One for the Rogue

by Charis Michaels

  A virgin. A bloody beautiful, lithe, responsive, eager . . . virgin.

  Beau looked again at the cold water of the canal, stripped off his boots, and jumped.

  Thirty minutes later, dry again but still shivering, he rolled a large stone from the shore and wrapped the duchess’s still-wet gown and petticoats around it. It hit the water with a thwack and sank. The vision of murky water swallowing the bundle brought back the vivid memory of her fall, the moment of shock and fear when he’d realized she was no longer standing on his deck beside him but was sailing through the air. Never had he stripped himself of his coat and boots so quickly. Never had he been so grateful that no one of consequence had witnessed it.

  The acknowledgment of this, in particular, reminded him of the one-hundredth reason he had no wish to be viscount. Men who were not viscounts rarely had to worry if anyone of consequence was watching.

  After the duchess’s clothes were given a proper water burial, and he ran the boys Benjamin and Jason to ground, he fed and brushed his horse and called on the local public house for his own meal. Then, because he could see no peace until he took some action, he called the boys back.

  After negotiating an extortionist sum, the boys agreed to deliver the following note:

  Your Grace, the Duchess of Ticking,

  I am writing to inform you that I leave London for Essex at first light. I should be gone from the city for an undetermined time. In light of what’s happened, I think this is best. I hope you are well. If you should require me for some reason related to today’s events, you may write me care of Ned and Ethel Barnes, Dunningham Road, Hockley, Essex.

  Beauregard Courtland

  PS: By my request, the Barnes family does not regard me as viscount, so I implore you not to invoke the title if you must write.

  * * *

  Dear Lord Rainsleigh,

  I hope it is appropriate to use the correct form of address on the inside of this letter, as I have followed your directive to invoke your given name on the outside. Regardless, if this reaches you, I wish to thank you for your note and the forwarding address. Whether you will admit it or not, gestures such as these are proof that you are halfway to proper manners just as you are. Naturally, I will take credit when I report your progress to your brother.

  Which brings me to my purpose for writing. Although you specified that I not contact you unless there were repercussions from the canal, I have other pressing news. Your brother and I have determined that I shall sail for New York, along with Teddy and the books, in a months’ time. Mr. Courtland has been, and continues to be, the very soul of generosity. Considering this, it is my great hope that you will return to London before my departure so that we might complete at least two or three more tutorials. It is the least I can do to settle my debt to your brother.

  I am assured of your reluctance to do this, and of course you owe me nothing. Your consent to do the lessons at all has been a kindness. I should also like to add that Miss Breedlowe has agreed to be present at all future sessions between us. All lessons learned without her attentive company have, I feel certain, already been thoroughly explored.

  Sincerely,

  Emmaline Crumbley

  PS: I cannot hide my curiosity: Who, pray, are the Barneses, and why have you called on them in Essex?

  Beau was so surprised that she’d written him, he accused Ethel Barnes of teasing him when she’d returned from the village with news of a letter. But there the folded parchment sat atop her marketing basket, and just a week after he’d arrived.

  He’d known it was from the duchess, of course. No one knew of his connection to the Barneses, not even Bryson, and he’d all but invited her to write him before he’d left. Still, he experienced a jolt of unnamed . . . something when he’d popped the seal and skipped to the closing to read her name. Then, heart pounding, he’d returned to the salutation and read the entire letter four times.

  He would read it again later, he knew, in the privacy of the small room he shared with the Barneses’ sons. Until then, he had countless hours to determine how he would reply.

  His first inclination was to not reply at all. Allow his silence to speak for him. Of course they would not meet again, not for lessons or any other reason.

  She had emerged in his mind as the strangest combination of thudding, mouth-watering temptation and threat-of-death restrictions, and both unsettled him in a way to which he was not only unaccustomed but that he did not care for at all.

  He knew his limits, especially where temptation was concerned, and he could not—should not—go near her.

  Not even with Miss Breedlowe present. Not even to pay her perceived debt to his brother.

  But how to say it? Or not to say it, as was his first inclination.

  For two days, he left the letter unanswered as he helped Ned Barnes around his farm, as he played with the Barnes children, and sat, reading or talking with the oldest boy, Lewis. Finally, on the third day, Polly, the Barneses’ daughter, had asked him very plainly at breakfast from who the letter had come.

  His policy with all the Barneses had been honesty from the start, and without thinking, he told her that the letter had come from a woman, a lady, who lived in London. Polly had been approving but concerned. Why hadn’t he written in return to the London lady, she wanted to know. Did he realize she was likely watching her post every day, waiting patiently for his letter in reply? Was he not aware that the post could take a week or more to make its way to London? She remedied this by offering to share her own paper and pen—supplies he had bought her, she reminded him, so of course he should help himself.

  And so Beau allowed himself to think that it was Polly Barnes, aged fourteen, who had pressed him into replying to the duchess. This made it easier somehow. And when he wrote, he did not mince words or overstate. He scrawled out six lines from Polly’s stationery kit and posted it himself on the third day.

  Duchess,

  The lessons are finished, as I’m sure you know. My brother requires no compensation, as I’m sure you also know. The only thing worse than sitting for lessons on my own ineptitude would be sitting for the lessons with Miss Breedlowe looking on. This will not happen.

