How to Tame a Modern Rogue

by Diana Holquist

  She needed a shower.

  By the time she got out of the shower, Granny Donny was sitting up in bed, her old-fashioned nightcap covering her thinning hair. The bed seemed enormous around her tiny frame.

  “Did you sleep okay?” Ally asked her.

  “The sleep of the just, my dear. Very well. And you?”

  Was it Ally’s imagination, or was her grandmother smirking? “Fine. Thanks.”

  “Delightful.”

  This wasn’t the first time that Ally felt her grandmother wasn’t the innocent she was making herself out to be. Had she really slept through the night?

  Ally dressed quickly and began packing their things. “We have a big day. I have to meet Eloisa. She’s going to help us with the house. Do you remember?” She continued telling her grandmother the plan as she moved around the room, helping the old woman out of bed and into the bathroom. She hovered outside the door, uncertain.

  “Stop hovering. I’m fine. You’re making my bladder shy,” Granny Donny scolded from behind the shut door.

  “Right.” Nothing about her grandmother had ever been even the slightest bit shy, but Ally left her to lay out her grandmother’s traveling dress, arranging yesterday’s dress in the garment bag that was not made for a floor-length gown. Something fell from the dress, and Ally knelt to pick up what she thought were loose buttons, torn from the dress in her haste. She really had to slow down.

  But they weren’t loose buttons.

  They were small white pills.

  Ally stood, the pills in her hand. Blood rose in her chest.

  Granny Donny came out of the bathroom and took small careful steps toward the dress, balancing herself by the tips of her fingers on the bed. “Lovely, dear. The purple will go so well with my pearls.”

  “What are these?” Ally held up the pills.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Granny Donny said. She was fussing with the dress on the bed, smoothing its creases. “Help me get this on, dear. Oh, I can’t wait to get to the country where my maid will be able to help me so you can tend to more important business. Like that lovely duke of yours.”

  “Granny Donny, are you not taking your pills? You need to take your pills if you want to get better!” Ally tried not to let her voice rise, but it wasn’t easy.

  Her grandmother straightened the lace around the collar. How did she manage to look a hundred years old and frail as a butterfly whenever Ally was upset with her?

  Granny met Ally’s eyes with her own. Her jaw was set defiantly. “Who says I want to get better?”

  Ally was speechless. She fingered the unswallowed pills. How long had this been going on?

  “Help me out of this contraption, dear,” she said, indicating her nightgown.

  Ally helped her grandmother out of the thin gown and into the purple dress. She tried not to look at her wrinkled, frail, blue-tinged body as she dressed her. Pools of dark bruises spotted her skin here and there, as if she were so delicate, every touch left a mark. “You need to get better, Granny. I can’t be here forever.” I need you to be here forever…

  “So go.” Her grandmother sat regally in front of the mirror, her hands folded in her lap, waiting to be groomed. “Lisa will take care of me as soon as we get to Carleton House.”

  Was her mother near? “What do you mean?” Ally’s voice was thin.

  “Your mother, dear. Surely you remember her. She’ll take care of me, and you can run off with the duke. Isn’t that why we’re making this arduous journey?”

  Ally felt dizzy. She dropped to a sitting position on the bed. “Did you see my mother? This morning?” If she had been here, she surely would have raced to Ally, embraced her, never let her go. She wouldn’t be sneaking around, stealing visits, ducking into cabs. Granny Donny was delusional. Ally couldn’t get caught up in the fantasy.

  Granny Donny looked confused. “I’m so hungry, dear.”

  “Right. We’ll get breakfast.” Ally gathered her grandmother’s toilette. “No one came into the room last night? This morning?” She packed Granny Donny’s things into her suitcase, looking longingly at the one black Dior silk suit she’d brought for her grandmother, just in case she came back to her senses.

  “How should I know, dear? I’ve been asleep. I’m sure the maids have been in and out to keep the fire burning.”

  Her grandmother’s face was so wrinkled, this close, she looked as if someone had dropped her and she had shattered. Ally started in on her thinning hair as gently as she could. The fragility of the old woman soothed her and angered her simultaneously.

