Page 11 of Road Trip With a Rogue (Her Majesty’s Rebels #3)

“You’re referring to your leaving party?” Her voice didn’t waver, thank God.

Vaughan crossed his legs, balancing one booted ankle on the opposite knee, the picture of relaxed elegance, but Daisy wasn’t fooled. He was poised to attack.

“I am,” he said smoothly.

“You call threatening me and insulting me ‘noble’?”

“Threatening you, insulting you, and kissing you,” he amended coolly.

“And yes, I do. You were still a virgin when you left the house, weren’t you?

” His gaze caught hers and she couldn’t seem to look away.

“In fact, now I think of it, that might have been the first and only time I’ve ever denied myself something I wanted for a noble cause. ”

She managed a disbelieving snort. “Pfft! You didn’t want me, Vaughan. It was hardly a gallant sacrifice.”

Something flared in his eyes. “You think not?”

“Of course not. Why would you? You’ve always had women throwing themselves at you.”

“Maybe that’s why I didn’t want them .” His lips curved in self-mocking derision. “It’s human nature to want what you can’t have.”

“You said you were the only man in the house, apart from my brothers, who wouldn’t fuck me.” The crude word felt strange in her mouth.

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t want to.”

It was suddenly hard to breathe, as if all the air in the carriage had been sucked out. The rain drummed against the windowpanes.

“I wanted you,” he said darkly. “More than my next breath.”

Daisy inhaled. Her heart was pounding against her ribs, but she forced herself to focus on his use of the past tense. He’d wanted her. That didn’t mean he felt the same way now. Back then, she’d been forbidden, a novelty.

She feigned a nonchalance she certainly didn’t feel. “Yes, well, we’re both a few years older and wiser now. I’m not such an innocent fool.”

“No?” His amused skepticism made her want to punch him. “I expect you’ve had a hundred men since then.”

She clenched her fists in her lap and the reckless desire to shock him heated her blood. “Not a hundred. But I’m no longer a virgin, if that’s what you’re inferring.”

His brows rose. She’d expected him to be disapproving, or at the very least surprised, but it was interest that flared in his eyes. He seemed intrigued.

“How very rebellious. Who was the lucky gentleman? Or gentlemen. Anyone I know?”

“It was just the one,” she said, matching his cool, mocking tone. “And he wasn’t a gentleman at all.”

Something dark flashed into his expression. “He mistreated you? Hurt you?”

“No. Nothing like that. He was a stable hand at Hollyfield; not a gentleman.”

His tension seemed to ebb a little, and she found a dry humor in the fact that he reserved his outrage for the idea of her being abused, instead of for the fact that she’d willingly surrendered her innocence to someone of a lower class.

She couldn’t imagine getting that reaction from any other male of her acquaintance.

“We have hours to go,” he said easily. “You might as well tell me all the sordid details.”

Daisy bit her lip, torn. She’d only ever told Tess and Ellie of her short-lived affair. If any other member of the ton were to hear of it, she’d be ruined socially, cast out as a ‘soiled dove,’ and her chances of marrying well would be decimated.

Not that she particularly cared about that, but she would care if the scandal meant that her friends were tainted by association.

And yet she didn’t imagine Vaughan would spill her secrets. He had too much money to need to resort to blackmail, although he might find it amusing to threaten to expose her, just to watch her squirm.

“Your secrets will be safe with me,” he said drily, reading her thoughts with uncanny accuracy yet again. “I like your brothers too much to want to plunge your family into scandal, and I don’t fancy shooting one of them for having sullied your reputation.”

Daisy shrugged. In fairness, Vaughan was probably unshockable.

Her fumbling exploits could hardly compare to his vast worldly experience.

And besides, there was still a foolish part of her that wanted to prove to him that she wasn’t the naive little eighteen-year-old he’d encountered five years ago.

“His name was Tom Harding. He died at Waterloo.”

“Childhood sweetheart?” His tone wasn’t as cynical as it had been.

“No. But we’d known each other for a long time. He was fun. Good company.” Daisy smiled as fond memories flooded her, tinged with a bittersweet sadness.

