Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One)

by Annette Blair

  “So you left while your husband was still living?”

  “He died shortly thereafter.”

  For a moment, Gideon wondered if the man had died at her hand. If so, he could not blame her, but even the possibility made him regard his wife in a whole new way.

  “I see,” he said. “You never celebrated Christmas with Hawksworth, then, I take it?” Surely his friend would have celebrated as Gideon had always believed most people did.

  “Wellington got Hawksworth first,” Sabrina said.

  “So we got you,” Damon said.

  Hawksworth was their first choice, Damon did not quite say. Gideon was the man they ended up with, because Hawksworth died.

  Feeling very much unwanted, a mistake, in the way, too familiar an experience to be borne, Gideon rose from the bed. “Enjoy your horses, boys. Sabrina, I will not burden y—”

  Damon threw his arms around Gideon’s legs, stopping him beside the door. “Papa?”

  Heart thumping, limbs prickling—in triumph, if he heard correctly, in dismay, if he did not—Gideon regarded Damon, standing there, attached to his legs, looking up at him with a range of expressions too heady to name. “Thank you, Papa,” he said.

  Gideon hauled the boy into his arms and held him tight.

  After a minute, Damon leaned back and toyed with the knot in Gideon’s neckcloth. “I do not have a present for you,” he said.

  Kissing Damon’s small cheek, Gideon closed his eyes. “I have my Christmas gift,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Having you call me Papa is everything I ever wanted.”

  Sabrina began sniffling and searching again for his handkerchief.

  Gideon pulled it from his pocket and tossed it her way.

  She laughed as she caught it.

  Papa, when you least expected it, he thought. He was proud and humbled. But something uncomfortable and vague also filled him, because Damon caught him by surprise, he supposed. A lump of...inadequacy, perhaps, or incompetence clogged his throat and blurred his vision.

  Then all out fear gripped him. He did not feel qualified to fulfill the awesome duties required of a Papa.

  A lifetime of responsibility, times three.

  Once again, running, fast and far, seemed a wise choice, yet the trusting, hopeful eyes of a small lad rooted him to the spot.

  Gideon was not certain he was up to the task, but felt in that moment, with Damon’s faith, almost as if he could do anything.

  Someday, he might even make Rafe believe in him.

  Rafe, his reticent son, who, Gideon noticed rode his rocking horse with energy, smiled at them. “Lucky is a prime goer,” he said.

  Gideon carried Damon over to place him on his own horse, then he went back into his room, returning this time to give Juliana a doll twice her size, and the boys each a map puzzle.

  Then he brought out a German-made Noah’s ark, complete with two of every species. “This is to be shared by all our children, present and future.” He regarded the mother of said children, until she blushed.

  Then he brought out a stack of boxes for her. The boys came to watch her remove from the first a red velvet empire-style gown, vandyked ‘round the petticoat. “That one is for today,” Gideon said.

  From the second box, she removed a green velvet riding habit complete with a top hat trimmed in blonde lace. “That is for Hyde Park at five in the afternoon, so I may show you off.”

  From another, she removed a pale pink walking dress of jaconet muslin embroidered up the front. The same box held a matching cottage mantle of grey, lined with pale pink silk.

  Sabrina exclaimed and gasped in delight, thanking him, over and over, but despite her smiles, tears swam in her eyes, overflowing more often than not.

  Gideon went to his bedchamber and came back with a stack of handkerchiefs. “I should have done better to buy you six dozen of your own,” he said, to make her laugh, as he handed them to her.

  “You did not choose all these clothes yourself?” she said.

  “You must know that Grandmama picked them out for me. I purchased them from Madame Suzette, the dressmaker who created your ball gown. She had all your measurements, after all.”

  “The red velvet is perfect for today, but I cannot wear it, for I will need—”

  “You will find all you need in my bedchamber,” Gideon said stopping her. “I thought it best not to, you know, reveal every layer I purchased to all and sundry, though I do not hold to that rule where I, myself, am concerned and when we are alone, you understand?”

