The Rake's Bargain

by Lucy Ashford

  Laura was trembling. ‘No. No. You’re lying.’

  ‘I wish I were, but it really is true. I’m sorry, Laura.’ More sorry than you will ever know, to have to tell you this.

  Laura was silent a moment, then she sprang to her feet. ‘I hate you. I hate you! I shall tell my brother that you’ve been meeting with your friends the Lambeth Players, and with Jack Bentall too! I shall tell him you ordered me not to say a word about it—but I shall tell him now!’

  ‘I know you will,’ whispered Deb, rising also. ‘And I’m sure that your brother will still love you and care for you, Laura, as he always has done. As for me—I’m leaving.’ She felt terribly cold all of a sudden.

  Laura stared at her, hostility still blatant in her eyes, tears still trickling down her cheeks. ‘Leaving to rejoin your actor friends? To be with Jack?’

  ‘I’ve no desire to be with Jack again, as you put it,’ Deb said quietly. ‘But I’m going to deal with him. Believe me, I’m going to deal with him.’

  * * *

  Back in her own room, Deb changed into her old clothes—her breeches and shirt, her boy’s jacket—and packed the few things that were hers. Then she just stood there.

  She’d always known that it would have to end some time. She just hadn’t realised that it was going to end like this. That her past and her present would collide so disastrously, in the shape of Jack Bentall and poor, heartbroken Laura. At least she hoped she had saved her from the wretch, for good. But what a stark reminder this was for her, of the impossible gulf that separated her world and Beau’s.

  She felt as if all hope, all feeling, had been brutally extinguished, leaving her hollow and icy-cold. Laura would blurt out everything to Beau—about the girl’s youthful passion for Bentall, and Deb’s part in destroying her dream. Laura would tell her brother that Deb was still meeting with the Players, and that Deb had asked Laura to keep quiet about her contact with them.

  She would tell Beau not only that Deb and Jack had a past—which Beau already knew—but that Jack had, within the past few days, invited Deb to start their liaison anew. Beau would be appalled with her, and appalled to find that his own little sister had found her way into such hazardous company

  * * *

  Deb slipped outside with her old valise in her hand and made for the gate at the far end of the garden. As she carefully opened it, she gazed back once at the now-dark house. She could picture only too well Laura tearfully telling Beau—I was so in love. But she’s spoiled everything for me, and I hate her...

  Beau would be devastated, to realise the risks his little sister had run; but he would calmly offer the comfort that Laura so badly needed, with words of love and reassurance. He would hold his sister tightly, and help her to face her future, and show her that it would be full, some day, of love and happiness.

  Thanks to Deb’s confession, Laura was safe. This was Deb’s last gift to Laura; and to the man she knew she would always love. He had burst into her life that day in the Ashendale Forest so unexpectedly, and he’d altered her life for ever. He’d made her irretrievably his.

  But—their love for one another was always impossible, wasn’t it?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘Deb? Deborah, is it really you?’

  She’d arrived amongst the Lambeth Players at nine the next morning. Her friends had gathered over their breakfast in the public room of the inn next door to the theatre, and it was Francis who saw her first, jumping up to greet her with a cry of welcome.

  She’d spent the night at a cheap lodging house nearby, sleeping very little, and when she did she dreamed of Beau, imagining the utter contempt on his face when Laura told him her news. Now, Deb’s friends surrounded her; but their faces were anxious.

  ‘It was meant to be our first performance of Twelfth Night this evening, Deborah,’ Francis was telling her. ‘But Peggy has quite lost her voice.’

  ‘Oh, Francis! So you’ve no Viola?’

  ‘No Viola. And it’s worse than that. Jack Bentall’s upped and disappeared in the night. His landlady from the Red Lion down the road was here first thing, complaining that he’s gone in the night. Vanished completely—without paying his bill. I never did trust him, and this means we’ve no one to play Duke Orsino either.’

  ‘We’ve got you, Francis,’ Deb said steadily.

  ‘But I told you—I’m Malvolio. I’m always Malvolio.’

