The Rogue Read Free Page B

exiled myself to the North to avoid all mention of their bliss (although they set sail last month for the East Indies and will not return for a year anyway). So you see, Iam very busy Rusticating at present and haven’t the time to write tomes to you.
    I am certain, in any case, that you would rather amuse yourself in trading correspondence with Lady Justice, as always. I understand that her current project to Improve Britain is to press Members of Parliament for married women’s rights to legal and financial autonomy from their husbands. I applaud her. With your seat in the Lords, you might consider aiding her rather than antagonizing her. But alas, I believe you thrive on that antagonism. Whatever would you do if Madame La Justice ceased writing pamphlets that condemn our Club and you no longer had the excuse to trade barbs with her? I think you might simply cease to exist.
    In hopes of that day never arriving, I am ever yours,
    Sparrow

Chapter 2
The Swordsman
    March 1822
    The Sheep Heid Inn
    Duddingston, near Edinburgh, Scotland
    F rederick Evan Chevalier de Saint-André Sterling could hold his sword, liquor, and woman with equal skill. Unlike any other man Miss Annie Favor had enjoyed in her nineteen years, he could do so all at once.
    Fond of weapons in the bedchamber, Annie welcomed the sword dangling from Saint’s hip when he threw her upon the bed in a tangle of skirts and laughter and got to business. It wasn’t every day, after all, that a man with shoulders like a cavalry steed’s and eyes as green as the Queen’s own emeralds came into the Sheep Heid Inn in the little village of Duddingston.
    â€œGood sir,” she sighed some time later as he rolled away from her and sat on the edge of the bed to tug his breeches over his tight bum. “Will ye do it again? An’again?” she said with satisfaction, watching him pull on his boots.
    Lean muscles in his back and arms twisted beneath a sheen of moisture. She could not see now the scar that stretched across half his chest and waist. But she knew it was there and it gave her delicious chills. She trailed her fingertips down one impressively taut arm as he drew on his shirt.
    â€œI want to be able to tell my father all aboot it come Saubath,” she said. “Just after he preaches on the evils o’ fornication.”
    Slowly swiveling to face her, he set his emerald eyes upon her. Like a river beneath sun, they glittered. Annie’s tongue got abruptly dry.
    â€œI’ve never seen such eyes,” she whispered. “Be ye a demon come to steal my soul?”
    The mouth that had moments earlier made her shout into the rafters now curved into the Devil’s own smile.
    â€œSweet, sweet Annie. Your father is a man of the cloth?”
    Relaxing back against the pillow, she grinned. This was her favorite part.
    â€œHe be the vicar o’ Duddingston Kirk.” She allowed her eyelids to droop. “I’m vexed to say, he’s a birsie one. Why, the last man he found me with, he scourged up an’ down the causey. But he couldna find his walkin’ stick, so he used a carriage whip.”
    For a moment he regarded her with those eyes of otherworldly intensity. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
    Annie did not know quite what to do. No man before had ever laughed.
    She let her fingers slip from his waist to the sword he strapped anew to his hip, caressing the hilt. “Have ye ever used this on a woman?”
    His laughter halted. Quicker than a single breath, the blade whipped free of its scabbard and laid flat across her throat. Heavy and cold, it pressed into her flesh. She tried to scream but found no air for it.
    â€œNot yet, Annie, my girl.” His voice was deep, husky, just like when he’d been inside her. He leaned down and his next words brushed over her gasping lips. “Never been suitably tempted.”
    When he went from the room, he left a gold coin on the table and a