Along Came a Rogue (6 page)

“And who are you these days, Grey?” Her eyes shined mischievously. “A gentleman or a rake?”

“Both,” he answered earnestly. And she should be grateful for that. Because tonight, the gentleman was keeping the rake at bay.

Her laughter faded. Her face grew serious, and she hesitated before saying quietly, “Thomas wrote that you'd been wounded.”

His gut tightened, unprepared for that swift change in conversation. “Yes.”

“What happened?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” He held her gaze, and to her credit, she didn't avert her eyes. “That's not usually a story society ladies want to hear.”

She shrugged a shoulder. “I'm not an ordinary society lady, I suppose.”

No, you're certainly not.
And he couldn't help but wonder exactly how extraordinary she was, how far from the expectations of propriety she'd be willing to stray. With him.

Slowly, he reached over to pat the seat cushion beside him.

But she didn't accept the invitation and only continued to watch him warily through lowered lashes, as if unable to decide how far she could trust him.

“Sit down, Emily,” he ordered softly. “There's nothing scandalous about two old friends enjoying a quiet conversation.”

Clearly, though, she didn't believe that, her eyes sweeping from her dressing robe to the door, back from the door to his half-undressed appearance as he lounged on the settee…When she didn't move, a stab of unexpected disappointment pierced him that the brat should prove so ordinary after all.

Then, surprising him, she agreed. “I suppose not.” Tentatively, she sat down next to him, curling her legs beneath her. Her small surrender pleased him far more than he had a right to feel. “Two old friends,” she repeated with a smile.

Oh, he was certainly feeling friendly, all right. But not trusting himself to respond to that without giving her cause to slap him, he said nothing and raised the glass to his lips.

“What happened to you in Spain?” she prompted after a moment. “How were you hurt?”

This certainly wasn't what he wanted to talk about tonight with a half-dressed, beautiful woman sitting next to him. Yet the serious expression on her face told him it was important to her. So, inexplicably, it became important to him. “We were charging the end of a cannon line,” he began. He watched the golden liquid with a frown as he swirled it thoughtfully. “We'd made it across the field when I looked down and saw the hole in my breeches, the blood…I knew I'd been hit. The ball had cut through my thigh.” Two inches lower, and it would have taken his knee. Two feet higher, his life.

“You didn't know until you saw it?” Confusion darkened her face. “Didn't you feel it?”

He took a large swig of brandy. “No.”

Men in battle often didn't know they'd been shot until they saw the wound or lost too much blood to fight on. They were distracted by the noise and action, by the adrenaline pulsing through their muscles, and by a single-minded focus on killing in order to stay alive.

But how could he explain all that to a gently bred lady? He shouldn't be talking about this with her in the first place. Although it was surely safer than what he'd wanted to share with her, he supposed…a detailed explanation of how he wanted to peel away her clothes, lay her bare body in front of the fire, stroke between her thighs until she moaned with pleasure—

He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “We were in the middle of battle,” he said simply, not trusting himself at that moment to say anything more.

His answer seemed to satisfy her, though, because she nodded solemnly as if she understood. And perhaps she did. She'd already known immense grief in her young life, maturing her far beyond other women her age.

Slowly, he held the glass of brandy toward her, daring her to go a step further in proving just how extraordinary she was by sharing the drink with him. The only other women who'd ever done such a thing were those like Lady Roquefort—society women who considered him little more than a titillating way to disrupt the monotony of their lives.

Not Emily. She was there because she wanted to be with
him
. And he liked it. More than he should have. But never before had he experienced having a soft woman in whom to confide the hard details of his life, never before had he experienced the lure of a woman who understood him so well.

She lowered her eyes to the glass. “I don't think…”

“It's your brandy, after all,” he tempted.

She hesitated, then acquiesced. “Just a small sip.”

With a deep breath, her decision made, she carefully took the glass from his hand and placed her lips to the rim where his had just been. He watched the soft undulation of her elegant throat as she swallowed, the small movement cascading through him.

He went hard.
Sweet Lucifer.
Thank God he'd been enough of a cad not to tuck in his shirt or he would have embarrassed them both. The shy teenage girl had grown into an alluring woman. And not just physically.
Everything
about Emily drew him, right down to her soft laughs and haughty little sniffs.

Good Lord, she was seducing him, and she didn't even realize it.

She handed back the glass. “Was Thomas with you when it happened?”

“Yes,” he answered quietly, turning his focus back to the war, which dampened the throbbing at his crotch as effectively as if he'd rolled in snow. “He took me behind the lines and made certain the surgeons tended to the wound.”

He'd done far more than that, in fact. When Grey had lost consciousness from the pain caused by the surgeons digging into his thigh after the ball, Thomas stood fast, pistol in hand, and refused to let the bloody leeches amputate his leg.

He took a large swallow of brandy, wishing it could have been something much stronger, and murmured, “He saved my life.”

A comfortable silence fell between them, and he was glad for it. There was no need to go further into the gruesomeness he'd experienced during the war. It was in the past. Except for an ugly scar that would never disappear and a slight limp when he'd been riding too long, there was hardly any mark that he'd taken a bullet that changed the direction of his life, sweeping him from Spain back to England.

“I heard you became an agent after that,” she said quietly. “And a good one.”

His lips curled with pride at her small compliment. “I'd like to think so. In fact,” he admitted, feeling an irresistible urge to share his good news with her, “I've been offered a new position on the Continent, an important one. I'll be overseeing operations in southern Spain.” He paused. “I should have left already, but I delayed because of Thomas.”

And because of you.
Which was another reason he had to convince her to leave tomorrow. He'd already angered Lord Bathurst, Secretary of War and the Colonies, by delaying these past few weeks since the shooting. He doubted he could delay much longer and still receive his promotion.

