Taming an Impossible Rogue Read online

  Or what if he had simply been forgotten? Gossiped over, raged about, and then put in the ash pan once the next scandal burst? Keating blew out his breath. That would have been perfectly acceptable to him. It was merely that he didn’t much rely on good fortune these days.

  He’d thought The Tantalus Club crowded during breakfast, especially on a day when Parliament wasn’t in session. The amount of carriage traffic rolling onto the elongated front drive now, however, was at least double what he’d seen earlier. Keeping his jaw locked, he sent Amble off with one of the stableboys and, rather than joining the trek up the front steps, headed around the opposite side of the house. Damned hypocrites. They all spouted the merits of living noble lives, and went to luncheon at an establishment where they were encouraged to ogle the female staff.

  He wondered how many of them justified their actions by repeating the mantra he’d heard at least half a dozen times since he’d first learned of the existence of The Tantalus Club: No touching, at least not without the lady’s permission. That, apparently, made the entire … existence of the place scandalous, but acceptable.

  Camille Pryce sat on a small stone bench beneath the shade of an oak tree set in the center of a well-manicured circle of rosebushes. For a moment Keating stopped at the edge of the cobblestone path, noting that whether intentional or not, the tree blocked the bench and its occupant from the myriad windows of the club. She’d changed her attire from the sleek bronze silk of the morning; the simple blue and green sprigged muslin seemed almost absurdly modest given her place of employment.

  This was the chit Stephen was supposed to have married a year ago. A demure, proper young lady, aged two-and-twenty now, sitting in a well-groomed garden and reading a book. Civilized and bloodless, the very portrait of the girl to whom the Marquis of Fenton had been engaged since his seventh birthday. Keating remembered when his cousin had learned about the agreement; the moaning and exaggerated faux vomiting had been highly amusing—to the point that he’d joined in. At six years of age, he’d agreed that females were highly overrated.

  In the dappled sunlight her fair hair took on more color, though yellow seemed too strong a word to describe it. Buttermilk or whey seemed more appropriate. The color—or lack thereof—was actually quite striking, particularly in combination with her blue eyes as pale as the morning sky.

  Yes, he’d been tasked with seeing her safely back into Society’s—and his cousin’s—arms, and yes, he’d spent several long minutes in front of his dressing mirror at Havard’s Glen swearing that he would behave, earn his pieces of silver, and return home without incident. Beneath that, however, he was male. And she was stunning.

  Keating shook himself. He had certainly never waxed poetical even when he’d been young enough to be considered naïve. And he was nothing close to either, any longer. Yes, she was pretty. She was also the intended of the Marquis of Fenton, and she was the means by which he would obtain ten thousand pounds. With that money he could finally begin to make some things right. Things he’d made wrong six years ago. That was the reason—the only reason—he’d returned to London.

  He cleared his throat. Scaring the chit to death would cost him a great deal of blunt. “You look as though you’re posing for a portrait,” he commented, stepping forward.

  She looked up at him. From her calm expression, she’d known he was standing there. “How should I sit while reading, then? One arm above my head and my toes turned in?”

  Evidently she wasn’t quite as fragile as she looked. “I meant that to be a compliment. Shall I turn around and begin again?”

  Her sunrise blue eyes assessed him. “You don’t look much like your cousin. I daresay if you hadn’t told me of your relationship, I never would have known.”

  “In all honesty,” he returned, moving close enough to lift the book from her lap and examine the title, “I heard that you didn’t get much of a look at my cousin.” Hm. Pride and Prejudice. So she had a romantic bent. That was good to know, though he wasn’t certain how it would help him in swaying her back toward Fenton, the cold fish.

  Her cheeks darkened. “I agreed to speak with you here because you asked me a question that no one had ever posed to me before. If you mean to insult or bully me, Mr. Blackwood, know that you’re not the first. Nor are you anyone whose opinion matters to me in the least. Clearly I was mistaken in thinking you might be someone with whom I could … commiserate.” Snatching her book out of his hands, she stood and marched back toward the large manor.

