What A Rogue Wants (16 page)

When Gravenhurst and Grey neared the
stables, Grey asked, “What sort of training are we going to
do?”

In the dark, Gravenhurst’s expression
was unreadable. Horses neighed from within the stables, and a cold
wind blew Grey’s hair over his eyes. He shoved it back as
Gravenhurst said, “I’m going to train you to stay alive.” His voice
had a hard edge. “Tonight I’ll start teaching you to never assume
anything except that someone always wants you dead. Study your
surroundings. Know your enemies.”

“
Sounds like useful
lessons.”

Gravenhurst snorted, grabbed a lit
torch from a stand, and proceeded past the stables toward a dark,
twisting path that led into the woods of the park. He stopped
suddenly at the edge of the path. Grey nearly bowled him
over.

“
A little warning would
have been considerate.”

“
The men striving to kill
you will not be considerate.”

“
Point taken,” he conceded
as Gravenhurst faced him and regarded him without a word. Insects
of the night chirped around them. Music drifted on the swirling
wind from the castle to fill the silence between them. It would
have been pleasant, but he was tense as hell. He wanted to perform
well. He didn’t want to disappoint his father.

“
Take this,” Gravenhurst
said and shoved the torch at him. Grey gripped it and stared at his
friend’s shadowed face. Gravenhurst leaned down and came up holding
two daggers. He offered one to Grey, and then headed down the
path.

Grey sidestepped a gnarled tree root
that rose across the ground. He pushed branches out of his way as
he followed Gravenhurst deep into the woods. A branch came swinging
at him, and he ducked. It hissed by his ear right before the sharp
twigs slid across his cheek and left a stinging cut. “Damn it.” He
couldn’t afford to be too slow in reacting to anything.

Up ahead, his friend chuckled as he
crunched through fallen leaves and twigs to make his way into a
clearing. Gravenhurst walked over to an iron post and with a clank
slid the torch into a slot. He came to the center of the circle and
beckoned to Grey. “We’ll train with daggers and fists until the
torch runs out, and then we’ll train blind. Once first blood’s
drawn we’ll make our way back to the castle.”

Grey’s muscles tensed in anticipation.
He curled his fingers around his dagger. “You’ve never beat me in a
fight.”

Gravenhurst’s robust laugh echoed in
the silence. “Part of my cover, my friend.”

Grey gripped his dagger and moved
toward the center of the circle.

Gravenhurst tossed his dagger from
hand to hand and started circling Grey. “You’re moving slow. Your
mind is elsewhere.”

Grey refocused his attention just as
the whistle of steel sliced the air and filled his ears a second
before Gravenhurst’s blade cut through his coat, shirt and
skin.

Pain burned a path down his arm. He
dropped his dagger. It hit the dirt with a thump. His arm throbbed
as he removed his coat. He touched the place where the blade had
sliced and his fingers met with sticky blood. “You’ve cut
me.”

“
Pitiful,” Gravenhurst
said. “You’re going to have to be a lot more alert if you don’t
want to end up dead. Pick up your blade.”

Grey reached down and grasped his
dagger. “I assume you’ve decided we need to stay.”

“
Hell yes we need to stay.
I didn’t expect your training to be over in less than a minute. But
now I know your Achilles’ heel. Just make sure your enemies never
learn it, my friend.”

“
I don’t have an Achilles’
heel.” Grey lunged toward Gravenhurst and the tip of his knife
snagged Gravenhurst’s coat but did not meet flesh.

“
You do. But I’ll give you
this, if you have to have a weakness, Lady Madelaine is a beautiful
one to have.”

Five tedious days had passed since
Madelaine last saw Grey at the costume ball, so when she walked
around the sharp turn of the trail leading to the queen’s country
house and he was standing alone by the entranceway, she quickened
her step and nearly tripped over her skirts in her
excitement.

Probably, she ought not to act so
eager. She tried to slow down, but her feet didn’t want to
cooperate. Her half-boots padded against the hardened snow as she
rushed across the grass. She’d dreamed of him every night since
he’d so valiantly tried to make sure Lord Thorton couldn’t bother
her at dinner anymore. Dreams really hadn’t done Grey
justice.

Her stomach flipped. He leaned
negligently against the iron gate with a booted foot propped
against the dark steel for support. The buckskins he wore encased
his powerful thighs in a sinful way. That tingling sensation, that
only he elicited, swept over Madelaine’s skin. His dark-colored
coat had been left open to reveal the white cambric shirt next to
his skin. When she reached him, she was panting from her efforts to
hurry.

“
Grey, how nice to see
you.”

“
Only nice?” He quirked
his eyebrow.

Blast. She’d tried to temper her
words, but she didn’t want to. “Very nice. I’ve looked for you
every day.”

“
I’ve dreamed of you every
night,” he countered in a voice as smooth as silk.

She shivered, but it had nothing to do
with the falling snow. “Then what’s kept you away? Surely not
equerry training?”

He glanced down at his bandaged
hand.

She automatically reached for him and
lifted it to her. “What happened? Did a horse bite you?”

“
Yes. That’s right.” His
gaze flickered beyond her for a second toward the stables. “A
horse. The ass. He has a bite as sharp as a dagger.”

“
Perhaps you should shoot
him if he’s uncontrollable.” She dropped his hand in case someone
chanced a look out of the window. Really, she should be going in,
but she couldn’t make herself just yet.

