My Rogue, My Ruin

by Amalie Howard; Angie Morgan

  “Excellent dancing is always a forte for a girl who is about to make her mark on the season,” he said. It was a safe, emotionless statement.

  “Make my mark,” Briannon echoed, then made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “I’d rather fall from a cliff than—” She broke off, her lips still parted, her expression appalled.

  Archer inclined his head, hopeful. “Than what?”

  Briannon’s mouth closed briefly before she jutted that pert chin of hers and finished speaking. “Than to be paraded in front of all eligible ton like prized horseflesh.”

  Archer’s arched brow went flat, and his lips parted in astonishment. She’d actually met his challenge.

  “Come now,” he said, ignoring the many pairs of eyes that were riveted to their exchange. Now that that fiery spirit had emerged, he wanted to draw her out even more. “It’s not all that bad. Prized horses don’t get to wear several gowns a day and jewels on every available appendage, do they?”

  Briannon’s eyes widened. “Is that truly how you view the women of your acquaintance? As mere fashion plates?”

  “Certainly not the most current woman of my acquaintance,” he said, thinking to tease her about her dismal gray gown. He’d done so on the wooded lane, and it had spiked a stimulating rise of her temper.

  Not this time.

  At her stricken gaze, Archer wanted to kick himself. Her mouth tightened, shutters falling over the eyes that had been sparking with amusement mere seconds before.

  “Of course, my lord,” she said, her cheeks flooding with humiliated color as she gathered her velvet skirt and darted a panicked look to where her mother was approaching through the crush of bodies. “Will you please excuse me?”

  Archer stared after her, an apology stalled on the tip of his tongue. His words had been careless and cold. He shouldn’t have felt sorry for them. He shouldn’t have been feeling guilty at all in regards to Lady Briannon. He’d robbed her carriage and knocked her driver unconscious a mere hour previous. Feeling guilty was not something Archer could afford.

  But the young lady was such a contrast of opposites—dull and lifeless one minute and a surprising spitfire the next. Archer remembered the feel of her small, trim body in his arms during the waltz, and for a minute wondered what lay underneath all those unattractive yards of velvet. He shook off the thought. He did not need unnecessary attachments, not with anyone, not even his charming, if puzzling, neighbor.

  Lady Briannon had piqued his interest, yes, with her spirit on the lane and her daring statements on a woman’s duty. However, beneath that minute spark of intelligence and temper, she would undoubtedly be like all the others in the ton. Spoiled, entitled, and insipid.

  His tastes simply did not run toward naive debutantes. At the moment, they did not stray further than brief encounters with the sort of women who were perfectly content with remaining near strangers. Becoming involved with any lady of his own set would be madness, especially now that it appeared there was someone close by, hinting that they could expose his secret and bring scandal down upon him.

  As much as the ton considered him to be ruthless, Archer was not without a conscience. No lady deserved the fate that could befall her should he take her to wife. He drew a grim breath. Not now, and especially not after that bloody note.

  Chapter Three

  The tip of the foil struck Brynn’s chest. The long, thin steel blade bowed from the force of her adversary’s thrust, and she muttered a string of curses. Though the mask she wore muted the words, her opponent still heard them.

  “My, my, I certainly hope you unleashed that tongue of yours on the Masked Marauder. It would have served the devil right.” Brynn’s brother, Lord Graham Northridge, or simply Gray as she had always called him, cut a sly grin before poking her white padded vest one last time. “That’s four points. One more and I take the match.”

  Brynn gripped the handle on her fencing foil, her gloved hand sweating from the sparring she and her brother had been doing the last hour in one of Ferndale’s attic rooms. Her brother had left London and traveled the short journey to Essex the moment he received word of the armed robbery. She was glad he’d come, though he needn’t have. They were all perfectly well and safe now, though she did prefer to have her older brother at Ferndale. Sparring by herself was no fun at all, and besides, having Gray around meant that Mama could divide her focus between both of her children, rather than showering Brynn with all of it.

