The Taming of the Rake (7 page)

Chelsea gasped and quickly submerged. When she surfaced once more, pushing her long hair out of her eyes, he was gone.

She wasn’t quite sure exactly what had just happened. Fatigue had probably dulled her wits. But one thing was certain. If they had been challenging each other to see which was the stronger, she knew that the first round of the battle had gone to him.

“But one battle is not a war,” she reminded herself, picking up the sponge and continuing with her bath.

“A
H, THERE YOU ARE
,” Puck said, taking up his seat on the facing chair in front of the fire, across from where his brother sat sprawled, resting most of his weight on the base of his spine as he held a snifter of brandy in his fist. “I would have thought you’d be swearing off strong spirits for a space.”

“If I’m to be married to that piece of work, I may have to purchase my own vineyard,” Beau grumbled into the silken collar of his banyan. “But this is all my fault, I suppose. Whatever in hell’s name was I thinking, playing with Brean like a cat toys with a mouse? And, worse, how did she find me out? It’s as if I personally handed her the ammunition she would use to shoot me.”

Puck made a great business out of blinking rapidly as he peered at his brother. “Oh, it is you over there. Dark in here, you know, so I could have made a mistake. For a moment there, I thought you were Mama. A tad melodramatic, brother mine, just a shade over the top, but uncomfortably close to dreadfully heavy overacting. You’d think the world was about to come to an unlovely end. Can’t you look upon this as a grand adventure? I would.”

“And that matters to me? You’re an idiot. What do I care what you think?”

Puck laughed. “I may always be the youngest of us, brother mine, but I’ve somehow managed to grow up since last we saw each other, just before you took yourself off to war to bury your misery over your humiliation at the hands of this same Brean, not to mention the beating he inflicted on you. By God, you were a mess! I believe you’ve acted with considerable restraint. I doubt I would have been satisfied with merely enjoying his financial discomfort. So is it that you haven’t the heart for a true revenge, or is Lady Chelsea so completely unappealing to you?”

Beau looked at his brother, searching for an answer that wouldn’t betray the very real misgivings he’d been having ever since he’d unexpectedly found himself lying on top of Chelsea, watching the betraying blush steal into her cheeks even as she declared that she didn’t like having him in such close proximity.

Their encounter a few hours ago in the bathing chamber, and its effect on him, he would not mention at all,
even if Puck were to hold his feet to fiery coals, demanding details.

“No, she’ll do,” he said at last. “I spoke with her earlier tonight, made myself very clear on a few points. At least now we both understand who is in charge of this small adventure.”
And it’s not me.

“Laid down a few rules, did you? Well, good for you.”

Beau shifted rather uncomfortably in the chair. If one more bubble had burst he probably would have promised her the moon. God, but she excited him. “Yes, thank you. When are you setting out?”

“At first light. I’ve hunted you down to say my farewells. Your messenger will have reached Brighton by now with your instructions for the captain to move the yacht to Hove. I’ll catch him up there, and be on my way, sorry as I am to go. I’d planned to remain here in London for at least two months, you know. I haven’t even caught sight of Jack, and Mama expected me to linger until she’s done playing the grand actress and returned home. Are you certain I have to leave?”

“We’ve already discussed this. It will be safer for you if you are nowhere in the vicinity. Brean is familiar with all of our holdings, and he’ll have sent some of his hirelings to each of them, even as he personally is probably already on his way north after discovering that we hadn’t run for Dover. I just pray we don’t stumble over him from behind somewhere along the way.”

Puck slapped his palms against his thighs and got
to his feet. “Very well, then, but I’ll be back for the christening.”

Beau nearly dropped his glass. “What?”

“You do have to bed her, you know, or else Brean will demand an annulment, and when it comes to proof, there’s nothing more convincing than a babe in arms. And he’d be able to have the marriage set aside, too, since he’s the earl and you’re the—do you know, Beau, even in French, the word bastard doesn’t precisely roll off the tongue. Ah, but having an earl’s daughter as sister-in-law? I rather like the idea.

“Be kind to her, brother mine. We may not rise because of this alliance, but she is going to fall, mightily. I wonder if she’s truly realized how far.”

