Along Came a Rogue (3 page)

She glanced over her shoulder at him, and surprise crossed her face, as if she hadn't noticed he was there. Then her lips pressed together tightly, and she nodded to acknowledge his words before turning back to Thomas.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” she told Edward. “Your friendship means more than Chatham and I can ever express. Thomas is alive because of you.”

“And Major Grey,” Edward corrected gently, his gaze glancing over her head to meet Grey's.

Grey could have told him to save his breath. He had no doubt that if Edward hadn't been in the room, she would have already had the footmen toss him out on his ass.

“Thomas!” John Matteson, Duke of Chatham, strode into the room. His face was pale with worry, and his hands clenched helplessly at his sides.

A tall and imposing man with the same military bearing as Thomas, the duke had served in India with the East India Company, acting as a military liaison to the local maharajas for a decade before returning to England with his second wife and infant son, where he served as an administrator until he unexpectedly inherited. What struck Grey every time he saw the man was how much Thomas resembled him physically, but how little in temperament and character.

He took his wife's shoulders and stared down at his son. “Mary, how is he?”

She choked back a cry and whispered, “He's alive.” She turned her head and buried her face in her husband's shoulder as she sobbed. “Our boy's alive…”

“Thank God,” Chatham breathed out, then his arms slipped around his wife to briefly hold her close. “I told you that all would be fine.” He released her and stepped back, ending the uncharacteristic display of emotion. He glanced around the room. “Where's Emily?”

Edward cleared his throat. “I dispatched a messenger to her. He returned three days ago with this.” He lifted a letter from the fireplace and handed it to her father. “She plans to come as soon as she's able.”

Chatham unfolded the letter and scanned it quickly. His shoulders stiffened, but he nodded at Edward with a stoic expression. “Thank you.”

Grey knew what that letter said. Thomas's sister Emily had thanked Edward for the news of the shooting, grateful beyond words that the colonel had thought to contact her, but claimed she was unable to travel to London. Still in mourning over her husband's unexpected death last fall, she was too ill to travel, the roads in the north too treacherous in the spring rains, but she would come as soon as she could.
Tell Thomas I love him, and always will…

Damned lies, all of it. When he'd met her five years ago, she'd openly adored her older brother, who in turn doted on her and affectionately referred to her as “the brat.” That young woman would have done anything to be at her wounded brother's side, not letting sickness nor the weather stop her.

But the recently widowed woman who sent this letter—apparently, Grey didn't know her at all anymore.

“Mother…” The word was little more than a breath on Thomas's lips, but the soft sound pierced the room.

Mary Matteson sobbed and cupped her palm against his cheek as she sat beside him on the bed. “I'm here, Thomas. Father and I are both here.”

His eyes remained closed, but he licked his dry lips as he slowly woke. “I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…”

“No, darling, no.” She leaned over to kiss his forehead as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. “It wasn't your fault. It wasn't—”

He tried to move to reach for her, but the ties held him down.

She pulled back and glared accusingly at Grey through tear-glistened eyes. “Get these things off him!”

Anger pierced him at the indictment on her face, mixing with the horrible guilt he already carried for having to tie down his best friend in the first place. But he held his tongue and said nothing, knowing now wasn't the time to defend himself to Thomas's parents. And not in his sickroom.

“Mary,” Chatham told her, “he wouldn't be tied down if Dr. Brandon didn't think it necessary.”

Instead of reassuring her, his explanation only made her weep harder.

Thomas's eyelids fluttered open heavily, taking all his strength to open them. “Don't cry, Mother,” he whispered. Then he rasped out, “Water…please.”

Mary nodded and reached for the pitcher and glass on the stand beside the bed, but her hands shook so violently that she nearly spilled it.

“Here, let me.” Grey stepped forward and took the glass from her, then carefully slipped his hand beneath Thomas's head to raise it from the pillow. He held the glass to Thomas's parched lips and tipped it just enough that he could take several swallows, then eased his head back down onto the pillow.

