Read Tempting Miss Allender (Regency Rakes 3) Online

Authors: Wendy Vella

Tags: #Historical, #Romance, #Fiction, #Regency, #Society, #England, #The Ton, #Rakes, #Debut, #Disastrous, #Past, #Desperate, #Danger, #Childhood Friend, #Past Sins, #Amends, #Challenge, #Past Ghosts, #Emotional, #19th Century, #Beguiling, #Beauty, #Bachelor, #Adult, #Regrets, #Friendship, #Relationship

Tempting Miss Allender (Regency Rakes 3) (21 page)

BOOK: Tempting Miss Allender (Regency Rakes 3)
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“You should be sleeping.” He was at her side now, one hand on her head, smoothing away a few curls.

“I did for a while, and now I’m awake.”

“And how do you feel?”

“Better, thank you.”

“Now, that’s a lie. In fact, I imagine every muscle in your body aches, and your hands sting like the devil.”

“Perhaps.”

“What woke you? Was it the pain, or something else?”

He pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat, his face now inches from hers.

“The water closing over my head,” Patience whispered. “I felt it again, and that woke me.”

His fingers touched her cheek and the warmth in them soothed her. She should sit up because she was at a disadvantage with him above her, yet had no strength to do so, almost as if her body and brain had decided to slow down. She couldn’t seem to make them do anything.

“Of all the things that happened to you today, the water closing over your head woke you? Not being kidnapped, ridden though London while strangers held you captive, not being locked in that room, or even the struggle of pulling those boards free?”

“I don’t like water,” Patience said, looking up at him. Firelight flickered over the angles and planes of his face, and she felt her heart squeeze at the power in this man, the power he’d always had over her emotions even though she had tried to deny it.

“Yes, I remember Vauxhall.” He smiled down at her, his fingers now wrapping around the hand she had clenched around the covers.

“My cousin—”

“I have sent men out to look for him, and when I have his location I will be paying him a call.”

His features had not changed, and yet the subtle shift in his tone was enough to tell her of his feelings for Brantley Winston.

“I will come with you.”

“We shall talk more in the morning.”

Patience tried to tug her hand free and sit up, but he simply stood and braced his hands on the pillow beside her head.

“Winston is not intimidated by you, Patience. His type understands intimidation and menace, and I can provide that, if you will let me.”

“Will you stab or shoot him for me?”

“Gladly.”

“All right, then. I shall leave it for now, but we will talk more in the morning and perhaps I can come and watch.”

She was suddenly lifted and moved across the bed, and seconds later he was settled beside her.

“What are you doing?”

“I thought we could make up some terrible poetry, like we used to.”

Patience watched as he moved several pillows behind his head and wriggled until he was comfortable. His big body took up more than half of the space and his scent filled the air.

“You are in my bed,” she protested. “In the middle of the night. I’m not sure that is proper.”

He moved so quickly that she had no time to brace herself. His face was suddenly over hers, his hands on either side of her face once more. His kiss was soft and sensual, and every thought fled as he took her lips. When she was breathless, he pulled away.

“Now that would be improper. Terrible poetry is not.” His voice was unsteady, telling her that she was not the only one affected by the kiss.

“Oh,” was all she could manage as she attempted to breathe. “I don’t think you should do that.”

The look he gave her was wicked. “Yes, I should, and I will.”

She didn’t know how to answer that one, so she ignored it by changing the subject. “I don’t make up bad poetry any longer.” She had given that up many years ago, along with her dreams of happily-ever-afters.

“I must admit that it has been quite some time for me also. However, I am willing to try if you are.”

Was she? Could she lie here beside the man she had once loved, and was fairly sure she still did—or at the very least, something familiar was stirring inside her.

“Betty Bead was heard to say, you fool Bert Bead, you have yet to sow that seed, or harvest will be delayed. Berty declared that he had not heard and…” Mathew ran out of words.

“Stomped out the door to the pub, where he ate some grub, and proceeded to get bosky, so that when Betty came to find him, he called her an unsavory word, and he still walks with a limp to this day,” Patience said.

Mathew’s laugh was a low rumble.

“We were never very good at it, from what I remember.”

“You were not very good,” Patience corrected him. “I, however, was outstanding.”

She didn’t know how long they lay there making up verse after hideous verse, but she did know that at that moment, in that bed, she had never felt happier.

After a while her eyelids begin to droop as once again the day caught up with her.

“I am suddenly weary, Mathew.”

“Then go to sleep.”

She felt him roll to his side, then his fingers were on her cheek, stroking it softly, just like she used to do to Charlie when he was a babe. That was the last thing she was aware of: the man she loved, lulling her to sleep.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

 

“So we are the hired thugs for this outing?”

Mathew nodded to the Duke of Stratton. “Yes, and the Toots brothers, but it is your titles I need at my back,” Mathew looked at Simon and Daniel as he entered the entranceway of Brantley Winston’s lodgings.

“Toots brothers?” Simon looked behind him at the two large men they’d left outside. “I thought they were new footmen in your household.”

“Patience employed their entire family to protect hers.”

“That is a very smart lady,” Simon said.

“Excellent. I left my wife’s bed to accompany you, just because I am a duke,” the Duke of Stratton muttered.

“A duke trumps a marquis and a viscount,” Simon said. “So stop your whining.”

Mathew had awakened beside Patience this morning. After watching her sleep last night for a while, he had surprisingly followed her into slumber. After he woke several hours later, he had slipped out of her room before she could realize that he’d been sleeping beside her. Recalling how she had looked this morning, with one hand resting above her head, clouds of black silken curls lying on the pillow, her lips open slightly, he vowed he would see her like that again, many more times. It had taken all his willpower to get out of that bed instead of kissing her awake, which had been his first instinct.

