Guarding a Notorious Lady

by Olivia Parker

  “He did,” Tristan squeaked, raising a wobbly finger in the air. And then, he muttered, “Dropped me on the floor, ’e did.” But Rosalind didn’t hear him.

  Chin set, she whipped her shawl around her shoulders and stood up. She met Nicholas’s gaze. “You did this?” she accused. “You gave him a blackened eye.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “The only thing I did,” he said forcefully, “was pick your brother up from the front steps and bring him in the house.”

  “We broke your lovely, lovely picture,” Tristan muttered from the floor. “You know, that one some bloke had painted and brought here this morning? Yesh, put my foot right through it, I did. So sorry.”

  “It was hideous.” She dropped another glance at her brother. “But what the addle-pated pea goose wants to know, Tristan, is how you acquired your black eye.”

  With some great difficulty, he managed to pull himself up to rest on his arms. “Well, there were these four men who came out of the alley and jumped me from behind. I fought off one and . . .”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to tell me you fought off four men in the condition you’re in?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “All right, there were three.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “All right, there were two.” He smiled up at her. “One?”

  “Tristan,” she warned.

  “Oh, all right. I hit myself in the eye with the toe of my boot as I was trying to pull it off.”

  She put a hand over her mouth to smother her laugh and failed miserably. Her laughing eyes met Nicholas’s.

  He looked incredibly serious despite the absurd things coming out of Tristan’s mouth.

  “Did you witness his . . . unfortunate circumstance?” she asked, her voice laced with amusement.

  His mouth twitched with a ghost of a grin, almost as if he wished he could laugh but something kept him from giving in to it. “Your brother, it seems, thought the front of the house was his bedchamber. After tripping up the steps, he took hold of the railing as if his very connection to the earth depended upon it.” He paused as Rosalind laughed again. “After he realized he could let go and not fly into the sky, he plopped down and proceeded to relieve himself of his boots.”

  “Oh, dear,” Rosalind breathed, wiping tears of suppressed mirth from the corners of her eyes with the fringe of her shawl.

  “Let’s get your brother to bed,” Nicholas said, his voice sounding tight.

  “Come along, Tristan,” she said, kneeing down to pull up on his arm.

  Nicholas joined her and shook his head. “The lad walks like a one-legged sailor abroad a boat in a turbulent sea. It’ll be much easier if you let me do it.”

  She nodded and stepped aside.

  Nicholas scooped up her brother fairly easily and half dragged, half walked Tristan into his room.

  Once inside his room, Rosalind fetched the chamber pot, just in case he was ill, and slid it to the side of his bed. She brought over a cloth and a small bowl of water from the washstand, as well.

  She turned to find that Nicholas had propped up her brother on the bed. Tristan’s head was leaning against the headboard.

  Mutterings came from the hall. Nicholas became instantly alert, jerking his head toward the noise.

  “Perhaps it’s Tristan’s valet or some other servant,” she placated.

  Nicholas left to apparently investigate, although judging by the set of his jaw, he looked a lot angrier now than when he’d come in.

  “Tristan, scoot down,” she ordered.

  He did as she directed, sliding down on his back.

  “No, not on your back.” She grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him so he was on his stomach. “If you get sick, you’ll choke.”

  “Lovely thought,” he mumbled. “Now I remember why I don’t do this very often.”

  She made a sound of agreement and sat down next to him on the edge of the bed. Dipping the cloth in the cool water, she pressed it gently to his blackened eye.

  “Rosie, I got myself leg-shackled—”

  She froze. “Tristan, please don’t tell me you married someone in this condition.”

  His head bobbed, and she realized he was shaking it for no.

  “How would I have done that? Don’t have a special license. I meant tap-hackled.”

  “Well, that’s very different. That’s means you’re drunk.” She tucked the blankets around him, sniffing daintily. “However, anyone with a nose could tell you that,” she mumbled.

  “Thank you.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment,” she pointed out.

  “I know.”