  I am in Essex looking after a family in whose great debt I have been for many years. This is a bit of personal history that I would ask you not to share. I reveal it only because you have revealed so much yourself.

  Sincerely,

  Beau

  Dear Lord Rainsleigh,

  Thank you for your reply. Honestly, I did not expect one. What a pleasant surprise. Yet another gentlemanly skill you already possess: timely correspondent.

  I can only guess that you did not expect this, another missive from me, and I admit that writing to you again borders on just the sort of aggressiveness that has, in the past, made you feel hunted (by me). I risk this to gently suggest two things.

  First (and most aggressively of all), please reconsider your willingness for a few additional tutorials. If Miss Breedlowe is not a good solution, then we could meet either in a bustling public place that the duke and his spies are not prone to visit, or we could include Teddy—or both.

  Second, I would like your permission to intercede with your brother on the topic of your alleged “refinement” (for lack of a better word). To be honest, it is unclear to me exactly why Mr. Courtland sees you as unfit. At the risk of overstating things, I have discovered you to be perhaps a bit rough . . . to be beholden only to yourself . . . but also to be honorable and fair, civil and even charming (when the mood strikes). There are so many examples I could cite, both specifically (such as a rapport with Lady Frinfrock and your easy kindness to Teddy) and in general (whatever benevolence you bestow on this family in the country).

  But of course I will say nothing to him unless I hear from you. And I will not press you again about the lessons if the answer remains no. I only ask again because my debt to your brother grows ever greater. Only now, as the date of our sailing rapidly approaches, have I come t
o comprehend the myriad details involved in transporting these books. Where I have been remiss, your brother has so kindly stepped in to make arrangements . . . tariffs, means of unloading the books in New York, proper packing to prevent damage, travel papers for both Teddy and me.

  Of course I had only conceived of a way to escape the duke, my most immediate threat, yet I have much more to learn. Your brother has done (and will do) so much more than simply convey us across the sea. I should like to repay him, and working with you was his request. But of course I can only impart what you are willing to hear. I will not become a scold simply to assuage my own feeling of indebtedness.

  Moving on, I should add that the young men on your raiding team, Jon Stoker and Joseph Chance, have discovered new information about the next brothel you intend to raid, and they are positively champing at the bit to move forward. Elisabeth is holding them off until you return, but she has asked me if I might know where you’ve gone and when you’ll return. You have been very clear about your discretion with the Essex trip, and I assure you, so have I. But I thought you would like to know.

  Yours,

  Emma

  This is what happened, Beau told himself, staring down at her latest letter, when a man engaged the affections of an innocent virgin and then broke one of the very few rules he had for himself and kissed her.

  She sought the man out in the country with long correspondence that referred to him as honorable, fair, civil, and charming and offered to advocate on his behalf to his brother. She signed her letters with “Yours” and then the incredibly intimate shortened version of her Christian name, “Emma.”

  Emma.

  Although he read the letter at least a dozen times the day it came, it was the one line that he studied for days to come.

  “Emma” was, he thought, quite the perfect name for her. “The Duchess of Ticking” was too ridiculous, “Dowager Duchess” was too infirm, “Emmaline” was too . . . heavy.

  Emma.

  For some reason unknown to him, his brain tried, repeatedly, to add the pronoun “my” before it.

  “My Emma.”

  This confused him as much as it irritated him, but he came to regard it as he did other irrational thoughts, like the wild notion he’d had when he’d first walked the cliffs of Dover: What if I just stepped right over the edge? he’d thought. He would not, of course, but that did not stop the mad thought from darting through his mind.

  And what had he done? He’d taken five prudent steps away from the soaring face of the cliff and enjoyed the view from there.

  And now he should do the same. He was trying to do the same, but she’d continued to send these letters, which he continued to read and reread by the light of the Essex moon.

  Five prudent paces back, he told himself a week after the last letter had come. He would find the correct words and send a terse reply that would put a stop to all dialogue between them.

  Dear Duchess . . . began his first attempt.

  We cannot continue to correspond because, well, perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, but I do not deal in virgins. The reason I do not deal in virgins is because, in my view, any woman not blood-related to me is either a conquest or a mutually beneficial lark, and virgins cannot survive either designation without lasting damage.

  After tossing that effort into the fire, he began again.

  Dear Emmaline,

  You are too beholden to my brother’s favors and too generous with your impression of me. Please disabuse yourself of both. You cannot see beyond your own elaborate plans now, but eventually you will escape the Duke of Ticking and remarry—hopefully someone closer to you in age this time—and the last thing you need as part of your new marriage is any memory of me.

  I am aware that your requests to meet do not invite “memories,” but I also know myself, and if we convene again for any reason, I fear it would be a meeting neither of us would soon forget . . .

  A third time, he began,

  Dear Duchess,

  I am a scoundrel and a rogue and you’re too green to know the difference.

  A fourth time . . .

  Dear Duchess,

  Keep away from me, for God’s sake.

