Secluded with the Rogue

Chapter 7

Seven

E lla followed Mr. Boucher through the house as he escorted her to her chambers for the night. Most of the furniture was covered in cloth to protect from sunlight and dust. Many of the tall paned windows throughout the house were shuttered, effectively sealing off the rooms from light and life. This beautiful house had been emptied of people. Closed off, just like its master.

They passed into one of the few more well-lit rooms, a long hall with paintings of fine-faced men and women. She glanced up at more than one of the portraits, seeing Phillip’s eyes or chin, even his nose in several of the ancestors upon the walls.

“Mr. Boucher.”

“Yes, Lady Ella?”

“Is he in much pain?” She was perhaps indelicate to inquire about Phillip’s injuries in such a way, but she needed answers.

Boucher paused to look at her in the moonlight. Whatever he seemed to be looking for he must have found.

“Yes. In the beginning, he couldn’t walk. He lay in bed for several weeks, only moving with the aid of others or a Bath chair. For a previously healthy young man, being trapped in such a way was, I think, a greater punishment than the injuries. Once he started to try to walk, he fell so frequently that he became afraid to try, until he became as you see him now.” The sorrow was evident in the butler’s tone.

“I believe if he attends Lord Pembroke’s ball, it might revive his interest in life, perhaps encourage him to try to walk more. Tonight, I admit I agitated him a bit, but he crossed the room perfectly without his cane.” This revelation made Mr. Boucher’s brows rise in surprise. “And the moment I called attention to it, he seemed to need it immediately.”

The butler stroked his chin. “Ah… You believe he has come to rely on his cane too much. That it has become not only a physical crutch but one for his spirit as well?”

“Yes, that’s it exactly.”

Boucher eyed her sagely as they walked through the hall of portraits and entered a corridor with doors to a dozen other chambers. “I believe you are correct. What do you advise, then?”

“I profess I haven’t the foggiest idea. But I wonder if it might not be good to open the house up again?”

Boucher answered with a nod.

“Then open the windows, let the furnishings breathe. Do it after we have left for the ball. That way once he has returned, hopefully in better spirits, he will find the joy of his home again as it sparkles and shines.”

Boucher was smiling broadly. “We could decorate for Christmas. The master used to love Christmas. Perhaps we could even invite some of his closest friends over.”

“What a splendid idea!” She was delighted to see how devoted Mr. Boucher was to his master.

The butler stopped and opened a door to his right. “This is the Lily Room, Lady Ella. I’ll send Cora to you in a few minutes. Marcus, his lordship’s valet, is also around to carry hot water for a bath, if you desire one. There’s a section of kitchens just one floor below, so heating water is no trouble.”

“Thank you, that would be lovely.”

“I shall have Marcus start preparing your bath, then. Cora will bring you some dinner while you wait.”

“Thank you, Mr. Boucher.” She touched the butler’s arm. “I’m glad to know Lord Kent has such devoted staff. He is worthy of it, even if he has fallen on hard times.”

Mr. Boucher patted her arm. “I quite agree. His lordship is a fine man, and we are all honored to serve him.”

When the butler left, Ella had a moment to explore the bedchamber. Her bed was made of white birch. The wood had been delicately carved, including the four spindles, which glittered with light gold netting rather than heavy brocade fabrics. Lilies had been carved into the headboard in beautiful patterns, and the stems of the flowers had been painted green. Ella brushed her fingertips over them and was swept away in wistfulness. She’d always loved lilies.

The coverlet on the bed was icy blue and made her think of a lake covered with frost. The fabric was embroidered with thousands of swirling stars and more lilies. The stitching must have taken months, but the end design was exquisite. This room was fit for a fae princess. Not her, perhaps, but she had to admit she would enjoy sleeping here tonight.

A portrait of a lovely woman in the fashion of the previous decade hung above the mantel opposite the bed.

Phillip’s mother? Most likely. She had kind eyes and an enigmatic smile that seemed to hint at old and happy secrets. It made Ella’s heart break. She would have loved to have met the Countess of Kent. Her own mother had been friends with her and had spoken often of how sweet and witty she was.

There was a brief knock on the door to her bedchamber, and Ella called out for whoever was there to enter. The door swung open to allow Lord Kent’s valet, Marcus, to enter, followed by a maid who brought tea. Marcus went into the dressing room to ready her a bath, and the maid, who introduced herself as Cora, set out a tray of cold cuts, hot stew, and some wine.

“Did his lordship return to his chambers all right?” Ella asked Marcus when he returned.

