The Rogue's Proposal Read online

  She wasn’t that girl anymore.

  “We both said yes,” she told Luke now. “We wrote our acceptances in a letter, first my father and then me.”

  She’d been so certain she was in love, but now she wasn’t so sure. She was in love with the attention he’d given her. She was in love with the way he’d made her laugh. With the way he’d sneaked into her room on a warm London summer evening and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe.

  She’d been more fascinated by him than by any of the aristocratic gentlemen she’d danced with at the Season’s assemblies and soirees. Henry hadn’t been a nobleman or an aristocrat, but he was a moneyed gentleman. He’d told her that his parents and sister lived in Yorkshire. When she’d tried to contact them after his death, her letters had been returned unopened.

  “Why did you marry him?” Luke asked her now. “Did you love him?”

  She stiffened. “That’s a rather personal question, don’t you think?”

  “Yes. So?”

  She stared straight ahead, debating whether to answer.

  It came down to the fact that Luke had agreed to bring her with him, and she owed him for that. “I loved him,” she said in a clipped voice. But then she felt compelled to add, “In some respects.”

  “I see.” He looked at her, his blue eyes serious, a slight crease between his brows. “Did he love you?”

  Something inside her recoiled. If she’d thought the last question was too personal, this one surely surpassed all bounds of decency.

  They rattled over a rut in the road, giving her a reason to grip the edge of her seat.

  She didn’t answer for a long while. He didn’t press her.

  Finally, she said, in a very low, very miserable voice, “I don’t think so.”

  A week after the wedding, she’d started to worry. A month after the wedding, she’d begun to panic. Because as the days went by, it became increasingly clear that Henry possessed no interest in her as a wife, even as another human being. He’d married her for her father’s money. He’d married her because she was an heiress with a very generous dowry.

  It had had nothing to do with her.

  No, he hadn’t loved her. He’d seduced her and wooed her with everything he had, but once the dowry was in his hands and his future secured with the promise of much more, he’d showed his true colors.

  Perhaps he’d even actively disliked her the whole time he’d been telling her how lovely and sweet she was. Perhaps he’d shivered with revulsion when he’d whispered how he wanted nothing more than to take her to his bed.

  All the money was gone now. It was her fault. If she hadn’t married Henry, he’d have never become involved with Roger Morton. Papa’s fortune would still be safe.

  Guilt swamped her—a feeling she was accustomed to now. She’d made a foolish choice, and her family had paid dearly for it.

  Luke seemed not to have heard her. He was concentrating on negotiating the horses over the bumps and curves in the road.

  She was glad he hadn’t heard. She didn’t want Lord Lukas Hawkins’s pity. She just wanted him to help her find Roger Morton so she could get her money back, make Papa well, and see Jane married to someone as good and honest as she was.

  She glanced at Luke to find him looking ahead, scowling. “What’s wrong?” she asked him.

  He was quiet for a long moment, still staring straight ahead, then he said, “I think one of the horses is limping.”

  She studied the horses. “Which one?”

  “The gray.”

  She stared at the gray mare. “I can’t see it.”

  He stopped the horses, still not looking at her. “I’ll check. Wait here.” He pressed the reins into her hands.

  She held the horses, sitting with the blanket wrapped around her as he stepped off the curricle and then went to check the horse’s hooves and legs, running his hand through the dirty-white fur, feeling for injuries in the legs, then coaxing the hooves off the ground one at a time and meticulously inspecting each one. Finally, he returned. She kept her eyes on the gray. “Did you find anything?”

  “No. She seems perfectly fine. I was imagining it.”

  “Well, let’s keep an eye on her,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  Luke urged the horses into a trot, pretending to take it slow for the gray’s sake. He’d lied. The gray hadn’t been limping.

  But he’d needed to get off the curricle for a moment. Put some distance between himself and Emma. Because the fact of the matter was, his level of rage was not commensurate to the situation.

  He hardly knew Emma Curtis. But damned if he didn’t want to wring Henry Curtis’s dead, rotting neck right now.

  He tightened his hands over the reins and took deep, slow breaths to calm his lingering fury.

  The man had hurt her. She sat next to Luke, cold as hell because she couldn’t afford to buy herself a decent coat, wrapped up in that woolen blanket. And she looked vulnerable and alone.

  He’d seen grieving women before. Women who were so full of regret and sadness they advertised it when they walked down a street. But he’d never felt this way about any of those women. For the most part, he’d ignored them, though he was sickeningly aware of his own selfishness.

  More than anything, he wanted Emma to feel better. He wanted to help her. But he had no idea how.

  Just keep doing what you’re doing.

  That was one way to help her. Find Morton, dissuade her from her foolish notion of killing him, and see the man hanged for his crimes against their families.

  Still, that wouldn’t provide her with physical comfort. It wouldn’t make her feel loved. It wouldn’t make her believe in her true strength and beauty.

  Luke wanted to make her feel that way. He wanted to make her feel like the loveliest, most cherished woman in the world. He wanted to be the one to cherish her.

  Where in the hell were these thoughts coming from? Good God.

