Page 94 of My Rogue, My Ruin
Archer turned to follow him. “Who?”
“Don’t be obtuse. I heard one of the house staff saying Ferndale was being readied for Lord Dinsmore and his family. They thought to take a break from London for a time, as well.”
Ensconced in the country for the summer, it would be a place where her parents would not have to weather any direct embarrassment from the broken betrothal. He stepped into the cottage, shaking his head. It had to be done.
He’d never intended to marry at all. The act had simply been a necessity, and it had been easy to stomach, considering the girl knew the game. And she’d been one hell of an ally. Everything about Briannon had impressed him—her courage, her humor, her indomitable nature. She was everything any man could ever want. But Archer did not deserve her, this he knew. He couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing her, of crushing that incredible spirit of hers. What if he turned out to be like the late duke, just as her own brother had feared?
“You are frowning,” Brandt commented.
“Canceling the banns was the right thing to do. My reputation would ruin her good name.”
Brandt didn’t make a reply, though the crinkled forehead and frown spoke it for him. He didn’t believe Archer.
“So what will you do with your time then, Your Grace?” he asked instead, dipping into a cartoonish bow. His wound must have pained him because he hissed and straightened his back without putting weight on his right leg.
“You deserved that,” Archer muttered. “And I will fill my time easily enough.”
“The Marauder is dead?”
Brandt’s question had nothing at all to do with the man Eloise had shot. His name had turned out to be Mr. Gregory Barnstead, the third son of a late baron from somewhere up in Cumbria. Barnstead had come to London with the little inheritance he’d been afforded upon his father’s death and had gambled it away within a week at a gaming hell.
All of London had determined the man had been desperate and had resorted to becoming a highwayman to make a living. He’d been bred from the gentry, and perhaps that was why he’d been polite—at first. He must have become desperate, the papers had opined, and had taken out his anger and frustration upon his victims.
Archer, however, figured Eloise had found the wretched cad and had offered him a fine sum for his assistance. What Barnstead had said, about being someone no one cared to notice, made sense if he was a bitter third son of a baron.
No, what Brandt meant to ask was ifArcher’smarauder was dead.
“I do not know,” he answered honestly, trying to sort through the mess of his thoughts. “It’s all I have. It’s all I’ve ever been able to offer to anyone.”
“That’s hogwash and you know it,” Brandt said. “You’re afraid to give up the Marauder, Hawk. You’ve been using that identity as a shield for so long you’ve forgotten how to exist without it.”
Brandt’s words hit with barbed accuracy.Damn him.
“I should go,” Archer said. Not that he wanted to. Pierce Cottage, at least, felt as comforting as a home ought to.
But it was time.
Archer went for the door.
“They are said to be arriving today, you know.”
Brandt said it to his back, and yet the words hit low in Archer’s stomach. “Don’t.”
“You love her. Admit it.”
Archer grasped the doorknob and pulled it wide, the warm spring afternoon gusting into his face.Shesmelled this way—fresh and clean and with the barest hint of moss. The memory of her scent was enough to unhinge him. The girl had gotten under his skin and deep into his senses. But none of that mattered now.
“What if I turn out to be a bastard like my father was? What if I love her now, want hernow, but the feelings fade with time?”
“So you do love her.”
Archer clenched his fists, despair filling him. “Did you not hear the rest of what I said? What if one day the feeling ends? What if I can’t explain it or stop it from ending?” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, gritty from road dust. “I can’t stand the idea of hurting her. Of disappointing her.”
Brynn had given so much of herself to him. She’d risked her life pulling that stunt with the Bradburne diamonds, and when Archer had been forced, bound and gagged, to watch Barnstead put his hands all over her, he’d wanted to murder the impersonator and then flog himself for being the one who put her in danger to begin with.
Archer wanted to wrap her in his arms and fight off the rest of the world. He’d indulged a vision of her for these last few weeks, of her buried under the blankets of his bed in Worthington Abbey, deep in slumber, her silky curls strewn over his pillow. There, beside him, he would keep her safe. He would cherish her and ravish her in equal measure. He would do everything he could to make her smile and laugh. To make her happy in every possible way—just as he had promised her brother.
I love her.
