The Writer and the Rake

by Shehanne Moore

“Not yet.” He took her hand, brushed his thumb pad in a slow, velvety, circle on the palm.

  Was that really what she was waiting with unexpected longing for him to do? She was dead. for God’s sake.

  “Just get on with it, would you?”

  “Very well. Let’s try higher”

  She shifted against the jamb. “Not a chance of it. Lower either before you get any ideas.”

  He’d already had his hand on her backside. That was as far as his hand was going.

  “Fine then. How’s this? Uh--” She opened her mouth to protest but he held up a warning finger. “Wait. I’ve not started yet.”

  His knuckle traced her cheek. Slowly, softly, sensuously. God almighty what else might he trace if she didn’t nod. Especially when he stood so close, her back was against the door, the room, shaded by dwindling bands of sunlight, seemed quietly and darkly intimate all of a sudden, more like a room in winter, than spring and her legs were suddenly like rubber.

  “Yes. What about it?”

  “This then?”

  Despite what she’d said about lower, his fingertips traced velvet circles on her wrist, and when she didn’t move, moved up her arm. Her heartbeat quickened. Other things did too. Fortunately his fingertips, like carbon on her skin, were tracing one immoveable fact. She was dead. Did she want to spend eternity here with a Neolithic ape, who couldn’t keep his hands to himself? A gorgeously handsome one whose mouth she’d the sudden languid desire to thrust her tongue into, whose neck she wanted to wind her arms around, but still a Neolithic letch. She fought the urge.

  “But then darling, how can I give you a reaction? I’m dead. We all are. You, your son, Christian, although how she’d not gone to hell I don’t know. Maybe because she wants you to feel her backside? So can we stop this nonsense about who feels what? Thank you. You have no idea how tiresome it is.”

  “And that’s why you’re wriggling?”

  “Is this in your imagination?”

  “Be my guest as to that.” His hypnotic eyes held hers so her heart scudded like clouds across the sky. “But, you’re not dead, Miss Carter, any more than I am. In fact I’d say you’re not only very much alive, you’ve not sworn off men either. So, why don’t you just stop all this nonsense and oblige me?”

  ~ ~ ~

  Striding purposefully through the fairy-tale surroundings of the hall, Mitchell cursed beneath his breath. How nice he’d been, offering drinks, money. He’d even been on the verge of complimenting her on her performance when she’d accused him of feeling her backside—part of the act, damn that damnable son of his to hell. At least Mitchell hoped it was part of the act.

  “Wait.”

  Wait was not what he meant to say. Bugger off was what he meant to say. Good riddance. Take your bleeding feet and go. Look at the mess you’re making of the sodding steps. But then he’d never expected to be in this mess. As for touching her? What was he thinking about? He didn’t have a farthing to his name and she was madder than a hatter.

  “I’d say, ‘not on your Nellie,’ but I don’t know I’ve a hell of a lot of choice. 1765.”

  As far as he could remember in his vast acquaintance with womankind he hadn’t had a Nellie. He hadn’t had dealings with a lunatic either. One who paced, muttering to herself, beneath the crumbling stone dragons, hanging at crazy angles from the gables. Her soft, chestnut hair flowed in the breeze. The towel had fallen off and lay in a heap half way down the steps.

  At least she hadn’t got far. A good thing since the state of her feet didn’t hamper her ability to walk. It meant he could save this.

  “I forgot. You’re dead. Well, just you let me know when you’ve decided you’re not and you want to come back indoors, Miss Carter.”

  She dug in her pocket. “I’d like to think you’ve asked because you’ve decided to be reasonable and give me what I want. But somehow . . .”

  Like it, or not, he didn’t have a lot of choice. The last few months had been the winter of his despair, his relationship with Fleming at its lowest ebb. He needed spring to dawn. His future was at stake, his veins were frozen. Friend, or foe, if he wanted this woman to come back he was going to have to apologize even if he hadn’t the least idea who he was apologizing to. He raised his chin.

  “I accept I should not have put my hand on your backside. It was reprehensible of me.”

  She lifted her head, faced him with her blank wall smile and one of these bloody awful white things hanging from her fingers.

  “I see you’ve decided to be more amenable too. Not that that matters a damn.”

  He flicked his gaze over the withered vine trailing its withered fingers down the balustrade. It was that, or kill her.

  “There’s no-one more amenable.”

  He was. He was simply unamenable to showing it, especially to someone he’d just apologized to. Something he never did. If he started, he’d never be finished, after all. But hopefully she understood this was as far as apologizing went.

  “That’s as maybe, darling. The proof of any pudding is always in the eating. 1765?”

  “Well it’s not two thousand and whatever.”

  “You can damn well say that again.” A wreath of smoke veiled her soft red lips and strangely glinting eyes. Interesting. One minute her looks weren’t great, the next they had his blood tingling. He was bloody awful at not having a woman and he’d been without for weeks, though. It was as well she hadn’t come to his room. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “That you’re stark raving mad?” Icily contained, in fact the kind of woman contained in that wreath, he’d have sold his soul to have in his bed. Once. He shrugged. “Look, are you going to consider my generous offer? It’s all I want to know before my second thoughts about you, about this, become third ones.”

