everyone, regaling them with tales of her successes, the grand applause she garnered as she took her bows.

But as he’d told Chelsea, she never stayed at the mansion, preferring her own small cottage, where she would play at gardener, at cook, vowing that there was nothing like the simple life of an “ordinary person” to refresh her soul and replenish her weary body.

Puck had remarked that it was always like Christmas morning when Mama was in residence at the cottage. Their papa smiled all the time, everyone laughed, often, and her three “babies” wanted nothing more than to shower her with affection she very clearly returned.

Her young children loved her, the marquess worshipped her.

But she was not without her faults.

A few weeks would pass, even an entire glorious summer one year, and then they’d all recognize the signs, the restlessness, and she’d be off again, leaving
her admirers with hugs and tears and kisses…but always leaving them, just the same.

And, increasingly, as they grew, her children had become less enchanted with her. It was difficult to love what they couldn’t trust to be a constant in their lives, and knowing that they came in a poor second to their mother’s love of the stage had all three of them guarding their hearts when she was present.

Beau understood that his father loved her. But he’d be damned if his wife would take him so much for granted. Happy to see him, happy to leave him. Leave their children.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? His father and mother weren’t married. The angelic oblivious Abigail had been his father’s wife, if only in name. Beau didn’t know the order of importance on his mother’s list of what made her happy, but he knew that
freedom
figured higher than almost anything or anyone else.

I’ll have none of that,
he told himself as Chelsea, who’d fallen asleep shortly after they’d gotten back on the road after a mediocre dinner at a backwoods wayside inn, lay heavily against his shoulder.
My wife will be my wife, in every way. There will be no half measures, and no bastards to pay the price for their mother’s selfishness.

Beau gave himself a small shake, not realizing how much he’d resented his mother for choosing her freedom over her own sons. Not until now, when he faced marriage himself. Thank God he’d had no sisters. What
was tolerable for him and Puck and Jack would have been a living hell for a bastard daughter.

He would ask much of Chelsea, not because she would owe him anything, but because marriage was important. Ask any bastard and he’d tell you that.

What would Chelsea ask of him? Clearly she wasn’t as certain of her grand plan as she’d been yesterday, but there was no going back now. She’d realize that soon enough. The action of a moment, that’s all coming to Grosvenor Square had been for her, a wild and rather juvenile response to her brother’s demand she marry a man of his choosing.

But it is the actions of a moment that often have the most permanent of consequences. Beau knew he had been damned from the second she’d set foot in the mansion. In her brother’s eyes, especially now that more than an entire day and night had passed with Chelsea in Beau’s company, the action of that moment would forever be seen by both the earl and the world as the ruination of one Lady Chelsea Mills-Beckman—and the total humiliation of her brother, which Beau knew himself to be mean-spirited enough to see as the silver lining in the threatening clouds hanging over him as he struggled to get Chelsea to Gretna Green before said brother shot him, or worse.

At least there was one good thing—if he survived long enough to be wed at all—he and Chelsea were not in love.

Because love made a person stupid and prone to doing stupid things. He’d done that once, fallen victim
to cupid’s dart in rather spectacular fashion and with spectacularly disastrous results. He wouldn’t do it again.

The coach began to slow, indicating that they were nearing the end of the mile-long drive that led up to Blackthorn. It had to be close on to ten o’clock, but he knew all the lights would be blazing behind the windows, his father confident that his sons would come rushing home the moment they’d received his announcement of his wife’s passing.

Puck, riding on horseback and able to cut across country, was probably already in residence. Jack could be on the moon for all anyone knew, but he’d show up somehow, just like a bad penny.

“Chelsea,” Beau said, close against her ear, ignoring the sweet perfume of her unbound blond hair. She’d taken it down earlier, complaining that the pins were giving her the headache, and he’d carefully ignored how she’d looked with the masses of loose curls tumbling down over her shoulders.

He’d been ignoring her eyes from the start. He’d ignored the rather exotic slant to them above her tip-tilted nose, reminiscent of a fairy sprite if he wanted to get romantical about them, which he most assuredly did not. They were not gray, not blue, but rather like a startlingly clear pond on a sunny winter’s day. He’d ignored the way she’d sometimes look at him in question, sometimes in what might almost be admiration, at other times in agitation—he rather liked the way her eyes flashed then. And how they’d welled with tears when he’d told her about Abigail.

He’d spent the past few hours pointedly ignoring the way her body fitted so easily against his side, the sound of her soft, even breathing as she slept.

He’d concentrated on the trouble she’d brought him, rather than on her smile, her scolds, her insults, her bravery.

He remembered who she was, the sister of his enemy, the sister of his first and only love, and how wicked was the former, how fickle the latter.

No matter what, Lady Chelsea Mills-Beckman was, at long last, his perfect revenge.

“Chelsea,” he repeated. His hand was on her shoulder, because he’d had to hold her in place as the coach moved as quickly as possible along the moonlit road, Beau warning them that they did not want to be caught out in the open by the earl’s men. So now he gave her a gentle shake. “Come on, wake up.”

“Don’t want to,” she murmured sleepily.

“Ah, isn’t that a pity.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, burrowing in closer to him, clearly not awake enough yet to realize what she was doing. Unless she did, but he didn’t want to think about that; he didn’t think she should trust him quite so much. Besides, he preferred her to be what he wanted her to be, and what he wanted her to be was…was…damn. He didn’t know.

