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Three Redeemable Rogues
Tanya Anne Crosby
Contents
Happily Ever After
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Kissed by a Rogue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part II
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Perfect In My Sight
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Preview The King’s Favorite
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Also by Tanya Anne Crosby
About the Author
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Praise for Tanya Anne Crosby
“Crosby’s characters keep readers engaged...”
Publishers Weekly
“Tanya Anne Crosby sets out to show us a good time and accomplishes that with humor, a fast paced story and just the right amount of romance.”
The Oakland Press
“Romance filled with charm, passion and intrigue...”
Affaire de Coeur
“Ms. Crosby mixes just the right amount of humor... Fantastic, tantalizing!”
Rendezvous
“Tanya Anne Crosby pens a tale that touches your soul and lives forever in your heart.”
Sherrilyn Kenyon #1 NYT Bestselling Author
Happily Ever After
Prologue
Boston, 1884
It was dark beneath the covers, but not so dark if Sophie cracked open her little sanctuary to the moonlight shining in through her bedroom window. She’d formed a tent of sorts, with pillows and blankets and hoped no one could spy her beneath it.
Her mother had forbidden her to get out of her bed, but she never said a word about her drawing beneath the covers. She was sent to bed early, just after supper, as a punishment for her behavior this afternoon—all because Sophie had gone out to play with the boys, had dirtied her dress, and had, in her mother’s estimation, ruined the entire picnic.
But Sophie didn’t understand why it should ruin everyone else’s day just because her dress was dirty. Jonny and Harlan had both been dirty too, but no one seemed to care. Anyway, she didn’t like to have to sit on a blanket at every picnic just so her dress would stay clean. It made her feel like one of those tarts in a baker’s window, getting stale and yucky while waiting for someone to come eat them!
Her mother’s friends had no little girls, and Sophie always sat alone. She didn’t like it one bit! She wanted to run and play like the boys did. And she could find shark’s teeth better than any old boy!
In fact, she found one today and wanted to draw it right now. It sat before her on the pillow, her afternoon’s prize, as beautiful to Sophie in all its mud-encrusted glory as all her mother’s sparkling diamonds. She wanted to draw it shiny and pretty and golden just like it looked to her. As she drew, she thought about Harlan Penn.
Harlan’s father was an osteologist! Harlan taught her that word. He studied bones, and his house was like a mausoleum—bones everywhere, skulls with no eyes in the sockets, legs and even hands with fingers that dangled and wiggled. Harlan claimed he had a cigar box full of eyes he’d plucked from his father’s skulls, but Sophie didn’t believe him one bit. It didn’t matter, she liked to go to his house and wander the corridors. There was always something new to see. And when she grew up, she wanted to live in a house just like Harlan’s.
Maybe she would marry Harlan and Harlan would bring her lovely things from far away so that she could display them for all the world to see.
The door to her room opened, and Sophie froze, afraid suddenly that her mother had come to check in on her. She rarely did, because she expected no less from Sophie than for Sophie to obey. And usually Sophie did, but she had wanted so badly to draw her shark’s tooth before the image in her mind faded away. Everyone said she drew quite well for a li
ttle girl who was only eight and it made her beam with pride whenever someone looked at her drawings and smiled in approval.
“Sophia?”
It was her papa’s voice, and she let out the breath she’d been holding, relief washing through her. Still, she was supposed to be asleep and she really didn’t want to upset her father. For the slightest instant, Sophie considered lying back and pretending she was fast asleep, but her papa would never believe it, she knew. Her papa was too smart for that.
“Sophia,” he called again, and there was only a bit of a reprimand in his voice.
Sophie battled her way from under the covers, leaving her pencil and paper and shark’s tooth safely beneath.
He stood before her bed, looking down on her.
“But I’m not sleepy yet,” Sophie complained, falling back upon the pillows.
“I wonder why,” her papa said, and pulled the covers up, discovering Sophie’s drawing. Sophie thought he might take it away, but he merely let the covers fall again, eyeing her reproachfully. “If your mother found that, she wouldn’t like it,” was all he said. He pulled the covers all the way up, tucking them in about her, then knelt at the side of her bed.
Sophie rubbed her eyes. “She never likes anything I do.” It certainly seemed true. No matter what Sophie did, her mother was displeased with her. She could always have done it better somehow.
“That’s not true, Sophia,” her daddy scolded her. “Your mother loves you. She simply expects the best from her one and only daughter.” He was silent an instant, and then added, “You are all her hopes and dreams rolled into one pretty little package.” He reached out and tweaked her nose. “Understand?”
Sophie shook her head. Somehow, the statement disturbed her but she didn’t know why. Her brows drew together as she contemplated.
“She wants your life to be perfect,” he told her. “She wants you to be perfect.”
Sophie frowned. It was too hard to be perfect. She didn’t want to be perfect. But she did want to make her mother happy.
“When I grow up I will be perfect!” she promised, thinking of the perfect wedding her mother had described so many times for Sophie. When she spoke of Sophie’s future, those were the only times her mother ever smiled at her. “Only can I please marry Harlan, Daddy?”