  “I’d hardly call a man who wants to disinherit his son, ‘generous.’ In fact I’d call him a child abuser.”

  “What?”

  Another curl of her lip. “What I say.”

  “Fleming’s not a child, Miss Carter. Not in my language. I don’t know how it is in this Newport place you say you come from, but when I was his age, I was a married man with a son. Him.”

  “How edifying for you both. Your poor wife too.”

  He swallowed. The mention of Gabriella was something he couldn’t afford to let rile him. “Before you say another word—”

  “Who says I’m going to?”

  “—on the subject of him, or me.”

  “I’m not. 1765?” She sucked so hard on the cigar it was a miracle she didn’t swallow it. “1760 bloody five? Bloody seventeen, bloody--”

  “When you don’t understand the first thing about it. Him. Me. Anything.” Ignoring her, ignoring himself, when at all costs, he must put Killaine House first, he continued. “And I’m the one risking everything here, not you if you can’t convince Christian and Clarence you’re my wife. This marriage will be in name only.”

  He’d said it. He couldn’t do more than that. Besides who was to know that it was? He’d one servant. Dainty. Not only was she too busy being run off her feet, keeping the odd room tidy, to go beating any kind of path to Christian’s door, the family were one of the few locally who respected him.

  “However this started, however you got into Fleming’s room, just because I felt your backside, it doesn’t mean I want to feel more than that.”

  “You already did, but don’t worry about it. You’re not the first. I just hope you’re not going to be the—”

  She blew another wreath of smoke, a soft one this time that lingered like a ghost around her lips. “Did you just say something?”

  “I did. I said I won’t touch you again.”

  Much as it might pain him. Her backside had been quite agreeable, after all. Shapely, the way it fitted his han
d.

  “Before that?”

  He offered his coolest, noblest stare. “However this started, however you got into Fleming’s room, this marriage will be in name only.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you? You see this is so important to me, it’s equally important I say so about the name business. I shall not step out of line again, not even to convince Christian we are man and wife.”

  At least, when the workings of this woman’s mind were as complete a mystery as she was, he hoped he wouldn’t. But if that was truly what was worrying her, and he could see her mind was whirring, it did no harm to reinforce it. To get out of this mess he’d reinforce a place in hell, although it was going to make things even harder for him. Being celibate with only Dainty for female company was one thing, Dainty wouldn’t tempt a blind man. This woman about the place, though?

  The drag she took on the cigar thing was long and reflective.

  “Oh, please don’t worry about that.”

  Was she going to agree? God Almighty. To it being in more than name too? Dare he look forward to ending his self-imposed celibacy tonight? It hadn’t seemed important before. But now? He did his best to suck in his cheeks, offer a stony stare.

  “Then I mean it. Whatever you want, I’ll do if you’ll just come back in.”

  “Not a problem.”

  His mind raced although he kept his expression statuesque. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  “Me too, darling.”

  “Just name your price.”

  “Very well.” She threw what she was smoking on the ground and lifted her chin, the essence of cool unflappability. “I ruin your son.”

  Chapter 8

  1765. It was seventeen hundred and sixty bloody five. Not that she was one to start shrieking about it. All right, for all of two seconds there she’d wanted to throw her head back and rip the heavens apart. The stars, the aligning planets, solar systems, the frothy white clouds. Or was that when Mitchell Killgower said she hadn’t sworn off men and she’d stormed out?

  Whatever the answer, not only was she not here to prove the latter to him, there were books, brightly burning stars in the best-seller constellations about this time travel stuff.

  The books spoke of portals—woe still betide Sebastian when she got back. The only place that portal could be? In Fleming Killgower’s room.

  “Fleming?” His gaze brushed her like a sharpened pastry fork. She’d seldom seen a man’s face be more expressive, except on the cinema screen. The fact he barely moved a muscle made it most expressive of all. Despite that, she could tell he was going to be difficult. “You mean ruin Fleming?”

  She drew up her chin, offered her coolest smile. When so much was at stake, her heart fluttered up and down her ribcage, she wouldn’t like him to see through her and put obstacles in her way. “That is his name, isn’t it? Unless you have more than one son?”

  “I thought we agreed you’re to be my wife?”

  “I know darling, but didn’t you want him ruined? So he will look bad to your family?”

  “That boy is my family.”

  “Did I say he wasn’t?” Tentatively she fingered the back of her neck. “It’s probably far quicker. Being your wife for real, or in name only, could go on for weeks, months. Years even.”

  “No. Because then you can die.”

  “Excuse me?”

  It was such a stroke of pure genius to get into Fleming’s room. It would count for nothing if she ended the day with a hatchet in her head because she’d not only fallen back in time, she’d fallen back in time to a serial wife killer. Was that the real reason for Christian’s acidic comments? He’d done away with her sister?

  “I don’t mean for real, Miss Carter. I mean as soon as my dear aunt, who is also my sister-in-law, if you don’t know already, thinks well enough of me to let me have what is rightfully mine. Difficult when she married Clarence to prevent it. Then you can disappear with your share of the bargain.”

