The Dangerous Love of a Rogue

by Jane Lark

  “My heart broke too.” She turned away, her fingers slipping from his as she walked on. “I loved you. I love you. Just one last time I wanted to pretend you loved me too.”

  “You stupid girl.” He rushed her, to break the sudden melancholy, grasping her from behind, trapping her in his arms and lifting her off her feet. “If I am an ass, you are a fool, I was not pretending. I adore you woman, you may get that into your silly head if you please.”

  He set her down. She laughed breathlessly.

  “Let’s sit for a while.” He began unbuttoning his morning coat. She smiled, then bent and snapped off the head of a buttercup, spinning the stem in her fingers as he shrugged off his coat and then laid it on the ground for her to sit on, ignoring the fact he had no valet to repair any damage.

  She swept her dress beneath her and sat amongst the long grass – a portrait.

  Drew dropped to his knees, and then stretched out beside her, lying on his side, his head supported on his palm, in a nonchalant pose, denying the raging melee of emotions in his chest.

  “Why were you so angry after we visited your parents?” She asked the question of the lake as she looked at the view and not him.

  His view was her perfect profile, etched against the blue sky. “That is an untouchable subject. Even Brooke knows I will not converse on it.”

  She looked at him. “Andrew?”

  “Mary.” He broke off a stem of long grass and brushed the tip across her nose. She made a face at him, which said, speak.

  “So you insist I go there, again, even though I have said I hate the subject.”

  She dropped the buttercup then her arms wrapped about her knees, her vulnerability showing through, as she lay her cheek on top of one knee, looking at him. “Are we going to argue, when we have only just been reunited? If you tell me, then I no longer need to ask and we need not argue.”

  Drew held her gaze. If she met Caro, Caro would tell her. Yet he did not like people knowing. His parents had never made it public, but they hardly hid it… He’d faced censure in all his years at school and from then on – ill-judgement.

  He cared nothing for what others thought.

  But he cared about her opinion.

  Emotionally naked, he took her left hand from its grip about her knees and held it up between them, his fingers gripping the third finger that bore his ring, with the little leather cord wrapped about it to hold it on her finger. “You asked about this…” He pressed her ring finger up. “T R, whoever he is, Mary, is my father, not the Marquis. Caro and I are products of affairs my mother would like to pretend never occurred; however when a wailing child arrives nine months later they are rather hard to hide. I am named Framlington on my birth certificate, but my blood is not his. You see when I said I was an evil bastard, I truly am. Sins of the parents and all that…

  “It is understandable therefore, I suppose, that the Marquis hates me. What I’ve never been able to accept is that my mother hates me with equal wrath. I am a constant reminder of her shame, an embarrassment, nothing more, as is Caro. Their manner of resolving that issue is to ignore our existence.”

  “Oh, Andrew.” Mary unravelled from her self-protective pose and lay beside him, mimicking his posture as her free hand settled at his waist.

  He shut his eyes rather than look at her. “If I see pity in your eyes, you will make me intensely angry again.” Her fingertips touched his cheek.

  “What about love? Can I look at you with love? It’s not pity I’m offering. I love you, so I care about you. If you are hurting, I hurt. Is care allowed?”

  Opening one eye, Drew gave her a crooked smile. Her eyes shone bright with concern, but mirth caught there too. He opened his other eye, and she laughed.

  “Very well, I will accept care, and raise it. I admit, I want to hate her, and I tell myself I hate her, and the rest of them – but I still desperately want to belong among them – and now you know I am not an evil bastard but a bitter unwanted child.”

  “Not unwanted…”

  Damn it. Her eyes glittered with pity. It pricked like a thorn in his side.

  No. It is not pity. It is care.

  God someone cares for me. Warmth stirred in his chest, not anger.

  Mary clasped his hand, which still held the strand of grass. “You are very much wanted.” She leaned forward and kissed the corner of his lips briefly, then rolled to her back. Looking up at the sky.