  “How much did you drink?” she asked, sitting back.

  He opened one blue eye and looked at her. “I’m not telling you.”

  She almost smiled. “Whyever not?”

  “ ’Cause it’s a trifling amount. Rather embarrassing.”

  “All right,” she said, tossing the cloth on the table to cross her arms over her chest. “Why did you drink a ‘trifling’ amount?”

  He turned his head slightly, which put his face in the pillow. “In celebration,” he said, sounding muffled.

  “May I ask, in celebration of what?”

  “The end of my engagement.”

  Rosalind gasped. “Miss Harriet Beauchamp cried off?”

  He nodded into the pillow.

  She gasped, a hand cupped over her mouth. “I had a feeling she’d do something like this!” She stood and paced the room. “As soon as I realized Gabriel was going to marry Madelyn, I thought she might reconsider. I knew from the start you didn’t suit. And if anyone would know, it would be me. Please, I mean no offense to you, but I believe we all realized her affections resided solely in the fact that she believed Gabriel wouldn’t marry, and that by marrying you, she might one day produce the Devine heir.” She looked down to see his shoulders shaking.

  A mortified shock ran through her. Was he . . . crying?

  “Tristan, I’m so sorry. I hadn’t realized that you’d grown attached.”

  He turned his head from the nest of the pillow and smiled.

  He wasn’t crying, he was laughing.

  “I said, ‘celebration.’ ” He tried to roll on his back. “Hell, Rosie, I’m the one who’s foxed.”

  She pushed him back over and sighed with some relief. Twisting, she looked about the room to see if Nicholas had returned. “Wherever did he go?”

  “Who go?”

  “Nicholas.”

  “How the devil should I know? You won’t let me roll over.”

  “Did you meet up this evening? Go to the same club?”

  “No.”

  Disappointment had her shoulders slouching. Had he gone? And without saying good-bye? She wanted to thank him for helping Tristan, at least. It was the polite thing to do.

  With feigned casualness, she stepped to the door and looked up and down the empty hall before creeping ahead.

  Her bare feet swished softly on the red and gold carpet. Up ahead she spied Tristan’s boots, which sat slumped over against the wall opposite her bedchamber door.

  “I guess you had gotten them off after all,” she murmured, picking them up.

  The sound of shattering pottery disrupted the silence of the corridor. Her head snapped to her open doorway.

  A tall, masculine shadow stood at a side window of her bedchamber, which looked between the houses. Kincaid. He had gone into her room.

  His back was to her as Rosalind stepped soundlessly inside the room. Her gaze slid down from tousled dark locks resting on the back of his neck, down his broad back covered in white lawn, and down further to his firm backside. Lord, she was truly wanton.

  Her writing desk crouched under the high window and she bit her bottom lip as she took in the sight of his muscular thighs, the tops of which pressed against the wood as he peered out into the predawn.

  He must have sensed her presence. Slowly, he straightened from the window and
turned to regard her, her desk at his back. A mischievous glint in his eyes simmered to a heated smolder.

  “What was that sound?” she asked, crossing the room. A smart woman would admonish his sheer audacity to enter into her private chambers; a wise woman would cast him out. But Rosalind loved this man. The strong, sensual pull compelled her forward, as did the curiosity about the crashing sound she had heard.

  His grin was lopsided and hardly innocent. “Your flowers . . . they had an accident.”

  Her mouth opened. “That lovely pot of begonias I brought upstairs?”

  “That would be them.” He smiled wide, flashing straight white teeth and a dimple in his cheek that she’d never known he had. His eyes dipped to her toes and back again.

  She was suddenly acutely aware of her state of undress. She loved this night rail, but she’d bet it was fairly see-through, if the look on Nicholas’s face was any indication.

  Glad that her unbound hair was tucked under her shawl—otherwise she’d feel incredibly shameless—she closed the space between them, one fine brow arched.

