The Rogue Read Free Page A

“Really?”
    â€œGo,” he growled like the beast she had called him. “Now. Go.”
    She must. She thought perhaps that he was trying to be good. Trying to stop them from kissing again. Kissing more. Kissing too much.
    She never wanted to go.
    â€œAll right.” Touching the walls to either side, she backed up. “Good night, sir.” Then she had to turn away, because the ache inside her was no longer pleasurable.
    In the darkness he found her wrist. He took it, lifted it, kissed it.
    She sighed.
    He kissed her palm, the tips of her fingers, and she could not breathe, could barely stand on knees that had turned to jelly. Sensation ripe and hot and wonderful overcame her.
    He opened his hand, allowing her freedom. She made her feet move, made herself draw her hand away, trailing her fingertips across his callused palm until she felt him no more.
    â€œGood night,” he said.
    Then she was alone again, walking swiftly through the darkness. Alone with a secret and a painfully quick heartbeat and a new ache of loneliness in her throat and chest that in all her eighteen years of solitude she had never imagined possible.
    Stealing through shadows, she made her way out of the big house and then walked the quarter mile along the wooded path to the dower house. The moon was bright andher lips felt especially soft, and she knew she ought to feel guilty but she did not.
    Later in her bed, sleep did not easily come. He was there now, at the big house. She knew every room in Fellsbourne. She could find him tonight. Go to him. If she dared.
    And do what ? She wasn’t that girl. She was many awful things. But she was not that girl.
    She wasn’t really sure what being that girl entailed, anyway.
    When morning came she arose before dawn, bleary-eyed and subdued. Strapping on her bow, she saddled Elfhame and rode to the woods. Eliza wanted hare stew, and hares were aplenty at the edge of the woods. She knew well enough the usual habits of the men who attended Jack’s parties. No one would leave the big house before noon. Today she would not be discovered.
    When she reached the woods, she dismounted and tethered her horse to a sapling. Through the mists that rose from the earth in soft clouds, she swiftly espied her prey. At the edge of the trees, it feasted on clover. She halted and watched it.
    Innocent creature. It had no idea that it could be eaten for dinner.
    Drawing an arrow from the quiver on her back and setting her stance with silence born of years’ practice, she lifted her bow and nocked the shaft. Siting her target, she pulled back the bowstring.
    A stick crackled nearby. The hare’s ears popped up. Abruptly, it bounded into the underbrush. She leaped forward but it was too late. Wise little creature after all, to recognize danger and react so swiftly.
    Blowing out a frustrated breath, she pivoted to the ruiner of her hunt. And every sleep-deprived mote of her body came to life.
    In the misty dawn he seemed even more like an elven prince than by candlelight, his eyes silvery and fixed upon her with great intensity. Not merely a prince. A warrior. Hewore the same coat as the night before, a bit wrinkled now, and his gilded hair was tousled. The sword at his side looked so fearsome and his stance so powerful and certain, that he seemed at once like the most ordinary man and the most extraordinary god.
    â€œYou were not a dream,” he said—ridiculously, wonderfully.
    â€œI am not a dream,” she replied, smiling, and knew that it would be the simplest thing in the world to pretend now that she was not in danger.

Chapter 1
The Rustication
    22 Febr. 1822
    Sparrow,
    I have not heard from you in too many weeks. Do check in.
    Peregrine
    28 February 1822
    Dearest Peregrine,
    As All of Society knows, I have lost my One True Love (rather, my Second True Love, but who’s counting?) to another lady (whom I adore, which is positively delightful) and in (supposed) grief have