Page 30 of My Lord Rogue
The corridor was silent, save for the storm outside, but inside her head it was anything but. Her lips still tingled. Her hands trembled, and she had to pause at the top of the stairs, clutching the banister, waiting for the world to right itself.
She returned to her room and undressed in the dark, letting the garments fall to the floor. She should have felt shame, or at least guilt, for what they’d done the other night. Instead, she felt something wilder, a sense of liberation, of hunger, of possibility. She climbed into bed and lay awake for hours, replaying the kiss again and again, each time letting herself want more.
She knew the story she had written was now beyond her control, that the characters were running wild in the margins, laughing at her, daring her to turn the next page.
And so she would.
She slept, eventually, and in her dreams the storm outside finally broke, and she found herself standing in the library, the fire blazing, and Teddy waiting for her, his arms wide, his smile a little wicked but also, just possibly, kind.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The sun rose clean and untroubled, casting the St. Ervan estate in a brilliance usually reserved for myth. By the lake, the lawns had been dressed for a party, a sprawl of striped linen, baskets arranged in decadent suggestion, silver chillers sprouting with bottles that sweated in the sunlight. Servants worked in formation, ferrying glassware and wooden trays, retreating when each tableau reached a particular pitch of perfection. By ten, the guests were trickling down from the house, pale gowns and frock coats blooming across the grass, the entire party orchestrated to suggest the effortlessness of the leisured class.
Theo watched from the upper terrace, her eyes still rimmed with the sleeplessness of the night before. The pale blue gown she wore was new, a compromise between the demands of mourning and the slow violence of the English summer. Annie had muttered about the scandal of baring so much of her bosom as a matron, but had arranged her hair with expertise.
She delayed as long as she could without attracting Verity’s attention. But the operation of a country house was relentless. A servant appeared, bowed, and announced that Lady St. Ervanwas “most desirous” of her company. There was no help for it. She descended the steps, feeling each footfall as a small surrender.
The path wound through a cut of tall grass, then opened onto the lakeside like a stage. The arrangement of guests was instantly clear, the elders in their chairs under a yew, a cluster of young men tossing stones near the shore, the women in pastel phalanxes, their laughter like the chime of mismatched crystal. At the center of the action, Verity reigned, her white gown a small sun around which the lesser planets revolved.
Teddy was not immediately visible, but that only meant he was hunting her from the shadows. She felt it—a prickle at the base of her spine, an alertness to the angle of every head that turned her way. She scanned the water, where a punt had been moored, then the far end of the lawn where a footman refilled tumblers for a knot of young officers. Nothing.
She made for the picnic tables, eyes low, pulse already in disarray. There was no warning, only the brush of a shadow at her elbow and a voice pitched for her alone.
“Lady Pattishall, you are a vision. Even the sun is helpless before you.”
She started, then composed herself. “You are easily dazzled, my lord. I recommend a hat.”
He stood too close—always too close—but the world seemed to widen around him, granting their proximity the air of inevitability. His coat was pale, his cravat loosely tied in the Continental style, and his hair looked as if he had let the wind arrange it. A scandalous choice for an English morning.
Verity materialized at Theo’s left, clutching her arm with a conspirator’s delight. “I see you have found each other. How efficient. If only the rest of my guests were so cooperative.”
Theo managed a smile, the effort like threading a needle with trembling hands. “It was no challenge. The baron is… impossible to miss.”
Teddy executed a bow that was both parody and homage. “I am a man of singular habits, Lady St. Ervan. I pursue only what is worth the chase.”
The words hung there, a small storm. Verity’s eyes sparkled, and she exchanged a look with Teddy that needed no translation. “You must sit together. Lord Claremont is helpless against the baron’s wit, and poor Amelia needs someone to rescue her from the captain’s stories. You two are the only hope for sensible conversation in the county.”
Theo felt the old resistance flare, but she was too practiced to protest. “As you wish, Verity.”
They were led to a low table spread with food, berries, bread, cheeses, a roast chicken already giving up its skin to the greedy fingers of the nearest boys. Verity hovered just long enough to make introductions, then she retreated, leaving Teddy and Theo bracketed by Lady Amelia on one side and the captain’s stentorian voice on the other.
Teddy wasted no time. He poured a glass of lemonade for Theo, slicing a strawberry into its depths with a deft, lazy hand. “You have a gift for collecting admirers,” he observed, not bothering to lower his voice. “Even the servants are in awe.”
She drank, letting the tartness steady her. “Is that a virtue or a hazard, in your experience?”
He smiled, eyes on the glass. “It depends on what you do with them. I have found it more amusing to collect enemies.”
She could not help but laugh, the sound too raw to be entirely controlled.
Lady Amelia leaned in, her own glass untouched. “Is it true, Lady Pattishall, that you and the baron met at Lake Geneva?I heard the story from Verity, but she is unreliable in such matters.”
Teddy answered before Theo could marshal a reply. “We met over a shared passion for literature. Lady Pattishall rescued me from a dreary lecture, then challenged me to a contest of quotations. I lost, of course.”
Theo picked up the thread, grateful for the fiction. “He was gracious in defeat. I was not.”
“On the contrary,” Teddy murmured. “You were so gracious that I resolved to be defeated by you as often as possible.”
Lady Amelia’s expression flickered—disdain, interest, calculation, all in a single blink. “How extraordinary. I cannot imagine a man of your reputation humbled by anything so civilized as a book.”