by Lauren Smith
And Lily… He needed to hold her one last time.
With Hugo’s sentries gone, the tunnels were beginning to fill with its usual denizens. A few straggling pickpockets had already returned. Charles stumbled toward the group of men leaving the cells. Jonathan was there, unlocking the cell doors as fast as he could. No one spoke as Charles fell to his knees beside Lily’s body.
She wore her valet’s trousers and a waistcoat with his family’s livery, Tom coming to his aid one last time. She lay on her side, eyes closed, her face pale and solemn, as though she were asleep. With a shaking hand, he reached out and cupped her face. Her skin was still warm. It tortured him with memories of mere hours ago, when she’d been alive in his arms, kissing him in his bed. His beloved wife. She’d lasted only a day.
A hand settled on his shoulder. Someone crouched beside him.
“She was the final move,” Ashton said, as if to himself.
“Move? This wasn’t a bloody game, Ashton,” Charles growled.
“It was,” said Ashton. “A most bloody one.” His fingers tightened on Charles’s shoulder. “Lily’s presence here was no accident. She knew what she was doing. She gave her life for yours. For all of us.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Hugo knew that as long as you still had something left to lose, you would not commit yourself to destroy him the way you had to. Your fear for our lives would always hold you back, allowing him to chip away at us all until there was nothing left. But to lose her?”
A chill filled the air. Charles slowly turned to Ashton, his fists tightening. “You…told her to sacrifice herself?”
“I told her how events would play out, and she saw the mistake he’d made, just as I had. She understood Hugo almost as well as I did. You must believe me—if I could have taken her place, I would have.”
Charles wanted to strike Ashton down, but behind the calm words he could see the pain his friend was feeling. He had made himself think like Hugo, be Hugo for a time, and that had cost him a piece of his soul.
The League now came in a silent ring around him, and for a moment he felt connected to them all. They were one body, one soul, as they mourned with him. Never had any man been blessed with such friends, and yet they had paid an unspeakable price. Lily’s life given for him, for all of them. He reached out to brush a fingertip down Lily’s cheek, his eyes clouding with tears.
“Hang on,” said Jonathan, his brow furrowed. “Where’s the blood?”
“Blood?” Lucien muttered from beside him.
Lily gasped and spasmed. “Ahh!”
Everyone around her cursed and fell back, including Charles. For the first time in his life, he nearly fainted.
“Oh…” she groaned and tore at her waistcoat. She ripped the buttons aside, moaning as she exposed a thick layer of leather and a small metal breastplate.
“What in God’s name…?” Cedric began.
A bullet was wedged into the metal, and Lily gingerly touched it, but it was firmly pressed into the plate.
“Well done, Lily.” Lucien chuckled. “Well done. Never face a dangerous situation without protection, I always say.”
Lily’s eyes locked on to Charles. She smiled and then winced, covering her chest. “You’re alive,” she whispered.
“So are you,” he murmured in disbelief. “But how?”
Lily nodded toward Ashton and Cedric. “I remembered Lord Sheridan’s duel last year. I heard about the armor and thought there was a chance this might work. Mind you, I had hoped to shoot him dead, but once we were struggling, I made sure he shot me where I wanted him to.”
“It shouldn’t have worked,” Ashton said. “You should be dead.” When everyone glared at him, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, but it is true.” He knelt down and examined the dent and the bullet still wedged inside it. “Had it been a glancing blow, then yes. But at such close range and straight on? It should not have worked.”
Charles had a revelation. “It was Daniel’s pistol,” he said, remembering the way Hugo’s lieutenant had stabbed him. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the pistol had not had a full charge of gunpowder. But it didn’t matter. None of that mattered right now.
“You’ll still be bruised,” Lucien warned. “Possibly have a broken rib or two.”
“It certainly feels like it.” Lily reached for Charles, and he pulled her into his arms. He buried his face in her hair. His body quaked as he started to cry. He couldn’t hold it back any longer—there was no stopping this flood. She curled her arms around him, holding him like a child, and he didn’t care.
“It’s okay, my love,” she said.
“I know,” said Charles. “I know.”
Hugo was dead.
Lily was alive.
It was finally over.
29
Charles never wanted to see another bloody doctor ever again. He lay back in his bed, his torso heavily bandaged. It was just as Daniel had told him—the knife wound wasn’t fatal. It had stopped at his hip bone. Painful, but shallow. He’d known exactly where to strike to make a convincing, bleeding wound without killing Charles. The man had spared him and then saved him.
“You’re frowning again,” Lily whispered.
She lay in bed beside him, her own body bandaged to support her broken ribs. What a pair they were. Broken and bruised and bedridden on their honeymoon. But alive and together. He turned his face toward her, still overcome with love and relief. She leaned into him and pressed her forehead against his, closing her eyes.
“By all rights we should be dead, and yet we are not.” He reached up to hold her face in one hand. “I’m so grateful.”
She curled her fingers around his wrist. “As am I.”
“But it doesn’t make our good fortune any less remarkable—or puzzling.”
