The Taming of the Rake

“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.”

The mirror dropped to the marble floor and shattered as Madelyn sprang to her feet. “That bitch! And yet you stand here, doing nothing?”

“Far from nothing. I’ve sent out riders everywhere I could think of, thinking they couldn’t have gotten far, but all have yet to report back to me. Now I intend to go straight to the marquess myself and demand that he either turn Chelsea over if she is there, or tell me where his bastard son has taken her.”

“There’s no question where he’s taken her, Thomas. They’re for Gretna Green, obviously. How could she do this to us? We’ll be a laughingstock!”

Reverend Flotley, who had stayed after all, advanced on her, holding out his hands as if to soothe her. “Now, now, ma’am, we must remain calm. We have right on our side, and right will prevail.”

“If right were to prevail, you pious buffoon, I would be a duchess.” She then shot him a look that had him reconsidering any notion of taking her hands and asking that they pray together and stepped back a pace. “But you’re right, Thomas. Like any low animal, Blackthorn will most probably run first for his den, thinking himself safe there, and only from there continue to Scotland. What I wonder again is, why are you lingering here?”

“I was hoping for an easy capture and a swift return,” he told her as his pink cheeks went florid. “But we must get to her now, before this goes too far. For that, Madelyn, I need you. Once we have her she will need female companionship, in case we are seen. Now that you understand the gravity of our situation, will you agree to accompany us?”

“Us? The black crow goes, as well? In my coach?”

“In my coach, and we should leave within the hour. Francis is Chelsea’s affianced husband, Madelyn,” the earl reminded her. “We’ll find her, take her, bring you back here to London immediately and then travel directly to Brean, where they will be married. If I have to tie her down to get it done. But we’ll have to spend one night on the road, at least. One small trunk, Madelyn, and within the hour—I mean that. We have no time for more.”

Madelyn seemed to consider this for a few moments and then agreed. On one condition. “But no praying. I do not want to hear any praying!”

“I will converse with my Lord in silence, ma’am,” Flotley said. “And pray for your immortal soul.”

“Pray for Blackthorn’s immortal soul, Reverend,” Madelyn told him. “You think you know my brother, you think he is a man of God now? Then more fool, you. I’ve known him longer and I know him better. Thomas? You’re going to kill Beau Blackthorn, aren’t you? Shoot him down like the bastard cur he is. You have every right, as he absconded with your sister, kidnapped her. I will swear to it. Thomas! Answer me!”

The earl looked to his spiritual adviser, the florid cheeks now advanced to an unlovely shade of puce. “Francis says I must turn the other cheek, forgive not the sin, but the sinner.”

“Francis is an ass, and you, Thomas, have turned yourself into a sniveling coward hiding behind religion,” Madelyn said, already heading for the foyer. “Very well, just get me to him. I’ll do what you aren’t man enough to do, what you should have done seven years ago!”

She slammed out the door, her maid trotting to keep up.

The earl picked up a figurine and smashed it against the marble of the fireplace. Then he turned about to face Flotley, his fingers drawn up into tight, white-knuckled fists, his breathing so quick he could feel his heart straining to burst.

“By God and all that is sacred, Francis, I’m the worst of sinners. And may God strike me down, because I want that man dead! I ache for it. I will whip him, no matter how you made me confess sorrow for what I did when he dared to ask for Madelyn. I wanted to whip him then, and I want to whip him now. I—I—I want to rip out his liver and put it on a spit! And I will do it, in front of his own father if I must. Do you hear me? I’m a sinner. I’m a damn and damned sinner! That’s what I was, that’s what I am, no matter how you say God wants me to be better than I am, no matter how many promises I made Him. And I don’t care anymore!”

All remained quiet in the drawing room for some minutes, as the earl collapsed into a chair and lowered his head into his hands. Did he feel remorse for his outburst? Guilt for his violent desires? Or relief, because after two long, God-fearing years, he had once more embraced the Devil, whom he felt much more of an affinity for, at least.

