The Steel Rogue: A Valor of Vinehill Novel

by K. J. Jackson

  “I’m not sure if your opinion of me is heartening or frightening to hear.”

  “How could it frighten you?”

  He shrugged. “Expectations can be hard to bear. Especially for me.”

  A smile curled her full lips. “It should hearten you. Only that.”

  They paused at the base of the wide marble staircase that led up to the ballroom from the impeccably manicured gardens behind them. The warm glow of the interior spilled down the steps through the row of eight French doors, the din of the crush inside floating into the night air through the middle two open doors.

  Roe searched the people walking about, headdresses with brightly colored plumes wagging through the air, the pomade in the hair of the gentlemen catching the flickers of light. To the right. There. Logan’s tall frame appeared just on the other side of the doors at the end of the row.

  Always protecting the back entrance. He’d been doing it since he was six. His brother never changed.

  Roe pointed. “There he is, the dark-haired one on the end.”

  Torrie followed his finger. “He’s tall. He’s the only one that I can see the shoulders of from this angle.” She looked to Roe. “Is he taller than you?”

  His nose wrinkled, his lips pursing. “Slightly. If that.” His hand moved from the small of her back and he grabbed her hand. “Let’s get this done with.”

  There was resistance in her hand, in her steps as they moved up the stairs, but he tugged her along. They couldn’t just sneak into Culland Hall. Logan would have guards positioned throughout the house at an event like this and Roe wasn’t looking for him and Torrie to be misidentified as vagrants and tossed out onto the gravel.

  They reached the top of the stairs and Roe tugged Torrie through the door just to the left of Logan.

  His attention focused the other direction, Logan nodded to the man he was talking to, then set the glass of port he held to his lips as he turned slightly, his eyes on the crush of people in his ballroom.

  “You showed.” His brother’s voice—the voice he’d known his whole life, the voice that had guided him through childhood even when he resisted it, the voice he’d measured himself against since he was old enough to walk—slipped low below the buzz of the guests.

  Of course Logan had seen him before he slipped into the ballroom. Hell, Logan had probably known the moment Roe had stepped down from the carriage.

  Roe took one final step to him, aligning his shoulder next to Logan’s. “I did.”

  “Yet you slipped in without being announced.” Logan’s grey eyes, a match to his own, moved to him, then flickered downward. “Not dressed, of course.”

  “You expected I wouldn’t show?”

  “I expected you to have my wife go through the work to throw this gala to raise funds for your orphanage and for you to manifest some excuse not to come.”

  Roe scoffed. “Sienna loves doing this gala.”

  “She loves you. She loves the orphanage.”

  Roe’s hand went onto his brother’s shoulder. “So it appears you don’t need me in attendance after all. Which is good, since I forgot the gala was this eve.”

  Logan pointed at Roe with the lip of the glass in his hand. “Hence the clothing.”

  Roe shrugged. “Unfortunately.”

  “Gala or not, Sienna wants to see you on occasion. I want to see you on occasion.” He noticed Torrie standing just behind Roe, hiding from the throng of people. “Who is this?”

  “This is Lady Apton.”

  “Lady—” Logan’s eyes widened and he looked from Torrie to Roe and back to Torrie. “It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady.”

  “And I, you, your grace.” Her words were barely audible over the din of the ballroom.

  Roe could feel Torrie shrinking further behind him. She didn’t shrink. For all that he knew of her, she didn’t cower in a corner.

  But that was what she was doing. Cowering.

  His look shifted from his brother and scanned the room for threats.

  Nothing but flashes of color in silk and satin from ladies in grand dresses and men with impeccable posture and tight cravats dancing or moving about the edges of the ballroom.

  Silk.

  Bloody hell.

  He couldn’t care less what he was wearing—he never fit in with his brother’s society and he rarely tried. But Torrie knew this life, lived this life—and she was wearing a crumpled mess of a spencer jacket and skirt that hadn’t been properly cleaned in three weeks. At least they had managed baths at the last coaching inn. Small favor.

