A Rogue's Surrender: Regency Novellas

by Lauren Smith

  He heard a woman’s voice cry out and then it said, “Daniel, stop. It’s Gabriel.”

  They both froze at once.

  Lydia was the first to break the stunned silence. “Daniel?”

  Her voice was unusually high-pitched and filled with unshed tears. Gabriel felt the other man move off him as he came to his feet. “Lydia! What are you doing here?” He saw Daniel’s silhouette turn to face him and then his sister. “And Gabriel, what the…” Daniel’s head moved again, so quickly it was almost comical. “Gabriel, what the hell were you doing to my sister?”

  Chapter Twelve

  By the time the carriage pulled up to the house, Lydia was fairly certain she was not dreaming. Daniel and Madeline were here and they were safe. She clung to Daniel’s hand during the seemingly endless carriage ride back home, bombarding him and Madeline with questions as they went.

  “Wren has returned,” Gabriel said as he looked out the window.

  Sure enough, Wren’s horse was there, along with a familiar carriage. “He brought the general with him,” Daniel said.

  He and Gabriel seemed to have come to an understanding that until this business with Vancleef was settled, they would set aside the little matter of Daniel witnessing their kiss. But that didn’t stop Daniel from glaring at his best friend or treating her to curious stares.

  She didn’t care. She’d answer all his questions in due time. All that mattered was that he was back and he was well.

  They clambered out of the carriage and into the house and were greeted enthusiastically by Wren and the general. Lydia poured drinks for everyone—Lord knew Daniel and Madeline looked like they could use it as they described their ordeal for the second time that night.

  It seemed that Vancleef had recognized them when they’d come to town. He knew who they were and what role they’d played for the government during the war. As spies for the crown sent to seek out traitors, they’d made a reputation for themselves. Daniel often said that if the war had not ended when it had they would have had to find new roles because word had spread among French infiltrators and English traitors.

  As it was, Vancleef had apparently not received the missive that the now-famous spying couple had ceased hunting down French spies and were instead focused on keeping the peace in the aftermath of the war. Instead he assumed that they had come up north for him.

  “So Vancleef had been a spy for the French?” General Watters asked.

  Madeline nodded as she sipped her sherry. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, but other than that, the dark-haired beauty looked as lovely as ever. “He confessed to everything.” She shot Daniel a look of amusement. “Babbled on quite a bit, actually.”

  Daniel smiled at his wife. “It was a bit pathetic, really.”

  She let out a small laugh. “It would have been funny if he hadn’t been in the act of kidnapping us.”

  “Mmm.” Daniel took a sip of his drink. Lydia relaxed back in her seat, content for the moment to take in the absolute joy of having her family back and in good spirits, despite everything.

  “What was his plan?” Wren asked. He waved a hand in their direction. “What did he mean to do with you two?”

  Daniel shrugged and some of his amusement faded. “I don’t know. That’s why we aimed to escape as soon as we got our chance.”

  Madeline’s brow furrowed as she studied the glass in her hands. “He made some odd comments about how we’d be forced to let him go as we’d all be family soon.” She shook her head, “Whatever that means.”

  Lydia studiously avoided Gabriel and Wren’s meaningful stares. There would be plenty of time to fill them in on her recent activities, including her non-wedding, after they’d all had a good night’s sleep.

  “How did you manage to escape?” the general asked. He gestured toward Lydia and Gabriel. “And how did these two find you so quickly?”

  Madeline spoke first. “He kept us locked in the cellar of some warehouse but he’d visit us occasionally to make sure we were fed. We merely waited for the right opportunity to come along. Earlier tonight he came to visit. Gave us our meal, as usual, but he was distracted. He said his plans had changed.”

  Lydia saw Gabriel watching her out of the corner of her eye and ignored him. Or tried to, at least. She’d never been truly able to ignore him, no matter how hard she’d tried.

  “Madeline took advantage of his distraction,” Daniel said, smiling proudly at his wife. “She managed to steal one of his cufflinks before he left.”