“For it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,’” Flotley finally reminded him quietly. But then, perhaps seeing that his personal disciple might be experiencing a crisis of his newfound faith that could end with his spiritual adviser tossed out into the street—to land on his empty pockets—he added, “But I do believe there are a few Old Testament writings that may apply here. I will find them for you.”

CHAPTER FIVE

ChELSEA LAID HER HEAD back against the small pillow the maid had placed behind her and allowed the wonderfully warm water to soothe her aching muscles, not a few of them located in an area of her body never named in polite company.

Beau’s Grosvenor Square mansion was wonderfully modern. None of the bathing tubs at Brean or in Portland Place were this large, or anchored in one spot, as this one was. In its own private room, no less, and not carried into her bedchamber and placed before the fire, with a small army of servants forced to haul in buckets and buckets of hot water, sloshing some of it on the floor and generally making a mess of things.

This tub even had pipes located at one end of it and turning levers, and when you turned them, water gushed out of the pipes and into the tub. This had so amazed Chelsea that she’d turned them again and again, so that now the tub was in danger of overflowing.

Not that she cared; it was too heavenly, being submerged up to her chin in the lovely water, and with the mounds and mounds of scented bubbles tickling her nose.

It was difficult to believe that only hours ago she had been faced with the idea of being wed to Francis Flotley. Kidnapped, spirited off, locked up and made into some twisted bit of Thomas’s promises to his Maker.

But in only those few hours, she had saved herself, frustrated Thomas, met two fools and was, at least marginally, now the affianced bride of one of them.

She would think that she and Mr. Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn appreciated each other more, but it was Mr. Oliver Le Beau Blackthorn who most deserved the honor of, well, of pushing Thomas’s face in the muck, she supposed it could be said.

It mattered not who she married—wet-mouthed men and anyone Thomas approved of excluded. Marriage was a social dance, and nobody really cared whether the people involved actually liked each other. Marriage was an exchange of dowry for title, or the other way around, a duty to procreate in order to keep one’s lands and fortunes out of the hands of disliked relatives. Emotion had nothing to do with the thing.

She knew this because she was a student of history. Ask Josephine if her Bonaparte had truly loved her, when he’d cast her off for a younger womb. The royals had it the worst, bartered away for the sake of a few acres of land or a military alliance, or simply because the prince or king had decreed it, and when those men tired of their wives, the chopping off of heads had many times been the accepted method of being rid of said wives.

At least she would be spared that!

She could only hope the man realized how grateful he should be to her for thinking of him and this particular revenge in the first place.

But she very much doubted that he did.

“Men can be so annoyingly obtuse,” she muttered, holding up a palm full of bubbles and blowing at them.

“My lady? Was there something you wanted?”

Chelsea smiled at the maid, who had been adding another log to the fireplace that was also situated in this lovely bathing chamber. “No, thank you, Prudence. I was only reminding myself that women are supremely superior to men in intellect and understanding. Haven’t you always found that to be true?”

“If that means that my brother Henry is thick as a plank, then yes, my lady, that’s true. He once tried to milk a cow from behind, our Henry did, which is why he’s only got the two teeth and why we brought ourselves to London to find work when Mr. Beau offered, as far from cows as we could get. Poor Henry, they aren’t even his front teeth. I’ll leave you to your bath, my lady,” Prudence said and then curtsied and quit the room, hopefully never noticing that Chelsea’s shoulders were shaking with suppressed mirth.

Maybe she was tired. Perhaps the strain of the day had been more than she’d realized. The argument with Thomas, the moments of horrible panic, the mad dash to Grosvenor Square. Convincing Oliver Le Beau Blackthorn that he was a lucky man, except, of course, if he dragged his heels enough that Thomas and his gaggle of brawny footmen and grooms showed up and strangled him, at which point he would have been an unlucky and very dead man. Three hours on a horse, riding pell-mell away from London. Three more hours in the saddle, riding back again.

