Page 17 of Along Came a Rogue

Then, surprising him, she agreed. “I suppose not.” Tentatively, she sat down next to him, curling her legs beneath her. Her small surrender pleased him far more than he had a right to feel. “Two old friends,” she repeated with a smile.

Oh, he was certainly feeling friendly, all right. But not trusting himself to respond to that without giving her cause to slap him, he said nothing and raised the glass to his lips.

“What happened to you in Spain?” she prompted after a moment. “How were you hurt?”

This certainly wasn’t what he wanted to talk about tonight with a half-dressed, beautiful woman sitting next to him. Yet the serious expression on her face told him it was important to her. So, inexplicably, it became important to him. “We were charging the end of a cannon line,” he began. He watched the golden liquid with a frown as he swirled it thoughtfully. “We’d made it across the field when I looked down and saw the hole in my breeches, the blood…I knew I’d been hit. The ball had cut through my thigh.” Two inches lower, and it would have taken his knee. Two feet higher, his life.

“You didn’t know until you saw it?” Confusion darkened her face. “Didn’t you feel it?”

He took a large swig of brandy. “No.”

Men in battle often didn’t know they’d been shot until they saw the wound or lost too much blood to fight on. They were distracted by the noise and action, by the adrenaline pulsing through their muscles, and by a single-minded focus on killing in order to stay alive.

But how could he explain all that to a gently bred lady? He shouldn’t be talking about this with her in the first place. Although it was surely safer than what he’d wanted to share with her, he supposed…a detailed explanation of how he wanted to peel away her clothes, lay her bare body in front of the fire, stroke between her thighs until she moaned with pleasure—

He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “We were in the middle of battle,” he said simply, not trusting himself at that moment to say anything more.

His answer seemed to satisfy her, though, because she nodded solemnly as if she understood. And perhaps she did. She’d already known immense grief in her young life, maturing her far beyond other women her age.

Slowly, he held the glass of brandy toward her, daring her to go a step further in proving just how extraordinary she was by sharing the drink with him. The only other women who’d ever done such a thing were those like Lady Roquefort—society women who considered him little more than a titillating way to disrupt the monotony of their lives.

Not Emily. She was there because she wanted to be with him. And he liked it. More than he should have. But never before had he experienced having a soft woman in whom to confide the hard details of his life, never before had he experienced the lure of a woman who understood him so well.

She lowered her eyes to the glass. “I don’t think…”

“It’s your brandy, after all,” he tempted.

She hesitated, then acquiesced. “Just a small sip.”

With a deep breath, her decision made, she carefully took the glass from his hand and placed her lips to the rim where his had just been. He watched the soft undulation of her elegant throat as she swallowed, the small movement cascading through him.

He went hard. Sweet Lucifer. Thank God he’d been enough of a cad not to tuck in his shirt or he would have embarrassed them both. The shy teenage girl had grown into an alluring woman. And not just physically. Everything about Emily drew him, right down to her soft laughs and haughty little sniffs.

Good Lord, she was seducing him, and she didn’t even realize it.

She handed back the glass. “Was Thomas with you when it happened?”

“Yes,” he answered quietly, turning his focus back to the war, which dampened the throbbing at his crotch as effectively as if he’d rolled in snow. “He took me behind the lines and made certain the surgeons tended to the wound.”

He’d done far more than that, in fact. When Grey had lost consciousness from the pain caused by the surgeons digging into his thigh after the ball, Thomas stood fast, pistol in hand, and refused to let the bloody leeches amputate his leg.

He took a large swallow of brandy, wishing it could have been something much stronger, and murmured, “He saved my life.”

A comfortable silence fell between them, and he was glad for it. There was no need to go further into the gruesomeness he’d experienced during the war. It was in the past. Except for an ugly scar that would never disappear and a slight limp when he’d been riding too long, there was hardly any mark that he’d taken a bullet that changed the direction of his life, sweeping him from Spain back to England.

“I heard you became an agent after that,” she said quietly. “And a good one.”

His lips curled with pride at her small compliment. “I’d like to think so. In fact,” he admitted, feeling an irresistible urge to share his good news with her, “I’ve been offered a new position on the Continent, an important one. I’ll be overseeing operations in southern Spain.” He paused. “I should have left already, but I delayed because of Thomas.”

And because of you. Which was another reason he had to convince her to leave tomorrow. He’d already angered Lord Bathurst, Secretary of War and the Colonies, by delaying these past few weeks since the shooting. He doubted he could delay much longer and still receive his promotion.

Her hand covered his as it rested on the cushion between them, and gave his fingers a small squeeze that shot straight through him. He shifted uncomfortably. The aching returned to his cock in full force.

“You’re a good friend to him,” she said quietly.

When she didn’t pull her hand away, he dared to stroke his thumb along hers, and his gut tightened when he elicited a soft tremble from her in response.

“So,” she whispered a bit breathlessly, which pleased him immensely, “are you happy?”