Between a Rake and a Hard Place

by Connie Mason

  “You made a mistake, you know. You shouldn’t have hit me,” Serena said. “I can feel the bruise starting already. If I’m supposed to have hanged myself, how will you explain the bruise?”

  Alcock had struck her. By God, he was going to pay dearly for that.

  “What a sheltered life you’ve lived, milady,” Alcock said. “Most hanged persons don’t die instantly, you see. Your family will undoubtedly believe you dashed your face upon the stone of the castle wall in your final struggles.”

  “People who hang themselves don’t generally bind their own hands and feet,” she said, an edge of desperation creeping into her tone.

  “Never fear, milady. Once you stop thrashing, I’ll cut your bonds.”

  Damn the man, he had an answer for everything. Jonah inched up the steps and peered onto the parapet. Alcock was kneeling beside Serena’s prone figure, tying another knot to keep her arms and legs still. She’d put up a fight, but she was no match for a man’s strength.

  No matter. Alcock was no match for him. This was one killing that would trouble Jonah’s conscience not a bit. He thought about using his horse pistol, but the report of a round might draw unwanted attention to the area, and it would be best for the Triad if Alcock’s body wasn’t discovered for some time.

  Jonah decided to use his hands. It was brutish. Primal. And in this case, he expected it to be supremely satisfying.

  He rushed from his place of concealment, roaring in rage. Alcock was too surprised to mount any sort of defense as Jonah grabbed him, lifted him over the parapet, and gave him a toss.

  But at the last second, the MP grasped Jonah’s arm and held on with a grip like a bulldog’s bite. Jonah was nearly dragged over the crenellated edge along with him.

  Jonah’s chest slammed against the unforgiving stone, forcing all the breath from his lungs. His arm was practically yanked out of its socket.

  “Don’t let me go!” Alcock wailed.

  “You fool. I’m not even trying to hold you.” Jonah’s only concern now was that when the man finally did take the long drop, it wouldn’t be far enough to do him in immediately.

  “Jonah, pull him back up,” Serena said softly.

  “Stay out of this, Serena. I’m under orders.”

  “The Triad?”

  He nodded and gave Alcock a vigorous shake, but he wouldn’t let go. The man kept trying to scrabble his heels against the castle wall and clamber up Jonah’s aching arm, but he couldn’t seem to gain any purchase with his slick-soled boots.

  “Fortescue Alcock is a traitor to the Crown, and as such, he deserves no mercy,” Jonah said through clenched teeth. “He’d have given none to you.”

  “There’s got to be another way.” Her voice called to a small part of his heart, the part that loathed taking a life, even one as deserving of death as Alcock. “Not for his sake, Jonah. For yours.”

  He wiggled out of his jacket and tied a sleeve through an iron ring embedded in the castle’s stone. Alcock continued to screech for help.

  “Pray that the wool is of high quality,” he said, glaring down at the man dangling from the other sleeve. Alcock spouted threats and pleading, but still managed to hang on with white-lipped determination.

  Jonah knelt beside Serena and untied her bonds. Then he pulled her into his arms and inhaled her warmth clear to his toes. Suddenly it didn’t matter if she accepted the duke’s suit. If she was only safe, he’d ask for no more.

  Serena, however, had plenty to ask of him. “Don’t kill him, Jonah.” She cupped his face with both hands. “Don’t you see? If you do, you’ll never be free. You weren’t made for this.”

  Somewhere inside him there was still a young ensign who’d ridden off to war with clean hands and a heart full of love for king and country. He’d never be that innocent again, but he longed for a small slice of it with all his soul.

  “No matter what you’ve done in the past,” she went on, “you can change things now. Truly. It starts here.”

  “Why, Serena?” He fingered the purpling bruise on her cheek. His insides burned with rage for the man who was still screaming his head off as he hung suspended between life and a painful death on the rocky scree at the base of the castle wall. “Why do you want me to spare that piece of offal?”

  “Because mercy blesses the one who gives it more than the one who receives,” she said. “Because I want to see you whole. Please. I love you, Jonah.”

  She loved him. It washed over him like a benediction, lighting all the dark corners of his heart and chasing away the old ghosts. It didn’t matter that he’d be disobeying a direct order from the Triad—one from her father, even. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. Now or at any time.

  Their mouths met in a kiss of fervent desperation. When they finally parted, Serena whispered, “Will you spare him for me?”

  Jonah rested his forehead against hers. “As long as I breathe, I’m yours to command.”

  “Good.” A smile broke over her face, though it was a little crooked since the bruised side didn’t lift as much. “That’ll come in handy once we’re married.”

  “No doubt.” Jonah dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose, scarcely daring to believe his ears. Somehow, without having to put together the right words, something he’d never been overly good at, he’d managed to steal a woman away from a prince. Then he picked up the piece of rope that Alcock had already fashioned into a noose and loosened the loop.

