The Rogue (11 page)

Lady Justice

Brittle & Sons, Printers

Dearest Lady,

I will make my case more plainly to you: I have lost my friends. Each of them, one at a time, has fallen into Hymen's choking snare, and I mourn for them as well as for my loss of them. For marriage—as you, a lady of Violent Independence, must agree—is but a prison to subjugate both body and will to the whims of another. Woe to the ensnared whose betrothed in courtship is all charm, laughter and generosity of spirit, but who after the vows are exchanged is revealed to be capricious, vain, and greedy for attention.

We all know, of course, that this is more common than not.

With great respect,

Peregrine

Secretary, The Falcon Club

To Peregrine, at large:

You have lost your senses, even those few that you might have previously possessed. That said, at long last I find myself in agreement with you on one matter: marriage is a prison. But not for men. The Law does not bind husbands, rather, wives. Even the sacred vows instruct a woman to love, cherish and obey while a man must only love and cherish. Why must a wife promise to obey when a husband must not?

Therefore, as ever, I am unimpressed with your woe.

—Lady Justice

T
he following day, Constance awoke to daybreak and dressed quietly, then went on stockinged feet to the ballroom. According to Mr. Viking, the footman who had come with them from the castle and knew everybody's business, Saint greeted each day in the ballroom and remained there until her lesson. This morning she had good reason to find him early, and not to alert Eliza or Lord Michaels.

On the ground floor she could hear the clink of pans and the rumble of hushed conversation in the kitchen below, where the servants were already at work. Today she would instruct Cook to bake poppyseed cakes, favorites of the ladies she had called on yesterday afternoon, whom she expected would return the visit soon. None of them had spoken openly about the disappearances of the two girls. But when news of the Duke of Loch Irvine's arrival in Edinburgh entered conversation, sideways glances abounded.

She had navigated the treacherous currents of London gossip for five years, learning tidbits of information that helped her fellow Falcon Club agents solve mysteries.
Someone in Edinburgh must know more than they were saying as yet. She would encourage gossip and pretend to confide and bide her time, and she would solve this mystery.

Opening the door to the ballroom with a silent turn of the handle, she peeked inside.

In the dim light of dawn that carpeted the ballroom floor, he moved with a grace at once poetic and powerful. He wore only breeches and his skin gleamed with moisture. Shadows and light shifted upon him with each twist of muscle, each thrust and advance, each moment of stillness that became action. The sword in his hand caught the morning upon its steel and, in a dance of violence and beauty he transformed the dawn into tiny, glittering miracles.

“Enough now, Viking,” he called across the room. “You cannot require more than five minutes of rest. You are barely forty.”

The footman arose from shadows in the corner of the room. Dragging a foil at his side, he went to the sword master. He wore a padded coat, mask, and gloves.

“While your taunting provides me with a chuckle, sir,” the footman said without any evidence of amusement, “I am not a sportsman like yourself and haven't the stamina required to rise before dawn in order to be a target for an expert.”

Saint laughed. “No excuses, man. As I recall, you volunteered for this.”

“Only because I wearied of scrubbing the mud from your boots after every extended walkabout. This method of expending your energy seemed preferable.” He sighed and wiped his brow with a kerchief. “But it seems that you are indefatigable.”

Saint folded his weapon beneath his arm and bowed. “Your fortitude does you justice, Viking. But I would not trouble you if you weren't such a damned fine sparring partner. You keep me on my toes.”

“And yet you do not wear mask or jacket while we spar,” the footman said skeptically.

“I fight better when in danger. You should try it.”

“You might practice with Lord Michaels. I understand he is a remarkably good swordsman.”

“Whose mornings begin no earlier than ten o'clock, on his good days. Who taught you how to fence?”

“My former employer, Professor Oliver Highbottom, emeritus master of classical archeology. Until he passed away several months ago, I was his sole companion and he demanded it of me for years before he grew too feeble for it. Who taught
you
to fence?”

“The murderous husbands of women I bedded, of course. A man learns swiftly by example when he is bleeding,” he said with a slash of a grin.

“You, sir, are a scoundrel. I cannot fathom why His Grace welcomed you into his house.”

“That makes two of us. Now, villain,
en garde
.”

Mr. Viking lifted his sword and they saluted each other. Then steel met steel, the sound carrying across the room with clinks and the footman's occasional gasps, while the maestro called the touches.

