I Kissed a Rogue (Covent Garden Cubs)

by Shana Galen

  Which was foolish.

  He didn’t love her. He could never love her, not after what she’d done to him. He desired her, nothing more. The fact that he treated her so honorably served to show her what a fool she’d been when she’d refused to run away with him. He would have made her a wonderful husband. He would have cherished her and loved her. What were title and prestige compared to finding the one person who loved you and whom you could love in return?

  Of course, she hadn’t known what love was, what it felt like, how much she needed it, when he’d begged her to be his wife. She’d only known vanity and the heady feeling of being sought by so many men. She’d confused popularity with friendship, and when her mother fell ill and Lila had stepped away from public life for a time, she’d realized just how quickly popularity could fade and how few true friends she had.

  The tally? Zero.

  “You’d better climb under the covers before you catch cold. I’ll join you in a moment.”

  Lila nodded and slid under the sheets, still warm from their bodies.

  She hadn’t deserved friends before. She hadn’t deserved Brook Derring. She probably didn’t deserve him now, but, oh, how she wanted him.

  * * *

  Brook stepped behind the privacy screen and leaned one arm against the wall. He needed a moment to himself, a moment to gather his scattered thoughts. He rested his forehead on his arm and closed his eyes. The image of Lila, eyes closed and lips parted, rose in his mind. Brook quickly opened his eyes again.

  She’d told him she loved him. What was he supposed to do with that information? Did he believe her? And if he did believe her, what then? It didn’t change the past. It didn’t mean he loved her or wanted to stay married to her. He’d married her to protect her and with the assurance it was a temporary union. He did not have to feel guilty for seeking an annulment when that had been agreed upon from the start.

  He hadn’t forced her to do anything. And he’d damn well made sure she enjoyed everything they did together. And still the thought that he’d ruined her wouldn’t leave his mind.

  She’d been an innocent.

  He’d expected that. He would have been surprised if she’d never been kissed, never danced a little too close, never allowed a man’s hands to stray a bit from what was strictly appropriate. But Lila was no rule breaker. She’d never let a man have her.

  Until now.

  Because she loved him.

  She shouldn’t love him. Not that that ever stopped anyone from falling in love. He should never have fallen in love with her all those years ago, but knowing that hadn’t stopped him from doing so. His heart had hardened since then. He’d seen more of the world after a week in the Saffron Hill rookery than many men saw in a lifetime. Love was an emotion reserved for those like Lila, privileged men and women with the time and leisure to daydream. Love didn’t feed a hungry child or stave off the craving for gin or recover the blunt lost at dice.

  Love was a nice, if useless, emotion.

  That didn’t mean Brook hadn’t felt anything when he’d tumbled her. Perhaps it was because he had once been in love with her that he’d felt more than he ever remembered feeling when bedding a woman. Every gasp, every breath, every moan seemed imprinted on his brain. He’d wanted to give her more pleasure, even if it meant his was not as great.

  He could have taken her fast and hard. She’d been ready for him, and she was no tiny, delicate flower. He would have enjoyed her that way, especially after he’d felt how tight and hot she’d been. He’d almost lost all restraint then.

  Instead, he’d been exceedingly careful and proceeded with the utmost care. He’d wanted everything to be perfect for her.

  Why the hell had he cared? She hadn’t cared a whit for his feelings when she’d crushed him with her refusal to elope. And tonight, she’d encouraged him to act the reprobate, to make her hate him.

  So why hadn’t he done it? He was perfectly capable of all sorts of inexcusable acts. His thoughts swirled, and when they settled, one remained.

  He didn’t want her to fall out of love with him.

  Brook blew out a breath and pushed away from the wall in disgust. What the devil was wrong with him? He found a dry towel, dipped it in the basin of water, and washed the evidence of her virginity off his flesh. The cold water served to cool his ardor for her. Despite having had her just a few moments ago, he would have liked to take her again. He was a man of stamina and vigor, but usually his interest was not aroused for several hours after release. To want her when he’d just had her perplexed him.

