by Adele Clee
The Mark of a Rogue
Scandalous Sons - Book 2
Adele Clee
Contents
Books by Adele Clee
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Thank you!
Books by Adele Clee
Books by Adele Clee
To Save a Sinner
A Curse of the Heart
What Every Lord Wants
The Secret To Your Surrender
A Simple Case of Seduction
Anything for Love Series
What You Desire
What You Propose
What You Deserve
What You Promised
Lost Ladies of London
The Mysterious Miss Flint
The Deceptive Lady Darby
The Scandalous Lady Sandford
The Daring Miss Darcy
Avenging Lords
At Last the Rogue Returns
A Wicked Wager
Valentine’s Vow
A Gentleman’s Curse
Scandalous Sons
And the Widow Wore Scarlet
The Mark of a Rogue
When Scandal Came to Town
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. All characters are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be copied or reproduced in any manner without the author’s permission. Distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement.
The Mark of a Rogue
Copyright © 2019 Adele Clee
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1-9164336-5-6
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Chapter One
Most people tended graves during the daylight hours, pulled weeds, laid pretty posies and poured out their hearts to a cold headstone. Most people said a few prayers in church, conversed with the vicar, left feeling that they had done right by the departed, done their duty for the next month at least.
Few entered a graveyard in the dead of night when the sky was clear and the moon full. Many believed ghosts lurked behind the stone monuments. That the deceased wandered these morbid places searching for the peace denied them in life. When the wind howled, did it not sound like the wailing of those weighed down by their burdens? Those hindered by the heavy chains that made it impossible to cast off their sins and pass over to the light?
Who tended a grave in the dark?
The foolish.
Drunken sots.
Those possessed of a dark secret.
Lawrence Trent, the illegitimate son of Viscount Ranfield, hid in the shadows, hoping to surprise his quarry. Once a week, someone came to lay flowers and religious trinkets at his half-brother’s grave. The midnight visitor left pious poems in a pretty box, confirming the theory that the elusive mourner must be a woman.
Neither Lawrence nor his brother had any living female relatives. Hired weepers never returned once soil covered the coffin. Members of his brother’s household staff cared little for the master who rarely ventured south of town. But someone with an affection for the deceased visited often.
Who else could it be but a mistress?
To occupy his mind while he waited, Lawrence considered the eerie setting. The church’s square flint tower dominated the landscape, casting an ominous shadow over the grey headstones. Trees loomed over the graves like weeping relatives. The sound of nocturnal creatures scurrying beneath the light of a full moon only enhanced the haunting scene.
Whoever braved the churchyard at night had courage in abundance. Indeed, Lawrence was about to consider the character of such a woman when another noise captured his attention.
He narrowed his gaze and followed the clop of a horse’s hooves approaching on the narrow lane beyond the hedgerow. In the dark, it was impossible to see with any clarity, but he heard the woman’s muttered whisperings to her mount before he saw her enter through the wooden lychgate.
Lawrence shrank back into the gloom. It wouldn’t do to frighten an innocent parishioner, though something told him the woman strolling towards the graves, shrouded in a lilac cloak with the hood raised, was his elusive quarry.
When she took the winding path to the left of the church, his heart thumped against his ribcage.
What brought her here?
Grief?
Love?
He couldn’t help but feel a little envious of his brother. As well as courage, this lady possessed undying loyalty and dedication.
Lawrence pushed out of the darkness and stalked slowly behind his prey. He trod lightly on the overgrown grass, for the need to watch her perform her weekly ritual burned fiercely in his chest.
As expected, the woman stopped directly in front of his brother’s grave and studied the headstone marking the final resting place of Charles Louis Farrow. Beloved son (and only legitimate son) of Viscount Ranfield. Drowned on a fateful day four months ago. Resting in a graveyard occupied by every other deceased Farrow for the last two hundred years.
The heavy weight of grief and regret returned, coupled with the same crippling suspicion. Why had his brother entered the water on such a cold night? How did a man drown when he had the strength and stamina to swim the Channel?
Perhaps Charles had frolicked in the river with this woman, had rescued her from the raging undercurrent but struggled to save himself. Either way, she had to know something about the man whose memory she worshipped.
Lawrence focused his attention and peered into the darkness.
The woman reached into the satchel hidden beneath her cloak. She removed a glass bottle, pulled the stopper and sprinkled droplets over the tomb. After placing the bottle back into the bag, she knelt and brushed away a few leaves and twigs. Then she removed a small nosegay and replaced the withered one.
