The Dangerous Love of a Rogue

by Jane Lark

  Wide-eyed, Mary took in her coming down in life.

  If she’d pictured his home, he doubted she’d pictured this.

  He encouraged her to walk ahead. She did. It left him with a view of her swaying bottom as he followed three steps behind her.

  She stopped at the top, waiting for him.

  Passing her, he went to his front door, one door along, then put her bag down, withdrew the key from his pocket and unlocked it. The door swung open. He picked up her bag and let her enter before him.

  She stopped, standing in the middle of the rug before the hearth, her gaze spinning about his parlour.

  He had a table, set to one side, which seated six. The other half of the room contained five armchairs at various angles, a games table, and a couple of pieces of furniture, like his writing desk. The room was extremely sparse with Pembroke’s house as comparison. There were no ornaments, or decorations. The walls were just green. Everything he owned was necessary, he had no frills.

  Obviously she found it lacking.

  He did not look at her, he did not wish to see disgust.

  He carried her bag into his bedchamber, and put it on the bed. When he turned she’d followed.

  “See, no notches.” It was spiteful but he could not help it, defensiveness ran in his blood, her lack of belief was cutting at him.

  He sighed.

  She looked as if she’d been thrown into a lake and told to swim when she did not know how.

  A wave of love washed over him…regardless of the feelings of betrayal warring in his chest.

  He wished to take a hold of her and tell her not to be so foolish. Not to listen to their lies. But she had made him a coward now. He was too afraid of more of her rejection. Yet she was only believing what she had been told – and this was all strange to her.

  More sympathetically, he said, “The dressing room is through there. There is space there for one personal servant, but I have none. These are my rooms, the sitting room and this bedchamber. I buy in meals or eat out, at a friend’s, or at my club.” Of course she could not do that, it was gentlemen only. But then it was a gentleman’s apartment block. The only females who usually called here were paid. Mary would probably die of mortification if she happened to see one of those women.

  “There are people below-stairs who will do laundry and such like, and a maid who cleans weekly and attends to the grates in winter. I don’t expect you to keep house for me, if you need anything, just ring.” He pointed to the bell pull. “The kitchens here can bring hot water.”

  She looked at him, her skin very pale. “What will we do for dinner tonight?”

  He smiled, “I’ll send out for something, I know a place which sells magnificent pies.”

  “We purchased a picnic once from Gunter’s, before John came back from Egypt, and took it to Green Park.”

  It was not a good sign that she’d been reduced to small talk. She was in shock.

  He stared at her, his hands hanging by his sides – helpless and unworthy. They were not feelings he liked. He was equal to anyone. Circumstance did not define him. If she thought it did, he would like her less.

  A knock hit the door. Glad of the excuse Drew walked away.

  It was Joseph. “Lady Framlington’s articles have arrived.”

  Behind Joseph a man in Pembroke’s livery carried a small trunk. Behind him two more men bore a much larger one.

  “There are another two trunks the size of the second, My Lord,” Joseph said.

  He’d recognised Mary’s wealth, and also, that Drew’s rooms were not large enough to accommodate it.

  Drew grimaced. The doorman laughed.

  Ignoring him, Drew stepped back, holding the door for Pembroke’s men. When they entered, he pointed them to the open bedroom door. “Stack them in there, against the walls and the end of the bed, if you can.”

  Drew stayed by the door, as they brought up the rest, watching Mary in silence, as she came back into the sitting room and wondered around touching his furniture, as though she expected to miraculously discover something more than the poor man’s home she saw.

  He wanted to know what she thought but he would not ask; a part of him was afraid of the answer. I have become a coward.

  The men did not look at him, nod, or show any deference. Mary must be well liked in Pembroke’s household and Drew had become the villain.

  A few choice words ran through Drew’s head as he waited for the men who carried up the last trunk.

  Mary looked out the window. It did not look onto the street, but down onto the courtyard at the rear of the house, where the maids hung the laundry. There were usually strings of sheets, shirts and men’s underclothes out there – another embarrassment for her.

  He said nothing as he stepped out of the way of the men bearing the last of her trunks. Coward!

  Footsteps hit the stairs. David Martins came up, Drew’s neighbour to the right. He grinned at Drew, looking into the room at Mary. “You have a guest?”

  “I have a wife.”

  “Pretty…”

  Drew did not like his neighbour’s intrusive stare. He lifted an arm and braced his hand on the doorframe blocking David’s view as Pembroke’s men carried Mary’s last trunk into the bedchamber.

  “We’re very happy,” Drew answered a question which had not been asked.

  “And very rich, I suppose,” David answered. “I saw the trunks.”

  “Enough to get out of here,” Drew responded, his pitch getting colder. “Now if you will excuse these men.”

  Drew stepped back to let Pembroke’s men leave. David lifted his hat and smiled.

  Drew shut the door.

  A knock hit the door. Another of Pembroke’s men stood there with a writing desk and a mirror. The writing desk Drew told the man to place on the table in the sitting room. The mirror, he had him put on the chest of drawers in the bedchamber.

  Drew reached into his pocket to give the man sixpences for them all, but he looked at Drew as though the gift was an insult. “We do not want y’ur money, m’lud.”

