A Lady's Guide to Rakes (26 page)

“You’ve got it all wrong, Meredith. Come with me now, in my carriage, and I can explain.”

“I remind you, I am promised to another.” Meredith’s voice was low and steady, which surprised her since her legs were quaking beneath her skirt. “How would it appear if I were to be observed boarding a
rake’s
carriage?”

Alexander flinched ever so slightly. She knew her words stung. But then, they were meant to.

“I do not give a bloody damn how it looks.” He grabbed her hand then and started back to his carriage.

“Let me go, Alex!”

“Never.” Lord Lansing gave a curt nod of command to his footman, who obediently opened the cabin door.

Without a warning, he lifted and carried her the remaining distance to the carriage, hoisted her inside and crawled in after her.

Even in the dimness of the cab, Meredith could see his eyes were flashing. A protest would be sheer madness, but so was allowing herself to be abducted—even if it was by the man she loved.

Unable to resist him bodily, Meredith resorted to the only defense she had at her disposal. “What will your father think of this? Sullying your family name by keeping company with a
ruined
woman?”

“What my father thinks is absolutely none of my concern. My only concern is you.”

He pounded his fist on the forward wall and the carriage jerked forward. “We are going to talk and I shan’t return you to Hanover Square until I have said what I must.”

“W-where are you taking me?”

He paused for a heavy moment; then the most wicked, rakish smile Meredith had ever seen lit up his face.

“Someplace where you can’t escape me.”

———

Alexander did not say a word for the clutch of minutes it took the carriage to arrive at Hyde Park. He glanced out the window and scanned the length of Rotten Row for any sign of the giant red balloon.

Somehow, when he had Two make the hasty arrangements earlier that afternoon for a balloon ascension, Alexander had thought Meredith would find it very…romantic of him. Thoughtful, and generally very un-rakelike. Why, he’d even worn the exact blue cutaway he’d worn when they first met. How quixotic was that?

Despite the unpleasant occurrence at the Euston ball, he thought she would be eager to repair the rip in the fabric of their relationship. For she had to know he loved her. And she did claim to love him as well.

He did not count on her aunts having to lock her out of the house, or that he’d have to resort to kidnapping her, just to convince her to listen to him.

Somehow, Alexander never thought offering for a lady was going to be this bloody difficult.

When the carriage halted, and the footman opened the door, Alexander climbed out quickly—in the event that Meredith had a thought of making a mad dash. He glanced up at the ashen sky and sighed. Still, the rain was holding off, and even if the sky burst, it would not change his plan. It was too late for that, for not twenty feet from the Serpentine was the red hot-air balloon.

The massive, inflated bulb was clearly newly sewn, rather than just patched. And so it should have been, for he’d paid the amount the pilot demanded from Meredith— which had so disturbed her that she had fallen unconscious the day they met.

Bloody hell, for the amount he’d paid, he would have thought the Irishman would have replaced the basket as well, and yet he hadn’t. Fresh reeds had been woven into the side where the oak branch had gouged the basket, after tipping Meredith from its pot. Oh well.

Meredith blinked her eyes in the gray light as she emerged from the carriage. “Why are we here?” she asked warily.

“Shall I be honest?”

“Absolutely.” Meredith folded her arms across her chest. “If you can manage it.”

Alexander winced at that. “I had thought you would find a balloon ascension romantic.”

Meredith’s face screwed up into a scowl. “
Romantic?
I thought you said you would be honest.”

“I assure you, I am.”

“Ha!” Meredith spun around and tried to climb back into the carriage, but Alexander caught her arm and held her firm. “You only seek to humiliate me,” she accused him, “the way you and the earl believe I sought to
humiliate
you!”

“I—I have no notion what you are on about.” Alexander’s patience was wearing thin. He tugged her forward. “Come with me. We’re going up.”

“You cannot deceive me, Alexander. You read my book of notes and you know that our meeting was no accident— I was spying on you from this very balloon!”

“You
what?
“ Alexander was incredulous. “What nonsense is this?”

