The Dangerous Love of a Rogue

Her heart ached with a bitter sweet sadness. Lord Framlington made her long to unravel all the things he kept hidden. He was exciting…

Yet she had not even known his given name until she’d been about to leave him in the glasshouse.

The image of his eyes as he’d asked her to say his name aloud caught in her memory.

He was… vital… consuming heat… danger – and mystery. All other men were bland compared to him. How could she carry a torch for a bland man when there was Lord Framlington to compare to?

She would probably never marry, and then if she never married her whole life would be dull.

“You do not look quite the thing this evening, Mary. You look distracted. Is anything wrong?”

Lord Farquhar’s fingers gripped hers as they passed each other in the format of the country dance.

She had not even spoken to him since they’d walked on to the floor. “Nothing is wrong. But thank you for asking. I am merely tired, I have attended too many entertainments…”

“You can never attend too many…Are your shoes pinching? You may have too much dancing if your shoes are pinching…”

Mary laughed at his attempt to cheer her but stupidly it sent her tumbling into the doldrums.

If she never spoke to Lord Framlington again she would have to endure an entire life of dullness?

“I should be honest. It was not I who noticed. Bethany did. She sent me to cheer you up.”

“Ah.” Mary glanced at Bethany, who now stood beside Emily, then she looked back and smiled at Lord Farquhar.

She must cease longing for Lord Framlington. This was enough to make her happy. It had to be, and happiness was enough. Even if inside she spent her life screaming for excitement.

When the dance drew to an end Lord Framlington entered the ballroom, as her group swapped partners then formed the next set.

He walked with a group of men. They stopped and looked about the ballroom.

One gentleman’s gaze passed over her, then jolted back, stopping on her for a moment before he turned to the man next to him, his lips tilting in a smirk. Then they all looked at her.

She turned away.

Lord Framlington had spoken of her to his friends, then. What had he said? She hoped he’d not told them anything.

“Mary?” Philip Smyth took her hand and pulled her into motion as the music began. She was one step behind everyone, her heart racing as nausea tumbled in her stomach and light-headedness made her feel as if she might collapse.

But she did not give in to her weakness for the dark-haired, vibrant brown-eyed Lord Framlington, she lifted up her chin, caught up the step and continued, focusing on Philip and smiling as hard as she could.

When the music drew to its crescendo and ended in a brisk flurry, relief and a desire to reach the safety of her mother swamped Mary. But before she had chance to ask Philip to take her back, a shadow fell over her. She turned. John’s cousin, from John’s father’s side, stood beside her, Lord Oliver Harding, with another man.

“Miss Marlow.”

She had met Lord Harding at several events but he’d never paid her any particular attention. He was older than John and not interested in John’s young half-siblings.

Mary curtsied. “Lord Harding.”

He smiled, bowing only slightly then he turned to the gentleman beside him.

Heat burned beneath Mary’s skin. He was one of the men who’d entered with Drew.

“May I introduce Mr Harper to you Miss Marlow, he begged an introduction. Mr Harper, Miss Marlow, is my cousin’s sister.”

Mary searched for a memory of the man’s name but could recall nothing. She’d never seen nor heard of him before.

He gripped her hand, then kissed the back of her glove. Goosebumps ran up her arm, like a cold breeze had swept in to the room.

Bowing her head, to avoid his gaze, she curtsied a little.

When she rose and looked at him, she met piercing, assessing, blue eyes.

His blonde hair gave him a look of innocence, but his eyes denied it entirely. He was a rogue, of the worst sort, the sort who did not even bother to court wealth. That was why she’d not seen him before, because he was not the type of man to attend sedate functions. Even the card room here, she was sure, would not play deep enough.

He was a man who danced only with sin – and Lord Framlington’s chosen companion…

“May I have this dance, Miss Marlow?” If she refused it would be obvious to everyone around them as the sets had already formed and she would have to leave the floor alone. Philip had turned away.

