Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One)

by Annette Blair

  And Gideon was left speechless, battered of pride, and hard as a pikestaff.

  Minutes, or hours, later, Sabrina moaned and turned on her side, and Gideon woke.

  She must be uncomfortable with such a burden to carry, he thought. Yet this might be her best night’s sleep in months, despite the fact that ultimate satisfaction had escaped her. Hell, it escaped them both, he could not seem to forget.

  Imagine getting himself a pregnant, yet innocent, bride.

  Imagine him failing to satisfy her.

  Imagine waking on the day after his wedding with his marriage yet to be consummated.

  Gideon groaned. His ego could not take much more of Sabrina St. Goddard. Till death do them part, be damned. Being married to this woman would surely kill him.

  Why, then, did being married to her give him no end of satisfaction? A puzzle as intricate as Sabrina herself.

  As enticing.

  As exasperating.

  Already, he ached to stroke her again, to bring her back into his arms, but he would forego that pleasure to allow her sleep. With her burden, comfort in sleep must be difficult enough to attain, without him disallowing her rest at his whim.

  Even he was not so selfish as that. Not quite.

  Gideon turned on his side to resettle himself...and came face to face with...a child?

  “What?” He sat up and regarded the location by the bed where the boy had just stood, but it lay in shadows, empty and undisturbed.

  While he tried to decide if he had been asleep or awake, seen or imagined a child, he heard the squeal of a door hinge, and then silence.

  Could one of the servant’s children be sleep walking? He would inquire in the morning as to which child might have taken to wandering.

  Ignoring his state of semi-arousal, yet absurdly content with his previous day’s work, considering the abysmal failure of his wedding night, Gideon curled himself around his bride and drifted back into sleep.

  * * *

  Sabrina awoke disoriented, surprised to find herself pinned to the mattress, and sought to identify her ravager.

  Ah, yes, ‘twas the penniless wanderer who had charmed her...until she realized she had married him. The rogue who talked her out of her nightrail and seduced his way into her bed. Yon dragon with his prodding staff tucked against her backside even now...the staff, she discovered, to her surprise, that could be harmless, after all. For a time. Perhaps.

  Such a slow sweet warmth had built inside her at his tender touch, she had thought she might burst into flame, almost hoped she would. But she did not. Instead, she simmered until the contented heaviness of half-sleep beckoned. She remembered smiling when she realized she was drifting, wrapped in her new husband’s gentle arms.

  For the first time in a marriage bed, she had reveled in the gentleness of a husband.

  Peace had claimed her then, as it did now in memory. And because she understood already that Gideon St. Goddard just might be that rarest of creatures, a good and gentle man, Sabrina almost wanted to give him what he sought. Almost.

  When she considered the price—herself—she decided that consummation would have to wait. Perhaps, forever.

  She supposed she might someday trust him enough to give herself to him, body and heart, free and clear, but she knew he would have to earn it first. And in this case, earning was a state of mind … hers. Even she did not quite understand the proof she sought. She simply knew that she would recognize it when she found it.

  She wondered, then, about their life, what a future with this puzzling man might possibly hold.

  Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe, her husband—sweet one minute, tart the next, first hot, then cold. He had frightened her witless and stirred her senses … and they had only just met the day before.

  Tonight, she had drifted to sleep, naked and content in his arms … and left him wanting.

  She would never be able to look him in the eye again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Mama? Are you sleeping?”

  Sabrina sat up, clutching her blankets to cover herself. “Damon?” she whispered frantically. “What are you doing here?”

  “It is Rafferty, Mama. Damon is still sleeping, but I cannot, because I am thirsty.”

  “Where is Miss Minchip? Why did you not ask her for a drink of water?”

  “She is snoring so loud, she cannot hear me. I think her ears are too old,” he whispered, all serious concern. “She does not hear very good.”

  Sabrina smiled at her son’s observation. “Go back to the nursery, Sweet, and Mama will be right up.”