  Everything about her perplexed him. Beezle’s capture and this whole affair could not end soon enough. Brook was ready for his old life back—long days and nights in his office on Bow Street, hours spent in the filth of St. Giles, time alone in his flat. This marriage could not end soon enough.

  Brook splashed a handful of water on his face, then padded to the bed, where Lila lay. She didn’t move, but he doubted she slept. He could all but hear her thinking. He climbed in beside her, her body heat reminding him how cold he’d acted, and he wondered what she thought about. He’d never once wondered what a woman thought about. He’d often wondered if his sister thought at all, but that was before she’d married Dorrington and ceased to be Brook’s concern.

  Since he would not stoop to asking her what she thought about, he did the next best thing. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her temple. “Go to sleep,” he ordered. “Morning will be here soon enough, and it’s a long walk back.”

  “Do we have to go back?” she asked with a yawn.

  “There’s the cat to think of,” he said, only half joking.

  “We should take her and the kittens back to London with us.”

  Wouldn’t that be a cozy, domestic scene? What was next? Children?

  He supposed that was possible now. She might be pregnant. He hadn’t used any means to prevent pregnancy. Those were risky at best, but at least they were somewhat effective. He might have pulled out with Lila, lowered the chance she might conceive. Why hadn’t he?

  That was another issue he preferred not to examine too closely. Perhaps he’d best take his own suggestion and go to sleep.

  “Brook?”

  Her voice came to him through a haze, and he nuzzled closer to her. She was warm and soft in his arms. Her hair smelled of wildflowers.

  “Go to sleep, Lila.” He’d just drifted off and sleep tugged at him like an insistent toddler.

  “I will. I just wanted to say thank you for telling me why you still hate me.”

  He sighed and opened his eyes. “I don’t hate you. But, Lila, regardless of what happens between us, in bed or otherwise, we have no future. Understand that. There is no hope for you and me.”

  He heard her take a shaky breath.

  “I don’t say this to hurt you. I say it because it’s the truth.” And because he didn’t want to hurt her. “I cannot love you, but I don’t hate you.”

  “I’d understand if you did,” she said after a long silence. “I know you didn’t want my apologies. I know they change nothing, but sometimes we must say the things we feel because otherwise it may be too late.”

  He stared into the darkness.

  “My mother has been gone for almost five years, and daily I still think of little bits of information I’d like to share with her. I have questions I wish I’d asked, conversations I wished we’d had.”

  “You never seemed overly fond of her when I first met you.”

  He could feel her shrug. “I suppose I wasn’t. When she became ill, when I realized I would lose her, I wished we had been closer. I tried to make that up at the end, but I never truly could.”

  He pulled her closer, even as his mind screamed danger. Whispered confessions in the dark could lead down alleys he did not want to take. He’d revealed as much of his emotional life—all of it from his past—as he would. He did not want to know any more about her emotions. He did not want to see this soft, caring side of her.

 
; “I’m sorry for your loss. I still think of my father at times.” Which was true. Not because he missed the earl but because there were so many reminders of him at Derring House. He’d been an old man even when Brook had been young. Every tutor he and Dane had ever had talked incessantly of what would be expected when his brother became the earl. His father’s death was almost accepted long before it ever occurred. He supposed losing his mother would have been more of a shock.

  “That’s right. You lost your father shortly after I—”

  “Yes. It was another blow, but the two of them together made me the man I am today.”

  She turned in his arms, the silky skin of her belly sliding against him. “What do you mean?”

  “It means I wanted an escape, and I found one. I escaped to St. Giles and Whitechapel and Holborn Hill. I found my true calling. If I’d married you, if my father had lived longer, I would never have become an inspector. I would never have been knighted.”

  “Speaking of which, why—”

  He put a finger over her lips. They were petal soft and lush, begging to be kissed. He resisted, though his cock rose to attention in protest.

