To Rescue a Rogue (2 page)

“They probably never will again.”

Devil-hair. That's what her family called the dark hair with red lights, and it wasn't a welcome sight on a St. Bride baby. It predicted a taste for adventure at best, disaster at worst. It was said to be an inheritance from a medieval ancestor known as Black Ademar.

Devil-hair was rare, but her parents had two afflicted offspring. The first was Simon. When a second had appeared, they'd stared down the devil and called her Ademara. She'd much rather have been Lucy, or Sarah, or Mary, and have the typical St. Bride brown hair and comfortable nature. Look where the hair had brought her now.

Dare rinsed the dirty cloth and resumed bathing her foot. “So who is this Berkstead? Not, I assume, an approved suitor.”

“But he is! I mean, not precisely a suitor, but I've met him at Ella's house on a number of occasions. He's an MP. From Northumberland.”

“Never trust a politician,” he remarked, shifting his attention to her other foot. “You escaped from the gaming hell?”

She didn't want to answer, but must. “No. From his rooms.”

His look was brief, cool and scathing.

“I know, I know! I can't imagine now why I went there except that I hadn't been playing in the hell, only watching. I wanted to try some of the games.”

“Who saw you there?”

“At the hell? Many, but I was masked and Berkstead didn't use my name. He called me ‘my queen of hearts,' which should have been enough to turn me off card games for life.”

She'd tried for a lighter tone, but Dare didn't smile.

“What about the hair?” he asked.

“Turban.”

He nodded and returned his attention to her foot, for which she was grateful. She'd never have thought Dare could be so profoundly disapproving. She wanted to protest that once he'd have thought this a jape, but perhaps that wasn't true, and in any case that merry madcap clearly no longer existed.

“Continue,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

“Berkstead had been a perfect gentleman all night. I
liked
him. He's a military hero and a great deal more amusing than the rest of George's associates. I usually have a good instinct for people—you know I do.”

“And?” He was relentless.

She scowled at him even though he couldn't see it. In fact, she probably wouldn't have done it if he could see. She was, she realized, nervous of him. Not for her safety, exactly, but just nervous.

“We played for a while,” she said. “He was drinking and encouraged me to drink, but when I wouldn't, he didn't press me. I know all about sharps getting flats drunk in order to fleece them.”

He glanced up, brow raised. “Do you? But no suspicion of your greater danger?”

“No. He must be nearly forty!”

Perhaps at last he showed a glimmer of humor. “I assume he acted as if unaware of his advanced years.”

“Men do, don't they? He proposed to me.”

Now she had his full, astonished attention. “What?”

“He did. He asked me to marry him. No—he said we'd be married. That my being in his rooms didn't matter because we'd soon be married. Of course I turned him down. Politely,” she added.

His eyes were cold again. “Which he didn't, I assume, take well.”

“He didn't take it at all. I've never known such a blockhead. He treated my every word as if I was playing a game.”

“In the cur's defense, you had gone willingly to his rooms at night.”

“That's no common indication that a lady wishes to
marry
a man.”

As usual, her quick tongue had raced ahead of sense, and his dry “No” said volumes.

She tried to pull her right foot out of his hands, but he tightened his grip and parted her toes to clean between them. It suddenly looked and felt shockingly intimate.

“You really shouldn't be doing that.”

“I can hardly summon a servant. What happened next?”

“I can't remember.” In part because her mind was slipping into misty distraction of a different sort. “It all became very foolish, then very unpleasant.”

“Ah. Tell me about the unpleasant part. I do note that you seem to be undressed.”

A wave of heat passed over her. It was probably turning even her toes red.

“He didn't,” she assured him. “We didn't. He simply wouldn't
believe
me. He knelt and protested that he adored me. That he'd cherish and take care of me. I didn't know what to do, so I told him that I couldn't marry him because my parents would never let me move far from Brideswell. That's true—you know it is—and I'd never do it anyway. Instead of giving up, he took that as a challenge and declared that we must…go to bed to force their hand.”

He looked at her, a steady question in his eyes.

