The Writer and the Rake

by Shehanne Moore

  “Then there’s one way to prove it.”

  She lowered her gaze. After all this, please don’t tell her that one way was a shag. After what he’d just done? That would be in his dreams. If only he hadn’t made that sneering remark about her being caring, she’d have kept her mouth shut. Once she had been. About Mark. About Atholl. Once had been enough.

  “I thought I was.”

  “Very well. I’d say we’re being watched right now by some of Christian’s spies. Don’t look, I don’t want them to know I’ve seen them. So what I need is you to go inside, dry yourself off, send for them and instruct them, the way Gabriella did every morning.”

  “Really?” Her heart sank, although she supposed she’d have to. “You mean she’d nothing better to do?”

  Like go back to sleep if breakfast wasn’t till eleven? Eleven was something Brittany could get into. As opposed to slogging her way through the rush hour, or getting up to write, eleven was heaven on a sliding scale.

  “Not with me.”

  “Perhaps that was why she did it?”

  He exhaled sharply. “If you’re trying to annoy me, Miss Carter, I wouldn’t bother. Now, I know you’re not her. But, it is expected and it does give us a lever. That is if you really are on my side?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?”

  His shadowed eyes surveyed her for a long moment as if he hadn’t quite made up his mind. “I think, ‘why should you be,’ is more of a question. However, I know her. If Christian sees you are capable of managing affairs here, she will recall the servants she sent. Maybe that’s what I haven’t explained to you. You need to convince her, we need to, that we’re what we say, despite the way this has been flung at us. It paves the way to us just having Dainty here, or selecting our own servants. Where is that place you said you were from again? That place on Tay?”

  “Sort of. Newport.”

  “And that man?”

  “Man?”

  “When you hit your head you said something about wanting to haunt someone?”

  “Oh him? Yes.”

  “Well, if you help me get rid of these damned servants, then you can go home. Just come here occasionally. How does that suit?”

  “Oh, it sounds, good, Mitchell. Truly. You’re preaching to the converted. I just . . .”

  Above everything else he’d said, one word hammered in her brain. Then. Because then, if he got rid of everyone and she still hadn’t found the portal, then she’d be flung out of here. “I’m just not used to giving orders. It’s not something I ever do as a rule.” If she was she’d have sent Sebastian packing long ago.

  So, despite what he wanted, despite what she’d thought about being obliging, there was only one way to stay here if she couldn’t cast herself upon him in the time honored way.

  Until she found the portal, she was going to have to make a complete and utter mess of talking to the servants.

  ~ ~ ~

  She better not ruin the business of talking to the servants. Christ, that was Mitchell Killgower’s first and last thought on the subject. Running his fingers through his wet hair, in the thankful sanctity of his dressing room, there seemed no earthly reason why she would, but seeing none and there being plenty, were two different things where she was concerned. If he’d seen that handing her a cup of coffee was going to result, not just in dragging her down the stairs, but soaking and threatening her, for example, he’d have let her lie in his bed. In fact he’d have tucked her in.

  While he wanted to think he was the man who was better at waiting than a dead spider, a man who sat in his lonely turret and considered the world his plaything, this encounter said otherwise.

  And, forget that dragging a woman—any woman—down the stairs because he’d thought she was in Christian’s pay, had been beyond what he’d normally do, what had he done next? Considered her tits. That’s what. These strawberry ripe nipples that were like smeared fruit through that blasted gown which had clung to her like water, largely because there was water.

  And he’d thought she was an odd shape because she didn’t fit that gown Christian had sent? But then, if he’d thought for one single, solitary second she’d be this much trouble, he’d never have agreed to this.

  He leaned on the washstand, gripping the edges is such tight fists, the wonder was they didn’t snap off in his hand. It wasn’t just the tits. Whatever that damned mask she’d had on was for—and he could only think of one thing—she needed to stop wearing it. How the blazes was he meant to concentrate when she was wearing a thing like that?

  This must stop. Now. Ridiculous and all, as it was for him to think so, when he’d chased after more women than a pack of hounds had foxes, he needed to take hold of himself. Stick to his guns. The ones he’d primed on getting Killaine House back. Were she less of a loaded blunderbuss there could be real trouble here. But, not only was she someone who might dance away from this, from him, she was almost certainly in Christian’s pay.

  So that little fracas there, where he’d sort of lost his glacial cool, the one he wasn’t proud of, was one he’d had to win. Surely now she’d learned her lesson she’d stop behaving like an idiot? Do exactly as she was told.

  If she didn’t, he’d damn well take his chances telling Clarence, Fleming was nothing but a sneak who’d lied to cover the fact he’d invited her here from London. If that meant forging the letter, he’d do that. In fact, if she stepped on his toes once more, it would be of miniscule trouble.

  Chapter 10

  “Would you mind telling me what you told the servants?”

  “The servants?” Brittany paused momentarily in winding the hank of yarn. It wasn’t something she’d usually do. Pausing momentarily, or winding a hank of yarn. On a sliding scale of how to fill in her time, with one being doing something wonderful like finding a packet of cigarettes and smoking them all at once, or getting off her face at Skinny Joe’s, it was pretty well down near the dregs.

