The Rogue's Revenge

by Lucy E. Zahnle

  Amberley rose. "I'm certain Miss Saddewythe will have a fine Season. Perhaps I shall see all of you there, my lady, my lord?" His gaze shifted to his glowering host.

  "I'm sure you will, Your Grace!" Lady Winifred simpered as the others followed Robin's lead and stood. The gentlemen were saying their farewells when she blurted out, "Your Grace! My Lord! We would be honored if you would dine with us tomorrow night. We keep country hours, I fear. Six o'clock?"

  Robin's eyes flickered toward Pamela as he bowed. "I shall be delighted, my lady. Georges?"

  The marquis dutifully accepted.

  As the gentlemen settled into the coach for the journey back to Brackenwell Hall, Georges grinned. "Well, mon ami, what was the point of that little comedy? 'Twas all I could do to keep from laughing."

  "I must act the beau if I am to please my future in-laws, héin?"

  "Mon Dieu! You are not going to marry that girl? That Pamela Saddewythe? She would bore you to death in a day and in one of your tempers, you would devour her!"

  "It may have escaped your notice, Georges, but I must marry within nine days and there is but one eligible girl of good family available to me within a twenty mile radius of Brackenwell Hall. Therefore, I must wed that girl."

  "Nonsense, Robin! There are two."

  "Two?"

  "The governess. Mademoiselle -- er -- comment s'appele la femme -- Cothcourt! Oui!"

  "Oui!." Lynkellyn nodded. "Papa Saddewythe does not appreciate me as he should and will doubtless cause me a deal of trouble. If Miss Saddewythe proves too difficult a prize, I shall offer for Miss Cothcourt. A spinster governess would welcome any husband. A ducal coronet should totally overwhelm her."

  "The woman has courage," Georges said. "That's more than we know of Miss Saddewythe."

  The next morning, Robin sent a letter to Gleason in London, announcing his arrival in England. He asked the solicitor to travel to Brackenwell Hall at his earliest convenience with a special license and family histories of the Saddewythes and Lucia Cothcourt.

  That evening, Robin found himself sitting beside Miss Pamela at the Saddewythe's dinner table. She smiled at him over her soup. "I trust your drive over here was uneventful, Your Grace?"

  "I only pray that your journey to London passes as serenely, Miss Saddewythe." Robin dropped a pinch of salt into his soup and smiled.

  "I don't understand," she said.

  "Your road cuts through Epping Forest, does it not? I've heard tales of highwaymen along that route, but I daresay you will be safe enough in the daylight."

  "Did you ever meet a highwayman?" Her eyes widened as she spooned soup into her mouth.

  "Once, outside Vienna. I shot him."

  The unfortunate highwayman was forgotten as Pamela sighed dreamily, "Vienna! It must have been wonderful!"

  "Do you like to travel, Miss Saddewythe?"

  "I don't know. I've never been anywhere, but I daresay I wouldn't want to leave England for very long. All those foreigners!" she said with a moue of distaste and a fine disregard for the marquis's feelings. "Still, a few weeks on the Continent would be delightful!"

  "Paris is beautiful at this time of year," Robin said, his eyes holding hers. "Indeed, I was rather sorry to leave it...until now." Pamela blushed with pleasure.

  "You were in Paris, Your Grace! Tell us about it!" Lady Saddewythe cried from across the table, forgoing formal manners in such a small group.

  Lynkellyn smiled. "Perhaps Monsieur le Marquis should tell you about Paris. He knows the city far better than I do. I'm certain the ladies would like to hear about the king's new palace at Versailles, Georges."

  All eyes turned to de Valiére. "Oh, yes! Do tell us about the gowns the French ladies wear at court, my lord!" Pamela said.

  Georges endeavored to give his listeners a sense of the beauty and history of his beloved Paris, only to be drawn again and again into a discourse on parties, balls, and gowns. De Valiére's attempts to speak of anything else were met with blank stares and barely concealed boredom.

  "Fashion is all very well," he said, exasperated, "but what about art, music, and literature?"

  "Oh, I am not at all bookish, my lord!" Pamela said. "Mama says too much learning is not becoming in a young lady."

  Shaking his head, Georges glanced at Robin and muttered, "Mon Dieu!"

