The Rogue Who Rescued Her Read online

  The Rogue Who Rescued Her

  By

  Christi Caldwell

  The Rogue Who Rescued Her

  Copyright © 2018 by Christi Caldwell

  EPUB Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

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  Other Titles by Christi Caldwell

  Heart of a Duke

  In Need of a Duke—Prequel Novella

  For Love of the Duke

  More than a Duke

  The Love of a Rogue

  Loved by a Duke

  To Love a Lord

  The Heart of a Scoundrel

  To Wed His Christmas Lady

  To Trust a Rogue

  The Lure of a Rake

  To Woo a Widow

  To Redeem a Rake

  One Winter with a Baron

  To Enchant a Wicked Duke

  Beguiled by a Baron

  To Tempt a Scoundrel

  The Heart of a Scandal

  In Need of a Knight—Prequel Novella

  Schooling the Duke

  Lords of Honor

  Seduced by a Lady’s Heart

  Captivated by a Lady’s Charm

  Rescued by a Lady’s Love

  Tempted by a Lady’s Smile

  Scandalous Seasons

  Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride

  Never Courted, Suddenly Wed

  Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous

  Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love

  A Marquess for Christmas

  Once a Wallflower, at Last His Love

  Sinful Brides

  The Rogue’s Wager

  The Scoundrel’s Honor

  The Lady’s Guard

  The Heiress’s Deception

  The Wicked Wallflowers

  The Hellion

  The Vixen

  The Governess

  The Bluestocking

  The Theodosia Sword

  Only For His Lady

  Only For Her Honor

  Only For Their Love

  Danby

  A Season of Hope

  Winning a Lady’s Heart

  The Brethren

  The Spy Who Seduced Her

  The Lady Who Loved Him

  Brethren of the Lords

  My Lady of Deception

  Her Duke of Secrets

  A Regency Duet

  Rogues Rush In

  Memoir: Non-Fiction

  Uninterrupted Joy

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Other Titles by Christi Caldwell

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Other Books by Christi Caldwell

  Biography

  Chapter 1

  Winter, 1821

  Kent

  The world had never thought much of Lord Sheldon Graham Malin Whitworth.

  When he was a boy, there’d been no shortage of opportunities for the world—father and brothers included—to remind Graham of his numerous failings: too short, not clever enough, not the best at riding or fencing.

  By the time he’d grown to be several inches taller than both his brothers and had become a more skilled rider, fencer, and boxer, those accomplishments had ceased to matter to his father, the Duke of Sutton.

  Until Graham had ceased to try and instead learned to live for only his own pleasures.

  In what could only be the most clichéd of directions a duke’s second or third son could travel, Graham had contentedly wandered the path of rogue, uncaring about paternal disapproval.

  Neither was he one who particularly cared for those all-too-frequent ducal lectures. The latest of which Graham now subjected himself to.

  And had been subjecting himself to since he’d entered his father’s office twenty-five minutes earlier.

  “Are you even listening to me?” the Duke of Sutton called. The affected shout boomed off the thirty-foot-high ceilings. Of course, Graham’s illustrious father was too distinguished and refined to ever do something so gauche as to actually bellow.

  “Indeed,” Graham drawled. From where he stood at the duke’s floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Kent countryside, Graham glanced at his father in the crystal panes and caught the manner in which his father drew his thick gray brows together. And because Graham knew it would raise the sterling-haired patriarch’s ire, he tossed back a long swallow from the snifter in his hand.

  The duke wanted to bellow. It was there in the bulging vein at the right corner of his eye. In Graham’s youth, his father’s slight, uncontrollable twitches had represented a triumph. Now, they meant nothing. They changed nothing.

  As always, his father collected himself. “Your mother is having a house party.”

  As if to punctuate that statement, a pink carriage rolled down the long graveled drive. “Yes, I see that.” Graham followed it with his gaze until the garish conveyance came to a stop. Liveried servants immediately poured from the front door, scurrying off to greet the just-arrived guests, like mice sprinting along the bowels of the naval ships he’d served on seven years earlier.

  “She wanted you here.”

  Graham could not fathom why. “Did she?” Oh, it was not that he doubted his mother’s love. In the way of devoted parents, she had bestowed equal affection and regard on each of her three—now two—sons. Even when she had every reason to hate him for the loss of one of her sons, she hadn’t. But taking the grousing from her husband because Graham was around hardly seemed worth the bother.

  “She did,” his father said coolly, in tones that betrayed a like confusion.

  Graham swirled the remaining contents of his glass.

  “I wanted you here, too.”

