The Rogue's Conquest (Townsend series)

by Maxton, Lily

  Robert scowled. “Eleanor…”

  “All things considered,” she said, trying to be practical and feeling anything but, “the circumstances are not nearly as horrid as they could be. We simply have to acknowledge him as a friend of the family and introduce him to Lady Sarah.”

  “Oh, is that all?” her brother said sarcastically. “And how do we know that’s where it ends? He might start to demand money, and what could we do to stop him?”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” she said.

  Robert’s brows shot up. “A blackmailer wouldn’t demand money?”

  “No. Not this one.” She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. As frustrating as MacGregor’s actions were, he did seem to have a code of honor—albeit a colorful one. Asking for an introduction and an acknowledgment in Society wasn’t quite at the same level of villainy as extorting money.

  Robert looked unconvinced.

  “To whom were you writing?” Georgina asked, trying to change the subject.

  Robert, however, did not take the bait. “I’m a little more concerned about Eleanor and her new friend, at the moment.”

  “He’s not my friend,” she muttered.

  “No, friends don’t force each other to give them introductions,” he said.

  “Trust me, Robert. Once we give him what he wants, he’ll fade away quietly.”

  “Somehow, I can’t see MacGregor doing anything quietly. But I do hope you’re right.”

  She hoped she was, too.

  Chapter Ten

  James had the walking pavement mostly to himself as he ventured out to meet Eleanor and Lady Sarah. It wasn’t the best day for walking, the wind a little too insistent and a little too sharp, but he’d never been bothered by the cold. If anything, he liked the extra speed it required, the extra push to warm his muscles and heat his blood.

  Several yards ahead of him, a tall man stepped out of a shop and into a waiting carriage. His coat was dark and elegant, his carriage black-lacquered and flanked by servants. He carried an ornate ebony walking stick like an extension of his own body. Everything about him, even the way he moved, screamed aristocrat.

  James faltered. He only saw the man from the side, and only for an instant, but something about that cruel, arrogant profile seemed familiar.

  In the next breath, the man was gone, swallowed up by the carriage, and James assumed he’d imagined the similarities that had struck a chord of memory within him.

  But he was annoyed with himself, angry at the way his pulse had picked up, angry that it was still accelerated, even if he could breathe again. He was a fighter. For years he’d made his living with his body—he should be able to control his reactions better than this.

  As he continued his walk, he peered into shop windows to distract himself. One, which advertised umbrellas, had a rack of walking sticks along one wall. He hesitated, and then went in. He hadn’t been planning to buy a walking stick, but now that he thought of it, he rarely saw fashionable gentlemen without them when they walked about town, and if he was going to make a good impression on Lady Sarah, he wanted to look his best.

  The shop was thick with the scent of polish and wood, and through a cracked door, James saw a workroom sprawled at the back of the building where they carved and finished the umbrellas and canes.

  None of the canes were as flashy as he would have liked, nor did they look quite as expensive as the aristocrat’s, but he gravitated toward one made of gleaming dark wood, topped with intricate silver filigree.

  “This one is more than it seems,” the gray-haired shopkeeper told him.

  James stared at him, confused, and the man took the cane from him. He pulled up on the handle, and with a soft wsshhh, revealed a long, narrow blade, hidden inside the walking stick.

  James was in love.

  A sword cane? He had to give it to the swells, they did sometimes invent delightful things with all their money and their unfilled time.

  “I’ll take it.”

  A moment later, he left with his new accessory in hand, feeling much less agitated than he had when he’d first stepped in. He made his way to the shop where he’d agreed to meet Eleanor, took up a spot by some inkwells, and waited.

  His mind drifted to the day before, to the moment when he’d looked at Eleanor, perched on the edge of the sofa. She’d been in a long-sleeved white dress printed with little red and green flowers, holding a steaming teacup in her hand. Her dark hair had been pinned back perfectly, nearly ruthlessly.

  For an instant, he was taken aback. He wasn’t sure why. She certainly wasn’t beautiful, and after Cecil he hadn’t expected beauty.

