The Rogue's Proposal

by Jennifer Haymore

  Because, at first, she’d felt like it was none of her business, none of her concern.

  Now it was both her business and her concern. Perhaps it shouldn’t be, but it was. She and Luke had shared too much for it not to be.

  Emma spun around and went into the drawing room. She rang for Delaney. The two of them spent the remainder of the evening cleaning and preparing the front-facing bedchamber on the second floor.

  * * *

  Sometime in the early morning hours, Emma was awakened by a pounding on the door. “Emma? Em? Are you in there?”

  As she came out of sleep, the first thing she recognized was that his words were slurred. It came as no surprise.

  “Go to bed, Luke,” she called groggily.

  “Can’t. Door’s locked.”

  “Go to your own room. I assure you, that door is not locked.”

  A long moment passed. Silence. Then, “Em?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What are you doing?”

  She sighed. “I’m sleeping here tonight. And every night henceforth that you choose drunkenness over staying at home.”

  “No.” His voice was rough.

  “Yes,” she told him.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Can’t do what?”

  She slipped her legs over the side of the bed, both her hands gripping the edge at her thighs. She took a deep breath, then looked bleakly at the locked door. She was fully awake now.

  “I can’t lie awake in a cold bed, wondering when you’ll come home. I can’t keep wondering why you run away from me every night. Wondering why I can’t give you what you need. Wondering how drunk you’ll be when you finally return.”

  “You do give me what I need.”

  No, she didn’t. At least she hadn’t so far.

  “Let me in.” His voice was soft, cajoling.

  She closed her eyes. Didn’t say a word.

  “Please.”

  She gripped the edge of the bed tighter. It was difficult for her to deny this man anything. But if she was going to survive, she needed to deny him this. This was too important. She needed to be strong. If she didn’t do whatever was in her power to stop this, Luke would continue down this path of self-destruction. She couldn’t bear to see him destroy himself.

  “Emma, let me in.”

  “No,” she said, her voice firm.

  “Why?”

  “I already told you why.”

  “I need you.”

  “As much as you need to drink?”

  “More. A thousand times more.” His voice sounded broken, and she closed her eyes. “Open the door.”

  “No,” she pushed out.

  “I need to lie beside you.”

  “You survived without me for twenty-eight years, Luke. I’m sure your sleep will be perfectly adequate alone in your bed tonight.”

  “Survived without you? If that’s what you call survival,” he said gruffly. Then, in a whisper, he repeated, “I need you.”

  She closed her eyes, fisting her hands in the blankets. “You’re drunk.”

  “Just a little,” he admitted.

  “You have to know I won’t sit by and watch you destroy yourself.”

  “It might be too late.”

  I know. She blinked hard and looked down at her lap.

  He was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “So you’ll deprive me of my only comfort?”

  “Oh, I am clearly not your only comfort, Luke.” Her tone was far more bitter than she’d intended it to be.

  “But you are…you have become…something…my…” He seemed to be struggling with the words. Not surprising, given how drunk he was.

  “You’re more important to me. Than anything,” he finished clumsily.

  If he’d said that to her sober, she might believe it. Now she knew he just wanted in the room and was trying every tactic he could think of to wheedle her into unlocking the door. Still, she slipped out of bed and walked to the door and leaned against it.

  “If that’s true, then you need to stop this,” she said through the wood that stood between them. “You need to stop running away.”

  “I will,” he said, too quickly. Then, “May I come in?”

  “No.” Her voice was soft.

  “I’m not leaving until you let me in.”

  “Then you might wish to get comfortable.” Because she knew, now more than ever, that she couldn’t let him in. Just telling him he needed to stop wasn’t enough. Him promising to stop wasn’t enough. He needed to show that he could—that he would try.

  She heard a pained sigh, then fumbling as he sat on the floor on the other side of the door. “Very well,” he said. “I will remain here all night. A guard posted at his lady’s door.”

  She sank down, too, leaning her back against the door and crossing her legs on the carpet.

  “Why do you do it?” she whispered. When he was silent, she wasn’t sure if he’d heard her.

  Finally, he spoke, his voice gruff. “Drink?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.” There was a soft thunk, as if the back of his head had banged against the door. “It makes me stronger.”

  She bristled at this, but she ground her teeth, refusing to show her frustration at that nonsense. Instead, she asked, “How?”

  After a moment of silence that seemed to ring in Emma’s ears, he said, “Keeps the nightmares away.”

  “How does that make you stronger? You can’t help having nightmares. Nightmares don’t make you weak.”

  “Mine do. Sometimes I think…I think they’re…they’re doing something to me…driving me mad.”

  “How?”

  “Em,” he groaned. She imagined the pained frustration on his face. She’d seen it before.

  A part of her wanted to soothe him, to reassure him and say he didn’t have to tell her this. But he did have to tell her. She needed to know. How could she help him if she didn’t know? How could he help himself?

  “How, Luke?” she pressed.