  “That’s a story for another time and not nearly as romantic as the ladies like to make it.” He moved his finger away. “Now, go to sleep.”

  He closed his eyes, opening them again immediately when she snuggled up against his chest, her soft hair tickling his shoulder. Her mother’s death truly had changed her. He would have to have been a stubborn fool not to see that. Now she apologized, she worried over kittens, she took an interest in someone besides herself.

  She loved him.

  But he could not go back. The Brook that had loved her had been a different person. That man was but a distant memory.

  Lila pressed her cheek against his shoulder and curled into him. Their legs tangled at the ankles, and he tried very hard not to imagine lifting one of those legs and resting it over his hip. He could slide into her heat quite easily that way.

  Not tonight.

  Tonight, he would sleep. He closed his eyes and tried to settle his body, but where to put his hands? He shifted one under his head but the other kept falling over the lush curve of her hip. All too easy to cup her rounded bottom from that position.

  His cock ached uncomfortably, and Brook gritted his teeth.

  Lila’s breathing slowed, and while he struggled to find a comfortable position, she was soon sleeping. Damn the woman, and damn his misguided sense of chivalry. If only his body would listen to his sense of honor.

  The easiest way to avoid being stirred up by her was to turn his back to her. All he need do was push her off him and roll over. She didn’t weigh much, and it would be easily accomplished. But all Brook did was think of moving her out of his arms. In the end, he couldn’t tear himself away.

  Sixteen

  Lila’s wrist looked like it had been run over by a carriage wheel. By the next morning, her normally slender hand had swollen to twice its size, and her wrist was as thick as her palm. She could not even manage to fit a glove over the offensive-looking body part. She kept it tucked in her pelisse all through breakfast, which made for difficulty eating.

  When she remembered to eat, that was.

  Most of the time, she could not seem to keep her gaze from straying to her husband’s face. He looked exactly as he had yesterday and the day before, although he’d shaved at the posting house and now the scruff from his chin was gone. She liked seeing the razor-sharp lines of his cheeks and jaw, but she kept expecting him to look different somehow. Of course, why should he? She was not the first woman he’d made love to. He’d not been a virgin. Besides, all of her peeks in the mirror had shown her that her own face looked exactly the same as it had last night.

  No sign proclaiming her lost virtue had appeared on her forehead. No blood even stained the sheets where they’d slept the night before. Brook’s quick attention with the towel had all but erased the evidence.

  She wondered if she would be expunged from his thoughts as quickly once the annulment proceeded.

  “Stay here,” Brook said, interrupting her perusal. She quickly lowered her gaze and toyed with her porridge.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I asked the proprietor to acquire supplies for us. I want to see if he’s done so. Keep the ice on your wrist. It will help with the swelling.”

  Obediently, she placed her wrist on the small block of ice she’d been given, but as soon as Brook was gone, she lifted it again. She knew ice was rare and expensive, even in the winter, but her wrist hurt more on the ice than off. She supposed she should have been thankful it was her wrist and not her ankle, although had it been her ankle, she might have been able to stay at the posting house another night. Lila did not look forward to the long, cold walk back to the hovel or the rustic conditions once they arrived.

  She should have enjoyed her time there, as it would be over soon and she’d probably never see Brook again. She had been such a fool not to see his value when they’d first met. All she’d seen was a boy without a title or power or sense of style. Now she knew none of those attributes meant a man had any substance, any character. Brook was the sort of man who considered the needs of others before his own. It might not have been fashionable to chase down thieves in Spitalfields or search for missing people in Seven Dials, but he did it all the same. He genuinely cared about the welfare of others. How had she thought an intricately tied cravat comparable?

  One day, Brook would fall in love with a woman, and when he did, he would love her with the sort of devotion and faithfulness Lila knew of only from novels. And to think, if she hadn’t been such a fool, that woman might have been her. She’d probably grow old with only her memories of the time they’d spent together.

