The Love of a Rogue (15 page)

Rutland rested his elbows upon the table and leaned forward. “I do not like you, Edgerton.”

“You don’t like anyone, Rutland,” he drawled. “Nor does any member of polite Society bear any good feelings for you.” With a grin he tossed back the remainder of his drink.

“You are correct on that score.” His hard lips peeled back in a sneer. “However, that is where we two differ. I’ve never given a jot what anyone thinks of me, and you…” He flicked a piece of imagined lint from his immaculate, black sleeve. “You’ve always cared a good deal, haven’t you?”

Knowing better than to fall trap to his schemings, Alexander yawned.

Annoyance glinted in the other man’s gaze. With a scowl, he eyed the occupants about the club, his gaze lingering a moment upon the fat, lecherous Viscount Waters with a beauty on his lap while he wagered away and lost at the whist tables. The slight narrowing of Rutland’s eyes indicated the man had identified prey that would prove far more satisfactory to whatever game he sought to play this night. The calculated marquess returned his attention to Alex, clearly unfinished with him. “So it is the,
dear
Lady Imogen. Poor, jilted for her sister, Imogen who has bewitched you?”

All efforts at nonchalance lifted and Alex gripped the edge of his table hard enough to leave crescent marks on the smooth, mahogany surface. The desire to bury his fist in the man’s smug, mocking face was a tangible life force. “Shut your goddamn mouth.” Except those four words merely weakened him in the eyes of this bastard. “She has not bewitched me,” he gritted out the belated response. A man such as Rutland knowing how much Imogen mattered to Alex, only opened her to a danger she was undeserving of. “She is nothing to me.” He lied. In a short time, she’d become everything to him.

A cold, ugly smile turned the other man’s lips upward in a macabre grin. “You surprise me, Edgerton.”

“Oh?” The history between them should have taught Alex better than to indulge the blackguard’s vindictive needling.

Rutland shoved back his chair and stood. “I’d always taken you for one who appreciates the finer beauties.” Alex stiffened. “You’d pant after the dull, jilted Lady Imogen…” A black curtain of rage descended over Alex’s vision, momentarily blinding him. “How unlike you to take some other man’s refuse when you can surely have the more beautiful Moore sister in your—”

Fury coursed through his veins and drove him to his feet. He punched Rutland in the face. The other man grunted and stumbled backward, knocking into a table of gaping dandies, and then landing in a heap upon the floor. Burning with a seething fury, Alex stalked around the table and towered over Rutland’s form. “If you so much as ever mention Lady Imogen Moore’s name again, by God I’ll see you at dawn this time. You are not fit to speak her name. The lady is more beautiful than any—” He snapped his teeth together so swiftly pain radiated along his jaw. He’d revealed entirely too much before an audience at Forbidden Pleasures. A flurry of loud whispers sounded from those around them.

Rutland shoved to his feet. “How very…passionate you are about a woman you profess to have no interest in.” He whipped out a white handkerchief from his black jacket pocket and snapped the fabric open. With a triumphant grin, he held it to his bloodied nose.

Nausea churned in his belly. The other man had merely baited him. Of course he cared for Imogen. She was his sister’s dearest friend. “There is no interest.”
Liar.
His pause too long. The predator too perceptive.

“Of course there isn’t.” There was a faintly condescending thread to Rutland’s tone “Why, a man who takes his pleasure where he would, could not give his name to a lady in the market for a husband.” He scoffed and, even with the height similarity between them, managed to peer down his aquiline nose at Alex. “What would you, a mere second son who drinks and takes his pleasure with countless whores, have to offer her?”

Those taunting words stuck as well-placed arrows in his chest. His father’s cold, mocking tone blended and melded with this vile reprobate’s.
Nothing. I have nothing to offer her
. Every ugly accusation flung at him by his father danced to the surface, and yet, God help him, he wanted her anyway. Wanted her in every way. In his bed, in his heart, forever, and then beyond.