Had curiosity not held him in its tight grip, he might have shot out from amidst the shrubbery and demanded to know what the hell she was doing. The ritual was like something one read about in gothic novels, in terrifying tales where the dead rose to walk the earth again.
Next, she slipped the ribbon from a scroll and read the poem aloud in a soothing voice filled with heart and passion. The last part of this strange custom involved pressing her palms together in prayer, though her mumbled words were inaudible.
Was she reciting an incantation in a foreign tongue?
Had her emotions taken command of her vocal cords?
For a moment he wondered if he might wake in a cold sweat and discover this was all a terrible nightmare. But his quarry was on the move, gliding along the walkway past the monuments, heading back to the gate.
Lawrence trailed behind, his heartbeat pounding loudly in h
is ears, his racing pulse as erratic as his coachman’s driving. Charged and ready to strike, he was so fixated on her movements he accidentally kicked a stone and sent it skittering along the path.
Hell’s teeth!
The woman flinched at the sound and came to an abrupt halt. She glanced back over her shoulder, and in a shrill voice said, “Who … who goes there?”
Should he make his move now, or follow her home?
Impatience got the better of him.
“Someone who has a keen interest in the grave you’re tending.” Lawrence stepped out onto the gravel path.
The woman whirled around to face him, clutching her hand to her chest as if afraid her heart might burst free. She gaped at his black coat, black cravat, black breeches. “Are you h-him?”
“Him?” Lawrence took two steps forward, eager to gaze upon the face of the woman who, until now, lived only within the dark depths of his imagination. “To whom do you refer?”
“Are you the devil come to claim Mr Farrow?”
The devil?
Lawrence couldn’t help but laugh. “You think I am Lucifer?”
She stepped backwards when he took a few more steps. But his purposeful strides were longer, and he was soon close enough to observe her clearly for the first time.
On the one hand, he’d imagined a timid chit with mouse-like features, a wallflower desperate to do the Lord’s work and save repentant sinners. On another, Charles’ love of wild, wanton women had roused lewd images of a brazen creature with rouged cheeks, her voluptuous breasts spilling from the confines of her bodice.
The lady who stood staring at him with eyes like exotic blue pools in an arid desert, with parted lips as soft and as naturally red as ripe cherries, bore a resemblance to neither image. There was something clean and wholesome about her face, yet something dangerously alluring.
“Why would you think I am Lucifer?” he repeated, for she seemed too shocked to speak. Did she honestly think the king of the underworld wandered the graveyards of Walton-on-Thames?
The lady gulped. “We’re told that Satan walks amongst us.” She gazed into his eyes for the longest time. “And I have never met another living soul with eyes such a penetrating green.”
“Since when did having green eyes make a man a monster?”
“You are hunting in a graveyard at night.” She raised her chin, had seemingly regained confidence. “What other reason could you have for being here?” A brief pause preceded a sudden gasp. She raised her clenched fists. “If you intend to do me harm, sir, I must warn you. My father was an expert pugilist, and I have no qualms punching you in a very vulnerable place.”
It took a tremendous effort not to laugh. The lady was likely to break a knuckle if she hit him in the ballocks. Still, he had to admire her spirit.
Lawrence raised his hands in surrender. “I mean you no harm. Are you here to save the soul of a sinner?” It certainly explained her need to perform odd rituals in the dead of night.
She narrowed her gaze and peered at him from beneath her hood. “What business is it of yours, sir?”
What business? He’d lost his only sibling. “A man has a right to know the name of the woman tending his brother’s grave.” The one who’d created a shrine to the memory of Charles Farrow.
He expected to see a pink blush touch her cheeks, shame for questioning his motive. Instead, her pale skin turned ashen. Her bottom lip quivered as if devil horns had sprouted through the material of his top hat.
“Your brother! Then you are one of them—a member of the Brethren.” She shuffled backwards, clearly alarmed. “No doubt you bear the devil’s mark, too.” Her frantic gaze shot left and right as she edged back to the lychgate.
Lawrence shook his head. “Madam, you have me at a loss.”
With hands held behind her back, she reached for the wooden gate. “Mr F-Farrow had no siblings.” The beauty looked sick with terror. “Therefore, I must conclude that you use the term brother because you are a member of the same club.”
Confusion rendered him momentarily speechless.
Who the hell were the Brethren?
What did she mean by the devil’s mark?
“Charles Farrow was my half-brother. Viscount Ranfield is my father, too.” Though the lord tried hard to forget that a woman had tricked him into siring a bastard. “I assure you. I am a man who would rather eat his eyeballs than entertain membership of any gentleman’s club.”
