Claimed by the Rogue (30 page)

Once he would have known the answer without question, but those simple, halcyon days were in the past. Then she’d trusted him with her body and her heart, precious gifts he’d tossed aside for the sake of a boy’s puffed-up pride. To reclaim her confidence, he’d cheerfully cross a bed of hot coals as once he’d seen a Sufi fakir do. The holy man had managed his passage without acquiring a single blister, an amazing feat of…feet. If only making amends might be as simple as fire walking.
 

Setting the empty glass aside, he felt his head begin to grow weighted and his thoughts muzzy. How could one small glass of spirit have such a potent effect? Not only could he curse like a sailor, but when called upon to do so he could drink like one too.
 

I need to leave—now.

Betty rushed inside the room. “Sir, come quick, I pray you.”
 

Robert rose and made his way toward her on leaden legs. “What is it?”

“Milady’s dog is suffering some sort of…fit. He’s crawled beneath the bed and I can’t get him out. Oh, do hurry, sir. He’s strangling. I think he may have swallowed his tongue!”
 

Phoebe doted upon Pippin. If Robert stood by and let Pippin strangle, she would never forgive him. More to the point, he would never forgive himself.

Seizing upon his hesitation, Betty grabbed hold of his hand and towed him out to the hallway and toward the central staircase. Reaching its foot, he planted a hand on the polished rail and mounted, trying not to mind how each ascending step seemed to set the damnable thing canting. Winded, he reached the top. His head swam, and his limbs felt at once liquid and leaden. The sensation fell somewhere between a mild bout of malaria and the serene ecstasy of opium intoxication, both best experienced whilst lying down. This time when Betty took his hand, he didn’t resist. Leaning heavily upon her shoulder, he allowed her to take him toward what must be the door to Phoebe’s bedchamber.

She opened it and he fell inside. “He’s under the bed, you say?” he asked, feeling sweat trickle between his shoulder blades.

Standing on the threshold with arms folded, she seemed far less frantic. “Aye. Have a look, why don’t you?”

Too woozy to wonder at her surly tone, he flattened a palm against the papered wall and made his way over to the bed. Stopping at the foot, he braced a hand to the counterpane and lowered himself to his knees.
 

“Pippin, come out, lad, and let me have a look at you.” On all fours on the carpet, he lifted the bed skirt and groped beneath, but his hands met with empty space.

“Turn up a lamp, will you?” he demanded, dimly aware that the words sounded slurry and thick as though pushing past a mouthful of marbles. Marbles—how he’d loved shooting them as a child—as well as playing ducks and drakes and…
 

The door clicking closed brought him back to the moment. He twisted around to see Betty pull a key from the lock. Turning back to face him, she wore a sly smile. “Nay worries, my fine sir, we’ll be safe as houses.”

“What trickery is this?” Pushing himself up on his palms, he seized hold of the footboard and stood. Wrapping a steadying hand about the bedpost, he maneuvered around to face her. “Unlock the door this instant.”
 

She shook her head. “All in good time.”

“N-now.” He shoved away from the bed and staggered toward her. Reaching her with arms outstretched, his clumsy grab elicited nothing more than a fistful of air and her triumphant laugh.
 

Easily sidestepping him, she dropped the key down her bodice. “Come and fetch it,” she invited with a saucy smile.

Robert shook his head as if doing so might clear it. “What have you dosed me with, you witch?”

“Sticks and stones,” she answered, her fingers fastening onto his trouser buttons. “You’ll find far better bed sport with me than milady, I promise you.”
 

The flap fell open. Through his smallclothes, her hand cupped his cock. He grabbed for her wrist, but suddenly he felt weak as a kitten. Her kneading strokes had him hardening, albeit against his will. Still holding him thus, she steered them toward the bed—Phoebe’s bed.
 

