Rogue for a Night (3 page)

Lucinda’s cheeks darkened at his compliment and the pink traveled lower to disappear into the demure scooped neckline of her dark green gown.

“Thank you for that,” she said softly. “I appreciate it more than you could know. I do feel so out of place, I’m happy to hear that my discomfort is not as noticeable as I feel.”

“And why would you be so uncomfortable?” Rage asked, truly confused by the idea that someone so beautiful and refined could ever feel she didn’t fit into a world tailor-made for her.

She shook her head and little blonde tendrils of hair shivered around her face. “I have been away from Society for almost two years, at least in any real way. I attended events, but no one expected much from me due to my state of mourning. Now they begin to expect me to…” She laughed. “… behave like the woman of my station that I am. It’s very vexing.”

Rage couldn’t help but laugh with her. “At least you know what your station is. No one knows what to expect of me and to be honest, I have no idea how to behave a good portion of the time. I feel as though my every move is being analyzed to prove or disprove the particular watcher’s predetermined opinion of me. And so I stand in the corner like an angry statue and hope to be unnoticed.”

“As if that could happen,” Lucinda said just under her breath, but Rage heard her nonetheless. Then she glanced up at him. “So it seems you and I have circumstances that are the mirror image of each other. Perhaps we should agree to save one another during our time here.”

Rage stared down at her, captivated by her beauty, intrigued by her openness toward him, mired down by a desire for her that he had felt the first moment he saw her, but had always known he could not pursue.

Except now… could he?

“Do you need to be saved?” he asked, his tone low and meaningful.

She was silent for a moment, looking at him with the same intensity with which he stared at her. Her blue eyes had dilated, the pupils almost impossibly large and black. She shivered almost imperceptibly and in that moment, that wild and charged moment, he realized that she was as attracted to him as he was to her. She hadn’t always been, not when she loved her husband, not when she was mired down by mourning and pain… but now, with time lessening her grief and with nothing to tie her down, she could not hide the interest that flickered in her stare and was written on the tense lines of her body.

“Do you?” she finally croaked out.

He stepped toward her, not inappropriately close, but close enough that her breath caught. She swallowed, but did not speak because at that moment one of the men who had been sitting near Rage at supper stepped up.

“Was Mr. Riley speaking to you on his very interesting views on the lower class and education?” the gentleman said with an indulgent smile for Rage.

Rage gripped his hands into fists at his sides. This was another reason why he hated these events. Pompous fools with no real idea of anyone outside their own sphere seemed to view him as a sideshow.

“Lord Blythestone,” Lucinda said with a welcoming smile, though Rage saw that her eyes did not hold the warmth of emotion that her lips did. “How lovely to see you.”

“As it is to see you, Lady Stoneworth,” the gentleman said and he gave a lecherous look at Lucinda that made every hair on Rage’s neck stand up straight. Blythestone looked at Lucinda like she was a sweet made for his pleasure.

Rage wanted to box him into the ground, but that wasn’t his place. Not unless Blythestone decided to take his leering into true action.

“You look beautiful, as always. It is nice to see you out of your mourning colors.”

Lucinda’s lips thinned. “Thank you.” She glanced at Rage briefly. “You two must excuse me. I need to talk to my sister-in-law for a moment.”

“Of course.” Blythestone bowed low as he took her hand and pressed a brief kiss to it. “I hope to speak to you again during your visit.”

“Indeed,” Lucinda said, her tone chilly. Then she smiled at Rage and the coldness was gone. “Mr. Riley.”

He nodded as she slipped away into the crowd toward Jane. The two spoke for a moment and both frowned as they looked toward Blythestone. One more reason to despise the man, for interrupting their conversation and driving Lucinda away.

“Attractive woman, to be certain,” Blythestone said with a knowing look toward Rage. “Hope her lack of widow’s weeds means she’s finally open to a bit of wooing. She’s certainly dragged that out long enough.”

Rage glared down at the “gentleman”. He might be of the same class as Lucinda, but he wasn’t fit to shine her shoes, let alone to “woo” her. The very idea left the taste of bile on Rage’s tongue.