  Damnation. Seeing his ten thousand quid stomping away, Keating went after her. Clearly he needed a different approach—and quickly. He put a hand on her shoulder. “My lady, I didn’t m—”

  She whipped around and slammed the book into the side of his head. “Leave me alone!” she snapped, and trudged away.

  If Keating had never been hit before, the thwack might have stopped him. Considering that he still bore the remains of a black eye from a gargantuan bruiser nicknamed Bully Tom, he simply strode forward to block her escape. “Nicely done,” he said, tasting blood from a cut lip. “What question did I ask you?”

  “I—you—get out of my way.”

  “Answer my question. About the question.”

  Camille Pryce took a deep breath. If he hadn’t been behaving, he would have noted the fine form of her bosom, but he kept his gaze firmly on her face. He also kept his weight balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to dodge if she swung the book again.

  “You asked me what Fenton had done to drive me away.” She narrowed her eyes, her jaw clenched. “You didn’t ask what was wrong with me to leave a wealthy, titled gentleman standing in the church. I thought that was … refreshing. But now you’ve ruined it, and I’m finished speaking with you. Do not come back to The Tantalus Club.”

  “I scratched at old wounds, you mean.” God, even as he spoke the words he realized how familiar they sounded. “I apologize. I have developed a tendency to strike first.” He rubbed his fingers against his jaw. “You returned fire quite adequately,” he continued, grinning. “Might we consider this a draw and begin again?”

  “We’ve been conversing for five minutes, and that’s the second time you’ve asked for a second chance. How many am I supposed to tolerate?” Camille folded her arms across her chest, lifting her chin to gaze up at him.

  That did stop him for a moment. He had the strangest sensation, not for the first time, that he might have been conversing with himself. Second chances. How many was one man allowed to have? Surely he’d surpassed that number some time ago, whatever it was. Time, then, to stop backpedaling and do it correctly the first time.

  “This is the last one,” he said, realizing that he spoke the absolute truth. He had one thing—one thing—to manage. Because the assignment Fenton had given him wasn’t a second chance. It was his last chance.

  She gazed at him for several hard beats of his heart, while he rolled his thoughts around what he would do if she continued into the club. “I have a question for you,” she finally said.

  Anger and frustration curled into him, and just as swiftly he pushed them both away. No, he didn’t like interrogations, but he could tolerate a damned question or two. Camille Pryce was not some random chit he’d decided to seduce. “I don’t hold up well under scrutiny,” he returned, attempting to sound disarming, “but ask away.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that you’re here at this moment simply because you also dislike your cousin? I’m a kindred spirit to you for that reason, and you are not here because of some plan to further injure or embarrass me?”

  “I don’t know a great deal about what transpired between you and Fenton,” he returned, thankful he could, for the most part at least, speak the truth. “I’m generally not well liked in London, and so yes, when Greaves told me who you were, I thought … I don’t know what I thought.”

  “It’s difficult to find—and trust—friends, sometimes.”

  The brief sadness that touched her sky blue eyes made him pause
. If his intention had been to hurt or mislead her, he was fairly certain he would have changed his mind right then and there. But Fenton had offered her a second chance, as well. A chance to be embraced again by her family and friends and to not have to put up with overtures of friendship from scoundrels like himself.

  “I’m not a gentleman, my lady, and you have no reason in the world to trust me. But I would like it if you called me friend.”

  She glanced down at the book in her hand for a moment. “I heard everyone whispering your name this morning, but because of that question you asked me, I decided not to inquire until I’d spoken to you. So who are you, Mr. Blackwood?”

