The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 5

by MacMurrough, Sorcha

Castlereagh shivered. "You wouldn’t dare."

  George's eyes narrowed. "Perhaps not. On the other hand, I can always just join the queue of people who would love to kill you. The things we do to get the things we desire." He gave a grim smile.

  "All right, it’s a bargain. But not negotiable. If you fail me, they will die, and you’d better start running."

  George laughed harshly then. "I was wondering when you would dare threaten me. It will be a cold day in hell before you can ever come close to me with any of the buffoons you or Sidmouth call agents. You’re forgetting, I make it my business to know everything. I’m leaving now. Don’t summon me again."

  "You’re not out until I say you’re out!"

  "And you’re never going to be safe until I get what I want. My brothers back. Goodbye."

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  George doubled around to Fulham House, and searching the Common, found a cannon sighted precisely for the shells fired from it to land right on Alistair and Viola’s roof.

  But where could Sebastian and Edwards be? And more to the point, where could Viola and her husband have gone?

  He left a message with the servants telling them to evacuate the house, that all would be explained later, and they should go to The Three Bells and take refuge there. They locked the gates so no one could get in without scaling the ten foot walls.

  Then he headed into the City and tried Alistair’s chambers. But there was no sign of them there or in court. That left either the clinic, Newgate jail, or Lawrence Howard’s so far as he could guess.

  Or even the magistrate’s court at Bow Street, if as rumour had it Sebastian was coming home with the ‘package.’

  If he was coming home, how had he smuggled the ‘package’?

  He paused for a moment in an agony of indecision, then ordered his coach driver to head for the Howard docks as if his life depended on it.

  Alistair and Viola were greeted warmly by Lawrence and Juliet, who led them to a small room at the back of the house overlooking the docks and warehouse.

  "So, what was it you wanted to see us about?" Alistair asked when they had exchanged the usual pleasantries.

  "Not us, actually. A couple of men just arrived from Guernsey."

  "Guernsey?" Alistair echoed.

  Two men came in from the adjoining room.

  "Sebastian!" Viola exclaimed, and ran to hug her brother. He looked tired, thin and pale, but was very much alive.

  "I’ve brought Edwards home," he explained, pointing to the ferret-faced chap in chains he led behind him whom Alistair remembered vaguely from the night Gribbens had been killed at Newgate.

  "You!"

  "I should have killed you and this one here while I had the chance," he hissed, which earned him a box on the ear from Viola’s huge blond brother.

  Alistair and Sebastian each grabbed an arm and were about to take him to Bow Street when they heard footsteps in the hall approaching rapidly.

  They fell back as George entered the room and pointed his weapon at Alistair.

  "I’m afraid I can’t let you have him, old chap."

  "George, please, don’t do this," Viola gasped, stunned at his betrayal.

  "I'm not doing this for myself, I'm doing it for you!" he protested.

  "Fine words when you have a gun in my face," Alistair hissed.

  "Don’t you see, they’ll kill you all if I don’t? We need to let him go. I have to take him back to Castlereagh. I’m sorry."

  "George, please, you can’t—"

  "Whatever they're offering you, don't believe a word—"

  "Believe me, I wish there could be another way," George said, cutting them both off ruthlessly. "Don't you see, they'll stop at nothing to cover all this up. There’s a bomb in one of the Rakehell houses and a cannon poised to blow Fulham House to bits."

  "No, surely not—" Alistair gasped, visibly paling.

  "And no, this is not an idle threat. Not Castlereagh trying to coerce me. I saw the cannon myself. I was guessing you would bring Edwards here, Sebastian, through Mr. Howards ships and docks. Thank God I was right."

  The passionate conviction in his tone convinced Alistair he was telling the truth. He was too weary and heartsore to even feel betrayed.

  "You made a deal with Sidmouth, but not with Castlereagh, Alistair, don't you see? I’m sorry. Truly I am. I wish I could be a better man. Stand up to the buggers and to hell with the consequences. But I'm not prepared to lose my friends, old and new, or allow you to lose any more than you already have, Alistair.

  "So I'm sorry, but I have no other plan, and we're running out of time. If we're to save your home and the Rakehells they've targetted, I need to take Edwards back now. Though I’m giving him fair warning, if I ever see this damned spy in England again I’ll turn him in no matter what."

  Edwards glared but said nothing.

  "I understand," Alistair sighed. "You’re only doing this to keep us all safe."

  "And because I’m a selfish brute," George admitted. "I don’t care about politics or power or principles any more. I doubt at this stage whether I'm ever going to find what I've been looking for all these years. But I’m not going to see more good people die because Castlereagh and Sidmouth’s idea of a good Englishman is someone who never dares have an independent thought.

  "You’re my friends and I can’t live, don’t want to live, without friends any longer. Family, the people who are there with you through thick and thin." He smiled at Viola and Sebastian.

