The Rogue's Conquest (Townsend series)

by Maxton, Lily

  But maybe that was the point, of everything he’d become. Was trying to become.

  She didn’t know why she wasted so much time thinking about him. She doubted he was thinking about her. No, he was probably daydreaming about Lady Sarah, and the generations her father’s earldom spanned, and her height-of-fashion clothes, and her elegance, and her many connections.

  Ah, and there was the bitterness.

  Lady Sarah didn’t deserve her bitterness. James didn’t even really deserve it. It wasn’t as though he’d concealed his intentions.

  So she stuffed the bitterness down, and continued with the invitations.

  Sometimes that was all one could do in the face of bitter things—just continue.

  …

  The night of the ball was a damp one. Cold rain pattered against the windows, streaming down like tears. Inside, a fire roared and chandeliers lit the large drawing room. Eleanor greeted Lady Sarah politely and they ended up speaking near the mantel.

  After a few pleasantries, the woman asked, with studied casualness, “Will Mr. MacGregor be attending?”

  Eleanor felt her stomach lurch. “Yes.”

  “I found him quite amiable.”

  “Yes,” she repeated, “he is certainly…amiable.” Amiable would not be anywhere on Eleanor’s list of words to describe James MacGregor. The only A word would probably be annoying, or maybe, an ass. Though, that was technically two words.

  Lady Sarah’s gaze drifted to the door, and Eleanor followed it. Her stomach lurched again when she saw James MacGregor, filling the doorway with his broad shoulders.

  He was dressed in black and white and gold. A snowy cravat tucked expertly into a gold waistcoat. His black coat fit him to perfection, hugging the toned contours of his arms. He should have looked ridiculous in such extravagant clothes, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Instead, he just looked like a more powerful wolf.

  Every time he moved, his coat moved with him, a second skin. It was impossible not to admire the elegant and strong lines of his form. Eleanor hadn’t known that elegance and strength could be married so completely. She’d never seen it in another man. Not to this extent.

  He spotted them, loping through the crowd easily, like the wolf she’d just compared him to.

  He greeted Eleanor first, warmly, and then Lady Sarah, even more warmly.

  Eleanor looked at the side of his face, trying not to stare at his lips. Lord, his mouth had been hot against hers. Was he remembering it? Was he thinking about it? Was she the only one?

  She folded her hands and tried to appear unconcerned when James led Lady Sarah away for a dance. She moved to one of the chairs lining the walls, which was her usual place. She wasn’t Lady Sarah. She didn’t have admirers.

  I am not Lady Sarah, she repeated to herself, as James said something that made the other woman smile. As they circled each other. As James grasped her hand. As he stared at her like she might be the holy grail, uncovered in an Edinburgh drawing room.

  I am not Lady Sarah.

  They danced twice. Eleanor became intimately acquainted with the embroidery on her fan during the second dance. It was all too much to watch again. She didn’t need this pang in her chest to turn into a fissure.

  She didn’t look up when a shadow fell over her, not until the shadow said, “What are you doing?” with a hint of annoyance.

  She looked up at James, whose forehead was wrinkled as he stared down at her. She frowned right back at him. “Use your powers of observation.”

  “Why aren’t you dancing?”

  “I don’t enjoy dancing very much.”

  He lowered himself into the chair next to her—Eleanor noted he didn’t fling himself and nearly break the chair legs, not here. Some of the matrons and other wallflowers glanced at him curiously.

  “Why?”

  “I suppose I’m not asked very much, so I’ve never felt quite comfortable dancing in front of a crowd.”

  “Do you want to be asked?”

  She didn’t know the answer. Yes and no, she supposed. She wouldn’t mind feeling like being a part of the ball instead of observing from the edges, but at the same time, dancing wasn’t really something she had much fondness for anyway.

  What she wanted…what did she want? Maybe just people who wouldn’t stare at her like some strange creature if she mentioned stag beetles. Maybe it was as simple as that.

  “I don’t know that I have a preference, either way,” she said honestly.

  Part of her was alarmed that they could talk like this after what had occurred between them. She felt like a more proper woman would be too embarrassed to speak. She knew a more proper woman certainly wouldn’t keep reliving the moment in her mind.

  She wondered if James had kissed so many women that it didn’t even register—the fact that their mouths had eagerly tried to devour each other.

  She cleared her throat, tried to ignore the heaviness that sat like a stone in her chest. “Did you return Lady Sarah to her mother?”

  “Just as you told me. I’m not a hopeless student.”

  “Only hopeless in general.”

  He grinned. “Your sharp tongue is in fine form tonight.”

  She ignored him.

  “How was my dancing?” he asked casually. Casually enough that she knew her opinion was important to him. She didn’t know why. Lady Sarah’s opinion was really the only one that mattered, in this case.

  “It was—” Perfect. She had a feeling he could accomplish anything he set his mind to. “—well done.”

  His mouth twitched. “Damned with faint praise.”

  “No…that was a compliment. It was quite well done. And don’t say damned near the matrons. They’re strict about that sort of thing,” she said quietly.