Uncertainty flashed in her eyes.
“Charles must have mentioned me,” he said. “My name is Lawrence Trent.”
Disappointment clawed away inside when she shook her head and said, “No.” The familiar ache eased when she added, “In truth, Mr Trent, I have only spoken to Mr Farrow once.”
Lawrence blinked back his surprise. “Then why tend his grave?” Had she loved Charles from a distance, admired his dashing good looks? Did she grieve what might have been? Had she longed for Farrow to give up his reckless ways and finally settle?
She stared up at him and pursed her lips. While he knew his countenance was attractive to the female eye, her level of scrutiny went beyond the superficial.
“When one looks closely, your eyes are such a soothing shade of green, sir. My mother once told me that the eyes are the bringers of truth. The eyes hold the secrets of the heart.”
The comments unsettled his composure.
He had no heart. His eyes held the power to rouse fear and dread. One hard stare sent men scurrying. How was it she saw something else?
Lawrence straightened and stepped forward. “Then you know I have no intention of hurting you, and so I ask again. Why are you laying tokens at my brother’s grave?”
She hesitated, opened her mouth to speak but then snapped it shut. Doubt lingered in every aspect of her bearing. “If you wish to continue this conversation, sir, you will need to … need to …”
“Need to what?”
“Need to sh-show me your chest.”
“My chest!”
What the blazes?
He might have laughed at the joke had her expression not conveyed the utmost seriousness. Having spent years attending the parties of the demi-monde—for even a man on the outskirts of society felt a need to belong—he’d never encountered an innocent playing the role of a temptress.
“Your b-bare chest, sir. I have no interest in examining the quality of your clothing.”
Lawrence snorted. “You want me to strip off my clothes in a graveyard at night?” Lord, he couldn’t help but feel mildly aroused. “Might I enquire as to the reason for such an unusual request?”
“Not all of your clothes. I merely wish to make sure you do not bear the mark.”
“The devil’s mark?” he clarified.
“The mark of a rogue, Mr Trent.”
Did this woman possess the gift of second sight?
Did his soul radiate with evidence of his rakish manner?
“Proof is the only thing I seek, sir,” she added, while he stood dumbfounded.
He considered her full mouth and lush cherry-red lips, lips he was convinced had never felt a man’s moist caress. He’d warrant those dazzling blue eyes had never gazed upon a man’s naked form, either. With her hood raised, she possessed an ethereal quality—a purity of heart and mind—which only reinforced the shocking nature of her request.
“Very well.” He set to work on the knot in his cravat. “You may feast upon my flesh if that is your wish.”
Damnation!
Thank the Lord, Wycliff and Cavanagh were not here to witness this madness. Indeed, when he regaled the tale to his friends, he would omit the most embarrassing part.
“Would you mind holding my clothes?” Lawrence handed her his hat and cravat. He shrugged out of his coat and gave her that, too.
The lady remained rooted to the spot, her posture rigid as she clutched his garments and watched him undress.
When he handed her his waistcoat, she scanned the width of his shoulders and said, “Wai
t. There is no need to remove your shirt. I simply need to see your upper chest. That’s where all the rogues wear their mark. Might you part the material?”
Like hell he would. “You’ll gaze upon my bare chest whether you want to or not.” Feeling as if he had gained the upper hand again, Lawrence relished the opportunity to rattle her composure. “Else you might accuse me of bearing the mark elsewhere.” He grabbed the hem and drew his shirt over his head.
The lady sucked in a sharp breath. Open-mouthed, she stared at every muscled contour, at his nipples erect from the cold. A faint blush stained her cheeks. She looked away numerous times, but it was as if a magnetic pull drew her back to gaze upon his nakedness.
“Satisfied?” Lawrence opened his arms wide, ignored the chill bringing goose bumps to his skin. This was certainly not how he envisaged his night in the graveyard would end. “Well, do you see Satan’s mark?”
With some hesitation, she stepped closer and focused on the pectoral muscle above his right nipple. Her sweet breath breezed across his skin. Lord have mercy! For a moment he thought she might touch him. But after some reflection, she straightened. “You may dress, Mr Trent.”
“What, so soon? I rather like having the icy wind whipping at my back.” It seemed the devil had appeared. The wicked imp on his shoulder begged him to tease her, demanded he rouse more than a blush. “Perhaps you should probe further. Stage actors use creams and ointments to hide their scars.”
Mistrust flashed in her eyes.
Good. The woman should reconsider her need to visit churchyards alone in the dead of night. They might be miles from London, but rogues lingered in the most unlikely places.