Her father laughed softly, the rich tone of it filling her heart with warmth. “Sophia, my dearest love, when you grow up, you will marry whomever your heart desires!”
Sophie smiled at that, completely reassured.
“Why Harlan?” her papa asked.
Sophie shrugged. “He has a very curious house.”
Her father laughed again. “That he does, angel face.”
Dreamily, Sophie thought about Harlan’s house. “I could walk about it for all my life and never get bored, Papa!” Their own house was far too perfect, nothing out of place, everything sublime. It forbade one to run and play, or even to touch. Only her bedroom seemed a haven from perfection.
Her father touched her cheek with the back of his finger, caressing it softly. “Go to sleep,” he commanded her and smiled. “But first you must show me the drawing you were working on.”
Sophie beamed up at him. She sat up at once and threw off her covers, revealing them in the moonlight to her father. She handed him the drawing first.
He turned it in the dim light of the room, trying to make out the source of her inspiration. “It’s quite ... lovely, dear.”
Sophie knew he didn’t know what it was, but he probably had never seen a shark’s tooth before. She held out the tooth in her hand. “See, I found it, Papa! I went on a expiation with Harlan—”
“Expedition?”
“Yes! With Jonny and Harlan! At the picnic! I found it all by myself!”
Her father smiled.
“Harlan said there used to be oceans right over our house! And he said there were sharks everywhere! His daddy said so!”
Her father nodded and winked. “His daddy would certainly know!”
Sophie beamed with pride.
“Put that away somewhere safe,” her papa told her, letting her keep it. He put his fingers to his lips as if to tell her to keep it a secret.
“Mother wouldn’t like it,” she told him, her voice sounding dire.
“Your mother doesn’t have to know everything, my dear.”
His declaration seemed to shock him as much as it did Sophie. She peered up at him, brows arched, waiting for an explanation.
“There are things in your life as you grow older that you will have to make decisions about on your own,” he explained. “Mothers and fathers aren’t perfect, Sophie, although we do want the best for our precious little bundles. Remember that, and use this.” He reached out and tapped her gently on the forehead.
“Your mother loves you,” he said again, “but... well...” He faltered, and then frowned, as though unsure how to proceed. “Let me tell you a little story...”
Sophie nodded eagerly and fell back on her soft down pillow to listen. It wasn’t often her daddy told her a bedtime story. He worked so very much. But when he told her stories, she enjoyed them immensely.
“Once upon a time,” he began, “there was a little girl who had a mother who wanted only the best for her...”
Sophie’s brow knit. The story sounded familiar.
“This mother loved her daughter so much,” he told her, “that she put her only in the best dresses, gave her only the shiniest black shoes. And she never, ever let her play with little boys. She was never allowed to get her dress dirty... or mud under her fingernails.”
Sophie’s brow furrowed a little deeper. Was he telling a story about her, she wondered.
“However, this little girl wanted only to play in the stables, to feed the horses and ride them whenever she could. Her father sold thoroughbreds, some of the finest most beautiful horses.”
Sophie listened intently. “Grandfather sells throwbreds,” she commented after a moment.
Her father smiled down at her, obviously pleased with her observation. “Yes, well... this little girl was never allowed to ride them, nor even to be in their presence. You see... her mother didn’t think it was a proper thing for her little girl to do, and only the little boys were allowed to play in the stables. Her brothers and their friends often tended the horses while the little girl watched.”
Sophie didn’t understand the story at all. It wasn’t as entertaining as the ones he normally told. Still, she listened, because she knew what it felt like to have a mother who never let her do anything at all.
“Well, there was this one little boy,” her father continued, “who thought the little girl had the most lovely smile.” Her father sighed wistfully and shook his head. “He used to feel sorry for her when she sat all alone, wishing she could play. He wanted so much to go talk to her, but he knew he would only get her in trouble and so he never did, but he promised himself that one day he would take her away from that place and give her a home of her own where she could do whatever she pleased, somewhere she could raise horses if she wished, somewhere where she would smile.”
“He was a very nice boy,” Sophie remarked, getting sleepy.
Her father laughed softly. “Well, he wasn’t always a nice little boy,” he assured her, “but he really, really liked the little girl.”
“Oh,” Sophie said. She rubbed her eyes again.
Her father went silent, staring down at her, though somehow Sophie wasn’t certain he was actually seeing her. He looked sad suddenly and far away.
“What happened to the little girl and the little boy, Daddy?”
“They were supposed to live happily ever after... but happily ever after isn’t something someone can give you, Sophia... not even a mother who loves a daughter very much. It’s a place inside here.” He reached out and tapped Sophie on the breast.
Sophie nodded, trying desperately to keep her eyes open, not wishing to hurt her papa’s feelings. She wanted to hear the end of the story, she truly did,
but she was getting so very sleepy.
She struggled to keep her eyes open as her daddy continued. “So the boy and girl grew up, and got married. He took her away, as he promised, but it was too late for the little girl. She was a very good little girl, you see, always did what her parents wanted her to do. She never disobeyed them, ever. They molded her into the perfect little girl... who grew up to be the perfect lady... just like her mother... who never smiled.”
Three Redeemable Rogues Page 1
