Jilted by a Rogue

by Cheryl Holt

  “If you’ll be delayed, please send me a note, so I don’t worry.”

  “You’d worry?”

  She stood and stepped away. “Maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d merely be irked that you failed to arrive.”

  “My horses come first.”

  “I understand.”

  “And my career. The army is cutting back these days.”

  “I’d heard that.”

  “I can’t have it ever seem as if I’m not working hard.”

  She nodded, recognizing it to be quite an admission. “If you can’t join us, would you like me to deliver a plate to the barn?”

  At her offer, he looked stunned. “Would you really do that for me?”

  “Of course. I’m supposed to be taking care of you. I would hate to have you fade away from hunger.”

  “There’s no chance of that.” He stood too. “I’ll let you know if I can’t make it home.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Have fun at your picnic.”

  “I will. I am.”

  He walked off, headed toward the building where his office was located. For a brief instant, she avidly studied him, liking how comfortable he was in his body. He moved so naturally, as if he never wasted any effort.

  But she quickly realized she was gawking and that all of his admirers would be snickering as she drooled over him.

  She whipped away and pretended she hadn’t been watching him at all.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Amelia stepped into the kitchen. It was very late, and a noise had roused her. She’d worried that it might be Laura up in the middle of the night.

  But it wasn’t Laura. Captain Hastings was there instead, and he was washing.

  He’d missed supper, so it had been a quiet affair with just her, Laura, and Brinley, but he’d sent a note so she hadn’t grown irked over his failure to arrive. He’d also written that she didn’t need to deliver a plate to the stables for him, so she hadn’t on this occasion, but she’d decided—in the future—she would.

  He was paying for the food she was having prepared, for the cook who was preparing it, and he should get his money’s worth.

  The kitchen was very modern, with a bin behind the stove that heated water. It was a marvelous convenience that made bathing easy. He’d certainly figured that out.

  He’d stripped himself naked, his lower torso wrapped in a towel, and that was it. She’d seen his bare chest and feet before—that first afternoon at the corral—so it wasn’t exactly risqué for her to see them again, but it was dark, and they were alone. She was wearing her nightgown, and she’d pulled her robe over the top prior to exiting her room.

  He was seated on a chair by the baker’s table, staring at the floor, his elbows on his thighs. He was holding a jar of what appeared to be an ointment. There was a candle burning on the table, and it highlighted his face, the lines stark and beautiful.

  He seemed to be in agony, as if he’d been fighting discomfort all day and was still fighting it. She recalled observing him in his office and wondering if he wasn’t nursing an old injury.

  There was a bottle of whiskey on the table, a glass that he’d obviously emptied more than once. Hadn’t he previously claimed he wasn’t a drinker? Was he using it to dull the pain? At the prospect, a huge wave of sympathy rushed through her.

  He glanced over. “Oh, it’s you. Hello.”

  “Hello,” she replied.

  “Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

  “I heard you, and I thought it might be Laura.” She was hovering in the doorway, a fist nervously clutching the lapels of her robe. “Are you all right? You don’t look as if you’re feeling well.”

  He scoffed. “I’m as well as I ever am these days.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  He gazed at her, his blue eyes particularly poignant, as if he was the most solitary man in the world.

  “Don’t say it’s nothing,” she told him. “It’s clear you’re in some sort of distress. If you’ll apprise me of what it is, perhaps I can help.”

  “It’s just my wounds.”

  “Just your wounds?”

  “They ache.”

  She should have exercised her common sense and trotted back to her bedroom, but as she’d proved in London, she didn’t possess a lot of common sense. Not when it mattered. Nor could she ignore another human being when he was suffering.

  She marched over and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Where does it hurt?”

  He shrugged. “Everywhere?”

  “That’s quite a condition.”

  “Mostly it’s my arm and back—and my leg.”

  She took the jar from him. “Is this a salve?”

  “It’s one that I developed for my horses.”

  “It works on you too?”

  “Yes, but I can’t reach the scar on my back, and I’m weary and grouchy.”

  “I can deal with grouchy, and if you need to bark and complain, you won’t be the first male who ever snapped at me. I’ll survive.”

  She scooped the ointment onto her fingertips and sniffed it. It smelled like mint and laudanum, and she grabbed his arm, but hesitated before applying it.

  “Will it hurt if I touch you?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She slathered it on and rubbed it deep into the muscle, until he grimaced. He tried to hide it, but couldn’t.

  “You said it wouldn’t hurt,” she scolded.

  “There at the end, it was a little tender.”

  “Turn around for me. Let me put it on your back.”

  He shifted on the chair, and even though there wasn’t much light, she could see that his injury must have been ghastly. She stroked in the balm, but wasn’t as rough or determined.

  “How did it happen?” she inquired.

  “At Waterloo. I was caught off guard by a couple of swordsmen.”

  “A couple?”

  “Maybe five or six? It was a whole group. I had trouble fending them off.”