  Ally painted pink lipstick on her grandmother’s puckered lips with a small brush. The woman’s eyes were closed, her mouth offered up like a child’s. She dotted her cheeks with blush, put up her hair as best she could.

  Before they left the room, Ally watched carefully as her grandmother took each and every pill, followed by a big drink of water.

  One step off the path, and suddenly Alexandra was lost, as if just outside her garden was a jungle. She realized for the first time in her life how truly sheltered she was. She had no experience with the outside world. She had no idea how to get back to safety.

  —From The Dulcet Duke

  Chapter 21

  Mateo was waiting with Paula outside the lobby.

  Sam was nowhere in sight.

  “You have my cell?” Ally asked for the fourth time.

  Mateo saluted. “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about a thing. We’re going to wait for the worst of the traffic to clear, and then we’ll set out.”

  But Ally was worried. She drove the car as fast as she could to Lindenhurst to meet Eloisa. The housekeeper was younger than Ally had expected and much too pretty.

  “As far as I can tell, the house hasn’t been occupied for a while, and there might be a lot of work to do,” she told Eloisa, who nodded and looked at her perfectly manicured nails. Ally hoped this woman was up for the work required of her. They had gone over all the plans for cooking and cleaning and stocking the house, including what to do if anyone was in it (Get their names and call me!). Ally slipped Eloisa a picture of her parents from ten years ago, so she’d know whom she was looking for. By the time they were done discussing everything, it was almost noon.

  Ally called Mateo’s cell phone. She hoped they had gone at least six or seven miles, although Mateo had warned her that it was another hot day and might be slow going.

  Sam answered Mateo’s phone.

  “My girl!” Sam cried. “Come and join us. Where the devil have you been?”

  Ally struggled to understand the sounds she was hearing through her cell phone. Cheers. Horns. Sam. “Why do you have Mateo’s cell phone?” Thank God he couldn’t see her blush. His voice alone set her nerve endings to tingling.

  “Are you meeting us or not? We miss you! I miss you.”

  “Are you drunk? Where is my grandmother? Let me talk to her.” It was impossible to smell a man through a phone, and yet she could: man, musk, sex, heat. The urge to press the cold, plastic phone to her nose and inhale as if it were Sam was irresistible.

  She glanced at Eloisa, who was touching up her bright red lipstick in a tiny compact mirror.

  She sniffed her cell phone.

  Oh, help me, God…I want that man again so badly…

  “Ally? Are you sniffing your phone?” Sam asked.

  “No!”

  Eloisa looked over, startled by the vehemence in her voice.

  Ally put the phone back to her ear and heard shuffling, then her grandmother saying, “What is this contraption you’re putting on my ear? You’re messing my coiffure, young imp. Now shush and pass me my lorgnette. The race is starting.” Sam came back on the phone. “Seems they didn’t have cell phones in Regency England. Sorry, puss. You’ll have to talk to me. Or, you know, sniff me.”

  Puss? Race? He caught me sniffing him. “Sam. Where are you?”

  “I had an amazing time last night, too, Princess.”

  If she could smell him throu
gh the phone, could she smack him through the phone? “Where’s Mateo? Why aren’t you all on the road on your way to Hempstead? There’s a schedule. A plan. We have to follow the plan.” Ally was sweating. Sam and his leather pants were so not in the plan.

  “We’re at the racetrack.”

  “Racetrack?” Ally’s blood ran cold. The family gambling disease! Had it struck Granny Donny?

  “Belmont, baby. Your grandmother has made five K already. She’s a natural. Brilliant on the bet-to-show.”

  “Horse racing?” Ally struggled to process the situation. She asked rapid-fire questions and learned that they had traveled just four miles to the racetrack; Paula was settled in the track’s stable, happily munching oats while Mateo caught up on horse talk with his amigos; her grandmother was not just gambling vast sums of money but was an ace at it; and, worst of all, Sam’s voice was melting her insides like nothing she had ever experienced, and he seemed to know it and was enjoying it immensely.

