One for the Rogue

by Charis Michaels

  Poor sod, he thought, turning his attention to the other guests, hoping to spot Lady Frinfrock. When he’d devoted ten minutes to her entertainment, he’d be that much closer to the door.

  He had just shoved off the drinks table to amble to the windows when he saw her. Emmaline. Here at the holiday ball. But why? He stopped walking and stared. He’d not seen her since his brother’s ballroom. She’d occupied nearly his every waking thought since that time and all of his dreams.

  But why was she here?

  She wore another of her oppressive gray dresses, and she was seated among women two and three times her age, many of them also dressed in gray or black. In her arms, she held an infant, squalling and red-faced. Beside her sat another woman in gray, presumably the new Duchess of Ticking, judging from her lordly expression and—oh hell, it was just a guess. Behind them both stood the Duke of Ticking, staring out at the dancers with an assessing scowl, as if he had been named judge of the dancers, and he found them all lacking.

  And then—Beau blinked, not believing his eyes—there was Emmaline’s brother, Teddy. Teddy was here at the bloody ball. He stood half-beside, half-behind the Duke of Ticking, his hair combed back and a dark suit bunching at every joint and juncture on his lanky frame. His face was tight with an expression of quiet terror. His Grace clasped Teddy by the shoulder, one pale hand holding him still.

  But why had they come? Moreover, why had they been invited? Lord Falcondale had helped to search for Teddy Holt, and he knew well of the duke’s unfair control of Emmaline and the boy. If, for some reason, he did not remember, or Lady Falcondale did not know, then Bryson and Elisabeth knew it all too well.

  And yet here was Emmaline, clearly miserable, minding a baby while her brother suffered four feet away. She looked trapped and frantic at the same time. Her eyes darted from her brother, down at the baby, and then out at the crowd again.

  Beau began to walk, weaving his way through the dancers, around a small forest of potted ferns, through more dancers. Men exclaimed and women gasped as he shouldered them out of the way. He was nearly to her when his brother, Bryson, along with Elisabeth, Joseph, and Stoker intercepted him.

  “Beau, wait,” said Bryson. He put his hand on Beau’s shoulder.

  Beau paused, grateful for a preliminary repository for his anger. “Bryson, do not,” he said, staring at the hand.

  “For God’s sake,” his brother said in his ear, “the last thing she needs is a scene. Grant me two minutes before you go charging in. We’ve been trying to help her since she arrived, but if handled wrongly, the duke and duchess could pose a considerably greater obstacle in the days to come. We must remember the final goal is to get her out of the country, as planned.”

  Beau relented long enough for Bryson and Elisabeth to shuffle him out of the path of the dancers, but he craned his head, not wanting to let her out of view. “Why is she here?” he snapped.

  Elisabeth said, “Piety invited the Duke and Duchess of Ticking and their elder children—Piety invited all of London, I’m afraid—but we never thought they’d attend.”

  “Who invited her brother?” Beau said, grinding out the words. “Crowds unsettle and confuse him. She’s worried sick about him—just look at her.”

  Elisabeth said, “Teddy was not invited, but apparently His Grace has taken to dragging him everywhere in an effort to show how devoted he is to the boy’s care.” She glanced at the duke. “And to demonstrate to the world how Teddy struggles.”

  Beau swore. “But why would any of them come? I only consented myself because I assumed the guest list included no one of consequence. I had no idea they’d be here.”

  Elisabeth made a scoffing sound, and Bryson cut in, “Lady Frinfrock sent a special invitation to Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte. When word came down that she intended to come, the guest list doubled.”

  Beau started. “Princess Charlotte is coming here?”

  “Apparently.” Bryson straightened his lapels. “It would seem that she shares an interest in gardening and has become friendly with Lady Frinfrock from meetings of the Royal Society of Horticulture. Naturally, all of London has turned out to see Her Royal Highness. Including the Duke of Ticking and his family.”

  “But why has he brought an infant?” hissed Beau, watching the baby grab hold of one of Emmaline’s earrings and pull.

