A Rogue by Any Other Name (30 page)

Bourne swore and went after his friend, taller by several inches and wider by half a foot, but Bourne more than made up for the difference in speed and agility and, tonight, sheer will.

He attacked with no hesitation, his fists, wrapped in a length of linen, eager to connect with the larger man’s bare torso. First left, then right. The movements were punctuated with Temple’s short grunts before the larger man danced away.

“Don’t tease him, Temple,” Chase said from beyond the ring, shuffling through a pile of papers, only half paying attention to the sparring. “He’s having a difficult enough evening as it is.”

Lord knew it was true.

He’d let her go home. It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.

Because what he’d really wanted to do was make love to her on the floor of the owners’ suite, with the light from beyond the stained glass bathing her in a myriad of colors. He’d wanted to prove that he had never once intended to dishonor her.

Indeed, the idea that he had dishonored her made him feel like a dozen kinds of ass.

Temple’s fist connected with his jaw in a perfect straight right, and Bourne rocked back on his heels.

“Why not go after her?” Temple asked, bending away from Bourne’s fists and coming back to land a quick blow to his chest. “Take her to bed. That usually makes them feel better, no?”

Bourne could not tell his friend that taking his wife to bed had landed him in this predicament to begin with. “When you find yourself with a wife of your own, you can offer all the advice you like.”

“By that time I won’t have to. You’ll have driven yours away for good.” He dodged back. “I like the girl.”

Sadly, so did Michael. “You don’t even know her.”

“Don’t have to.” Bourne’s right hook would have knocked out a lesser man, but the blow had no effect on Temple. Unfortunately. He simply pressed on. “Anyone who sets you off the way she does deserves my admiration. She’s garnered my loyalty for her part in tonight’s entertainment alone. And I imagine that Cross will be half in love with her by the time he returns.”

The words were meant to incite, and they did. With a growl, Bourne charged at Temple, who blocked two quick punches before getting in a jab to the stomach. Bourne cursed, and leaned into the other man, his breath coming as fast as his perspiration for one second, two. Five. Finally, Temple pulled back, and before Bourne had a chance to move, the larger man jabbed once, twice, sending Bourne reeling into the ropes, blood pouring from his nose.

This time, he was not fast enough to catch himself. He landed on his knees.

“That’s the round,” Chase called, and Bourne swore wickedly as Temple came forward to help him up.

“Leave it,” he snapped, coming to his feet and making his way to the chair at one corner of the ring, marked by a green handkerchief. “Thirty-eight seconds,” he said, ripping the cloth from the post, holding it to his nose, and tilting his head back. “I suggest you prepare your next counterattack.”

Temple accepted a drink from Bruno, his second in command, and drank deep before leaning against the ropes, widespread arms—each sporting a wide-banded tattoo across the massive biceps—covering nearly half the length of the ring. Temple might have been born into the aristocracy, but this was his kingdom now. “What did she say that has you so eager to take a beating?”

Bourne ignored the question, the explosion of pain in his cheek not doing its job, failing to take away all thought of what had happened earlier with his wife. Of how her blue eyes had flashed as she’d accused him of using her body to secure his interests. Of how she’d squared her shoulders and defended her own honor—something he should have done for her.

Of how she’d looked at him, truth and tears in her eyes, and told him that she’d missed him.

The words had taken his breath away—the idea that pure, perfect Penelope had thought of him, had worried about him.

Because he had missed her, too.

It had taken him years to forget—years that were erased in one moment of honesty, when she’d looked into his eyes and accused him of leaving her.

Of dishonoring her.

And there, in the pit of his stomach, still unmasked by the pain of Temple’s beating, was the emotion he’d feared since the beginning of this charade.

Guilt.

She’d been right. He’d misused her. He’d treated her as less than she deserved. And she’d defended herself with strength and pride. Remarkably.

