The Rake's Bargain

by Lucy Ashford

  Francis looked gloomy. ‘But the rest of the Players have gone on to Gloucester. Can’t we just leave, now, and join them?’

  ‘No! We’ve put posters up all around town for my show, and you know as well as I do that if we let our customers down, they won’t turn up the next time we’re here! Also, I have to stay in Oxford to get Palfreyman’s reply tomorrow morning!’

  ‘Do you really believe he’ll write to say he’s going to lift those charges against us?’

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ Deb replied confidently. Francis would be confident, too, if he knew what she’d stolen from Palfreyman’s house. ‘I’ve told him that I’ll expect his reply by ten tomorrow.’ From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed their prisoner stirring slightly; her spirits plummeted again. ‘I don’t think Palfreyman will dare to be late. But it does mean that you and Luke are going to have to keep our prisoner here until I get back to you, early in the afternoon.’

  Both men looked appalled. Clearly she wasn’t the only one to realise that they had a truly formidable opponent in Mr Beaumaris. ‘If there was an alternative I’d use it, believe me,’ she continued earnestly. ‘But I’m afraid we’ve really no choice.’

  Francis still looked deeply unhappy. ‘Very well,’ he sighed. ‘I noticed there’s a charcoal-burner’s hut off the track back there, and it doesn’t look like it’s been used for years. If we get him inside it, he wouldn’t have to lie out in the cold and wet all night.’

  Deb remembered the insults that Mr Beaumaris had paid her and replied thoughtfully, ‘Francis, do you know, I don’t think I care very much if our prisoner does have to lie out in the cold and wet all night. But you’re right, I suppose. Luke, you must ride over to Hardgate village and pick up a few provisions—it will all work out, you’ll see. As an extra precaution, Francis, I’ll give you Mr Beaumaris’s gun.’ She spoke with forced cheerfulness as she handed him the pistol. ‘As soon as Luke rejoins you, you can take our prisoner to the charcoal-burner’s hut for the night. By the time I’ve done my performance at the Angel, I’ll have received Palfreyman’s written promise not to prosecute us—then I can ride back here and we’ll let Mr Beaumaris go free.’

  ‘But then Mr Beaumaris will ride on to Palfreyman’s, and he’ll tell Palfreyman all about us!’

  ‘By which time we’ll be well out of the way, believe me.’

  Francis glanced at their furious prisoner. ‘I’d say that the more miles we put between ourselves and Mr Beaumaris, the better.’

  Deb couldn’t have agreed more. As she mounted her old pony, Ned, she tried to keep up her optimism, but she felt more and more afraid of the consequences of this ill-fated encounter. And yet it was hard to describe the almost crushing disappointment she’d felt when she realised that Mr Beaumaris was a friend of Palfreyman’s.

  Something about Mr Beaumaris disturbed her in a quite alarming manner. There was no denying that he was absolutely, compellingly male, with his brilliant blue eyes and his unruly dark hair and hard, lean jaw. Gorgeous, Peggy Daniels would say. Mouthwateringly gorgeous. But shouldn’t Deb have been immune to that?

  Instead, what his kiss had done to her just terrified her. Yes, she’d lured him into the kiss because she knew that Luke and Francis would arrive any minute, and it had been the obvious way to distract him. She’d been prepared to feel revulsion and fresh fear. Instead, she’d been completely stunned by her own reaction to the touch of his lips on hers.

  Damian Beaumaris was the kind of man she absolutely detested. He was arrogant. He was hatefully insulting. But as soon as his mouth came down on hers she’d felt shock flooding every nerve and her world had slowed. She’d wanted—no, she needed to be closer to him; she even heard her own little moan of longing. She still felt as though her world had turned upside down.

  Deb drew a deep breath, and urged her ambling steed onwards.

  Chapter Four

  In less than an hour Deb had returned to the inn to find that the rest of the Lambeth Players had travelled on earlier as arranged, taking their carts of belongings and their other two horses. She was glad everything here at least had gone according to plan, but she missed their lively banter. After stabling Ned, she went to buy herself a hot meal to take back to the stables where she would spend the night, but she wasn’t able to escape the sharp tongue of the innkeeper’s wife.

