Rebels, Rakes & Rogues

by Cheryl Bolen

  She and Molly had always possessed a bond of understanding, but Beau had credited it to her friend's ability to burrow deep into other people's hearts.

  And Jack had been her merriest comrade from the time she had been a child. They had rollicked and romped and raged and stormed with and at each other. Yet there had always been a comfortable distance in their relationship—a shared reluctance to get too serious about anything—life, death... love....

  Even recently, as Beau had become aware that the handsome highwayman wanted to forge a deeper bond between them, she had managed to avoid entangling herself in emotions that she found more perilous than all the dangers of the High Toby. And more frightening.

  Why had Griffin Stone—an arrogant, mocking scoundrel of an aristocrat, the man who had wounded her, threatened her, all but imprisoned her—suddenly inspired feelings of... of emptiness, and an aching need to share?

  "Share what, you bloody fool?" Beau asked herself with a sneer. "You already told him every secret from your past at that infernal inn, whining and wailing over your mother's weakness and your father's fate. Why shouldn't his grand lordship be positively chafing to sit at your feet and tell you of the horrors that witch of a grandmother enacted upon him? No doubt he'd go weak-kneed with gratitude once you shared gems of wisdom from your vast stores."

  She sucked in a frustrated breath, cinching the sheet she still wore more tightly beneath her arms. But she could not escape the sudden chill that went through her as she remembered the scene in the grand dining hall.

  There had been such venomous scorn in the dowager duchess's voice as she had raged at Griffin, such loathing in her stingy, cold lips and her ice-queen bearing.

  Beau had spent two days struggling to dredge out every fault she could possibly find in the man who was her captor. But though she had wanted—no, needed—to loathe him for making her feel helpless, she had found many attributes that won her grudging respect. Qualities that would have made her proud, if he had been in her family.

  She paced across the chamber, hating her realizations, feeling more trapped than ever. In the past she had unashamedly duped countless adversaries, but she had always been ruthlessly honest with herself. And the truth was that Griffin Stone would have had every right to send her to the devil for attempting to rob his coach. Most men would have left her by the roadside to die. Even the best of men would merely have continued on his journey and sent some lackey back to fetch her up and take her to the constable.

  Yet Griffin had bloodied his own cloak, dirtied his own hands, carrying her back to the inn. He had summoned a surgeon and hovered over her, willing her to live. Beau had the grace to flush at the memory of his impassioned orders and the guilt that had laced his voice. Even when he had discovered her faking the severity of her wound, he had not called in Bow Street.

  Instead he had taken her to his family's home, had her bathed, made sure she was warm, fed. Safe. Safe, to his way of thinking, from the world, aye, and... from herself?

  "Bah! I've done right well on my own!" Beau said aloud, thrusting out her chest. "And if he had but cooperated like the others and handed over his pretties without getting quarrelsome, we both could have saved ourselves this infernal tangle."

  ... there are those amongst us "aristocrat curs" who take it seriously when someone thrusts a pistol into our faces.... that mocking deep voice rang in her memory, and Beau felt a bittersweet wrenching in her chest. For while Griffin Stone mercilessly mocked the world around him, he mocked himself as well. Not with the brutal, sneering, cynical scorn of Judith Stone, but rather with a genuine amusement and acceptance of the world and all its foibles.

  Bile rose in Beau's throat, at the thought of the dowager duchess's raking claws. How had he survived her cruelties as a boy and become the man he was? Not bitter, not hardened by rejection and life. But rather a proud man, a giving one.

  A strong man, but a gentle one. A man with a temper as daunting as Isabeau's own, yet with a very real sense of justice.

  "Thunderation, next thing I'll be nominating him for bloody sainthood!" Beau groused to herself. "It is just that he is able to laugh... to see the absurdity in it all."

  But how? The question again reared its head. "Madness. The man is either too mad to be miserable, or he is just plain stupid."

  The door latch clicked, and Beau wheeled around. She almost tripped on the trailing sheet, and the swath of fabric slipped from her breasts. With a curse she yanked it up again, her face burning with embarrassment.