  But it was keeping Fleming, sitting opposite, happy and it had stopped her biting her nails to the quick. She was already in sufficient agony courtesy of her feet and those bloody awful shoes that were a size too small she’d worn last night.

  “Oh that, darling?” She tucked her bare toes beneath the hem of her skirt. “I told them to get along with all their household tasks. Whatever that entailed.”

  “You didn’t think to give them any specific orders?”

  “Well . . . I did have more important things.”

  “Really.”

  “As you can see.” She held up the soft grey ball. “It’s called bonding. Now, I find myself in this sorry place of turrets, windows and water pumps, I believe I might even learn to knit. Isn’t that so, Fleming?”

  She passed her tongue over her lower lip hoping Mitchell Killgower wouldn’t snap her tranquility as surely as he might the yarn. She put nothing past him, not even empty air. It was why she’d enlisted Fleming’s help. Even if Mitchell didn’t exactly like Fleming.

  “You see, Mitchell, we thought his aunt Christian might like to hear I’m taking knitting up, me being so God-fearing and all that. In fact, Fleming and I have a wager about it. A bit of a one anyway because we all know he doesn’t like to gamble and thinks it is the devil’s work. Isn’t that so, Fleming?”

  Fleming blushed to his sandy roots but he did smile faintly. “I—”

  “There. You see.”

  Let that little bugger have a say and she’d be out on her backside.

  She began re-winding the wool feeling the leaden weight of Mitchell Killgower’s stare. The tiniest crumb of guilt did sit cold in her heart that she hadn’t done as promised. But she’d done the next best thing. No mean feat when the line she walked was narrower than the width of the strand of wool, stretched between Fleming’s hands.

  She listened while Mitchell
Killgower’s footsteps echoed across the floor. The lid of first one, then another brandy decanter clinked. She’d drunk so much of the first one last night, it was possibly empty. All right, it was empty. But he’d already accused her of being inebriated so that was all right. As for the second decanter? All she’d had was one glass when she’d been frozen beyond the bone. All right, it wasn’t exactly a small glass. But he needn’t deny how that had happened.

  She slipped her gaze to where he stood in a crisply elegant steel-grey waistcoat and cream breeches looking out the window, nursing a glass of brandy. He’d got one. It would keep him happy.

  The thing was, behind the steely façade of a man who wanted to ruin his son, lingered that ghost. As if he wanted to find her entertaining but daren’t. Of course, she was probably very different from the dull fuddy-duds he’d known despite all that fine talk—baloney probably—about the Hellfire Club. Sebastian once said she would drive a man to distraction. At the time it seemed wildly exciting. He also said she would drive them to drink. That hadn’t been quite so exciting since he hadn’t exactly needed any encouragement and he’d flung a frying pan at her.

  While it might not pay to underestimate this man, what if this morning was an aberration? Now that he saw how domestic she was, he’d go away again and drop this nonsense about instructing the servants. In what way? If she wrote Regency romance, she might know but she didn’t and frankly she’d other things to consider. Besides she couldn’t. If she was successful he wouldn’t need her.

  She slipped her gaze back, bestowed her kindest smile on the young man opposite. Mitchell Killgower took another sip of brandy.

  “God-fearing, you say?”

  “It is what one of us, I can’t remember if it was you, or me, or even Fleming here, told Christian. Or maybe, she told us. But, obviously it is a condition that prevents me from giving too many orders. And frankly I feel it solves everything.”

  “Do you?”

  “Do I what? Darling, I’m sorry I don’t know what you’re on about.”

  “The fact that this condition solves everything.”

  She kept her gaze firmly on the wool. Her hands winding it too. Mitchell Killgower sounded quite happy for him. Satisfied as he nursed his drink.

  “Yes.”

  “So as conditions go, it does not prevent you from sitting on your backside?”

  “You know, I almost think you’re taken with my backside, the amount of times you mention it.”

  “Sometimes your thoughts fail to come remotely close to what I’m really thinking. To do that you’d have to fully think.”

  She smothered a grimace. “Oh, I think all right.”

  He set the glass down as if he’d made up his mind. She hoped it was to let her win this battle.

  “Good, then you’ll have no trouble coming with me, seeing as you’re so God-fearing, Brittany. After all, a God-fearing wife obeys her husband.”

  “Well, they must be several sandwiches short of the proverbial picnic. Anyway.” She stopped winding the ball of wool, tilted her chin. “I didn’t think God-fearing wives were your cup of tea, or that you expected a woman to obey you? Except in certain places.”

  His gaze skirted her, his lips perfectly straight, his brows like arrows. She stared back effortlessly. While she didn’t like going for the jugular, it was the quickest way through this.

  “Fleming.” His voice was a low undertone. “Would you mind taking your leave?”

  “But, Mitchell . . .”

  “Now, please.”

  Fleming rose from the chair. He fiddled with the ball of wool, dropped it on the floor, blushed, picked it up, bowed awkwardly. Brittany tried not to stare. She’d touched a nerve. Apart from what she’d said, she couldn’t think how. She was doing her best to do some of what Mitchell Killgower had said. In some respects he was very lucky she’d landed in his lap. Far luckier than she was to be here.

