The Dangerous Love of a Rogue (43 page)

“I’ll go out this evening and leave one of the others to keep you company. That will throw people off the scent. The fact that I’ve already been abroad has not made them think of it yet. I’ve let people think I’m looking for you too.”

This was a hell of a muddle.

“My Lords” Drew and Peter turned to the butler who stood in the open door.
Damn it
, Drew hoped he had not heard them speaking of Caro… “There is a woman downstairs Lord Brooke, who wishes to speak with you, she’s come to the servants’ door with a letter for you, but she will not pass it on to anyone but yourself, my Lord.”

Beyond Brooke’s butler they heard light quick steps. The woman was no longer downstairs at all, but rushing past the butler into the room, swamped in a voluminous cloak, despite the heat of the summer day. She threw the hood back.

Pembroke’s wife.

Drew set down his glass, preparing to defend himself verbally – but then there was always a possibility she hid a pistol beneath the cloak. Her hand drew from beneath the folds. Peter moved towards her, ready to catch her arm and make her drop it if she did.

The thing in her hand was paper.

A letter.

Her eyes darted from one to the other of them. “I am not here to cause harm, Lord Framlington. Mary has told us the truth of this ridiculous tale. John and I have been searching for you all morning. We wish you to come back with us. You’ll be safer away from London and Mary wishes you to come. She would have come to London herself but John and I refused to let her join us. We have promised to bring you back. If you’ll come? Will you come with us?”

Drew stared at her. The Duchess of Pembroke had come through the servants’ entrance to offer him help.

She had no cause to help him.

“This letter is from Mary. Read it if you do not believe me…” She held it out further.

Hell and the devil.
He did not know what to think, but walking forward, he reached out for the letter and took it from her fingers.

His heart hammered.

Dearest Andrew,

I am sorry I did not believe you. I believe you now. Come, come quickly, John will take you out of London and bring you here, where you will be safe.

Mary, your devoted wife.

Will you forgive me for my lack of faith?

He looked up at Pembroke’s wife, something tight gripping about his heart. “Where is she?”

“At Pembroke Place, not far from London, it is John’s principal estate. No one will be able to get near you there. The house and grounds are extensive. You will have both privacy and security. You’ll have time and opportunity to resolve these things with Mary.”

“Is Lord Marlow there also?”

“No, Lord and Lady Marlow have gone to their own estate.”

Mary, your devoted wife.

Did she love him still?

His hand covered his mouth.

“Mary will be distraught if you do not return with us, Lord Framlington. I promised I would bring you.”

She believed Mary but she was still not certain of him – and yet she was standing in Brooke’s house having forced her way in and determination glinted in her eyes.

“Where is the Duke?” Drew’s fingers creased the paper Mary had written upon, he clung to it so tightly. “Why have you come and not him?”

“He is waiting a hundred yards away, in an unmarked carriage. John has asked for you everywhere. I realised no one would tell him, because they know he is against you. Therefore I thought if you stayed with Lord Brooke I had more chance of getting in.”

“I am not going out there to receive a bullet in my chest, then?”

The Duchess looked at the letter in his hand. “They are Mary’s words. Would she lie to you? Certainly we would not lie to her. I’ve told you the truth, Lord Framlington; John and I wish you to come for Mary’s sake. Mary left you because she overheard a conversation between you and Lord Brooke, about a property you’d purchased for another woman, a lady. John’s aunt believed you were seen with her in a draper’s.

“Mary now understands that was your sister. If you are guilty of anything, it is not telling Mary what you have been doing. She did not leave you for lack of love. She has been desolate and inconsolable these past weeks. Is that not reason enough for you to come.”

Drew looked at Peter.

“Go, I’ll not hold you here. This is what you want; to have her back…”

Drew looked at the Duchess. “I’ll fetch my things. I haven’t much.”

An hour later, his bag stored in the box, Pembroke seated beside him, with the Duchess seated opposite, they were barrelling along the main road out of London and into Kent. The same road he’d travelled with Caro. Drew lounged in his seat, the sole of one boot resting on the far seat, the other on the floor, to prevent him rocking and sliding with each bump in the road.