Constance watched, peculiarly, wonderfully hot. She had heard his skill praised, and during their lessons he demonstrated maneuvers for her to learn. But she had never seen him fight—not like this, not an actual opponent, even in practice. He did so with confidence and exceptional speed. He was astonishingly fast, yet without any appearance of haste or even urgency. Grace and ease marked his movements, as though Nature had fashioned him for this with some secret purpose of her own.

The bout was quick. When they lowered their swords, Mr. Viking bent over, gasping. Saint turned toward his clothing on a chair, and like that night years ago, across the ballroom he noticed her.

“Good morning,” he said with the shadow of a smile. “This is a surprise.”

Swiping a kerchief across his face, Mr. Viking bowed. “My lady.”

She walked into the room and Saint's gaze dropped to her body. She had worn men's clothing many times before when training her horse. The stable hand, Fingal, was nearly her size, and she had first borrowed breeches, shirt, and waistcoat from him. After that she had a set made for her.

But Rory and Fingal's appraisals had never made her feel quite so
unclothed
. And yet Saint's body was actually unclothed. Upon the honed contours of his chest that was damp with sweat, among other smaller scars, a long slash ran from his ribs downward to cross his waist.

“I thought we could begin early today,” she said.

“No chaperone?”

“They are all still abed. Perhaps Mr. Viking will serve.”

“Viking,” he threw over a bare shoulder, “stay for a bit and watch her ladyship hit me as you never can.”

“I hit you because you stand still and allow me to,” she said. “What was that leaping forward you were both doing? It seemed more than a regular advance.”

“The French call it an
elonge
. A lunge. Impossible for a woman wearing a narrow skirt. Not today, however, it seems.” He scanned her legs and his sideways smile appeared again.

The footman came forward. “I am terribly sorry, my lady, but I have a dozen tasks to complete before breakfast. Shall I summon Mr. Aitken?”

“No. Lord Michaels or Mrs. Josephs will be along shortly.”

He set his foil in the rack and departed.

“Neither your companion nor my cousin rise before nine o'clock,” Saint said.

“It is best if fewer people see me dressed in this manner, of course.” She moved past him to the sword rack.

“I should no doubt be included among the many,” he said.

She turned around and discovered his gaze upon her behind. Slowly he lifted it to her face, the languid caress moving over her hips, waist, and breasts.

“Don't look at me like that.”

“Like what? Like I would enjoy eating you for breakfast?”

“Mr. Viking was right. You are a scoundrel,” she said with wretched unsteadiness.

“But a scoundrel with rules. And you are breaking all of them.”

Now he did not look at her body. He looked at her eyes, and the amusement had disappeared from his.

Her lower lip was tender between her teeth. “I think you want me to break the rules.”

“Clearly I am a glutton for suffering.”

Suffering.
There was bleakness in the taut lines of his face. He turned away and took up his shirt.

“Shall I go now and change my clothes?” she said, watching the cloth fall down over his back.

“Into what?” He pulled his waistcoat over his shoulders. “A kerchief? Or perhaps a shawl draped about you, like Salome dancing for King Herod?”

“Would a nun's habit do?”

“Then we would truly be in trouble. I would imagine you my confessor and unburden myself of all sorts of sins.” He took up a cane and her pink parasol, and came toward her.

“I would not mind that.”

He halted before her. “Yes, but then my dashing mysteriousness would be all in pieces. We cannot have that, can we?”

“I guess not. Did you come by that scar on your face in the manner you said to Mr. Viking?”

“What did I say to him?”

“That cuckolded husbands wounded you in duels.”

“You heard that?”

“Yes. Is that how you received that wound?”

“No, that was chaff,” he said. “I have only ever fought for the honor of one woman, and this particular scar was not my reward for it.”

“That long scar. On your chest?” Her gaze dipped to where his shirt gaped at the neck, and Saint felt it—upon his skin, in his blood, and clamoring through his groin. Snugly
contained in a pristine shirt and waistcoat, her breasts pressed against the fabric. Her sleeves were tight, like the breeches that clung to her thighs and hips. He was half hard, half helpless, and entirely angry.

“Not that scar either.” He offered her the parasol. “Work. Now.” Words were a luxury he hadn't the tongue for at present. Or the brain.

“With this?”

“Yes.”