  Griffin stood in the doorway, resplendent in amber velvet. His coat glowed like an ancient crown; his ivory breeches molded to his heavily muscled thighs. The candlelight from inside Beau's chamber picked out the golden threads in his rich brown hair. In his arms he carried a bundle.

  "Isabeau. I'm sorry. I should have... have knocked before I flung open the door."

  "Where I come from we're somewhat lacking in the amenities," Beau said with forced lightness. "Everyone barges in whenever they want. I barge in, too. With great regularity."

  "I imagine you would," he said with a smile. After a moment he cleared his throat.

  "I needed to speak with you about what happened tonight," he said at last. "It was unforgiveable of me to leave you stranded beneath your coverlets without a stitch to wear. It was thoughtless and rude and unconscionable, even for one as churlish as me. I wanted to beg your pardon."

  His eyes glowed softly as he watched her. "Of course, I wouldn't blame you if you told me to go to the devil."

  "It would not be the first time," Beau said, but there was no edge to her voice. "And it will probably not be the last."

  "No," he chuckled softly. "I suppose not."

  "But I must admit, I so enjoyed seeing that rabid old witch near faint into her pudding, I can almost find it in my heart to forgive you, Stone. I've been considering adopting a sheet as my permanent wardrobe while I'm a guest here. I shall trail about, endeavoring to cross the hag's path. Her bellowing should prove most amusing."

  She had hoped to see a twinkle of amusement in his eyes, but he sighed. "Believe me, Isabeau, you needn't go to such lengths to court my grandmother's wrath. The mere sound of my name has the power to make her face turn the color of blackberry jam."

  He turned, walking to the open window as if he, too, felt the pull of the night. "It is beautiful," he said. "The sound of the wind, the stirrings of the night creatures, and the shadows of the trees reaching up toward the moon. It is as if the branches are trying to grasp something they can never have. And it's sad, because they don't know it is impossible."

  His voice trailed off, and for a long moment they were both silent. "My mother was like that, I am told," he said softly. "Always wishing, dreaming. I often think of her on nights like this."

  "Your mother?"

  His voice held a forced lightness. "Contrary to your belief that I crawled out from beneath some rock, even blackguard scoundrels like me had mothers."

  "I know that, you dolt." Isabeau looked away. "I was just curious, I guess. Wondered how... why... you became cursed with that harpy grandmother of yours."

  "My mother died when I was six, and there was no one else to care for William and me." He chafed his thumb across the silk he held. "She was good and kind and beautiful, my mother. I miss her still." He hesitated for a moment. "This was hers. It would please me greatly if you would wear it."

  Isabeau gasped as ever so gently he unfurled folds of peacock-blue satin, silver tissue, and ecru lace embroidered with gold thread. It was a gown. A gown so beautiful Beau couldn't keep her fingers from stroking one tantalizingly rich frill.

  Surely he could not mean for her to don this treasured keepsake he had of his mother. It almost seemed blasphemous for him to give such a wondrous gown to her. She who was accustomed to swaggering and stomping and swearing.

  "N-nay," she stammered. "I... thank you. But I—I cannot. I'd snag it or tear it or dump a vat of sauce on it the moment I put it on."

  "I much dou
bt that. You move more gracefully than any woman I've ever seen—even in your breeches." The slightest of twinkles showed beneath Griffin's lashes, and Beau was shocked to find herself drinking in the sight. "I would like to see you in this, Isabeau," he said softly, extending the garment toward her. "Please."

  Beau's pulse lurched, and her fingers trembled. She felt herself drowning in his sea-blue gaze, and she found that she could deny this solemn, sad Griffin nothing. She reached out tentatively, her callused palm snagging on the elegant cloth as she took it from him.

  The dress was warm where it had pressed against his taut body, and it smelled of dried lavender and lemon blossoms. Beau suppressed the childlike urge to bury her face in the sweet-scented cloth. He must have treasured it, cherished it all these years.

  And now he was giving it to her.

  There was an odd pricking beneath her eyelids, and she turned away from him, hurrying behind a wooden screen to slip the garment over her head.