Unfocused, Thomas's blue eyes swept around the room. Bewilderment flashed across his pale face. “Emily…?”

“She's coming as soon as she can,” Grey assured him with the lie, knowing the truth would only upset him. That most likely she wouldn't come at all. During the past two years, Thomas and Emily had fallen out and rarely communicated, although Thomas had always refused to say why exactly other than that Emily had gotten married. “The weather is bad up north, and she can't travel yet. But soon.”

His answer didn't calm the agitation in Thomas's eyes. “I need her, Grey…I need Emily.”

Grey stared down at him, his chest ripping open painfully beneath Thomas's soft pleading. He was still so weak, with the loss of blood leaving his skin nearly transparent and his muscles still too fragile to move from bed. Every breath was a struggle.

“Bring the brat to me…please…”

Grey nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He knew what he had to do.

“We'll send our own coach and escort for our daughter, Major,” Chatham interjected. “This is none of your concern.”

Grey ignored him and cast a glance at Edward, whose solemn expression signaled his complete understanding of the unspoken question that passed between them. He nodded once.

Turning on his heel, Grey strode from the room, through the house, and out the front door. His jaw was set hard, his mind determined.

“Send a message to Arthur Hedley at the Horse Guards,” he ordered the groom who brought out his horse from the stables, then tossed the man a coin to make certain the message was delivered. “Tell him to follow me north to Yorkshire.”

Knowing the former sergeant would catch up with him by nightfall, he mounted his horse and set off. Thomas wanted Emily by his side, so that was exactly what he would do. Put her at Thomas's side.

No matter what it took to get her there.

S
nowden Hall.
Thank God.

After three days of hard riding, Grey gratefully turned his horse down the lane toward the large Yorkshire farm where Thomas's sister lived, with Hedley falling into a trot beside him. Three days of near-constant riding through miserable rain and unseasonable cold, stopping only when the night grew too dark to travel on—all because Thomas had asked him to fetch his sister, and Grey would have moved heaven and earth for him.

Although, he thought, grimacing as he glanced up at the thick, darkening clouds that promised more icy rain by nightfall, he hadn't realized that moving heaven and earth meant riding into hell. But he wouldn't rest until he delivered Emily Matteson Crenshaw to the Chatham House doorstep.

Without warning, a bullet tore into the tree trunk inches above his head. The wood splintered with a loud pop.

Christ!
Dropping from his horse to the ground, he rolled behind the stone wall edging the stable yard of the white stone house and reached for the pistol beneath his coat.

“Get down!” he yelled at Hedley.

A well-trained soldier who had served under him with the Scarlet Scoundrels, Hedley dove behind the wall and crawled toward Grey on his stomach. Hedley scowled, drawing his own pistol. “Seems they don't like visitors none, Major.”

“Apparently not.” Grey took a deep breath to calm his racing heart. The last thing he'd expected this morning was to be pinned down by gunfire. “Where's it coming from?”

“The side garden.”

Glancing down the wall just long enough to see that it offered a way to stalk closer to the shooter, he handed his pistol to Hedley. “Keep his attention while I circle behind.”

“Aye, sir!” Hedley snatched Grey's hat from his head and tossed it high into the air above them.

A shot rang out as a bullet drove through the crown.

Grey stared incredulously. “What the hell—”

“Drawin' his attention, Major, as ye ordered.” Hedley fought back his laughter but not his grin as he immediately tossed up the hat again, but this time drew no fire.

“Just keep him occupied,” Grey muttered as he snatched up his dead hat from the ground and started forward to circle behind the garden. His hat was ruined, but Hedley's joke revealed what they needed to know. Whoever was shooting at them had only one gun and needed time to reload.

He moved carefully, half crawling behind the cover of the stones. As he reached the end of the wall, he signaled to Hedley, who pulled the pistol's trigger and sent a ball shattering into the wall near the house's roof.

At the answering gunfire, Grey leapt to his feet and ducked around the corner. Keeping his back toward the wall, he circled behind the house and into the cover of the side garden's overgrown bushes and fruit trees. He crouched low and waited for the next gunshot.