“Of course we didn't! I keep telling you that, and I certainly told him. He was pleased, would you believe? Said it proved I was a virtuous lady despite my wild behavior. Then he decided that my staying there for the night would work just as well. In the early hours, he'd send a message to say that we wished to marry and had spent the night together. I told him my maid was waiting up and she'd set off the alarm before then. It didn't shake him. Nothing I said could move him. This is all,” she said with a scowl, “a consequence of Father becoming the Earl of Marlowe. No one would act so idiotically with plain Miss St. Bride of Brideswell.”

“You underestimate your charms.”

It was a dry statement, but Mara's spirits perked. “Really? I have had many suitors—but none has lost his wits over me.”

“Not a single madman? No pale corpse laid to your account? How dreadful. So what then? How do you come to be without your gown?”

She supposed she'd never had a hope of passing that by.

“He took it off. I made an error and said I'd escape. I don't think he believed me, but he insisted I take off my gown and shoes to, as he put it, prevent my putting myself in danger. I couldn't fight or scream without being discovered. You see that, don't you?”

“Yes. What happened next?”

Mara decided to skip over the way Berkstead had looked at her corset, then kissed her in a slobbering way, before thrusting her into his bedroom.

“He locked me in his bedroom,” she said.

“How many floors up?”

“Only one. And there were sheets for a rope.”

“As you said, a blockhead.”

“For not realizing I'd escape, even shoeless and undressed?”

“For not realizing that someone would kill him.”

Mara sat up straight. “No duel!”

“You have no say in this.”

“Oh, yes, I do.” She dragged her foot out of his grasp. “When I heard Simon had fought a duel and almost died I knew they were an invention of the devil. I won't have it, Dare. I
won't
! I couldn't bear to have you or Simon hurt because of my stupidity. I don't even want Berkstead killed. It was at least half my fault.”

“He's a louse.”

She looked at his set face and wanted to scream with frustration. Instead, being an experienced sister, she tried piteous. “
Please,
Dare.”

He briefly closed his eyes. “Very well. You won't mind, I assume, if I warn him away from making further trouble?”

“I'd be very grateful. And,” she added, “no one else need know? You won't tell Simon?”

Or Father,
she thought.

“If you don't want Berkstead dead, I most definitely won't tell your devil-haired brother. But I probably should tell your father. Perhaps he'd whip some sense into you.”

“You know he wouldn't, but please don't.” She reached to touch his arm. “I promise I've learned my lesson. I'll never do anything like that again. I was just so
bored
.”

He moved slightly back, breaking the contact. “Didn't Johnson say that when someone is tired of London, they're tired of life?”

“I'm not tired of it. I haven't yet experienced it. Ella's expecting. To be fair, she didn't know when she offered, but apparently at this stage she's incapable of anything more than tea with friends, quiet concerts, and drives in the park. Never, of course, at a fashionable hour. Too much noise and hurley-burley.”

“Which is exactly what you want.”

She responded to the understanding in his eyes. “Is it so bad? We were here for the special Drawing Room on St. George's day, but that would have been absolutely too much for her.”

“In fairness, it probably would have been, and a dead bore to boot.”

“But it would have been something. Almack's. The theater. Something. Ella's house is quieter than Brideswell.”

“Not difficult to achieve.” Perhaps there was a smile in his eyes.

She smiled back, for her crowded home was all bustle and life. “No, but you know what I mean. The only guests are matrons like Ella, talking endlessly of husbands and children, and George's fellow MPs wanting to discuss the Corn Laws, sedition, or the ruinous cost of the army. All very important, I'm sure, but tedious.”

“Enter this military Berkstead. I assume he's handsome and dashing.”

“For a man of his age.” She almost added,
He was at Waterloo
, but thought better of it. That was where Dare had been so terribly wounded. “He took me to amusing places such as the waxworks and the Egyptian Hall. And he knows all the best scandals.”

He stood, dropping the washcloth in the bowl. “You need some livelier lady to chaperone you.”

Clearly he did not approve of waxworks, the Egyptian Hall, and especially not of scandals. Could he really have become so prosy?