  Lady Saddewythe signaled Pamela to rise. "Well, gentlemen, enjoy your port, but don't linger overlong. Pamela and I are very dull without company." Curtsying, the women strolled from the room.

  The gentlemen needed little encouragement to rejoin the ladies. Having presided over dinner in stony silence, Lord Saddewythe had as little to say over the port. The younger men found his surly glower disconcerting and were relieved when he rose almost immediately to follow his wife.

  A few minutes after the gentlemen entered the drawing room, Miss Cothcourt led the Saddewythe nursery party through the door. "I hope you and the marquis will not mind a visit from the children, Your Grace. They always come down after dinner," Lady Saddewythe said, "and since we consider you practically a member of the family," Lord Saddewythe bristled visibly at this "I thought you would like to meet everyone. This is Arabella and Derrick; Philip and Terrence; and this is little Honor." Each child nodded. "And, of course, Miss Cothcourt, their governess." Eyes on the floor, Lucia sketched a small curtsy.

  "I am pleased to meet you." Robin gave them a solemn bow.

  "Children, be seated," their mother commanded. "Pamela is going to play for us."

  Quite grown up at sixteen, Arabella found a chair quietly. Her three younger brothers made faces at each other and fought over the seats until Miss Cothcourt called them to order with a gentle reproof. The governess sat in the back of the room near the door and a sleepy Honor climbed onto her lap.

  Lord Saddewythe retreated to the far side of the room, fixing a dour eye on the assembly while his lady, ignoring him, settled beside de Valiére.

  As Pamela took her place at the harpsichord, Lynkellyn stood beside her, turning her pages of music. After playing two pieces, she rose with a little smile and curtsied to the applauding audience.

  "Well," Lady Saddewythe beamed as Robin and Pamela sat down, "that was lovely, dear. Now, Your Grace, if you should not dislike it, Arabella shall recite for you." Arabella stood and faced the group. Focusing her eyes on a spot above everyone's head, she launched into an epic.

  His attention wandering, Robin's bored gaze soon found the governess, cradling a sleeping Honor on her lap. She wore an outmoded grey satin evening gown, her hair hidden primly beneath a white linen cap. Envisioning those luxuriant ebony curls rioting about her shoulders as they had yesterday, he knew a sudden desire to tear off that lacy prison, freeing her cascading tresses to his caress.

  When she became aware of his scrutiny, he smiled at her. Fixing him with an icy stare, she nodded distantly. His smile broadened, his bold gaze lingering on the swell of her breasts above her stomacher before traveling lazily over the rest of her. She blushed and turned away to scold Derrick for talking.

  Robin studied her face, admiring the amethyst eyes shielded by sweeping dark lashes, the long, straight nose, and the chin lifted in unconscious pride. But it was her mouth set him afire.

  When she called Derrick's name, her quivering lips, moist and ripe and rosy as a sweet red wine, stirred him with sudden swelling lust. Her lips puckered against her long white finger in a plea for silence and, hot and hungry, he dug his nails into his chair's velvet arms. When she mouthed 'Hush!', her tongue danced between her ivory teeth and he wanted that sweet tongue to dance with his, to waltz across every inch of his body until he went mad with pleasure.

  The drawing room audience was clapping as Arabella curtsied, her recitation apparently over. Robin reluctantly tore his eyes from the governess to join the applause. Then Lady Saddewythe insisted that Pamela and Arabella sing a duet. As the girls began their performance, Robin risked another glance at Lucia.

  The governess had quietly risen and was c
arrying Honor toward the door. Thrilled at his unexpected luck, Robin waited a few minutes, then followed her. Georges glanced up, but no one else noticed his exit.

  Robin was standing alone in the entry hall when Lucia, having put Honor to bed, reached the head of the stairs. She saw him as she began her descent and her eyes widened in wary surprise. When she reached the floor, she curtsied, murmuring, "Your Grace!" before hurrying past him.

  "Miss Cothcourt!" Robin followed her into the corridor that led to the drawing room. "Miss Cothcourt!" He caught her wrist and pulled her back to him so that she was imprisoned between him and the wall. His voice was honeyed as he turned her palm upward. "Why in such haste, Miss Cothcourt? I merely wish to inquire whether your hands are healing properly. It would be a pity for an inflammation to set in."