  He noted that the air of his breaths emerged in little clouds. It was growing colder. And she was correct—if they stayed out in this cold, they would catch their deaths. She would, anyhow, as underdressed as she was.

  The first order of business would be to buy her a damned coat.

  “I think we’re almost there,” she said after they went through a turnpike.

  “Good,” he snapped, realizing belatedly that he still sounded angry. He took a deep breath and modulated his voice. “I grow hungry.”

  “I should have thought to order some food packed so we could bring it with us,” she said.

  “No, you shouldn’t. We’ll dine at the Cambridge Inn at the proper hour.”

  “Tomorrow, I’ll be sure to bring something.”

  “As you wish.” One corner of his lips cocked upward. “However, it’s not your responsibility to ensure I’m fed, you know.”

  She blew out a breath, causing a light cloud of fog that wisped over a curl that had fallen from her bonnet and dangled over her cheek. He tightened his right hand on the rein, resisting the sudden urge to tuck that soft strand of hair behind her ear.

  “You’re doing all the driving,” she pointed out. “You’ve taken it upon yourself to be responsible for the traveling, so I think I should be responsible for keeping our bellies full, don’t you?”

  “Very well,” he conceded. “If you wish it. Still, I’ve managed to keep myself alive for many years without someone feeling it necessary to feed me.”

  She tilted her head at him. “Do you live alone? Not with your family?”

  “I live alone in London. I own a town house there. No country houses—alas, those were all bestowed to my brothers.”

  “So you aren’t often in the company of the duke?”

  “Sometimes, when I am feeling inordinately blessed with patience and temperance, I will take it upon myself to visit my family at Ironwood Park. I wouldn’t say I go there to visit Trent specifically, but rather my sister and my mother. Sometimes one of my other three b
rothers.”

  “Ironwood Park is your brother’s seat, is it not? Did you spend your childhood there?”

  “Yes, it is his country seat. All six of us spent our childhoods there.”

  “Do you like it?”

  Luke shrugged. “In some ways. But I can never stay there long. It is an enormous house with vast lands, but it has always felt like a prison to me.”

  “Aren’t you your brother’s heir? Ironwood Park could be yours someday.”

  He chuckled. “Highly doubtful. My sister-in-law is increasing already. I predict she’ll bear Trent a dozen strapping sons.”

  “Does that upset you? The fact that you might lose your position as heir?”

  “Hell no.” He slanted a suspicious look in her direction. “Does it upset you, Emma?”

  Was that why she seemed so interested in him? Was she angling for a position at his side so that she might someday become a duchess? Women had attempted to play him like that before. It was the worst kind of deception, and when he’d found them out, his reaction hadn’t been a kind one.

  But she frowned at him. “Why would it matter to me?”

  “Think about it,” he said.

  She did, her brow creased as she studied him, then her eyes widened in horror. “If you believe I have designs on you, that I have some horrid intention to become the next Duchess of Trent, then you don’t know me at all.”

  His lips twitched. “Are you certain?”

  “Of course I am!” She shuddered as if in disgust. “Good Lord.”

  Her reaction placated him. “That’s a relief.”

  She looked away, gazing at the landscape rolling by for several moments before she turned to him once again. “I am curious about the home where you grew up—but I assure you, it’s not because I intend to be its mistress one day.”

  He gave a small smile. “Understood.”

  “It is in the Cotswolds, is it not?”

  “It is.”

  “We shall be traveling near it, then. It can’t be far off our course. Shall we visit?”

  “It’s directly on our course, actually,” he said. “But, no. We won’t be visiting Ironwood Park.”

  She seemed to shrink an inch. “Oh. I understand. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  “Why are you using that tone of voice?”

  “What tone of voice?”

  “The same one you used when you told me your husband didn’t love you.”

  She stiffened, her shoulders straightening. Good. He much preferred this Emma over the defeated one.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her tone haughty.

  “Oh, yes, you do.”

  She pulled the blanket tighter around her. She was all wrapped up like a present he wanted to open for Christmas. The most voluptuous, delicious present ever. Too bad she’d made it quite clear it wasn’t for him.

  Not yet, anyhow.

  “It’s nothing. Just that I understand why you wouldn’t want to bring me to your family.”

  “What?” Understanding washed over him, and he cast an exasperated look to the heavens. “Oh, good God, woman. You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She sat there, rigid as one of the statues in the Stone Room at Ironwood Park, and he sighed. “Listen, my brother and I don’t often see eye to eye. I wouldn’t want to subject you to our quarrels. That’s all. It has nothing to do with you or their perceptions of you. I wouldn’t give a damn what Trent thinks about you.” He frowned, feeling the furrow deepen between his brows. “Actually, I would. If he judged you—” He broke off, shaking his head.

  She didn’t move but stared straight ahead. They were passing a copse of trees, the leaves glorious shades of red, orange, and brown. The wind had kicked up, sending swirls of leaves off branches and scattering them across the road.

  Finally, she said, “You’re an odd man, Lord Luke.”

  “Just Luke.”

