It Happened One Night Read online

  It shivered through him like a caress.

  “Oh, Ro—surely you don’t imagine I’m risking my chance to make a good match with this?” The look she bent on him was gently patronizing. “I’m twenty-six—I’ve had my time on the marriage mart, and didn’t like any of the offerings.”

  That was something he didn’t understand; although he’d kept his distance, he knew she’d been courted by numerous eligibles, gentlemen as handsome and in some cases even wealthier than he. He’d steeled himself to hear of her engagement, expected the blow to fall a number of times, but it had never happened. The most he’d heard were whispers that she was finicky; even in her rejections, Lydia had been reserved, forever discreet.

  She was watching him, that same almost-smile playing about her lips. “I had my choices and I made them, and I don’t regret even one. So now I’m all but an ape leader, and thus protecting my reputation is no longer the absolute imperative it once was. If necessary, as it is in this case, I can, and will, put it at risk.”

  More than anything else, her calm, even, serenely rational tone convinced him just how set on her chosen path—on retrieving Tabitha’s letter—she was. She’d thought the matter through, weighed the risks and her chances, and was convinced her course was right.

  Neither she nor Tabitha was weak—because, as he knew, they were both bone-stubborn.

  Arguing directly against her wasn’t going to work.

  “Lydia.” He glanced down at his hands clasped on the table, marshaling his arguments, controlling his tone—hiding all evidence of the primitive response her “plan” evoked—then he looked up and met her eyes. “You cannot go waltzing into Barham’s house and search for that letter—not now, while he has guests there. After they leave…it might be possible, but you’re going to have to wait until then.”

  She held his gaze; he could read very little in her eyes or expression—no hint of how she would react. But there was that same calmness, a cool, serene steadfastness that he recognized from long ago…for the first time in many years he let himself wonder what she was seeing, what she was thinking, when she looked at him like that.

  Then the curve of her lips deepened; she looked down as she pushed back her chair. Then she looked up and met his gaze.

  “Tomorrow I’m going to start searching Upton Grange for Tab’s letter.” She tilted her head, studying him still. “If you wish, you can help me.”

  She rose, still holding his gaze. “But what you can’t do, Ro, is stop me.” She paused, then added, “That I won’t allow, so please don’t try.”

  With a nod, she turned away.

  Ro pushed back his chair and rose.

  Reaching the door, she waved him back. “No—stay and have some brandy and get warm.” She paused, the door open, looking back through the wavering firelight at him. “Good night. Perhaps I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Stepping through the door, she shut it gently behind her.

  Ro stared at the wooden panels, then dropped back into his chair, scrubbed his hands over his face, and groaned.

  After a moment, he lowered his hands, sat back; spreading his arms wide, palms up, he looked up at the ceiling. “Why?”

  No answer came. Disgusted, he reached for the bottle Bilt had left, poured an inch of brandy into his goblet, then pushed his chair around and leaned back, sipping, his gaze on the dying flames.

  He couldn’t stop his thoughts from racing back through the years to when he and Lydia had last spoken. To that fateful summer ten years ago.

  The daughters of the eccentric branch of the Wiltshire Makepeaces, their father a scholar who although born into it largely shunned the ton, their mother a well-bred matron who juggled her wifely duties with those of a mother as best she could, throughout their childhoods, Lydia and Tabitha had been sent every summer to stay with their mother’s cousin’s family, whose estate shared a boundary with Gerrard Park.

  Although six years older than Lydia, he’d noticed her instantly. She’d captured his attention, his eye, his imagination, even when she’d been six years old and he a superior twelve. The difference in ages hadn’t mattered, not then, or later.

  Later, when she’d been sixteen, innocent and untouched, and he’d been an already polished, already experienced twenty-two. The polish and experience hadn’t mattered either, not on that day he’d met her in the orchard, as he often had.

  They’d walked, talked, as they always had. She’d been full of plans for her come-out the following year, excitedly looking forward to waltzing and being courted by gentlemen—a strange species she’d had little exposure to hidden away in Wiltshire with her reclusive parents.