  “But, that man, he—”

  “Go, Sweet, I will be up right behind you. Move now.”

  She should have realized right away, if he was quiet, he was Rafe. Damon would have climbed into bed with her and spoken afterward, and he would not have whispered.

  She told the twins, of course, that they could no longer come to her during the night, that they would have to see how this man would deal with two noisy little boys.

  But how could two four year olds, who had already faced the devil in their short lives, understand the appearance of what they must perceive as another fiend, after the first had frightened them senseless?

  Sabrina slipped from her marriage bed, somewhat sorry to be leaving her new husband’s embrace, a circumstance she would not have thought possible a short twenty-four hours before.

  She groped for her nightrail, found it, and slipped it over her head. Two nights before, she had gone to sleep foolishly wishing that the penniless wanderer and the Duke of Stanthorpe were one and the same, and now that she discovered they were, or, rather, he was, she was not certain how she felt.

  Somehow, Stanthorpe had seemed safer as a figment of her imagination, than as a flesh and blood man with wants and needs of his own.

  When she had discovered his perfidy, in company with the others at her wedding, she had experienced relief, gladness, annoyance, any number of new and strange emotions. But right now, she was too comfortably lethargic to examine her careening feelings.

  Besides, she had best see to the twins, before they instigated a midnight insurrection fit to wake the dead, thereby revealing to her new husband exactly how large a family she came with.

  Shivering at the very thought, Sabrina tied her serviceable wrapper over her burgeoning middle. She cut through her dressing room and slipped out the servant’s access into the hall. Then she stole through the house like a thief in the night.

  She should have told Gideon about the twins already, she supposed, as she made her way up the servants’ stairs toward the third-floor nursery. And, she supposed, she should tell him sooner, rather than later, before he discovered their existence on his own. Horrifying thought.

  But perhaps she was worrying uselessly, for he seemed sincerely to like children. Had he not become his niece’s galloping pony, a steed so spirited, he had knocked his rider’s curls askew?

  But had he not also suggested that she should discover whether her intended even liked children? Did he mean the words as a warning? If so, would he not have cried off at the mere sight of her impending motherhood?

  Her maternity had certainly not deterred him in their bed earlier tonight. Not at all. Her very condition seemed actually to...stimulate him.

  Then again, a quiet expectancy and an unquiet pair of striplings were entirely different kettles of fish.

  Sabrina heard the twins’ laughter before she stepped into their bedchamber, off the nursery where, she just now realized, Gideon must once have played.

  A pillow hit her in the face as she entered their cozy bedchamber. And her sons’ giggles escalated.

  As she approached in the darkness, something dropped down before her, and Sabrina sat on the bed, rather than fall on her face. “Damon Whitcomb!”

  A gratified giggle.

  “I did nothing. Those were Rafferty’s legs coming down before you. He is the drawbridge. I am only the toll booth.”

  Sabrina grinned.
“Do you really want a drink of water, Rafe? Or just someone to play with?”

  “He woke me up,” Damon accused.

  “I did not.”

  “Did so.”

  “Jinglebrains.”

  “Paperskull.”

  Sabrina shook her head, lit a lamp, and poured them each half a glass of water from the pitcher, high atop a nursery shelf. And like centuries of male travelers at every village inn the world over, her men guzzled their drinks to a lusty beat, until both empty glasses were handed back with corresponding thanks and sighs of relief.

  She ruffled one dark, curly head, then the other.

  Damon stood the taller of the two, and the broader, by as little as only a mother would note.

  Rafferty bore a wiry, whip-strength that Damon lacked, but you would have to hold them each in your arms to discern the trifling difference.

  “Ready to go back to sleep,” she asked when one of them yawned.

  Damon climbed on his miniature bed to stand face to face with her and reached out to stroke her cheek with his little hand. “Are you all right, Mama? That man did not hurt you, did he?”

