Page 4 of A Rogue's Rules for Seduction
“So long as everyone’s willing,” the housekeeper answered with a charming burr.
As if in response to Mrs. Murray’s words, a loud crash sounded in another room, followed by uproarious laughter. Of course—the party had already begun a week ago.
“I’ll see to that,” Mr. Brown said with a bow.
“And I’m sure that a broom will be required,” Mrs. Murray added. “After which, I’ll show everyone to their bedchambers.”
The servants bowed and curtsied before departing.In the meantime, the parade of footmen climbed a wide set of carved stairs with their bags. Two servants approached Dom, expectantly looking at his luggage. No hope for it but to give the footmen what they wanted—so he handed them his belongings. Each servant took one bag before heading up the stairs.
“Come,” Longbridge said with cheer, “I’ve got hot toddies and a variety of things to nibble on, all to refresh you from your long journey. This way.”
Their host shot a meaningful look toward Finn and Tabitha. Finn’s expression didn’t change, but Tabitha gave Longbridge a small nod.
Tension constricted along Dom’s spine. What the hell was going on?
Still, as Longbridge ushered them toward a chamber just off the entryway, Dom shook his head. He was imagining things. Celeste always said he saw threats where there were none. This was likely the same circumstance. Fists swinging at shadows.
Dom entered the room adjoining the entryway. It seemed a perfectly fine chamber, also paneled in wood, with sofas and chairs scattered throughout, and a fire blazing cheerfully in the hearth. On a table in the middle of the room perched a tray with the promised hot toddies and cakes and sandwiches.
Striding toward the table, Dom picked up one of the steaming drinks and brought it to his lips.
At the same time, a door at one end of the chamberopened. A woman came through it, speaking over her shoulder to someone.
“Why do I need to come in here?” she was saying. “I was right in the middle of showing Mrs. McDaniel how to cheat at billiards.”
The woman drew up short and Dom dropped his hot toddy. Scalding liquid poured over his hands and clothes. He didn’t notice anything but the woman.
She had thick brows, a round, elfin face, and dark and piercing eyes, with energy radiating out of her like an invisible storm as she gaped at him.
“Oh, fuck,” said Willa.
Chapter 2
Willa stared at Dom in disbelief. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t simplyshow upas if he was some ordinary person who came and went like anybody else. Because he wasn’tanybody else. He was the man who had taken her heart in his giant hand and crushed it into a pulp, and then left her to be a laughingstock, as she tried as best she could to scrape together what was left into some semblance of a functioning organ.
But here he was, standing in Oliver Longbridge’s parlor and gawking atheras ifshewas a specter from his past.
His mouth opened and closed, as if he attempted to speak, but no words came out except a strange animal sound. His normally olive-hued complexion had turned ashen, whitening the scar that ran across his chin, and his massive chest rose and fell as he struggled to breathe. His face was leaner than she’d remembered, but his lips were just asimprobably full as they’d always been, his eyes the grayish blue of a storm, and he was still handsome in the way that weather-beaten mountains were handsome. He was nevertheless Dom, down to the bump on the bridge of his nose that revealed it had been broken. More than once.
She’d hoped that, in all the times she’d imagined seeing him again, her first response would be anger. Anger was clean. It was pure and it had purpose.
Instead, longing swelled within her. A palpable yearning that swept through her like a tide, urging her to run to him, throw her arms around him, and let the heat of his body soak into hers, warming her from the long frost that had gripped her ever since that day in May.
The day he’d abandoned her at the altar in the moments before their wedding.
Ah,therewas the rage she wanted. Surging into her with the power of a firestorm.
Spinning, she reached for whatever was closest at hand—a porcelain shepherdess figurine—and hurled it at the wall so that it exploded into thousands of fragments. Dom lifted his arm to shield himself from the flying pieces.
“What,” she said through clenched teeth, “are youdoing here?”
“Finn and Kieran talked me into comin’.”
He was upset—he’d regressed into his Ratcliff accent. Good to know that she unbalanced him as much as he unbalanced her.
But... Kieran and Finn, herbrothers, the very two rogues who’d helped Dom flee their wedding, the same two scoundrels who’d been nothing but apologetic since she’d returned from the Continent...theyhad convinced Dom to be here?
“I heard something shatter,” Finn said, coming into the room with Tabitha on his arm. “I take it the reunion has happened.”