  “God only knows,” said Elisabeth. To her credit, she looked nearly as worried as Beau felt. “Emmaline has been charged with minding the baby all night while the duke and duchess watch their older girls dance.”

  As if on cue, three young women filtered from the dance floor to crowd around the Duke and Duchess of Ticking. They wore gray, like Emmaline, but in shades more akin to lavender or fawn or silver. Only Emmaline wore a dress the color of wet ash. Beau gritted his teeth, watching as the girls milled around their parents, paying absolutely no mind to Emmaline or Teddy. They preened and fanned themselves, casting appraising glances at the other dancers and whispering.

  One of them cackled, a high, whooping sound that rang out above the music, and Beau saw Teddy jolt, stagger back, and squirm under Ticking’s hold. The duke gave him a harsh look and a shake, and the boy stilled. The girls laughed again, while Emmaline bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “We must get them away from here,” Beau said, his anger strumming through his veins. “Teddy may bolt at any moment, and I wouldn’t blame him.”

  “True,” said Bryson, “but, as I’ve said, we only complicate the dowager duchess’s situation by making demands or acting rashly now. All of London is watching, Beau—just as His Grace designed it.”

  Beau ignored Bryson and stepped around him, signaling for Stoker and Joseph. The boys fell in behind him without question.

  “Take care, Beau,” Bryson said. “I understand your haste, but please be aware the situation is very precarious.”

  Beau could barely hear his brother over the sound of the music and laughter and the blood roaring in his own ears. He strode up to Emmaline and stopped. He had no clear notion of what he intended to say or do, save helping her.

  At first, she did not see him. The baby cried, and she shushed and bobbed him in her arms. But gradually, awareness dawned, and she looked up. When her eyes registered him, she sucked in a little breath.

  The jolt of her eyes looking up nearly propelled Beau to reach down, take her up, and haul her through the ballroom and out the door.

  “Hello,” he said steadily, not taking his eyes from her.

  “Lord Rainsleigh,” she managed in a whisper.

  Before he could speak again, the duke’s daughters took notice of him, and he and Joseph and Stoker were suddenly surrounded by their fluttering and sidling and simpering.

  “Why, Grandmama,” trilled one of the girls, a top-heavy blonde with small eyes and unfortunate teeth, “won’t you introduce us to your friends?”

  Emmaline’s expression did not change. She held Beau’s gaze for a long moment and then looked to the girl. “The Lady Dora Crumbley, the Lady Marie Crumbley, and the Lady Bella Crumbley, please make the acquaintance of”—she swung her gaze back to Beau, and he gave the slightest nod—“the Viscount Rainsleigh and his friends Mr. Jon Stoker and Mr. Joseph Chance.”

  At the mention of the title, the trilling and fanning intensified. He might hate the title, but they would not, despite it being less elevated their father’s. Regardless, he was very much at home with captivated females. He winked discreetly to Emmaline and then turned his most rakish, golden smile on the girls.

  “How do you do? What a pleasure. Tell me your names again, so I may discern one beauty from the next . . . ”

  With the expected enthusiasm, the young women’s eyes grew wide, and they affected small, breathless little gasps and descended. Fans fluttered, hands were raised for a kiss, and eyelashes batted. They were a swarm of locusts that had been waiting for little more than to gobble him up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Emmaline hadn’t seen t
he viscount for ten days.

  He had not written or called when she and her brother had been forced to leave the dower house and take rooms on the top floor of the duke’s townhome. She had not seen him during any of the brief, clandestine meetings she’d had with Elisabeth and Bryson to finalize the arrangements for her sailing to New York.

  She had managed the last-minute details on her own, exactly as she had taught herself to do. She actually had assumed Lord Rainsleigh had left the country, just as he said he would.

  After a year of painful changes and realizations, having him simply go was a new and different kind of hurt, almost physical in nature, like a wound somewhere between her heart and her throat.

  Despite how much she wished that she were mistaken, that he would suddenly appear, she found that she resented him a little more every day. As if her current obstacles weren’t enough, now she would be charmed and kissed and helped by him, only to have him leave her behind without a proper good-bye or even a good reason.