And even as he’d tried to let her go, to push her from him, he’d known that he wanted her. He didn’t fool himself into thinking that the desire was new. He’d wanted her in Surrey, when she’d stood in the darkness with nothing but a lantern to protect her. But now . . . want had become something more serious. More visceral. More dangerous. Now, he wanted
her
—his strong, intelligent, kindhearted wife, who became more tempting every day as she shifted and blossomed into someone new and different than the girl he’d met on that dark Surrey evening.

And now, he was married to her, virtually bound by laws of God and man to take her. To lay her down and worship her. To touch her in every wicked way he could imagine.

To claim her as his.

And she wanted nothing to do with him.

He fisted his left hand, enjoying the stinging ache beneath the linen strips—the feel of the fight he’d just had, the promise of the one yet to come—and lowered the handkerchief. His nose had stopped bleeding.

If she had not decided to push him away today, it would have come eventually—perhaps after it was too late, when he was unwilling to release her. “I need someone to watch her.”

Chase looked to him. “Why?”

“Alles asked her to flee with him when I drag him through the mud.”

The other men shared a look before Temple said, “And you wish to pay someone to make certain it does not happen?”

He wanted to believe it would not happen. That she would choose him.

That she would fight for him the way she fought for Tommy.

A long-buried memory came unbidden—young Penelope, hands outstretched at a garden party, playing blind man’s buff. Children were scattered everywhere, calling out to her, and she lurched and lunged, laughing at the silly game. He and Tommy had crept toward her and simultaneously whispered her name. She’d spun toward him, capturing him easily, her hands coming to settle on his cheeks, her smile wide and lovely. “Michael,” she’d said softly, “I’ve caught you.”

He ran his hands down his face and looked to his feet, covered in sawdust. “I think it’s best.”

Chase was the first to respond. “It might not be the best way to endear yourself to the lady, Bourne, having her followed.”

He came to his feet. “I am open to less villainous ideas.”

Temple smirked and said, “Why not leave the ring and go to her? Give her the words she’s looking for, take the girl to bed, and remind her why you’re better than Alles in all ways that count?” He bounced back into the ropes several times in a foul approximation of coitus. “A different fight, but far more pleasurable.”

Bourne scowled and came to his feet, shaking out his hands and testing his weight on tired legs.

“How long has it been since you’ve slept?” Chase asked.

“I sleep.”
Not much.

He took a step toward the center of the ring, feeling the room sway just barely. Temple did not pull his punches. Ever. It was what made him such a stellar opponent on those days when one wanted nothing but oblivion.

“How long since you’ve slept more than an hour here and there?”

“I do not require a mother.”

Chase lifted a brow. “Perhaps a wife, then?”

Bourne wished Chase were in the damn ring, too.

The sound of Temple’s drawing a line in the wood shavings at the center of the ring echoed through the dark, cavernous room. “Come to scratch, old man. Let me give you the beating you richly deserve. We’ll send you home to your marchioness in desperate need of her care and concern.”

Bourne headed for the center of the ring, ignoring both the words and the unpleasantness that settled in his heart at the idea that his marchioness was no longer willing to provide him with either care or concern.

After another round of boxing, Bourne exited the ring, barely able to see out of his left eye. Temple remained in the box, stretching against the ropes, watching as Bourne accepted a side of raw beef from the icebox at Bruno’s feet and took the seat next to Chase, leaning back and placing the meat over his swelling eye.

Minutes went by—several of them—before Chase broke the silence. “Why did she leave without you?”

Bourne released a long breath. “She’s furious with me.”

“They always are,” Temple said, beginning to unwrap the length of linen he had wrapped around his knuckles before the fight.

“What did you do?” Chase asked.

There were a hundred reasons why she was furious. But only one mattered, and it came quick and clear, like a blow from one of Temple’s massive fists. “I’m an ass.”

Bourne expected instant agreement from his partners, so when no one spoke, he wondered if, perhaps, they’d left him alone in the room. He lifted the piece of beef from his eye and looked up, only to discover that Chase, Temple, and Bruno had all gone wide-eyed, watching him. “What?” he asked.

