Between a Rake and a Hard Place

by Connie Mason

  If she were apprehended in Boodles and exposed as herself, she could kiss any chance of a royal betrothal good-bye.

  Serena scrambled to her feet and broke into a trot after Sir Jonah Sharp.

  Two

  A person unknown was seen fleeing the premises of Boodles this afternoon after impersonating a member of the club in order to gain admittance. Mr. Rowland Osbourne, whose identity was nefariously assumed, is offering a reward of five pounds for information that leads to the miscreant’s apprehension. The management of Boodles also wishes to press civil charges against the culprit over the matter of upturning a vat of cream during a daring escape through the kitchen. Sadly, Boodles’ Orange Fool, the club’s signature dessert, has been scrubbed from the menu until the impostor is found as an incentive for parties with knowledge of the perpetrator’s identity to step forward.

  From Le Dernier Mot,

  The Final Word on News That Everyone

  Who Is Anyone Should Know

  “Honestly, my lady, how did you ever manage to get so much cream in your hair?” Amelia Braithwaite asked as she emptied yet another pitcher of tepid water over Serena’s head.

  “Please don’t scold, Amelia.” Serena ran her palms over her wet hair, satisfied by the squeak of cleanliness. When Amelia held out an oversized towel of soft Turkish cotton, she rose from the hip bath and allowed her governess-turned-companion to wrap the cloth around her. “I’ve had a trying enough day as it is.”

  “It’ll be far more trying if your father’s coach comes to collect us and finds you unable to return home because you are indisposed by virtue of too much Orange Fool.”

  Serena rolled her eyes. Their plan had been perfect. The little white lie used to cover Serena’s clandestine adventure was that she was taking tea with Amelia Braithwaite’s ailing aunt. Fortunately, Aunt Cleo was the picture of health, lived within walking distance of Boodles, and was the proud possessor of a deep copper tub. The old lady was also delighted to live vicariously through Serena’s exploits.

  “The girl’s right, Amelia. No harm done,” Cleo Braithwaite said. Serena’s pale pink column dress and matching pelisse had been laid out on the bed to keep them from wrinkling. Cleo smoothed out the muslin walking gown with her deeply veined hands. “When I think on the scrapes my young charges got into back in my day—trust me, things might have been very much worse. Suppose Lady Serena hadn’t been able to escape, for example.”

  Still draped with the towel, Serena disappeared behind the dressing screen and dried herself. Then she slipped into her chemise, barely restraining a shiver. Her escape had been a near thing. If not for Sir Jonah, she’d never have managed to dodge and weave through the kitchen and out the back door. Then once they’d made it into the alley, he served as her rear guard, lobbing chunks of gravel at their pursuers with wicked accuracy. It was enough to keep some distance between them and the gang comprised of Boodles’ kitchen staff till they reached Sir Jonah’s gig, which he’d left at the livery on the corner. He wasted no time on politeness, hefting her onto the narrow seat without so much as a “by your leave.” Then he tossed a few coppers to the stable boy as he leapt onto the seat beside her, slapped the reins over the mare’s back, and the smart equipage flew over the cobblestones.

  Sharp had become testy with her when she wouldn’t allow him to return her to her father’s elegant town house. She insisted he leave her at the corner of Brewer Street and Brindle Lane. From there, she could walk back to Aunt Cleo’s rented rooms without implicating anyone else in her scheme.

  He finally bowed to her wishes. As she clambered down from the gig at the appointed crossroads, she thanked him.

  “I don’t want your thanks,” he’d said with a stern look. “You owe me, Serena. I’ll collect one day. Remember that.”

  He chirruped to the horse and was gone before she could castigate him for addressing her so familiarly. Of course, to be fair, he was in the right. One couldn’t be jammed onto a gig’s narrow seat alongside someone while coated with cream without becoming somewhat familiar.

