Kitabı oku: «The Taming of the Rake»

Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author

KASEY
MICHAELS

“Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.”

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

“A poignant and highly satisfying read … filled with simmering sensuality, subtle touches of repartee, a hero out for revenge and a heroine ripe for adventure. You’ll enjoy the ride.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tame a Lady

“Michaels’s new Regency miniseries is a joy … You will laugh and even shed a tear over this touching romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tempt a Duke

“Michaels has done it again … Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Butler Did It

“Michaels demonstrates her flair for creating likeable protagonists who possess chemistry, charm and a penchant for getting into trouble. In addition, her dialogue and descriptions are full of humour.”

—Publishers Weekly on This Must Be Love

“Michaels can write everything from a light-hearted romp to a far more serious-themed romance. [She] has outdone herself.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Gentleman By Any Other Name (Top Pick)

“[A] hilarious spoof of society wedding rituals wrapped around a sensual romance filled with crackling dialogue reminiscent of The Philadelphia Story.” —Publishers Weekly on Everything’s Coming Up Rosie

Dear Reader,

In the more than thirty years I’ve been spinning stories, and with the more than one hundred heroes I’ve created, I’ve written about a few who have not qualified as “angels.” But none of them were bastards. Well, at least not according to the legal definition.

Then I had this idea about three bastard sons of an English marquess and an actress mother. Loved by their father, educated “above their station,” rigged out, with scads of money in their pockets and, of course, handsome as sin. Where do they fit in an age and a society that stakes so much on pristine lineage? Certainly no papa would hand his daughter over to a bastard, no matter how wealthy or civilised that suitor might be. No, the bastard would be relegated to the very fringes of society, caught between two worlds, belonging to neither.

Well, that couldn’t happen, not in my world! Love simply has to conquer all! But it would take three very special young ladies to defy convention and their families, and sacrifice their own place in society, all for the love of a brash, or a fun-loving, or a brooding and secretive Blackthorn brother.

Come along, meet Beau Blackthorn and the woman who will risk everything—not to defy her brother as she thought, but for the love of a most unacceptable yet irresistible man. Then, please, watch for A Midsummer Night’s Sin and Much Ado About Rogues, coming soon. The Blackthorn Brothers. You’re going to love them!

Happy reading,

Kasey Michaels

The
Taming
of The Rake
Kasey Michaels
The Blackthorn Brother

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my daughters and best friends, Anne and Megan, with love

PROLOGUE

“Men have died from time to time,

and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”

—As You Like It, William Shakespeare

OLIVER LE BEAU BLACKTHORN was young and in love, which made him a candidate for less than intelligent behavior on two counts.

And so it was that, with the clouded vision of a man besotted, that same Oliver Le Beau Blackthorn, raised to think quite highly of himself, the equal to all men, did, with hat figuratively in hand, hope in his heart and a bunch of posies clutched to his breast, bound up the marble steps to the mansion in Portland Place one fine spring morning and smartly rap the massive door with the lion’s head brass knocker.

Oliver, known to his family as Beau, performed a quick mental inventory of his appearance, one he’d worked over for a full two hours, crumpling both a half dozen neck cloths and his valet’s abused nerves in the process.

He was presenting himself in a morning rigout of finest tan buckskins, dazzlingly white linen, a stunning yet unobtrusive waistcoat of marvelously brushed silk shot through with cleverly designed stripes made of the lightest tan thread and a darkest blue jacket that so closely followed the lines of his young, leanly muscled body that he could not manage to get his arms in or out of the sleeves without assistance.

He’d practiced the jaunty positioning of his curly brimmed beaver in front of the pier glass in his dressing room for a full ten minutes before pronouncing the angle satisfactory; showing off his thick crop of sun-streaked blond hair rather than crushing it, providing just enough cover from the brim that his bright blue eyes were not cast into the shade.

It only just now occurred to him that the hat would be handed over to the Brean footman, along with his new tan kid gloves and walking stick, and Lady Madelyn would never see them.

Hmm, no one had as yet answered his knock. Shabby, that’s what that was. He lifted his hand to the knocker once more, just as the door opened, and very nearly tapped on the footman’s nose.

