The Rogue and the Rival (36 page)

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Authors: Maya Rodale

BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
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“The footman said he was told to give it to me. I thought it was mine, until I read it. You’ll notice that it is not addressed to anyone,” Devon said pointedly.
“Well, what the devil does it say, already?” Parkhurst cut in impatiently. Phillip quickly read the brief note, and he grinned. “It says that there is hope for me yet. Excuse me, gentlemen. I’ll see you both in the morning.”
Angela had been softening toward him in the past week. He had called on her at Lady Palmerston’s every day. He brought her flowers to replace the ones she had destroyed. He also brought her a stuffed animal toy and explained that she could hit him as much as she wanted with that, since it would not result in damage to either himself or the toy.
“And here I was hoping you’d bring me
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
,” she replied to that, but she smiled as she spoke. Instead, he brought her a new, soft leather-bound sketchbook. He had spent hours searching for the perfect one. It seemed he didn’t have anything else to do these days besides figure out how to win her back. He couldn’t think of a better way to spend his time.
Lady Palmerston was aiding him, too. Otherwise, the dragon would not have invented excuses to quit the room. Phillip didn’t miss Angela’s expression of panic at her chaperone’s departure. So even though he thought he’d die from restraint, he did not kiss her or touch her.
After each day that Lady Palmerston returned to the drawing room to find Angela unscathed and unravished, she stayed away a little longer the next day.
And then today . . .
They made obligatory and proper small talk for the first few minutes of the chaperone’s absence (Lady Palmerston had forgotten to review the menus with the cook), poorly pretending all the while that they had no idea what would come next. It was just so easy and so right to sit beside her and talk about the weather one second and lean in for a kiss in the next second.
Angela was hesitant at first, for she kept her lips closed. Phillip didn’t force, urge, or do anything to persuade her lips to open to him. Because it had been so long, merely to be this close to her was like a taste of heaven. Her lips were even softer than before. The sensation of his mouth on hers was pure and sweet.
He took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together.
And then she responded to his touch, and his kiss, in the way that a man dreamed of.
Her fingers tightened around his. Her lips parted, and she was the one to take the lead, slipping her tongue into his mouth. He followed in kind. There were hints of the past in this kiss, as well as tempting, teasing promises for the future.
Angela placed one of her hands on his cheek, holding him to her lightly. Her touch was tender, and he felt as if his heart were breaking open in the very best way. For no one had ever been gentle and tender and sweet with him. And this, he knew, was the cure for that gray, aching emptiness that had always followed him around.
He was also certain that it was only
her
touch that could make him feel this way. He knew, surely and truly, that he didn’t want it from anyone else.
Phillip reached for her, to pull her closer to him. But then, as if he crossed an invisible line, she shut down and turned away.
Something was holding her back, though, and he just didn’t know what it was. Nor could he find the moment to ask. Lady Palmerston returned, eyeing them suspiciously before launching into a conversation about something or other that he was too distracted to pay attention to.
Phillip found himself wishing, as he often did, that they were still at the abbey, when he could see her as much as he liked. Or when, if he had been a cad, he could still count on her to be there the next day. Because something had just gone wrong, and he didn’t know what, and he couldn’t ask her now or be certain of having a chance to ask in the future.
Phillip slipped the note in his pocket as he entered the ballroom. It read, “
Meet me in the garden. A.
” He was thrilled at the overture. Yet the thought of her awaiting him, alone, in the gardens was terrifying. Had she not thought of the danger? Suppose someone else with less honorable intentions found her first?
But the invitation could only mean one thing. Angela knew as well as he what happened in the dark, secluded corners of gardens and ballrooms. One needn’t have firsthand experience in the matter, as they did, to know that. Devon had told him that he and Emilia became betrothed, thanks to a trap that sounded awfully similar to the one Phillip suspected he was walking into. He didn’t think it likely that Lady Palmerston would repeat herself, but frankly, he didn’t care.
He paid no attention to anyone as he passed through the stuffy ballroom. Hell, it was all he could do not to push and shove people aside. Every moment that she was out there alone increased the chances of something awful happening. He had to get to her first. He crossed the terrace in a few strides, resisted the temptation to jump down the stairs, and walked deeper into the shadows.
The only light came from the moon. Hedges and trees were planted in a formal grid arrangement, which provided many discreet corners. As he walked through the garden, along the gravel path, he noticed that many other couples had a similar idea.
An unsettling feeling stole over him. Something was not right. He quickened his pace.
Phillip didn’t see her at first. She simply reached out and touched his arm as he nearly walked past her. He stepped closer to her, into the darkness. It took a moment before his eyes adjusted, and he clearly saw the woman before him.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she purred. She took a step closer and slid her arm around his shoulders, leaning her weight against him. The heavy scent of her perfume made his throat burn. At first he thought that she had confused him with another.
“It’s time we finish what we started,” she murmured into his ear, and then he knew who she was. “Don’t you think?”
Phillip stood frozen. He felt nothing for this woman he once lusted for. Nothing. He took a step back, but she followed him, still draping herself all over him, like vines choking a tree.
“I’ll even do it for free,” Christine Grey whispered through painted lips.
“No,” he said firmly. Phillip lifted her hand from his neck and placed it at her side. Her other hand stole around his waist. He managed to grasp both her wrists, and hold them away from his body. He didn’t want her touching him.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded in a low voice.
Christine merely smiled, or smirked, but the effect was the same. A sickening twist of his stomach. She gave the slightest nod of her head in the direction of approaching footsteps on the gravel.
Phillip let go of her wrists, and took a step back. But by then, it was too late.
Christine wrenched one hand free, and pulled his head down to hers, pressing her lips firmly against his. He broke free in an instant, but the damage was already done.
He had ruined her once, and she had ruined him now.
Phillip understood everything in the instant in which that bastard Frost pressed a handkerchief into Angela’s hand. Frost hadn’t even retrieved it from his pocket but arrived holding it in his hand, as if he was prepared for tears. Or hoped for them.
Phillip had been set up. This was all a scheme to discredit him in Angela’s eyes. And it only then struck him how much Frost wanted her. Phillip had been so blinded by his own desire, he hadn’t seen his competition. He would not lose her because of this.
“Angela—” he started, and he took a step toward her.
She took a step back.
“It’s not what you think.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she said coldly.
“If you’ll excuse us,” Christine murmured, “we were just taking care of some unfinished business.” Her voice was heavy with innuendo, so much that it was unnecessary for her to trace her fingertips in a line from his cravat to the waistband of his breeches. Phillip pushed her hand away, but she did not keep her hands off him for long.
“Angela—” Phillip started, but Frost cut him off.
“Come, Angela,” Lucas said consolingly, sliding one arm around Angela’s waist, as Christine did the same to Phillip. “You are distraught. I shall see you home and leave these two to their business.”
“Yes, do run along,” Christine said lightly, as if speaking to a child. To further add fuel to this fire, she slid her hand across his chest, stroking him possessively. Christine’s grasp on him would not allow him to move to follow Angela as she turned to walk away, with Lucas’s arm securely around her waist.
He saw Lucas pull Angela to him. Christine clutched the front of his shirt.
He saw Lucas’s mouth press against Angela’s forehead. Christine grabbed the waistband of his breeches.
He saw Angela attempt to shrug off Lucas’s touch. Phillip brushed Christine’s hands away.
He did not wait to see any more.
“Bloody hell, woman, stop!” Phillip thundered. “You’ve made your point.”
She pouted for a moment. And then she shrugged in defeat.
“You’d better go after her then,” Christine said breezily and unnecessarily, because he had already gone.
 
