One for the Rogue

by Charis Michaels

  “On the contrary,” Emmaline called down the steps, “your brother feels quite strongly that these are areas in which you—”

  “How much is he paying you?” He popped his head out of the door.

  Emmaline straightened. The sun was up now, and she could see his face more clearly. His eyes were blue. Terribly, piercingly blue, like the underpinning of a flame. “I beg your pardon?”

  “My brother. How much has he paid you to hunt me down and train me to roll over and play dead?”

  “Play dead?” she repeated.

  “Whatever the sum, I’ll double it.”

  “Sum?” She sounded like a parrot, repeating everything he said, but she hadn’t been prepared to tell him the terms of the arrangement with his brother. She hadn’t been prepared to tell him anything about herself at all.

  Mr. Courtland had suggested that his brother would be “reluctant,” but she would pin this more like “opposed.” Aggressively opposed.

  “I’ve never paid a woman to go away,” he said, looking her up and down, “but there’s a first time for everything.”

  Emmaline felt herself blush. She also had not been prepared for him to provoke her. “Oh, but your brother has not paid me, my lord.” This was not precisely a lie. “I am a duchess.”

  “Congratulations.” He disappeared inside again, and Emmaline was left staring down at his dog. She heard rustling, the sound of something heavy being slid, pots clanging together.

  “I’ve agreed to help,” she called, “because your brother and sister-in-law have done me a great favor, and I am indebted to their kindness.” Another not-quite lie. In fact it was very true, indeed. There was more, far more, but surely this was enough to end the discussion of payment in as many words. Even before she was a duchess, Emmaline had never worked in her life.

  “No money was exchanged, certainly,” she said, just to be perfectly clear. “And my assistance is meant to be quick and discreet. Only the fundamentals—an overview, really. Four sessions. Perhaps five. I’m certain if you would but hear what I propose—”

  “Don’t care,” he called back. His dog padded inside and turned around to stare up at her through the door.

  “I am a dowager duchess,” she went on, “in case you’re worried about . . . about . . . ” She allowed the sentence to trail off, unable to name anything that might worry him. Of course he wouldn’t care that she was a duchess, widowed or not. She wasn’t prideful about the title, but her strategy had been to catch him off guard and use it to bully him. It wasn’t every day a dowager duchess showed up to one’s floating rubbish bin and offered to . . . to . . . bestow her wisdom, such as it was.

  Emmaline closed her eyes. She’d assumed the viscount was too thick or awkward to grasp the manners of a gentleman, that it would be easy to gently guide his simpleton’s brain through basic etiquette. But that wasn’t the case at all. This person wasn’t stupid; this person simply did not care.

  “You’ve no care at all,” she confirmed, “about your comportment?”

  “None.”

  “But . . . why?”

  “What difference is it to you?” He poked his head out again. He was wearing a hat—a weathered, tanned-leather hat pulled rakishly low over his vividly blue eyes. “If he’s not paying you?”

  “Well”—she hesitated only half a second—“he and his wife saved my brother’s life.”

  “Hmm. They’re useful in that way.” He disappeared again. She heard the rattle of a chain or keys on a ring and the thunk of a trunk lid.

  “Would you not, at the very least, tell me why you refuse the lessons?”

  “No,” he called. “I won’t. Why not repay my brother himself? You couldn’t know this, but he adores balls, garden parties, seats at the opera. The more dukes and duchesses he knows, the better, in his view.”

  Emmaline shook her head and hurried down another step. “Oh, but my husband is deceased, Lord Rainsleigh. As a dowager duchess, I am less privy to operas and balls and such. And anyway, your broth—”

  “Dowager?” he said, appearing again, “as in, grandmother?” Now he wore a sweeping leather overcoat that whirled around his boots like a cape. His hands opened and closed as he fitted them with tight leather gloves. He fastened what appeared to be dagger into a sheath on his belt.

  Emmaline blinked. He looked nothing like a viscount, but not for the reasons she had guessed. When she’d called before, she’d considered his slouched, unconscious form to be droopy or atrophied, lazy or faint. That was . . . inaccurate. He looked like a highwayman, nimble and wild and dangerous.

