“Oh, for God’s sake!” Ro shook out the shirt he carried in one fist, but one glance was enough to confirm for them all that it was so wet, he’d never succeed in pulling it on again.
Looking up, he pinned her with a rapier-sharp gaze. “Wait here while I go up and change. Do not leave this room.”
If you do, I’ll come after you.
She heard the unvoiced warning clearly. She set her jaw; wild visions of having him taken up by a constable, or at least being thrown out into the night, drifted temptingly across her mind…but it was raining cats and dogs—and sheep and goats and horses—out there, and who would do the throwing? The innkeeper and what army?
Lips as thin as his, eyes every bit as narrow, she folded her arms, watched him scoop up his sodden clothes. “I’ll wait here.”
She knew better than to try to deny him; never in her life had she managed that, and it didn’t seem that anything had changed between them.
He nodded curtly and stalked past her to the door. The innkeeper—still gawping—hurriedly stepped back and Ro went out.
The instant he was out of her sight, some measure of her accustomed acuity returned; her mind literally cleared. Just as well. If she knew Ro, and she did, she was going to need every wit she possessed.
The innkeeper coughed, then whispered, “Miss—if you want to slip away to your room, I’ll escort you up. There’s a sound bolt on the door. You could move the little chest across it, too.”
She glanced at the man, had to search her memory, seesawing wildly between the past and the present, for his name. She considered, then spoke, her voice cool, calm, faintly imperious. “That’s entirely unnecessary, Bilt. You need have no fear. I have more than sufficient years in my dish to deal with his lordship.”
She hoped. She most definitely prayed.
A suspicious look entered Bilt’s eyes. “You and his lordship know each other?”
She could imagine what tack his mind had taken, what meaning his “know” was intended to imply. “Indeed,” she replied repressively. “Childhood friends.” When Bilt’s suspicions didn’t immediately evaporate, she added somewhat waspishly, “Oh, do use your wits, man! If our relationship were any other we’d be meeting upstairs, not in your parlor.”
It took a minute for Bilt to accept that not even Rogue Gerrard would be likely to prefer a parlor over a comfortable bed. Given Ro’s reputation, Lydia couldn’t blame Bilt for the hesitation, or his earlier suspicions.
Brusquely handing him her umbrella, she turned back into the room. “Now.” Her mind was functioning again. “Lord Gerrard has clearly just arrived, and equally clearly he can’t have dined. I regret the lateness of the hour, but if Mrs. Bilt could assemble a meal, both his lordship and I would be grateful.” Shrugging off her cloak, she draped it over the chair, then fixed Bilt with a commanding stare. “His temper is always improved by a good meal.”
And setting a table and feeding him would keep Bilt about, at the same time assuaging his unfounded fears.
Bilt blinked, then bowed. “Yes, of course, miss. An excellent notion.”
The more she thought of it, the more she felt it was; dealing with Ro was going to be difficult, but perhaps there was some way in which she could turn his unexpected arrival to her advantage.
Setting her mind to that task would keep it focused on her goal—her purpose in being there—and away from what had happened the last time they’d met.
She definitely couldn’t afford to think about that.
The sodden hem of her dress—only an inch or so; she’d left her pattens by the inn’s door—dripped onto her shoes. Noticing, she placed herself before the fire and lifted the hem to the blaze.
And thought about how to conscript Ro to her cause.
He’d always been something of a protector. A white knight riding to her aid whenever she’d needed him. Admittedly that had been more than a decade ago, yet despite the reputation he’d gained over the intervening years, she suspected something of that white knight remained, concealed beneath his glib, sophisticated exterior.
Gentleman rake, gamester, dissolute womanizer, and gazetted libertine—all were labels she’d heard applied to him, all, as she understood it, with good cause. The entire ton knew of his countless affairs, of the wild gambling, the incredible wagers won and lost, the licentious dinners and parties that, if the gossipmongers were to be believed, were one step away from outright orgies.
