The Care and Taming of a Rogue

by Suzanne Enoch

  Phillipa hid a wince. Hours in the company of Olivia’s silly, gossipy friends, on the very small chance that Bennett Wolfe might make an appearance, that she would have a bare moment to speak to him, and that she could converse without making herself look like an idiot again.

  “You’re infatuated, aren’t you?” Livi pursued. “You may pretend to be scholarly, but you blushed the other night when you met him.”

  “I admire his accomplishments,” Phillipa returned.

  Her sister looked at her for a moment. “Do you think I made a mistake in asking him to join us?” she finally said. “I mean, I read Captain Langley’s book. ‘A hesitant, unsophisticated follower.’ That’s how Langley described him.”

  “Well, I have read Captain Wolfe’s books, and I’m forced to disagree with that assessment.” Phillipa frowned. “And yesterday you were thrilled to be the first to have him attend a gathering.”

  “Yes, well, he’s famous. And he’s an absolute Adonis. I suppose if he doesn’t prove to be as popular as he once was, I can always say that I had to invite him because he’s residing with John Clancy.” She nodded to herself. “That will suffice, I think.”

  Phillipa shook her head. Yes, she’d read Wolfe’s two books and Langley’s one. And if Captain Wolfe was unsophisticated, he was by far the most lucky, eloquent, and witty simpleton she’d ever heard of.

  “Of course even if he is foolish,” Olivia continued half to herself, “he does have an income of five thousand a year. And he’s an adventurer. I know of several rather silly people who are quite popular. And they aren’t even as handsome as Captain Wolfe.”

  “How can anyone be as fickle as you are and still have friends?” Phillipa asked.

  Olivia grinned at her again. “I’m not fickle. I keep a large number of friends and beaux about me so that I may disappoint no one and still choose with whom I spend my time.”

  For a moment Phillipa considered changing her mind about attending the picnic. If Olivia had set her mind on winning Bennett Wolfe, anyone else trying to impress him, or even trying to carry on an intelligent conversation with him, would be pointless. Everyone fell in love with Olivia. And until that moment, she hadn’t minded that fact at all.

  After all, Olivia was three-and-twenty, and more than likely would marry within the next year or so. That would leave a great many disappointed gentlemen who knew the younger sister because of their pursuit of the older one. Some of them were pleasant, if a bit lag-brained. She knew her parents hoped that one of those disappointed gentlemen would offer for her.

  She did try on occasion, but for heaven’s sake, flirting was much more difficult than it was made out to be. So while at twenty-one years of age she should probably have been married already, she was quite resigned to waiting for one of Olivia’s castoffs. Someone who’d seen her—unique, as Livi called it—manner, and decided her dowry made up for it, or something.

  And so she kept it at the back of her mind, where it didn’t interfere with the things that truly interested her. Which didn’t explain why she didn’t like the idea of Olivia sweeping Bennett Wolfe into her endless collection of beaux. Perhaps because he seemed a step or two above all that, and because she didn’t want to be wrong about him.

  By the time Olivia had gathered the necessary servants and the baskets of food and the three carriage loads of items required for hosting a picnic in the middle of Mayfair during the high Season, Phillipa was near to wishing once again that she’d just decided to stay at home. Once they arrived at the designated corner of Hyde Park close by the Serpentine and overlooking a pretty patch of roses set beneath towering elms and oak trees, she sat on one corner of the largest of the picnic blankets and opened the book she’d brought along.

  She nearly always brought a book. That was why some of Livi’s friends called her a bluestocking. At least they never did so to her face, and rarely to Olivia’s, but she knew. And most times she didn’t care, because it kept her from having to converse with them. Fashion and gossip were like foreign languages she hadn’t quite mastered. She could stumble along for a bit, and then would become hopelessly lost.

  “I’m glad you wore your orange and white muslin,” Livi said, kneeling down beside her for a moment and planting a sound kiss on her cheek. “It makes your eyes look pretty. If you would look up from that book, everyone would see that.”

  Before she could reply, Olivia was up and roaming again, greeting her guests and chatting about some poor girl who’d worn the same dress twice already this Season. At least Phillipa was fairly certain it hadn’t been she; Olivia wouldn’t have allowed it.

