The Rogue and the Rival (6 page)

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Authors: Maya Rodale

BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
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A shot rang out in the night—no questions asked, no opportunity to exchange coin for his life. The horse cried out and bucked, chucking Phillip off the saddle and into a ditch.
 
Phillip awoke with a start. The drumming of horses’ hooves that had seemed so vivid in his dream was nothing more than the heavy beating of his heart. The sound of the rain falling sounded so real in his dream because it was raining now. He looked out the window and was unable to tell if it was just a dark afternoon or late at night.
They had left him for dead. But what would they do if they found out that he had survived? The door was opening, and Phillip felt a fleeting stab of panic that they had found him. But it was only Angela.
Only Angela, a new, different, and strange sort of danger. She didn’t make him fear for his life, but for life as he knew it.
“Are you all right?” she asked, for the first time sounding actually concerned for him.
“Fine. Why do you ask?”
“Because you have sustained life-threatening injuries. Why wouldn’t I ask?”
“You never asked before,” he answered, becoming annoyed at the realization.
“You have never looked like you had seen a ghost before. You’re quite pale.” She came over to the bed, set down the tray as she always did, and placed her palm on his forehead. He didn’t want to enjoy that tender touch, but he did. “You don’t have a fever.”
“I had a dream,” he said, thinking that sounded stupid. “I remembered what happened to me.”
“Tell me. I’ve been wondering,” Angela said while lighting a few candles. There was just enough light to illuminate them both, while the rest of the room was cast into the shadows. The sound of the rain against the glass was the only reminder that there was a whole world beyond them and their little patch of candlelight.
“I was brave, or stupid. I’m not sure.”
“I have my suspicions, but go on,” she answered, sitting on the chair beside his bed. She needn’t say more; he knew what she thought.
“Two men were following me, and I stopped my horse and turned to face them. I waited, allowing them a clear shot. I could have run away.” The story sounded ridiculous to him as he recounted it. He wasn’t brave; he was incredibly foolish and cowardly, if not downright lazy.
But then again, look where he ended up: in a place with a fifty-to-one female-to-male ratio and a very attractive nurse. He might have just been lucky.
“What did they want from you?” Angela asked.
“That depends. Did I arrive here with any money?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So my debt is settled then. They have my money, and they think they have taken my life as well.” He allowed a small sigh of relief and was pleased to find that the pain from his broken ribs was diminishing.
“You were just running from creditors? And I had thought there was a chance you suffered for a more noble reason,” she said lightly.
“What, like running down highwaymen?” Phillip asked sarcastically.
“Yes, but I’m glad that wasn’t the case.”
“Why is that?” One would think that was the sort of thing women would love to hear. How confusing. No wonder he never tried to understand them.
“The real reason makes it easier to dislike you.”
“You needed more reasons, other than my blackened reputation and that I’m a tremendously difficult patient?” he joked, rather than asking why she was determined to dislike him. Then she might think he cared or something embarrassing like that.
“You do make it easy,” Angela said. Of course he did. Making people dislike him was his sole talent.
“And yet here you are, sitting and talking to me, when you surely have other things to do,” he couldn’t resist pointing out.
“You’re right. I should be going.” She stood to go, and he was sorry he suggested it. To him, any company was better than no company. But there was something about
her.
She didn’t try to flatter him, as women often did. Or, when they weren’t flattering him, they were avoiding meeting his gaze because it had been whispered that he could ruin a woman with his eyes. Angela wasn’t afraid to look him in the eye.
And even though she only cared for him out of duty, it was more than he had ever gotten from anyone else.
And at the risk of angering her, he dared to ask the question that had plagued him all day, if only on the off chance she might stay around to answer.
“Angela, are you going to tell me what you did? Your great sin?”
Her back was to him, as she was on her way out of the room. She paused with her hand on the doorknob, readying to pull it shut behind her. She stood there with her back to him for what seemed like an eternity. One in which he stopped wondering about her sin to admire the shape of her backside. And then she turned around.
“There was a man like you in my life, once,” she said coldly, looking into his eyes.
“Like me?”
“Handsome, thoughtless, remorseless. He ruined me, and because of that, I ruined my family.”
Oh.
He looked at her again, this time seeing a fallen angel. She wasn’t any less beautiful, any less angelic. But now he understood: all those cutting remarks, quick retorts, and her admitted determination to dislike him had very little to do with him at all. They were meant for someone else, and he was similar enough, and just happened to be around to bear the brunt of another man’s failing.
Like you.
She, like everyone else, confused the reputation with the man. Maybe there wasn’t anything different about her at all.
“Do you always take gossip for gospel?” he asked, trying not to sound accusatory but failing. Was there nowhere on this earth he could go to just be himself? Was there anyone who hadn’t heard all about him before they met him?
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Angela asked, taken aback.
“That you’d rather believe the rumors than seek out the truth. No one has ever bothered to look at me beyond my reputation. You included.” That marked the first time that Phillip had put words on that gray, nagging feeling that was always within him. Did anyone ever mention his name without, in the same breath, mentioning all the awful things he had done or was alleged to have done? No. No one ever saw anything about him other than whatever had appeared in the gossip sheets. He didn’t like that, to say the least.
“So you did not, in fact, ruin numerous innocent women?” Angela challenged. “You did not gamble away your family’s fortune? You have not spent more of your life drunk than sober?”
“I’m just saying that there are two sides to every story, as trite as that may sound.” That was true. Some of the things she had accused him of were also true.
“Well, it’s not like you’ve ever bothered to correct anyone’s assumptions,” she retorted. “Or were you just thinking that if you ignored them, they would go away, just like those girls you ruined?”
“I didn’t say I was perfect. Just misunderstood. Overlooked.”
“Am I supposed to pity you now?” Angela asked hotly.
“No. Just don’t confuse me with the man who ruined you.”
“Don’t give me reason to.”
She stormed out. It was the cowardly way to win an argument. It was practically cheating. And it really wasn’t fair, because Phillip was bedridden and did not have the option of quitting while he was ahead.
Tomorrow he would get out of this damned bed if it killed him.
In the meantime, he would sleep. Or try to.
Overlooked
: the word echoed endlessly in his head. What if there was no oversight? What if there really was nothing more to him than a long list of sins?
 