Her mouth was too dry to answer. She nodded, anxiety spinning in her gut. Why would he single her out? What had Lord Framlington said?

“You’re very beautiful, Miss Marlow. More so than I’d thought, I admit. Now I can see why he is so smitten.”

“He?” Her cheeks heated with a deeper blush as they took the first steps of the dance moving forward then back. Then they turned to make a ring of four with the couple to their left.

Mary faced Lord Framlington.

Ah. So this was the game?

They completed a full circle, hands joined as a four and then she turned, looking at Lord Framlington and walking towards him as the dance required.

“Miss Marlow,” he acknowledged her with perfect formality.

Her fixed smile faded.

The next move was a closer turn, shoulder to shoulder, he pressed close. Heat scorched down her arm, and burned inside her, her heart thumping hard. She opened her mouth to breath, but there was no air.

“Mary,” he leant a little to whisper to her ear. “Did you receive my letter?”

“Yes.”

“Will you write to me?”

There was no time to answer. They were parted by the figures of the dance.

She faced his friend again, her heart pounding as she sought to watch Drew through the corner of her eye. There were no other moments to speak with him, and the rest of the dance seemed endless as the complicated patterns moved Drew further and further away.

* * *

During supper, Drew stood apart from everyone, hands in pockets, as he watched those eating. Miss Marlow was in the bosom of her family, again, surrounded, laughing and happy. Happy? Now there was a word, a word like, love. Had he ever known what it was to be happy? How the hell did he know who was happy?

He’d laughed last night, though, laughed and got very drunk. He’d called at White’s after he’d left her, searching for his friends.

They’d not been at White’s, but he’d tracked them down in a gambling den not far from St James.

He’d dragged them all from their game, and Peter and Harry from the whores draped about them, and taken them back to his bachelor residence for a more intimate night of masculine companionship.

On the way there he’d explained his plight.

How was he to convince the girl to love him? How did a man use romance and not sex to woo a girl?

Harry, particularly, had laughed heartily.

Drew could see the humour in the situation, the renowned seducer smote by a lack of love.

What the hell did he know of love?

His friends had spent the next three hours in drunken hilarity, advising him on the subtleties of love, and its difference from desire.

The letter had been Peter’s idea.

He’d leaned back in his chair, lifting his glass of brandy and grinning. “What you need my friend, is a bloody good poet. Prose is your key. All women fall for it. They like to be told their eyes are like this, their lips like that, they love to have their beauty praised.”

Between them then, through much laughter, they’d constructed the basics of the letter. The prose, had in fact, been mostly Peter’s. This morning Drew had re-written it with a sober hand and sent if off.

Yet, having played a part in the game of catching Mary Marlow, his friends had declared their interest in attending the next ball. They were eager to see the outcome of this new, more tactical, game. They’d considered it brilliant luck that Mark knew the Harding twins, Pembroke’s cousins, and then another plot had begun to spin, one to gain Drew access to Mary at the ball.

The Hardings were not as high in the instep as the Pembrokes. Lord Oliver had not even lifted an eyebrow at Mark’s request.

The plan was, once Mark had the introduction he would introduce the others and then they’d all dance with her, and if Drew merely passed her during moving sets, her family would not suspect any particular intent.

But the reality proved frustrating. He could only speak to her for an instant here and there.

He’d asked if she had the letter, if she’d write, if she’d missed him, she’d had no chance to answer anything to any real degree. Then he’d resorted to brushing her shoulder with his fingertips once.

It was hardly enough to win him a wife. He was not going to be able to convince her to take him like this.

Turning on his heel he walked from the supper room, he needed to think, he needed to settle his mind. He’d go for a smoke. Then he realised, suddenly, in a blinding thought, he’d asked her to write, but she didn’t know his address. He could hardly put it in a letter, her parents might see it.

Changing direction then, he searched out a footman in the hall, and asked for a quill, ink and paper to be brought to the gentlemen’s smoking room.