C
HELSEA ALL BUT STAGGERED
into the breakfast room the following morning at the ungodly hour of five o’clock, having been pointed in that direction by the uncomfortably formal Wadsworth. There she discovered Beau, sitting at the head of the table dressed to travel and looking, if possible, worse than she felt. He was engrossed in a letter held open in front of him and didn’t seem pleased with its contents.

“No, no, please don’t rise on my account,” she told him, not really at her best before the sun was up, at least, so her sympathy hadn’t been evoked by his frowning face. “After all, we can’t really get much more
informal
than we were last evening.”

He looked up at her rather owlishly, as if surprised she was still in residence. “What?”

She picked up a plate from the sideboard, waving away the footman who’d stepped out of the shadows to assist her, and began loading it with coddled eggs and a lovely thick pink slice of ham—lovely if she didn’t think about Thomas and his complexion.

She added an apple and two slices of bread to her plate. If she was going to be on the road with this
man, who yesterday proved he seemed never to think a woman may have to stop for a while every now and then for personal reasons she shouldn’t have to mention, then she’d better load her belly as much as possible.

“Is something wrong?” she asked as she allowed the footman to pull back her chair for her, and sat down. “You’re scowling more than usual.”

Beau folded the single sheet and set it beside his plate, where other items that must have arrived in the post were already stacked.

“It’s, ah, I was reading over yesterday’s post, which arrived after we’d taken off on our short journey to nowhere.”

“Not nowhere. We rode in a lovely circle. Upon reflection, we could all three of us have simply hidden in the attics until Thomas went away again.”

Beau didn’t smile. He didn’t scowl. He just sat there, tapping two fingers on the folded letter.

“Oh, for pity’s sake. Obviously something is wrong, and I can’t abide secrets. I’ll ferret it out of you one way or another, you know—I’m quite accomplished at ferreting, the proof being that I know you were behind the spoiled grapes and the rest of it—so you might as well simply tell me. Oh, and for your future reference, I can’t abide tapping, either.”

He looked down at his hand and seemed to command his fingers to cease their movement. “If I had shown you the door yesterday, did you have an alternate solution to your dilemma? Perhaps trading release from any plan to bracket you to the wet mouth in exchange
for handing your brother my head on a platter, telling him about—”

“Telling him that I’d learned how you have been
amusing
yourself with him? If it had been my only way to escape Francis Flotley, yes, I might have. I’m not quite as nice as some might wish, me included, but I am a Mills-Beckman, and that is probably excuse enough. Except that I know Thomas, and I would have only postponed the inevitable, and then you’d be dead or in some prison, or transported to Botany Bay, and where would that leave me? Entirely without options is the answer to that. And so here we are.”

“Yes,” Beau said, looking at her strangely. “Here we are. Aren’t I the lucky one? Difficult to believe that a bastard could be blackmailed into marriage with a lady of quality. One would think that, if anything, it would be the other way around. I should probably be flattered. For the record, Chelsea—I’m not.”

Chelsea shifted her gaze away from him, not wishing him to see how nervous she was. Because she wasn’t fragile; she needed him to know that. She was a very determined woman, and he could walk in on her bath ten times a day; it wouldn’t make her afraid of him or his ridiculous show of power, his none-too-subtle demonstration that she was, in fact, entirely at his mercy.

She hadn’t really thought much beyond escaping Portland Place before her brother came marching up to her bedchamber with a key to lock her in. As she’d learned to her sudden confusion and astonishment while lying on the ground, her now affianced husband’s body
disturbingly close to her, there was more to this elopement business than thwarting Thomas. There would be other consequences.

“This can all be traced back to Madelyn, you know. If she hadn’t thought to amuse herself with you all those years ago. If her silly children hadn’t brought their puffy cheeked pestilence to Brean, nearly killing their uncle, so that Thomas engaged Francis Flotley as his supposed spiritual adviser.

