Her Wicked Proposal: The League of Rogues, Book 3

by Lauren Smith

  Cedric nodded.

  “Horatia and I…well…we are expecting. The doctor confirmed it this morning.”

  “A baby?” Cedric sat up, elated at the thought. He then thought of Anne and himself. Would they someday be announcing such news? Was he ready to be a father? Instinct said no, but his heart still stirred at the thought.

  “Yes. The doctor said she has been with child for two months now. We can expect the child in November.” The pride and warmth in Lucien’s tone was obvious.

  Four months ago Cedric had been appalled and infuriated when his friend, a rakehell who could make Lucifer himself blush, and Cedric’s sister had become lovers. It had felt like he’d lost his sister, a companion he’d relied on so much, and one of the two people in his life it was his duty to protect from rogues with wicked reputations. Now it was one of the most wonderful things in the world to know that his friend and sister were so in love and so happy with each other. Secretly, he’d feared that a marriage between them would put some distance between him and Lucien, but it hadn’t.

  Cedric and Lucien’s friendship had been through a rough patch last December, but Cedric couldn’t deny the truth. Lucien loved his sister with a depth Cedric hadn’t thought possible. And soon Lucien would love the child who was on the way. Envy slithered inside Cedric, curling and twisting. He wanted a marriage like that, with love and children.

  He sighed wearily. Lord, I’m getting sentimental. Time and circumstance had changed them all, it seemed.

  The cheers and teasing commenced all around Cedric as the warmth of his friends cloaked him.

  “Congratulations!” Charles and Ashton said from either side of Cedric.

  “A baby Russell,” Jonathan marveled with a devious chuckle. “Your mother must be pleased as punch, Lucien.”

  Cedric was unable to stop his grin. “I’m to be an uncle then?”

  Lucien laughed. “Many times over, I hope.”

  Cedric glowered. “Have a care, man, that’s my sister you married, not a broodmare.”

  “Very well, I’ll let Horatia decide the number of children. But you will have to deal with my mother when she doesn’t get her ten desired grandchildren.”

  “Now,” Jonathan prompted. “Let us hear your news, Cedric.”

  “Oh…right. Well, Ashton and I have just come from the Doctors’ Commons where I procured a special marriage license. I’m to be married within the week.”

  There was a spewing sound and brandy sprayed over Cedric’s face.

  “Bloody hell! Who did that?”

  “Apologies,” said Charles. “You just caught me off guard. Did I hear you correctly?”

  Cedric removed his handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face, trying not to scowl in Charles’s direction.

  “Married to whom?” Lucien asked, his tone echoing Charles’s disbelief.

  “Anne Chessley.” He waited for any sort of reaction, but he hadn’t expected the silence he met instead. What were they doing? Staring at him with gaping mouths or glancing at each other in concern? Damn my eyes. A chair creaked nearby as someone shifted in their seat.

  “What? No congratulations?” Cedric tried to joke, but his grin faltered as the silenced continued.

  Finally Ashton broke the quiet. “I think they are merely surprised as you gave up on courting Anne last year.”

  Lucien cut in. “And she is supposed to be in mourning for her father.”

  “Marriage next week seems extremely scandalous, even for gentlemen like us,” Ashton added.

  Godric spoke up, his tone gentle. “Ashton makes a fair point. Not that I care one whit about what society considers scandalous. Not when there are true injustices in the world. I am deuced glad to hear you are marrying Anne. I know Emily will be ecstatic to hear you and Anne finally settled down together. She was always convinced that you cared more about Anne than you let on.”

  “The only reason I’m not congratulating you, old boy, is because you’ve now evened the odds of sane men versus married men in this room.” Charles’s droll tone set Cedric’s teeth on edge. “Ash, Jonathan and I will have to hold out against being leg-shackled.”

  Cedric snorted at this. Charles and marriage went as well together as…well…Charles and a convent full of nuns—which, in other words, was not well at all.

  “Anyone else care to question my judgment in marrying Anne?” Cedric asked defensively.

