Twice Tempted by a Rogue (33 page)

By shifting his weight from one arm to the other, he helped her pull the shirt over his head. They were as bared as they could be without separating, and neither of them was willing to do that.

Balanced on one elbow, he traced the swell of her breast with his free hand.

“You’re so damned lovely.” His voice was a broken whisper, hoarse with yearning. “So beautiful.” Flexing his thigh, he slid deep, nudging her womb. “I should have known better than to dream you belonged to me.”

“But I do.” She cupped his cheek. “I am
yours
. Body, heart, soul. I lo—”

“Don’t.” He kissed her quiet. “I can’t bear it.”

When he thrust deep again, she lost the breath to speak. She kissed him instead, pressing her lips to his mouth, jaw, throat, ear … any part of him she could reach.

He caught her arms and pinned her to the mattress, levering himself up as he stroked home, again and again. She didn’t want this to ever end.
Please don’t let this be the last time
. She struggled to hold herself back from climax. If he left her unsatisfied, her knowledge of the male mind argued, his pride simply wouldn’t allow him to go.

But he was too much for her. Too big, too fierce, too tender, too wild. She couldn’t resist him. Never could. He rode her to a bright, gasping peak, then released a savage growl as he took his own pleasure in her.

When he collapsed, spent and panting atop her, she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.

“Stay,” she whispered. Her tongue flickered over the salt of his skin. “Don’t go.”

“I have to go.” He withdrew from her body, then sat at the edge of the bed, refastening his breeches placket. “I have to see to this business with Faraday. This is what I do.”

“No.” She rose to a sitting position, gathering the bed linens around her. “No, this is not what you do.”

He reached for his shirt. “You saw me this morning. The whole village saw me this morning. That’s how I’ve spent most of my life, Meredith. Fighting. Brawling. Tearing things apart. I thought I’d finally left all that behind me, but …” He leveled a hard, unflinching gaze at her. “I would have killed him.”

“Perhaps. But Gideon tried to kill you first. That’s not the case with this Faraday person.”

“He’s a murderer.”

“You don’t know that. From Cora’s account, he could have been an innocent victim, just like your friend Leo.”

“Determining his guilt or innocence isn’t my job.” He gathered white linen in his hands and jammed his head through the neck hole of the shirt. “I’m there to hit first, and Bellamy will ask questions later.”

“You can’t do that. You won’t do that.” She held his cuff steady as he wrestled his arm into a sleeve. “All those battles and brawls over the course of your life—they all had one thing in common. They were all fair fights, evenly matched, with opponents who had it coming to them. You’ve never been a bully, Rhys. That’s why I was so taken with you when I was a girl.”

He scoffed. “When you were a girl, I paid you no notice whatsoever.”

“Precisely.” She smoothed the back of his shirt, draping the crisp linen over his rippling muscles. “Do you know how remarkable that is? Any other youth in your situation would have been
looking
for a target like me. I was little and awkward and irritating. I would have been so easy to torment. The stable boys, they always teased me when my father wasn’t there. They were so used to being pushed about by their superiors, and they wanted someone to push about, too. It made them feel important, in control. But you”—she stroked his back—“of all young men, you had every reason to make my life miserable, and you never did. You respected my father. You were kind to the grooms. You cherished those horses. And you let me be.” Haltingly, she raised her hand to his hair. “Call it foolish if you will, but … I loved you for it.”

With a muttered oath, he braced his elbows on his knees and let his head fall to his hands.

“Don’t you believe me? I still love you, Rhys. More than ever.”

“I know. I know. And I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” After scrubbing his face with one hand, he propped his chin on his palm. “You tell me you love me. I know in my mind that should make things better.” He looked up at her. “Shouldn’t it? I mean, it’s the one thing I’ve waited my whole life to hear. And now that you’ve whispered those three little words, my anger should disappear, and the hurting should stop, and rainbows should burst through the clouds and a choir of angels should sing.” His eyes glimmered with emotion as his fingertip traced the curve of her jaw. “Against all odds, this beautiful, clever, strong woman loves me. My life should be put to rights.”

