The Love of a Rogue (13 page)

The marquess’ frown deepened and then in one effortless movement, he swept his sister into his arms. “Lady Imogen,” he mouthed an unspoken thank you.

Imogen dropped a curtsy as he carried his youngest sister above stairs. As she stood in the silent, empty corridors of these walls Alexander had lived within as a child and grown to abhor, she confronted just how little she knew him and how desperately she wanted to know more.

Chapter 9

T
he following afternoon, seated in the same library with thoughts of Imogen swirling through his head, Alex stared morosely down into his glass of brandy and then with a curse, took a long sip. His lips pulled in an involuntary grimace as the fine spirits blazed a trail down his throat. He welcomed the sting it left in its wake. The open leather volume stared mockingly up at him.

The lady quoted Shakespeare. And with her calm in facing the vipers of the ton, demonstrated a spirit to rival Joan of Arc, herself. She detested shopping. Enjoyed reading. And she saw him as little more than one of those indolent, shiftless lords.

Alex swirled the contents of his glass.
Isn’t that what you are?

He’d embraced the role of reprobate he’d stepped so easily into through the years. There were little expectations of one who, as his brother claimed, “whored, gambled, and drank” away his life. Yes, it had been far easier to carry on with those low expectations his father had beat him for as a child and then sneered at him for as an adult. It was a humbling moment for a man of nine and twenty to realize he’d lived a shiftless, meaningless life where his brother’s charge held true. Beyond his sisters, no one else mattered.

Except, if that were true—then why in the crowded theatre with the recently widowed Viscountess Kendricks staring boldly across at him, an invitation in her eyes, had he been unable to drum up a fledgling of interest? Not one bit of desire had consumed him. There had been—nothing. Only a silent comparison of all the ways in which the viscountess paled alongside Imogen’s fiery beauty.

What havoc had Imogen wrought upon him?

Heavy, determined footsteps sounded in the hall. Alex stiffened but maintained his fixed attention on the remaining contents of his drink.

“Never tell me you’re drunk at this early hour,” his brother called from the doorway.

“Then I won’t.” Knowing it would infuriate the other man, Alex downed his brandy and reached for the bottle. He filled the glass to the rim. “A pleasure as usual,” he drawled, setting the bottle down. “Have you come to task me with further responsibilities? Am I to muck out the stables next?” He reclined in the leather, winged-back chair, cradling his glass between his hands.

With a snort, his brother entered the room and then closed the door behind him. “You’d liken chaperoning your own sister to such a tedious chore, then?”

He remained stonily silent. Instead, he studied the amber droplets clinging to the side of his crystal glass. Four days ago he’d taken it as the very greatest chore, a punishment doled out by his brother. Now, with the time it had afforded him with Imogen, having spent the days with her, the lady who quoted Shakespeare and boldly met the derision of the
ton
, whose red, bow-shaped lips had haunted his thoughts since their first meeting, his role as chaperone was no chore. No chore at all.

Gabriel wandered over and stopped, his gaze on the open book. “By God, are you reading Shakespeare?”

“Yes. No.” He had been, but then Imogen and her naked fingers intertwined with his had driven back thought of all else. His brother eyed him suspiciously but was good enough to let the matter die. Perhaps he wasn’t a total bastard after all. When it became apparent that Gabriel intended to stand over him in stoic silence, Alex gritted his teeth. “What do you want?”

Gabriel took the seat opposite him. “I came to speak to you about Chloe.”

“Oh?” He quirked an eyebrow.

Then surprisingly, Gabriel reached for the bottle of brandy and the spare glass on the table between them. He splashed several fingerfuls into the glass. “She is ill.”

Alex stiffened and leaned forward in his seat.

Gabriel waved him back. “She has a megrim.” His face darkened. “It is a bad one that has lasted the day.”

At his brother’s words, tension tightened in his belly and Alex was shamed by his own self-absorption for failing to wonder about Chloe’s absence. He’d been so mired in his own misery, he’d failed to note Chloe’s absence. Since she’d been a girl, she’d suffered episodes of debilitating megrims, which he’d often suspected had to do with her own experiences as the daughter of a cruel, brutal lord.

