The Rogue's Proposal (28 page)

He landed in a crouch on the floor of a large kitchen. There was a rectangular table
and a few overturned chairs, all covered with a fine layer of grime. When he stepped
forward, kicking up a cloud of dust, a small animal he didn’t care to name scuttled
across the wooden floor.

The fact that the kitchen wasn’t in use confirmed that the place was abandoned. It
was a large house, and it could certainly be made to be elegant given a great deal
of work. That was probably what Morton had intended—to use some of the money he’d
stolen from Emma’s father to remodel this pile into a stately home.

Luke systematically searched the house. He went through every room, from the downstairs
galleries, with their stripped wallpaper and scuffed floors, to the upstairs rooms
with once-grand but now blackened fireplaces, peeling paint, and crumbling walls.

There were three notable rooms. The first was a vast hall—perhaps a ballroom—that
was piled high with furniture and other items that had been covered by large white
linen cloths. When Luke moved the cloths aside, he saw that everything beneath was
new and of the highest quality. There were gilded mirrors, ancient-looking statues,
Greek urns, Persian carpets.

This must be where Morton had stored some of the items he’d purchased with his ill-gotten
gains.

The second room of note might have once been a library. Its furniture, including a
grand assortment of bookshelves, had been piled in the center of the room. Oddly,
one wall had been completely stripped of its wallpaper and repainted. The same white
paint had been used on one wall of what had clearly been the drawing room, with its
dusty pianoforte with several missing keys and a nest that rats had created out of
shredded newspapers in one corner.

Luke went upstairs to the servants’ quarters and into the attic. The house was still
and quiet. Eerie, really, in these early morning hours. Luke felt his way about in
the darkness, relieved whenever he encountered a west-facing room, where the moon
could offer some additional light.

He returned downstairs, his mind working furiously over the various ways to catch
Morton the next time he appeared here, when he heard a noise that made him stop dead
in the middle of the corridor. He listened. There it was again—a rattle coming from
outside.

The noise came from the back of the house and sounded very much like a carriage traveling
over a rutted road. Luke made his way to the kitchen, to the broken window where he’d
entered the house, and, keeping his body out of sight, he peered out.

The dark, shadowy form of a small carriage came into view as it rounded a bend in
the driveway. It stopped in front of a smaller rectangular building Luke had earlier
assumed was the stable—he’d intended to search it after completing his inventory of
the house.

The coachman remained in his seat, sitting stiffly. A man alighted, holding his hand
aloft, and Luke stiffened. The man held a gun, clearly silhouetted by the moonlight.
He waved it at another occupant of the carriage, gesturing at that person to quit
the vehicle as well.

Luke’s hand went to his own pistol, still tucked into his pocket.

Skirts fell from the doorway. Slippered toes reached for the step, and then she emerged,
setting every single one of Luke’s senses screaming.

Damn it. The bastard had Emma.

He watched, his body so tight he couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to. They spoke,
but Luke couldn’t hear the words from here. The man gestured in the direction of the
stable, then turned to the coachman, snapping out instructions. The coachman nodded,
then turned the carriage around and left in the direction they had come.

Luke’s fingers tightened on the sill. He couldn’t see her face. He needed to see her
face, needed to know if she was all right.

But she turned away from him and headed toward the stables. Morton—or whoever the
hell he was—followed her, keeping the gun pointed steadily on her back.

Hell, no.

Luke was not going to let that bastard hurt the woman he loved.

“Open the latch,” Morton told Emma when they reached the stable door. She did as she
was told, still acutely aware of the gun aimed at her.

She hadn’t been able to see much from the window as they’d approached this place.
They’d driven down a long, winding, narrow road to get here. She’d seen the large,
dark house through Morton’s window and this stable through her own. She’d no idea
where they were.

She breathed steadily, keeping her fear in constant check. Time was running short
for her. Could she whip out her pistol and shoot him before he could shoot her?

No, she thought, panic twisting her innards tighter and tighter. She didn’t think
so. If only he’d point that infernal weapon at something else for a moment…

But he didn’t. His dark eyes were watchful, too, not straying from her for longer
than the blink of an eye.

“What are you going to do with me?” she breathed.

“Just walk inside, Emma.”

She did, feeling old bits of hay under her slippers.

“Go into that stall on the end.”

Oh, Lord. She didn’t like the sound of his voice. It had become low and rough. On
shaking legs, she forced herself to go to the end stall. Inside, it was dark, but
as her eyes adjusted, she saw the shadowy shape of a bale of hay.

