Page 33 of Road Trip With a Rogue (Her Majesty’s Rebels #3)

Lucien stared down at Daisy and something tightened in his chest. She was alarmingly pale; all the color had left her face and her freckles stood out in stark relief against her milky skin.

Her curls were a dark puddle on the navy bedding, almost invisible in the gloom, and he smoothed a wayward tendril with his finger, straightening it out against the velvet and watching as it snapped back into a lazy helix when released.

He’d seen men mortally wounded, bodies writhing in pain, but watching her suffer tonight had been a torment all of its own.

He hated feeling so powerless, hated that there was so little he could do to make her feel better.

There was nobody to punish, as there had been for Elaine.

No way he could take the pain on her behalf.

All he could do was sit in the dark with her, and wait.

This was his room. His bed. And the sight of her on his deep velvet coverlet made his stomach twist in primal satisfaction.

Logically, it was the best place for her. The midnight blue hangings were infinitely darker than the pastel guest room she’d been taken to first. With the door closed and the curtains drawn, it was like the underworld. He’d always liked it that way.

She was curled on her side, burrowing into the fabric. Her slim shoulders rose and fell with every breath, and he was fiercely glad that she’d found relief in sleep. Glad that she’d found it here, in his personal space.

He’d never had a woman here, in this bed, before.

Daisy looked as if she belonged.

She didn’t move when he pulled the sheets up and around her body.

In the faint light from the hallway, he could see a purplish bruise developing on her jaw, and his blood heated again at the knowledge that she’d been mistreated.

He should have killed all three of those kidnapping bastards and left them to rot. He lacked her benevolent streak.

Unable to help himself, he reached out and gently traced the slope of her nose, the silky softness of her lips.

She didn’t stir. She was beautiful, even battered and bruised, and his heart swelled with an odd kind of pride, the kind he’d felt for his scrappy young recruits when they’d come through some testing skirmish.

She was a fighter, brave and merciful in equal measure, and he found he was properly in awe of her. Her dogged persistence was infuriating at times, but the thought of a world without her in it was utterly bleak.

He could have lost her tonight. So easily.

Lucien frowned. Claiming her as his fianc é e at Gretna had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, the only way he could think of to limit the damage to her reputation.

Being thought to have eloped with him would cause a minor scandal, but at least if they wed, she’d be a duchess.

The position would afford her an extraordinary amount of protection.

If they didn’t marry, society would treat the two of them very differently.

If they said that she’d jilted him, he’d get little more than mockery for “losing his touch,” but she’d suffer a far worse fate.

Since they’d been seen together, unchaperoned, everyone would assume that they’d been intimate.

She’d be considered a lightskirt. Men who might previously have offered for her would move on to other, “purer” candidates, and she’d be fair game for the lecherous cads who prowled the dance floors and drawing rooms of Mayfair.

Daisy was more than capable of putting such idiots in their place, of course, but the thought of her being shunned and gossiped about by the bitchy women of the ton made him want to crush something.

What was the point in being a duke, with all the power the position commanded, if he couldn’t force people to accept her, be kind to her?

It was infuriating.

Marrying him was her best option, however much she might resent it. True, she’d be tied to him, but he was probably the one man in society who’d let her continue her work for King still there, but lurking in the background so she could finally think of other things.

She rolled onto her side, and in the strip of light that glowed from beneath the door she saw the dark shape of a man sitting in a wing armchair just to the right of the fire. Her heart gave a little skip. She knew who it was.

“You’re awake,” Vaughan said softly. “How do you feel?”

She rubbed her hands over her face. “Better. Thank you.”

He uncrossed his legs and rolled his shoulders, and she had the impression that he’d been sitting there for quite some time.

“Have you ever figured out what causes these headaches?”

She tilted her head to stretch the muscles of her neck. “I wish I could. I’ve tried to see if it correlates to food that I’ve eaten, or some activity I’ve done, but I’ve never found anything.”

“Could it be related to your monthly courses?”

Her brows rose. Most men would be too ignorant or too embarrassed to bring up such a topic, but Vaughan was not most men. He seemed genuinely interested in finding the root cause.