  Sabrina threw her arms around his neck. “You are the best Christmas gift any of us has ever received.” She kissed him. Then she ran into his room and shut the door to change.

  Her words, Gideon thought, ranked right up there as part and parcel of his best Christmas, ever, alongside Damon choosing today to call him Papa for the first time.

  Much as he would have liked to help Sabrina dress, he sat on the floor and helped the boys put together their map puzzle of India, telling them stories of his experiences there during his visit to a friend in the East India Company.

  By the time Grandmama sent for them, Sabrina was dressed and looking exquisite in red velvet. Before they went upstairs, Gideon handed the boys the perfume and handkerchiefs he had purchased for them to give their great-grandmother. From him and Sabrina, Gideon had purchased a ruby broach in the shape of a heart.

  “I am ashamed that I have nothing for her, myself,” Sabrina said.

  “Nonsense.” Gideon kissed her brow. “It is a wonder you do not become hysterical at the very notion of Christmas.”

  “I do.”

  In answer, Gideon could do nothing but hold his wife close, until the boys became so rowdy, they had no choice but to make their way upstairs to his grandmother’s private suite.

  Grandmama gave the boys each a tray of tin soldiers, one painted the bright red and white of the Life Guards, Gideon’s own regiment, and the other the deep blue of the Royal Horse Guards.

  To Sabrina she gave a pair of exquisite carved ivory combs to dress her beautiful, long hair, with a fan of painted silk and carved ivory to match.

  Juliana received a bright red shaker rattle that entertained the babe enormously.

  And to Gideon, her grandson, she presented his grandfather’s prized watch, and a copy of her will, with her love and pride.

  Later, the entire family and their guests, Miss Minchip, Mr. Waredraper and Doggett, sat down to partake of a sumptuous Christmas goose, with sliced beef, roasted parsnips and potatoes, and plum pudding for dessert.

  Two days later, Gideon, Sabrina and the children stepped into the foyer of Stanthorpe Place. “Lord, it is good to be home,” Sabrina said.

  Home? She stopped and looked about her, arrested by the sentiment. Yes, she had come to think of Stanthorpe Place as home, a gift of itself, a precious one that must be appreciated, and worked at, all year long.

  “I need to check my correspondence,” Gideon said, handing Juliana to Sabrina. “Five days is a long time to neglect the business of my estates. Give me an hour to read and catch up and I will see you upstairs.”

  He aimed for her cheek, but she turned and gave him her mouth. He accepted with enthusiasm, for several long beats. “You do know how to tempt a man,” he whispered with bright eyes as they pulled apart and he turned toward his study.

  “Do you need us to help you with your business, Papa?” Rafe asked.

  Gideon stopped dead and turned to regard the boy. His wonder, he knew, must be written plainly on his features. Wonder, yes, and humility as well, filled Gideon. He even waited for that uncomfortable and vague discomfort, that he had felt when Damon first called him Papa.

  But that unworthy feeling did not clog his throat or blur his vision, this time. And Gideon felt a modicum of self-worth reflected in the trust in the expressions on the two little boys waiting for his answer.

  A lifetime of responsibility, times three, no longer seemed so awesomely impossible. And running far and fast did
not even rank as a choice.

  Gideon got down on his haunches and opened his arms, and Rafe launched himself into that circle for the first time.

  With a single, breath-taking word, this boy had given him hope for the future, as his twin had done just a few days before.

  Gideon opened his arms for Damon to step in as well. Two boys who called him Papa. ‘Twas almost too much to take in.

  Gideon rose, clearing his throat and took the boys hands. “Sabrina,” he said, his voice rusty and telling. “I need the boys to help with estate business for a while. I think we can dispense with naps for this afternoon.”

  Eyes bright, Sabrina nodded. “Of course.”

  As he made his way to the study, holding the boys hands, contentment enveloped Gideon. Then he opened the study door and found Doggett, unconscious. Dried blood caked his temple. In his hand, he clutched a handful of brown hair shot with silver.

  Gideon sent the boys for Sabrina and told them to stay with Miss Minchip.

