Her Wicked Proposal: The League of Rogues, Book 3 (2 page)

“I came to ask you if you would consider marriage…to me.” The last two words were a breathless whisper so faint, he wondered if he’d imagined them.

“You want to marry me?”

He could have Anne at last! Yet he’d sworn to himself that marriage wasn’t possible, that any woman who tied herself to him would never be happy with a damaged shell of a man. How could Anne think he would be a good choice? If she thought she could be his wife in name only, she was mistaken.

If he and Anne married, he would get her beneath him in a bed and find the heaven he knew awaited him there. If marriage was the only avenue in which he could find paradise, then he would have the banns read immediately. Still, if he knew Anne, which he did, there had to be a catch.

“Yes. Well…‘want’ is perhaps a strong word. But I would marry you if you asked me.”

“Why me?” If she had her pick of fortune hunters and other young bucks, why would she settle for a blind, pathetic fool? It made little sense.

“Of all the men I’ve met, you have remained interested in me and have no desire to pursue me for my fortune since it is well known yours is far greater than mine. I am under no illusion of the true reason for your interest. My father’s stallions would become yours, of course, should we marry. You would be free to breed your own mares with them. I thought perhaps that might entice you. I would be willing to work with you on the breeding, since it is a shared interest. I also believe we could grow to like each other well enough to get along. You have my father’s approval as well as Emily’s, and that assures me of your character.”

Cedric laughed to himself. Even with his rakish reputation among the
ton
and rumors in the papers, her father had approved of him? They’d met often at Tattersalls to discuss fine horseflesh. He and the late baron had agreed on nearly everything, except politics, but those debates had been lively and well-argued on both sides over glasses of port at clubs like White’s.

A deep pang struck him then at the sudden sense of loss of the baron. He’d let his blindness become a reason to wallow in his own darkness and hadn’t even given much thought to how Anne must feel. Her father, a man she was very close to since she’d lost her mother so young.

And she came to me for protection from fortune hunters…

The thought made him feel warm in a place deep inside that had been left cold these many long months since he’d lost his sight.

“You would honestly marry me? I must warn you, Miss Chessley, I am no longer the charmer I once was. My life has become…complicated.” The admission hurt him like a blow, but it was unavoidable. She had the right to know what she would face if she married him.

“I know, my lord. I had a favorite spaniel that went blind when I was a child. I know the hardships you face.” Her voice was still a touch breathless.

“I don’t think comparing me to a dog is quite helping your case, Miss Chessley.” He laughed wryly before becoming more serious. “I don’t respond well to pity, and if we married I would be your husband in full. I am sure you know what that means. Therefore, you should see yourself out.”

A short gasp escaped her, but he couldn’t tell if it was shock or outrage. Bloody hell, he couldn’t read her, not the way he used to. A faint tremor moved through her, and he felt it through his hand that still rested possessively on her hip.

“I would offer to escort you to the door, but it takes me a while to find my way out of the gardens once I get here.” Despite his telling her to leave, he didn’t remove his hold on her.

Fight me, Anne. Don’t go
.

He hated telling her to leave, but he knew how it would be between them. She would remain icy, he would remain blind, and neither of them would ever figure out what to do with one another outside the bedroom. Such a concern might not have bothered him before, a part of him had always expected a marriage in name only, but since the happy marriages of his two close friends, he’d discovered he longed for more than sensual satisfaction with his wife, should he ever take one.

At first he’d brushed it off as sentimentality, but being surrounded by couples in love had altered his perceptions, and as he reviewed his childhood with more frequency since the accident, he remembered the easy relationship of his parents. He realized that a large part of him had always yearned for something similar. He wanted what his friends and parents had: love
and
friendship. He used to laugh about such things, as though they were the naïve aspirations of poets, but now he needed them.

“I am aware that you would be entitled to your rights as a husband. I would not deny you.” It was stiffly and bravely delivered, and she still did not back away from him or demand he stop touching her.

Cedric’s lips twitched. He had enough memory of her to know what expression accompanied that tone of voice. Her chin would be raised, her high cheekbones rosy with embarrassment and her lovely eyes flashing with unspoken indignation. His hand dropped from her hip, but he did not hear her leave. She remained close, the sound of her breath teasing his ears.

“You may agree to lie limp beneath me, but I do not want that in a wife. I desire a willing bedmate, something you made clear to me last spring that you would never be.”

“People change,” she answered.

