While the Duke Was Sleeping (The Rogue Files #1)(17)

He was a duke.

Little else mattered in the minds of most females. In that respect, she was no different from any other chit, easily felled when the man was rich enough, handsome enough, powerful enough.

Except staring at her, he felt lost in her eerily wise eyes. She didn’t seem like any other chit. She appeared not in the least put off by his stern mien. Not his great size. Not his coarse accent. For God’s sake, she’d pounced on him like an angry mama bear only hours ago.

He felt lulled, mesmerized. She did not seem like someone to be so caught up in the superficial trappings of an individual. Not a woman with shoes as scuffed as hers, or with a frayed hem peeking out beneath her pinafore.

“Poppy!”

At the shrill shout, Miss Fairchurch looked up.

Poppy. So that was her name. Somehow it suited her.

He followed Poppy’s gaze. A girl hung out the window, waving wildly at them.

“Bryony!” she chastised. “Don’t hang out the window! You’ll fall!”

The girl did look like she might tumble the two stories if she took too great a breath. “Who’s that there with you, Poppy?” she called down excitedly.

Miss Fairchild sent him a pained look. “My sister,” she explained. “She’s an excitable girl.”

“I see that,” he murmured.

“Hello, there!” The girl continued to wave wildly, her reddish hair a halo around her. “Who are you, sir?”

He lifted his fingers in silent greeting.

“Are you coming inside?” Bryony called down eagerly as though he were a long-lost relation and not a complete stranger.

He thought he heard Miss Fairchurch mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, Providence save me.

“I best hasten before she drops on her head before us.” Her lips twisted wryly. It was the closest thing to a smile he had caught on her face and a small hum burned through him at the sight of it—which was utterly peculiar. She wasn’t to his tastes. Not in the least. “Trust me,” she added. “It could very well happen.”

Before he could respond, she turned and rushed up the path with quick strides, moving with surprising spryness. There was certainly nothing demure about her. She was a ball of energy.

He watched as she ascended the last step leading inside. He surveyed the house a final time. It appeared drooping and tired in the winter air—the complete opposite of Miss Fairchurch. As tightly wound as she was, she buzzed with life and vitality. Fire.

Perhaps this was what Autenberry had seen in her. Clearly there was more to her than one might first perceive. Something had to be there for his brother to have noticed her initially. He was well aware of the type of women his brother was typically drawn to and it wasn’t their inner beauty that attracted him. He liked his women beautiful and with bountiful curves. Not unlike Autenberry’s young stepmother he had just met. Not unlike their father’s taste in women. He cringed and shoved the thought of his father away.

So what was it about Poppy Fairchurch that had ensnared his brother?

Shaking his head, he decided that he didn’t know. But he intended to find out.

Turning, he climbed back up in the hack. Once settled inside, he found himself looking out the coach at the window he knew to be hers. It wasn’t until the carriage started moving that he faced forward again.





Chapter 7




She took a bracing breath as she cleared the landing that led to the room she shared with her sister. She knew she was in for a thousand questions and after the day she had it was going to be a struggle to maintain her patience throughout all of them.

On an average day, Bryony was inquisitive. After spotting Poppy with a strange gentleman, the questions would be endless.

It turned out she didn’t even need to open the door. As she rounded the corridor, her sister was waiting in the open doorway, bouncing lightly on her bare toes.

At the sight of Poppy, she rushed out into the corridor, her pretty face flushed with excitement. “Who was that man?”

“Struan Mackenzie,” she replied, because it was the truth and an answer she could give without disclosing anything too revealing. The last thing she wished to do was chronicle this day’s events for her sister. She could not pinpoint the precise moment when she had erred, but she was certain she had. Greatly. Grievously. Otherwise, the duke’s family wouldn’t believe she was betrothed to Autenberry. She closed her eyes in a long blink and rubbed at the center of her forehead where it was beginning to throb. All whilst the hapless duke was in a coma. It was a blasted nightmare.

“Struan Mackenzie . . . that sounds Scottish. Is he Scottish?”

“Yes. He is.”

Bryony’s lovely chocolate brown eyes bulged in her face. “Did he escort you home?” The way she asked the question signified how scandalized and titillated she was at the very notion.

Poppy stepped inside their humble room and closed the door behind them. Bryony followed close behind, breathing down her neck as she peppered her with question after question. “Oh. La! Do tell, Poppy!”

“Very well. Yes. He did.” She lifted the pinafore over her neck and hung it on a peg, brushing out the barely there wrinkles.

“Poppy!” Bryony shrieked. “Do you have a beau?” She clapped her hands together and bounced again, her auburn curls dancing like gleaming sausages over her shoulders, grazing the tops of her generous bosom. It was a strange sight she was not yet accustomed to seeing. Her baby sister was in possession of breasts twice the size of her own and enviable hair that made her own wheat-colored hair look every bit as plain as it was.