Secluded with the Rogue

Chapter 1

One

December 17, 1819

Armestead Hall

North of Watford

Hertfordshire, England

E dward Gibson, Earl of Armestead, sat at his desk in the study of Armestead Hall. A megrim was working behind his eyes, and he rubbed his temples to encourage it to fade.

Why the devil did I agree to throw this house party?

Again.

As he had done every year since he’d taken the title, Edward hosted Christmastide at his country estate. It was a matter of taking up the tradition his father had left off, and it was the least he could do, for he was often so busy with duties to parliament and his estates while in London that he only got out to the Hertfordshire property twice a year—summer and winter. However, this year, his heart wasn’t in it for various reasons, but his four sisters would be there, and three of those sisters had families of their own that would have the halls ringing with child-like laughter. And since Kitty, his youngest sister, had married in the spring of last year to his best friend Reginald, she had been on a wedding trip for months. They’d only just returned to London in July of this year, and she had promised to come to the house party.

Oddly, out of all his sisters, he’d missed her the most. Probably because she’d always managed to make his life difficult by landing into scrapes and scandals, but when she’d wed Reggie, that had all stopped to a point, but he missed having someone around to argue with. And if he were honest with himself, the scandalous ones were always the most interesting.

But he could never let her know that.

Beyond having his family around him, he had also invited a handful of acquaintances within the ton , and they’d agreed to bring some friends. His sister had done the same, so the house would once more be full. Whether or not everyone would actually follow through was a whole different matter, and if they did, where would he house everyone?

It wasn’t the worst problem to have.

Besides, it might be nice to immerse himself in socializing beyond what Town could offer. There was always the opportunity to enjoy being removed a bit from society through at least Twelfth Night. Having a Christmastide house party meant a wide variety of activities to take part in, most of them being outside and away from prying eyes.

That was all to the good.

Would any of it be enough to lift the ennui that had been his constant companion for the past few months? Only time would tell.

Briefly, Edward closed his eyes as he continued to dwell on the upcoming house party that would begin in a few days.

Christmastide wasn’t his favorite time of year, for he missed his parents acutely and the memories therein threatened to bury him. Additionally this year, he felt as if he’d lost his best friend too. Where usually he could have relied on Reggie to pal around and keep him company, that man had been scarce since he’d married Kitty. They’d taken a yearlong wedding trip, and even though they’d come back in July, they were still very much newlyweds and in the honeymoon period. They resided in London, true, but they both had other things to occupy their time. Some Sundays he took dinner with them, but otherwise, they were missing from his life, mostly because Reggie was a busy man besides as he campaigned for a seat in the House of Commons.

Not that he could blame the man. He’d wished to make a name for himself, to set him apart and away from the nickname as “the earl’s fool” that he’d been known as before he’d married Kitty. And that was Edward’s fault for treating him as a joke, but since his sister had dressed him down and married Reggie, all of that had changed.

He would be quite the asset once he was accepted into the Commons, going against Edward’s own votes in the Lords, but perhaps that didn’t matter. Especially since some of his own votes were more and more aligning with his best friend’s.

Though he was quite happy for the newlywed couple and content with his own responsibilities, behind that well-worn mask, he was lonely.

As he pulled a leatherbound ledger toward him, the butler appeared in the open doorway.

“Your Lordship, Mr. Healy and Lady Katherine have just arrived.”

Some of his melancholy lifted. “What of my other sisters?”

“They immediately took possession of Lady Katherine and whisked her up to the drawing room. The husbands of the ladies have scattered while the children are taking tea in the nursery with various governesses and maids.”

That was one of the lovely things about the manor in the country—there was plenty of room for everyone.

“Ah. Thank you Burson. Show Mr. Healy in here.” He hadn’t expected them so early in the month, but perhaps he wasn’t the only one suffering from maudlin thoughts this time of the year.

Moments later, his best friend strode into the study, looking for all the world as if the heavens had opened and he’d had a glimpse of the unexplainable. He grinned at Edward. “Hullo, Armestead. It’s been an age, hasn’t it?”

“Indeed.” Edward waved him into a leather chair that faced his desk. “Brandy?”

“Yes, please.” Reg shoved the fingers of one hand through his black hair and sighed. “The trip out here took an ungodly amount of time, and I’ve been chilled to the bone.” He glanced toward the window. “Roads were rutted with mud. Then the rain had changed to ice, which made any sort of speed impossible. There was a point when we all feared for our lives.”

“At least you arrived. I’m grateful for that.”

“As am I. Poor Katherine was quite rattled.” With the shake of his head, he watched as Edward poured into two cut crystal glasses othe amber liquid from a carafe that rested on the corner of his desk.

