The Dangerous Love of a Rogue

by Jane Lark

Leaning forward her mother pressed Mary’s knee. “We will be home soon. Would you like me to sit with you a while when you retire?”

  “No, thank you, Mama.” Their kindness was cloying when Mary knew she was living a lie. She was not who they thought she was, she was not good, she was bad, or rather, she wanted to be bad. Everything Lord Framlington had said was true, she wanted to meet him, and kiss him again. He tempted her.

  Now she felt as though he had poured himself into her blood, her body throbbed from the memory of their sudden encounter in the dark, and she could still feel his gentle grip on her wrist.

  When they reached home, Mr Finch, her brother’s butler, opened the door. John and Kate were at a private dinner. Her younger brothers and sisters were all in bed. Her mother came upstairs with Mary, helped her undress and then tucked her in to bed, even though Mary had not wished her to.

  “May I fetch you anything? Something for the headache?”

  “No, Mama, thank you, I just need to sleep.”

  Her mother smothered the candle then pressed a kiss to Mary’s forehead.

  “I am not a child, Mama,” Mary whispered into the dark, although she longed to be held and for the turmoil inside her to ease.

  Her mother sighed. “I know you are now nineteen. But you are still my daughter and you always will be, no matter your age.”

  Her mother’s fingers touched Mary’s hair. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

  Mary rolled to her other side, feeling guiltier than ever, and wept.

  She’d done nothing wrong, not really, not yet, it had only been kisses that she had allowed, but she had a dreadful feeling she would. She could not quell this longing for a man she should not want.

  * * *

  For the third night after she had kissed Lord Framlington for a second time, Mary looked for him with no success. Her heart ached. She longed to see him. She missed the rogue, with his little knowing nods in her direction, and his charming smiles.

  He had asked her to meet him but then disappeared and made that an impossibility. While his kisses continued haunting her…

  She wished for wickedness. She wished for kisses and embraces.

  “Miss Marlow. Damn it, you stood on my foot.” Mr Makepeace was a wealthy landowner, but he was double her age and as dull as working on embroidery. He was boring, and he was rude. She may have missed a step, because she had been daydreaming, about Lord Framlington, but it was ungentlemanly to curse at her for it.

  “Forgive me.” The heat of a blush touched her cheeks as people along the line of dancers looked over at them. Oh, she longed for a dance she had shared with a man a year ago, she had barely heard the notes of it; her thoughts had been too absorbed by the colour of his eyes.

  They were hazel; a light shade of cluttered brown, but when the light caught his eyes it turned the colour to honey, a soft amber or gold. It had literally gilded his eyes.

  The men she danced with were young and weak in nature, and silly compared to him, or too old for her, like Mr Makepeace, and dull, or in between but so busy seeking to portray a fashionable ennui that they had no personality at all.

  The dance came to its conclusion, thank the Lord.

  Breathing hard Mr Makepeace walked her back to her parents. She smiled at her mother. Then turned to Mr Makepeace. “Thank you.” He nodded in return then walked away.

  Good riddance…

  She looked about the room for Lord Framlington, he still was not here. She was becoming angry with him now. Why? Where was he?

  She huffed out an unladylike breath. “Mama, I wish to go to the retiring room.”

  “I will come with you.”

  “That is not necessary, the hall is busy; I will not be alone.”

  “Very well.”

  Mary turned away and then pressed a path through the crush of people out into the hall and then across to the withdrawing room. She had foolishly hoped to discover Lord Framlington hiding somewhere. He had not been hiding anywhere.

  The rogue had known how she would feel, how she felt… You feel. You want, but you know I cannot come to you in a place like this, so if you want what I can give you, you will have to come to me… But how could she come to him if he was nowhere to be found!

  She hated him.

  He was playing with her.

  She loved him too, though. No one she spoke to or danced with compared to him, they were all a mile beneath him.

  He was beautiful, witty, charming… and poor… A fortune-hunter, and a rake.

