The Taming of the Rake

“You’ll grow up one of these days. We all do, one way or another.” Beau got to his feet, deciding he could not stand himself one moment longer if he didn’t immediately hunt out Sidney and demand a hot tub to rid him of the stink of a night of dedicated drinking with Puck.

“He’s lucky with the cards? The dice?” Puck persisted, also getting to his feet, triumphantly holding up the black riband he then employed to tie back his hair.

“I don’t know. I don’t ask. Jack was never one for inviting intimacies. Now come along, baby brother. We need a bath and a bed, the both of us.”

“You might. I’m thinking lovely thoughts about a mess of eggs and some of those fine sausages we had yesterday morning.”

Beau’s stomach rolled over. “I remember when I could do that, drink all night and wake clearheaded and ravenous in the morning. You’re right, Puck. Thirty is old.”

“Now you’re just trying to frighten me. Ho, what’s that? Was that the knocker? Am I about to meet one of your London friends?”

“Acquaintances, Puck. I have no need of friends.”

“Now that is truly sad,” his brother said, shaking his head. “You had friends, surely, during the war?”

“That was different,” Beau said, his headache pounding even harder than before. “Soldiers are real. Society is not.”

“The French are much more generous in their outlook. To them, I am very nearly a pet. A highly amusing pet, naturellement. My bastard birth rather titillates them, I think. And, of course, I am oh, so very charming. Ah, another knock, followed closely by a commotion.” Puck headed for the foyer. “This becomes interesting. I’d think it was a dun calling to demand payment, but you’re entirely too deep in the pocket for that. Let’s go see, shall we?”

Beau opened his mouth to protest, but quickly gave that up and simply followed his brother into the foyer. There they saw a woman, her face obscured by the brim of her fashionably absurd riding hat, quietly but fiercely arguing with Wadsworth.

“Wadsworth?” he said questioningly, so that his Major Domo—once an actual sergeant in His Majesty’s Army—turned about smartly, nearly saluting his employer before he could stop himself.

“Sir!” he all but bellowed as he tried to position his fairly large body between that of the female and his employer. “There is someone here who demands to be seen. I am just now sending her on the right-about—that is to say, I have informed her that you are not at home.”

“Yes, well I suppose we needs must give that up as a bad job, mustn’t we, now that I’ve shown myself. Or do you think she’ll agree to go away now?”

“She most certainly will not,” the woman said from somewhere behind Wadsworth. And then a kid-riding-glove-encased hand was laid on Wadsworth’s elbow and the man who had once single-handedly subdued a half dozen Frenchmen during a skirmish by means of only his physical appearance and commanding voice—and the bloodied sword he’d held in front of him menacingly—was rudely shoved aside.

The woman’s gaze took in the two men now before her, sliding from one to the other. “Oliver Blackthorn? Which one of you is he? And the other must be Mr. Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn, as I hear the third brother is dark to your light, unless that’s simply a romantic statement and not fact. Such an unfortunate name, Robin Goodfellow. Did your mother not much like you? Oh, wait, you are Oliver, aren’t you?” she said, pointing a rather accusing finger at Beau. “I believe I recognize the scowl, even after all these years. We must talk.”

“Gad, what a beauty, if insulting,” Puck said quietly. “Tell her she’s wrong, that I’m you. Unless she’s here to inform you that the bastard has fathered a bastard, in which case I’ll be in the breakfast room, filling my belly.”

Beau wasn’t really listening. He was too busy racking his brain to remember where he’d ever seen eyes so strange a mix of gray and blue, so flashing with fire, intelligence and belligerence, all at the same time.

“You remember me, don’t you?” the young woman said—again, nearly an accusation. “You should, and the mumps to one side, you’re a large part of the reason I’m in such dire straits today. But that’s all right, because now you’re going to fix it.”

“She said mumps, didn’t she? Yes, I’m sure she did. I’ve been abroad for a few years, brother mine. Are they now in the habit of dressing up the Bedlamites and letting them run free on sunny days?”

“Go away, Puck,” Beau said, stepping forward a pace, putting a calm face on his inward agitation. “Lady Chelsea Mills-Beckman?” he inquired, positive he was correct, although it had been more than seven long and eventful years since last he’d seen her. But why was she here? And where was her maid? Maybe Puck was right, and if not quite a fugitive from Bethlehem Hospital, she was at least next door to a Bedlamite; riding out alone in the city, calling on him, of all people. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Ah, so you do remember me. And there’s nothing all that pleasurable about it for either of us, I assure you. Now, unless you are in the habit of entertaining your servants with aired laundry best discussed only in private, I suggest we adjourn to the drawing room. Notyou,” she added, pointing one gloved finger at Puck, who had already half turned to reenter the drawing room.

“Oh, yes, definitely. You heard the lady. It’s you she wants, brother mine, not me. I’m off, and may some merciful deity of your choosing protect you in my craven absence.”