  "My hands do very well; thank you," she said, eyes downcast. "Lady Saddewythe will be wondering where I am, Your Grace. Allow me to pass, if you please."

  "Ah, but I do not please." Robin's eyes gleamed with a predator's triumph. "I've a fancy for your company yet awhile."

  He leaned his body into hers, his chin grazing the lace of her cap. He frowned, whipping the cap off her head. "Why the devil do you wear this monstrosity? It does not become you."

  A few wisps of hair escaped from a thick coil of ebony braids as she grabbed for the cap with her free hand. "Please do not do this, Your Grace! I shall lose my position!"

  "I could offer you a better one," he whispered, his lips nuzzling her ear. She stiffened and tried to leave, but he held her fast. "Why fade away in a dreary old schoolroom when you could be a grand lady dressed in satins and brocades, commanding your own servants? All you have to do is accept my protection. All you have to do is please me!" His breath, hot and ragged, caressed her ear. His tapered fingers stroked the smooth white column of her throat.

  Anger danced in her eyes. "Let me go, Your Grace!" She tried to yank her wrist out of his hand, but he only tightened his grip.

  "Well, well! An ember does burn beneath all that ice." His voice was deep and unsettlingly intimate as he captured her other hand. "Shall I fan it into a flame, ma chérie?"

  "Your Grace, please -- " She endeavored to twist away from him as he pressed closer against her. With one large hand holding both her wrists like a vise, he dropped the offending cap and embedded the fingers of his other hand in the thick black mass of her hair, jerking her head back.

  Her struggles grew fiercer. He pushed his body harder against hers and pinned her to the wall, relishing the feel of her breasts crushed against his chest. His mouth swooped down on hers and he forced his tongue between her protesting lips to explore the sweet warm velvet inside.

  Her resistance slowly subsided as he deepened his kiss and she moaned softly, trembling in his arms. His pulse pounding and his manhood painfully swollen, his body screamed to possess her. He slid his hand out of her hair to stroke the mounds of silken flesh that quivered above her stomacher. His shaking fingers brushed the neckerchief she wore for modesty and yanked it away to tug futilely at her lacings.

  Desperate to have her, he reached into his coat pocket for his dagger, intending to sever the cords. As his hand curled around the cold, hard hilt, an icy blast of reason cleared his lust-fogged brain.

  What the devil was he doing? If any of the Saddewythes found them together, there'd be no marriage to Pamela, no legacy, and, above all, no revenge upon Mountheathe.

  He drew his hand out of his pocket and cupped Miss Cothcourt's breast outside her gown. His kiss gentled, gliding like sun-drenched silk over her lips. Bon dieu, but she was sweet!

  Sensing that his hold upon her had eased, she began to struggle again and he reluctantly let her go. Stunned that a simple kiss could so completely steal away his reason, he searched her face for some explanation as he endeavored to calm his drumming heart and banish his throbbing desire.

  She glared at him, her eyes flashing like lightning over the Caribbean. "You, sir, are the most shameless blackguard I have ever encountered! In other circumstances, I would -- " She stopped as if suddenly recollecting herself.

  "You would what, Miss Cothcourt?" Amberley's wanton gaze roamed over her, lingering on the bounding swell of her breasts above her décolletage, then swinging up to challenge the fire in her eyes.

  All at once that fire died. Curtsying meekly, she retrieved her belongings and arranged the neckerchief properly about her shoulders. Stuffing her ravaged tresses under the cap, she fled toward the drawing room while Robin stared after her, totally bewildered.

  A few minutes later, he followed her into the room. Her eyes met his and slid past him, calmly, coldly indifferent. Such nonchalance in the face of their recent encounter provoked him, but, finding a seat, he hid his anger, pretending intense interest in the Misses Saddewythes' duet.

  After the schoolroom party retired and Lucia saw the children to their beds, she went thankfully to her own little sanctuary. She locked her chamber door and lit a candle on her dressing table from the one she held in her hand. Struggling out of her gown, stays, and hoops, she donned a once exquisite silk dressing robe, now frayed and threadbare. Sitting at her dressing table, she hardly noticed her reflection in the cracked mirror as she removed the cap that had so offended the duke. Loosening what little hair remained braided after his grace's assault, she brushed it until the long ebony curls gleamed in the candlelight. When she heard a coach pass on the road outside her window, a tide of relief flooded her. The Duke of Lynkellyn was gone.

