Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One) (30 page)

Miss Minchip was holding Damon’s head over a bucket when they arrived.

“Oh, Baby,” Sabrina said. “Did you eat something that upset your stomach?”

He shook his head, his face red. Very red. Sabrina examined his neck and his chest as well.

“Spots,” Miss Minchip said. “T’other one will get it, too, him sleeping in the same bed last night.”

All heads turned to Gideon.

He raised both hands and backed away. “Oh no. I do not do spots, thank you very much. I do not have any now. I will not have any later. End of discussion.” He turned and left the nursery.

Sabrina grinned at the boys, who were grinning back. “If Papa gets the spots, he will be cross as a bear.”

Gideon was waiting for Sabrina when she returned to her bedchamber. “Can we go back to where we were?” he asked, already churlish.

“First, let me check you for spots.”

He crossed his arms before him stubbornly. “I refuse to be checked, and I refuse to have spots.”

“I would have to check you everywhere. You would have to take off—”

He relaxed his stance. “That could be agreeable.”

“You did sleep with the boys, so you must allow me to check you. Come here so I can—”

The minute he got close enough, Gideon removed her wrapper and grinned when he saw that she was still wearing his pantaloons but nothing much else, except her chemise. “I had forgotten where we were up to.”

“I remember where you were up to,” she said, unbuttoning his shirt, watching him react to her standing there as she was, half dressed.

“Gideon,” she said, stepping into his arms. “What we have together is not so bad, is it? Even children and dogs and cats and spots? You do not have any, by the way. Spots, that is.”

He kissed her. “I feel much the same, Sabrina. Not about the spots, but that this is good, our life.” He carried her to his bed. “I have also been thinking that it is about time Papa had another turn.”

And though it was still too soon for consummation, they did not do much talking before they slept the sleep of the sated.

* * *

The watcher wondered if any stranger would invade Stanthorpe Place this night. There were so many intrusions, ‘twas a wonder Stanthorpe did not simply leave the front door open.

Once upon a time he might have been welcome at that door, himself.

Back then he stood tall, taller than most, and strong. Used to be, he stood handsomer than most, as well. A heart-breaker women had once called him.

A rogue, a lady-killer. He scoffed. Not anymore, not unless the women he gazed upon died of fright.

The only heart he broke now was his own, every time he looked into a mirror.

Every time he regarded the scar slashing his cheek, he recalled everything ugly in his life. They told him, of the knife-wound to his face, that it sat
close enough to his eye so that only a miracle could save his sight
.

Only a miracle could have saved his life as well.

Yes, he got his miracles, both of them, much good they did him. He had paid a high price.

But he supposed someone had to pay.

Someone always did.

* * *

That evening, when Gideon came into her bedchamber, Sabrina was already wearing his pantaloons and trying to button his shirt. “I cannot fit my breasts into your shirt,” she said in greeting.

“That is not the only problem,” Gideon said, regarding her, hands on hips, his look warm and assessing.

“What could be worse than this tight thing?”

“Those two wet spots at the front.”

“Oh, Lord, I am leaking. I will expel all Juliana’s dinner, if I am not careful. I told you it was too tight.”

“That, my Sweet, I can see for myself.”

“Help me out of this, will you?”

“I have never been more eager to assist.”

“Oh, you. Will you, never, pay attention to anything more than the desires of the flesh?”

“I did not hear you complaining last evening. As a matter of fact, I seem to recall someone asking for more. Was that me? I did not think it was me.”

Sabrina kissed him and danced from his reach. “That will be enough. Deviltry is to be saddled in two days time at dawn, so we can go for an early ride in Hyde Park and I can demonstrate my riding skills. I will set Waredraper to making me a larger shirt tomorrow.”

“And what do you plan to wear for a coat?”

“He found an old one of his and is fixing that for me. I knew the coat would be a problem, but I did not consider the shirt. Now you must teach me to walk like a man.”

Teaching his seductive wife to walk like a man became an exercise in futility. When she tried to walk straight, Gideon found the swivel in her hips truly amazing.

When they got down to business, they decided she must at least learn to swagger like a man. This, she tried with Gideon behind her, his hands at her hips, to keep them from swiveling, but it was no use.

Sabrina could not walk like a man for anything.

All the exercise served to do was arouse Gideon, which was fine with him. He had rather be the rider, where his wife was concerned. He certainly had no intention of letting her jockey in a race. He was simply having as good a time with her foolish notion as he could while it lasted.

* * *

Both the coat and the shirt turned out well and on the day of their early morning ride, Sabrina woke Juliana to feed her early. Then they were off.

