Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One) (11 page)

Peace had claimed her then, as it did now in memory. And because she understood already that Gideon St. Goddard just might be that rarest of creatures, a good and gentle man, Sabrina almost wanted to give him what he sought. Almost.

When she considered the price—herself—she decided that consummation would have to wait. Perhaps, forever.

She supposed she might someday trust him enough to give herself to him, body and heart, free and clear, but she knew he would have to earn it first. And in this case, earning was a state of mind … hers. Even she did not quite understand the proof she sought. She simply knew that she would recognize it when she found it.

She wondered, then, about their life, what a future with this puzzling man might possibly hold.

Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe, her husband—sweet one minute, tart the next, first hot, then cold. He had frightened her witless and stirred her senses … and they had only just met the day before.

Tonight, she had drifted to sleep, naked and content in his arms … and left him wanting.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Mama? Are you sleeping?”

Sabrina sat up, clutching her blankets to cover herself. “Damon?” she whispered frantically. “What are you doing here?”

“It is Rafferty, Mama. Damon is still sleeping, but I cannot, because I am thirsty.”

“Where is Miss Minchip? Why did you not ask her for a drink of water?”

“She is snoring so loud, she cannot hear me. I think her ears are too old,” he whispered, all serious concern. “She does not hear very good.”

Sabrina smiled at her son’s observation. “Go back to the nursery, Sweet, and Mama will be right up.”

“But, that man, he—”

“Go, Sweet, I will be up right behind you. Move now.”

She should have realized right away, if he was quiet, he was Rafe. Damon would have climbed into bed with her and spoken afterward, and he would not have whispered.

She told the twins, of course, that they could no longer come to her during the night, that they would have to see how this man would deal with two noisy little boys.

But how could two four year olds, who had already faced the devil in their short lives, understand the appearance of what they must perceive as another fiend, after the first had frightened them senseless?

Sabrina slipped from her marriage bed, somewhat sorry to be leaving her new husband’s embrace, a circumstance she would not have thought possible a short twenty-four hours before.

She groped for her nightrail, found it, and slipped it over her head. Two nights before, she had gone to sleep foolishly wishing that the penniless wanderer and the Duke of Stanthorpe were one and the same, and now that she discovered they were, or, rather, he was, she was not certain how she felt.

Somehow, Stanthorpe had seemed safer as a figment of her imagination, than as a flesh and blood man with wants and needs of his own.

When she had discovered his perfidy, in company with the others at her wedding, she had experienced relief, gladness, annoyance, any number of new and strange emotions. But right now, she was too comfortably lethargic to examine her careening feelings.

Besides, she had best see to the twins, before they instigated a midnight insurrection fit to wake the dead, thereby revealing to her new husband exactly how large a family she came with.

Shivering at the very thought, Sabrina tied her serviceable wrapper over her burgeoning middle. She cut through her dressing room and slipped out the servant’s access into the hall. Then she stole through the house like a thief in the night.

She should have told Gideon about the twins already, she supposed, as she made her way up the servants’ stairs toward the third-floor nursery. And, she supposed, she should tell him sooner, rather than later, before he discovered their existence on his own. Horrifying thought.

But perhaps she was worrying uselessly, for he seemed sincerely to like children. Had he not become his niece’s galloping pony, a steed so spirited, he had knocked his rider’s curls askew?

But had he not also suggested that she should discover whether her intended even liked children? Did he mean the words as a warning? If so, would he not have cried off at the mere sight of her impending motherhood?

Her maternity had certainly not deterred him in their bed earlier tonight. Not at all. Her very condition seemed actually to...stimulate him.

Then again, a quiet expectancy and an unquiet pair of striplings were entirely different kettles of fish.

Sabrina heard the twins’ laughter before she stepped into their bedchamber, off the nursery where, she just now realized, Gideon must once have played.

A pillow hit her in the face as she entered their cozy bedchamber. And her sons’ giggles escalated.

As she approached in the darkness, something dropped down before her, and Sabrina sat on the bed, rather than fall on her face. “Damon Whitcomb!”

A gratified giggle.

“I did nothing. Those were Rafferty’s legs coming down before you. He is the drawbridge. I am only the toll booth.”

Sabrina grinned. “Do you really want a drink of water, Rafe? Or just someone to play with?”

“He woke me up,” Damon accused.

“I did not.”

“Did so.”

“Jinglebrains.”

“Paperskull.”

Sabrina shook her head, lit a lamp, and poured them each half a glass of water from the pitcher, high atop a nursery shelf. And like centuries of male travelers at every village inn the world over, her men guzzled their drinks to a lusty beat, until both empty glasses were handed back with corresponding thanks and sighs of relief.

