The Rogue to Ruin

by Vivienne Lorret

  Her voice broke. She averted her face, the color draining from her cheeks.

  At once, Reed knew this wasn’t about him. Not entirely, anyway. And drawing closer, it wasn’t contempt or anger in her eyes, but something more vulnerable. Fragile.

  “Has a man raised his hand to you, highness?” he asked gently, needing to know once and for all.

  She slid him a warning look. “We are not having this conversation.”

  “It was Mitchum, wasn’t it?” he persisted. “He’s the reason your betrothal came to an end and you fled Hampshire. He’s the reason you flinched that day out front on the pavement.”

  Her expression was so stark, so wounded, that he could read the truth even when she didn’t answer. Then, without warning, tears collected along the lower rim of her lids.

  Reed found it hard to breathe, his chest tight. Reflexively, he reached out to soothe her, but she turned away, walking back into the room.

  She stopped at the hearth, staring at the empty grate. “You may go, Mr. Sterling.”

  “If you’re expecting me to leave you like this, then you’ll have a long wait. You and I have more in common than you know, and I think it’s time we knew a bit more about each other. Don’t you?”

  She quickly swiped at her cheek when he moved next to her. “I can see no point in it. We will be going our separate ways soon enough.”

  Oh, how wrong she was, but now was not the time to embark on that discussion again.

  “Very well, then I’ll begin,” he said, swallowing down a rise of trepidation. “This scar on my lip is from the ruby signet ring of my mother’s second husband when I was ten years old.”

  He shifted, uncomfortable as he waited for her response. His mother and Finch knew this part of his life, but he’d never trusted anyone else with a glimpse of his childhood. The thought of sharing it had always made him feel too vulnerable. Weak.

  Ainsley glanced up at him with a start. “I’d always thought it was from a fight.”

  “Aye. But one-sided.”

  She searched his gaze. Her eyes were that same soft brownish-gray but now they glowed with fury in a way he’d never seen before. He could only describe it as tender ferocity. And, for an instant, he couldn’t speak from the force of it washing over him. Through him.

  “Only the vilest offal-eating maggot would abuse a child,” she said with vehemence, as if seeing the boy he’d once been. “I hope your mother railed at him and cast him out.”

  “I lied to her about the cuts and bruises,” he admitted. “Mum would’ve only blamed herself, and she’d suffered enough already.”

  “Did he . . . hurt her, too?”

  Reed nodded. “It wasn’t enough to make her cry, shouting that he’d married far below his station. No, he’d had to break the few possessions she’d collected—figurines and whatnots, given to her by her parents and by my father. Then he’d needed more—” He expelled a heavy breath. “He’d needed her to beg and cower.”

  She turned toward the empty hearth again, a visible shudder skimming over her as she clutched the folds of her fichu. “No wonder you detest the aristocracy.”

  “Not all of them.”

  He nudged her hand as if by accident. Then lingered, needing to know if sharing part of his past had been the right choice.

  She didn’t pull away. He took it a step further and turned his wrist, furtively sliding his palm against hers.

  Her delicate fingers twined with his, held fast. “I know what you’re waiting for, but I’m not certain I can be as candid. I’ve never spoken of it before and . . . well . . . I’m rather reserved in nature.”

  “You don’t say.”

  She slanted him a look and squeezed his hand in gentle reprimand. He didn’t mind at all, and caressed hers in return, rhythmically sweeping along the delicate inner curve between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Mr. Mitchum was not the man he claimed to be,” she said after a moment. Silence followed. Then she took a shaky breath and began. “At first, he was all charm and affability, eager to become acquainted with my family and to know my innermost thoughts and wishes. He even said he wanted the same things that I did—companionship and trust.”

  Reed noticed that she did not mention love. Why wasn’t that at the top of her list?