  Her heart thumped as she hurried back to the ballroom still looking for him. He was not there. She did not return to her mother, she sought her friends. Someone to talk to. Though she had not spoken to them of Lord Framlington, they would think her mad. Everyone would think her mad. She could not even explain to herself why she liked him so much. But she did.

  Her heart pounded harder even at the thought of him.

  “Mary!”

  “Emily,” Miss Smithfield was one of Mary’s more recent, less confident, friends. She had looked lost one evening, sitting out a dance against the wall, and so Mary had befriended her.

  “Mary. You poor soul, I saw you had to dance with Mr Makepeace.” Lady Bethany Pope kissed the air beside Mary’s cheek.

  Mary made a face. Bethany and Emily laughed.

  “Hasn’t he asked you to dance every night this week?”

  “Good heavens, yes, but hopefully never again, I stood on his foot.”

  “Deliberately…”

  “Perhaps.” They all laughed but Mary heard the hollowness in hers. Her life no longer interested her. She was bored. She missed the sense of danger hovering across the ballroom when Lord Framlington watched her. He made her feel different from everyone else, special. Every other man she danced with, danced with a dozen other women, she was no exception to any of them, and yet she had never seen Lord Framlington dance with anyone since he’d danced with her. Nor did he stare at anyone but her…

  Although he had talked to that blonde woman the other day…

  She sighed.

  Had she lost him, by not conceding? Had he given up on her?

  “Miss Marlow.” Mr Gerard Heathcote bowed before her. “May I have the honour of this dance?”

  She wished to scream. No! She had danced with him ten dozen times, he was nice, polite… Boring.

  Oh, her father had never spanked her, but he would wish he had done if he knew how wrong-headed she had become.

  She dropped a shallow curtsy and then gave Gerard her hand. “Of course.” In reality she wished to run from the ballroom and out into the dark garden. It was raining outside, she quite fancied a thorough soaking. Perhaps it would bring her to her senses.

  On the twelfth night after her second kiss with Lord Framlington, when she returned home with her parents, she stopped at her bedchamber door, and refused to let her mother in. “Please, Mama, I can retire alone. You cannot treat me as a child forever.”

  “Yet—“

  “I know it is only out of love, but I wish to retire alone, Mama.”

  As soon as she shut the door, the tears came. They had been hovering all night as she had looked for Lord Framlington almost constantly. When she’d waltzed her gaze had spun about the room searching every corner. Her dance partners must have thought her mad.

  But she had come to the conclusion that it was over. He’d given up on her, and so she ought to listen to common-sense if the man was so fickle.

  But her bitterness was washed away by tears. The maid in her room unbuttoned the back of Mary’s bodice, and then unlaced her stays. Mary looked at her, the stains of silent tears still damp pathways whispering their presence on her cheeks. “Pray tell no one that I have been upset. You may retire.”

  “Are you certain, Ma’am.”

  “Yes absolutely certain.”

  When the maid left, Mary did not even bother to strip off her clothes or blow out the candles, but tumbled on to the bed and cried. Not only because she had not seen him, and may no
t see him ever again… but because she was a complete ninny for wanting to see him.

  “Fool.” she breathed into the sheets.

  Chapter 3

  Pride in his self-discipline burned in Drew’s chest as he strolled into the Wiltshires’ ballroom. He’d avoided Miss Mary Marlow for two weeks and now the moment to return was ripe.

  Lord Wiltshire, The Duke of Arundel was her uncle. The girl would be feeling relaxed among her family and find it harder to be false and he hoped easier to establish a moment to escape as she’d done at the Jerseys’.

  Looking down from the top of the entrance stairs, at the end of the Wiltshires’ ornate ballroom, he briefly scanned the crowd of heaving humanity, the ton, England’s elite, in all their shining glory.

  If her uncle knew Drew’s intent he would never have received an invitation, but he ‘d kept away from Miss Marlow in public since last year and so, to her family, he was simply another name on a list to fill the room and enable every society hostess’s wish for a crush.

