Page 13 of Along Came a Rogue

“Major Grey served with my brother in the wars,” she explained with more pride than she had a right to feel. Even after suffering the consequences of what she’d done that day, she couldn’t forget him and followed him the best she could through Thomas’s letters—her heart soaring with his heroics, laughing at his antics, even crying when he’d been wounded. She’d been so upset, in fact, that she wrote to his parents to assure them that he had friends in her family, only for the letters to return undelivered. “I trust him.” I think…

Yardley removed the water from the stove and poured it into the teapot, giving Emily a wary look. “Why do I suspect there’s more you’re not telling?”

She bit her lip and divulged with embarrassment, “When I was a girl, I fancied him.”

Yardley paused as she set the teapot onto the tray.

“It’s nothing to worry about now,” she insisted. She shrugged it away as the childish infatuation it was.

But it wasn’t childish infatuation that had just made her curl her hands around his lapels and attempt to pull him closer, that had her pulse racing and her body tingling in the most intimate places—

Silently, she cursed herself. It wasn’t Grey that made her behave like such a cake. It couldn’t possibly be him. Certainly, she’d gotten over her fascination with him years ago.

No, it was all the changes she was going through. All the lonely and fear-filled nights she’d endured. All the responsibility for the farm sitting on her shoulders. For the past two years, she’d run the property in Andrew’s absence, managed the tenants’ leases, and somehow made certain the servants were paid. Then she had to bury her husband and pretend to mourn. No one could go through that and remain unaffected.

So when Grey appeared this afternoon, a kind face from her past offering to help her, it was natural that she should yearn to be comforted, consoled, protected—God help her, she wanted to be wanted. Of course, it hadn’t helped that Grey had lain on top of her like that, the solid weight of him pressing down deliciously into her, or that the masculine scent of him filled her senses, the heat in his chocolate-brown eyes warming between her thighs…

Well, she thought with chagrin, perhaps she hadn’t completely gotten over him, after all. While he’d certainly not given her a thought in five years.

She ignored the twinge of vexation in her chest as she admitted, “He never paid me any mind then, and he won’t now.”

“Don’t be so sure, my lady,” Yardley warned as she wrapped a towel around the pot to keep it warm.

No, that was the one thing about which Emily was certain. Clearly, Grey remembered that kiss only for the temporary rift it caused with Thomas and the lingering animosity between him and her parents. But she’d lived with its consequences every day since, in a life of isolation and abandonment that affected her even now…only to discover that he hadn’t known any of the hell she’d suffered.

She’d never blamed Grey—well, perhaps she’d blamed him just a little bit. But truly, it had all been her fault, a childish stunt to capture the attention of a man with whom she’d been so infatuated that she hadn’t considered the consequences. And yet, while she regretted manipulating him and certainly regretted getting caught, she’d never once regretted kissing him.

“Why are they here, then?” Yardley asked, reaching for the spoons.

“My family sent him.” Emily took a deep breath to steady herself and not let fresh tears fall at the thought of Thomas. “He came to tell me that my…” She choked out around the knot in her tightening throat, “My brother is alive.”

“Oh, my lady.” Her bottom lip quivered, and Emily suspected Yardley might just cry, too. “It’s a miracle!”

She nodded slowly, then forced out with a smile, “Thomas has asked the major to escort me to London to see him.”

A teacup slipped from Yardley’s hand and smashed against the stone floor. Emily startled, jumping back a step, her hand reaching to cover her belly.

“Oh no!” Yardley shook her head adamantly.

Emily knew she wasn’t speaking of the broken cup. “Don’t worry,” she reassured her. “I’m not going with him, and I’ve told him so.”

But her heart tore at not being able to sit at Thomas’s side and hold his hand while he recovered. How much she so desperately wanted to do exactly that! But at what cost? To endanger her own life, the lives of her family, possibly even Grey—her father was a duke now, but even a duke and all his money wouldn’t be able to stop someone determined to harm them. Her heart ached with grief and fear. Dear God, how would she ever bear it if anyone was hurt because of her?

Doubt darkened Yardley’s face. “He doesn’t seem like the type of man who gives up easily.”

No, he certainly wasn’t that. In fact, she doubted Grey had ever waved a white flag of surrender in his life. “I’ll find a way to convince him to leave.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet.” She lifted her hand to her mouth and worriedly chewed on her thumbnail. He had seemed so determined to keep his promise to Thomas, but she was just as determined to stay right where she was. “But I will.”

Yardley lowered her voice. “Are you going to tell him about your husband?”

“No,” Emily answered firmly. “And neither can you. Not one word, not to anyone.”

Yardley bent down to sweep up the broken cup. “You can trust me.”

At the hurt tone in her voice, Emily immediately felt guilty and murmured apologetically, “I know.” But sometimes she wished there was someone else she could confide in and trust besides Yardley. Ironically, someone exactly like Nathaniel Grey.