  Upturning the vat of Orange Fool was probably not part of Sir Jonah’s plan when she first tailed him into the kitchen. Everything had happened so fast as they shoved through the knots of servants. Then suddenly, the world went slick and foamy and their pursuers were slipping and sliding in the sweet peaked drifts of white spreading over the brick floor. Enough cream landed on Serena and Sir Jonah to make them blend in with the similarly doused servants for a moment, which was a sticky blessing.

  But she wasn’t sure accepting Jonah’s help would turn out to be a blessing in the end. She owed him. It was an uncomfortable sort of debt.

  And something she was uneasy sharing even with Amelia.

  At twenty, she was old enough not to need a governess any longer, but her relationship with Amelia was a complicated one. When Serena was twelve, her mother had died suddenly. Amelia had stepped into the gap. Then after Serena’s studies were complete and Amelia declared there was nothing more she could teach her, Serena insisted she stay on as a companion.

  Of course, it was usually dowagers who hired someone to stay with them for the sake of company, but Serena couldn’t bear to lose Amelia. She was mentor, friend, teacher, and confidant all rolled into one. When Serena became a royal duchess, she planned to take Amelia to the palace with her.

  It would be unthinkable to be plunged into the strange world of the royal family without someone she trusted to lean upon.

  But she still didn’t feel like sharing Sir Jonah’s involvement in what happened at Boodles.

  For one thing, she wasn’t sure what she’d say about him. The man made my insides jiggle like jelly. No, that would never do.

  She stepped into her pantalets, grateful for the smooth silk against her abraded thighs. “You’re right, of course,” she said, peeping around the dressing screen and nodding to Aunt Cleo. “No harm done. And I was able to cross a few things off the list.”

  “List?” Aunt Cleo said. “What list?”

  Amelia shook her head and cast her eyes heavenward. “A list of forbidden pleasures.”

  “Don’t scowl so. It spoils your pretty face,” Serena said, parroting the admonition she’d received from Amelia countless times. “Besides, I can’t help it if you raised me to be the curious sort.”

  “Careful, child. You know what curiosity did to the cat.”

  “I’m no longer a child,” Serena said. Even to her own ears, that sounded a good bit more petulantly childish than she wished. “In any case, a cat has nine lives, you know.”

  Amelia’s lips pursed in a small moue of disapproval. “Then you well and truly used up one this day.”

  “Tell me more about this list of yours.” Aunt Cleo wanted to know.

  “I have it here.” Serena crossed to the bed and retrieved a much folded bit of foolscap and a pencil from the beaded reticule lying next to her gown. She smoothed the paper flat on the side table.

  “Item one: Wear men’s clothing in public.” Serena struck through the words with her pencil. “Item two: Gain admittance to an exclusively male club.”

  She crossed that off as well. She could have added “Enter into an ill-considered wager and sign one’s name in the ledger of gambling records at said male club,” but she didn’t think she ought to tell Amelia and her aunt about that either. It had been enough for her to regale them with descriptions of the brass and waxed wood décor of Boodles and complain about the bitterness of black coffee. Serena’s expurgated version of her escape through the kitchen provided Amelia and her aunt with more than enough vicarious excitement for one day.

  Serena handed the piece of foolscap to Aunt Cleo while Amelia laced her stays and cinched them tight. She could recite the rest of the list in her sleep.

  Item three: Smoke a cigar.

  Item four: Ride astride.

  Item five: Drink until one is insensate at least once.

  Item six: Have one’s fortune told by gypsies.

  Item sev
en: Dance the—

  “Dance the waltz?” Aunt Cleo said, aghast. “Don’t you know that’s positively indecent? I read all about it in the Times. Utterly disgraceful, they say. Why, you may as well add ‘Allow a gentleman to paw one in public’ to the list.”

  “It’s a perfectly legal dance. The Prince Regent approves it,” Serena said.

  Aunt Cleo raised a wiry gray brow. “It may be legal, but the fact that His Royal Highness has embraced it is proof enough to me that the waltz is not respectable.”

