When a Rogue Meets His Match Read online

Page 3


  She swallowed, attempting to ignore the emphasis on the last word. “I want my pin money returned to me.”

  “Naturally,” he drawled. “Though you’ll need to wait until after we wed.”

  Her pin money wasn’t enough to get her to safety anyway.

  She lifted her chin, her pulse beating fast. She mustn’t let him know how close to terror she was. How much was riding on her gamble. “I don’t wish to couple with you.”

  “You hurt me.” He placed his hand on his chest as if in jest, but his smile was hard. “I’m afraid you cannot remain untouched. I’ll have no reason for you or any one of your family to try for an annulment. And besides”—he tilted his head mockingly—“I do want to fuck you.”

  The coarse word sent a visceral shock through her, making her imagine him naked. Hawthorne would be sleek, muscled, and dangerous, and she had no doubt at all that he knew how to make a woman moan. Her nipples peaked.

  None of which was to the point.

  She cast her eyes down as if disappointed. “We’ve come to an impasse then, haven’t we?”

  “I don’t think so.” He stared at her a minute, slowly tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair. “I find that I’m willing to bend—for you.”

  For her. Something flickered inside her chest at the words, even though she knew he was pretending sentiment.

  She needed to concentrate on the matter at hand. She was backed into a corner, made to realize that she was going to be married against her will, and to him of all people.

  To a rogue.

  She raised her brows as if the entire discussion bored her. “Go on. How shall you bend?”

  His smile this time was almost genuine. “I’ll give you some small time before I bed you—say a week after we wed?”

  “Three months,” she snapped, clenching her hands to hide her trembling fingers. She couldn’t believe they were debating when she would let him…

  “A month,” he drawled, his black eyes staring at her wickedly as he took another sip of his wine.

  His throat worked as he swallowed, and she dragged her gaze to his face instead. “Two months.”

  He shook his head. “I won’t wait that long. One month.”

  God. She’d woken this morning with her only worry a possible argument with her insane uncle, and now she was bargaining away her maidenhead.

  She took a deep breath. If she had to do this, she’d best make it worth her while. “Very well. One month. But in return I want something from you.”

  He lifted his eyebrows in query.

  “A portion of my dowry.”

  He nodded. “I’ll give you a sum each quarter as pin money.”

  “No,” she said, and this time her voice shook, but it was hardly from fear. She was angry. “It’s my money. Money my father left me. Once we marry you’ll have a fortune, and I’ll not be content any longer with a pittance doled out at your whim. I want half.”

  One of his eyebrows rose. “You value your virginity very highly.”

  “Should I not?” she shot back. “It’s what the men around me value. Should I turn shy maiden and ignore that money is what all this is really about? Pretend I don’t know exactly how much I’m worth?”

  “Maybe not.” He pursed his lips. She would not look. “A tenth. At the end of a year of marriage.”

  She couldn’t wait that long. “A quarter on the day of our wedding.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You expect me to pay you before I receive my prize?”

  She just refrained from snorting. “My dowry is your prize.”

  “Is it?” His eyes lingered on her mouth before meeting hers. “One-tenth in six months.”

  “One-tenth in a month.” She let the disdain show on her face. “On the day after our marriage is consummated.”

  “Agreed.” He eyed her contemplatively, then sat forward with a businesslike air. “This will be a real marriage. You will be true to me—I won’t abide you taking a lover.”

  The point was moot. Once she had her dowry portion she had no intention of remaining with him long enough to take a lover. “Certainly.”

  “You will live with me as my wife. You will sup with me every night. We will also move about society”—he waved a hand—“go to balls and the like.”

  “What?” she interjected. “Surely you know you’ll not be welcomed in society.”

  His nostrils flared, and suddenly she was reminded that he’d killed tonight. “With your money and name I can and I will.”

  She simply stared at him.

  He nodded as if the matter were decided and continued, “You can sneer at me as much as you like in private, but in public you will act like a devoted wife.”

  The man was a delusional ass. “Devoted?”