“Puzzling?”
“We lived essentially because Hugo hated me so much. You would think that more hate would hasten things, yet instead it caused him to draw things out, make it into a game he believed only he could win.”
“He never wanted to just kill you,” said Lily. “I think, on some level, he had to prove that he was better than you. That his values were superior.”
This only confused Charles more. “What do you mean?”
“In the last few years, I learned more about Hugo than I ever wished to. As monstrous as his actions could be, Hugo held duty, loyalty, and service above all else. You and your friends value friendship, honor, and freedom. I think he hated what you stood for as much as he hated you yourself. Yet you won.”
Charles thought back to the river, reaching out to Hugo despite all that he had done, and that last moment of revelation upon his brother’s face. Realizing, too late, that he’d been wrong all along.
They were quiet a long moment, holding hands, fingers interlaced, before Lily spoke.
“Still happy to be married to me?” Her words were playful, but there was a hint of fear in her eyes, a fear that he would push her away.
“More than ever, wife,” he promised. “More than you will ever know. I waited a lifetime to find you. Did you know that? I’ve been waiting, your name carved upon my heart.”
She flashed a smile free of sorrow, free of hesitation. This was the woman Lily was always meant to be. Unbroken. Unafraid. Courageous.
“I’ve been talking to Emily about you, you know.”
“Should I be worried?” Charles asked, raising an eyebrow.
She trailed her fingertips along his jaw. “She says you’re the last one.”
“The last what?”
“Wicked rogue.” She bit her bottom lip. “And you’re all mine, my lord.”
“Is that so?” He tilted her chin up and lowered his head to hers.
Their kiss carried the slow heat of a late-spring sun. All the pain he’d born since his father’s death faded in the wake of that all-powerful kiss. In that gentle passion, Charles was reborn. “How did I ever have the good fortune to find you?” he asked Lily.
<
br /> She gripped his neck, gazing at him as though lost in dreams of her own. “We found each other because it was meant to be. Call it fate.”
“Fate,” he said solemnly, his heart filled with hope for the future. “And I’ll never let you go.”
She kissed him again, and he felt the world suddenly open up with a lifetime of possibilities and wonders yet to come.
This was love. This was what the poets wrote about. He may have been the last rogue to fall in love, but he was also the luckiest.
The past could remain in the past. He could mourn those he had lost. He could learn from his mistakes. And he could be thankful for his friends and family, who always stood by him. But he would no longer let the past define him. Everything was going to be different from now on. For once, he could look eagerly toward the future.
He held his wife in his arms and kissed her as though the world was ending, even though he knew it was just beginning.
Epilogue
Five months later
“She has the loveliest green eyes, Emily. Just like Godric’s,” Charles teased as he stared down at Emily and Godric’s daughter, Sierra. They were by a small lake in Hyde Park, taking in the glorious spring sunshine.
“She’s going to be so spoiled.” Emily’s complaint was followed by an indulgent chuckle.
“Of course she is,” Lily replied. She held a hand over her slightly rounded stomach protectively. She sat on a bench not far from where Charles and Emily stood by the small lake in the middle of the park, and held Kat on her lap. The child wiggled her legs in excitement, more eager to run about then sit still.
When Charles looked her way, his heart turned over in his chest. He would soon be a father twice over, and he couldn’t think of anything more wonderful.
I love you, he mouthed. She mouthed the words back and set Katherine down on the ground, nudging her toward Charles. He knelt and opened his arms.
“Kat, come to Papa.” Kat ran over to him. He lifted her into his arms and hoisted her into the air. She squealed and laughed as he held her close.
“Do you want to see the baby?” he asked her.
Katherine nodded, suddenly serious. She leaned over Emily’s shoulder to peer down at the baby.
“So pretty,” she said to Emily, then tucked her head shyly against Charles’s neck. Lily rose from the bench and joined Charles and Emily and the rest of the League by the lake.
Ashton and Rosalind lounged on a blanket, both of them in an animated discussion about banking. Lord, if that is their idea of pillow talk… Cedric and Anne stood at the water’s edge, talking to a gentleman about horse breeding. Their newborn twins, Sean and Hartley, named after their valiant footman who’d once saved Cedric and Anne’s lives, were safely at home in the nursery being looked after so the new mother could have a moment outside in the fresh spring air.
Lucien, Horatia, and little Evan were feeding ducks. Evan, safe in his mother’s arms, watched in fascination while the white ducks huddled around their legs, quacking incessantly. Jonathan and Audrey stood beneath the shade of a tree, their faces close as they whispered to each other. Audrey grinned mischievously, and Jonathan had one hand on her hip, his fingers toying with her skirts.
There’s trouble afoot there. Charles smiled and looked to Godric, who rolled his eyes and took Sierra from his wife, cooing as he kissed the babe’s forehead.
Everything was as it should be. Finally.
He looked around the park and saw Daniel Sheffield and Melanie, Hugo’s widow, escorting Hugo’s son, Peter, to the lake’s edge. Daniel had married Melanie scandalously fast after Hugo’s death, but the rumors about their union died quickly as new gossip spread to take its place.