  “When I wake up, the…the panic. It doesn’t go away like it ought. Sometimes hours pass before I convince myself that he’s not after me…” His voice was choked. Every word that he said twisted her heart. “That he’s not going to kill me.”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “My father. No,” he corrected quickly, voice strained, “not my father. The old Duke of Trent. The man I thought was my father. And even though I know he’s dead, my mind convinces me that he isn’t. That he’s coming after me and that this time he’s going to kill me.”

  “And you can’t wake?”

  “I am awake, though. But I can’t…I can’t…make him go.”

  Good God. Every part of her wanted to open the door to him. To hold him. Tell him it would be all right, that she was there, that she would be there whenever he woke. That she’d help him.

  She couldn’t do that, though. He needed to understand, no matter what, that he couldn’t continue down this path.

  “Why do you have nightmares about him?” she asked softly.

  Silence.

  “He was cruel to you, wasn’t he?”

  “He gave me what I deserved.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “That’s what he said.” Luke sounded so alone. So vulnerable and small. He never sounded like this. “He said I needed to be punished. He said it was the only hope to cure me.”

  “Cure you of what?”

  “My inherently evil nature.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “I was a boy.”

  “But you still believe him, don’t you?”

  Luke gave a humorless laugh. “I haven’t exactly been a model of goodness.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “You don’t know me very well.”

  “You’re wrong about that.” She knew very well the goodness that lay beneath the irreverent mask of the rogue he showed to the world.

  “Maybe,” he said
softly.

  “The old duke turned his anger at your mother and Lord Stanley upon you.”

  Silence for a long moment. Then, “I never thought of it like that.”

  “How did you think of it, then?”

  “He knew I was a bastard and therefore evil. He also knew that I was second in line to the dukedom. He truly intended to cure me, in the unwelcome event I held his title one day.”

  But Emma was stuck on the first part of what he’d said. “You were a bastard and therefore evil? What are you talking about?”

  “For God’s sake. You know.”

  “No, I don’t. Please explain.”

  “Haven’t you gone to church? Haven’t you read the doctrines? It is common knowledge that bastards are evil because they inherit the evil nature of their sinful parents.”

  “That’s rubbish,” she snapped. “All children are born innocent.”

  “No. I was born of evil and I became evil. Just like the old duke predicted.”

  “Rubbish!” she repeated, her voice shaking with certainty.

  He was silent for a minute. Then he said, “You are a very opinionated woman.”

  “Only when I know I’m right.”

  “Are you right, Em?”

  “Yes.” She was so angry red tinged the edges of her vision. She would find her gun and shoot the old Duke of Trent if he weren’t already dead. How dare that man try to beat the evil out of an innocent child? And she had no doubt that he was also the one who’d made those marks on Luke’s back.

  Luke had spent his whole life believing he could never be good, could never be saved. How was a person supposed to survive that? How could a person who believed such a thing ever be happy?

  “He should never, ever have done that, Luke. You were a child.”

  “I was never a very good child. I never followed orders. I couldn’t sit still like my brothers could. I picked fights. It only grew worse as I went into adolescence. I stole kisses from girls behind barns. I gambled away my allowance. I was hateful to my brothers and sister.”

  “Some of that was certainly a result of your father’s cruelty. I know you well enough to know that they are not inherent traits within you.”

  “Are you sure?” He sounded so hesitant. Uncertain. Hopeful.

  “I’ve never been more certain of anything,” she said in a near whisper.

  He was quiet for a while, perhaps mulling it over. Then, “Emma, can I come in?”

  She closed her eyes tight so the tears wouldn’t leak out. Because it was physically painful to say it this time. “No.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next morning, Emma woke early. She hadn’t had enough sleep—it had been almost dawn by the time Luke had convinced her to go to bed.

  The first thing she did was slip out of bed and hurry to the door. Her ankle felt better this morning. Almost as good as new.

  She unlocked and opened the door to find Luke curled on the floor fully dressed. She dropped to her knees beside him. “Luke?”

  He blinked groggily at her, disoriented. She touched her fingers to his cheek. “Come to bed for a while?”

  He gazed at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he said, in a scratchy voice, “Yes.”

  He rose to his feet on unsteady legs, reminding her of a newborn colt.

  She took his arm and led him to the bed. She helped him undress down to his shirt and tucked him into bed. Then she leaned down and kissed him on the forehead as if she were kissing a child.

  “Sleep,” she murmured.

  He grasped her wrist. “You’re not coming back to bed?”

  “No.”

  He frowned, but she gazed steadily at him, and he released her wrist. She grabbed her robe and, wrapping it over her shoulders, left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

  She went downstairs to the drawing room and sat in one of the chairs with her legs drawn up under her chin. She sat there for a very long time, thinking about Luke, about what they’d discussed last night. About her new understanding of him.

  Had she been too harsh? He’d opened up and told her everything—well, everything except the details about the scars on his back—and she’d brutally refused him.

