The Care and Taming of a Rogue (12 page)

She considered declining to attend tonight’s dinner at all. While she’d chosen remaining home over sitting about at some soiree or other before, though, this time the event was at Eddison House. If she hid, Livi would never forgive her. More than that, Bennett Wolfe would know that a few naughty, direct words was all it had taken to send her fleeing. Hardly practical or logical of her.

That kiss. Oh, that kiss had been magnificent. Perhaps that was the difficulty—when Bennett kissed her, it hadn’t had anything to do with either logic or practicality. It had been…Well, it had positively curled her toes, heated her in places that ladies weren’t supposed to mention, and she wanted to experience it again. Several more times, in fact.

But then the big beast had marched in and announced that he wanted her naked on his bed. Or on the floor—it hadn’t mattered where. The suave, charming man she’d imagined from reading his books had the finesse of a rhinoceros.

What, then, was she supposed to do? Turn her back on him? Attempt to convince him that if he wanted to court her—and good heavens, she couldn’t quite imagine that—there were rules to be followed? Why had he set his gaze on her, anyway? There were certainly more flirty, bubbly females in abundance all about him. If it was because he saw her as pitiful and awkward, well, then he deserved a punch in the nose.

Livi stuck her head into the morning room. “You didn’t need to yell at me,” she said, her expression halfway between excitement and nervousness.

“Apologies.” Phillipa set aside her embroidery. “What might I do to help you, then?”

“Oh, thank goodness.” Her sister sent her a relieved smile. “Come with me into the drawing room. I don’t like the way the chairs are arranged, but…well, you’ll see.”

“You’ve invited twenty-seven people, all with whom you’re already acquainted,” Phillipa said, trying to sound soothing as she followed her sister upstairs to the drawing room. “I don’t think anyone will care about the arrangement of the furniture.”

“Yes, they will. The ones farthest from Sir Bennett will think they’re being slighted, and the nearest ones will wonder whether his current reputation weighs more heavily than his previous one, and how their own standing will be affected.”

“You’ve spent far too much time thinking about this.”

“I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t have arranged for this dinner at all, but he is so very compelling.” Her sister twisted her hands together. “And he has a good income, of course—unless Prinny feels embarrassed by all this and takes away Sir Bennett’s stipend.”

“Bennett hasn’t given anyone any reason to feel embarrassed,” Phillipa returned. Except perhaps for her, but at least no one had overheard their last conversation.

“Oh, and then there’s Mama,” Livi continued, twirling. “She plans to sit with us. Do you think she’s well enough to attend a dinner and a gathering afterward?”

Immediately Phillipa knew what that meant. And despite the fact that she’d half decided it would be wiser to spend the evening upstairs alone, she didn’t like that she’d just been assigned a task. One that would more than likely keep her well away from Bennett Wolfe. She sighed. “I’ll sit with Mama and make certain she doesn’t become overly tired.”

Olivia swooped in and kissed her on the cheek. “Oh, thank you. That’s one thing I don’t have to worry about, anyway.”

From the drawing room doorway she heard the front door open downstairs, and a rush of heat and ice ran through her before she could remind herself that it was twenty minutes yet until anyone was expected for dinner. What was she supposed to do? She’d never even been kissed before, much less had a beau. Perhaps if she had a bit of experience she would know whether every man kissed with that…passion, though she had a fair idea that gentlemen did not go about telling females that they wanted to see them naked.

It was too much to think about. After all this she would be lucky not to faint or vomit from nerves when he walked into the room.

“I was attempting to be fashionably late,” the low drawl of Lord John Clancy sounded from the doorway. “Apparently everyone else is more fashionable than I am.”

Phillipa took a deep breath and opened her eyes again. Pasting a smile on her face, she turned around. “Hello, John. I would say that you’re fashionably on time. Are you alone?”

He grinned. “My famous friend has fled Clancy House for his uncle’s.” His light green gaze moved past her to Livi. “Good evening, Lady Olivia.”

She waved her fingers at him. “John. Nice of you to come tonight,” she said, and went back to counting chairs.