“We did the best we could,” his brother said quietly.

Was that supposed to bring some form of absolution? “It wasn’t enough.” Alex tightened his hold about his glass, the pressure threatening to shatter it. How many years had Chloe and Philippa suffered abuse at the monster’s hands?

“It was but a handful of times,” Gabriel said, his own guilty gaze fixed on his glass.

“That we know of.” Alex managed to grit the words out. The fears he’d carried for so long that he’d been too much of a coward to ask either of his sisters.

Gabriel held his gaze. “It wasn’t Mother’s fault.”

No, it certainly wasn’t the diminutive, delicate marchioness’ guilt to bear. Though she’d never worn the physical marks speaking to abuse at her husband’s hands, neither had she any influence over the late Marquess of Waverly’s actions. “I don’t blame Mother.”

As though he’d been punched in the midsection, the air left Gabriel’s lips on a hiss. A spasm of pain ravaged his face. “You were always the better one. You stopped it. When Mother…” He paused, his gaze skittering off. “Mother or I failed to end his abuse, you did.”

Would his brother make him out to be a hero? For he wasn’t. He was flawed and broken and empty. And because he didn’t know what to say in response, he said nothing.

Alas, his brother was not content to let the matter rest. “He never forgave you.”

Alex forced his lips up into a wry smile. “The way I’d seen it, he hated me anyway.” There had been nothing for him, a boy of sixteen, to lose the day he’d taken their sire’s birch rod and beat him within an inch of his life for having hit Chloe. She’d been but a child.” Pain dug at his insides.

“I should have seen to it,” his brother spoke in quiet tones.

“Because you were the heir?” The bond they’d shared, however, hadn’t always recognized the distinctions of their birth.

Gabriel met his stare. “Because I was your older brother.”

“By a year,” he said. Uncomfortable with the emotion he saw in his usually unflappable brother’s eyes, he shifted in his seat.

His own regrets were mirrored in his brother’s gaze. “And yet, that one year should matter so much.” It shouldn’t have. Not between two boys who’d grown up as best friends, protectors of one another. Those twelve months had, however mattered a great deal to their father. “
I
should have beat him bloody for having put that birch rod to Chloe.”

“Yes, yes you should have,” Alex said unapologetically.

Gabriel cleared his throat and then took a long swallow of his drink. “I didn’t come here to fight with you. I came to speak to you about your responsibilities for Chloe.”

His brother had surely realized his folly in sending Chloe out into the world with Alex for her chaperone. “Oh?” Knots twisted in his belly at the idea of being removed from those responsibilities—for reasons that had nothing to do with brotherly devotion and everything to do with a flame-haired temptress.

“You are relieved of your responsibilities for the evening.”

For the evening.

Some of the tension drained out of him. It was only for the evening.

“I thought you might seem a good deal more enthused about the reprieve, the opportunity to visit your clubs.” Those words were spoken matter-of-fact, no recrimination.

“I’m not wholly the self-absorbed bounder you take me for. Have you summoned a doct—?”

“The doctor has already attended her. She will be fine. She requires rest.”

When plagued by her megrims, Chloe could not bear even the hint of light. Her curtains were kept closed, her room shrouded in darkness. He clenched his hands, wishing he could beat his father all over again for having touched Chloe and Philippa.

Gabriel finished his drink and set the glass down on the rose-inlaid, mahogany table. He stared at the otherwise immaculate surface for a long moment. “For everything you believe, I do not hate you.” That was something. “I…” He clenched and unclenched his jaw. “There are many things I wish I had done differently when we were younger and for that I’m sorry, but I cannot change the past. The charge I’ve given you, caring for Chloe, was not a punishment.”

“Then what was it?” he tossed back. Gabriel’s efforts had borne glaring similarities to their father’s attempt at exerting control over those under his influence.

Gabriel glared. “Don’t liken me to him. I’m not that man. I’m not him.” He placed his palms on his lap and leaned over. “If I were like him, then I’d not care about how you live your life. I’d allow you to become the drunken whoremonger you’d have yourself be.”