  She stumbled back half a step.

  “No, not a grandmother,” she said. “My husband has died, and his son from a previous marriage has inherited. The new duke’s wife is the duchess. I am the dowager duchess.”

  The viscount frowned. “How old are you?”

  “Of course a gentleman would never demand to know the age of a lady.”

  For a moment, he seemed to consider this, but then he reached out and grabbed her arm. “Sorry to ruin your morning, sweetheart, but this conversation has run its course. And I’m expected in Newgate.” He gave her arm a tug, mounted the steps, and hustled her up to the deck.

  The dowager duchess gasped and stared at his hand on her arm. Beau ignored her and kept coming, handing her up, dragging her up. Peach leapt and barked at their feet.

  “Here is the rub, Lady Tickle,” he said.

  “I am the Dowager Duchess of Ticking,” she insisted, trying to yank her arm free.

  “Bloody hell, you’re a skinny little thing.” He said this to keep himself from not saying the half dozen other observances prompted by her sudden proximity. Her reflexes were quick and athletic; her breast against his wrist was small and pert—his preference. The smell of her was clean and bright and like nothing he’d encountered since he’d installed himself on the canal. The hair she tucked so severely beneath her awful hat was blonde—bright gold-streaked blonde, the color of sunshine on the sand.

  “This is just the sort of unwelcome comment that I would advise against in my tutorial,” she gasped.

  “ ‘Unwelcome,’ is it?” They reached the top step, and he began to weave her around the coils of rope and piles of rigging to the gangplank. “Allow me to illustrate the meaning of the word ‘unwelcome.’ My brother abdicated the title to me against my will. It was unwelcome.” He paused, kicking a buoy out of the way. “I deplore the bloody thing. You may tell my brother, not for the first time, that I will not wear a viscount’s costume, or live in a viscount’s house, or fill my days with viscount-like pursuits, whatever they are.”

  “But . . . why?” she asked, scrambling to keep up.

  Because I can find plenty of less important ways to fail, all on my own, he thought, and have a better time doing it.

  “Because the very idea bores me to death,” he said. This was also true, of course. There were other reasons, but she would not be privy to them. Even his brother did not know these.

  Why Bryson had insisted upon giving up the bloody title, when only five living souls knew his parentage was illegitimate, was a mystery he would never unravel. No one else needed to know he didn’t happen to be blood related to the viscount’s long line of aristocratic rotters.

  Except Bryson claimed that he himself would know, and he had too much respect for the ancient-lineage rubbish to deceptively carry on when he had no real claim.

  Bollocks.

  There was such a thing as being honest to a bloody fault.

  And to no good end.

  And at the cost of someone else’s entire bloody life.

  Not that the duchess needed to understand any of this. The duchess needn’t understand anything more than “sod off.”

  They came to the little metal gate that blocked the gangplank, and he kicked it open with his boot. “Get out,” he said.

  “Lord Rainsleigh,” she implored, tugging at her arm.

  “Stop calling me that.”

 
She opened her mouth to object when the sound of footsteps rose from the pathway beside the water. She whipped her head around.

  At their feet, Peach grew very, very still and sniffed the air, letting out a low, ominous growl.

  The duchess cocked her head to the side, listening.

  The footsteps continued. Closer now—louder. Peach barked once, twice.

  Under his hold, her entire body went taut. He studied her face. She was holding her breath.

  “What’s the matter?” he heard himself ask. He released her arm.

  She held up a hand to quiet him, staring wildly at the shore.

  The steps on the path trod closer. More than one person. Two sets of boots, maybe three. A stray cough. Peach leapt from the boat and ran down the shore in the direction of the sound, barking into the fog.

  The duchess took two steps back. She looked right and left, paused to listen, and then looked again.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked again. She’d taken on the look of someone who might, at any moment, whip over the side and swim away. She didn’t answer, didn’t even look at him. She raised her hands to her horrible hat and tugged the veil back over her eyes.

