The Steel Rogue: A Valor of Vinehill Novel

by K. J. Jackson

  “The title—it makes it easier for Logan when he has to drag me to the clubs or to a ball in London. There are always more funds needed to be raised for the children, and there is always plenty of money floating about London ballrooms. He originally had me pinned to marry an heiress looking for a title—what would have been the easiest way to secure the orphanage for quite some time.”

  “But that didn’t take?”

  “It did for two days.” A mischievous grin lined his lips. “But then I figured it’d be easier to hunt down another Turkish ship and take my share of the spoils than it would be to be saddled with a self-indulgent heiress for the rest of my life.”

  She laughed. “You caught the ship, I presume?”

  “We did. And probably in more timely a fashion than it would have taken for me to catch an heiress.”

  “So the orphanage is secure?”

  “It is. And it isn’t just an orphanage. They train the children as well. Find them apprenticeships for whatever type of work they’re interested in. Or the truly intelligent ones, they catch them up on their education and then we send them on to school. One of the older children—an incredibly brilliant boy—just entered Edinburgh Medical School. He’d spent his years in St. Giles following about Madame Rosewren—she’s a bone-setter and curer of all ills, so he already knew more than most students there. Logan had to pull strings and he was the youngest man ever to be admitted.”

  The pride in his grey eyes was unmistakable. This—doing this for the children—was where his heart lived.

  Her chest swelled, sending a lump into her throat. “That is tremendous.”

  “What would be even more tremendous is if you forgot you ever learned of the title.” His eyes darkened, his look intent on her. “I’m just Roe, Torrie. I’m the man you met on that ship. Not the man from before the moment I found you on the docks. Not the man with a title. Just me.”

  She inhaled a breath, holding it deep in her chest for a long second. She nodded. “I like that you the best. So that is who you will be.”

  “Heaven help me, I will be that man.”

  “Don’t disappoint me.”

  “I don’t intend to, Tor.”

  The music stopped, but Roe’s feet kept moving for six more beats before ceasing, as though he didn’t want to be cheated out of the full song.

  He was dancing slow for her. She hadn’t realized it at first, but he was purposefully out of rhythm for her. For her legs that could go through the motions, but would hiccup and slow unexpectedly.

  Her look dipped to his cravat, tears brimming on her lower lashes.

  Out of step.

  Out of step for her.

  But the two of them together?

  Perfectly out of step.

  { Chapter 16 }

  The steel cracked onto Roe’s blade just above his forehead, the twang of it ringing in his ears.

  A grunt, and Roe twisted to the left and shoved upward against his blade, sending the threat flying backward.

  Logan laughed, catching his balance three strides away. “You’ve learned some new tricks since the last time we fought, little brother.”

  “Or you’re getting soft in your pampered life, old man.”

  Another laugh and Logan advanced, his sword low and spinning in an arc alongside his thigh. “This old man still has legs in him. I’ve been working with Violet’s boy on how to swing a sword, and he’s a wily little character. Slides between my legs and whaps my backside, the bugger. His father’s been teaching him war tricks—but Theo thinks he’s too easy on him so he enlisted me.”

  “Smart.”

  “Or the man just wants his small child to humiliate me for sport,” Logan scoffed. “Either way, it’s kept me far fitter than you’re ready for.”

  “Oh, I could do this all day, brother.” Their blades clashed low just in front of Roe and he slashed his steel wide, driving his brother backward. “But it is good to know their boy has a streak of scrappiness in him. It gives me hope for the next generation.”

  “You always did fight like that, didn’t you?” Logan jumped to the far side, low on the hill by the pond they fought next to. “Unexpected was your game. I had almost forgotten how good you were at the surprise attack.”

  Roe crashed down at him, attacking with the ferocity his higher position demanded. Logan took a strike, then spun out of the way, landing a blow of the flat edge of his sword on Roe’s back. The sting of it was enough to send Roe stumbling down the rolling hill.

  Bugger.