The valet exchanged a look with Cora before both of their gazes darted to the wall opposite her bed. “Er… Yes. Excuse me while I bring up the water, my lady.” Marcus left, and Cora began to unpack her clothes for the night, laying out a gown for travel in the morning.

“I should like to leave early in the day. Would it be possible for the cook to prepare a basket for my journey?”

“Of course, my lady.” Cora smiled warmly, her Irish accent sweet. “Should be no trouble at all. Mrs. Daley has many a fine basket for picnics. I’m sure one of them would do.” She retrieved Ella’s ivory hairbrush and undid her hair, combing out the tangles. After that, she pulled Ella’s hair up into a loose topknot so it wouldn’t get wet while Ella bathed.

Marcus filled up the copper tub and then left for the evening. Cora lingered in the dressing room while Ella bathed. Given the chill of the house and the weather outside, she didn’t linger in the tub long enough for the water to get cold. Then, with the maid’s help, she dressed in her nightgown and slipped her feet into warm green satin slippers lined with fur.

“I’ll just turn the bed down for you, my lady.” Cora pulled the bedclothes back and fluffed the pillows before she left. Marcus had loaded several logs into the fire, with extras to spare, and had used a bed warmer at the base of the bed to keep the sheets warm.

Ella sat in a chair by the fire, watching the flames burn for a long while before she contemplated going to bed. Part of her couldn’t believe she was here in Phillip’s home…alone and ruined. This was perhaps one of the worst Christmas holidays she’d had, aside from last year. Her dear friend, a woman she trusted, had just abandoned her on Kent’s doorstep.

When I return to London, Audrey, you and I will have a talk about breaking your vow not to match-make your friends, she thought darkly.

Yet she couldn’t stay mad at Audrey forever. Being here, despite the difficulty of the situation she’d been put in, and seeing Phillip, even know that this was a mistake, had filled the empty caverns of her heart again. She would give anything to have a life of laughter and passion with Phillip, the way Audrey had with Jonathan.

A thump accompanied by a curse behind the wall opposite her bed caught her attention. She hadn’t imagined the sound, had she? She crept over on tiptoes and placed an ear on the wall, against a panel of wood painted to look like a forest. The wood creaked slightly and gave way a bit beneath the pressure of her leaning against it. What on earth?

She moved back from it to study the panel and then gasped. It was no panel, but a door. Ella moved her hand down the panel, seeking any groove or other sign of a latch. When she found it, she gave a little tug. The door pulled open on silent oiled hinges, revealing a short dark passage. Careful to leave the door open into her room, she entered the passageway. She felt like Persephone entering the dark realm of Hades when she encountered a door opposite her own.

It certainly was a passage, a secret one rather than a servants’ corridor, connecting her room to someone else’s. Another thump and curse from just beyond proved too much for her curiosity to bear. She pressed against the door, and it opened just as hers had. She peered around the edge and silently gasped.

Phillip stood in the center of the room, leaning on his cane. His chest was bare, and the muscles of his body gleamed in the lamplight. His body was beautiful, with lean ropes of muscles on his abdomen. She’d imagined seeing him again a thousand times, but she noticed he was thinner, much thinner than last year. He had lost much of his body mass due to being inactive. Yet he was still beautiful, still achingly, maddeningly handsome.

He stood there, offering his profile to her as he carefully lifted the cane off the floor and took a step without leaning on it. Then he cursed as he wobbled unsteadily. So that was what she had been hearing. He was attempting to walk without his cane. Pride swelled in Ella’s chest. How very brave of him. She remembered how afraid she’d been to go into the gardens as a child. Doctors had told her she could catch a chill or a fever, or simply stop breathing due to the overpowering scents of the flowers and trees outside. But once she had gotten over her fears, she had learned she wasn’t as fragile as all of the doctors believed. Now she loved gardens more than just about anything.

“I’m not a coward,” he growled fiercely. “I’m not .”

Ella realized he hadn’t yet noticed her. He was talking to himself. Should she interrupt him or quietly fade back into the darkness?

Suddenly Phillip smiled, and the touch of humor about his mouth caused butterflies to lay siege to her belly.

“Little minx. She always did tempt me.”

That did it.

“Minx, am I?” she said, torn between amusement and outrage.

He stumbled, dropped the cane, and clutched the back of the nearest chair to steady himself. “Christ! What is the meaning of this? You can’t barge in on a man expecting privacy.”

“These are connecting rooms.” She pointed behind her toward the open door and passageway. “Might I ask what the meaning of that is?”

Phillip’s face reddened a little. “I did not arrange to have you here for any wicked reason you would imagine.” Phillip gripped the back of his chair and focused on her more clearly. The sweeping caress of his gaze was an almost tangible touch that made her shiver.