Reg was the only person of his acquaintance who called his sister by her full name instead of the shortened version. It was rather gentlemanly of him.

“When we were about to give up all hope, the precipitation turned back to rain for a time before finally switching to all snow, of which there is copious amounts. . I pity the guests on the road now.”

“As do I. It’s my hope the weather doesn’t strand the remaining people we’ve invited. There is nothing worse than plans askew due to snow.” He came around the desk, handed Reg one of the glasses of brandy, and then sat in the matching chair next to his. “Despite all of that, you seem uncommonly happy.”

“Is that right?” Reg sipped his drink, but amusement, as well as happiness, sparkled in his sapphire eyes. “I suppose I am.” With a shrug, he rested an ankle on a knee. “It must be the marriage that agrees with me.”

“Perhaps.” As Edward sipped his own brandy, a bit of envy stabbed through his chest. It had been ages since he’d been simply happy or even content with his life. Most days it didn’t bother him, but some days—like today—it left him irked and annoyed. “Kitty is happy, so you must be doing something correctly.”

A faint flush went up Reg’s neck over his cravat. “I don’t know about that, but we are finally acclimating to being wed.” His grin grew wider. “Having a wife about has been both interesting and satisfying.”

“I would rather not hear the ways in which you find life satisfying with my little sister.” He followed the statement with a swallow of brandy that burned his throat on the way down. “Or anything having to do with your marriage, actually.”

Yes, he was thrilled that Kitty and her penchant for scandal was officially off his hands and Reg’s responsibility, he was also a tiny bit jealous she had found someone to spend her life with, someone her made her happy.

Reg snorted. “Truly, Armestead, marriage isn’t bad. Once you find the right woman that is.” He winked then took another sip of his brandy. “Are there any ladies indulging in the house party that you might find favorable toward a potential match?

“That is difficult to say.”

“No willful and wicked widows? No wallflowers desperate to find a man? No scandalous hoydens looking to be tamed?”

“Honestly, I have no idea if those types of women are here. I didn’t pay much attention to the guest list, and I have no idea who Kitty invited.” Yet Reg had a point. “While I’m the host of the house party, it’s my duty to make certain everyone is having a lovely time and being entertained.” With a rue shrug, he took another sip of his brandy. “I haven’t had the opportunity to sit down and converse with any one lady. And as to whether they would be good marriage candidates? I would have no idea.”

“What are you not telling me?” The other man slightly narrowed his eyes. “You forget that I’ve known you for many years, Edward, and I know when things aren’t quite right.”

“Well, things aren’t quite wrong either.”

“You aren’t happy.” It wasn’t a question.

Was there harm in admitting to the truth? “The house party started three days ago. As of yet, after talking and mingling, I haven’t connected with any of the ladies enough to even contemplate a courtship.” He tossed back the remainder of his brandy then rested the crystal glass on his desk. “Yes, I have been circulating… before you ask. However, afterward I’ve been hiding in the billiards room or my study. Sometimes I join hunting parties?—”

“—so you don’t need to talk to the women,” Reg finished for him. He shook his head. “I never thought you for a coward, Armestead.”

“Yes, well, neither did I.” God, was he that pathetic to everyone? “I have always maintained that I didn’t wish to marry because women are fickle and nothing but trouble. Hell, Kitty served as testament to that fact.”

“I won’t argue with you, but sometimes when women are saucy and unpredictable, they make the best companions.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Edward held up a hand to halt more words from his best friend. “She led you on a merry chase?—”

Again, Reg interrupted him. “—still is, in fact. God, she’s amazing, and so clever.” His wide grin was back. “Why else do you think I couldn’t wait to marry her last year?”

He harrumphed. “Uh, because I found you both in a near compromising position?”

“Ha!” A bout of laughter escaped the other man. “Sure, you found us in that old folly after we’d made love, but I had already proposed, had already planned to marry her.” He waggled his eyebrows. “As I said before, when you find the right woman, everything changes, and conversely, everything falls into place.”

“Perhaps for you.”

Edward frowned as he looked at the man who’d been his friend the longest out of anyone. Unlike Reg, he had never found a woman who’d held his interest, whom he might unbend enough to offer his heart to, for being a mistress was one thing, and love quite another. Yes, he’d had ladies in his bed and on his arm over the years, but only once did he think he might offer for a woman.

Granted, he hadn’t loved the female in question. His parents had told him she was a good match and joining the families would have created a powerful alliance within the beau monde . Additionally, since his father had been the stiff upper lip type, and his mother hadn’t talked about how a man needed to let down his guard and show his emotions at times, Edward had never learned how to live with his own emotions—good or bad.

Therefore, he’d shoved them deep down within himself to either be forgotten or to fester into greater problems.