  “Slip this over your head and under your arms,” he ordered Alcock after he flopped the rope over the side of the parapet. Jonah braced his feet as the man complied. Once he hauled the MP back up, Alcock collapsed on the gray stone in a sniveling heap. A foul smell wafted from him and Jonah realized the man had voided both his bladder and his bowels in terror.

  “What…are you going to do with me?” Alcock finally said between gasping breaths.

  “A good question since the fact remains that you’re a traitor not only to the Crown, but also to the men who fought at Maubeuge.”

  Alcock’s eyes went wide. “You know about that?”

  Jonah nodded grimly. “So I can’t simply let you go as if nothing has happened.”

  The Triad used its assassins to quash those who were a danger to the Crown without arousing public outcry. Alcock might be brought justice through a trial and finally hanged as an example. But such cases of treason were difficult to prove and would stir up unrest among those who were tired of the monarchy. Alcock could become a rallying point for dissatisfaction, a martyr to his cause.

  Serena rose shakily to her feet and pleaded with her eyes. Jonah couldn’t simply dispose of him and he couldn’t bind him over to the law either.

  Below the castle ramparts, Warrington and Colton came riding into view. Jonah had ordered Honeywood to send them after him when he set off in pursuit of Serena. His friends were too late to help with her rescue, but a new idea took shape in Jonah’s mind.

  After their search for Leatherby, Warrington and Colton knew their way around the Portsmouth docks, which ships were berthed there and where they were headed. Surely one was bound for Botany Bay soon.

  “Thank Lady Serena for your miserable life, Alcock,” he said. With any luck at all, it would be completely miserable. After all, a former Member of Parliament who was forced to take ship for Australia’s penal colony in britches stained with his own shite wouldn’t be on a pleasure cruise.

  Thirty-one

  Heads are shaking over the surprising disappearance of Mr. Fortescue Alcock, Esq., noted Member of Parliament and leader of a particularly unpleasant faction of Whigs. However, few are registering displeasure over the gentleman’s unexplained absence. Most notable in the “happy-to-see-him-gone” column is his wife.

  Mrs. Alcock has been spotted at soirees and entertainments all over Town. She has reportedly sought advice from a solicitor regarding how long she must wait before her husband may be declared legally dead. Whatever the man’s sins and wherever he may be atoning for them now, it
appears he was not over-blessed with conjugal bliss.

  And speaking of all things conjugal, one leg of the Hymen Race Terrific is officially over. This coming May, Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, will wed Princess Victoria Mary Louisa of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld at Amorbach in Bavaria. We suspect, with resigned distaste, that the ceremony will be conducted in German.

  From Le Dernier Mot,

  The Final Word on News That Everyone

  Who Is Anyone Should Know

  “Ah, welcome back, Mr. Osbourne.” The doorman at Boodles scraped a low bow. “I see you’ve shaved your mustache.”

  Serena merely nodded and handed the man her topper. Jonah stomped across the threshold behind her. The early April day felt more like the first of March. A brisk wind followed them in.

  “Seat us someplace near the fire, if you please,” Jonah said to the porter, then dropped his voice so only Serena could hear him. “It’s colder than a witch’s tits outside.”

  “If you know anything about anyone else’s tits, witch or otherwise, I’ll break your arm,” Serena whispered behind her hand as they followed the servant to the same seats they’d occupied a little more than a month earlier.

  “Duly noted, wife.” Jonah chuckled as he settled into the comfortable wing chair and ordered coffee for them, making sure to request extra cream and three sugar lumps for Serena’s cup. Then he signaled for Mr. Filbee to bring out the wager book.

  “If you check there, Mr. Filbee, you’ll see that my companion and I entered into a wager concerning a certain young lady. The outcome of the bet has been determined, and Osbourne is here to pay.”

  Serena took out a money pouch and counted out one hundred pounds into Jonah’s waiting palm. Then they both signed the ledger indicating that the debt was settled to mutual satisfaction. With any luck, cousin Rowland would never know he’d ever entered into and lost a bet with ten to one stakes with Serena’s new husband.

  Once Mr. Filbee left them, she leaned forward. “This is really very silly. That was your own money I counted out to you.”

  Jonah gave her an affronted look. “A debt of honor is never silly.”

  Serena crossed her legs. This time she was wearing a pair of drawers beneath the masculine garb that took the itch out of her wool trousers. She took a sip of the creamy coffee and sighed. It was just the way she liked it. Why couldn’t all her forays into forbidden pleasures have been like this? “You should have at least let me pawn my jewels to repay you.”

  “The day I let you sell any of your gewgaws is the day I turn up my toes.”

  Serena smiled into her cup. She and Jonah had married by special license only a few days earlier. Her father had been upset at first by her decision not to accept the royal duke. However, when he learned how Jonah had saved her life at the old castle ruins and disposed of Alcock by shipping him to Australia under threat of immediate death if he ever showed his face in England again, Lord Wyndleton came around.