Though he’d never struck a woman in his life, the present situation called for an exception. He reached out and shoved at her shoulders, losing his balance as he did. She caught him against her, pushing his head downward so that his nose and mouth were buried in her bosom. Black spots beetled his vision. Her cloying scent filled his nose and mouth to gagging. The room upended. They fell back onto a surface that was firm and yet far softer than the floor—the mattress. Betty rolled and, like an insensible sack, Robert followed, landing atop.

Ample thighs opened beneath him. Dimpled knees cinched about his torso.
 

Must…get…key!
 

Willing himself to wakefulness, he pulled at her tight-fitting bodice. She moaned and brought broad hips bucking against him. Battling the urge to backhand her, he pinned her arms as best he could and concentrated on his search. Betty was a substantial armful, the frock, likely a castoff of Phoebe’s, a poor fit. The bloody key must be stuck in her stays. There was no help for it. He yanked her bodice down. Stretched to its limit, the fabric rent.

Commotion from below captured his attention. Female voices carried upward from the front hallway, accompanied by high-pitched yipping. Pippin! The dog must have been absent all this time. Robert had been duped indeed! On the heels of that revelation came one worse or equally bad. Phoebe had returned as well.

The barking grew louder. Scratching outside the bedchamber door confirmed Pippin had closed in, likely desirous of his bone and basket. Light-stepped footfalls, human ones, followed after him.
 

His fingers found flesh-warmed metal. He pulled the key free, hardly caring whether or not the serrated edge scraped her. Feeling on the brink of blacking out, he levered himself up on one elbow, holding his prize aloft and out of her reach.

“Have a care with that bandbox, it holds the wedding bonnet.”
 

Lady Tremont!

“And Phoebe, can you not exert some control over that infernal beast of yours? He’s all but pawing the paint from the door.”

Phoebe!

“Why is the door locked?” a young girl, possibly Belinda, demanded. “My feet hurt.”

More scraping ensued, only this time the source wasn’t a determined little dog but a lock turning in the keyway. Heart pounding, Robert rolled onto his side. Before he could stagger to standing, the door opened.

Pippin leapt over a hatbox, one of myriad, and bounded inside. Phoebe, her mother, Belinda and two footman bearing boxes stared inside, eyes popping and mouths agape.
 

Robert didn’t require a mirror to realize how damning the scene within must seem. He levered himself off the bed and gained his feet. Face aflame, he followed their downward gazes to his trouser front, the unbuttoned flap hanging at half-mast. “I can explain. I—”

A sob from the bed cut him off. He looked back at Betty. Shoulders hunched and hands holding together her torn bodice, she scooted off the bed. “Ohhh mi…milady!” she wailed, dashing toward the threshold and casting herself at her mistresses’ feet. “Please don’t turn me out. I’m a good girl, I swear it. I told him no, but he tried to force me anyways.”

“Force you!” Robert echoed, horror-struck.

Betty twisted around to look at him. Had Robert not known better, he might have been gulled into believing himself guilty as well. “Aye, ’tis plain as day he’s drunk as David’s sow. You’ve only to look at him to see it’s so.”

The brunette, Belinda, cocked her head, scrutinizing him as though he were a zoological exhibit. “He does look foxed.”
 

“Belinda, language!”

“Sorry, Mama,” the chit answered, looking anything but.

“Belinda, to your room—now!” The directive came not from Lady Tremont but from Phoebe.

Face shocked, Belinda spun about to their mother. “Mama, must I?”

“Yes, you must. Now, run along.”
 

“But, Mama—”

“
Go!
” Lady Tremont shooed her away.

“I don’t see why I alone in this family must always be banished.” Grabbing a bandbox by the string, she turned and sulked off.

Lady Tremont whirled on Robert. “You always were something of a savage, Bellamy, but this puts you beyond the pale. How dare you barge into my home and molest my maid.”

“I m-molested no one,” he protested, though it didn’t help that his thickened tongue hesitated over every word. He took a step toward them and reeled. “And I didn’t b-barge in. Phoebe invited me.” He turned to Phoebe, but her ashen face confirmed his presence was as much a surprise to her as it was to her mother. “Your note—”

Tears welling, she shook her head. “I sent no invitation.”

