Never Tempt a Rogue: A Rogues' Rulebook Novella Read online

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Anything else, miss?” The young maid hovered near the doorway of the elegant bedroom suite assigned to Felicity. Amy had been given the room next to hers, with furnishings just as sumptuous and a lovely view out onto the estate’s gardens.

  “No, thank you. You’ve been most helpful.” Felicity had tried to aid the girl as she unpacked their belongings, but she’d moved like a whirlwind. In a quarter of an hour, all of Amy’s clothing, shoes, and other accoutrements had been sorted out and stowed away again in an enormous carved wardrobe. Since her own case was brimming with more books than attire, Felicity insisted on unpacking by herself and managed it in short order too.

  In addition to the dozens of items ordered from the modiste for Amy, Uncle Huntingdon had also insisted on providing a few fine dresses for Felicity to wear as she performed her chaperone duties. She stroked a finger along the velvet trim on the bodice of her new rose-hued day dress. Luxury hadn’t been part of her life as a physician’s daughter. After her mother’s death, the duties of preparing meals, cleaning, maintaining her father’s medicinal garden, and assisting him to transcribe notes and attend to patients had become her main concerns. At thirteen years old, she’d dreaded taking on the household chores, but learning to cook had proved to be a surprisingly enjoyable adventure.

  “Shall we ring for tea?” Amy bounded into Felicity’s room, cheeks flushed and eyes aglow, though she’d only left the girl moments before in the company of their hostess and a few of the other young ladies who’d arrived in the morning. Lady Forsythe had favored Amy by asking her to take a chair next to hers, fussing about how much she looked like her late mother and inquiring about her sisters.

  “You look giddy, my dear. Did you meet other guests downstairs?” It wasn’t so much that she distrusted her cousin. Only that Felicity had seen how the girl floated toward mischief like a moth seeks a candle’s flame, unaware of the danger.

  “Oh, just a few of the young ladies,” Amy assured, her eyes wide and voice childishly high. “You remember Penelope, don’t you, from the Osterley ball?”

  Felicity didn’t recall a Penelope, but she knew her cousin was hiding something. Beyond Amy’s round eyes and squeaking voice, she couldn’t hold still. Bouncing on her toes, the girl kept one arm fixed at her side.

  “What’s that?” Felicity pointed to a slip of paper Amy clutched flat against the palm of her hand.

  “This?” She lifted her hand but kept the writing on the letter concealed under her fingers. “Just a note.”

  Fortunately, Amy was a terrible liar. Felicity could see through all of her fibs, but she still hated playing the role of disciplinarian.

  “May I see it?”

  Several moments passed as Amy debated, casting her eyes at the carpet and then up at the ceiling. Finally, she huffed out an irritated sigh and thrust the folded note toward Felicity. “Please don’t scold me, Fel. I didn’t ask him to send it.”

  On the single half sheet of foolscap, Felicity found a bold, haphazard scrawl.

  The first dance is mine, sweet.

  - L

  Felicity clamped her jaw so tight she bit her tongue and tasted blood.

  The man wasn’t just bold. That was too much like praise. He was brazen, and completely wrong-headed, if he thought he could seduce and then cast off Amy as he had so many other young ladies.

  “You’re cross, aren’t you?” Amy pressed her hands together as if she wasn’t sure what to do with them. “Let’s just put the thing on the fire and forget I ever received it. We’ve just arrived. I can’t bear to see you out of sorts already.”

  “I’m not out of sorts with you, my dear.” Felicity approached her cousin and tucked a stray curl behind her ear, a comforting touch she remembered receiving from her own mother. “Ring for tea, Amy, and I’ll join you shortly. There’s a gentleman I need to speak with first.”

  Not that she had any idea where to find him. The Forsythe’s house seemed designed to confuse, with hallways jutting off in every direction, and doors to far more rooms than any one family could ever use. She couldn’t confront the man in his bedroom, so seeking him downstairs seemed the best option.

  The main entry hall was abuzz with servants, some directing visitors who’d just arrived, others carrying refreshments into Lady Forsythe’s drawing room, where she was holding court, greeting and orienting every guest to the merrymaking to come.