  If his thoughts hadn’t been tangled a moment ago in the image of Torrie arching backward—her thigh tight to his ear, her leg draped over his back, the crux of her on his tongue—he would have blocked the blow. Her body in full orgasm was a sight to behold. Quivering, gasping for breath. Every limb tensing with coiled gratification. Her fingers gripping his head, demanding he not stop.

  The memory from late last night not easily put aside, no matter how many strikes his brother landed on him.

  After the gala finished and they had retired, he hadn’t waited even five minutes before going to her room. Propriety be damned. He wasn’t about to waste a fresh shaven face on the ludicrous need for sleep. Not when Torrie was three doors away waiting for him.

  Which she was. Naked.

  “I take that back.” Logan rounded him. “Your new tricks can’t hide the fact that you’re a step slow today.”

  “Maybe I am.” Roe shrugged, wiping the back of his hand against his bottom lip. It had started to bleed where Logan had landed a blow earlier. He’d take his brother’s taunting—a small trade for the scene of a naked Torrie in his mind. He was determined to hold onto that image of her, hold onto it until his dying breath, and if thinking of it in the middle of a brutal row with his brother was the price, he’d pay it. Gladly.

  Roe lifted his sword arm, his muscles starting to get weary. They’d been at it for an hour and he was pouring sweat from every pore. But he wasn’t done.

  Neither was his brother.

  Grin on his face, Logan advanced. The crack of steel vibrated up Roe’s arm. Damn, his brother was still strong.

  Five vicious blows pushed him backward, nearing the edge of the water, before Roe could catch and twist Logan’s blade with his own, sending Logan stumbling to the side. Roe was on top of him, the tip of his blade along his neck before Logan could catch his balance.

  A thin line of blood appeared at the edge of Roe’s sword and he yanked his blade away. Too much. He’d never escaped from a bout with Logan without blood being spilled on each side.

  Roe took a step backward, letting Logan catch his balance and breath. His brother touched his fingers to the side of his neck, glancing down at the blood staining his fingers.

  “Sienna’s going to kill you for that one. She likes me without scabs.”

  “I don’t blame her. I’ll be sure to apologize to her.” Roe waited another beat before lifting his sword again and readying his feet. “And now is when I ask you a favor.”

  “You are near exhaustion?”

  Roe chuckled under his breath. He’d always waited until the end of their bouts to ask a favor of his brother. He’d been that way since they were children—build to the ask—and he wasn’t about to change his methods at this point in his life. “I am. You?”

  “The best for last.” Logan lifted his sword, ready for one more brutal swing. “And what is the favor?”

  “I have to leave, but I need to keep Torrie here, under your protection. I need the assurance from you that you will keep her safe.”

  “What do you have to do?”

  “Bockton.”

  Logan’s mouth went terse, his fingers on his sword handle twitching. His brother knew all about Bockton and his smuggling operation. “She’s in danger?”

  “She is. He saw her on the ship—knew I abandoned the attack for her. He’s put a price on her head. He thinks if he can get her, he can get me to talk.”

  “About what?”

  �
�The whereabouts of the Box of Draupnir. He’s been after it for years, since well before I set foot on a ship.”

  “Bloody hell. The box? I told you, you should have never involved yourself in the blasted thing with Captain Folback. Do you even know where it is?”

  “No.”

  “Ballocks.”

  “Yes, well, it is what it is. But I need her safe, and there is nowhere safer than under your protection. So do I have your assurance?”

  Logan took that moment to advance inward at Roe. “Lady Apton, she’s important to you?”

  Roe blocked a side blow and shifted the direction of the attack to his advantage. “I wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t.”

  “She’s your match?” Logan grunted as he leapt to the left, avoiding a fierce blow an inch from his head. “She knows about our past?”

  “Enough of it.” With a wicked swing in a horizontal arc, Roe forced Logan to the water’s edge. “You and Sienna—I know it now. I know what it is.”

  Logan’s eyebrow cocked, his sword falling to his side as he stilled. “You do?”

