Kasey Michaels - Much Ado About Rogues

TESS PACED THE drawing room, twisting the wineglass between her fingers. He was late. Jack was never late. He was doing this deliberately, delaying his arrival, drawing her nerves taut, making it clear to her that he had the advantage over her in every way.

Which he did. More than he could possibly know.

She’d never forgotten him, saw his face every day; he was always with her.

When he’d gone, she’d believed it would be forever. Black Jack Blackthorn didn’t grovel, didn’t bend. Would never beg. She’d handed him back his ring, the one she’d worn on a thin ribbon around her neck, hidden away from her father’s eyes until this one last assignment was over, and exchanged it with the locket closed over the miniatures of her mother and brother. She’d replaced one lost dream with two lost souls.

He’d been wearing the ring today; she’d seen it on the index finger of his right hand. Heavy gold, with a large, flat onyx stone engraved with a B . For Blackthorn. For bastard. He’d said he had never known which, as the gift had been from his mother. But, although she’d encouraged him to enlarge on that strange statement, he had instead diverted her with his kisses, and he’d never mentioned his mother again. There hadn’t been time. There had been their argument when he’d told her of the change in tactics that would put her in the background, away from any possible danger. There had been the mission.

And after that, there had been nothing left but the funeral.

And goodbye.

If only there was some way to go back, to change the past. But there wasn’t, and that meant the future couldn’t be changed, either. There was only the now, the mission—finding her father before he did something else that couldn’t be changed, fixed, mended. And this time, she wouldn’t be left behind, to wait, to worry… to mourn.

How she missed René. They’d shared their mother’s womb, they’d shared their lives, always together, living in one another’s pockets, clinging to each other through their papa’s frequent absences, vying for his attention when he was in residence.

Though Emilie spoke only French, their papa insisted his children speak only English in his presence. They were confined to the manor grounds, their only companionship each other and Rupert, their English tutor, who brought home his lessons with a birch rod. He’d most often wielded it on René, until the day Tess had jumped onto the man’s back and nearly bitten off his ear before he could shake her loose.

She’d been ten at the time. When her father heard of the incident it had been the very first time he’d ever complimented her.

But then he’d scolded René in that quietly destroying way he had, for having submitted to the rod so that his sister had been forced to defend him, taking all of the joy out of Tess’s victory. He’d then employed another tutor who was twice the disciplinarian as Rupert, and Tess’s education was turned over to a succession of English governesses.

Rupert’s replacement was discharged the day René had twisted the man’s rod-wielding arm behind his back and run him headfirst into the solid oak door of the schoolroom. He’d been fifteen, and it had taken all of those five long years for him to find the courage his sister had displayed at ten—which their father had been quick to point out.

There was no winning with the marquis. Fail him, and face his quiet disapproval that was ten times worse than any possible beating. Do something right, and hear nothing, or wait for the flaw to be pointed out to you as the stinging hook at the end of the faint praise.

Yet all Tess and René wanted out of life was to please the man. René pretended an interest in the lessons their father began with him after the tutor was sent packing, but it was Tess who showed the most aptitude when René would share what he’d learned with her. Her twin would rather read poetry; Tess would rather hold a book on military tactics up to a mirror, to practice reading backward. René enjoyed playing the flute; Tess practiced for hours with the slim tools René loaned her, until she could easily open every locked door in the manor house. After every hour spent at lessons with his father, René would spend two with Tess, teaching her everything he’d learned until she’d not only mastered each lesson, but outshone her teacher.

The marquis finally found her out the day René accidentally pinked her as they practiced with the foils and the button had come off the tip of his weapon without either of them noticing.

That was the second time the marquis had looked at her with something close to approval in his eyes, as he’d tied his handkerchief around her forearm and ordered her to borrow a shirt and breeches from René and report to him in the gardens. Then he’d tossed her back her weapon and grabbed one for himself.

She’d excelled; she knew it, even if her father never acknowledged any new skill she mastered over the next years. But she’d lost a part of her brother to her success, and to their shared strong desire to please the marquis. René never complained, never said anything, but Tess knew.

He tried, so very hard, but he had not been born to experience the thrill of clearing a five-barred fence, or find the center of the target with a thrown knife. And there was nothing of stealth about him, either in action or in his mind. He was his mother’s son, kind and gentle. She was her father’s daughter, quick of mind, fascinated by intrigue and all that went with it.

But it was more than a simple love of the game, or even striving to please their father. René could never know it, but Tess felt it her responsibility to protect him, just as she had done years before with Rupert. More and more, she took his place on the marquis’s more minor missions, even being included in the planning of those missions that included all three of them, invariably casting René in a minor role, safely in the background.

Until Jack. His inclusion had changed everything. The marquis at last had the perfect pupil—talented, and male. Tess had hated him for his intrusion into their lives. She’d watched in disgust as he mastered in months what it had taken her years to learn, and then gone on to do as she had done with René: outpace the teacher with his ingenuity and skills. She’d envied the trust the marquis placed in him, suffered in silence as René seemed to turn their successor into some sort of hero to be admired, emulated.

She’d fought Jack for well over a year, until her fascination with this singular man overcame her resentment at being usurped in her father’s affection. She’d then begun to watch him, not with jealousy any longer, but with growing interest in Jack, the man. So darkly mysterious, so compellingly handsome, his rare smiles doing strange, delicious things to her insides. And, increasingly, he’d been watching her. For months more, they’d danced around each other, both of them knowing there was something unsettled between them, a growing hunger that sooner or later had to be fed.

And dear God, how they had feasted…

Tess took another sip of wine, hoping it would somehow settle her. The afternoon had dragged on seemingly forever, and over the hours she’d changed her mind about the white silk gown. Punishing Jack, punishing herself, made no sense. She stood in front of the glass over the side table and inspected her reflection as it was directed back to her in the candlelight.

Her gown was simplicity itself, even modest, save for the fact that the pale, unadorned orchid silk rather cunningly outlined her breasts and rib cage and slid smoothly over her buttocks when she walked, making it clear she wore no undergarments. Even the modest cap sleeves were fashioned of all but transparent veiling. She was more covered than she was in most of her gowns, and yet she might as well be naked to the discerning eye.