“You’re undressed,” he noted almost dumbly.

“As are you,” Ella observed. Her heart was beating an erratic rhythm, and she flushed from head to toe.

“See? I was right.” His voice roughened ever so slightly as he added, “Minx.”

This time she wasn’t mad. She simply laughed, and the frown that seemed to haunt his features vanished as he joined in.

“I don’t suppose you have a billiard room?” she asked, stepping into his room.

“Not in this wing. It’s on the far end of the house, too far for me to walk, but I do have chess.” He nodded to a set laid out on the table by the fire.

“Could we play? I’m not up to reading tonight, and I can’t seem to relax enough to fall asleep just yet.”

“Are you implying my skills at chess will bore you into sleeping?” Phillip was teasing her, and Ella adored it more than she could say.

“Perhaps.” She walked over to the chair opposite the one he held on to. His cane was lying out of reach. “Do you need it?” She nodded at the cane.

His gaze darted between her and his crutch. “No, not at the moment. Not if you are patient.” He made a show of carefully coming around the back of the chair to ease down into it. Then he leaned forward and set the chess pieces to a fresh game.

“Boucher plays with me, sometimes Marcus,” he added, flushing a little, as though embarrassed. It was essentially a confession that they were the only company he had.

“I would imagine Mr. Boucher plays a clever game of chess. Am I right?”

“You are,” Phillip said with a chuckle. “Marcus is more of a billiards man.”

“You still play, then?” she asked, leaning forward.

“No, not of late.” He let her make the first move before he spoke again. “I closed up much of the house after… Well, the accident. It was much harder to move about between all the rooms.”

Ella flinched at the word accident . They both knew that it had been no accident, no matter what the public at large had been told.

“I’m glad the man responsible is dead,” Ella said, knowing she sounded cold and vicious. But she was glad. She would have killed that man herself had she been able to. Hugo Waverly had been the orchestrator of so many misfortunes among her family and friends. And the man Phillip had lost to at cards, Daniel Sheffield, had been Hugo’s right-hand man in all of his horrible schemes. Yet Daniel still lived, and he’d even saved Charles from drowning in the frozen Thames. But even knowing that, she still hated that man for the pain he’d caused.

Phillip moved his piece, playing her in silence, but the silence was different than the last time they had been alone. When he’d left her in the library at Charles’s house, heartbroken, that had been a stifling silence, a suffocating one.

“If I had listened to Graham, I never would’ve lost that last hand of cards,” he said. “I almost got your brother killed that night. I don’t know how you don’t hate me.” His eyes sought hers, and she trembled, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

“I could never hate you.” Her mouth suddenly turned dry. I could never hate you, because despite everything, I still love you, she silently added.

They played long into the night, laughing about their mutual friends and stories from their youths. More than once their gazes met and held, and her body yearned for something more—and his did too, judging from the desire in his eyes. But they kept a distance, maintaining the pretense of a tenuous new friendship.

When she was finally exhausted, she rose and started toward the connecting door. Phillip reached out and caught her hand in his, and just like that, she was unable to deny how much she wanted him to kiss her…to do so much more with her. She stood still, her body humming, her mouth tongue-tied as he raised her hand to his lips and pressed a soft, meaningful kiss to the inside of her wrist against her rapidly beating pulse.

“Will you come with me to Lord Pembroke’s estate tomorrow?” she asked, her words tumbling from her lips.

“If I come, it’s on one condition,” he replied, his voice almost as smooth as the wine she’d had with dinner.

“Name it and I will see it done,” she promised. Whatever he demanded, she would make sure he had his wish.

“A kiss.” His demand echoed her own from five years ago. Her heart skidded to a stop. Elation and excitement rushed through her, only to be tempered by logic and reason.

“Why would you wish for that?” she asked, breathless.

“Because I owed one long ago to a friend and never paid it.”

“It’s a debt then? Nothing more?” Her heart hurt all over again.

He shook his head slowly as he stood, bracing one hand on the chair arm. “Because I wanted it then and never took it. Now…now I can’t deny myself the kiss I should have taken then.”

She swallowed hard. “What about the kiss the night of my debut? Was that not repayment?”

Phillip shook his head again. “That was a lesson. This is another kiss entirely. Allow me to show you the difference.”

He beckoned her closer, and she came to him, drawn by a force that seemed written in the stars. He wound an arm around her waist and cupped her cheek with his other hand. Ella leaned into him, and his heady scent, like smoke and dark woods, lulled her under a hypnotic spell. She had dreamed of this moment, as foolish as that sounded, and now it was coming true.

Their eyes met and held as he gave her time to change her mind, but she answered him only by closing her eyes and waiting for him to kiss her.

