Claimed by the Rogue (14 page)

“Friends?” She stared up at him as though the suggestion had never once occurred to her.

He felt his smile softening and with it his heart. “I recall our beginning that way.”

They’d first met as fellow captives in the cellar of an East End tavern. By the time Phoebe had joined him in his dark, dank prison, he was weak from starvation and delirious from the daily drug dosing. Drifting in and out of consciousness, he’d mistaken her for an angel and kissed her. And Phoebe, who’d later confessed to never before much caring for kissing, had liked it very much indeed.

She swallowed hard. “That is all in the past.”

“Is it?” he asked gently.

She sealed her lips as if suddenly afraid what sentiments might slip out.
 

Torn between exasperation and amusement, he blew out a breath. “Come now, is the sight of me truly so off-putting? I realize I am not the smooth-cheeked youth with whom you first fell in love, but I am hardly a monster.” So long as he kept on his clothes, the statement might remain a true one.
 

Light brown brows snapped together. “If you’re fishing for compliments, I am sorry to disappoint. As a betrothed woman, I cannot go about remarking upon the countenance of every peacock that puts himself in my path.”

“Peacock, egads,” he said, enjoying himself despite all that stood at stake. “Shall I gather from that remark you don’t care for my coat?”
 

She raked her gaze over the wine-colored wool, admittedly a standout in a sea of crow’s black. “Surely Anthony wouldn’t own something so vulgar.”

“I’ll have you know this is newly made.” When he’d brought the bolt of fabric to the tailor and explained it was meant not for a waistcoat but for the coat itself, the poor fellow had nearly dropped his false teeth. “Though were you to accompany me on a shopping expedition, I’d promise to cede to your good taste and sound sense.”

She sent him a shocked look. “I cannot be seen shopping with you for something so intimate. I might as well declare myself your mistress.”

Leaning in, he whispered, “Delightful as that sounds, I’d much rather have you for my wife, but at this juncture I’ll take what I can get.”
 

Color high, she stepped back. “Would it not cause a scene, I would slap you soundly for that revolting remark.”

“Would you now?” Recalling the fervor and feel of her strike on their reunion night, he felt himself thickening, a state that his cutaway coat could not conceal. Leaning ever closer, he snared her gaze and whispered, “Have a care, milady, I might well put you to the test.” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a familiar figure approaching and choked back an oath. “But, alas, your ever vigilant keeper is on his way over to reclaim you, forcing us to adjourn this invigorating badinage until a more private time.”

Fierce-faced, Bouchart strode up to them. “Monsieur Bellamy, like the bad penny, you turn up yet again.”

Robert met the Frenchman’s quelling look with one of his own. “It’s
Captain
Bellamy, and as tonight is a public ball, I purchased a ticket as is my right.”
 

Bouchart opened his mouth as if to reply when they were interrupted by a wigged server circulating a silver tray of lemonade. The Frenchman made a face. “
Mon Dieu
, more lemonade! I wonder we are not all afloat in it.” Expression mortified, Phoebe shushed him but to no avail. Pitching his voice higher, he demanded, “May a man not be provided a proper drink in this godforsaken place?”

Robert hid a smile. Almack’s choice of beverage was the one thing on which he and Bouchart could agree, though he wasn’t about to make his complaints quite so public. “Doubtless you would prefer a glass of Calvados?” he said, recalling that Bouchart hailed from Normandy, where the apple-flavored brandy was almost exclusively produced.

For a split second, the scowl was replaced by an expression of pure puzzlement. Recovering, Bouchart turned back to the waiter. “Have you no champagne?”

“Nay, milord, not a drop, I’m afraid,” the man answered and then scuttled away toward the next grouping of guests.

Robert waited for the servant to leave before pursuing the topic. “Calvados is from your native Normandy, is it not? I should think you would leap at the opportunity to sample the nectar of your homeland, especially after so long an exile.”

The Frenchman hesitated. “It was a spirit much drunk in my father’s day, but it has fallen out of fashion.”
 