“Or we could blame you. I know you were young, and that Madelyn was beautiful—and probably offered you liberties that made you believe your suit would be favored—but honestly, Oliver, how could any man be so naive? I tried to warn you, but you were so love-mad. And that ridiculous waistcoat, and that jacket that made it impossible for you to take a deep breath, let alone defend yourself. In any event, you aren’t blameless in any of it, are you?”

He didn’t say anything for long, uncomfortable moments, and eventually she stole a look at him from beneath her lashes, wondering if she’d gone too far. Then she decided that she hadn’t. She hadn’t sneaked in to trap him in his tub while his bubbles popped, had she? No, she had not. Therefore, as they were far from even, she could verbally torment him all the way to Gretna Green and still not feel entirely vindicated.

“I liked that waistcoat. I thought it was inspired. In retrospect, yes, the jacket was too precisely tailored. I couldn’t raise my arms past my shoulders. Although,
to be fair, I hadn’t come to Portland Place expecting to have to physically defend myself.”

Chelsea propped one elbow on the table and dropped her chin into her palm. “What, precisely, did you like about that waistcoat? The material, which could have blinded someone if the sun hit it just right? Those terrible horizontal stripes? You looked like a faded bumblebee. And then I got you to toss the bouquet into the garden….” She covered her smile with her hand. “Oh, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to admit it, telling you Madelyn loathed them was truly inspired. You looked positively horror-struck. It all ended terribly, but for a while it was rather amusing. We have a history, Oliver, whether either of us likes it or not.”

“Yes, I suppose we do. Whether or not we have a future is still very up in the air, however. And I’m afraid I’m going to have to expose you to even more possible danger on our way to Gretna Green, but it can’t be avoided. We will be stopping at Blackthorn. My father’s wife has died.”

Shocked, Chelsea shot a look toward the folded letter and then raised her eyes to Beau’s face. “Oh, I’m so…” She paused, not knowing what to say. Did you offer condolences to the son of a mistress whose lover’s wife had just expired? “I mean, that’s very sad.”

“Yes, it is. Abigail was a good person. My mother will be devastated when she finds out. My father has already sent a rider to find her, bring her home, and I’ve done the same with Puck, to turn him back from leaving for Paris. God only knows about Jack, as I doubt
anyone would even know where to look for him. Still, he always seems to know everything, so I won’t be surprised if he turns up.”

“I see,” Chelsea said, looking down at her plate, not
seeing
at all. Did the man realize what he was saying? His mother, the marquess’s mistress, would be upset that the man’s wife has died?
Odd
did not begin to explain that statement, or the notion that the Blackthorn bastards would be gathering for the funeral of their father’s wife. “They…your mother and the marchioness, that is. They were friends?”

Beau laughed, and Chelsea realized he didn’t laugh enough, and when he did, it was at the strangest things. “I suppose I should explain.”

She put down her fork, since she wasn’t going to eat anyway. Her appetite had completely deserted her. “Yes, I suppose you should.”

He got to his feet. “We’ll be taking my traveling coach, just back from its aborted trip to Dover. I’ve already sent both our horses off ahead of us. If we can be on our way in the next five minutes, I would be most appreciative…and will tell you the story on our journey.”

“So there is a story? I imagine there would be,” Chelsea said as she, too, pushed back from the table. “But for the life of me, I have no inkling of the plot.”

“Don’t berate yourself, not many would.”

T
EN MINUTES LATER
, with a thick mist providing convenient cover, and the interior of the traveling coach dark,
thanks to the leather shades that had been pulled up to hide its occupants, the silence of predawn Mayfair was unexpectedly broken by a feminine voice raised in shock.

“She’s
what?
”

“How encouraging to know that you understand that this is meant to be a clandestine departure,” Beau drawled from the facing seat.

Chelsea closed her eyes and pinched at the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger. And counted to ten, all the way to ten, because it was clear the man wasn’t going to speak again without prompting.

She took a deep, hopefully calming breath, and attempted to recapture her composure. It wasn’t the easiest thing she’d ever done. “All right, I’m better now. But you will admit that I had every reason to be shocked. Your father’s wife was your mother’s
sister?
Your father’s wife is your
aunt?
” She sat back against the squabs. “No, I’m sorry. I still can’t quite take it in.”