  She was so beautiful. He brushed the tip of the grass he held about her cheek and down her neck. “But not by them; it is a hard lesson, well learned, I’m afraid. I steel myself by saying I do not give a damn for their opinion, or anyone else’s for that matter. But then I met you. I care for yours. You wished to meet them, and for some ridiculous reason I thought perhaps, just perhaps, my mother would like you and be proud of me. I should not have taken you there.”

  “You should have said why you did not wish to go. Had you said I would not have persisted. The moment we walked in the door I knew it was wrong. But how could I have imagined that—”

  “When your family all adore you.” He brushed the tip of the grass over her bodice following it with his gaze. “The Pembroke clan are like lions, prowling and protecting, preventing scandal or harm attacking their pride. Did you realise that your womenfolk have even been busy waging a subtle war against me, while your men glare and prowl.”

  She smiled. “You do not expect me to pity you for that I hope? You chose to take them on.”

  “And I have had my money’s worth.”

  “It was my money and if you did not wish to battle them you should not have fought. Instead of making friends with them, you made them enemies.”

  He dipped the tip of the grass into her cleavage, smiling. Pink stained her skin from her bodice upward. She was modest even now. A Pembroke to the heart. She would never cuckold him.

  “Old habits die hard, darling. I do not trust people, especially families. I am judged by my birth and my family’s reputation, when I am responsible for neither, and if the issue is their ignorance, why should I defend myself?”

  “Ah, and now we are at the crux.” Her gaze gripped his. “You do not like to be rejected, so you say you do not care what others think. Yet it is simply a mask. Avoiding that, says you care anyway, Andrew.”

  Drew ignored the proclamation, his gaze breaking free and lifting to a bobbing head of clover. He broke its stem, and its sweet perfume carried on the air. He drew a line down her cheek and neck with the flower, then trailed it along the neck of her bodice. “I made up my mind, the afternoon you were ill and I saw how much I had hurt you, that I was going to go to your brother’s with you, stand up in the lions’ den and declare my love for you.”

  She laughed. “If they did not believe it, then you would have then told them all to go to hell.”

  Drew laughed too. “Yes, I suppose so…” He smiled wryly.

  “Then my father would have told you to go to hell too,”

  “Careful, if you get a taste for foul language I will divorce you. You may like your men spirited. I like my women staid.” His gaze fell to the smile hovering on her lips as he slid the stem of the clover into her bodice and left the flower there.

  His gaze returned to the beautiful pale blue. “I do love you.”

  Her answer was in her eyes vivid and bright for him to read, I love you more than anything. How long had it been there and he’d not seen, hurting her regardless. He was an ass – a bastard. He did not want to be either anymore.

  His gaze skimmed down to the flower he’d tucked in between her breasts then back up. Ah, God. Love pierced his soul. He had her back. He leaned over, his leg sliding between hers over her dress, and his hand cupped her breast over her bodice then he kissed her…

  Her tongue played with his as her fingers gripped his hair.

  He longed to take her here, in the long grass, lift her dress and have their pleasure, and it would be blissful. But this was about building better foundations for them – they’
d never had a problem with their physical bond.

  He pulled away, his mouth hovering just over hers. “Things will be different now.”

  Chapter 35

  Painfully happy, but wary, Mary held on to the one thing he did not know. It made it so much more important that they resolved his issues. He’d said he did not like to admit he’d been at fault, even to Lord Brooke, and yet he’d said sorry after being so silent and cold during their journey back to London and he’d said sorry the morning she had left… He’d said sorry to her now. She hoped it was a sign he was changing.

  But he was right, she liked his wildness, his freedom from restraints without those things he would be dull, and not Andrew.

  “I know you returned my dowry to John.”

  His hazel eyes lost their rich amber depth and turned to shallow gold mirrors before he rolled away to lie on his back, one leg bent, his foot flat on the crushed grass as one arm slotted behind his head.