A loud humming sounded in his ears and the world dipped and swayed under the enormity of that revelation. He closed his eyes a moment, when he opened them, Rutland’s cold smile widened. His tongue, heavy in his mouth, Alex couldn’t muster a sufficient reply. Nor was there one. He wanted Lady Imogen Moore, the undaunted, boldly courageous, young lady who’d stare down ruthless gossips. He, Alexander Edgerton, the careless, carefree rogue, who, as his brother accused, loved no one more than himself, had fallen hopelessly in love with her.

Rutland’s lip peeled back in a victorious sneer and he pressed his advantage. “I expect word to travel rather quickly through Town of your gallant defense of Lady Imogen.”

Alex registered the gentlemen whispering throughout the hall, fixedly studying their exchange, stood as testament to Rutland’s claim. He staggered back as the ramifications of his admission exposed him before Rutland and the rabidly curious noblemen present and worse—himself. He felt splayed open, bared before all. He struggled to set to order his riotous emotions. Unsuccessfully. He was drowning and couldn’t find air.

“Though I daresay,” Rutland said, calling his attention back. “You’ll merely earn pity for having come to care for a lady,” he jeered. “After all, what lady would wed you, the spare, when she aspired to a duke, and even now has earned the attention of an earl?”

Primly. His mind went blank. “Go to hell,” he managed, his voice coming out garbled.

Rutland flicked another imaginary piece of lint from his sleeve, so flippant when Alexander’s world had been flipped. “I’ve been there for some years now.” The relish in his tone indicated he was quite comfortable keeping company with the devil. Rutland looked up and pierced him with a hard stare. “You see, I long ago vowed to not be shamed at the hands of anyone. Inevitably, I always have my revenge, Edgerton.” With a jerk of his chin he said, “And the day you aligned yourself with Stanhope on that dueling field, you earned yourself a powerful enemy.” He swept a bow and then motioned to the front of the club. “I imagine you have somewhere to be?”

Imogen. Montrose. Her sister. His heart raced. He should have left earlier, instead of indulging this madman. Alex turned to leave.

“Oh, and Edgerton.” He froze and craned his neck back to look at Rutland. “I had the opportunity to take in a production two nights ago.” Rutland grinned that cold, empty smile. “Fascinating play,
Romeo and Juliet
. I did rather enjoy the performance.”

Alex spun on his heel and strode from his club.

Christ.

Odd how one could be at the center of a sea of twirling dancers and laughing lords and ladies and yet still be so very alone.

Imogen stood beside the wide column. Near the front of the ballroom, she chatted with Lady Ferguson. The women had been prattling on for the better part of an hour which Imogen quite suspected had more to do with the hostess hoping to be close when the Duke and Duchess of Montrose entered her hallowed ballroom than in any real
appreciation
for the Countess of Grisham’s company. She sighed. Since Chloe’s note had arrived that afternoon, she’d spent the better part of the day dreading this inevitable meeting and the attention surrounding it. Now, she wished her dratted sister and brother-in-law would arrive so they could be done with the exchange and move on.

From behind her shoulder, a flurry of whispers cut into her musings followed by overly loud giggles. Imogen gritted her teeth having tired of the amusement being had at her expense. The poor, pitiable, Moore sister.

“…Chose the far prettier sister, he did…”

Imogen winced as the deliberately loud whisper carried to her ears, hating that she was alone, desperately longing for someone to stand shoulder-to-shoulder beside her. Not in the detached way her mother had for the better part of the evening, but someone who’d boldly face down the gossips and dare them with his eyes to dare speak a foul word…

His eyes….

Imogen pressed her eyes closed. And why did this nameless someone possess jade green eyes and a seductive smile? When she opened them once more, Lord Primly stood before her. He gave her a wide, unfettered, and
unseductive
smile. “Lady Imogen.”

But he was there, when no other gentleman had dared brave the scandal of asking the Duke of Montrose’s jilted bride for so much as a dance. She smiled back. “Lord Primly, it is a pleasure to see you.” And it was. For the first time this evening, she was not alone.

