The Rogue and the Rival (4 page)

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Authors: Maya Rodale

BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
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“Probably,” he answered with a shrug that made him wince in pain. “But you needn’t worry. You’re safe as long as I’m bedridden.”
“You shouldn’t say that. I might be tempted to keep you that way.”
“I’m not sure I would mind if you did. I don’t exactly have anywhere to be or to go.”
“What, did your club membership expire while you were abroad?” she teased.
“I should hope not. That would be a fate worse than death. Living here might be a close second, though.”
“It’s nice here,” she answered defensively. “It’s quiet and peaceful, and I’m happy here.”
Lord Invalid gave her a look that simply questioned her quick response. It was quiet and peaceful here, that much was true. And most of the time she was happy here. But lately she had been getting sick of the tireless serenity. He didn’t need to know that, though.
“Are you finished yet?” she asked impatiently. She was on the verge of enjoying herself and his company, and that really would not do. It was one thing to be tired of quiet and peaceful, but she had to learn to accept it rather than indulge in something potentially thrilling.
And this scoundrel before her: it was one thing if he was handsome but quite another if he was intelligent and humorous as well. Therein lay danger, and Angela had learned the hard way that it was better to avoid temptation entirely rather than attempt to withstand it.
“Yes. Here,” he said, motioning for her to clear the tray away.
“Do you have to tend to my wounds again?” he asked, sounding slightly hopeful that she would say yes.
“Not now.”
“What about that blanket? Please.”
“If you keep saying that, you might make a habit of it, and then what will your friends think?” She didn’t give him a chance to respond before she left the room, where she encountered Penelope in the corridor.
“Is he any better?” she asked. “I mean, is he still bothersome?”
“Yes. He wants extra blankets now. Next he’ll probably ask for beeswax candles and cigars,” Angela said.
“I thought he might be charming,” Penelope said with a look of disappointment.
“Handsome men don’t develop qualities like charm, because they do not need them,” Angela replied.
“He must be extraordinarily handsome, then. If so many women have fallen for him and he is not charming,” Penelope said thoughtfully. Having spent almost her entire life, all nineteen years of it, in the abbey, she did not have much experience with men at all.
“Lord only knows how he managed it.” Angela said, though she certainly had a clue. He was not extraordinarily handsome in his current state, but she could easily see how he would be if he were well. He had an unmistakable air of danger about him that promised thrills usually unknown to women such as herself. He could be tempting until he opened his mouth to demand this or that.
“I’ll bring him the blanket,” Penelope said, offering to break the rules. In return for the favor, Angela would keep her secret.
“Thank you.” Angela was safe from him for a few more hours until nightfall.
 
Angela returned to his chamber with dinner during the last hour of daylight, when the sky was a lovely shade of periwinkle and the moon was just starting to appear. Just one candle was necessary, and the flame wavered as she walked.
He was asleep when she entered. Making an effort to be quiet and gentle, she set down the tray and went about checking on his wounds. A small part of her wished that he would wake up and complain about something so that she could find him difficult and despicable and thus have a good reason to dislike him. She would respond with sarcastic remarks, all to keep him at a distance.
But he slept on, looking deceptively gentle and impossibly handsome.
Angela thought of her prayer, the secret one for a wish she wasn’t supposed to have. And she thought how God had misunderstood what she was asking for and that perhaps she ought to have been more specific. Angela prayed for forgiveness for her sins. She also prayed for a second chance at love. She had forgotten to specify that she wanted the love of a good man, an honest man, who would love her back this time. Because God had sent her a man who was not good, a man who was just like the first one, a man that could ruin her all over again, when she was looking to be saved.

 

Chapter 2
A
week passed in which Angela, by divine intervention, managed to refrain from murdering Lord Invalid. But, oh, how she wanted to.
Against her better judgment, she gave him a bell to ring, should he need anything. She thought it might quiet his constant laments about the lack of a bellpull. Instead, that tinkling sound of the bell began to haunt her dreams and dog her every step. But he rang, and she answered, because he was severely injured, and the last thing she needed was another dead man on her conscience.
His reasons for requesting her presence were ridiculous. The room was too hot. Could she open a window? The room was too cold. Could she close the window and bring a blanket? He couldn’t sleep. He was bored. He was hungry. He was impossible.
He did
not
complain about the food. She served him the best so that he could regain his strength sooner rather than later and quit her life forever.
She had every intention of letting him wear Henrietta’s nightgown until the apocalypse came and went, but Johnnie Sloan brought up a pair of breeches and a shirt and made her promise to give them to Phillip. She did—and while he changed into the shirt before her, she took the bell from him. It was a small victory.
Lord Invalid repeatedly asked for brandy. Even resorted to begging for it. She seriously considered sneaking to town to buy a bottle, only to smash it over his head. But that would just result in yet another wound she would have to tend to.
His other wounds, she was sure, plagued her as much as him. Every morning she had to apply ointment and change the dressings.
The cut on his head was mostly healed, thank goodness. Every time she leaned over him to tend to it, she just knew he was looking at her . . . inappropriately. She thanked God for something so trivial as the high neckline on her dress so that he could not see how his gaze heated her skin. It was as if she could feel his hands upon her. And, judging from her past experiences, she suspected she would rather enjoy it.
And she shouldn’t, of course.
She refused to check the bruises on his chest, because she was sure they were fine, and there was nothing she could do about them, and because she enjoyed touching his bare, taut skin a little too much.
And then there was the gunshot wound on his leg. The doctor had assured her that it really was not that bad, as far as gunshot wounds went. The bullet missed the bone and was removed completely. So long as she tended to it regularly, it would heal nicely and, Angela prayed, quickly.
A debauched wastrel such as he was should not have the body that he did, she thought. And she had to tend to that damned wound on his lean and muscular thigh, right near, well . . . She shouldn’t say it. She shouldn’t think of it. She shouldn’t even know about it, but she did.
She had been with a man. Once. She had enjoyed the act. It was the aftermath that had ruined her. Destroyed a little part of her heart and a big chunk of her soul. She had come to the abbey so that she might discover forgiveness or at least forget. Angela had gotten quite good at forgetting her past, until he came along; Lord Invalid was making that a mighty challenge.
She was trying to devote herself completely and utterly to immortal, heavenly men who would forgive sins she couldn’t forgive herself.
And yet she found herself completely and utterly devoted to one particular mortal man. He was handsome like the devil and tempting, causing feelings she had long tried vainly to suppress.
Oh, Phillip Kensington had become the thorn in her side, the stone in her shoe, her own personal plague. He had moments when he was funny and charming, but they were few and far between. Mostly he was a constant reminder of the darkest moments in her life, the ones she tried so hard to forget. She hated him for it.
 