“You did invite me.” Pursing his lips, he strolled over to her. “Anything I might do to help?”

“I keep thinking that rows of chairs are too formal, but if I simply scatter them about, it looks very shabby.”

“Ah. Perhaps a half circle, all facing toward your focal point.”

Livi smiled. “Oh, you’re a dear, John. Do help me. Flip is snapping at crickets. She’s no assistance at all.”

“I am not cranky,” Phillipa returned. “You change your mind every two minutes, and it’s making me dizzy.”

With a muffled smile John began picking up the chairs and shifting them, forming a half moon facing the room’s eastern wall.

A moment later Olivia breezed up to her. “Since John is here and is much more help than you are, why don’t you go and change for this evening?” she whispered.

“I already did.”

“Flip, please. This isn’t one of your reading club meetings.”

Phillipa scowled, looking down at her blue muslin. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

Her sister sighed. “Nothing. If you don’t see anything wrong, then nothing’s wrong.” She hugged Phillipa. “Would you go make certain dinner is on schedule?”

“Yes. Certainly.”

She hurried down to speak with Cook, then headed back up to the drawing room. Inside she could hear conversation; Sonja Depris and her sister had arrived, together with what sounded like Henry Camden and the Elroy sisters. For a moment she paused, looking down at her gown.
Damnation
. What she wore was perfectly acceptable for a small, informal dinner party. None of the guests other than John was likely even to notice her presence.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. Taking a breath, she opened the door and strolled back into the room. In small groups the remainder of Livi’s guests arrived, while she watched from one side of the room. She knew them all by name, and they were all perfectly nice, but other than the weather she couldn’t think of a thing about which she could converse with them. Well, the weather and Bennett Wolfe, but she didn’t want to talk about him. Not at the moment. She was too occupied with thinking about him.

“You danced twice with Sir Bennett,” Sonja said, stopping in front of her.

Phillipa blinked. So much for silent contemplation. “Did I?”

“No one else danced two dances with him last night. How did you manage it?”

“I’m sure I have no idea,” Phillipa returned, putting what was hopefully a baffled smile on her face.

“And he let you hold his monkey.
And
he joined your team for lawn bowling. You must have some insight into his likes and dislikes.”

“Sonja, I—”

Miss Depris took her arm. “You can’t mean to save your information for Livi. That’s hardly fair for the rest of us. We all deserve an equal chance to charm him, don’t you think?”

“I…yes. Certainly. But I don’t know anything.”

“Oh, bosh. At least you must tell us which one of us he’s spoken about the most.”

“What little conversation I’ve had with Captain Wolfe hasn’t been about his preference in ladies.” Not directly, anyway. She freed her arm and made a show of being interested in the chair arrangements.

All Livi’s friends completely discounted her as a romantic rival. It never occurred to anyone that Bennett Wolfe might be interested in kissing her. For a moment she was tempted to inform Sonja that, according to Bennett,
she
happened to be one of his likes. Or she had been, until she’d spoken her mind to him today. But he’d deserved it, dash it all, for saying such things to her.

“Oh, he’s here! He’s here!”

Phillipa jumped at Livi’s pronouncement. Clearly she was even more unsettled than she’d realized. She set herself to inching chairs this way and that, making certain they formed a perfect half circle. Of course she’d been offended by his conversation. He’d said he wanted her, and after less than a week of acquaintance. Gentlemen did not say such things.

“Good evening, Sir Bennett!”

“How pleasant to see you!”

“What is the monkey’s name again?”

After the first few greetings, however, an odd silence swept across the room. Phillipa frowned, hoping he wasn’t staring at her or something. She concentrated on breathing, and on rehearsing her cordial, indifferent greeting when she happened to turn around and see him. Then a hand touched her shoulder, and she froze.

“Good evening, Lady Phillipa.”

She found herself facing a large bouquet of red roses. A very large bouquet. Of very red roses. For an odd moment she stared at them. No one in the entire world had ever given her flowers before. And certainly not red roses.

