The Infamous Rakes

by Amanda Scott

  Thorne said, “Do you come down, or do I come fetch you?”

  “We’re fairly evenly matched,” Crawley said. “I fancy I can hold my own, my buck, so long as you don’t resort to weaponry. Dashed if I’ll face you with pistols, though, so don’t think you’ll force anything of that nature on me.”

  “I have no intention of giving you the satisfaction,” Thorne said. “I mean only to teach you not to meddle in my affairs.”

  Gillian had had enough. “Stop it, the both of you,” she snapped. “I have allowed myself to be made a figure of curiosity to all the ragtag and bobtail along the highroad by being driven along it in an open carriage, but I will not become an onlooker to a bout of childish fisticuffs.”

  “But he did say we should go behind the hedge, my dear,” Crawley murmured irrepressibly.

  “And leave me here to be gawked at by every passerby,” she retorted. “And don’t bother to point out that there are none,” she added, seeing him make a great thing about looking up and down the deserted road, “for the fact of the matter is that this is the Great North Road and one cannot depend upon its remaining deserted for long. In fact, there is a wagon coming now from the north. My lord,” she said, looking at Thorne, “please believe me when I say that this is not what it looks like.”

  “No?” He turned that stern look of his on her. “But perhaps you do not know what it looks like to me.”

  “Well, of course I do. It must look as if Lord Crawley and I have ... that is, as if he has ...”

  “Precisely, my love. Will you call it an elopement or an abduction? I warn you that either term may well overset the strong hold I am keeping on my temper, so choose carefully.”

  Something in his tone made her look at him more shrewdly. He looked angry, but clearly Crawley was not the least bit afraid of him. Indeed, the idiotic man looked as if he were having all he could do to keep from bursting into laughter when by rights he ought to have been shaking in his shoes. And Thorne looked ... She wasn’t sure how he looked, but she decided that if he were even half as angry as his expression suggested, she ought to be trembling, and she was not. She was beginning to get angry, and his casual endearment had only augmented that anger.

  “I suppose you mean to say that you know perfectly well that this whole idiotic business was merely a ruse on Crawley’s part to bring you chasing after us,” she said grimly. “Well, I must tell you then, my lord, that I had no part in it, nor did I agree with his rather muddled thinking on the subject.”

  “Traitor,” Crawley murmured. “My tombstone will read, ‘Thanks be to the lady who sent me to an early grave, ’twas less than I deserved.’”

  Gillian bit her lip.

  “Just so,” Thorne said, looking right at her. “He does have a tendency to be a trifle melodramatic. I have noted the fault in him before. I shall postpone my chat with him, however, if you will agree to drive back to London with me.”

  Uncertain whether the sudden clenching sensation in her midsection was due to elation or terror, Gillian looked doubtfully from one man to the other.

  Crawley said, “I am not altogether certain that I should advise her to take you up on that offer.”

  “In that event, you would be wise to keep silent,” Thorne said. “She is coming with me. In fact, I think we will take your rig. I’ve a fancy to drive Corbin’s chestnuts again. You may take my phaeton back to town.”

  “The devil I will! Those nags look blown, and I doubt I’ve got enough on me to pay for a new team. In fact, dashed if I don’t think I ought to continue to Welwyn—to Fledborough, for that matter. Marriage to an heiress is the only thing that will save my groats, so I’m dashed if I can see why I ought to give Lady Gillian into your tender keeping if she don’t choose to go.”

  “I’ll give you a roll of soft,” Thorne said, “and you can drive into Welwyn to make the change. Moreover, if you will tote up the reckoning, I will pay all your current bills for you, so you can start the quarter with a clean slate.”

  “Good Lord, Josh, you needn’t do that!”

  Thorne glanced at Gillian. “I don’t want anyone thinking I deprived you of a fortune, Crawler. You may repay me at your leisure. Now get down from that damn carriage, and take your tiger with you.”

  “Oh, to be sure,” Crawley said as he leaned over to wrap the traces around his brake handle. “You will want your own man.”

  “No, I don’t. You may take him with you as well.”

  “But good Lord, Josh, you can’t drive along the highroad with Lady Gillian perched up beside you. It ain’t done!”

  “As we see,” Thorne said, casting him a look of mockery.

  “Well, but I did have my tiger, and—”

  “Crawler, do get down while you can still move without assistance.”

  “Oh, very well, you needn’t look at me as though you still mean to murder me. We meant only to—”

  “To help? I thank you, but I beg you will keep your beneficent urges to yourselves in the future.”

  Crawley paused on the step, glancing from Gillian to Thorne. “I say, Josh, you did take care of everything in London, didn’t you? It won’t do at all for you to be careering along the highroad with her if you are still betrothed to Miss Ponderby.”

  “I am happy to tell you that I am not. I left her explaining herself to Corbin. I am sure it was a vastly entertaining conversation, but I did not stay to hear it. Nor do I wish to converse any longer with you.” He pulled a thick roll of bills from his pocket and handed them to Crawley. “Change horses as often as you like. And if you should chance to pass us on the road, do not feel obliged to stop to pass the time of day.”

