That Despicable Rogue (18 page)

Chapter Twenty

R
oss stared at the twin piles of quivering dark rags on the carpet. Their arms were raised, fingers laced on the tops of their heads, and their faces were obscured because they were lying face-down. It seemed to him to be the most humiliating position the gamekeeper could have put them in.

‘Stand up, gentlemen,’ he said, in his best commanding voice, and pinned the gamekeeper with a no-nonsense stare when the man tried to argue.

The two poachers stood and he got his first proper view of them. One was considerably older than the other, and both of them had clearly gone to great pains to avoid being seen at night. The whites of their terrified eyes glowed in the candlelight in stark contrast to their soot-blackened faces and dark clothes. Despite this, it did not take a genius to work out that neither of them was out to make a profit from their labours. Both were painfully thin, and filthy bare feet poked out of the bottom of their ragged trousers. These poachers could not even afford shoes.

‘What have you got to say for yourselves?’ he asked flatly, although he already suspected that he knew the answer to his own question.

‘Who cares what they have to say for themselves?’ the gamekeeper ranted. ‘They were caught red-handed. There’s a brace of pheasants and a baby deer dead outside. I say we get them arrested right now.’

The man spoke mostly to the other people assembled, Ross noted, in an attempt to get a majority agreement.

‘Poaching
is
a capital offence,’ John whispered quietly, in case he had not realised the ramifications of the charge.

Ross nodded curtly and glared at his gamekeeper. ‘Everyone has the right to defend themselves. I will hear these men and then
I
will decide what is to be done with them. Do I make myself clear?’

The gamekeeper stepped back, affronted. ‘I saw them with my own eyes. Do you doubt my word?’

Carstairs stepped between them smoothly. ‘Of course not, my dear fellow—but it is only fair to allow these men to speak and tell their side of the story.’

The gamekeeper, still disgruntled, nodded once and stood to one side.

Ross turned back to the two sorry fellows in front of him. ‘Can I assume, from the peculiar way that you are both dressed, that you
did
come here tonight intent on killing those animals?’

The younger of the two looked about to burst into tears. Under all the soot Ross determined the lad to be little more than sixteen.

The other man stepped forward. ‘My son had nothing to do with it. I am to blame. If you have to arrest someone, then let it be me.’

He stood proudly, his thin shoulders so straight that Ross could see the shape of the bones sticking out.

‘Why did you do it?’ Ross asked quietly, and he watched the man look at his own filthy feet for a moment before he stared back at him in defiance.

‘I was trying to feed my family.’

‘And the only way to do that is stealing?’ Ross countered.

The man looked at his feet again. ‘Now it is. Ain’t no work around here any more.’

Ross scraped a hand over his face and sighed. He knew the desperation of poverty too. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Tom Farrow.’ The older man’s voice shook, but he looked Ross square in the eye.

‘If you want honest work, Tom, for both you and your son, get yourselves cleaned up and report back here at six in the morning. My housekeeper will find you something to do.’

The poachers stared back at him, dumbfounded, but the gamekeeper could not hide his disgust.

‘If you let them get away without proper punishment word will spread and we will be overrun with poachers!’

Ross ignored him. ‘Reggie—help these men to carry their dinner home. Get one of the footmen to go too.’

The big man nodded and lumbered towards the door.

‘Th-thank you, sir,’ the older poacher stammered, his eyes filled with grateful tears. ‘You won’t regret this. I swear it.’

Ross waved away his thanks. ‘Six o’clock sharp. My housekeeper Miss Prim runs a tight ship and I will expect you to earn your wages.’

‘Yes, sir! Thank you, sir.’ Both men nodded and scurried after Reggie.

‘I’ll go too,’ offered John, casually hoisting the gun under his arm. ‘Just in case.’

‘You should have called the constable and thrown the book at them,’ the gamekeeper squawked as he pulled roughly on Ross’s arm. ‘Proper justice needs to be done!’

‘Don’t lecture
me
about “proper justice”,’ he hissed, directly into the gamekeeper’s face. ‘If there was proper justice in this world then those people would not be starving!’