  ‘I’m hoping, young lady,’ the woman said as she ladled out some dubious-looking stew, ‘that a few people turn up for this speechifying of yours tomorrow. It’s going to put us to a deal of trouble, you know, clearing our yard and setting up a stage for you.’

  Deb took her plate and looked at her steadily. ‘Your courtyard is always packed every year when I appear. You know that. And they pay.’

  ‘Sixpence apiece, but you take half of that!’

  ‘Ah, but the people who come to see me also drink your ale and buy your hot pies by the dozen.’ Which I’d guess you fill with the local butcher’s sweepings, Deb added to herself. She’d tried one of them once—it was horrible. She turned to go, but the innkeeper’s wife hadn’t finished with her.

  ‘The rest of your friends,’ she said suddenly, making Deb almost drop her plate. ‘They paid their bill and cleared out this morning. Now, where were they bound?’

  ‘They’ve gone on to the fair at Stow on the Wold,’ Deb lied glibly. ‘A little muddying of their trail might be a good thing, all in all.’ Mr Beaumaris. Palfreyman. Oh, heavens.

  Still the woman hadn’t finished, but came closer, her eyes gleaming with malicious curiosity. ‘It must be a strange life,’ she said, ‘for a young woman, traipsing around with a bunch of travelling players. And I heard tell that you’re all in trouble with the local magistrates—’

  ‘You must excuse me,’ Deb broke in, ‘I really wanted to eat this delicious stew while it’s hot—’

  ‘In trouble with the local magistrates,’ repeated the woman with emphasis, ‘for putting on a play on a Sunday. They say the lot of you have been threatened with prison. There, now. What do you say to that?’

  ‘It was all a mistake. And I assure you that the matter will very soon be sorted.’ Deb gave the woman a dazzling smile, then marched out towards the stables. Once inside she kicked the door shut with her foot, sat on a hay bale and put her plate down.

  She wasn’t hungry any more.

  Did everyone in the whole of Oxford know the predicament that they were in? Damn Palfreyman! She would come through this. They would all come through this. But now there was an added complication—their prisoner.

  She had a feeling that Mr Beaumaris wasn’t a man to either forgive or forget. But he’s no idea who I am, she told herself. He has no idea of my connection with the Players or with Palfreyman. He thinks my friends are highway robbers, and that I’m a whore. Hardly surprising, since he’d found those books on her...

  Oh, to blazes with Mr Beaumaris, Deb thought irritably. It was his fault that he was in such a pickle. But with both him and Palfreyman as enemies now, the sooner she, Francis and Luke were on their way to Gloucester to join the others, the better. And then she could push today’s rather alarming events from her mind.

  But she wouldn’t be able to forget Mr Beaumaris’s kiss quite so quickly. Or his wicked blue eyes and devilish good looks. She thought that she would quite possibly never forget the way her heart had jolted and almost stopped as his lips crushed hers and his hands had drawn her closer...

  Enough. Enough. She picked up her plate and tried to convince herself that the greasy mess looked appetising. She hoped that Mr Beaumaris was vastly cold and miserable in the charcoal-burner’s hut, and that Luke and Francis were making his captivity as uncomfortable as possible.

  She forced herself to eat the stew, aware that she really needed to keep her strength up—because just at the moment, it rather looked as if her company would be lucky to survive the next few da
ys without the lot of them being hurled straight into Oxford County Gaol, by either Hugh Palfreyman, or the even more formidable Mr Beaumaris.

  * * *

  As the sun began to sink in a haze of mist over the Ashendale Forest, Beau turned restlessly in his bonds and decided that he could not remember having been more furious in all his life.

  Oh, he’d been angry before now. But there had always been something he could do—some counter-attack he could plan, some legal strategy he could devise. He’d been known in the past to use his fists if the circumstances were appropriate.

  But now his impotence made him wild. He’d heard the girl riding off on her pony, leaving her two companions to guard him—and there hadn’t been a thing Beau could do, since he was once more roped up and blindfolded.