  “Just Luke,” she murmured. She looked at him, her bronze eyes large and soft, her lips curled into a smile. “But…thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For…” She hesitated, then laughed, the sound a low, throaty chuckle that warmed him to his marrow. “Well, I suppose for having that angry look on your face when you thought about your brother judging me. It made me feel…better.”

  “If he judged you, I would be less than pleased.” An understatement. He reached down to hold her hand where it was tapping her leg. She couldn’t return the gesture as her hand was trapped beneath the blanket, but that was all right.

  Her fingers stilled beneath his. He kept his hand tight over hers until they reached Slimbridge.

  * * *

  The Cambridge Inn was a rectangular building made of white brick with uniform rows of square-paned windows on its first floor and a front door flanked by two sash windows on either side. The innkeeper was a burly man who appeared to be in his thirties and more suited to farm labor than to the comparatively sedentary venture of running an inn.

  Luke registered them as Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hawkins. Emma didn’t say a word about this until they were safely in their room and the servant who’d carried their luggage shut the door, leaving them in privacy.

  The room was larger than the room in Bristol had been—nearly twice the size, with a round table and two comfortable-looking chairs on one side of the door and a bed flanked by two small tables on the other.

  She gazed for a long moment at the bed, noting it was large enough for the two of them, then looked deliberately at Luke. He smirked at her.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. Now where would she sleep? She should probably make him sleep on the floor and take the bed for herself. “Why on earth did you do that?”

  “My second name is Charles.”

  “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  He shrugged. “If I’d requested two rooms, what would people have thought? That I am a man attempting to pretend I’m not traveling with my mistress?”

  “You could have said we were brother and sister.”

  “Right,” he said in a tone dripping with sarcasm. “We do look so much alike.”

  They looked nothing alike. It would be a stretch of the imagination to believe them to be brother and sister. Him with his blond hair and narrow face and sharp features, her with her dark hair and round face and soft features. Still, not impossible.

  She sighed. They should have discussed this beforehand. Agreed upon a suitable course of action.

  Turning away from him, she removed her pelisse and hung it over a chair. When she turned back, he leaned over his trunk, busying himself with removing a clean waistcoat, tailcoat, and a simple white cravat. When he closed the trunk, he straightened, unbuttoning the black cloth buttons of his long greatcoat. He looked beautiful, his hair wind-tossed around his face, his eyes a dark, tumultuous blue, his face roughened by his afternoon beard. She could almost imagine how it would feel to run her fingers through his hair or to have the scruff of his beard scratch her skin as he kissed his way softly down her neck—

  “I’m going downstairs.”

  “What?” She fought back a blush as she was quickly jolted from her fantasy. “Why?” Had he forgotten something in the curricle?

  His gaze didn’t quite meet hers. “I’ll take my dinner in the pub.”

  For a moment, she stared at him, startled by his change in demeanor. Then, she raised her brows. “I thought you told the servant we’d take dinner here.”

  “Changed my mind.”

  Emma steadied herself, but her mind was in a tumult. “Oh. All right, then.”

  He busied himself with donning the waistcoat and tailcoat, then deftly tied his cravat as he gazed into the small looking glass mounted on the wall beside the table. She watched him in silence.

  He swiveled and went to the door, and laying his hand on the door handle, he said, “Lock it behind me.”

  She just stared at him. Without another word, he opened the
door and shut it with a firm click behind him.

  Silence.

  Then a muffled, “Emma. Lock the damn door.”

  With a sigh, she went to the door and locked it. He didn’t say anything else, but she heard his footsteps as he retreated down the corridor.

  She turned back to the empty room to face an evening alone with nothing but the fascinating company of Paterson’s British Itinerary.

  Chapter Four

  Luke returned to the room after midnight. He’d sat at the table all evening with a glass of ale that kept magically refilling itself. As he ascended the stairs, he tried to remember the serving girl who’d brought him the ale, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember seeing a serving girl at all, after that one who’d removed his empty dinner plate.

  Surely there’d been a serving girl. Why in hell couldn’t he remember her?

  He was still mulling this over when he found himself at the door to the room he was sharing with Emma. Lovely Emma.

  He searched his pockets but couldn’t find a key. He tried the door but it was locked. He smiled slightly. Good girl, his Emma.

  Damn. What had he done with the key?

  He rattled the door handle as if that would make a key suddenly appear. It didn’t work.

  But he heard movement on the other side of the door and then the lock turned. The door opened to reveal Emma standing there, decidedly disheveled. And delicious.

  Her hair—God, that glorious hair. It was twisted into a thick, decadent braid that trailed down over the front of one shoulder. Its end tickled her luscious breast over her nightgown. He reached out to touch that soft, round curve, but she stepped back.

  “My lord.” Her tone was frosty. “I trust you had a good dinner.”

  Even in his drunken state, he knew very well the tone of a disgruntled woman.

  He tried to remember why she’d be disgruntled. He did remember a pretty woman who’d approached him this evening. He remembered staring at her, thinking she looked something like Emma with her dark hair and generous curves. Thinking that she would have seemed very appealing to him two days ago. That was before he’d met Emma Curtis. Tonight, that woman had done nothing for him. He’d sent her away, feeling vaguely disconcerted about this sudden change in behavior that had seemed to come over him.