  “I’m sorry it was not more.” He looked up at the sky.

  Mary rolled to her side, balancing her head on her palm and looking down at him.

  “I had to spend some on Caro, and I’d paid my debts of course.” His brown eyes looked to her saying, damn the consequences. “I am sorry it was done with your money, but I do not regret rescuing Caro from that marriage.”

  “I did not ask you to regret it; I would guess neither John nor Papa would either. They will think it heroic of you.” Her palm fell on his chest over the fabric of his waistcoat, where his heartbeat beneath.

  He made an uncomplimentary sound in the back of his throat. “They will think me a sop. A man has a legal right to beat his wife if he chooses too, and it was their money, they gave it to me to protect your security, not Caro’s. That is why I gave it back, you were no longer mine to keep secure…”

  “I think your returning it jolted John’s opinion of you. He thought you without conscience or the ability to care, and then you did something that made him doubt that. Protecting your sister proves you can care. You have pulled a rug out from beneath any argument he may have to dislike you.”

  “Except that I did once proposition his wife…” He smiled, wry amusement in his eyes.

  Laughter rose from within Mary’s chest. “Ah, yes, I forgot. That is rather undeniable evidence is it not, except that you told me why, perhaps you could tell him. But that would mean admitting you care for his opinion, and that, in your opinion, is a terrible thing…”

  His smile parted his lips. “Are you mocking me?”

  “Perhaps.” Mary smiled too. “Why did you choose me over anyone else? If you married me for money, why did you give it back?”

  His eyebrows lifted at the question and his smile fell. “Mary, I have told you. The first time I danced with you I knew you were the most beautiful creature—”

  A bitter taste in her mouth, Mary’s hand slid down over his waistcoat to rest on his stomach.

  “But I remember you do not like to be appreciated for your looks. Yet you wished for honesty from me, and your beauty played a part. It was more than that though. You danced with me and smiled at me and talked as though I was any other man, because you had no idea I was untouchable, a hell born bastard. You charmed me. Perhaps I was even in love with you then. Perhaps I fell at first sight.” His fingers snapped. “I wanted you. The impulse was immediate and instinctive.”

  “Except that during the waltz after that you asked Kate to share a bed with you. No more lies. I asked because I want to know the truth. Even if your answer is ugly, and merely because you liked my looks and my money, I would know the truth. I know it is not what you think now.”

  His arm moved from behind his head and his hand gripped hers where it lay on his stomach. “It is the truth, Mary. I asked your sister-in-law out of spite. I told you so. Not that I am proud of it. It is another of my faults, if people expect me to behave badly I have an incontrollable itch to infuriate them. I did not know I’d fallen in love moments before because I have never known love. All I knew was, I was mesmerised by you. When I saw you after that, a strange emptiness always gripped my stomach. I procrastinated, for a whole season. I needed money, you had it, and yet you seemed beyond any hope. But you kept glancing at me and you gave me hope.

  “This season I watched you, and those same feelings were there. My bumping into you at that garden party was deliberate, and when we met in that dark glasshouse my stomach was queasy,” he moved her hand, “just here, with anticipation and longing, and here,” he slid their joined hands back up to cover his heart, “there was pain. It is the same when I look at you, when I hear your voice, and… when I make love to you it hits me like a flood of emotion brimming up and over. Am I right, is it love?” His eyes shone light brown, gilded with gold in the sunlight.

  “It is. It is how I feel too.” Mary pressed her fingers more firmly against his chest.

  “But I should tell you the whole truth, I suppose…”

  A frown crushed Mary’s brow.

  “Since I danced with you the first night I met you, I’ve not bedded another woman.”

  “That was a year ago—”

  “I know. I have never really been a rake, Mary, just a little wild and misled, and I shall admit too that your sister-in-law’s refusal only piqued my interest more. I did not only watch you, but I watched your family. They all seemed to have monogamous marriages; love-matches I suppose. A thing my family are incapable of. That is the one thing I longed for in a wife. It seemed to me that if the women of your family were faithful, you would be faithful.”