  “It all turned out to be a charade,” she continued. “In fact, everything about him was false. In front of my family, he was charismatic and even-tempered. Yet in private—after our betrothal was announced—he would brood, turning peevish and critical. At the least provocation, he would grab my wrist with undue force or pinch the skin inside my arm to reprimand me for a supposed slight to him. Fool that I was, I kept trying to please him only to find that my efforts were never enough. He always wanted . . .”

  “More,” Reed finished for her, the story agonizingly familiar.

  “Yes. And it took me far too long to realize that I couldn’t spend my life never knowing what to expect from my husband. Fearing the shifts of his moods. Yet by the time I’d had this epiphany, I’d already become a stranger to myself. That’s when I decided to break our betrothal.”

  Reed felt a tremor pulse from her hand into his, and suddenly he felt colder, tension coiling in the pit of his stomach. “I have a sense you’re not about to tell me that you immediately packed your bags and came to London.”

  “If only,” she said, her voice strained. “We’d had plans to walk in the gardens with my sisters that day, but I asked my uncle if we might stay behind. Alone in the parlor, I told Mr. Mitchum that we were not suited. I even placed all the blame on myself, rather than risk wounding his fragile ego. But he seemed to hear the truth of what I was saying—that I could not bear a life with him. And I was a fool to believe that I had seen him at his worst.

  “He altered again right before my eyes, cursing at me. Calling me the vilest names. Making up stories that I was a flirt and gave my affections to other men while I remained cold and sterile with him. He even seemed to believe these wild fabrications. Then he took hold of my shoulders and shook me hard enough to rattle my teeth. I stumbled back and—”

  She slipped her hand free, resting it against her throat, below the frantic flutter of her pulse.

  “You do not have to relive it if it is too painful,” Reed said, unsure if he could bear hearing more.

  She lifted her gaze, her expression so raw and vulnerable that he had to fight the urge to haul her into his arms. But he did not dare breech this boundary. Not unless she wanted him to. Instead, he opened his arms in invitation, needing her to know that he was here for her, no more no less. Then he waited.

  It was the longest two seconds of his life.

  Of her own accord, she stepped into his embrace. An instant tremor rolled from her body, through his. “I prefer that you understand, I think.”

  Gathering her close, he absorbed every tiny shiver, wishing he could do more.

  “When I stumbled, he came down on top of me,” she said in a whisper. “I tried to push free, but he seemed to be everywhere at once—his forearm bearing down across my throat, his hand wrenching up my skirts, his knee prying my unyielding legs apart. If my uncle hadn’t charged in at the precise moment . . .”

  She didn’t finish. Instead, she buried her face into his waistcoat and broke apart on a sob.

  The air left his lungs in a rush. His pulse raced. Reed felt as if he’d been there, watching it all. Helpless to stop it. Helpless to keep her safe.

  He cinched his arms around her as if he could hold her tight enough to take it all away. And she burrowed closer, too, holding on to him as if she knew he would. If only he could.

  Kissing her hair, he breathed in her sweet scent. He tried to hold back the fury he felt for Mitchum and the desire to hunt him down like a mad dog and rid the earth of him.

  Yet even more powerful than that rage was the overwhelming admiration for the woman in his arms. After all she’d suffered, she’d never once given up. Never resigned herself to her fate.
/>   Ainsley Bourne was a fighter, her will stronger than any opponent he’d ever faced.

  “And then you came to London.”

  Sniffling, she nodded. “The very next day.”

  Reed recalled the exact moment he’d seen her, stepping out of a carriage well sprung with trunks, bandboxes, and portmanteaus. Looking down from his bedchamber window and through the veil of rain, he’d marveled at the way she’d taken charge, pointing from underneath a black umbrella, ordering the servants and the driver to discharge the luggage, while keeping watch over her sisters as they ventured inside the townhouse.

  To him, she’d seemed like a little queen with her stiff, regal bearing and he was already set on despising his new neighbors.

  Then she’d done something he didn’t expect. Once her sisters were inside, Ainsley stood on the pavement and lowered her umbrella. She tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and let the rain fall on her face.