His arms were folded over his chest and the brim of his hat tipped low to hide his eyes.

Apart from acknowledging Drew as he’d handed the Duchess up into the carriage, Pembroke had not said a word. He’d sat there studying Drew as though he was an absurd anomaly, while Drew resisted an urge to stare back.

Mary had used to look at him like that sometimes, when she was seeking to unravel him. He did not wish Pembroke doing it, thus he’d tilted the rim of his hat and Pembroke had looked away. God. Hope was breathing in Drew, again, as they travelled, that silent quiet beast. Was it resolved? Did she love him… Damn, I love her.

His whole body was tense with longing to see her again. To wrap his arms around her again.

The Duchess had attempted a few words, on bland subjects such as, “I hope you are comfortable?” “At least the weather has held,” ‘It will only take a couple of hours to reach Pembroke Place,” “The parkland there is beautiful,” and then her well of obsequious conversation ran dry.

Pembroke coughed. It was an odd sound, half cough, half humour. “Mary knows you fairly well, does she not, Framlington?”

Drew’s fingers lifted and tilted up his hat a little, as he turned his head. “In what way, Your Grace?”

“In that she said, when I told her our uncle’s account of the incident last night that you would not run but would rather tell them all to go to hell. I had not told her yet that you’d said those words to our uncle. Are you sitting there wishing me to hell too?”

Drew held Pembroke’s sharp, penetrating blue gaze. His eyes were so like Mary’s. “I am doing my best not to, Your Grace.” He was thinking solely of Mary; his heart thumped hard in his chest as mental images of her flooded his head. “After all Pembroke, this is a kindness on your part. I’d be a fool to be ungrateful, wouldn’t I?”

Pembroke gave him a closed lip smile. Drew had not known the man could smile. “Have I got you wrong, Lord Framlington?”

“I’ll let you to be the judge of that, Your Grace.” Drew tipped his hat back down and turned to look out the window.

“Mary also said you will not defend yourself.”

Mary ought to keep her mouth shut.
Drew did not answer, or look back, but he heard a humorous sound leave Pembroke’s throat.

Drew shut his eyes and pretended to sleep.

The devil take it, he didn’t wish to argue with Pembroke. Yet too often he could not help himself. Since childhood it had become his nature to be defensive.

Another fault. His faults were legion. If he was to win Mary back he must do more than say the word sorry. She would have to help him fix his faults. Her smile came into his thoughts.

He felt like hope slept inside him. He dare not quite let it wake until he saw her.

Pembroke tapped his shoulder. “We are here, Framlington.”

Drew must have fallen asleep.

Dropping his other foot to the floor he sat upright and looked from the carriage window, his heart thumping as hope awakened without his bidding.

They were sweeping along a broad avenue, and as the avenue turned to the right Drew saw his first glimpse of Pembroke’s principle estate.

He swore within his thoughts, the Palladian property was sitting like a beast on a ridge in the landscape, a manmade master dominating the land about it.

He’d known Pembroke was wealthy, but he had not imagined this. Drew had housed Mary in a two room apartment in St James. He would lay odds on the fact her bedchamber here was the size of his whole apartment.

The horses’ hooves and the carriage wheels crunched in the gravel as the carriage pulled up in front of the ostentatious mansion.

Drew’s stomach dropped and his heartbeat became erratic as the air in the carriage evaporated.

A dozen men in Pembroke’s livery stood before the broad stone columns, fronting the property and the right side of the giant double doors stood open. They must have seen the carriage coming from a distance.

Drew saw a flutter of pink muslin up by the house. “Mary.”

He pushed the door open before a footman could and jumped down. She was flying down the shallow steps, her dress gripped high in one hand, pulling her hem up to her calves, all decorum forgotten as she raced at him.

He raced to her and caught her midway.

She flung her arms about his neck with a fierce cry of joy.

Ah, God
. He hugged her hard. It hurt so much, having her in his arms. Relief. He’d thought he would never know her feel or her smell again. His cheek pressed against her hair as her embrace gripped about his soul.