“As we’d been introduced, I did not believe it forward that I’ve approached you for a dance.” He coughed nervously. Alex would send the rules of propriety to the devil. “May I claim one of your waltzes, my lady?” She hated that she mentally compared the two gentlemen.

Imogen stared dumbly up the length of his tall, lanky frame, blinking wildly. “Dance?” No gentleman had so much as wanted to share the same air with her, let alone dance. Her mother paused mid-conversation with Lady Langley and nudged her none too gently in the side. “Yes. Of course,” she said hurriedly.

He scanned her otherwise empty dance card and scratched his name down. “I look forward to it, my lady.” With another smile, he dipped a bow, and then strode away.

Imogen glanced down. He’d claimed a waltz. She blinked again. Nay. He’d claimed two waltzes.

A commotion stirred at the front of the hall. The flurry of whispers like a thousand buzzing bees freed from their hive. A pit formed in her stomach as she braced for the soon-to-be meeting with her sister, which would unleash the next wave of malicious gossip. She squared her shoulders and looked to the front of the room.

At Alex.

She blinked once. Twice. And then a third time. What was he doing here? Lord Alex Edgerton most certainly did not attend polite Society functions. That was, not unless there was some lovely widow whose bed he sought.
The Viscountess Kendricks
. Of course. She recalled the lush beauty’s sultry invitation to the
seductive
young lord across the theatre. Imogen’s heart plummeted somewhere to her toes.

Impossibly elegant in his black evening attire and stark, white cravat, Alex towered over most of the guests, commanding the room’s attention. His intent, green gaze scanned the crowd, searching, hunting.

Pain twisted in her belly. It didn’t matter that he sought out another. It didn’t.
It
didn’t
. Perhaps if she repeated the litany in her mind, she might believe it.

Imogen dropped her gaze to the card tied about her wrist, taking in the gentleman’s name there, a reminder of the safety and security she would know in wedding a man such as the Earl of Primly. She suspected the gentle, oft-smiling Lord Primly would be a steadfast companion—even if he never aroused any of the grand passion she knew for Alex.

Her skin pricked with the sting of awareness and she picked up her head. From across the sea of twirling waltzers, her gaze collided with Alexander’s. The green irises of his eyes, hot, penetrating, fixed on her. Then, a slow, seductive grin tipped his lips up at the corner. Her heart fluttered and she searched for the recipient of that tempting smile. When she looked across the floor once more, he’d disappeared. Imogen ran her quick stare over the ballroom. Where had he…?

“Are you searching for someone, my lady?”

She slapped a hand to her breast and faced him, hating the way her weak heart quickened. “You startled me.”

Alex stood, a glass of champagne dangled effortlessly in one hand, the ghost of a smile on his lips indicated he knew very well who she’d been searching for. He downed the contents in one, long, slow swallow.

Imogen narrowed her eyes, as some of her desire lifted. The arrogance of him. “In fact, I was searching for someone,” she murmured.

He tensed as all hint of teasing fled, leaving his face in a cool, hard mask. “Oh? And who is the illustrious gentleman to have captured your notice, sweet Imogen?”

She wet her lips and instinctively drew her dance card close to her person.

His dark eyes followed that nearly imperceptible movement. He placed his empty glass upon the tray of a passing servant and reached for her wrist.

Imogen drew it back. “What…?”

Effortlessly, he wrapped his long fingers about her delicate wrist and studied her nearly empty card. “Primly,” he said, his voice curiously blank. He relinquished the card. “Primly,” he repeated.

“Er…uh yes,” she lied.

He dropped his voice to a low, hushed whisper that wrapped around her. “You were not looking for Primly, Imogen. A man such as Primly would be burned by a woman of your fire and passion.”

Warmth unfurled in her belly. No one had ever seen her as anything but demure, the always proper, elder, less lovely Moore sister. He made her feel so much more than that and yet, he would do so at the expense of poor Lord Primly. “You would disparage the earl? He has been kind and respectful.” And he didn’t seem to give a jot about the scandal surrounding her and Rosalind.