Beau glared at the fellow, who stepped back quickly, and the well-tailored Mr. Blackthorn sauntered into the black-and-white marble-tiled foyer, feeling his cheeks growing hot and damning his lifelong tendency to blush.

Shortly thereafter he was admitted to the Grand Drawing Room by the family butler, who seemed disapproving in some way as he looked at the flowers, to await the appearance of Lady Madelyn Mills-Beckman, elder daughter of the Earl of Brean, and Beau Blackthorn’s beloved.

“Quite a lot of Bs in there,” he murmured to himself, an outward sign of the nervousness he felt but had thus far managed to conceal. There had been that small slip with the footman, but by and large, Beau was still feeling quite confident.

Or he was until a young female voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Talking to oneself is considered by some to be an indication of madness. At least that’s what Mama said once about Aunt Harriet, and she was mad as a hatter. Aunt Harriet, that is. Mama was simply silly. I once saw Aunt Harriet with her clothes on backward. Are those flowers for Madelyn? Should I tell you that she loathes flowers? They make her sneeze, and her eyes water, and then her nose begins to drip …”

Beau had already turned about smartly, to see Lady Chelsea Mills-Beckman, a rather pernicious brat of no more than fourteen, ensconced on a flowered chaise near the window. She had her bent legs tucked up under the skirts of her sprigged muslin gown, and an open book was perched on her lap.

His reluctant scrutiny took in her long and messily wavy blond hair that had half escaped its ribbon, the eyes that were neither gray nor quite blue below flyaway eyebrows that could make her look devilish and pixyish at the same time, the budding young body that should certainly be positioned with more circumspection.

The wide, teasing grin on her face, he ignored.

Beau had suffered the misfortune of Lady Chelsea’s presence twice before in the past month, always with a book in her hand and a too-smart tongue in her head, and he was as loath to see her this morning as he’d been either of those other times.

“Your father should order a lock put on the nursery door,” he drawled now, even as he strode to the French doors and unceremoniously tossed the posies out into the garden.

Lady Chelsea laughed at this obvious silliness, be it directed at his statement or the flowers he couldn’t be certain. But then she told him, drat her anyway.

“I’d only find another way out. I’m motherless, you understand, and allowances must be made for me. Too young for a Come-out, too prone to mischief to be left with my governess in the country while Madelyn is being popped off. I suppose you want me to vacate the room now, before Madelyn makes her grand entrance and you delight her by drooling all over her shoe tops. Oh, look at that, you’ve got a wet spot from the stems on that odiously homely waistcoat. I’ll wager that’s put a crimp in your airs of consequence.”

Beau hastily brushed at his waistcoat before his brain could inform his pride that the blasted girl was making a May game out of him. Had he really only considered the nursery for her banishment? He would rather the cheeky child left the continent, perhaps even the universe, but refrained from that particular honesty. “I would like to converse with Lady Madelyn in private, yes.”

“Oh, very well, if you’re going to be all starchy about the thing.” Lady Chelsea got to her feet and smoothed down her gown. She was a rather attractive child, he supposed. She’d probably break a dozen hearts in a few years. But she didn’t hold a patch on her sister, she of the ice-blue eyes and nearly white-blond hair, her mouth a pouty pink, her skin so creamy and flawless above the low bodice of her gowns.

Beau inserted a finger beneath his collar and gave a small tug, as it had suddenly become difficult to swallow. That action then turned impossible as the object of his affection entered the room.

“Mr. Blackthorn, what a lovely surprise. I hadn’t thought to see you so soon after our dance at Lady Cowper’s ball. Naughty man, showing up uninvited as you did. Quite shocking, really. And just to dance with me and then take your leave? It was all quite romantic and daring.” Lady Madelyn tipped her head to one side as if trying to somehow see behind his back. “Did you bring me a gift? I adore gifts.”

Beau bowed to the love of his life and apologized for his sad lack of manners.

Lady Madelyn looked crestfallen for a moment but then brightened. “Very well, I accept your apology. Next time, perhaps you’ll bring me flowers. I do love flowers.”