The man cowered back as if struck. ‘I cannot work for a man who refuses to listen to me.’

‘Then I suggest you pack your bags,’ Ross said in annoyance. ‘Because I do refuse to listen.’ He saw Cook and Prim were watching him warily. ‘And what the hell are you lot staring at?’ he bit out unreasonably. ‘Go back to bed.’

Ross did not wait to see if they all complied. Instead he stalked towards his study and slammed the door behind him, ashamed of his own roiling temper. He stalked over to the window and looked out onto the black midnight sky in an attempt to calm down.

After a few minutes he heard a knock on the door.

‘I have brought you some tea.’

Prim did not wait for him to answer. She was already heading across the floor with the tea tray when he looked round. She deposited it on the little table and sat down to pour.

‘Please don’t lecture me on the proper order of things,’ he said, when he could stand her silence no longer.

She stirred a spoonful of sugar into his cup and held it out to him. ‘I have no intention of lecturing you. I came to give you some tea. You appear to be a little out of sorts.’

‘I am sorry for shouting,’ he responded, feeling more than a little guilty. ‘I don’t like to lose my temper.’

‘We all lose out temper sometimes...’

He could hear the amusement in her voice.

‘After that circus, it was hardly surprising. I cannot say I have ever been confronted by guns and prisoners in the small hours before. It was all quite exciting.’

Her good humour calmed him better than staring at the sky ever could.

Ross wandered back towards the window. ‘I suppose I have given every poacher in the county a good reason to come here now,’ he said after a while, and then sighed heavily. ‘But I am not prepared to send two men to their deaths for a few birds and a deer. I know that is what is expected of me, now that I am a landowner and because of some silly gentlemen’s code, but I won’t do it. Did you take a good look at them? They were
starving
, for God’s sake. I know how awful that feels.’

As a child he had not been able to sleep sometimes because of the hunger pains in his belly.

He heard the soft rustle of her voluminous nightgown as she came up alongside him and placed her hand on his bare arm in comfort.

‘For what it’s worth, I thought you handled the situation perfectly. Cook says that she recognised Tom Farrow. He used to be a tenant on this estate—although all the old tenants were displaced from here a long time ago, when the Earl of Runcorn raised their rents. She said that the Farrows were a hard-working family. They are clearly desperate. I am glad that you showed them some lenience.’

‘Then you don’t think me a soft touch?’ he asked, facing her for the first time. Her golden hair was secured in a single loose plait that fell over one shoulder, and his fingers itched to undo it.

It slid sideways as she tilted her head and smiled at him. ‘I’m afraid that I
do
think you are a soft touch. We all do.’ At his pained expression she chuckled. ‘If being a soft touch means that you rescue washed-up boxers, or feed a stray mongrel scraps from your own plate when you think nobody is looking, or show mercy to people who need it the most, then I think being a soft touch is quite admirable. Most of the maids are in love with you because of it. Even Cook goes a little misty-eyed when she talks about you, and she’s old enough to be your grandmother.’

Ross smiled wickedly. ‘That is because of my dashing good looks and abundant charm. I am amazed that you can keep your hands off me.’ He tossed her a smouldering look, but ruined it by laughing.

She regarded him with amusement. ‘There you go again—I have never known a person so unwilling to take a compliment as you are. You constantly try to deflect or joke your way around it, but you cannot conceal the truth. Accept it, Ross Jameson. You are a nice man—and all your charm and humour cannot disguise that one simple fact.’

It secretly pleased him that she had seen that side of him when so many didn’t—but he scowled out of habit. ‘
Nice
sounds so bland. I deserve a much better adjective than that. What about charming?’

She shook her head, smiling. ‘That’s what you want people to see. How about kind?’ she countered. ‘Or loyal?’

‘Now you make me sound like a dog,’ he muttered as he crossed his arms over his chest belligerently.

He enjoyed flirting with this woman, he realised, and perhaps a little too much—because now that his temper had evaporated he wanted to peel her nightgown off and have his way with her.