“Perhaps, but a woman’s nature often does not. You were always fashioned of ice, Miss Chessley, and I have no intention of worsening my already crumbling life by freezing to death in your bed. Simply evading fortune hunters is not enough for you to seek me out. Do you think me stupid as well as blind?”

He felt the air shift before the slap hit him full across his face. The attack sparked a fire of arousal in him rather than anger. Maybe he could melt her after all.

“How
dare
you speak like that!” Anne hissed.

“I apologize if the truth hurts, but I am weary of the pretense of civilities. Now, please leave or else I may spout further truths that may be upsetting to you.”

“You ruthless cad!” Anne moved to strike him again, but he had the advantage of anticipating her reaction.

By luck alone, he caught her wrist and jerked her body against him. His other hand settled upon her shoulder and moved along to cup the nape of her neck. He held her still in his strong grip and moved gently toward her face. He was able to find her cheek and kiss a soft path to her lips. Once he found it, he abandoned all pretense of tenderness and ravaged her mouth.

She trembled in his embrace, her own tongue retreating from his at first. But he continued his campaign, rubbing his fingers on her neck in a soothing fashion until she relaxed against him. The swell of triumph he felt when her tongue slipped between his lips was glorious. And then Cedric withdrew, stepping back from her, his breath coming fast.

“If you can swear to respond like that to me in bed, then I will ask you to marry me.” It was a challenge he didn’t expect her to rise to, but he prayed she would. His desire for her, one he’d harbored for years, protecting the low banked fire, now sparked into a slowly building inferno. If only she could agree to open herself to him…

“I…can.” Her husky, breathless response tugged at his baser side, his lower parts hardening with need. She continued to speak, unaware of the effect she was having on him. “What I mean to say is you kiss much better than I expected.”

“You swear then? To respond in such a way each time I come to you?” Cedric pressed.

“I swear,” Anne promised, but Cedric heard the hesitancy in her voice.

He gentled his hold on her and tried to soften his voice. “I will not ever force you, if that is your concern. But I will warn you my appetite for pleasure is voracious.” He flashed her a smile he’d broken many hearts with and only wished he could see her reaction to it.

“I would rather handle your appetites, my lord, than suffer one more night at a ball having to dance with those fools who see me as no more than a pile of gold in a ball gown,” Anne declared.

Cedric nearly laughed. There was the spitfire he remembered, the one who rose to every challenge he issued. Maybe it was only a feeble imagining that she’d come to him out of pity or the belief that he wouldn’t press her for a full marital relationship now that he was blind. He was a betting man by nature, and he’d wager, given her response, that she loved to spar with him just as much as he liked to with her. Perhaps there was a chance for them after all.

“I suppose that settles it. I shall endeavor to do this properly then.” Cedric reached out to find the edge of the fountain’s base and used it as a steady force to get down on one knee. He reached out a hand in her direction.

“Please give me your hand, Miss Chessley.” He gripped her offered hand in his own, feeling the faint edges of mild calluses, a hand belonging to a woman whose world involved horses. She wasn’t wearing gloves. Strange, he hadn’t noticed it until now.

“Miss Chessley, would you do me the grand honor of being my wife?” He smiled, the absurdity of the moment too amusing to remain bottled up. It was a tragedy he couldn’t see her eyes. Would their gray depths sparkle with passion or be murky with uncertainty?

“Yes, my lord,” Anne replied, breathless again.

Cedric wondered whether his smile had affected Anne. He rose with her help and searched for his cane. She put it in his hands, and he felt her grip tighten as he smiled again.

Had his smile affected her? Or was she genuinely happy he’d proposed? God, he wished he could see. Too long he’d relied on the language of the eyes. Now he was lost, a clumsy man with only his ears and hands to guide him.

“Excellent. When would you prefer to announce this? I believe it is tradition to wait six months, until you are allowed to go into half-mourning.”

A panicked hand latched on to his sleeve. “No! I wish to marry within the week. The season is in full swing, and a quick marriage will end the numerous assaults on Chessley Manor by the bachelors of London.”

The pitch of her voice changed as she spoke of fortune hunters, and he wondered if that was the truth. Still, he would not question her if she was coming to him. The idea of being married held an appeal he hadn’t thought possible before. He wouldn’t be alone. Not anymore. Her voice would break through the darkness and keep him from falling into despair.

Still, there would be consequences. “You know the
ton
will have our heads over the scandal. They’ll assume you’re with child, or imagine worse motives for such haste.”

“I didn’t think you were the sort to fear scandal, my lord.” Her challenging tone had him biting back another laugh. How well the lady knew him! They really would suit after all, he had faith now.