“Sit on that,” Morton said, gesturing at the hay bale, “and face me.”

Again, she did as she was told. She gazed up at him. His face was drawn into tight
lines. The hand that held his weapon trembled.

“You…give me…no choice, Emma,” he bit out. “Lie down. Stomach onto the hay.”

He intended to…to
execute
her.

Oh Lord.

“Please,” she whispered. It was too late for her pistol, but her shaking hand moved
toward her cloak pocket anyhow. It was her only hope.

“You have forced me to these ends,” he said in that rough, odd voice. “This is not
my fault. I am no murderer, but you have made me into one, do you hear me?
You
.”

“No,” she murmured. “You’re not a murderer…Henry. I know you.” She was lying but she
didn’t know what else to do, how else to convince him…

“Lie down,” he said sharply. His weapon drew inexorably closer.

She did it. She lay on her stomach. Stray pieces of hay poked at her through her bodice
and prodded the bare skin of her chest.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she whispered.

“It’s too late for that, isn’t it, Emma? The damned Duke of Trent knows about me now.
The only way out of this for me is to eliminate you. Once you’re gone, I’ll find a
way to turn his suspicion to you.”

Luke would never believe that. If she had to die, she’d die believing he’d know she
was innocent.

She couldn’t let Morton murder her. Luke needed her. She needed
him
.

She turned to face Morton. He stepped closer. The barrel of that horrid gun headed
toward her temple. Now it was pressed against it, the metal cold against her skin.

Her body trembled violently, and her hand fumbled, searching for the opening of her
pocket. She couldn’t find it. Her weight was on a fold of her cloak, blocking it.

Morton cocked the pistol, and she sucked in a breath at the sharp cracking noise.
Lord, she thought in despair. She knew so little about firearms. The gun hadn’t been
cocked this entire time. She should have taken the chance and tried to shoot him.
She probably would have succeeded.

But now it was too late.

She gazed at him, saw his eyes dilate even as they narrowed.

Luke,
she thought,
I love you. Please know that I love you…

They heard the sound at the same time. A scuffling, followed by a low slam—like the
wooden stable door had crashed against its inside wall.

Morton reared backward, trying to see who was coming without taking his eyes off her,
which was impossible. He finally gave up and swung his gaze toward the stall door.

Emma sprang into motion. She scrambled up, digging into the folds of her cloak for
her weapon. Just as her fingers touched metal, a large, dark figure surged into the
tiny space. The silver of his pistol glinted in the dimness.

“Luke!” Her voice broke on a wrenching combination of relief and fear.

Morton barreled into him. She heard the thud as one of their pistols fell to the floor.
Their arms flailed, punctuated by the dull sounds of gasping breaths and fists connecting
to flesh. Both men tumbled to the hay-strewn floor, locked in a brutal battle.

“Stop!” she cried, raising her own gun in her shaking hands. She couldn’t shoot—Luke’s
and Morton’s limbs thrashed violently in the dimness of the tiny space, and she couldn’t
tell whose belonged to whom.

Morton surged to his knees, his dark eyes widening at the sight of the pistol in her
hand. Before she could blink, he raised his gun. Again, toward her. And she was facing
the barrel of a gun pointed directly at her chest once more.

Everything ground to slow motion. Like someone had poured syrup into the stall and
they had to push through it with every movement. Her vision became precise, hawklike.
She saw everything. Saw Morton’s eyes narrow. Saw the tiny movement of his finger
tightening on the trigger.

Her own quaking finger awkwardly cocked her pistol.

“No!” Luke roared, and Emma jerked back, because his voice cracked like a gunshot.
In a blur of motion, he jumped in front of her, knocking the pistol from her hand
and the wind from her lungs as they tumbled to the floor. A much louder
crack
pierced the air. Luke’s body jerked over her.

Oh, God. He’d been hit.

Morton had shot Luke.

Something thudded to the floor. Morton’s gun? Luke’s body was heavy atop hers. She
lay sprawled across the hay. She couldn’t see Morton beyond Luke’s large form. Luke
groaned, and suddenly, all her senses went on high alert.

“Luke!” she cried, searching his body desperately with her hands. With a grunt of
pain, he slid off her, leaving her right hand wet with blood.

Luke tried to rise to his knees but faltered, weakened by his injury. Morton, his
face twisted with fury, lunged toward him, hands out, poised to kill.

Just as Morton reached him, Luke surged up. A weapon—Emma’s pistol—glinted in his
hand. The gun fired with a deafening roar, and Morton staggered backward two steps.
His backside hit the door, and he sagged into a heap on the floor, instantly unconscious.