  He sighed again. Evidently negotiating with her was quite trying. “A content wife, then. Does that meet with your approval, madam?”

  No. None of this obscenity met with her approval. However, it was what must be done to win her and Lucretia’s freedom. A tenth of her enormous dowry was more than enough to live on if they were careful. They could escape somewhere abroad.

  Messalina studied Hawthorne. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t like him. And she had no other option. “If I agree to this—to pretending complacency—then you will fulfill the terms we’ve agreed to?”

  He held her gaze. “Yes. You have my word.”

  The word of a paid tough. How charming.

  “You’ll regret this one day,” she murmured, low, spitefully, and sincerely. “Regret forcing me to marry you.”

  “I don’t think I will.” He sounded entirely sure of himself. “Shall we marry?”

  She reached over and took the glass of wine from his fingers and emptied it in one swallow. “Very well.”

  Chapter Two

  One day the tinker came upon an ancient wood. It was curiously untouched. Curiously still. Curiously shadowed. He journeyed deeper and deeper into the towering trees until he could no longer see the sky and the sun itself was blacked out.…

  —From Bet and the Fox

  Julian Greycourt woke to the sound of someone banging on the cottage door. He was instantly alert.

  No one was to disturb him here.

  He rose, nude, ignoring the sparks of pain burning across his back, and threw on a banyan. Thank God his companion had left hours ago.

  Julian glanced around. The croft was simple—one room, a fireplace, a cot, and a chair. Nothing else. Nothing to indicate what he did here.

  Good.

  He strode to the door, unbarred it, and threw it open.

  Lucretia looked up at him, her fist still raised, as if she would knock upon his chest. “Oh, thank goodness! Quintus said you were staying at one of the cottages, but he must’ve given me the wrong directions. I’ve been looking for you for the better part of an hour.”

  “What are you doing here?” His words were perhaps too curt, but no one was supposed to know of this place.

  Quinn had discovered the croft only because he’d followed Julian one night. Julian hadn’t spoken to his brother for almost a week afterward. He’d thought he’d made it very clear to Quinn to keep his damned mouth shut about the cottage. And yet here was their little sister, wide-eyed and pink-cheeked on the step of—

  Julian cleared his thoughts. “Where is Messalina?”

  “With Mr. Hawthorne,” Lucretia said, sounding exasperated that Julian didn’t already know this. “He stopped our carriage on the return journey from the Lovejoy house party. You know their estate near the border of Scotland? I must say it was a most unusual party—”

  “What did Hawthorne do, Lucretia?” Julian asked impatiently.

  Lucretia pressed her lips together. “He told Messalina to get out of the carriage and come with him. She just had time to tell me to find you.”

  Julian frowned. “Why would Hawthorne do such a thing?”

  “He said that Uncle Augustus wanted her—only her, not me.” Lucretia twisted her fingers t
ogether. “That was over a week ago—nearly two now. I told my driver to head straight to Adders and you, but what with the horses and the road being so terribly rutted—”

  “Just a minute,” Julian said. “Stay here.”

  He shut the door in her face and ignored the resulting squawk of outrage. Julian hurriedly threw on his clothes, hissing beneath his breath as his linen shirt scraped across the wounds on his back. What the hell was Augustus planning? And what had their uncle been thinking to force Lucretia to travel so far by herself?

  He shrugged on his coat and pulled his long hair from the collar, tying it back with a bit of ribbon.

  Then he opened the door again.

  “I can’t believe Quintus is in his cups so early in the morning,” Lucretia remarked crossly, as if there’d been no interruption in their conversation. “He smelled.”

  She wrinkled her small, straight nose as if assaulted by the odor of a cesspool.

  “No doubt,” Julian muttered. “Come. Let’s go to Adders.”

  Her carriage was standing before the croft. The driver and a footman were half-asleep on the box while a second footman leaned against the carriage, nodding. The men came awake, though, on sight of him. The footman by the carriage scrambled to hand Lucretia in.

  Julian glanced at the driver. “Back to Adders Hall.”