  “As the scoundrel was in possession of a loaded pistol, he received a minor dressing down compared to what you’re about to receive,” she replied, and before her brother could prepare, Brynn advanced and lunged. Gray’s foil came up a beat too late and was unable to deflect her own. The blunted tip struck his shoulder. Gray swore loud enough for the kitchen maids four stories below to hear. “I win, brother.”

  “Cheating woman,” he growled. “You’re supposed to warn your opponent of an attack.”

  Brynn stepped back and spread her arms wide. “Where, pray, is the intelligence in that?”

  Gray ripped off his mask. Damp waves of golden hair crashed around his sweaty temples. “It is the honorable thing to do while fencing, Brynn.”

  She rolled her eyes. Honestly. Men and their honor.

  “However,” Gray continued, dropping his foil to the dusty, bare, board floor. “In the event of a true fight, I expect you to be dishonorable and lunge first.”

  She smiled, dropping her own foil and pulling up her mask. “Most gentlemen would advise a lady to run and scream.”

  Gray arched one of his golden brows at her while unfastening his gloves. “Most gentlemen would be wiser than to teach their little sister swordplay. I don’t know why I let you talk me into this. Fencing is for men, not girls—and not poorly ones at that.”

  Poorly! She scowled at him. “You always say that, and yet here you are. Fencing, no less, with a poorly girl!” Brynn said with a grimace, unlacing the ties along the side of her protective vest. “And losing, might I add.”

  She smiled brightly to cover up the twinge that slid up her back once the fabric released. Her heart was thudding more rapidly than usual, yes, but only because of the exertions of the last hour. Good, healthy, robust exertions.

  The corner of her brother’s lips twitched, betraying his amusement.

  “How are your lungs?” he asked, as if inquiring about a person’s lungs was commonplace.

  She chucked her padded vest at him, which he easily sidestepped. He had only been teasing her this time. It wasn’t always so.

  Brynn’s lungs might as well have been another member of the family for all the attention they were given. As an infant, Brynn had suffered from all sorts of health ailments surrounding her lungs and heart: a weak pulse, an irregular heartbeat, and the occasional shortness of breath. It had been years since her last bout of pneumonia, however, and she hadn’t been short of breath for ages. Last spring, during one of her secret countryside rides with Gray, if she were to be exact. Thank heavens. She detested feeling like an invalid, and it was even worse being treated like one.

  Brynn had been cosseted all her life, but she couldn’t fault her mother for it—the two babies she’d birthed between Gray and Brynn had both died of the same mysterious respiratory ailments brought on by complications of croup. Brynn had the good fortune to survive and had been smothered ever since.

  Mama was the worst of them when it came to fretting over her daughter’s health, but Gray did worry. Brynn noticed it in the careful way he’d inspect her whenever they slowed their horses to a walk while riding Ferndale’s grounds. It was in the sharp looks he sent her whenever she coughed or wheezed during one of her usual winter colds. Or like now, when he took a furtive glance over his shoulder to assess the coloring of her cheeks.

  Brynn caught him and shook her head. “I’m sweaty as a wildebeest, Gray, and not in any danger of fainting. Honestly, stop worrying that I’m going to swoon any second. I’d never hear the end of it, would I?”r />
  He grinned, displaying the dimple in his left cheek that the two of them shared. Brynn had always thought it suited him better than it did her.

  “I don’t think wildebeests are excessively sweaty creatures,” he said.

  “Is that what they taught you at Oxford?” she cut back.

  “Actually, we studied the elusive pygmy marmoset.”

  Grinning, she swatted him on the shoulder as they placed their fencing gear in the room’s small closet. Her brother liked to tease her, and she liked to pretend it vexed her, when really it was the most wonderful thing in the world.

  Brynn shut the door and hoped none of the upstairs maids would be sent on a mission to clean out this part of the attic. If Mama were to hear of fencing gear being discovered in a closet, it would not take her long to ferret out the reason. Gray had been the one who’d taught Brynn to ride, too, and when Mama had learned about that, the tongue thrashing had been unforgettable.

  Gray made a first inspection of the attic corridor before opening the door wide.