  Deb looked around and saw Luke standing listening. ‘Luke can play Malvolio for a change. Can’t you, Luke?’ Luke almost jumped for joy. ‘There we are, then,’ Deb concluded. ‘And I’m sure you know Orsino’s part, Francis.’

  ‘But I’m a little old...’

  ‘Nonsense. You’ll be a wonderful Orsino.’

  Francis’s face brightened, then sank again. ‘But what’s the use of me being Orsino, if we’ve no Viola?’

  Deb looked around them all, thinking, These are my friends. I owe them so much. ‘I’ll play Viola,’ she said. They gave cries of delight. ‘But we need to rehearse,’ she went on. ‘We need to get started, right now. The show has to go on.’ She took a deep breath and smiled. ‘We are the Lambeth Players, after all.’

  Jack Bentall wouldn’t be back. As she organised them and encouraged them in their final rehearsal, she remembered how last night, after leaving Beau’s house, she’d gone straight to the Red Lion and found Jack Bentall in the tap room with a plump barmaid on his lap.

  ‘Deb!’ He’d looked startled, then slowly began to smile and eased the protesting barmaid away. ‘Little Deb, come to see me for old times’ sake.’

  She walked steadily up to him. ‘I’m going to make this brief. I’ve come to tell you that the Lambeth Players don’t want you any more, Jack. Not ever. Do you understand?’

  His face darkened. ‘But the play starts tomorrow. And I have a contract—’

  ‘Not any longer,’ she interrupted. ‘I’m in charge. Remember?’

  After that she’d turned and left him there, open-mouthed.

  * * *

  Beau could not believe it. He would not believe it. His little sister had come to him late last night almost incoherent with grief, sobbing through her tears about some wretched actor and how she loved him.

  ‘But Deb knows him too!’ she wept. ‘And she said such dreadful things about him!’

  The first thing that slammed into his mind was that Laura knew Deb wasn’t Paulette. The second was that Deborah had gone. That was made plain enough the instant he pushed open her bedroom door and saw everything so tidy; the bed unslept in, her few things—including that old brown valise—gone.

  He turned to his sister, who had followed him. ‘What was this actor’s name, Laura?’

  ‘Jack,’ she whispered. She started crying again. ‘Jack Bentall. She said—she said she knew him a long time ago. And he’s been after her again, Beau. She said she didn’t care for him, but she must have been lying—she’s most likely gone to him, tonight...’

  No, thought Beau, a fierce rage gripping him. No. He remembered Deborah’s expression when she described to him her one and only encounter with Jack Bentall years ago. She’d said she detested the man, and he believed her. He believed her when she told him she’d let no man touch her since Bentall, until the day he, Beau, kissed her in the forest...

  After that Beau comforted his little sister and saw her to bed, and only when she was settled and half-asleep did he say very quietly, ‘Laura. This Jack. I think you know what I’m going to ask. He didn’t do anything to you, did he, my dear, that you wouldn’t want me to know about?’

  ‘He kissed me, Beau,’ Laura whispered. ‘That was all.’ A single tear ran down her cheek.

  And that, swore Beau as he finally left her, was the only reason the wretched Jack Bentall would be allowed to live. He returned to his own room, where he tried to set
tle down to sleep but couldn’t, and dawn found him pacing the floor, dressed and restless.

  Deborah. Why had she told Laura about what had happened between her and Jack Bentall?

  The only reason he could think of was that she’d done it in order to save his sister from the wretch. She detested Bentall. Even if Laura was right, and Bentall had made fresh approaches to Deb recently, she would have rejected them—because she loved him, Beau. He was utterly sure of it, and he was going to take appropriate action.

  He stopped by his window as a cool dawn mist stole over London’s rooftops. Beau’s life as an aristocrat had confirmed for him that very few men could be trusted, let alone women, and he’d long ago decided that his own best course was to build an iron wall around his own heart. His mask of cynicism had become a integral part of him, until one day—he’d been lying tied up in the forest, for God’s sake—a certain Miss Deborah O’Hara had come into his life. She’d struck him as clever, and daring and beautiful, and...