Recollections of tales of some of his more outrageous exploits drifted through her mind; most such tales hailed from more than six years ago, but the perceived wisdom was that with maturity, he’d grown more discreet. Despite all, he’d remained a darling of the ton—Gerrard of Gerrard Park, as wealthy as he was handsome—but unfortunately for the matchmakers, his reputation was sufficiently enshrined in the ton’s collective psyche to render him ineligible as a candidate for their delicate daughters’ hands.
The Bilts arrived with plates, cutlery, napkins, and platters. She nodded encouragingly, then left them to set the small round table they pulled to the center of the room.
Standing before the fire, waving her gown’s hem in the warmth of the flames, she frowned. When, over the years, she’d imagined meeting Rogue Gerrard face-to-face again, she’d thought she’d see a different man, one on whom a licentious, hedonistic life had left its mark. Instead…when she’d looked at him, all she’d seen was the same man, just ten years older. He’d been striking as a younger man; now he was impressive—larger, harder, with a none-too-subtle edge that only underscored his innate strength.
As a young man, he’d made her heart race.
Now he set it pounding.
She heard his step on the stair. Turning, she discovered the Bilts had withdrawn, leaving all in readiness on the table. They’d laid two places although she’d already dined. Perhaps she’d have some fruit, just to keep Ro company. She crossed to one chair, looking up as the door opened.
Ro filled the doorway.
Not the Ro who had left, but one infinitely more intimidating. He was impeccably turned out, from the shining chestnut hair clustering in damp waves about his head, to the pristine, intricately tied cravat anchored with a simple gold pin, to the severe, almost austere lines of coat and waistcoat.
Dark trousers cloaked his long legs, making him appear even taller. The aristocratic planes of his face somehow appeared harder, cleaner, more sharply delineated.
He looked at her, then at the table. Then his gaze rose to her face. Arching a brow, he entered and shut the door.
Before he could speak, she gestured to the platters. “We thought you might be hungry.”
He was. Ravenous, now food was set before him. Inclining his head in acknowledgment, Ro walked around the table to hold her chair.
Although he steeled himself, it didn’t help; awareness rippled through him, just because she was near.
Within arm’s reach.
She sat and he stepped away, forced his feet to the other end of the small table. He sat, helped himself to a slice of game pie, then looked across the table and fixed her with a steady stare. “So—what are you doing here?”
She’d thought about spinning him some yarn, but had—wisely—decided against it; he read as much in her serene expression, in the clarity of her fine blue eyes.
Hands folded before her, she met his gaze steadily. “I’m here to retrieve a letter of Tabitha’s that unintentionally went astray.”
He chewed a piece of pie, remarkably succulent, and studied her. She was going to make him wring the story from her, cryptic utterance by veiled truth. Tabitha was her sister, a year or so younger, a firebrand even when he’d last met her at fifteen. Now twenty-five, Tab was, so he’d heard, a bluestocking of quite amazing degree, one who controversially preached that women, ladies in particular, had little need for men—gentlemen in particular—in their lives, and should think very hard before surrendering their freedom and fortunes into said gentlemen’s hands.
Lydia, now twenty-six
, six years his junior, had always been the quieter, the more reserved, the steadier and more reliable. Tab, it seemed, had become something of a female version of himself, a notorious and dangerous hellion, at least as far as the ton was concerned.
But what neither sister was, was weak.
He reached for the roast beef. “This letter—who has it, what’s in it that makes it a threat to Tab, and why are you here trying to retrieve it, rather than she?”
Lydia’s lips tightened fractionally, but she drew breath and replied, “The letter was one Tab wrote years ago, when she was seventeen.” She paused, her eyes searching his, then went on. “You remember Tab—you know what she’s like. How she throws herself into things, heart and soul, and the devil be damned?”
Reaching for his goblet, Ro nodded.
“Well, before she became a bluestocking propounding women’s rights, and especially our right not to wed…” She hesitated.
He finished for her. “She was seventeen—she fell in love.” Recalling Tabitha, nothing was more certain.
Lydia nodded. “Exactly. And she wrote to the gentleman involved, and being Tabitha, she wrote unrestrainedly. Without exercising the least discretion, and with an enthusiasm that…” She drew in a short breath. “Well, suffice it to say that if the contents of that letter became widely known now, she’d be the laughingstock of the ton.”