  Was there any greater insult than to be snubbed by servants?

  A measure of guilt stirred in Drew’s gut. It was not normally an emotion he felt. It made it harder to know what to say to her when he shut the door.

  When she did not turn he walked over to the window and stood behind her, bracing her waist.

  Not a single muscle yielded to his touch. Instead her arms crossed over her chest.

  “I love you. It will not always be like this,” he whispered to her hair. “As I said, I will look for an estate as soon as I have the chance.”

  He kissed the curve of her neck where it turned to her shoulder, longing for her to say I love you, back.

  Her muscle flinched, and then she spun to face him, her eyes saying, do not touch me.

  His anger flared. “You were happy for my hands to be all over you the night before last, Mary! You said you loved me! I love you!” He glared at her. He’d never been good at holding his anger back. He wanted her to love him. That was all he asked.

  Damn it, his anger would not achieve it. “But if I am nothing to you, then I want nothing from you…”

  He turned away, refusing to shout anymore, or be judged ill anymore, and caught up his hat and gloves. “I’m going out.” he stated on a growl, walking from the room before slamming the door behind him.

  Chapter 19

  When the clock on the mantel chimed eight times, Mary rose from the armchair she’d occupied for hours. Andrew obviously had no intention of returning to dine with her. She may as well retire.

  Her stomach growled in complaint. She had not eaten. She could have asked the doorman to send out for something, but she was too nauseous to eat.

  In the bedchamber she searched through her trunks for a nightgown and then undressed, struggling to reach behind her back to loosen the laces of her corset.

  There was nowhere to store her clothes beyond the trunks, the one chest of drawers was fu
ll of his clothes. So she put the clothes she removed in the trunks. Her clothes would have to stay in them.

  “You said you loved me. I love you,” he had yelled before he left her. Was that true then? That he loved her. It was the first time he’d said he loved her since her father had found them.

  How was she to know now?

  When she climbed into his bed she was not sure which side to sleep.

  This was nothing like the marriage she’d imagined, everything felt wrong, it was a nightmare.

  The sheets were cold, and she lay there weeping into the pillow.

  When she heard the front door open, she threw back the covers to get up and greet him, but then she heard voices echoing about the sitting room – his friends, who’d danced with her.

  She lay back down and pulled the covers up over her shoulder.

  They were laughing. While she’d been crying.

  Her heart hammered hard as she heard Lord Brooke say, “So where is your hard won bride hiding, I’ve only come back with you for the pleasure of seeing our trophy. After all, we all played a part in your victory. Her dowry will be the making of you Drew.”

  “Wait a moment, I’ll fetch her,” Drew answered. She heard the sound of his boots on the floorboards. “She must be here…” His voice didn’t sound certain though.

  It would have served him right if she’d left.

  She shut her eyes as the door-handle turned and candlelight spilled into the room. She held her breath, pretending to be asleep.

  He stopped still.

  Drew’s heart had skipped a beat when he entered the sitting room and Mary was not there. As he walked towards the bedchamber it hammered cold fear through his veins.

  She would not have left, surely…

  Apprehension tingled in his nerves.

  He opened the door and in the shaft of golden candlelight saw her dark hair splayed across the pillow he usually slept on. He could not breathe, he felt like weeping, and as if he’d been kicked in the chest. His bedchamber smelt of her.

  He lifted the brace of candles, casting more light into the room.

  Her arm half covered her face, but he could see her closed eyes were puffy. She’d been crying again, then, because of him, and she’d not eaten, there were no remnants of her dinner in the sitting room. She’d ordered nothing in.

  He could have at least ordered it before he left, and not have stayed away so long, but once he was with his friends it was hard to get away.

  He should not have gone out at all.

  Yet at the time it had seemed the best thing to do. He did not want her to know how deeply she’d hurt him, how much it cut when she rejected him, and he also did not wish his anger to hurt her.

  It had…

  He’d decided to say sorry before he’d even reached his club. But that had not turned him back, because he’d needed normality, the sanity of his friends, to get over a day of Pembroke’s and Marlow’s ill-judgement.

  He’d planned his apology while his friends talked. But cowardice still haunted him. He should have come home, instead he’d eaten at the club and played a hand of cards. He was not used to thinking of anyone beyond himself.

  Even when he’d finally decided to return, when his friends had proposed returning with him, he’d agreed when he should not have done.

  He’d left her alone, in an unfamiliar place, on the back of an argument. She would not welcome him bringing back his friends. He’d brought them as a shield for her wrath. His new found cowardice running deeper.

  Yet this was Mary. Good, kind, Mary. There was no wrath in her, only hurt, hurt which he bore the guilt for.

  Devil take it! His conscience no longer whispered, it yelled. Nausea stirred as guilt smote him with a double edged sword.

  “My, my,” Peter said looking over Drew’s shoulder.

  Drew shut the door. He did not want his friends ogling her.

  Turning to Peter, Drew set a devil-may-care grin on his face, he did not wish them knowing how important she was to him.

  “She’s a prize.” Peter laughed. “I like to think it was my prose which won her for you.”