Luke dropped Emma’s gun, then he, too, slid bonelessly to the floor. Emma scrambled
over to him.

“Luke…Luke, where are you hit?”

His eyelids fluttered. “Emma,” he said in a rasping voice. He reached weakly toward
her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, but you’re shot…” Tears streamed down her face in hot stripes. “Wh-where
were you shot?”

“Don’t know…My stomach…it burns…”

“Just lie still.” She glanced at Morton. It was so dark, she couldn’t tell where he’d
been hit either. But he didn’t move or speak, so she assumed he was either unconscious
or dead.

She hoped he was dead.

She turned back to Luke. “Stay here. I’m going for help. I’ll be back soon.”

He caught her wrist with his hand. “Em…stay with me. I need you, Em.”

What he needed was help—a doctor. She gently pulled out of his grip.

“Need you with me…”

“I love you,” she said in a vehement whisper. “I’ll be back soon. You wait.”

His eyes began to sink shut.

“Wait for me, Luke!” she commanded.

He was losing consciousness. She swallowed down the sob that welled in her throat,
rose, and hurried to the door. It devastated her to leave his side now. If he died
while she was gone, she’d never recover.

Marshaling all the strength she possessed, she ran for help.

L
uke woke to early morning sunlight streaming into the room. His side ached, but the
pain was now only a dull throb. Three weeks had passed since Morton had shot him.
The bullet had pierced the side of his stomach, missing vital organs by less than
a fraction of an inch, the doctors had told him.

His recovery had been long and painful, but Morton had fared far worse. Luke hadn’t
dealt him a killing wound—he’d shot him in the shoulder. But once the doctor who’d
helped Luke had seen to Morton’s injury, he’d been charged with a multitude of crimes,
from forgery to theft to kidnapping, then transferred to Newgate Prison.

The wound had festered in the filth of the prison, poisoning Morton’s blood, and seven
days ago, he had died.

But not before his marriage to Emma had been annulled on the grounds of the husband
having forged his identity on the marriage license. Luke had Trent to thank for that.
While Luke and Emma had been overcome by the immediacy and seriousness of Luke’s wound,
Trent had taken it upon himself to see that Morton and Emma’s marriage was declared
null and void.

When Trent had come to tell them the news, Emma’s eyes had cleared of the pain that
had resided there since the moment she’d seen her “husband” was alive. And perhaps
for the first time in his life, Luke had taken no offense to Trent poking his nose
into business that didn’t concern him.

Maybe it was the start of a new, better relationship between them. Luke hoped that
would be the case.

Anticipation welling sweetly within him, he turned his head to the woman lying beside
him. She was awake, too, lying still and gazing at him with those lovely amber eyes.

“I didn’t know you were awake,” he murmured.

“I heard you stir.”

His lips quirked into a smile. She’d gone to get help on the night he’d been shot,
but she hadn’t left his side since.

God, how he loved her. She’d saved his life. In more ways than he could possibly express.

“Doctor says I am free to finally leave this bed today,” he reminded her.

Her smile was as bright as the morning sunshine. “I know. Are you ready?”

“More than ready. You know that. I want to do it right now.”

She raised her brows. “I thought we’d wait for your brothers and Esme.”

His siblings came to see him every day. Even Theo and Mark had come up from Cambridge.
Sam’s words about brotherly love still resonated in Luke’s head. For the first time
in his life, Luke was able to appreciate the different ways his siblings showed they
cared.

Trent made things—like the annulment—happen. Sarah showered him with motherly attention.
Sam was a stoic, stable presence. Esme fretted and wrung her hands, and then she scribbled
furiously in the notebook she always carried about with her. Theo and Mark chattered
about nonsensical things, told jokes that made him laugh until the stitches pulled
in his side, and asked him over and over to regale them with the story of how he had
“saved Emma and defeated the dastardly Roger Morton.”

Through it all, Emma was there. Beside him. Loving him in her quiet, steady way.

“I don’t want to wait,” he told her now. “I want to do it with you. I want to walk
to the drawing room and receive my family there instead of here.”

She grinned at him. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. They’ll all be so happy to see
you up and about.”

He was certainly ready. He’d been restless and anxious to get out of bed for the past
week, but the doctor had said no—the wound needed more healing. As she had since that
first night, Emma insisted he follow the doctor’s orders to the letter.

