My Favorite Rogue: 8 Wicked, Witty, and Swoon-worthy Heroes

by Courtney Milan, Lauren Royal, Grace Burrowes, Christi Caldwell, Jess Michaels, Erica Ridley, Delilah Marvelle

  “Legally, it sufficed.” Worth surveyed his brother’s boutonnière and found it adequate. “But, no, it doesn’t help that you and she were miserable with each other. I’m sorry if you think it would.”

  As quickly as it had come up, the subject was dropped. Their tour of the stables went more smoothly, with various horses and architectural features keeping them from more troubling topics.

  “We’re dawdling,” Hess said when they’d admired every equine and half the garden. “Shall we sit? I am not ready to face Yolanda, much less to meet this Avery.”

  “Avery is more French than English,” Worth warned. “Your objective is not to command her respect, as if she were an English girl. You want her to approve of you, to like you.”

  “Hence the weeds. How is Yolanda?”

  “Mysterious,” Worth said, relieved Hess would ask. “The school said she’s given to vapors and hysterics, but I’ve seen none. She’s read half the library in a few weeks, she’s unfailingly kind to both Avery and the staff, and she will be—she already is—beautiful. It gives one pause.”

  Hess turned his head to sniff at the sprig gracing his lapel. “And?”

  “And when I met her she sported a thick bandage on her left wrist, and once I bundled Yolanda into my traveling coach, that old besom at the school insisted the girl had tried to take her own life.”

  “God in heaven.” Hess crossed his ankle over his knee, then hiked his leg closer by closing his hand over his shin and tugging. Worth recalled his brother assuming this posture as a child, a way of reinforcing his mental defenses even then. “You and she haven’t talked about it?”

  “She told Mrs. Wyeth she didn’t try to kill herself, but under the bandages was a healing laceration. Wyeth confirmed that much.”

  “An accident?”

  “Possibly, or a dramatic gesture. Yolanda was not pleased to be left here in the south for years on end.”

  “Have you any idea how difficult it is to transport one adolescent female the length and breadth of the kingdom in anything approaching safety and comfort?”

  “Yes, and I won’t criticize you for leaving her at school, particularly when I had no idea of her existence.”

  “I wrote you, when Papa died, because you’re her guardian in the event of my demise.”Hess wouldn’t lie about something like that, and still, his voice held no accusation.

  “I moved around a lot seven years ago. Your note didn’t reach me.” Worth kept his tone carefully neutral, no defensiveness, no equivocation. Facts were never recited this impartially before the highest court in the land.

  “I thought not.” Hess trailed a finger over his boutonnière. “You would have at least called on her, had you known she was in your back yard. I know that now.”

  He said it quietly, a casual comment, but in his willingness to give Worth the benefit of the doubt, Hess opened a door. A small, unprepossessing door, half-obscured with the ivy of mistrust, but it opened on forgiveness and on understanding. Worth cast around for a means of keeping it open.

  “Yolanda’s safe and happy at the moment. We can sort the rest out later.”

  “We can.” Hess got to his feet and offered a crooked, familiar smile. “Shall we get the greetings with our womenfolk over with? This lavender is making my eyes itch.”

  Worth stood, for the lavender was affecting his eyes, too. “Can’t have that. I hope you know what a sacrifice I made when I consented to share a picnic with my family. Sitting on roots and rocks, prey for insects and wayward breezes, left to the company of shrieking children. What utter rot.”

  * * *

  “You listen t’me.” Harold Doorman poked Roberts once in the chest for emphasis. “That do not be the lord I saw at the Bird.”

  “You’re trying to tell me two titled gentlemen dined at the Bird of Paradise in Least Wapping, Doorman? Two titles in one night?” Roberts didn’t bother to hide his incredulity, for Doorman’s affection for gin was legendarily constant.

  “I don’t know about titles.” Doorman gave his cap a righteous tug. “But I do be knowing about nobs, and there was two a’ them, right e’now. I looked on the register.”

  “And what did you see?” Harold Doorman was Roberts’s oldest groom, his second in command as it were, and a favorite with the horses. It wouldn’t hurt to humor him.

