Love Is a Rogue

by Lenora Bell

  “I’ll have you know that this is the latest fashion.” She wriggled her bare shoulders.

  His jaw muscles twitched. His gaze made her feel shivery and powerful. She liked being able to make his jaw clench.

  “You’re jealous.” She poked a finger into his chest. “Ford Wright, notorious rogue, is jealous.”

  “Damnation, Beatrice. I’m not jealous. I don’t want to see you shackled to a heartless abuser. I’m furious with your mother for considering him as a worthy suitor for you.”

  “He’s an earl.”

  “That doesn’t make any difference. He preys on innocents. He ruins and discards barmaids for sport.”

  “I didn’t know about that. It’s unconscionable.”

  “You’re sheltered from the knowledge of such things.”

  “It’s wrong to keep women in ignorance.”

  “I’m telling you now—he’s a base-minded rotter who isn’t worthy to even breathe the same air as you.”

  “I truly had no intention of accepting his proposal. I’m not going to accept any proposals. I’d have no talent for marriage, none whatsoever. I don’t want anyone telling me what I can and can’t do. I’m going to be a confirmed spinster by next summer, and I’ll spend the rest of my life at Thornhill House.”

  “A spinster? You don’t strike me as a candidate for spinsterhood.”

  “All I want to do is return to Thornhill. My brother told me I could live there as long as I liked.”

  “Find a gentleman who values your intellect and wants to see you succeed at your dictionary.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. Marriages in my set are usually matches of convenience, designed to enrich fortunes and better social standings. My mother and father were certainly not a love match.”

  “But you want a love match. Those novels you read all have happy endings.”

  “I used to be a romantic until I realized that all the titled gentlemen of London want is my dowry.”

  “You’re going to fall for some verse-spewing fop and settle in London to produce a large family of bespectacled literary geniuses.”

  “Never.” She gave a little nod. “I’ll never marry.”

  “Even so, why not stay in London? You have friends here, and family, and now you have a property of your own. Give lectures, fill the library with more books from your brother’s estate.”

  “I can’t stay in London. My life is all planned out.”

  “Deviate, take a different road, try a new path.”

  “My dictionary and my writing are my priorities. My words will live on after me. The dictionary will be my legacy. Lady Beatrice Bentley, the noted etymologist.”

  “Sounds like you’re writing your epitaph, but you’re young, for God’s sake. Too young to bury yourself in Cornwall.”

  “It’s not some passing whim, Ford. Retiring from London and moving to Cornwall is the choice I’ve made. I haven’t found a way to tell my mother yet, but I’ll have to find the courage to do so very soon.”

  “Why are you so afraid to live?”

  “I’m not your rehabilitation project, Ford. You can’t paint a new coat of confidence on me and transform me.”

  “I don’t want to change you.” He cupped her cheek with his hand. “I didn’t know that you felt that way. I assumed that your protestations were only surface deep. You can marry, just don’t marry Mayhew.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I’m . . . damn it, I care what happens to you. I don’t want to see you hurt. You’re so vibrant and intelligent. I wouldn’t want anyone to take away your power. Promise me that you’ll never be alone with Mayhew.”

  “I promise.”

  Somewhere below them a soprano voice soared into the heavens on a run of trilling notes.

  Beatrice was acutely aware of how close they stood. How they were shielded from prying eyes, here in the heart of London, with music swelling around them.

  Desire didn’t follow any rational order or purpose.

  When he was near, she wanted to touch him. Be closer to him. Listen to his voice, because it made her skin sensitive, made her body thrum and throb.

  Really, there was no more delicate word for the sensation. A throbbing in hidden places, a tingling awareness of her body . . . and his.

  He was a forceful blur in the darkness. A warm wall of man, heating her through her clothing.

  Her hand still rested on his chest, perilously close to his heart.

  His thumb stroked her cheek.

  Viola was waiting for her beyond the curtain. The aria would end soon.