Meredith opened her mouth, but then Alexander suddenly had a better idea and laid his fingers across her lips, silencing her. “Just a tick, my sweet.”

He reached over the lip of the basket and, with one hand, gripped the pilot’s collar. “
Get out
. I shall take it from here. Just leave the tether handler. I’ll need him.”

“ ‘Ere now! This is my balloon. I’ll not leave my
Betsy
to you or anyone, until I’m cold and stiff in my grave.”

Alexander looked the Irishman dead in the eye. “That, sir, can easily be arranged.”

The pilot gulped loudly. “You don’t frighten me, your lordship.”

“Really?”
Alexander opened one of his hands and dug down inside his pocket. His fingers touched upon a small leather bag of coins, which he withdrew and pressed into the pilot’s hands. “Perhaps, then, you
can be gently
persuaded. I only want to borrow your
Betsy
for a short while, after all.”

The Irishman opened the bag’s cinch and peered inside at the gold coins. A wide grin parted his lips. “I’ll just take the second tether, if you don’t mind. Just call when you wish to come down.”

Meredith began struggling wildly. She was not going to get into the balloon willingly, so Alexander did the only thing he was able. He looped his arm tightly around her waist, climbed into the basket, then dragged her over its lip with him.

With a nod to the pilot and his handler, the balloon lurched into the air.

When the balloon swayed on its tethers a good fifty feet above the ground, Alexander released Meredith.

“Now, darling, what were you saying?”

Give over your heart to a man who truly loves and respects you. Only then will you be safe from heartache and ruin.

Had everyone in her life gone completely insane? Meredith had certainly asked herself this very question enough times over the past few weeks.

As the balloon sailed higher into a rambling sky streaked with gray, Meredith was fairly sure they were all mad. Her aunts, Hannah and Chillton, Alexander…
all
of them.

Looking over the worn lip of the basket, she saw that two handlers were letting out more and more rope from their thick coils. In another few minutes, she and Alexander would be dangerously brushing the low-hung clouds in a tattered basket that was scarcely as wide as the measure of a lady’s outstretched arms.

Alexander casually leaned back against one of the thick corners of the basket. “Are you ready to listen to me?”

As Meredith whipped her head around and glowered at him, her hair tumbled loose about her damp face. “Have I any
choice!
“

“Not unless you suddenly fall deaf.” Alexander winked at her then. “All right. I know you have something to say to me, so why don’t you begin?”

She groaned, and looked away again.

“Shall I help you then?” he asked.

Meredith said nothing.

“You mentioned that the day we first met, you had been spying on me.” He paused for a moment, then shot her a curious look. “Is that why you carried the brass telescope?”

Meredith sighed.
Oh perdition! Why not? Why not get this all over and finished now?
It was not as if she were going anywhere… but up. “Yes,” she muttered.

“So, you were not truly studying the ever-elusive
rogue
finch?
“ A half-grin flickered on Alexander’s lips, but somehow she got the impression that his levity was forced.

Meredith gave an exasperated growl. “Do not pretend ignorance with me. It was all laid out plainly in my book of notes.”

“But, Meredith, I never read your book. Other than a couple of wild accusations my father made—which I must admit caused me to doubt your true feelings for a time—I have no notion as to what you recorded in that little leather book of yours. And, Meredith, I had no right to doubt you. It was wrong of me. I only needed to stew awhile on it to know that the truth of your feelings is plain in your eyes, your touch, your kiss—no matter what was written in that damned little book.”

Her head told her he lied.

Rakes always lied if it suited their own ends. Or so her research proved.

However, as she gazed upon Alexander’s innocent expression and clear eyes, she knew in her heart he was indeed telling the truth.

“So, you didn’t read a
single page
?” she asked shamefacedly.

“No.” Alexander reached out and tentatively trailed his fingers down her sleeve, as if he weren’t sure if she would allow his touch. “I knew that the notes were your private thoughts-—and not meant for public consumption.”

A little culpable snivel slipped out of Meredith. The air was thick and smelled of coming rain as she turned her head and peered out over the swaying treetops. “That is where you are wrong.” She forced herself to turn back and look at Lord Lansing straight on. “It was meant to be read by the public—eventually. At least part of it.”

