Married to the Rogue

by Lancaster, Mary

  Hastily, she looked away and found Rupert watching her.

  “How long have you been married?” he asked her.

  “Three days,” she replied calmly.

  He blinked and began to laugh. “One thing about my family. We can always entertain a lady. Chris, you scurvy dog, what do you mean by not taking your delightful wife on a wedding trip?”

  “And thereby allowing you free rein to bleed all over my house?” Christopher said and walked out the door.

  “At least you noticed,” Rupert said, eyeing his brother with disfavor. “Josh, you go back to the ship and wait for me. I’ll find you when it’s safe. Let the excisemen search it if they want, they’ll find nothing now, and you can play innocent fishermen.”

  “Take care, Josh,” Deborah said guiltily to the large man in the rakish bandage, who looked surprised and then grinned at her on his way out the door.

  “You take care of him,” he advised, nodding at Rupert, and vanished.

  “Where should we put him?” Christopher asked Deborah as the wheels of the wagon and the horses’ clearly covered hooves moved softly away into the distance. “Which chamber is habitable?

  Deborah considered. “The one next to yours is clean, though the bed is not yet made up. No one but you would really have cause to be in that part of the house.”

  Christopher nodded. “Very well. You go ahead, cough if anyone happens to be about, which they shouldn’t at this time of night. Dudley, you watch out behind, and I’ll hold Rupert up.”

  “I can walk by myself,” Rupert said impatiently.

  “Perhaps. Deborah?”

  Deborah snatched up the medicine box and the bowl and rags and led the way up to the kitchen where they waited while she replaced the box, then threw away the bloody water and rags, and rinsed out the bowl. Then she led the way up the side stairs closest to Christopher’s bedchamber. Despite his protests, Rupert was leaning heavily on his cousin’s arm.

  “Sit him in a chair while I fetch the bed linen,” she murmured and hurried on to the linen room.

  When she returned to the room next to Christopher’s, she found them plying Rupert with brandy.

  While she hastily spread on the clean sheets and pillowcases, Christopher said to Dudley, “That was you creeping past my bedchamber, wasn’t it?”

  “You were supposed to be asleep. I didn’t know you were lodged away over here in any case.”

  “I had a lot on my mind. But I confess, I didn’t know you could move so quietly.” Christopher came toward her, helped her tuck the sheets under the mattress, and heaved the blankets on top.

  “How domestic is Christopher?” Rupert marveled from his chair. “Amazing what three days of marriage can do for a man.”

  “You just think I won’t hit you because you’re wounded.”

  “You won’t,” Rupert said smugly.

  “I can still torture you with gruel and noxious medicines. And the quack if you give me any trouble.”

  Ten minutes later, with the patient drifting off to sleep, they left his chamber.

  “Good night,” Dudley said in relief.

  “Good night.” Christopher took Deborah’s arm, urging her toward his bedchamber in the other direction.

  She glanced at him in sudden alarm, and a gleam of mockery shone clearly in the candle flames. “We are married, you know. It’s perfectly proper. I need to talk to you.”

  He opened his door and ushered her inside. A lamp burned in the room, and he lit another candle from his own. The chamber looked slightly tidier than the last time she had seen it. Only a coat had been slung over the back of a chair. A few papers were scattered over the desk, some half-hidden beneath a large book.

  He removed the coat, flinging it on the bed instead, and waved her to the chair. He sat opposite her on the edge of the bed, which somehow seemed ridiculously intimate.

  “I won’t keep you,” he murmured. “You must be exhausted. I just wanted to thank you for looking after Rupert. And me. I’m sorry to drag you into it.”

  “Your family seems to have an adventurous life. And you didn’t drag me. I followed someone—probably you, now I think about it—down to the kitchen and voluntarily chose to involve myself. And despite his present…er… profession, your cousin does not appear to be a vicious man.”