  “I am not questioning your judgment,” Ashton replied, “but I am most curious as to how it came about. I agreed to take you to obtain a special license, but until now you’ve been close-lipped on the matter of why.”

  Cedric sighed. It was a question that had been plaguing him since Anne came to see him the day before. With any others he would not breathe a word of his true feelings, nor explain what had transpired with Anne the day before. But the League had different rules. They shared the darkest of secrets without a second thought, such was the depth of their trust in one another.

  “As you know, Anne is now the heiress to her father’s estate since he passed away. Apparently the young bucks and fortune hunters are already in relentless pursuit of her fortune. She sought me out and proposed a scheme of sorts.”

  “A scheme?” Godric sounded intrigued by Cedric’s choice of words. The last time the League had involved themselves in a scheme, they’d taken part in a messy abduction, and Godric ended up married.

  “Yes, she asked me to ask her to marry her.”

  “Hold on, you’re telling me that Anne, the ice maiden, asked you to propose to her?” Charles didn’t sound convinced.

  “She’s not an ice maiden,” Cedric growled.

  “Weren’t you the one who named her that?” Charles reminded him.

  Cedric clenched his fists. “I was mistaken. I expect all of you to respect my wish that she never be addressed that way in or out of her hearing again.”

  “Of course, old boy, whatever you say,” Charles agreed.

  “So finish the story,” Jonathan prodded.

  Cedric gave a little shrug. “It is that and nothing more. She suggested the scheme, and I agreed and got down on one knee and asked her to be my wife.”

  There was another interminable period of silence that seemed almost to deafen his sensitive eardrums as he waited for his friends to speak. Even the other conversations in the room had died down, as if the men in the room were straining to overhear what was going on in their little corner.

  “But why did you agree to ask her?” Godric inquired, the only one brave enough to shatter the quiet.

  He steeled himself and spoke, soft but firm. “Not one of you in this room can comprehend what it has been like for me. I cannot live as I used to, cannot pursue the life I once had. But when Anne came to me, I realized that she may be my one and only chance left to live.”

  The silence in the room now filled with tension. With that awful silence suffocating him, he started to speak. His friends had to understand why he’d agreed to Anne’s offer.

  “She has agreed to marry me despite all the things I cannot give her. I cannot praise her for her loveliness. I cannot take her to balls and dance with her. I cannot even go riding with her. That she has come to me over these other men seeking her hand, it lessens the sting of my current condition. I believe, given time, that we may be able to make ourselves decently happy together.”

  “Decently happy? Cedric, you deserve love, great love, not decent,” Godric replied with surprisingly deep emotion. Lucien murmured his agreement with this.

  Cedric shook his head. It was so easy for them to believe that. They had both been lucky to find women who loved them. He was not so fortunate. His past was shadowed with far too many regrets and poor decisions. Fate held no such love for him, and decent was in itself a gift.

  “It is kind that you think so, Godric, but I do not agree. I’ve hurt both my fam
ily and my friends too often of late and have been a selfish bastard most of my life.” He held up a hand to silence the murmurs of disagreement. “I plan to marry Anne in a week, and I wish you all to attend.” He let the invitation slip out a little more quietly, suddenly afraid that his friends would desert him.

  “I shall be there,” Ashton said, putting a hand on Cedric’s shoulder.

  “Horatia would have my guts for garters if we missed it.” Lucien’s reply made Cedric snort. His little sister would no doubt have Lucien trussed up in the finest clothes of her choosing and sitting on the first row of the church pew. If only I could have my sight back for one moment to see that.

  Godric and Jonathan assured him they too would come.

  Charles was the last to speak. With an exaggerated sigh he said, “I suppose I ought to go, if only to make sure you don’t trip and knock out the archbishop. That sort of thing is likely to bring lightning down on us all, and Christ knows I’ve got enough bolts of wrath thrown at me every day.”