Well,
this
was a surprise. He and Emily hadn't parted under the best of circumstances, he'd admit. But while he hadn't known what to expect this afternoon when he rode up to her door, it sure as hell wasn't gunfire.

When the next shots sounded, he made his way quickly through the garden. Up ahead, obscured by thick bushes, two figures crouched behind a low garden wall, where they took aim up the drive.

Grey hurled himself forward. A scream filled his ears as he tackled the shooter to the ground, discovering in a flash of confusion—

A woman.

A soft, curvaceous woman in dark blue muslin and white lace with golden-blond hair. Her large, sapphire-blue eyes stared up at him with a mix of fear and fury. Right before she sank her teeth into his forearm.

Blasting a sharp curse, he twisted to pin her arms to the ground and keep her mouth out of biting range, slinging a heavy leg over both of hers to prevent her from kicking. “Stop that!”

“Get off her, you brute!”

The handle of a wooden garden rake struck at his shoulders, and he flinched, ducking his head as an older woman in a servant's gray dress and white cap swung the rake repeatedly at his head.

“Get off her before you hurt her!” the maid bellowed.

“Hurt
her
? She shot at
me
!” he growled, holding the blond woman's wrists together with one hand so that he could grab at the swinging rake over his head with the other.

“You deserved it!” the blond woman hissed, futilely trying to wiggle her way out from beneath him. “What kind of gentleman would—”

At the sound of her voice, Grey froze. He searched her face as the memories triggered in his mind. “Brat, is that you?”

She ceased struggling. Those same blue eyes he now remembered so vividly widened in stunned surprise. “Captain Grey?” His name was a breathless whisper, as if she couldn't possibly believe it was him.

He flashed her a crooked grin. “It's a pleasure to see you again.”

The rake hit him over the head.

“Damnation, woman!” He made another grab for the handle. “Stop that!”

Hedley pounced on the maid from behind, seizing her by the waist and swinging her around in a circle as he yanked the rake from her hands and threw it out of reach. She kicked her legs and tried to hit him with her fists, but he simply lifted the short woman off her feet and dangled her helplessly in midair until she gave up her struggles with an angry
humph
.

“I got 'er, Major!” the sergeant announced proudly over the top of her head.

“Good,” Grey answered, his eyes not leaving Emily's face as she lay beneath him on the ground, now incredibly still except for the shallow rise and fall of her breasts with each breath. “Take her inside and calm her down, will you?” He added wryly, “And try not to let her hurt you.”

“Aye, sir.” Hedley nodded and set the woman on the ground, then bowed his head politely and motioned toward the house. “After you, ma'am.”

The maid stubbornly crossed her arms. “I'm not leaving!”

“It's all right, Yardley. They're old friends of mine,” Emily explained. With an irritated grimace, she tugged her hands free of Grey's grip and pushed at him to slide away.

Grey complied, although it took him a moment to clear the sudden fog from his brain and release her. Instead of helping her to her feet, however, he leaned back against the wall, his arm resting across his bent knee as he stared at her, utterly bewildered to find her like this. Shooting at him. And beautiful.

The maid glanced warily from Grey to her mistress. “My lady, I don't—”

“I'm fine.” She drew her legs beneath her. “Would you please serve refreshments in the drawing room?” A soft pleading crossed her face, a silent communication between the two women that Grey couldn't decipher. About him.
Interesting.
“Captain Grey and I will be along in a moment.”

Yardley frowned, still concerned. “All right, but I'll be just right inside in the kitchen.” She pointed a long finger at Grey. “If you lay a hand on my lady, be advised, sir, that I keep a drawer full of knives in there, and I know how to use them!”

Grey's lips twitched, wanting desperately to laugh at both the bulldog expression on Yardley's face and the astonishment on Emily's that her maid would dare threaten a man twice her size. “I have no doubt of that, ma'am,” he answered with forced solemnity.

With another
humph
, she spun on her heels and stomped toward the house, with Hedley following behind, his hand clamped over his laughing mouth.

