The Rogue (29 page)

“You are asleep even as you stand,” she said.

“I needn't be awake to kiss you. I have kissed you so many times in my dreams, I am an expert at it,” he said without opening his eyes.

“I must change my gown.”

His hands moved up her sides. “Who needs a gown? Who needs sleep?”

She pulled him toward the bed. “We are having a party tonight. With many guests.”

“I would rather have a party now with just the two of us.”

She went to the dressing room, discarded her sodden nightgown, and pulled a fresh wrapper around her. On the bed, he slept as though he had fallen there. She drew the linens up around his waist, went to the other side of the mattress, and slipped beneath the covers. Curling up on her side, she laid her cheek on her palm and watched him.

“Saint,” she said.

Not a lash flickered.

“Frederick Evan Sterling.”

His chest rose upon each even breath.

“I need you,” she whispered as the night gave way to pale sunlight filling up the room. “I need your kindness and strength and gentleness. I did not know that there were men like you.” She stroked her fingertips on the counterpane between them, but she could not bring herself to touch him. “I love you.”

A
s she had once done from a hidden doorway in a corner, now Constance peeked, unseen, into a ballroom.

“Rapiers?” Saint stood in the middle of the room, his brow furrowed. “And a what?”

“A doublet, of course.” Lord Michaels brandished his blade with a dramatic sweep of his arm. “Shakespearean garb, don't you know. But I refuse to wear hose or a codpiece. Dashed uncomfortable, those, what?”

Saint set the tip of his sword on the floor. “A codpiece.” He seemed nonplussed.

“Mrs. Josephs insists, the sassy wench. But I defended my masculinity.” The baron lunged dramatically at an imaginary Eliza.

“It is a costume party, my lord,” Constance said, finally entering the ballroom, arms laden with cloth. “Not a competition.”

“Everything's a competition, my dear lady, when a fellow's—er—
codpiece
is in question.”

“I remind you, cousin,” Saint said, looking at her, “to watch your tongue when speaking to my wife.”

“Stuff and nonsense.” The baron racked his sword and strode to her. Grabbing a plumed hat from the bundle in her arms, he swept a low bow. “Forgive my vulgarity, madam.”

She snatched the hat from him and set it atop his head. “You will be a dashing knave, my lord. Now do go make yourself useful and tell the footmen where to place the decorations.”

“Yes, mum.” With a jaunty grin at Saint, he went out.

They met midway across the floor.

“I have brought your costume for tonight,” she said.

“Not all of this, I hope?”

“Yours is on the top. The rest is my gown. Your cousin is in such fine spirits. He still has hope.”

“You don't wish to disappoint him, do you?” he said.

“We must succeed.”

“Why costumes, Constance?”

“Wearing costumes, people behave as they should not.” She had once, after all. With him.

“They do so in the Sanctuary as well, it seems.”

“But we are not returning there.”

He removed the garments from her arms and let them fall to the floor, and drew her to him for the first time since the night before when he had done so wearing nothing.

“I am relieved that you have come to this decision.” His hands spread around her waist. “I would not have allowed you to attend another gathering. But I was having a rough time of it devising a method for preventing you from going that did not involve tying you up.”

She turned her face away. “You have just made my gorge rise.”

“What every man longs to hear from the woman he is holding.”

“Why are you intentionally cruel?”

“If you run from a foe, it will chase you until you stumble and fall, and it will overcome you. If you stand and fight, you have the power to defeat it.”

She lifted her eyes to his.

“I will attend the party dressed as Viking!” Lord Michaels exclaimed as he entered carrying a stepladder, followed by Mr. Viking burdened with a heavy box. “He would not allow me to lift a finger to carry one of those dusty things. In thanks, I am trading coats with him forthwith. This one cost me a fortune. Viking, take that thing off now or suffer the wrath of my smallsword.”

“My lord has clearly been at the whiskey already today, my lady. We shan't have a moment's peace until after the festivities tonight, I am sure,” Mr. Viking said, opening the box and withdrawing a pile of satiny cloth as two maids entered the room.

“I should speak with Cook.” Constance gathered up her costume and went out.

S
AINT GLANCED AGAIN
at the street address on the note Patience Westin had sent to him, then folded the paper and tucked it into his waistcoat pocket. There were many hours yet until the costume party. Casting the house a final glance, he gave his horse leave to go ahead.

