Page 85 of My Rogue, My Ruin
Brynn had sipped her oolong while sitting beside Eloise, listening to Cordelia’s timorous voice but thinking of Archer and his friend Brandt, instead. All eyes had been on Cordelia, her teacup shaking in her hand until she had finally needed to set it down. However, Brynn still felt as if she were hiding in plain sight, and that at any moment, one of the ladies would look at her and just somehowknow. Of course, no one did. No one yet knew who the man arrested in Hyde Park was—he had purportedly not given his identity and was being held in Newgate. Brynn imagined he was being questioned heavily by Thomson. She didn’t want to consider what more was happening to Archer’s trusted friend inside that abominable stone fortress, though she imagined Archer had been able to think of nothing else.
Despite cringing inside at how shallow she appeared, Brynn had found a way to bring up the Bradburne diamonds and her plans to wear them to the Kensington Ball. Most of the younger ladies had simpered along with her, but she had seen vaulted brows from some of the more experienced ladies of thetonand had felt the sting of their contempt. Eloise had not said a word, though she had been more reserved for the rest of the afternoon. Granted, discussing fashion and diamonds so soon after Cordelia’s harrowing tale had been gauche, but she could not waste time caring about what anyone thought of her.
“I can do this,” she whispered to herself in the glass.
Braxton stepped into the sitting room and announced the duke. Brynn turned from the mirror and caught her breath as Archer filled the entrance. As he strode farther into the room, she felt the strangest reaction: her palms grew even more hot and damp, and yet the nerves churning her stomach instantly settled.
Having him here put her at ease, even if she wasn’t completely comfortable being left alone with him as Braxton took his leave. It didn’t make any sense, and yet there it was.
He stared at her, a slow, appreciative grin lifting the corners of his mouth.
“Well, you’ve done it. No thief worth his salt will be able to resist that display.”
His eyes glittered as they took in the diamonds and the expanse of décolletage they rested upon. The skin there grew warmer under his gaze, and Brynn, without thought, touched the tips of her fingers to the lowest tier of jewels.
Archer’s breathing hitched and his jaw shifted as he followed her movement. “You take my breath away.”
She flushed at the amorous look in his eyes as they devoured her, sweeping to her breasts and then back to her face. She lowered her hand. “Thank you, my lord.”
He was clad in raven-black attire from head to toe with the exception of his shirt and cravat. Brynn hadn’t thought it possible that he could be any more attractive, but he had somehow managed it.
He lowered his voice and came closer to her. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“I won’t lie,” she admitted. “I am terrified this plan of mine will succeed in drawing the imposter out. But your friend in Newgate must be even more terrified than I.”
Archer grimaced and cut his eyes from her. “You don’t know Brandt. He doesn’t scare easily. Still, he will not be there much longer.”
No, she did not know Archer’s friend well at all. However, she had come to knowArcher, though she didn’t know how or when, exactly. “You plan to turn yourself in.”
He wouldn’t look at her as he crossed the room in the opposite direction of her, toward a divan near the hearth. The fire was small in the grate, and it threw weak light over his figure. He stood with his back to her, the fingers of his right hand twisting the duke’s signet ring upon the third finger on his left hand.
“I will not allow him to rot in that filthy hole. And if Thomson recognizes him as the man my footmen dragged in at Hadley Gardens the night of my father’s murder…”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. Brynn could suddenly feel how tenuous the whole situation was. The tightrope Archer had been walking the last few days. She felt a surge of empathy and wished she could do more to lessen his burden.
“You care for him,” she said as she walked toward the hearth. He continued to stare into the flames.
“He is a brother to me,” he replied, still twisting his signet ring. He was always so cool and unflappable, and this nervous twitch of his was the first bit of vulnerability he’d shown her.
Brynn wanted to reach for him. To take his restless hands and hold them firmly in her own. The urge was so keen it left an ache in her.
“I haven’t changed my mind about tonight,” she said. “Catching the imposter is the only way through this.”
He turned his ear toward her but stayed facing the hearth. “There is another option.”
Brynn gave in to her craving and settled her hands lightly on the broad width of his back. “Even if you were to turn yourself in, the imposter would still be out there. The robberies will continue, and he’ll keep harming people. We are the only ones who know he is not the true bandit. We must stop him, Archer. I know you don’t want to allow Brandt to rot in Newgate, but I won’t allowyouto be escorted to the gallows.”
He lifted his head at her touch and stopped twisting his ring. His body went rigid under her hands, his ribs expanding with a held breath.
“Only a coward would let another man take the fall for his own crimes. I am many things, but a coward is not one of them.”
Brynn swept her hands up to where his shoulders widened, curving her palms around each muscled one. He was so big and strong. She wanted to cling to him, if only to stop him from marching to Bow Street and turning himself in to Thomson.
“But you have not committed the crimes worthy of hanging—the imposter is the violent one, not you.”
There was a difference between the two bandits, as clear as the divide between night and day.
Archer laughed. “I am a highwayman, Brynn, and last I knew, that was crime enough, worthy of the noose.”
