Madness (58 page)

Randall and Michael saw the tense little group and pushed in next to Alistair, down with his wife Viola from London for the special occasion.

“This letter was marked urgent, addressed to all the Rakehells, so I took the liberty.”

“That’s my friend Sebastian’s handwriting,” George said in surprise.

“What is it? Is my brother in some kind of trouble again?” Viola asked worriedly, exchanging anxious looks with her friend George and her husband.

George took a deep breath, then opened the letter. "No, no, Sebastian is fine. It's nothing like that. It’s just the best news any of us could ever hear,” George said, relief oozing from every pore as he looked at the paper in disbelief.

Simon laughed. “What could be better than Oxnard and Napoleon being dead?”

Ash Paignton grew a trifle impatient. “Come on, out with it, Philip, so we can start drinking more toasts. This is a family party for the babies, after all.”

Philip gave a brief chuckle. “Well, it’s not quite the kind of news most people would want to raucously celebrate, but yes, I’ll gladly drink to it. Castlereagh is dead too.”

Viola grabbed George’s forearm to get a better look at the missive. Simon, Alexander, Miranda and Gabrielle all gasped. The women could hardly believe their luck.

George nodded now. “Cut his own throat, apparently, with his own paper knife of all things. Sebastian says in the letter that he went home in a despondent mood and opened the artery. Died almost instantly.”

Simon shook his head, completely stunned that it was truly over at last. He and his brothers were free… “The poor bugger. What a way to go.”

Gabrielle dared to give voice to what every single Rakehell and his wife was thinking. “I’m glad. Jolly glad. Now I never have to worry about him taking you away or harming any of us again.”

“Amen to that,” Alexander said.

“That’s supposed to be my line,” Jonathan said with a laugh, though everyone in the group could see the effort it cost him.

George nodded. “It should be. I think we’d all appreciate a few words for the soul of the departed, and a blessing for the future for us all.”

Miranda smiled up at her husband. “We already have it, darling. Look around at your family and friends. We should all make a point of counting our blessings every day. None of us have any idea how close we came to losing them.”

George hugged her to him now. “Oh, I do, believe me I do. Far too close.”

Alistair, Thomas, Randall and Philip all gave each other a long look, and smiled in relief. “Far too close thanks to some very ruthless men," Alistair said with a sigh, thinking of the recent adventures they had shared. "But never again.”

“Amen to that,” Jonathan said loudly. “There, got in before all of you.”

George laughed happily now. “Aye, nothing worse than getting your lines stolen.”

“And nothing better than saying them,” Miranda said, stroking his cheek lovingly.

They both glowed with the memory of how they had fallen in love, in his theatre in London, and George shouted for more champagne. Soon they toasted every Rakehell in turn, and then the dancing began.

Simon stood up with Gabrielle for a waltz, and made it look even more indecent than many people claimed it to be when he held her so close that there wasn’t in inch between their bodies from chest to shoulder.

“Have I ever told you how lovely you are, Madame D’Ambois?” he murmured against her satiny ear.

“Only about five times today, and it’s only a bit past noon." She fluttered her eyelashes.
 
"But a lady can never grow tired of being appreciated. So long as you know that you're the most handsome man I’ve ever laid eyes on, and I can’t wait to get you alone so I can prove it to you.”

“Any chance of slipping away, do you think?”

“Gabriel will have to be fed soon.”

He winked at her. “Lucky little chap.”

“But there’s no reason why we can’t bring him up a bit earlier and have a few minutes to ourselves.”

He smiled. “Sounds like heaven. And by the way, did I ever tell you just how gloriously sexy you are when you’re pregnant?”

“Every day, ten times a day, for the whole nine months,” she said, nodding. "And you usually showed me too."

“God, you were so breathtaking I’m surprised we weren’t making love while he was being born.”

Gabrielle giggled. “It was dashed close, I seem to recall.”

Simon glowed with the heated memory, and groaned. “Yes, yes, it was. Just like I am now. I love every inch of your body, every particle of your being. Just being in the same room with you has me completely mad, insane with longing. I promise not to steal the poor little man’s food if I can help it, but I need to taste...”

She clamped her hand over his mouth, blushed, and went in search of her sister in order to get the baby before heading upstairs.