“That’s probably because you have never met my family. It all seems quite logical to us.”

“Logical,” Chelsea repeated, shaking her head. She certainly didn’t wish to marry Francis Flotley, but was she seriously considering wedding a man who would see such a bizarre situation as
logical?
The nunnery, just until Thomas regained his senses, was beginning to look like a viable alternative to either situation. “I don’t quite see how such an arrangement could be logical. Or very comfortable for those involved. One the wife, the other the mistress, the progeny running tame on the
estate—you did do that, I imagine. That’s a level of civilization I don’t think I could ever aspire to, myself.”

The coachman tapped three times on the roof and then immediately sprang the horses, indicating that they were now out of the confines of London. But it all happened rather quickly, and Beau, who had been slouching in his seat like some recalcitrant schoolboy, was suddenly catapulted across the space between them, all but landing in her lap. He saved himself by firmly planting his arms on either side of her, his forward progress stopping only as they were all but nose-to-nose in the dark.

“Sorry,” he said, not moving. “I’m not usually this clumsy.”

Chelsea attempted to speak without breathing. “Is that so? Tell me, how clumsy are you…usually?”

“My reputation would have it that I am not clumsy at all. Indeed, in many areas, I’m considered quite…accomplished.”

Chelsea rolled her eyes at this blatant nonsense, even as her heart rate jumped dramatically. “I imagine I’m supposed to be impressed all hollow now, being told that my soon-to-be husband is…well, whatever it was that you were hinting.
Clumsily,
I might add.”

He pushed a bit away and sat himself down beside her on the front-facing squabs. “No wonder your brother turned to religion. A sister like you could send anyone into a sad decline and hunting desperately for salvation.” He unlatched the leather shade next to him, let
ting in the first light of day, and then turned to look at her. “You aren’t at all impressed?”

“I saw the waistcoat, remember? The years may have changed your outside, thank goodness, but I know who you are. People don’t really change that much. They just learn to hide themselves better. That’s why I know that Thomas’s new outside is only hiding the same uninspired inside. He wears his devotion like a cloak, to conceal and to be easily removed.”

“I’ll have to remember that.”

“If you plan on surviving until we’re safely married, yes, I would say you should. And Francis Flotley is just like my brother, only worse. At least Thomas believes he’s doing God’s work. The Reverend is pious for money.”

Beau took her chin in his hand and turned her head to look at her. Rather strangely, she thought. “You’re not a child anymore, are you? In fact, I’m beginning to worry that you’re wiser than I.” He let go of her chin. “But then I remember that you actually think you’re being brilliant, bracketing yourself to a bastard, and I relax again.”

Until he looks at me that way, unless he touches me.
Chelsea coughed into her glove, a ruse meant to make him think she was doing nothing more than that, when in truth, she was trying very hard not to admit that she had been having second thoughts.

She hadn’t realized how
manly
he would be; she’d still kept him in her mind as the raw youth he’d been. Silly, sympathetic, not at all worldly.

Easily manipulated.

The man sitting beside her, especially now that he was not suffering from the misery caused by strong drink, was anything but easily handled, led, directed.

Worse, he actually seemed to be
attracted
to her. Perhaps that came more easily to men, this being attracted thing. Show a man a skirt and an at least passably pleasant countenance, and he could easily convince himself that he found that woman attractive.

It wasn’t that way with females. At least it wasn’t that way for her.

She certainly wasn’t new to the marriage mart, the annual spring hunt for a suitable husband and father for her children. She’d weighed and discarded wealthy gentlemen, titled gentlemen, both wealthy and handsome gentlemen. None of them had affected her in the slightest, until she had at last concluded that this business about flutters in her stomach and daydreams about sweet stolen kisses in the moonlight were fine for the pages of a marble-backed novel, but had no equal in the real world.

But then this man, this truly ineligible man, had scowled at her, made fun of her, barely even
tolerated
her…and suddenly she was interested, intrigued and eager even for his insults.

Perhaps she was one of those terribly shallow persons who wanted only what they could not or should not have. That was a lowering thought…