  He leaned forward and said, just as quietly, “You just did.”

  They’d been this close right before they’d kissed. Or right before she kissed him. She sat back abruptly, pulse racing.

  “Have you tried the punch?” she said, for lack of anything better to say.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Is it Smith’s?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “I’m not trying to poison my guests.”

  He laughed. A little too loudly. A nearby matron frowned at him.

  “You should dance with more people than Lady Sarah. It will look rude if you don’t.”

  “Will you dance with me?”

  She hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then shook her head. It would be a bad idea. She needed to start disentangling herself from him at some point. The sooner, the better.

  He cocked his head. “You paused.”

  “What?”

  “You paused before you said no. I think that means you secretly want to.”

  Damn him. He was too observant. “There are plenty of other women sitting along the wall who actually wish to dance. You should ask them.”

  He nodded, and she felt relief breathe through her. “I will.” He stood. “And then, I’m coming back for you.”

  Her heart jolted, startled, taken unaware by a statement that could be interpreted in so many foolish ways, but before she could argue with him, he was gone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  James was bored. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the women he was dancing with, they all seemed pleasant enough, and no one was staring at him with a wrinkled nose and a healthy dose of disgust, as though they could see the dirt of his origins all over him.

  But he wasn’t trying to pursue these women. The time he spent conversing and dancing and leading them back to their chaperones felt like wasted time.

  He kept an eye on the men Lady Sarah was dancing with, to determine if they might be competition. Then he kept trying to catch Eleanor’s eye, but she was staring at her fan like it might contain some sort of hidden message. He grew more annoyed as the night went on.

  Yes, they’d kissed. Yes, it was a mistake. Clearly. But it didn’t mean they couldn’t enjoy each other’s company.

  In p
ublic. Maybe not alone.

  He didn’t know if being alone with her was a good idea. His gaze kept straying to her mouth, which was a perfectly normal mouth, lips a little on the thin side, maybe—better to purse at him in disapproval. He kept remembering how cool they’d been from the night air, until he’d warmed them with his own.

  He led his current dance partner back to her chaperone, and then went to the refreshment table to ladle some punch for her, when a man moved in beside him, blocking the punch bowl.

  James was about to brush past him with a polite remark when he stopped, and actually looked at his face.

  And looked into the cold blue eyes of the Duke of Sheffield.

  If he’d been holding something, he might have dropped it. Thank God he wasn’t holding something. This man was like a viper—he would strike at any weakness.

  “James MacGregor,” he said. “This is a surprise.”

  James’s throat tightened. He’d thought Sheffield was in London. Why wasn’t the bastard in London?

  “Your Grace.”

  The older man lifted his eyebrows. “You don’t sound like you just rolled down from the Highlands anymore.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Trying to disguise what you are? Do they know you make a living with your fists?”

  “They know I own a boxing saloon.”

  “How quaint. Why are you here, MacGregor?”

  “The Townsends invited me. We’re acquaintances.”

  “The Townsends. Upstarts always find each other, I suppose.”

  James felt a hot anger in his chest. “Why are you here if you don’t like them?”

  “I thought I’d make an appearance. They might be upstarts, but they’re upstarts who own a great deal of land. The earl isn’t here, though, so there wasn’t much point. A pity.” He surveyed James. “Of course, I’ve found something just as interesting—a mutt in disguise.”

  James’s anger morphed to something else, something dark and tinged with shame.

  The duke lowered his voice, “If you tell anyone, I’ll deny it, and you’ll be a laughing—”

  “I’m not going to say anything,” he cut in abruptly. There was no point. He moved away from the table, away from the Duke of Sheffield. His hands were shaking. He curled them into fists.

  This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

  He wasn’t supposed to meet the duke now, but after. After he’d married Lady Sarah. After he’d become wealthy enough. After he was one of them, when it would be too late, too late for the duke to knock him back down to the dirt.

  He moved toward the door. It was too hot in here, too full, different perfumes mingling too closely. He needed air.

  He needed to be able to breathe.

  …

  Eleanor knew something was wrong. She’d been watching James, as surreptitiously as she could, as he walked to the refreshment table. So she saw him stiffen. Saw his face go pale as he looked at the man next to him.

  The Duke of Sheffield.

  Eleanor had invited him because propriety demanded it, but she’d assumed he wouldn’t attend. Unfortunately, there he was. But what bothered her the most was James’s visceral reaction to the man. Yes, he was arrogant and condescending, even for a duke, which was saying something, but they shouldn’t even know each other. So she had no idea why James would stride out of the ballroom like he was escaping a nightmare.

  After a moment of indecision, a moment in which she checked that Robert was occupied, and that no one else was watching her, she slipped out after him.

  She found him in the library, lit by a single, lonely candle that flickered and wavered under the breeze that came in through the open window. He was staring out, heedless of the cold, heedless of the rain. The faint sounds of music and chatter drifted down from the drawing room.

  He didn’t move when she shut the door softly behind her, just turned his head. He didn’t seem surprised to see her.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” But his accent, the one he worked so hard to hide, came through, and shouldn’t sounded more like shouldna.