  Crawley took the money, then thrust his hand out. “Good luck to you, Josh. I hope you mean to tell me the particulars later, for I don’t mind telling you, I’m as curious as a cat.”

  “But think what happened to the cat,” Thorne murmured.

  “Oh, very well, I’m gone.” Calling to his tiger to hurry, he turned and waved at Gillian. “I shall do myself the pleasure of calling in Park Street tomorrow, ma’am, to see how you go on.”

  Gillian returned his wave, but she was watching Thorne. The serious look had returned, and she was not certain what to say to him. He swung himself up and gathered the reins into his hands, waited only until the farm wagon had passed them, and then deftly turned the carriage in the roadway. He didn’t say a word.

  After some moments of this treatment, Gillian looked directly at him and said, “Did I hear you say that you left Dorinda explaining matters to Lord Corbin, sir?”

  He nodded.

  “But why to Lord Corbin? I could understand it if she had had to explain to Papa or to Estrid, but surely you should not have left her alone with Corbin.”

  “Well, I did,” he said. “I chanced to meet him on the doorstep, and when we discovered that your father and Lady Marrick had gone to Richmond Park for the day—”

  “Richmond! Papa? But why on earth—”

  “It seems they had matters of their own they wished to discuss. Doubtless, you know more about the matter than I do, since you live there and I do not. I cannot conceive of why they would do such a thing. Nor do I care. I want to—”

  “It must be on account of what happened last night when Papa discovered that Estrid had been meeting Uncle Marmaduke in the cemetery, and had danced with him at Ranelagh.”

  “Your uncle and Lady Marrick? Come, what nonsense is this?”

  “Oh, it is not nonsense, sir, but merely what comes of plain speaking,” Gillian said, shooting him a mischievous look. “Papa was in a taking because one of his cronies told him Estrid was making a cake of herself over some fellow in a black domino, and when he taxed her with it, the whole tale came out. Before she and Uncle Marmaduke had ever met properly, he chanced to meet her in the churchyard one night. Apparently she has been in the habit since coming to London of paying her respects to her late husband, just as Uncle Marmaduke frequently visits his first wife’s grave and has little
chats with her. Well, the short tale is that he flirted with Estrid and she didn’t see him clearly enough to recognize him later. But he recognized her when he met her in Park Street, and he has such a wicked sense of mischief that he went right on being her mysterious cicisbeo, even to the point of making an assignation to meet her at Ranelagh. And of course, Papa has not paid any heed to her, not seeing any reason to do so, but now I daresay he has seen the error of his ways. Their marriage is not perfect by any means, but I do think that in their own ways they are fond of each other.”

  “It is not their marriage I wish to discuss, however.”

  The breath caught in Gillian’s throat, but she rallied quickly. “But if they have gone to Richmond, that is all the more reason you ought not to have left Dorinda alone with Corbin.”

  “Nonsense. If he is wise he will give her the trimming of her life, and then they can go on as they have begun. She will make him the devil of a wife, but he wants her, so I suppose in the end he will have her.”

  “He may want her,” Gillian said, “but I very much fear she will not have him, sir. It is a pity, too, because Dorinda has a soft spot in her heart for him and I think they would suit each other, but she is determined to marry a country house, and Corbin is a mere baron, besides having to be so careful with his money.”

  Thorne gave a shout of laughter. “My poor innocent! Corbin may be a baron, but he is anything but ‘mere.’ Good God, do women know nothing of men’s affairs? My sweet, do you have any idea what it costs a man to be a member of Brooks’s, or to join the Four Horse Club, or even to dress himself? Why, what Corbin spends on clothes in a month would clothe the British army for nearly the same amount of time! He’s rolling in money.”

  “I did know that Crawley had once hoped Corbin would marry Belinda, but I thought that was only because they were such good friends. Is Crawley rich, too, then? Is that all a hum?”

  “No, he is not rich, but he could be well enough to pass if he would settle down and tend his estates. It looks very much as if Dacres will come up to scratch, and he will make a generous settlement if he does. But enough prattle, my love, I do not wish to speak of—”

  “Don’t call me that,” Gillian said. “It is the second time today you have done so, and I do not like it. You have developed this feeling that you must look after me, sir—that’s all. You think that since I managed to come within your orbit, you somehow have reason to order my life for me. But you don’t love me, and you hate that I control my own fortune.”

  The carriage had been moving along at a steady speed, but suddenly Thorne slowed the team and turned them into a narrow dirt roadway that led off at an angle from the highroad. The byway was hedged on both sides and when it curved, the highroad was lost to sight altogether. Thorne drew up and wrapped the traces around the brake handle.

  “What are you doing?” Gillian demanded. “Take us back to the road at once.”

  “There’s no going back, my love,” he said quietly, turning to face her. “Even I am not skilled enough to turn this rig in this narrow lane. We shall have to drive on, and unless I miss my guess, this is a private road, so we will find ourselves turning around in someone’s farmyard. Before that happens, I have a number of things to say to you, and I cannot make you stop prating of unimportant matters if I must keep half my mind on the team. You never had any intention of marrying Crawley, I hope.”