“Where have you been? I’ve been up for hours already. I’m starving,” Phillip said before Angela had even fully entered his chamber the next morning.
“Good morning to you, too. How do you even know you’ve been awake for hours? There isn’t a clock in here.”
“It felt like hours,” he muttered.
“My heart is overflowing with pity for you. Having to lie abed and do nothing while some of us actually have been awake for hours doing chores and other useful activities.” Today was no different than the days before it: Angela had been up at dawn. Lying in bed till midmorning was a luxury she had lost.
“Such as?” he asked, sitting up and leaning forward as Angela placed an additional pillow behind him.
“You really want to know?” she asked, making the mistake of looking into his dark eyes. His expression was honest; it seemed he actually wanted to listen to her. Her heart skipped a beat.
“I asked, didn’t I? Besides, I swear I am perishing of boredom here. Listening to your list of chores in that voice of yours . . .” he said, his own voice trailing off as a smile played upon his lips.
“What about my voice?”
“It’s bewitching. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that? Even though you say mean things to me, I still want to hear you speak because of your voice.”
“The first hour of my day is spent in contemplation and prayer,” Angela said in answer to Lord Invalid’s question and to distract her from the memory playing out in her head. All rakes and scoundrels were indeed the same, Angela thought. For another one, another time, had said essentially the same thing years ago, when her parents had foolishly left her alone in the drawing room with the lord of her downfall. She had been nervous and rambling, until she stopped herself. “Please continue,” he had said. “It is a pleasure to hear you talk in that voice of yours, my darling. You could read my accounts book aloud, and I would be riveted.” She talked until she was silenced by his lips against hers.
She had already spent enough time in thought and contemplation this morning.
“Contemplation upon what?” Lord Invalid persisted.
“My sins. Those in the past and the present. And then I pray they shall not be in my future,” she recited.
“Tell me your sins, Angela,” Phillip murmured with a wicked smile and a devilish gleam in his eye. A smile that made her want to tell him, made her
almost
thankful she had sins she could confess to him. Her heart thudded heavily.
“Absolutely not.” Her voice was a little more breathless than she would have liked. “After that, I spend an hour tending to the garden. Then I perform penance for my sins.”
“And what does that entail?”
“Tending to you,” she said with a smirk.
“I can’t be
that
difficult. Your sins must be small, then,” he said with a little grin.
Angela, in a moment of divine grace and self-restraint, did not act on her urge to pour the cup of hot tea upon him.
She simply turned and began to walk away.
“Don’t leave,” he said. But she did anyway.
She didn’t go far, just outside the door, where she slumped down and sat on the floor, leaning against the wall. Her head fell into her hands and tears began to trickle down her cheeks. She was sure to be quiet so that he wouldn’t hear.
Their sins were the same, hers and his. Two different halves of the same sin. And it wasn’t so bad for a man. Phillip had ruined four girls—that the world knew of. And he was still welcomed wherever he went—even here, in Stanbrook Abbey.
But for a girl like Angela, living under high expectations and guided by silly romantic optimism, well, it just wasn’t the same. She had been ruined, and she had taken her family down with her. Like Phillip, Lord Lucas Frost still roamed free, with no repercussions and, she was sure, without even the slightest twinge of regret.
It had been a warm day, not quite spring and not quite summer, six years earlier. Lucas had been courting her for months, braving some combination of snow, sleet, and frigid temperatures to come call on her. Occasionally he dined with the family, or sometimes he would come just for afternoon tea . . . and her. As the temperature rose, and the ground thawed, so, too, did Angela’s feelings for Lucas. That is not to say that she hadn’t been half in love with him from the very first moment she saw him at his friend’s New Year’s Eve ball.

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