  Sabrina came down the minute she was informed and set the servants to getting Doggett back up to his bedchamber. Gideon sent for the doctor, who brought their friend around in good order.

  “Happened early this morning, your grace,” Doggett said.

  “Anybody you recognized?”

  “Didn’t see his face. Small frame. Wiry. Rifling through your papers. The fellows of my, er, acquaintance would be looking for shiny baubles to turn into quick brass. Nothing big or easy to spot. Never papers. The likes of them don’t read, ‘ya see.”

  Frustration heavy on his shoulders, Gideon returned to the master suite.

  “Did you find that anything important had gone missing?” Sabrina asked.

  “A few papers,” Gideon said. “Nothing for which to worry overmuch.” His new will, in fact, the one leaving his unentailed wealth and property to Sabrina and the children. The Hertfordshire estate to Rafe, the stud farm in Sussex to Damon, the equivalent—fifty thousand pounds—to Juliana, and two hundred thousand to their mother. The entailed assets would go to his heir, as should be, that inheritance considerably larger than the rest, though he would teach said heir to share with his siblings, make no mistake.

  Gideon was not happy to have such information out there where anyone could learn of it. He bristled particularly at the notion that Veronica might. She was dangerous enough without such powerful motivation. Worse, he feared that she had hired someone to steal the will.

  He did not know whether he should go again to speak with the runners, and then pay Veronica a visit, or whether visiting her should be attempted at all.

  Sabrina carried her own set of concerns. She suspected Lowick as the villain who broke in, that he would use the missing papers against Gideon in some way.

  “The papers that were taken?” she asked as she walked Juliana. “They worry you, do they not? They were of some value. Much more than you tried to let on.”

  “What makes you so clever?”

  “I have worried about money all my life,” she said. “Of course I will recognize the concern in others.”

  Gideon sighed and rose from the bed, an admirable male beast, all sinew and strength, the fire’s glow bronzing his skin and carving his face to hawk-like angles.

  Magnificent, alluring.

  “Always money,” he said, his attraction replaced of a sudden by an aura of danger. “No need to worry on that score, Sabrina. I still have the wherewithal to keep you in excellent style. But thank you for reminding me that you are here merely because I purchased you. My forgetting such an important fact could become tedious for the both of us.”

  When he shut the door between their rooms, Sabrina wept.

  After she put Juliana down for the night, she remained alone in her bed, awake, waiting, worrying that Gideon must finally be wrong.

  God help her; she was very much afraid that she was here because she wanted to be.

  If so, her greatest strength had deserted her—the ability to run and never look back.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  In his study, Gideon paced. He was a selfish bastard. But, damn all money to hell, he wanted Sabrina to be his, free of charge, and he did not know how to bring such a fool's fancy about.

  He could set her up with ten thousand pounds, now, today, make her independent, see if she made a final choice to stay. Except that he was afraid she would not. Though they were married, after all, why would she go?

  Fear. That was why. Sabrina was afraid of something, likely only of being poor. It all came back to the fact that making her independent was a risk he was not willing to take.

  If he were poor, however, and she decided to stay...In a rush of acknowledged madness, Gideon sat at his desk and began to write. By the time he was finished, he had forged a reasonably authentic-looking document attesting to the fact that he had lost all his funds on the ‘Change.

  His hand shook as he folded the forgery and placed it in a small hidden drawer at the back of his desk.

  Bold move, he thought. Too bad he was too much the coward to use it...yet.

  Back upstairs, outside Sabrina’s bedchamber door, despite the frustration raging inside him, Gideon wanted nothing more than to slip into bed beside her, place his arms around her, and close his eyes.

  Even in sleep, she soothed him. Giving into his desire, he entered her bedchamber and returned to her bed.

  It seemed as if he had no sooner settled against her, than Damon was tugging his arm. “Papa, Rafferty is afraid of the storm and I cannot—I mean Rafe cannot wake Miss Minchip.”

  “I am coming, Sweet,” Sabrina said, sitting up, all but talking in her sleep.

