Redeeming the Rogue

by Donna MacMeans

  “Mr. Rafferty,” Kitty said. “You must be newly come to London. I do not believe I’ve seen you at any embassy functions.”

  “Perhaps you weren’t looking in the dark corners,” he responded with a faint Irish brogue. A mischievous sparkle lit his watchful eyes.

  “Lady Arianne.” His sudden attention robbed her of breath. “I expressly requested an introduction so that we might share a private word.”

  Kitty’s expression twisted into one of shock, while surprise rattled Arianne’s bones. Men simply did not seek her out, especially dangerously handsome ones. Her mouth dried to ash a moment before she realized her jaw was agape. Dear heavens, she must resemble Lord Crenshaw!

  “I’m not sure there is such a thing as privacy in this salon,” the Countess teased. “Come along, Lady Cardiff, I have someone you should meet.” Kitty hesitated, then reluctantly followed their hostess.

  “Perhaps we might move away from that popular punch bowl?” Mr. Rafferty clasped his hands behind his back as if to reinforce that he posed no threat, yet every nerve in her body tensed. Sensing a current of envy from the feminine eyes that followed their progress, she led the way toward a grouping of potted palms where the crowd thinned.

  “Lady Arianne.” His voice purred as soothing as the violin’s lilting refrain. “I believe I carry a message intended for you . . .”

  A fringe of black hair dipped just below his eyebrow. Arianne clenched her fan more tightly to avoid smoothing it aside.

  “. . . But I find I’m hesitant to deliver it.” His lips curled in a pleasant line at odds with the alert assessment in his eyes.

  “Why is that, sir?” Her chest expanded, pushing forcefully against her stays. Christopher! She, of all people, should know better than to fall victim to stirring accents and seductive smiles.

  “I fear as soon as you read this note, you will rush from the salon, denying me further opportunity to share your company.”

  While she accepted the false flattery as a social staple, the unexpected delivery of a note lifted the fine hairs on her neck. Only bad news carried such urgency. Her pulse quickened. “Is it a message from my brother?” she asked with due gravity. “His wife is expecting their first child. If something has gone awry, I must leave immediately!”

  “No.” Mr. Rafferty’s fingers grasped her arm as if to stop her immediate departure. A ribbon of tingling awareness raced to her shoulder. Shocked, she searched his gaze, surprised at the disdain she noted there. What had she done to earn such derision?

  “I apologize if I alarmed you,” he said. “The note is not from your family.” Yet he still held her captive. She stared pointedly at his inappropriate touch. Recognizing his error, he released her, but without apology.

  “It was meant to be delivered by another.” He reached inside his coat and removed an envelope. His gaze narrowed on her face, almost in accusation. “As you can see, it lacks identification.” He leaned close, pausing a bit overlong in that tight proximity. “I had to be certain it was intended for you.”

  Curiosity rippled through her. She accepted the envelope, broke the wax seal, and unfolded the paper, scanning the contents.

  Wrap the dog in wool and loosen him on the Yanks. The day approaches and death draws near.

  B.

  Christopher! She scanned the cryptic words again. “This is nonsense.” She frowned. “Are you certain the message was intended for me?”

  “Nonsense?” Mr. Rafferty ripped the paper from her hands and read the contents. “This isn’t an assignation,” he murmured.

  “An assignation!” she exclaimed a trifle too loud. Her cheeks heated. Lowering her voice, she snapped her fan to flutter at a furious pace. “As the sister of a duke, I assure you I am not accustomed to complete strangers maligning my reputation. Whatever made you think that message was intended for me?”

  His eyes narrowed, his jaw set. “I admit I assumed the message was to establish a rendezvous. When I overheard a reference to you as ‘mistress,’ I believed you were meant to be the intended recipient.” He stuffed the paper and envelope in his jacket and scowled. “A simple mistake.”

  He thought she was someone’s mistress! Her fan fluttered so violently, the palm fronds shook. She chose her words carefully and enunciated them clearly for his apparently impaired faculties. “The difficulty with eavesdropping, Mr. Rafferty, is that one almost never hears the full context. I believe what you heard was a reference to my talents as a matchmaker.”