  This was a risky game. Alone in the velvety darkness with Ford. This was about danger and it was about possessiveness.

  He’d come running to the opera house to warn her about Mayhew.

  He kissed her and she met him halfway, closing her eyes and surrendering to her desire. His lips caressed hers. He hadn’t removed her spectacles and they felt like a barrier, so she removed them and slipped them into her pocket.

  His hands moved to her waist and he pressed her closer until their bodies met.

  She tasted ale on his tongue, sweet fruit with a hint of bitterness.

  He cared about her. He urged her to take risks.

  She wanted to take this risk, seize and savor it.

  Perfectly suspended in this moment up above the crowd, above the drama being enacted on the stage, up near the rafters where the notes reverberated in a different way, where the soaring high notes felt like they were reaching for her, trying to find her, and when they did the beauty of it made her want to cry.

  The orchestra and the singers were all here for her pleasure. Everyone was there to give her joy. Ford, most of all.

  He dipped his head to her bodice and kissed the tops of her breasts. She tilted her head back against the wall.

  This. She wanted this.

  She arched her back, offering herself to him.

  Ford’s breathing was ragged, his mind gone blank. He hadn’t meant for this to happen, all he’d wanted to do was warn her about Mayhew, but now he had his lips inside her bodice.

  He’d read her diary entry, felt the pain emblazoned in the words written by a young girl who had been ridiculed and bullied. The knowledge rolled through him like a summer squall on calm seas: this eloquent, lovely woman standing in front of him had no idea how exquisite she was.

  He could show her.

  He kissed the edge of her corset, touching his lips to the soft swell of her breasts. Her breathing quickened and her heart beat faster beneath his lips. Fingertips massaged the back of his neck in soft circles.

  She had small breasts, perfect for her slight figure, framed by creamy silk with a pink bow in the middle and seed pearls sewn into the bodice edging, so fine, so delicate.

  His fingers shook as he traced the bow.

  He glanced up and she smiled at him.

  That lopsided smile and the warmth in her hazel eyes was his undoing.

  He tugged her bodice down, it required only a slight movement, and gorgeous nipples appeared over the edge of the silk.

  Soaring cascades of tremulous notes spilled around them. The soprano sounded like she was singing about life, about death, about love.

  He lowered his head and took one of her nipples between his lips, sucking gently. Her small gasp was more beautiful music than the aria.

  Kissing her gave him so much pleasure, made his blood pump through his body, made him hard and ready. He felt more alive than he had in years. He had a clear and present purpose: give Beatrice pleasure. Make her body quiver and her heartbeat quicken.

  Make her moan his name, the soft sound swallowed by the shimmering aria.

  The last notes hovering in the air around them, fading to silence . . . no . . . just a moment longer.

  She took a stuttering breath. “I—I must go.”

  He helped her rearrange her bodice.

  And then she was gone.

  And he was back in th
e darkness. Adrift and alone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The invitations kept arriving. Her mother was ecstatic, treating each new card that arrived as a small triumph in her grand scheme to marry Beatrice off in style.

  Beatrice hadn’t anticipated that upholding her end of the bargain would make her quite this popular. Apparently the combination of dowry-plus-newly-docile was potent enough to send her straight to the top of everyone’s social calendars.

  She hadn’t found any time to visit the bookshop in the last few days.

  I won’t require your help, Ford had said, but she knew he hadn’t really meant it. He was there all alone, racing against a very strict deadline. He must be working night and day, repairing roof tiles and removing damaged floorboards.

  She thought about him all the time.

  About their kiss in the opera house. About his lips doing those wicked things. His hot breath against her skin, lips closing around her . . .

  Don’t think about the opera.

  They’d been alone in the darkness, swept away by the passionate music. He’d only done what a Ford was born to do. She’d known he was a rogue, and an incorrigible flirt, when she’d hired him.

  In order to maintain a proper and businesslike relationship, she must play her part more convincingly. The prim, unassailable spinster. The role she’d chosen in life.