  The amber spirits splashed over the rim of his glass, staining Graham’s fingers and falling upon the hardwood floor. For the first time since he’d been summoned to the duke’s offices, Graham faced him. His mother had wanted him about through the years as much as the Duke of Sutton hadn’t wanted the spare to his heir underfoot.

  “Wipe that surprised look off your face.” T
here was a faint pleading there so at odds with the Duke of Sutton who commanded all. “That is no doubt the reason both the king and I together couldn’t convince the Home Office to put you to some use.”

  “This again?” he drawled, tension snapping through him, and he resisted it. People, all people, will attempt to use your weakness as a weapon against you. Do not…

  This time, with that lesson reverberating around his brain, he dispelled the old hurts. This time, he refused to give his father the satisfaction of his fury, nor did he allow himself that show of weakness. It was enough that Graham knew the truth: That he, the unlikeliest of rogues, had been tapped as an agent for the Crown, trained, and set to serve.

  His father thumped the surface of his desk. “Your mind is wandering again.”

  What is wrong with you that you cannot—?

  “Focus.”

  “Or what? You’ll drag out one of my esteemed former tutors to apply the rod?” The pain, indignity, and shame—of both the act and his pathetic self for failing to put an end to it—stung sharper than the wood instrument had all those years ago. As a child, he’d been unable to maintain any sense of self-control. His father, a ducal master of all emotion, had railed at Graham, ultimately hiring the sternest tutors.

  “They did it to clear your head of cobwebs and clouds,” his father shot back, his cheeks flushed red. Was it guilt? Regret?

  How utterly ridiculous to believe his father had any compunction about how he’d treated his youngest son. Ultimately, it had been Graham’s mother who’d put the humiliating punishments to an end.

  “It did not work,” he said with a lazy grin, toasting his father. In the end, he had developed mechanisms on his own to help cope with an inability to attend his studies or… anything.

  “Mayhap if your mother hadn’t coddled you, you would have been strong enough to merit a role with the Home Office.”

  He curled his fingers. Let it be enough. You know the truth. At the end of the day, his father believed he’d been rejected, but Graham had been selected to the illustrious organization. Nonetheless, as the duke launched into his familiar tirade, Graham clung to every lesson doled out by his mentor within the Brethren and every strategy he employed to retain a grip on his self-control.

  “I sent you to the Home Office with every opportunity,” his father was saying, “and it was just one more failing.” One more failing… among a countless number of them. Oh, how Graham would love to hurl the truth in his face. But the other man’s pompous—incorrect—assumption where Graham was concerned was perversely satisfying, too. “Wipe that smug smile from your face, Sheldon Whitworth.” He winced at having that hated first name tossed his way. “You went to them with connections, letters from me and His Majesty, and you blundered it at your first meeting.”

  Graham’s entire body went taut. “You spoke to someone after my… rejection?”

  “Of course I did.” His father bristled. “Do you think I didn’t have words with my connections and demand an answer as to why they passed you over for any post?”

  Of course, there was that eternal concern for the Duke of Sutton about how he was viewed by his peers. Graham made his lips move up in a coolly mocking grin and again toasted his father with his drink. “How very loving you’ve become in your old age.”

  The duke’s cheeks went red. “It had nothing to do with…with…”

  “Love?” Graham supplied. His father had turned tail and ran whenever discourse moved into the emotional territory.

  “That or any other puling sentiments.”

  “I was being facetious, Father. Of course it didn’t.”

  His father slashed a hand Graham’s way. “It had to do with the fact that you are approaching thirty, and you’re still the same rakish person you were ten years ago.”

  Ah, but now Graham was more. “I have always been able to rely on you to provide a detailed enumeration of my failings.”

  “Either way, that isn’t why you are here.”

  “And here I thought I was invited for the annual Whitworth winter house party.”

  “Don’t be a fool. You stopped coming to your mother’s festivities years ago. Can’t bother to tear yourself away from whatever whore you’re bedding or whatever wager you’re making.”

  That had been the case, though it had been more about not wanting to. He had been the failure of a student his father accused him of being, but he’d not been such a fool that he’d have willingly put himself through any more of his father’s lambasting diatribes. This year, however, was different. His purposes for being here, for trying to meld more with Polite Society, at whom he’d otherwise spent his life turning up a middle finger, were quite different.

  Graham downed the remainder of his drink. Strolling with long, lazy strides to his father’s desk, he set the empty glass at the edge of the perfect, gleaming mahogany desktop and sat. “Why don’t we move past all the dancing about, then, and have out with whatever it is I’m doing here?”

