Secluded with the Rogue

Chapter 5

Five

One year later

“I f I have to listen to one more man explain to me that business and politics are not things to concern myself with…,” Ella growled over the rim of her teacup.

“It is most frustrating,” her friend, Audrey St. Laurent, agreed. “I often say some men need a good whack to the head…or between their legs, depending on the man.”

Ella snickered but then sighed as her mood deflated again.

“What’s truly bothering you?” Audrey inquired.

Ella glanced about Audrey’s morning room, seeking a distraction from her mortification, but they were alone. A fire crackled in the hearth, and sunlight glinted off the snow outside. It was a perfectly lovely day, which made her black mood all the worse.

“At one and twenty, it seems I’m now to attract the worst sort of men. I was at Lady Hearst’s ball last evening, and every single man I danced with lectured me about how fortunate I was to even be dancing at my age. To make it worse, the younger ladies have taken offense at my being there. More than one lady said I shouldn’t even be there because I am so clearly on the shelf. What shelf, I ask you? Are women like fruit? Do we turn sour after three seasons? I rather think I am better each year I get older.”

Audrey’s brown eyes glinted with amusement. “Fair point. I’ve often wondered what shelf it is society always refers to as well.”

“Someone even said I was long in the tooth! What on earth suggests I’ve grown fangs?” Ella demanded hotly.

Her friend touched her arm. “Ella, breathe, my dear. Your face is turning an alarming shade of red.”

Inhaling deeply, Ella relaxed as the burning sensation eased.

“You seem more upset than usual,” Audrey said, her brows drawn together in worry.

Ella set her teacup down and looked toward the window. More and more often she had this wild compulsion to run out the nearest door and never come back. Something was missing in her life. Something she’d lost long ago, and she was afraid she would never find it again.

“Audrey, I thought I would fall in love again, that I would feel that heat and light again, but I haven’t. Not one time.”

Last year she had confessed to Audrey how she felt about Philip because her friend had a way of understanding men and offering sound advice. But last Christmas had been a difficult time for all. Charles and his wife, Lily, had almost died when Hugo Waverly—half brother to Charles, Graham, and Ella—had tried to kill Charles.

It had been a vendetta long in the making, and even now Ella didn’t know all the details. But all of Charles’s friends, known as the League of Rogues, had been targeted by the man, including Audrey’s husband, Jonathan. Ella’s broken heart had been a small and inconsequential matter compared to that.

“You still love Lord Kent?” Audrey asked.

“I suppose I do, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise. I’m such a fool, aren’t I?” Ella sniffed.

“Not at all. But he certainly is. Gillian, the Countess of Pembroke, said James told her that Kent barely leaves his estate. He’s been a sour sort for the last year. James thinks it’s because his leg still pains him. He still walks with a cane, I understand.”

Ella brushed away her tears. She hadn’t seen Philip since the day he’d left her in the library. Graham had gone to see him, but Ella hadn’t dared to ask about him.

“I didn’t know about his leg, or the cane,” Ella whispered. Her heart ached with the thought that he must still be suffering.

“Yes, he’s quite boorish about it, according to James.” Audrey suddenly brightened. “Oh, I have a wonderful idea. Jonathan and I were planning to attend James’s Christmas ball. He has invited you and Kent as well. What if we all went to Kent’s estate and coaxed him into coming?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Ella shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Of course it’s not good. It’s brilliant .” Audrey beamed and clapped her hands together. “Jonathan! I need you!” Audrey shouted.

Ella gasped as the doors opened and Jonathan St. Laurent, the younger brother to the Duke of Essex, came bursting into the morning room, fists raised.

“What’s the matter?” he demanded, looking ready for a fight until he spied his wife, Audrey, standing there grinning at him. Audrey glanced at Ella and snickered.

“I love when he comes storming into a room to rescue me, bless him.”

Jonathan relaxed and rolled his eyes. “One of these days, dearest…,” he warned, but there was only love in his gaze.

“We are going to pay Lord Kent a visit on the way to James’s party. See if we can’t coax him to come with us.”

“Oh?” Jonathan smiled. “Excellent idea. Good afternoon, Lady Ella.” He bowed his head slightly as he saw her.

“Good day, Mr. St. Laurent,” Ella replied. She envied the ease with which Audrey and her husband lived, false alarms aside. They were both openhearted and warm to one another. It was a special sort of magic to have a love like that, where there were no barriers, no distance, just a secret language built upon smiles and gazes burning of longing and fulfillment. She had thought she and Phillip might someday have that, each of them the night and the dawn, the sea and the shore, the spring rain and the blooming flower. Forever linked.

“Ella, say you will come. If anyone can shake him from his eternal melancholy, it’s you.” Audrey spoke the only words that could shake the walls Ella had built around her heart.

