Читать книгу The Taming of the Rake - Kasey Michaels, Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 8

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.

“Don’t try to deny it, Mr. Blackthorn. You’ve sent person after person to insinuate himself with Thomas this past year, guide him down all the wrong paths, divesting him of our family’s fortune just as if you had been personally dipping your hand into his pockets. Granted, my brother is an idiot, but I, sir, I am not.”

“Nor are you much of a lady, traveling about London without your maid, and barging uninvited into a bachelor establishment,” Beau said, walking over to one of the couches positioned beneath an immense chandelier that, if it fell, could figuratively flatten a small village. “Then again, I am not a gentleman, and I am curious. Stand, sit, it makes me no nevermind, but I’ve had a miserable night and now it appears that the morning will be no better, so I am going to sit.”

Chelsea looked at the bane of her existence, who was also her only possibility of rescue, and considered what she saw. He was blond, even more so wherever the sun hit his thick crop of rather mussed hair, so she hadn’t at first noticed that he had at least a one-day growth of beard on his tanned cheeks. He looked rather dashing that way, not that she would tarry long on the path to that sort of thought. He also looked—as did this entire area of the large room, for that matter—as if the previous night had been passed in drinking heavily and sleeping little.

Good. He probably had a crushing headache. That would make him more vulnerable.

“Yes, do that, sit down before you fall down, and allow me to continue. In this past year, which happens to coincide with Thomas reentering Society after our year of mourning that also gained him the title, and paired with your return to London now that the war is finally over, we have been visited upon by a verifiable plague of financial ill-fortune, one to rival the atrocities of the Seven Plagues of Egypt.”

Beau held up one hand, stopping her for a few moments, and then let it drop into his lap. “All right. I’ve run that mouthful past my brain a second time, and I think I’ve got it now. Your brother, the war, my return after an absence of seven years—and something about plagues. Are locusts involved? I really don’t care for bugs. But never mind my sensibilities, which it is already obvious you do not. You may continue.”

“I fully intend to. You know the locusts to which I refer. Mr. Jonathan Milwick and his marvelous invention that, with only a small input of my brother’s money, could revolutionize the manufacture of snuff. The so-charming Italian, Fanini, I believe, whose discovery of diamonds in southern Wales would make Thomas rich as Golden Ball.”

Beau closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. “I have no idea what you’re prattling on about.”

“Still, I will continue to prattle. The ten thousand pounds Thomas was convinced would triple in three weeks’ time in the Exchange, thanks to the advice of one Henrick Glutton, who would share his largesse with Thomas once his ship, filled with grapes to be made into fabulously expensive wine, arrived up the Thames. I went with Thomas to the wharf when the ship arrived. Have you ever smelled rotten grapes, Mr. Blackthorn?”

“Glutten,” he said rather miserably.

“Ah! So you admit it!”

“I admit nothing. But nobody can possibly be named Glutton. I was merely suggesting an alternative. Excuse me a moment, I just remembered something I need.” Then he reached down beside him to pick up a bottle that had somehow come to be sitting on the priceless carpet, and took several long swallows straight from it, as if he were some low, mannerless creature in a tavern. He then held on to the bottle with both hands and looked up at her, smiling in a way that made her long to box his ears. “You were saying?”

“I was saying—well, I hadn’t said it yet, but I was going to—I don’t blame you for any of it. Thomas deserves all that you’ve done, and more. But with this last, you’ve overstepped the mark, because now you’ve involved me in your revenge, and that I will not allow. Still, I am here to help you.”

The bottle stopped halfway to his mouth. At last she seemed to have his full attention. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow. You’re going to help me? Help me what, madam?”

Chelsea held her tongue until Wadsworth had marched in, deposited a silver tray holding two glasses and a decanter of wine on the table and marched out again.

“I haven’t made a friend there, have I?” she commented, watching the man go. And then she shrugged, dismissing the thought, and finally seated herself on the facing couch and accepted the glass of wine Beau handed her. “You know that my brother became horribly ill only a few weeks after our father died. It was believed he’d soon join Papa in the mausoleum at Brean.”

“I’d heard rumors to that effect, yes,” Beau said carefully, shunning the decanter to take another long drink from the bottle. “Am I to be accused of that, as well? The illness, perhaps even your father’s demise? Clearly I have powers I have not yet recognized in myself.”

