Rake Most Likely to Thrill

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One (#ulink_9c527913-afaa-5392-ac36-df9acec6c615)

The Antwerp Hotel, Dover—March 1835

There was going to be blood. It had become a forgone conclusion the moment the teamster brought the whip down across the hindquarters of the Cleveland Bay straining in the traces of the overloaded dray. How much blood, and whose, remained to be seen.

Archer Crawford had not stepped outside in the predawn darkness looking for trouble. Indeed, he’d been trying to avoid it. Inside, his travelling companion and long-time friend Nolan Gray’s card game was starting to take a turn for the worse. But it seemed trouble had found him anyway. He could not stand idly by and watch any horse abused. From the looks of this horse’s ragged coat, this wasn’t the first time. But it might be the last if Archer didn’t intervene. The teamster’s whip fell again, the beefy driver determined the horse pull the load or die trying. The latter was highly likely and the horse knew it. The Cleveland Bay showed no fear. He merely stood with resignation. Waiting. Knowing. Deciding: death now, or death pulling a weight more appropriate for two.

The whip rose a third time, and Archer stepped out from the hotel’s overhang. In a lightning move, Archer’s gloved hand intercepted the thong of the whip and he wrapped it about his wrist, reeling in the teamster on his high seat like fish from the river. ‘Perhaps you might try a sting or two of this lash yourself before delivering it to your animal.’ Archer gave the whip a strong tug. Each pull threatened to unseat the teamster. The man leaned back in his seat, trying for leverage.

‘Let go of the whip or come off the seat!’ Archer commanded sternly, his eyes locking with the other man’s as he gave another compelling tug.

‘This is none of your business,’ the teamster growled. ‘That horse has to earn his keep and I do too.’ But he released his end of the whip—forcefully, of course, probably with the hopes the force of his release would send Archer sprawling in the mud. But Archer was braced. The abrupt release did nothing more than seal his opinion of the man: bully, brute.

Archer wound the whip into a coil around his arm. ‘Not with loads that are best drawn by a team of horses.’ Archer jerked his head towards the horse. ‘That horse won’t finish the day, then where will you be?’

The man seemed to recognise the logic but his mouth pursed into a grim line. ‘There’s nothin’ to be done about it, if you’ll be givin’ me my whip back, guv’nor, I’ll be on my way.’ The hint of a threat glimmered in the man’s eye and he began to make his way down off the seat. That was the last thing Archer wanted.

He had a boat to catch within the hour. There was no time for fisticuffs. Archer was fast and light on his feet, thanks to hours of practice at Jackson’s salon, but that didn’t change the fact that the teamster outweighed him by two stone. Leaving on his Grand Tour sporting a split lip and black eye didn’t exactly appeal.

The horse whinnied and stamped in the traces, his head rolling towards Archer as if in warning. The big man stopped a few feet from Archer and held out his hand. ‘The whip.’

Archer grinned. ‘I’ll trade you for it. Give me the horse.’

The man spat on the ground. ‘A whip for a horse?’ His tone was derisive. ‘That seems a bit unequal to me.’

‘And for whatever is in my pocket.’ Archer patted the pocket of his great coat.

‘Maybe your pocket is empty.’ The teamster’s eyes narrowed. ‘Show me.’

Archer nodded, careful to keep his body between the teamster and the horse. He could feel the horse’s nose nudging his shoulder blade, perhaps in encouragement. Archer held up a gold money clip to the street lamp, letting it catch the light. He turned it, showing off the collection of pound notes folded together. ‘It’s fair. You can buy two horses for what’s in this clip.’ He was not going to doom another horse to the same fate simply by freeing this one.

Archer tried to assess the man’s reaction. Money was usually the fastest way to settle a dispute, even if it wasn’t the most moral. He waved the clip again in the beam of light. Behind him, he could hear the clatter of an oncoming coach, probably the one that was to take him and Nolan to the docks. He was running out of the time. ‘The whip and the clip for the horse,’ Archer pressed. What was there to think over? The man was letting pride get in his way.

‘All right,’ the man said gruffly, taking the money clip out of Archer’s hand in a rough swipe. He jerked his head towards the horse. ‘He’s yours now, you unharness him.’

Archer had the horse free in short measure. There was triumph in knowing he’d rescued the animal from a certain fate, but what was he to do now? The coach he’d heard was indeed theirs and the driver was waiting. He had ten minutes to see the horse settled. He led the horse by a rope bridle towards the hotel’s stable, sneaking a peek through the hotel’s long street-front windows at Nolan. The situation inside didn’t look good. Nolan and the other card players were standing. One of them was gesturing wildly at the cards and money on the table. Ten minutes might be a generous estimate.

Inside the stable, Archer roused the ostler, issuing rapid-fire instructions. ‘This horse needs to be boarded.’ He plunked down some coins on a small crude wood table. ‘This will keep him until you can deliver him.’ Money helped the ostler rub the sleep from his eyes. It was more than what was necessary. ‘When the horse has been rested, have a boy deliver him to this address.’ Archer pulled a card from a coat pocket. ‘The man there will pay well. Here’s additional money for the journey.’ His nearest friend was a day’s ride from Dover, but it was the best he could do under the hasty circumstances. Archer hoped the promise of more money would be enough to ensure the ostler didn’t sell the horse instead of deliver it.

The sounds of commotion drifted in from the front of the hotel. That would be Nolan. Archer ran a friendly hand across the horse’s ragged coat. The animal had been beautiful once, strong once; with luck he would be again. He dug in his pocket for more coin. Money was all he had to keep the horse safe. Archer pressed a third round of coins into the ostler’s hand. ‘This is for you, as my personal thanks for your efforts, one horseman to another.’ Perhaps an appeal to the man’s ethics would be enough. There was no time for more. The commotion was demanding his attention now. Archer gave the ostler a nod and strode into the courtyard, aware that the horse’s eyes followed him out.