Yet he’d been impressed upon numerous times by his father that he had a responsibility to the title that would eventually be his. He would be an earl someday, and that would require a wife to help quell rumors that he might be a negligent landowner or an absent lord.

So at a summertime ball, he’d danced with the chit—it had been her Come Out year—and afterward, he’d asked to pay his addresses to her. The lady in question had been thrilled… for all of five minutes, for when she’d asked him if he was in love with her and he’d told her no, she turned all frost and icicles.

After that, she’d made it known quite clearly that she would only marry for love, so she’d given him the cut direct. Just like that. It had been the scandal of that Season. In some ways, he’d not recovered from it, for it had been quite embarrassing and a bit aggravating. He’d been forced to not only leave the ball early, but also retreat to his country estate until the gossip had died down, and it had driven his emotions that much deeper.

He'd vowed to never again offer for a woman—in love or not—for they were nothing but trouble.

“Do stop, Armestead. One rejection from one lady doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you.” Amusement wove through Reg’s statement.

“Of course not, for there is something wrong with them .” Though he was cognizant enough to hear the ring of arrogance in that response. Edward heaved out a huff of frustration. “I am aware that over the years I have done my best at erecting walls around my person as well as my heart…”

Reg snorted. “That assumes you have a heart. Do you?”

Despite the subject matter, a grin tugged at the corners of Edward’s lips. “It is difficult to say. I’m not certain I have ever been in love enough to even know.”

And at the age of eight and thirty, the likelihood of that happening was growing slim.

“Well, if you are desperate to marry, then do it. Perhaps love will come later.” Reg heaved himself out of his chair. He set his nearly empty brandy glass on the desk next to Edward’s. “Keep all the mistresses you want, but marry to further the line.”

“That is rather a dim view of looking at it, don’t you think?”

“I do.” With a sober expression, Reg peered down at him. “But that is close to what you told me when I asked you last summer if I could pay my addresses to your sister.” He frowned as Edward gained his feet. “You told me you were perfectly content with your mistresses and didn’t need or want to marry.”

“I remember.” Yet now that Kitty seemed wonderfully happy in her relationship, and she’d been averse to marriage—for different reasons than he—he thought perhaps he might like to meet someone at the house party who might consent to be his wife. “But your position and mine are clearly different.”

“Societal rankings, yes, but as men? No.”

“I… I have long grown bored of taking mistresses. If you must know, I haven’t had a woman in my bed for a few months.”

“What about a woman against the wall or on a chair?” Reg asked with a cheeky expression and laughter in his eyes.

Damnation, the man was annoying. “No.”

“A pity, that.” For long moments, the other man remained silent as if he were pondering closely over his next words. “I am not saying you should marry. I’m not even saying go out right now and put a babe in some poor woman’s belly so you’ll have to marry her. But I am saying that perhaps letting yourself be open to the chance that there are good women out there will give you a different perspective on a few things. And it is nearly Christmastide. Romance is more easily stumbled over during this time of year than any other.”

It wasn’t bad advice, but it just wasn’t for him. And Christmastide? Uck. It was a holiday he could largely do without. “I miss my parents and grandparents more during this time of year than any other, and with my sisters busy with their own families, I’d rather just be alone.”

“Like a coward or a crotchety old man?”

Now that wasn’t funny. “You know, Reg, just because you are happily married doesn’t mean you’re suddenly more clever than me.”

“Pardon me, but I think it does. I’ve learned a lot since taking Kitty to wife, and she’s done her fair share of talking to me about you.”

“Oh, God.” There was so much there to tell, more than Reg would have known since becoming Edward’s best friend. “Colored through her life though. Take it all with a grain of salt.”

“Piffle.”

“What?”

“You hard me. Piffle. Do you want to know what I think?”

“Not especially, but I feel that you will tell me all the same.” Why was it a good idea to throw this house party again?

“You want marriage and the prospects of starting a family, but you are afraid.”

“I’m not.”

“No? Then perhaps you had your heart crushed at some point in your past by a woman and you’ve neglected to tell me about that trauma? There must be a reason you are afraid of love.”

“My pain, if there is such a thing that I’m struggling with, is my own.” As far as he knew, he had never fallen in love. Had he? Not even with Nancy before she’d ignored his very existence, though he was beginning to doubt that as the years drew on, for while he could easily dismiss her from his mind, evicting her memory from the chambers of his heart was more difficult.

But why?

“Ah.” Reg reached the door and turned back to regard Edward with a grin. “Not to worry, my friend. We’ll find someone for you before Twelfth Night. Never fear. And yes, I’ve been wonderfully happy, absurdly so, since marrying your sister.” He winked. “I want that for you too, and I rather hope it’s with a woman who turns your world upside down, because those sorts of women are the best after all.”