Page 18 of My Lord Rogue (Wicked Widows’ League #34)

T he 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. Ervan was “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.”

The captain grunted his approval, then redirected the conversation toward his experiences in the war on the Peninsula.

For a while, the table was consumed by stories of cavalry charges and the relative merits of French versus English artillery.

Theo let her mind drift, listening only to the thrum of the lake, the hiss of insects in the grass, and the distant laughter of Verity as she organized a game of rounders.

Teddy reached for the fruit basket and selected a strawberry so ripe it threatened to collapse under its own weight. He held it out to her, not as a jest but as a challenge.

“Will you trust me?” he asked, the question buried in his smile.

She hesitated, then leaned in. His fingers hovered at her lips, just a shade too long, then withdrew. The taste was shocking, sweet and vivid, the juice running down her chin before she caught it with her napkin.

“Perfect,” she managed, the word as much an accusation as a compliment.

He smiled, then offered the next to Lady Amelia, who declined with a barely concealed shudder.

Theo retaliated, selecting a cherry and holding it up for Teddy. He opened his mouth, and her pulse skipped as their fingers brushed. The moment was brief, but the current it released rippled through her entire body.

“You play the game well, Lady Pattishall,” he said, voice low.

She felt the blood rise to her cheeks, but kept her tone even. “I learned from the best.”

Lady Amelia cut in. “Do you intend to remain in England, my lord, or is this only a temporary diversion?”

He shrugged, his attention never leaving Theo. “That depends on whether I can find a reason to stay.”

A silence fell. The captain, sensing an opening, began a tedious story about a hunting trip in the Carpathians. Theo was grateful for the cover. She finished her lemonade and glanced up to see Verity watching from across the lawn, a satisfied smile on her lips.

It should have felt like victory. Instead, she was aware of every nerve, every breath. Teddy’s presence at her side was a constant pressure, equal parts comfort and threat.

The meal wound on, the sun climbing higher, the conversation dissolving into smaller groups. Teddy’s hand drifted to the small of her back, a gesture so natural it could have been mistaken for unconscious habit. But Theo felt it—felt the warmth of his palm, the assurance of possession.

Lady Amelia watched, eyes narrowed. When the men rose to fetch cigars, she leaned in, her breath cool and sharp against Theo’s ear.

“I do hope you know what you are doing, Lady Pattishall. The baron is a dangerous man.”

Theo let herself meet Amelia’s gaze. “Danger can be managed, if you respect it.”

Amelia smiled, a brittle, lovely thing. “We shall see.”

She drifted away, her lavender skirts trailing in the grass.

Teddy returned, offering a cigar to the captain and ignoring the outstretched hands of the other men. He sat beside Theo, a little closer this time, his knee pressed against hers under the table.

“You handled that well,” he said.

She laughed, the tension in her shoulders dissolving a little. “You have a strange idea of ‘well,’ Teddington.”

He tilted his head, the sun catching in his hair. “I mean it. You are better at this than you believe.”

They sat like that for a while, side by side, their bodies tuned to the same pitch. Around them, the party broke into smaller knots, the laughter fainter as the heat of the day reached its zenith.

Teddy was silent for a long time. Then, gently, he reached for her hand, his thumb tracing a slow, deliberate line along the inside of her wrist.

“Let’s give them something worth talking about,” he whispered.

She looked up, surprised, but there was no mockery in his eyes. Only that same hunger she had glimpsed in the library, raw, unguarded, almost tender.

Theo nodded, just once.

And for the first time since Charles’s death, she let herself want something. She let herself believe, if only for a moment, that it was possible.