  “He isn’t. I said at the time he could only have killed Harlow—his dueling opponent—by accident. I’d be surprised if he meant to hit him. But there, dueling is a stupid, chancy business.”

  She blinked. “I thought you would be all in favor of it?”

  “Why?” he shot back. “Because it fits everyone’s view of me as a reckless young man about town?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  He scowled, then his brow cleared, and he laughed. “I can’t really defend myself when I almost rode you down.”

  “And are now hiding your cousin from the law and the excisemen.”

  “But mostly from my grandfather.” He held her gaze. “You don’t think I’m serious at all, do you?”

  “Of course, I do. You are quite determined about the school and about politics.”

  “Just not in my personal life?”

  “That is none of my business.”

  “Would you like it to be?”

  She frowned, uncomprehending, and he smiled, rising from the bed and walking toward her. Her stomach tightened, for barely dressed with his rumpled hair and gleaming eyes, he looked now every inch the dangerous young buck. Attraction battered at her, drawing her to him so that when he held out his hand, she gave him hers, and he drew her to her feet. Too close to him. Much too close.

  He seemed to be waiting for an answer. Wildly, she dredged up his last question.

  Would you like it to be?

  “Would I like what to be?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Would you like my personal life to be your business?”

  In that instant, she wanted to be his personal life. All of it, shutting out the past and the future and leaving only this moment, when he stood so close to her, holding her hand and gazing down at her as if she were the only woman in the world.

  But that wasn’t their agreement.

  “Of course not,” she managed. “I am happy to abide by our agreement.”

  “Then I must let you go,” he said lightly. And yet he didn’t release her for a long moment. His blue eyes stared down into hers as though looking for something. It felt like drowning, and yet it wasn’t unpleasant. She could have stood there forever.

  It was he who moved first, slowly and, she could almost have imagined, reluctantly as he walked with her to the door. He only released her hand when he relit her candle and gave it to her.

  “Sleep well,” he murmured and dropped an unexpected kiss on her forehead before he opened the door.

  She was halfway along the passage to her own chamber, feeling as though she were walking on air, before she wondered if she had actually disappointed him.

  Now that was a heady thought.

  Chapter Nine

  When Deborah walked into the breakfast parlor the following morning, she was surprised to find everyone already there. However, it did not seem to signify Lord Hawfield’s early departure from Gosmere. On the contrary, he observed what a difference she had made to the house already.

  “It needs very little,” she replied. “Just to be aired and brightened and lived in.”

  “Well, I believe I am happy to help with the last,” he said jovially. “I’ll stay a day or two.”

  Carefully, Deborah avoided looking at her husband. “You are most welcome. So long as you don’t object to the upheaval going on around you.”

  “Not in the slightest. I am quite happy to potter about and keep out of the way.”

  “Come and see the school, if you like,” Christopher invited.

  The old man curled his lip. “I suppose you have destroyed the old place already. The dower house was a fine building in its own right, you know.”

  “It still
is,” Christopher argued. “But now it will have a purpose. After all, I have no mother to put in it. Shall we go, Gates?”

  Christopher smiled at her on his way past, causing her heart to flutter for no obvious reason. She tried not to think of her relationship with Christopher, for it seemed to be changing on her part, and that way led to misery. Fortunately, Hawfield and Dudley began to leave the parlor shortly after Christopher and Deborah returned to the sideboard as though for second helpings and more coffee.

  As soon as they left, she whipped a napkin over her plate of smoked fish, toast, ham, and tomatoes, and crept to the door. She could still hear Dudley and his grandfather outside the door.

  Dudley was saying, “…glad to see you coming around to her, for—”

  “Not coming around to her at all,” growled Lord Hawfield. “I want to find out what she’s up to.”

  Dudley groaned. “Does she need to be up to anything? It’s my belief she’s actually a very fine girl, and, moreover, good for Christopher.”

  “Nonsense. He married her to spite me, but I’ll still find a way to part them. Do you see their chambers are at opposite ends of the house?”