“S-someone did and posted the…letter from this household.” He slipped a hand inside his coat and felt about the pockets, but he must have left the bloody thing behind. That or Betty had picked it off him during their struggle. Unfortunately, it was his only proof.

“Please, you must believe me.” Bypassing the weeping maid, he took a step toward her and teetered. Falling back against the plasterwork, he sought to find purchase on the seesawing floorboards.

Lady Tremont shoved her face close to his, the ostrich feather from her bonnet flicking him in the face. “Leave at once or I shall call for a constable.”

Turning to Phoebe, he tried one last time. “D-do you smell the reek of…s-spirits upon my breath? A single s-sherry is all I’ve had, and that at her insistence.” He jerked his chin toward a cowering Betty, the small movement sending the room spinning. “Do you s-suppose one…d-drink would render me so…s-soused?”

Expression crestfallen, she shook her head. “I can’t speak for how much you’ve had or what other intoxicants you might have partaken in, but I have eyes, Robert, and unlike your honeyed tongue they do not lie.”

“Someone’s lied.” He whirled on Betty, nearly falling over. “Who p-put you up to this t-trickery?”

Prone upon the floor, Betty shrank away. “I’m but a poor, simple country girl. Please, don’t strike me again.”
 

She was such a fine actress that for a few seconds Robert could do naught but stare at her in amazement. Were he a bystander instead of her dupe, he might have sided with her himself.
 

She hugged her arms about Phoebe’s knees. “Milady, I pray you, don’t let him touch me again.”

Lady Tremont huffed. “I have had quite enough unpleasantness for one afternoon.” She beckoned to her footman, his brawny arms weighted by packages. “Charlie, show Mr. Bellamy out.”

“There’ll be no need,” Robert retorted, this time without a stumble. The drug was beginning to wear off, albeit too late. Focusing on Phoebe, he added, “I’ll go now and never trouble you again, if that’s truly what you wish.”
 

She hoisted her chin. “It is.”

Robert’s heart plummeted. He couldn’t fight them all. Bouchart and his confederates, Lady Tremont and now even Phoebe herself were united against him. But because he loved her, truly loved her, he swallowed hard and braced himself to bear it. “Have a happy life, milady.”

Restless, Aristide roamed his let rooms, his pacing threatening to wear out the already threadbare carpets. He despised waiting, especially upon a woman, and cooling his heels on behalf of a common slut such as Betty pushed his patience to its limit. Where was she?

A soft rap outside his flat door announced her arrival. Still, determined to demonstrate which of them was master, he forced himself to hold back, leaving her to cool her heels on his steps.

On the fifth frantic pummel, he opened the door. “You are late.”

“I got away as quick as I could.” Betty whisked inside in a cloud of perfume, no doubt pilfered from Phoebe, and the gin that she’d likely quaffed for courage.

Reaching around her, he drew the door closed. “Well?”

She broke into a broad grin. “It worked.”

Aristide felt the corners of his mouth lifting. As satisfying as it would be to kill Bellamy—and he still had not abandoned the possibility—disgracing him would serve his purpose as well or better…for now.

“I wish you’d have been there to see their faces. Their jaws fair near fell to the floor. Lady T had the footman escort him out.”

The news brought relief—and a cock stand that required immediate attention.

“You did well.” Closing the space between them, he pulled the pelisse from her shoulders, not bothering with the satin-covered buttons.

She batted his hands away. “Have a care, you’ll tear it. ’Tis real silk straight off your lady bird’s back the week last.”

He’d thought it looked familiar. Phoebe’s scent still clung to the fabric. Not about to be dictated to, he pulled the front open, sending silk-covered buttons spraying the floor. “Soon I will bespeak you a wardrobe of clothes far finer than this rag. You’ll have no need of wearing her castoffs ever again.” He tore off the coat and tossed it upon the floor.

Despite his rough handling, she beamed. “In that case…” Glancing down, she ground her heel into the silken pool at their feet.