  “Sir!” the driver shouted, and the moment Julian was inside they were off.

  He took the seat across from Lucretia and examined her. The early-morning sun made a nimbus of the fine strands of hair escaping the knot at the top of her head. “Where’s your lady’s maid?”

  “I told Messalina to take Bartlett,” Lucretia replied. “After all, she couldn’t travel all the way back to London with just Mr. Hawthorne.”

  Julian raised an eyebrow at this logic, which left Lucretia traveling alone with just the coachman and the two footmen, but didn’t bother replying.

  Outside they passed more crofts—some occupied, some not. This had been a prosperous bit of land once, cottages full, fields teeming with sheep and cattle. But that had been before his mother’s death.

  Adders Hall was west of Oxford, nearly at the Welsh border, on land that should’ve been prosperous. When Julian had inherited Adders Hall and the small amount of property surrounding it from his mother, he’d had high hopes of being a competent landowner. One who would follow modern methods of agriculture and husbandry. One who would care for his tenants and their families.

  He’d been but seventeen, very young, unaware that his father’s will had left his parents’ wealth in the hands of his uncle, Augustus Greycourt, the Duke of Windemere. The duke was to manage his inheritance until Julian came of age and could take over the accounts.

  But when Julian turned one and twenty, Augustus had given him a paltry amount. His uncle had claimed that there had never been any wealth. That besides Messalina’s and Lucretia’s enormous dowries—set aside by his mother and now in the duke’s control—nothing was left. Augustus had smiled when he’d told Julian that his father had run through his inheritance like a profligate.

  The carriage bounced down a lane and into the Adders Hall drive. The beech allée to either side of the drive was in a shocking state—in need of trimming and replanting in parts—and the drive itself was rutted and overgrown.

  Adders Hall came into view, and Julian suppressed a wince. It once had been a modest but stately house, built in worn gray stone, but now the west wing was closed, the roof leaked, and many of the windows were boarded up. Weeds grew around the front steps like mice nibbling at a matron’s hem.

  A lone figure stood by the door, swaying slightly.

  “Oh, good,” Lucretia said. “Quintus came home.” She glanced at Julian. “I found him in one of the cottages. I don’t know why you both lurk around the tenants’ cottages when you have a perfectly good house here.”

  Julian turned to look at the approaching ruin pointedly.

  Lucretia frowned. “Well, a house in any case.”

  He snorted.

  The carriage halted abruptly, nearly sending his sister into his lap.

  Julian descended first, just in time to catch his brother, stumbling toward them. Quinn slumped heavily against him, making Julian brace himself. His younger brother was the same height as he, but Quinn was a good two stone heavier.

  “Thought I saw Lu-Lu-Lu-cre-tia,” Quinn mumbled, sending a puff of stale breath into Julian’s face.

  Good God. Quinn did indeed reek—a combination of alcohol, rancid sweat, and filthy clothes. He must’ve fallen in the mud at least once on his way home.

  “You did see me,” their sister said, having exited the carriage. She might be a head shorter than both of them, but her expression suggested the severity of a nanny about to scold an errant toddler. “Messalina needs your help.”

  Quinn blinked stupidly at her. How long had he been languishing in his cups?

  Julian sighed. “A moment, Sister.”

  He jerked his chin at the footman on the carriage, and the man jumped down. Julian took one of his brother’s arms, the footman took the other, and, with Lucretia trailing behind, they were able to drag Quinn into the house, down a dark hall, and to the kitchen, startling Vanderberg, Julian’s valet, who looked to be in the midst of a good gossip with Mrs. McBride, the cook.

  Vanderberg was a small man—barely five feet—dressed elegantly in dark blue to best show off his golden hair and pale complexion. The valet had been with Julian since both were teenagers—probably the only reason Vanderberg put up with a pittance in pay.

  The valet leaped to his feet, assuming an expression of stoic servility, patently in contrast to his usual demeanor when alone with Julian. “Mr. Greycourt! I had no notion you had returned to the hall. And in dishabille.”