  She really didn’t need to expound. With his inappropriate attire and freshly injured lip, he was most likely a gate-crasher to this elite gathering of diplomats and certainly not someone she would ever see again.

  But that unspoken censure in his eyes rankled. Even to this man, she felt it important that her reputation was not needlessly besmirched. That would happen soon enough.

  “Some call me Cupid’s Mistress,” she explained in a rush, before embarrassment could further stain her cheeks. “I imagine you overheard a portion of that most ridiculous name.”

  “A matchmaker?” His lips quirked in humor for just a moment, before he straightened. Arianne thought she heard a seam rip. “My apologies, Lady Arianne. Obviously this note was intended for another. I hope the true recipient—”

  “So on the basis of a nickname, you decided I was ripe for a tryst?” She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t let the matter drop. Perhaps his apology seemed insufficient for the affront to her honor. She should let him make a hasty departure like Crenshaw and the others.

  His eyes narrowed. “There were other considerations . . .”

  “Please tell me of these considerations. I wouldn’t want others to be under the delusion that I’m available for illicit sport.” Her sarcasm hit its mark.

  He hesitated as if debating the wisdom of saying nothing or defending his unconscionable behavior. His eyes raked over her, then a faint smile bloomed on his lips.

  “I was told the recipient would be wearing a green dress. As I assumed the sender was interested in a tryst, I simply looked for the most attractive woman in the room wearing the proper color. I chose you.” He bowed his head. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll—”

  She ignored his transparent flattery. “There are several other women in green. I saw you speaking to Lady Trembel earlier, yet you gave the note to me . . .”

  What began as an attempt to correct his foolish assumption festered into something altogether different. Had something changed about her since her unfortunate incident in Vienna? Could complete strangers recognize her probable shift in society’s acceptance? “Surely,” she pressed, suspicion taking root, “there was something else.”

  He reflected a moment, then leaned closer. “Lady Trembel’s scent wasn’t that of the angel’s share.”

  “Angel’s share?” Her face must have betrayed her ignorance. Was this was more Irish flattery?

  He glanced away and laughed softly before returning his gaze to her. “The angel’s share is that portion of fine Irish whiskey that evaporates in the distillation.” A decidedly seductive gleam simmered in his gaze. “It’s been my experience that women who drink overly much find themselves in positions that—”

  “You believe I’m a drunkard?” she sputtered in outrage. Her cheeks flamed anew.

  He smiled. “Not all would find the scent of whiskey about a miss as appealing as I do, but—”

  “I erred in my cologne water!” she insisted perhaps a bit too loudly. A few heads turned their way. She dropped her voice. “I thought a stronger base would carry the florals.”

  “And a very fine error it was.”

  The impudent, nonconforming misfit was laughing at her! She could see his amusement in the creasing about his eyes, hear the blitheness in the timbre of his voice. The cad!

  “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said. “I should try to find—”

  “May I remind you, sir, that I am the sister of a duke.” She pitched her voice low and cold so he would know her displeasure. “I’m
not certain how a man as common as yourself gained entrance to this reception, but your accusations are not appreciated.”

  He stopped his determined egress. His shoulders shifted back, and if she wasn’t mistaken, she heard a button bounce on the floor. He turned, then glared down his decidedly handsome nose at her.

  “I believe I’ve already apologized for my misapprehensions. My only defense is that I had assumed your company would be highly desired by any man.” His nostrils flared. “I trust you will forgive such a common and erroneous assumption.” He lifted her fingers as if to kiss her hand, but she jerked them away, striking his injured lip in the process.

  Fresh blood rose on the wound. More heads turned their way.

  Guilt and shame filled her. She wouldn’t have acted in such a lowbred manner if she hadn’t been provoked. A truly noble lady would have risen above the taunt. “I have a handkerchief,” she murmured, opening her reticule.

  “No.” He reached into a pocket of his ill-fitting jacket. “I wouldn’t wish my common Irish blood to stain the linen of a sister of a duke.”

