The Last Rogue - Deborah Simmons

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us a nice roast goose, some tongue and a beef pie,” he said jovially, as if he positively thrived on sitting cooped up in a carriage all day. He probably did, for it certainly required no effort on his part, and Raleigh excelled at doing nothing.

      “And do I get something to eat, too?” Jane asked, her voice brittle.

      “What’s this? The wench makes a joke! By Jove, I don’t believe it!” Raleigh crowed like a child with a treat. “There’s hope for you yet, love.” The careless endearment ran along Jane’s strained nerves to hang in the silence that followed until she could bear it no longer. Sensing his eyes upon her, she pushed up from her seat.

      “Stop ogling me!” she snapped, walking toward the window.

      “As you say,” Raleigh muttered. Was that hurt she heard in his tone? Impossible! The man was a thoughtless japer, who danced through life without a care, and Jane was certain that her trifling words could not affect him in the slightest. “You’ll forgive me, if I wish a breath of fresh air,” he said with unfamiliar brusqueness. It made Jane feel like calling him back and apologizing. But for what? For hating his eyes upon her, judging and condemning?

      Still, Jane might have gone after him, but for the arrival of the maid that the countess had thrust upon her. The French-born Madeleine might boast an exceptional education, followed by extensive training at Westfield Park, but she made her new mistress ill at ease. Jane was not accustomed to such personal attention, even at Casterleigh, and she got the distinct impression that Madeleine was not eager to leave her prestigious household for less lofty service.

      After her attempts at conversation were met with little response, Jane fell silent, and in the ensuing quiet, she had a good long while to regret her earlier temper. She knew she spoke sharply to Raleigh out of her own fears and melancholy, but this marriage was not his fault, and he had been more than civil toward her. He deserved the same.

      Determined to be more her father’s daughter, Jane waited for her husband to join her, but supper arrived without the viscount. The maid, dispatched to check on him, returned to announce coolly that Jane was to take her meal without him. And so she did, feeling oddly bereft without his presence. No doubt he was drinking and carousing in the common room, Jane told herself disdainfully, but somehow she could not shrug off a glimmer of guilt that she had sent him away with her tart tongue.

      There were times, living in the vicarage, surrounded by siblings, when Jane had longed for peace and quiet, and that urge probably accounted for her escape into her gardening. But now, alone in a strange place and facing an uncertain future, she took no pleasure from her solitude.

      Nor was she pleased to discover that she was sharing a room with the rather forbidding Madeleine. Although Jane knew she ought to be relieved to escape the awkward business of being confined with her new husband, somehow Raleigh’s amiable presence seemed preferable to the maid’s haughty superiority.

      Nonsense, Jane told herself as she crawled alone into the big bed. It hardly mattered who was with her, for after her fitful night at Westfield Park, she should sleep like a stone. However, such escape did not immediately come. Noises from the yard below seemed loud through the open window, and despite her weariness, Jane lay stiffly on the lumpy bed with her eyes wide open.

      For the first time since waking up yesterday morning in Charlotte’s yellow bedroom, she was homesick. She yearned for the comforting sound of the boys’ voices, raised in a low argument, Carrie’s soft chatter or the warmth of Jenny, crawling beside her after a nightmare.

      Shutting her eyes against the tears that threatened, Jane told herself that she was not alone, but the maid’s even breathing from the corner cot bespoke her sleep and offered no comfort. Indeed, the longer Jane lay awake, the more she found herself longing for the one familiar face in her changing world.

      It was the face of perfection, with heavy-lidded blue eyes that always held a mocking gleam—as if their owner was secretly amused by everything, including himself. Yet his disarming grin was free from malice. Indeed, it was hard to imagine Raleigh in a temper. Still, he had avoided her this evening, Jane knew full well. Was he displeased by their marriage or angry over her sharp remarks? Or was it simply the way of things? What if he meant to avoid her…forever? Charlotte often spoke of such marriages, where the spouses lived separately.

      Jane felt nervous sweat break out upon her brow as she realized that she had no idea what Raleigh had planned for her. Aware that he was to go to Northumberland, she had simply assumed that she would accompany him, but what if he left her in London, alone and friendless? Worse yet, what if he sent her back to Westfield Park? The thought of trying to live with his parents made her perspire in earnest.

      Now she regretted those long hours in the coach when she might have discussed their situation more openly instead of disdaining Raleigh’s very presence. Whether she liked it or not, marriage bound her to him, and as her husband he wielded enormous power over her life. The thought made Jane shiver with fear and regret. She should have argued with Charlotte and defied them all, instead of wedding this than! In the darkness of a strange inn, far away from home, Jane could not even remember why she had ever weakened.

      And now it was too late. Jane let the tears flow readily as the full import of her situation sank down upon her like a weight, cold, heavy and unyielding. What had she done? And what could the future hold except loneliness?

       Chapter Four

      Raleigh strode toward the coach without his usual careless grace. He had been forced to dress himself, after having borrowed one of his parents’ servants for the task yesterday, and he vowed never again to get so drunk that he left on a trip without his valet.

      He had kept that stricture firmly in mind last night when the conviviality of his fellow patrons tempted him to indulge too well, for he did not want to get himself in another scrape—or any deeper into this one. When, sometime after finishing his first bottle, he found his thoughts drifting more and more frequently to his virginal bride, whose stiff demeanor, he had discovered, did not extend to her gently curved body, Raleigh had taken himself firmly off to bed—alone.

      And so this morning he had arisen feeling pleased with himself for both his good judgment and well-being, having managed to avoid the headache that sometimes plagued him after a night of too much drinking. Unfortunately, his neck cloth had given him difficulties and his coat needed pressing, which soured his mood. He hated to appear at anything less than his best, even if he could look forward to nothing but a day of travel with his wife.

      Raleigh’s steps slowed, and he wished for a moment that he had the blunt to hire a horse to ride alongside the carriage. Although usually content to relax in the luxuriously appointed vehicle, he had a yearning to escape his suddenly waspish wife. Lud, the chit’s form might be softer than he had ever imagined, but her tongue was far sharper. Raleigh shuddered, then nearly groaned aloud as he saw the driver help her into the main coach. All hopes that she would choose to sit with her maid died a swift death as he steeled himself to join her.

      “Good morning,” he said as cheerfully as he could at this early hour. “I trust you breakfasted well.” Having sent a tray up to her chamber so that he could eat in the common room among his fellows, Raleigh was hoping she would view his act as one of thoughtfulness.

      Apparently not. From the sour expression on her face, one would have thought Jane had dined solely upon lemons, and Raleigh braced himself for a set-down. But she only nodded and thanked him, which made him study her more closely. Her face was pale, making Raleigh hope that she wasn’t coming down with anything. Lud, what would he do with a sick female?

      “And you?” she asked, raising her gaze to his. Raleigh was startled by the force of it, evident even through the spectacles, and he found himself wondering what she would look like without them. He had never noticed their color, but now, seeing her bathed in the sunlight filtering through the windows, Raleigh realized that her eyes were, indeed, green. Not the unusual springtime shade of Charlotte’s, they were a richer, more sultry

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