Page 2 of Along Came a Rogue

With a flirtatious laugh, she swatted at his shoulder and forced him to step back as the noise of the milling crowd grew louder. She adjusted her long gloves. “How do I look?”

“Stunning.” He raised her hand to his lips. “As always.”

The flattery was empty, but it pleased her. Which was all that mattered. He needed to keep her happy only so he could enjoy Mozart again with her next week.

Her eyes shining at the compliment, she leaned back against the wall. “Quite a coup, securing a private box all to yourself. However did you manage?”

“I’ve always appreciated the privacy of a reserved box,” he expertly deflected her question.

He’d long ago grown used to the backhanded compliments leveled at him by her sort. They no more bothered him now than getting caught in a warm summer rain. But he wasn’t foolish enough to open himself to further criticism by admitting that the box belonged to Edward Westover, Duke of Strathmore and his former colonel in the Scarlet Scoundrels.

No doubt Margaret thought she’d been utterly scandalous tonight by having her mouth on him. She was right, of course. Even the rank of major wasn’t enough to gain status among the quality when he had no fortune or family name to accompany it. Neither did he care. He was free to bed whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted—and in the case of Lady Roquefort, wherever he wanted—and answer to no one but himself.

“Now, be a good girl”—he turned her toward the box entrance, happily done with her for the evening—“and return to your husband before the old baron discovers you’re missing.”

With a satisfied grin and a playful slap to her ass that made her jump, he was gone, stepping through the curtain into the milling crowd in the hallway and leaving her behind without another thought.

The hour was still early. Plenty of time yet for cards at one of the clubs since he no longer had any reason to linger at the opera. After all, he certainly hadn’t attended to hear the music.

Maybe he’d rouse Thomas Matteson from whatever dull evening he’d planned and bring him out with him. After all, they’d been best friends since they’d served together in Spain, where they’d saved each other repeatedly from both French soldiers and Spanish husbands.

Grey’s brows drew down slightly. Odd to think how much their lives had changed in the past two years. He had become an agent while Edward and Thomas had both moved into the ranks of the peerage, with Edward becoming Duke of Strathmore and Thomas gaining the courtesy title of marquess when his father unexpectedly inherited a duchy. Yet their lives were going to change again. Grey was heading back to Spain, and Edward—God help him—was going to become a father.

Best to squeeze in as many good nights as possible now, Grey decided as he made his way downstairs, slipping between groups of operagoers gossiping in the hall and on the wide stairs curving into the grand lobby below. He nodded at the handful of acquaintances he knew among the crush, but they only returned bewildered stares, as if surprised to see him.

As he skirted a group of pastel-clad debutantes at a safe distance, a shocked whisper rose from behind a flutter of fans. “The marquess!”

Lots of marquesses among the quality, Grey dismissed. He paid the comment no mind as he descended the stairs and passed a group of gossiping hens with the same shocked expressions, the same frantic flitting of their fans in agitated excitement as they stared in his direction. Just as with the debutantes, he gave the hens a wide berth. The last thing he wanted to sour his mood tonight was those disapproving glances that society matrons were so skilled at sending rakes like him.

Snippets of conversation wafted up to him as he reached the lobby. “So terrible…the marquess…dying like that…”

Hmm. A dying marquess. So that was what stirred such excitement tonight. Fresh news about the Marquess of Dunwich. The old man had taken to bed a few days ago with the same fever that had claimed both his son and grandson, leaving the title without an heir apparent, and the entire ton buzzed with speculation over what would become of the title when he died. Based on the titillated anxiousness floating through the crowd tonight, the old man must have finally given up the ghost.

He nodded at the Earl of St. James and his mother as he passed, doing his best to catch the eye of Baroness Sydney Rowland, standing next to them. The young widow was beautiful and exactly the kind of woman he preferred—

A man stepped directly in front of him, stopping him abruptly.

Grey couldn’t remember the man’s name but recognized him as a distant friend of Thomas Matteson’s from university. “I say, major,” the man said, perplexed. “I’m damnably stunned to see you here tonight.”

Grey shrugged. “I enjoy the opera.” He grinned with private amusement. “Especially the arias.”

The man’s face scrunched into a deep frown. “But I thought, with today’s events—surely, you’d be at Chatham House tonight.”

Ah, of course. That’s why everyone was eyeing him so oddly. Alistair Crenshaw, Marquess of Dunwich, had been distantly related to the Matteson family through the marriage of Thomas’s sister, and most of Mayfair knew that he and Thomas had served together on the Peninsula. It was Thomas who had shown him the intricacies and potential of a rake’s life among the quality once they’d returned to England, and their friendship gave him a grudging acceptance within the ton. Everyone must have thought Grey would be giving his condolences to the family tonight.

He shook his head. “Decided on the opera instead. I’ll pay my condolences tomorrow.”

The man blanched. “But—but the marquess!”

“Dead, apparently. Terrible shame.” Then he moved on through the crush, ignoring the completely astounded look on the man’s face.

He neared the door, longing for the coolness of the night outside—

“The marquess was so young.”

He stopped instantly, his head snapping up. A young marquess?

The man who uttered that news stood only a few feet away with a group of bejeweled ladies and gentlemen. Grey forced a lazy half smile that belied the rising unease inside him as he sauntered over. “Which young marquess?”