L
ATER,
C
ONSTANCE FOUND
her husband in the private parlor. Not to be used during the party, it was free of preparations. Saint reclined in a straight-backed chair as though it were a commodious couch, his legs stretched out before him, eyes closed, and hand atop the blade of a longsword laid across his lap. Afternoon sunlight splashed the steel and his hair with gold.

As she sat down before her writing desk, she heard him stir.

“Do you know,” he murmured, “I think I liked it better when we only met for two hours every morning at the edge of a wood.”

She drew a sheet of paper from a drawer. “Oh?”

“Then I knew where to find you.” His fingertips drummed slowly on the blade. “And when I did, we were alone.”

“The pot calls the kettle black. I am astonished to discover you in this house at five o'clock in the afternoon.” She cast him a glance, then regretted it. She found it difficult to look directly into his eyes. Mild estrangement was so much easier than encountering him like this. She had never had this domestic
familiarity
with a man. And, despite all, she still longed to touch him too much, more and more, as though tasting only increased her hunger. “Shouldn't you be off somewhere slaying dragons or rescuing maidens or some such thing?”

“I've just come from that, in fact. I am now taking a moment to recoup my strength.” She could hear the smile in his voice, just as she had heard it in the dark years ago.

“One hundred and sixty-two guests have accepted, including all who attended the Sanctuary two nights ago. Your notoriety is to our advantage. Everyone wants to make merry with the accused.”

“When did you decide I had not done it?”

She twisted around to face him. “At the jail when you said you would kill Walker Styles. But I never actually believed you did it. I was . . . frightened. Momentarily.” She waited for him to berate her, to tell her she was a fool for her weakness.

“Walker Styles,” he said. “That is his name.”

She bent her head to the paper, her fingers tight around the pen. “We must catalogue the information we have collected.”

“Shall I fetch Dylan?”

“Not yet. We need to speak freely about the Sanctuary. For all that I am immoderate in my lust, I don't care to discuss that party with your cousin. What is the sword you have there?”

“The bribe a duke offered me when I first refused to teach an heiress how to fence. I am carrying it tonight. Now let's talk a bit more about your lust, shall we? Better yet, let's put it into action.”

“There is too much to do.”

“Nothing more enjoyable.”

She hid her smile. “Stay away from me, Saint.”

“I've heard that before. Then you asked me to kiss you.”

“I am listing what we know of the abducted girls beside what we now know of the Sanctuary. Unlike Maggie Poultney and Cassandra Finn, the women involved in the Sanctuary are not maidens. Like Annie Favor.”

“Indeed.”

She glanced at him. With a cloth he was polishing the rapier's intricate guard. He looked up from his task.

“I was not the first man to discover that, Constance.”

She studied the words she had written. They blurred. “Only married couples are admitted to the Sanctuary, which is a peculiar stipulation for membership to any group, especially one in which the principal purpose of its founder seems to be to paint female nudes. He might hire models.”

“Perhaps the painting is a guise to conceal his primary purpose.”

“Which is?”

“Enjoying the vision of beautiful, wealthy women without their clothing.”

“How odd that would be.”

“I don't know about that. I found it remarkably enjoyable two nights ago.” His smile was roguish.

“But you did not paint me, as he does,” she said, biting back her pleasure. “And I am not married to someone else.”

“No,” he said in a low voice. “You are not.”

She wanted to cross the room and climb onto his lap. The need she felt for him was too strong. “Why doesn't he invite them privately?”

“Perhaps he eventually hopes to paint their husbands too.”

“And there is another peculiar detail of it. The men, who believe their wives are serving the Master's pleasure, do not seem to object to it.”

“Rather the opposite.”

“Have they no pride?”

He shrugged. “Pride falleth before unbridled orgy, I suppose.”

Her lips twitched. “I don't care for the way you make me laugh in the midst of this.”

He smiled. “How precious in your sensibilities you are, my lady.”

She tapped the tip of her pen on the paper. “It seems silly.”

“What it?”

“Spouse-trading in the guise of ritual. Why do they need the Sanctuary to exchange bedfellows? Everybody does it all the time anyway.”

