LITMIR.BIZ

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entreating our good Lord to intervene, lead her feet down the correct path.”

      The Earl of Brean looked up from the papers from his estate steward he’d been reading for the past hour or more without much hope of understanding them—something about yields per acre and a request to leave four of the fields fallow next season, which he most certainly would not allow, not if that had an impact on his wallet in any way. He’d had some bad investments of late. He waved the black-clad reverend to a chair.

      “She did protest with her usual heat. But she’ll come around,” he told the man with some confidence. After all, Chelsea was not raised to be prepared to live beneath London Bridge. Besides, she had no other recourse. When in doubt, always remember who held the reins, and the reins were in his hands.

      “Your sister is willful, Thomas. I have prayed on this, as well, and the only solution is to take her most firmly in hand. I shall begin with her books. Too much education is not for women. Their intellect is too frail to fully understand complex ideas. I have, in fact, taken the liberty of preparing a list of the more laudatory works fit for her more limited sensibilities. Books on proper deportment, the efficient running of households. And a fine variety of sermons, of course.”

      “Good, er, good,” the earl said, perhaps thinking of the book of sermons that had so lately come winging at his head. “My father let her run wild, you know. Thought it amusing that she wanted to learn Greek.”

      “Heathens,” the Reverend Francis Flotley said flatly. “With unnatural sexual practices.”

      Thomas perked up his ears. For the past few years, his sole knowledge of unnatural sexual practices was that he’d bedded only his stick of a wife, and although others might not think that unnatural, it still was damn boring. Prayer was fine, he knew that, but when the woman beneath you prayed aloud, asking Oh, God, when will he be done? No, there were times even prayer hadn’t been able to rid his mind of memories of his last mistress, Eloise, and her willingness to do anything he asked. She’d cost him, but what were a few baubles when she’d helped dress him in her silk stockings and garters that one night—that had been quite the giggle. “Really? And what were they? Perversions, I suppose?”

      Flotley ignored the question. “I have no fears that she will accept her lot, in time. Once we are wed. A woman must cleave only to her husband.”

      “If muttering a few vows in church was all it took, Francis, Madelyn wouldn’t be tipping back on her heels all over Mayfair. It is my greatest fear that Chelsea will be just like her.”

      “Yes, I know well your fears. Her husband is weak. I am not. Do you doubt me, Thomas? Have I not shown you the way?”

      The earl seemed to think about this for a moment. “She throws things.”

      “Not once under my roof, I assure you. Speaking of which, Thomas, you had promised me the deed once Chelsea and I were affianced.”

      The earl may have found religion, but that didn’t mean he’d entirely given himself over to parting with his money unless he saw a good chance of receiving something in return. “When you two are married, Francis. On that day, I will turn the deed to Rosemount Manor over to you, as promised.”

      “And the dowry? I do not ask for myself, as you well know.”

      “The Flotley Haven For Soiled Doves. Yes, I remember. You are a good man, Francis.”

      The reverend nodded solemnly. “I will have them on their knees, repenting of their sins so that their souls may be saved.”

      The earl thought of a few other reasons the soiled doves he’d encountered over the years had been on their knees, but that was an evil thought and he needed to banish it. Francis was so pure, and he was still such a wretched sinner. “As you rescued mine, Francis. Yes?” he then said, turning his head toward the doorway, where the butler hovered, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere but where he currently stood.

      “I am so sorry as to bother you, my lord, but it seems that Lady Chelsea has … disappeared.”

      “What? In a puff of smoke? Don’t be daft, man.”

      “No, my lord. That is to say she … it would appear that she has run off. She left a note.”

      “What!” The earl leaped to his feet, his hands drawn up in fists. “Damn that girl! When I get hold of her I’ll—”

      “Thomas? Sit down, Thomas,” the reverend said quietly but with an air of command. “Anger aids no man, and nor does violence. We will see this note, and we will find her. We will pray together for her safe return to the bosom of her family, and the Lord will guide us to her. But it is as I said, Thomas. She is female and therefore, willful. I promise you, this will be the last of the rebellion you will see from her. I will lead her steps to the Almighty, and with me to guide her, her husband and master to show her the errors of her sex, she will learn well the pathways she must trod.”

      “That’s all well and good, Francis,” Brean said with some hint of intelligence. “But first we have to catch her.”

       CHAPTER FOUR

      AFTER SNEAKING OUT of London like thieves—Puck had seemed delighted to make that comparison—they rode southwest, the three of them, because Scotland lay to the north. It wasn’t a brilliant plan, but hopefully it would suffice for the moment. It wouldn’t do to tell his brother and Chelsea that he was making up his steps even as they were taking them, but in truth, other than getting himself shed of London and his brother, he really hadn’t thought of what step would come after that.

      There had to exist some way of getting rid of Chelsea, as well.

      Sadly, inspiration seemed to have deserted him.

      They’d left Wadsworth behind to take the knocker from the door, signaling that the master was not in residence, and given instructions to inform any visitor rude enough to demand entry that he and a young lady were accompanying Mr. Robin Blackthorn to France, by way of Dover.

      Indeed, Beau’s traveling coach had set off, heading southeast, for Dover Road, the coachman told not to spare the horses, as if the devil himself was after them. The earl and his entourage would surely overtake the empty coach by the time it reached Rochester, but by then Beau and his small company would have arrived on the outskirts of Guildford, a lovely forty or more miles of countryside between the two points.

      He considered it a brilliant diversion.

      He hadn’t considered Chelsea’s horsemanship, or if she even knew one end of a horse from the other. He’d only rather rudely thrown her up onto the sidesaddle and told her to hang on and not complain or else he might be tempted to leave her to her fate.

      Which, he had to admit several hours later, she had not done.

      The same, alas, could not be said for Puck.

      “I still don’t see the point of keeping the family yacht at Brighton,” he was saying now, for at least the third time. “Who goes to Brighton, anyway, except fat Prinny and his fat ladies tottering about that monstrosity of his, probably bouncing off one another. Minarets? What possessed the man, do you think? I mean—minarets? What’s wrong with good old-fashioned English turrets, I ask you? Ah, there it is, another fingerpost pointing the way to Hove. Since you probably won’t wish to go any farther south before turning north, I imagine we part company here.”

      “Thank heaven for small mercies,” Beau said as the three of them pulled up their mounts at the crossroads and looked at the fingerpost. Brighton lay to the south, Blackdown Hills and one of their father’s lesser estates to the west; a good stopping point for the night, and some serious thinking. “Although, of course, we’ll miss you terribly.”

      “I won’t,” Chelsea said, half standing in the sidesaddle and none too discreetly rubbing at her derriere. “It’s not a proper elopement if one brings one’s brother along. Especially one who sings.”

      “Ah, my dear soon-to-be-sister, I

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