  As long as she kept any irrational desires locked away there was no reason to avoid the bookshop. Besides, she wanted to give Ford the good news. Her brother’s solicitor and Isobel had confirmed that because the property was not entailed, and because Beatrice was unmarried and had reached her majority, she owned the bookshop and could dispose of it as she pleased. Greenaway had begun drawing up the documents that would transfer the title to the ladies league for use as a clubhouse.

  Perhaps Foxton had given up and moved on to another property, though she highly doubted that he would simply disappear. He owned the vacant buildings on either side of the bookshop, which could prove problematic.

  Her best hope was to sign the shop over to the League, remove every trace of the bawdy books, and complete the renovations swiftly, before Foxton made his next move.

  Coggins was too old and frail to be of much help, and Ford required an assistant. She might not be especially strong, but she’d learned how to swing a sledgehammer with gusto.

  She was determined to make herself useful.

  This morning she’d risen early, before her mother awoke, and taken a shirt and a pair of trousers from her absent brother Rafe’s adjacent apartments. She’d left her mother a note saying she would be inventorying books at the bookshop and would be back in time to be made presentable for this evening’s entertainments.

  She arrived at the bookshop before the sun had taken its coffee and decided to put on a bright face. Ford had removed the sign above the door. Beatrice had liked the sign with its fairy-tale castle and mysterious woods. Without the sign this was just a building, nameless like the empty buildings next door.

  Not empty for long.

  She and the ladies would have a plate inscribed for the door with the name of their club and the year of dedication. A name that was less about knitting, but not so radical as to reveal their true purpose to the world.

  She let herself in with her key. The shop was quiet save for the bell announcing her arrival. Coggins appeared wearing a nightcap and rubbing his eyes. “Lady Beatrice?” he croaked. “What time is it?”

  “Time for carpentering.” She marched into the entrance hall and he locked the door behind her.

  “Mr. Wright is still abed,” he informed her.

  “Perfect.” She’d be hard at work when he came downstairs. “I need a quick start to my day. My mother owns the second half of it and I’m determined to own the first. Is Mrs. Kettle in?”

  “Not yet. She never arrives until later.” He yawned. “I’ll make you some coffee. Could use some myself.”

  “I need tools, Coggins.”

  “Tools, milady?”

  “Hammers, and nails, and such things.”

  “Mr. Wright left a bucket of tools in the front room.”

  “Excellent.”

  She changed her clothing in Mrs. Kettle’s little sitting room under the stairs. It was a difficult feat to wrestle out of her gown and corset with no maid, but she managed it. She put on the shirt, tucking it into the trousers. Rafe was slimmer in the hips—the trousers were quite close fitting.

  Lady Beatrice Bentley. Displaying your limbs. Shameful!

  She banished her mother’s voice. She had no jurisdiction here. This was Beatrice’s domain. She could wear trousers, wield a hammer, revel in her new library, and do it all on her own terms.

  When she emerged, Mr. Coggins stared at her, his brows closing into one straight line.

  “Do stop staring, Coggins. You don’t expect me to carpenter in my frilly gown, do you?”

  He handed her the coffee. “What’s the world coming to?” he mumbled. “Ladies in trousers. I’m going back to bed.”

  She sipped her coffee and opened Practical Carpentry, Joinery, and Cabinet-making by Peter Nicholson, written “for the use of workmen” with “fully and clearly explained” instructions.

  She turned to the chapter entitled, “Flooring for First-Rate Houses.”

  So these rotting floorboards in the showroom were nailed on top of the joists. But which type of construction was it? She’d have to rip up a floorboard to determine the structure beneath.

  She found a hammer in the bucket. This one was much smaller than the one they’d used for knocking down the wall. It had a metal head set crosswise on a wooden handle. The curved end was obviously meant to pry things apart. But how to insert it beneath the board? And, once inserted, how did one succeed in dislodging the board?