  “Neither is any other item on the list,” Serena said, casting a quick smile to Amelia over her aunt’s head. Amelia’s help had come grudgingly, but she’d finally agreed to assist in fulfilling the list. “Come, Auntie Cleo. Don’t you remember what it was like to be young? No lasting harm will come if I indulge in a few small adventures. Discreetly, of course, and only once. After all, experience is the best teacher, Amelia always says.”

  Amelia shot her a pointed look. “And sometimes the most brutal.”

  So far she’d escaped her experience with nothing more sinister than a coating of cream. Serena shrugged and lifted her arms to let Amelia drape the gown over her head. The muslin fell in soft folds to her ankles. Men’s clothes were an adventure, but she was ever so much more comfortable in her own things. Wool chafing one’s unprotected thighs was indeed brutal.

  “At least no lasting harm will come from fulfilling the list—if Serena’s more careful than she was on this day,” her governess amended.

  “I’ll be careful.” She took the list back, refolded it, and squirreled it away in her reticule. There was another item on the list, but she hadn’t committed it to paper.

  The Duke of Kent was much older than she, fifty if he was a day. Rumors of his cruelty in Gibraltar had led to his being removed from the governorship there. A life of dissipation did not lend itself to a healthy countenance. He may have demonstrated his potency by siring a gaggle of bastards on a number of mistresses, but he didn’t seem the sort who would make old bones. Serena was under no illusions about what kind of husband the Duke of Kent would be to her.

  Benign neglect was the best she could hope for once she delivered an heir.

  But there it was. In order to get a child, she’d have to submit to the duke, to allow herself to be taken, probably without an ounce of tenderness if Kent’s distant wooing was any indication. If not for the possibility of mothering the future King of England, she’d never agree to the match.

  But in a world where women weren’t allowed to do anything of significance, birthing a monarch and shaping his character seemed the most important thing to which Serena could ever aspire.

  However, that didn’t mean she was content to live strictly for the phantom child she might one day conceive. She dreamed of a few things for herself before she left this world. She wanted to experience romance. She wanted to feel passion. She wanted to know what it was to give herself to someone she cared for and be given to in return.

  She doubted she’d find those things in her marriage, but she still didn’t dare write them down. She only listed the last item in her mind, knowing she’d probably not accomplish it before she wed and bore a child.

  But later, somehow, there’d be time for her.

  “Lady Serena, stop your wool-gathering. You didn’t hear a word I said.” Amelia’s voice pulled her out of her musings. It always took her aback a bit when Amelia called her “lady.” In private, she insisted on familiar address. The insertion of her title when she and Amelia were within earshot of others always felt like a barrier erected between them. “Your father’s coach is here.”

  Serena put on her bonnet and tied the ribbons in a jaunty bow under her chin, mentally reciting that last secret pleasure she couldn’t write down.

  Item eight: Lie with a man for no other reason than because I want to.

  ***

  Jonah leaned forward over his horse’s outstretched neck and crooned urgent encouragements as he careened down Rotten Row. He never laid a crop on Turk’s withers. The gelding had a willing heart and Jonah would do nothing to break its spirit.

  However, he thought he might enjoy giving Lady Serena Osbourne a good sting on her wool-clad bum for her exploits that afternoon. What could she have been thinking to dress as a man and invade Boodles like that?

  It was a good thing he’d been shadowing her and figured a way to spirit her out of there. If she’d been discovered, she’d have been mired in more scandal than anyone could have gotten her out of.

  Not even her powerful father, Lord Wyndleton.

  He squeezed the gelding with his thighs and Turk poured on more speed. Jonah moved with him, letting the pounding rhythm clear his mind. Just breathing. Just flying. Just letting his heartbeat fall into time with the measured strides. No random thoughts. No troublesome memories stabbing through his brain.

  Life was better when he didn’t give himself a chance to think.

  But Turk couldn’t run forever. They were nearing a horse trough, so he eased up and reined in the Thoroughbred. Jonah dismounted and led his gelding to the stone basin. Turk’s sides heaved, and his glossy chest was wet with sweat. Heart pounding and with perspiration blooming on his face, Jonah was as blown as his mount. Then a gentleman approached them and Jonah suddenly wished he’d kept riding whether he and his horse needed a rest or not.