“Yes, I’ll come.” Loving someone who refused to love her back was perhaps the burden she was meant to bear, the struggle she was meant to survive. But knowing that did not make the weight of it any easier. Still, Audrey was right. He needed her right now.

“Wonderful.” Audrey beamed at her, a mischievous smile upon her lips.

“But please, no matchmaking, Audrey. I must insist.”

“Of course not.” She circled her head with a finger. “See, my angelic halo is securely in place.”

Ella shot Jonathan an amused look over Audrey’s head.

Jonathan snorted. “It certainly is, securely resting on your adorable devil’s horns.”

“Oh!” Audrey chucked a tiny silk pillow from her settee at her husband, who caught it with a wicked grin.

“When do we leave?” Ella asked.

“Tomorrow morning.”

“What? So soon?”

“Yes, of course. Christmas festivities wait for no woman,” Audrey replied.

“Or man,” Jonathan added, biting his lip to keep from laughing.

Audrey shot him an arch look. “I suppose. What is it you silly men do again? Oh yes, you drink too much and go outside to find a Yule log. I’m surprised no one’s lost a limb to an ax yet.”

Jonathan crossed his arms over his chest. “That, my darling, is a sacred rite, not to be mocked, even by beloved wives.”

Ella was now the one who rolled her eyes. “I think I’ll leave you two alone.”

As she slipped past Jonathan into the hall, he whispered to her, “Never fear, I will endeavor to keep her from matchmaking.”

“Thank you, Mr. St. Laurent.” She laughed softly and closed the door.

A moment later she heard Audrey squeal and Jonathan laugh. Ella blushed as she collected her cloak and reticule and headed into the fierce cold outside. Her heart thumped wildly at the thought of seeing Philip again, but she was also afraid of how much it would hurt. And it would hurt deeply.

T he following evening, the St. Laurent coach rolled to a stop in front of Lord Kent’s estate. The grand manor house unfolded over four acres almost like a medieval castle. The south lawn was a great length of green grass that was currently embedded in heavy snow. The rows of gables and chimney stacks seem to pepper the roof with an indescribable gaiety that gave the manor house an air of courtly elegance. Swallows darted in and out of the tall, stately clock tower, chattering despite the cold winter.

“I always forget how lovely this house is,” Audrey said.

“It is, isn’t it?” Ella had never seen Phillip’s country home before, and she couldn’t resist taking in the magnificent sight. It was a lovely sprawling structure of stone and brick, with timber that must have first been laid as far back as the twelfth century. Yet she noticed clear signs that it had been remodeled recently to become the lovely pale-cream stone manor house that stood before her today.

“Go on, Ella. I shall be right behind you as soon as I find my gloves,” Audrey said as she searched around for them.

Ella opened the coach door and stepped down with the help of the driver. She pulled the fur-lined hood of her cloak up around her face and approached the pair of open doors that led to the outer gatehouse. The door stood partially open, revealing a courtyard that led to a second gatehouse. It must have been a holdover from the structure’s original design. She passed below the clock tower as she reached the second gatehouse. The sun was setting behind her, and the dark-gold rays illuminated the gray stone clockface with large brass hands pointing at the time.

“Hello?” Ella called out as she reached the door. It too was partially open, and she peeked into the entryway. She saw no one inside.

She tapped the lion’s-head knocker hard against the wood several times until finally someone came to greet her. An older butler with dark hair graying out at the temples came down the side stairs.

“I’m so sorry to intrude,” Ella said. “My name is Ella Humphrey. I’m a friend of Lord Kent’s. I’ve come to fetch him for Lord Pembroke’s Christmas ball. We have a carriage waiting for him. It’s very comfortable, with footwarmers and a fine set of horses…” She stopped when she realized she was starting to ramble.

“I am his lordship’s butler, Mr. Boucher.” He spoke the name with a French inflection that sounded like Booshay . “I was not informed that he was to attend the ball.”

“Well, he was invited. Would it be possible for me to see him?”

“His lordship is not quite in the mood for visitors.” The butler was still frowning, and he flinched when a crash came from the upper floor. “Excuse me, I must see to that.” Boucher rushed up the stairs to the left.

Ella stared after him. What was she to do? Leave? Yes, she should leave. She hadn’t been invited. Yet something deep in her chest pulled her on an invisible thread up the stairs after Boucher. She chased after the butler, who ducked into a room. She skidded to a stop in the doorway and saw Phillip on the floor, one hand clutching his head and his other gripping a table for support as he tried to get to his knees. Boucher was beside him, trying to assist him.

Phillip’s eyes locked with hers, and just like that, every feeling, good and bad, came roaring back.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

She still loved him, and in that moment as she witnessed him in pain again, she knew coming here was a mistake.