He stood and moved back as if he’d
read her thoughts and understood her concern. “I can’t shoot the
beast. He’s invaluable to the king, even if he is surly. But enough
about the horse. Tell me, has Thorton bothered you at
all?”

She blinked in surprise at Grey’s
steely tone. A tingle raced down her spine. He was truly worried
for her. “He’s not had the chance to bother me. I’ve not been alone
since the moment you left me.”

Grey tugged the edge of her fur-lined
hat. “You’re alone now. Thorton could follow you out here and try
to take advantage.”

“
He wouldn’t.”

“
Don’t be naïve. Men are
cunning when it comes to getting what they want.”

She swallowed, uncertainty filling her
chest. Was he speaking of himself or Lord Thorton? Seeing him now,
so handsome, so smart and an obvious favorite of the king and queen
it just didn’t seem possible that he would want to court her out of
all the women here. He could have his pick, and she was certainly
not special. Well, not in a way that made her an Incomparable. She
was special in a way that made other’s snicker. Perhaps he really
only wanted to conquer her. She’d heard the continued whispers of
the other ladies-in-waiting regarding him. Her self-doubt crept
back in, annoying companion that it was.

His brows had drawn together and his
normally blue-gray eyes had turned dark as he stared at her. “I
didn’t mean to frighten you. I want to keep you safe.”

He sounded so earnest that some of her
uncertainly flittered out of her mind. “You didn’t frighten me, and
I’m not being naïve. Lord Thorton has been called home on business.
So you see I’m perfectly safe. I only went to that cottage over
there to fetch the queen’s stole, but it’s not there. Are you here
to see your sister or the queen?”

He stepped closer. “I’m here to see
you.”

“
Me?” A burst of happiness
swelled inside her chest.

“
Yes. You. I’ve been so
bloody sore from my training that I’ve been unable to walk at the
end of every day. That’s why you’ve not seen me. But when dawn came
this morning, I knew I couldn’t go another day without a glimpse of
your face. So I crawled out of bed―”

“
You crawled?”

“
Yes. My need to see you
has made me undignified. I hardly know you, but you’ve bewitched
me.”

The bewitching was more
the other way around if you asked her, but even
she
understood there were some
things you just didn’t tell a man. “So how did you know where to
find me?”

“
I bribed that redheaded
chambermaid.”

“
How did you know how to
find the chambermaid?” She followed his amused expression to her
hands, only realizing they were on her hips. She immediately
crossed her arms in front of her chest, but the amusement in his
eyes reached his mouth, so she dropped her arms and tried to appear
relaxed.

“
You’re
jealous!”

“
I’m not.” But she was.
Her stomach plunged. “I’ve no right to be. We’ve no agreement. And
as you said, you barely know me.”

In a flash, his arm came around her
waist, and he pulled her away from the gate and to the side of the
door where there were no windows.

Her heartbeat turned erratic at his
touch. “What is it?”

“
Courting you will be the
death of me.” His lips hovered so near hers that when he spoke, the
warmth of his breath washed over her cold lips. Reflexively she
licked them. He groaned and dashed a hand through his
hair.

“
Is that supposed to be a
compliment?” she teased, but heavens, she loved that she seemed to
affect him as he affected her.

“
It’s definitely a
compliment. Do you know I once scoffed during my lessons on Greek
mythology when my tutor spoke of the cause of the Trojan
War?”

“
Did you?” Her words came
out as a breathless whisper. She was sure he was telling her
something important, but being so near him made clear thinking
impossible. At this moment, she couldn’t even recall the Trojan
War. All she could think of was Grey’s heat, his scent, and the way
his hair curved so enticingly around his strong jaw.

“
I did more than scoff. I
told my tutor there was no possibility I would ever believe a man
had started a bloody war over a woman. But I think I was
wrong.”

Her heart thundered in her ears. She
recalled the Trojan War now. Menalaus, the king of Sparta, had
waged war on Troy because Paris of Troy had taken Menalaus’s wife
from him. “What do you think now?”

“
I think I could start a
war over a woman,
if
the woman was you.”

His seductively sweet words elicited a
rush of desire in her that left her trembling. “I vow you’re trying
to seduce me.” Her words came out husky.

He shook his head and stepped away. “I
promise I’m not. I just wanted to say hello, and ask if you could
come to my aunt’s apartments tonight. She’s having a small
gathering after dinner. Can you get away? Liz has already gained
permission for herself, so the two of you could come
together.”

He was asking her to come to his
aunt’s to be with him. Spend time with him. She could hardly
imagine this was true. Yet it was, and she needed to speak before
he decided she was dull and rescinded the invitation. “I think I
can come. The queen has said she is spending time alone with the
king tonight after dinner, and I was not one of the ladies she
asked to attend her, so I’ll make the request.”

“
Excellent.” Grey took one
of her gloved hands and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “I look
forward to after dinner then.”

A thrill sent her pulse skittering
more. If she could gain permission, she’d be able to sit and talk
with him and get to know him better. “What if you’re too tired?
Will you send a note?”

“
I won’t be too tired. My
training should be wrapping up today. There’s a test, and I mean to
pass it.”

“
I’d no idea equerry
training was so difficult.”

“
Neither did I. I swear
I’m going to tame that beastly horse today.” Grey’s brow furrowed,
giving him such a handsome, disgruntled look that on impulse, she
pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.