  “If he did, we would protect you,” Rafe said, climbing up beside his twin.

  “As I would protect you,” Sabrina returned, pushing them down, one by one, to land with a giggling bounce. Then she lay between them, both boys snuggling in.

  She hugged them close and kissed each precious head, thinking she must like them best scrubbed clean and in their flannel nightshirts, all warm, soft, and open to a mother’s love.

  “I would scale a mountain to protect you,” she said, beginning the game they had played, once upon a time, to comfort each other when they had all rather have cried.

  “I would climb the highest mountain to protect you,” Rafferty said.

  Sabrina kissed his nose. “I would sail the seven seas.”

  “I would sail the biggest sea,” Damon said.

  “The coldest,” Rafe countered.

  “The deepest.” A yawn.

  “Stormiest.”

  In minutes, they were quiet, and Sabrina relished their deep and even breathing and their small hearts beating against her.

  For nearly four years, these two amazing gifts, these identical miracles, had given her strength and purpose and a reason for living. As they would in the days and years ahead, and she would let nothing, and no one, harm them.

  “I would catch me a dragon to protect you,” Sabrina whispered. “And hide you in his cave.”

  The dragon rose at dawn, aroused and hungry for more than food; his wife saw, as he stood in glorious relief, stretching his most amazing body.

  That was when Sabrina realized what a challenge would be this Peer of the Realm, this fine-sculpted Corinthian who claimed her bed and shivered her spine.

  As if the mythical beast sensed her watching, he turned and looked right at her, his hunter’s eyes direct and probing, pleased, if she did not miss her guess, at the shiny new bauble he had bought for his bed.

  With a grin, he approached the four poster. And with a squeak, Sabrina launched herself up and out of it, in as ungainly a manner as she could manage, given the fact that her burden seemed actually to have dropped during the night.

  Her dragon’s expression went from fire to ice in a blink as he leapt.

  Sabrina reared back and cowered.

  Gideon caught and braced her. “Are you all right?”

  Embarrassed at her fear, Sabrina silently chided herself. “Of course I am all right,” she snapped. “Why would I not be?”

  “One minute I thought you might fall, and the next, I could swear that you were afraid I would strike you.”

  Sabrina raised her chin but she could think of nothing to say.

  “You have been struck in the past, have you not?”

  He was pressing a point she had rather perish than reveal. “My past is not your business.”

  A shutter seemed to descend over his expression. The bright of his eyes, his very aspect shut down. “Correct,” said the suddenly haughty Duke of Stanthorpe, all regal splendor, arrogant condescension, and hard-edged fury.

  He let her go. “I have purchased you for the present and for the future. And a tidy price I paid.”

  In silence, he strode toward his own bedchamber, controlled anger in every step. At the door, he turned. “You will meet me in the breakfast room in one hour, precisely. Good morning to you, Madam.”

  The door between their rooms closed tight.

  So, too, did Sabrina’s hope.

  * * *

  “A child, your grace?”

  Typical for Bilbury. A question for a question. “Yes, Man, who of the servants has a child?” Gideon asked, for the second time in as many minutes.

  “Why, none that I know of. Would you like the bottle-green, the celestial-blue, or the Devonshire brown frockcoat this morning?”

  “The blue. Does a close neighbor have a child then?” Gideon asked, as Bilbury helped him on with the coat and smoothed the shoulders.

  “I wonder, your grace, if you saw this child-like apparition late last night, after, say, a brandy or three, when you were half in your cups? Or in the early morning when you were still sleeping?”

  “Damn it man, are you saying that I imagined the child?”

  “Actually, no.” Bilbury placed a sapphire stickpin in Gideon’s mathematical-styled neck-cloth. “A wayward lad at midnight? Could have been a chimney sweep turned to burglary.”

  “That, at least, is a sane explanation. Thank you, Bilbury. That will be all.”