In Hyde Park at five o’clock in the afternoon, all the fashionables paraded through the gates, in open carriages, on horse back, or arm in arm. But at five o’clock in the morning, none but a robust and dedicated few riders could be found there.

Since Gideon kept several good stallions in the mews behind his Grosvenor Square house, he gave his blood bay to Sabrina for the ride there and he rode Deviltry, himself. “When we arrive,” he told Sabrina. “We can trade mounts.”

Truth to tell, he wanted to be certain that she did, indeed, ride well, and that she had a good seat, before he took a chance either with her neck, or Deviltry’s.

As good as her word, Sabrina proved to Gideon that she could handle and sit a horse as well as any member of The Jockey Club, so they switched mounts.

Once she was up and settled on Deviltry’s back, they chose a course for a short race between them. Gideon was so cock-sure he would win, even on Ransom, because of his superior riding skills, that when the race began, he did not bother to try. But when he saw what an exceptional race jockey Sabrina proved to be, he bent low over his horse and gave it his best.

Still, Sabrina won, hands down.

“Where did you learn to ride like that?” Gideon asked. They turned their horses back toward Grosvenor Square, with her riding Deviltry, and him cutting a fine figure on Ransom.

Sabrina petted Deviltry’s neck. “I rode everyday when I was a child on my father’s estate in Exeter.”

“You said you were not of the gentry.” Gideon slowed and allowed her to take the lead on the left turn toward his stable in the Grosvenor mews.

“I said I was not a member of the fashionable set, not that I was never a member of the gentry,” Sabrina said, dismounting.

She waited for him to dismount and join her. “My father lost our estate ages ago,” she continued as they approached the house. “Therefore, as an adult, I was not fashionable.”

“Who are your parents?” he asked as they crossed the kitchen and took the stairs toward their bedchambers.

“My father was a country squire who gambled away the money and property his father left him. And I do not see that it makes any difference,” she said, preceding him into her bedchamber. She turned to face him, for once allowing her self-confidence to show. “What matters is that I ride well, do I not?”

“
Very
well.”

She threw herself into his arms. “Then you will allow me to race at the St. Eustace Winter Fair, to win you the purse?”

Gideon pulled her close and tried to distract her with kisses.

She pulled away. “You will, will you not?”

Gideon sighed. “I will not.”

To his shock, she shoved away from him so quickly, and with such force, she left him off balance, literally.

“Why did you let me race you this morning?” she cried. “Why dress me and—”

“Undress you?” Gideon raised one, speaking brow. “Why, indeed.”

“The race, everything, it was all a hum? A big fat Banbury tale?”

“This morning’s race between us was a lark, Sabrina. Nothing more. Of course you will not ride in a public race.”

“You bounder, you reprobate, you...you—”

“Husband?”

“But—”

“No. You cannot. Absolutely not. Over my dead body. Next question.”

Sabrina marched across the room tapping her hand with her riding crop, arguing beneath her breath at a ripping pace.

Gideon could just imagine her working up her best argument, while he fortified himself against same, by going off to his club and not returning until long after she slept.

Unfortunately, he had discovered that spending time at his club did not hold the appeal it used to.

Before he opened his eyes the following morning, Gideon sensed that his bedchamber spun about him. He also suspected that someone had set the bed afire.

He wished he
had
gotten drunk the night before, so there would be a good reason for this misery. As it was, he had done nothing but play cards and win.

“Oh, oh,” he heard Damon say, from somewhere beside him.

Loathe to open his painful eyelids, Gideon hoped, for once, that the exclamation
meant
that Drizzle had desecrated a carpet.

“What is it, Sweetheart?” Sabrina asked, stirring as she woke beside Gideon. “What is wrong?”

“Papa has—”

“Do not say it,” Gideon begged, his eyes closed against the room’s gyration.

“Spots,” the boy said anyway.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“You are the worse patient I have ever come across,” Sabrina said the evening of the fourth day of Gideon’s confinement.

“Of course I am,” he snapped. “I am hungry but food does not stay with me. I am dizzy and the room will not settle. I itch where one should never scratch, and that of course mostly happens while Grandmama is reading to me.”

Sabrina giggled. “But you are better today. I see that your spots are fading.”

“Thank God for that. Except that I am fading, too, and it is barely dark outside.”

“Sleep, then,” she said kissing him and rubbing his back as he turned on his side to close his heavy eyelids. “Come to bed,” he said as he drifted. “I will sleep better, if you do.”

He awoke late the following morning, feeling worlds better. After he ate the breakfast delivered to his bed, he discovered that his food stayed where it ought.