The Rogue and the Rival (7 page)

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Authors: Maya Rodale

BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
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He
was not in bed, where he was supposed to be. Lord Invalid was leaning by the window, taking in the view, when Angela and the abbess arrived the following morning to bring him breakfast.
“Good morning. I didn’t realize we were having company. I apologize that I am not dressed to entertain,” he said, referring to the fact that was just wearing a shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, and just long enough to cover his smalls. His legs were long and muscular and bare. One held more weight than the other one, which still bore a bandage.
“You’re supposed to be in bed!” Angela said. Oh, he was impossible! If he fell, he could injure himself more and thus remain here even longer.
“And as it is cold by the window, I will certainly return to it.” Phillip took a step and grimaced at the pain of putting pressure on his injured leg.
“Oh, you are such a bother,” Angela muttered, handing the tray to the abbess and crossing the room to help him. She wrapped an arm around his waist, and he draped his arm around her shoulders. In this half embrace, they both froze.
Angela thought the temperature in the room must have spiked a thousand degrees. She suddenly felt hot everywhere, from her cheeks to her toes and everywhere—
everywhere
—in between. A heat so intense it was as if the flames of hell were licking at her heels. Except that it felt so very, very good.
The length of their bodies touched: her thigh to his, her hip to his. Her palm rested on his waist, feeling hard muscles. And if she tilted her head just so, she could rest it on his shoulder. The temptation to do so was great, as was her other impulse to push him away. She did neither.
“Give me some of your weight,” she said. “I can take it.”
He did, slowly and gently. Together, they took a step toward the bed. And then another, and Angela looked up at him and saw that his mouth was firmly set, his expression one of extreme torment.
Me, too,
she thought, as they took another step. But not for the same reason, she was sure. He couldn’t be feeling that same heat, that same hum as she. Desire. Temptation. His hand slid from her shoulder to grasp just below her breasts, and she unwillingly felt the ache of wanting his hand to reach higher.
Together, they took another step toward the bed.
The abbess looked on, her expression inscrutable.
Phillip was rigid beside her, moving slowly. Too slowly. This torment was going on long enough, she thought. Because with every step they took, she remembered just how damned wonderful it was to be held by a man. But Angela wondered if it had felt this amazing when Lucas Frost held her. She couldn’t remember, and she couldn’t decide if she was glad of the fact that those bittersweet memories were fading or if it was dangerous to forget.
They reached the bed, and Phillip allowed his hand to slide across her back, and down, just brushing her backside as he eased himself into the bed. And that fleeting touch of his hand where it ought not be, especially in front of the abbess, brought Angela back to her senses. What a cad. A scoundrel. Taking liberties when she was helping him!
Angela scowled at him and at his sheepish, unrepentant grin.
“Lord Huntley, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Lady Bamford, the abbess here at Stanbrook. I was acquainted with your parents, very long ago.”
Phillip nodded. The smile faded at the mention of his parents.
“I do hope Angela has been taking good care of you.”
“She does, when she comes around. I don’t think I am receiving enough attention. As you have just seen, I am not entirely well just yet.”
Oh, she was going to murder him.
“Well, Angela does have other duties here, Lord Huntley, but I’m sure she’ll be able to devote a little more time to you. Please ask if there is anything you wish for.”
“There is one thing,” he said, rubbing his hand along his jaw. “I would really love a shave.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged,” the abbess said before excusing herself and leaving the room.
“You should go, too,” Phillip said to Angela once they were alone. He was dismissing her! Or, even more alarming, was that a stab of disappointment at being asked to leave?
“But I have to check your wounds,” Angela said, which was true. She also couldn’t believe he was asking her to go.
“They’ll still be here later,” Phillip answered wearily. “I just need to be alone right now.”
 
Phillip didn’t really want her to leave, but he couldn’t have her checking a wound that was inches away from his erection. He couldn’t even have her in the room, because looking at her was not going to make it go away. Besides, he needed to think, and he couldn’t do so with her around.
He had been standing by the window when she arrived along with the abbess. And he didn’t have breeches on. That was bad. What was worse was that he saw Angela looking at his bare legs, and he liked it. Worst of all, her looking at him caused him to start to become aroused. In front of the abbess. Without breeches on.
Phillip was then struck with the genius idea to subject himself to extreme pain. So he decided to walk.
And Angela ruined his plans.
She didn’t just ruin his plans. No, it rather felt like he was suddenly besieged on all sides from an attack he never saw coming.
That she came over to help him do something as mundane as walk across the room pricked his pride. He was a man, a peer, and he wasn’t supposed to need help with anything. And he certainly wasn’t supposed to like it.
But how could he not enjoy a beautiful woman pressed up against him? One with lush curves that begged for his touch but were just out of reach. He had taken a deep breath, knowing it would be painful with his broken ribs, and thus a distraction. But he didn’t notice the pain, only the faint scent of soap and vanilla and woman.
And when she asked to take some of his weight, when she offered to help . . . well, no one had ever offered to help him before. He wasn’t supposed to like it. It was supposed to be a grave insult to his masculinity. But it felt so good.
And then because he was a scoundrel, he couldn’t stop himself from slowly caressing her lower back, and just a little bit lower, as he was letting go. She didn’t know it, but she got the last laugh. Because that one fleeting touch undid him, until he couldn’t help but give in to his arousal.
It was no surprise that the touch of a beautiful woman, whom he could not have, would arouse him. It was just that she aroused something else in him, too. He suspected that something else was his
feelings
. Emotions.
As he already knew, she was dangerous.
He had been attacked from all sides and with no defenses. Literally caught with his pants down. He might have laughed. He could even imagine telling the story for the amusement of his friends over drinks and cards at the club. But it wasn’t really that funny to discover that one lusted and even longed for a woman who disliked him. Which didn’t even matter at all, because she was a nun.
For the first time in Lord Huntley’s life, there was something he wanted, and he suspected he couldn’t have it. Oddly enough, it only made him want her more.
 