He let her dance with her friends, for the first and second dances after supper, but then he asked Peter to lead her out.

The dance was a pattern of four. Drew picked a quiet little wall-flower of a woman to partner him.

Two movements into the dance he and Peter swapped partners. It was not a requirement of the dance. He’d agreed the move with Peter to gain longer access to Mary.

Of course Mary realised instantly what they’d done and her jaw dropped on the verge of exclamation, but he caught her fingers in his as part of a turn and squeezed them hard. It effectively silenced her. The little wall-flower seemed to think they’d made a mistake. She was smiling at Peter as though she thought him foolish, but then knowing Peter, he was probably charming the girl and making her think he was the one who’d planned the swap.

“Lord Framlington,” Mary whispered in a harsh tone. “Why are you playing this game?”

He bent his head and although he felt like being harsh in return because she had returned to distancing him with the use of his surname, he softened his voice to honey. Some elements of seductive skills could still apply when making a girl fall in love… by convincing her you suffered the same condition… “My dear, it is no game. I told you, I want you for my wife. I am not backing down. Steadfastness is surely an element of love.”

Lord Framlington bore arrogance tonight. He obviously did not like losing. She had enough brothers and male relations to know how stubborn they could be.

“It is no statement of love to want to win at any cost.” She did not like being used like a puppet.

“You are on your guard, Mary, darling. I told you, I will not hurt you.”

“Anything between us will hurt me, when it will hurt my family…”

“But what if it hurts you and I more to be held apart. Does my steadfastness not express my heart’s devotion?”

“You are determined, Lord Framlington, I give you that. But devoted, I question, I do not think you devoted to anything beyond my dowry.”

“Call me, Drew–”

“Lord Framlington.”

His eyes shone with condescending humour. “Must I be set back so far?”

“You have not been set back at all. There is simply no going forward. Is there? Our—”

“Affair…” He leaned forward and whispered the word. It vibrated through her nerves.

She took a breath. “Hardly that, but whatever it is; it is over – and was always folly. I cannot hurt my family.”

“Folly,” he whispered. “I have heard it said, Miss Marlow, that each of us has a soul mate, and if I am yours, if we are each-others, would you throw that away because your family did not like the man of your heart, and hurt that man, who ought to be higher in your heart – your future husband. Families rear us; then they are meant to become second in our lives.”

His words struck her like a slap – and if I am yours, if we are each-others, would you throw that away because your family did not like the man of your heart, and hurt that man…

That was bloody prophetic. Where the hell had it come from? Drew would be spouting this drivel as second nature soon. But he would do anything to win her, including prattling, idiotic, poetic words.

The dance separated them for several movements. But his gaze clung to her face.

She was intoxicatingly beautiful. Whenever he looked at her a jolt sparked in his chest as well as his groin. His thoughts were forever transfixed by the woman while he was in her close proximity and even when he was not.

He had to win her.

He did not want to choose another woman. He’d chosen her last season, nearly a whole year had already passed, he would not wait another year and he’d no intention of letting her slip through his fingers.

He refused to accept no from her.

He needed her and not simply for her money.

Did she not understand that?

Aware his gaze had hardened to glaring, he whispered, harshly, “Am I not good enough for you? Did you not like my verse?”

Her lips parted slightly. They drew his gaze. If they’d been alone, he would have kissed her, drawn her into his arms and never let her go. She was his. She just didn’t know it yet, but he knew it. His eyes lifted to hers again. “You are meant for me. Why can you not see it?” Forget the drivel about souls and fate and love, this much was true. He was certain that she was the only woman he would be happy with. Lord, without her, he would never even be able to claim the word, happy!

Her lips pursed.

“I tried to tell you in that letter, what I think, how I feel—”

Her fingertip grazed his lips, to silence him, as she passed him in a turn.

Good God! Did she not know he would give anything to have her?

“I read your letter, I know what it said.”

Drew’s heart missed a beat. The look in her eyes spoke of sympathy.

Did it mean he had hope?