  He removed a white handkerchief, but the white linen pulled a red cloth, which was attached to a blue cloth, which pulled a yellow cloth in succession. Rafferty froze, the white handkerchief clenched in his hand while the colored cloths dangled in a nautical line to his pocket. He swore beneath his breath, something rather derogative coupled with the name “Phineas.”

  Abrupt barking laughter sounded from various directions. Arianne tried, unsuccessfully, to conceal her own amusement. Rafferty’s glance of anger and embarrassment seared straight through her levity. She immediately regretted her unkind words, but he gave her no time for apologies.

  “Good evening, madam,” he said, stuffing the colorful assortment in his pocket. “I trust you will take pleasure in the likelihood that our paths shall never cross again.” He turned on his heel. “I know I shall.”

  He strode from the salon without a backward glance.

  “So . . .” Kitty appeared by her side. “What did you and the handsome Mr. Rafferty have to discuss for such an extended time? He certainly appeared to be taken with you.”

  She glanced at her friend’s teasing face. At least Kitty’s initial description of “handsome devil” had been accurate enough, though Arianne wasn’t entirely convinced about the handsome part.

  “It seems he’s in the market for a wife and wished for my recommendations,” she improvised. No need to confess that Mr. Rafferty had mistaken her for someone’s paramour.

  “Have you anyone in mind?” Kitty asked, scanning the crowd.

  “I’m not certain we’ll see Mr. Rafferty again,” she replied.

  “Pity,” Kitty said. “He was the most interesting man here this evening.”

  “Do you think so?” Arianne glanced in the direction of his departure. She had to admit that the stranger had captured her attention like none other. “He was the only one brave enough to actually engage me in conversation,” she said, adding a soft laugh for Kitty’s sake.

  “I wonder who we might ask that would know more about him?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Arianne gazed toward the doorway. “I think we’ve seen the last of the arrogant Mr. Rafferty.”

  RAFFERTY HAD BARELY LEFT THE TOWN HOUSE WHEN Phineas stepped from the shadows. “Did you find her? I didn’t see anyone leave in a green gown.”

  Rafferty hesitated a moment, so absorbed in his thoughts that he had to stop and remember Phineas had been waiting to follow a woman en route to a tryst. A woman who most certainly would not be the interesting, the willful, the class-conscious Lady Arianne.

  “The note wasn’t for a rendezvous,” he snapped, scanning the street for an available hack. The last carriage in the row held promise. While earlier he had been in no hurry to get to the reception, now he couldn’t wait to put distance between him and the marrow-lacking upper crust.

  “How do you know that?” Phineas studied him a moment. “You opened it! What did it say?”

  “Something about dogs and Yanks and death.” Rafferty reached in his pocket, removed the envelope, and slapped it into Phineas’s hand, all without breaking his fast stride. “The wrong woman opened the note. After the seal was broken, it was pointless to question the others. They would deny any knowledge.”

  The last hansom was indeed available. Rafferty barked a destination to the driver and climbed inside.

  “Dogs and Yanks. That’s odd.” Phineas joined him in the dim interior. “And we still don’t know who his contact is? The mysterious woman in green?”

  Rafferty glanced toward the town house. “At least we know one woman who she is not,” he muttered. Even Barnell knew the wisdom of avoiding the likes of Lady Arianne Chambers.

  Two

  NO FIRE CRACKLED IN THE BEDROOM GRATE, though the night had turned cool. Although she shivered in her thin night rail, Arianne refused to ask the servants to lay a fire and then clean the cinders and soot just for her comfort. She pulled a paisley shawl from the back of a chair and draped it over her wrapper, hoping the added warmth would spread to her fingers and toes.

  The London town house belonged to her brother, William, the Duke of Bedford. While he anticipated the arrival of an heir at Deerfield Abbey, his ancestral estate and her childhood home, she thought to use its asylum while she contemplated the recent cruel turn of events and their effect upon her future.