  After four or five additional failed attempts, Beau gave up and fell into a fitful sleep. The next day, when Ned Barnes set out to do some early winter pruning to his small apple orchard, Beau joined him. The Barneses asked nothing of him, as always, but they would not turn help away if he offered it. Since the night of the fire, Beau had made it his practice to offer it whenever he could.

  Today, he would collect the discarded apple tree limbs that Ned clipped and drag them to a heap at the end of each row.

  It was mindless work but satisfying and necessary to the success of the trees. Most of all, Beau knew that Ned’s son Lewis would be doing the work if his burns had not hobbled him for life.

  Beau trudged back and forth from the pile of clippings a dozen times, hoping they would finish before the threatening rain. The older man paused, and from the top of the ladder, he said, “Polly tells us you’ve quite a flurry of correspondence coming and going from London.”

  Beau stilled momentarily over the cut branches, not accustomed to personal chattiness from Ned Barnes. He looked up the ladder at him. “Aye,” he ventured.

  Ned pruned a few more branches and then said, “A young lady, is it?”

  Again, Beau went still. “ ’Tis a dowager duchess. The lady is a widow.”

  There was almost nothing Beau would not give to the Barneses if he could, but a discussion on this topic was one of those unavailable things.

  “A widow, ohhh,” said Ned. “You are too charming for your own good, I suppose. Too handsome, too. ’Tis a chore to keep the widows and wives of wayward husbands at bay, no doubt.” He chuckled.

  At any other time, this statement would be true. But it was not true here, and it grated on Beau not to correct Ned. But he was determined not to encourage this line of questioning, and so he said nothing. He trudged to the pile with another armful of clippings.

  “This one must be quite smitten to hunt you down all the way in Essex,” Ned said when Beau returned.

  Beau neither affirmed nor denied this and pulled another bundle of brush to the heap.

  When he returned again, Ned’s assumption still hung in the air, erroneous but uncorrected. Like the sticks and twigs at the base of the tree that Beau had failed to collect.

  Beau cleared his throat. “This widow is not . . . like the other women. She is young.” Why he had named this, of all things, Beau had no idea. It seemed essential to the explanation. “She was married only a short time to an old man who died within years of their marriage.” He paused, searching the ground for more errant sticks. He didn’t know when enough was enough.

  “God bless her,” said Ned mildly, “a widow so young.”

  “She is in a spot of trouble, I’m afraid, and I have . . . well, I cannot really say what I have done.” Without thinking, he added, “Hopefully I have not made her troubles worse.”

  “Careful with the giving of aid to widows,” said Ned Barnes, tromping down from his ladder and dragging it to the next tree.

  “Needy, are they?” Beau chuckled, thinking perhaps they had returned to idle small talk.

  “Oh, no,” said Ned, climbing the ladder, “I meant that reputation of yours, as a scoundrel. You’ll have trouble keeping it up if you start giving aid to widows. It’s one thing to help a poor farm family in the country. No one is the wiser. But a young widow in London? Word is bound to get out.”

  Beau watched the pruned limbs fall from the apple tree. “I want her to stop writing me.”

  “This is because you don’t know what it feels like when the letters stop.” He chuckled to himself. “Fancy her, do you?”

  So much for the idle chatter. “She is not available to me.”

  Ned thought of this for a moment, studying the canopy of the tree. “This widow certainly writes a lot of letters to a man who is . .
. unavailable. Certain, are you, that she knows this?”

  Now Beau was mildly annoyed. Ned was not simply making conversation; he was meddling. “I am trying to find the words to communicate this very thing, in fact,” Beau told him, and then he added, “so any suggestions you may have on the topic would be welcome.”

  Ned laughed at his tone. Beau was rarely anything but deferential to the Barneses, and his annoyance was clear.

  The older man said, “Well what is this reason? The real reason?” He stopped pruning and looked at Beau.

  “She is an innocent,” he told Ned, quite possibly just to shut him up. “She is young and innocent and, although floundering a bit at the moment, she will set herself to rights and have a proper life with a new husband, a home, children—all of it. Wrangling with me will only postpone that, not to mention spoil it a little. Or a lot. It was no small thing to leave her first marriage as an innocent. She should begin her new life without me to muck it up.”

  Ned thought about this for a moment and then nodded, returning to his pruning. Before he descended his ladder to drag it to the next tree, he said, “No possibility of you offering her that new life? With you? The house and children?”

  “No,” answered Beau immediately, now actively wishing it would rain. “No possibility.”

  Ned climbed up the ladder into the next tree. “Why not?”

  “Well, because . . . I cannot abide legal constructs. Marriage is among the worst of these, in my view. Another determination of the way I interact with others. Bound to this one, restricted from all others. When I consider the fire and your family’s pain, these are the same reasons I have no wish to be a bloody viscount. I do not relish the law telling me how to regard you, or my brother, or anyone else for that matter. I . . . I don’t like people telling me what to do.”

  Now Ned laughed out loud, a rare sound. “Well then, you certainly don’t need a wife.”

  Exactly, Beau thought, still irritated, and an image of the duchess flashed in his mind, sitting on the bow of his boat, informing him that he strode around too purposefully and looked people in the eye too aggressively, and he wanted to laugh too.