  A pair of long legs in blue trousers and Hessian boots sat beside her. Phillipa stiffened, not feeling up to telling Livi’s latest admirer what her sister’s likes and dislikes might be. Then she looked over and relaxed as she recognized the bristly red hair and light green eyes belong to the Marquis of Emery’s fifth son. “Hello, John,” she said, with what felt like her first genuine smile of the afternoon.

  “Flip.” Lord John Clancy reached across her for a biscuit. “Just how many friends did Livi invite today?”

  “I have no idea, though I’m pleased she included you.”

  “We both know why she invited me,” he returned easily. “And she nearly uninvited me when I couldn’t guarantee Bennett’s presence. I’m lucky to have survived at all.”

  She sent him another glance. Well, now she couldn’t ask whether Captain Wolfe had decided to attend or not either, drat it all. “Speaking of you and Livi,” she said instead, “I haven’t seen you in her company as much this Season as I did last year. Have you given up the chase? Or has some other pretty young thing caught your eye?”

  With a look of his own at Olivia, he shrugged. “Why do some women prefer lilies, while others favor roses? Livi’s my lily and my rose. No rhyme or reason to it, but that’s how it is. I was attempting the maxim that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ but I realized that could only work if she noticed that I wasn’t about.”

  With a chuckle, Phillipa handed John a cucumber sandwich. “I missed seeing you at soirees, if that means anything. This year’s crop of beaux doesn’t have a brain among them. Thank goodness for the reading club or my brains would rot away entirely.”

  Six members of the brainless herd currently flirted with Olivia and her friends. From what she’d been able to overhear, whatever his current uncertain standing, all of them were rather pleased that the famous adventurer hadn’t made an appearance today. While she didn’t share their sentiment, she could appreciate it. After all, none of them stood up very well against him, even if he was unheroic—which he wasn’t.

  Perhaps she could discuss him without doing so directly. “Your friend owes me a book,” she said aloud, though she’d wanted to save that bit of conversation should the captain himself appear.

  “I reminded him of that this morning, though he was somewhat preoccupied with being bored. I’ll replace it for you if he doesn’t return it.”

  “Thank you, John, but that’s not necessary. I’ll purchase another for myself.”

  “I was attempting to be gentlemanly, Flip.”

  “Oh. I was only thinking that I could save you from having to deliver it.” She paused, scowling abruptly as she realized what the slightly pained look on his face meant. “You want to deliver it, as an excuse to see Olivia. Apologies.”

  “No need.” He grinned, leaning sideways to lift the corner of the book she held in one hand. “Golden Sun of the Serengeti? How many times have you read that now?”

  She smiled back, pleased that she at least had one friend with whom she didn’t have to dissemble about her lack of feminine charms and wiles. “I’ve lost count. I do still enjoy it, though.”

  “Mm hm. Literary skills aside, I have to say I’m ambivalent over Bennett’s absence. Your sister’s been raving about his godlike appearance for the past twenty minutes, which is why you find me over here in the levelheaded area of the luncheon in the first place.” Th
e marquis’s son scowled. “He’s not as handsome as all that, is he?”

  “You’ve seen him.”

  “Yes, but I’ve known him since before he began to tower over mortal men. You’re sensible. What do you think?”

  “I have to say, he has the requisite number of eyes, and a well-centered nose and mouth.” If every other female hadn’t already been mooning over him—sight unseen for the most part—she might have felt freer to express her own appreciation of his appearance. But she also wanted to make it clear that she admired Bennett Wolfe for his accomplishments, not for his handsome face and physique.

  “Ears?”

  She shook herself. “I’m afraid I recall two of them.”

  “Damn. Add that in with the monkey, and I’m beginning to be ecstatic not to add him into the mix today.”

  “Should I leave, then?”