  What felt like hours later, but was probably only ten minutes, Beatrice’s back ached and her knees hurt from kneeling on the floorboards.

  She’d only managed to pry up one small wedge of timber. “Come loose, damn you despicable board!”

  “Cursing at it won’t help,” said a deep voice over her head.

  Ford. She glanced up and then quickly back down again. Sunlight kissed the angular contours of his face. The smile teasing his lips demolished her resolutions to remain impassive and industrious.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

  “Proving you wrong.”

  “About what?”

  “I’ve received definitive confirmation that I own the property and will be able to sign it over to the league of lady knitters. Therefore, it’s of the utmost paramountcy that we finish repairing the property swiftly so that Foxton can’t claim it’s in a state of hazardous dereliction. You said you wouldn’t require my help, but since we can’t hire another carpenter as your assistant, I believe I may be of use. I understand the basic principles of floor joists and floorboards.” She frowned at the board she’d been attempting to remove. “At least I thought I did.”

  “What in the name of God are you wearing?”

  She smoothed her palm over the front of the shirt. “My brother Rafe’s clothing. He’s not in London so he won’t miss it.”

  His gaze raked the length of her body leaving her feeling exposed, and uncharacteristically feminine. If he was going to stare at her so boldly, she’d take an inventory of her own.

  He looked delicious enough to spoon into her coffee. Dark hair tousled, loose white shirt open at the neck, sunlight softening the hard angles of him, the stern set of his lips and the sturdy plane of his shoulders.

  “You look good in trousers,” he said.

  The compliment startled her. She’d expected him to order her to change back into her feminine frills and march upstairs to the reading room where she belonged.

  She wiped a damp palm on the sturdy fabric of the trousers. “My friend India, the Duchess of Ravenwood, wears trousers when she goes on archaeological digs. And when she infiltrates all-male societies. I find I quite like the
freedom they afford. I may never wear a gown again.”

  “I liked the gown you were wearing at the opera.” His eyes did that smoldering thing where the blue warmed up and his lids closed halfway.

  She’d been determined not to bring up the subject of what happened at the opera. It seemed best to pretend it hadn’t happened. But if he were going to be cavalier about it, she’d answer in kind. “I recall you rather liked sliding it down my shoulders.”

  She tried to imitate his smoldering look, but feared she probably looked as though she were trying to blink a speck of dust out of her eye.

  He folded his arms over his chest and the motion brought his muscles into swelling prominence. “Shall we talk about what happened at the opera? I went there to warn you . . . and we ended up . . .”

  She swallowed. She was still on her knees, and he was standing over her like temptation incarnate. “Kissing again. I was there. But you must know that opera has that effect on people. The music is so transporting that it has a tendency to provoke people to fits of passion.”

  “It was the opera, was it?”

  “Quite.” Prim, proper, and purposeful. “I’m not here for conversation, Ford. I’m here for woodworking.” She held up the carpentry book like a shield against all of that virility. “I have a book. Practical Carpentry by Mr. Peter Nicholson.”

  “Very well.” He dropped to a squat beside her. “What has Mr. Nicholson taught you about removing damaged floorboards?”

  “There are several figures and diagrams and an explanation of the system of floor joists. It says that these large strong timbers I’ve uncovered are called girders and—”

  “Put the book down, Beatrice.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I know this will be difficult for you, but you can’t remove floorboards while holding a book. Put down the book.”

  She lowered the book.

  “Not everything in life revolves around books. Some things must be learned through practical application.”

  “I’m willing to learn.”

  “First of all, you don’t have the right tool for the job. You can’t use a hammer alone. You need a crowbar.” He searched the bucket of tools and lifted a long flat metal tool with a curved fork at one end. “This is designed to use for leverage. You insert it under the board and lift enough to maneuver the hammer in, like so. See, the nail is standing proud now, and you can easily remove it with the claw end of your claw hammer.”