Ro raised his brows. “That bad?”
Lydia grimaced. “Actually, it’s worse. She’d be shunned by all her friends—the other women who think like her, and all that circle.” She paused, then added, “That’s her life now, and effectively, because of this letter, she stands on the brink of ruin.”
Ro frowned, toyed with a portion of beef. “Why, after—what, eight years?—has this letter surfaced now?”
“Because Tab remembered it, and asked for it back.”
Which suggested that the contents really were inflammatory beyond what even Tab, no wilting violet, could imagine facing down. “From the man she’d sent it to.” Ro narrowed his eyes. “And he wouldn’t give it back?”
“No—he agreed to give it back.” Lydia looked exasperated. “Of course he did. If Tab ordered him to jump through a hoop, he would.”
Ro blinked. “Who is he?”
Lydia studied him, then made up her mind. “Montague Addison.”
Ro opened his eyes wide, struggled to keep his lips straight. “Addison the spineless wonder?”
Lips tight, eyes like flint, Lydia nodded. “Yes. Him.”
“Well.” Ro pushed away his empty plate; lifting his goblet, he sipped. “That explains a number of things.” Including why Tabitha Makepeace no longer favored marriage. If as an impressionable seventeen-year-old she’d considered Montague Addison a pattern card of gentlemanly virtue, it was entirely understandable that she’d subsequently rejected wedlock. Especially to gentlemen.
“So”—Ro focused on Lydia—“Addison agreed to give the letter back. What went wrong?”
“After getting Tab’s note, Addison—the idiot—put the letter in its envelope in his coat pocket. He said he intended to find Tab at a ball and hand it over—even though, of course, Tab rarely attends balls. And it’s February, for heaven’s sake! There are hardly any balls in town, and if he’d bothered to read Tab’s direction on her note, he would have seen we were at home in Wiltshire. But Addison, being Addison, didn’t think of any of that. He went on his usual rounds to a few parties, then, not finding Tab, went on to some hell called Lucifer’s.”
Ro was starting to get a very bad feeling about what might have happened, and more specifically where Tab’s letter currently was. “I know it.”
Hearing his clipped tone, Lydia looked at him, momentarily distracted from her frustration with Addison. “Yes, I daresay you might.” She blinked, then returned to Addison’s shortcomings with a frown. “Addison lost heavily, as I understand he frequently does. He needed to write an IOU to…the gentleman to whom he’d lost, and—I presume he was thoroughly foxed by then—he pulled out Tab’s letter and wrote his note of hand on the envelope, and gave it to…the gentleman.”
And with that, Ro saw it all. “The gentleman being Stephen Barham, now Lord Alconbury of Upton Grange.”
Lydia stilled. She held his gaze for a long moment, then reached, slowly, for a grape. “Why do you think that?” She plucked a grape, popped it into her mouth, and studied him, trying to look innocent while she chewed.
Ro smiled—not humorously. “Because Barham is a regular at Lucifer’s, because Addison often tries to ingratiate himself with that crowd, because Upton Grange lies across the lane and through the woods”—with one long finger he indicated the direction—“less than a mile away, and because when you came in your hems were wet.” His jaw clenched. “You’d been traipsing about the woods during a downpour of biblical proportions in the dark of night…why?”
He’d managed through an effort of quite remarkable magnitude to subdue the emotions roiling and welling inside him—roused by the realization of what she was about—enough to make his question reasonably unthreatening.
She still eyed him warily. After a moment, she licked her lips. “You do realize, Ro, that you have no grounds on which to interfere.” She tipped up her chin. “My life is my own, and I will do as I please.”
He simply looked at her and made no reply.
She drew breath, then confessed, “I arrived this afternoon, before the rain started. I need to get the letter back as soon as possible, before Barham realizes what he has. You know how fiendish he is—once he discovers the letter it’ll be all over London.” On the table, her fingers linked, twisted. “And on top of that, Tab and Barham have crossed swords before, and Barham came out of it badly. He would like nothing better than to expose Tab and bring her down in the eyes of the ton.”