Alexander straightened and impulsively pushed up from the basket corner. It was a struggle to stand upright upon the swaying floor. He grabbed the rail lip nearest Meredith for balance and peered at her with a genuinely confused expression. “Perhaps you best start from the beginning, from the day we first met.”

“Very well.”

And so she did.

Meredith explained her reasoning for wishing to write
A Lady’s Guide to Rakes
—her ruin by Lord Pomeroy and her desire that such pain never touch another innocent.

Surely he knew the details of her ruin. It seemed all of Society did—or at least the part her aunts could not conceal. Still, Alexander seemed most compassionate and truly able to understand her hope to spare other women her ill fate.

Next she explained her assorted schemes and experiments to learn more about rakes, rogues and cads, one after another, as Alexander dutifully, yet silently, listened toiler prattle on.

He raised his hand, trying to stop her, more than once. She wasn’t sure if he meant for her to pause and clarify a point for him—or simply to stop talking because he could bear to hear no more.

Either way, it really didn’t matter. Meredith could not have stopped the spill of words, even if she cupped her hand to her mouth.

But as the words came pouring forth, she could breathe easier, she felt so much lighter—for she was finally free of the deception that had weighted her heart. It was as if with each confession, she had taken one of the heavy homespun bags of sand sitting in each comer of the basket and flung it over the side.

Geminy, it felt so good to confess!
She wanted him to know everything—needed him to know every last detail so that nothing more would stand between them.

And then, she had only one more thing to say: the few healing words, of all she’d flung into the wind, that might succor the wounds she’d inflicted.

“You must understand, once I trusted you—
once I came to love you
—the book no longer mattered to me.”

Her heart thudded at least a dozen times as she awaited a response—a word, a sigh, a frown.
Anything.
Alexander did not reply.

Her gaze studied his striking face, but his expression offered no insight into what he was feeling. Ever so hesitantly, she reached her arms out to him, staggering across the basket like a babe taking her first two steps, seeking acceptance… forgiveness in his embrace. And he gave it.

———

Powerless to do anything but press against him, Meredith hugged Alexander close. She inhaled his scent, which, until now, she hadn’t known she’d missed so very much.

His hand came up behind and pressed the small of her back, bringing her closer.

Meredith shuddered as his touch raced through her like a rare bolt of lightning, making the hairs at the nape of her neck rise.

She turned her face up to his, expecting him to speak, to tell her everything would be all right. Instead, his mouth came down upon hers, surprising her, and a storm began to build within her.

Alexander turned slightly and leaned her back against the weave of the basket. Lifting her slightly, he leaned into her, his thighs straddling hers.

She gasped softly as he pressed against her and she felt his hardness between them. She instinctively answered by pushing her hips hard against him.

Wanton heat surged between her legs, and as if he knew this was happening, he responded with a low, carnal groan.

The wind whipped up around them then, and dived deep inside the basket, blowing high any part of Meredith’s skirt hem not pinned by Alexander’s hard body.

The reviving breeze swirled about tar thighs, startling Meredith, and she broke away from his kiss. Sucking in a deep breath, she hoped for at least a moment’s reprieve— for the chance to beg him to stop, since she seemed unable to do so.

No matter what she felt, no matter what she wanted, she was promised to another.

Good, responsible,
trustworthy
Mr. Chillton.

And instead, here she was,
clinging
to Alexander, wanting to feel him inside her. Wanting to sate the tempest within.

“You’ll be needin’ to come down now!” came a frantic shout from below.

Alexander glanced at the handlers on the ground. “Not yet.”

The trees seemed to shudder then, and the balloon whipped and lurched, flinging them both to the floor of the basket.

Alexander fell onto his back, his knees crooked upward within the tight confines of the basket.

Yelping in surprise, Meredith fell atop Alexander, landing in a most unladylike position, straddled over his lean hips. She wrapped her arms around him and held tight. Her senses reeled with terror, but her body only knew need.