  He’d been struck by her, fascinated in a way that he couldn’t explain. And since that moment, he’d wanted to see her like that again, wholly unguarded and serene as the rain bathed her skin.

  She was always going to be his, whether she knew it or not.

  Reaching up, he lifted her face. He wanted to kiss away her tears, sip them from the thorn-shaped clusters of her eyelashes, drink them into his soul so he could take her pain away.

  But, from the doorway, Eggleston cleared his throat.

  Reed expelled a disgruntled breath. Instead of kissing her, he withdrew a handkerchief and gently blotted away all the lingering traces. Not wanting to give her uncle a reason to ask him to leave, he took one step back. Gradually, he heard the viscount’s footsteps retreat across the hall.

  Then, propping a shoulder on the far side of the mantel, he stared down at the ash beneath the cold grate. “And you were well rid of Mitchum for nearly two years. Pity that he didn’t have the good sense to befall a fatal injury in all that time.”

  “I thought that he would have forgotten about me. After all, he’d proved often enough that I meant nothing to him,” Ainsley said, her brow knitted. “When I’d heard he married, I never thought he’d look for me. Even so, I suggested to my sisters that we take our mother’s maiden name as a measure of insurance. Of course, they do not know the true reason.”

  When she looked at him with expectation in her gaze, he knew she was asking him to keep her secret. Reed was moved by her trust in him. “I won’t speak of it, or of anything between us.”

  She nodded in return. An alliance forged between them. And now was the time for her to understand that they had more than just a pretense of a betrothal.

  “Before Lord Bray died, my mother and I stayed at the country estate while he amused himself in London. We spent days on end, weeks even, afraid of his return and kept vigil by the window. And likely”—he looked at her with discerning scrutiny—“kept too many candles lit at night.”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  “Not nearly enough for my liking,” he said honestly. “Ainsley, no one should have to go through their life looking over their shoulder, fearing what may be lurking around every corner. I would save you from that. But there is only one way.”

  A wry smirk lifted one side of her mouth. “I’m not entirely certain if you proposed marriage or murder.”

  Both. But instead of answering aloud, he reached out to tug her away from the direct view of the open door. Feeling her acquiesce without hesitation, he went further and pulled her against him. She yielded on a soft breath, her hands splaying over his waistcoat, her cheek resting in the crook of his shoulder.

  “Was that a sigh of contentment, highness?”

  “Of course not. You merely squeezed all the air from my lungs,” she said, but he heard the smile in her voice.

  “And I thought we were finally getting somewhere.”

  When his lips grazed over the top of her head and he breathed her in, he heard another contented sigh, but he didn’t mention it.

  “Whatever happened to Lord Bray?” she asked, her fingertip playing with a cloth-covered button.

  “He died in a duel.”

  “I hope he was in agony for a long while.”

  Tilting her face up, he pressed his forehead to hers. “You and I are not so different.”

  “Reed,” she said, sending a jolt through him from the intimacy of his name on her lips. “The idea of being at a man’s mercy terrifies me. Everything I have would belong to him, and I’ve only just started to feel as if what I have, even my own person, belongs to me. That is why this has to be a pre—”

  Before she could say pretense or pretend betrothal, or whatever else she concocted to keep the inevitable from happening, he interrupted. “Everything that you have is and will always be yours—your business, your dowry, and your person. I’d never force myself on you.”

  “But what about your life? Surely you must have a . . . mistress and any number of women fawning over you, and feeding your enormous ego.”

  At any other time, seeing Ainsley frown and hearing the sharp bite in her tone wouldn’t have pleased him so much. Could she be jealous?

  He lifted her hand, brushing his lips over the fine-boned ridges of her knuckles. “I’ve been a wee bit too distracted by a certain neighbor who’s declared war on my business to bother with any other women in a long while. And besides, when she marries me, I might earn a cease-fire.”

  “Hmph. I wouldn’t count on that, Mr. Sterling.” She stepped back, yet her fingers remained laced with his. For an instant, she stared down at their joined hands, her expression marked with inner confusion.