  Only now did she notice that his waistcoat was unbuttoned and his cravat was tied loosely, offering her a small glimpse of tan skin. The queue that held his hair back had loosened, and some of his mahogany locks had slipped from its hold to brush against his cheekbones. He looked slightly rumpled, so strong and masculine and very wicked in the dark.

  “What are you doing in my room?” She gulped, then lifted her chin in hopes that he hadn’t noticed.

  He leaned his weight on her desk, crossed his arms over his chest, and stated calmly, “I heard a noise.”

  “What sort of noise?”

  “Ah, hell,” someone yelled from outside her window. “Now where the devil did you go?”

  Her brow furrowed. “What in the . . .” She made to take a step around him, only to have access to her view denied by Nicholas as he slid to block her.

  “There’s nothing to see,” he said, looking down at her, his gray eyes glittering in the low light of the fire.

  She dropped her brother’s boots to the floor.

  It was probably a would-be suitor. Occasionally, one would get drunk and come to sing or shout poetry at her window. It was embarrassing and unwanted, and she just hoped her neighbors slept through it.

  “Let me see who’s down there,” she said in her most threatening tone, which wasn’t, admittedly, awfully intimidating.

  He pressed his lips together for a moment, as if in thought, and then grinned. “No.”

  She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. “How dare you,” she breathed, not daring to speak louder than a whisper. “It is my window and my bedchamber. And you shouldn’t even be in here.” She did a little hop, thinking she could see over his shoulder. It didn’t work, however, but it made him chuckle, low and deep in his chest.

  The sound made her feel like she’d just swallowed a glass of sherry in just one gulp.

  Glancing around his trim waist, she saw that her lamp was missing its candle. Her eyes quickly scanned what she could see of the desk. Missing as well were her inkwell, three candle stubs, and a wooden duck paperweight that Gabriel had carved for her when she was a little girl.

  “Where are all my things?” she asked, her voice soft and bewildered.

  “Well,” he said, his brogue more pronounced than usual, “I spotted a wee pest outside your window and I thought I’d scare him off. But don’t fret your bonnie head, I’ll retrieve them for you.”

  “A wee pest?” she repeated. “What sort of wee pest?”

  “I had to toss your hairbrush, as well. I almost got ’im with that one.”

  She looked over her shoulder to her dressing table. There was a soft swoosh near her feet and she turned back around to witness Nicholas tossing one of her brother’s boots out of the window.

  He turned to face her, leaning his weight on the desk once again. “Damn, I missed again.”

  “I cannot believe you,” she muttered, grasping her shawl tight with one hand.

  “What would you have me do? Gifts, pictures, flowers, hell, even the horse makes some sense, but Shakespeare at your window near dawn? Will they stoop to anything?”

  “Well, I don’t like it, but at least I don’t throw objects intended to knock people unconscious like some . . . like some uncivilized beast.”

  “My country manners must offend you, your royal highness,” he mocked. “What is the proper etiquette when one wants to rid a star-eyed drunken sot at one’s window? Shall we write him a letter?”

  Her chin lifted and she stifled the urge to laugh. “All right.” She’d take his suggestion.

  She reached out to open a drawer next to his thigh. He twitched. Paying the action no further heed, she removed a tablet, flipped it open, picked up her quill pen . . . and paused.

  That’s right. Her inkwell was on the lawn. Throwing Nicholas a glare, she snapped the pen down and rummaged through the drawer until she found a charcoal pencil. She scribbled the words, “Please, sir, do go away.” Pressing her lips together, she handed it to Nicholas. “There. Just tear out the sheet—”

  He tossed the entire tablet over his shoulder. It flapped straight out the window.

  “You are abominable. What a waste . . .”

  “I agree. I should have looked before I threw it and I would have got him.”

  She shook her head slowly and readjusted her shawl. “I can’t believe your nerve.”

  “My nerve? I can’t believe the bollocks—excuse me—the impudence of these foolish whelps.”

  Nicholas’s chin dipped as his gaze swept her from top to bottom in a quick, thorough sweep.

  Rosalind followed suit.