  She could solve her other problems—not easily, but she was determined to solve them—while Beau Courtland could not be solved by anyone.

  He was simply lost from her.

  Gone.

  The new feeling of this man, whom she enjoyed very much (almost more than anyone else, if she were being honest), had been there for a time. But now . . . he was not.

  Lost.

  An unplugged hole in her day and in her heart.

  Except now he wasn’t lost. Or he wasn’t in this moment—this miserable, precarious, wretched moment, possibly the worst one since her brother had gone missing. He’d appeared in all of his golden, handsome, blue-eyed glory to stand before her in a fine evening suit with a folded cravat, snowy white against his tan face, and polished boots. And then he raised one irresistible eyebrow. She could not remember ever having seen him so cleanly shaven and properly turned out.

  And to think, she marveled in spite of herself, she had assumed he could never look more handsome than he had in his long coat and buckskins.

  She swallowed, trying to control whatever expression was borne of her reaction to him. The other females in his orbit made no such effort, and even the Duchess of Ticking sat up a little straighter, pulling her cloying, obsessive attention away from the duke for perhaps the first time ever.

  Dora, Marie, and Bella were shamelessly affected, crowding around him as if he were Father Christmas. The girls were so delighted by his attention that even the Duke of Ticking, who must have remembered the viscount from the search for Teddy, said nothing and watched with bemused detachment.

  Oh, and the viscount entertained them. He asked sly, provocative questions, listened intently to their answers, and simply presided (for there was no better word) over their corner of the ballroom. His attention was so controlled, almost predatory, the entirety of the swirling ballroom behind him seemed to fade away.

  It was as dashing as any iteration Emmaline had ever seen of him. His smile was sincere and held just a hint of provocation; his gaze was direct and intimate. He made some inappropriately specific compliment (just as she had bade him not to do) about each of the Duke of Ticking’s daughters’ hats, or the diminutive size of their delicate hands, or the unique color of their satin dancing slippers.

  He was so intoxicating, in fact, that for one breathless, heartbreaking moment, Emmaline thought he had come to flirt with them in earnest. But then he gestured to Teddy and said, “Ladies, you’ll forgive me, but I must be introduced to this strapping young man behind us. Pray, who can do me the honor?”

  Collectively, the girls scrunched up their noses, confused by any interest whatsoever in Teddy. But they were nothing if not urgently eager to please the handsome, effusive viscount, and Lady Dora piped up immediately, her voice a conspiratorial whisper, “Oh, you cannot mean Teddy. But Teddy is a dolt. Do you see how Father must take him by the shoulder to keep him from running mad through the ballroom? The music unsettles him. And the crowds. Really, I believe everything unsettles him but books and birds and being locked alone in his room.”

  The other two girls giggled their approval of this statement, flapping their fans and nodding so vigorously the feathers in their headpieces threatened to molt to the floor.

  Tears of hot rage shot to Emmaline’s eyes, and she squeezed little Henrick in her arms. The baby let out a squawk, and she looked down at him, grateful for anywhere to look beyond the mean-spirited delight in Dora’s face.

  “Books and birds and his room?” she heard Beau repeat, his voice echoing their laughter.

  Emmaline looked up, confused at his purpose. His smile was relaxed, his eyes laughing, but there was a hardness around the corners of his mouth, and his grip on the goblet in his hand looked very tight, threateningly tight, like he might snap the crystal just as easily as he laughed. He was angry at their coarseness, even if only she could see it. But why call attention to her brother? Emmaline didn’t understand.

  He went on. “But I do believe I know this young man. Teddy Holt . . . why, yes, I do. We all know him, don’t we, Stoker? Joseph?”

  The young men had each sidled up to one of the duke’s daughters while Beau honed in on Dora. They laughed and nodded now too.

  “He looks like he could do with a bit of fresh air,” Beau suggested, a note of conspiracy in his voice.