  And brave. Searingly, honestly brave.

  He didn’t believe for one moment that she would willingly associate with Bentall again. And he couldn’t live without her. That was the truth of it.

  Before taking his breakfast, he’d summoned Armitage and told him to send out his investigators—his minions, Deb had called them—to track down Bentall. Now, they were back. He went downstairs to talk with them in his study, and they told him that Jack Bentall had, last night, left the Red Lion inn in Southwark quite unexpectedly.

  ‘He hurried off without paying his bill, your Grace. We hunted around and found that he spent the night in a cheap lodging house nearby. It appears that he’s no longer one of the Lambeth Players.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘As sure as we can be, yes. They started rehearsals at nine this morning—they’re putting on a play at the Dragon Theatre tonight—but this Bentall was still abed.’

  Beau glanced at his pocket watch. ‘Then we’ll give him a morning surprise that he won’t forget,’ he said.

  * * *

  It was a warm summer evening and dusk was enfolding London. The dome of St Paul’s gleamed in the fading light, and the boatmen were busy ferrying people across the Thames from Westminster to Vauxhall, to the gardens and the busy inns and the theatres clustered along the south bank.

  The stage of the Dragon Theatre was open to the sky, and Deb could see some early bright stars twinkling overhead as she stood and clasped her hands together. ‘She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i’the bud, feed on her damask cheek. She sat like patience on a monument, smiling at grief.’

  Shakespeare’s beautiful words about forlorn love had never seemed so apt. She was the broken-hearted Viola. Deb poured out her emotions to the people crammed on the tiered benches that were arranged on three sides of the stage. She didn’t have to raise her voice to be heard, because although all the seats were full, the audience was completely lost in the magic of the play.

  And Deb was thinking of Beau. Always of Beau.

  She never told her love...

  She was even wearing the kind of clothes she’d been in when she first met him—breeches, a shirt and a boy’s jacket, because of course Viola was dressed as a man for most of the play and was secretly, heartbreakingly in love with her Duke Orsino, just as Deb was with Beau.

  There never could be anyone but Beau. As they reached the end of the play, there was a moment of stillness—of utter silence. And then the applause began to ring out, and the cheers; Deb bowed low, and realised some were getting to their feet; they were throwing flowers to her, and calling out her name. They’d adored the play. She should be happy. But how could she go on, without Beau in her life?

  She loved him so much, but she could never see him again, and of course she knew that he would never have the slightest wish to see her. Laura would have told him about Jack Bentall; how Laura had entered into a dangerous liaison with him; how Deb herself had seen him again, only recently, without telling Beau...

  She almost shivered as she pictured the ferocity of his emotions. As she imagined the contempt he must feel for her, for keeping something so vital from him.

  Oh, Beau.

  By now the entire audience was on its feet, whistling and clapping, begging for an encore. ‘Viola!’ they were calling. ‘Viola!’ And suddenly she couldn’t keep this fixed smile on her face a second longer. She began to go; Francis moved to stop her. ‘Deborah? Is everything all right?’

  ‘Everything’s fine, Francis.’ But then she wasn’t fine. Something—no, someone—had caught her eye: a tall man with black hair, who was shouldering his way through the cheering audience, his face set with determination. And Deb was frozen to the spot.

  Beau.

  Breathe, Deb, you idiot. Remember to breathe...

  His eyes not once leaving her, Beau climbed the stairs to the stage two at a time. And while the rest of the actors were taking yet another bow, he strode towards her, he caught her in his arms, and he kissed her, hard.

  She glimpsed Francis’s face, and the faces of the other actors. They were astounded, and the audience went wild, thinking it was part of the entertainment. Beau kissed her so thoroughly that she could scarcely stand, and so Beau picked her up in his arms very tenderly, and carried her from the stage—to the greatest chorus of bravos and huzzahs that Deb had ever heard in her life.