  Oh, Lord, she hadn’t realized she had been standing between his legs until just that moment.

  With a muffled oath, he slid away from her with a brisk, sliding step. Rosalind took a step back at the same time.

  Embarrassment flooded through her. “So sorry,” she mumbled. “I hadn’t realized . . .”

  He disregarded her apology with a quick shake of his head, his lips in a hard line.

  He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, dislodging the leather strip that tied his hair back. It slid soundlessly to the floor. Rosalind realized that he didn’t seem to notice.

  After a long pause, he said with a note of distaste in his tone, “Did you know, that arse down there, I saw him in the park early this morning—”

  “Yesterday morning, now,” she corrected.

  “—and he was staring at a tiny blond lassie wearing spectacles like she was the empress of his dreams.” He shook his head and slowly paced the room, lingering in the shadows. “And now he’s here, blithering drunk, and professing his love to you. Fickle lad.”

  Her eyes widened. She knew the man—and the “tiny blond lassie”—he spoke of. She had been trying to get those two together for years, but the man, a Lord Rothbury, was as stubborn as a mule when it came to admitting his feelings. Adding to his resistance, undoubtedly, was his belief that the girl was infatuated with none other than his friend Tristan.

  She turned her back to the window and rested her bottom against her desk like Nicholas had done earlier, although when he did it, it was the backs of his thighs that touched.

  He seemed to disappear for a second in the shadow near her bookcase.

  “His words hold no truth for me,” she said simply and without remorse. “He is in love with the woman whose family rents the town house next door. I wager he thought to confess his love for her and lost his courage along the way.”

  “One of your matchmaking schemes gone awry,” he stated darkly. With his hands behind his back, he approached her with slow, measured strides.

  Moonlight from the high window at her back slanted across his face until he stepped even closer and back into shadow. Her pulse skittered. In that brief flash, she realized he looked grim, dangerous, his jaw tight.

  What was he up to? “Thank you for helping my brother,” she b
lurted, surprised that her voice shook a little. “You should go now. ”

  When the tops of his thighs brushed against her shawl, he came to a stop. “And leave you here all alone to deal with your admirer down there?”

  She swallowed. No, stay, she wished she could say. Just stay.

  And it was shameful and wrong for her to feel that way, she knew. He was in her room, for goodness’ sake, but she wouldn’t lie to herself. She wanted him to stay a bit longer, she wanted him to like her, she wanted him to . . . to . . . to not throw A Detailed History on the Production and Use of Cannons and Muskets out the window!

  “Stop,” she whispered harshly, flipping around to make a grab for the book.

  But it was too late; the book had already dropped. And by the sound of it, it had hit its mark.

  Rosalind stilled, sprawled across her desk on her stomach, the coolness of the wood seeping through her flimsy night rail. Her shawl had bunched around her shoulders and neck, leaving her thinly covered bottom exposed to the cool night air . . . and Nicholas’s gaze.

  His breath hitched loudly.

  He saw.

  A delicious heat spread over Rosalind right before she peeked over her shoulder to find Nicholas standing oh-so-close, his open palm just inches from her bottom.

  Chapter 8

  Sweet Christ, why was he being subjected to such decadent torment?

  Surely, Nicholas would never claim to be a perfect man, but for the love of whisky and Robert the Bruce, did he deserve this torture? Did he have to have such a delectable sight a mere inch from his fingertips?

  To hell with his fingers. The desk was the perfect height, her lovely, gently curving backside at the perfect level. Should he grab her by the waist and angle his hips barely a notch, he’d be able to sink his . . .

  His fingers clenched into a fist. A long exhale blew from his lips. Whatever his deepest, wildest wishes were, he reached up and pulled her shawl back down to cover up her exquisite derriere instead.

  What a shame. What a damn shame.

  “Get up,” he ordered, his voice gruff with suppressed desire.

  Quickly, she shimmed down and off her writing desk. Grasping her shawl closed, she poked him hard in the chest. “You probably killed him,” she whispered harshly.