  He leaned very close to Lady Dora and winked. “Do you think, my lady, that Teddy Holt”—he chuckled again—“would allow my friends Joseph and Stoker to take him for a turn around the terrace while I made a special appeal to your father, man to man? You’ll forgive my formality, but I am old-fashioned, and His Grace’s reputation precedes him. I’ll not presume any liberties without His Grace’s express permission.”

  Lady Dora paused in her fluttering for half a beat, allowing the suggestions of his request to permeate her brain, and she then flung herself in the direction of her father. Here, she fluttered and bobbed, pointing at Teddy with an overburdened frown. The orchestra had embarked on a particularly rousing anthem, and the volume drowned out her words, but her mother heard, and now she was engaged. The Duchess of Ticking turned to her husband and pointed at Teddy with her closed fan, the undeniable gesture of out.

  The duke protested mildly, not understanding what they wished or why. This prompted the duchess to rise from her chair and take Teddy by the hand. With a scowl on her face, she wrenched the boy free. Emmaline held her breath. How Teddy hated to be pulled and constrained. And he was already so frightened.

  But Beau was ready, and he gestured to Stoker and Joseph, and, God love them, the two young men inserted themselves smoothly amid Lady Dora and the duchess, patting Teddy on the back and whispering in his ear.

  Teddy recognized them at once—they’d been there the night he’d been recovered—and he went easily to them. A minute later, they shuffled him away, Joseph’s arm around Teddy’s shoulder like they were old friends. Stoker cut a line through the crowd to the terrace, leading the way, and they were gone.

  Emmaline looked at Beau. He glanced back, one quick look, so fast that surely only she saw, and then he stepped up to the duke and duchess, winking at their daughters, who now crowded around him in breathless anticipation.

  “Good evening, Your Graces,” Beau said, bowing slightly to the duke and duchess. “Please forgive the interruption, but I should like to ask your permission to dance with”—the duke frowned at him, while his daughters and wife held their collective breath—“your stepmother, the Dowager Duchess of Ticking.”

  “What?” hissed Lady Dora, the first to grasp the unexpected and insulting direction of his request. The duke and duchess were still struggling to hear what he’d said.

  Meanwhile, Beau pivoted a half turn and scooped the twitching, fussy baby Henrick from Emmaline’s arms. “I know you must be the beloved sister of this dear child,” he said to Lady Dora, “because you share the vivid sapphire color of your eyes.”

  And before she could respond, he deposited the infant in her arms with such
force and finality that she was given no choice but to accept him or let him drop into her skirts.

  When the baby was gone, Beau turned again, grabbed Emmaline by the hand, and tugged her up.

  In the next breath, he whisked her away from the stunned ducal family in one deft, seamless movement.

  They were at the edge of the dance floor two beats later, and then the music rose, and Beau moved again, a sort of fluid lunge, and she found herself pulled into a waltz.

  “Smile,” Beau commanded, and he fixed his own face with a gentle smile.

  Emmaline did not smile. She could only guess that her expression was something akin to a gape. How could she smile and behave as if it was perfectly natural to be seated in the corner one moment and whirling around the dance floor in the next? Especially when she believed the dance partner to be half an ocean away?

  He was the first to speak. “What are you doing here?” His voice was flat and demanding.

  What are you doing here? she thought, but she answered him because it was the polite thing to do. “I was minding the duke and duchess’s infant and praying my brother would survive the night.” Gradually, her wits were returning. She added, “What are you doing here?”

  “Dancing,” he said simply.

  The music swelled again, and he spun her. On a different night, under different circumstances, she might have laughed in delight at the proficiency of his dancing and the almost flying feel of gliding around the dance floor in his arms.

  The combination of seeing him, and seeing such a dazzling version of him, and now being held by him—even within the confines of the stiff, formal dance—set off a heady sort of buzzing inside her head and her belly. She existed for a moment in a dream. The moment would not—could not—be real or governed by the laws of time and space.

  She would not describe her reaction as happiness so much as . . . not reality.

  Slowly, she felt her expression soften into a sort of mystified skepticism, as if someone had dosed her with an elixir of which she did not trust the effects.