A giggle from the corner alerted Beau to the fact that the brat was enjoying another small joke at his expense, but he refused to look at her or acknowledge the hit. “I will buy you an entire hothouse full of flowers,” he promised Lady Madelyn earnestly, bowing yet again. “And now, if I might have a word with you in private? There is something of great personal importance I wish to ask you. After the events of last night, I should think you know what that is.”

She didn’t move, didn’t blink, and yet something changed in Lady Madelyn’s ice-blue eyes. Her smile became frozen in place, and her creamy-white skin seemed to pale even more, all the way to porcelain, and looked just as cold and hard.

“Now, Mr. Blackthorn, you know that is quite impossible. No young lady of quality is ever without a chaperone in the presence of a gentleman, as we both know. I do believe, if I am interpreting your statement correctly, that it is my absent father you should be asking for, not me,” she scolded in a rather strangled tone. “Chelsea, would you be a dear and ask our brother to step in here for a moment? Mrs. Wickham is still dressing, I’m afraid.”

“But I saw her earlier on the stairs, and she was completely—”

Lady Madelyn whirled about to glare at her sister. “Do as I say!”

“You’re such a snob,” Chelsea said as she flounced out of the room.

Oliver Le Beau Blackthorn was young and in love, and like many of his similarly afflicted brethren, not thinking too clearly. But it didn’t take a clear thinker to recognize that the rosy scenario he’d pictured in his brain and the scene playing out in front of him now were poles apart.

She was probably nervous. Women tended to be nervous at times like these; they couldn’t seem to help themselves. He’d make allowances.

“Lady Madelyn … and if I might be so bold, dear, dear Madelyn,” he said, taking quick advantage while they were still alone, dropping to one knee in front of her and clasping her right hand in his, just as he had practiced the move on Sidney, his horribly embarrassed valet. “It can be no secret that I have admired you greatly since the moment we first met. With each new meeting my affection has grown, and I believe it has been reciprocated, most especially after our walk together the other evening when I so dared as to kiss you and you did me the great honor of allowing me to—”

“Not another word! How provokingly common of you to speak of such things! No gentleman would ever be so crass as to throw a moment’s folly into a lady’s face. A single kiss? It was a lark, a dare, no more than that. Get up! You’re a dreadful creature.”

A single kiss? It had been considerably more than a single kiss. She’d allowed him to cup her breast through the thin fabric of her gown, moaned delightfully against his mouth as he’d run his thumb across her hard, pert nipple. If not for the sound of approaching footsteps, there would have been much more. He’d nearly been bursting, had come within moments of thoroughly embarrassing himself, for God’s sake.

He would have thought her a cold, heartless tease if he’d been in his right mind. But no, he was in love. And she was clearly upset.

“I know I’m being forward,” Beau persisted—he’d been up all night rehearsing this speech. “I ask only that I have your permission to address your father. I would not wish to do so if my affection truly wasn’t returned.”

“Well, it isn’t,” Lady Madelyn responded hotly, pulling her hand free. “You overreaching nobody. Just because your father is one of us, and you’ve been accepted in some quarters because of him and because of that ridiculous fortune he’s bestowed on you, doesn’t mean you’ll truly ever be one of us. Don’t you even know when someone is making a May game of you? You’re a joke, Beau Blackthorn, a laughingstock to everyone in Mayfair, and you’re the only one who doesn’t know it. As if I or any female of decency in the ton would deign to align herself with a—a bastard like you.”

Beau would later remember that the lady’s brother entered the drawing room at some point during this heart-shredding declaration, along with two burly footmen who quickly grabbed hold of Beau’s arms and hauled him to his feet and beyond, so that he was dangling between them, his boots a good two inches off the floor.

He called out his beloved’s name, but she had already turned her back and was walking away from him, holding up the hem of her skirts as if to avoid stepping in something vile.

A dare? A joke? That’s all he’d been? She—and God only knew who else—had been encouraging him, yet secretly laughing at him? Is that how Society really saw him? As some sort of monkey they could watch dance? A performing bear they could prod with a stick, just to see how he’d react? Here, bastard, kiss me, touch what you’ll never have. And then go away. You’re not one of us.

His mother had warned him, warned all three of her sons. Beau had never believed the dire predictions that she ascribed to the ridiculous notions and actions of their father. The world had to have been better than she’d painted it. But she’d been right, and he and his father had been wrong.