  So quiet, so empty in the large town house, she shivered as much from the sense of isolation and withdrawal as from the temperature. Such a change from her stay at the British ambassador’s residence in Vienna. Between the ambassador’s large family and the many people who called, she’d had little time to be alone. There, she imagined herself part of a large, happy family, so unlike her own childhood. In hindsight, perhaps the joy and freedom of her time in Vienna had contributed to her foolish infatuation with Baron Von Dieter. She’d forgotten happiness always came with a cost.

  Sitting before the mirror at a japanned coiffeuse, she pulled the shawl tight like a lover’s embrace. It was too quiet in this house. No distractions to pull her from melancholy thoughts, but then she supposed she needed to become accustomed to the silence. Her future held little hope of sharing with another. Not after Vienna.

  Silly that she, the supposed matchmaker, had bungled her own opportunity for marriage. Her brothers seemed so content with their married lives, she had hoped a commitment to the Baron would afford her similar happiness. But that was not to be. Memories of the Baron she’d like to forget led to exasperating thoughts of her more recent encounter. That man . . . that Mr. Rafferty, with his arrogant look of disdain, had thought she was someone’s mistress.

  She glanced into the mirror before her, studying her reflection. Had he seen something lurid about her, something taboo? Granted, she wasn’t the same innocent miss she had been before she went to Vienna. Baron Von Dieter had seen to that. She grimaced at the memory. She was wiser now. Wiser about the steps men took to get what they wanted without consideration for the women they hurt in the process. Did such knowledge leave a trail on one’s face? Did her humiliation show?

  “I thought I’d check on you before I retire,” Mrs. Summers, Arianne’s widowed teacher from the Institut Villa Mont Blanc and now her paid companion and chaperone, said from the doorway. “You were so quiet on the ride home.”

  “Do you think I look different?” Arianne pulled lightly on her brows to better examine her eyes.

  “Different from what, dear?” Mrs. Summers moved deeper into the room to stand behind Arianne’s chair.

  “Different from how I appeared before I met the Baron,” Arianne said, turning slightly to examine each cheek. “Does the shame show on my face? Perhaps in my eyes?”

  Her teacher glanced down, averting her gaze from the mirror’s reflection. “You know how sorry I am that I trusted the Baron to do right by you, Arianne. I wouldn’t have let down my guard otherwise. We all expected that he would slide an engagement ring around your fi
nger.”

  The regret evident in Mrs. Summers’s reply tugged at Arianne. She too had been shocked when he announced his engagement to another, after the promises he had made to her. She glanced at her bare fingers. It wasn’t the loss of a ring that concerned her; she’d enough jewels of her own. It wasn’t even the loss of her maidenhood, though disgrace had repercussions beyond that single night. In a way, she found comfort that such an unpleasant experience would not be repeated. However, the uprooting of trust and faith in another, she couldn’t forgive.

  “The way he looked at you . . .” Mrs. Summers sighed, oblivious to the pain she resurrected in Arianne. “To this day I just don’t know what made him change his mind.”

  But Arianne knew. At least she suspected. She had felt compelled to be honest with the man with whom she thought to spend the rest of her life. Thus she’d told him of her recent discovery that the man who sired her was not the old Duke but rather a tenant farmer. Later that night he’d come to her room and promised her “tainted” bloodline would not affect his feelings. That was his proof.

  But before he left, he told her she wasn’t all she should be. That a sullied bloodline could not promise quality. She should have known then, expected what he planned to do, though she thought they would talk. She’d been raised the daughter of a duke. No one could claim she was less. But he did. At the ball held to announce his engagement, her name had been replaced by that of Miss Sharpe. A woman Arianne herself had introduced to him. The memory brought a woeful smile that did nothing to lift her spirits. One could almost say Arianne had been the matchmaker that day. Even now the pain, the embarrassment, and the scorn of the Baron’s rejection resonated deep within her. She’d left Vienna the next day without speaking to him and returned to England to hide in her brother’s lonely, cold, empty town house.

  “Please believe me.” Mrs. Summers glanced up. “I never would have consented to you going on those long rides without a chaperone, nor would I have pretended not to hear footsteps in the corridor at night.” The firelight caught the glisten in her eyes. “I thought he loved you.”