  He took a step to the left, blocking her even further from the crowd.

  Logan looked from Torrie to Roe, his eyes narrowing at his brother. Roe grabbed the front lapel of his jacket and flicked it slightly, then threw his eyes back toward Torrie.

  Instant understanding registered in Logan’s eyes. His look lifted and scanned the room, stopping at the far corner of the space, and he lifted his hand, flicking his fingers toward him.

  Within a minute, Sienna, his sister-in-law, was moving through the crush toward them, sliding with ease past person after person trying to draw her attention.

  Give Sienna a mission and she looked nowhere but forward.

  She rushed Roe, a ball of energy. “Robby, you made it. I barely believe it even though you’re standing in front of me.” She grabbed his arms—tight—springing to her toes and kissing him on the cheek.

  “In the flesh.” He couldn’t resist her beaming smile and a grin crossed his face.

  Logan moved around his wife to stand in front of Torrie, effectively shielding her from the party. Good man.

  Logan set his hand on his wife’s upper arm. “Sienna, Robby has brought with him one Lady Apton.”

  “Lady—” Cutting herself off, Sienna’s eyes went wide and she looked from Torrie to Roe. “Robby—how? What?” She stopped her words again, waving her hand in the air and looking directly at Torrie, leaning in with her voice low. “Welcome to our home, Lady Apton.” Sienna looked her up and down. “Do I presume correctly that you are about my size and would possibly want to borrow something from my wardrobe? A gown perhaps?”

  Relief invaded Torrie’s face, her shoulders relaxing from the tight hold they had been in since they had rounded the back corner of Culland Hall. “That would be wonderful, thank you so much, your grace.”

  Sienna looked over her shoulder, then back to Torrie and reached past Roe to grab her hand. “Come with me, then. We’ll scoot out the side entrance and make it upstairs without anyone noticing, assuming Logan and Robby can set their shoulders together and block us from view.” She flicked her finger to Roe.

  In spite of himself, he jumped and moved to set himself shoulder to shoulder with Logan. Sienna had been ordering him about his whole life and he still would do anything she asked.

  The wall of Roe and Logan awkwardly took two steps to the right, just enough to give Sienna and Torrie a clear exit to the side door of the ballroom. They escaped and the door closed behind Sienna’s gown, a delicate concoction of white tissue gauze layered over pink satin and trimmed with gold satin flutings. Sienna wore wealth well.

  Logan turned to Roe.

  “You have some explaining to do.”

  Roe took a large inhale, expelling it slowly. Of course he did. “About Torrie?”

  Logan nodded.

  “It’s a long story.”

  Logan cocked an eyebrow at him. “And she was quite close to you. Near to crawling on your back.”

  Roe looked at the brightly lit sconce set into the tall mahogany wainscoting to Logan’s left. “Suffice it to say, beyond all reason and good sense, Torrie and I have become close.”

  “How close, is what I wonder.”

  Roe refused to look at him.

  “Fine.” Logan clucked his tongue. “Not now in the middle of the ballroom. But you will tell me everything.”

  Roe only offered him a shrug.

  “In the meantime, I still have a half inch on you, b
rother, but all of my clothes should fit you fine. Go upstairs and change so Lady Apton doesn’t have more eyes on her than necessary when she returns to the party and is seen next to you.”

  He looked to Logan. “Or I could intervene with Sienna and Torrie and we could hide upstairs.”

  “Or you could stop whining about your fundraising gala and get your arse moving.”

  A nonsensical grumble left Roe’s lips and he turned from his brother, slipping out the side door and making his way up the rear stairs to Logan’s chamber.