Once Gabriel was fed, it was only a matter of time until she was completely bare, and her husband’s head was between her thighs.

Finally he filled her with his huge, hot hardness and made love to her so tenderly that Gabrielle was sure she was no more than a lake of desire in the bed.

“Mmm, I’m about to melt as well," he said when she murmured the words to him. "I’m sorry I can’t hold out—”

“Don’t you even try. I adore the madness inside, the tumult. The driving need.”

“Mmm, I was mad from the moment I met you, about you, my love. No woman but you could ever have made my life so happy and complete.”

He looked at her with a fierce yet tender intentness.
 
“Do you mind us trying for another baby so soon?”

She shook her head and smiled. “Not at all. In fact, you’ve been so importunate, I have to admit I haven’t been able to keep up with the sponges and ablutions as much as I ought.”

“I want a girl next. The image of her mother,” he whispered against her hair.

Gabrielle smiled at him lovingly. “I’ll take whatever the Lord gives us so long as we’re all happy and safe.”

“Amen to that,” Simon gasped, losing control and driving deep within her womb, where he felt an answering throb against his sensitive tip.

“And if at first you don’t succeed,” she said with an impish smile.

“I shall most certainly try, try again. And again. And again.”

“Yes please, more,” Gabrielle begged.

“As much as you like, always. Until I drive you to the brink of madness," he promised, his eyes glowing with love.

“I love you, Simon, always. So long as you’re right there with me.”

“Mad with you and mad for you, always and forever, my dearest Gabrielle.”

Author’s note

As usual, this novel stared out as a ‘what would happen if’ scenario. I was reading about the list of registered bawdy houses in London and where the women worked.

One of the madams and her girls specifically catered for the inmates of Bedlam. One can only imagine what a job
that
must have been in an already shockingly bad profession.

Thus my story of a young nurse trying to help a seemingly sane man locked away in Bedlam, with the help of some interesting friends, was born.
 
And so yet another Rakehell is restored to the fold and his happy home, with his quest for his brothers at an end at last.

As I have been working on this series, I’ve also asked the question, how did the ‘spark’ or rake come to be born?

Certainly after the Civil Wars in England, sexual mores changed quite radically. Instead of sex being perceived as sinful, it was felt that it was a sign of health in a normal male. That in fact it would be unhealthy to
not
indulge, as it would lead to all sorts of tensions, frustration and and violence, even mental illness.

The rake resulted: the licentious chap out to indulge his animal lusts.

However, women’s desires and frustrations were a paradox which was never successfully resolved.

Satires of the period made quite distinct differences between wife and mistress, but never actually stated what they were! Men were also satirised if they
didn’t
have a mistress, and were exhorted to hurry up and get one as there were far too few, and their cost would therefore rise.

London was seen as the swinging capital where men and women could indulge their passions freely. The country was a place where one rusticated. Having to go home to a country seat was the agony of many a fashionable and libidinous woman.

London was also notorious for its crime, filth and debauchery, though the English would have told you gleefully that the French capital was far worse (and so THE place to go for even more lewd pleasures).

One can get an idea from the Earl of Rochester’s poetry and Samuel Pepys’ diary as to just how naughty things were in the capital, and the antics of Sir Charles Sedley were so hair-raising as to be viewed with dismayed horror even by the rather lascivious Pepys and satirised in Sir George Etherege’s play
The Man of Mode.

One of the most fascinating things about 15
th
to 19
th
century life is that they had
all
of the same issues and concerns we have: war, poverty, disease, (especially venereal), famine, the role of men and women in society, homosexuality, transvestism.

They also had issues with inheritance and chastity for women, and indeed the role of women was becoming so fluid and free during the Regency period that the backlash into rigid Victorian morality was almost inevitable.

But as always, we can only generalise from all the written records left behind. What we can say is that whenever a society is at war, things become fragmented and old distinctions break down. Women have taken their fate into their own hands as wives, mother, mistresses, shopkeepers, midwives, for centuries.

Gabrielle joins the ranks of the Rakehell wives who also stand up for their principles and rescue their husbands physically and/or metaphorically through the gift of their love.

In the next novels in the series, another Rakehell returns to the fold, with some surprising consequences, in a parallel narrative to this one which as you have seen is a race to the death.