  "I know they were your clients, Alistair, but five of them are dead already, and I'm not going to take it any more. We can try to dig up enough dirt on Sidmouth in the meantime to make him grant clemency. But we can’t do that if your guts are strewn all over Christ Church Parish. Let me have Edwards so I can get back to Castlereagh in time. Please."

  Alistair nodded. "All right. Take him," he said, with bitter resignation.

  Edwards was led away by George’s coachdriver, who had followed on behind at a safe distance.

  "Don’t be too gentle with him, Briggs. Just don’t draw blood."

  Edwards shot him a look of alarm, and they could hear a thump and yelp as he was dragged away.

  "It’s a bargain, then," George said. "Sebastian is out once and for all, and you’re safe."

  "Until the next time the head of the Foreign Office decides to point a cannon at us," Viola said dryly.

  "He won’t, believe me." George straightened his cravat and cuffs, and once again resumed the persona of successful theatre manager and pimp. "And now, I’m off to The New Rose. I have a rather spendid performance of She Stoops to Conquer I need to get ready for."

  They all stared at his sudden, chameleon-like transformation.

  "Thank you, George. Once again you’ve stood between us and disaster. I won’t forget it," Alistair promised.

  "Thank you for understanding, and do please try not to hold what I've done just now against me."

  George bowed with a flourish, and vanished as quickly as he had come.

  Alistair turned to his new brother-in-law, and held out his hand to shake. "So, Sebastian, what about you? Any plans now that you're home safely and no longer in the Foreign Office’s employ?"

  "I’ve heard there’s a bedsit down the road from The Three Bells that would suit. I’ll get some decent work and be amongst friends. It’ll be fine. And no, I have no intention of intruding upon your honeymoon, so don’t even ask me to move in to Fulham House. Maybe some time in the future, when you’ve got all of this romantic nonsense out of your system," he said, affectionately ruffling his sister’s hair.

  She grinned up at him. "In that case, you’ll be old and grey."

  Alistair shook his head. "No, in that case he’ll never be moving in."

  "Oh, very well, if you need me, I will. But right now I’m going to paint the Town red, white and blue for freedom."

  "Stay in touch," Viola said with a timid smile.

  Sebastian gave her a huge bear hug, and strode to the doo
r. He turned. "Just you try to stop me." Then he vanished.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  After taking a fond farewell of Lawrence and Juliet Howard, and promising to come down to Somerset to see them and all the Rakehells soon, Alistair ordered his coach back to Fulham House.

  "Do you think it’s safe?" Viola worried aloud. "After all, George did say there was a cannon—"

  "Hmm, true. I know, the Goodwood flat is just around the corner. Let’s go. I need to be alone with you, inside you, my love, in the most desperate way."

  Viola’s cheeks flooded with colour at the urgency of his words, but admitted, "I need you too."

  Alistair gathered her into his arms and began to smother her with kisses. By the time the short carriage ride had been completed, they were only partly clad. Alistair struggled with the tapes of her drawers and petticoats, his hands were shaking so badly with need.

  He snapped them impatiently, and let the garments pool onto the floor of the coach unheeded.

  As soon as the carriage stopped, he swung his by now scantily clad wife out of the vehicle and up into the entryway.

  He just about managed to get the door open, and then he was charging for the master bedroom, decorated in lush burgundy and gold, a sybaritic paradise of silk and velvet with some of India’s finest erotic art on display on all four walls.

  Viola was so aroused by Alistair’s mouth and hands, and the harem-like surrounding, she could feel the climactic pressure building inside her relentlessly.

  Before they could even reach the bed he pulled her skirt up, spread her legs and impaled her. They tumbled onto the edge of the mattress and he set up a driving rhythm which knocked the breath from her lungs.

  Viola clung to his buttocks and keened long and loud as he filled her with the utmost pleasure.

  Eventually they were completely bare and he began to tease her with his short, then long strokes, and the most remarkable rotation of his hips, both circling and plunging at the same time.

  She curved up into his body, the better to receive his tumultuous strokes. Yet even as he filled her, she ached for more, until at last the sky opened, the star swirled, a rainbow soared over head, and Alistair could feel it again, them plunging down into the depths, yet being buoyed up by the mutual needs and desires.

  He touched every part of her body until he couldn’t even be sure which flesh was his, which hers. Her breasts, with their tightly ruched pink nipples, her delightful feminine core, thatched with tiny silky blonde curls, her slender hips and thighs...

  It was all his, and only his. No dark, sinister claws were ever going to snatch his love away while he had breath in his body.

  The pleasure was so hot and heavy in his loins, he could feel himself surging, straining, exploding as he rotated his hips and brought them both to the peak of pleasure, then soared free.