At last Beau, his dreams, all of the assumptions and hopes of his young life shattering at his feet, came to his senses. He struggled violently to be free, to no avail, until he was carried out the way he had come in and been thrown down the marble steps to the flagway. He could hear as well as feel the crack of a bone in his left forearm as it made sharp contact with the edge of one of the steps even as all the air left his lungs in a painful whoosh.

Then the first snap of the whip hit him across his back, and he could do nothing more than curl himself into a ball and take each blow, trying to protect his face, his eyes, his injured arm.

“Insult my sister, will you? Take advantage of her innocence?” The viscount flourished the coach whip again and again, the braided leather with the hard, metal tip slicing Beau’s new morning coat straight on through to his skin, setting his back on fire. “Putting on airs above your station? That’s what coddling your type leads to, damn it. Society in shambles! The very breath you take is an abomination to all that is decent. I should have you bound and tossed in the Thames like the worthless dog you are!”

At last the assault with the whip ended, followed briefly by some well-placed kicks from the footmen, and Beau heard the slam of a door. He tentatively got to his feet, his body a mass of pain, his heart and soul in tatters, just like his fine coat. One of the footmen spat at him before they both shouted at him to go away, their coarse oaths drawing the attention of any passersby who hadn’t already stopped to stare at the spectacle.

Still crouching like a whipped dog as he supported his broken arm, Beau turned to look back at the mansion, only to have the door open slightly and the face of Lady Chelsea peek out at him, her eyes awash in tears.

“I’m so, so sorry, Mr. Blackthorn,” she said, sniffling, tears running down her cheeks. “Madelyn is vain and heartless, and Thomas is just an ass. They can neither of them help themselves, I suppose. I don’t think you a joke. I … I think you’re entirely worthy, if a little silly in your head. But perhaps you should go away now. Very far away.”

And then she closed the door, and Beau was left to stare down his own groom, who had been waiting with the new curricle that had also been purchased to impress Lady Madelyn. He’d planned to take her for a drive, once he’d spoken to her father, and perhaps steal another kiss—and more—as they rode out to Richmond Park.

“Thank you, no, and thank you so much for springing to my aid with all the loyalty of a potted plant,” Beau said stiffly, gritting his teeth against the nausea that threatened as the groom stepped forward to lend him support. “Return that damned thing to my stables. I’ll walk back to Grosvenor Square.”

And that’s just what Beau did. He walked all the long blocks to his father’s mansion. Staggered at times but always righted himself, kept his chin high, his spine straight, looking each passerby in the eye. Let them see, let them all see what they’d done to him while calling themselves gentlemen and ladies, thinking themselves somehow better than he, more civilized. Let them laugh now if they could. And let them remember, so that the next time they saw Oliver Le Beau Blackthorn or crossed his path, they’d know well enough to beware.

With each step, as those he encountered quickly crossed the street to avoid the torn and bloody sight of him, while none of them, acquaintance or supposed friend, raised a hand to help him, that same Oliver Le Beau Blackthorn left more of his youth behind him, until he was left with only one thought, one remaining truth.

His money, his looks, his charm, the friendships he’d believed he’d forged at school and here in London, the acceptance he’d thought he’d found? At the end of the day, they meant nothing.

He’d been a fool, he knew that now. Young and prideful and stupid. The laughingstock Lady Madelyn had called him.

The oldest son of the Marquess of Blackthorn, at two and twenty years of age, had at last seem himself as the world saw him. Not as a man, not as a friend, not as a mate. They saw him as he was. Illegitimate. Born on the wrong side of the blanket, son of a marquess and a common actress. An educated and well-heeled bastard, yes, but a bastard all the same.

He walked on, his heart hardening, his mind holding on to one thought, the only thought that kept him from giving in to his pain, pitching forward once more into the gutter.

He would do as the brat advised. He would go away. Far away.

But he would return.

Someday.

And when he did, by God, let any man dare to laugh at him again!

CHAPTER ONE

LADY CHELSEA MILLS- BECKMAN, always the epitome of grace and charm, launched the thick marble-backed book of sermons directly at the head of her brother, Thomas, as of the past two years the seventeenth Earl of Brean.