She slipped out of bed, then came around to his side. Slowly, he lifted himself up
to a seated position, feeling the pull—but no pain—in his injury. She held his arms
as if to steady him, but he well knew he was too heavy for her. It didn’t matter—he
was quite capable of lifting his own body weight.

Equally slowly, he slid his legs over the edge of the bed. He was wearing his drawers
and the shirt he wore to bed every night.

“Well done,” she said, beaming.

He grinned up at her.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not at all.”

“Good,” she breathed. “Baldwin laid out your clothes last night. Can I help you into
them?”

The last three weeks had been difficult and painful. Emma had probably seen enough
blood and raw, oozing, pustulant flesh to last her a lifetime. But somehow, even though
she’d never left him, he’d managed to continue to hide his back from her. There were
times he’d asked her to turn away as Baldwin helped him out of his shirt and bathed
him, and she had done so willingly but not without revealing the slightest tinge of
hurt in her expression.

But today…today was the first day of his new life—at least he hoped it would be. And
today was the day he needed to expose that last bit of himself he’d kept from her.

“Yes,” he said gruffly. “Please help me to dress.”

She sucked in a breath, surprised. Then her expression relaxed. “I’ll call for a basin
and cloth to wash you.” Her gaze met his evenly. “Let me do this for you, Luke. You’ll
feel so much better.”

There was a deeper meaning infused in her words. He understood it. She hadn’t really
ever commented on it or complained about it, but she knew as well as he did that he
kept his shirt on in her presence for a reason.

“All right,” he told her. His heart suddenly felt like it was galloping. The only
person who’d seen the scars on his back was Baldwin, and he’d always discreetly refrained
from mentioning them.

She was gone for a moment, ringing for Delaney and then speaking to the maid. A few
minutes later, the girl and Baldwin brought up a basin, soap, and several towels.

“Oh, sir,” Delaney exclaimed when she saw Luke sitting on his own, “’tis so good to
see you up!”

“Thank you, Delaney,” he said. He glanced at Baldwin and thought he saw a hint of
a smile on the man’s imperturbable face.

“Shall I bathe and dress you, my lord?” Baldwin asked.

“No. Miss Anderson will do it.” They all addressed Emma by her maiden name now that
her marriage had been annulled.

“Very well, sir,” Baldwin said flatly. He and Delaney took their leave, closing the
door softly behind them.

Emma smiled at him as he sat there, frozen. Trying to fight back the fear and shame
that had begun to well in his gut. Her smile thawed him, somewhat. Gave him the courage
to go forward.

She gestured to his shirt. “Let me help you with that.”

Taking her time, her hands gentle, she untied his neckline, then grasped his hem in
both hands and began to lift.

Luke sat rigid. God.
God.
He didn’t think he could do it.

“Lift your arms,” she murmured. Her voice was so gentle.

With an extreme force of will, he did so. She lifted the shirt over his head and laid
it over a nearby chair. When she returned, she checked his bandages. “Good. No bleeding.”

She turned away to dip a cloth in the steaming water, then scrubbed the soap over
the wet fabric.

She stepped back to him, her arm poised to wash him. He raised his arm, grasping her
wrist in his hand, stopping her.

“Em—” His voice sounded reedy and thin.

Her sweet bosom rose and fell with a heavy breath. She gazed into his eyes, her expression
somber. “I know, Luke.”

He tilted his head at her, uncomprehending.

“I know why you have never removed your shirt in my presence.”

“Wh-what?” he stammered through his closed throat.

“I saw you once. Soon after we arrived in London. You’d woken from a nightmare and
had removed your shirt. You were washing yourself.” She paused, and then said in a
throbbing voice, “I saw the scars.”

He stared at her, unmoving, unspeaking. His mind roared. She knew. She’d known all
this time.

She reached forward, cupping his jaw in her hand, her thumb rasping over his unshaven
cheek. “I didn’t mention it because I wanted to give you time. I knew you would tell
me about them when you were ready.” Again, a pause. Then, softly, “Are you ready now?”

“I—” His voice broke, and he cleared it. “I don’t know,” he said roughly. He lowered
her wrist and released her. She returned the cloth to the basin and came to sit beside
him on the bed on his uninjured side. She snuggled up against him. “It was the old
duke, wasn’t it? He made those scars on your back?”

“Yes.”

“You told me he beat you. But this…this was different.”

“Yes.” His voice was so dry it felt as insubstantial as an autumn leaf, so easily
crushed under any passerby’s boot heel.

“What did he do?”

He pushed out a painful breath. Then he closed his eyes. “He burned me.” And a long-subdued
part of him, that frightened boy who’d endured those burns, resonated in his voice.