  “My eyesight isn’t so good.” Doorman fell momentarily silent as one of the lads wheeled a barrow of clean straw down the barn aisle. “Looked like Castleroll or summat. Caster-reel.”

  “Lord Caster-reel graced our own pub, and you were on hand to witness this moment of history. Lord Grampion is here now, and his horse would probably appreciate a tour of the east paddock. Mind you’re careful with the beast. He’s high-strung, no matter he’s been traveling for days.”

  At the mention of the horse, Doorman’s expression turned up incongruously sweet. “Ain’t met the beast too high-strung to nibble good Surrey grass, and I seen two a’ them lords. I’d bet me wage on it.”

  Roberts was already moving off, because Doorman’s grasp of Debrett’s was even shakier than his grasp of sobriety at the Beltane bonfire. “See to the gelding, and I’ll ask if we’re to have coaching teams to deal with, or if all that scurrying about was for naught.”

  * * *

  “No coaching teams,” Hess told his brother’s housekeeper. “Just myself, one tired horse, and a few bags.”

  “Very good, my lord.” She bobbed a curtsy and trundled out of the library, though why a housekeeper was inquiring regarding a matter for the stables was a mystery. Mrs. Wyeth was a vigorous sort of woman, though, and worth the second look he’d given her earlier. She’d stand up to northern winters and to the rigors of managing a very large household, and she was more than easy to look upon.

  Stealing her for Grampion would mean poaching another female from his brother’s preserves, and this Hess could not afford to do.

  Not in any sense.

  “Are you ready to face the girls?” Worth asked, using the mirror over the sideboard to admire the lavender affixed to his lapel. “I’m sure they’ve been beside themselves in anticipation of seeing you.”

  “Meeting me, more like,” Hess said. “I haven’t seen Yolanda for more than two years, and young ladies change at her age with alarming rapidity.”

  “Why two years?”

  “Because I’m a coward?” Hess offered a small smile with that admission and was rewarded with something like sympathy from his brother.

  “I can guess,” Worth said, leading Hess through a house that sported much sunshine and many fresh, colorful bouquets. “Yolanda came home on a visit one summer between terms and was a perfect brat the entire time, hated everything—you, the weather, Grampion, the neighbors’ spotty boys, your horse, everything. At the winter holiday break, you arranged for her to spend the time with some obliging family in the south, and lo, you saved money, time, and worry, and she was happier for it, as were you and the entire Grampion household.”

  Hess caught a reflection of his own floral adornment, which did have a pleasant scent, for all it made a silly addition to his wardrobe.

  “That’s it, more or less. Then Yolanda took it into her head I was avoiding her, so she refused to come home, and now we’re at some sort of impasse, when she must make her come out next year, or the year after, and has no use for her brother the earl.”

  “She’s young.” Worth bounded up the main staircase with an energy that had been characteristic of him from earliest boyhood. “Everything is a matter of great drama when we’re young. And she has no mama. I think this affects girls terribly, but she seems to like Mrs. Wyeth.”

  “The absence of a mother, even a poor mother, affects boys terribly, too.”

  Before dear Worth could get his relentless inquisitiveness going on that admission, they were at the open door to the nursery suite.

  “Uncle!” Avery scampered over and wrapped her arms around Worth’s waist, and Hess knew a moment of envy that any female, much
less one so young and happy, should greet Worth thus. Petty, but there it was. Avery was all that remained of Moira, another pretty, happy young lady, and Avery belonged to Worth. Their mutual possession was obvious in how the child smiled at him, took his hand, and positioned herself at Worth’s side, all before risking a peek at her senior uncle.

  “Avery, please make your curtsy to your Uncle Hess. He’s come two hundred miles for the pleasure of making your acquaintance, and if you’re very nice, he might even take you up on his horse with him some morning when we ride out.”

  “Is he a very big horse? As big as Goliath?”

  “He’s a very handsome horse,” Hess said, going down on his haunches. “He’ll need new friends while we’re visiting, so he doesn’t get homesick.”

  “Homesick.” The child wrinkled her nose. That easily, Hess was frustrated with himself, because the very word had to be painful for her.

