Page 2 of Every Rogue Has His Charm

Good.

“I’ll just…go,” she whispered, brushing past him on her way to the door, close enough that he smelled her rosewater perfume. Her hand must have trembled when it at last found the doorknob. It rattled loudly in the quiet room as she fumbled to open it, not once, but three times. The final attempt was accompanied by a low moan of something very like terror. “You—you’ve locked us in, sir.”

“Nonsense.” He too reached for the doorknob and caught her hand instead. She jerked away as if scalded. Grasping the brass oval, he twisted hard—foolishly; he of all people should know that opening a lock was rarely a matter of strength—and felt the knob come loose in his hand. He swore.

She did not, as he’d half expected, suck in a sharp breath or scold him or faint. Instead, her sigh was thick with exasperation. “You’ve broken it entirely, haven’t you?” And then she swore too—a more delicate epithet, rather than an oath, but still outside the bounds of ladylike behavior. “Can I trust you not to do any further damage if I leave you and try to find the tinderbox to light another candle?”

Before he could warn her never to trust him, or any man, a whisper of fabric told him she had already walked away, presumably in the direction of the hearth. A few moments later, he heard the telltale rattle and scratch of a flame being struck, followed by a flare of light, and finally the steady glow of first one and then a pair of candles on the mantel.

She’d had to stand on tiptoe to reach them, and the long dark braid running down her back swayed gently as she dropped back onto her heels. Her feet were bare beneath a pale gown that he knew without having to investigate was her nightgown, not even a dressing gown to cover it. The thin fabric—muslin, cambric, something—did shockingly little to disguise her pleasantly round arse.

If he’d needed further proof that he was cursed, he’d found it: alone, in a locked room, with a young woman in a shocking state of dishabille. He’d be fortunate if he didn’t find himself paying for this mistake with the rest of his life. “Merde,” he muttered beneath his breath.

Slowly she turned, giving him more than a glimpse of her lush curves—thighs, belly, breasts—along with their equally tempting shadows. Above the nightgown’s high neckline, her face was that of a debutante, fresh from her first season, still youthfully round. Even her lips were plump, soft…though presently set in a prim line, an expression he suspected she’d borrowed from some matron, probably her mother.

“Lord Chesleigh,” she said, and sighed again. “I might have known it would be you.”

* * * *

Caro hadn’t schemed to get caught in a compromising position. But if she’d thought of it, she certainly would have chosen to be trapped after midnight in the library with some other of the eight eligible gentlemen in the house. Most anyone but the Marquess of Chesleigh.

A man of thirty or thereabouts, heir to a dukedom, ought to have been the party prize every marriage-minded young lady and her parents were angling to win. But not one of them had pushed their daughter in Lord Chesleigh’s direction.

The man was…well, daunting she supposed was the politest word to describe him. Six feet tall and then some, with broad shoulders. Dark hair and eyes, and a faintly Mediterranean tint to his complexion. A severe expression, even at the best of times—which this most assuredly was not.

At the moment, however, she could not see his expression. He had turned his entire attention back to the door, dropping heavily to one knee, the better to fiddle with the broken knob. She slipped back to the window seat to collect her woolen shawl, draped it around her shoulders, and then obliged him by bringing the light closer.

He grunted his acknowledgment—no one would have called it a sound of gratitude—never glancing her way. Even in profile, his scowl was ominous. “How the devil did you get in here to begin with?” he demanded as he worked. “The door’s always locked.”

“It isn’t,” she countered. “The latch sticks. I had one of the footmen show me the trick—you have to jiggle the handle just so to get it to cooperate,” she explained, miming the movement. The motion made the light dance, earning her a hard glare. She dropped her free hand to her side. “But he warned me never to shut the door once I was inside, or I’d be here until the parlor maid came—the bell pull is broken, and she only dusts the library every third day.”

Lord Chesleigh answered with a single word, one she did not recognize and which she felt certain no lady ought. She wasn’t even sure it was English. He tossed the knob onto the carpet, where it landed with a soft thud, then pushed himself to standing. Her eyes were level with his chest. “Well, what now, Miss—?”

“C-Caro.” The polished buttons of his waistcoat shone; she fought the urge to adjust the topmost one, still caught partly in its buttonhole. Either he had dressed hurriedly, or his valet was unobservant. “Lady Caroline Brent. Lord Laughton is my father. And I suppose we might as well sit down and wait.”

He did not sit down. He strode past her, threading his way among the groupings of tables and chairs with ease, despite a noticeable limp. At the center window, he stopped. She had spent enough time in those deep window wells over the past week to know that the drop to the ground below must be nearly twenty feet. Nevertheless, he stood for some time, watching the rain lash the glass, staring out into the bleak darkness as if contemplating the leap.

At long last, he dragged a hand through his hair and turned away from the window, though not to face her.

“Have you read The Highwayman’s Hostage?” she asked. “It’s by a new author, Robin Ratliff. I must say, you bear an uncanny resemblance to one of the characters.”

It was the scars that did it, the worst of them a jagged seam down the left side of his face, running from temple to jaw, over a cheek that was slightly concave. Rumor had it, there were still more scars beneath his hair, which he let grow overlong expressly for the purpose of disguising them. But nothing could hide his nose, which no doubt had been prominent even before it had been broken, its aquiline shape rendered crooked and distinctive. He’d been injured in a brawl, a brothel, a duel—or so the rumors went.

Where Lord Chesleigh was concerned, there were no end of rumors.

One corner of his mouth lifted, though she could by no stretch of the imagination consider the expression a smile. Perhaps the injury to the opposite side of his face meant he never smiled. “The villain, I presume?”

When it had first been announced that he was to be among the guests at Lord Earnshaw’s house party, whispers had buzzed around the drawing room like so many bees. A marquess. Grandson of the Duke of Hartwell. Wealthy. And despite his evident injuries, still in possession of all his faculties and most of his limbs.

But mysterious, too. Secretive. No one had seen him for years. Rumor had it he’d run away to India. Or perhaps it was the West Indies.

Rumor had it, he’d done scandalous things.

And here she was, wearing only her nightgown, trapped alone in a room with him for heaven knew how long. The clock on the mantel chimed one. What would happen when they were found?

What might happen if they weren’t?

“I cannot say, my lord. I’m only halfway through volume one.”