  “This isn’t finished,” she said, gathering up her skirts.

  Beau was ready with a retort, to inform her that it was, in fact, finished, but she scrambled around him to the gangplank. He sidestepped to let her pass, and she darted from the boat. In seconds, she was swallowed by the fog. She didn’t look back.

  Beau watched the hazy spot where she had gone until the approaching footsteps grew loud enough to be shapes in the fog and then men. There were three of them. Liveried grooms. They shuffled along the path beside the water, looking around, mumbling among themselves. Peach trotted behind them importantly, as if she had herded them his way.

  They glanced at him and then on down the canal, clearly unimpressed. He had that effect on people. And it was exactly the way he liked it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When Emmaline bustled to her carriage, the driver and two of the grooms were gone.

  The lone remaining groom stammered an explanation—something about hearing the sound of a child’s scream. His colleagues, he claimed, had dashed away to render aid.

  Emmaline murmured her concern and climbed into the carriage to wait.

  And now there would be screaming children. How creative. She would add this to the list of previous excuses, including ladies robbed at knifepoint, fisticuffs, spooked horses, and overturned carts. Every manner of crisis seemed to follow her carriage and require the pressing attention of at least two of her grooms.

  Bollycock.

  The servants were away because they had been following her. The Duke of Ticking made certain of that. If she managed to give them the slip (as on this foggy morning), she returned to an unattended vehicle. More often than not, she beat them back.

  She’d already endured eighteen months of mourning, long enough by far to venture outside the house. She was careful to only make church or charity calls (as far as anyone knew). And yet Ticking had her followed everywhere. What a pity his spies were not clever enough to determine how she evaded them. In the front door of any given church and out the back—that was how she did it. From the rear alley, she could go wherever she pleased. In Paddington Lock and beyond, if she was careful.

  Oh, but she’d cut it very close today. She could not fathom the punishment for being discovered on a canal narrow boat with . . . well, with a viscount who looked more like a brigand than a gentleman. Ticking already tightened his restrictions on nearly a weekly basis. More spies more of the time. It had become increasingly difficult to weave together the many elaborate strings of her plan. She could not endure more surveillance. She must redouble her stealth. Accomplish more in less time with each precious trip outside the house. Most of all, she must pin down the viscount and make him agree.

  When the absent grooms finally returned, they offered precious few details about the alleged child and his alleged screams, and Emmaline smiled serenely and pretended to read her Bible for the journey home. Better to bore them to death, she’d learned, than take care with what she said.

  “Master Teddy is in the Green Room, Your Grace,” her butler, Dyson, informed her when she arrived at her tidy dower house in the rear garden of the new duke’s townhome mansion. “Only one visit this morning from His Grace,” he added.

  “Thank you, Dyson,” she said, smiling a sad, knowing smile. The butler had relocated with her from Liverpool when she’d married the old duke. He’d suffered a demotion and wage cut to remain in her service, but he was loyal and grandfatherly, and Emmaline wasn’t quite sure how she would have survived the move—or the Duke of Ticking—without him. She’d made him butler as soon as the duke was dead.

  The Green Room was so named for the color of the ceiling, but the towering floor-to-ceiling alcove window that looked out over the lush dower-house garden offered a view equally verdant. It was one of her brother’s favorite rooms, and she was gratified by every small thing that brought him joy. When their parents had set sail on their ill-fated Atlantic crossing, Teddy had come to live with her and the duke in the ducal townhome. He’d not wanted to be left behind, but then to learn of the shipwreck? He had been steeped in sadness, mourning in his own way, unsettled and afraid. The cold marble, dark wood, and stained glass of the four-hundred-year-old townhouse had not aided matters. There were days when it had been difficult to coax him from his room. But the dower house was small and snug, just two levels and a cellar, six bedrooms, a dining room, a parlor, and the Green Room. It was smaller than their childhood home by leagues, but it had a door that closed and a garden with a wall. Until Emmaline could enact her plan and escape the duke altogether, it was vastly preferred. It was home.

