Claimed by the Rogue (27 page)

Billy hesitated. “Well, um…she didn’t say I
couldn’t
come.”

Improbably, Robert cracked a laugh. “Fair enough, but there’s no sense in both of us being in her black books.” Clapping a hand upon the lad’s shoulder, he steered them away from the sight. “I’ll see you home to the Hospital before anyone’s the wiser.

The warehouse and its contents were beyond salvage but there was one hope for redemption: Phoebe. Praying he might not be too late there too, he steered Billy away from the wharves.

Chapter Eleven

At first Phoebe thought the pinging upon her bedroom windowpane must be rain. Dressed for bed, she hurried across the room to close it. Seeing that the sky was as yet dry, she started to turn away when she glimpsed a male form step into a shaft of moonlight.

Robert.

One hand fisted about what must be a palm full of pebbles, he made a cone of the other and called up, “Psst, Phoebe!”

She lifted the window sash higher and leaned her head and shoulders out. “Go. Away,” she answered as loudly as she dared.

Fortunately her bedroom lay at the back of the house overlooking the garden. Still, if anyone were to observe them, she would be finally and forever finished. Given the lengths to which Robert had shown himself capable, she wouldn’t put it past him to try and ruin her as a last resort.
 

He shook his head. “I’m coming up.” He grabbed two-fisted hold of the vines and levered himself up, one boot finding a foothold on the stone facing.

“You’re a madman,” she called out again, fear pitching her voice far higher than was safe.

A chink in the cement sent him slipping. Heart in her throat, Phoebe sucked back a breath. In light of his earlier performance as Mother Geneva, she should be rooting for him to break his neck, and yet despite everything he’d done to plague her she sent up a silent prayer for his safekeeping.
 

He caught himself, a smear of blood blooming from the scrape on his forearm. Gaining the balcony, he hauled himself over the rail. A thump announced he’d landed albeit none too gently. The French doors were bolted from within, preventing him from going through them to the house. To get to her, he would have to climb one more story. Ironwork Juliet balconies extended from the chamber windows, including hers. Losing sight of him, she surmised he must have grabbed onto the metalwork and levered himself onto the ledge. A whoosh of breath announced he’d made it. Craning her neck, she saw him once more. Back flattened against the house, he skirted the narrow shelf toward her.

“What the devil are you doing here?” Even in the open air, she could smell the charring that clung to him.
 

“I’ll answer in good time, but first let me in, will you?” He stretched out a sooty hand.
 

For a fraction of a second, she considered shutting the window in his face. Instead she leaned out, took hold of his wrist and guided him toward her. Once he was level with the window, she let go and moved back to make room.

Holding onto the frame, he climbed in and leapt down. “Milady.” Landed at her feet, he sketched a brief bow. Straightening, he glanced about. Phoebe tried seeing the chamber through his eyes—the delicate furnishings and prodigious quantities of flounces and chintz, the chased silver mirror and brush set, the mementos from childhood, including a worse-for-wear china-faced doll. “I always wondered what your bedchamber must be like,” he admitted, gaze going back to her.

“Now that you’ve satisfied your curiosity, you may be on your way.”
 

His stark gaze struck hers. “I’d rather satisfy you.”

Such leading language left her abashed. Before she could think what if any reply to make, Pippin bounded over, tail thumping. “There’s a good fellow,” Robert said, stooping to stroke him.

Pippin’s tail wagging picked up pace and his black lips pulled back in a blissful doggie smile—traitor. “He likes you,” she said albeit grudgingly.

Expression rueful, Robert glanced down at the droplets of drool upon his boots and back up at her. “I’d rather he liked me less.” Holding her gaze, he added, “And that you liked me more.”

Phoebe crossed her arms over her breasts, the posture the best she could manage in the way of a shield. “After the deceit you affected at the fair, you should count yourself fortunate I didn’t close the window in your face—or upon your fingers.”