  Phillipa jumped at the sound of the deep voice behind her. She whipped her head around to see…him. Captain Sir Bennett Wolfe wore a simple gray jacket, tan waistcoat that she thought she’d seen before on John, and buckskin breeches over that pair of worn-looking boots of uncertain color. Even in such relatively civilized clothing he still looked every inch the adventurer, and not just because Kero sat on his shoulder. It was those glinting green eyes, she decided. They’d seen a great deal more than hers had. A great deal more than had anyone else’s here today.

  “Of course you shouldn’t leave,” she said when she realized she was staring. “Olivia will be delighted that you’ve come.”

  He tilted his head as he looked down at her, a lock of his unruly dusky hair falling across one eye. “But you’re not Olivia.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Then you’re not delighted to see me.”

  Phillipa was fairly certain this time that she hadn’t said anything sharp-edged. He was therefore teasing her. Her. She couldn’t help the twitch of her lips. “I didn’t say—”

  At that moment Olivia squealed. “Oh, Sir Bennett! You’ve come after all!”

  In a second the captain was surrounded in such a stampede that Phillipa half thought she might be trampled there on the ground.

  “Well, this is disturbing,” John noted, and stood. He offered her a hand, and she rose as well.

  After five minutes of people jabbering at him, Captain Wolfe looked as though he was regretting his decision to attend the al fresco luncheon. Phillipa took Olivia’s arm and leaned up to whisper in her taller sister’s ear. “Have everyone sit down and let him breathe before you give him an apoplexy, for heaven’s sake.”

  Olivia furrowed her brow, as though she couldn’t fathom how anyone wouldn’t enjoy being mobbed by admirers. Then she gave a dazzling smile and suggested that everyone seat themselves and eat. Thank goodness. Livi did have common sense. She just occasionally needed to be reminded of that fact.

  Once the corner of the blanket cleared again, Phillipa resumed her seat. John sat beside her again and motioned for two glasses of Madeira from one of the footmen Olivia had brought along with them. Phillipa took a grateful swallow—and then nearly choked as Captain Wolfe lowered himself down on her other side.

  As a keen-eyed adventurer, he should have seen that a half-dozen stunning young ladies waited expectantly just a few feet away, all of them armed with clever ripostes and witty, watered-down banter. And none of those women looked happy with her. She gave herself credit for at least noticing that—not that she had any intention of pointing it out to the captain.

  “Jack called you Flip last night,” he said, ignoring both the rest of the group and his monkey as Kero left his shoulder to head up the twisted trunk of the nearest oak tree. “A nickname?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “When I was born, Livi couldn’t pronounce Phillipa, so I grew up as Flip. It’s what my friends and family all call me.”

  “I like it. But I prefer Phillipa.”

  She preferred it when he said her name like that, as well. It didn’t sound at all practical the way he pronounced it, even though everyone knew she was eminently practical. “Then you should call me Phillipa,” she said aloud.

  “It’s Lady Phillipa,” John amended from her right side.

  Green eyes narrowed, glancing beyond her to take in the marquis’s son. “I hadn’t realized that you and Jack are…a match.”

  Phillipa’s cheeks heated. “Oh, no. We’re not. John wants to marry Livi. He’s my favorite choice for a brother-in-law, so we’ve formed an alliance.”

  Captain Wolfe looked down to select a sandwich, and Phillipa would have been willing to swear that the corners of his mouth lifted. Before she could decipher what that meant, Olivia’s gossipy friend Sonja Depris gracefully seated herself opposite him.

  “Sir Bennett, you must tell us how you and Captain Langley survived the wreck of your boat and the crocodiles,” she urged.

  The line of his mouth flattened out again. “There’s nothing I could say that you haven’t already read.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “Miss Depris, did I ever tell you about my own adventures with a capsized boat?” Henry Camden interrupted. “It’s very harrowing, I assure you.”

  As Mr. Camden went on to describe a rather dull-sounding holiday to the Lake District, Phillipa kept her attention on the captain. She could hardly do otherwise. And he continued to gaze at her, in a way that made her feel…not uncomfortable, but jittery.

  “You didn’t know you’d been declared dead, did you?” she finally asked, mostly to have something to say.

  “No, I didn’t. Nearly gave Jack here an apoplexy when he saw me standing on his damned doorstep.”