“Write to me,” he urged. “I’ll speak to you when I can, but in the meantime write.” The notes of the dance drew to a close.

“I do not have your address, I—”

He captured her fingers, lifting her hand to kiss it, and as he did so, he slid the small folded piece of paper he’d written his address on into the wrist of her glove.

“You do.” He met her gaze over her bent knuckles as he gripped her fingers. Then he let her hand fall and bowed briefly before turning away.

* * *

Mary watched him return to his friends, her heart racing.

“Miss Marlow.” The man who had led her into the dance, Lord Brooke, was at her side offering his arm.

She lay numb fingers on it.

They’d orchestrated the whole night, he and his friends.

“There are a dozen other heiresses he could court…” she said.

“But none as beautiful.”

“So that is what draws him, wealth and beauty?”

They walked across the floor, towards her parents, slowly, as people formed sets for the next dance.

Lord Brooke leaned closer. “Is it not his looks which draw your eyes to him?” It was not a whisper, his deep baritone made her skin prickle, and the note of condescension stirred anger inside her.

“Miss Marlow.” He straightened, lifting her fingers from his arm, as her parents came into view. “It has been a pleasure.” He bowed.

Then like Drew he walked away.

“Who were you with?” her mother asked, coming forward.

Mary, glanced across the room. Lord Brooke, Lord Framlington, Mr Harper and Mr Webster were leaving the ball.

Mary faced her mother. “Lord Brooke, Mama. Oliver introduced his friend to me and his friend introduced Lord Brooke.”

“And his friend was?”

“Mr Harper.” The slip of paper tucked within Mary’s glove itched. Had the whole endeavour been to slip her his address?

“Mr Harper? I think his father’s money came from sugar plantations.” Her father had moved beside her.

She shrugged. “I have no idea, Papa. We danced, we did not share life histories.”

He smiled. “No, I suppose not, but if it was that Mr Harper, avoid him, he has an appalling reputation, and Lord Brooke too. Avoid them both in the future.”

“Yes, Papa.”

She had been right; Lord Framlington consorted with men whose reputations matched his. His had been earned then, surely.

Her breath slipped out through her lips – and, he’d left his address within her glove. She would be the worst fool to communicate with him.

Her father’s fingers, tapped her beneath the chin. “Cheer up, sweetheart, there are plenty of decent men about, and here is one. I believe Lord Farquhar wishes a second dance.”

Mary turned. Daniel was approaching with a broad smile.

Why could not cupid aim steady arrows at her heart, ones which led to trustworthy men, rather than dangerous predatory rogues?

Chapter 7

Drew crawled into bed, three sheets to the wind. They’d retired to his bachelor apartments for a second evening, and it was now almost five of the clock. The first light of dawn crept about his curtains.

His friends had spent half the night commending him on his choice. The second half they’d spent constructing more verse, only this time Peter had said it should praise Mary’s nature, not her eyes. Apparently Mary did not take kindly to being complimented on her looks. She wished to be appreciated for more than her appearance. It was another credit to be notched in her favour.

A considerable amount of laughter had followed, and an inevitable quantity of wine.

When he woke he was hot and sweaty, his body thrumming with need for Mary Marlow – in his dreams she had not said no the other night.

He looked at his watch on the side. It was only mid-day but there was no way he would be able to sleep again.

He threw the covers aside and got up, then washed and shaved, planning to ride in the park and vent his frustration. Rewriting the latest letter would have to wait until he’d dealt with his painful surge of desire.

He could seek a willing woman to assuage it, but if he wanted constancy with Miss Marlow the idea seemed traitorous; he had abstained for a year, he would not break that now.

He was not interested in other women anyway. Not any more. Mary consumed him, mentally and physically. It was Mary he needed, no-one else.

His mouth dried, filling with a bitter taste, and it was not from last night’s excess of drink, it was from fear he’d fail and lose her.