  His glance at Julian’s hair was full of badly concealed horror.

  “Quite,” Julian said reprovingly. He hadn’t time to smooth Vanderberg’s ruffled sensibilities. “Fetch a bucket of water.”

  The valet opened his mouth, closed it, and turned. An earthenware cistern stood in the corner of the kitchen, and Vanderberg swiftly filled a bucket with water and brought it to Julian.

  Julian jerked his chin at Quinn. “Douse him.”

  Vanderberg raised an eyebrow but obeyed, throwing the bucketful of water into Quinn’s face.

  Quinn straightened, sputtering. “What? Wha—?”

  “Bathe him and make him presentable,” Julian ordered the footman before glancing at Lucretia. “Have a cup of tea. I’ll be ready in a half hour.”

  He didn’t wait for her reply but strode from the room and back into the hall, Vanderberg trotting to keep up. Julian took the wooden stairs two at a time, careful not to use the banister—it had a tendency to fall off.

  “Pack my things,” he called to Vanderberg as they made his room.

  Julian ignored the valet’s mutter and stripped off his coat and shirt.

  Behind him something clattered to the floor.

  “Don’t,” he snapped, pouring water from a jug into a basin for washing.

  “But, sir, your back,” Vanderberg protested.

  The valet was impertinent. Julian ignored him as he rubbed himself down with the cold water and a bit of cloth. He pulled a fresh lawn shirt over his head before dressing as quickly as he could in a silvery gray suit. He was relieved when he turned and saw that Vanderberg had finished packing several trunks.

  “May I at least dress your hair?” the valet asked, his voice sounding injured.

  Julian sat on a stool and submitted to having his hair tamed, the long wavy locks brushed and braided tightly. His hasty toilet was finished with a black ribbon wound around the end of the braid.

  Vanderberg stepped back, surveying Julian. “As good as I can do in such a hurry.”

  “No matter,” Julian replied. “Have the carriage driver help you with the trunks.”

  Downstairs he found Lucretia peering at a dusty shelf in the library, a cup of tea in one hand and a s
lice of seedcake in the other. “We leave in ten minutes. Get in the carriage.”

  She sighed. “I’m going to need another piece of cake in that case.”

  He didn’t bother answering and left for the kitchen.

  Quinn didn’t appear any more sober, but at least he was clean. He looked up with bloodshot gray eyes when Julian entered. “Where’re we goin’?”

  “London,” Julian replied curtly, taking one of his brother’s arms while the footman took the other.

  “Why?” Quinn slurred.

  “Because,” Julian said grimly as they staggered to the front door. “We have to put a stop to whatever Augustus has planned.”

  * * *

  The sky wept on his wedding day although the bride did not, Gideon mused late the next morning.

  The splatter of rain hitting the window was a drumbeat accompaniment to the bishop’s droning voice. A bishop, and on less than a day’s notice. Gideon eyed the cleric and wondered what spur the duke had used to obtain both him and the special license. Blackmail, judging by the way the bishop nervously eyed the old man. Gideon could almost feel sorry for the clergyman—if he ever wasted time or emotion on any aristocrat.

  He put the bishop’s distress out of his mind as he studied the duke. Windemere’s expression was that of an indulgent uncle, but his eyes were filled with dark glee.

  Last night the old man had been set on seeing them married at once. Gideon had argued for more than half an hour before the duke conceded and agreed to wait until the more civilized morning. As it was, they had only Messalina’s maid and the Windemere House butler as witnesses. Well, and Keys, if one could count him as a witness. The young man lurked in the corner.

  Gideon finally looked at his bride. Messalina wore a dark-gray gown that nearly matched the shadows under her eyes. Her complexion was sallow with fatigue, her mouth thinned into a stoic line, and her dark hair drawn into a tight, unbecoming knot.

  And he still wanted her with a gut-deep pull.

  She caught his eye and glared and he had the urge to laugh, but that wouldn’t be wise—not only because it would provoke her but because it would reveal his mood to the duke.