  Ally flipped the phone shut in shock.

  Please, not gambling. Of all the places they could end up, the horse races seemed like an evil joke. Almost as if she was being punished for being with Sam. Last night…She sighed just thinking about it. Part of her felt guilty, another part of her wanted to smile, to place a bet, to join the fun. She was splitting in two.

  She was getting carried away. She took a calming breath and, to her dismay, still smelled Sam.

  Eloisa in tow, Ally rushed to the track. Of course, “rush” in Long Island midday traffic was painfully slow, and by the time they got there, it was early afternoon.

  Someone here has to be responsible, or it’ll all fall apart. Someone has to take care of things…

  Having to face Sam again, she tried to remind her heated flesh, was the least of her problems.

  Sam watched Ally march up the cement grandstand toward them, her mouth fixed in a tight line. Where was the woman who had screamed in his arms last night, begging him not to stop? The one who had—my God, she had done that, hadn’t she? Twice. And he’d begged her to do it again. His body stirred with desire. This was the woman he couldn’t wait to see again. The one who had just tried to inhale him through a telephone.

  Hadn’t she enjoyed herself? Had he been awful? No. He could still remember every blissful expression as he made love to her. The look on her face as she had come last night was brilliant, as if she were surprised all three times (Or was it four? He had lost count), as if she had no idea what her body could do.

  But look at her now. She was just like that book, first cover. He mentally flipped from her outside cover to the racy cover underneath. He wanted to rip that outside cover off and mash it in the rubbish heap.

  Granny Donny greeted Ally with a hearty wave and a lusty, “Join the party, Princess!”

  Ally, for once, was speechless. Not a single fact or statistic escaped her lips. She was looking at him like he had unknowingly morphed into the devil.

  Seeing the scene through Ally’s horrified eyes, he had to admit their surroundings might look a wee bit seedy. The place reeked of stale beer and cigars. The sparsely populated grandstand was filled with clusters of obsessive-compulsive gamblers: the obese bloke shouting curses; the gang of open-shirted Italian lads; the greasy Russians who looked like they were packing heat; the chain-smoking, desperately thin man, alone, who was tearing his racing sheet to shreds. Ally and her grandmother were just about the only women there, at least, the only ones there with all their teeth.

  Sam felt like a child getting caught playing hooky.

  Sure, it had been Ally’s grandmother’s idea to come, but it felt bloody shabby to say so.

  “Sam Carson! What are you doing here?” Ally demanded. She seemed to coil herself into a rage and then, to his astonishment, she smacked his shoulder. Hard.

  He winced. Last night had been hard on his bruised ribs, and that smack didn’t help. Why was she so upset about a little betting on the horses?

  A woman came up the steps behind Ally. This was the housekeeper? The woman looked Italian, all black flowing hair and dancing eyes. She had a delicious tattoo of a rose on her shoulder. She was looking at him as if he were an ice-cream sundae with sprinkles, which felt considerably better than the way Ally was looking at him.

  The contrast of the two women gave Sam pause. Was it worth pursuing Ally, when women like Eloisa were seemingly everywhere?

  Yes. It was just that simple. Yes. After coming this far with her. Yes. After sleeping with her last night.

  Definitely yes.

  And then Ally shot him a look of pure disgust.

  Or maybe, no. “C’mon, Ally. What’s wrong with a little risk? A little excitement?”

  Ally set her jaw. “Don’t tell me about risk, Sam Carson. I know all about risk, and I want no part of it.”

  He grabbed Ally’s arm and pulled her down into the seat next to him. He lowered his voice and spoke close to her ear. “What’s the matter? Tell me.”

  “You are the matter. This is not okay. My grandmother is a fragile woman. There are dangers here you couldn’t possibly understand.” Ally was fuming. She looked anything but fragile. “This is just like you, Sam. Irresponsible.”