  The door clicked shut. She may have no idea of what to say, it didn’t mean she shouldn’t speak. “So?”

  “Let’s forget what you just said.” Mitchell Killgower fastened his hypnotic gaze on her. “About the nature of my life with Gabriella—”

  “Oh that? I wasn’t mean—”

  “And concentrate on how once again you have failed, when it seems you dropped out of the sky, to do what I asked.”

  “Do, please, accept my apologies. It just seemed to me I could be of more use by doing what you asked some other way. A way that had been previously discussed.”

  “Well. that’s good.”

  “Really? And I wasn’t meaning to pry about you and Gabriella either.” He was being amenable so she would too, although interest flared about Gabriella and him. “After all, that was your business.”

  “Good.”

  Her heart didn’t sink. Only a fool, or one of her heroines, would think anything was good with this man, which was why she didn’t say she knew how difficult, how precarious a relationship could be, how the wrong one could make, or break, a person. Why she waited expectantly for him to speak.

  “In fact, you have me at such a loss for words—”

  “Me? Mitchell?”

  “I think the best thing might be to show you this.”

  She lowered her eyelashes. Then she grasped her skirt. “Please.”

  It was down the stairs obviously because he strode down them. His footsteps echoed on ice-cold marble, beneath pale cream arches, shivers standing sentinel on thoughts she couldn’t formulate. Then it was into the back hall. After this morning all she wanted was to find the portal. If, by some strange twist, he showed her that, although happiness sometimes felt like a foreign country to her, she’d be able to say yes in the language they spoke there. If he didn’t? She hadn’t just taken Fleming beneath her wing to wind wool.

  Mitchell Killgower stopped. He busied himself with a key–so large and heavy he needed both hands clasped around it to turn it. She tweaked a strand of hair into place.

  “So, Mitchell, where’s this then?”

  “All will shortly be revealed.”

  “How glad I am.”

  The door screamed open, an un-oiled banshee. In the darkest corners of her mind bats rose like Dracula. How bloody stupid. What could Mitchell Killgower he about to show her when she ate men like him for dinner? There had been some mention of this Hellfire Club, of caves. Did he somehow think she was going to shriek in her shoes when she wasn’t wearing any because this might be some sort of secret passage to them? He’d have to do better than that.

  “But I can reveal this is a place you’ve not seen yet. A place, I have to say isn’t used much these days. A place that has to do with what you told the servants.”

  “Me?” She stepped forward into the soft, damp air. “Well, as long as you don’t expect me to clean the bloody place. I mean come on. I may have told the servants to go away and get on with things earlier, but if that’s what this is about, you’ll have to do better—”

  She stopped. Pale stone walls, on which the light danced with soft shoes, beautiful blue-lit windows rising in golden amber arches to the roof. A faint smell of old stone. Across the dusting of withered leaves, a stone dais in ancient sandstone. Her heart missed a beat. What was this place exactly? The reason Gabriella didn’t like him?

  “Not a place I come to often, I admit, being too far gone down the road of badness for that, but nonetheless, a place that is ideal for spending your days in the kind of prayer and contemplation you told the servants you did.”

  “Me? Oh, I think you’ve got that all wrong, darling.”

  “Not at all.” His feet echoed softly on the pale stone floor. “There’s the altar—”

  “That was only for the servants’ benefit. You see—”

  Admit she didn’t know how to direct a tiresome bunch of se
rvants on their jam making, or whatever Georgian servants did? Especially when it might be worse if she did instruct them and made it obvious she hadn’t a bloody clue? She waited as the withered leaves rustled in their silent corners. “I just hadn’t thought is all.”

  He glanced around. “Good you have now though. Anyone chancing in here will see how devotional you are. I’m just sorry the floor is stone and there’s no pews.”

  “Oh. Don’t worry about it because—”

  “I’m not.”

  “That’s two of us then. At least, I think it is.”

  “I know I must look wealthy to you in my fine clothes, Miss Carter, but that’s for show. The truth is two winters ago I’d to strip the pews out and burn them for firewood after a particularly brutal run-in with Christian and Clarence.”

  “I can’t imagine what over.”

  “Which I don’t think you understand about.”

  “Believe me, I’m trying.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. Unless, of course, you want to rethink the business of the servants and show them you can run this house, smoothly, perfectly?”

  She stopped fiddling with her hair and glanced round. Mentioning his sex life with Gabriella was a mistake. Already she’d no fags, no voddie and damn all food obviously because of other run-ins with Christian. 1765 had bugger all to recommend it. So obviously she should at least try to say a few words to the servants. One, or two, no more. In fact, feeling the chill on her bones, she’d as good as decided. But, this strange place, if he was going to leave her alone here? This place was perfect to find the portal from. For that matter it might even be here.

  Her breath shortened. “Hell, no.” She padded down the steps, let the dried leaves rustle about her bare feet. “I think I’d rather stay here.”

  ~ ~ ~