An Unforgettable Rogue Read Online Free PDF

head, as if disbelieving. “How was it then that he was so carelessly given up for dead?”
    Since awakening in his arms, Alex had wondered about that, as well.
    “Hawk told me that he was so near death as to be incapable of correcting the medic, dodging grapeshot, who pronounced him dead. So Hawk was painfully tossed on the body heap. Minutes or hours later, Hawk said, a peasant boy leaned over him to snatch the gold buttons from his coat and Hawk did the only thing he was capable of doing; he bit the blighter’s hand.
    “The boy took him to the Waterloo Inn, but the doctors there, scrambling to save those more like to survive, said they could do nothing for Hawk. When our man was given up for dead that second time, the lad went looking for a dray and went back for him. Took Hawk home and his family nursed him back to health.”
    “Good God.”
    “Good lad.”
    A body heap? Alex wished she had not eavesdropped, for she felt as boneless and light of head as she had at the church when she heard Hawk’s voice for the first time. But despite the dip in the room, she was determined to remain upright.
    When Bryce called her name, the story-teller noticed her and must have realized what she heard, as he stepped forward, appalled, and lifted her into his arms. Despite her argument that she had not been about to swoon, the repentant officer carried her all the way up the stairs at Hawk’s direction. Mortified to have become a spectacle for the second time that day, Alex wished she could shrink from sight.
    The man sat her down in a leather chair in the sitting room of a small apartment that looked very much like a gentleman’s study, while Bryce poured her a brandy. After she sipped it, while her husband stoked a fire in the hearth to “warm her and take the damp from the room,” Alex turned her attention to her rescuer. “Thank you for becoming my chariot.”
    “If not for my thoughtless story,” he said. “You would not have needed a conveyance.”
    “But it was a true story?”
    He grimaced. “Indeed.”
    Bryce looked from one of them to the other, silently questioning, but when neither of them enlightened him, he cleared his throat. “Alexandra, may I present Squadron Corporal Major Reed Gilbride of the Life Guards and a charter member of The Rogues Club. Reed, my wife.”
    “Your wife? Congratulations are in order, then?” The officer bowed and kissed her hand.
    Bryceson waved his friend’s congratulations away, as if their marriage meant nothing, and Alex’s heart sank. He must have removed his ring and never mentioned having a wife the whole time they served together. Alex swallowed the rising lump in her throat. “We married shortly before Bryceson joined the Guards,” she said to explain why congratulations were unnecessary, and to keep her husband from seeing her hurt. “Tell me about this Rogues Club.”
    “We were bored playing at war, your grace,” her rescuer said, charming her out of countenance, for she had not been courted by a gallant for longer than she could remember. “So in our dreary tent, we formed an unofficial club.”
    “But exclusive,” her husband said.
    “Oh very,” her rescuer replied with a chuckle, regarding Alex. “My true identity is something of a mystery, you see, even to me.” He said it with a wink and Alex was doubly taken.
    She smiled. “What must one do to become a member of this Rogues Club?”
    “Why, be a rogue, of course,” Bryce said with a shrug and a wink of his own.
    “He means we are all scamps,” the charmer explained, “who banded together against Boney in support of Mother England and in support of each other’s families, should the worst happen to any of us.”
    “Sounds like a worthy club, then,” she said. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, C.S.M. Gilbride.”
    “The honor is all mine, I assure you.” He bowed. “I shall leave you to recover and hope that I may see you again in the near future.”
    Alex said her good-byes and