“From what I understand, she loved her husband quite deeply. A longer mourning period is to be expected.”

Blythestone rolled his eyes. “Women and their sentimental ideals. When my wife died, that mourning period was the longest year of my life.” He looked across the room at her and grinned. “Good lord, but she is beautiful. They’ll be fighting over winning her in London this fall, that is for certain. Hope to get a leg up while she’s so close by.”

Rage pulled his arms against his chest all the tighter, mostly because he feared he would take a swipe at this idiot if he didn’t gain some control over himself. “Well, good luck with that, my lord. If you’ll excuse me.”

He didn’t wait for the  answer, but turned on his heel and headed away from the slimy little prick, out of the parlor and up to his own chamber, where he knew his rest would not be steady, or his dreams peaceful.

Chapter Three

Rage had predicted his evening with perfect clarity. He’d spent hours laying in his bed, thinking of Lucinda, just down the hallway, and whatever connection he had felt between them. By the time dawn came, he had found himself wondering if he could have only imagined the spark he’d felt when they touched or talked the day before. After all, he had met her more than a handful of times and never felt anything more from her than a friendly regard for the best friend of her brother-in-law. Perhaps he was only taking his own feelings and laying them over her, pretending there was more there than there really was.

He’d had his horse saddled as the sun came up and had been riding her over the property for almost an hour, trying to clear his head. Trying to figure out how to shake off this strange desire that had seemed to explode within him the moment he saw Lucinda in the foyer.

He urged his filly over the crest of a hill and there, in the distance was a female figure walking through the grass in a slow, steady cadence. As he edged closer, he realized with a start that it was Lucinda, herself, he had stumbled upon.

She hadn’t yet noticed him as she stood with her back toward him, looking over the rolling countryside, so he still had the option to leave her be, ride back to the estate and pretend he hadn’t seen her. But running hadn’t ever been Rage’s mode of operation, even when it was, perhaps, the best option. So instead he knickered at the filly and rode the few hundred yards between them at a trot.

Lucinda half-turned when he was a few lengths away and her face lit up with a smile as she raised her hand in greeting. “Good morning, Mr. Riley.”

“My lady,” he said as he swung off the horse and took her reins to lead her the last few feet. “I thought that was you. What are you doing out so early?”

Lucinda laughed as she stepped up and began to stroke his horse’s nose gently. “You forget, I have two young children. I am always up early in London thanks to their often excitable love for the morning. Rising with the rooster is a harder habit to break than I thought it would be when I pictured myself here in the country, laying languidly in bed until all hours of the late morning.”

Rage swallowed hard. Her vivid description made him think of the very same thing, only he added himself to that image of her in her bed. And languid wasn’t the word he would use to describe their morning activities.

“Indeed,” he croaked. “Well, perhaps your routine will change after a time.”

“Perhaps. Of course once that happens, it shall be time for me to return home and then it will be difficult to rise with the sun.” She smiled. “And what of you? Somehow I always pictured you as a night owl, carousing until all hours and only rising to take your supper and do it all over again. What is your excuse for being out so early in the morning?”

Rage stared at her for a moment. He hadn’t realized his activities had been of such interest to her. The idea that she had such vivid imaginings about them was rather interesting.

 “I am not like those aristocratic toffs. I have always liked the night, that is true, but the morning is the best time to ride.”

Lucinda nodded as she looked at his horse. “And you have the prettiest filly to spend that time riding. What is her name?”

“Jezebel,” he admitted.

Lucinda’s lips parted and she let out a light, echoing laugh. “Of course she is.” She patted the filly gently.

Rage smiled even though he felt like he’d been caught doing something particularly naughty by naming the horse something so provocative. “I was sorry our conversation was interrupted last night.”

Lucinda wrinkled of her nose and in that moment she looked as beautiful as she had the first time he saw her, many years ago, when she was barely a wife, when she was not yet a mother.

 “As was I. That Lord Blythestone. Ugh, repulsive fool. He has been drooling after me for years.”

Rage’s eyes went wide. “So you know?”