  Felicity rushed past the drawing room doorway as quickly as she could. As she hurried along, a figure beyond two enormous French doors drew her attention. The man she sought stood on a balcony leading toward the estate’s rear gardens.

  For a moment the sight of him held her immobile. He was terribly tall. And ridiculously handsome, in an almost merciless way. The longer she looked, the harder it was to look away, to take a step toward the door and confront him as she’d intended to do. Those legs of his were longer than any other man of her acquaintance. And his hair, which she’d thought of as brown, revealed its secrets in the late afternoon sun. Mice were brown. The day dress she usually wore at home was brown. His hair shone like polished bronze, some strands glinting as rich as gold.

  Stop this nonsense. Good grief, was Amy’s mania for men catching? Some contagious foolishness akin to the common cold, which Papa had called the scourge of mankind.

  As she stared at Lord Lindsay lounging idly on the balcony, one hip cocked against the balustrade, arms crossed as if in contemplation of his excessive share of male beauty, Felicity decided that men like him were the scourge of mankind. Men who considered women playthings, and feigned having a heart, when all that truly filled their puffed out chests was pride in their own prowess.

  ***

  Alex uncrossed his arms and sighed.

  So it was to be marriage. Not a series of lectures on how to be a respectable titled gentleman, but a lifetime of chastisement from his own lady wife. All that he’d been avoiding for years rushed toward him like an oncoming steam train, and impulse told him to escape. To jump the track and make his own way in the world.

  Yet as he turned to grip the balustrade of his aunt and uncle’s balcony, gazing out onto their perfectly manicured garden and the expanse of woods beyond, he recalled the land around his family’s estate in Surrey. No place in the world would ever be home like the south of England, and he couldn’t deny preferring country air. London was filled with incomparable diversions, but he never took a breath without sucking in its stew of smoke and dust. Sussex’s breezes were tinged with the sweet smell of meadow flowers, fresh cut grasslands, and the faintest hint of the sea, just a handful of miles past the downs. Drawing in another lungful, Alex decided Sussex air would be his elixir. He would start by enjoying the countryside and move, step by step, toward all the responsibilities hurtling toward him.

  “Embracing duty is the Evering way,” his father used to say. Or at least it had been the Evering way until Henry’s death.

  “Pardon me, my lord.”

  Alex choked on an inhale at the woman’s call.

  Mercy, his aunt moved quickly. Had it already begun? Was sending a young woman out to him the first salvo in her campaign of reform? A test of his gentlemanliness.

  He braced himself as he would for a battle. Not that he’d ever fought any battles beyond those with his brother.

  The woman’s voice was husky, somehow titillating in its imperiousness. Odd that a lady’s tone could be both alarming and arousing at the same time.

  He turned to face her and summoned a bland grin, mimicking an expression he’d seen his father wear a thousand times. A look that said, You matter not at all, but I will be civil and endure you. Alex had spent his whole life receiving such looks from his father.

  “Did my aunt send you?”

  If she had, Aunt Georgianna couldn’t have chosen better. The young woman was so lovely that, for a moment, he felt a surge of pleasure at her interruption of his brooding. She was beautiful in a striking way, with a strong jaw, high rounded chee
ks, fiercely pale eyes, and wavy hair of honey and cream. The lady had a face he wouldn’t soon forget. And she was tall. To meet her gaze, he had to adjust his line of sight. Alex was used to looking down into feminine eyes, tucking a lover’s head under his chin when they embraced. This woman could meet him toe to toe and look him in the eye.

  While she scowled at him, he allowed his gaze to wander. Despite her long limbs and height, the lady was graced with curves in all the right places, ample hips and a blessedly full bosom.

  Her foot began tapping out a frantic beat. His appreciative gaze seemed to stoke her anger. Frost blue eyes narrowed to slits, and her full peach-ripe mouth flattened into a grim line.

  “Lord Lindsay, we have not yet been formally introduced, but I must have a word with you before the party begins.”