“I’m sorry, Andrew,” she said against his neck. She was crying and she’d lost weight, he could feel her spine and her ribs beneath her gown.

His fingers splayed within her hair. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I pushed you away. It is I who am sorry, I could not bear for you to see the real me, I thought you must hate me; that you could never truly love me, and so I pushed you away to avoid future pain. But then I regretted it. I thought I’d lost you, Mary.” He pressed a kiss on her hair as the feel of her soaked back into his blood.

Pulling away from him, tears running down her cheeks, her fingers framed his face. He smiled as tears clouded his vision too.

“You are not hurt.”

“No.”

Her fingers slid down across his chest looking for wounds regardless of his words, followed by her gaze.

His fingers lifted her chin. “Mary, I’m fine, sweetheart. No holes.” He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.

He could no longer doubt how much he meant to her. “I am here now. I was an ass. Caro told me so too. But I was too stubborn to listen,” He held Mary again, absorbing the scent in her hair. Roses. Clinging to her, ignorant of the world beyond her.

He pressed a kiss on her hair, then looked up and met Pembroke’s gaze. He stood a few feet away, watching with a hint of a smile on his lips.

Drew sucked air into his lungs. It was not going to be easy letting her family have an insight into him. He did not want people knowing him at all. It would make him vulnerable. Yet, he had to. Mary’s family were import to her and she was important to him, he had to trust in that.

Hadn’t her sister-in-law, Pembroke’s Duchess, said something similar earlier, “our loyalty is to her, she believes you innocent…” That loyalty must work both ways. They were letting him in for her benefit, trusting him. It would be crass of him not to trust them back.

He drew Mary to his side, leaving one arm about her shoulders and nodded at Pembroke, ignoring the discomfort flooding his veins.

The Duchess walked up to Pembroke, slipped her arms about his midriff, then pressed her head to his shoulder, he bent and kissed her temple. When she looked up they shared a brief kiss.

Drew saw a man he did not know. He had never expected to see Pembroke be so openly affectionate. He’d feared Pembroke would judge his and Mary’s display.

“Are you coming in?” Pembroke said to Mary, a smile pulling his lips apart.

Mary looked up and Drew looked down as her arm wrapped about his waist. She smiled broadly. “I do not want to go in. Shall we walk out here for a while so we can talk?”

“If that’s what you want, sweetheart.”

“We’ll have dinner served for six, Mary. You do not need to dress. It is just the four of us,” the Duchess advised.

When Drew looked at her, she smiled warmly.

Mary slipped from beneath his arm and caught hold of his fingers.

God, he loved her, it was a physical presence in his blood. A surge of warmth. A rush of feeling.

“We’ll walk down to the lake, come on.” She pulled on his hand, but then stopped, came closer and lifted off his hat. “Here.” She turned to look at a footman. “Take this, and Lord Framlington’s gloves inside.”

Smiling, Drew pulled off his gloves and handed them over.

Mary gripped his hand again, skin against skin, and she pulled him towards the vast open lawns, oblivious to any damage to her complexion; leaving Pembroke and his multitude of servants behind.

Weaving his fingers between hers, Drew glanced back. Pembroke and his wife were watching them, holding hands too as half-a-dozen footmen hung about them.

“Is this where you grew up?” He asked, as he looked back at Mary.

“No, my father has his own estate, near Uncle Richard’s but it’s nothing like this. Papa’s property is a small manor house with farmlands. But he ran Uncle Robert’s property for years, until Uncle Robert came home from the continent and Papa met Mama. John was ten then. But we came here once or twice a year to stay when grandfather was alive, but never for long because Papa didn’t like him. He suffered him for Mama’s sake, so that she could see my grandmother. But since John has owned it we’ve come often. I love the grounds. In the summer when all the family are here it’s wonderful.

“How is your sister?” she breathed then, looking up at him.

He’d doubted her belief in him from the moment when Marlow had found them; thought her incapable of knowing the man trapped beneath the hard shell he’d set by experience; he’d thought she could only see the man carved by rumour.

Yet when rumour had him at his lowest – incestuous – without any moral fibre at all; Mary believed him innocent without knowing the truth.