Claimed by the Rogue (15 page)

“G’night, guv,” the groom said, touching his forelock and treating Robert to a gold-toothed grin.

Eager to be on his way, Robert took the reins and handed over a few quid in gratuity. Walking his horse out of the stable yard, he turned onto St. James’s Street and headed northwest toward home. The quarter known for its gentlemen’s clubs fell somewhere between bustling and somnolent, the hour far too unfashionably early for any self-respecting member of the ton to risk being seen returning home. Later lacquered carriages would glut the thoroughfares, but for now most of the traffic was limited to single riders and those on foot. Resolved to make use of the room, Robert picked up pace. Cantering over the cobbles, he consoled himself that Phoebe wasn’t wed to Bouchart yet. From Reggie he knew that she’d yet to agree upon a date. There was yet time—and hope. The jealousy splashed upon her face when she’d spied him with Lady Morton hadn’t lied. She still felt something for him. All he need do was stay the course, and she would come around. She had to.
 

At Piccadilly, a phaeton whipped out in front of him, jarring him back to the moment. Veering to avoid it, he turned his horse’s head sharply right—and felt the saddle slipping.
 

Thrown sideways, he knew surrender was his sole hope. Sliding his feet free of the stirrups, he leaned into the fall. He struck the street hard, his right shoulder bearing the brunt of the impact. Head tucked and knees tented, he rolled away from the horse before the hooves might do deadly damage.
 

The temptation to simply lie on his side in the gutter and catch his breath was enormous, but doing so risked trampling. After all that he’d so far survived, dying in a London ditch wasn’t how he meant to take his earthly leave.
 

Covered in filth, he crawled onto his knees and pushed himself upright on skin-scoured palms. Grabbing hold of a hitching post, he came to a slow but steady stand. Grateful that no limbs seemed to be broken, he looked to his mount a few paces away, tail lashing the air, the bridle held by a lad in livery.
 

Eyes bugging, the boy walked the horse over to him. “Gorm, that was a close one,” he said, holding out the saddle.

Reaching out to take it, Robert didn’t disagree. A less experienced horseman might be seriously injured or dead. Not for the first time, he thanked Providence for his pastoral upbringing. His right shoulder throbbed like the very devil and the eye on that side was rapidly swelling closed, and yet compared to what might have been he’d gotten off lucky.
 

“You all right, guv?”

“Never better.” He dug a hurting hand into his pocket, scooped out several coins and handed them over. “I thank you for your aid.” Looping the reins about bashed knuckles, he turned away and limped over to the pavement.

What the bloody hell had just happened? Sucking on his split lip, he ran his hands over the animal, searching for signs of soreness or other injury. But beyond being spooked, the stallion seemed to be hale and fit. Likewise the tacking, newly purchased, was in pristine order. He’d checked the cinching on the girth himself before heading out that evening. And yet there was no discounting what had happened, which begged the question of how—and why—it had come about. Turning the saddle over, he saw he had the first half of his answer.

Two of the three leather billets had been cut clean through.
 

Chapter Six

Phoebe often slipped inside the Hospital’s Court Room when she required respite to think. Grand and vast, its walls hung with paintings by such great English artists as Hogarth, one of the founding governors, beyond the occasional board meeting it was rarely used. Pacing its four corners, the echo of her steps ringing from the high plasterwork ceiling, Phoebe tried telling herself that Robert must have overslept. But when the clock atop the chimneypiece chimed noon, she forced herself to own the truth. He wasn’t coming.

Her behavior the previous evening at Almack’s must have served as the final straw for him, and now he’d tired of their cat-and-mouse match.

I should feel relieved—no, not only relieved, but elated.

After not quite a fortnight of demanding that he leave her alone, apparently he’d deigned to do just that. Alone, that was what she’d wanted—wasn’t it?

Their tiff had blown up like an unexpected summer storm. One moment she’d been melting into his arms and the next she’d been hard put not to stomp upon his foot or deal him a swift kick in the shin. She hadn’t meant to argue with him. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she owned it as the very worst of self-deceptions. She’d wanted them to argue, she’d wanted it rather badly. She’d been spoiling for a fight since the first shock of his return had waned. She wanted it still.

She’d moved through her morning classes restless and snappish, her thoughts scattered and her patience worn thin by the slightest disruption. Myriad worries assailed her. What if an accident had befallen him? What if he’d been set upon by footpads? Even on a darkened street, that claret-colored coat could scarcely be missed.
 

Or perhaps he’d met up with Lady Morton following the ball. After several minutes of making herself miserable by imaging them lying intertwined in Leticia’s bed linens, she dealt herself a brisk mental shake. This was absurd. This needed to cease. It wasn’t as though Robert owed her an accounting of his whereabouts, let alone his fidelity. And really, why should she give a fig how or with whom he amused himself, let alone care so very keenly? After his desertion, surely she couldn’t be softening toward him…could she?
 

Yet again her thoughts circled back to their waltz. Fleeting though the interlude had been and marred by her harsh words, it had felt uncommonly good to be back in his arms almost as if…she belonged there.

A voice from the hallway broke into her brooding. “Hopefully the truant will find a warmer welcome than that shown to the prodigal scarce a week ago?”

Robert!

Heart lifting, Phoebe spun about to the doorway. Whatever caustic comments she’d meant to make withered at the sight of him. “Dear Lord, what happened?”

Bruised and bloodied, his right arm resting in a makeshift sling and his eye swollen halfway closed, he tried for a smile. “I took a tumble from my horse.”

Phoebe found that difficult to fathom. Robert had grown up in the country. While accidents might happen to anyone, he had an excellent seat. “Were you…racing?” He wouldn’t be the first young buck to bolt through Rotten Row on a wager and find himself the worse for it; still, the man who’d returned seemed beyond such boyish behavior.
 