“Papa succumbed to a chest ailment after being caught in the rain while out hunting, so I doubt his death could be laid at your door. It was Madelyn’s brood, come to Brean for the interment and bringing their pestilence with them, who nearly killed Thomas just as he was glorying in his acquisition of the title. You had a victory there, didn’t you? With Madelyn, I mean. Thomas’s vile behavior that day had repercussions on my idiot sister, and she had to be married off quickly in order not to have all the ton staring at her belly and counting on their fingers. Do you remember what Thomas screeched at you that day? Something about you taking advantage of her innocence? Poor Madelyn, hastily bracketed to a lowly baron when she had so set her sights on a duke, but she couldn’t convince Papa. That you and she hadn’t—you know. And poor baron, as he’s had to live with her ever since. You had a lucky escape, Mr. Blackthorn, whether you are aware of it or not.”

His blue eyes narrowed, showing her that she had at last touched a nerve. “You term what happened that day a lucky escape? Your memories of the event must differ much from mine.”

“You’re still angry.”

Beau leaned against the back of the couch and crossed his legs. “Anger is a pointless emotion.”

“And revenge is a dish best served cold. Thomas humiliated you for all the world to see, whipped you like a jackal he refused to dirty his hands on. The woman you thought you loved with all your heart turned out not to possess a heart of her own. Between them, my siblings brought home to you that you are what you are, and that Society had only been amusing itself at your expense, while it would never really accept you. I would have wanted them dead, all of them.”

“Thank you for that pithy summation. I may have forgotten some of it.”

“You’ve forgotten none of it, Mr. Blackthorn, or else I would not be saddled with Francis Flotley. I, who remain blameless in the whole debacle, a mere child at the time of the incident. Do you think that’s fair? Because I don’t. And now you’re going to make it right.”

“You’re here to help me, and yet I’m supposed to make something right for you.” Beau looked at her, looked at the bottle in his hand and then looked at her again. “Much as it pains me to ask this, what in blazes are you talking about? And who the bloody hell is Francis Flotley?”

Chelsea’s hands drew up into fists. She wasn’t nervous anymore. It was difficult for one to be nervous when one was beginning to feel homicidal. “You admit to Henrick Glutton and the others? We can’t move on, Mr. Blackthorn, until you are willing to be honest with me.”

“Glutten,” he said again, sighing. “And the others. Yes, all right, since you clearly won’t go away until I do, I admit to them. Shame, shame on me, I am crass and petty. But, to clarify, I’m not out to totally ruin the man, but only make him uncomfortable, perhaps even miserable. Ruining him entirely would be too quick. As it is, I can keep this up for years.”

“Why?”

“I should think the answer to be obvious. Because it amuses me, madam,” Beau said flatly. “Rather like pulling the wings from flies, although comparing your brother to a fly is an insult to the insect. I’m unpleasantly surprised, however, that you connected me with your brother’s run of ill luck, although I should probably not be, remembering you as you were. A pernicious brat, but possessing higher than average intelligence.”

It was taking precious time, but at least they were finally getting somewhere. “So you admit to Francis Flotley.”

“If you’ll just leave me alone with my pounding head, I’ll admit to causing the Great Fire. But I will not admit to Francis Flotley, whoever the hell he is.”

Chelsea sat back in her seat. She had been so certain, but Beau clearly did not recognize the name.

“Francis Flotley,” she repeated, as if repetition would refresh his memory. “The Reverend Francis Flotley, Thomas’s personal spiritual adviser. The man who interceded with God for him in order to save him from the mumps in exchange for his promise to mend his ways. You used Thomas’s vulnerability to insinuate the man into our household, to defang the cat, as it were, make him believe that he had to give up drink, and loose women, and his rough and tumble ways, in order to save his immortal soul. Curb his vile temper, turn the other cheek—all of that drivel. A man who would whip another man in the street, reduced to nightly prayers and soda water, doing penance for his crime against you, even if he doesn’t realize that he is, lacking only sackcloth and ashes. How that must please you.”

