Page 35 of Every Rogue Has His Charm

Why in God’s name had she told him she liked the sound of his voice?

He had never revealed so much to her before, and yet there was something strangely impersonal in his tales about the people and the food and the charming little cottage in which he had lived with only Leclerc to tend to him.

“Is it not a dangerous place for an Englishman at present,” she asked when he paused, “the South of France?”

His eyes shuttered, though the half smile never slid from his face. “Ah, but you see, when in France, I am a Frenchman.”

Once she had finished her soup, he rose, retrieved the dinner plates from the window ledge, and laid one at each place. With a flourish, he lifted the covers to reveal boiled chicken, boiled potatoes, and for dessert, boiled custard. She choked back her laugh into a cough.

“And when in England…?” she prompted, as soon as he was seated again.

He took a sip of wine and then lifted his shoulders, the gesture so characteristically French she had to stifle another laugh. “In England, I am a duke.”

A duke who expressed no dismay at his bland, meager dinner. She would give him credit for that, at least.

Leaning back against his chair, he glanced toward the window, though the darkness beyond offered no view save their own reflections in the glass. “I did not know you enjoyed the seaside.”

She poked at the chicken with her fork. “As it turns out, I don’t.” He made a sound of surprise, but she gave him no other opportunity to react. “What is the farthest from your birthplace you have ever traveled?”

For a moment, she thought he would refuse to answer. “Dominica,” he said at last, a slight frown notched between his brow, as if the reply had required concentration. “Though Egypt must run a close second.”

She tried to imagine it—the voyages, the climates, the wonderful strangeness of places she would never see.

“Brighton,” she said, tipping the point of her knife toward her chest to indicate the limits of her own travels. “Perhaps I should have gone farther afield? I might’ve packed my trunks and gone all the way to…” Now she twirled her wrist, inscribing a circle in the air with the knife. “Oh, Northumberland, say. Deposited myself on your grandfather’s doorstep, and—”

“No.” His eyes flashed as he leaned toward her. “You didn’t—tell me you didn’t really consider doing such a thing?”

She met him over the table, mere inches separating them. “And if I had, what of it? Would it have been an unreasonable reaction to the situation in which I found myself six years ago? You might recall I had no desire to return to my father.”

“Caro, I—”

At this distance, it became quite clear that the look in his eyes was not anger but fear.

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” she told him, hardening herself. She too had been afraid. “Sorry is for children.”

He pushed away from the table and stood. “Very well. I did what I had to do.”

“As did I.” She also stood, abruptly enough to make the dishes rattle. “You wished to know me better, sir, and now you do. Do you like what you see?”

With blazing eyes, he looked her up and down, his breath now coming in rasps. Muttering an oath—in French, she was sure of it; perhaps she would ask Leclerc its meaning—he turned and strode from the room.

Her hand trembling, she plucked up her wineglass and drained the contents, heedless of either her head or her stomach. Tears burned hot behind her eyes. Damn you, she wanted to shout after him—a plain, old English curse.

But the tears did not come and the words did not pass her lips, and she was left wondering whether that was a sign of weakness, or of strength.

Chapter 12

Maxim rose earlier yet the next morning, while darkness still clung to the sky, eager to work his muscles, breathe in the sharp air, and drive out the nightmares that had plagued him during the few hours he’d slept. He slipped on his clothes in silence—Leclerc’s snores thundering from the alcove that served for a dressing room would have drowned out any noise he happened to make, in any case—and stumped as lightly as he could along the corridor, determined not to hesitate as he passed Caro’s door.

He thought he had imagined the worst possible scenarios involving his wife: for some time after he’d returned to France, for instance, he had worried that he might have left her with child, that he sat hundreds of miles away, unknowing, as she suffered in childbed and died.

But never, not once, had he considered that she might have gone to Chesleigh Court. To his grandfather.

A shudder wracked him even before he stepped out into the cold morning air. Pushing aside the question of how his grandfather would have reacted to her arrival, what the man would have done—to her, not for her—Maxim flipped up the collar of his greatcoat and set out for the empty strand below. The boat Leclerc had managed to procure him was a bit larger and heavier than Maxim would have liked, but when he had considered the language barrier and tried to picture Leclerc miming what was wanted, he had decided it would be unfair to complain.

The tide was high and the sea glassy calm as he scraped the boat across the shingle and pushed it into the channel, wading through the shallows and leaping in just before the water was high enough to spill over the tops of his boots. Grabbing the oars, he began to pull, driving himself farther and farther from shore. He was tempted to row until he reached France or his heart gave out, whichever came first.

With each stroke, he relived last night’s disastrous dinner, Caro’s distrust and anger, every bit of which he deserved—and more. Things might’ve been different between them, once upon a time. If he had not been so hardheaded. Hard hearted.