  The door to the private room opened, and Lila quickly set her wrist on the ice again. But instead of Brook, a young woman with light brown hair and bright blue eyes stood in the doorway. Her hair had been pulled into a loose mass of curls, but much of it had come free and tumbled about her shoulders and her pale cheeks. She wore a bright blue redingote with ruffles and pleating down the front, and a matching bonnet hung from one gloved wrist. Lila knew immediately from the woman’s dress, she was someone of wealth and importance.

  But something about what way she stood, with one hand on her hip, belied that she was a lady.

  “Are you Mrs. Brook Derring?” she asked.

  Lila nodded, still staring at the woman. Her speech had been perfectly correct, but something about it did not sound quite right.

  “And who are you?” Lila asked, rising.

  The girl turned away from her. “Max, it’s true! There was a wedding. Brook’s wife is in here.”

  Booted footsteps rattled the boards beneath her feet and then a man stood behind the woman. He swept off his hat and gave Lila a ceremonious bow. Lila immediately curtsied.

  “Forgive us for intruding, Mrs. Derring,” he said, his speech that of a perfect nobleman.

  “The proprietor said we might find you in here,” the woman added. “We had to see this for ourselves.”

  “We should introduce ourselves,” the man said, though Lila had already inferred who they were. The man was tall with brown hair and brown eyes. He and Brook were of a height, and though Brook’s hair was lighter and his eyes darker, the resemblance was too strong to miss. This must be Lord Dane, the earl and Brook’s brother.

  “I am Lord Dane and this is my wife, Lady Dane. I believe you are now my sister by marriage.”

  “Yes,” Lila finally managed. “I’m so pleased to meet you, my lord. My lady.” She curtsied to each.

  “You don’t have to call me my lady,” the countess said. “You can call me Marlowe.”

  “Marlowe?” Lila remembered the stories in the paper now. The earl had married a former thief. This must be she. “I’m Lad—Lillian-Anne, but everyone calls me Lila.”

  “A pleasure, Lila,” the earl said. “You are the eldest daughter of the Duke of Lennox?”r />
  “Yes. I believe we met years ago.”

  “I remember, my lady. You had quite the come out.” Dane entered the room and looked about. “Where is my brother?”

  “He went to speak with the proprietor about supplies. We’re staying at the cottage nearby.”

  Dane’s eyes widened. “What the deuce is he thinking taking you there?”

  “You have a house nearby?” Marlowe asked.

  “Not exactly.” He pulled out a chair and gestured to his wife.

  “No, thank you. My arse is sore from too much sitting as it is.”

  Lila coughed, but the earl didn’t seem the least bit offended.

  “I take it you do not know the reason for the marriage,” Lila said.

  “Is there a reason?” Dane asked with a quick look at her waist. “Besides the usual, that is.”

  “The dowager wrote to summon us to the wedding,” Marlowe said. “That was the extent of the letter. She often does quite a lot of summoning and not much explaining.”

  “We were detained by heavy rains and flooding near Northbridge Abbey,” Dane said, “or we would have come sooner.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Lila said, “but one can hardly fault you, considering the abruptness of the wedding.”

  The earl nodded, obviously waiting for her to go on. Lila wondered where to begin and how much to reveal. The silence must have dragged on longer than the countess liked. Finally, she moved beside her husband. “Am I the only one wondering why the wedding had to occur so quickly?” she whispered loudly.

  Lila laughed. The girl was gauche, but it seemed to come from a lack of guile. Lila found her oddly refreshing.

  “We are waiting for Lady Lila to craft her response,” Dane answered, making very little effort at sotto voce.

  “Her response to what?” Brook asked coming in behind his brother. “Don’t tell me you’ve begun the inquisition already. I thought I was the inspector.”

  “Brook!” Marlowe flung herself at him, embracing him hard and with obvious ease. Lila wondered if she would ever feel as comfortable embracing her own husband.