Straightening, he asked, “Why didn’t you?”

She unfolded her arms and waived a hand in the vicinity of his face. Though most of his theatrical cosmetics had worn off, his warty witch’s nose stuck on stubbornly. “Given the fire, making you part with your digits seemed crueler than even you deserve. By the by, your nose is melted.”

Flush-faced, he tore the faux feature off and tossed it aside. “I suppose thanks are in order.”

Phoebe hesitated. “Did you lose much?”

Tight-lipped, he nodded. “I lost everything, all my personal cargo from the past two years.”

“I am so sorry,” she said, meaning it.

He shook his head. “No, I’m the one who is sorry. Playing at Mother Geneva seemed harmless enough in the moment, but now I see it for what it was—an abominable abuse of your trust.”

Phoebe didn’t disagree. “Why did you do it?”

His gaze wavered. “I suppose I had things I wanted to say to you, and it seemed simpler to do so whilst hiding behind a disguise.”

“Dressing up as a gypsy woman and playing me for a fool seemed simpler than speaking to me honestly?” It was only after he’d left that she’d recalled “Mother Geneva” as Cockney cant for gin.

He hesitated, swallowing hard, the motion pulling at the muscles of his throat, a throat that despite everything Phoebe badly wanted to press her lips upon. “The only person who played the fool today was me. I’d like to make amends, if I may.”
 

Phoebe forced a shrug. “None of us have the power to turn back time, or so says ‘Mother Geneva.’”

Robert’s lips curved into a smile. “True, but as that wise woman also remarked, the future remains to be writ upon.” He looked beyond her. “That’s an awfully large bed for one slender woman. I wonder, is it as commodious as it looks?” Without waiting to be invited, he crossed the carpet toward it.

Once a rogue, always a rogue
, Phoebe thought, following him over. “Pippin sleeps with me. For a small dog, he requires a great deal of room.”

He settled on the foot of the mattress. “But soon he will have to cede his place, surely? Bouchart doesn’t strike me as much of an animal lover.”

Phoebe hesitated and then sank down beside him. “When he…visits me, I suppose Pippin will have to make do with his basket.”

Amused eyes found their way to her face. “When he
visits
you?”

Shushing him, she answered, “I fail to see what you find so astounding. That is how most married couples rub along.”

“Is that what you want from marriage—to
rub along
?”

Phoebe didn’t answer. She thought of her parents’ marriage, passionless and perfectly polite, the roles and rules clearly delineated, nary an eyebrow or a voice raised. It was as if they existed in wholly separate spheres. In so many ways that mattered, their lives never truly touched, and yet in society’s eyes, they were deemed a success. Phoebe had always sworn she would never settle for such a state, and yet if she went through with marrying Aristide, wasn’t that precisely what she’d be doing?

His gaze locked upon hers. “Were you my wife, there would be no separate bedchambers and skulking through some creaky adjoining dressing closet in the middle of the night. I’d keep you by me, in my bed, and make love to you every morning and every night, and when we were finally too exhausted to do aught but sleep, I’d clasp you to my breast and hold you so close that it would be hard to know where I ended and you began.”

The bloom of heat between her thighs confirmed she’d slipped back into dangerous territory, once more in his thrall and separated from both her morals and her sense. Retreating, she shook her head. “That will serve.”

“Will it?” He slid his gaze over her, reminding her of the matronly nightcap she wore, along with what Belinda never failed to assure her was her least flattering night rail. A faint smile lifted his lips. “Do you always go to bed so…armored?”
 

She forced her chin up. “Proper Englishwomen always dress for bed.”

To her chagrin, he chuckled. “The bedchamber is the very last place a woman should worry about being proper.”

Images from their interlude at the inn flashed before her mind’s eye, and she felt herself heating with embarrassment and something…more. “Did you come here solely to insult my nightwear?”

“No, I came here to do this.”
 