  She held up the cufflink and smirked at her husband. “Turns out my lock-picking skills weren’t as rusty as someone thought they would be.”

  Daniel shrugged good-naturedly. “I’m happy to be proven wrong.”

  Lydia sighed. “And now we’ll never know if my lock-picking skills are up to snuff because you escaped before I could rescue you.”

  Daniel and Madeline’s attention turned to her and she instantly regretted opening her mouth.

  “Yes,” Madeline said slowly. “About that…”

  “What the hell were you two up to?” Daniel pounced. He had been looking at her but now his glare was fixed on Gabriel and Lydia felt a pang of guilt. This was her fault. All of it. She’d proposed. Then she’d dragged him into this situation. Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. She never asked him to rescue her. But he had, so now it was up to her to get him out of it.

  “Don’t be angry at Gabriel, Daniel. It wasn’t his fault.”

  Her normally mild-mannered brother’s expression was livid. “How is this not his fault? He was kissing you.”

  Madeline looked far more placid as she regarded her sister-in-law. “Unless, of course, you were kissing him?”

  Lydia kept quiet and folded her hands in her lap. No, she hadn’t initiated that particular kiss. But she’d wanted it and she’d all but begged him to do much more than just kiss her when they were in the carriage.

  The general was apparently still catching up. “Gabriel kissed Lydia? I don’t believe it.”

  Daniel pointed to the older man as if his reaction was proof positive that he wasn’t overreacting. “Exactly! It’s unbelievable. But I saw them with my own eyes.”

  “In the dark, dear,” Madeline reminded him. “Perhaps we misunderstood what we were seeing.” Her gaze was still on Lydia and she had the unsettling feeling that Madeline saw perfectly clearly…in the dark and in this room.

  She avoided making eye contact with Madeline for fear that she was crumble under that understanding gaze. She’d become more of a mother figure than a sister of the years and the desire to cry on her shoulder right now was nearly overwhelming.

  She had to tell someone how stupid she’d been, if only to unload the heavy weight in her chest.

  Wren had turned to Gabriel. “You kissed Lydia?” The word “again” was unspoken but she knew what he’d meant and she was certain Gabriel did as well. Once was one thing but clearly Wren hadn’t expected Gabriel to repeat his mistakes.

  “He did,” Daniel said again, as though she and Gabriel were denying it, which they were not. “We heard people entering just as we escaped the cellar,” he continued. When we realized it was a man and a woman and saw them embracing we assumed… That is, I assumed…”

  Lydia and everyone else in the room could surely infer what he had assumed. That they were a couple of young lovers or a man with his doxy. Flames seemed to be licking at her cheeks as all eyes turned to her and Gabriel for an explanation.

  Gabriel was wearing that stoic expression that drove her crazy and made her want to do something mad just to disrupt his calm. Especially now when his grim demeanor seemed to imply that kissing her had been some sort of horrid aberration and not a passionate, delicious, wonderful—

  Damnation, she had gotten sidetracked once again with thoughts of kisses. What she needed now was some clarity. Some time and distance so she could put her emotions back in their cage.

  As if it worked that way. A little voice mocked her mercilessly. As if t
here was any way she could go back to the way things were. It was too late. Those kisses had opened her eyes to all the ways she had never really gotten over her infatuation. If anything, it had grown out of control without her realizing it, morphing into a very real and very adult form of affection.

  Oh cut the evasive language, the voice taunted. It had grown into love.

  Their audience was waiting for an explanation but Lydia had stunned herself into silence with that last thought.

  As her brother glowered and Madeline’s brow furrowed with concern, she tried to reason her way out of it. In short, her mind was attempting to negotiate with her heart. Perhaps it was just the fact that he was her first kiss. Surely that would lead her to give a kiss added significance. Or perhaps it was a passing fancy. Or perhaps—

  “Perhaps we should discuss this at another time,” Madeline said quietly.