“None of my friends from Lincolnshire are in London yet. Simon and Jane are to come soon, but it keeps being put off. It is
excruciating
to be so close to a treat but have to view it from within a cage.”

“Poor Mara.”

Her deliberate exaggeration had been rewarded with the ghost of a smile. Suddenly she needed to revive the old Dare, to make him smile as he used to—widely, brilliantly, infectiously. She needed him to make a witty joke, or propose some outrageous piece of mischief—daring her, daring everyone, to join him.

He was only twenty-six. Surely not too old for merriment and mischief. War, wounds, and other problems may have ground down his spirits, but it must be possible to build them up again.

He carried the basin back to the washstand and then turned to study her. Something about his stance, or the candlelight, or her steadier nerves made her aware that the changes were not entirely for the worse.

He was still slim, but stronger, with broader shoulders and more muscle. There was something about his face, too. It was still a little long, the mouth a little wide, but there seemed to be more definition around his jaw and eyes giving it a pleasing symmetry. Or perhaps the effect came from his light brown hair being fashionably cropped, not carelessly around his collar as he used to wear it.

Just perhaps sobriety suited him….

He quirked a brow as if wondering what she was thinking. She began to scramble off the bed. “I really do need to get home, Dare. My maid will set up an alarm.”

“Wait a moment. I'll find you something of Thea's to wear.”

He left and Mara could breathe properly and try to gather her wits.

T
hea was Lady Dorothea Debenham, Dare's younger sister. Mara had read about her introduction to society last spring. Anything to do with Dare had been of interest, for at that time the St. Brides and the world had still mourned him. The St. Brides had learned of Dare's discovery alive in the paper, too, for with Simon still in Canada, no one had thought to tell them.

What a delirious day that had been, even though the paper had said he was grievously ill and addicted to the opium that had been given him for the pain of his wounds.

She lifted and turned her right foot so she could inspect the damage. A couple of scrapes across the ball of her foot could be sore for a while, but even if walking hurt her tomorrow, she'd be able to conceal the injury and its cause.

Dare had never had a chance of concealment. When a duke's son had been thought dead at Waterloo, then spectacularly appeared alive over a year later, some explanation must be made.

Thus the papers had recounted the story in full—how his horse had been shot from under him and he'd been trampled by cavalry, resulting in broken bones and a head wound, which had deprived him of awareness of who he was for quite some time.

He'd been cared for by a kindly Belgian widow, who had given him laudanum for his excruciating pain, but so much of it for so long that he'd become addicted.

Mara could understand. How could anyone watch someone suffer when relief was at hand? Once someone was accustomed to opium, however, it was very hard to break free.

She'd asked their family doctor about Dare's chances, but Dr. Warbuthnot had shaken his head.

“On it a year? Heavy dose? Better to stay on it, m'dear. It changes the body, you see, so that the organs need it to function. Sudden abstinence can kill, and if it doesn't, it can drive the sufferer mad.”

She'd been appalled. “But surely some people manage to free themselves?”

“Very few in my experience.”

“But the system of gradual reduction?” she'd persisted. “That's what Lord Darius is using.”

“Haven't witnessed the attempt, but I have grave doubts. Who has the strength for constant torment, and what is the point? If a person has the courage for that, they have the resolution to take only what they need to live a normal life. There are men and women of respectability, even of eminence, m'dear, in just that condition. There's no shame to it.”

It hadn't been the assurance Mara had wanted, but now she wondered if Dare had settled for that path. Why else was he in London, living a normal life? He'd lived in seclusion at Long Chart, his family's Somerset estate, since his discovery. She'd been surprised to encounter him in the park the other day.

Yet he wasn't living a normal life. He wasn't taking part in the early events of the season, for that would have been noted in the papers. He'd responded to Ella's invitation to dinner with a vague comment about living quietly. No normal young lord lived quietly in London, especially not Dare, whose friends had to be legion.

He returned and she smiled, wiping away any trace of her thoughts. She had no right to be picking apart his life, but she couldn't help caring.

