More Than a Rogue

by Sophie Barnes

  Mary met his gaze with defiance, informing him that she would not be put out by his tone. “She’s not a child, but a woman accustomed to living her life on her own terms. If you think for one second I might have been able to stop her, you’re wrong.” She straightened her spine, growing in height by at least half an inch. The edge of her mouth lifted and then she said, “But perhaps you should try?”

  “I intend to do precisely that,” Griffin said, leaving without even bothering to collect his hat. He’d manage without it. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d done so. Right now, speed was more important than fashion. He had to find Miss Howard before she left London and…and what? Returned to the quiet life she enjoyed at Clearview?

  A moment’s hesitation assailed him as doubt crept in. He’d kissed her because he’d needed to push away all the uncertainty, anger, and pain he’d felt when she’d mentioned his scar. He’d needed her to make him feel something else. So he’d surrendered to the temptation more easily than he should have only to find himself drugged by her sweet perfume. And then there had been her body, so soft and tempting and…

  He shook his head and quickened his pace. If she was going to Clearview then so was he. For her protection, of course. Letting her travel alone would be ungentlemanly. And besides, he had things to say, things that had to be said if he was going to avoid Caleb’s wrath and their mother’s censure. Even if proposing marriage did not fit well with his plans and the lady seemed reluctant to even consider such an outcome, he would do it. Because that was the honorable thing.

  So he found a free hackney and asked the driver to take him to the nearest coaching inn. He’d search them all if he had to, but he wasn’t about to let Miss Howard spend the night in one alone while dressed in fine silk. She’d be a target for certain – the notion tightened his chest and quickened his pulse. If anything bad were to happen to her, he’d never forgive himself.

  This thought increased when he failed to find her at the first inn they stopped at or at the second. It was now an hour since he’d quit the Camberly ball and… what if Emily had changed her mind? Perhaps she’d gone to her parents’ instead? Unsettled by his own increasing uncertainty, he decided to check one more inn and then set a course for the Howard residence. It was one o’clock in the morning, which meant there were still a few hours before the first carriage departed along the West Road. And if push came to shove, he’d collect his horse and ride to the first posting inn on the route and pray that he found her before any danger befell her.

  But luck was on his side, it would seem, for when he strode into The Swan With Two Necks, he found her in the taproom, sitting at a table with a couple of rough looking fellows whose leering smiles said all Griffin needed to know. He strode forward, grabbed the nearest one by the back of his jacket collar, and hauled him out of his seat. The other man stood, fists clenched and ready to fight.

  Griffin turned his scarred cheek toward him and sneered. “I suggest you take yourself and your friend away from this lady before I ruin your evening.”

  “I don’t think so,” said the man whom Griffin had just released with a shove.

  “It’s two against one,” said the second. “I think we can take a toff like you without too much trouble.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to try?” Griffin asked. His body was already honing itself in preparation for the first blow.

  “Damn right,” the first man snarled.

  Griffin caught a flash of movement. He heard Miss Howard gasp. Leaning sideways, he moved swiftly out of the way so the fist that came flying toward him only struck air. Pulling his arm back, he strained every muscle and pushed his fist forward, hitting his opponent squarely in the jaw. Spit flew from the man’s mouth as he yelped and fell onto a bench, slumped over and seemingly unable to counterattack.

  “Hey,” a broad-shouldered man with red hair yelled. “I won’t have you fighting in here. You’ll have to take that outside.”

  Griffin answered with a glare, and the man, most likely the innkeeper, took a step back. “If you’d asked these scoundrels to leave when they started harassing the lady, it wouldn’t have come to this.”

  “Watch out!”

  Griffin spun back to face the first man as soon as Miss Howard warned him, allowing him to duck just in time. He caught the man’s arm and used his momentum to send him stumbling toward the exit. The innkeeper nodded toward the barkeep who came to remove the men from the taproom.

  “Are you all right?” Griffin asked Miss Howard as soon as some order had been restored.

  She nodded but refused to meet his gaze. “Yes. Thank you. I’m glad you arrived when you did. It was silly of me to come here like this, dressed for a ball, but I…I just wished to escape as fast as possible and…” She swallowed. “You can return to Camberly House now, I should think. The—”

  “Absolutely out of the question.” Griffin gestured to the innkeeper and the man approached.

  “My apologies, sir. It’s pretty busy tonight as you can see. I didn’t realize the young lady was being disturbed.”

  “Perhaps you’ve a quieter room we can use?” Griffin asked. He did not like Miss Howard’s presence amidst the riffraff, for although he was now here to protect her against further harassment, it would not stop the men from ogling her.

  “There’s a vacant supper room in the back. Allow me to lead the way.”

  Griffin removed his jacket without even thinking, then offered his hand to Miss Howard. She eyed it for a second before accepting it, her fingers carefully curling over his skin in a way that caused heat to flare up inside him. She stood and he draped his jacket over her shoulders.

  “Hold it shut with your free hand,” he instructed.

  She did not argue, for which he was grateful. Apparently she was not completely devoid of common sense, as her hasty departure from Camberly House and her rash decision to come here would have suggested. He kept her close to his side while leading her forward, past some drunken patrons and into the room the innkeeper had to offer. It contained a table and four chairs, nothing more.