  She slid her fingers out from beneath his and touched his cheek. She’d seen how vulnerable he was after they’d called on his parents, but now she saw how deep it ran.

  He may have learned to love her, but he did not love himself because no one had loved or cared for him as a child. He did not think himself loveable.

  He would call himself a fool, she would call him wounded – but not aloud, he’d take it as pity. “And I chose to go out alone with your friend…”

  His eyebrows lifted.

  “I suppose your conclusions were instinctive…”

  “That was crass of me.” He caught hold of her fingertips and kissed them. “I knew it then, but I saw his hand on you and… it cut. It was wrong of me. I judged you by others, just as people do to me.”

  “In future may we always be honest with one another? I loved you too from that first night. You were the only man there whenever you entered a room. You fascinated me. I wish you had come forward and dealt openly with my father and told him the things you’ve just told me, he would not have kept us apart. He always promised me my husband would be my choice. It is why John added to my dowry so my choice need not be restricted by a lack of money.”

  “Your father would not have wanted a bastard for a son-in-law, especially not one with a rake’s reputation.”

  “My father will not care if you tell him you love me. He only wishes me happy – and you make me happy.”

  His brown eyes held her gaze and he kissed her fingers again, then his breath hot on her fingertips he said, “I’ll tell him, and I promise not to be so sour.”

  “You are not sour. You are handsome,” she leant and kissed his cheek, “and kind,” she pressed a kiss on his brow, “and good – when you wish to be.” She smiled. “Yet most importantly you are mine. I care for you, I love you, and I’ll not let you go, nor share you, Andrew.”

  “When I took you away, when your father and your brother came to get you, I hated that they had a greater claim on you, that your affection was for them, that you believed them and not me. I was jealous. I want to be all to you.”

  “You have been all to me since the day you came into John’s garden when my parents were away from home. I was hurt by what they said, because I love you. I did not want to believe it, because I love you, but you would not say a single word to argue your case.”

  “My faults are legion.” His fingers squeezed hers. “I will no longer be an
ass and I shall apologise to your father.”

  Mary lowered her head and kissed his lips, then holding his gaze whispered over them, “I love you.”

  His fingers cupped her scalp and he kissed her back for a long time.

  When they drew apart, she rested her head on his shoulder, and rolled to her back, listening to the bees gathering honey from the clover.

  But then she remembered, she had not been wholly honest with him yet… “Andrew. There is something I have to tell you.”

  “What, Mary?” He turned, rising. Mary’s head slipped on to the grass.

  Concern shone in his eyes.

  She gripped his hand and pulled it to her stomach. “It is this. You are to be a father. I am carrying.”

  He sucked in a hard sharp breath and his hand lifted, as though the contact had burnt him, while his gaze dropped to her stomach.

  God in heaven! A child! His gaze lifted back to her pale blue eyes; they shone like diamonds. A child?

  Hell, she’d left with his child in her.

  “Would you have told me if we were apart?” The words were a little bitter.

  But Mary simply smiled. “Yes. Kate is illegitimate too. That is her story to tell, but Kate brought me here so I might adjust to the knowledge, but she made me promise I would tell you. Although I would not have spoken with joy. But now we can be happy, and our child will be happy.”

  “Our child…” His palm settled on her stomach. There was no change, but inside her a new life had been created. It was being nurtured, by a woman who would love it.

  Emotion overwhelmed him and moisture clouded his gaze.

  He turned away, sitting up with his knees bent, looking out at the lake.

  A child. A son or a daughter. His. His wife. His family.

  It felt as if the ground rocked underneath him.

  He’d always been unworthy and unwanted, but his child would be wholly worthy and wholly wanted. Mary would love it, and he would love it.

  She sat up too, and her arms came about his midriff as she pressed her cheek to his shoulder.