“How?”

“Cigars,” he muttered. Fear and shame swirled heavily within him. He didn’t want to
tell anyone about this. Hell, he never had, although sometimes he thought his mother
had guessed. But even she had never broached the topic.

Emma made a pained noise and pressed herself more tightly against him.

“He said the reasons were twofold. The first was that he might burn the badness out
of me. The second because he wanted me to be forever aware that I belonged to the
House of Trent. To no one else.”

“Oh, Luke.”

“That’s why the scars are in the shape of a T. He intended to brand me.” The words
came easier now. “But he didn’t completely succeed—he died before he could finish
it. So now…” A bitter noise choked out from his throat. “Now…I have an incomplete
T
branded upon my back.”

“It doesn’t matter—” Emma began.

“He didn’t succeed in burning the wickedness out of me, but he did succeed in one
way: I will never forget that I bear the mark of the House of Trent upon my back.”

She shuddered against him. “And that bleeds over, somehow, to the new duke. Even though
he never knew what the old duke had done to you.”

“Yes,” Luke admitted. “Every time I see him, a part of me remembers what his father
did to me. A part of me remembers that he owns me, that a part of me will essentially
remain a slave to him for the rest of my life.” He swallowed hard. “I try not to link
the two. I know Trent had no part in it. But I can’t help it. I see him and…” He shook
his head.

“It must be so hard to look at the duke and see his father in him.”

“Yes.” That was exactly it.

“How old were you when he…when he burned you?”

Groaning softly, he bent his head and ran his free hand through his hair. “Over years,
starting when I was five or six. He’d add a new burn after a few months, after the
last one healed.” Luke clenched his jaw, remembering the pain, the pulsating fear
that had seized him each time he was summoned into his father’s study. “He said…he
said it was because he wanted me to always feel it, always feel the pain of the sores
as my shirt rubbed against them. That way, it was more likely to work.”

“He was mad,” Emma said flatly. “A mad bastard.”

He nuzzled his nose into her hair. “I never thought so,” he muttered. “I believed
him.”

“You were an impressionable child. He was your father, a duke, revered by all.”

“You are the first person I’ve ever known who has made me believe that maybe he
was
mad—”

“He was!”

“For the first time, I have begun to think that his punishments were a product of
his own insane reaction to my mother’s affair with Stanley. That maybe, just maybe,
they had nothing to do with me.”

“How could they have had anything to do with you? You. Were. Innocent.” She said the
last words with a solemn forcefulness, as if she were trying to physically drill those
words into his soul.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, breathing her in. She smelled so good. Fresh
and sweet, and so familiar to him now.

Somehow, he did believe her. If drilling those words into his soul had been her intent,
she had succeeded.

They sat there for a long while, and when she finally pulled back, he turned away
from her, for the first time baring his ugly, scarred back to her view.

“Will you bathe me?” he asked softly.

“Always.” She retrieved the cloth and with soft, smooth strokes, she washed his torso,
starting with his back, pressing her lips to various spots after she’d finished rinsing
them.

He closed his eyes. They hadn’t made love in weeks—not that his body had stopped responding
to hers, but there had been too much pain that first fortnight, and the third week,
she’d been adamant about his need to heal.

Now he wanted her. His pulse throbbed between his legs, and his cock hardened, pressing
against the front of his drawers. Her kisses pressed harder as time went on, and when
she nudged him to turn so she could clean his front, the color was high on her cheeks
and her thick, dark lashes were downcast. She was so beautiful his breath caught in
his throat.

She rinsed him and dried him, then her hands went to the waist of his undergarments
as she looked up at him through her lashes. “Let me bring you pleasure.”

They held each other’s gazes for a long moment. He nodded. “Yes. Make me come. My
body needs you, needs to come in you.”

Her color deepened at his words. She opened his drawers and lowered her mouth to him.
His cock jerked at the first touch of her lips, the soft, hot feel of her pressing
against him sending pleasure rolling through his body. Leaning back on one hand, he
threaded the fingers of the other through her hair, locking her against him. “Yes,
Em. That’s it. Lick me. It feels so damn good.”

She stroked her tongue over him in long, hot drags. He was so full, so thick, and
every touch of her mouth made him harder. Made him want to bury himself inside her.

Made him mad for her. For every bit of her.

His fingers tightened in her hair when she opened, and his cock slid deep into her
mouth. “God,” he growled out. “That’s right, angel. Take me in your mouth. Deeper.
That’s it. Yes.”