  Primping up had better be worth it.

  ~~~

  “And then she caught his nose between the knuckles of her index and middle finger and yanked him up from his seat at the hazard table,” the Duchess of Dellon said, her hands animated about her face. “He stumbled up and she dragged him out of there. You can imagine the roar about him.”

  “Serves him well.” The Countess of Alton snorted—delicately—a laugh. “It’s her inheritance he’s piddling away.”

  “Yes, and the man never had a spine.” Lady Vandestile wrinkled her nose. “I’m glad Lady Fillson finally reached her limit. Her husband is dreadfully afraid of her father, so she should have done it long ago.”

  Her eyes wide, a smile on her lips, Torrie watched the three glorious creatures in front of her. Blond hair, chestnut hair, black hair. All beautiful in completely opposite ways, the three proprietresses of the Revelry’s Tempest gaming hall.

  She’d heard lore of the Revelry’s Tempest and these three women when she’d lived in London with her husband, but she had never attended one of the gaming nights there. They ran in completely different sets than her husband and he had been far too frugal with his money to waste even a shilling on something as silly as a game of chance.

  Torrie had gone up the stairs with Roe’s sister-in-law, and descended those same steps with a friend. Sienna had embraced her as a confidante so effortlessly, it took Torrie minutes to realize she’d started to call the duchess by her given name.

  After she had changed into one of Sienna’s exquisite gowns—a dusty blue satin that cut low across her chest with simple lace adornment—and had her hair done into a quick, but surprisingly artful upsweep by the maid under Sienna’s watchful eye, they had returned to the ballroom. Roe was not to be found and Sienna had hostess duties, so Torrie had been introduced to the three fascinating creatures standing before her.

  Sienna couldn’t have deposited her with better company.

  Gracious, witty, and welcoming, but with wry, canny eyes on the ballroom and all the happenings going on, they were three of the fiercest women she’d ever met. All wrapped under the guise of perfectly coiffed hair and silk that draped them flawlessly—flawless because each one was so comfortable with who they were.

  A pang of jealousy stabbed through her chest at that realization. They knew. They knew exactly who they were. Where they belonged.

  The Duchess of Dellon glanced over Torrie’s shoulder and her green eyes lit up, a genuine smile spreading across her face. “Oh, Lord Glenford, I heard you had arrived—thank you for finally deciding to grace us with your presence.” The teasing lilt of the duchess’s voice made Torrie smile.

  She looked over her shoulder. Roe stood behind her.

  Roe in a dark, impeccably tailored tailcoat and trousers, a crisp white cravat tied properly, but with a tilt of the knot that made it look roguish against his tanned skin. Freshly shaven, she had to look twice at the line about his jaw. She’d never seen him without a dark shadow of stubble and the absence of it made him look younger, somehow, as if she could peek into the past and see the boy he once was. His dark hair was still unfashionably long, but slicked back. Pomade, she guessed, though his hair didn’t look pasted to his head like the heads of so many men.

  A renegade lock of his hair fell alongside his forehead, curving perfectly to touch the tip of his cheekbone. No pomade.

  Striking. The whole of him striking.

  And by the number of faces turned his way—women salivating, men shifting uncomfortably with their fingers rubbing under their own cravats—she wasn’t the only one that thought so.

  Roe stepped alongside her and set his look on the duchess. “Don’t look at me like that, your grace, or your husband will bury a blade in my belly when I’m forced to set my paws on you and drag you out to the dance floor.”

  “Agreed. I will keep my eyes in my head.” The duchess laughed. “Plus, let us not poke the lion. He’s in a mood tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “He just lost a ship in the Caribbean waters to pirates. You need to get back out on the sea, Lord Glenford, if only to keep my husband’s ships afloat and his mood even.”

  Roe inclined his head to the duchess. “I will take your request under serious consideration.”

  At that moment, Torrie realized what the oddity was of how Roe had stepped into the circle of women. She hadn’t noticed it at first, she’d been so struck by him in proper clothes.

  He was Lord Glenford.

  The duchess was addressing him as such, and no one was correcting her.

  Torrie had never even heard of a Lord Glenford before—what bedlam ballroom had she found herself in?

  Roe turned to Torrie, an innocent smile on his face. “May I steal you away for a dance, Lady Apton?”