“Wadsworth,” Beau said, still looking at Lady Chelsea, “the tea tray and some refreshments in ten minutes, if you please.”

Lady Chelsea stood her ground. “Wadsworth, a decanter of Mr. Blackthorn’s best wine and two glasses, now, and truth be told, at the moment I really don’t much care whether you please or not. Mr. Blackthorn, follow me.”

She then swept into the drawing room, leaving Wadsworth and Beau to look at each other, shrug and supposedly do as they’d been told. That was the thing with angry women. Experience had taught Beau that it was often just easier to go along with them until such time as you could either locate a figurative weapon or come up with a good escape route.

And Beau did long for escape, craven as that might seem. The moment he’d recognized Lady Chelsea the memory of the last time he’d seen her had come slamming into his mind, rendering him sober and none too happy to be thinking so clearly.

His reunion with Puck had given him the chance to relax the guard he’d so carefully built up around himself. They’d laughed, definitely drunk too much and Beau had realized how long it had been since he’d allowed himself to be young and silly.

Only with his brother could he joke about their bastard births, make light of the stigma they both would carry for all of their lives. Puck seemed to be dealing with his lot extremely well, although he had attacked the problem from an entirely different direction.

Where Beau thought to gain respect, if not acceptance, Puck had charmed his way into French Society.

Jack? Jack didn’t bear thinking about, as he seemed to be a law unto himself.

But no matter the path Beau had chosen, he knew he’d come a long way from the idiot boy he’d been seven long years ago. He’d put the past behind him—except for what he believed to be the one last piece of unfinished business that had brought him to London—and he would rather the door to that part of his life remain firmly shut.

Shut, and with Lady Chelsea firmly on the other side. She with her childish teasing and then her sympathetic tears. If anything could have taken him to his knees that day, and kept him there, it would have been the sight of her tears.

“Sir?”

Beau turned to look at Wadsworth, snapping himself back into the moment. “Yes?”

“Are we going to do what she says, sir?” The man screwed up his face for a moment, and then shook his head. “Got the air of a general about her, don’t she, sir?”

“That she does, Wadsworth,” Beau said, at last turning toward the drawing room. “That she certainly does….”

CHAPTER TWO

HE HADN’T REALLY CHANGED in seven years. Except that he definitely had. He seemed taller, appealingly thicker in muscle, she supposed. He still carried his arrogance with him, but that had been joined now by considerably more self-assurance. His cheeks seemed leaner, his jaw more defined. He’d been only a year older then than she was now, and had obviously lived an interesting life in the interim.

He’d impressed her then, silly as he’d been in his embarrassing calf-love for Madelyn, uncomfortable as he’d looked in his ridiculously over-tailored clothes, gullible as he’d been when she’d teased him. Vulnerable as he had been, lying in the street as Thomas had brought the whip down over his body, again and again.

She’d had nightmares about that terrible day ever since. She assumed Mr. Blackthorn had, as well.

But the years had made him a man. Going to war had made him a man. What had happened that fateful day in Portland Place had made him a man. Then, he had amused her. Now, just looking at him made her stomach rather queasy. He was so large, so very male. Not a silly boy anymore at all.

Perhaps she had acted rashly, coming here. No, she definitely had acted rashly, considering only her own plight while blithely believing he would grab at her idea with both hands, knowing immediately that she was helping him, as well.

But there was nothing else for it. She had done what she’d done. She was here, an unmarried woman in a bachelor household, and probably observed by at least two or three astonished members of the ton as she’d stood at the door and banged on the knocker. Oh, and her groom and horse were still just outside, on the street.

She couldn’t have been more open in her approach if she had ridden into Grosvenor Square shouting and ringing a bell.

Now she had to make Mr. Blackthorn—or Oliver, as she’d always thought of him—understand that there was no going back, for either of them. She may be frightened, suddenly unsure of herself—such a rare occurrence in her experience that she wasn’t quite sure how to handle it—but she would not allow him to see her fear.

“You look as if you’ve been dragged through a hedgerow backward,” she told him as she stood in the middle of the sumptuously furnished drawing room, pulling off her kid gloves, praying he wouldn’t notice that her hands were shaking. “And you smell none too fresh. Is this your usual state? Because if it is, my mind won’t change, but you will definitely have to.”

He reached for a jacket that was hanging over the back of a chair and then seemed to think better of it, remaining in front of her clad only in his buckskins and shirtsleeves. “Much as it pains me to disagree with you, Lady Chelsea, I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. Bastardy has its benefits as well as its drawbacks.”

She rolled her eyes, suddenly more comfortable. He might not appear vulnerable, but clearly he still carried the burden of his birth around with him; it must be a great weight he would choose to put down if he had the chance. “Are you still going on about that? You are, aren’t you. That’s why you’ve been slowly ruining my brother.”

Beau frowned just as if he didn’t understand her, which made her angry. She knew he wasn’t stupid.