He passed over cotton stockings, kid slippers, and a gown of dull gray silk. “I don't think Thea will miss these.”

“I'll return them.”

“The stockings are darned, the slippers battered, and I'm sure she'll be glad to see the end of the dress. I assume it must have been for mourning.”

For him, probably,
Mara thought, wriggling into the plain gown. Lady Thea must be taller and with a more bounteous figure, but it would have to do. She turned her back. “Fasten it, please.”

His hesitation brought her to her senses. What was she
doing
? Dare had been like a brother once, but he was a stranger now.

Few years ago when Simon had sailed for Canada, Dare had stopped visiting Brideswell. Since then, she'd only met him twice—two days ago in the park, and at Simon's wedding last December. She remembered how shocked she'd been by the change in him. He'd been so pale and thin, in some ways even fragile, and she'd hovered for fear he'd collapse.

He wasn't fragile now. He'd just carried her up the stairs and he was making her shivery and uncertain in all kinds of ways. But someone had to fasten the dress.

“Please? I can't do it for myself.”

She heard his footsteps, and then felt his fingers against her spine. A secret shiver heightened her sudden awareness that she was half dressed in a man's bedroom. She clutched the dress to herself at the front and sought something, anything, to say.

“It's loose. Your sister must have a good figure.”

“There's nothing wrong with your figure.”

“I'm almost flat in the bosom.”

“Not flat.”

“Well, no, but meager.”

His fingers halted between her shoulderblades. “Mara, really. Is this situation not awkward enough without discussing your bosom?” He finished and stepped back.

She turned, aware of the gown bulging empty at the front. “I'm sorry. I don't have much experience with strange men. I mean, you're not strange. But you're not a brother—”

“You discuss your bosom with your brothers?”

“They have been known to tease me about it.”

“Then they're cads.”

But he was smiling. He was!

As if he heard her thought, his face turned blank. “Shoes and stockings,” he said, indicating the items.

She pulled on the stockings, fixing them with her discarded pink satin garters. She caught him staring. He quickly looked away, but Mara smiled as she put on the shoes.

“A bit loose,” she said, “but they'll do once the laces are tied.” She did so and stood, but then froze. “I'm going to arrive home in different clothes! Ruth will…I don't know what she'll do.”

“Who's Ruth?”

“My maid. She's to wait by the basement door to let me in. We couldn't leave the house unlocked. Not in London.”

“Such a responsible house guest.”

“Don't sneer. Ruth has a very low opinion of men and sees it as her duty to protect me from them.”

“And she permitted this exploit?”

“She's my maid, not my warder.”

“Pity.”

“Don't be nasty, Dare. She thinks I'm at a masquerade ball, but when she sees this gown, she'll tell Ella and Ella will tell George, who'll tell Father, who'll summon me home, and I'll never be allowed far from Brideswell again.”

He took her hands. She realized she'd been fretting at the front of her dress and—heavens!—tears were blurring her vision.

“Imp, don't try to tell me you can't wrap your maid around your little finger. When you arrive home safely and promise her you've learned your lesson, she'll do your will. But promise me, too. If you don't, I'll have to tell your father.”

His hands on hers had wiped her mind blank, so she simply looked at him, blinking to try to clear her eyes.

“I mean it,” he said.

“Oh. Yes. Of course. I mean, of course I've learned my lesson.”

A thoroughly startling one.
That lean, long-fingered hands, warm and strong on hers, were magical. That Dare, her almost brother, was magical. That she wanted to stay here with him.

No. Impossible.

But see him again. Soon. Tomorrow.

She met his eyes with what she hoped was innocent expectation. “It would be easier to be good if I wasn't so bored. If I had the chance to see more of London.” He seemed blank, so she tried a smile. “If I had an escort.”

Agree, Dare, agree!

He released her hands. “I'm not attending ton events.”

“Oh, I don't mean Almack's or anything like that.” She rapidly searched for an unalarming destination. “Even Hyde Park would be a treat.”

He studied her as if wondering where the trick lay, but said, “Very well.”

“Tomorrow?”

“At ten.”

