That Despicable Rogue Page 17

  ‘It has nothing to do with your superior physical attributes,’ she said a little breathlessly. ‘It is simply a fact that employers do not fraternise with their servants. It is just not done.’

  But she tilted her head so that he could freely nibble her neck, he noticed with delight.

  ‘Next I suppose you are also going to tell me to behave like a gentleman?’ he whispered between nips.

  ‘On the contrary,’ Hannah responded without thinking, caught up in the sensations he was creating, ‘After this morning I am done with gentlemen. They are a pathetic lot.’

  ‘I am pleased to hear it. Is that why you kissed me first this time?’

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘Yes, you did.’ Ross buried his nose in her hair and inhaled her perfume greedily. ‘You came into the study, grabbed me and kissed me. On the lips too. It was a blatant invitation, Prim.’

  She looked delightfully flummoxed by this logic. ‘That...that was merely an expression of my thanks,’ she stammered breathlessly as his lips found the underside of her ear. ‘It was certainly not meant as encouragement.’

  Ross chuckled against her neck. ‘Mmm-hmm? I am certainly feeling your encouragement now.’

  Only then did she brace her hands against his shoulders and gently push him away to arm’s length.

  ‘I am not ready to be a dalliance, Ross. My heart is not up to it.’

  Her blue eyes looked so troubled. He could see the turmoil she was feeling. It matched his own.

  ‘What if this is more than a dalliance, Prim?’

  Ross was not exactly sure what he was offering, but he could not shake the thought that there was meant to be more between them. An uncomfortable knot of fear formed in his chest as he waited for her reply. Part of him wanted her to reject him. A bigger part didn’t.

  After an age she turned away from him. ‘Sometimes I wish that...’

  The noisy arrival of Dog in the hallway, closely followed by John and Reggie, prevented her continuing. She whipped her hand out of his grasp and stepped away.

  ‘Tea’s up,’ Reggie announced from the doorway, and Ross actually growled.

  She had been about to say something profound about their relationship, he just knew it, and now the moment was gone.

  ‘I swear I am going to take that blasted tea tray and batter someone with it!’ he bellowed to a stunned Reggie.

  ‘They is just papers, Ross,’ the big man placated, missing the point entirely. ‘They ain’t worth getting angry about.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  A few evenings later Hannah stood staring at the huge pile of documents that still needed sorting.

  ‘When you said that you had got into the bad habit of keeping everything, I had not realised that you meant it literally,’ Captain Carstairs uttered in disgust, shaking a letter in his friend’s face and interrupting her thoughts. ‘This is a receipt for sugar, for pity’s sake! Why did you keep this?’ He dropped it onto the enormous pile of paper that they had consigned as rubbish.

  Hannah watched Ross wince. ‘I put Reggie in charge of my post,’ he admitted. ‘Once I had read it I told him to put away anything important.’

  ‘But the man cannot read,’ Carstairs whined in exasperation. ‘Did you know that when you gave him the task?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ Ross lied, quite convincingly.

  Of course he had. Thoroughly charmed, Hannah quickly averted her gaze and felt a smile touch her lips. He had wanted to give Reggie a job so that he felt useful. Ross had a kind streak that was a mile wide, which he tried his hardest to hide. He grumbled constantly about Reggie and Dog, yet he had taken them both in and given them homes. Even now, when he thought nobody was looking, he was tickling the besotted mutt behind the ears.

  She turned her head slightly and he caught her eye. His hand dropped and he curled his lip in a facsimile of a snarl and glared at the beast instead. Dog simply rolled onto his back and offered his master his rounded belly, his pink tongue lolling out of his mouth in sheer delirium.

  She knew how the stupid animal felt—Ross had much the same effect on her too. There was no point denying the fact that she was seriously tempted by him. When he had suggested that there might be something more between them for the briefest of moments she had come close to capitulating and surrendering to the feelings that she was struggling to deny.