  Now she paused at the door to the Green Room, listening for her brother. The voices inside were low and reasonable, not unpleasant. God help her, they almost sounded . . . happy.

  “Have I missed breakfast?” she said brightly, walking in.

  On a settee by the window, her brother, Teddy, hunched over a large colorful book spread across his lap. Miss Jocelyn Breedlowe, his new caretaker, sat beside him, pointing at what appeared to be an illustration of a tree filled with tropical birds.

  Teddy looked up. “Malie,” he said, referring to her by the name he’d called her since boyhood. He’d been late to speak and later still to call anyone by name.

  Her heart clenched when she saw him now—his handsome face sharpening into manhood more every day. On the outside, he looked every bit the young, handsome heir to their father’s great fortune. Nineteen years old. Tall, broad-shouldered, always smartly dressed by Mr. Broom, the valet he’d had all of his life.

  Only his brain had been left behind—stunted, somehow, since birth. In his mind, he was forever aged four or five. He could memorize the Latin names of an aviary of birds in one afternoon but still struggled to make simple conversation or find his way to the park and back.

  “And what do we have here?” Emmaline asked.

  Miss Breedlowe looked up and smiled gently. “Parrots,” she said. “Teddy has memorized the scientific names of all of these lovely birds.”

  “This I believe,” said Emmaline, coming to stop in front of the book. “Which is your favorite, Teddy?”

  Without looking up, he pointed to the colorful illustration of a robust, spectral-hued bird. “Parrot.” He rattled off a glossary of one-word facts about the habitat and feeding of a rainbow parrot. “Get one, Malie?”

  “Take on a parrot? I’m not sure the animal you described would be comfortable in London, would he?”

  Teddy appeared to think about this, staring at the illustration.

  “But perhaps we can locate a few more books about him,” said Miss Breedlowe. “We might even try our hand at sketching him, you and I.”

  Teddy did not answer, his attention still on the book, and Emmaline winked at Jocelyn.

  “I had the maids build a second fire
in the opposite grate,” Jocelyn said, stepping away. “He prefers this room above all others, but I worry about the chill that seeps through the glass.”

  “Yes, please,” said Emmaline. “Do what you can to be comfortable. I’ve suggested to His Grace that the room would benefit from velvet curtains to stave off the cold, but I won’t hold my breath.”

  They chatted a moment more about Teddy’s morning. Not since her parents perished on their voyage to America had Emmaline had a confidant with whom she could discuss her brother. In this way—in every way—meeting Jocelyn Breedlowe had been a godsend. Jocelyn was compassionate and measured with Teddy, not to mention helpful and inventive. Emmaline had wept with relief and gratitude after their first session.

  Ironically, it was Emmaline’s own failure to her brother that brought Miss Breedlowe to them. Teddy had gone missing in October—two harrowing days and a sleepless night with no trace of him—until charity workers employed by a woman named Elisabeth Courtland had stumbled upon him and brought him in from the streets, thank God.

  Along with the return of Teddy, Emmaline had gained two new friends—Elisabeth Courtland and one of her volunteers, Jocelyn Breedlowe. When Emmaline learned that Jocelyn was a professional caretaker, she hired her immediately to help Emmaline do better at looking after Teddy. Jocelyn was another set of hands and pair of eyes but also support and respite for Emmaline.

  Most of all, Jocelyn allowed Emmaline to slip out of the house to pull together the intricate plan that would, she hoped, earn her and her brother’s freedom from the Duke of Ticking.

  In the weeks that followed Teddy’s rescue, Jocelyn Breedlowe had become so much more than a caretaker; she’d become a new friend. Emmaline had no idea how badly she needed friends until she met Elisabeth and Jocelyn. Sometimes she felt Jocelyn was as essential to her own sanity as she was to Teddy’s care.

  “Your errand went well, I hope,” Jocelyn said casually.

  Went well? Emmaline repeated in her head, thinking of the viscount—of his obstinacy and his flippancy, of his immediate rejection for the harmless, mutually beneficial thing she had offered him.