On his ride he stretched out his mare, hurtling across the open meadow of Green Park, leaning low, hugging his body to the horse, pushing his bodyweight into his heels, and keeping balance with his shins, and his thighs, riding like a mad man.

He felt close to insanity – desperate.

Still, if she was easily caught he’d be bored of her in weeks. No, her determination to withstand him only bore out his belief that she was the woman for him.

She had strength of character, and that was to be admired.

Returning home he rewrote the letter his friends had constructed in their cups last night, and as he reached its end found his own words flowing from the quill, a diatribe falling from his mind onto the paper as the words had last night when they’d danced. He blotted the words briskly then folded the paper before he lost the courage to include his own words and sealed it with wax.

He found a young lad he trusted in the street and sent the boy off to deliver it.

* * *

“Miss Marlow.”

Mary sat alone in the family drawing room. She looked up at the butler who carried a silver tray.

“A letter.”

When the butler bowed to offer it, Mary saw Drew’s handwriting and her wicked heart flooded with joy.

Her mother and father, with John and Kate, had taken all the children on an outing to the park. Mary had declined accompanying them and bidden Mr Finch to say no one was at home if anyone called. She was not in a mood to entertain, or be social.

Images and memories of Lord Framlington kept spinning in her head.

Her heartbeat thumped when she took the letter.

She had a foolish heart.

When Finch had left she opened it, slipping her feet from her shoes and curling her legs sideways on the sofa.

It began with another poem, commending the extreme good nature of her soul, and then enthusing on her charm, her eloquence.

She smiled.

Lord Brooke had been telling tales.

The following paragraphs spoke of commitment, of life long happiness. They were only words. They meant little in reality.

But the last paragraph… The strokes of Drew’s writing seemed somehow sharper, and the words on the page lifted out with feeling.

My Mary, you are you know, mine. You always will be, accept me or not. You and I are meant to be one, half to become whole. Put us together Mary, darling, make us one, a single being. I want you. I cannot say I love you, not yet, I do not even know what on earth love is, but I do know that I cannot sleep for thinking of you, or avoid dreaming of you. I think of you and I lose my breath, I see you and my heart begins to pound, I hear you and my spirit wants to sing. I am yours, Mary. Be mine. I cannot simply walk away. I will not.

Think of the possibilities. If this is love? If this is our only chance? If we are meant to be, would you throw that away? Throw me away?

Do not! Let us be.

Yours truly,

D

The words were spoken as though he stood with her and read them.

She barely knew him and yet she felt as if she’d known him all her life. She had not been drawn to any other man – perhaps it was true, he was meant for her.

A sigh slipped past her lips. If she let him go he’d marry someone else. He needed an heiress. He could not wait forever.

Her gaze drifted to the window. Birdsong permeated the glass. She would not marry unless someone else made her heart race as he did. If no one ever did, she would definitely never marry. She sighed again. She had thought that last night, and yet she had not thought about what he would do… She may never marry but she’d be forced to watch him with his wife.

Oh, why did her heart have to fall for someone forbidden?

He was mystery. Challenge. There was so much to learn about him.

Her heart was caught up with him and she did not know how to break free. I don’t want to be free. I want to be his wife – to understand the complexity in his eyes.

She didn’t see a bad man in his eyes.

Was that a dreadful admission?

John would be furious if she chose Drew. Her father and mother would be disappointed. But they would not disown her. They’d forgive her, because they loved her.

She folded the letter and took it to her room. There, she searched out the paper on which he’d written his address. Then she sat at her writing desk.

Her quill hovered over the paper. She could not make promises yet. She was afraid to do what her heart wished and say yes.

Could she have her family and Lord Framlington?

Could she trust him to look after her and love her?

How could she bear to hurt her family?

Yet how could she bear it if Drew turned to someone else?

Make me believe, if you wish. she began to write. You make us be. Prove that I may trust your words. Prove that you will love me and not hurt me.

She wrote no more. She could not think of anything else to say. His ego was too big to offer him compliments. He’d only bask in them.