  For some reason she could not name it was suddenly vitally important that she don Griffin's mother's gown, sweep out before him with the beautiful silver tissue molded about the bodice, the peacock silk draping elegantly down to the floor. But donning women's garb was far more complex than putting on simple breeches and sensible waistcoats. After a leviathan struggle with corsets and ruffles, lacings and tight sleeves, Beau felt her frustration expand until she allowed herself to mutter one particularly colorful curse.

  She heard the quiet tread of boot soles on the floor, sensed rather than saw Griffin behind her. Then his strong calloused hands deftly tightened her laces, and untangled the fabric until it drifted down about her like the petals of some exotic flower.

  When Beau's head emerged from the melee of silver tissue she caught her breath. She found he had shifted to stand before her, his face bare inches away from her own. His breath was hot, sweet as it touched her skin, and his fingers were gentle as they tugged her tumbled curls from beneath the fabric.

  Did she imagine it, or did his hands linger in the coppery waves, as if savoring their texture?

  She felt hot blood surge to her cheeks, the flush spreading to where the tops of her breasts were exposed by the low-cut bodice.

  Wordlessly he worked the intricate fastenings of the peacock silk stomacher, his knuckles brushing the fragile swells of her breasts as she struggled to steady her ragged breath. And her memory taunted her with vivid images of the way he had felt the night he had tumbled her back onto the bed to subdue her after her bath.

  She remembered how heavy and hard his body had felt as he lay on top of her. And she knew the mere feel of his body could be more dangerous than any Bow Street runner.

  Her heart skipped a beat, and she was suddenly, agonizingly aware that his hands had stilled. The gown swirled about her as though it had been created for her, the old-fashioned lines delightful. It was as if she had shed a chrysalis and was suddenly a jewel-bright butterfly in some kind of fairy-spun finery.

  She saw her reflection doubled and redoubled in the polished windowpanes, but even so Beau could not believe what she saw—in those mirrored images or in Griffin Stone's dark-lashed eyes.

  "My God." His voice snagged low in his throat. "Look at you, Isabeau. Look at you."

  Beau held her breath, suddenly willing to endure forever the pinching stays, the binding sleeves, even the unsettling sweep of the low bodice to see Griffin Stone stare that way.

  He looked at her with wonderment. Almost reverence. But most of all hunger.

  Beau's stomach fluttered, her lips parting with a shaky laugh. "Th-thank you. I—I'd have been buried in silks forever if you hadn't... helped me. It was like a labyrinth in all those flounces and such, and I'm far more accustomed to dealing with the fastenings of breeches." Of their own accord her fingers brushed the creamy fabric encasing Griffin's thigh. A muscle jumped beneath her hand, the careless gesture and her bumbling words suddenly taking on an unexpected significance.

  Her face flamed as she snatched her fingertips away. She turned, needing to put distance between herself and the dauntingly masculine figure before her. But her bare foot snagged in the underpetticoat, and only Griffin's firm hand saved her from crashing into the wooden screen.

  "Perdition!" she blustered. "It's like walking among tree roots at midnight!"

  His rich, welcome laugh rang out. "You'll grow used to it," he said. "In fact, soon you'll be sweeping gracefully about ballrooms."

  "The devil you say," Beau grumbled, intensely aware of the heat of his hard palm burning through the thin silver tissue of the gown. She drew away from his touch, tossing her head with a carelessness she did not feel. "I've never even been able to learn to wield a sword. If I couldn't master something I needed to learn—something useful—how the blazes am I supposed to school myself to—to flit?"

  "Flit?" Griff formed his lips into a censorious line, but his eyes brimmed with amusement. "Milady, a member of the ton does not flit. "

  "Well, they look like bloody grasshoppers the way they skitter around, waving their snuffboxes and their fans and their infernal ribbons in a body's face. Makes my brain ache just to watch 'em."

  She pursed her lips and fluttered an imaginary fan in the sugary-sweet way of the schoolroom misses she had seen about the confectioners' shops. "Lud, sir, you fair take my breath away," she gushed, then dropped her voice into a stage whisper. "Mayhap it is because you reek of Hungary water."