Crossing toward her, he shook his head. “My horse threw a shoe. At least allow me to hold onto what dignity I have left by not pressing for a full recitation of the humiliating details.”

Phoebe met him partway. Taking in his set jaw, swollen yet undeniably firmed, Phoebe surrendered the subject—for now. Instead she said, “You look a fright.”

He grimaced, fingering a gash on his chin that would likely turn to a scar as had its predecessor. “Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly become more handsome.”

He’d made some similar disparagement of his looks the night before at the ball. Staring into his face, sinfully handsome despite the bruising, she wondered why he seemed intent on seeing himself as some sort of freak. The night before she’d assumed he must be trying to trick her into admitting how very much she still wanted—craved—him, but suddenly she wasn’t so certain.
 

It struck her that he hadn’t really told her all that much about himself. How had he fared these past years? More to the point, how had he kept himself? The narrative he’d sketched had been vague on details, timelines especially. The few times she’d tried drawing him out, he’d found a way to turn the topic. She thought of how they’d once told one another everything and her heart lurched.

Determined to protect that vulnerable organ against further assault, she sought refuge in sarcasm. “I suspect Lady Morton will still have you.”

He had the audacity to nod. “I suspect she will, only it isn’t Lady Morton I want, and we both know it.”

Rather than follow him down that well-trod path, she asked, “Have you seen a physician?”

He shrugged, wincing as the movement pained him. “Chelsea tried to persuade me to let her call one, but I told her the same as I am telling you—I am fine.”

She shook her head. Some things hadn’t changed. “What you are is as stubborn as ever, too stubborn for your own good.”

“I don’t care for being fussed over.”

The snort she let out would have mortified her mother. “You adore being fussed over, or at least you used to.”

His gaze bore into hers. “It rather depends upon who does the fussing.”

The pull to envelope him in her arms was a powerful force. Battling it, Phoebe reminded herself that she was another man’s betrothed. Beyond that, battered as he was, she wasn’t certain where it was safe to touch.

She settled upon his forearm. A comforting stroke such as she would have bestowed upon Lulu or Mary or any of her pupils, it meant nothing—or so she told herself. And yet the slight contact brought heat prickling her palm, the sensation akin to playing with an electricity machine—dangerous, forbidden. Robert must have felt it too. He flinched.

Phoebe drew back her hand. “I’m sorry. I’ve hurt you. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s nothing.” His gaze raked her face, raw in a way that physical pain couldn’t entirely account for.

“You should be abed.”
 

The corners of his mouth lifted, his eyes no longer pained but decidedly devilish. “Is that an offer? If so, I accept.”
 

She reached out to bat him but, mindful of his injuries, thought better of it. Instead she laid light fingers on his slinged shoulder, careful not to touch anything more than fabric. “You should come with me to the infirmary where you may be properly looked after.”

He jerked away as though she’d proposed taking him to a torture chamber. “The devil I will.”

“Very well, then I shall have a look at you myself.” She reached up her two hands to undo his top shirt button, but before she could, he backed away, bumping up against a roundel painted by Thomas Gainsborough.
 

She dropped her arms to her sides. “When did you grow so modest?” she asked, frustrated but also genuinely perplexed.
 

Six years ago he hadn’t given a second thought to shucking off his shirt for a bare-knuckle boxing lesson at Gentleman Jackson’s or, more scandalously, sea bathing at Brighton wearing no more than his smallclothes. She’d used to tease that he was more at home out of his clothes than in them. That too seemed to have changed.

His gaze shuttered. “It’s not a fit sight for a lady.” As if determined to put as much distance between them as he could short of departing, he shoved away from the wall and walked over to the far side of the room.

Phoebe followed him over to the globe ensconced in a footed brass stand by which he’d stationed himself. “I assure you, a few bruises and cracked ribs won’t drop me to the ground. Since volunteering here, I have seen far worse.”

He opened his mouth as if to dispute her, and then closed it. Holding his peace, he reached out with his unfettered hand, giving the sphere a spin.
 

Wondering if it was only his hurts that made him so quick-tempered and melancholy, Phoebe resolved to change the subject—for now. Coming up beside him, she said, “You never did tell me which lands you visited.”

Gaze on the globe, he hesitated. “Africa, the northeast coastline mostly, sundry archipelagos and islands, and India, but then I suppose that’s a given. My first stop was Madras. It’s situated in the south of—”

“I am well aware where it’s situated, along with a great many other ports you put into or would have had your ship continued upon its route. I made it my business to know, to memorize your itinerary, after… ” Exasperated, she let her voice trail off. She hadn’t meant to snap but his apparent assumption that she must be some sort of ignoramus was too grating to suffer, certainly not in silence.

He dropped his hand and stepped away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to play schoolmaster. It’s only that you never used to show much interest in geography.”

Phoebe let out a sigh. Would he ever cease seeing her as that foolish chit he’d left behind? “Or in mathematics or politics or, indeed, any subject that might be considered less than ladylike, yes, I know. But I was interested—fascinated, really—by all of it.”

The span of his stare was far from flattering. Six years ago she’d apparently played the part of the empty-headed miss over well. “You never told me.”

“Of course I didn’t. I didn’t want to frighten you off, now did I? I wanted you to be interested in me—even if it meant coming into Papa’s study after the house was abed and sneaking books back to my room or creeping into the breakfast parlor in the hope he’d left behind his copy of
The Times
. Once Mama caught me with newsprint on my thumbs and made me do without luncheon, but I didn’t care. It was worth it.”

Robert shook his head as if doing so would help the revelation sink in. “Did you honestly believe that knowing you cared for reading beyond fashion plates in
La Belle Assemblée
and penny dreadfuls on loan from Mudie’s would have made me any less
interested
in you?”