No matter what the reason, Chelsea was suddenly giggling at the thought of poor Henry and his two teeth. Laughing. Chortling so hard she sniffed some bubbles up her nose and then laughing even more.

“And here I assured Puck that you weren’t a fugitive from Bedlam. Or is it that the bubbles tickle? Interesting thought, that second possibility. Precisely where would they tickle?”

Chelsea sucked in a breath midgiggle and turned her head to see Beau standing not five feet away from the tub. The quick action, when combined with the slipperiness of the tub bottom, caused her to slide helplessly beneath the surface of the water. Throwing up her arms and wildly grabbing for purchase on the rim of the tub, she resurfaced gasping, choking, blinking soap out of her eyes and caught between an urge to kill the man and a heartfelt desire to sink below the bubbles once more.

“Monster! Take yourself off, Mr. Blackthorn. I’m in my bath.”

“Actually, you’re in my bath,” Beau pointed out, which is when she noticed that he was clad in a burgundy banyan, his bare chest visible, along with his bare legs and feet.

She’d seen Thomas dressed—or undressed—in much the same way a time or two, when he’d been convalescing from his bout with the mumps. Thomas had looked silly, all skinny white legs and paunch. Beau looked nothing like Thomas. His legs were tanned—she’d have to ask him how he’d managed that particular feat—and his calves bulged with muscle. There was a dusting of golden-blond hair on his chest, and his waist, marked by the tied sash, was remarkable in that fact that it was so small, his belly so very flat.

She didn’t know if any of this should affect her in any way, but it did. She just wasn’t sure quite how. She looked away quickly.

“I ordered you put in my father’s wife’s chamber, which adjoins his. As neither my father nor his wife has been to town in a decade, I’ve taken over his chamber, mostly because of this tub. Or did you think we have one of these contraptions in every chamber? Are you planning to spend the entire evening in there?”

She hadn’t thought at all, which she wasn’t going to tell him. Prudence had led, and she had followed, half asleep on her feet and longing for a lengthy soak. “I’ll be in here as long as you’re out there, if that answers your question. Go away!”

Instead of doing as she’d asked—ordered—the miserable man pulled a chair away from the wall and sat himself down, just as if he planned to take up residence.

“No. I think, as the saying goes, I have you just where I want you, Chelsea.”

“Well, you’re not where I want you,” she said, surreptitiously fishing around the bottom of the tub with one hand, attempting to locate the washing sponge that had sunk to the bottom. Except that, when she moved, bubbles popped. When she breathed, bubbles popped. Unless she remained very, very still, bubbles popped.

She would have cried, except that would have given him satisfaction. She would have pled, except he was probably expecting that, as well. If it killed her, utterly destroyed her, she would not let him know how mortified she was, how frightened she was, how vulnerable she felt at this moment.

He had thrown down the gauntlet, that’s what he’d done. Insufferable lout. She would confound him by refusing to pick it up. Just as if she was entirely accustomed to having a man in the room as she bathed.

Or better, as if she could not care at all that he was here because, even though they were going to marry, she was totally indifferent to him. He was openly a means to an end, nothing more. That should give him pause!

“I did not give you permission to address me so informally, Mr. Blackthorn.”

“You didn’t invite me into your bath, either. And yet, here I am. I didn’t invite you into my home, my life and my business. And yet, here you are. My headache is gone, by the way. I might actually be beginning to enjoy myself, difficult as that is for me to believe. Water getting cold? You can simply sit forward and depress the lever on the left, unless you’ve used up all the available hot water, which you probably have. It isn’t magic, Chelsea, there are mechanics involved. There are detailed explanations and drawings somewhere in the house. As I recall the thing, you enjoy reading. I can find them for you if you like.”

Chelsea was so far submerged in the bath that water and bubbles were sloshing in her ears, making it difficult for her to understand him, which was probably a good thing, because the way he was smiling—no, grinning—she was certain he wasn’t saying anything very nice. Especially that business about sitting forward to call up more hot water. As if she could do any such thing. And if part of what she’d missed was an offer by him to do it for her, well, she would have ignored that anyway.