“But it isn’t,” she said.

Shaking his head, he withdrew his touch. “It isn’t. You keep saying you love me. And it cuts deeper every blessed time. It hurts, Merry. I can’t understand it, but it hurts like hell. Those words … they make me want to hit things, lash out in anger.” He swore again, balling his hands into fists. “Something’s wrong with me. Too many things are wrong with me.”

“And I’m partly to blame. You can’t forgive me.”

“It’s nothing to do with blame or forgiveness. It’s about brokenness. I can’t risk hurting you.”

With a gruff sigh, he rose to his feet. “I should go.”

From the bed, she reached out and caught his hand. “Stay awhile. It’s not dawn yet. If it’s hard for you, we don’t need to talk.”

“Yes, we do. Need to talk.” He turned and crouched at the side of the mattress. His eyes were thoughtful as they roamed the knot of their joined hands. “I’ve done some good here, I think. The cottage is your father’s to do with as he pleases. I’ll see that his pension is restored. The men will finish the inn, and you’ll have the posting horses, I promise. And I’ll pay for the damage to the tavern.”

“I’m not concerned about the inn, you fool man. I’m concerned about you.” Her voice cracked.
“Rhys
. Stop acting like this is the end. You can’t do this to me now. What happened to all that talk of destiny? I’m your fate, and you’re mine?”

After pressing a firm kiss to her knuckles, he rested his brow to their joined hands. “I swear to you. If any woman could make it right, make me whole—it would be you. But I’m just too broken, Merry. It’s too late for me. I wish to God that weren’t the case, but—”

“Don’t say it. Don’t.”

He wiped a tear from her cheek. “Some things just aren’t meant to be.”

Chapter Twenty-four

“I thought your home county was forbidding,” Bellamy said, squinting at the coach’s small window. “This makes it seem right cheery in comparison. Is it just coincidence, Ashworth, or does a depressing fog
actually
follow you around?”

Rhys didn’t answer. Forget the fog. He felt like a damned thundercloud rumbled within his chest. His heart seethed with thick, churning, violent emotion. Hurt, confusion, anger. And though he’d only left her a half day ago, he missed Meredith so much he could scarcely breathe. But he had to put distance between them. He couldn’t let her get caught in the storm.

Absently, he worked his tongue against a cut inside his upper lip. The tang of blood helped him focus. The coppery taste coaxed a strange feeling in him, one vaguely akin to nostalgia. Just as that fisticuffs with Myles yesterday had given him a clarity of sorts. The dealing and taking of blows—this was what he did, what he knew so very well. He’d been raised to it, after all. It was the family trade.

“Tell me about Faraday. Is he big?” Rhys hoped so. He didn’t like pounding on small ones.

Bellamy shrugged. “He’s much like me, as Cora remarked.”

Arching a brow, Rhys studied his companion with fresh interest. With an uneasy glance, Bellamy made a defensive shift down the seat.

“Then he’ll do,” Rhys said.

“Good.” Bellamy tugged at his cuff. “It should have occurred to me months ago. At first, I thought Morland had arranged the murder. He wanted the Stud Club tokens, and he was there in the card room the night Leo and I made plans to attend the boxing match.”

“But Morland had nothing to do with it.” Rhys frowned. He thought they’d put this argument to rest in Gloucestershire.

“I know that now. And that’s when I realized, for every token Morland collected, somewhere there was an angry former member of the Club. So I went through them all, making inquiries as to their whereabouts the night of the murder. I missed Faraday at first, because everyone seemed to think he’d left Town days earlier. Even his house staff confirmed it.”

“But he hadn’t.”

“No. And he knew about the boxing match. It was Faraday’s token Morland won that night. We were all watching them play. After Faraday lost, Leo—sporting fellow that he was—pumped Morland’s hand, congratulated him on a game well-played. Faraday masked it well, but I could tell he was furious. When he announced his intent to head for the country immediately, we assumed he was out of funds. Never thought to question it. Finally, on my third round of inquiries, one of the footmen spilled the truth. Peter Faraday hadn’t left Town until two days after Leo’s death.” He swore. “He has to be the one.”

