Page 1 of A Rogue's Rules for Seduction
Chapter 1
Scotland, Inner Hebrides, 1819
“Fucking aristos,” Dominic Kilburn muttered as the boat pitched beneath his feet.
Through sheer force of will—and using the strength of his admittedly thickly muscled thighs—he managed to keep from tumbling headlong into the churning waters, but it was close. If he wasn’t such a stubborn bastard, refusing to let this sea get the better of him, he would have fallen in. Which was a slight problem. He couldn’t swim. Men of low birth like his seldom could.
“What has my class done to younow?” Finn Ransome asked, standing at the railing.
“This damned sea is rough as a bottle of gin from a Ratcliff tavern,” Dom snarled at his friend.
“Being on the water has got your nerves just aschoppy as the waves,” Finn noted. “I’m hearing your old neighborhood creeping into your accent.”
“Damn gambler’s insight.” But there was no hiding it. “No matter how many elocution lessons Da made me take, whenever I’m feelin’ rattled, I can’t stop droppin’ consonants like rotten flesh. Guess I’ll always be Ratcliff born and bred.”
“It’s charming,” his friend noted.
Dom snorted. “Ain’t too many of your class that think so. And you bein’ an earl’s second son, you got a voice as smooth and cultured as cream from the top of the milk bottle.”
Finn also seldom revealed much emotion, not even when a twenty-foot boat heaved and rolled across Scottish waters. The vessel was just large enough to accommodate Dom, Finn, Finn’s wife, Tabitha, their luggage, and the skipper—who moved around the craft with the practiced ease of someone who had likely been born on the deck of this very boat.
“You may as well be dealin’ another round of faro,” Dom accused, “you’re so damned composed.”
“There’s nothingIcan do about the state of the sea,” his friend said mildly. “It stands to reason that I should permit myself to enjoy it. Why are you standing in the middle of the boat? Come to the rail and savor the view.”
“I’m stayin’ right here.” Dom remained rooted to his place in the middle of the boat’s pitchingdeck. “As far away as possible from the rail and the chance of a watery death. Iain’tsinkin’ to the bottom of the frigid Scottish sea.”
Not without seeingherfirst.If he was going to end his miserable time in this godforsaken world, he wanted his last view to be of Willa’s face. Even if she was scowling at him and calling him every known curse word, it would be enough merely to look upon her one final time. He might not die happy, but he’d die content in the knowledge that she was alive and might have a chance at actual happiness.
Yet he hadn’t seen Willa’s face or heard her voice in nearly a year, not since the night before that terrible spring day. Dom had run out on her in the moments before their wedding ceremony, assisted by Finn and his brother Kieran, which was bad, but even worse was the fact that Willa was their sister.
“And I fail to see why you’d be angry with my class,” Finn said evenly. “Though the British aristocracydoeshave an unequal and unfair amount of power, you cannot claim the gentry can actually affect the elements, and make a sea choppy.”
“But it’s members ofyourclass that decided to have this ruddy house party on some tiny Scottish island,” Dom fired back, bracing as another swell lifted the boat high before slamming it back down, “rather than at any one of their countless country houses paid for with others’ blood and sweat.”
“Oliver Longbridge said his manor on the island would be the perfect place for a house party,” Finn pointed out. He barely blinked when sea spray dashed across his face before calmly using a handkerchief to dry himself. “One unfettered by the traditional rules and conduct of polite society, thanks to its removed location. Besides,” he added, when Dom would have complained again, “youdecided to come to the party of your own volition. No one threatened the life of your favorite racehorse.”
“Except you and that cursed brother of yours kept wheedlin’ me to go,” Dom countered. With an exaggeratedly affected patrician accent, he drawled, “‘Do come to the party, Dom. It will be ever so droll to escape the tedium of London, and promises to be such a jolly time, there’s a chap.’”
Finn laughed. “My God, if Kieran and I truly sound like that, you’ve my permission to tip me overboard.”
“That would mean moving from the safety of where I stand,” Dom answered, “riskin’mylife to end yours.”
There was no rancor in his words. Ever since Dom’s father had made his fortune nearly twelve years ago through the leasing of dockside warehouses, the companionship of the Ransome brothers had been Dom’s sole consolation as he’d navigated the treacherous, insular world of England’s elite. Dom would sooner throw himself into the water than hurt his two closest friends.
“I think I see the island,” Tabitha Ransome said excitedly.
She came to stand at her new husband’s side, and Finn’s arm immediately curved around her waist, holding her close. It was a gesture that was at once protective and adoring, just as the expression on Finn’s face was protective and adoring. Though he was a man who seldom let anyone know what he was thinking or feeling, those barriers fell away whenever Tabitha was near. For her part, the scholarly Tabitha appeared equally smitten when in the presence of her husband.
Dom’s heart clenched. He didn’t begrudge Finn his happiness—but it only reinforced just what Dom had lost, and would never have for himself.
And now that both Finn and Kieran had found themselves brides, Dom was left almost entirely on his own to prowl London after dark. Given the grim humor that had gripped him ever since jilting Willa, that meant that most mornings found Dom crawling home after either wearing himself out at the all-hours pugilism academy or trying to find consolation at the bottom of a tankard.
Whether his sore head those mornings came from the punches he took from his sparring opponents or the vast amounts of alcohol he’d swallowed was anyone’s guess. But boxing and drinking did the job of distracting him from the fact that he’d lost Willa, would never have her, and had to go through the rest of his cursed days corroded with guilt.
Well—theyused todistract him. More and more lately, there weren’t enough sparring opponents or casks of ale to keep him from sinking into a mire of shame and rage.
And that was the only reason why he’d accepted the Ransome brothers’ invitation to join them at Oliver Longbridge’s house party on this private island in the Hebrides. Because anything had to be better than his existence now. There might not be a boxing ring, but he could always drain someone else’s cellar. He might also sleep better in a different bed, because God knew he wasn’t sleeping now.