  A rough pat on the shoulder shook Cedric as Godric spoke. “In honor of your announcement, would I be able to tempt you to dine with us tonight? Emily will send Anne an invitation as well. It would be good to have everyone together again.”

  “If you wish. Just send word to me when dinner is and I shall be there.” Cedric fumbled for his cane where he’d set it down. Another hand touched his as it found the cane and pressed it into his palm.

  “Thank you,” Cedric said.

  “You’re welcome.” Jonathan cleared his throat. “And how does Miss Audrey fare, if I might ask? I was told she and Lady Russell are currently in France?”

  “Yes. They are somewhere near Nice the last I heard,” Cedric said.

  He had sent his youngest sister, Audrey, on a European tour with Lucien’s mother just a few weeks after Lucien and Horatia married in early January. Audrey was eighteen and a pretty, vivacious girl. She’d managed to do well growing up without their parents, having only Cedric as her guardian. This year should have been her second season, but Cedric’s blindness had left him unable to escort her to balls and parties, her lifeblood for entertainment. Audrey had been moping about for nearly two months, and he’d felt like he’d lamed a favorite horse. She needed to be out in the world, experiencing life, so he’d asked Lucien’s mother to take Audrey abroad to Europe for half a year.

  Next year would be soon enough to unleash Audrey onto the world. She was innocent and naïve, but also determined to get a husband, a deadly combination for her virtue and Cedric’s nerves. Therefore, he had proposed her trip with the promise that as soon as she returned he would have a potential husband waiting for her. He would collect a smattering of men he approved of and would present them to her and let her choose.

  It turned out Audrey’s absence had been a blow to Cedric’s social tendencies. He missed her morning chatter about the latest Parisian fashions over breakfast, missed her insistence that they go driving in Hyde Park in his phaeton so she might see the handsome bucks of London. He missed her hugs and the patter of her slippers on the stairs. He’d sworn long ago that his sisters were a damned nuisance, but he’d since eaten those words and enjoyed the pair of sisters he’d been gifted with and had stopped cursing his luck for having no brothers. Horatia and Audrey were everything to him, the only family he had left. Horatia’s marriage and Audrey’s trip had left him very alone in his townhouse.

  “Well, I had best be off. Er…Ash, would you assist me to the carriage?” Asking for help wounded his already battered pride, but the embarrassment of asking his friends was lessening slowly. They did not offer pity, and once he realized this, he was thankful. They merely helped him, and that meant a thousand words he’d never say to them.

  “Of course.” Cedric felt Ashton’s hand take his arm and guide him toward the door.

  “I’ll send word on dinner to everyone,” Godric called out cheerfully before the parlor door swung open.

  “Now, where shall we go?” Ashton asked Cedric politely. He never seemed to mind accompanying Cedric on his errands about London.

  Cedric grinned. “To see my future bride.”

  Chapter Three

  Anne Chessley stood in the entryway of her townhouse on Regent Street. Her back and neck were tense as she fought to remain poised and cool, hoping to hide her racing heart and the creeping flush in her cheeks. Had it only been yesterday that she foolishly sought out Viscount Sheridan and convinced him to propose to her?

  God, please don’t let this be a mistake. What if he didn’t come? What if he changed his mind and didn’t go through with the wedding? Anne shoved the thoughts aside, though not easily.

  How much difference one day can make, she thought. Since her father had passed the week before, sleep had eluded her, but last night…she’d drifted to sleep with thoughts of Cedric and that wicked kiss he’d given her. No, not given, shared. As much as it embarrassed her to admit it, she’d kissed him back.

  Anne smoothed her black crepe gown over her hips and sighed. The ripples of the stiff fabric were an uncomfortable reminder of her mourning and her grief. Her father, Archibald Chessley, was dead, and she was alone in the world.

  She was too logical not to be aware that part of her still denied he was dead. She had witnessed his lifeless body when she’d found him in his chair in the library, cold as marble, after a chambermaid had rushed to her bedroom to tell her he was gone.