  After his valet left, Gideon checked his pocket watch to see how long he must cool his heels until meeting Sabrina. Seventeen minutes. She had better be on time.

  He snapped the watch shut.

  But when he arrived in the breakfast room, he found no breakfast, no wife, but his servants were all shivering in their shoes.

  Someone had entered the library during the night and had searched desks, knocked books off shelves, and taken paintings from walls.

  “Looking for a safe, no doubt,” Chalmer said as Gideon stepped into the room.

  “Inside the books?” he replied, raising his brows at the preposterous notion.

  “Some people hide paper money and even bank drafts in books,” Doggett said, though that sturdy character was trembling like a leaf in an English gale. His knowledge of money hidden in books, however, would seem to confirm Gideon’s belief that he might have survived as a rookery cutpurse, or some such, in his former life. Except that his certain fear also seemed to negate same.

  “Searching the library makes no sense,” Gideon said. “Would a robber not search bedrooms for jewels or the long gallery for paintings?”

  “Oh, none of the paintings are missing, your grace. Nothing is, actually. Everything is simply disturbed.”

  “As am I.” Gideon took in the dishevelment of his favorite room. “I believe I shall send a note to Bow Street, to see what the runners have to say about this.”

  “Very good, your grace.” Chalmer bowed and left the room.

  Doggett sidled up to him. “You think the runners are necessary, your grace?”

  “Do you have another suggestion?”

  “I would like to offer my services for the night watch, if I might. I have some little...experience in these matters.”

  “I see.”

  “I would do anything for her grace. And for you, of course,” he added in a rush, almost as an afterthought. “I promise to keep your home safe from any and all comers. My honor as a...peddler.”

  “You think you know who might have done this?”

  “I know the type.”

  “Very well, Doggett. You are officially assigned the night watch.”

  “Thank you, your grace.”

  Gideon squeezed the older man’s shoulder. “I am depending upon you.”

  * * *

  Sabrina would not let emotion rule her, she vowed, not for the first time, as she lowered her awkward body in
to a slipper bath of warm, lilac-scented water, placed before the fire in her dressing room.

  She did not need romance, just a husband, a man to house her and her children, to give them a sense of belonging, of peace, and to put food in their bellies.

  That Stanthorpe could control his ire, stood to his credit. That she dared want more than control from the man, angered her inordinately.

  Her first marriage had remained turbulent, unpredictable and grim. For the better part of her life, she had known hunger and abuse, betrayal, treachery. She remembered well the humiliation of being sold to the highest bidder, the hopelessness of being tossed in the trash.

  Now she craved stability and predictability for herself and her children, and in today’s world, nothing but unrestricted wealth could purchase such rare and expensive commodities. Yes, she had sold herself to the high bidder this time, but if anybody deserved to do the selling of her, ‘twas she, thank you very much.

  She did not bloody well care what his royal haughtiness thought about her decision not to share her past. That horror was hers to bury, and bury it she would, as deep as the sea, if she could.

  This sudden need for...happiness, for a man she knew nothing about, husband or no, was misplaced, foreign, totally out of character. An aberration.

  Sabrina knew better than to allow her heart to become involved within marriage. The Duke of Stanthorpe might have purchased her body, but there existed no purse in all the kingdom large enough to purchase Sabrina Whit—Sabrina St. Goddard’s heart.

  And her husband knew it. She had already told him so.

  So why could she not remember?

  What ailed her today? How could she possibly forget such a hard-won lesson?

  ‘Twas her own nurturing body giving her trouble, Sabrina mused, as she soaped her big belly in soothing circles. Her mind and body worked unpredictably these days, and sometimes, even, independently of each other.

  ‘Twas the babe made her feel unsettled, emotional, needy.

  She suffered weakness and craved strength. Of course she would be tempted to turn to the first man to show both strength and gentleness. She had never come across the likes of Gideon St. Goddard in her life. But just because a man acted gentle in bed did not mean he would act anything like out of bed.