  She asked that as if she assumed the answer were simple. Keating looked toward the tall windows of The Tantalus Club. Actually, it was fairly simple. It was only that he didn’t like saying it, and that his own reputation could keep him from winning this round. He took a short breath. “I’m Keating Blackwood, the grandson of the former Marquis of Fenton. They whisper about me because six years ago I seduced a woman and then killed her husband. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  * * *

  Camille blinked. Given his looks—that coal-colored hair, brown eyes that looked almost amber in the sunlight, and those high cheekbones and sinfully long eyelashes—she’d thought that whatever had stirred up the club’s noblemen must have been some sort of scandal involving a woman, if not pure jealousy at the Adonis suddenly in their midst. But she hadn’t expected murder.

  A rustle of memory touched her, from back when she’d been sixteen, still living at home and still perfect in her parents’ eyes: her father returning from a night at one of his clubs and saying Blackwood had done it that time, and they would hang him for certain. And a poem popularized in one of Cruikshank’s caricatures. “‘Bloody Blackwood plowed the wife, and then he took her husband’s life,’” she muttered, half to herself, then blanched as the expression in his eyes cooled to winter.

  “Do you make a habit of reciting people’s sins to their faces?” he said quietly, taking a half step closer to her. Then visibly catching himself, he lowered his shoulders. “Apparently neither of us is particularly politic.”

  She swallowed. “No. I don’t suppose we are.” In the back of her mind, her father’s upset at the actions of a man who’d been a complete stranger to her abruptly became clear; after all, his eldest daughter had long ago been promised to the rogue’s cousin. And no wonder she’d never associated Fenton with this particular relation. He would have done everything in his power to keep any mention of scandal as far away from himself as possible.

  “So you see,” he commented, his tone very, very level, “your flight from a church, and even your coming to The Tantalus Club for employment, pales in comparison to me. Does that put you off chatting with me? I’m a very bad man, after all.”

  Before her almost-marriage, the answer to that question would have been simple. So simple that she would already have been back in her bedchamber, the door bolted. She might even have been hiding behind the bed. Of course that would have been in her parents’ house, when she still had her own bedchamber. Even here at the club, though, she was still hiding. And that realization abruptly bothered her.

  The magnitude of difference between his scandal and hers wasn’t even a near thing; she’d fled a wedding, and he’d killed a man. But there was still that question he’d asked. And now she understood why he’d been interested in her point of view. And the way he stood not quite facing her, his right shoulder forward as though he were ready for a blow. How many friends had he lost? Did he hope people would simply forget him, leave him be?

  “The man you killed,” she said aloud, her voice not quite steady. “Was it murder, or a fair fight?”

  He studied her face for a moment. “He broke into my home and came after me with a pistol. But it was certainly my actions that drove him to do so.”

  “Do you regret it?”

  “Are you my confessor?”

  Camille tilted her head. “You think we have something in common. I’m testing that theory before I risk spending another minute in your company.”

  Finally he nodded. “I regret it. I regret all my actions where Lord and Lady Balthrow are concerned.”

  It might merely have been lip service, but the same thing that had compelled her to agree to meet with him out in the garden in the first place whispered to her that he was speaking the truth. And that perhaps she could learn something from him. Perhaps he could instruct her how to walk outside in London where people knew what she’d done, and not care what they said about her.

  “I’m about to take my luncheon in the employees’ quarters,” she said slowly. “Would you care to join me?”

  He inclined his head, surprise briefly crossing his handsome features before the cool cynicism dropped back into place. “I would. And I can promise that I’m generally not so macabre. I’m fairly amusing, actually.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “Then I shall save my best dialogue for you.”

  As he followed her into the Tantalus Club through the servants’ entrance and up the back stairs to the third floor, Camille couldn’t help the feeling that she was some sort of doe leading one of those sleek black Indian panthers into her den. Some of the other ladies took gentlemen from downstairs—and elsewhere—upstairs to their beds, but this was the first time she’d invited anyone from outside the club inside its walls. Into what she considered her private sanctuary.

  She pushed open the door into the large common room where the half-dozen long tables had been set for luncheon. Fifteen or so of her companions were already present, including the large Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Smith. And everyone looked in her direction. Camille shivered. Oh, this was a mistake; she had enough people looking askance at her. Adding Bloody Blackwood to the mix would only make things worse.