“Did you love him?”

The soft question jolted her back to attention. She searched Vaughan’s face for any hint of mockery, but he seemed sincere. She turned her head and studied the raindrops snaking their way down the windowpane, and decided to be ruthlessly honest.

“You know, people always talk about love as if it’s a single, fixed thing, but I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think there are as many kinds of love as there are people. Millions.” Her breath fogged up the inside of the glass and she traced a pattern in it with the tip of her finger.

“That’s not a yes.”

She sighed. “I loved Tom as someone I’d grown up with, as a dear, cheeky friend. He was handsome, and strong, and when I heard that he’d be leaving to fight Bonaparte, I liked him enough to lie with him.”

She’d desired Tom. Not the way she’d desired Vaughan, with that dark, heart-wrenching, pulse-pounding intensity, but in a sweeter, gentler way. And mixed in with the physical attraction had been a kind of pathos, an earnest desire to make him happy before he left for war.

It sounded strange, to call giving Tom her body a friendly gesture, but in a way it had been. It was as if they’d both had a premonition that their time together would be short, that they should grasp those brief moments of pleasure while they could.

“Did he make my heart beat faster when I thought about him?” she asked quietly. “Not really. I certainly never felt all giddy and foolish, like the poets describe people ‘in love.’ I never dreamed of being his wife. But he didn’t know if he’d ever return. So I said yes.”

She swallowed and braved a glance over at Vaughan—the reason she’d said yes.

That evening with him had ignited a terrible curiosity inside her, a need to see if he was the only man who could make her feel that way, or whether she could replicate those sensations with another.

A part of her still felt guilty for using Tom as an experiment, a comparison, but it had been a mutually beneficial arrangement.

He hadn’t wanted to leave for Portugal still a virgin.

Vaughan was watching her, his expression indecipherable, so she decided to continue.

“We discovered what pleasure was together.” She sent him a challenging look. “And it was pleasurable. Despite the fact that neither of us really knew what we were doing.”

Vaughan still said nothing, and her throat grew tight with emotion as she looked back out at the rain. The drops ran like tears down the outside of the glass. Oddly enough, the weather outside made it feel even more intimate inside, a safe, enclosed space, like a confessional.

“I cried when I heard he’d been killed. He was only nineteen. I cried for the fact that he’d never grow old, never sleep with another woman, never marry and have children. I cried at how stupid and unfair war is. Life is.”

Daisy blinked, suddenly realizing how much she was sharing. She’d barely articulated these feelings to her friends, and now here she was, exposing herself to this man who was practically a stranger. And yet it felt easy. Right.

She clenched her jaw and sent him another defiant look. “And I was glad I’d given myself to him. I don’t regret it one bit.”

Vaughan nodded, but she still couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She made a mental note never to play him at cards.

“Is the fact that you’re not a virgin another reason you don’t want to marry?” he asked. “Are you worried your secret will be discovered on your wedding night?”

Daisy suppressed a smile. Tess’s wedding-night dilemma had been the complete opposite of that: she’d had to hide the fact that she was still a virgin to Justin, her second husband, after the first duke had failed to consummate the marriage.

“Not really,” she said. “I doubt most men would even notice, especially if they were in their cups.”

His lips quirked. “You think a man who’d just married you would need liquid courage to bed you?”

She scowled at his teasing. “No. I just think men are far less observant than women. Especially when they’re thinking about their own pleasure.”

“You wound us,” he chuckled, clutching his chest as if she’d pierced him with a blade.

She refused to be charmed by his levity. “That’s enough about me. I’ve answered your questions. Now it’s your turn to tell me something personal. It’s only fair.” She raised her brows in challenge, just waiting for him to refuse, but he tilted his head.

“Very well. What would you like to discuss?”

She was so surprised that she said the first thing that came into her head. “Tell me about your first love.”

“You mean the first girl I ever took to my bed?” His tone was softly mocking. “I’m sorry to say that love had very little to do with it. Not the way the poets claim it, at least. My father paid for a whore to ‘make a man of me’ on my seventeenth birthday.”