  “Hullo, Sharp.” It was the Honorable Fortescue Alcock. He’d been seated on the park bench near the trough, a newspaper spread before him obscuring his face until a moment ago. Alcock was a Member of Parliament, a maker of unholy alliances, and a burr under Jonah’s saddle for the last few months. “This isn’t the fashionable time of day to ride, you know.”

  The sun had dipped below the treetops of Hyde Park. Their still naked limbs sent long snaky shadows across Rotten Row.

  “I’m not here to see and be seen. Turk needs the exercise.” And Jonah needed the measure of peace those few moments spent flying over the ground afforded him. Sometimes he thought they were all that kept him sane.

  “You need to punish yourself as well. I understand.”

  Jonah’s fingers curled into fists, but he bridled himself. Knocking Alcock into next week would be satisfying for a moment, but it would only give the man more power over him.

  “Don’t look so surprised. I’ve read your dossier, remember. It’s only natural that you’d seek absolution for your deeds. Riding yourself and your horse to exhaustion is a socially acceptable method of self-flagellation,” Alcock said with an oily smile. “You have a long history of doing very bad things, Sir Jonah, albeit for very good reasons. The ends may justify the means, but I doubt a past like yours makes for restful sleep.”

  “How I sleep is my own business.”

  “And where you sleep is mine,” Alcock countered. “How is your current assignment coming along?”

  Fortescue Alcock was determined that the line of Hanoverian kings would die out with the Prince Regent. If the younger sons of King George were thwarted in their race to produce an heir, the Crown would devolve to another ruling house. Jonah had been tasked with seducing and ruining Lady Serena Osbourne so she would no longer be considered as a possible wife for the Duke of Kent.

  No, tasked was the wrong word. Coerced was more like it.

  “It’s proceeding apace.” Jonah narrowed his eyes at Alcock. “Don’t worry. I agreed to do it. It’ll get done.”

  “It had better. I understand your brother is keeping company with a lady well above himself. It’d be a shame if, say…new information about your dishonor at Maubeuge should put an end to such idyllic love.”

  Jonah had been implicated, along with his friends Rhys Warrington and Nathaniel Colton, in a disastrous defeat in France just days before the decisive Battle of Waterloo. Facts were fluid things, Alcock had explained. They could be bent to whatever use he chose. He claimed to have evidence that would either exonerate them or, if he so wished, see them all convicted of treason for colluding with the French and leading th
eir men into an ambush. The ensuing scandal would ruin Jonah’s family.

  “I imagine it would be impossible for your brother to marry the Earl of Enderling’s daughter if—”

  Fast as thought, Jonah snatched the man up by his lapels and held him aloft, feet kicking as he tried to scrape his toes on the ground.

  “I agreed to do your dirty work, Alcock.” Jonah gave him a quick shake, like a terrier might a rat. “I didn’t agree to listen to you talk about it. Bother me about this again and I’ll find a way to permanently close your mouth.”

  Alcock paled to the color of rancid suet, but his lips remained firmly shut.

  Sometimes, Jonah thought as he shot the man a wolf’s smile, it’s good to have a dangerous reputation.

  Three

  The London Lyric Opera opened their season with a ponderous production of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. It was not the company’s finest effort. However, ham-handed acting and a tenor of dubious talent aside, the premier was judged by all to be thoroughly entertaining. Of course, this is most likely because the real theatre is always being played out among the bon ton that makes up the audience.

  From Le Dernier Mot,

  The Final Word on News That Everyone

  Who Is Anyone Should Know

  The tenor muffed his high note, but his claque insisted on applauding loudly and long in any case. The practice of having a paid group of clappers was new to English opera, but the Italian singer had brought this devoted group with him. Serena suspected the long trip from Italy had rendered them all tone deaf, but they made enough noise that the maestro was obliged to give the downbeat for a reprise.

  “Maybe he’ll have better luck this time,” Serena said to her friend, Lysandra Grey, who was seated beside her in the elegant Wyndleton box.