Twice Tempted by a Rogue by Tessa Dare Read Free Book Online

panicked shout rose up behind him. Before Rhys could register its origin, a wave of ice-cold water sloshed over his head, dousing him to the skin. The shock of it froze him in place for a moment. An icy rivulet crawled down his back, and he shivered.
    “I’m sorry,” a meek voice behind him said. Rhys recognized it as belonging to Darryl Tewkes. He turned around, and there the youth was, twitchy eye and all.
    “So sorry,” he stammered again. “I was aiming for the torches, you know.”
    With a gruff sigh, Rhys shook himself. Water droplets flew everywhere. He took the fizzling torches from the two men, turned them wrong-end-up, and stubbed them in the dirt.
    “Listen up, every one of you.” The sound of gunfire had drawn gawkers, and had the whole village listening now. Damn it, he hated making speeches. He tried to keep his voice even. “You can bring your torches and your guns and your”—he rolled his eyes and flapped a wet sleeve at Darryl—“pails of cold water, and whatever else you please. You can’t intimidate me. Fire, gunshots, drowning … I’ve been through each, and I’ve survived them all.”
    He stared down Harold and Laurence. “You fancy yourselves good in a fight? I fought for eleven years with the Fifty-second, the most decorated regiment in the British Army. Light infantry foot guards, the first line to attack in any battle. Fought my way through Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium. At Waterloo alone, I personally gutted seven members of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard. And those are just the ones I killed up close.”
    Calmly, he turned to Gideon Myles. “You want to play with guns? I can do that, too. Rifle, musket, pistol … take your pick. I can clean, assemble, and load any one of them in under a minute. I don’t waste black powder, and my aim is true.”
    And since he had the town’s ear, he went on, “I’m also impervious to idiocy, I’ll have you all know. A couple of Portuguese peasants once found me bleeding in a field, shot through the shoulder in a skirmish. Dragged me back to their henhouse and kept me there for the better part of a week, just sticking a poker between the slats every so often to jab me in the side and judge if I was dead yet.” He turned to Darryl. “You there, with the bucket. Do you know how to say ‘water’ in Portuguese?”
    Darryl shook his head no.
    “Neither did I, damn it. And yet I’m still here. I’m bloody well indestructible. Add to that, I’m Rhys St. Maur, your legendary living phantom, and you sure as hell can’t scare me off my own cursed estate.”
    Silence.
    Rhys had spoken all the words he intended to say. No one seemed to know what to do next. Harold, Laurence, Gideon Myles, Darryl … they all just stood there, gawping at Rhys, then gawping at one another. Band of bloody fools.
    A yeast roll bounced off of Harold Symmonds’s forehead, breaking the collective trance.
    “Go home.” Meredith was suddenly next to him, still holding her basket of bread with both hands. Her voice rang through the courtyard. “Go home, all of you.”
    One by one, the villagers turned and left. Myles disappeared back into the stables, presumably to resume keeping watch over his precious wagon. It struck Rhys that the man was inordinately protective of a load of “dry goods.”
    He released his breath slowly, feeling the tension in his muscles dissipate as well.
    “Are you all right?” She looked him over from crown to boots. “I’m so sorry for that scene.”
    He wrung the water from his shirtfront, standing back so as not to drip on her bread. “Don’t be. Wasn’t your fault. And I needed a bath.”
    He looked up to find her frozen in place, her eyes riveted to his sodden shoulders and chest. He couldn’t quite name the look in her eyes, but he suspected it was revulsion. With his shirt clinging to his body and his hair matted to his head—not to mention the fact that he’d just been met by a torch-bearing mob—he must have the look of a