  Her bewildered gaze centered on him. “You dance?”

  His shoulders lifted. “I manage to move my feet in prescribed patterns on the floor, but don’t expect me to be in rhythm.”

  She chuckled. “I’ve never heard such a dreadful invitation to the dance floor.”

  He held his hand out to her. “You’ve never been at a ball with me.”

  She paused, holding her hand by her side. Her look flickered down to her skirts. Whereas she’d once loved the ballroom floor, she’d only danced once since the fire. It had been with her husband, and at that, she’d had difficulty twisting her legs as necessary to hit all the steps. After that one time he’d never asked her to dance again “I don’t think—”

  “You don’t think you can be seen with a hopelessly inept partner? I understand.”

  Yet he kept his palm extended up to her.

  A hesitant grin on her face, she relented. With a slight nod, she set her white-gloved fingers in his hand.

  A few steps and they were at the edge of the dance floor. He turned fully to her, clamping his right hand about her waist as he took her right hand into his. His head bobbed in time to the music for several seconds, and then he set forth.

  Dreadfully out of step to the music.

  But she didn’t care. She had more important matters to pin him on. “You’re Lord Glenford? That was what the duchess called you—Lord Glenford.”

  His mouth quirked, but the frown—or the smile—he hid didn’t manifest. “I’m Roe.”

  “No, you’re Lord Glenford. When did that happen? And how did I not know about it?”

  His right eyebrow cocked. “Your hopelessly inept investigator?”

  “Roe.” His name hissed out of her lips.

  This was a game to him. She was a game to him. All of this blasted ballroom and the title and his duke for a brother and she hadn’t had the slightest notion. Not to mention how maddeningly little he’d told her about the danger they were in and why they’d had to come here for safety. And now he was laughing at her. Mocking her.

  Just when she started to tug her fingers out of his grip to quit him on the dance floor, his hand clamped hard onto hers, his fingers at her waist pulling her closer to him.

  “It was kept ridiculously quiet at my request.” He leaned slightly down toward her, his breath teasing along the side of her face with his low words. “I told Logan I wanted an estate bought near London to set up as an orphanage for the abandoned children in St. Giles and he went and purchased an estate called Glenford. The ass. He managed to forget to mention for a number of months that he’d wrangled a barony to go along with it for my service to the crown on the ship.”

/>   “So you are Lord Glenford.”

  “I am Roe. That is all.”

  “Yet that isn’t the full truth of it. And you answered quite nonchalantly to the title when spoken.” Her look skewered him. “So not such a quiet transaction—the ladies of the Revelry’s Tempest seem to know you and your title quite well.”

  He glanced in their general direction. “Well, they are among the few as they give quite a bit of money to the orphanage. Plus they are old friends of Logan’s, so I am quite indebted to their kindness.”

  She caught sight of the duchess and Lady Vandestile laughing, the air about them practically glowing. “That conversation didn’t seem like indebtedness. It seemed like flirting.”

  His head snapped back slightly. “Was that what it was like? If so, I best get my guard up against the Duke of Dellon storming me.” A grin tugged at the sides of his mouth.

  “If you would like to flirt with the lot of married women, go ahead and do so.” Her fingers on his shoulder curled into a ball that she had to forcefully flex open. “It’s of no consequence to me.”

  “You wouldn’t care?” His eyebrows lifted in feigned curiosity. “For it appears as though the slightest bit of jealousy has crept into your voice.”

  Her look drifted down to the askew knot of his cravat. “Don’t make me the fool, Roe.” The words came out tiny, and she hated them for their lack of fortitude.

  “Tor.”

  Her look lifted to him.

  Her words had sobered him, the needling look evaporating from his face. “Know that I am hopelessly inept at charming the ladies. I’ve been in prison or at sea for the last nine years. So no, I was not flirting. I didn’t even recognize it if that was what it was.”

  He spun her, terribly out of time with the music. What was odd at first, trying to step in time with the music as he was leading her in a hopelessly mistimed gait across the floor, had eased into familiarity. Stepping out of time was far easier—freeing, even—when she let him lead her into it.

  “You are not a fool, Tor.”

  Her breath caught in her throat and she studied him, searching his steel grey eyes for the truth. Or at least a lie she could hold onto.