Have You Any Rogues? Read Free

bit.
    At her frantic movements, the dogs began their caterwauling yet again.
    “Settle down, all of you,” he told them with an authoritative snap.
    Henrietta blanched as she realized he was including her in that order.
    Of all the humiliating . . .
    Once again, her rescuer whistled low and long. “You are good and trapped.”
    “Yes, well, if I hadn’t been overrun by your pack of mongrels—”
    “Mongrels?” He had the audacity to sound affronted. “I’ll have you know my dogs are—”
    “Ill-mannered, untrained—”
    “They did find you,” he pointed out.
    Much to her chagrin and against everything she’d been raised to consider about a man, she found that his teasing made her blush as much as her predicament did. But she wasn’t about to let him know this.
    “Harrumph, ” she managed. After all, none of this was getting her upright and her skirt down where it belonged.
    Covering her from prying eyes.
    A fact he must also have understood, for here he was, laughing yet again. “Yes, well, let me get you untangled.”
    Then he did just that, catching hold of her ankle and starting to lift her foot.
    His hand, warm and strong on her bare ankle, sent shock waves up Henrietta’s limb and left her gasping for breath. Never had any man touched her so, and she certainly wasn’t prepared for how intimate it was for someone—especially a stranger—to take such a liberty.
    At the sound of her sharp intake of breath, he let go of her. “Did I hurt you? Are you injured?”
    Something about the sincerity of his words washed away the bulk of her fears, and Henrietta felt more than a bit foolish. He was, after all, helping her, and to do that he had to touch her . . .
    But more alarming was a very insensible desire trembling inside her that wanted very much to feel the warmth of his touch yet again.
    “I don’t want to hurt you,” he continued to say.
    “No, no,” she rushed to tell him. “Just startled is all. Pray continue.”
    Because she didn’t quite believe a single touch could truly send one’s heart racing so . . .
    Yet when he caught hold of her again, the heat of his touch left her breathless.
    And yes, her heart went galloping along as if by a will of its own.
    Gently he raised her foot and tugged at her skirt, and then again pulled at it, until fabric ripped—oh, it was a terrible shame, for she did love this muslin—and her gown came loose.
    “There,” he proclaimed as she felt the soft cotton fall down in place over her legs. “Now, are you certain you are unhurt?”
    “Yes,” she replied just as quietly.
    Unhurt? Yes. But something was wrong with her heart.
    For it was hammering about like a horse running wild.
    “Then let me help you up.” And with that, one strong hand caught hold of her wrist while another wound around her waist and he plucked her out of her tumbled state.
    In an instant, Henrietta’s world was both righted and tipped upside down.
    Her hands came to rest on the only steady thing available—the man’s chest—a solid wall of muscled strength. Catching hold of his lapels, she found her footing and looked up.
    In the years that followed, she always wondered at what happened next.
    Her breath failed her as her heart fell into an abyss.
    Her rescuer, this supposed rogue, was indeed a gentleman. The most handsome one she’d ever seen. Golden brown hair fell loose from where it was tied in a country queue. He had a rugged jaw that was covered in rough stubble, but it was his eyes—blue as her mother’s favorite sapphires—that caught her with their sparkle. They teased her with an impish spark that, as a Seldon, she knew only too well.
    That light called to her every wild desire, her secret wishes. Ones, she had to imagine, she didn’t yet understand.
    And when he smiled, she knew without a doubt that one day, this man, this ragged daring rogue, would show her the way.
    Personally. Intimately.
    In that instant, she wondered what it would be like to spend