  * * *

  Beau wanted to kiss her again the instant they’d left the stage, but instead he said, ‘You’re coming with me now. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes. But I’ll just have to tell my friends...’

  ‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ Beau warned. ‘And if you don’t join me in five minutes, I’m coming for you again. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said again. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his lips softly. ‘I understand.’

  Of course, before she left she had to placate a horrified Francis.

  ‘But it’s Mr Beaumaris, Deb,’ Francis objected. ‘You know what we did to him!’

  ‘Of course,’ she answered calmly. ‘We tied him up in the forest and kept him prisoner for the night.’ And he’s come for me. He doesn’t hate me. He’s come here for me.

  Francis’s mouth opened and closed. ‘But you can’t go off with him! Surely he’ll have us clapped in irons—’

  Deb touched his hand to stop him. ‘He won’t, Francis.’ This time she couldn’t suppress her dazzling smile. ‘It’s all right, believe me. Everything’s going to be all right.’

  ‘You mean—you trust him?’

  ‘I do,’ she said quietly. ‘With my life.’

  She could see now that Beau was waiting for her by the door. ‘Oh, and by the way, Francis,’ she said, turning back to him, ‘he’s not Mr Beaumaris. He’s actually the Duke of Cirencester.’

  Francis’s face was a picture.

  * * *

  They travelled back to Albemarle Street in Beau’s coach. And scarcely had the carriage—driven by William—moved off, when Beau gathered her once more in his arms and said, ‘I know everything. About the despicable Bentall and my sister. Laura told me. She also told me that you’d seen him recently—she suspected there was something between you, but I didn’t believe you would tolerate the rogue’s presence for a second longer than you had to. So I paid a visit myself on Jack Bentall.’

  She looked dazed. ‘You...’

  He put his finger gently on her lips. ‘Apparently, last night he left a local inn called the Red Lion because someone—a rather spirited young woman—had come to give him a mighty tongue-lashing.’ His eyes gleamed with humour. ‘You, I believe, Miss O’Hara. Bentall spent the rest of the night in a cheap lodging house—where my men found him this morning.’

  ‘You set your minions to work?’ she breathed.

  �
�My minions.’ He nodded. ‘I went first thing this morning to speak to Jack Bentall—about my sister, and about you. Bentall made the mistake of trying to tell me that Laura had lured him on.’

  Deb’s eyes were anguished. ‘Beau. I’m sure she didn’t. It’s just that she’s so innocent. So trusting...’

  ‘As you were, I imagine,’ he said, ‘when Bentall seduced you.’

  She nodded. ‘And please believe me. I only met him by chance in Southwark the other day. And I was horrified to learn that he was with the Lambeth Players. I hated having to see him again, and to speak with him.’

  ‘I do believe you.’ His gaze was steady; he’d wrapped one of her hands in his. ‘You must have hated having to tell Laura about your past with the rogue. But you were thinking of her all the time, weren’t you? Ensuring that she would realise what a despicable creature he was. And then, I gather, you went straight away to see Bentall at the inn and told him he was no longer part of your theatre troupe. He’s had an uncomfortable time, since I also visited Bentall at his latest abode this morning, and I gave him a few home truths that should ensure he won’t be showing his face in London for quite some time. Especially,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘as his features are now rather bruised.’

  ‘Oh, Beau.’ She gazed at him, wide-eyed. ‘You didn’t...’

  ‘He was foolish enough to try to throw a punch at me,’ he answered calmly. ‘But he’d got the wrong man. His face won’t be quite so pretty for a while, but he’ll recover. And I think we can be quite sure that he won’t, ever, dare to breathe a word of all this.’

  She thought to herself, Beau believed her. He trusted her. Whatever happened now, she could bear it. Almost. Almost...

  Beau was still talking. ‘I realise, of course, that your actors had to cope at very short notice tonight without Bentall. Though that companion of yours—Francis, I believe his name was—did a good job of replacing him. I must say he’s better at acting than he was at keeping me prisoner in the forest.’