Angela often had trouble sleeping, and tonight was no exception. When she did, she always went to the chapel to quiet her thoughts. At this late hour, the sacred chamber was empty and dark, save for a few candles that always remained lit at the foot of a statue depicting the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus.
She knelt before it.
But rather than clasp her hands in prayer and bow her head, she opened the sketchbook she had brought with her. The book, a thick volume with high-quality paper, had been a gift from Lucas Frost. She had brought it with her to the abbey not because of any sentimental attachment but because the act of drawing soothed her, and she so desperately needed soothing. She needed to get lost in line after line of pencil lead on paper, blurring them to make shadows, pressing down hard to make them heavy and dark. She loved all those little lines of worry resulting in a complete picture of something beautiful, something true.
The first page contained a sketch she had done of Lucas before everything had gone wrong. Angela had depicted him sitting comfortably on the settee before the window in the drawing room at her parents’ home. If she looked like an angel, Lucas certainly did, too. His hair was dark blond, slightly curled. His eyes were a light blue color. His features were round rather than rough or chiseled but still handsome, still masculine. Still looking up at her from the page, but no longer tempting her. Beyond him, she had drawn the window and the view of the front lawn. Home. An intruder in her home.
The second page contained a drawing of the statue she now sat before. The stone Mary held her stone baby Jesus. The plump baby was wrapped in a blanket. Its mother’s smile was slight but serene.
Pages two through forty contained illustrations of this statue. Some were drawn in profile; some were drawn from the far side of the room. Some were just of Mary’s face; some were of only the baby. The one Angela worked on now, on page forty-two, was drawn looking up at the figure from down below, where she knelt.
As she worked, Angela wished that she might take back that last hour with Phillip.
In spite of all pride and reason, she had told him about being ruined. Why had she done that? What sort of ninny told a complete stranger that sort of information? To make it worse, Phillip was not a complete stranger; she would have to see him again. It was all too mortifying to contemplate.
Angela knocked her head against the wooden railing before which she knelt. She rubbed her forehead and returned to her drawing, shading in the hood covering Mary’s head.
What was even more humiliating was she knew precisely why she told him: because it would mean a few more minutes of conversation. And because she had hoped he would say something really awful, so she could fully and completely hate him. But he didn’t. And for a few moments there, he wasn’t despicable at all. That was dangerous, for disliking him was her only defense against desire.
She began to outline the baby, resting in its mother’s arms. She barely needed to look at her model, for she knew it so well.
They had fought, then, and it had been so long since Angela had argued with someone that she had forgotten how it made her stomach ache. As if embarrassment didn’t burn enough. She was really a wreck. And she still had to face him tomorrow.
She drew Mary’s hands clasping the baby to her breast. She added shadows and details to make them look real, not like the stone that they were.
Satisfied with her progress on that particular sketch, Angela turned to page forty-one of her journal. There, in the midst of the dozens of depictions of the Virgin Mary and the infant savior of mankind, was a drawing of Phillip. She had done it on one of the days before he had woken up.
In the picture, he slept. She had captured his dark lashes resting on his cheeks. And those cheekbones—like cliffs a girl might throw herself off of in a fit of despair. His mouth, full lips closed, was relaxed without a trace of haughtiness or his devilish grin. A lock of his hair fell like a slash across his forehead. She had even drawn the cut next to it, and shaded around it to depict the bruise. Getting the crooked line of his broken nose right had been a fun challenge.
Even more of a delight had been drawing his bare chest. She had never done that before. His chest was not overly muscled, but there was certainly definition there, and shadows to create. The hair on his chest had been a challenge for her, but looking at the drawing now, she thought she had managed quite nicely.
The Devil Sleeps
was the title she had written at the bottom of the page. But after what he had said this evening, she wondered if he was as much of a devil as the rumors claimed he was.

 

Chapter 3

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