She ruffled one dark, curly head, then the other.

Damon stood the taller of the two, and the broader, by as little as only a mother would note.

Rafferty bore a wiry, whip-strength that Damon lacked, but you would have to hold them each in your arms to discern the trifling difference.

“Ready to go back to sleep,” she asked when one of them yawned.

Damon climbed on his miniature bed to stand face to face with her and reached out to stroke her cheek with his little hand. “Are you all right, Mama? That man did not hurt you, did he?”

“If he did, we would protect you,” Rafe said, climbing up beside his twin.

“As I would protect you,” Sabrina returned, pushing them down, one by one, to land with a giggling bounce. Then she lay between them, both boys snuggling in.

She hugged them close and kissed each precious head, thinking she must like them best scrubbed clean and in their flannel nightshirts, all warm, soft, and open to a mother’s love.

“I would scale a mountain to protect you,” she said, beginning the game they had played, once upon a time, to comfort each other when they had all rather have cried.

“I would climb the highest mountain to protect you,” Rafferty said.

Sabrina kissed his nose. “I would sail the seven seas.”

“I would sail the biggest sea,” Damon said.

“The coldest,” Rafe countered.

“The deepest.” A yawn.

“Stormiest.”

In minutes, they were quiet, and Sabrina relished their deep and even breathing and their small hearts beating against her.

For nearly four years, these two amazing gifts, these identical miracles, had given her strength and purpose and a reason for living. As they would in the days and years ahead, and she would let nothing, and no one, harm them.

“I would catch me a dragon to protect you,” Sabrina whispered. “And hide you in his cave.”

The dragon rose at dawn, aroused and hungry for more than food; his wife saw, as he stood in glorious relief, stretching his most amazing body.

That was when Sabrina realized what a challenge would be this Peer of the Realm, this fine-sculpted Corinthian who claimed her bed and shivered her spine.

As if the mythical beast sensed her watching, he turned and looked right at her, his hunter’s eyes direct and probing, pleased, if she did not miss her guess, at the shiny new bauble he had bought for his bed.

With a grin, he approached the four poster. And with a squeak, Sabrina launched herself up and out of it, in as ungainly a manner as she could manage, given the fact that her burden seemed actually to have dropped during the night.

Her dragon’s expression went from fire to ice in a blink as he leapt.

Sabrina reared back and cowered.

Gideon caught and braced her. “Are you all right?”

Embarrassed at her fear, Sabrina silently chided herself. “Of course I am all right,” she snapped. “Why would I not be?”

“One minute I thought you might fall, and the next, I could swear that you were afraid I would strike you.”

Sabrina raised her chin but she could think of nothing to say.

“You
have
been struck in the past, have you not?”

He was pressing a point she had rather perish than reveal. “My past is not your business.”

A shutter seemed to descend over his expression. The bright of his eyes, his very aspect shut down. “Correct,” said the suddenly haughty Duke of Stanthorpe, all regal splendor, arrogant condescension, and hard-edged fury.

He let her go. “I have purchased you for the present and for the future. And a tidy price I paid.”

In silence, he strode toward his own bedchamber, controlled anger in every step. At the door, he turned. “You will meet me in the breakfast room in one hour, precisely. Good morning to you, Madam.”

The door between their rooms closed tight.

So, too, did Sabrina’s hope.

* * *

“A child, your grace?”

Typical for Bilbury. A question for a question. “Yes, Man, who of the servants has a child?” Gideon asked, for the second time in as many minutes.

“Why, none that I know of. Would you like the bottle-green, the celestial-blue, or the Devonshire brown frockcoat this morning?”

“The blue. Does a close neighbor have a child then?” Gideon asked, as Bilbury helped him on with the coat and smoothed the shoulders.

“I wonder, your grace, if you saw this child-like apparition late last night, after, say, a brandy or three, when you were half in your cups? Or in the early morning when you were still sleeping?”

“Damn it man, are you saying that I imagined the child?”

“Actually, no.” Bilbury placed a sapphire stickpin in Gideon’s mathematical-styled neck-cloth. “A wayward lad at midnight? Could have been a chimney sweep turned to burglary.”

“That, at least, is a sane explanation. Thank you, Bilbury. That will be all.”

After his valet left, Gideon checked his pocket watch to see how long he must cool his heels until meeting Sabrina. Seventeen minutes. She had better be on time.

He snapped the watch shut.

But when he arrived in the breakfast room, he found no breakfast, no wife, but his servants were all shivering in their shoes.