Daniel knelt by the boy’s side and pointed at the swans in the center of the lake, smiling as the little boy talked to him.
Charles wondered for a moment whether Peter would follow in Hugo’s footsteps. But if there was one lesson he had learned, it was this: blood does not make us who we are. It was up to Daniel and Melanie to see that Peter was raised a better man than his father.
Daniel glanced at him, nodded once, and Charles answered with a tilt of his own head. Their war was over. There were no enemies left, only friends and, perhaps, cautious allies.
Let every rogue have their day, Charles thought, looking over everyone in the park, and let them be blessed with a life full of friends and love, as I have been.
He almost laughed, realizing he sounded like he was praying, and added, Amen.
“What’s so amusing?” Lily asked.
“I was thinking about how my prayers have been answered, and how I was fortunate enough not to be struck by lightning, seeing as how I’ve been so wicked. I always feared I might be destined for the fires below.” He was teasing, of course, but deep down part of him had feared he’d caused too much pain to ever deserve such joy.
Lily gazed at him, her blue eyes filled with an ancient understanding. “A man like you, Charles? There’s only one thing you’re destined for.”
“And what is that?”
She leaned up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips over his and whispered, “Love.”
Excerpt from the Quizzing Glass Gazette, December 18, 1822, the Lady Society column:
Never fret, my dears, Lady Society has returned. Lord Lonsdale has finally gotten leg-shackled, it is true, but there are many other rogues in the world with hearts that need taming. Too many for me to deal with on my own. Remember, ladies, it is up to you to do your part. Perhaps your rogue is still out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered.
Worried this is the last League of Rogues novel? Don’t worry! It isn’t! The League will be continuing on, starting with the story Never Kiss a Scot starring Brock (Rosalind’s Scottish brother) and Joanna (Ashton’s sister). Turn the page to see the cover as well as some special Character Art of Charles and Lily.
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If you like what you’ve read, feel free to explore another delicious and romantic series: Sins and Scandals!
Feel free to fall in love with Leo, the british Earl and the half gypsy woman from his childhood, Ivy as they rekindle their romance! Turn the page to read the first 3 chapters of An Earl By Any Other Name! Come on, you know you want to turn that page…
An Earl By Any Other Name
Chapter 1
England, October 1911
“You know what they say about the old boy…” Lord Caruthers murmured as Leopold Graham stepped into the main reading room of Brooks’s Club on St. James’s Street. The words stopped Leo cold.
“No…what do they say?” another man whispered, his face half hidden behind a newspaper. The two men were sitting close to a fireplace beside the door. They were both older, with graying hair and extended waistlines that showed their well-off lifestyles. Leo scowled at them, but deep inside he was afraid of their whispers.
“Kept an Italian opera singer in a cozy little love nest in Mayfair. Can you believe it?” Caruthers chuckled. “Damned if I’m not jealous of old Hampton for carrying on like that with a wife and son at home. Quite a bold move to bring down scandal like that so publically.”
“Wait…” The other man gasped, his paper rattling in his hands with excitement as he leaned closer to Caruthers. “The old fellow who died in his mistress’s bed? I heard about that!” The older gentlemen were leaning close to each other, gossiping like a pair of old ladies, using their newspapers much the way women would use fans.
“Yes! The late Lord Hampton…Had to carry him out of that woman’s house. She didn’t even care about him. I heard she was determined to keep the home. Messy business leaving that to the son to deal wit
h. Even now that the family is out of their year of mourning, everyone hasn’t forgotten old Hampton’s sins.” Caruthers sniffed pompously. “I wouldn’t let my son be seen at dinner with that family, not with that sort of talk still hanging about.”
“Indeed,” the other man agreed. “Quite so—”
“Ahem,” Leo growled softly as he stalked past the two men, his fists clenched in rage. Both of them jumped; apparently they’d deceived themselves into thinking he couldn’t hear them. Deaf old fools. Even at his own bloody club, he couldn’t escape the rumors, the whispering, the damned utter black scandal that his late father had brought down on his head. He didn’t want to remember having to deal with his father’s mistress or paying her off by letting her keep the house his father had purchased. The need to silence her and quiet the scandal as quickly as he could hadn’t been as successful as he’d hoped. London ballrooms and dinners caught rumors and scandals, spreading them like wildfire.
Caruthers and his companion, now silent, watched him with keen interest as he settled in the only empty seat, one by the window facing St. James Street. On the street there was a mixture of motorcars and carriages. London was always busy in the fall with the season in full swing. For a brief moment, he let his thoughts wander away from the pain of listening to his family’s private business be fodder for entertainment. If only he could get in his car and drive away from it all…
Despite the silence in the room, Leo knew that every man was focused on him.
He raked a hand through his blond hair and stifled a groan. He’d been in London for all of three days, feverishly trying to secure investment opportunities and join in speculation schemes but it was no use. No one would work with him.
Father has damned me and Mother for his selfishness!