  His hearing, though, was acute, and shortly afterwards he realised that the younger fellow was riding off also. But Beau heard him return within half an hour, and then they both came over to offer him some food that the lad must have purchased. After some muttering between themselves, they removed his gag, so he was able to point out, in no uncertain terms, that they’d have to untie his hands as well if he was to eat.

  They muttered to each other again, then unfastened the cord round his wrists to allow him to feed himself with the bread and cheese they offered. But when he reached for his blindfold the older one tutted and said, ‘I hope you’re not going to try and get your blindfold off, are you, Mr Beaumaris? That wouldn’t be a good idea at all. It really wouldn’t.’ And—though Beau doubted if the fellow could use it—he heard the ominous click of his own pistol and decided it was, for the moment, more prudent to obey.

  Of course, they didn’t want him to see their rascally faces—but he guessed they were watching him all the time as he ate. Then they tied his hands again but loosened the rope at his ankles and led him about a hundred yards or so to what he guessed was some kind of rough shelter. And that was where, he gathered, they expected him to spend the whole of the long, miserable night.

  It was apparent that their leader—Miss Deb, or Deborah—had had no intention of returning that evening, quite possibly because she had her own trade to ply in the streets of Oxford. And that troubled Beau.

  She was a slut and a highway robber, by her own admission. But most dangerously of all, she was attractive in the kind of way that he just could not erase from his mind. Yes, she was a little on the skinny side, to be sure—but he’d quickly forgotten that when he’d held her close and realised that some very feminine curves were hidden by her boy’s attire. Yes, she was scruffy, and her long hair could have done with a good brush, but what did that matter, when she possessed such ravishing chestnut curls and such enchanting, dark-lashed golden eyes?

  And as for the kiss... Beau shifted uncomfortably on the beaten-earth floor of the charcoal-burner’s hut, remembering her against his will.

  He might be blindfolded again, but her image was etched on his memory. He couldn’t help but remember how she’d let out a little gasp of surprise as he kissed her, how she’d clasped her hands tightly around his waist as if to steady herself.

  He couldn’t forget the feel of her pert and slender figure pressed so close to his, or the scent of her skin; nor could he fail to remember how her hair was a tumbled cloud of radiant hues that perfectly framed her flushed face. She’d looked exquisite—and innocent.

  But it was all a sham. She’d deliberately pretended to be stunned by his caresses while secretly enabling her two henchmen to spring their trap.

  He gritted his teeth as he remembered how she’d earlier flicked through the quite scandalous illustrations in those little books of hers and told him sweetly, Of course, I always endeavour to match my clients’ inclinations rather than my own.

  She was so like Paulette—who never dressed in anything other than silks and satins, but even so the similarity between the two of them had hit him like a body-blow. When darkness fell he lay there thinking, Who is she? And when he slept at last, he dreamed of her.

  He dreamed that he had her in his arms, and her smile was enticing as he bent his head to kiss her. Then she squirmed with wanton relish in his arms, and fluttered her lashes with the skill of a practised coquette, breathing, ‘Well, Damian Beaumaris. It seems that I have you at last.’

  * * *

  Beau woke at dawn to a chorus of birdsong, and found that his muscles were cramped and stiff. The younger of his guards came to check that his blindfold and bonds were still in place. There was no sign of any imminent improvement in his situation.

  He dozed again briefly, but woke to hear his two guards having a muttered argument. They tried at first to keep their voices to whispers, but as their tempers rose, so did their voices. He let out an almighty bellow. Moments later he heard hurried footsteps and the door creaked open. The older one said, ‘Was there something you wanted, Mr Beaumaris?’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Beau pronounced in a dangerous voice. ‘I’m cold and cramped in here. Above all I want you to know that I’ll have you all clapped in bloody Newgate for this.’

  ‘We’re sorry, Mr Beaumaris.’ It was the younger one who spoke this time—he must have come to join his friend. ‘But you have to stay our prisoner, see? For just a little longer, that’s all.’

  Beau could almost hear the lad shaking in fright. The girl was made of sterner stuff than the rest of them put together. He gritted his teeth. ‘I don’t recall your...Miss Deb telling you to let me starve. And there’s something else. I’ve been shut up in here all night, and I need to relieve myself.’