“Not everybody I know.”

“How hopelessly unsophisticated you are.”

“It's true. My notions of marriage lack that aristocratic patina of laissez-faire. In this matter I am sadly bourgeois.” His tone sent shivers up her back.

“Mustn't you have money to be a member of the bourgeoisie?” she said airily.

“I do have money.”

She looked around at him.

“I have your money,” he said. “But we digress.”

“The Sanctuary. In exchange for the perks of the arrangement, these leaders of society voluntarily allow themselves to be cuckolded. It is unfathomable to me.”

He seemed to be studying her thoughtfully.

“Why do you look at me like that?”

“Some men, Constance, enjoy knowing that their woman is desired by other men.”

“
Desired
, I understand. Actually allowing other men intimacy with their wives seems the opposite of manly.”

“These men are giving permission, and they are using other men's wives in return. This makes them feel powerful.”

“But who among the men in that room the other night would need to feel more powerful than they already are?”

“Some men's appetite for power is insatiable.” He stared at the blade in his hands.

“Sir Eustace has an old title. Lord Porter has an
insignificant property but allies in the Lords. Sir Lorian and Lord Hart have comfortable wealth and fine estates. I wonder . . .” Her fingertips stroked the pen absently. “Why does the Master insist on at least one man and one woman in every room? To confuse the paternity of the children born of the unions at the Sanctuary?”

“It could be.”

“But why would he wish that? Is it so that he can deny claims of paternity since in fact none of the children
could
be his? We must learn how long this club has been meeting, and how often. But what if offspring have nothing to do with it? There are so many questions unanswered, and now that we have seen the sorry banality of the meetings, all of it could be unconnected to the real mystery. Then we would have been wasting our time entirely with these people.”

“Stop doing that.”

She jerked her head around. “What?”

“With the quill. You are caressing it. I cannot think.” His eyes were bright.

“Now?” she said. “In the middle of the day?”

“Around the clock.”

“When the sun is shining?”

“Especially then.” He set down the sword, stood, and walked to her. “For then no shadows obscure your face, your skin, each crevice of your beauty. The sun warms your flesh—”

“The Scottish sun? Surely you jest.”

“I am waxing eloquent in this fantasy. Go along with me.” He sat on the edge of the desk and stroked her hair back from her brow. “The sun glimmers in your hair and blinds me, so that the remaining four senses hasten to fill the deficit. Touch . . .” He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers, slipping down the curve of her neck. “Scent . . .” He bent his head beside hers. “Sound . . .” His palm stole over her breast and she sighed.

“Taste,” she said, and turned her lips up to his. She twined
her fingers through his hair, he drew her mouth fully to his, and then she was in his arms.

At some moment between accepting his tongue into her mouth and his hand between her thighs, she dropped the pen.

Fingers pulling down her bodice, he was laying kisses upon her breasts above the fabric, leaning her back against the desk and caressing her through her skirts when words formed again on her lips.

“Did you like her?”

“Who?” He stroked perfectly.

Struggling for breaths, she clutched his shoulders. “Miranda?”

“Hm?”

“At the Sanctuary. Did you find her attractive? Her breasts? Her body?”

All movement ceased. All caresses. All pleasure. He lifted his head and stared at her. His hands fell away from her and abruptly he turned and walked across the room.

Stunned and aching, she stared at his back. Finally he turned to face her but he did not speak.

“I don't know what to say,” she said.

“Then we are at an equal loss,” he replied shortly. A muscle flexed in his jaw.

“That is . . . I do.”

“Oh?”

“I want you to come back over here and continue kissing me now.”

“I—” His voice broke. He stared at the ground and his hand scraped through his hair. He lifted bleak eyes to her. “I am terrified.”

“Of what?”

“Of you,” he said without air. “Of what you are doing to me. Of how much I want you.”

“I need you to want me,” came from her throat like crumpled paper. “I don't know how—I don't know how to
be
with you. But I need you.”

He went to her, plowed his hands into her hair, and dragged her mouth beneath his. He kissed her deeply, and she met him entirely, needing to feel him, needing to take him into her, beneath her skin. The longing in her was painful. She let him bear her up against the wall and grasp her hips with his strong hands and make love to her standing, fully clothed, in the daylight that revealed everything.