She'd hoped for the fashionable afternoon, but it would do for a first attempt.

“Thank you!” Mara focused her best, brightest smile on him. A lifetime had taught her that her best, brightest smile was a potent force. Perhaps he even blinked.

“If you're ready, let's get you back to Ella's.” But then he looked at her feet and the trailing dress. “I doubt you can walk that far.”

Practical concerns felt rather like being tossed into a chilly pond from a high-flying swing. “No, I'm sorry. Can you order a carriage?”

“At this hour? It'll have to be horseback. Can you walk to the stables?”

So very tempting to have him carry her, and her feet were sore, but Mara settled for truth. “Of course.”

He picked up a candle, and passed her the discarded blanket. “You can hide in this in case we encounter any servants. Then we'll drop it in the street. Someone will be glad of it.”

She put it around her shoulders and cast a quick glance in the mirror in passing. She wished she'd not. The gown hung like a sack and her hair was a scarecrow mess. She'd dragged her silk turban with the diamante clip off before escaping.

She accompanied him down the corridor feeling low. He probably thought of her as the ragamuffin child he'd used to tease.

When he steered her down a set of back stairs, she whispered, “The house feels so empty.”

“I'm the only one of the family here at the moment, and the servants will be asleep.”

The silent house felt eerie. Brideswell could never feel as empty, even in the deadest hours of the night. If the people were asleep, the dogs and cats still roamed. As if summoned, a silent dark shape slid up the stairs to brush against Dare's leg and purr.

“Shush,” he said, and as if understanding, the cat went silent, but it padded with them down the stairs and along a basement corridor.

“Your cat?” Mara whispered, liking the thought.

“No.”

A silly question. It was probably the kitchen mouser.

They followed corridors, turning twice, and then Dare turned a key in a door to the outside.

There was a rustle to their left. “Who's there?”

Mara dragged the blanket up over her head. In an alcove by the door, a round-faced boy sat up and blinked at them. A youthful guardian of the portal.

“Lord Darius. All's well. Go back to sleep.”

The boy's eyes were closing as he lay down again.

“He'll probably not even remember,” Mara whispered as they passed through the doorway into open air.

“I hope so.” He closed and locked the door and Mara noticed that the cat was no longer with them.

A breeze fluttered the candle flame and then extinguished it. Mara gasped, blind now, but Dare took her hand, seeming to know the way. She went in simple trust.

There was some moon and her eyes adjusted, but she would have been stumbling and bumbling without his help. Then a golden glimmer broke the dark and she realized it was a lantern. In moments they were at the mews stable yard, surrounded by the familiar smell of horses.

Mara pulled the blanket up around her head again, but the night air had revived her and she suddenly felt almost happy. She was safe on a lovely moonlit night amid the familiar smells of a stable.

A creak told her Dare was opening a stall door, but then a sharp voice called, “Who's there?” A sturdy young man appeared, pistol pointed. Yeovil House was well-guarded.

He stared at Mara, but then said, “Oh, milord. Sorry, milord.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, Adam. I'm pleased you're so alert. Perhaps you could get Normandy for me.”

Mara almost spoke, for the name stirred memories. Her brother Simon had always called his favorite horse Hereward after their ancestor who'd led the resistance to the Norman invaders after 1066. Without malice, Dare had paid tribute to the fact that his family had pure Norman roots by using the name Conqueror for his. Not Conqueror now, but a related name, as William the Conqueror had been Duke of Normandy.

Was there any significance to the change?

She'd joined in the fun by calling her horse Godiva, after Hereward's mother, the famous Lady Godiva. Godiva was here in town. Perhaps they could go riding together.

Despite giving the order, Dare was helping the groom. In this setting he was an intriguing blend of strength and loose-limbed elegance, but completely at home. Not surprising. All the men she knew loved the stables more than the drawing room.

The men didn't saddle the big dark horse. Dare dismissed the groom before leaping easily onto Conqueror's bare back and riding him to the mounting block. “Sit in front, my fair lady.” A smile in his eyes had turned up the brightness of the stars.