Have You Any Rogues? by Elizabeth Boyle Read Free Book Online

ever, and he thought to lecture her?
    “I am going,” she replied and continued toward the door.
    But by the time she got to it, her fingers winding around the latch, Christopher was there, his hand over her shoulder, holding the door shut. Tight.
    “I owe Grandfather everything,” he told her as she stood there with her back to him, shaking with anger. “I won’t see His, or Her Grace’s, heart broken over some ill-fated elopement.”
    She turned around and faced him, and something of her concerns must have shown in her eyes.
    “Good God, Hen, this bounder did promise to marry you, didn’t he?”
    This took her aback, for even as she quickly recalled their conversation, she realized that Crispin’s offer had never once mentioned marriage.
    And her frantic realization was apparently obvious to her suddenly chivalrous nephew.
    “Gads! What are you thinking?” Christopher nearly exploded. Then remembering the need for stealth, he lowered his voice. “Who is he?”
    Hen shook her head, her jaw set as stubbornly as he’d set his. “I won’t say. It is none of your business.”
    “Anything that brings shame upon this family or hurts Grandfather is my business.”
    Oh, this was a fine time for him to find his moral fortitude. Where had it been when he’d hauled Henry down to that Seven Dials stew last month?
    “Stand aside,” she told him, for even now she could see the first hints of dawn starting to rise in the sky beyond. Crispin had told her to be there before dawn, and the time was nearly past.
    “No,” he told her. And then without further word, he caught her around the middle and slung her over his shoulder like a sack of onions, carting her through the house further and further from the back gate.
    Of all the indignities! Hen kicked and pounded on him, but Christopher just ignored her, knowing full well she couldn’t cry out.
    Not without bringing down the entire household to witness this scene. And worse, demand an explanation.
    Then it occurred to her that all she had to do was go along with him. Then, once he was lured into believing she wasn’t going to bolt out the door, she’d slip past him.
    Certainly she could get to the docks before Crispin’s boat sailed.
    She just must!
    But Christopher hadn’t lived with her for all these years without being used to her tricks. The moment she stopped kicking up a fuss, he laughed.
    “Won’t work, Hen. I cannot allow you to do this.” And without another word, he deposited her into the footman’s closet in the front hall, closed the door in her face and locked it. She heard the distinctive scrape of a chair, and then what she assumed was Christopher settling in to wait her out.
    She whirled around to find there was only the small oriel window in the corner, not even big enough for her to get her head out. And through the round window came the gleaming light that told the entire story.
    Dawn had broken. And so did her heart.

 
    C HAPTER F OUR
Seldons have only one care: their own unruly passions.
A TRUTH UNIVERSALLY KNOWN BY ALL DALES
    Owle Park, 1810
    “R ather ironic it was Preston who kept you from being ruined,” Crispin pointed out.
    Hen looked up from where she was examining the bottles on the shelves and tried to ignore his slight, but she decided to turn it to her advantage. “You might have learned a lesson from him.”
    “From Preston?” Crispin snorted.
    “Yes, well, if you had followed his example, you would have been able to stop your cousin from seducing my brother.” She smirked a bit, especially at his outrage over having the entire Henry and Daphne debacle laid at his feet.
    Never mind that her brother was deliriously happy with his Dale bride.
    “How was I to know what lengths your brother would resort to if only to ruin her?”
    “He married her,” Hen pointed out. Something Crispin had failed to offer when he’d asked her to run off with him.
    “Marriage is no guarantee of happiness,” he muttered.
    Hen couldn’t