  Some time later, they found themselves sprawled in the bed, the pillows and covers scattered to the four winds, as if a hurricane had torn through the boudoir.

  "My goodness, it just keeps getting better," Alistair sighed.

  She grinned. "I think I’ve just been seduced by the most sparkish man in London. George really did teach you to play your role well."

  "Hah! As if I have to learn from him how to make love to the most incredible woman in the universe. No, darling, it’s you. You make me rise to every challenge and occasion. I love you so much, I just want to spend the rest of my life making you happy."

  Viola kissed him tenderly, tracing his lips with her tongue. "Oh, you do, you truly do. Thank you for making my life so complete."

  "Thank you for my life. I would have been dead without you."

  "That dream of yours," she said pensively. "It all just about came true, didn’t it?"

  He sighed and shivered. "Unfortunately, yes."

  "So it’s truly over?"

  "I think so."

  "It didn’t say what else was going to happen in the future, did it?" she wondered aloud.

  "No, but I can predict a few things."

  "Oh really?" she said with a smile, curling up beside him in the bed, one leg draped over his rapidly re-stirring loins

  "We’re going to go to Somerset so you can meet the rest of the Rakehells, and we’re going to see the original forest in Randall’s painting. We’re going to sit around doing absolutely nothing until we are so bored we could scream, and make love day and night whenever and wherever the mood strikes us.

  "And I suspect I really ought to start taking preventive measures. Because much as I would love to have a child with my darling wife some time in the near future, I’m really enjoying being alone with you for the moment. I’m also selfish enough to want to keep you that way for at least a little while longer."

  "Never selfish, darling."

  "It’s just that I’ve never had anyone really special of my own before whom I could love unreservedly. Love without worldly cares getting in the way. You are my darling wife, Viola, now and always. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make you happy, do you understand?"

  "I do." She kissed him again. "So long as you know I feel the same way. And yes, I would love a baby, one day. But there’s so much more about you I want and need to know about, your parents, family, friends. I want every day to be a wonderful journey of exploration, now that we aren’t having to constantly worry about being killed or separated."

  "I think you know all of the essentials about me. I shall tell you anything and everything you like. And you shall tell me. So long as you know I shall be ruthless about protecting you and our family and friends. Danger brought us together. If I stay in my current job, there’s bound to be more trouble. But there’s nothing I won’t do to keep you safe and well."

  She stroked his cheek lovingly. "I know, darling. I’m not afraid. You’re superb at what you do. The best. I could never ask you to give it up. So long as you know I shall be equally ruthless in protecting you."

  He nodded. "You were from the moment we met. I was a stranger to you, but it was the knowledge of the heart, not of the mind, which brought us together. You loved and had faith in me even when I didn’t have it in myself. You’re my life, Viola, now and always."

  "I love you, Alistair. Forever and ever," she vowed.

  "Forever, my dearest love."

  He enfolded her in his arms and promised that no matter what their enemies might try to do to harm them, their love would sustain them through even the darkest times.

  As they melted into one another, Viola and Alistair knew in their hearts that they would always be as one, united against the evil in the world as they sought compassion and justice for all through the power of their enduring love.

  AUTHOR'S NOTES

  In coming to write the next book in the series, it occurred to me that we had mentioned the Rakehells as being Radicals on numerous occasions, and so this novel featuring Alistair Grant (finally!!) seemed a golden opportunity to highlight the vast political unrest in England throughout the Regency period.

  Wherever possible I have stayed close to the original material, eyewitness accounts and depositions, inserting my fictional characters into this otherwise incredible true story.

  Yes, there was a real George Edwards, and no, he was never made to pay for his crimes, but was sent to Africa and given a new identity as George Parker, and worked in the Cape Colony until his death in 1846.

  The Six Acts mentioned were the most repressive pieces of legislation ever devised. It is no wonder that the Cato Street Conspirators, as they came to be called, would have wanted to murder their authors, Sidmouth and Castlereagh, and stick their heads up on pikes as had been suggested.

  So this interesting and little-known conspiracy helps demonstrate, along with the Peterloo Massacre and the Spa Fields incident, that life in this period of time was not all balls and fetes.

  Sidmouth continued to support the Tories until the death of Prinny, (George IV) resulted in his brother William IV becoming king, and triggering a general election in 1830.


  As soon as the Whigs finally got into power after thirty years in the political desert, they instituted and pushed through the great Reform Act of 1832.

  They rammed it past even the stuffy and for the most part reactionary House of Lords only by threatening that if they did not agree, they would create so many new Lords that they would pack the House with sympathisers and thus guarantee that the Bill would pass.

  Castlereagh grew so despondent at his huge loss of popularity throughout the kingdom that on August 12, 1822 he went into his dressing-room and slit his own throat with his pen knife.