  She said the word party as if it was distasteful, and Alex immediately thought of some of the rowdy events he’d attended in London. This little country house get-together wouldn’t be anything like those, and yet this woman seemed to disdain the festivities already. Or perhaps she just disdained him. Loathing glittered in her aquamarine eyes as she stared at him.

  “Very well. You seem a diverting interruption. I will allow it.” Teasing only made her eyes flash more, and he liked causing those tiny flares of blue far too much.

  She squared her shoulders, lifted her adorably dimpled chin, and pinned him with an outraged glare. “You can have this back.”

  When she shoved the piece of paper toward him, Alex sucked in a breath, hoping she might touch him. But she didn’t, of course. She was a lady, and he was expected to act like a gentleman. Not tomorrow. Not someday. Now.

  “Lord Lindsay, there will be no more of these. If you send any further unwanted communications, I will tell Lord and Lady Forsythe of your outrageous behavior.”

  He was surprised she could say so much when fury stiffened every line of her body.

  Perhaps he was as debauched as he pretended to be in The Rogues’ Rulebook, because her ire aroused him. He liked the way it made her lips quiver and infused her cheeks with blood. When her eyes sparked, he could smell anger curling off her like the burn of an electric charge after a lightning storm.

  “I have no idea who sent that or what it says.” He didn’t need to examine the folded missive to know it had nothing to do with him. “I assure you, I’ve only arrived half an hour ago and spent much of that time on this balcony. I haven’t sent a note to anyone.”

  She faltered, her sensual mouth quivering even more in her uncertainty. A mad impulse made him want to claim those lips, use her trembling moment of doubt to break through her fury. Now, when he might taste all that passion.

  Unfolding the letter in her hands, she held it up in front of him, a wall of paper between them.

  “Is that not your initial? Signed with an L. That’s you.”

  “It is not. My name is Alexander, though my friends call me Alex.” He tipped his head toward her and caught a whiff of vanilla. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume we’ll become friends. You may call me Alex.”

  He’d never been more eager to hear a woman say his name, to watch her mouth form the word, her pink tongue playing over the syllables. A wave of lust rocked him as he considered what else he could teach her to do with her tongue.

  She glanced at the paper in her hand and then up at him, studying his face as if attempting to decide whether or not he could be trusted.

  “What’s your name?” He knew enough of decorum to realize their whole encounter was inappropriate, but he was damn well going to know her name. She was the first indication that coming to his aunt’s house party might have been a good decision.

  “My name is irrelevant, my lord.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that. Your parents were cruel to name you such a thing. A lady like you deserves a much prettier name.” He couldn’t resist teasing her. Later he’d be a gentleman, perhaps even apologize for his behavior, but now, when this woman stood looking at him as if she’d like his head on a spike, he could only think of ways to make her eyes to flare again.

  “My name,” she bit out, her straight white teeth clenched in a grimace, “is Felicity Beckett.”

  Laughter rumbled up his chest. “Felicity?” He looked at her lovely flushed face and roared with mirth. He hadn’t laughed in six months, and it felt freeing and glorious. “You do know what that word means, don’t you?”

  She scowled. “I assure you I am very happy when men like you don’t provoke me.”

  He stepped closer. Hell with any semblance of propriety. Something about Felicity Beckett’s barely repressed fury struck a chord in him, resonated deep inside where he’d gotten used to feeling mute and chilled. “Do men often provoke you? I can understand if they do. You’re quite beautiful when provoked, Felicity.”

  She didn’t withdraw. In fact, she leaned in, tipping her head a fraction to meet his gaze. “Do women enjoy it when you indulge their vanity? Your compliments won’t excuse you this time.” She thrust the scrap of paper toward him at the precise moment he inched closer. Finally, he could feel her, the heat of her hand flush against him, long slim fingers pressed flat on his shirt front.

  He reached up to hold her hand in place.

  She reared back like a skittish pony, yanking away from him and creating the most enticing friction.

  Her distance made him regret his brazenness. A little.

  “I didn’t write the note. I don’t know who did, but I’m sorry he’s toying with your heart.” He was sorry. His throat ached with emotion, and that shocked him as much as how completely he enjoyed this woman’s sweet-scented nearness after being unable to think of anything but his brother’s death for months.