  “Goliath and I will keep your horse company, then,” she said, her expression shifting to a smile. “Mr. Roberts will have only happy horses in Uncle’s stables. He said this to me, and he is the stable master. What is your horse’s name?”

  “Alfred.”

  Another wrinkled nose, but the smile stayed as well. “I’m sure he’s a very dignified fellow, with such an English name. When can I ride him?”

  A few years in France, and the child already had the knack of ordering her world to suit her preferences.

  “I’ll leave you two to work out your schedules while I find Yolanda.” Worth’s smile was diabolical as he went whistling on his way, and so Hess rose and looked for something sturdy enough that a grown man, an uncle, or an earl, could sit on it without risking his dignity and the integrity of his limbs.

  A rocking chair was positioned to take advantage of the light by the window, but it put Hess in mind of elderly nurses with bad knees, so he chose the next most trustworthy option and sat his lordly arse on the floor.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Yolanda?”

  Worth knocked once and let himself into his sister’s room without pausing. He was greeted by the sight of his housekeeper, sitting on the bed next to his sibling, Jacaranda’s arm around Yolanda’s waist, Yolanda’s head on Jacaranda’s shoulder.

  “Hessian is here, my girl, and he’d like to make his bow to you.” Worth injected briskness into his tone, false briskness, but it might fool an adolescent who didn’t know him well.

  “Tell him to go back to his hounds and grouse moors.” Yolanda offered that, then turned her face to Jacaranda’s shoulder. “He can return to Grampion and tell everyone I’m crazy.”

  Worth sought Jacaranda’s gaze, looking for some help or insight, but Jacaranda only stroked a hand over the girl’s hair and gave a small shake of her head.

  “I’m angry at him,” Yolanda said, sitting up. “He left me like a lame horse, dragged about from one stranger’s house to the next, embroidering until my eyes crossed, and now he wants to make his bow to me?”

  “Yolanda, perhaps his lordship knows an apology is in order,” Jacaranda suggested.

  Yolanda pulled away from her. “He’ll clear his throat like an old man and look at the ceiling, his tea cup, or the nearest piece of art, and he’ll get out a lot of long words which basically say he did the best he could with a baggage like me, and then he’ll pack me up and haul me to the Arctic and tell me that’s the best he can do as well.”

  “You do know him.” Worth sat on Yolanda’s other side. “The business about staring at art or out the window, or anywhere but looking a person in the eye, that’s Hess.”

  “He might be a wonderful earl. He’s not a very impressive brother.”

  Jacaranda smoothed back a lock of Yolanda’s hair. “He’s taken care of you, seen you educated, and spared you his company for a bit. He isn’t all bad, and he’s here now.”

  “Listen, Lannie.” Worth risked taking his sister’s hand, because Jacaranda’s small touches seemed to soothe the girl. “Hess and I haven’t even begun to discuss your circumstances. I’ve just met you, and Avery and I are entitled to some time with you before he spirits you away. Then too, you’ll need a come out, and last I heard, the Queen wasn’t making any progresses to the north, or the Regent either.”

  “Are you saying I can stay here? With you?”

  “No, I am not.” He spoke quite firmly, because females taking notions could completely ignore all reality to the contrary. “I’m saying if you have to go, it won’t be just yet, and it won’t be forever.”

  “Do you know how long winter is in the north, brother?” She snatched her hand away with an air of adolescent long-suffering, but all Worth heard was her use of the word “brother.” She had two brothers, both well situated to provide for her, and only a few weeks after meeting Worth, Yolanda was choosing him over Hess.

  The south over the north, too, but that was a detail.

  Then he saw Jacaranda regarding him, solemnly, and knew he was at one of those points of decision that came upon a man without any warning, and forever changed the course of his situation on earth.

  Worth was a brother, but what kind of brother, and to whom?

  “Come.” He possessed himself once more of his sister’s hand. “Give Hess a chance, and when the time comes, I’ll argue strenuously for letting you stay here with us at Trysting. I’m not your guardian, so I make no guarantees, but I’ve been known to be persuasive when I’m motivated.”

  He gave Jacaranda a look over his shoulder. She was smiling, and Yolanda was looking less mulish and martyred, so perhaps mediating between his siblings would bear all manner of desirable fruit.