  She was prim and proper and plain and tidy, gazing at him with cool irritation etched in every line of her face.

  This was the woman who darted about after beetles and masqueraded as a man?

  Surely not.

  But it was. Somehow, it was.

  The contrast between what he saw and what he’d expected—though he didn’t know exactly what he’d expected, maybe some sign of the reckless streak that must be buried in there somewhere—fascinated him to no end. And when Georgina had told him people in their circle thought Eleanor was timid, he’d nearly fallen off the settee.

  Timid?

  Had the idiots ever truly looked at her?

  Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe she had never looked at anyone else the way she looked at him—like she was covered all over in sharp quills and she wouldn’t feel too poorly about using them, if he provoked her enough.

  He wasn’t sure why he felt so good about that fact. He just knew he’d much rather she be barbed with him than timid.

  He wondered if Lady Sarah was anything like Eleanor. He doubted it, very much, and the thought made him a little sad. But he shrugged it off, like he would shrug a bug from his shoulder. Lady Sarah was well-loved and beautiful and wealthy and the daughter of an earl.

  In the end, those were the only things that mattered.

  …

  Eleanor watched as Lady Sarah tried on another bonnet. She was radiant in all of them, naturally—it might have had something to do with the unfailing rosiness of her cheeks. Eleanor suspected it was rouge, but it was applied so expertly and subtly that she couldn’t be certain.

  “What color ribbons, do you think?” Lady Sarah asked. Her maid stood unobtrusively to the side.

  “Yellow, perhaps?” Eleanor said, not really caring.

  “I don’t know about yellow for myself, though I think it would look quite well on you. You have such a lovely complexion.”

  And that was the problem with Lady Sarah—if she was pretty and vapid, or pretty and mean, Eleanor might not have cared so much about tossing her into the path of James MacGregor.

  But she wasn’t either of those things. She was kind, attentive, the sort of person who never spoke a cruel word about others, and probably rarely thought them, too.

  She was very difficult not to like.

  But it wasn’t as though Eleanor had much choice in the matter. She could feel as guilty as she wanted, but in the end, it was either introduce MacGregor to Lady Sarah, or be exposed herself.

  “Have you been to the menagerie?” the other woman asked, breaking into her thoughts.

  “Not yet.”

  “Miss Georgina said you enjoy nature.”

  Her sister was in the shop, but had drifted off somewhere. She hoped she wasn’t making a mess of the displays.

  “Insects, mostly,” she said absentmindedly. “Not mammals. Though I suppose there’s nothing wrong with them.”

  “How interesting! What sorts of insects?”

  She fumbled with the bonnet. Why had she said that? She never spoke about her interests with anyone outside of her family.

  “Beetles,” she muttered.

  “Do you know, I’ve always been fascinated by spiders,” Lady Sarah said. “I used to bring them into the house, but my governess quickly put an end to it.”

  “Oh, spiders have quite a bad reputation
. The ones here aren’t venomous, at all. Though, there are some in hotter climes that can kill a man with one bite.”

  Lady Sarah shuddered, but it was a delighted shudder, not a disgusted one. “How terribly marvelous. I wish my bite was venomous.”

  A startled laugh escaped Eleanor. “Why?”

  “I could have used the advantage. My elder brothers were the worst bullies. But you probably know what I mean…you have brothers.”

  “Oh, I can’t remember a time when they were bullies. After Mama and Papa died…” Eleanor lifted her shoulder. “We didn’t take each other for granted.”

  Lady Sarah smiled softly. She seemed to sense that Eleanor didn’t want to speak of her parents. “Tell me…if a beetle fought a spider, who would win?”

  Eleanor laughed again, disarmed. “It would depend on any number of things…”

  By the time they fetched Georgina and exited the shop, Eleanor had almost forgotten her true reason for being in the company of the earl’s daughter.