In the darkness, he almost collided with Nolan who was moving at a near run. ‘Archer, old chap! Where did you get to? We’ve got to go!’ Nolan seized his arm without stopping and dragged him towards the waiting coach, his words coming fast. ‘Don’t look now, but that angry man behind us thinks I cheated. He has a gun, and my good knife. It’s in his shoulder, but I think he shoots with both—hands, that is. It wouldn’t make sense the other way.’ Nolan pulled open the coach door and they tumbled in, the coach lurching to a start before the door was even shut.

‘Ah! A clean getaway.’ Nolan sank back against the seat, a satisfied grin on his face.

‘It doesn’t always have to be a “getaway”. Sometimes we can exit a building like normal people.’ Archer straightened the cuffs of his coat and gave Nolan a scolding look.

‘It was fairly normal,’ Nolan protested.

‘You left a knife embedded in a man’s shoulder, not exactly the most discreet of departures.’ If Nolan had been discreet, he would have stopped playing two hours ago. The other players could have respectably quit the table, their pride and at least some money intact. But then he never would have had a chance to save that horse. ‘You got away in the nick of time.’

Nolan merely grinned, unfazed by the scolding. ‘Speaking of time, do you think Haviland is at the docks yet?’ They were scheduled to meet two friends at the boat this morning to begin their Grand Tour. ‘I’ll wager you five pounds Haviland is there.’

Archer laughed. ‘At this hour? He’s not there. Everything was loaded last night. There’s no reason for him to be early. Besides, he has to drag Brennan’s sorry self out of bed. That will slow him down.’ He and Haviland had known each other since Eton. Haviland was notoriously prompt, but he wouldn’t be early and Brennan was always late.

‘Easiest five pounds I’ll ever make,’ Nolan said something more, but Archer had leaned back and closed his eyes, blocking it out. He wanted a moment’s peace. Between angry teamsters, rescued horses and irate gamblers, the late hour was starting to take its toll. Sometimes, Nolan wore a person out. Provoking a fight on the brink of departure wasn’t exactly Archer’s idea of bon voyage.

Still, whether he agreed with Nolan’s choices or not, it was his job to have Nolan’s back just as it was Haviland’s job to have Brennan’s. He and Haviland had divided up the duties of friendship years ago at school when it had become apparent Nolan and Brennan weren’t entirely capable of exercising discretion on their own.

Back then, what couldn’t be tamed had to be protected. These days, Nolan did a pretty fair job of protecting himself. He didn’t need defending as much as he needed what one might call support. That was the gentlemanly way to put it. Needing a duelling second would be another.

It was times like this morning when Archer appreciated horses. He understood them, preferred them even. It was horses, in addition to his long-standing friendship with the others, that had provided the final, but not the only piece of motivation to leave Newmarket. Perhaps there were new breeds waiting for him in Europe, breeds he could send back to the family stud.

His father had charged him with purchasing any exciting prospects he could find and had given him carteblanche to do it. But Archer knew what that charge really was. It was his father’s way of apologising. His father was very good at apologising with money. It was easy to do if one had a lot of it and his father, the Earl, had bags of it, rooms of it even. He’d never understood his family wanted more from him than his money or what it could buy. Not even at the last had he understood that and Archer had had enough of his father’s aloof, uncaring reserve, enough of the coldness. He was off to seek warmer climates, warmer families: his mother’s people in Siena.

Archer had never been so glad to be a second son. His brother was the heir. He, as the eldest, was confined to the estates, whereas Archer had been given the stables, the racing string and that had been the avenue of a convenient escape when Haviland had delicately proposed the tour last autumn. He could be in Siena for the Palio, the town’s grand tradition in the heat of August. He could be with his mother’s family, horse breeders like himself. Perhaps that was what drew him most of all, these people he’d never met, only heard about in letters over his childhood; his uncle Giacomo, the breeder whose famed horses had won that race more than any other, a chance to be part of something great, a chance to keep the vow he had made to a dying mother. Her dreams and his promises were all he had left of her now.

There was the rustle of Nolan shifting, his body leaning forward to look out the window. ‘I don’t think he followed us, not with a knife in his shoulder,’ Archer muttered, eyes closed. He heard Nolan’s body relax once more against the squabs. Not quite relaxed, he amended. He could feel Nolan staring at him, those grey eyes boring into his head in a very one-sided staring contest. He would not open his eyes, he would not, would not, would not... Archer’s eyes flew open. He couldn’t stand it. ‘What?’

Nolan crossed his arms over his chest, a wide smile taking his face. ‘Archer, why is there a horse following us?’

‘A horse?’ It was Archer’s turn to look out the window. He stared, he squinted, he looked at Nolan and then back out the window. It couldn’t be. But it was. The Cleveland Bay he’d rescued was cantering down the road behind them. Right beside them, as if he knew Archer was inside the coach.

‘I sort of rescued him this morning while you were playing cards,’ Archer explained. What was he going to do with a horse at the docks? He couldn’t take the beast to France with him. It would hardly be fair to make the poor horse endure a Channel crossing or to make him walk from Calais to Paris. He needed good food and rest. That didn’t mean the horse’s efforts hadn’t tugged at his heartstrings. Nolan might laugh at the notion horses could and did communicate with their owners, but Archer had seen too many examples to the contrary. A horse’s loyalty was not to be taken lightly. Horses would give their lives for the people they loved.