  Braiding her hair with trembling fingers, she examined her encounter with the duke. With a single kiss, he had ripped away the mask of demure docility she had so carefully cultivated, banishing all thoughts of restraint or discretion from her brain. His kiss had been brazenly carnal without a hint of tenderness or affection in it, yet her lonely, love- starved heart had responded to him as if he were offering her eternal devotion. For a few breathless moments, she had yielded to him like the cheapest harlot, moaning her pleasure against his lips. As furious at her reaction to his advances as she was at him for kissing her, she had lashed out at him without consideration of the possible consequences. She had taken stupid reckless chances with her livelihood and security and she could not afford to let it happen again.

  She stared critically at the mirror, wondering if she had invited Lynkellyn's attack. Her ebony hair, always tightly braided and hidden beneath a cap, was never allowed the immodesty of freedom. Her blue eyes, fringed with long, dark lashes and topped with delicate, arching brows, always stared demurely at the ground. She had draped a far too pleasing shape in loose, limp, faded old gowns and wound strips of cloth around her body to flatten her regrettably bountiful bosom. Thus, she had managed to avoid unwanted advances in the Saddewythe household, until now.

  She decided, at last, that the fault for this evening's incident lay not with her, but with the duke. He was one of her own kind -- another unwanted, unloved soul without friends or family. When she had heard the gossip about him, his situation had touched her heart.

  Perhaps, at the time of the abduction, he had truly loved the lady in question. But it no longer mattered. His eyes were hard and jaded, always wary, always suspicious, always searching for an edge. It was a look she had seen often enough in others of his ilk; even in her father's eyes. Such men took what they wanted with ruthless disdain, whether it be power or wealth or, Lucia blushed.

  Yesterday, when she saw his grace in the drive, she was certain she had met him somewhere before. This evening she had finally remembered. It had been five years ago in Vienna. She was posing as a young Italian nobleman, the duke as an Austrian army officer. His hair was black, then, and he wore a less than flattering moustache, but those silver-grey eyes were unmistakable.

  They played at piquet in a sordid little gaming hell and he won; not an astounding fortune, but enough to send her to the High Toby to recoup her losses so that she might have a decent dinner and sleep indoors that night.

  She had the misfortune, however, to
waylay her erstwhile opponent's coach just outside the city. The whole affair went terribly wrong and he shot her, leaving her sprawled, unconscious, in the road. She awoke sometime later, alone and in agony, and staggered away, half-dead, to find help. Infection set in and for weeks she writhed in fevered torment, battling for life.

  Shuddering, she forced the past out of her mind and rose to shed her dressing gown. Dwelling upon the present, however, was no pleasanter. When she thought of the damage the duke could do to her fragile security should he recognize her, her blood chilled. Her aunt, Lady Laddon, had stressed that finding her this employment was an isolated act of kindness. No more aid would be forthcoming. If His Grace told Lady Saddewythe her inglorious history, she would be sacked without a reference and forced to return to her old life. An unbearable prospect!

  Thankfully, he did not seem to know her and she hoped he would never see the flamboyant Italian of five years ago in the meek governess of the present. Nevertheless, she resolved to avoid him in future, lest his memory be stirred.

  She prayed fervently that his interest in her was only a momentary fancy. Lady Saddewythe had already hinted at her aspirations regarding Pamela and the duke to Lucia and it would be disastrous if he should seek her out instead.

  With a sigh, Lucia snuffed the candles and crawled into bed, falling into a fitful sleep full of nightmares, half dream, half memory, of exploding pistols and maddening kisses; of pain and passion and piercing silver eyes.

  ***

  As Lynkellyn's coach left Saddewythe Manor, Georges stared into the darkness in his direction. "Well?"

  "Mon ami?" Amberley lifted a brow.

  "How did you find the governess?"

  "Delightful, Georges! She struggles like a tigress!"

  The carriage turned onto the main road and moonlight spilled into its interior, bathing the gentlemen's faces in soft, white light. Georges's eyes widened. "I don't take your meaning."