  The emptiness of her home had cut her deeply and driven her to action. She couldn’t stand the silence anymore. A part of her still expected him to emerge from his study, cigar smoke wafting from him, or to have him join her outside and offer to go riding together in Hyde Park. It had just been the two of them since she was four when her mother, Julia, had died from pneumonia.

  And mere days after his death, she’d been forced to endure suitor after suitor leaving their cards on silver trays, hoping she’d give them a chance to court her. All for her blasted inheritance. If they acted this way while she was still in mourning, the fortune hunters would become more determined to compromise her, even at the risk of scandal, in order to coerce her into marriage. Such a marriage was an unimaginable fate that she needed to avoid at all costs. She could only think of one person who wouldn’t care about her money and whom she could stand to marry. Viscount Sheridan.

  She smiled faintly. He was a tall, handsome gentleman with brown hair and warm brown eyes. A stubborn jaw and aquiline nose gave him a rebellious and imperious look, but his full, sensual lips revealed his humorous streak. She loved to watch him grin. His smiles always sent her pulse dancing and erased her rational thoughts.

  She’d gone to him because she knew she could be honest with him, let him know the truth about why she needed to marry with haste. What she hadn’t realized until last night, when she’d returned to an empty house, was how desperate and lonely she was. No more late-night conversations by the fire with her father, no morning breakfast chatter. Just deafening silence.

  She assumed that a man like Cedric would not understand her wish to marry out of loneliness and it might not engender his sympathy. Yet he was the only man she could stand the thought of marrying. They shared a surprising number of interests, and could likely make a go of it, if he went through with it.

  It was why rushing to him had seemed so natural. He always had something of interest to say, even when he wasn’t trying to shock or seduce her. Being around him, she’d never felt alone.

  But seeing him yesterday had been unexpectedly painful. He’d been sitting by the fountain, hands cut and bleeding, trousers and shirt dirty all along the front. It had been obvious he’d fallen shortly before she’d arrived. Seeing the blood on his hands and the almost casual way he’d forgotten about it jolted her heart. It seemed he’d grown used to falling, to getting hurt. No one should be in such constant pain that they grew accustomed to it like that.

  Anne had wanted to wrap her a
rms about the wounded viscount’s neck and comfort him, but she resisted. They knew so little of each other, and he didn’t know her well enough to see the difference between pity and compassion. He would despise her if he thought she pitied him. She only desired to comfort a man who had been deeply hurt. She couldn’t begin to imagine what he might have endured since he’d lost his sight.

  It had been ages since she’d seen him. All the balls she attended, the dinner parties, were empty without him there. He’d closeted himself up in his house and no longer participated in life. It was as though he’d given up, and something about that made her chest tighten. A man like him should be experiencing life, not closeted at home. Perhaps if they married he could find some peace and she would ease the sting of her lonely heart by keeping him company, perhaps even easing him into some activities again.

  Yes, I’ll convince him to live again. Why that mattered so much, she didn’t want to consider too deeply.

  So here she stood, waiting for him to arrive so they could discuss the details of their new life together. But try as she might to focus on the future, her mind kept reliving their kiss from yesterday. In all of his seductions last spring he’d never kissed her. He’d teased and hinted about it, but she’d politely rebuffed him each time. Then yesterday he’d taken control and changed her life with one fiery meeting of their mouths. After that Anne knew she would marry him. The hunger tinged with desperation in his kiss sent her spiraling with mirrored longing. It was as though something ancient and soul deep had stirred to life, and she couldn’t deny the urge to satisfy that hunger any longer.

  It hadn’t been her first kiss. Her first had been taken—stolen—by a man she despised. A man who still frightened her. And he’d stolen more than just a kiss. He’d taken something that she could never reclaim. At only eighteen years old, she’d lost any right to a marriage like her friends. Any potential bridegroom would have realized she was no longer a virgin, and the scandal it created would be unbearable.

  She would have to tell Cedric, but not yet. Not until after they were married. It felt wrong to conceal such an important truth from him, but she couldn’t risk losing his agreement to their union.