“But you said—”

“My time in your father's household grows short.”
God willing.
Chloe Edwards had not been at home yesterday. But Dylan would call upon her again today and renew his courtship. “If you wish to be prepared to defend yourself against unwanted attention, we must speed up this instruction. How much time do you have here this morning? Or do you intend to take my cousin about to all of your friends' houses again today?”

“Could you be jealous?”

“Not at all. I have enjoyed more than enough of his company over the past three decades. He may share his time with anybody he wishes now.”

“That isn't what I meant.”

“I know it isn't. What do you want with him?”

Her chin ticked up. The curse of it was that defiance only made her more beautiful. When she was uncertain, he wanted to ease her confusion. But when her confidence came to the fore, he simply wanted her.

“I am fond of his company that you so blithely cast aside,” she said. “He is vastly diverting.”

“Not to you. I see you with him. I hear you speak to him. He isn't clever enough for you, yet you allow him to believe he is. Why?”

Her lashes dipped down a bit. “For the opportunity to become better acquainted with his friends.”

She was telling the truth. Over the course of a fortnight six years earlier he had memorized every one of her smiles.
Now he had come to know the tones of her voice as well: the brightness of her amusement, the brittle edge of her anger, the silken chords of her teasing, and the clarity of her honesty. Still, she hid something behind those golden lashes now.

“Aren't they also your friends?” he said.

“I have spent little time in Edinburgh since my childhood. Lord Michaels has visited twice in the past year.”

“Constance, don't tease him. For all that he is often an idiot, he is a good man, and his heart is already claimed.”

“I don't want his heart,” she said, lifting her gaze to meet his squarely, and that unruly organ in Saint's chest turned over.

“Be that as it may, if he sees you in this ensemble”—he gestured to her breeches—“it will confuse him.”

“Confuse him?”

“Men are easily addled by lust.”

She pivoted, walked to the ballroom door, and closed and locked it.

“There. Now no one will be addled by me today.” She palmed the handle of the parasol and set the blade free. “Shall we begin?”

“You have just locked yourself in a room with me.”

“I have. Yet I am tranquil. Of the two of us, really, I am becoming convinced that you, not I, are the flirt. I don't think you meant your threat to me. Or perhaps you are simply a sad failure at following through on your ultimatums.” She flexed the short sword before her experimentally. “Now, pray show me how to use this instrument to wound a man.”

He could not move. “You speak of wounding a man like it means nothing to you.”

“On the contrary. It means everything.”

There it was again in her voice: the sharp edge of fear coated in determination.

“Have you?” he said.

“Wounded a man?”

“Wounded the man that you wish to wound?”

Her throat constricted in a movement so jarring that it swept the air from Saint's lungs. He hated that she had been hurt. He hated the man that had hurt her. He hated that he had not been there to protect her then, and that he had no right to protect her now.

She did not reply.

Tucking the cane beneath his arm and lifting his hands to button his waistcoat, he went toward her.

“A sword stick is not a gentleman's weapon. Like a hidden dagger, it is a weapon of stealth and surprise.”

“An assassin's tool,” she murmured.

“We will begin by learning how to employ the entire parasol as a weapon to defend against an attack by knife or sword. Then I will show you how to release and withdraw the blade from the handle in a manner that allows you to strike with it as swiftly as possible.”

“Awkwardly fumbling with one's parasol is not an effective method of defending oneself?” Her lovely eyes smiled tentatively.

“I wouldn't think so,” he said, the tension beneath his ribs easing. “But never having had a parasol of my own, I cannot speak to the issue with confidence.”

“You should.”

“I should what?”

“Carry a parasol.”

“To protect my delicate complexion from the sun during my strolls through the park on Lord So-And-So's arm?”

She chuckled. “Of course not.”

“Then—”

“To make me lightheaded.”

Quite swiftly, without any effort whatsoever, Saint imagined several things he could do to her to make her lightheaded, and none of them involved parasols.

“Focus,” he said. “Now.”

She offered him a smile not of flirtation, but of real pleasure, and he nearly walked out of the room. This Constance was much harder to resist than the flirt.

Diligently she applied herself to practicing parries and attacks with the parasol until she performed them with ease. She mastered the quick release of the blade swiftly, and the safe, active grip of the handle with a bit more application. As the sunlight crossing the ballroom floor grew brighter, he taught her how to hit with it.