“Of course not. I thrive on it. I was unaware that you shared my…
lust
for attention.” He wished he could have seen her face. Did she blush at his suggestive words?

“I may not
lust
for it, as you put it, but I don’t fear it.” Her tone suggested truth. He’d have heard her uneven breaths or a tremor in her voice had she been lying.

“You would prefer then that I procure a special license?”

“Yes, if it is not too much trouble,” Anne said.

“Very well. I will write to you tomorrow.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Anne’s hands tightened in his as she leaned forward and brushed her lips on his cheek in a ghost of a kiss. Passion fought with tenderness inside him at the unexpected contact. She remained close by. “Would you like me to guide you back to the house?”

It was he who hesitated this time. Dare he agree and admit his fear of stumbling? Or would refusing upset her? Damnation, he wished he understood women better. He’d lived with his sisters for years and was intelligent enough to admit he knew next to nothing about the feminine species or their complex and often unfathomable views of humankind. Perhaps it was wiser to accept her offer than to upset her. “Yes. That would be good of you.”

Cedric was surprised when she tucked her arm in his and they proceeded along the cobblestoned path in silence. But it was not a rigid silence like he expected. Something between them had changed. He only wished he knew what it meant. But he would soon find out. They were to wed, after all. How odd that he was torn between dread and fascination.

Chapter Two

“I think it only fitting that he’s been deprived of sight, devil that he is. May he never fix his lecherous gaze on another virtuous woman ever again,” Lord Upton announced to the men in the main card room of Berkley’s, an elite gentlemen’s club. There were several murmurs of agreement on this, but an equal number of disgruntled mutters.

Cedric entered the card room, fighting off the natural panic of being in a room where he felt intensely vulnerable. “Stow it, Upton. I’m blind, not deaf. Do not make me call you out.”

His cane swung back and forth across the carpet as he navigated his way through the tables. He could not see Lord Upton’s face, but the disquiet in the area of where he heard Upton’s voice was telling. Cedric smiled and waited for his friend Ashton Lennox to join him.

“Cedric?”

He flinched at the sudden sound of his friend’s voice. Ashton had a way of walking softly as a cat.

Although Cedric could no longer see, he remembered well enough how Ashton looked. Tall, pale blond hair and sharp blue eyes. Ashton was one of his closest friends and the one Cedric trusted most to help him survive without his sight. Ash had always been more patient than the other League members, and he needed that dependable patience to help him muddle through now. He could imagine the intense gaze his friend fixed on him at that moment. Even in a world of darkness, he still sensed when he was being watched.

“It’s fine. Upton is a damned fool, that is all.” He discreetly gripped Ashton’s right arm and let Ashton lead him toward the private parlor that was reserved for him and his friends. Although his pride demanded he make his way on his own, reason reminded him that if he were to be so foolish as to walk without someone to guide him, he’d likely trip and give that bastard Lord Upton just what he wanted from Cedric, to be the laughingstock of the room.

Sleep with a man’s daughter one time and don’t marry her…he acts like I burned down his house.

Cedric’s ears picked up on the sneer in Upton’s voice, which seemed far too close for comfort. “Dueling with a blind man? His honor is not worth that foolish endeavor.”

Cedric stiffened and cursed his remaining senses, which had heighted in awareness since his loss of sight, especially his hearing.

“Pay him no heed,” Ashton said coolly.

“Unfortunately, he’s right. I’d have to have my second point my pistol in the right direction, and even then the shot would be unlikely.” He let this slip in his usually sardonic tone, but the truth of it ate away at his insides.

That was perhaps one of the worst things about losing his sight and having his balance diminished. He could no longer ride, shoot, or hunt. He couldn’t do
anything
he used to do. Even going to his gentlemen’s club had become a nuisance. He felt exposed without one of his friends accompanying him. Over the past several months he’d learned to recognize men based on their voices and the way they walked, but it wasn’t enough to feel secure when he was out and about in London. Every sense was heightened, yet his concern that he could be attacked remained just as high. Having his sight last December hadn’t saved him from danger, and now he was even more vulnerable.

An assassin almost certainly hired by Sir Hugo Waverly had tried to kill him last Christmas. The assassin had almost succeeded, and it was because of this Cedric had lost his sight. Trapped in a burning cottage with his sister Horatia, he truly thought they were going to die. At the last moment, Lucien Russell, the Marquess of Rochester, had found them and dragged them both bodily from the burning building as flames leapt around them. The last thing Cedric remembered was the sound of a wood beam groaning as it broke from the ceiling and collapsed on his head, forcing him into this world of darkness.