  Griffin reached inside his trouser pocket and pulled out a couple of shillings. “For your troubles,” he said, handing the coins to the innkeeper. “Do you have minced meat pie?” The man nodded and Griffin affected a pleased smile. “We’ll have two plates of that then and a bottle of your best red wine.”

  The innkeeper pocketed the shillings without comment and left. Griffin closed the door. He turned to face Miss Howard, her hand still clutching the front of his jacket. “The wine will help ease your nerves,” he told her.

  “Yes. Thank you.” She spoke as if in a daze, then blinked and removed the jacket and held it toward him.

  Griffin stared. At Camberly House he’d been so distracted by Mr. Bale, and by Miss Howard’s possible reason for venturing into the garden with him, he hadn’t really considered what she was wearing. The gown was a vibrant shade of blue, far too bold for a debutante to wear but acceptable, he supposed, for a more mature woman considered to be firmly on the shelf.

  He flexed his fingers and tried not to let his gaze linger too long on the low dip of her décolletage or on the swell of her perfect bosom. “You should keep that for now. Until you reach your destination.”

  Her eyes widened. “I couldn’t possibly.”

  “I insist.”

  “But won’t you be cold without it?”

  He snorted. “Not in the least.” Indeed he was hot as hell at the moment. “Certainly no more than you.”

  She pressed her lips together, and he could practically hear her mind trying to come up with further arguments against his effort to cover her up, but then she sighed and put the jacket back on, and Griffin breathed a sigh of relief. Her beauty alone would likely drive him mad by morning. The last thing he needed was the additional lure of her body when all he could think of right now was that they were alone, away from Society, and perfectly free to continue where they had left off earlier.

  He gestured towar
d the chair closest to her and waited for her to sit before claiming the one opposite. A waiter arrived with their wine and swiftly departed with the assurance that their meal would be ready soon.

  “About the kiss,” Griffin said once they’d both had a sip of their wine and he’d spent a good minute or two determining how to best broach the subject. Eventually, he’d decided to be direct, since this would be the most efficient course. “I have no regrets,” he assured her.

  She met his gaze directly, refusing to shy away even as her cheeks turned a deep shade of pink. He had to admire her for that.

  “Thank you.”

  He hadn’t expected her to reciprocate the sentiment, but he realized now that he wished she had. “It would seem that you do, however, for which I am sorry.”

  She knit her brow as if pondering something important, and then she expelled a long sigh and sagged in her chair. “I could have stopped it from happening, but I did not do so, which means I am just as much to blame.”

  “And then you ran away.” Somehow this was worse than if he’d proposed and she’d turned down his suit. It proved how determined she was to avoid an attachment to him. Which grated, even though it should not do so.

  Why did her wanting him matter so damn much?

  “If I’d stayed, my mother would have spoken to my father and then he would have had no choice but to make demands which would have led to a duel if you’d refused and—”

  “I would not have refused,” he told her calmly.

  She clenched her jaw, her eyes lit with fierce understanding. And yet, she still mistook his meaning. “I don’t want to force any man into marriage. Least of all when it is unnecessary to do so.”

  “Your mother may disagree with you there.”

  Miss Howard took another sip of her wine. “She will never accept that I won’t be anyone’s wife.” A hint of pain in her voice caused Griffin’s heart to contract. “But I lost my chance at matrimony a long time ago. No,” she added when he prepared to point out that the chance she spoke of had just been presented to her, only she’d turned it down. “Being forced into matrimony for the sole purpose of placating others does not count.”

  “And yet you still chose to give the whole kissing business a go, even though you knew the risk.” He spoke with a lighter tone than earlier, deliberately waggling his eyebrows in an effort to lighten the mood.

  It worked. More or less.

  Miss Howard’s lips twitched. “I cannot deny it.”

  Griffin smiled, content with her answer and happy to see her relax.

  “So how was it?” He did not ask because he wanted her to flatter his ego, but because he was genuinely curious to know her thoughts on the matter and, if he were being completely honest, to discover if it had affected her to the same degree it had affected him. With feverish awareness.

  She bit her lip. “Honestly?”

  He frowned but nodded in spite of his sudden apprehension.

  “I don’t really see what the fuss is about.”

  Griffin stared at her, almost missing the fact that the waiter had returned with their food and was placing each plate before them. “Will that be all for now?”

  “I believe so,” Miss Howard remarked. She stared back at Griffin who suddenly blinked, glanced at his plate, and then waved the waiter away. The door closed behind him.

  “In other words, it wasn’t as good as you thought it would be?”

  Miss Howard was already cutting into her pie. She glanced at him as if considering a puzzle. “Truthfully, I expected more of a sparkle.”

  “A sparkle?”

  “Or a fizz.”

  ‘“You’re making no sense.”

  She popped some food in her mouth and proceeded to chew while he started cutting his own pie into tiny little pieces.

  “I knew being honest would be a mistake,” she murmured. “It wasn’t my intention to offend you in any way, merely to inform you that the kiss we shared with each other this evening was…” She drew a sharp breath and returned her attention to her food.