  Reed tried not to grin. He’d gained a lot of ground today, advancing his troops toward victory, earning her trust bit by bit. But he didn’t want to risk a setback, so he decided to give her time to mull over the inevitability of their future.

  Bowing over her hand, he pressed a kiss to each of her perfectly rounded nails. He stopped when he reached her thumb. Noting its jagged edge, he tsked with affection. “You worry too much, highness. I could suggest a multitude of other uses for those pretty teeth and that sumptuous mouth.”

  Blushing, she slipped free and covered her hand with the other. “I’m certain I shouldn’t care to hear any of them.”

  “Another pity,” he said with a wink. “Of course, you could simply kiss your betrothed.”

  “I could. But I won’t,” she said with her usual hauteur. Yet, her eyes were soft and she made the mistake of biting her lip to hide a grin.

  He chuckled as he strode to the door. “I suppose I’ll simply have to settle for the kisses you blow to me from your window each night.”

  Ready for her swift denial, she surprised him by primly stating, “I suppose you shall, Mr. Sterling.”

  * * *

  Leaving Ainsley, Reed met Eggleston in the sitting room across the hall and closed the door. Seeing a slender writing desk ready with paper and ink, he dipped the quill and scrawled a figure. Then he handed it to Eggleston. “Draw up the contracts and put that down as her settlement, along with Harrowfield, my country estate.”

  “Mr. Sterling”—Eggleston balked at the page—“indeed that is a fortune! She would never agree to such extrava—”

  Reed would give her more if he had it. “If I hang for Nigel Mitchum’s murder, I want to ensure that she’ll be a very wealthy widow and never have to put herself under a man’s power again.”

  Chapter 18

  “Little Emma, grow up a better woman than your aunt.”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  The following morning, Ainsley held her fractious niece and paced around the office. Picking up various objects, she tried to distract Emma from crying, but nothing worked.

  The agency was closed today. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop a small influx of new applicants from arriving by post. It seemed that the Bourne matchmakers had mysteriously become de rigueur.

  Then again, their sudden popularity might be due to the fact of the Season winding down and not
that the ton had been waiting for the last Bourne sister to find a match. Ainsley refused to believe that it was because of her betrothal.

  Regardless of the reason, they had work to do.

  Briar sent a missive, stating that she would be late. But Jacinda popped in a short while ago for the new list, leaving Emma behind as she went to perform her usual investigations, vetting the potential clients to discover if they were the right sort or not.

  Usually when the baby was here on the nurse’s day off she cooed and played contentedly. But today, Emma was not pleased that her mother was away.

  Ainsley’s first failure in entertaining her niece was singing. It made Emma only wail louder. She didn’t blame her. The off-key warbling even wounded her own ears.

  Then she tried whistling the way Reed often did. Failure number two. A brief high-pitched sound was all she managed. And it was met with a peculiar baying from the neighbor’s dog, through the open window.

  Tickling and bouncing were failures three and four, and reciting Shakespeare’s eighteenth sonnet was failure five. Emma tearfully despised being compared to a “summer’s day.”

  “I know, dearest,” Ainsley said, pressing a kiss to the baby’s forehead. “There are days when I simply want to wail at the world, too. Best get it all out while no one thinks less of you for it.”

  As Emma continued to empty the Thames, Ainsley was beginning to fear that, among the many feminine accomplishments she did not possess—drawing, singing, and dancing at the top of the list—nurturing was one of them. Was there anything she was good at?

  Hearing the click of her office door opening, she turned, expecting to see her sister. But it wasn’t Jacinda at all.

  Reed filled the doorway and her heart hopped beneath her breast. Her eyes greedily roved over his form, his muscular arms and chest encased in a green coat and buttery waistcoat, with his cravat tied in the Oriental knot she’d suggested. And yet, she wished he hadn’t donned such proper attire for paying a call. She missed the sight of his throat and the open neck of his shirt. A shameful thing to admit.