The doctor who had seen to him had been unable to determine whether his condition would be permanent. But Cedric had accepted it as such after the first two months passed. Cedric had opened his eyes each morning to a slate of gray; every night he’d forgotten in his sleep that his eyes were sightless, and every morning he awoke anew to the agony of his loss.

At first he’d suffered from a stifling panic, but he’d forced himself to calm down with slow, deep breaths. What followed then was an aching sadness, a helplessness that made him furious and terrified. He was resigned to darkness and to living life at a slow pace, doing little with himself until yesterday when he’d received Anne in the garden.

It was Anne’s visit that had him calling a meeting of his closest friends, known to most of London through the society papers as the League of Rogues. The League consisted of Godric, the Duke of Essex; his half brother, Jonathan St. Laurent; Lucien, the Marquess of Rochester; Charles, the Earl of Lonsdale; Ashton, Baron Lennox; and himself.

Cedric felt Ashton’s muscles in his arm shift as Ashton opened the door to the private parlor. The rumble of familiar voices surrounded him as he and Ashton entered the room.

“Good to see you, Cedric,” Godric said somewhere to Cedric’s left. Godric had somehow managed to leave the arms of his sweet wife, Emily, to join them at the club.

He remembered how Godric had convinced the League to abduct the poor woman last year when her uncle had embezzled money from Godric. She was meant to be a pawn in a larger game, only it turned out Emily was far better at moving the pieces. That abduction had landed Godric with a wife who had been up to the challenge of taming him. Cedric grinned. Nothing had been the same for the League since Emily had become a part of their lives.

“Is everyone here?” Cedric listened to the shuffle of boots and the rustle of clothing as the men took their seats nearby.

“All here,” Lucien announced. That red-headed devil had recently married Cedric’s sister, Horatia, even facing a duel with Cedric to do so. More than once it had occurred to him that his blindness might somehow be God’s punishment for his stubbornness on the matter.

Cedric trusted these five men with his life. With the exception of Jonathan, they had survived countless close calls with death and been a party to many scandals in the
ton
. But above all they were friends, and it was as friends that he needed them the most now.

“What’s this you said in your note about news?” Jonathan asked.

“Can someone pour me a scotch and push me toward a chair?” he asked with a half-joking smile. His friends chuckled.

Ashton urged him a few steps forward, and Cedric’s knees brushed the firm cushion of a chair. He took a seat and set his cane down on the floor.

“First, before we hear what Cedric has to say, I have some news of my own,” Lucien said, his voice a little breathless with excitement. “Is it all right if I speak, Cedric?” His voice carried some secret weight, at least to Cedric’s heightened hearing. What could make Lucien, one of the boldest men he’d ever known, become timid?

Cedric nodded.

“Horatia and I…well…we are expecting. The doctor confirmed it this morning.”

“A baby?” Cedric sat up, elated at the thought. He then thought of Anne and himself. Would they someday be announcing such news? Was he ready to be a father? Instinct said no, but his heart still stirred at the thought.

“Yes. The doctor said she has been with child for two months now. We can expect the child in November.” The pride and warmth in Lucien’s tone was obvious.

Four months ago Cedric had been appalled and infuriated when his friend, a rakehell who could make Lucifer himself blush, and Cedric’s sister had become lovers. It had felt like he’d lost his sister, a companion he’d relied on so much, and one of the two people in his life it was his duty to protect from rogues with wicked reputations. Now it was one of the most wonderful things in the world to know that his friend and sister were so in love and so happy with each other. Secretly, he’d feared that a marriage between them would put some distance between him and Lucien, but it hadn’t.

Cedric and Lucien’s friendship had been through a rough patch last December, but Cedric couldn’t deny the truth. Lucien loved his sister with a depth Cedric hadn’t thought possible. And soon Lucien would love the child who was on the way. Envy slithered inside Cedric, curling and twisting. He wanted a marriage like that, with love and children.

He sighed wearily.
Lord, I’m getting sentimental
. Time and circumstance had changed them all, it seemed.

The cheers and teasing commenced all around Cedric as the warmth of his friends cloaked him.

“Congratulations!” Charles and Ashton said from either side of Cedric.

“A baby Russell,” Jonathan marveled with a devious chuckle. “Your mother must be pleased as punch, Lucien.”

Cedric was unable to stop his grin. “I’m to be an uncle then?”

Lucien laughed. “Many times over, I hope.”

Cedric glowered. “Have a care, man, that’s my sister you married, not a broodmare.”