“Let’s hope Cora can identify him with certainty.”

The girl lay reclined on the front-facing seat, sleeping heavily. At least, Rhys thought it safe to assume she was asleep, because he didn’t know any woman who would willingly display herself in front of two gentlemen with her mouth agape. This actual slumber came after she’d merely
pretended
to doze her way out of Devonshire and across Bodmin Moor. Her eyes hadn’t met his since they’d left the Three Hounds. She was back to being afraid of him, and Rhys couldn’t say he blamed her one bit.

The whole village would fear him again. He’d never forget looking up from Gideon Myles’s bleeding face to find the bar destroyed and the assembled residents of Buckleigh-in-the-Moor staring at him in collective horror. And there, in the center of them all, his lovely Meredith … her face bleached to the shade of bone, and spattered with blood. Just the memory was enough to make his stomach turn and his head throb with pain. In all his wretched life, he’d never felt more monstrous.

“There’s the sun,” Bellamy said. “Thank God.”

Leaning across him, Rhys peeked out the window. Cornwall was a lonesome place, but like Devonshire, it had a stark beauty. As they rounded a bend, the fog lifted. He glimpsed long, green fingers of earth grasping at a brilliant blue sea. The coves between them were dark, honeycombed cliffs. There was a sense of wobbling along the edge of the world as their coach and team navigated the coastal road, high above the breaking waves.

“What sort of place are we looking for?” he asked.

“According to my source, the house is perched above a rocky cove.”

“Was your source any more specific? There seem to be a great many rocky coves hereabouts.”

“We’ll know it when we come to it,” Bellamy said with confidence. “Last time we stopped, that crofter told me it’s the only house of any size for miles.”

The carriage tilted around another steep curve, and Rhys grabbed the edge of the seat to keep from sliding into Bellamy’s lap. That wouldn’t go over well.

“Tell me something,” he said after a minute. “You believe this Peter Faraday took Leo into an alleyway
knowing
they would be attacked? That he meant to lure Leo to his death?”

“Possibly.”

“Why would he do that?”

Bellamy grit his teeth. “That’s why we’re on this little journey, isn’t it? To find out.”

“Well, if your theory is true …” Rhys peered out at the road. “How do you know we’re not being lured into an ambush ourselves?”

“I don’t.” He tapped a finger against the window glass. “We’ll be on our guard.”

A house came into view, emerging from the mist as though it floated on its own low-hovering cloud. It was a small stone and brick affair, eccentrically designed. The window shutters’ paint had peeled away from the wood. No lights emanated from within, and no smoke puffed from the chimney.

“Doesn’t look especially welcoming, does it?”

“No,” Rhys agreed. Neither did it look especially occupied. “Perhaps your sources were misinformed.”

“No, just look at it. It’s the perfect place to hide.” He shook Cora awake. “You’ll have to wake up now. Ashworth and I will go inside. You’ll stay here. If we don’t come out for you within a half hour, you’re to tell the coachman to drive you straight back.”

Blinking, Cora rose to a sitting position. After a lazy stretch, she peered out the window, just as they were drawing up to the house.

“La!” she said. “Isn’t that just the picture of a fright. I’m not staying in the coach alone. I want to come in with you.”

“We don’t know what we’ll meet with inside,” Rhys said. “There may be danger.”

“I thought I was here to identify the man. How can I do that from here? I tell you, I’m not staying in this coach.”

As the carriage rolled to a halt, Bellamy leaned forward. “What will you do? Run off into the fog again?”

“I didn’t run off into the fog. I do know better than that, it’s just what everyone assumed.” She sighed. “I suppose I’m used to being thought stupid.”

“You’d rather be thought a whore?”

“I’m not a whore! Not any longer. I never took a penny from Mr. Myles. It wasn’t at all like you’re thinking.” She cast a brief, fearful look at Rhys. “Or what you supposed, my lord. Gideon was very kind to me. We have a great deal in common, it seems. We talked all night. Mostly.”

