A Pair of Rogues Read Online Free Page A

most earnest look and said, “I would never want to do anything to disappoint you or Robert.”
    To her astonishment, the smile Louisa gave her was full of a cryptic satisfaction.
    “That’s quite all right,” Louisa said. “I am certain you will not disappoint me.”
     

Chapter Two
     
    “Dearly beloved, ye have brought this Child here to be baptized . . .”
    Yes, we have, Ned thought bitterly. And received a rare tongue-lashing for it!
    The previous prayers had been designed to make men such as Ned squirm in their pews, dwelling as they did upon the sins and omissions of everyone present. The archbishop, called out in all his glory to induct the infant marquess into the Church, intoned the words with no emotion, seemingly unaware of the chastening reproofs echoing off the walls. But those on the receiving end, the parents and godparents huddled against the draughts and the cold seeping up from ancient stones, could scarcely be immune to feelings of guilt here in Westminster Abbey, where Gothic ceilings, as proof of centuries of faith, arched above them.
    Except for little Miss Debutante, Ned thought. He stared across the baptismal font at Robert’s sister and scowled.
    He had vaguely remembered her as a taking child, with long, silky hair and big, wondrous eyes full of trust. Her hair now was only slightly less fair than before, but it had been schooled into sleek obedience, if not into outright curls. Her eyes were demure and downcast as an elegant female’s should be. Though her figure was undoubtedly tempting under her fur-trimmed pelisse, nothing she wore had been designed to attract a gentleman’s attention. In short, she was the perfect debutante, fresh out of school and ripe for the Marriage Mart.
    The Lady Christina Lindsay should have come as no surprise. Robert had said she would be as boring as all the other girls her age. Still, Ned had nourished a glimmer of hope that her trusting eyes would still hold a touch of their childish wonder. Instead, they seemed to look on the world with the same elegant disdain displayed by all the Lindsays.
    With her willowy figure and skin like an English rose, she should have no trouble snaring some poor duke or earl, even without her considerable fortune. She’d make the perfect centerpiece for his home, the treasured ornament of his hearth, as long as he didn’t mind being bored to death.
    Ned thought of Louisa’s suggestion that he and Christina should suit and almost snorted aloud. Nothing about this chit could tempt him. And the notion that Robert would allow him within fifty feet of such a model of deportment was twice as ludicrous.
    She was far too virtuous for him and he too ruined to touch her. As he flinched under the archbishop’s prayers, the contrast between them made him increasingly irritable. She was standing in the transept with perfect composure, looking for all the world as if butter would not melt in her mouth.
    At least, the hair on the back of his neck had recognized its mistake. It lay as unruffled against his skin as a dead mackerel on the beach.
    “Dost thou, therefore, in the name of this Child, renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desire . . . “
    Ned winced.
    “. . . and the sinful desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow nor be led by them?”
    Ned panicked. Renounce them myself or for Little Ned? He wished he had thought to ask for a clarification. He was quite willing to renounce them on Robert Edward’s behalf, but did he have to give them up himself?
    Suddenly conscious that both Louisa and Robert had turned to stare worriedly at him, he quickly found his place in the prayer book.
    “I renounce them all; and by God’s help . . . .”
    Little Miss Debutante took up the words when he did. She must have started to say them earlier and had to wait to repeat them with him. Ned counted himself fortunate that Robert wasn’t close enough to kick him. He certainly