“No, I’ll do it,” Phillip said to Angela, who had arrived with all the necessary tools for a much-needed shave later that afternoon.
“I’m trying to be helpful,” Angela responded impatiently.
“Yes, and I appreciate that. But there is no way I’m letting you near my throat with a razor.”
“I expected you would feel that way, which is why I brought this,” Angela said, picking up a mirror.
“You’re not going to attempt to convince me that you won’t hurt me?”
“Breath is precious; I prefer not to waste it.”
Phillip grinned at that and then caught himself. He was
not
going to find her amusing. He was now determined
not
to enjoy her company. And above all, he was not going to try to discern the curve of her hips under that awful gray dress she wore. He was not going to admire the golden hue of her hair and wonder how long it was, or how soft it was, or how it would look falling around her face.
“You’re staring at me,” she said, and he thought that might explain the faint flush across her cheeks.
“Hold the mirror. I’ll stare at myself, then.” He was sitting up in bed, thinking he had never shaved in bed before. And he placed his hand over hers, holding the mirror, so that he might adjust it to the proper position.
However, it took longer than one might expect, because her hands were soft, and because he forgot to look at his reflection and instead focused his gaze on the strange sight of his hand holding hers. Because it occurred to him that he could just pull her close to him. Close enough to kiss.
“Is it really that hard . . . ?” she asked slightly breathless.
Yes,
he thought to himself.
“. . . to adjust the mirror and look at your own reflection?” she finished. They were not thinking about the same thing, then. Phillip let go of her hand and devoted his concentration to shaving.
“Talk to me,” he said, not comfortable with the silence.
“About what?”
“How long have you been living at the abbey?”
“Six years,” she said with a sigh. “Six years, plus one month and twelve days.”
Phillip paused to look at her. “Really? You’re older than I thought.”
“Older and wiser,” she replied, meeting his gaze.
“Pity, that,” Phillip said lightly. “Keep talking, Angela. I like the sound of your voice.” He could say that because he wasn’t looking at her.
“Well, then, ask me something.”
“Tell me about your family. Brothers? Sisters?”
“One brother, two sisters, all of them younger than me,” Angela said. And then she had to change the subject because it made her sad to think of them. “What about your brother? He doesn’t know where you are, does he? I can bring you writing instruments to write to him. He is probably worried about you.”
“Doubtful. We do not speak, unless it is to argue about something. Although I can’t wait for him to see this scar,” Phillip said, rubbing his finger over the cut, now fading into a scar, on his forehead, just over his right eye. “He’ll be livid.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he has one just like it. But mine is bigger. My broken nose is the only thing that distinguishes us. Well, and the fact that he is good, and I am not.”
She did not contradict him.
“Anyway,” Phillip continued, “we were talking about you. And your siblings. Do you write to them?”
“I receive letters from them occasionally. I rarely write to them, and when I do, my letters are quite brief. I have little to say.”
Her letters, like her days, were always the same:
Dear Family, Contemplated my sins, prayed for forgiveness, completed chores at the abbey. Hope you’ll forgive me. Love, Angela.
Phillip’s presence was the only interesting thing that had happened to her in the past six years, but it felt wrong to write of him in a letter home, when it would only result in more damaging gossip.
“If you have so little to write about, then you really must get out more.”
“I can’t leave here,” Angela said and then paused. “Well, I haven’t taken my orders yet, so I guess I could but . . .”
“You haven’t taken your orders yet? What does that mean?” He paused in his shaving to look it at her.
“It means I have not yet taken my vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity, and thus fully devoted myself to God and life here in the abbey,” Angela answered. Phillip didn’t hear anything she said after vow of chastity. He didn’t remember anything she had said before that, either, except the part where she had
not
taken a vow of chastit
y
. This struck him as the best news he had heard in years.
And yet she was contemplating it. Foolish woman.
He had been contemplating something else entirely.
“What’s stopping you?” He actually hoped that she would answer,
You.
She gave a little shrug and asked if he was almost finished yet. He was.
“You look almost civilized now,” she said. Phillip was not feeling civilized in the slightest. He was contemplating seducing a woman away from her vow of chastity. Or at least seducing her before she took her orders.
Phillip quickly discovered that seducing Angela was one of those thoughts that, once it took hold, it was impossible to let go. After all, someone had to save her from herself, and Phillip thought it might as well be him. There wasn’t anyone else around for the job, and he was certainly up for it.
The only problem was that Phillip was not entirely sure how to go about it. Seduction was one thing when he was an able-bodied peer of the realm. It was quite another when he was a bedridden scoundrel, often confused with the loathed man who had ruined her and given her the idea to become a nun.
“Thank you,” he said, handing the shaving things back to her. “You must have other things to do.” Phillip secretly enjoyed watching her become flustered at his politeness.

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