  Lydia realized with a start that Daniel was still glaring at the stoically silent Gabriel and she had said nothing. Done nothing. Oh dear, she had to make this right.

  “I don’t see why we shouldn’t discuss this now,” Daniel said through gritted teeth. “My best friend was manhandling my little sister.”

  “I’m not little any longer, if you hadn’t noticed.” It came out as a matter of habit—she hated when anyone referred to her as a “little” anything. But when his lips pressed together in anger and Gabriel shot her a warning look, she realized that perhaps that argument was not the best tact.

  Madeline, God bless her, continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “We’re all home safe and sound, my love. Let’s celebrate that for now and leave the rest for tomorrow.”

  Daniel finally stopped glaring long enough to give his wife a shocked look. “Safe and sound? My sister’s been ruined.”

  Lydia opened her mouth to protest but found she couldn’t in all good conscience. Not that Gabriel had ruined her but because she most likely had been ruined thanks to her shenanigans these last few days. With a wedding that ended in a kidnapping, the fact that she’d been carried off—alone—with a strange masked man. Then that she’d been here in this house alone with two men who were not her relatives.

  Her reputation had likely seen better days.

  It hardly mattered to her but she knew her brother still held out hope that she would grow out of her unladylike desire to follow in their footsteps. If he truly thought that she would wake up one day and say “Oh, but wouldn’t it be lovely to marry an insipid gentleman and bear his many children” he had another thing coming. Before she could tell him any of that, though, Gabriel finally found his voice. “You’re right.”

  Lydia and everyone else in the room turned to face him with varied looks of surprise, but none more so than Lydia. “No, he’s not,” she said. Turning to face her brother, she added, “You’re not right.”

  But Daniel didn’t seem to be paying attention to her, he was perched on the edge of his seat with fists clenched at his sides. “And what are you going to do about it?”

  Gabriel didn’t look in her direction. He didn’t so much as blink. “I’m going to marry her.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  For a moment she thought she heard him wrong. The silence that followed his announcement had her thinking in a somewhat crazed way that perhaps she was the only one who’d heard those words. Maybe it had been in her head.

  But then all hell seemed to break loose at once as everyone reacted. Wren laughed. Daniel started shouting again about how he’d better believe he was going to marry her. Madeline clapped her hands like a little girl. Even General Watters seemed to have an opinion on the matter.

  No one, not one person in that room, thought to ask her what she thought of this idea.

  Gabriel was nodding solemnly at whatever Daniel was ranting about—she didn’t know and didn’t care. She had the irritating notion that Gabriel wasn’t listening to him either but was merely pretending to in order to avoid looking in her direction.

  Maybe because he knew he’d broken her heart.

  Don’t be dramatic, she told herself. Of course her heart wasn’t broken. But then why did it feel like someone had plunged a dagger into her chest and twisted?

  Tears stung the back of her eyes as she fought the notion that this was a dream. No, a nightmare. It was everything she wanted but it was all wrong. It was a cruel joke. Unintentional, maybe, but that hardly mattered.

  She stared at his stoic profile. So calm, so bloody serene. Like he’d just announced he was going to purchase some land in the area. He no doubt thought he was doing what was right. Fulfilling an obligation. Saving her from disgrace and making amends for kissing her. The announcement was so very Gabriel. Practical, unemotional, and no doubt well-intentioned. In short, the absolute worst proposal of all time.

  She didn’t want to marry this man. No, that was a lie. She desperately wanted to marry Gabriel, but not like this. Never like this. She’d been so wrong when she’d proposed to him. Had it only been two weeks ago?

  She’d been thoughtless. Foolish. And not because she’d wanted a marriage of convenience, but because she’d thought such a thing could be possible with him, of all people. She had actually deluded herself into thinking that she’d mastered her feelings.

  But she’d been wrong. So very wrong. And now that mistake was mocking her mercilessly because Gabriel was offering her everything she’d thought she’d wanted—the practical, unemotional union that would give her the freedom she so desperately wanted.

  But now she knew it was all wrong.