  He spoke softly but with the conviction of a man who knew he was right. “You’re incapable of living life, Ally Giordano. You’re scared of it. You’re scared of me. You want me to be a wild man in bed and then a timid creature in life? I don’t think so. I think you like all this the same way you liked last night, and you don’t want to admit it.”

  Ally pulled away from him and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Sam was exasperated. How could he get Ally to admit that she was the wild woman he had held last night and that it was okay?

  The housekeeper adjusted the skinny strap on her tank top and winked at him.

  Bingo.

  He winked back.

  Ally caught the exchange, and her mouth dropped open. For an instant, Ally’s eyes faltered and he doubted himself. Was this plan too evil?

  Or was it just what he needed to do to make Ally see her true feelings, her true nature, her true need? The need to live. To connect. With him. To go after what she wanted, damn the consequences. He had gotten the princess to sleep with the duke, but he hadn’t gotten Ally to sleep with him.

  But he was going to change that.

  Even if it meant flirting with the hired help.

  Ally was numb. Gambling. She could tear down the whole track, board by board, with her bare hands. And then Sam’s wink at the housekeeper…She’d tear his head off…

  Eloisa coughed, shaking Ally from her thoughts.

  Right. Introductions. Life went on despite her twisting emotions. “Sam, Eloisa Tyler. Eloisa, Sam Carson.”

  “Don’t forget me, darling,” Granny Donny sang out.

  “And my grandmother, Mrs. Giordano,” Ally said.

  Eloisa curtsied like a pro. “Lady Giordano! I’m so pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Granny Donny beamed at Eloisa. “Give the young lady a cigar, Duke. The next race is about to begin, and I’ve got ten thousand pounds on it.”

  “Sam!” All the blood drained from Ally’s body.

  Granny Donny leaned back and touched Ally’s knee with a gloved hand. “The race is starting! My horse is Lady Sam! Isn’t that delightful? We can’t lose.”

  Ally had heard that before. “What are the odds?” Her stomach was a knot.

  Sam said, “Seven to one.” He looked at her, blinking, playing the innocent. “She really bet only a grand,” he whispered.

  Ally couldn’t believe this was happening. Only a grand? How could Sam have let this go so far? And what was going on with him, going cold on her, then lighting up like a Christmas tree for the slutty housekeeper, whom she was ready to fire on the spot. Eloisa had sat down in the row behind them, and Ally felt as if she had a cougar at her back.

  The horses for the race were being led onto the track by their trainers. They high-stepped with excitement
and nerves.

  Sam offered Ally a cigar.

  What if…?

  She took the cigar and shoved it between her lips.

  Sam’s eye widened, but he didn’t comment. He lit the end.

  Ally puffed.

  “Gah!” A wave of coughing overcame her. She was going to die. Vile smoke filled her lungs, coated her tongue, and was most likely coming out her ears.

  Sam pounded on her back.

  When she could breathe again, she mumbled, “Lovely.”

  “Indeed?” But Sam wasn’t watching her anymore.

  He was watching Eloisa puff her cigar effortlessly, her red lips practically caressing it. Ally wouldn’t have been the slightest bit surprised if the white smoke emerging from her mouth had formed the letters S-E-X.

  Ally felt as restless as the horses, ready to bolt.

  Sam turned his attention back to Ally. “You okay?”

  “Fine.” Humiliated, but fine.

  “It’s just for fun,” Sam said. Then he lowered his voice. “Like last night, right? Just for fun.”

  She felt a rush of lust as she thought of last night, but one look around made it dissolve like the smoke.

  His lips were so close to her ear, she could feel his breath on her cheek, smell his scent over the stink of the cigar. “Remember me? We made love?”

  The horses bucked in their starting stalls.

  “That wasn’t you,” she whispered fiercely. Embarrassment for not being able to puff the cigar mixed with jealousy at Eloisa for being so capable. “I made love to a noble duke.”

  He flinched, then leaned in even closer. “My mistake. You’re absolutely right. I mistook you for someone else. I made love to a willing, sensuous princess, full of passion and heat and fun. Certainly not you.”