  She wished…she wished she’d spoken earnestly to Lady Sarah before today. There was something about her, such a complete lack of pretense, that Eleanor found all of her normal barriers fading away. She wished she’d known that before she’d agreed to MacGregor’s plan.

  Though maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference.

  She almost walked straight past the shop next door. She truly did.

  But at the last second, she blurted out, “I’ve only just remembered, I’ve run out of sealing wax. Would you mind terribly?”

  “Of course not.”

  The bell jingled pleasantly as they stepped into the small shop and were immediately enveloped in the dried-leaf smell of parchment mingled with lavender and rose-scented waxes.

  And there James stood, perusing some expensive, extravagant-looking inkwells (of course). He’d taken her advice—the cravat knotted around his throat was plain white. Fawn-colored pantaloons encased muscular thighs. His coat was dark blue, his waistcoat a nice, pale pinstripe green. His boots gleamed and she wondered if he’d polished them himself, since he didn’t have a valet.

  Something about that image—James MacGregor painstakingly bent over a pair of boots—made her chest ache.

  He was still too large for any single room, but he looked respectable.

  It was a bit of a shock.

  “Mr. MacGregor,” she said, curtseying.

  “Miss Townsend.” He bowed. “How do you do?”

  His gaze drifted behind her, and Georgina greeted him. She prayed silently that Lady Sarah would just ignore them. Would see straight through this man, no matter how elegantly he was dressed, no matter how much his boots gleamed, no matter how well he could mimic a gentleman.

  But Lady Sarah was, as ever, polite to a fault. “Will you introduce your friend?”

  Eleanor’s heart sank straight down to her stomach. It had to be done. There was no getting around the introduction once Lady Sarah requested it.

  She introduced MacGregor as a family friend and left it at that. She tried to surreptitiously move away from them once she’d done her part, but she couldn’t get far enough to escape their conversation.

  Why was this blasted shop so small?

  As she listened, she found herself thinking mulishly that James MacGregor had never bothered to speak to her with such impeccable politeness. What was she, a rotting turnip?

  “It’s a perfect day for a walk,” he was saying.

  She snorted under her breath. He’d ridiculed her for using the weather as a topic of conversation less than a day before.

  “Are you all right?” Georgina whispered.

  “I’m fine. Naturally. Why wouldn’t I be?” She’d gathered up about ten wax sticks in her hand. The shopkeeper, who could see the whole store from his desk, was eyeing her suspiciously, like she might make a run for the door at any moment. She forced her fist to open. The strong scent of roses drifted up, making her head ache.

  “I am sure your taste is immaculate,” he was saying now. “If you let me pick for myself, no doubt it will be hideous.”

  “Very well,” Lady Sarah said, her tone light, as though she was smiling. “This is my favorite.”

  “And a very lovely choice, indeed.”

  He was asking her to help him choose an inkwell? It was a bit of a risk early on, a little too domestic, but Lady Sarah sounded like she was enjoying herself.

  Eleanor’s stomach knotted.

  She’d thought, or hoped maybe, that this dream of MacGregor’s was only that—a foolish, useless fantasy that would never reach fruition. She hadn’t expected him to be charming, to dress with such care, to make Lady Sarah smile. Perhaps she hadn’t realized how much he truly wanted it.

  She also hadn’t realized how much their instant affinity would gnaw at her gut.

  Chapter Eleven

  James was surprised by how easy it was to talk to Lady Sarah. There was no judgment in her eyes, no haughtiness. Of course, she didn’t know anything about his profession yet…but he felt that, even if she did, she would not look at him with disdain.

  He liked her, he realized.

  It came as a bit of a shock. He’d expected to like her for other reasons, not because she was kind.

  They continued down the row, chatting genially about inkwells and quills. It was a conversation that would have bored him out of his mind any other day, but today he felt all the things he wanted, almost within reach, and even the dullest topic in the world couldn’t dampen his enthusiasm.