  ‘Now, let’s see,’ the older one was muttering. ‘We have to keep his blindfold on, but we’ll need to untie the ropes at his feet. Though it’s best perhaps if we keep the long rope tied to one of his ankles, so he can’t run... This way, Mr Beaumaris, sir!’

  And Beau found himself being led a few yards away, still blindfolded and with his wrists tied behind his back, while the rope that connected him to the doorpost uncoiled behind him. He told himself, calmly, Someone is going to pay dearly for this.

  ‘We’ll leave you in privacy, sir.’

  ‘My hands will need freeing,’ Beau pointed out.

  His guardian was clearly unhappy. ‘I suppose so.’ He untied the knot with nervous fingers. ‘I’ll be back in a few moments—sir.’

  Beau almost had to laugh, it was all so ridiculous. What would his friends—Prinny and the Duke of Devonshire and the rest of high society—have to say if they could see him like this? Swiftly he eased off his blindfold and stared around. His captors were busy over their fire again, but they were still near enough to spot instantly if he were to try to undo the knotted rope around his right leg. And the older one no doubt still had Beau’s pistol in his belt.

  He assessed the two men swiftly. The older one, a lanky fellow, wore a long coat in a peculiar shade of red, and a black hat with a feather in it. The younger was—well, the younger was just a fair-haired lad, pleasant-looking enough, wearing breeches and a leather tunic.

  He spotted their horses—a pony and an old grey mare—over on the far side of the clearing, and tethered beside them was Palfreyman’s bay horse. After a few moments Beau called out to his captors and allowed them to lead him back to the charcoal-burner’s hut.

  They were clearly upset that he’d removed his blindfold, but after conferring together decided there was little point now in replacing it. They tied his wrists again, but his legs were left free. Preferring to remain standing, Beau leaned against the doorway and watched the two men bend over their small fire—he could smell bacon cooking. He wondered how Palfreyman had felt yesterday when Beau failed to turn up for his four o’clock appointment. Most likely he’d opened a bottle of his best wine to celebrate.

  ‘You take the food over to him, Luke,’ he heard the older one say. As the younger one approached, Beau stared down at him fiercely.

  T
he lad cleared his throat. ‘Here’s some bread and bacon for you, sir. Is there anything else you need?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Beau curtly as he took the hunk of hot bacon wrapped in two slabs of bread. ‘I need to be set free. I want my pistol back and that bay horse, so I can ride to Oxford and report the pair of you for kidnap and violence.’

  ‘It’s not kidnap!’ The lad sounded terrified. ‘And we’re only to keep you here until Miss Deb gets back, she said so. Then we can let you go, I swear...’

  ‘You take orders from a girl?’ said Beau with contempt.

  The lad flushed to the roots of his fair hair and hurried off. Beau ate the bacon and bread, then settled himself on the floor and pretended to be asleep again. They came over to check him, then stood outside, talking. They talked for quite a while; then the older one said, ‘Best get going with our jobs, lad. The horses need feeding and watering for a start—I’ll see to that, and lead them down to the river. You go and explore the track—in both directions, mind. Make sure there aren’t any search parties out looking for our prisoner, do you understand?’

  ‘But shouldn’t one of us stay to keep an eye on—him?’

  ‘With his wrists tied, and that rope round his leg? Our Mr Beaumaris is going nowhere in a hurry. Besides, he looks to be sleeping again...’

  Their voices faded. Lying by the open door of the hut, Beau opened one eye and watched the younger one set off anxiously towards the track, while the other made for the horses.

  They’d left the fire burning low.

  As soon as they were out of sight, Beau began to get to his feet, smiling grimly to himself.

  Chapter Five

  Deb O’Hara was sitting on a bale of hay in the Angel’s stable, dressed in a white shirt and black velvet breeches, with her long chestnut hair pinned up tightly. She was doing her breathing exercises, which consisted of swinging her arms from side to side, taking a deep breath, then expelling the air from her lungs in a steady hum—Gerald had taught her to do this, to warm her vocal cords. At the same time she was trying hard to concentrate on the words she would be reciting out there in about—oh, no—in about twenty minutes.