  Behind the door, Deborah flushed uncomfortably but seemed unable to move away. What was it they said about eavesdroppers?

  “I don’t see what good that does you, Grandpapa. If you’re thinking to have the marriage annulled on those grounds, I don’t see anyone buying Christopher’s impotence!”

  The old man gave a crack of laughter, and Deborah wanted to die. “No, but there are grounds if she’s denying him her bed.”

  “Leave it alone, Grandpapa,” Dudley said wearily. “No good will come of your interference. In fact, you being here is cementing her position with….”

  Their voices trailed away, leaving her suddenly more thoughtful than embarrassed. It had never entered her head that a marriage could be ended on such grounds. Or, in fact, on any grounds other than death.

  Still deep in thought, she left the room, clutching her plate and cup, and sailed along the passage to the side stairs so that she could approach Rupert’s chamber without being seen.

  She scratched at the door and opened it a crack. “It’s Deborah,” she hissed. “May I come in?”

  “Please do,” came the immediate, amused response.

  She whisked herself inside and closed the door.

  Rupert was sitting up against the pillows, his face just a little flushed, regarding her with a friendly smile.

  “How are you?” she asked, bringing her plate and cup to the bed and setting them on the nightstand.

  “Perfectly well, but Christopher made me promise to stay in bed, so I don’t pace around and give myself away. At least that’s what he said, but in fact, he wants me to look like an invalid when he brings the doctor here for no reason.”

  “You’ve seen Christopher this morning?” she said.

  He blinked. “Have you not?”

  “Just at breakfast, but we couldn’t talk about you because of Lord Hawfield and Mr. Gates being present. Do you like coffee? And I brought you this in case you are hungry.”

  Fortunately, this seemed to distract him from her lack of conversation with Christopher, and he fell on the plate with some gusto.

  “Christopher has gone to the dower house,” she said, passing his cup from the table to his good hand, “which he is turning into a school. Has he sent for the doctor?”

  Rupert wrinkled his nose, drank, and passed her back the cup. “He said he would bring him straight away, though I’m dashed if I know why. He never used to be such a fuss-pot. Mind you, he never used to be such a slow-top either.”

  “In what way?” she asked.

  “You, for a start,” he said frankly. “But never fear. I know it’s none of my business, and my lips are sealed.”

  “I’m sure you know ours is a marriage of convenience,” she said calmly. “Within that, we are friends. More coffee?”

  “Thank you.” As he drank, he regarded her over the cup.

  “Will your ship wait for you?” she asked.

  “As long as it’s safe.”

  “It doesn’t seem a very safe profession.”

  “Free-trading?” He shrugged. “Safer than some, more fun than most. For a while, anyway. It was only meant to be for a few months until it was safe to come home.”

  She blinked. “Did you expect your family to obtain you a pardon?”

  “I expected them to prove I didn’t do it!” Rupert fumed.

  “But, I thought it was a duel.”

  “It was. I didn’t shoot.”

  “And yet, your opponent died?”

  “Shot straight through the heart, apparently.”

  She frowned. “Dueling pistols have hair triggers, do they not? Perhaps you fired without meaning to.”

  “I think I would know whether or not I fired my own pistol!”

  “Of course, you would,” she soothed. “I was only thinking aloud.”

  Rupert munched his remaining toast, appearing to recover his good humor. “So, tell me who you are and how you met my cousin. Who is your family?”

  “My family’s name is Shelby. My father was a country vicar, and when he died, we moved to a cottage on the edge of Coggleton. I met your cousin when he was in a towering rage with your grandfather for refusing to break the trust early and give him his inheritance.”

  Rupert grinned. “That sounds more like Chris. I hope you made him work for forgiveness.”

  She smiled faintly, taking his empty plate from him.

  Rupert watched her, then said, “Thing is, I know Chris. He didn’t just marry you to get his hands on Gosmere.”