  “What?” Griffin asked. He’d completely obliterated his pie by now and was reaching for his wine.

  “I dare not say.”

  “But I am asking you to,” he told her in the most patient voice he could manage while this innocent woman destroyed his masculine pride.

  “It wasn’t unpleasant,” she said as if trying to placate a child. “In fact, I do think I’d like to try it again, but considering my…er…your…”

  “What?” he asked, no longer able to hide his frustration.

  “Well, you’re terribly handsome.”

  Griffin drew a deep breath, the strain on his body relaxing if only a little. She thought him handsome. Now there was a start. “And you’re incredibly stunning,” he murmured, since it was only fair to let her know she appealed to him as well.

  “Right. I mean, thank you.” She ate some more pie and drank some more wine while Griffin decided to do the same. But the silence between them was filled with words yet unspoken until she said, “I suppose that is why I expected more. Because of this mutual attraction we’ve shared since the moment we met.”

  Griffin almost choked on his food. He’d never heard a woman be so bold as to call direct attention to the obvious, no matter how awkward it threatened to make things. “Ah.” Was that really all he could say right now?

  Apparently.

  She pursed her lips. “Considering everything Cass and Mary have said about kissing over the years, I rather expected to feel like fireworks had been set off inside me.”

  He gaped at her, unsure which part of that statement he ought to address first. He decided to settle on the part that bothered him most. “There is more to it than I showed you.”

  Her face lit up. “Well that would explain it then.” She drummed her fingers slowly against the top of the table and scrunched her nose as if in thought. “Would you be willing to demonstrate?”

  “Er…” Griffin’s entire body responded with eager anticipation. His stomach tightened and his heart began to race. He instinctively glanced at the door and forced himself to speak the necessary words. “I don’t think that would be wise.”

  Disappointment filled her eyes even though he could tell she tried to hide it with a smile. “Of course not. One lapse in judgment is more than enough for one evening.”

  He briefly considered explaining that he disagreed and that his reluctance was solely driven by his desire for more than what she was asking of him. After all, she’d said she and her friends had discussed such matters, and with Lady Cassandra’s history taken into account, he was certain Miss Howard must know a thing or two about what could happen between a man and a woman. But that wasn’t really the sort of discussion he wanted to have with her right at the moment, so he chose to say nothing and simply enjoy the rest of his meal.

  For the first time that evening, Emily was embarrassed. After all, she’d turned him down flat when he’d offered to ask for her hand – had not even given him the chance to do his duty as a gentleman – and had then suggested they kiss some more. As if locking lips with each other was just as normal as taking a stroll through the park. “I think you ought to return to Camberly House and inform everyone that I am all right. Tell Mama and Papa that I shall write to them once I reach Clearview.” They’d finished their meal and she’d come to the conclusion that she’d rather be alone than spend more time in Lord Griffin’s company.

  Wanting him was too painful when he did not want her in return. If he did, he would not have sounded so resigned earlier when he’d spoken of marrying her.

  “Absolutely not. I’ll send a note to Caleb right now, informing him that I mean to escort you on your journey. Unless I’m able to talk you out of going, which would be the preferable option.”

  Of course it would be. Anything to put an end to this evening’s disaster and quit her company. Emily bristled. “I am not a debutante in need of constant supervision, but a woman accustomed to managing things o
n her own.”

  “As you proved most effectively half an hour ago in the taproom.”

  She glared at him, annoyed by the note of sarcasm in his voice. “I’m sure that was due to the way I am dressed.”

  He let his gaze roam over her shoulders and down across her breasts until she was tempted to block his view by pulling his jacket closed. But she didn’t, because that would show weakness – a sign of defeat – and she meant to win this argument if at all possible.

  “Are you planning to change into something less…alluring before you depart?” He asked the question softly, his words sliding across her skin in the most provocative way imaginable.

  Emily made a stoic attempt to ignore the hot little shivers his voice evoked. She would not let him turn her into a breathless ninny when he was so calm and collected. “I’ve nothing else with me and before you suggest it, I will not go back to my parents’ house in order to fetch my belongings before I leave.”

  He frowned. “Because you fear you might find them at home by now?”

  She gave a quick nod and averted her gaze. “Mama can be horribly pushy, and with my sister still unwed, she will plot a way to ensure we marry after what happened earlier. Especially if I give her the chance to do so.” Forcing herself to look at him, to show her strength and her resolve, she stared straight into his dark brown eyes. “And neither of us wants that. Do we?”

  “No.” The word was gently spoken, but that did not make it less exact. Like an arrow shot with precision, it confirmed everything she already knew. And then to underline it, he added, “Marriage is the very last thing I want, and I believe it is for you as well.”

  “Yes.” She would not give anything away at this point. She would not tell him that she might consider marriage if he was willing to do so, that she wouldn’t mind getting to know him better during the course of a courtship, that she would welcome the excuse to kiss him some more. Instead, she told him, “I am very content with my life and the freedom I’ve managed to acquire by living apart from Society. The last thing I want is to lose all of that by subjecting myself to a man’s will.”