Read Along Came a Rogue for Free Online Page B

place, a stubborn minx who refused to leave her home without force and who had just threatened bodily harm to him should he attempt to try?
    He rolled his eyes. Good Lord. What had he gotten himself into?
    *  *  *
    Emily leaned against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut as she struggled to calm both her racing heart and her swirling mind.
    Captain Nathaniel Grey… Impossible!
    Yet here he was. The man she still remembered so vividly from his visit to Ivy Glen when she was sixteen…those chocolate eyes that crinkled when he laughed, that mouth that grinned so charmingly, and that thick, unruly blond hair curling at his neck. His body was broader now, the hard muscles of his chest and shoulders much more developed, but those eyes were the same. So were the chiseled lines of his handsome face.
    Grey. She could hardly believe it. Thomas had sent him to her after all these years, and he’d appeared like some dashing knight in shining armor. Yet as she fought back a sob of anguish, she knew she had no choice but to chase him away.
    With grim resolve, she pushed herself away from the wall and hurried downstairs to the kitchen to find Yardley.
    The woman had been with her for the past two years, arriving just after Andrew brought her to Snowden, when he decided the maid who had attended Emily since her debut was disrespectful to him and replaced her. Emily had been devastated. But the older woman was kind and gentle, and now Yardley was the only person in the world she trusted with her secrets.
    “My lady.” Yardley nodded as Emily entered the kitchen, putting together a tray to take upstairs to the men.
    “We’re having guests for the night,” Emily told her unhappily.
    Yardley’s hand froze in midair as she placed a saucer on the tray. “Is that wise?”
    “I don’t believe we have a choice.” She frowned as she looked down at the shortbread on the tray. Five years ago, Grey had raved about Cook’s cinnamon biscuits. If she had known he was coming, she would have made some for him. Yet perhaps it was better not to make him feel too welcome, not when her primary goal was to drive him away.
    “And who are they, my lady?”
    “Major Nathaniel Grey and his man.” Emily hesitated. How on earth did one describe Grey? “The major is…an old family friend.”
    But he was far more than that. Even at sixteen, she’d realized how special Grey was. Dashing and kind, he possessed a fierce determination to carve out a brilliant career for himself, and a handsome presence that caught the ladies’ attentions. With her, though, he’d simply captured her heart. Yet to her chagrin, he’d paid her no more mind than a piece of furniture…until that one afternoon in the garden.
    “A family friend, eh?” The suspicious glance Yardley slid her as she placed a teacup onto the saucer told her that the woman didn’t believe her.
    “It’s not what you think.” Yet she couldn’t stop the blush of embarrassment heating her cheeks.
    The last time she’d seen him, the very last time—heavens, she’d been so foolish! She’d asked him to give her a kissing lesson so she would know what to do with suitors…or some such silly nonsense she barely remembered now. Yet her manipulation worked, and he’d kissed her. It had been the most magical moment of her young life, until her parents stumbled upon them. Amid angry shouts and accusations, Grey left Ivy Glen, with Thomas riding away after him. And two days later, she was sent to boarding school, where her parents hoped to keep her away from “upstarts” like the captain.
    “Major Grey served with my brother in the wars,” she explained with more pride than she had a right to feel. Even after suffering the consequences of what she’d done that day, she couldn’t forget him and followed him the best she could through Thomas’s letters—her heart soaring with his heroics, laughing at his antics, even crying when he’d been wounded. She’d been so upset, in fact, that she