  Griffin strangled a laugh as he battled to capture the aura of a stern guardian. "Your manners, milady, are appalling."

  "You flatter me, sir." Beau flashed him a smile and plopped into an awkward curtsy.

  "I'd like to flatten you most of the time. But maybe it would serve us both better if I were to teach you to curtsy in a way that would not inspire one to knock you into the next county for your insolence."

  "Insolence?" Beau pressed her hands to her heart with an expression of feigned injury. Griffin dissolved into laughter. "Are you accusing me of insolence?"

  "Aye. And I am accusing you of the far greater sin of having the most disreputable curtsy I've ever seen. A lady does not fling herself upon the floor like a squashed pumpkin. She holds her gown thus." He curved his hand over hers, demonstrating the proper manner in which to sweep up the voluminous petticoats. "And thus." He settled her other hand into place. "And then she drifts down gracefully, regally."

  "I might have a bit of trouble being regal, Stone. It is my red hair, you see, and—"

  "Try it," Griffin urged, his eyes dancing. "Once you master curtsying with the proper respect, I shall show you how to do it in a manner that will show your enemies that they are well beneath your notice."

  "You mean you will teach me how to insult."

  "How to insult someone most elegantly," Griffin agreed with a nod. "Think of the fun you could have."

  "It would be more fun just to dump a keg of ale over their heads." Beau sniffed. "But if my lord insists..."

  "He does." Griffin sketched her his most dignified bow. "Now, to curtsy properly you will need to know the rank of the person to whom you are being presented. If that person is a lord you would dip down so." He demonstrated.

  Beau pressed her fingers to her lips, giggling at the sight of Griffin's muscled body moving in such a feminine gesture.

  "If you are confronted with a duke or a duchess," he continued, patently unruffled, "you will sink down farther still. You find this amusing, milady?"

  "Nay, it is just that I cannot wait to discover how one insults a duchess. I plan to do so with great regularity." Beau muttered the last words beneath her breath, but Griffin heard her, and his blue eyes softened.

  Beau felt the bounding sensation in her middle again, and she clutched up her skirts in her fists, hastily flopping into a curtsy in an effort to diffuse the tension. "L-like this?"

  "Isabeau." Griffin caught her stiff hands in his, smoothing over the taut tendons until they felt soft as butter, her fingers seeming to melt into his callused palms. "Look
at me," he said, his voice low, compelling. Her knees felt as wobbly as the day she had rolled down Tower Hill in a barrel, but Griffin only continued smoothing his thumbs over the vulnerable pulse points at her wrists.

  "Isabeau, you look so beautiful here... now... garbed in my mother's gown. You should be proud, milady Flame. Show me."

  Laughter had fled the room, leaving only echoes. Beau gazed into the compelling eyes of Griffin Stone, and slowly, with a grace she had not known she possessed, she sank into a curtsy.

  Perfect it was not, and yet, as the flowing yards of her petticoats pooled about her in glistening waves, she looked to Griffin for approval.

  Their eyes locked for long seconds that seemed to spiral into eternity—an eternity of swirling heat, secret need. Beau drew nearer the flame, her breath catching in her throat as she drank in the scent of him—fine leather, blooded horses, hot passions. Passions that flooded Beau, enveloped her.

  She had scoffed at the tales Nell's girls had told of such soaring emotions. She had jeered at Molly's beloved stories of knights so bold and their ladies fair. And the more earthy side of sensuality... that had seemed to her at best an embarrassing inconvenience. But this... this need that flowed through to the very tips of her fingers, this vast emptiness filled with heady-sweet anticipation was a wondrous surprise. And a frightening one.

  "Isabeau..." Her name rasped from between Griffin's lips. Then, as if he, too, felt the shattering temptations, as if he, too, held no power to resist, he groaned and pulled her into his arms.

  She had not known what to expect, but whatever fleeting thoughts she might have entertained could not even touch the reality of Griffin Stone's kiss.

  His hot mouth fixed upon hers as if he were starving for the taste of her. He crushed her against the unyielding plane of his chest, but this time it was not to bend her to his will; rather it was as if he were trying to draw something from her, something he needed with a desperation that stunned her.