To Want a Rogue

. Those memories wouldn’t serve him now.

“My lord,” one of the grooms yelled from the ditch. “Found a man here, but he looks to be dead.”

Gavin grimaced as he stomped through several puddles to see the body for himself. Was this the girl’s brother? Had he gotten himself free only to perish? “Damn,” he muttered looking down at the body. The man was clearly dead.

“Hello?” Another voice called from the vehicle, halting Gavin’s progress.

“Are you all right in there?”

“My leg is trapped.” A man gasped out. “I need aid.”

“Worry not. Your sister found my home and sent me to help.” Delicately, he poked his head into the wagon. From what he could make out, the leg was pinned under the top part of the carriage.

“Thank goodness. Is she all right?” The man called from inside the carriage.

Gavin’s chest tightened. The man should be worried after himself. What was it like to have someone care for your welfare that much? He certainly had no idea. “She’s fine. I left her sitting by a warm fire.”

“Thank you, sir. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.” The man thumped the carriage with frame with his hand. “I’ve been so worried about her wandering the road alone.”

The tightness in his gut twisted even further. “My grooms and I are going to try and lift the frame. You should know better than us. Will you be free if we do or will we make matters worse?

“No, I think that will work,” the man called back. “I’ll brace myself to be certain, and I’ll cry stop if it’s doing any more damage.”

“Very good,” Gavin replied, shrugging off his coat and waving the other men forward. They each braced themselves around the vehicle. “On my word.”

They pushed together, lifting the carriage off the man and then quickly pushing it to the side of the road. Lifting the victim up, they placed him in the back of the wagon and, after briefly tending to his wounds, started back toward de Wolfe Manor.

Gavin glanced back as he snapped the reigns, frowning at the poor sod. The crash had done real damage. The man writhed in pain, his skin mangled from the splintered wood. The leg, however, seemed intact. Gavin had seen men survive worse. Then again, some had died with less.

The girl who’d literally fallen into his house had said this was her brother. He believed it. Same dark hair, light eyes, and pale skin. He’d dispatched one of the grooms before he left to fetch the doctor at Seacrest Village, and with luck he would arrive at the manor around the same time they did. The question he needed to answer now, what was he to do with two unexpected guests?

The problem was that he was meant to host a rather delicate affair at his home in just two days’ time. And by delicate, he actually meant debaucherous. Several of his bachelor friends were set to arrive, bringing with them ladies of a certain professional nature. Even after all this time, his lip curled in slight distaste. He’d been a married man once, and he understood how much more fulfilling a relationship with a woman was versus a quick tup with a hired professional. One couldn’t help but question who else might have laid his hands, or more precisely poked his parts, in the same place he was.

But after his wife’s death, he couldn’t bring himself to commit to anyone or anything. And he hadn’t been with a woman in…had it really been two years? Bollocks. So he’d allowed one his former compatriots to arrange this gathering. An act of desperation, and one he’d questioned every minute since he’d agreed to it. He should have called the damn thing off weeks ago.

“Is it much further?” the man in the back managed to say through clenched teeth.

He had grit. Gavin could give him that. “Almost there.”

“Dahlia? Is she all right?”

Dahlia. Pretty name for the drowned rat that had landed on his oriental carpet. He wondered how old the girl was. Dripping wet and in a heap, she’d appeared no more than fourteen or fifteen. “She’s fine. Drying by a fire and warming with tea. She’ll be glad to see you, which should be momentarily.” They came up to the gate and one of the grooms jumped out to open the large iron door.

“Good,” the other man grunted. “Our parents are gone. We only have each other.”

Gavin’s mouth pulled taut as he glanced back at the bloodied leg. He truly hoped the man survived. It was a tough business being a woman alone in this world. “Don’t worry about her. It’s you we’ve got to get patched up.”

“I’m Samuel Smith,” Sam said between clenched teeth. “Thank you for your help.”

“Think nothing of it,” Gavin replied, pulling the carriage up to the front door. “Now let’s get you inside.”

Sam nodded. “Take care of Dahlia too, would you? It’s her I’m worried about.”

Gavin gave a curt nod, not sure exactly what he was agreeing to, but he couldn’t say no to the man in his current state. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder. Had he just been sidled with a girl?

Chapter Two

Dahlia stood by the fire, taking a short repose from her pacing. She’d warmed enough to shed her brother’s coat, but her dress was still wet and her hair so hopelessly ruined that she’d pulled the pins out and set them on the mantel. The long strands would dry more quickly left loose about her shoulders.