  Especially after Amelia goaded him into admitting that he and she had been secretly married for some years. Serena was delighted because it meant she would continue to have Amelia in her life forever. And Amelia was such a good tempering influence on the marquis. Serena even thought her mother would have approved of her father’s choice.

  “Now, my dear Osbourne,” Jonah said after he finished his stout black coffee, “can I ply you with some Orange Fool?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, sir, but I couldn’t help overhearing,” the nearby footman said. “Orange Fool is still not on the menu. Cook refuses to reinstate it until we discover the identities of the culprits who upset that vat of cream earlier this month.”

  “Pity,” Serena said, pitching her voice as low as she could. “It’s a pleasure I was looking forward to.”

  Once the footman moved out of earshot, Jonah rummaged in his pocket and came up with a crisply folded sheet of foolscap. “Speaking of pleasures, I’ve come up with a new list for you.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really. Read them and see if they don’t sound like adventures worthy of the name.”

  Serena unfolded paper slowly. “This is something I generally prefer to do myself, you know.”

  “Perhaps, but I’ll wager there are things on that list a lady would never dream of.”

  She ran her gaze over a list of ever more decadent and enticing sensual adventures. Her eyes widened and heat pooled between her legs. “Is number four even anatomically possible?”

  Jonah gave her the wickedly rakish smile she loved. “There’s only one way to find out. As soon as we’ve finished our coffee, let’s head home to give it a go.”

  Serena upended her cup and drained it in one long gulp. Then she swiped her hand in a parody of masculine manners and stood, eager to be gone. “Now we’ve only one decision to make.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do we go back out the front door or escape through the kitchen again?”

  “Since we can’t count on a vat of cream to cover our exit this time, I recommend the front door.” Jonah finished his coffee and rose, his gaze sizzling down at her. “But if you check item seven on that list, you’ll see a rather inventive use for cream.”

  “Better than Orange Fool?” she asked as he collected their hats from the doorman.

  “I promise.”

  “Then take me home right now, Jonah Sharp, or you’ll never live down having ‘Rowland’ Osbourne kiss you right on the lips before God and all the gentlemen at Boodles.”

  Jonah grinned down at her. “If it means I get a kiss from you, Serena, I don’t give a flying fig.”

  Authors’ Note

  After the death of their niece, Princess Charlotte, the unmarried sons of King George III scrambled to wed in order to present their father with a legitimate grandchild and insure the continuation of the Hanoverian line. The Dukes of Clarence, Cambridge, and Kent went a-courting and that race to the altar forms the historical underpinnings for our Royal Rakes series.

  Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, is the royal suitor featured in Between a Rake and a Hard Place, and in many ways, he certainly was a hard fellow. His early years as a military man were stained with one disaster after another. When he was made Governor of Gibraltar, his harsh discipline fomented a mutiny which required him to leave in disgrace and never return.

  He gave no evidence of softness in his personal life either. Kent had numerous mistresses, some of whom bore him children. He took the wife of a baron as his mistress for twenty-eight years and kept house with her in Quebec. The lady was forced to retire to a convent when he decided, at the age of fifty, to marry a younger woman in order to beget an heir to his father’s throne.

  On May 29, 1818, the Duke of Kent married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. A year later, Princess Alexandrina Victoria was born. But Kent did not have long to rejoice in his offspring. He preceded his father King George III in death in 1820, after succumbing to pneumonia.

  However, Kent did win the race for the crown. His daughter ascended to the throne as Queen Victoria at the tender age of eighteen in 1837. She reigned for sixty-three years, the longest of any female ruler, and ushered in an era which still bears her name.

  We hope you enjoyed Between a Rake and a Hard Place. If you missed the other two books in the series, be sure to look for Waking Up with a Rake and One Night with a Rake.

  Happy Reading,

  Connie & Mia

  Acknowledgments

  No book springs to life as the result of one person’s efforts. Or even two people. Mia and Connie would like to thank their editor, Leah Hultenschmidt, and agent, Natasha Kern, for pairing them up to write the Royal Rakes series. Leah and Natasha were first to recognize the value in bringing the two of them together. Working as a team has been good for both writers. Thanks, Leah and Natasha!

  Then there are the tireless folk at Sourcebooks who lovingly poured themselves into Between a Rake and a Hard Place. Special thanks go to Nicole Komasinski, who designed the wonderful cove
r; Danielle Jackson and the rest of the marketing department for making sure the world learns about this final book in the series; Pamela Guerrieri, who did the copyedits; Rachel Edwards, the production editor; and Cat Clyne, the editorial assistant who pulled it all together. You’re very much appreciated.

  We’d be remiss if we didn’t thank our critique partner, Ashlyn Chase, and our beloved beta-reader, Marcy Weinbeck. Without the encouragement of these two special women, this book would never have been written.

  And last, but never least, Connie and Mia want to thank YOU, dear reader. Without you and your imagination, it’s only ink on a page.