  The admission wasn’t supposed to draw such a reaction from his brother and it irked Roe that it sent Logan’s arm flaccid by his side. Roe shrugged, keeping his sword high and at the ready. “I’m so far down the hole with her—I need this. I need her. Water I need to drink. Air I need to breathe.”

  “And it’s turned you into a poet.”

  He gave his brother a slicing look.

  Logan grinned a half smile, lifting his sword and motioning Roe to attack with his free hand. “Does she know it?”

  “No. She can’t. Or at least I hope not. She knows I’ve been obsessed with her for a very long time. That I care for her—love her. But I don’t think she understands how deep it runs with me. Or at least I hope not.” Roe took Logan’s invitation and swung forward, sending his brother’s heels into the shallow of the water. “It’s why I’m leaving her here. I’m not going to burden her with that knowledge, not with what I have to do. Not when I know what I’m going to be walking into with Bockton.”

  “What exactly are you walking into?”

  “Hell. Hell on water.”

  “Then I go with you.” Logan ducked low on a swing and pounced away from the water’s edge.

  “No.” The low roar of Roe’s voice shook down through his sword arm. He smashed his blade into Logan’s for emphasis. “You’re staying here. He’s after her and you’re protecting her at all costs. Swear it to me.”

  Their blades tangled, Logan locked eyes with Roe. “Hunter can protect her just as well as I can—even better. His shot is unmatchable. We’ll send her up to Shadowhawk—no one is going to get to her there.”

  “Hunter’s not my brother, Logan. You are. Swear it. Swear you’ll keep her safe.”