“I am not so naïve not to know what a man wants.” Lucinda sighed as she looked off into the distance. “Ever since Anthony died there have been several men who have sniffed around at my doorstep, hoping to find a way into my bed or my purse. Or both.”

He edged closer, almost against his will and stared down at her. She wore another green gown, this one as light as spring grass and leaves. It gave her blue eyes an even darker color and he swore he could swirl into their depths forever.

“Blythestone is an ass,” he said, then shook his head as he realized how blunt that statement was, especially in the company of a lady. “Excuse my language.”

“No, that sums him up perfectly,” she laughed, though the sound seemed strained. “He is an ass.”

He hesitated. “But perhaps
another
man might be good for you.”

She blinked up at him, though her expression did not reveal how she felt about that statement. “Now you sound like some of my well-meaning friends who believe I should put myself back on the marriage mart. Are you planning on playing matchmaker on my behalf, too, Mr. Riley? Somehow I cannot picture you running around Society in an effort to find me a new husband.”

He swallowed hard. The very idea of finding another man for her was slightly sickening, even if he knew she was in jest. “I could never do that, no.”

A soft tendril of her blonde hair had fallen from the pretty bun at the nape of her neck and it lay against her cheek. Without thinking, he reached out and caught the lock with his fingertip. It was soft as silk as he brushed it away. Her cheek, which he caught with the side of his fingers, was even softer.

Her lips parted at the inappropriate touch and he waited for her to back away. To tell him not to touch her. To run back to the house like she had surely been trained to do when a woman of her station was faced with a man of his.

Instead, she stood completely still and stared up at him. Her cheeks were flushed, she hardly breathed. She just… stared at him.

He couldn’t help it. Without her resistance to encourage his control, the desire to kiss her was overwhelming. He fanned his fingers against her cheek, cupping the soft curve of her chin with the rough palm of his ungloved hand. A tiny sigh escaped her lips and her hands began to tremble at her sides.

It was too much. Too much.

He leaned down and let his lips just brush ever so slightly against hers. Her breath was soft and sweet against his mouth and he longed to delve as deeply into her as he could. But he didn’t. He merely let his mouth move in a gentle sweep. He was about to pull away when she unfisted her hands at her sides and let her hands move to his upper arms. She lifted up slightly, pressing herself into his kiss and suddenly the world spun out of control.

~~~

It had been so long since Lucinda had been kissed that she hadn’t realized how hungry she had been for that type of  touch. For the taste of a man’s lips, for the feel of his muscles contracting beneath her palms. It was unseemly to want this so much, to part her mouth beneath Rage’s and let him dip his tongue inside to taste her in a far more intimate fashion.

But she did that nonetheless and her knees went weak with his surprisingly gentle exploration. She found herself digging her fingers into his jacket, pulling herself closer, deepening the kiss as a heat came over her that had nothing to do with the rising sun.

She wanted him. To arch beneath him.

That stunning and entirely wrong desire snapped her from her fog and with a gasp of breath, she pulled away. He released her immediately and simply watched her as she stood a few feet away, trying to catch her breath and collect her wild, confusing thoughts.

“Should I apologize?” Rage finally said softly.

She forced herself to look at him and a sizzle of desire flooded her once more, as did more hot blood to her already burning cheeks. “I-no. No, Mr. Riley.”

“I think we’ve moved beyond Mr. Riley, Lucinda,” he whispered.

She blinked at his use of her given name, at how sensual it sounded coming from his gravelly voice and then nodded. “You’re right, of course…” She hesitated.

Everyone who referred to this man by a name that wasn’t proper called him Rage. But she didn’t want to use that harsh, violent nickname with a man who had just awoken every sense she’d all but forgotten. She’d heard his given name before. Nicholas had said it once.

“Ronan,” she whispered.

He stared at her, almost as if he didn’t recognize that name. Then he smiled and she couldn’t help but do the same. Although the situation was still out of control, his smile made her so much more comfortable.

“I-I don’t know what to do now,” she whispered with an uncomfortable shuffle of her feet. “What to say.”