  Yet, a part of her knew that if she coddled him, he’d have no reason to stop his current behaviors. She hoped that part was right. At one point last night, when he’d continued to beg her to let him in and she’d refused, she’d wondered if she was hurting him irrevocably. If she was being as bad as the man he’d thought was his father.

  No…never that bad, she thought bitterly. After last night, she knew she’d never hated anyone—not even Roger Morton—like she hated the late Duke of Trent.

  She sat there for a good hour, mulling over things, and then with a sigh, she went into Luke’s bedchamber and dressed. She called on Delaney to help her with her hair. Luke still wasn’t awake after that, so she fetched her sewing basket and went back into the drawing room to work on her chemise.

  It was almost noon when Luke appeared, fully dressed, in the door of the drawing room. Emma had been sitting in silence for hours, lost in her thoughts as she stitched away, and the sound of him at the door made her gasp.

  “Did I startle you?”

  “Yes. It has been so quiet.”

  He gazed at her for a long moment. Then he came over to the sofa where she sat. He tilted her chin up, then bent down to kiss her on the lips. “Are you ready to return to Wapping?”

  So that was how it was to be. They weren’t going to discuss last night. A part of her was relieved. Another part was confused. She studied him carefully, wondering if he even remembered all that had been said. If so, he showed no sign of it.

  “Have you eaten?” she asked.

  A shadow crossed over his expression. Then it cleared and he said, “I’m not hungry.” His voice was quiet and emotionless.

  She released a slow breath as she set her sewing aside. Perhaps he did remember, after all.

  “I’m ready. I’ll just fetch my cloak.”

  * * *

  Morton’s office and residence in Wapping was about five miles away from Luke’s house in Cavendish Square. As Luke sat beside Emma in the carriage—a hired hackney—he considered investing in a carriage. He’d never owned a carriage of his own. He’d never needed to. He always kept a horse or two, and he’d simply ridden everywhere.

  But now Emma was with him. She shouldn’t be traipsing about in London in dirty hired conveyances. She should have her own coach with a driver.

  He glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

  Caught.

  She saw him glance at her and turned to him fully, giving him a soft smile.

  Something clenched in his stomach. Was that sympathy in her eyes? He didn’t want her sympathy.

  Why had he said so much last night? He’d been so desperate to hold her, to have her open that damned door. He’d tried everything save fury—how could he be furious with Emma? She had every right to lock him out. He’d behaved like a weakling and an idiot.

  But he’d told her some of his deepest secrets—all those things that showed him in the worst possible light. He didn’t want her thinking of him as some weak, browbeaten simpleton.

  He much preferred the looks of innocent awe that she gave him when he made love to her. Or the look on her face when she cried out in pleasure. Or that sleepy, sated, trusting look she gave him after they’d both reached orgasm.

  He adjusted himself in his seat. Probably not a wise idea to think of how she looked at him after she came. He’d want to take her right here on the carriage seat, and given that Wapping was only a mile or so away, that probably wasn’t the wisest idea.

  Instead, he’d think of last night. That was about as effective as a bucket of cold water thrown directly over his cock.

  He was a bloody fool.

  Emma put her hand over his and squeezed. He took a breath, then squeezed back.

  A few minutes later, they arrived at the ware
house in Wapping. The area was far busier during the noon hour on Monday. The streets were crowded with Londoners going about their business. Sailors, merchants, traders, men of business, messengers, servants—they all mingled on the street, intent on going wherever it was they needed to be.

  Luke helped Emma out of the carriage. She didn’t have her cane, but she was hardly limping today. “How is your ankle?” he asked her as they headed toward the warehouse.

  “Very nearly healed, I think,” she told him. “I hardly feel it anymore.”

  Men glanced at Emma as she walked by. He knew why, of course. She was beautiful. Her lovely curves would make any man think carnal thoughts. And her face—that heart shape with those big golden-brown eyes and a mouth shaped for sin…

  He wanted to lock her away from all those admiring eyes. All those lascivious thoughts.

  But what was he doing having proprietary feelings for Emma Curtis? What the devil was he thinking?

  Where was this going?

  It had already gone so far. Too damn far. And yet he couldn’t stop it. He didn’t want to. He wanted to see whatever this was played out to its ultimate conclusion. And he hoped to hell it wouldn’t be to see her return to Bristol to be with her father and sister.

  They entered the warehouse, passing all the workers carrying crates and heading to the utilitarian stairs on one side. They ascended the two flights and exited on the second-floor gallery.

  Halfway down the gallery, they hesitated at Morton’s door. It was as dark and still as it had been yesterday. Luke knocked. No answer. He ground his teeth.

  Hell…if Morton was planning another scheme like he had with Emma, it was possible he wouldn’t return to London for months.

  Emma released a frustrated breath. “Let’s talk to the landlord.”

  He nodded tightly. They descended the stairs and were told the man in question’s name was Merrow and he could be found on the ground floor in one of the larger offices.

  This was one occasion in which Luke knew it would be better for him to do the talking. Emma seemed to realize that, because she hung back as he approached the man, a plump, balding fellow who looked to be in his late forties.