Robert scrubbed his gloved knuckles across his chin. “You don’t say?”
 

Bouchart’s color rose. “Enough! I am in no mood to educate you on the subject of fortified wines.”

Robert’s heart stilled—and his hopes rose. Calvados was brandy, not wine. A Frenchman from Normandy who was also a wine importer would be well acquainted with the spirit—unless Bouchart was not who or what he seemed.

“As you wish.” Making a mental note to take up the topic at a later time, Robert returned his attention to Phoebe. “I was about to bespeak the next dance. May I?”
 

Having earlier committed the evening’s program to heart, he recalled it was a waltz. He hadn’t danced in six years, not a waltz or any other. The close contact would once again put him to the test. He couldn’t very well pinion her arms on the dance floor as he had in her father’s study. Nor could he continue shunning the very touch he craved. Phoebe wasn’t the only one of them mired in the past. His hopes of claiming her hinged upon his moving forward as a whole man.

She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, Bouchart broke in with, “I am afraid you are too late yet again,” a nasty jab intended to recall the six years of separation. “It is promised to me, as are all my bride’s dances.”

“All of them, you say?” Robert reached out and lifted the dance card dangling from Phoebe’s slender waist. “And yet your name appears but once.” Dropping the card, he looked up to Phoebe. “The ladies’ dances tonight are in the service of charity, are they not?”
 

The question was intended as rhetorical, but she answered nonetheless. “Ten pounds for each dance to benefit the Foundation.”

“Ladies selling dances as if they were favors, it is a disgrace,” Bouchart spat.

Phoebe’s lips slid into a wry smile. “As you can no doubt ascertain, Aristide does not precisely approve.” She rolled her lovely eyes, looking more like her old lively self than Robert had yet seen.

Heartened, he smiled back. “So I gather.”
 

Flinging his gaze between them, Bouchart snorted. “I am afraid my fiancée is that most annoying species of female, a do-gooder or so you English say.”

They both ignored him.
 

Gaze locked upon Phoebe’s, Robert felt as if they were the only two in the room, co-conspirators, friends—lovers—once more. “What if I were to triple the ten pounds to thirty?”

Her put-upon sigh was for Bouchart’s benefit, Robert felt sure of it. The desire in her eyes, which kept returning to his, was too plain not to read. Nor did he miss the telltale moistening of her lips. A signal from six years before, it meant she wanted him to kiss her.

She cut a look to her fiancé’s furious face and swallowed hard. “As it is for the foundlings, I can hardly refuse.” Her gaze dipped to her dance card. Lifting it and the nub of pencil dangling from its silk ribbon, she prepared to write in Robert’s name.

“Forty pounds.”

Phoebe’s head shot up. “Forty pounds? But Aristide—”

“Be silent,” he ordered and hearing the snappish tone in which he spoke to her, Robert was hard pressed not to call him out on the spot.
 

Instead, he retorted, “Fifty.”

Aristide’s fuming gaze met his. “Sixty.”

From the trellised balcony above, the orchestra struck up a waltz. At this rate, they would all sit out the dance. Resolved to forestall further haggling, Robert said, “One hundred pounds.”
 

He looked to Bouchart, but the blazing eyes and tight lips told him that no counter offer was forthcoming—so much for the Frenchman’s pretense to riches. Adding that suspicion to the other, he turned back to Phoebe. “Milady?” he said, offering her his arm.

She took it, and this time there was no mistaking the gleam in her eye for anything other than what it was—excitement. Bouchart’s glare following them out onto the dance floor added a fillip of triumph.

“That wasn’t nice,” she said, laying her gloved hand on the outside of Robert’s upper arm.
 

He steeled himself not to flinch, but the familiar flesh-crawling feeling never came. He tucked her right hand into his, reassured by how bloody good the contact had him feeling. “Perhaps not, but it was effective.” Laying a glove upon the small of her back, he drew her closer. Through the silk and minimal undergarments, her waist felt supple and small.

