Page 5 of Lady Tempts a Rogue

Your constant manipulation and interference have brought me to this juncture. When you dared to scheme to entrap me into marriage with a bird-witted chit, scarcely out of the schoolroom and possessing less acumen than a trained poodle, you left me no choice.

Thank God, Miss Marsters-Montgomery can neither tell time nor knows her left from her right, else you would be left to explain to Lord Poindexter why I refused to marry his compromised daughter. My ears still ring with the echoes of Lady Hornbellow’s shrieks upon Miss Marsters-Montgomery climbing into her bed at three in the morning at the Bickerstaffs’ house party.

You should thank God that the girl did not mistakenly crawl into a rogue’s bed, for several were in attendance that week. Mark my words: that poor chit will end up heavy with child and with no ring on her finger if her father doesn’t take heed and stop these preposterous shenanigans.

~Mr. Devin Everingham, in a terse letter to his mother, Mrs. Desdemona Everingham

Five minutes later

Below deck — passenger cabins

After kicking the small door shut behind him, Devin tossed his satchel on the narrow lower bunk. The thud said much about the state of the hard, thin mattress and the minimal comfort it would offer him each night.

As he unfastened the silk frogs at his throat, he examined the small cabin. Having been delivered earlier in the week, his two travel trunks sat side by side across from the bunks, scarcely leaving enough room to walk between the double berth and the luggage.

Fastened to the wall at the far end of the closet-like cabin stood a washstand with a plain white basin and pitcher nestled in cutouts to secure them. A metal clasp held a single hinged wood panel in place, which passed for a desk and dining table. A scuffed chair occupied the space beneath the makeshift desk.

This humble berth was to be Devin’s home for the coming days. Not a luxurious stateroom by half, but adequate for his needs, which sufficed. The voyage to Casablanca took a week, give or take a day or two. He could abide these uncomfortable accommodations without complaint.

The shouts of the crew filtered below as the men readied the ship to leave port. A peculiar feeling swelled behind his ribs, which took him a moment to identify as pride. This vessel was partially his, thanks to his father.

Guilt, raw and sharp, scraped across his conscience.

Truth be told, Devin ought to have put off his carousing and taken on his father’s mantle years ago.

He could not change the past, but by thunder, he could forge a different future—one that would not fill him with disgust and shame but rather pride and a sense of accomplishment.

Father had always maintained that every soul had a preordained destiny and purpose, yet most of mankind missed the mark for a myriad of reasons. But then again, Father had been a man of faith, even after he’d succumbed to liquor’s temptation.

Sighing and shoving aside the melancholy reflections, Devin steered his thoughts to the present.

He had deliberately waited until the last moment to arrive at the ship.

Yes, he was a grown man with a mind of his own, but thwarting a woman as determined and manipulative as his mother was not easy. Her obsession with him marrying into the peerage bordered on unbalanced, and he suspected she would only consider the failure of her latest plan as a temporary setback.

Hence the drastic measures he had taken to foil her.

More than once, she’d spied upon his activities, and that was why, after her most recent debacle, Devin had asked Milton Shillingford, his man of business and trusted friend, to find him lodgings, deliver his letter requesting passage on the Daunting Duchess, pack and transport Devin’s possessions, and even hire the hack that brought him to the docks this night.

All managed through Shillingford’s tangled network of contacts, making it difficult for dear Mama to discover Devin’s whereabouts.

He curled one side of his mouth upward in disgust.

A child should not have to outmaneuver their interfering, intrusive parent.

Ill-advisedly…recklessly…or negligently—it did not matter which—Devin had permitted his mother too much leeway for far too long. In truth, he ought to have reigned her in years ago. But consumed with living a rakehell’s debauched life and grieving his father’s death, he had unintentionally provided her opportunity.

By the time he came to his senses and realized the error of his ways, Mama had become overly confident of her imagined power. He was as much to blame as she. Had he nipped her overreach in the bud, she would not have become the out-of-control monster she now was.

The morning after Miss Marsters-Montgomery had mistaken Lady Hornbellow’s bedchamber for his, Devin had faced himself in the looking glass. Such self-loathing had consumed him that he had determined at that moment to set things to right.

No more drunkenness.

No more carousing.

No more deflecting responsibility and duty.

And of topmost import, no more enabling his mother’s interference.