  He saw Miss Marlow; she was not far from the foot of the stairs and when his name was called she looked up. He rarely entered a room without drawing the attention of women, he ignored the others and smiled at her, holding her gaze.

  She had been looking for him, for two weeks, and she had missed him, he could see it in her eyes; they were sparkling bright with relief.

  He smiled at her, and for the first time in nearly a year she gave him a little self-conscious, confused smile back.

  Her eyes asked him questions as she kept looking. “Where have you been? Should I seek you out and ask?”

  Yes, you should, Mary.

  He let her gaze go and smiled at the room in general to avoid her family noticing the exchange. If they whisked her away to the country to avoid him, his game would be off entirely for this year.

  Drew wasted his first hour in the card room. This early in the evening she would be too much in demand to risk slipping away.

  The supper bell rang and the music died, then guests surged into the room set aside for refreshments. Drew sauntered in a little late, at the rear; a gentleman acquaintance with whom he’d been playing cards at his side, a friend he’d picked out for the sole purpose of gaining entry into Miss Marlow’s family group.

  If he was going to tempt her he needed to throw her at least a little more bait. His companion was an old mutual friend of Drew’s and Pembroke’s, from their days in Paris, during their dissipated grand tour. Days the Duke of Pembroke preferred to forget. Like Pembroke, Roger Harris had turned prude, and therefore Harris was the perfect camouflage, he would be welcome even if Drew was not.

  On cue Roger called, “Pembroke!”

  The family group were sittting about several tables. Drew ought to be daunted, but daunted was not within him, what he felt was a swell of anticipation, exhilaration. This was a bold move. He was walking a line, willing Miss Marlow to notice him while he wished her relatives to spot nothing out of the ordinary.

  His quarry sat amidst her uncles and aunts on her brother’s table.

  “Roger! I did not know you were in town.” Pembroke rose and strode the few steps towards them. “Is your wife with you?”

  With Pembroke’s attention focused on their mutual friend, Drew let his gaze deliberately meet Miss Marlow’s. He caught it just for an instant, a moment in which his heart forgot to beat as her pale blue gaze struck his – summer skies and azure Italian seas. She was still deliberating. “Should I seek you out?”

  Yes!

  Her beauty literally kicked him at times. He forgot to breathe.

  “No, I’m afraid Miriam is in her last month and not fairing too well…” Harris babbled on about his family.

  Drew nodded marginally to Miss Marlow. A blush stained her pale skin red. Drew let a hint of a smile form at one corner of his lips then looked away, nodded to Harris, lifted his hand in parting and walked on. He wanted her to watch him; it was his signal.

  Satisfied the bait had been set. Drew helped himself to items from the buffet, but did not bother with a plate, he did not wish to spend the supper hour eating. He stopped to acknowledge a few acquaintances, and then extricated himself from several ex-lovers, before turning to walk from the room.

  He glanced at Miss Marlow as he passed.

  She was watching. Would she follow?

  He gave her an encouraging echo of a smile.

  “Should I?” The thought shone in her eyes.

  His absence had done its job, all her pretence had gone.

  Striding on across the empty dance floor he looked back. Her gaze followed him still. He smiled again and nodded. This is your chance, Mary, darling…

  Deliberately picking his path to keep within her view he walked to a set of open French doors and stepped into the tepid night air, looking back one last time, throwing her a calling card.

  He was too far away now to be sure she still watched, but something in the turn of her head told him she did.

  Come on little beauty, follow.

  Outside he walked to the end of the Wiltshires’ stone terrace, he could not go too far, she would not find him.

  The terrace, like the ballroom, was deserted.

  He leant his buttocks against the stone rim of the balustrade.

  The dark house walls framed the empty ballroom and the view into the dining room, like a picture, with huge chandeliers illuminating the scene within.

  It made the terrace darker.