  At the last minute she had realised that she was too frightened to risk it. She had given her heart once and it had been crushed. It had taken seven years to recover—if indeed if had fully. The thought of going through all that pain again, of entrusting it to another man again... It was too much.

  ‘Look at this!’ announced Captain Carstairs with great excitement as he unfolded a large piece of parchment. ‘This is our first agreement with the Siamese silk merchant, Ross.’

  Hannah did not notice the look passed between Carstairs and Ross, and nor did she see how they watched her to gauge her reaction. That was because she had just found something that looked suspiciously like a gambling marker. At the bottom, in barely legible writing, she was certain it was signed ‘Tremley’. Carelessly she tossed it onto the rubbish pile and hastily picked up another piece of paper.

  ‘Goodness,’ continued Captain Carstairs in the background, ‘I had forgotten how cheaply we bought that first shipment. No wonder the East India Company are worried about the competition. We seriously undercut them then.’

  Hannah rose carefully, picked up the small pile of rubbish and walked it towards the chest that they had designated for burning. She surreptitiously slipped the marker into her hand and pocketed it.

  ‘With any luck we will finish this tomorrow—but I fear I am all done for today. Goodnight, gentlemen.’

  ‘She was not even remotely interested,’ said Ross with an air of resignation after Prim had left the room. ‘I don’t think she is a spy from the East India Company.’

  ‘She is just a good actress,’ Carstairs countered. ‘Spies have to be. I will wager my entire fortune that she comes back and reads this when she thinks we are in bed.’

  Ross laughed. The whole business of trying to catch Prim in the act of industrial espionage was becoming a bit ridiculous. Carstairs kept dropping clues and leaving strategic things lying around but so far it had all been to no avail.

  ‘I am not spending another evening with you hiding behind the chesterfield,’ he said adamantly. ‘Last night we waited for three hours. Three! And all to no avail. I can think of better ways to spend the night—sleeping immediately springs to mind.’

  Carstairs nodded sagely. ‘I agree. But I am still going to keep an eye out.’

  ‘You are wasting your time.’

  Ross knew in his heart that the woman was not a spy. Prim did not wish him any ill. In fact he was becoming rather hopeful that she was coming to see him in an altogether different light. All day she had been peeking at him shyly through her lashes with feminine interest, and blushing profusely whenever he caught her doing it. He found it quite sweet and touching.

  He had also found himself doing exactly the same thing back. He was not altogether sure what had come over him. In the last few days he had started to feel very sentimental, and there was an odd ache bothering him in his chest. Perhaps he was finally ready to enter into more than a dalliance with a woman after all?

  ‘Oh, stop mooning!’ Carstairs said in disgust. ‘It is quite pathetic to watch. You are supposed to be softening the woman up—not falling in love with her.’

  Ross opened his mouth to argue and then stopped himself. Was he? He certainly had become quite fond of Prim. Ever since the day she had come back from visiting her idiot fiancé things had definitely changed between them. She was certainly less frosty, and had stopped glaring at him when he flirted, although he had not managed to steal another kiss. She smiled more frequently, laughed more.

  In some ways it was almost as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. It was like watching a caterpillar slowly being transformed into
a butterfly before his very eyes. Prickly Prim had almost disappeared. In return he had actively sought her company, and he did everything he could to earn the reward of one of her smiles. When he did he felt as though she had given him a great gift.

  He became aware of his friend watching him.

  ‘I knew it!’ John said with irritation. ‘First you lose interest in your mistress, then you move into a house, and now you are seriously thinking about settling down.’

  ‘Hardly,’ Ross countered, with less force than he had intended. ‘I am not mooning. I am just tired. Thanks to your continued insistence that we keep guard every night I am simply exhausted. To that end, I bid you goodnight, Carstairs.’

  With as much dignity as he could manage, Ross sauntered from his study and closed the door behind him.

  * * *

  In the privacy of her bedchamber Hannah pulled out the yellowed and dog-eared slip of paper and read it properly. It was indeed from Viscount Tremley, but made out to a Viscount Denham—not Jameson, as she had hoped—and it was a promise to pay the princely sum of three thousand pounds.

