Kasey Michaels - The Taming of the Rake

“My brother tells me you assured him that we are embroiled in something very serious. Life or death, I believe he said—or perhaps that was you saying it? I’ll admit I’ve begun to lose track.”

She stopped pacing and looked at him, her blond head tipped to one side as she ran her clear blue-gray gaze up and down his body as if he were a horse she was considering purchasing. “You look somewhat better. Are you sober now?”

“I believe I’m heading in that general direction, yes. At least enough so that I want to make it clear to you yet again—I do not know this Reverend Flotley. I did not arrange to have him introduced to your brother, so if the rest doesn’t bother you—the smell of spoiled grapes notwithstanding—perhaps you wish to rethink whatever it is you believe you can do for me and go away. Quickly.”

“I can’t. I think we both know it’s already too late for that,” she said and then sighed. “We really don’t have time for this, but I have truly burned my bridges just by coming here so openly, and yours, as well, which I’m sure I don’t have to point out to you. I’m sorry for that, at least a little bit, but I had no other choice open to me. I left my brother a note explaining every—”

Beau slammed his fist into his palm. “I knew it! Why do women always feel they have to explain themselves?”

She straightened her slim shoulders. “I was not explaining myself, you daft man. I couldn’t allow my maid to take the brunt of Thomas’s anger, not when she helped me tie up some of my belongings and met me at the corner so that I could strap them onto my saddle without anyone being the wiser that I was leaving.”

“Oh, yes, of course. I can see the wisdom of that. He won’t turn her out without a reference now, not when you’d clearly cowed her into doing what you’d asked.”

“Oh,” Chelsea said quietly. “I hadn’t thought of that. But I didn’t tell him where I was heading. I’m not stupid.”

“Wonderful. The girl assures me she’s not stupid. Tell me, Mistress Genius, did you happen to confide your destination to your maid? Because, were I said maid, staring the loss of my position in the teeth, I do believe I’d try to save myself by being of assistance to my employer.”

Chelsea glared at him. “I could truly begin to dislike you.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Beau said, looking longingly at the wine decanter. “How long before he misses you and comes racing hotfoot over here, brandishing a pistol and demanding I present myself?”

Chelsea glanced assessingly at the mantel clock. “We should probably be going.”

“Yes. Going. And where would it be that we should probably be going to, madam? Oh, and one more small thing. Why? Why me? Why am I going to be helped by you, and how am I going to assist you? My mind is still a little fuzzy on those two points.”

She looked toward the clock once more. “We don’t have time for this now.”

Beau crossed his arms over his chest, prepared to stand his ground for the next fortnight. That she should wish to flee her brother’s household was commendable. That she should involve him in her escape? Not quite as laudatory. “Make time.”

“Only if you come with me now,” she told him, heading for the foyer and then unerringly turning toward the rear of the house. “Your brother has ordered your horse saddled, and both mounts await us in the stables. If we keep away from the main thoroughfares, I’m sure we can be clear of London before Thomas can pick up our scent and kill you.”

“Oh, this gets better and better,” Beau said as Puck, never to be left out of anything even remotely exciting, joined them as they passed through the green baize door that led to the servant area of the mansion. “One minute I’m fairly happily contemplating my life through the bottom of a bottle in celebration of my birthday and my brother’s return from France, and the next I’m running from someone else’s irate brother, who may already be on his way over here to save his sister from the clutches of a man who hadn’t even remembered her existence a mere hour ago .”

Chelsea stopped just at the doorway to the kitchens and turned to face him. “Shut. Up. I’ve been trying to tell you since I arrived, but you keep interrupting me. Now we have to leave, unless you really are stupid enough to want to face Thomas while you’re still so obviously intoxicated. And obnoxious, as well, although I have begun to doubt that will change much even once you’re sober again.”

“I take it all back, brother mine,” Puck said, snorting. “I think I’m beginning to like her.”

Chelsea pressed her palms to her cheeks, seemed to perhaps be counting under her breath for a few moments, and then dropped her hands to her sides and let out a breath.

“One, my brother did you a great, unforgivable harm seven years ago. Two, he is by nature a very stupid man—and easily led, as you seem already to have ascertained on your own, hence the spoiled grapes. Three, just after our father died, Thomas became very ill and thought he was going to die before he could enjoy the fruits of our father’s labors now that he was earl. Four, he truly believes that Francis Flotley came into his life as a gift from God, the same God Thomas had made all manner of promises to if only the good Lord would allow him to rise from his sickbed. Five, Francis Flotley delivered Thomas’s promises to God, personally—yes, I know that’s insane, so you can stop making those odious faces at me—and now Thomas is not only still stupid and easily led, but he thinks he is on some holy path, and in charge of my soul, which he is not! Seven—”

“I think you skipped six,” Puck corrected helpfully. “Sorry,” he added quickly, when Chelsea glared at him.

“Six,” she said heavily, “because I have chosen not to marry any man Thomas could like, he has decided to take me to Brean first thing tomorrow morning, lock me up and then marry me to Francis Flotley as soon as the banns can be read. In order to save my inferior female soul.”

“Seven,” Beau interrupted, holding up his hand, “as you were clever enough to ferret out that I am responsible for your brother’s financial plagues of locusts—don’t ask, Puck, just listen—you assumed, incorrectly, I might add, the reverend to also be one of my inventions. So that, eight, it is now my fault that you are to be bracketed to the man. Ergo, I am responsible for saving you from this fate, which I, nine, will somehow do by escorting you out of London with your brother in hot pursuit and out for my blood. For which, ten, you will offer me some sort of favor in return. To which, one, but not to worry because my list is quite short, I say no. Thank you for the honor, putting my head on the chopping block the way you have, but no.”

“I may never drink again,” Puck said quietly. “I mean, I actually think I understand this. But what could Lady Chelsea offer you that would help you? And to help you, it would follow that whatever she’d offer would somehow revenge you against her brother in a way that makes up for the audacity you had as to come to his house and, bastard that you are, besmirch the family escutcheon by asking for his sister’s hand in—uh-oh. Beau? Do you even know the route to Scotland?”

Beau looked at Chelsea—the bane of his existence at fourteen, a ripe plum fallen out of the sky seven years later. The perfect revenge against Thomas Mills-Beckman and all of London Society, wrapped up like a lovely gift and dropped into his lap.

No. He couldn’t do it. Could he? He’d prided himself on being a gentleman in a world that, for the most part, had branded him as something all but inhuman. Yes, he was taking his revenge against Brean, but that was different; it was only money.