Twice Tempted by a Rogue (Stud Club #2)

“Could you recognize them if you saw them again?”


She shook her head, and a blond ringlet bobbed against her cheek. “They ran away so fast. All I know is that they were big and brutish and fearsome, like …” Her gaze darted toward Rhys, then quickly away. She cleared her throat. “Oh, and one was bald—I remember his head gleaming in the moonlight. And the other … well, I heard him shout to the first as they ran away. Sounded Scottish. That’s all I know.

“Besides, all my cares were for Leo. I went to him. He was knocked cold. His friend looked to be in bad shape, too, but he could speak. He told me to go for a hack, and then he gave me an address.” She looked to Bellamy. “Your address.”

Rhys and Bellamy exchanged a look.

She sniffed. “So I ran back to the street, and as luck would have it, Leo’s boy had just returned with the hack. I made the driver come help me. Told him there were two gents as needed a doctor and quick. But by the time we rushed back to the alley, the dark-haired man had vanished. Only Leo was there.”

She sniffed again, and a tear streaked down her cheek, trickling through the fine dust of face powder. Bellamy pulled a square of white linen from his pocket, and she accepted it wordlessly.

“We brought him to the cab, and I tried to keep him warm. He was shivering and so pale. His breathing was all rattled. ‘Don’t die,’ I told him, over and over. ‘Don’t die, Leo, please don’t die just yet.’” She sobbed into the handkerchief. “But he did. He died right there in my arms. And I kissed him, I couldn’t help it. I tell you, it broke my heart clean in two. Only a few hours, and I was half in love with the man.”

She cried noisily.

Rhys averted his eyes. Perhaps it was all the lingering arousal and emotion from their encounter at the pool, but he was strangely moved by Cora’s story. He was glad Leo had some tenderness as he went, even if from a stranger. Charm and fine looks helped him to the end. Most men who died by violence weren’t so fortunate. How many times had his own wounded, broken body been dragged from a tavern floor or battlefield? And never once had he awoken to find a little blond angel hovering over him. Hell, Cora couldn’t even look at Rhys without flinching. The thought of her weeping over his battered form … it made him laugh.

The laugh stuck in his throat, and he harrumphed around it.

He risked a look at Meredith. She caught his gaze, and her knee grazed his beneath the table. Then stayed there, lightly pressing against his leg.

It could have been an accident. But he didn’t believe in accidents.

“Oh, yes,” Bellamy said. His suspicious expression was at war with red-rimmed eyes. “You were so in love with Leo. But you didn’t neglect to strip his pockets, did you?”

Cora wiped her nose. “Well, I needed coin for the hackney. And he had promised me three shillings, and …” She shrugged away a great portion of her sentiment. “I’m just a whore, aren’t I? Alive or dead, he could spare a few coins.”

“Except,” Rhys said, reaching into his coat’s breast pocket, “one of those coins wasn’t a coin at all.”

From his pocket he withdrew one of the brass tokens that represented membership in the Stud Club. He laid it on the table, then slid it toward Cora with one fingertip. “You recognize it?”

“Of course.” She picked it up, peered at it, laughed at it a little. “Queer little thing, isn’t it? At first, I didn’t know what to make of it. Didn’t figure it was worth anything. I just held on to it in my purse until Jack offered me a guinea for it in trade. I grabbed at the chance, took the next coach home to see my mum in Dover. That’s where your friend found me again.”

Jack d’Orsay wasn’t precisely a friend, but neither Rhys nor Bellamy argued the point.

“After that night with Leo …” Her gaze fell to the token, and her voice went soft. “I wanted a change from that world, you know? Working as a Covent Garden girl … it wasn’t how I planned my life to be.”

All four of them stared at the table in awkward silence.

Finally, Rhys said, “That’s the way of things. Fate laughs in the face of all our plans.”

Bellamy banged the table with the side of his fist. “We have to find that man who took Leo into the alleyway. Obviously he was lured into an ambush.”

“You don’t know that. Sounds as though this stranger and your friend were both victims.” This came from Meredith. “They were both injured.”

“He was clearly feigning,” Bellamy said. “And culpable to some degree. Otherwise, why would he have disappeared?”

“I don’t know,” Meredith replied, unintimidated. “I agree, you’d best find him and ask. But I doubt you’ll find him here on Dartmoor.”

“I doubt it, too. That’s not why I’m here.” He turned to Rhys. “I’m going back to London to see what I can learn. I need a place for Cora to stay. A safe place.”

“You mean here?” Rhys asked.