  Hannah was astounded by the amount. But how had it fallen into the hands of Ross? Tremley’s letter had stated that he intended to pay off his marker in full, so was this huge debt now owed to Ross instead? Was it some form of extortion?

  She sincerely hoped not. The more time she spent with Ross Jameson, the more she liked him. She had not wanted to find this gambling marker, she realised, because its very existence justified all her former suspicions about him. Well, not entirely, she conceded with a sigh. At the moment it was the only evidence she had found that Ross might not be the thoroughly decent, kind and heart-stopping man she had come to know. He made her smile, set her pulse racing and kissed her mindless. Surely she would not have such tender feelings for a man who was capable of extortion?

  Ever since she had confronted Eldridge she’d felt as if everything was up in the air. On the one hand she was still reeling from the discovery of her brother’s betrayal. Only the worst sort of man did something like that to his own flesh and blood. Perhaps Ross was right and gambling had become an addiction and turned her brother into a monster. It was still no excuse for his treachery. She hoped he rotted in hell, so raw was her anger.

  But on the other hand, bizarrely, she found herself beginning to hope. Perhaps love was in her future. She was certainly not as averse to the idea as she had been. It had started to feel like a just revenge on both her brother and Eldridge to move on despite them. Why should their influence still prevent her from living her life to the full? But could she really risk her heart again for a man like Ross, no matter how tempting that might be?

  Hannah had suffered through one heartbreak which had taken years to mend, and she had never even truly loved Eldridge. She had convinced herself that she had at the time, but she had been young and lonely. Eldridge had never made her pulse flutter nor her heart melt with tenderness. He had never made her laugh. She had certainly never longed for him or dreamt about him.

  Her sleep was frequently interrupted, of late, by those green-eyed cherubs—and that had nothing whatsoever to do with lust and everything to do with possibilities. Somehow she just knew that Ross had the power not only to break her heart, but to shatter it to smithereens. The problem was Hannah had no idea if she was brave enough to take the chance.

  The bed suddenly felt too warm and too uncomfortable. Hoping that some hot milk might encourage her eyelids to close, Hannah slipped downstairs and tiptoed down the hallway.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  * * *

  The shouting woke him up. Ross did his best to ignore it, but even with his head shoved underneath his pillow he could still hear the uproar in the hallway below. By the heavy sounds of footsteps on the landing he was not the only person who had rudely been snatched from the loving arms of Morpheus. He ripped back the sheet, pulled on his breeches and stomped out to see what all the furore was about.

  ‘What the devil is going on?’ he roared as he stomped past a confused-looking Reggie on the stairs.

  The scene that confronted him was not at all what he had expected. A bleary-eyed footman was standing next to the open door while his gamekeeper stood menacingly over the two men who were lying prostrate in the middle of the hallway, a fearsome-looking flintlock poised in his hands, ready to shoot. Prim was standing close by in a billowing nightgown, her eyes wide as she watched the gamekeeper with obvious alarm. Dog was barking and bouncing up and down as if his life depended on it.

  ‘What the blazes...?’ Ross came to a halt next to Prim. ‘Will somebody please explain to me what the hell is going on?’

  The gamekeeper eyed him triumphantly. ‘I got them! Caught the blighters red-handed, I did.’ He motioned to the men on the floor with the butt of his rifle. ‘They’re lucky I didn’t shoot the pair of them.’

  As he looked back at Ross the barrel of the gun waved wildly in his direction.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, man, put that blasted gun down. Somebody could get hurt.’

  Ross stalked towards him and took the weapon from his hands. Noticing that John had also made it down the stairs, he handed it to him. As he had hoped, his friend knew how to make the thing safe, and he leaned against the banister casually, clearly enjoying the unexpected entertainment.

