Page 9 of Every Rogue Has His Charm

A hero? Oh, God.

Surely, this bright, beautiful woman hadn’t persuaded herself that she wanted him, didn’t imagine him capable of…

Maxim dropped his gaze to his desktop, his eyes unseeing. His ability to scent a threat had kept him alive all these years. But at present, he could not say who was in greater danger: Caro, or himself.

“I must finish packing,” he announced, pushing to his feet.

“P-packing?”

“Yes.” He stacked the papers and tucked them into a drawer. “I’m for Paris, as soon as I can make myself ready.”

Hope radiated from her posture, piercing him with its rays. “Surely not alone. It’s our honeymoon.”

“Too risky. You’re staying here.”

“But…” she protested, deflating slightly. “I know of many families that have made the journey in perfect safety, now that Britain and France have sworn peace.”

On the threshold, he brushed past, careful not to touch her. “Peace?” he scoffed beneath his breath. “We’ll just see about that.”

Chapter 3

September 1808

“And that, Mrs. Scott,” General Zebadiah Scott said, leaning back against the squabs as the carriage rumbled toward Whitehall, “is the unfortunate tale of the Chesleigh marriage.”

“He left her?” Helen’s eyes were round, and the flush of anger on her cheeks was quite becoming. “After only four days? And he’s never been back since?”

Scott shook his head.

Now her eyes narrowed accusatorily. “And you made the match.”

“It’s not as if I tampered with the lock on the library door! I wasn’t even in Hertfordshire,” he defended himself. “But,” he conceded after a moment, “I did encourage him to attend Earnshaw’s house party, in hopes that if he met a suitable young lady, she might help him...” He shook his head again. “Chesleigh was—is—a deeply scarred man, inside and out. I should have known that some wounds never heal.”

She reached out and patted his hand consolingly. “Was he injured in the war?”

“No, an accident. When he was not quite eleven. His father had suffered an apoplexy, and Chesleigh—though of course he wasn’t Chesleigh then—was dispatched in the rain for the physician. There was a thunderclap. His horse threw him, dragged him for half a mile by the stirrup, and then trampled him. Cracked ribs, a badly broken leg, and his face…” Scott paused, reluctant to distress his wife further. “His father was already gone by the time they found the lad, and he wasn’t expected to survive either. Frankly, I’m not sure how he did. When he finally came to, it appeared that either the fall or the kick to the head had scrambled his brains besides. He woke up speaking only a mixture of French and Breton.”

“Breton?”

“His mother’s tongue. When I first heard of it, I wondered whether the boy was merely putting it on, to anger his grandfather. Hartwell had made no secret of his displeasure at his son’s choice of wife. I’m still not sure, but if such was Chesleigh’s aim, he succeeded.”

Traffic had slowed their progress across town. Helen peered out the window, as if hoping to guess their destination. “I suppose that was your interest in him—the Breton, I mean.”

“How so?”

“It’s a rare language, isn’t it? Might make a useful code.”

Scott smiled, more than usually impressed by his wife’s perspicacity. “It might at that, my dear. But no, I first met Chesleigh on a visit to Eton, where he had embarked on a career as a first-rate thief.”

“A thief?” Her fingers fluttered to her chest. “What did he steal?”

“Back then, mostly food—or the means to purchase it.”

“The heir to the Duke of Hartwell was driven to steal food?” she echoed, incredulous.

“The board at our fine public schools is often insufficient for growing lads. The thinking seems to be that cruelty and deprivation will somehow make the pupils manly and strong. Of course, most of the boys can simply spend from their allowances to supplement their diets. But Chesleigh’s grandfather was ever a miserly man—not content merely to starve the lad of affection.”

His softhearted wife paled and appeared to blink back a tear. “And it was that,” she asked after a moment, “his thievery, which made him useful to you?”