  “My heart?” Her laugh wasn’t jovial like his, but brittle. He sensed sadness behind it. “This isn’t my note, Lord Lindsay. I’m here to chaperone my cousin, and I insist you stay away from her.” She retraced all the distance she’d just put between them, coming at him with her finger wagging like a chastising nanny. “I don’t even want you speaking to her, nor looking at her. I certainly don’t want you attempting to charm her. She is young and innocent. She won’t see through your false praise and heated looks as I do.”

  It took a good deal more restraint than any rogue should be expected to possess not to reach for her when she turned to stomp away. He didn’t want her to go and take all that passion with her. His days had been marching past in bleary, colorless succession. She was a burst of vibrancy in a world that had gone gray.

  Then, as if he’d drawn her with the sheer power of his desire, she turned back. But there was nothing soft in her expression. If anything, their whole encounter seemed to leave her more displeased with him than when she’d first stepped onto the balcony.

  “Other men devote themselves to science, medicine, law, while you spend all of your time preening and convincing women to fall into your bed. How many hours do you waste practicing your lines before launching them on some unsuspecting young lady?”

  Either he was losing his touch or his walls were weakening, because her words pierced him just as she intended them to. Banter, he enjoyed, but this was something else. Disturbing and miserable. He knew only that he did not wish her to walk away thinking the worst of him.

  “Give me your cousin’s name, and I promise to steer clear of her.”

  “Amelia Huntington.” She paused, as if watching for his reaction.

  The girl’s name meant nothing to him, and he shrugged to indicate as much.

  “I take it as a good sign that you don’t remember her. It gives me hope that maybe one day she’ll forget you too.” Her voice broke near the end of the sentence. Finally a bit of vulnerability slipping past her fearsome display. Then she dipped into a curtsy, as well executed as any he’d ever seen. “I leave you to your idleness, my lord.”

  An idle blaggard, dear old Pater had once called him. Miss Felicity Beckett had taken his measure, it seemed, in the blink of her thick-lashed ey
es.

  Yet Alex had seen Felicity too. A man couldn’t stare at a woman, drink in every aspect of her face, and not see beyond her pretty features. Miss Beckett’s wrath was impressive to behold, but there was more. Sadness and softness. He wanted to know every detail, needed to understand why she stirred him as no other woman had for as long as he could recall.

  As he entered the house and returned to his rooms to prepare for the evening meal, his step felt lighter. The pinch of weight on his chest had eased.

  Yes, he was sure of it now. With Miss Felicity Beckett’s secrets to unravel, coming to his aunt’s house party wouldn’t be a pointless journey after all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Do you think there will be dancing?” Felicity tried to keep dread from infusing her tone. She was awful at dancing. Truly tragically bad. She’d wounded men with her dancing. Well, one man. But he was the vicar of their parish and hadn’t deserved to hobble around for weeks after she’d crushed his toes.

  As a chaperone, she would normally be absolved from the necessity of dancing, but Amy had nearly bubbled over with excitement when informing her that Lady Forsythe insisted all of her guests dance. Before the fortnight’s end, there would even be a special dance that some members of the staff would be invited to attend.

  “Lady Forsythe said the first dance isn’t until tomorrow. They’re preparing the ballroom already.” This Amy announced with an enthusiastic grin. The girl was clearly determined to adore every moment of this house party, and Felicity wanted to make the time as wonderful for her cousin as Amy expected it to be. Even if it meant suffering through an obligatory dance. And standing guard against the onslaught of charm from one very handsome viscount.

  Now that she’d met him, Felicity understood why so many women fell under his spell. The viscount’s appeal wasn’t just to do with his height or face or compelling eyes. The man oozed a sort of enticing warmth, as if drawing near him would be as soothing as it would be exciting. He’d looked at her as if he knew her secret desires, and intended to fulfill every single one of them. His gaze, the tone of his voice, even the way he stood, signaled sensuality. He didn’t bolt up straight and stiff-necked like some gentlemen, but moved and stood with languid ease.