  Logan nodded, all resistance on his sword falling away. “I’ll keep her safe.”

  ~~~

  This wasn’t like the other men she’d watched fight for practice before.

  She’d seen Scotsmen—huge, hulking men—tussle so many times. Fist to fist. Dagger to dagger. Sword to sword.

  But she’d never seen anything quite like this. Never a battle with the raw ferocity that poured out of each man. Desperate. Brutal. Merciless.

  Yet they both seemed in control.

  Or so she hoped.

  Her brow furrowed, Torrie stared at them from afar—the clashing of two brothers with hard Spanish steel between them.

  Another wicked clank of the blades and she jumped in her seat just as Sienna sat next to her on the bench under the weeping willow that sat on the east corner of the pond.

  Sienna handed Torrie a glass of lemonade, then settled against the back of the wrought iron bench, her gaze going to Roe and Logan a furlong away from them where the great lawn rolled down toward the willow-lined pond. Their white lawn shirts, half open at the neck and with their sleeves rolled up past their elbows, were stark against the green of the grass on the hill behind them. Roe’s sister-in-law watched the men, not the slightest flinch in her azure-streaked blue eyes as Logan’s fist made way across Roe’s jaw.

  To Sienna, the scene was as docile as a rabbit munching on parsnip leaves.

  Sienna nodded toward her husband and Roe, her gaze still on the men. “You’re questioning him, who he is. I can see it in how you watch him. The hesitation in your eyes.”

  “Hesitation? Aye.”

  Sienna’s look shifted to her.

  “This.” Torrie’s hand swept around her, motioning to the grand lawn they sat at the edge of, the manicured trees lining the expanse up to symmetrically pruned gardens before the main house. “Roe didn’t breathe a word of this. About who he really was. The son of a duke. A baron. He let me believe he was one person when he has all of this behind him. You. Your husband. A damn title.” Her fingers flew in front of her mouth at the blasphemy flying from her tongue.

  Sienna chuckled, grabbing Torrie’s fingers away from her lips. “Don’t fret on that—my mouth released curses just as easily as yours before we had children running about repeating what I was saying.”

  Torrie gave her a weak smile.

  Sienna released her hand. “Just because my husband is his brother, just because his father was a duke, it doesn’t make Robby any different than the man you met on that ship.”

  “But why would he not tell me of this?”

  “He didn’t tell you because he doesn’t know where he belongs. He never has. This has all come about in the last several years and it isn’t who either of them is. Not truly.” Sienna took a sip of her lemonade, her gaze going to the men as steel clashed hard on steel and the swords slid upon each other until the men were nose to nose. Roe shoved off of Logan, springing a step backward.

  The edges of Sienna’s lips quirked downward. “And Robby has never believed in himself. He needs others to do that for him.”

  Torrie scoffed a hard chuckle. “The man has enough bravado for the entire fleet of the royal navy.”

  “It may seem that way—it always has. But it’s a farce. I have known Robby since we were both three years old and for as much as he’s changed, become a better man, there is one truth about him that has never altered.” Sienna clutched the lemonade glass in both of her hands, setting them on her lap, and her canny blue eyes centered on Torrie. “He needs others to believe in him since he cannot do it for himself. He has Logan. He has me. He has select members of his crew. We all do that for him, but it isn’t always enough.”

  Her gaze drifted from Torrie for a long breath, watching the men until Roe sent her husband to the water’s edge.

  She looked back at Torrie. “If you cannot do that. If you cannot believe in him as much as he needs you to. If you’re not strong enough. If the questions you have about him are more important than the man standing in front of you. Then let him go. Remove yourself from him. There is no shame in it.”

  Her mouth suddenly dry, Torrie cracked her lips, the most honest words she’d ever said in her life drifting off her tongue. “I don’t know if I can let him go.”

  Sienna’s mouth pulled back in a strained smile, her blue eyes aching at what she saw reflected in Torrie’s face. “Then believe in him. Above all others. Above his own idiocy. Above his own quick-jerk reactions that have always gotten him into trouble. Above the secrets he thinks he needs to keep so he doesn’t lose you.” Her words went hard. “Believe in him.”

  “But the things he has not told me. The things I cannot even imagine he hasn’t told me.”

  Sienna’s head tilted to the side and she pondered Torrie’s face for a long breath. “If you’re questioning whether or not you can believe in him, you have to know his childhood.”

  “Why?”

  “Who he was. What he came from. What he was forced to do.” Her look dipped to her lemonade and she took a sip, buying a moment of time. “Secrets that find their way to the light always destroy things. He knew that—lived that—from the start. So he keeps secrets. He tells very little, for h
e never knows what will destroy what he’s worked so hard for.” She looked to Torrie. “He told you that we grew up together?”

  “He did.” Torrie nodded, her look inquisitive on Roe’s sister-in-law. The one he had loved. He’d never admitted it, but Torrie could tell as Roe told her the story on the ship of their youth, that he had adored Sienna above all others. “He also told me how you and Logan managed to escape St. Giles—his part in it.”

  Sadness flashed across Sienna’s blue eyes, the unique azure streaks sparking. “Yes, but that was at the end. What you need to know is the before.”

  “The before?”

  Sienna’s look drifted away from her and settled on Roe as he circled around Logan. “The first time Robby killed someone he was eight.”

  A gasp Torrie couldn’t control filled the air between them and her left hand fumbled from her lemonade glass to cover her mouth. “He—he was eight?”

  “Yes. It was a situation where it was kill or be killed. He survived only because of his innate instinct to live. You have to understand…the London streets that we lived on deemed it was only a matter of time before it happened.” Her gaze moved to her husband. “Logan, he was always in control, could always manipulate those around him with words and his glare. But Robby, Robby was wild, no control, and angry, so very, very angry—it was a dangerous combination. The grace of time only lasted for a few years before he was faced with it. With the jackals that surrounded us, it was a miracle that it didn’t happen until he was eight, not to mention a testament to how Logan was able to interfere on Robby’s behalf, time and again. But Robby, he was his own force. He can survive anything—has survived more than a human possibly should.”

  “Aye. He’s alluded to that.”

  Sienna glanced at her. “But that moment in time…that was when it happened. When Robby was eight and he came in from the fight, bloody and broken. He didn’t want to tell Logan what happened, that he’d killed someone. He didn’t want the disappointment he’d know his brother would set down upon him.”