“I don’t think so. I tried tracking that, too, but there was no pattern. I’ve thought there might be a link to times when I’ve been particularly busy, working long hours and not sleeping enough, but who knows?”

“Could it be that you haven’t been eating regularly?”

Daisy yawned. “Perhaps.”

“Can you eat something now?”

“What time is it?”

“A little after midnight.” He didn’t seem annoyed that she was keeping him awake.

“The servants will have retired for the night. Don’t wake them up just to make me some food.”

“It’s no bother. I told them to leave some soup on the stove for you, in case you woke up. I’ll go and get it.”

He stood, a tall shadow in the darkness, and when he opened the door, she saw him silhouetted against the faint glow from the hall.

His hair was mussed, as if he’d been running his hands through it, and the collar of his shirt was standing up at an odd angle.

It made him look appealingly disheveled.

Daisy propped herself up against the pillows when he’d gone. There was a candle in a brass holder by the bed, and she lit it with the tinderbox that sat next to it.

She was still almost fully dressed. Someone had removed her boots and her jacket, but left her in her shirt, breeches, and stockings. For comfort, she wriggled out of her breeches, confident that Vaughan wouldn’t see what she had on beneath the covers.

He returned a short while later, carrying a tray that he placed on her lap, and she quashed her guilt at having him play nursemaid and servant for her.

It was nice to be coddled for a change. The inviting aromas of warm bread and vegetable soup made her mouth water, and she dipped the spoon into the bowl with a happy little sigh.

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

He resettled himself in the chair, and she tried not to feel self-conscious as he watched her eat.

“There’s no need to stay,” she said, swallowing a mouthful of bread. “You can go to bed if you want.”

His mouth curved at the corners. “You asked me to stay. Don’t you remember?”

Heat warmed her cheeks. Had she said that? She’d certainly wanted him to stay. But had she actually said such a thing out loud?

“You called me Lucien.”

Oh God. When had she started thinking of him as Lucien instead of Vaughan?

“You probably misheard. I expect I said Lucifer.”

He sent her a sardonic look, brows raised.

“If I did ask you to stay,” she said quickly, “then it must have been the effect of the medicine. It makes a person say all sorts of bizarre things.”

His eyes glittered in amusement, as if he knew she was hedging. “That’s true. I thought I was a horse at Waterloo, once, when I’d been on the laudanum. And I’d be happy to go to bed. You’re in it.”

Daisy glanced around, taking in the sumptuous velvet hangings and subtle hints of gold. The understated masculine elegance. She should have known. Even the bedclothes smelled like him. No wonder she’d wanted to bury herself in them.

A shiver of awareness ran through her. His bed. The intimacy of it made her head spin.

She placed the tray on the bedside table and pushed back the covers. “I’m sorry. I’ll—”

“You’ll stay right where you are,” he said firmly. “I’ll go and sleep in one of the guest rooms.”

Guilt at turfing him out of his bedroom warred with indignation that he’d put her there in the first place. She narrowed her eyes, determined not to be swayed by his apparent generosity.

He slanted her a sly, sideways smile. “Unless you’re feeling so glad to be alive that you want to celebrate in the time-honored way?”

Daisy bit back a snort. “You think such a heroic rescue deserves a physical reward?”

His eyes sparkled, and she appreciated his teasing attempt to make her feel better.

“There’s a lot to be said for a gratitude fuck. I know plenty of soldiers who swore by it, after a battle. It’s an excellent way to relieve stress. Might help stave off another one of those headaches.”

“Thank you, Dr. Vaughan,” she said drily, “but I think I’ll just try to sleep.”

“I’m only thinking of your health.” He shrugged. “Any time you feel the slightest twinge, I’d be more than happy to help.”

“Don’t think I’m going to forgive you, just because you’ve taken care of me,” Daisy said, determined not to cave to his insidious charm. “You’ve made my life an absolute nightmare.”

“Likewise,” he countered. “I left London to rid myself of a nephew, not saddle myself with a wife.”

“I’m not going to be your wife,” she growled.

He rose, and she pulled the bedsheets back over her legs, slumping down in the pillows, thinking he was going to come near her, but he merely strode across to a large mahogany linen press that stood against one wall. He selected a clean shirt from within, and sent her an enigmatic smile.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning.”