“Let me know when you’re finished being an ass,” she told him, the tickling bubbles forcing her into the unladylike gesture of sticking a finger in her ear and wiggling it to stop the itch. “I don’t frighten easily, you know. If you had attempted any such idiocy with another female, she would have swooned straightaway and drowned. I, however, am made of sterner stuff, Oliver.”

She turned her head slightly, just in time to see him wince.

“Beau, please. Or even Mr. Blackthorn. No one calls me Oliver.”

“I will call you a lot worse if you don’t leave this room,” she warned. “Oliver.”

“You were an insufferable brat at fourteen. Now you’re rather amusing. And, as I believe I’ve already mentioned, I seem to have you where I want you at the moment.”

“In your tub?” Chelsea glanced down at the bubbles, blowing out her breath in exasperation. Pop. Pop. Pop. She took in a breath, but slowly, so as not to move her chest up and down too much. “You are no gentleman, Oliver.”

“Yes, I think we established that rather forcefully seven years ago. If I were, I’d be your brother-in-law now, wouldn’t I? But we need to talk, and since you aren’t in a position to run away if you don’t like the direction our conversation will be traveling, I repeat, I have you where I want you. Which is rather novel for our short and unpleasant acquaintance, you’ll admit.”

“You want me to go away, don’t you? I’m back in London, and now you want to be rid of me, having decided that Thomas is too much for you, that he’ll find you and kill you. You’re going to take me back to Portland Place and my horrible fate.”

“Actually, I was going to suggest that you retire early, as I would like to be once more outside of London before the sun rises tomorrow. However, if you’re intent on sermons and the always-wet mouth, yes, I can have you taken home. Nobody can say for absolute certainty that you were here at all.”

She looked at him, expecting to see proof that he was lying to her. “Really? You’re not going to renege on your promise?”

“Promise? I may have been fairly deep in my cups earlier today, Chelsea, but I’m certain I’d remember something so binding as a promise. But no, I won’t take you back to Portland Place. However, please don’t read too much into that, as I wouldn’t send a dog to Portland Place. Well, perhaps I would, were it rabid. But that lovely thought to one side, I’m here to offer you a third alternative.”

Chelsea bit her bottom lip, as the water was growing cooler, and soon she’d not be able to hide the fact that her teeth were showing a tendency to chatter. “You’ll agree to take me to a nunnery?” she asked him, all but sneering the words.

“Would you go?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Do I seem to you the sort of person who would do well in a nunnery?”

He smiled, the smile reaching all the way to his rather marvelous blue eyes. “You could found your own order, I would think. The Holy Sisters of the Ridiculous Assumption. No, Chelsea, I would not inflict your brother’s plans on you, nor would I inflict you on some poor females who don’t deserve to have their faith tested by dropping you in their midst. I was thinking more of simply remaining here in London, purchasing a Special License—I have the necessary funds—and presenting our marriage as accomplished fact by the time your brother returns from hunting half of England for us.”

“You could do that?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “But that would mean appealing to the archbishop of Canterbury, wouldn’t it? Even if you paid twice what is usual, would he countenance a marriage between a … well, you know.”

“A lady and a bastard,” Beau supplied flatly. “That is potentially troublesome. And therein lies the risk, I’m afraid. If we are denied, we could still be in residence here when your brother returns.”

“The alternative being flight to Gretna Green, with Thomas and his minions in hot pursuit. I will admit to being terrified today when we saw his men on the road. No, if I have a choice, and I think you’re saying that I do, I would rather leave for Scotland as soon as possible. Is that all? Because I really must insist that you go away now. Trapping me here in my bath—your bath—is no longer amusing.”

He got to his feet and replaced the chair against the wall. “It could be,” he said, able now to see over the high rim of the deep tub and raising one eyebrow at what he saw. “At least in another few minutes it could be. But at least now you are thoroughly compromised. In fact, I could join you, as being hung for a sheep seems more sensible than dying only for a lamb.”