  The duke’s hard lips moved, but no sound slipped forward. Of course, His Grace wasn’t accustomed to anyone compelling him to do anything. No one short of the king himself. It was why he’d taken such affront at the denials of his requests for a post at the Home Office for his reprobate son. It had stung his ducal pride. Something flashed in his steel-gray eyes, something that looked very much like pride. It was gone as quick as it had come and likely had been an imagined hope that the foolish part of Graham still carried for the man’s acceptance.

  “You’ve been a disappointment in many ways…” Schooling. “Your schooling.”—Because, for his father, that was where Graham’s failings had all begun.—“Your reputation. Your—”

  “Yes, yes, I think we’re all well familiar with the impressive list you’ve compiled,” he said dryly, looping an ankle across his opposite knee.

  “I’m trying to help you, Sheldon.”

  “How very…kind of you.”

  His father went on over that droll interruption. “There is something you can do.”

  “And here I thought there was nothing I could—”

  “The Duke and Duchess of Gayle are expected any day.”

  Oh, bloody hell.

  “Along with their daughter, Lady Emilia.”

  A joining of ducal families is what the Duke of Sutton craved then. “No,” Graham said flatly.

  His father flared his nostrils. “I didn’t say anything.”

  Yet. “We both know where this is headed.” And it would end nowhere.

  “Your mother was friendly with her mother and feels badly about the girl’s circumstances.”

  “Then send her a puppy and French chocolates. But sending the failure of a son?” He chuckled. “That hardly seems like an act of charity for any of the aforementioned parties.”

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Enter,” His Grace called out.

  A servant entered bearing a silver tray. “This arrived a short while ago—”

  “Hand it over, then,” the duke said impatiently, snapping his fingers.

  “It is not for you, Your Grace.” The young man glanced to Graham. “But rather, Lord Whitworth.”

  At any other time, there would have been jubilation at seeing the duke effectively silenced. For it would be a bruising to his massive pride to have a letter arrive mid-meeting for his scapegrace son. Not this time. Graham stood straighter. Feeling his father’s stare boring a hole into his every action, Graham forced himself to accept the note with his usual boredom. After sliding a finger under the familiar wax seal, he unfolded the missive and scanned the handful of lines. Then, curving his lips into the usual lazy grin, he tucked the page into his jacket. “We are finished here.”

  “Are we finished? We’ve only just started—”

  “It was not a question,” he said dryly, climbing to his feet. “I’ve had matters come up.”

  “An irate husband, no doubt.”

  “Hardly.” Graham waggled his brows. “All the respectable
ones who’d care that I’m bedding their wives are away from London until the Season begins.” Whistling a bawdy tavern ditty, he clicked the heels of his boots together and started for the door.

  The duke’s chair scraped the floor. “You would simply run off,” his father thundered after him, his patience giving way, as it invariably did.

  Graham paused with his fingers on the door handle and shot a glance back. “Oh, I’m not running off. I’m leaving. They are two very… you know. Who the hell cares either way?”

  With his father sputtering and cursing after him, Graham let himself out.

  “Of course, the one task I charge you with, you cannot even see through. You are a fail—”

  The remainder of the accusation was lost to the heavy oak panel he closed in the duke’s face. Now he faced the man who might as well have been a mirror image of him, save for the blond hair.

  Ignoring him, Graham started off in the opposite direction. “Withington?” he called after the servant stationed at the end of the hall. “Have my bags packed and my mount readied, please.” He didn’t have time for lectures, and there was no doubting that was precisely what had brought his brother to listening outside the duke’s offices.

  Heath, however, was not to be deterred. “It’s really not well done of you. Upsetting him.”

  “Withington?” Graham scoffed. “He’s more than capable of gathering my bags without—”

  “Don’t be an obnoxious arse,” his brother muttered, joining him. “You know I’m referring to Father.”

  “Yes, but it is a good deal more fun baiting you.” They hadn’t always been at each other’s throats. Graham and his two elder brothers had once delighted in making mischief together. Until the duke had taken Heath, the heir, under his proverbial wing, and the empty-headed rapscallion, as Graham had been called, had been cut out. Lawrence when he’d been living had retreated to his books. And just like that, the easy bond between Graham and both his brothers had been destroyed by the duke.

  “It’s shameful that you’d take such pleasure in upsetting your own father, Sheldon,” his last living brother was saying.

  Why can’t you be more like your brothers, Sheldon? Why…?

  Graham flexed his fingers. Will your greatest weakness aside and let self-control triumph. That lesson, imprinted into his mind, brought his hands open, as he was in command of himself once more. “I’ve long moved beyond parental or fraternal lectures,” he drawled, lengthening his strides.