  “It suited us both to be married,” she replied calmly.

  “Did it, by God?” He searched her face with sharp, perceptive eyes that were too like Christopher’s. “Well, you could have done worse than Chris. He’ll do anything for you and make you laugh at the same time. Once he likes you. Do you play cards, Cousin Deborah?”

  Since she was worried he had developed a fever and thought she should watch him for signs of it, she agreed to play. On her way to fetch cards, she made sure the staff and cleaners were doing as she wished, then returned to Rupert’s chamber and played a calm form of whist until the door abruptly opened, and Christopher walked in with a stranger.

  “This is Dr. Nairn,” Christopher said, his brows raised in surprise to see Deborah sitting on the edge of Rupert’s bed.

  She sprang up, gathering the cards, much to Rupert’s clear annoyance.

  Christopher’s gaze came back to his cousin. “I told him about your hunting accident, and he thought he had better take a look.”

  “Can I bring you anything, Doctor?” Deborah asked.

  The doctor set down his bag and advanced on his glaring patient. “I shall let you know when I’ve seen the injury. Don’t be a baby, young man.”

  Christopher grinned, and Rupert looked around for something to throw at him.

  “We should wait outside,” Deborah said, seizing her husband by the arm and tugging him toward the door.

  Since he didn’t resist, she released him in the passage.

  “Were you nursing him?” Christopher asked mildly.

  “Just helping him pass the time since he’s bored, and I don’t care for the flush in his cheeks. I’m glad you brought the doctor. Although, you could have sent him. Even if your grandfather saw him, he could be here to visit any of the household.”

  “True, but I didn’t want any discussion about hunting accidents and injured young gentlemen. How do you find him?”

  “Your cousin? Cheerful but chafing and bearing a grudge. He says he didn’t kill anyone in that duel.”

  “Well, the man is dead,” Christopher said flatly.

  “He claims he didn’t shoot.”

  Christopher frowned. “It isn’t like him not to admit responsibility. Perhaps he learned that from his new smuggling acquaintances.”

  “Perhaps,” she allowed. She thought
for a moment. “Were you there?”

  “At the duel? Lord, no. I was staying with friends in Cornwall. By the time I heard and dashed back to London, Harlow was dead, and my grandfather and Dudley had got Rupert out of the country. It was quite a scandal for some time.”

  “But you never heard of any effort to prove his innocence?”

  “No.”

  The door opened suddenly, and the doctor stood there, carrying his bag and his hat. “The wound looks well enough. I’ve given him something to fight the infection. Give him some more at night, keep him resting in bed, and he should do very well. If he worsens, call me back. Good day, Mrs. Halland. Mr. Halland.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Deborah said. “I’ll walk downstairs with you.”

  Leaving Christopher to sit with his cousin, she led the doctor down the side stairs to the ground floor, where Hunter materialized to show him out. She was just going in search of Mrs. Dawson when she heard Hunter loftily addressing some other visitors at the door.

  “Mr. Halland is not at home.”

  “Mrs. Halland, then,” came an aggressive voice.

  “State your business, and I shall inquire,” Hunter said.

  “My business is the business of the crown, and so you may tell your mistress! I am the representative of His Majesty’s Excise—”

  “One moment,” Hunter said and shut the door.

  Deborah hurried across the hall to meet him, frowning interrogatively.

  “I’ll just deny you’re home,” he murmured.

  “They’ll keep coming back, and that we don’t want.” She drew in a breath. “Bring them to the reception room.”

  Hastily, in order to give the impression that she was a busy woman merely allowing them a moment for their unlikely investigation, she bolted into another room, which contained little more than a large billiard table. She must speak to Christopher about that later. For now, she had to decide how to be rid of the excisemen without betraying Rupert. She was not used to lying, and the idea made her uncomfortable, but it was unthinkable to give up Christopher’s cousin.