  ‘But they might run!’ the gamekeeper exclaimed, glancing nervously back towards the open door. ‘Shut that bleedin’ door!’ he shouted to the footman. ‘And then go and fetch the constable.’

  The footman slammed the door and then merely gaped at Ross like a fish.

  ‘There will be no fetching of constables until I say so!’ he shouted, at nobody in particular. ‘Let’s all calm down.’

  He said this mostly for his own benefit, because absolutely everyone appeared to be looking to him for direction.

  ‘Can somebody please tell me what is going on?’

  The gamekeeper pointed to the floor. ‘I caught them red-handed! These two are nothing but vile poachers.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Ross stared at the twin piles of quivering dark rags on the carpet. Their arms were raised, fingers laced on the tops of their heads, and their faces were obscured because they were lying face-down. It seemed to him to be the most humiliating position the gamekeeper could have put them in.

  ‘Stand up, gentlemen,’ he said, in his best commanding voice, and pinned the gamekeeper with a no-nonsense stare when the man tried to argue.

  The two poachers stood and he got his first proper view of them. One was considerably older than the other, and both of them had clearly gone to great pains to avoid being seen at night. The whites of their terrified eyes glowed in the candlelight in stark contrast to their soot-blackened faces and dark clothes. Despite this, it did not take a genius to work out that neither of them was out to make a profit from their labours. Both were painfully thin, and filthy bare feet poked out of the bottom of their ragged trousers. These poachers could not even afford shoes.

  ‘What have you got to say for yourselves?’ he asked flatly, although he already suspected that he knew the answer to his own question.

  ‘Who cares what they have to say for themselves?’ the gamekeeper ranted. ‘They were caught red-handed. There’s a brace of pheasants and a baby deer dead outside. I say we get them arrested right now.’

  The man spoke mostly to the other people assembled, Ross noted, in an attempt to get a majority agreement.

  ‘Poaching is a capital offence,’ John whispered quietly, in case he had not realised the ramifications of the charge.

  Ross nodded curtly and glared at his gamekeeper. ‘Everyone has the right to defend themselves. I will hear these men and then I will decide what is to be done with them. Do I make myself clear?’

  The gamekeeper stepped back, affronted. ‘I saw them with my own eyes. Do you doubt my word?’

  Carstairs stepped between them smoothly. ‘Of course not, my dear fellow—but it is only fair to allow these men
to speak and tell their side of the story.’

  The gamekeeper, still disgruntled, nodded once and stood to one side.

  Ross turned back to the two sorry fellows in front of him. ‘Can I assume, from the peculiar way that you are both dressed, that you did come here tonight intent on killing those animals?’

  The younger of the two looked about to burst into tears. Under all the soot Ross determined the lad to be little more than sixteen.

  The other man stepped forward. ‘My son had nothing to do with it. I am to blame. If you have to arrest someone, then let it be me.’

  He stood proudly, his thin shoulders so straight that Ross could see the shape of the bones sticking out.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ Ross asked quietly, and he watched the man look at his own filthy feet for a moment before he stared back at him in defiance.

  ‘I was trying to feed my family.’

  ‘And the only way to do that is stealing?’ Ross countered.

  The man looked at his feet again. ‘Now it is. Ain’t no work around here any more.’

  Ross scraped a hand over his face and sighed. He knew the desperation of poverty too. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Tom Farrow.’ The older man’s voice shook, but he looked Ross square in the eye.

  ‘If you want honest work, Tom, for both you and your son, get yourselves cleaned up and report back here at six in the morning. My housekeeper will find you something to do.’

  The poachers stared back at him, dumbfounded, but the gamekeeper could not hide his disgust.

  ‘If you let them get away without proper punishment word will spread and we will be overrun with poachers!’

  Ross ignored him. ‘Reggie—help these men to carry their dinner home. Get one of the footmen to go too.’

  The big man nodded and lumbered towards the door.

  ‘Th-thank you, sir,’ the older poacher stammered, his eyes filled with grateful tears. ‘You won’t regret this. I swear it.’