Not knowing what to expect after the way they'd last parted, Grey slid his eyes to Emily. She stared back in wonder, one hand pressed against her stomach and her face pale, as if she were seeing a ghost. In a way, he supposed, she was.

“It's good to see you again, Emily,” he said quietly. Although she wasn't just Emily or Miss Matteson anymore. She was Mrs. Crenshaw now, a fact that made her seem far older than her twenty-one years. She was no longer the sweet and innocent young woman he remembered who sat for hours in the garden with her sketchbook and pencils, drawing her world. Or the starry-eyed girl who asked him one afternoon if he would teach her how to kiss.

“Captain Grey,” she forced out, as if it took all her strength to acknowledge him.

He grimaced. Oh, she wasn't happy to see him. This was
not
going to be fun. “You remember me, then?” They'd gotten along well five years ago until he'd lost his mind and kissed her, and he hoped they could again. Otherwise, it was going to be a damnably long ride back to London.

“Of course I remember you.” Regret flashed in her eyes.

Her reaction pricked at him. Well, he deserved it, he supposed, for his part in the debacle. “It's major now, actually.”

She blinked, puzzled. “Pardon?”

“I've been promoted.” He didn't know why it mattered, but he felt the undeniable urge to tell her. As if she were still a starry-eyed sixteen-year-old he could impress.

“Oh.” She looked away, clearly
not
impressed. “Congratulations.”

Well,
that
stung. So the brat was still peeved at him, even after all these years. A
very
long ride back to London…

But something else was wrong here. Her pallid face and trembling hands, which she couldn't keep still, how her eyes darted to look everywhere but into his—with a concerned frown, he reached gently for her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

She jerked her hand away from her stomach as if burned. Drawing back, she shifted out of his reach. “I'm fine.”

He stared at her curiously. More than lingering regret and embarrassment over that kiss burned in her sapphire eyes. Something dark lurked there as well, stirring the short hairs on the back of his neck. It was the same look he'd seen on the faces of captured soldiers during the war. He saw
fear
.

Concern tightened his chest. “If something's wrong—”

“Nothing's wrong. But I—I think it would be best if you left,” she said frankly, her lips tightening as her face grew pale.

“Don't you even want to know why I'm here?” he asked gently, perplexed at the swirling mix of emotions pouring from her. Good Lord, she practically dripped with them.

For a moment, she said nothing, only staring back grimly, her eyes glistening. Then she lowered her face away as she twisted her skirt in her fingers. “I already know.”

His brow furrowed. Surely Chatham hadn't sent another messenger to arrive before he did. “Do you?”

She nodded jerkily, then swallowed. Hard. “If you're here, then…” Choking out so softly that he could barely hear her, she whispered, “Thomas is dead.”

A tear of grief slid down her cheek, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

The air rushed painfully from his lungs at the sight of her looking so wretched, so utterly devastated. Despite the rift between them, Thomas loved his sister, and he knew Emily loved Thomas. And Grey's heart melted for them both.

He gently wiped away the tear with his thumb. “No, Emily.” His knuckles trailed across her cheek to soothe her. “Your brother's alive.”

Her eyes flew open. Watery sapphire pools stared at him, incredulous and vulnerable.

“Thomas is
alive
,” he repeated and cupped her face in his hands. “We never expected—but he survived.” He grinned at her, unable to hold back his own relief. “He's too damned stubborn to die.”

“Oh, thank God,” she murmured, her petite body sagging with relief. “Thank God!”

She threw her arms around his shoulders and buried her face against his neck. His hands lifted to her back in a loose embrace to comfort her.

As she shifted into his arms, her breasts pressed against his chest, and his breath hitched—well, she was certainly no longer a stick with blond braids. The brat had grown into a woman, one whose warm lips now brushed against his neck as she murmured over and over her thanks to God for saving her brother, her thanks to him for bringing her the news…and each word shot straight through him to the tip of his tingling cock.
Sweet Lucifer.