  She tamped down a shudder, refusing to have a picture of the gruesome scene form in her mind. He was very blasé about the event, so she would be too. “Your sister mentioned you were there, but she spins such big yarns, I couldn’t decide if I should believe her or not.”

  “I was definitely there.”

  “May I call you a hero of Waterloo? That’s what she proclaims you to be.”

  “Don’t call me anything but Captain Hastings. Or James if you can climb off your high horse and use my Christian name.”

  “I’m not riding a high horse. We just shouldn’t be on familiar terms.”

  Considering that he was naked, and she was massaging a healing ointment over his skin, it was a ludicrous remark, and they burst out laughing.

  “You make me happy,” he quietly stated as their jollity faded.

  “I’m glad.”

  “I didn’t think I’d like having you here, but I guess I do.”

  She couldn’t deduce how to respond without taking them in the wrong direction, so she pushed them back to a discussion of his ordeal.

  “Were you hospitalized?”

  “For a bit.”

  “How long was a bit?”

  “A few months.”

  “Months!”

  “My injuries were infected, and the doctors wanted to saw off some of my bodily parts. I wouldn’t permit it, so the experience wasn’t very pleasant.”

  He offered the comment casually, as if in jest, and she froze, his words sinking in. It must have been terrifying, and she supposed he’d been alone through it all. When she’d entered the room, her sympathy had been a tiny flame. Now it was a raging inferno.

  “I’m thrilled that they didn’t remove any of your parts,” she said, utilizing the same casual tone.

  “So am I. I’d rather have died than lose a limb. What would have become of me then?”

  “What ind
eed?” She finished with his back and stepped away. “How’s that? Better?”

  “Much better.”

  “Have I gotten the bad spots?”

  “My leg is plaguing me too.”

  “Your leg,” she muttered like a dullard.

  He tugged on the towel, and she gasped with shock. He’d been slashed from thigh to ankle. It was a puckered gash that had been shoddily sewn.

  She fell to her knees and rested her palm on it, then she traced it with her finger, not pausing to ponder whether it was proper or not. It wasn’t.

  She peered up at him and asked, ““How do you still ride a horse?”

  “It’s not easy.”

  “You don’t limp though. Or perhaps I haven’t noticed.”

  “I hide it fairly well.”

  “Why don’t you want anyone to know? If I were you, I’d wear it like a badge of honor.”

  “I can’t have my superior officers decide I’m a cripple and send me home.”

  The admission crashed like a boulder into the quiet room.

  She yearned to supply a cheery retort, to insist he was being silly, that the army wouldn’t discount his abilities merely because he’d been maimed in battle, but the streets in London were packed with wounded veterans who couldn’t work to support themselves.

  The situation was stirring enormous civil unrest as people argued over how to help them. His worries that he might be another statistic were fully justified.

  “How long will you be able to maintain the pretense?” she asked.

  “For as long as I can.” He downed his whiskey, then filled the glass and sipped the amber liquid. “Would you like some?”

  “No, thank you. I never indulge.”

  “You drank some wine with me the other night.”

  “I shouldn’t have. After my antics in London, I’ve sworn off alcoholic beverages. Especially champagne.”

  “It makes you wild?”

  “Very wild.”

  He grinned one of his heart-stopping grins. “I’ll be sure to remember that. I’d love to see you in a wild condition.”

  She was still on her knees and staring up at him, and there was such emotion swirling that she couldn’t bear it. She scooped out some salve and rubbed it onto his leg.

  “I’ve put in for a transfer,” he said.

  Her busy hands halted. “To where?”

  “India. I’m waiting to hear.”

  “India is on the other side of the world. What possessed you?”

  “My career will be safer there. If the army goes to the trouble and expense of conveying me such a far distance, they’ll be determined to get a return on their investment. I doubt they’d force me home for ages—even if my leg is a mess.”

  “You must be desperate to keep your spot.”

  “I am.”

  “It wouldn’t be the worst thing to head back to England, would it?”

  “What would I do in England?”

  “Train horses? Raise horses? Aren’t you an equestrian magician? It seems to me there would be plenty of opportunity for a man with your skills.”

  “My father did that,” he murmured. “Good old Charlie Hastings.”

  “Yes, you mentioned that he trained horses, so why would you be so opposed to the same path?”

  “It was a hard life, an itinerant life. I don’t want that for myself.”

  She scowled at him. “You don’t want an itinerant life? You’re a soldier, you asinine fool, who’s trying to move to India. If that’s not itinerant, I don’t know what is.”

  He chuckled. “I sound like an idiot. Don’t mind me. I told you when you walked in that I was grouchy. This is the reason I don’t talk about my becoming Lord Denby.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You rat! You are Denby! I’ve been accusing your sister of being a liar.”

  His shoulders sagged with exhaustion. “I can’t believe I admitted that to you. It’s proof of how low I’m feeling.”

  “If you’re an earl now, why would you conceal it? Most men would jump for joy over such an elevation.”