Her aim was woefully off, and the tome missed him completely, which did nothing to improve her mood.

His lordship bent down to retrieve the book, inspecting the spine for any hint of damage before closing it and setting it on his desk. He was a man in his early forties, too well fed, and with a pink complexion that always seemed to border on the shiny. He thought himself handsome and brilliant, but was neither. He more closely resembled, Chelsea believed, an expensively dressed pig.

“God’s words, Chelsea, delivered through the holy Reverend Francis Flotley himself. ‘A woman’s role is to obey, and her greatest gift her compliance with the superior wisdom of men. Let her gently be led in her inferior intellect, like the sheep in the field, or else otherwise lose her way and be branded morally bereft, a harlot in heart and soul, and worthy only of the staff.’”

The siblings had been closeted in the study in Portland Place for little more than a quarter-hour on this fine late April morning, and yet this was already the fourth time her brother had quoted from the book of sermons. Which, clearly, had been at least one time too many, as it had prompted the aforementioned action of her ladyship wrenching the book from his hand and sending it winging at him.

“Herd us poor, silly, brainless women, lead us gently by the hand as long as we obey, and beat us with the staff if we refuse to behave like sheep. That’s what that means. What a pitiful mouthful of claptrap,” Chelsea countered, attempting to control her breathing in her agitation. “You’re a parrot, Thomas, mouthing words you’ve learned but haven’t taken the time to understand. And did you ever notice, brother mine, that all of this nonsense is always penned by men? Is that what’s next for me? You’re going to beat me? As I recall the thing, you were once rather proficient with the whip, and not averse to employing it on someone who could not defend himself.”

The earl quickly rose to his feet, open hand raised as if to strike his sister down, but then just as quickly seated himself once more, pasting a truly terrible smile of brotherly indulgence on his pink face.

“Certainly not, Chelsea. But you have just proved the reverend’s point,” he said, joining his hands in a prayerful attitude. “Women have not the intellect of men, nor do they possess the cerebral restraint necessary to combat rude and obnoxious outbursts. But I will forgive you, for it is just as the reverend has said, again, only delivering God’s message as he hears it spoken to him.”

“God talks to the man? Well, then, perhaps I should try having a small chat with God myself, and then the next time He talks to the reverend He can tell him to stop trying to rub up against my bosom as he pretends to bless me. That may not do much to enlarge my small intellect, but it might just save the reverend from a sharp kick in the shins.”

The earl sighed. “Scurrilous accusations will get you nowhere, Chelsea, and only show your willingness to impugn the reverend’s character by spouting baseless charges in order to … in order to get your own way.”

“Forgot the rest of the words, did you? I mean it, Thomas, you’re a parrot. You’re devout by rote, certainly not by inclination.”

“We aren’t discussing me, we’re discussing you.”

“Not if I don’t want to, and I don’t!”

“We’ve moved beyond what you want, Chelsea. You’ve had your opportunities. Three Seasons, and you’re still unwed, and very near to being on the shelf. Papa was much too indulgent of your fits and starts, and you missed a Season as we mourned his passing, may the merciful Lord rest his soul. Now we are halfway through yet another Season, and you have thus far refused the suits of no fewer than four gentlemen of breeding.”

“And one out-and-out fortune hunter who had you entirely hoodwinked,” Chelsea reminded him as she paced the carpet in front of the desk, unable to remain still. Her brother had always been stupid. Now he was both stupid and holy, hiding his fears behind this new supposed devotion, and that somehow made it all worse. She believed she’d liked him better when he’d been just stupid.

“Be that as it may, and there is still a question on that head, if you will not choose a husband, it is left to me to select one for you, as I helped do for your sister. You should be immensely flattered that he has taken an interest, most especially as he has firsthand knowledge of your … your proclivity for obtrusive behavior. I can think of no one finer than Reverend Flotley.”