She finally lifted her gaze from the posies to look at the lean, dark-haired man holding them out to her. From his expression she couldn’t tell whether he was nearer amusement or annoyance, but his jungle-colored eyes were very, very intense.

“What are these for?” she asked, her voice quaking a little as she realized that absolutely everyone in the room, including her parents, was staring at her.

“To apologize for any affront I may have given you,” he said quietly, and tilted his head. “And to woo you,” he continued in a more carrying tone. “It was suggested that steps should be taken, and flowers presented.”

“Woo…me?” Phillipa squeaked.

Bennett nodded, the slightest hint of a grin touching his mouth. “Woo you.”

Everything went fuzzy and very loud and figures swarmed in her direction. The last thing she saw was the flowers hitting the floor as Bennett stepped in to catch her. That was a shame; they were very pretty flowers.

“This way. Oh, dear. This way.” Olivia hurried for the drawing room door, Bennett on her heels. Behind him he could hear muttering and jabbering and, closer by, the angrier voices of her father and mother.

Kero leaned out a hand and patted Phillipa on the cheek, much as she did when she was concerned over him. It was so damned odd, the way the monkey had taken to the chestnut-haired chit. When they reached the small sitting room he strode over to the sofa and carefully lowered Phillipa onto the cushions.

As he reluctantly let her go and backed away a step, Phillipa’s mother slapped him. “How dare you?”

“Move away from my daughter, you blackguard,” the marquis snarled, pushing forward.

Bennett straightened to his full height, using that advantage to look down at Phillipa’s father. “I just expressed my intention to court your daughter.” He glanced at her supine form again. “With the idea of marriage, if that wasn’t clear enough. How, precisely, does that make me a blackguard?”

“Hush,” the marchioness snapped. “Get out of this room, Captain. Family only.”

Narrowing his eyes, Bennett hesitated long enough to let them understand that they never would have been able to force him out if he hadn’t acquiesced to it. Then he nodded and retreated into the hallway.

Someone shoved him against the wall. Kero fled, yapping like a dog, onto the nearest wall sconce. “You stupid man,” Jack’s low voice came. “What the devil are you about? You should be locked in a damned cage.”

Bennett shoved back, sending Jack staggering a few feet. “Stop pushing,” he growled. “And enough with the damned insults.”

“I know everything’s become life or death and galloping into gunfire with you, but you can’t go about circumventing rules and propriety like that. And you can’t toy with people. Especially not Flip.”

“I’m not—What do you mean, ‘especially not Flip’?” Bennett narrowed his eyes. From everything Jack had said, his interest was completely focused on the other sister. If not, they were going to have a disagreement. A large one.

“I mean, she’s…odd. You’ve conversed with her; you know. She’s brilliant, but she has no prospects. Everyone’s waiting for Livi to make her choice, and then it’s just expected that one of the men left behind will offer for Flip. Make a fool out of her, and she’ll end up a spinster.”

No one seemed to be able to comprehend that he’d been serious. He’d brought flowers because she required them, and he required her. The end. “I brought bloody flowers and I stated my intentions. The rest is between Phillipa and me.”

“It’s one thing to be unconventional, Bennett. And I know you were practically raised by wolves. But you’re no virgin. You know the proper way to do this.” Jack glanced down the hallway toward the noisy drawing room. “Don’t you?”

“What do you want me to say?” Bennett hissed back. “I’ve had women on more continents than you can name. I know how to get a woman into my bed. I’ve never had any other use for one.”
Until now
. Whatever he wanted from Phillipa, it didn’t end or begin in the bedchamber.

“If your intention is to get Flip into your bed, you’re going to have to go through me, my friend. I won’t see her hurt, or ruined. Is that clear?”

His first instinct was to smash Jack in the face and tell him that no one stood between him and what he wanted. Bennett clenched his fist, then eased his fingers open again. He’d seen them conversing. Jack and Phillipa were friends. More than likely Jack was one of the few friends she had. He might not know exactly what he wanted, but he did know that he had no intention of hurting her. “You’re a brave man, Jack. But give me some bloody credit.”