Her eyes briefly flicked downwards and he remembered that he was wearing nothing but his breeches. By the guilty look on her face Prim had only just realised that as well, but she quickly dissembled.

‘I shall leave you to your tea and your bad mood,’ she said, turning towards the door.

Ross caught her hand and spun her back to face him. ‘You’re in your nightgown—I’m practically naked. It would be a terrible shame to waste such an opportunity.’

‘You are incorrigible,’ she muttered, with no real conviction.

‘I like that better than
nice
,’ he said, and he pulled her into his arms.

As usual, she braced her hands against his chest and regarded him warily. Ross sighed and let go of her.

‘It seems ridiculous that we are behaving this way. We both feel this compelling attraction for each other. Why bother fighting it?’

‘Because I am not sure that it is sensible.’ She moved behind the chesterfield and out of his reach again.

‘You are just running away again. Do you believe that I might turn out to be as worthless as your idiot fiancé?’

Hannah shook her head and sighed. ‘You are nothing like him, Ross. I know that. That is the problem, I suppose. I certainly feel a great affection for you, and I am sorely tempted, but...’

Hannah desperately wanted to be brave enough to walk over there and give in to her feelings. It was not as if she seriously now believed him to be the rogue she had once sought to expose. He
was
a good man. Much better than her treacherous brother, Eldridge, and every other former friend she had thought she’d had in society. She felt it in her heart. Ross Jameson was decent and honest, and she did have affection for him.

More than merely affection, she realised. It was quite possible that she was already a little bit in love with him.

‘But what?’ he asked.

‘I don’t want to rush into anything that I might regret...and you
do
frighten me.’

‘I frighten you?’ His laughing eyes danced as he spoke. ‘I think your reaction to me frightens you more. Be brave, Prim. Don’t let that idiot from the past hold you back. Take a risk.’

‘I am not a gambler, Ross. I do not take risks.’

‘Life is one big gamble, Prim. If you do not take any risks you do not reap any rewards.’

‘But you still might lose.’

And such a loss was too unbearable to contemplate.

His lips curved into a wry smile. ‘I never gamble anything that I am not prepared to lose. Even if that is my heart.’

He circled her slowly, his gaze locked on hers intently, and she realised that he was nowhere as confident as he pretended. There was uncertainty and hope swirling in those tempting green eyes.

‘I cannot predict the future, Prim, and I cannot promise you that this will all work out perfectly, but I do think that these feelings we have for each other are worth exploring. Will you give it a chance?’

She swallowed nervously, but let him slide his arms around her waist. He was offering more than a brief affair, her heart argued, she
should
give him a chance.

He saw her waver and raked her with a hot look. ‘Is it my dastardly reputation that puts you off?’

Hannah felt her resolve beginning to fade as he bent his head and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘I am starting to believe that your reputation is ill-deserved—I cannot understand why other people do not seem to see it. If only someone from the newspapers had seen you earlier... They would have had to have published something positive about you for once.’

He nibbled on her neck and she was powerless to prevent herself from arching against him.

‘Does it bother you that they say the most terrible things?’ she asked, to stall him and by default to give herself time to consider the ramifications of what was happening almost too quickly.

He groaned against her skin. ‘I can think of much better things to do than talk about the newspapers.’

He went to kiss her again but she tilted her head away and looked up at him. ‘
Do
they bother you?’

‘Terrible things make good stories. Good stories make people buy newspapers. There is no point in trying to change that. It is basic commerce.’

‘Are they all lies—or is there a grain of truth to some of them?’ Hannah was trying to take her mind off the clever things he was doing with his lips and doing a very poor job of it.

‘There is the odd grain of truth,’ he admitted between kisses. ‘But that is about it.’

‘So you did
not
once cavort naked with two opera dancers on the stage at Covent Garden?’ Hannah asked playfully.

He shook his head solemnly. ‘I wish I had, though. I think I might have enjoyed it.’

‘And you deny seducing that vicar’s daughter?’

He chuckled and shrugged dismissively. ‘Surely they have accused me of worse than that?’

‘One story said that you regularly deflower virgins,’ she stated boldly, and that earned her a shocked look.