Alex’s insides twisted at his brother’s words.

Gabriel shoved to his feet. “Don’t become the man he believed you to be. Be the man I always knew you were. Good, honorable, worthy.” He opened his mouth as though he wished to say more, and then with a slight dip of his head, took his leave. He closed the door behind him on a soft click.

The muscles of Alex’s throat worked and he raised the glass to his lips to toss back the desperately needed burn of the warm brandy. His brother’s words echoed around the chambers of his mind. With a curse, he set the glass down so hard on the table before him that liquid splashed over the rim. He swiped a hand over his face not knowing this topsy-turvy world he now existed in. A world in which his brother was not the domineering, commanding stranger he’d been over the years. A world in which a young, innocent lady held more allure than the most experienced siren.

Panic built hard and fast in his chest. Gabriel was wrong. He was the emotionless rogue the world thought him to be. It was no façade. And this, this captivation with the proud Imogen undaunted by any worthless member of the
ton
, was based on nothing more than lust. He wanted her body. Still craved the taste of her lips. Ached to tug the hem of her gown up, exposing the creamy expanse of her thighs and plunder the fiery thatch at her center.

O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright.

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

A groan rumbled up from his chest and he shoved back the futile desires for a lady who required marriage. With the panic flaring once more in his chest, he leaped to his feet.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet…”
The lady had been right. What a man was, mattered. His brother was wrong. There was nothing good, honorable, or worthy about him.

Alex strode from the room, determined to seek out his clubs.

Chapter 10

P
erched on the windowseat overlooking the quiet streets below, Imogen traced a small circle over her palm. Her maid sat quietly in the corner. She expected, as tonight would be the evening of the great reunion between the two Moore sisters at Lord and Lady Ferguson’s ball, that she should be filled with some nervous horror about the public display. However, she couldn’t drag forth one bit of worry, fear, annoyance or any emotion between for that meeting.

Alex had thoroughly occupied every corner of her mind since last evening. She studied the intersecting lines he’d teased with the tip of his finger. She’d preferred a world in which she’d consigned him to the ranks of the faithless Duke of Montroses of the world; an indolent pleasure seeker who thought nothing of breaking a lady’s heart. Because she did not know what to do with this gentleman, the one who presented a hard exterior to the world, while underneath longing to be thought of as more than an emotionless rogue. All she knew was with each day spent in his company he chiseled away at the walls she’d carefully constructed about her heart. With his kiss and his whispered words of Shakespeare making a mockery of those efforts. She’d believed herself in love with William. And yet, since Alex had stepped into her life she’d not thought of the duke, but with detachedness. Instead, she’d come to eagerly anticipate Alex’s teasing, his bold challenges, and…his company.

Imogen groaned and beat the back of her head against the wall. “Fool, fool, fool.”

Someone cleared their throat at the front of the room and she jerked upright so quickly, she wrenched the muscles of her neck. “Masterson,” she said, a heated flush burning her cheeks.

A twinkle glinted in his eyes. “You have a missive, my lady,” he said, striding over with the silver platter in hand.

She swung her legs over the edge of the windowseat and accepted the small blade and note bearing Chloe’s familiar scrawl, enlivened by the indication that her friend was surely faring better since yesterday’s megrim. “Thank you,” she murmured to the old servant. An excitement stirred in her belly at the prospect of going…well, anywhere with her friend’s unconventional chaperone. Imogen slid the tip of the knife under the seal then placed it back upon the tray. “Thank you, Masterson.”

“My lady,” he said with a final bow and then took his leave.

She turned her attention to the note. Imogen quickly perused the sloppily written contents and her excitement faded. Her friend was indisposed. These bouts of violent headaches Chloe suffered through the years occasionally left her debilitated, unable to move, most times for the course of a day. Sometimes longer. Imogen folded the note and set it aside. Guilt settled in her chest at her earlier self-centeredness in having been focused on Alex and the time she’d be afforded with him.