“Very well, I’ll let Horatia decide the number of children. But
you
will have to deal with my mother when she doesn’t get her ten desired grandchildren.”

“Now,” Jonathan prompted. “Let us hear your news, Cedric.”

“Oh…right. Well, Ashton and I have just come from the Doctors’ Commons where I procured a special marriage license. I’m to be married within the week.”

There was a spewing sound and brandy sprayed over Cedric’s face.

“Bloody hell! Who did that?”

“Apologies,” said Charles. “You just caught me off guard. Did I hear you correctly?”

Cedric removed his handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face, trying not to scowl in Charles’s direction.

“Married to
whom
?” Lucien asked, his tone echoing Charles’s disbelief.

“Anne Chessley.” He waited for any sort of reaction, but he hadn’t expected the silence he met instead. What were they doing? Staring at him with gaping mouths or glancing at each other in concern?
Damn my eyes.
A chair creaked nearby as someone shifted in their seat.

“What? No congratulations?” Cedric tried to joke, but his grin faltered as the silenced continued.

Finally Ashton broke the quiet. “I think they are merely surprised as you gave up on courting Anne last year.”

Lucien cut in. “And she is supposed to be in mourning for her father.”

“Marriage next week seems extremely scandalous, even for gentlemen like us,” Ashton added.

Godric spoke up, his tone gentle. “Ashton makes a fair point. Not that I care one whit about what society considers scandalous. Not when there are true injustices in the world. I am deuced glad to hear you are marrying Anne. I know Emily will be ecstatic to hear you and Anne finally settled down together. She was always convinced that you cared more about Anne than you let on.”

“The only reason I’m not congratulating you, old boy, is because you’ve now evened the odds of sane men versus married men in this room.” Charles’s droll tone set Cedric’s teeth on edge. “Ash, Jonathan and I will have to hold out against being leg-shackled.”

Cedric snorted at this. Charles and marriage went as well together as…well…Charles and a convent full of nuns—which, in other words, was not well at all.

“Anyone else care to question my judgment in marrying Anne?” Cedric asked defensively.

“I am not questioning your judgment,” Ashton replied, “but I am most curious as to how it came about. I agreed to take you to obtain a special license, but until now you’ve been close-lipped on the matter of why.”

Cedric sighed. It was a question that had been plaguing him since Anne came to see him the day before. With any others he would not breathe a word of his true feelings, nor explain what had transpired with Anne the day before. But the League had different rules. They shared the darkest of secrets without a second thought, such was the depth of their trust in one another.

“As you know, Anne is now the heiress to her father’s estate since he passed away. Apparently the young bucks and fortune hunters are already in relentless pursuit of her fortune. She sought me out and proposed a scheme of sorts.”

“A scheme?” Godric sounded intrigued by Cedric’s choice of words. The last time the League had involved themselves in a scheme, they’d taken part in a messy abduction, and Godric ended up married.

“Yes, she asked me to ask her to marry her.”

“Hold on, you’re telling me that Anne, the ice maiden, asked you to propose to her?” Charles didn’t sound convinced.

“She’s
not
an ice maiden,” Cedric growled.

“Weren’t you the one who named her that?” Charles reminded him.

Cedric clenched his fists. “I was mistaken. I expect all of you to respect my wish that she never be addressed that way in
or
out of her hearing again.”

“Of course, old boy, whatever you say,” Charles agreed.

“So finish the story,” Jonathan prodded.

Cedric gave a little shrug. “It is that and nothing more. She suggested the scheme, and I agreed and got down on one knee and asked her to be my wife.”

There was another interminable period of silence that seemed almost to deafen his sensitive eardrums as he waited for his friends to speak. Even the other conversations in the room had died down, as if the men in the room were straining to overhear what was going on in their little corner.

“But
why
did you agree to ask her?” Godric inquired, the only one brave enough to shatter the quiet.

He steeled himself and spoke, soft but firm. “Not one of you in this room can comprehend what it has been like for me. I cannot live as I used to, cannot pursue the life I once had. But when Anne came to me, I realized that she may be my one and only chance left to live.”

The silence in the room now filled with tension. With that awful silence suffocating him, he started to speak. His friends had to understand why he’d agreed to Anne’s offer.

“She has agreed to marry me despite all the things I cannot give her. I cannot praise her for her loveliness. I cannot take her to balls and dance with her. I cannot even go riding with her. That she has come to me over these other men seeking her hand, it lessens the sting of my current condition. I believe, given time, that we may be able to make ourselves decently happy together.”