Page 9 of My Lord Rogue
She looked down, fingers scrabbling for the locket at her neck. The cool gold steadied her, a talisman against his unrelenting charm.
The conversation around them grew more desultory as the wine flowed. Some guests gave up trying to compete and simply watched, absorbed in the spectacle of two people negotiating an invisible, ever-shifting treaty. Every time Theo thought she might catch her breath, Josiah would upend the table—metaphorically—by producing another “memory,” a detail from a life they had never shared.
After the cheese course, Verity raised her glass. “To our new arrivals! May they bring fresh stories to the old halls.” She caught Theo’s gaze, her eyes sparkling. “And may Lady Pattishall find in Baron Teddington a companion worthy of her intelligence—and her wit.”
A general toast followed, but Theo hardly heard it. She stared across the table at Josiah, who raised his glass in return, his eyes unreadable. For a moment, everything else faded—the din, the laughter, even the clatter of plates—and it was just the two of them, locked in a duel neither had chosen, but both seemed unwilling to forfeit.
The servants cleared the final plates and brought coffee in delicate porcelain cups. Theo’s hands finally stopped shaking, and she allowed herself a long, steadying breath. It was nearly over.
As guests began to drift toward the drawing room, Josiah lingered behind, ostensibly admiring a painting on the far wall. Theo stood to follow the others, but he intercepted her, his hand light but insistent at her elbow.
“Stay,” he said, so low that she nearly missed it. “Only a moment.”
She hesitated, then nodded, letting herself be steered to a discreet alcove between the dining room and the conservatory.
He leaned in, his voice pitched for her ears alone. “You are remarkably good at this, you know. Most would have crumbled by now.”
“I’m not most,” she said, before she could stop herself.
He smiled—genuine, this time, the mischief stripped away. “No, you are not. That is precisely the problem.”
She swallowed, her throat painfully dry. “What do you want from me, Teddington?”
He regarded her, the silence stretching until she wondered if he’d answer at all. “I want to see how far you’ll go to protect your story,” he said at last. “And I want to know what you are hiding behind those clever eyes.”
She bristled. “I am hiding nothing.”
He shook his head. “You are hiding everything. But you needn’t worry. Your secret is safe, as long as you wish it.”
She drew back, searching his face for malice. She found none—only a strange, fierce longing, as if he, too, were afraid of what the night would bring.
He bowed, and the gesture was almost old-fashioned. “Until tomorrow, Lady Pattishall.” And then, lower, he added, “I look forward to sharing more of our… memories.”
He released her, and she watched as he walked away, his silhouette stretched long and lean in the flickering candlelight.
When she finally rejoined the others, she did so with head held high, but inside she was undone—disassembled and rearranged by a man who was supposed to be nothing more than a rumor.
She sat among the women, listening to their small talk, but her mind was elsewhere. The chandelier glowed overhead, its crystals catching every fragment of light and spinning it out across the room. She realized with a start that she was waiting—not for rescue, nor for disaster, but for the next move in the game.
And when it came, she was almost certain she would be ready.
But tonight, she let herself float on the edge of this new, unstable world, terrified and a little bit thrilled, her heart pounding in a rhythm she recognized as possibility.
CHAPTER FIVE
Theo lingered in the drawing room only as long as protocol required. Then, with a nod to Verity—who was already embroiled in a match of whist, her laughter carrying like the call of a distant bird—she slipped away from the guests, back through the maze of halls and staircases toward her sanctuary at the far corner of the guest wing.
At her own door she paused, breathless, half expecting—half hoping?—to see a shadow lengthen behind her, a voice whisper from the dark. But the only sound was the soft laughter from downstairs. She stepped inside and closed the door softly.
She crossed to the window, parted the heavy curtains, and was met by the honest, unfiltered moon. The lawns below looked spectral, all detail erased by a hard silver wash. There were no voices, no movement, the revelers and their laughter had retreated behind a barricade of stone and etiquette. Only her own pale reflection peered back at her, faint and insubstantial, two white ovals for eyes.
Her writing desk sat precisely where the maid had left it, on the only table in the room. Theo eased herself onto the hardchair and, with hands suddenly clumsy, unfastened the clasp at the back of her neck.
She turned the locket in her hand, thumb rubbing at the hinge until it opened with a dry click. Inside, Charles’s smile was frozen in oil paint. She pressed the image to her lips, closed her eyes, and for a moment let memory engulf her—the hush of his voice, the slide of his palm down her spine, the way he had once traced the very bones of her face as if mapping a future no one else could see.
She set the locket beside her journal. The book was thick with pages, some of them covered in her spiky hand, others still blank, a mute reproach. She brought the candle closer to the book so she could see to write.
She dipped her pen and waited, staring at the blank page until her thoughts aligned into something she might bear to articulate. When she finally began, the quill scratched with the urgency of a creature desperate to tunnel free.