  She’d asked him, playfully innocent, to waltz with her, there under the apple trees. He’d smiled and obliged, humming a tune with her, never dreaming…

  The halcyon day had whirled about them, and something else had taken hold, and risen, softly, gently, through him.

  He’d stopped humming, slowed; when he’d halted she’d been lost in his eyes, and he in hers.

  He’d bent his head and kissed her. Even at twenty-two, he’d known how to steal a woman’s wits with a kiss, but that wasn’t how he’d kissed her. He’d kissed her gently, tentatively…worshipfully.

  It was that last that had opened his eyes, that when he’d ended the kiss and lifted his head, had had him looking at her in a completely different light.

  There’d been stars in her eyes; he’d seen them, understood—and panicked.

  He’d smiled charmingly, made some excuse, left her—and run.

  As fast and as far as he could. His twenty-two-year-old mind had been adamant that she hadn’t been, could not have been, his destiny.

  From his earliest years he’d been set on being the rogue his nurse had named him, a hellion, a scapegrace, a gamester, a libertine. From infancy he’d been called a rogue; he’d never imagined being anything but, never imagined not living up to the expectation.

  So he’d run from her, and had forced himself to never look back—never to go looking for her in the orchards again.

  Staring into the flames, Ro drained the brandy, closed his eyes, and sighed. The next four or so years of his life had gone in a whirl of hedonistic dissipation that had established his reputation beyond question. A rogue he’d been named and a rogue he’d become, and had taken a wholly male, wholly unfettered delight in so doing.

  But then…

  Entirely unexpectedly, things had changed. Dissipation had grown boring. The diversions that previously had held his attention had palled. He’d drawn back from the crowd he’d run with, started looking for other activities—activities that could absorb him, that could occupy a mind he’d deliberately suppressed and allowed to stagnate while pursuing his misguided dream.

  From behind the rogue a different man had emerged, one he’d spent the last six years learning, developing, evolving.

  But he’d been such an excellent rogue, the reputation had stuck, regardless of his absence from the scene.

  Even now, those who looked for him in the gaming hells and didn’t find him assumed he was at some more exclusive venue. If he no longer attended the scandalously licentious dinners and parties, everyone assumed he was engaged in some secretive affair of even more scandalous proportions.

  Many continued to invite him to their country houses for orgiastic revels; when he failed to show, they were entirely convinced he was attending someone else’s more exclusive event.

  He hadn’t been above using his reputation for his own ends, as a shield to repel the matchmaking mamas and their darling daughters. As a deflecting screen that often led those he dealt with in business to underestimate him, always an advantage.

  Opening his eyes, Ro stared at the fire, now reduced to glowing embers. The food, the flames, and the brandy had done their work; he was warm again.

  He sighed. Setting the goblet on the table, he rose, and headed for the door. As he silently climbed the stairs, he wondered what Lydia would think, how she would view
him, if she knew he was now one of the major philanthropists in England.

  He hadn’t intended that to be his destiny, but fate, circumstance, and coincidence had led him in that direction, and he’d discovered a real talent, a calling, and others who shared it. At first they’d eyed him askance, knowing his reputation, but he’d worked diligently on each project he’d undertaken, and gradually they’d come to accept him. To understand him.

  To understand that even more than the rest of them, anonymity was vital to him.

  If it ever became known that he—Rogue Gerrard—the most celebrated rogue in the ton, had reformed six years ago, he’d instantly be elevated to the very top of the matchmakers’ lists. He was thirty-two, with no close male relative, an ancient title, excellent connections, possessed of a large house and significant wealth. They’d come at him in droves.

  He still wondered what Lydia would think of him now…if she knew the truth.

  Reaching his room at the front of the house, glancing at its mate and wondering if Lydia was behind its closed door, he opened his and went in.

  Crossing to his portmanteau, he rummaged inside and drew out the stack of invitations his scarifyingly efficient secretary, Martin Camberthorne, never let him leave his orbit without. The cards covered all the events to which Ro had been invited from yesterday through to the end of next week—the period he’d expected to spend in London, meeting with other philanthropists on a proposal to provide basic schooling around the docks.