So attempting to do the correct thing to get Phillipa still got him slapped and shoved and threatened. At the moment he couldn’t decide whether he’d been away from London for too long, or for not long enough. Walking out the door and returning to Howard House seemed the wisest response to all this nonsense, but he seemed to be the raison d’être for the dinner, and angering the sister further wouldn’t help him gain Phillipa.

He cursed, pacing back and forth along the hallway. How was he supposed to know that the heretofore practical, logical Phillipa Eddison would faint when he handed her a fistful of posies? It concerned him—not only because she’d fainted in his arms, but because of what others had said. That she was timid, that she lived through her books and wasn’t interested in or capable of actual adventure. If that was true, they would never suit.

Her reaction to the flowers supported that, and yet…It had been only a handful of damned days. How had he become so smitten with her so quickly? She’d dashed through every preconceived notion he’d ever had without even slowing down.

“She wants to see you,” Lady Olivia stated from the doorway of the sitting room.

Christ. They made it sound as though he’d sent her to her deathbed or something. He was the one who’d had a spear rammed through his gut. She’d received flowers. Through his deep annoyance, though, he was relieved. Relieved that she was well, and relieved that she still wanted to see him. With a last, hostile glare at Jack, he returned to the sitting room.

To his relief she was sitting up, a glass of water in one hand. Her parents stood nearby, their expressions closed. They might as well have been rooted to the floor, because clearly they weren’t going anywhere.

“I’m alive,” she said helpfully, offering what was likely supposed to be a smile. Her face still looked pale, which alarmed him.

“Someone told me that flowers would be an acceptable way to approach a chit I like,” he stated, stopping a few feet short of her. “Which is something that I already knew, but hadn’t thought of until he mentioned it.”

“My parents think you’re lonely and misguided,” she noted.

He glanced over his shoulder at them. “Perhaps your parents could give us a private moment to spare anyone any further upset.”

“You should be embarrassed, Captain, flinging a courtship at my daughter like that.” The marchioness crossed her arms over her chest.

“Mama, please give us a moment. Nothing will happen; everyone knows he’s in here.”

After another moment of glaring, Lady Leeds nodded. “Five minutes.” She stomped out of the room, the marquis on her heels.

Bennett waited until they quietly shut the door behind them. “I’m supposed to be embarrassed for being interested in you?” he asked.

She looked at him, taking a sip of water as she did so. “You told me this morning what part of me interested you. I found that insulting.”

“So you said,” he returned, clenching his jaw. “Hence the flowers.”

“You weren’t raised in the jungle, Bennett. Don’t you know what red roses mean?”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve spent more time out of England than in it, and my mother died before she could give me any posy lessons. Red roses. Red for passion, and roses because they’re fragrant.”

“They signify love. And ten thousand of them together signify—”

“Two dozen. Not ten thousand.”

“It looked like more than that when you flung them in my face.”

He stalked toward her, feeling his own expression darken. “I didn’t fling anything. I said I intended to woo you, and I attempted to hand them to you.”

She stood, the glass still gripped in her fingers—likely for self-defense. “I am confused,” she announced.

“Well, so am I.”

“I mean, what you said this morning was a private thing, between two people. Two dozen red roses given in front of two dozen dinner guests is not private. It says that your intentions are…honorable.”

“Then they must be honorable.” Beneath all the frustration, this conversation began to seem somewhat amusing. He’d been correct in calling her a conundrum, anyway.

“But you don’t even know me! How do you know you want to woo me? I don’t like the idea that I’m so simple and easily decipherable that after five days—your first five days back in London after three years—you could point at me and say, ‘Yes, I’ll take that one.’”

“That is not—”

“You might have said something first, regardless. I told you before, there are steps. You take me driving, you dance more than two dances with me, y—”

“I attempted to.”

“At more than one soiree,” she countered. “You tell me that my appearance is at least satisfactory, you call on me to sit and chat, you—”

“That’s all nonsense.”

Phillipa blinked, looking hurt. “Oh. I think, then, that you might consider giving those flowers to someone else.”