  “You’re not the only who contributed to those words,” Harry called from across the room helping himself to a glass of Drew’s brandy, which Peter had bought. “You cannot claim all of Drew’s success for yourself.”

  “Ah, but it is the prose that women love, and the prose was all mine,” Peter answered.

  Drew said nothing, crossing the room to poor himself a drink too as the conversation carried on and they all fought over whose words had been the best, quoting their various contributions.

  “Well if you helped Drew win the fair Miss Marlow,” Peter said eventually. “Then you can help me with Miss Smithfield. I am not getting very far, since Drew stole her pretty friend away, her parents will not consent to her driving with me.”

  The others laughed.

  Drew turned and watched them, as they began developing a plan of attack, as they’d done with Mary. He sipped his brandy, wishing to be drunk, but for some reason the alcohol failed him tonight. He could not reach uncaring oblivion.

  It was about two after midnight when his friends took their leave. He bid them goodnight, extinguished the candles and slipped into the bedchamber as quietly as he could, his heart thumping.

  He stripped off in the darkness, leaving only his shirt on, before climbing into the bed beside her.

  She did not move, or make any sound beyond that of her slow shallow breathing.

  Sighing he rolled to his side and let sleep claim him too.

  * * *

  Mary woke the next morning, having finally fallen asleep at some point after he’d slipped into the bed beside her, to find Andrew looking down at her, his light brown gaze soft and intense; his eyes were honey today.

  He lay on his side next to her, his head cradled on his palm, supported by his bent arm, while the fingers of his free hand played with a lock of her hair. The linen shirt he wore hung open at the chest.

  She said nothing. Her heart breaking.

  “I’m sorry.” He said the words as though they could stitch her heart back together.

  She’d heard his friends speaking about the letters and she’d heard them plotting to seduce Emily as they must have planned to seduce her.

  It was as John had said. Drew was false and everything he’d said was false.

  “I should not have left you alone last night,” he continued. “It was wrong of me. I was angry at your brother and your father and I took it out on you. I’m sorry. Do you forgive me?”

  She said nothing.

  He smiled, it looked genuinely apologetic. Yet she’d thought him genuine that day in the summerhouse, when she’d read the heartfelt words in his last letter. It had all been lies.

  She closed her eyes. His breath caressed her neck, then his lips brushed her skin. A stir of desire clasped at the juncture of her thighs.

  A sound left her lips, it was grief, yet he must have heard it as pleasure as his fingers began to draw up her nightgown.

  The memory of his touch whispered in ripples across her skin, and despite her broken heart and the knowledge that he was false, she still wanted him physically. She still loved him.

  His kisses brushed the skin of her neck and she ached for him inside turning her head away as his fingers touched her inner thigh.

  Her arms lifted above her head as he touched her gently, as he’d touched her the first night.

  When her lips parted on a sigh, which was pleasure, his fingers stroked more deeply, more intently, and then his lips touched the corner of her mouth, calling her to turn and kiss him back. She felt like weeping as she did, so physically happy, and yet so heart sore. She was his, no matter that he would never wholly be hers.

  He moved over her and his flesh became her flesh as they joined. His palms pressed into the bed beside her.

  The cloth of her night gown caressed her breasts as he moved, while the tails of his shirt, brushed against h
er stomach and her thighs.

  “I love you,” he whispered. “I swear that I do. With all my heart, I love you.”

  Lies. She clasped his shoulders and prayed for it to end – or begin – to reach the escape of ecstasy.

  The way he moved and touched her felt like love.

  It was just another lie.

  Just physical.

  Guilt pressed its little knife into her heart because she still enjoyed it, and she fought her pleasure at first, but it was too hard. He was all to her.

  He’d accused her of wanting nothing of him now. He was wrong. She wanted everything from him.

  She opened her eyes.

  He watched her. It looked like tenderness and devotion in his eyes.

  She wanted to believe in it, she desperately wanted to believe.

  But he had lied.

  His hand cupped her breast over her night gown. “I adore you, Mary. You’re so beautiful, I will forever worship you.”

  Lies.

  Her fingers gripped his hips, and the lean muscle that played beneath his skin. He enchanted her, entering and withdrawing. She broke in half, body and soul separating, as her senses soared and burst, trembling in release.

  Her wet heat surrounded Drew, and her inner muscle contracted, grasping for his seed. He broke straight after her. It was becoming a pattern of their encounters, and his muscle locked as he shut his eyes and let pleasure sweep over him, its intensity burned like lit brandy in his blood the flame flickering through his nerves. It even stole the pain away from his broken rib, which had clawed at his side while he’d moved

  They were made for one another. Sex had never been like this with any other woman.

  He opened his eyes, only to see that a tear had slipped from hers.

  Her lower lip quivered before she caught it between her teeth.

  He could not breathe. She was crying. The mist of sexual lust left him, and cold emptiness replaced it, as the emotion evaporated.

  She’d been enjoying it, hadn’t she? She’d reached the little death.

  He withdrew from her, turning away, not knowing what to say. He said the only thing he knew, glancing back at her, as he moved to get up. “I love you, Mary.” But he heard uncertainty in his voice.