A Rogue of My Own Read Online Free PDF

merely told Nigel never to ask him to stay in Buckingham again, particularly since his home was no more than a five-minute ride from the palace. But Nigel had stressed how important it was. So Rupert had in fact been a little surprised by the grandeur of his current accommodations.
    His pale blue eyes remained on Nigel as the older man poured himself a glass of brandy as well, or half a glass, and began looking for another bottle in the cabinet. Short, wiry, and unassuming, Nigel Jennings could blend into any crowd—which made him all the more deadly. Rupert couldn’t do the same. He had a face no one ever forgot. Handsome, excessively so, he’d even been called beautiful on occasion, which could set off murderous impulses inside him, since his beauty was what had gotten him into his present role in the first place.
    Not that he didn’t like what he did. He enjoyed the danger. It was almost addictive. He enjoyed the thrill of success as well. And he liked being the unknown hero. He just loathed how it had all begun.
    Distracted by the search for that second bottle, Nigel asked, “What did you find out, darling?”
    Rupert stiffened at the endearment and said precisely, “One of these days I’m probably going to kill you.”
    Nigel swung around in surprise, and, apparently having realized what he’d accidentally said, he paled slightly. “That didn’t come out right.”
    “Didn’t it?”
    “I was joking. It won’t happen again.”
    Rupert didn’t believe it and said in a hard, thoughtful tone, “You impressed a boy into thinking only he could save his country from doom. You impressed a boy into believing that this face”—he stabbed a finger at his cheek—“was the only thing that would work.”
    “You were perfect for that mission,” Nigel insisted. “When I first saw you when you visited George’s court with your father, good God, you were the most beautiful child I’d ever encountered. I never forgot that. Years later when a particular missionbecame necessary, you came to mind for it immediately, so, yes, I sought you out, and at fourteen you hadn’t quite matured to your full masculinity, yet you were old enough to decide for yourself—”
    Rupert continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “You enlisted a boy to do the unthinkable—for the sake of his country. And you really wouldn’t have given a damn if he had done it your way, instead of finding a different way that didn’t tarnish him for life. But that boy is no more.”
    “For God’s sake, Rupert, it was a slip of the tongue!”
    “It was a slip of your emotions,” Rupert corrected in a snarl as he stood up. “We agreed, long ago, that you would keep those perverted emotions to yourself.”
    He was being too harsh. Nigel’s face flamed with embarrassment. He had cried drunkenly that night four years ago when he’d let it slip that he was in love with Rupert. He said it was something that had just happened, that he couldn’t help it. But he’d sworn that he would never mention it again, that he wouldn’t let it interfere with their working relationship. By all accounts, Nigel’s sexual preferences didn’t even lean that way. He had once had a wife, who was now deceased. He had several children. He kept mistresses. All of which could be a ruse—or not. Rupert knew that some men leaned both ways, but Rupert had to give Nigel the benefit of the doubt, or he wouldn’t have been able to continue to work for him.
    Rupert sighed. “I may have overreacted. Let’s drop it, shall we?”
    It was as close as he’d come to an apology. Nigel accepted it with a curt nod and, grabbing the half-filled glass of brandy, moved over to a chair as far across the room as he could get. It was a decent-size room. Nigel had called it home since thequeen had made Buckingham Palace her home. Here, or at one of the other royal residences, he had the distinction of having served three monarchs now.
    Spy, royal agent, whatever one chose to call