  “Stay,” Gideon told her, urging her back down. “Go back to sleep. I am still awake. I will see to Rafe’s fears.”

  “Mmm, thank—” That fast, Sabrina slipped back into the waiting arms of Morpheus.

  Gideon rose, slipped into his pantaloons and dressing gown, without lighting a candle, and lifted Damon into his arms to take him back up to the nursery.

  His head on Gideon’s shoulder, the winsome lad sighed. “Can I have a pony ride back?”

  Gideon chuckled. “Not up the stairs, you cannot. Despite indications to the contrary, I am not so mighty a steed as you suppose.”

  Some time later, Sabrina awoke to her daughter’s demands for nourishment and remembered Damon coming to them afraid of the storm.

  “Your brother must have come down an hour or more ago,” she told Juliana as she nursed. “I wonder what happened to your Papa?”

  Papa, Sabrina thought, remembering Gideon’s face just this morning when Rafe had called him that for the first time. How like a rogue, her rogue, to charm her children and claim them for himself, one by one.

  When he had returned earlier, after their quarrel, of sorts, though they had not spoken, he had seemed his roguish self again. He had sighed as if in contentment and become aroused just holding her in his arms, as if nothing had happened.

  And so it had not. Quite. An argument, but not. Only with Gideon could she imagine the like. Only with him could she emerge physically unscathed, yet emotionally bereft, mourning the loss of something she could not seem to wrap her mind around. “Even now, I cannot say what it is,” she told Juliana.

  When the babe finished nursing, Sabrina changed her and carried her upstairs to the nursery to check on the men in their lives.

  And there she found them, all in one bed, Gideon on his back in the center, snoring and snorting like the famous Puffing Billy Locomotive, his long, graceful, bare feet hanging off the bed’s bottom edge, a boy clutched in each arm.

  Drizzle slept between Gideon’s legs, Mincemeat sprawled draped across his chest. Animals always knew the difference between a good man and a dangerous one, Sabrina thought. Like her boys knew.

  “Papa is protecting us from the thunder,” Damon said softly, when she got close.

  “I think his snores scare the thunder away,” Rafe added.

  Sabrina chuckled. “Do you want me to sta
y, too?”

  “No,” her twins said in unison.

  “Sleep well, then,” she whispered, kissing all three foreheads, not certain how she felt about not being needed by her sons. But she did know of a sudden how she felt about this remarkable new Papa of theirs.

  She cared. And the knowledge frightened her.

  She cared a great deal more than she wanted to.

  Somewhere along the way, while she worried about Lowick and protected her children, had she become so distracted that she had forgotten to protect her heart?

  Had she already lost her heart to her husband without even realizing it?

  God help her, if she did. God help them all.

  As the storm howled without, and Sabrina fretted within, and everyone else at Stanthorpe Place slept, a man with a gold hoop in his ear, and another with a mustache, broke into Gideon’s study.

  “Lookee here, I found me a silver flask. Ah, and an ivory letter opener.” While one thief hid his baubles on his person, his crony dragged out a drawer and dropped it on the floor. Then he pulled out another. “That Doggett is a smart one, getting himself perched in this fancy nest.”

  “Not smart enough. Are Chinese snuff bottles worth anything?”

  “Some, take it anyway.”

  Elsewhere in the room, they discovered and took a venetian glass inkwell, a mother of pearl card case and a tortoiseshell snuff box in the shape of a shoe.

  * * *

  For the first time in weeks, the watcher stood across the street from number twenty three Grosvenor Square.

  He was strong again, nearly as strong as he used to be, though not nearly so fine. He was up to learning what he must, and setting everything to rights.

  So far, he had learned nothing but the fact that Stanthorpe had too many people coming and going at odd hours of the night.

  Right now, if he were capable of walking normally, he would walk right up to the door and knock. To the devil with the consequences.

  If he were capable.

  Images of the reason he was not, filled the watcher’s head with ugliness and horror, with the things men are forced to do, terrible things that changed their lives forever. Acts that ruin them, and often through no fault of their own, the innocents those men touch, and corrupt, in the doing.