She tried to read his reaction in his eyes; he gave her a blank expression, but nodded.
Heartened, she continued, “So I went to look at the house—Upton Grange. To see how big it is, how hard it might be to get inside and search it. I didn’t know if Barham would be there or not.” Her lips turned down; she met Ro’s eyes. “He is—and he’s got a houseful of guests.”
Ro nodded. “Indeed.” He hesitated, then asked, “I assume that means you’ve realized you can’t, at least at present, search Upton Grange for this letter?”
If fate was kind, all would be well, and he could see her on her way back to her home in Wiltshire, safe and sound, the instant the rain ceased and the roads cleared.
Instead, she frowned at him. “Of course not. I have to get the letter back, and sooner rather than later. Every day it remains in Barham’s clutches increases the risk of his discovering and reading it. I would have thought that was obvious.”
Ro’s jaw tightened until he thought it might crack. “Perhaps. What, however, is rather less obvious is why you believe you—specifically you—have to be the one to retrieve this letter. Why not Addison, or failing that, Tab herself?”
Lydia narrowed her eyes to slits. “That is even more obvious. It can’t be Addison because the only way he could get the letter back without raising Barham’s suspicions is to honor his IOU—and he can’t because he’s halfway up the River Tick. None of us would dream of trusting Addison to search Barham’s house and retrieve the letter by stealth—he’s a bumbling incompetent. He’d be caught, and the scandal would be even worse.”
“And what of Tabitha?”
Ro’s eyes were a hard, bleak gray, obdurate and unyielding. Lydia looked into them, then drew a deep, resolute breath, and told him the truth knowing full well he wasn’t going to like it. “It can’t be Tab because when I left her she was all but irrational. She was in one of her states—she would strangle Addison if she could lay hands on him, and as for Barham…well, if she came upon him while searching his house, she’d probably try to strangle him, too, purely on principle. You know what she’s like—the idea of her sneaking into his house and retrieving the letter without some major explosio
n which will result in the scandal of the year is pure fantasy.”
Ro opened his mouth; she raised a hand, silencing him. “Being quiet—getting things done without causing a stir—is not Tabitha’s strong suit.” She held his gaze. “It is, however, mine.”
Eyes like shards of flint pinned her. “And what do you imagine will happen when you’re caught, as you most likely will be? Do you think the scandal will be any less?”
Calmly confident, she let her lips curve. “Actually, I suspect the tale won’t even get an airing.”
He frowned. “Why? What difference—”
When he broke off, understanding dawning in his eyes, she let the curve of her lips deepen. “Precisely. While Tab is widely known as the firebrand of the family, the termagant, I’m equally well-known as the quiet and reserved sister, the always perfectly behaved, decorous sister. What the ton will believe of Tab, they won’t believe of me. If Barham does catch me—and he’ll be much less likely to catch me than Tab, who’s never been any good at subterfuge—even if he does, and he’s stupid enough to try to spread the tale, even and including the contents of Tab’s letter…what are the odds that anyone will believe him?”
Ro sat perfectly still, his eyes locked with hers. Minutes ticked by, then he stirred. “You’re deliberately risking your reputation in order to save Tabitha’s.”
She let her smile fade until her resolution shone clearly. “It’s the sort of thing a sister does.”
Ro held her gaze, his expression unreadable, then he scowled. “Why the devil aren’t you married?”
He felt like running his hands through his hair. And tugging. Why wasn’t she married and safely ensconced before some gentleman’s hearth, said gentleman’s responsibility and not his, protected from all danger—protected most especially from him? He could see where this was leading, and it wasn’t good—especially for her, let alone him.
She blinked at him, then laughed—a sound he’d forgotten, had tried to forget, had almost succeeded in burying in his memories.
It shivered through him like a caress.
“Oh, Ro—surely you don’t imagine I’m risking my chance to make a good match with this?” The look she bent on him was gently patronizing. “I’m twenty-six—I’ve had my time on the marriage mart, and didn’t like any of the offerings.”