He tried another tack. “You’ve already disproven the notion that it is only those with a clear conscience who sleep soundly. Unless it truly doesn’t bother you that you’ve so badly compromised an innocent man.”

That did it.

“Innocent?” Chelsea levered herself away from him, pushing her hair back from her face. “Well, now I’m awake, most certainly. Innocent. I doubt you’ve been innocent, Oliver, since you were in leading strings. Oh, drat this hair! Now it’s stuck on one of your buttons. Ouch! Hold still.”

She had so much hair, tons of it, but it was fine, like that of a child, and prone to forming ringlets along its blond lush length. He knew, because he’d found himself idly stroking her hair as they rode on through the dusk, only realizing what he was doing when his fingers seemed to become tangled in those living curls, just like a hapless insect that has flown, unnoticing, into the spider’s web.

“Here, let me help you,” he said as she fumbled with one of the buttons on his coat, her head bent beneath his chin as she struggled to see in the dark. His hands touched hers, and she looked up into his face, those winter pond eyes flashing.

“Stop. You’ll only make it worse.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Beau said, some imp of mischief setting his tongue to moving before his brain could fully engage on what it was he was saying. “It would appear the hapless insect has somehow managed to turn the tables on the spider.”

“What? Are you drunk again? You only had the one mug of ale at the inn. I know, because I watched. While I’ve been sleeping, have you been drinking from some
bottle I missed, one you hid inside the coach? I won’t be married to a sot, you know, no matter how hand—”

“Yes?” he questioned when she abruptly shut her mouth. Yes, he really did like her eyes best when she was…agitated. “No matter how what? You think I’m handsome? Is that it? I appeal to you?”

She tried to lower her head, pulling on her hair as if she could untangle it from the button by brute force. “Handy. No matter how handy. As in, Oliver, you came in very
handy
when I needed you to rescue me from Francis Flotley.”

“He of the always-wet mouth. Yes, I remember. You had Puck all but ready to sacrifice himself when he heard that. But that’s because Puck is a romantic. I’m the practical one. Now hold still. I paid a good penny for these buttons, you know.”

He leaned back against the squabs and pressed his chin into his chest as he looked down the length of his nose to the offending button. This also put him within a few inches of Chelsea’s face, because now it seemed that even more of her hair was imprisoned around the button. “How in blazes did you manage that? Sit still, I’m going to have to take off my coat.”

“You can’t take off your coat, you imbecile. I’m
attached
to it.”

That was true. She was. And he didn’t have the heart to tell her that she was supporting herself by putting her right hand directly on his… “Do you have a better suggestion?”

She must have wearied of looking at him, because
she turned her head downward, away from him, which brought not only her hand but her face in closer proximity to the last place she probably wished to be at the moment, or any moment, he supposed.

Her close proximity wasn’t bothering
him
all that much, he realized, although it could soon prove embarrassing, as she was a rather beautiful woman, and he wasn’t three days dead.

The coach stopped. The door to the coach opened. Light from the flambeaux on either side of the front doors of Blackthorn spilled inside the coach.

There was a short, uncomfortable silence, followed by Puck’s voice saying, maddeningly, “Ah, I see you two are getting to know each other better. Well, good on you, brother.”

Chelsea yelped, jerked her head upward (which forced her hand sharply downward, causing Beau to see pretty bright lights winking inside the coach for a few seconds), and then yelped again, much more loudly, as her hair finally pulled free, leaving several golden strands behind, still wrapped around the button as she tumbled unceremoniously onto the floor of the coach.

“You didn’t see that, Puck,” Beau warned as he helped a now grumbling Chelsea back onto the seat.

“I didn’t? Are you quite sure? Because I could have sworn I did. None of it?”

“None of it,” Beau agreed as Chelsea struggled to pull back her hair and then rubbed at what must have been a newly tender area of her scalp.

“It will be our little secret?”

“There’s no
little secret,
you great giant looby,” Chelsea protested, now straightening her riding habit, which probably didn’t help change Puck’s mind about what he’d just seen. “My hair got caught on Oliver’s button and we were trying to release it, that’s all.”

Puck held up his hands. “Oh, no, please don’t explain. I’d rather simply treasure the moment. It is, in fact, burned into the back of my eyeballs.”

“Are you done?” Beau asked him, caught between laughter and some odd urge to punch his brother straight in his grinning mouth.

Puck sighed. “Yes, I suppose so. But I must tell you, I’ve seen a whole other side of you just now, brother mine. Until now, I saw you as old and, dare I say it, faintly starchy? I don’t think so!”

“Your brother has gotten entirely the wrong impression. You need to explain,” Chelsea demanded as Beau kicked down the steps and emerged from the coach, and then turned to hold out his hand to her to assist her to the drive.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said, echoing Puck as she laid her left hand on his forearm and they headed up the wide marble steps to the door being held open by one of the Blackthorn footmen, her blond hair a shining cloud of gold around her face and shoulders in the light from the flambeaux. She certainly looked as if they’d been doing what Puck had been so mischievous as to pretend he believed they’d been doing. “I think I’d rather also simply treasure the moment.”

Chelsea stopped dead on the second step from the
top, turned and delivered a sharp and rather painful kick to his ankle with her pointed riding boot. “And I will treasure this one,” she said as Puck collapsed in laughter against the shoulder of the openmouthed and goggling footman.