  “No, of course not. He said he was taking me for an airing.”

  “Then you never agreed to any of this? By God, I will teach him a lesson!”

  “Well, actually ...”

  “What? Come now, you are such an advocate of candor. Do not fail me now.”

  “I did think for a very short time that I might marry him,” she confessed. “He spoke of candor, too, but he clinched his argument—with my uncle’s assistance—by pointing out how dismal my life will be with Papa now that Estrid has made all her feelings clear and Papa has confessed that he truly loves her and never meant to hurt her. He has always resented the fact that he never has had complete control at Carnaby Park since he married my mother and my grandfather sent Hollingston to look after the place. But Papa means for things to be different now, and while I do not think he will do anything dreadful, I cannot think that I shall have the same freedom there that I had before.”

  “Good,” Thorne said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I am merely following your command, my love, and saying what I think.”

  “Oh. Well, after last night I am beginning to agree with you that it is not always such an excellent idea.”

  “No, no, you were perfectly right. One cannot always be fretting about how others will react. Everyone does that to some extent, I know, and it is not always wrong, but I came to see that a number of my own problems stemmed from the fact that I had never openly discussed my position with my father. I had tried to insinuate my feelings into his awareness, I suppose, rather than simply telling him what they were. But now—”

  “You spoke to him, then? Oh, what did he say?”

  Thorne put an arm around her shoulders. “Before I allow you to direct me onto yet another byway, love, we will finish what we began, I think. I do love you. I do not hate that you control your fortune. I behaved childishly when I learned of the fact because I was furious that you had not told me, particularly in view of your so often spouted views about plain speaking. Since I resented the fact that I had so little control of what would one day be mine, learning that you controlled yours was more than I could stomach at the time. How would you like to spend half of each year in Ireland, by the way?”

  She stared at him. “Ireland?”

  “We have an estate there that has proved to be something of a nuisance. My father has frequently threatened to send me there if I did not mend my ways, but it never occurred to me before that I might find the solution to my problems in that threat. We talked at some length earlier today, and when I explained to him that I have been spending a good deal of my time this past year learning about estate management from quite unexceptionable sources, he agreed to deed the place over to me to use as a sort of experimental farm, after the manner of Holkham Hall. You will note that I don’t attempt to explain to you what I mean by that.”

  She smiled. “You once said you did not believe I knew anything about crops, sir. What can I know of Holkham?”

  He chuckled. “It occurred to me that you mentioned quite a number of things showing a knowledge one does not expect to find in females. Still, you did not view my friendship with Coke, or the fact that when we first met I was coming from Braunton Burrows as evidence of anything but simple friendships.”

  “No, that is quite true. Were those men your teachers?”

  “They were. I had alienated my father’s steward by throwing suggestions at him without taking the trouble first to learn how things worked, and I fear I did not have enough humility to present myself to him as a student. It was easier with men like Worth and Coke. When I did speak to my father, however, I could talk like a sensible man, and he listened with much more understanding than I had expected. Much of what I gained today, my love, I owe to you. I rescued you once,” he added softly, “but I believe you have returned the favor now.”

  She touched his face and gazed into his eyes, finding nothing of the chilly mockery that she had so often seen there, but only warmth and love. When she stroked his cheek, he caught her hand and kissed it, his lips warm against her soft skin. She said quietly, “I must remember to thank Dorinda.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said, “I think we must both thank her.”

  “You know, then?”

  He nodded. “She confessed that it was she who created our first betrothal, but I think we must attend to the second one without any help, don’t you? Or perhaps we could simply drive on to Fledborough and procure one of those licenses Crawley spoke of for ourselves. In any case,” he added, drawing her slowly toward him and watching her with a wicked twinkle in his eyes as he did so, �
�I suggest that we discuss the matter at great length before we decide just which course to follow. What do you think?”

  She was arched against him, her breasts crushed against his chest, her eyes closed, and her face tilted up expectantly. When he kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose and drew back, she opened her eyes wide and looked at him reproachfully. “Surely you can do better than that,” she said.

  “Certainly I can,” he said, grinning, “but you must tell me precisely what you want me to do.”

  Snuggling happily into his embrace, Gillian said, “It is just as I said, my love. Plain speaking is certainly best.”

  The Fickle Fortune Hunter

  Gordie’s book

  1

  UNTIL THE FIRST TWO gunshots cracked in the distance, the silence of the sunny mid-March morning had been broken by nothing more alarming than the chirping of birds in the tall beech trees lining the country lane and the muffled but steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves as they ambled companionably along it. The three riders had remained silent since leaving the Longworth Park stable, two of them out of compassion or simple courtesy, the third because even the sound of his own voice was enough to set fiendish devils pounding against the inside of his skull. He had come out riding against his will, finding it easier to submit than to argue when his companions—both of whom he had known since childhood—insisted that a ride in the crisp morning air would clear the effects of the previous night’s carousing from his befuddled brain.

  The first shots were followed by two more before one of his companions, plump, fair-haired Peregrine, Lord Dawlish, collected his wits and exclaimed, “Gunshots! Poachers, I’ll wager.”