  “I still may have one,” John said dryly. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “What about your family? Lord Fennington wrote very warmly about you in the foreword to Captain Langley’s book. They must have been…ecstatic to learn of your return.”

  The captain’s gaze lowered to her mouth. “You’re reading my book,” he commented, ignoring her question. He tapped the worn cover with one finger.

  “Yes. It’s fascinating.” She drew a breath. This was likely to be her best opportunity for an interesting conversation with him. “I have to ask, though, what you mean by ‘primitive.’ You use it several times to describe tribes who’ve never seen an Englishman before.”

  His eyes lifted to hers again, brilliant green, and touched, she thought, with a small measure of surprise. “Is this like your definition of ‘savagery,’ where the meaning depends on the circumstances?”

  “Oh. You heard that, then.” Her cheeks heated again, though she fought the idea that she had anything about which to be embarrassed. She’d made a good point the other night.

  “I did. Very astute, I thought.” He edged the slightest bit closer to her. “So do you actually want to discuss the dividing line between primitive and civilized behavior, or is there something else you wish to know?”

  Slowly he reached out again, straightening her sleeve. Where his fingers brushed her arm, warmth cascaded through her skin. She drew a quick breath in reaction. “Are you attempting to demonstrate the difference?” she asked.

  Captain Wolfe lowered his hand again, only to twist his fingers into the hem of her skirt. “This is very soft,” he said quietly, looking down. “Nothing in Africa is soft. It’s all thorns and sharp teeth and spear points.”

  Oh, goodness. Phillipa cleared her throat. “I…I believe Captain Langley said precisely the same thing in his book.”

  His gaze lifted again, more sharply. “Did he? Precisely the same thing?” Somewhere during the conversation his tone had changed from distantly amused to…dangerous. She couldn’t put her finger on it, precisely, but she realized that her muscles had tensed, readying her to flee from a predator who had only just arrived at the edge of her vision.

  “I believe so. I don’t have the book, so I can’t cite the passage for you.”

  “Ah, yes. I’ve been reading the book you loaned me. It says several things exactly how I would say them. Odd, t
hat.”

  No mention, of course, of if and when he would be returning it to her. “Perhaps you should write a book about the Congo yourself, then.”

  “Perhaps I already did.”

  Phillipa scowled. “Are we arguing about something? Because I prefer to have the topic stated before I choose a side.”

  Bennett Wolfe blinked at her, then laughed. The unexpected sound shivered pleasantly all the way down her backbone and the backs of her legs to the tips of her toes. To cover her sudden discomfiture, Phillipa reached for a peach. He beat her to it, then handed it into her palm. Their fingers brushed.

  “Your skin is soft, too,” he murmured.

  She had a sudden vision of his bare, callused hands roving over her naked body. “I bathe in lemon water,” she stated, her voice coming out more stridently than she would have wished.

  “Do you, now? Tasty.”

  Good heavens. “I don’t think you should be speaking to me this w—”

  Something hit her in the back, then traveled up to her shoulder, tugging on her hair. As she inhaled to shriek, a small, furry arm reached out past her cheek and grabbed for the peach.

  “Kero! Utasimama!”

  Phillipa swallowed her surprised yelp. At the same moment Captain Wolfe put a hand on her shoulder and reached across her to grab the monkey around the middle. He made a low, irritated-sounding cluck with his teeth and sat Kero down on his thigh.

  “Apologies,” he said roughly. “She generally doesn’t leap on people she doesn’t know.”

  She abruptly wondered if he did, though. “There’s no harm done,” she returned aloud. “She only startled me.” Working mightily to keep her hand steady, she offered the monkey the peach. “Here you are, Kero.”

  The monkey tilted her pretty gray and white head, then held out both front paws for the peach. As soon as she had it, she scampered back into the nearest tree. Phillipa watched her for a moment, then turned her attention back to Captain Wolfe to find him still gazing at her, an arrested expression on his face.

  “Captain Langley’s book said you found Kero in a market,” she ventured, abruptly uncomfortable with his singular attention. Everyone was beginning to notice. Even Livi looked put out. “What would have happened to her if you hadn’t purchased her?”