  And yet, there they were, and unless she turned around and pushed him back outside, there they would stay. It’s only luncheon, she told herself. Surely she could manage to be brave for an hour. Camille took a seat at one of the tables, and without hesitating, Mr. Blackwood sat on the sturdy bench opposite her. “This is not what I expected to see up here,” he commented, taking two of the cucumber sandwiches set in the center of the table and placing them before him.

  “What did you expect?”

  “Deep red wall hangings and less clothing, generally.”

  Her cheeks heated. “A brothel. Disappointed, then?”

  His lips curved at the edges. “No. Surprised. I like being surprised. It doesn’t happen often.”

  “You were here this morning, weren’t you?” a second female voice asked.

  A pretty brunette sat on the bench beside him. He could practically smell the seduction flowing from her and drawing around him. Enticing as it was, he was also struck by the difference between this forward chit and the cautious, standoffish one seated opposite him. “I was. Keating Blackwood. And you are?”

  She batted lashes over her impossibly blue eyes. “Miss Hampton. Lucille.” Picking up a strawberry, she made a show of sliding it into her mouth. “You were very gallant.”

  “I bloodied a man’s nose, Miss Hampton.”

  “Yes, but you did it in defense of a lady’s honor. That’s so very gentlemanly of you.”

  He sent a glance across the table. Camille sat concentrating on a bowl of pea soup, her shoulders lowered. She looked very like someone who’d been broken, resigned to accept whatever happened to her. Damn Fenton for being so oblivious, ham-fisted, or whatever he’d done to make her run.

  Returning his attention to the younger lady seated next to him, he leaned closer. “So I have a fat man’s bloody nose to recommend me to you,” he murmured. “Is that enough? Why don’t we find a private room where you can demonstrate how much you admire me?”

  Porcelain blue eyes widened, then blinked. Twice. “I—”

  “After all, perhaps I am a hero. Perhaps I defend the reputations of young ladies twice every
day and thrice on Sunday. Or perhaps I had an aching head and the idiot’s yammering annoyed me. Or perhaps I simply enjoy hitting people when I know they can’t or won’t defend themselves.” He edged still closer. “Or perhaps you should discover who it is you might be flirting with, Miss Hampton. I might even be a murderer. You never know.”

  Her fair skin turned pale. “You are jesting, Mr. Blackwood. Certainly.”

  “Actually, he isn’t.”

  The deep, sophisticated drawl immediately put him on alert. He generally knew better than to sit with his back to a door, but for the devil’s sake, he was in the attic, in the employees’ quarters, of a chit-filled gentlemen’s club. “Haybury,” he said, centering himself again.

  “Miss Hampton, Cammy, give us a moment, will you?” the marquis said, moving around the table and offering a hand to Lady Camille. “I would like a word or two with an old friend.”

  Camille stood. “Certainly.”

  Keating eyed the marquis as he sat in Camille’s vacated place. “Do you often venture into the ladies’ private area of the club?” he asked, resuming his meal. “Does your wife know about this?”

  Haybury continued gazing at him, light gray eyes assessing and nearly as cynical as his own must be. “Aren’t we supposed to begin with general greetings before the stabbings begin?”

  “Ah.” Keeping his brief appreciation hidden, Keating nodded. Haybury, at least, had once had a foul reputation himself. “Haybury. I hear congratulations are in order. You’ve gained a wife and a gentlemen’s club.”

  The marquis nodded. “Yes. I couldn’t have one without the other.”

  “But which were you after?” Keating pursued, already deciding how much of a stir he was willing to raise if the marquis should ask him to leave. Or to order him to do so.

  “The wife,” Haybury returned immediately. “And I seem to enjoy making her happy. Which leads me to a question: Would she be happier with you in the private areas of her club making all sorts of mischief, or with you outside on your arse?”