“I’m not a mare on the auction block at Tattersall’s, you know.”

He pulled back to look down at her. “Of course you are not. For one thing, you smell too good. For another, the proprietor of Tattersall’s prides himself on his stock’s sweet disposition.”

She tilted her head and slanted him a look. “Is this how you woo, with insults?”

“Who says I’m still out to woo you?”

Fresh color flooded her face, but to her credit she didn’t back down. “You’ve followed as closely upon my heels as Pippin all this week. If not wooing, than what are you about?”

Hearing himself likened to her lapdog was hardly flattering. Beneath the tightly wound stock, his neck heated. “Perhaps I am seeking to make amends.”

She let out a soft snort.

“Six years ago I hadn’t a farthing to my name. I couldn’t give you even a fraction of all the things I wanted to. Christ, the purchase of your locket all but beggared me.”
 

Gaze going to her throat, he saw that she no longer wore it. The observation prompted a pang. Not for the first time he wished me might exchange places with his younger, purse-pinched self. He might be possessed of a fortune now, but the true treasure, the pearl beyond price, Phoebe, belonged to another. So far since his return, he’d only succeeded in borrowing her.

Blue-grey eyes lifted to his face, eloquent in their sudden starkness. “Didn’t you know I only ever wanted you?”

Emboldened, he bent his head to the silk of her cheek. “You have me now, or you could. Say the word and we’ll leave this instant, sail away from here, anywhere you’d like.”

Stiffening, she shook her head. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“No, I do not, not when the prize is as worthy of winning as you are.”

Her gaze shuttered. “I’m not a possession to be won or claimed. I’ve a heart and mind the same as you and both are now set on another. It’s too late for us. The sooner you accept that as fact, the better off the both of us shall be.”

Exasperation had his hold tightening. “Why too late? I’m here. You’re here. We’re both young still.”
I still love you
.

Casting a cautious look to the other circuiting couples, she dropped her voice to barely above a whisper. “It’s taken me six years to pick up the pieces of my life and forge some sort of future for myself. Do you honestly expect me to toss that all away simply because you’ve sailed back into my life? Even if I were foolish and dishonorable enough to break my promise to Aristide, what guarantee have I that you wouldn’t leave again when the fancy strikes you?”

Robert’s fingers firmed on her waist. “One word from you and I’m here to stay—on land, in England. Cry off with Bouchart right here, right now, and I swear to you I’ll head for East India House in Leadenhall Street at first light and resign my commission. What more will it take for you to trust me again?”

She shook her head, expression vehement. “There is nothing you can say, nothing you can do, that could possibly lure me to ever trust you again.”

“As I’ve remarked upon before, never is a damnably long time.” If she carried through with becoming Bouchart’s wife, he would have no choice but to cede the field and leave her be. But that dark day hadn’t yet come. If Robert had his way, it never would.

The music segued to a stop. He let his hand linger in the curve of her back a moment more, a delicious dalliance that would no doubt be remarked upon and not only by Bouchart. “We shall see, milady, which of us wins their way, but for now allow me the privilege of seeing you back to your escort.”

Upon depositing Phoebe on the edge of the dance floor, Robert could bear the ball no longer. As the son of a mere country squire, he hadn’t belonged to her fashionable world six years ago. He belonged even less now. More to the point, she hadn’t wanted him there.

The first article of clothing to go was his gloves. Shucking them off, he exited through a side door and stepped out into a back alley leading to the mews. Desperate for air, he tore at the confines of his cravat. Crumpling the blasted thing into a ball, he shoved it into his coat pocket and cut across to the stable.

The groom who led his horse over to the mounting block was a different fellow from the callow youth Robert recalled from earlier. Stubble-jawed, gin-breathed, and well into his thirties, he seemed an odd choice to wait upon Almack’s persnickety patronesses and their elite subscribers. But then servants were meant to be invisible and despite his lack of couth, this one couldn’t be faulted for his manners.