“Oh,
mostly,”
Bellamy echoed. “And now I suppose you’re in love with this criminal.”

“What if I were?” Cora said. “I don’t see that it’s any of your affair.”

“The way you were
so
in love with Leo after an hour in his company, then stripped his corpse of every last coin before dumping it on my doorstep?”

Cora’s lip quivered. “I can’t believe you’d say that. I might have left Leo there, you know. Let him die on the street, unclaimed and alone.”

Rhys sighed heavily. “Leave off, Bellamy. God only knows what manner of lies the cur fed her, just to get under her skirts. She’s not a bad girl, just too easily swayed.”

Cora’s bronze lashes trembled as she studied her hands. “Perhaps I am.”

Bellamy said hotly, “I’m only—”

“You’re only being an ass. I know. We’re all getting weary of it. Let’s hope it’s a curable condition.”

He suspected it was. Bellamy was clearly still mourning the loss of his friend. He was hungry for answers; Cora craved affection. Rhys sympathized with them both, but he wasn’t good with comfort or diplomacy. He had precisely two methods at his disposal for remedying people’s problems: his right fist and his left. Yesterday he’d dealt with Gideon Myles. Today he’d see about Faraday.

The coach door swung open. Bellamy curled his fingers over the rooftop edge to help himself out. “Come along, then. Both of you.”

Rhys went first, then handed Cora out. They crossed an archipelago of stepping stones to reach the front entrance.

Bellamy extended his walking stick and rapped smartly on the door. “Hullo! We’re here for Mr. Peter Faraday.”

No answer. After a minute of waiting, Bellamy banged on the door again. “Hullo in there. Hullo!”

The latch scraped. Finally, the door creaked open a space of inches. An ancient manservant revealed a thin slice of himself through the crack. Not that he likely had much more to show them. He was rather a thin slice of a man to start, dusted with powder-white hair. He’d missed a button on his waistcoat, and as the result or perhaps the cause, his whole body was askew.

“Beg pardon,” Bellamy told the aging servant. “We’ve traveled from London to speak with Mr. Peter Faraday on a matter of some urgency.”

The old man grunted. “Urgency? There’s nothing urgent in this neighborhood, save my need to make water in the night. Furthermore, it’s not noon yet, so Mr. Faraday is not at home to callers.”

“Good Lord, man. This isn’t Mayfair. Damn your receiving hours. We’re here now, and we demand to see him. If you won’t step aside, we shall have to move you.”

With a wheeze of indignation, the old man said, “You haven’t even offered your card.”

Sighing with impatience, Bellamy reached into his breast pocket and withdrew two coins. Rhys recognized one as a brass Stud Club token.

“This
is
our card. Show it to your master.” In the old man’s other palm, he dropped a guinea. “This one is for you.”

The aging butler’s hoary eyebrows rose. His fingers curled over the coins. “Wait here, gentlemen, if you’d be so kind.”

Within the minute, he’d returned. He placed the brass token—only—back in Bellamy’s hand. “Mr. Faraday will see you in the drawing room.”

They followed the butler down a narrow corridor that seemed to have warped and twisted with age. The drawing room was empty, and the butler left them yet again, with no word as to when they might expect their host.

“You wait here.” Bellamy dragged an armchair to the far corner of the room and settled Cora in it, partly behind a small screen. She wouldn’t be immediately noticed there.

For his part, Rhys took a seat on a threadbare divan and propped one boot on the small, square table before him.

Bellamy did not approve. “You’ve been sitting in the carriage all day,” he said. “Do you have to sit down now? You’re supposed to hulk in the corner and look threatening. Menacing, not … cozy.”

Ignoring him, Rhys stretched his arm across the back of the divan and surveyed the meager furnishings and cobwebbed corners. “I thought this was supposed to be a well-heeled dandy we’re chasing. Perhaps all his fortune is sunk into gold embroidery. It’s certainly not poured into the furnishings.”