He took her face between his hands, his callused fingertips skimming her jaw, all that rough gentleness shooting a strange thrill through her. And then he was kissing her, his supple lips pressing gently but firmly upon hers while his other hand did the most amazing things to her right breast, things she didn’t want to think about but gloried in the feel of.
 

He lifted his mouth from hers and pulled back. “I ask for nothing beyond a taste of forbidden fruit—and the chance to make good on the promise of pleasure I made you that day at the lodging house.”

Phoebe hesitated. After her talk with Chelsea, she had called upon every whit of her willpower to withhold herself. Robert had yet to explain let alone justify his choice to remain “dead” for six years, a choice that had brought not only her but also Chelsea immeasurable heartache.
 

And yet she had wanted to lie with him last week. Had they not been interrupted, she would have done so. Even with a week to reconsider, she still badly wanted to be with him. In that moment, she stopped wavering. She decided. She would go to bed with Robert, not because he wanted it, but because she did. Because, propriety be damned, she
deserved
to.

Holding his gaze, Phoebe reached up and untied the ribbon beneath her chin. She lifted the nightcap off and tossed it aside. Her braid hung over her shoulder. Without a word, she pulled the ribbon from the tip and threaded her fingers through, reveling in how the simple gesture made his eyes darken.

Robert swallowed hard. “Lay back upon the bed,” he said, not a request but a command.

Phoebe hesitated, unused to hearing that tone from him, hating how much she liked it. “Why?”

“I’ve promised you pleasure and pleasure you shall have.” His jaw tightened. “Trust me this once more, and I swear on my life you shall not regret it.”

Phoebe lay down. The mattress creaked as Robert joined her.

Turning toward him, she asked, “What do you want in return?”

“I want pleasure too, the pleasure of watching you lose yourself,” he assured her, maneuvering himself onto his knees. “Now reach up with both hands and grab hold of the bedrail.” Again, the ring of authority in his voice had her heart thrumming.

“Why?”

A smile whispered across his lips. “Because I’ve said you must.”

That hardly seemed a reason. Still, intrigued, Phoebe scooted up to the head of the bed and took hold of the metal bars. Robert followed her to the top. He threw one leg over, straddling her.

“Pretend I’m a housebreaker who, upon seeing you, is minded to thieve more than the silver.” His big hands braced about her wrists, shackling her to the bedposts. “Tell yourself that I’m taking you against your will, forcing you to feel the pleasure you wouldn’t otherwise dare.”

Phoebe swallowed hard. She nodded. Whatever game he was about held an undeniably wicked appeal.

Releasing her wrists, he rested back upon his heels. “Under no circumstances are you to remove your hands from the posts. If you do, I shall have to punish you,” he added, and inexplicably the warning sent tingling warmth shivering through her.

“But what if I wish to touch you?” she finally asked, looking up into his set face. He’d promised her pleasure and touching him was most certainly that.

His gaze hardened. He shook his head. “You may not lay so much as a finger upon me without me first granting you leave.”

Was that because of the game, she wondered, or a ploy to protect himself from being touched? Since his return, she couldn’t help but notice how being touched put him on edge. “This feels rather one-sided. Don’t I get to make any rules?”

Staring at her, he shook his head. “Mind we observed your rules the week last. Now it’s your turn to abide by mine. Unlike yours, mine come with consequences: punishments and rewards.”

Feeling a bit breathless, she asked, “What, uh…sort of rewards?”

“Pleasure, for one. There is a freedom in surrender, freedom to give in to your deepest, darkest desires. To ask for anything,
everything,
you want, and know it will be granted.”

“Are you saying that so long as I keep my hands above my head holding these bars, I may have whatever I want?”
 

Robert didn’t waver. “Yes. The catch is that you must be very clear, very explicit, in stating your desires. Can you do that, Phoebe?”

She wasn’t entirely certain, but she nodded nonetheless. “And the punishments?” Merely asking the question had her feeling flushed and breathless.