  “If I have somewhere to go—and I’ve recently been informed that I own a huge estate—it makes me dispensable. It furnishes even more excuses for the army to cut me loose and save a place for someone who isn’t as lucky as I am.”

  “Since you were sliced open nearly from throat to ankle, I wouldn’t call you lucky.”

  “I’m not unlucky. I’m alive.”

  “Yes, you are, but you don’t want to be an earl. Will you ever want to be one?”

  “I can’t imagine why I would.”

  “Is it just the idea of an earldom you loathe? Or is there some other issue driving you?”

  “We would visit Denby occasionally when I was a child, and my father was the black sheep of the family.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of his philandering, and he’d married down when he wed my mother. His snooty relatives never forgave him, and they were always horrid to us. They treated us like servants. No, worse than servants. It was humiliating, and my dear, departed mother had to bear the brunt of their disdain.”

  She studied him and smiled. “You loved her.”

  “How could I not? She was a saint.”

  “Why was she a saint?”

  “She put up with my father. He was a dog who didn’t deserve her.”

  “Does any husband truly deserve his wife?”

  He smirked. “Probably not.”

  “Let me get this straight. Your cousins were cruel to you when you were a boy, so you despise the notion of being the head of your family. Wouldn’t it be fun to take charge though? You could lord yourself over them. You could have them gnashing their teeth for being so awful to you when you were little.”

  “They’re all dead,” he bluntly stated. “It’s why I inherited. I wasn’t aware I was in line as an heir.”

  “What an unusual story.”

  “Don’t tell anyone.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’m certain I’d be mustered out because of it, and the army is my life.”

  “You could build another life.”

  “Why would I want another life? This one has been so grand.”

  She scoffed with derision. “Must I point out again how dreadfully you were maimed? Perhaps you’re mentally embellishing your circumstances. I wouldn’t depict your current condition as grand.”

  “Maybe not.”

  She set the jar on the table. “Have I missed any spots? And before you answer, I must categorically inform you that I won’t rub any location more intimate than your leg.”

  “I’m surprised you agreed to that much. It was very brazen of you.”

  “Don’t get used to it,” she said, then she frowned. “I don’t mean that. I’d be happy to apply your medicine whenever you need me to. Just ask me. You don’t have to sit in here, suffering alone.”

  “You’re good around men.”

  “I grew up with my brother, and I nursed his scrapes and injuries.”

  “I’m not feeling very brotherly.”

  As he voiced the remark, a hot gleam came into his eye. Before she realized what he intended, he pulled her close and kissed her. She was kneeling, and he was seated on the chair, the bottom half of his torso barely covered by the towel. She was so startled, but also so delighted by the brash move, that she didn’t try to stop him.

  He was handsome and fascinating, and she’d learned he was a wounded soul too. His past had left him tormented, but his army career had inflicted even more damage. How could she resist the passionate advance of such a stunning fellow?

  She was anxious to save him, to fix him, to chase off every demon so he was never sad or in pain.

  Suddenly, she was desperate to give him things he should never have, to provide him with boons he should never seek. She was eager to throw caution to the wind, to follow him over any cliff.

  She was snuggled be
tween his thighs, and her chest was pressed to his. With her attired in her nightgown, she didn’t have on a corset, so there was no barrier to sensation. The excitement being generated was so delicious she could hardly breathe.

  She couldn’t guess how long they continued, but it was long enough that the candle burned down to a stub, and her legs were aching so badly she had no idea how she’d stand and walk to her room. They were lucky that Laura or Brinley hadn’t wandered in.

  Amelia wouldn’t have been able to explain what was occurring, and she wasn’t certain where they were headed. There was a fraught perception swirling between them that they couldn’t tamp down, as if Fate had determined they be together in the worst possible manner.

  He was the one to finally draw away. He stared at her forever, and his gaze was so overwhelming that she was dizzy. What would happen now? How could they reside in the same house? It would be madness to have him so near, to know she need only tiptoe to the kitchen and she could be with him like this again.

  She hadn’t travelled to Gibraltar to have an amour, and she had no interest in a flirtation. She had no designs on him, but she was ready to commit any sin—if he would but ask.

  “We shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “I’m not sorry though, and don’t you be sorry either.”

  “I’m not sorry. I’m…I’m…” She chuckled miserably. “I can’t describe what I am, but I’m not sorry.”

  “Good.”

  “How are your scars? Has the salve helped?”

  “It always helps, but you helped too. You have healing hands.”

  She eased away, groaning at how her knees creaked when she pushed to her feet. He remained seated, but reached out to steady her.

  “I’m going to bed,” she said.

  “Would you like me to come with you?”

  She blanched with astonishment. It was the most outrageous, salacious comment ever uttered in her presence. She should have been insulted, but on hearing it, she was swamped by a wave of such exhilaration that it almost knocked her over.

  “Join me?” she gasped. “In my bed?”

  “Yes.”

  She was perched on a cliff of danger and forbidden knowledge. If she agreed and leapt over, what might transpire? Would she like it? Would she be glad in the morning?