  She did her best not to raise her eyebrows, finger her throat along with her neck. “Disappear?”

  “Back to wherever you come from with what I know I can raise for you.”

  “Well, the thing is, Mitchell and absolutely no disrespect to you, if that’s what you’re thinking, but I’m not exactly what you might call wife material, as you probably noticed.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. You did very well you know, except for the odd remark and whatever it is you smoke.” His eyes held the faintest taunt, the faintest arrogance too. “As you rightly noticed, Christian has carried a certain flame for me for years.”

  “Well, that just goes to show there’s no accounting for taste. But perhaps it’s because she hopes to burn you at the stake. Now, if you could just let me into Fleming’s room?”

  He could but he wasn’t going to. She could see it in his eyes. A drawbridge slammed down. Too bad. For him. She squinted upwards at the rosy sandstone.

  “I mean, that’s it up there, isn’t it?”

  “You should know since you were there last night.”

  “I think the less said about that the better.”

  “Especially as you’ve never said how you got in there.”

  If she did she’d be arrested on the spot, then she’d be incarcerated and stuck here forever. This man wasn’t exactly what she’d call ‘reasonable.’ But fortunately she’d had her share of men who weren’t and knew exactly how to appeal to him, his vanity too. She smiled.

  “Didn’t I tell you Fleming brought me here last night? He wrote to me in London, asking to meet and then arranged for me to come here by coach. A chip off the old block is Fleming.”

  “Really?”

  “You should be pleased. He’s much more like you than you imagine.”

  “If he was, I wouldn’t be in this mess,” he muttered. “So then you just magiced yourself into his room? Is that it?”

  “Not exactly. No. Why would I do that? I’m not Fairy Twinkletoes, darling. He let me in.” She let her gaze caress him. “You see what I mean about being like you.”

  “Greased the locks, did he?”

  She nodded faintly. “Something like that.”

  “That would have taken a bit of doing when the key never left my pocket. But, perhaps he greased it from there?”

  “Hmm. Perhaps.”

  So he’d seen through her? She wasn’t going to get in the kind of lather her heroines would about it. She was a writer who was always coming up with ideas, mostly to appease her editor because of some plot-hole or other. Fame. Success. Riches. Just think of the book she’d write from this.

  “He wrote to you in London. I thought you said you came from Newport-On-Tay?”

  She seized a deep breath. In the absence of another fag, it was the next best thing. There would be fags by the packet soon and the air here wasn’t unpleasant. More heavily languid. In it, she knew one thing. She wasn’t going to be trapped by him. She swept towards him.

  “Who I am, where I’m from, is hardly important. That I achieve the impossible in this house business is what counts. And I will. I have some experience in these matters. I’m sorry you haven’t had a woman for months and you didn’t seem to get along with your wife. But, please don’t tell me you want me for yourself. I’m very easily amused, you know. You asked me to name my price. Ruining Fleming for you is my price. I’m not sleeping with you if that’s what you think.”

  “You want me to think that? It’s just you do keep on about it and the fact you’ve sworn off men.”

  “I have sworn off men. Believe me.”

  Except one and that one she was going to see in hell. Especially now she knew exactly how to get out of here, now she’d named her price. Nothing would stop her.

  “Good because I’m the one who said it woul
d be in name only, Miss Carter, and I would like to keep it that. We’ve already said you’re my wife though. Would you now like to explain to me how it’s better to ruin my son?”

  ~ ~ ~

  Staring down into the copper tub, before the unlit fire, Brittany was glad of one thing, when the water was halfway to freezing by the looks of it and the lather hardly Chanel. She wasn’t getting in it. As for Mitchell Killgower’s ridiculous question, was he a bigger whiner than his son? Obviously it was going to look better for him if his wife was a cheating cow who thought nothing of putting it about with his son, then vamoosed into thin air. The scheme was brilliant. Better than any book she’d thought up.

  The only problem? Mitchell Killgower stopped hanging about and cleared off now. On a sliding scale of one to ten, with one being bad, him being here was ten, off the Richter. There was no doubt what he was waiting for. Her to take her dressing gown off. The salacious dog.

  “There is some reason you’re here?”

  “I wanted to see your water wasn’t too hot. That Dainty—” He cast his effortless gaze over the teenage girl, tall as himself and boned like a Clydesdale horse, a face like what Brittany’s dad called a ‘torn scone,’ her brown hair poking out of her cap. “Dainty saw to you properly.”

  “Quite.” A pause, deliberately perpetrated by Brittany. “And would you like to see me in the bath?” She’d no doubt when it came to him the answer was yes and when it came to baths she wasn’t getting in this one.

  He lowered his eyelashes. “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you want to show me, Miss Carter.”

  She did her best to keep her effortless gaze from slipping. “I don’t.”

  “Then I’ll leave.”

  “Good. And take Dainty with you.”

  Find the portal and she wouldn’t need the bath, although it was strange that she’d lived in Sebastian’s house in Newport-On-Tay for two years and never dropped through any black hole to this one in High Wycombe.