“Ah. The Reverend Francis Flotley. Yes, I will admit that I am aware of a cleric’s presence in your household,” Mr. Blackthorn said, sitting forward once more. “But no, sorry. I had nothing to do with that. Wish I had, though, having once been at the wrong end of what you call your brother’s vile temper. It sounds a brilliant revenge.”

Chelsea sat slumped on the couch, like a doll suddenly bereft of all its cotton stuffing. “Oh,” she said quietly, seeing her last and only hope fading into nothing. “I’d been so sure. So brilliantly Machiavellian, you understand. I have given you too much credit. Forgive me. I’ll go now.”

She got to her feet and picked up her gloves, putting them on slowly, giving him time to sift through everything she’d told him. Surely he wouldn’t let her leave. He couldn’t. He had to at least be curious as to what she’d meant about having her own life ruined, and that she’d come here to help him. Even if she hadn’t been correct about the Reverend Flotley, perhaps her plan could still work.

But Beau stayed where he was, not even rising because she had stood up, and very much ignoring her, as if she’d already gone. Perhaps he wasn’t the man she’d built him into in her head. Perhaps he was just as bad as her brother in his own way.

Still, knowing she had no other options, she dared to continue hoping, even as she walked toward the foyer, slowly counting in her head. One. Two. Three. Four. Oh, for pity’s sake, I’m here to hand you the perfect revenge, you jackass! Does it really matter that you didn’t send Flotley to us? Five. Six …

“Wait a moment.”

Chelsea closed her eyes for a second, swallowed her fear once more and then turned around. “Yes? Has the penny finally dropped, Mr. Blackthorn? I’ll excuse you, considering your drunken state, but you really shouldn’t have taken much past three. If I’d gotten to nine, I’d have needed to reassess my opinion of you.”

Beau got to his feet, waving a hand in front of him as if erasing whatever she’d said as not worthy of a response. “Why did you come here? Alone? Not just to crow over me that you know what game I’ve been playing with your brother. And more importantly, why do I get the feeling that you’re not here to help me as much as you’re here to help yourself? Wait—don’t answer yet. Sit, drink your wine, and I’ll go stick my head in a basin of cold water and clean up some of my mess, in the hope it clears my head.”

“Yes, all right,” Chelsea answered, once again taking up both her seat and the wineglass. She didn’t really drink wine; she’d ordered it for him, believing he’d need it after he’d heard what she had to say. “But we should be leaving here within the hour, and even that will probably be cutting it too fine for comfort.”

“Leaving? We? As in, the two of us? Oh, really. And to travel where, may I ask?”

“You’re wasting time, Mr. Blackthorn. My brother is far from an intellectual, but he isn’t completely stupid, either. He’ll soon be out and about, looking for me, his newfound docile nature stretched to the breaking point. Oh, and to that end, although it is reminiscent of barring the barn door after the cow has escaped, I suggest you have my mount and groom removed from in front of the building.”

“I’ll order that,” the other Mr. Blackthorn volunteered, halting just inside the doorway, a thick slice of bacon in his hand. “Shall we have the fellow bound and gagged, Lady Chelsea, or simply sat down somewhere and told to stay put? Beau, brother mine, clearly you’ve been holding out on me. I had no idea you led such an interesting life.”

Beau grumbled something Chelsea was too far away to hear—which was probably a good thing—and headed for the stairs, bounding up them two at a time.

“Good, he’s gone. Now we two can get to know each other better, as it appears you and my brother are up to some sort of mischief. Or is it just you? He is looking rather harassed. It’s his age, you understand. Can’t hold his drink anymore, either. It’s a curse, old age. I have just now, over a plate of coddled eggs, vowed never to succumb to it.”

“My mount, Mr. Blackthorn,” Chelsea told him, smiling in spite of herself, for Mr. Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn had the most engaging smile and way about him. “And after you’ve gone off to do that, please order your brother’s horse saddled and have his man pack a small bag for him. A traveling coach would be much too slow and easily spotted for our needs for now, I believe. We may also, now that I have a moment to reflect on the thing, needs must keep to alleyways until we’re clear of London.”

The man opened his mouth, clearly to ask her what she meant, but she merely pointed behind him, to the foyer. “This is life or death, Mr. Blackthorn, so there is no time for me to stand here and applaud your silliness. Go.”

He went.

Chelsea took a sip of the wine.

It didn’t help; she was still shaking.