  He withdraw a slim cigar and a match from the pocket of his evening coat, lifted the cigar to his lips and struck the match on the stone beside his hip, then held the flame to the tip of the cigar and sucked until it caught.

  At least he had an excuse to be out here if he smoked.

  Taking the cigar from his lips he let the smoke slid out of his mouth.

  Miss Marlow smiled at her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Pembroke, nodding at something the other woman said. Then her face turned to someone else across the table, a gentleman, one of her uncles, and she laughed. Pembroke spoke to her. Drew could see the Duke smiling at her, at something she must have said, before he laughed with her too.

  Her father approached behind her, stopped and pressed a hand on Miss Marlow’s shoulder. He leaned and kissed her temple.

  Drew took another long draw on the cigar he held between his fingers.

  It was as unreal as watching a play at the theatre. Drew did not understand a family like that. They moved in a pack, a pride, like lions, closing to defend and protect one another whenever the need arose, all the men prowling about their lionesses.

  I really ought to be daunted. He was not, very little dented either his ennui or his ego.

  But Miss Marlow dented his ennui.

  That was good. He hardly wished for a wife who’d bore him.

  He sucked on the cigar again, relishing the flavour of tobacco in his mouth. He knew how to enjoy things. He’d learned to make the most of every little gift life gave him when he was young. He would enjoy making Miss Marlow his.

  Rising, smiling at her brother and her father, and then passing the sunshine of her beauty about the others at her table, Miss Marlow then bobbed a slight curtsy.

  Drew smiled, sensations dancing a bloody jig in his chest; his little fish had taken the bait.

  Strolling away from the table she weaved a path through the other guests, stopping occasionally.

  Drew’s heart beat a steady elated rhythm. He felt as though he’d been dealt the most superb hand of cards, but there was still a risk that if he laid them wrong he’d waste their benefit. There was still a requirement for skill and caution. He had to be careful now.

  When she reached the ballroom instead of turning towards the open French doors, though, she disappeared through a door at the side of the room near the entrance stairs.

  Shutting his eyes Drew urged her with all the will power he had, to… Come to me!

  But damn it, if she did not, he was not giving up; he would simply have to find a new tack
.

  Drew opened his eyes lifted the cigar back to his lips and sucked in the smoke, then looking up to the stars he blew out a circle.

  The night was clear, a blanket of very dark blue with thousands of sparkling pin pricks of light. He loved night, like he loved storms. His soul had always turned to the dark and wild.

  As a lad he’d lain outside for hours, looking up at the endless pitch black and he’d loved swimming in the dark, clothed only in moonlight. That had always been his purest escape. It had been a whole other world.

  A small dark shadow flew like a dart in the air over his head. Bats. He smiled, watching them swoop and turn. Now he’d spotted one, he saw more, they were after the moths which had been drawn to the light spilling from the windows.

  “What are you doing? Where have you been?”

  His own little moth came to the flame. Her wings would be burned. But, God, he could not believe how much his heart thumped, and exhilaration coursed through his blood.

  Her voice had come from the foot of the steps which descended from the terrace to his right.

  Lifting his weight from the balustrade, his eyes searched her out in the darkness.

  He caught the movement of her pale lemon dress about two feet away from the bottom step.

  “I am waiting for you,” Drew answered her first question as he descended the steps, feeling the tug of her presence pull at him.

  She was young, six years his junior, but he’d never seen her behave as a girl. She did not fluster or giggle. No, Mary Marlow had a serene womanly grace, she was kind, sensible, confident and extremely beautiful.

  His eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  “Tell me where you have been. I have not seen you for days.”

  A few teasing curls of her ebony hair had fallen to lick her jaw and throat where he’d like to place his lips; and her eyes sparkled diamond bright as they caught a shaft of moonlight and challenged him.

  His game of patience had been a brilliant hand.

  “I have been giving you time to make your choice. Does this mean you have made it?”

  “This…”

  He’d confused her. Hell he was confused himself.

  The movement of her fingers clasping together before her waist pulled his gaze lower.