  The introduction went fairly well, with Yolanda offering her older brother a silent curtsy and Hess’s mouth all but coming unhinged.

  “Good God, you’re beautiful,” he said, walking a circle around her. “Not merely pretty, but beautiful.”

  “I do believe he’s serious,” Worth observed.

  “I am utterly in earnest,” Hess said. “Nobody at Grampion will recognize you as the hoyden who left us a few short years ago.”

  “Assuming Yolanda graces Grampion again,” Worth replied. “We can discuss that some other day, when no picnic awaits us in the back gardens, yes?”

  “A picnic!” Avery crowed. Then she was off in half-French, adoring picnics, and to fly the kites, and eat lots of cakes and take off the shoes and make the feets wet.

  “Come, Avery.” Yolanda led her niece from the room. “We must make sure the blankets are in the best spot. Footmen can’t know such things.”

  “Of course not. Nor the uncles, but we are here to help them.”

  Worth took his brother by the elbow. “Come along, your lordship. We’re to be shown the best spot, which no doubt lies in full view of an ant heap.”

  “Yolanda will not give in, will she?”

  “Regarding?”

  “I neglected her, and she’s wroth over that, and the last place she wants to rusticate is at Grampion with me, even though sparing her such a fate is precisely why I so-called neglected her.”

  “Hess, she’s female and young and has some reason to be put out with you. Two years she went without glimpsing you, and you’re the head of her family. Did you miss her?”

  “Of course I missed her.” His mouth snapped shut, and he strode along beside Worth for half the length of a long corridor. “I wrote.”

  “She wrote back, I’m guessing, horrid little notes about embroidery and spotty boys?”

  “She wrote about the animals she’d met, Worth. The house cats and cart ponies. As if she wouldn’t allow me the satisfaction of hoping she might make new friends or see new sights. She punished me with those notes, and she was only fourteen years old.”

  “We use any weapons at hand when we’re young and powerless,” Worth said, hustling down the corridor, lest he take his meal in proximity to an ant heap. “You can apologize for what you believe you did wrong, and then it’s up to her whether she meets you halfway or stays on her high ho
rse. You don’t have to take her north.”

  “I don’t?” Hess stopped as if to admire the view out an oriel window that looked over the rose gardens. “What does that mean? She’s too young to marry, Worth, I don’t care what the old people say about it.”

  “The young people are usually the ones kicking over the traces to get married, but consider that Avery is only a year into living with her English uncle, and she seems quite taken with Yolanda. Then too, Yolanda will be back south in a year or two to make her come out. Why not leave her here with me and Avery?”

  “As to Avery…”

  Beyond the window, Yolanda and Avery were pointing at some shade beneath a towering oak while a pair of footmen moved blankets and hampers.

  Worth knew what was coming, and perhaps it was best they have it out now, before too many fences had been mended. “As to Avery?”

  “As head of the family, I’ve looked into the legal provisions for assuming guardianship of an orphaned child of a near relation,” Hess began, gaze out the window.

  Worth kept a hand on his brother’s arm, until Hess was at least looking at where Worth touched him.

  “You’ve been here only a few hours. I’m Avery’s legal guardian, have been since before she arrived, and you needn’t trouble yourself. Looking after the child helps me atone for Moira’s death, if you must know, so don’t feel you have to step in.”

  “Atone? For her death? What rot are you spouting, Worth?”

  “I gave her money to go to Paris and join our maternal cousins, I gave her funds to seek instruction, I gave her the sense she had backing in case Papa cut her off. But for my short-sighted indulgence of her dreams, she’d be alive and raising her own children with a perfectly jolly English husband.”

  He hadn’t planned on that confession, but really, who else could he make it to?

  Hess looked him up and down, frowning a truly ferocious frown. He looked not like their father in that moment, but like their paternal grandfather when thunderously displeased.

  “Don’t be an idiot, Worth. I gave her money, too, and so, too, did Grandmamma. Moira wanted to go to Paris more than anything. Had we denied her, she might have been miserable instead of happy for the last years of her life. Think on that when you tire of beating yourself with the club of guilt.”