“Part your lips, darling.”

She did, and almost at once he took her. The kiss was hard, raw, and wickedly carnal. He thrust his tongue inside her mouth in a singularly erotic fashion that mimicked the play their bodies could have. Heat pooled between her thighs, and she whimpered and clutched his shoulders as her legs buckled. She was a breathless girl of fifteen all over again, yet this time, he was kissing her. And this kiss was the only one they might ever have. A tiny glow inside her burned with hope and bittersweet joy because she knew that she would at least have this memory of him. This was the Phillip he had been before his injuries had broken him.

Phillip’s hand locked behind her spine, keeping her a willing captive to him. Her body tingled as he nibbled at her lips, biting them and licking away the sting before he kissed her all over again. It was almost punishing and angry, as if the years of frustration and desire held at bay were bursting free at last. All too soon he stopped. Their mouths parted, and they both panted softly, their breath mingling as he pressed his forehead to hers. Her lips burned in the aftermath, and she imagined his must as well. He licked his lips, his eyes half-closed. Kissing him with such reckless abandon had been intimate, yet now, holding each other in the aftermath seemed infinitely more so. His blue eyes, now a deep indigo in the lamplit bedchamber, swept over her face.

“You really should consider giving lessons in seduction. Ladies would pay for that.” Her mind was still a bit fuzzy, and she felt both tired and a little giddy.

“There’s only one person I would ever consider teaching.” He kissed the tip of her nose and then let her go. She didn’t move, didn’t blink.

“So teach me. Teach me the ways of seduction.”

Phillip’s lust-filled gaze cleared a little. “What?”

“Teach me,” she repeated. “I am twenty, Phillip. My marriage prospects are all but gone. I am on the proverbial shelf, or so I am told. I am tired, so tired of waiting for a man to notice me. I’ve decided it’s up to me to find joy and pleasure. I want to find that with you, and I think… I hope…you feel the same. Won’t you teach me what you know? We can be careful.”

He stared at her for a long moment, so long she feared he would turn her down. “I’m not fit to teach you. I don’t think?—”

“You are,” she insisted.

She realized she had pushed him too far tonight in her demands, so she instead kissed him with a delicate brush of her lips.

“Please think about it.” She then left for the secret passage and returned to her bedchamber. She crawled into her bed and extinguished the lamp and lay down. Had she been too brazen making such a demand? Only tomorrow would tell.

P hillip touched his lips with his fingertips. He could still taste her, still feel her. Ella had challenged him in more ways than one tonight. She reminded him of the man he had once been. A man of passion and purpose. A man unbroken. Did she still see that man within him? He scraped a hand over his jaw, thinking. He leaned on the chair as he contemplated his choices.

He could stay here and let her go on alone to Pembroke’s ball. If he did that, he’d fade into bleak despair forever.

Or…he could risk everything on one last chance of happiness by going with her.

He closed his eyes, relishing the kiss and the way she had looked up at him, as though he were a hero, a warrior come to save her—not that she needed saving. Though Ella was capable of taking care of herself, he wanted to charge in to her rescue anyway. She wanted him to seduce her, to compromise her—in secret, of course. Could he do that? Could he play the scoundrel?

It wasn’t as though he was truly taking advantage of her, was it? She knew what she was asking; she knew the risks and consequences.

Phillip licked his lips, tasting her sweetness again, and made up his mind. He summoned Boucher and apologized for the lateness of the hour.

“Have my coach made ready at dawn. Have Marcus pack my valises for a week and the cook prepare a large basket of food for Lady Ella, Marcus, and myself.”

“I assume you are going to Lord Pembroke’s estate?” his butler inquired.

“You assume correctly.” He waited to see if his butler would bring up the fact that he and Ella were traveling without a chaperone.

But all Boucher said was “Should I send Cora as Lady Ella’s maid?”

“Yes, yes, good thinking. Thank you, Boucher.”

“Of course, my lord. I’ll see it done.”

“Thank you.” Phillip bent to retrieve his cane from the floor and used it to walk over to the bed, but he found he only needed to use it a little.

His body was still wound up with excitement after kissing Ella. Kissing her the way he’d dreamed about for years. Perhaps it was that which powered him through. He set the cane against the side table by his bed, removed his trousers, and eased into his bed. He stared down at his leg, particularly at the spot where there were heavy scars on the shin, where the bone had broken through. His leg was not crooked, but it was weaker. He rubbed the muscles, gritting his teeth at the knot of pain, but he kept at it until he was too exhausted to keep going. He didn’t want to fail Ella, and for the first time in a long while, he didn’t want to fail himself either.