  After a few minutes, Lady Sarah said her good-byes and left the shop with her maid at her side. James, alert and sharp and heady with triumph and nerves, moved to the wax display. Eleanor Townsend was staring down at a collection of red wax sticks that all looked the same with a furrow in her brow, as though they held the secrets to the universe.

  He pulled at his cravat, trying to loosen it from his too-warm skin. This was a subtler version of how he felt after winning a fight, that hot thrill of success, surging through his veins.

  “Well?” he said, when she didn’t look up. He was a little annoyed that she was ignoring him.

  Her warm-brown eyes lifted to his, but when she spoke her voice was cool. “Well?” she echoed.

  “It worked.”

  “I suppose. I wasn’t paying much attention.”

  “Studying the fascinating properties of wax?” he asked lightly, fighting a twinge of irritation. “Why do they smell like that?”

  “They’re rose scented. It’s supposed to be pleasing.”

  “Just like it’s pleasing to stick one’s head in a rosebush?”

  “Did you speak this way to Lady Sarah?” she asked suddenly.

  Behind her, Georgina, who was shuffling through some items, cocked her head. James would have bet anything that the girl had no idea what she was looking at.

  “Of course not.” He was trying to woo Lady Sarah, not entice her to slap him.

  “Do you not feel that you’re being dishonest?”

  He barked out a laugh, and the shopkeeper scowled at them. “Should you be the one to lecture me on dishonesty?” he returned.

  She looked around and then lowered her voice. “I don’t wish to marry any of the men in the Natural History Society.”

  “A good thing, too. I’d like to see how that revelation would go.” When she didn’t speak, he said, “Do you think anyone is entirely honest during a courtship?”

  “There is middle ground between complete honesty and complete dishonesty,” she answered.

  He wasn’t certain why her prickliness annoyed him so much. It hadn’t annoyed him before. But before, he hadn’t been eager to find out what she’d thought of his conversation with Lady Sarah—he assumed he’d done well, but reassurance from someone who knew would be even better.

  Apparently, he wouldn’t be receiving that much-wanted reassurance.

  And her prickliness hadn’t sounded quite so pointed before, as though something had shifted between then and now. As though sh
e’d finally decided that she didn’t really like him all that much.

  But then, what did it matter if she liked him, as long as she helped him?

  “I didn’t take you for a romantic.”

  “I’m not…I am just…Lady Sarah deserves better,” she burst out.

  Something twisted in his chest, something deep and sharp and cruel. “No doubt she does,” he said with a careless grin. “But it’s not the best man who triumphs in these cases. It’s the man who can present himself to the best advantage. Courtship isn’t about honesty, it’s about winning.”

  “That is exceedingly unpleasant.” The words were crisp and punctuated, little jabs to his ribs.

  “That’s the truth,” he said bluntly. “Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.”

  She lifted her shoulder as though she was shrugging him off. “I did what you asked me to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I set up the introduction. I’d rather not take part in this any further.”

  His gut twisted. He needed Eleanor. One introduction wasn’t enough. Not for an earl’s daughter. He needed more time with Lady Sarah, more time to make her like him so she would overlook his origins. Right now, he didn’t stand a chance. “We’re not finished.”

  “Mr. MacGregor—”

  She stopped as he leaned closer to her, one arm stretched along the shelf of wax. It was strange, to be so near her body. When she’d been Cecil, he’d only seen what he’d expected to see. Now he noticed everything…the softer parts of her slender form, the pulse that ticked in her throat, the dark flutter of her lashes.

  And in those whisky eyes he saw coolness, intelligence, irritation.

  “An introduction won’t do anything if I never have the chance to see her again. You should host something. A dinner. A ball. I don’t care. I’ll just need time to prepare, either way.”

  “This is beyond the—”

  “Cecil,” he said in a soft croon. He was an ass, and he knew it. He just liked the way her eyes narrowed on him when he used that name. He liked her anger better than her coolness. Coolness meant she was dismissing him, but anger…anger took energy, it took focus. Anger meant she was aware of him, just as he was oddly aware of her. “I’m not asking for much.”