“Just so I have this straight in my head,” the duke said slowly. “Brantley Winston is responsible for putting the fear of God into the Allender family for many years, and yesterday he had Miss Allender abducted, simply to get her out of the way so he could dispose of her brother?”

“Nicely abbreviated, your grace,” Simon said, following Mathew up the stairs.

“It sounds like something my wife would read about in one of those hideous novels,” Daniel said.

Mathew knocked on the door and when there was no answer he simply turned the handle. When the door still did not yield, he threw his shoulder into it twice before it sprang open.

“Well, that’s certainly a way to announce your arrival,” Simon said as the door connected loudly with the wall.

Mathew stalked inside. His anger had been steadily building since yesterday. He wanted Brantley Winston, and he wanted him badly. He needed to make the man pay for what he had put Patience and her siblings through.

“What is the meaning of this?”

He found Patience’s cousin in bed with a woman, both of them naked. The woman took one look at who had just entered the room and screamed as she leapt out of bed and began scurrying about trying to clothe herself.

“Lady Alington, be sure to give my best to your husband when next you see him,” Daniel said as the woman ran from the room with her clothes clutched to her naked chest.

“I-I how dare you!” Brantley got out of bed and pulled up his breeches.

“That will do. No shirt is required for this conversation, Winston,” Mathew said, reining in his anger. It wouldn’t help the situation if he simply did what he wanted and took out his pistol and shot the man; then he would be in danger of exile, and he had no wish for that, not when he had a family who needed him, and Patience to woo.

“I demand an explanation, Lord Belmont!”

“You have yet to address my friends and me correctly, Winston,” Mathew said, watching the snake closely as he taunted him.

This man had tormented the woman he cared for and her family, and he would be made to pay. Mathew would see to it personally.

“I think considering you have stormed into my rooms without an invitation that I have every right to my behavior.”

“The word ‘right’ has many different connotations, don’t you think, Lord Kelkirk?”

“Indeed, Lord Belmont. There is the right to live or die.”

“The right to take up the title your father had before you,” Daniel said.

“The right to live a life without fear, and grow old.” Mathew said the last and watched Winston swallow several times.

“I, ah, have no idea why you are speaking to me in this manner.”

The arrogance of the man was breathtaking. That he believed no one would ever find out what he had been doing to the Allender family, even here in London, was beyond belief.

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear, Winston. You may have believed that the Allender family is without support, and an easy target for a man such as yourself, but I assure you they are not.”

“They are my cousins!” Winston looked outraged, and if Mathew had not known the man’s character he could almost have believed him. “I would never do anything to harm them.”

“You have tried many times to dispose of your cousin,” Mathew snarled, losing control of his temper. “You’ve intimidated when you should have cared. You’ve bullied and terrified that family into fearing for their lives!” Stepping closer, he landed a blow on the man’s jaw that sent him reeling backwards. “To have treated your own blood the way you have is beyond redemption!”

“Mathew, we need him coherent to talk to. Step away!”

He heard Simon’s words through the thunder of rage inside his head, and inhaled deeply.

“If I had my way, Winston, I would kill you now, and leave you lying in that bed in your own blood, yet my friends have told me I cannot,” he growled. “Therefore you will pack what you can carry and be on the first ship to America. If you were tried before a magistrate here, there would be a great deal of publicity, and I will not have your cousins dragged through that, much as I would like to see you fall from grace.”

“You cannot make me leave! I am innocent of anything she has said. Patience Allender is mad, and has been accusing me of things since her father’s death. She should be committed for her ravings.”

“A word of warning, Winston.” Simon stepped forward. “My friend has close ties with that family, and found Miss Allender walking the streets of Spitalfields early this morning after having been abducted. Were I you, I would have a care how I proceeded around him.”

Mathew kept his eyes on Winston. The man was now shaking.

“If you do not leave, we will tell everyone who will listen what you have been doing, and your name will be blackened, especially when I go to the magistrate.” Mathew wanted that to be the last resort, as he had no wish to drag Patience or her siblings through this publicly.

Brantley continued to plead his innocence. “I have done no wrong.”

“She could have died out there alone yesterday and we would never have found her. Just imagining the atrocities Patience could have suffered turns the blood in my veins to ice, and her suffering is because of your greed, Winston.”

“Just shoot him, and between us we will dispose of the body. It should not prove too difficult.”

Winston’s face lost all color at the duke’s words.

“You will be accompanied to a ship by my men, three of whom are outside as we speak, and it matters not to me whether you board in a wooden box, or chains, only that you board today,” Mathew said.

“That title is rightfully mine, not that sniveling brat’s!”

Finally Brantley Winston had dropped his façade, and vile words spewed from his lips, most of which had to do with his intentions towards Patience and her brother.

“I think Mathew should thrash him at the very least, Simon,” the Duke of Stratton said. “He deserves a good thumping, and if he won’t do it, I’m willing.”

“Hardly the attitude a duke should be taking, your grace,” Simon said, moving to Mathew’s side. “However, I must admit I would like to see the man suffer for his crimes.”

“Don’t touch me!” Brantley Winston squealed like a piglet as Mathew leaned over him.

“Heed me well, Winston. If I ever hear that you are back in England, or that anyone is threatening the Allender family at your hands then I will find you, and this time I will finish you.”

“A small jab and no more, Mathew,” Simon said.

“I fear if I start I will not stop,” Mathew growled. He didn’t punch the man like he wanted to; instead, he walked from the room, leaving Brantley Winston whimpering on the bed behind him. Once outside, Mathew instructed the Toots brothers to go into the room to watch Winston pack. They would then escort him to a ship that the duke would secure passage on.

BOOK: Tempting Miss Allender (Regency Rakes 3)
13.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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