“You open your mouth yet again, Thomas, but it’s still Francis Flotley’s words that come out of it. I can think of no one worse. I’d rather wed a street sweep than put myself in the power of that religious mountebank. I reach my majority in a few weeks, Thomas, and you cannot order me to marry that … that oily creature. Oh, stop frowning. A mountebank, since you obviously aren’t of a superior enough intellect to know, is a person who deceives other people for profit. Sometimes it is by selling false cures, and for the reverend, it is selling false salvation. You really think he has a direct conduit to God? I hear Bedlam is full of those who think God speaks to them. You could ask any one of them to intercede for you without paying them a bent penny, and I can go my own way.”

“And where would that be, Chelsea?” Her brother was maintaining his composure, something he had struggled long and hard to do ever since he’d nearly died during a bout with the mumps two years earlier, passed to him by one of Madelyn’s wet-nosed brood of brats—It having taken Madelyn a run through a pair of female offspring before she’d succeeded in producing a male heir for her husband, who’d then at long last agreed to leave her alone, so she was free to regain her figure, buy out Bond Street every second fortnight and sleep with any man who wasn’t her husband.

At any rate, and Madelyn’s disease-spreading offspring to one side, Thomas was devoutly religious now, having promised God all sorts of sacrifices in exchange for rising up from what could have been his deathbed, and it had been the Reverend Francis Flotley who had successfully delivered, and continued to deliver, the earl’s messages to God in his name.

Since their father’s untimely death and Thomas’s own near brush with that final answer to the trial of living, the earl no longer drank strong spirits. He did not gamble. He’d given his mistress her congé and was now, for the first time in their marriage, faithful to his wife—who, Chelsea knew, was none too happy about that turn of events. He wore expensive yet simple black suits with no ornamentation. He did not lose his temper. He read the evening prayers in the drawing room each night at ten and retired at eleven.

And he continued to pour copious amounts of money into the purse of Reverend Flotley, who, Chelsea believed, had decided marrying the earl’s younger sister to be a guarantee that the supply of funds would then never be cut off, even if his lordship were ever to suffer a crisis of faith … or meet another lady of negotiable moral standards he might want to set up in a discreet lodging somewhere.

“Where would I be? Are you threatening to toss me into the streets, Thomas?”

He sighed. “I did not wish for it to come to this, but I have sole control over your funds from Mama until you are married. You have a roof over your head because of my generosity. You have bread on your plate and clothes on your back because I am a giving and forgiving man. But more to the point, Francis and I see your immortal soul in danger, Chelsea, thanks to your headstrong and modern ways. I’m afraid you leave me no choice but to make this decision for you. The banns will be called for the first time this Sunday at Brean, and you and the reverend will be wed there at the end of this month.”

Chelsea was caught between panic and anger. Anger won. “The devil we will! You think you almost died, and your answer to that is to sacrifice me? I thought it was only your cheeks that got fat—not your entire head. I won’t do it, Thomas. I won’t. I’d rather reside beneath London Bridge.”

The earl opened the book of sermons and lowered his gaze to the page, signaling that the interview was concluded. But he could not conceal that his hands were shaking, and Chelsea knew she had nearly succeeded in rousing his temper past the point the Reverend Flotley had deemed good for her brother’s soul. “Not London Bridge at least. We leave for Brean in the morning, where you will be made safe until the ceremony.”

Chelsea felt her stomach clench into a knot. He was planning to make her a prisoner until the wedding. “Made safe? Locked up, that’s what you mean, don’t you? You can’t do that, Thomas. Thomas! Look at me! I’m your sister, not your possession. You can’t do that.”

He turned the page, ignoring her.

She whirled about on her heel and fled the room, her mind alive with bees and possibilities … and filled with one thought in particular, a memory that had been conjured up thanks to Thomas.

When she reached the main foyer she told the footman to order her mare brought round and then raced up the sweep of staircase to change into her riding habit before her brother came to his senses and realized that a prisoner tomorrow, warned of that pending imprisonment, should also be a prisoner today.

“So, I’ve been lying here thinking, and I’ve come up with a question for you. Are you ready? Hell and damnation, man, are you even awake?”

There was a muffled and faintly piteous groan from somewhere in the near vicinity, and Beau turned his head on the couch cushion—not without experiencing a modicum of cranial discomfort—to see his youngest brother lying on the facing couch, facedown and still fully dressed in his evening clothes. Although one of his black evening shoes seemed to have gone missing.