  That, more than anything, sent a sliver of worry through her chest.

  “What happened? What did the duke say to you?”

  “Not much. He called me a mutt in disguise.”

  Eleanor frowned. His voice was wiped clean of emotion. “Why would he call you that?”

  James lifted a shoulder and turned his head to stare back out the window. “He called your family upstarts. Not a very polite guest, is he?”

  She stepped closer. “Are you all right?”

  His hands were on the sill, gripping tight, white from either cold or pressure, or both. “I’m perfectly well. He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

  She was close enough to touch him, so she did. She pressed her hand, gently, to his back, and his head bowed. “I don’t think it’s true. And I don’t think he has a right to insult my guests, anyway.”

  He was silent.

  She ran her tongue along the back of her teeth before she asked the only question she could ask. But she already suspected the answer. There had been something similar about the two men, not in their looks, but in the way they stood. “Who is he to you?” After a pause, she said, “You know my biggest secret. It’s only fair that I know yours.”

  James sighed. “He’s my father.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Father was an overstatement.

  A father, in James’s opinion, was supposed to provide things for their child—clothes, shelter, food, love…more than anything, love. All the Duke of Sheffield had provided was his seed.

  He didn’t want to talk about his absent father, but the pressure of Eleanor’s hand on his back urged him on. He felt it like a brand. He felt it in a way that he shouldn’t.

  “My mother was the daughter of a drover on his estate. She caught his attention. He caught hers. She loved him, I think.” That was hard to admit, even to himself. “He might have loved her, too, once. But a Highland lass wasn’t the right sort of mistress for a duke, or that was what he thought, at least. He left for London, she had me. I don’t know what happened, then. I don’t know if she ever reached out to him or not. But she moved to Edinburgh after her father died, and you know what our lives were like after that.”

  Eleanor was silent for a moment. He could sense her mind whirring in that empty space, and it was oddly comforting.

  “How did you find out?”

  “She told me when she fell ill. She spoke of him with wistfulness…I thought there was something there, so I went to him.” He took a deep breath before he continued. “I went to his country estate to bring him back to her, so she could see him before she died. I forced my way into his study—he wasn’t even going to let me in,” he said with a bitter laugh.

  “And he looked at me…he looked at me like I was nothing, like my presence alone was an insult. I tried to ignore that. Even if I wasn’t anything to him, that didn’t mean my mother was nothing, too. But whatever he felt for her was long buried. He didn’t flinch when I told him she was dying. And when I asked if he’d come visit her, he said, ‘Why would I go anywhere with you?’”

  Eleanor drew in a tremulous breath behind him.

  “I returned alone, and at that point, my mother didn’t even recognize me anymore.” He lifted his shoulder in a light, careless shrug, as though these were things that hadn’t weighed him down for years, things that didn’t still threaten to break his heart in two, late at night, when he was unguarded.

  “He sounds horrible.”

  “He was horrible—and rich and immaculate and cold and untouchable. I’d never been so cowed in my life. I was such an idiot on that journey. I kept thinking of the things we might say to each other. What we might find in common. It didn’t cross my mind that he wouldn’t want anything to do with me.”

  His foolishness hadn’t even been the worst part. But he’d told Eleanor everything else, he might as well tell her the thing t
hat still gnawed at his gut. And maybe, maybe when he told her, she’d see the kind of man he truly was, and whatever that kiss had been would fade as quickly as it had appeared. “I want to hate him. I wanted to hate him then and I want to hate him now, but I couldn’t, and I can’t.”

  “Because he’s your father.”

  “No,” he said harshly. “Because I admire him. Because I had nothing for so long and he had everything, and he makes you feel like he deserves a golden throne and you deserve to grovel in the dirt. I don’t hate him, I want to be him.”

  The pressure of her hand slipped from his back and he missed it, God, he missed it, but he didn’t move. She stepped around him so they were face-to-face. Her brow had a deep furrow line as she studied him, and he resisted the urge to smooth it with his fingertips.

  “You think being like him will bring you happiness? But you don’t even know that he’s happy.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  That line in her forehead dug in even deeper. “How can you say that?”

  “Because it doesn’t. I never said I wanted happiness.”

  “How would your mother feel if she heard that?”

  It was a knife’s blade slipped between his ribs. His mother. The woman who’d done everything in her power to make him feel safe and happy and loved, when she’d barely had a shilling to her name. The woman who’d been dying when he’d been dreaming of a different life, and idolizing a far different person.

  “You’re hitting below the waist, Cecil,” he said softly.

  She frowned at him again. “What does that mean?”

  “In boxing, it’s illegal to hit a man below the waist. Unsporting.”

  She narrowed her eyes, and he was struck again by how expressive they were, alternating between sharp intelligence and cool appraisal and sometimes uncertainty and sometimes desire.

  He found himself wishing that she was elegant, popular, charming, all of the things Society coveted. That she knew exactly what to say and when to say it, that she would never dream of dressing as a man or studying mating beetles. That she was the type of woman who’d lift him as high as he could go. But then, if she was, he doubted he’d like her so much.