Angela did not struggle against Lucas for long.
It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes ago that she was in his arms for a waltz. Lucas had broken his monologue about the blessings of fate that allowed them to meet again, free to be with each other, to say, “My, that fellow seems to be in a hurry.” And then he spun them both around so that Angela might have a clear view of Phillip eagerly making his way through the crowd and onto the terrace.
She did not think twice about quitting the waltz and following Phillip. If her suspicions were correct, she wanted to witness his betrayal. Let her remember that, when she thought of him. And here she had been on the verge of giving herself to him entirely!
Lucas had followed her into the gardens, uninvited.
And when she encountered the scene she feared and expected, her only thought was that she was well and truly trapped. She cursed herself for not thinking twice about rushing headlong into disaster. Again.
This was why she had asked her chaperone to never leave her alone, dependent on to her own devices and judgment. And where was her aunt now? Why hadn’t she been there to talk some badly needed sense into her and to stop her before it was too late?
Her love for Phillip, coupled with a complete lack of trust, had led her out into the gardens and into a spectacle from which her reputation would never recover. Any hopes or plans she might have made for her future were now taken out of her hands. Even though she was in the thick of this scandalous scene, she saw it as if she was an outsider.
An unmarried woman with a questionable past, and the man she had been seen waltzing with just a moment before. A woman of obvious ill repute. A known scoundrel, oft discovered in compromising positions like this. The lot of them in a dark and secluded corner of the garden added up to one thing: scandal. If they were discovered . . .
She would have to return to the abbey. Oh, did her heart rebel against the vivid memories of the loneliness there.
Or she would have to marry Lucas. She could not love him, not like she once did. She could not endure a marriage to a man who had destroyed so much of her life. She had tried to convince herself that she could. But then Phillip had returned . . .
Or, she would have to marry Phillip. He would hurt her again and again, because she loved him, and he couldn’t be trusted, for he had made that oh so clear. Really—in the arms of another woman at a ball where she, too, was in attendance! He couldn’t even be discreet about his betrayal.
And then Lucas embraced her, and she struggled against him, because she heard footsteps on the gravel, and she did not want to be caught.
She did the only other thing she could think to do: flee, and pray that she was not seen.
But Lucas followed, catching her in his arms and pulling her against the length of him. She shuddered at his touch, panicked at the threat of discovery, and struggled to free herself from his grasp. She did not fight him for long, because he had not been the only one to follow her into the gardens.
Lady Palmerston had as well. She made her presence known by loudly clearing her throat.
“You may remove your hands from my niece,” Lady Palmerston commanded. Lucas followed her order. Angela took a step back, massaging her upper arms where he had been holding her.
“Madame, allow me to explain,” Lucas began. He did not continue, for the sound of heavy footsteps crunching on the gravel distracted them all.
“May I?” Phillip asked both Angela and Lady Palmerston. Angela didn’t quite understand, but her aunt did.
“The pleasure is all yours,” Lady Palmerston said graciously.
At the first crack of Phillip’s fist against Lucas’s jaw, Angela winced. At the second, her aunt took Angela’s arm in hers and guided them away from the fight to return toward the ballroom.

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