  Standing before the dressing table, using the light from the single candle left burning there, Ro flipped through the cards, searching…until he found the one he sought.

  Lifting it from the pile, he checked the inscribed details. Jaw setting, he tossed the card on the dressing table; the rest of the cards in his hand, he turned away.

  Fate, circumstance, and coincidence, it seemed, were once again taking a hand in his life.

  Chapter Two

  The sound of a door closing reached through the fogs of sleep clouding Ro’s mind and prodded at his consciousness. But he knew it was early; he grunted and pulled the covers over his ears…but the oddity of his being able to hear a door closing, let alone footsteps sneaking past his door, the creak of a stair…

  He mentally shut his ears, sank into the bed. Tried to wrap his mind in the elusive webs of sleep.

  But recollections, and the realization of where he was—not in his bed at the Park but in the Coppingford Arms—dripped, point by point, into his mind.

  Then he remembered who else was there.

  Abruptly he opened his eyes, tossed back the covers, swung his legs out of the bed, and sat up. Eyeing his closed door, he swore.

  The door he’d heard shutting had been the one next door; it had been Lydia who had crept down the stairs.

  “Damnation!” Coming to his feet, ignoring his naked state, he strode to the door, cracked it open, and shouted for shaving water.

  He assumed she was breakfasting, but he knew, just knew, that the instant she’d finished she’d be off through the woods to try to break into Upton Grange.

  Bilt arrived with steaming water, Ro’s boots, and his brushed breeches. Ro took possession, waved Bilt away, then shaved, washed, and dressed in double time. A brief glance out of the window showed a leaden sky, but at least it had stopped gushing.

  Ten minutes later, still fiddling with his cravat pin and easing his shoulders beneath his coat, he stepped off the stairs—and paused. From the tap came men’s voices, along with the sounds and smells of breakfast; the door to the parlor was shut.

  Bilt appeared from the nether regions carrying a loaded tray.

  Ro stopped him with a look. “Who else is here?”

  “Just two commercial travelers, my lord, stranded just as you were, although they got in before the storm. We’ll have your breakfast ready in a jiffy if you’d like to wait in the tap.”

  Ro’s mind raced; he didn’t know what name Lydia was using, or if she’d brought a maid, a coachman, how she’d reached the inn. He inwardly frowned. “I’ll breakfast in the parlor. The lady won’t object.”

  Turning, he strode for the parlor door.

  Behind him, Bilt shifted. “Well, seeing the lady’s already gone out, I suppose there’s no harm.”

  Ro halted. He turned, pinned Bilt with a razor-sharp gaze. “When did she leave?”

  Eyes widening, Bilt shuffled. “Ah…had breakfast in her room early, then left…oh, half an hour or so ago?”

  Ro swore. “On foot?”

  Bilt swallowed, and nodded. “Headed up the lane, she did. To the right toward Buckworth.”

  Still swearing under his breath, Ro headed for the inn’s main door.

  “My lord—your breakfast…?”

  “I’ll be back in half an hour,” Ro growled. “You can serve me then. In the damn parlor!”

  Pushing through the front door, he paused for an instant on the stoop to gauge the condition of the lane, then stepped down and, avoiding the worst of the churned morass of mud, picked his way across to the verge bordering the wood.

  Once on the sodden grass, on firmer footing, he turned left and jogged in the opposite direction to which Lydia had gone.

  She wasn’t going to Buckworth; as she’d no doubt discovered yesterday, a rarely used rear drive from Upton Grange joined the lane just a little way along. Ro knew of it because he’d used that approach on the many occasions he’d driven down from Gerrard Park to visit his fellow notorious hellion, Stephen Barham, during the days of his misspent youth.

  Now Lord Alconbury, unlike Ro, Barham hadn’t reformed. Indeed, if the rumors were correct, he’d sunk even deeper into debauchery.

  Ro estimated that by now Lydia would be nearing the house. He had to reach her quickly, which was why he was making for the more direct path Barham and his male guests used to visit the inn.