Chase found words first. “Only that in the five years I’ve known you—”

“Much longer for me,” Temple interjected.

“—I’ve never known you to admit that you were wrong.”

Bourne slid his gaze from Chase to Temple to Chase again. “Sod off.” He returned the steak to his eye and leaned back again. “I can’t give her what she wants.”

“Which is?”

It was easier to speak to them without having to look at them. “A normal marriage. A normal life.”

“Why not?” Chase prodded.

“All I succeed at is sin and vice. She is the opposite of those things. She will want more. She will want . . .” He trailed off.

Love.

The one thing he could not buy her. The one thing he could not risk giving her.

Chase’s papers rustled. “And therein, the fear of Alles.”

Bourne stiffened. “Not fear.”

“Of course not,” Chase revised in a tone laced with humor. “Following the lady, Bourne, is not the answer. It’s giving her the things she wants. It’s being the husband she deserves.”

Damn him, he wanted to be that husband. She was slowly destroying him with her strength and her spirit. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be easy and clean—a quick abduction, an easy marriage, and a tranquil parting of ways that served them both.

Except, nothing about his wife seemed easy or tranquil.

Michael flexed his fingers, feeling the ache in the knuckles from the fight. “It’s not that easy.”

“It never is, with women,” Chase continued. “You can say all you like that you’ll toss her away after your revenge is meted out, but you shan’t be able to. Not entirely. You’ll still be married.”

“Unless she goes with Alles,” Temple taunted from inside the ring.

Michael cursed him wickedly. “She doesn’t need Alles for the life she wants. I’ll give it to her. Everything she wants.”

“Everything?” Chase asked. Michael did not reply. “It’s no longer all for the land and the revenge, is it? You care for the lady.”

He should not. He had lost everything he had ever cared for. He had ruined everything good that he had ever touched. His care was a harbinger of her destruction.

But he defied any man in Britain to spend a day with his wife and not care for her.

“At the very least, he wants her,” Temple interjected. “And you can’t blame him. Her courage tonight would tempt a saint.”

“
Did
tempt a saint,” Chase replied. “
Cross
escorted her home.”

Anger flooded through Michael at the words. “Cross won’t touch her.”

“No. He won’t. But not because she’s not tempting; because he’s Cross,” Chase said.

“And if he weren’t, he wouldn’t touch her because she’s yours,” Temple added.

God help him, he wanted her to be his.

“She’s not mine. I can’t have her.”

She wants nothing to do with me.
He’d ruined any chance of that, just as he had ruined everything else that was good and right in his life.

“But Bourne,” Temple said, “you
do
have her.”

There was a long silence as the words echoed around the room. They weren’t true, of course. They weren’t right. If he had her, he wouldn’t be so afraid of going home to her. If he had her, he wouldn’t be here, stinking of sweat and raw meat. If he had her, she wouldn’t have left him.

Finally, he said, “I’m married to her. That’s not the same thing.”

“Well, it’s a start, I’d think.” Chase stood at that, lifting the sheaf of papers and adding, “She’s yours, bought and paid. And since you are stuck with each other—God help her—perhaps it’s time you attempt a marriage that does not end as awfully as it began.”

The idea—the possibility that she might someday care for him—that they might someday have more than a shell of a marriage, it tempted him more than cards, more than the wheel.

Tempted him to be the husband she deserved.

* * *

Dear M—

Her Grace, Duchess of Leighton. It seems a glut of young, eligible dukes was unrequired. One was enough. The Duke of Leighton has expressed a desire to court me, my father has agreed, and my mother is utterly overcome with glee.

There is much to recommend him, of course. He is handsome and intelligent, powerful and wealthy, and as Mother likes to remind me at every opportunity—he is a DUKE. If he were horseflesh, there would be a run on Tattersalls, no doubt.

Of course, I will do my duty. This will be a marriage for the ages. It’s hard to believe I shall be a duchess—the holy grail of the eldest, aristocratic daughter. Huzzah.

I have not missed you so much in a long time. Where are you?

Unsigned