  “Our escape route is clear,” he said in a dramatic voice that might have rivaled a stage villain. She faltered a moment, remembering the quick, expressive tempo of the masked bandit’s voice. Perhaps he was indeed an actor, trained to modify his voice from role to role. She shook her head. It didn’t matter now.

  They started for the attic stairwell, Brynn’s day dress slightly wrinkled from the protective vest she’d been strapped into. She tried to smooth the linen but to no avail.

  “Mother said he spoke to you.”

  Brynn turned to her brother, who had turned completely serious.

  “The Masked Marauder,” he prompted. “Mother said he ordered you out of the carriage and then closed the door.” Gray slowed his pace and took her elbow in hand, an ominous warning in the press of his fingers. “Did he touch you?”

  “No, of course not. I was unharmed, I assure you.” Brynn considered her words with care, knowing that if she told him the truth, Gray would explode. “He was…not at all what I expected of a bandit.”

  She recalled the gentle way the masked man’s fingers had skimmed across her exposed nape and the tender skin of her throat. Yes, his eyes had undressed her with barely concealed fervor, but even that, she had determined after thinking on it multiple times, had still been done…well…gentlemanly, she supposed. Though that did not seem the correct word for it.

  No common bandit would have such smooth fingers or polished manners, either. She flushed at the recollection, and then noticed her brother’s eyes darting to the sudden bloom of color in her cheeks.

  “What is it? Are you unwell?”

  God help her, she couldn’t stop the heat from rushing across her face, and not even her brother’s alarmed expression could cool the flood. The more she thought about that atrocious man’s fingers, the more flustered she became. Gray’s eyes widened as he grasped her arm.

  “Sit,” he urged, pulling her to a cream-and-mauve striped silk bench at the end of the hall. “You’re having a spell. I knew I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.”

  Brynn could hardly admit to her brother that the cause of her “spell” was a belated reaction to a stranger’s touch. He’d hunt the man to the ends of the earth if he knew. And truly, it wasn’t as if the masked man had touched her in any unseemly way—had he? It had all happened so very quickly. Perhaps she only imagined his fingers lingering on her overheated skin. Perhaps she had gone over the encounter so many times she had started to change her memory of what had actually occurred to what she had wanted to occur. Which was ludicrous. Had the scoundrel attempted to slide his fingers through a gap in her modest lace neckline, she would have crushed his instep with her foot.

  Brynn took in a labored breath. “I’m fine, Gray. Truly.” She flailed around for an acceptable excuse, her eyes scanning the narrow hallway. “These rooms haven’t been touched in years. I’m certain it’s just the dust.”

  Gray seemed unconvinced. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” To prove her point, Brynn managed a realistic sneeze. She squeezed her brother’s hand, watching the lines of anxiety fade from his face. “Please, don’t fret over me,” she added. “This is the first time I’ve been able to relax all week, especially after the robbery and Mama trying to marry me off before the season is even underway.” Brynn stood up from the bench, her breathing finally returning to normal. “To that awful Marquess of Hawksfield, no less.”

  “Hawksfield?” Gray’s brows snapped together. “Hmm. Mother would want you to set your cap at a future duke, but you’d do far better than to marry him.”

  As they turned down the carpeted steps, the muggy air of the attic cleared, and Brynn breathed easier.

  “What do you know of him?” she asked, curious at his cryptic words.

  Gray’s eyes narrowed in on her as they descended the stairs. “Why do you ask?”

  Her brother had always been perceptive. Either that or Brynn had never mastered the ability to sound indifferent when speaking of something that mattered to her.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said quickly. “He just seems rather boorish.”

  “Don’t let that fool you. Hawk is a wolf through and through. Values his horses more than he does anything else, including women. Though he’s likely as much of a rake as the Dancing Duke is.”

  Brynn had actively avoided her neighbor for the remainder of the Bradburne Ball, and in doing so, had unfortunately been required to keep an eye on him as well. She hadn’t noticed Hawksfield dancing with any of the ladies in attendance, flirting with them in alcoves, or dashing out onto the terrace “for air” with them. In fact, he spent more time at the side of his sister, Lady Eloise, than he had entertaining his guests.