Bennett took another step forward, close enough to take the glass from her hand and set it aside. “Phillipa, I spent three years obsessed with one thing. And then I spent two months after that fighting every day to stay alive. And now I’m doing everything I can to arrange to captain another expedition. I don’t dawdle about with anything. In the places I’ve been, indecisiveness is deadly. And time is too precious to waste on sitting and chatting about nonsense or in telling pretty lies.”

“Then why—”

“Why should I bother with saying I find you—what did you say—satisfactory, when I find you mesmerizing? Why should I drive you in a circle around some park when I want to taste you and hold you naked in my arms?”

“Good heavens.” Paling once more, Phillipa reached out to steady herself against the back of the nearest chair. “You cannot flout the rules like that.”

For a long moment he gazed at her. “Your complaint, then, is not that you don’t want to be wooed or courted or seduced by me,” he said slowly, “but that I’m not doing it correctly.”

“Well, other than a general disbelief that an adventurer would find me mesmerizing, yes, I suppose it is.”

“Then I have two things to say. First,” and he reached down to take her hands and draw them up to his chest, “I do find you mesmerizing.”

He slid his own hands down her shoulders, then leaned in and covered her mouth with his. He felt her hesitation, then the softening of her mouth as she leaned into him. She sent his sensibilities swirling with just the uncertain grip of her fingers into his jacket; it was as though she worried that he
had
made a mistake in wanting her, that she feared he would change his mind and leave her standing there alone.

Bennett shifted to place kisses against the sensitive corner of her mouth. Then he swooped in again for another heated, openmouthed kiss. Finally he lifted his head an inch. “Are you going to faint again?”

“I should,” she returned unsteadily. “At least it would stop you from behaving in such a manner.”

He smiled. “You would think so, anyway.”

Phillipa chuckled a bit breathlessly against his mouth. “You are a rogue, sir.”

“Which brings me to my second statement. If you want me to follow your rules and behave like a proper gentleman, you’d best convince me just how I would be benefited.”

“Bennett.”

“Because at this moment I can’t help but think that kissing you is better than chatting about the weather.” And if he pulled her any closer, she would feel just how interested he was in continuing this particular debate.

The door rattled and opened again. “Your five minutes are—Flip, get your hands off that man!”

At least she seemed recovered enough that she could blush now. Belatedly she fisted her hands and shoved at his chest. Bennett lifted an eyebrow, but took a step back from her—because she wished it, not because of her parents.

The marquis and his wife looked as though they’d been arguing over which of them would renew their attack against him first. “What do you think you’re about, Captain?” Lord Leeds finally demanded.

Bennett returned his gaze to Phillipa. “I—”

“It was a misunderstanding,” Phillipa interrupted. “Apparently in Egypt red roses are a sign of esteem. Nothing more. “

“This is not Egypt,” the man retorted. “I suspect that Sir Bennett knows precisely the meaning of red roses. And the repercussions of presenting them to a young lady in public.”

“Not precisely,” Bennett countered, “but I assure you there was no misunderstanding. Not on my part. As I said, I mean to court Phillipa.”

Her father actually blustered. “You…you can’t simply say such things and expect them to be accepted,” he stammered, his face growing red. “You haven’t asked permission of her parents.”

Bennett shrugged. “I’m only concerned with Phillipa’s feelings in this matter.”

“You are uncivilized, sir,” the marchioness stated.

“So I’ve been told.”

“I will not have anything scandalous connected with our Flip. She is not prepared to face the censure of Society. And I believe you have your own reasons for not wanting to appear foolish to your peers.” The marquis took a breath. “We will therefore tell everyone this was indeed a misunderstanding.”

For a moment Bennett weighed whether the marquis knew something about Langley’s fraud, or whether he was speaking generally of the dents put in his reputation by the book. The latter made more sense, but it didn’t leave him any more inclined to agree. “It is not a misunderstanding, damn it all.”

“Tonight we will call the roses a…a jest,” Phillipa said, stepping up beside him and putting a hand on his arm, “because I had bragged to Bennett this morning over lawn bowls that nothing ever overset me. Livi’s friends will believe that.”