Daisy blinked back her shock. “Oh. That’s…”

He grinned at her expression. “I was delighted, believe me. But I certainly can’t claim to have loved her. I don’t even remember her name.”

“Very well, but you’ve had other lovers. Didn’t you love any of them?”

“I desired them. And enjoyed their company, for the most part. But I’d hardly say I loved them.”

She let out a huff of frustration at his continued evasiveness. “So you’ve never loved a woman, ever. Is that what you’re saying?” He opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off. “If that’s the case, then I feel sorry for you, Vaughan.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw and she hid a smile at the fact that she’d managed to needle him.

“I loved a girl once,” he said curtly. “Her name was Elaine, and she was a neighbor of ours, in Yorkshire.”

Daisy crossed her arms, certain he was making it up. “Oh really?”

“Yes, really. She was my friend, like you and your Tom.” His face looked suddenly stark, and she realized he wasn’t making it up at all. “She was kind, and sweet, and I probably would have married her if she hadn’t died.”

Daisy stilled, shocked by his unexpected confession. She couldn’t interpret the look on his face. Was it sadness? Bitterness? Regret?

“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. “What happened to her? How did she die?”

His eyes flashed. “Giving birth to a child that everyone thought was mine.”

Oh.

“And was it?” she managed.

His lips pressed into a thin line. “No. But…” He shrugged, an elegant, dismissive lift of his broad shoulders. “It doesn’t matter now. The babe died too.”

“How long ago was this?”

“A long time. Before the war.”

Daisy bit her lip, struggling to find the right words. She’d never expected him to reveal something so personal, and the thought of him being in love with someone, even years ago, sent an odd swoop of jealousy through her.

Now she understood the comment he’d made at dinner, back at Wansford Hall.

She sent him a tight, commiserating smile. “You were right. Loving someone opens you up to losing them. It hurts when they leave.”

He nodded once and glanced away in a clear indication that he was finished with the conversation. Daisy studied him for a long moment, then looked back out at the rainy fields and hedgerows.

She’d been too young to feel abandoned when her mother had left; she couldn’t recall ever having a mother, so she hadn’t really appreciated the lack of one.

But when Tom had died, she’d grieved him sincerely.

Whenever she’d gone back to Hollyfield, his absence had seemed like an inexplicable void, something her brain couldn’t quite grasp.

She’d kept walking into the stables, expecting to see him, and her heart would ache anew each time she realized he’d never be there again.

She’d never been more grateful for Tess and Ellie than at that time.

They were her true family, more than just friends, bonded closer than sisters, and they’d known her better than she’d known herself.

They’d let her mope about for a few days, hugged her while she’d cried, and then forced her to come back to King & Co.

to investigate a case involving the blackmail of a Royal Navy officer.

It had been exactly what she’d needed, given her something to focus on, and now she could look back on her time with Tom with a bittersweet smile.

He’d been her first and only lover. The only times she’d felt desire since then was when Vaughan inserted himself into her dreams, or when she happened to glimpse him in the ton . She hadn’t been tempted to see if another man could assuage the restless ache inside her.

And yet for some time she’d been plagued by a nagging sense that she was missing something, seeking something she couldn’t define.

She still saw Ellie and Tess on an almost daily basis, but things had changed over the past few months.

First Tess had fallen head over heels in love with Justin, the man who’d succeeded her first husband as the new duke of Wansford, and then Ellie had fallen for Henry Brooke, the charming conman who’d claimed to be their fictional boss, “Charles King.”

Daisy had been absolutely delighted to see her friends find happiness, but she’d also been struck by a strange melancholy.

It was perfectly natural to expect that they’d spend more time with their new husbands, but that didn’t stop her from feeling a pang of loss at the natural distancing that had occurred.

Her own single state had simply been thrown in sharp relief, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t envy the fact that they’d both found their perfect match.

She was lonely.

She sneaked another glance over at Vaughan. His confession had made her feel an odd sort of kinship with him. She’d always imagined him invincible, ruthlessly controlled, but he’d allowed her to see a chink in his armor, and she was struck with an incredible thought.

Despite his many friends and lovers, could he be lonely too?