  Freedom didn’t come from signing a piece of paper. It came from following her heart.

  But her stupid, foolish heart wanted the one man who would never want her back. Not in the way she needed. He might be attracted to her, and she’d never doubted that he cared for her. But he didn’t love her, not like she loved him. Being in a loveless marriage with him would be a special sort of prison. She’d have her freedom to come and go as she pleased and to make her own decisions, but she’d be forced to watch the man she loved look at her with disinterest. She’d be forced to see his pity when he realized that she’d never grown out of her silly infatuation. If anything, it had grown.

  No. She couldn’t do it. She’d rather face a life of limited options in the gilded cage of a traditional marriage than enduring a lifetime of having Gabriel in name but not in heart. She knew it as clearly as she knew her own name. A loveless marriage to Gabriel would be a slow, torturous death.

  She inhaled deeply. Better to get it over with. End it now, painful but swift. Dawdling would only weaken her resolve. She’d start to wonder what if. What if she could force him to love her? Trick him into it, maybe. She shook her head, annoyed with the weakness of her own thoughts. If he didn’t love her, she couldn’t force him. This was one area where no amount of hand-to-hand combat training mattered. No amount of acting skills would suffice.

  She was back to her original conclusion. There was only one way to handle this. Coming to a stand so quickly her chair scraped against the floor, she was suddenly the center of attention in the room. All eyes were on her and she saw the realization dawn that she’d yet to comment. They all watched her now but it was one pair of stormy gray eyes she felt against her skin, branding her as surely as an iron.

  She couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze. He hadn’t even looked in her direction when he’d announced he was marrying her, why should she afford him that courtesy? So instead she addressed the room at large. “While I appreciate Gabriel’s noble offer to save my reputation, I’m afraid I must decline.”

  There was a stunned silence and she took advantage as she headed out of the room toward the stairs. She’d nearly escaped when all hell broke loose yet again. She heard Gabriel calling out to her above the din but she ignored him.

  When she was alone in her room, she finally let herself breathe but the simple act of exhaling made the pain in her chest intensify to the point of agony.

  Well, she’d done it. She’d destroyed her chance o
f a future with the man she loved.

  But it was for the best. Less painful in the long run.

  When a knock sounded at her door a little while later, she nearly told her visitor to go away. But judging by its softness, it was Madeline and she’d never been able to deny her sister-in-law anything.

  Madeline’s smile was soft and knowing when Lydia opened the door. “May I come in?”

  Lydia sighed and gestured for her to enter.

  Madeline didn’t waste time. “Gabriel and Wren just filled us in on your latest adventures.” The older woman’s lips were pressed together and Lydia knew from experience that meant she was trying not to laugh.

  Good. She wasn’t certain she could handle a lecture at this point. “I was worried about you and Daniel. I had to do something.”

  Madeline nodded, her expression softening. “Marrying old Rothmore? Really, that was quite a dramatic move.”

  Lydia shrugged. “I was desperate.”

  Madeline nodded. “So, you were willing to marry Rothmore to save us but you’re not willing to marry Gabriel to save yourself?”

  Lydia scowled at that. “I don’t need saving.”

  Madeline shook her head and sat on the edge of Lydia’s bed. “No, of course not. But your reputation is a bit mangled, isn’t it?”

  “You know I don’t care much for reputations.” Lydia shifted uneasily beneath Madeline’s all-seeing gaze. “If you and Daniel can’t stomach it, I can move out or—”

  “Don’t be silly.” Madeline waved away her suggestion as she’d known she would. Her brother and sister-in-law held little regard for society’s rules.

  “You know that’s not what I’m here about,” Madeline continued. “I’m just…well, I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be.” Lydia moved to her dressing table and started to unfasten the pins that held up her hair.

  Madeline’s voice was filled with rueful amusement. “Trust me, I don’t like this feeling any more than you do. You know, much as I thought I’d be a mother figure for you when Daniel and I married, I found that you were always quite capable of looking after yourself.”