Her hand covered his as it rested on the cushion between them, and gave his fingers a small squeeze that shot straight through him. He shifted uncomfortably. The aching returned to his cock in full force.

“You're a good friend to him,” she said quietly.

When she didn't pull her hand away, he dared to stroke his thumb along hers, and his gut tightened when he elicited a soft tremble from her in response.

“So,” she whispered a bit breathlessly, which pleased him immensely, “are you happy?”

He smiled at her question. No one had ever asked him that before, and it would have been an odd question coming from anyone but Emily. She'd always been perceptive, those blue eyes undoubtedly noticing far more than she let on.

“I'm very happy with my life.” Since he was currently sharing a brandy with a beautiful woman who didn't realize that her dressing robe had gaped and given him a tantalizing view of the swell of her breast— “
Exactly
as it is.”

As if reading his mind and the wicked thoughts swirling there, she drew her hand away. He resisted the urge to grab after it like some green boy chasing his first woman.

“Thomas never wrote much about his time in the army, at least not about anything important,” she told him, her fingers pulling at the hem of her robe. It fell open around her legs and revealed just the tips of her bare toes beneath, but he wished it would open further so he could see exactly how long those legs of hers had become. “He told stories about all the trouble you two got into, what Spain looks like…Sometimes he complained about the food or the weather, but he never mentioned the fighting.”

“Real heroes seldom talk about what they do in battle.” In his experience, it was the men who saw very little action who told the most stories, their tales always exaggerated and usually lies. Most likely it was because men who had truly seen the fires of battle never wanted to experience them again, not even as memories.

“Thomas was a hero, then?” she asked quietly.

“The bravest of the Scarlet Scoundrels,” he assured her. Then he couldn't resist adding with a grin, “Except for me, of course.”

But this time she didn't laugh at his teasing. Instead, she kept her eyes lowered as she twisted her fingers in the folds of her robe. “What happened to him, Grey?”

She meant the robbery, of course, but the solemnity in her voice made him wonder if she didn't mean something more. “He was walking in Mayfair,” he began reluctantly. Her brother should have been the one to share this with her, but if he wanted to convince her to leave with him tomorrow, then he knew he had to tell her the grisly details tonight. “He'd been to Strathmore House, and on his way home, he was stopped by a footpad.”

Her hand trembled, so he reached slowly to enfold it beneath his. He half expected her to pull away again, but she didn't move except to draw a deep breath to steady herself.

“The man shot him.” When he felt her flinch, he tightened his hold on her hand. “The bullet entered his side, right here.” He tapped his left side with his free hand. “He lost a lot of blood, so much that he didn't wake for nearly three days, and when he did, he was feverish, delirious…None of the doctors thought he would live.” In a low voice, he admitted guiltily, “Neither did I.”

Her fingers tightened gently around his to reassure and comfort, as if she knew he shared her pain.

“Thomas wants to see you.” He squeezed her hand. “Whatever's come between you two, you need to put it aside. For him.”

For a moment, she didn't move, didn't respond, only stared at him in the flickering shadows of the dying firelight. Then she stood and slipped her hand from his as she walked away.

Emily stared down into the fire, this time not finding the energy to stir the flames. She was trembling again, not from the grief of knowing how Thomas had been hurt but from the agony of not being able to see him. And she wanted to—
oh God
, how much she wanted that! But she couldn't see him, not when her presence might very well endanger his life.

She inhaled deeply. Grey was waiting for her to explain. She could feel the heat of his gaze on her back, just as she could still feel the tingling in her fingers where he'd held them. Just holding his hand had given her more comfort than she'd felt since her wedding, and when the warmth and strength of him flowed into her, she'd almost let herself believe that everything could be all right again.

If she'd felt that much comfort from merely holding his hand, then how soothing would it be to be held in his arms, kissed, touched—

“Emily,” his deep voice murmured at her shoulder, sending a warm pulse down her spine.

She gasped. He'd moved so silently she hadn't heard him approach.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice thick with concern. “I didn't mean to upset you.”

“You didn't,” she assured him. But he did. Just his presence here upset her, tearing her between lying to keep him safe and wanting desperately to confide in him, between wanting him to leave and wanting him to wrap his arms around her to hold her close.

Now, with his body near enough to heat her back, every inch of her hummed with long-forgotten need to be wanted as a woman. And with the way his head hung low over her shoulder and his lips poised close to her ear, his ragged breath warm against her cheek—could it be possible that Grey wanted her, too?

She could barely dare to believe that, yet the pulsing inside her was simply too electric, too thrilling to be wrong. Her body knew instinctively what his wanted. But would he act on his desire? If she simply leaned back, bringing her body against his hard chest, would the gentleman in him set her away, or would the rake wrap his arms around her, remove her clothes to reveal her to the firelight—

No.
Tears of frustration and torment dampened her lashes because she so desperately wanted what she could never have.

“Come with me to London,” he cajoled, his fingers touching hers as her hand dangled at her side.

Anguish sliced at her heart as the enormity of what she was refusing crashed through her—the opportunity to be at her brother's side, the chance to be in Grey's arms. Squeezing her eyes shut, she choked out, “I—I can't.”

“Why not?” His hands brushed up her arms now, heating her skin as if the sleeves of her robe didn't exist.

“Because I…I haven't been feeling well.” His caresses made it difficult to think, and damn him, he knew it, too! “I need a few more weeks, Grey, please.”

“If I come back for you then,” he asked quietly, his lips so close to her ear that they brushed her earlobe with each word, “you'll return with me?”

“Yes.” Another lie. Because when he returned, she'd be gone.

He took her shoulders and faced her toward him, and his eyes turned hard as they leveled on hers. “Brat, you are trying my patience.”