  Reaching the path, he turned up it. Overhanging trees had protected it from the worst of the storm, but it was still slippery; striding, jogging, running whenever he could, he tried not to think of Lydia being found by Barham’s men and dragged inside to face their master—or potentially worse, being discovered sneaking about the house by one of Barham’s lecherous male guests.

  Passing through a clearing, he squinted up at the sky. Overcast though it was, it nevertheless confirmed that the hour was, as he’d thought, a ridiculously early one for him—or any of his ilk—to be awake, let alone about. He doubted it was yet seven o’clock.

  Lips tight, he dived into the woods beyond the clearing, the last band of trees before the lawns surrounding the house. He slowed as he reached the edge of the trees. Upton Grange lay before him, a squat gray stone pile with few redeeming features, placed in the center of an open expanse. Judging by the overgrown state of the lawns, Barham wasn’t as plump in the pocket as he once had been.

  Behind the leaded windows, Ro caught glimpses of movement, both on the ground floor and on the floor above, in the bedchambers assigned to guests, and even, he noted, in the master suite.

  Inwardly snorting, unsurprised, hands on his hips, Ro looked around, searching along the tree line. Catching his breath, conscious of his heart thudding—knowing it wasn’t from exertion alone—he prayed Lydia hadn’t been so foolish as to go up to the house.

  Finding no sign of her, he debated, then started to follow the trees around the house, keeping sufficiently back under their cover so that no one glancing out from the house would see him. He headed toward the rear drive, quietly searching.

  He glimpsed her through the trees from some distance away. The relief that washed through him was shocking. Jaw clenching, he circled around to come up behind her. She was standing just inside the tree line, well-wrapped in a blue pelisse, her furled umbrella held before her, her hands folded over the handle as she stared at the house.

  Her expression suggested she was supremely irritated.

  Lydia literally leapt when hard fingers closed about her elbow. Yet even before she’d swung to face Ro, she’d
known it was he; he was the only man whose touch could reduce her to breathlessness in less than a second.

  His face was set, utterly immobile; his gray eyes were hard. “Come away.” He turned and proceeded to drag her—haul her—deeper into the woods, away from the house.

  “No!” she hissed. She tried to dig in her heels.

  His next tug very nearly lifted her off her feet, reminding her how strong he was—deliberately, she had not a doubt. She narrowed her eyes at him, but couldn’t stop her feet from stumbling in his wake. “Ro—I warned you—”

  “There’s nothing you can do at present.” He didn’t even glance at her. “No need to stand there waiting for someone to notice you.”

  She glanced back at the house, rapidly receding behind the screen of trees. She frowned, faced forward, and reluctantly started walking of her own accord. He eased his grip on her arm; he didn’t let her go but shortened his stride to match hers. His hold on her arm was now more to steady her over the rough ground than anything else.

  Frown deepening, still puzzled, she said, “I thought they’d still be asleep—that I could slip inside and start searching while everyone was still abed. Who would have thought they’d be up so early?”

  Ro gritted his teeth. “They’re not up early. They haven’t yet gone to bed.” Or, at least, not to their own beds. Not to sleep.

  Lydia glanced at him, then her frown was erased by dawning comprehension. “Oh,” she said, and looked ahead.

  “Oh, indeed.” Ro told himself to stop talking; instead he heard himself say, “Can you imagine what would have happened if you’d gone waltzing into that?” The likely outcome didn’t bear thinking about.

  She sniffed and elevated her nose. “I’m perfectly aware that Barham’s entertainments are popularly described as being one step away from an orgy.”

  “One step away…?” His incredulous tone would have done credit to Kean. Gripping her elbow more tightly, he swung her onto the path to the inn, instinctively steadying her as she teetered on her pattens. “For your information”—he bit the words off—“there is no such thing as being ‘one step away from an orgy.’ You either have an orgy, or you don’t—there are no shades of gray when it comes to orgies. And you may take it from one who knows, Barham’s entertainments very definitely qualify as orgies.”