  He certainly hadn’t seemed like a rake while dancing with Brynn, either. He hadn’t spoken with the kind of smooth elegance and wit she imagined would charm a lady. Why, the bandit had done a better job of acting the seducer than Lord Hawksfield! And that cut about her dress had left her seething and humiliated, while the bandit’s barb that she was in mourning had, in retrospect, been slightly humorous.

  If Lord Hawksfield was a seducer, he hid the evidence well. However, she couldn’t fault him for valuing his horses. They were one of the things she truly valued herself. It got her thinking about Apollo, her chestnut Hanoverian, and how she hadn’t taken him out in days.

  “Why do they call him that?” Brynn asked as they twisted down the wide stairwell, toward Mama’s day room where tea would be underway, no doubt. “Hawk?”

  Gray cleared his throat, hesitating as if he’d opened Pandora’s box. “Because Hawksfield has a habit of going after what he wants with relentless purpose.”

  Brynn thought of the marquess’s forbidding countenance and unsmiling face. She could see that about him. He did seem ruthless. “You don’t like him.”

  “I don’t like him as a match for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Call it male instinct.” Gray glowered, his words clipped. He paused, his irritation draining as quickly as it had come. “And you’re right—he is an arrogant boor.”

  “At last, we agree on something,” Brynn said, surprised at his outburst. “He’d leech the very last bit of health from my poor, ailing body.” She fanned herself and batted her eyelashes. However, Gray didn’t take her joke. Instead his face darkened into a frown as if something else upsetting had just occurred to him.

  He paused before they came within hearing distance of the day room, where Mama would be waiting for them.

  “You’re certain the bastard didn’t touch you?” he asked, his voice cast low.

  “Lord Hawksfield?” Brynn blurted, shocked at her brother’s violent words.

  “No, the thief,” Gray clarified, keeping the menacing slant of his brows. “But I’ll see Hawksfield at the end of my pistol as well if he’s been inappropriate.”

  Brynn frowned, wondering at the thud of her heart. Lord Hawksfield had not been inappropriate, and he
’d made it very clear he did not wish to be.

  “No, he wasn’t. Lord Hawksfield, I mean. And neither was the bandit. He just instructed me to hand over the jewels.”

  And insert them in a pouch strung around his waist, dangerously close to his trim, shadow-clad hips.

  Brynn flushed again and took a deep breath. “Truly, Gray. That was all. Though I should have chucked Grandmother’s pearls into the woods rather than give them over.”

  Gray winced. He knew how special the pearls had been to her. How much she’d loved Grandmother and Grandfather. He held out his arm to her, his face grim. “Whoever he is, I hope he rots in hell.”

  Brynn, eager to lighten the black mood, linked her arm through his. “Speaking of thieves…what of Lady Cordelia? Rumor has it she’s stolen your heart and an engagement is in order.”

  “Not likely. Unless you want an ice queen for a sister-in-law.”

  “Gray! That’s not a nice thing to say in the least. Lady Cordelia is lovely,” Brynn said. And as frosty as anything, she silently agreed. That wasn’t fair, of course. Cordelia was one of Brynn’s friends and had adored Gray since they were children. Despite her exceedingly prim and proper nature, which some could consider cold, she had the pedigree and the wealth to make Gray an excellent match. Great heavens. Her thoughts were starting to sound like Mama’s.

  “If you say so,” he muttered.

  She inspected her brother with a critical eye. With his blond waves and the classic lines of his nose and jaw, most ladies would consider him handsome. He would have his pick of women when it came time for him to take a wife, though Gray didn’t appear at all interested in the prospect of marriage. She smiled, resting her cheek against his sleeve just before they turned the corner into the day room.

  “I’m glad you’re home, Gray,” she murmured. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Me too, moppet,” he said with a fond smile, rumpling her hair. “Now come on, let’s go in before Mother sends a runner from Bow Street to hunt us down.”

  They were both grinning like a pair of idiots when Gray stepped inside the day room. Mama looked up, her face folding into a frown at the sight of Brynn’s flushed cheeks and Gray’s amusement.