More Than a Rogue
The Crawfords Series
by Sophie Barnes
Publication Date: June 25, 2019
Genres: Adult, Historical, Romance
All she wanted was a kiss…
What she got, was fiery passion…
Emily Howard knows she is destined to be a spinster. She has accepted this fate, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting to experience kissing. What she doesn’t expect, is for Griffin Crawford, the handsomest man in the world, to do the honors. Or for all her female relations to discover her in his embrace. Naturally, marriage is instantly mentioned, but since Emily knows this is not what Griffin wants, she tries to escape him, her family and the ensuing scandal.
When Emily flees the Camberly ball in the wake of their kiss, Griffin goes in pursuit. He will not allow his sister-in-law’s determined friend to risk her safety for any reason. And risk it she will if she means to return to her countryside home by herself. But the longer he remains in her company, the more he is tempted to kiss her again. If only he could risk falling in love and remain in England forever.
Excerpt:
Griffin Nathaniel Finnegan Crawford stood
in one corner of the crowded ballroom, conversing with his brother, Caleb, and
Caleb’s friend, Viscount Aldridge.
“I cannot wait for this Season to be over
so Mary and I can return to Montvale,” Caleb said. The couple had decided to
build a cottage for themselves on the Montvale grounds so they could enjoy a
simple life while away in the country. The manor itself would be turned into an
orphanage so Mary could continue caring for children in need.
“It has only just begun,” Griffin
remarked. Contrary to his brother, he missed the busy city life whenever he was
away from it. He missed Vienna, with its culture and music and picturesque
streets. By comparison, London felt like a grimy slum.
“And it will only get busier once
parliament is in full swing,” Aldridge said.
“Don’t remind me.” Caleb crossed his arms.
He glanced at Griffin. “At least Devlin had the foresight to escape while he
could.”
Devlin was the third brother, born only
five minutes after Griffin. All three were identical in appearance save for a
few slight differences between them. But Caleb was the oldest, so he’d been the
one burdened with the dukedom when their father and older brother had died. It
was a responsibility Griffin didn’t envy, though he admired Caleb’s effort to
find a balance between his duty and a less demanding existence. Mary’s love and
support had undoubtedly helped.
“I plan to do so as well,” Griffin said.
“I’ve already been away from my place of business longer than I ever intended.”
Years ago, when he’d first left England after arguing with their father about
not wanting to join the army, he’d gone to Germany where a chance encounter
with a man in a tavern had put him in touch with a clockmaker named Herr Fritz.
Intrigued by Herr Fritz’s craftsmanship,
Griffin had inquired about a position and had quickly become the man’s
apprentice. Seven years later, when Herr Fritz had retired, Griffin had
travelled to Vienna where he’d opened his own shop, selling not only clocks but
mechanical toys to the marvel of all his customers.
“Who’s managing it right now while you’re
here?” Aldridge asked.
“My assistant, Edvard Dreyden.” He was a
serious and hard-working young man whom Griffin trusted to run things until he
returned. But Griffin had to acknowledge that his extended stay in England was
pushing the limit of how long he could afford to be absent. In Edvard’s most
recent letter, he’d informed Griffin that the archduchess Marie Anne wished to
place a special order, though only if Griffin himself was available to carry it
out.
“If only you could relocate here,” Caleb
said. “I’ve enjoyed your company immensely and will be sorry to see you go.”
“Yes, but you have a home to build now, a
wife to take care of, and a child on the way.” Griffin snatched a glass of
champagne from a passing tray and took a quick sip. “You’ll hardly notice I’m
gone.”
“And you can come back to visit,” Aldridge
pointed out.
“Or you could all come to Vienna,” Griffin
suggested while glancing across the room.
A flash of blue caught his eye, and he
followed the movement until a familiar face appeared from behind a cluster of
guests. It was Miss Emily Howard, a close friend of Mary’s. Griffin had met her
a few times already, most notably at Clearview when he’d gone in search of his
brother back in November. She’d stolen his breath once she’d opened the door to
admit him, for he had not been expecting to find the most beautiful woman in
the world when Aldridge had told him where Caleb had gone.
He narrowed his gaze as she exited onto
the terrace, escorted by Mr. Bale, who grinned in response to something she
said. An uncomfortable squeezing sensation beneath his ribs had him
straightening his posture. He didn’t like the way Mr. Bale’s eyes gleamed with
the prospect of something illicit.
“If you’ll excuse me one moment,” Griffin
told his brother and Aldridge. “There’s someone with whom I must speak.” Mr.
Bale had always struck him as an amicable fellow. Harmless, by all accounts.
But appearances could be deceiving. He’d learned that by falling victim himself
to the cruelest form of trickery. Setting his glass on a table as he went,
Griffin wove his way through the crowd. By the time he reached the door to the
terrace and stepped outside, neither Miss Howard nor Mr. Bale was anywhere to be
found. Griffin’s stomach tightened. Surely she would have more sense than to
wander off with a bachelor? He glanced around, uncertain of where to look for
her first. Voices emerged from the left, so he followed, heading straight for
the corner where a cherry tree offered a canopy to the bench that stood beneath
it.
The voices grew louder, though they could
only be described as whispers. And although Griffin could not discern what was
being said, he knew everything he needed to know the moment he saw Miss Howard
in Mr. Bale’s arms, his face moving closer to hers until…
“What do you think you’re doing?” Griffin
asked in his most authoritative voice.
Mr. Bale leapt away from Miss Howard and
spun toward Griffin. His eyes were as wide as his mouth. “I, um…I…that is…” he
sputtered.
Miss Howard’s hands fisted and Griffin saw
she was glaring at him with extreme displeasure. “I think it’s perfectly
obvious,” she told him.
Mr. Bale cleared his throat. “Miss Howard
and I—”
“Are not affianced, as far as I know,”
Griffin murmured. He could not explain why the possibility they might be grated
as much as it did, but there was something about Miss Howard…something that
tempted him beyond reason. He cleared his throat. “If that situation has
recently changed, then I sincerely apologize for the intrusion.”
Mr. Bale stared at him. He then glanced at
Miss Howard, who sighed as if she had no doubt of how he would answer. “It has
not.” There was a pause, and then, “I was just—”
“Leaving,” Griffin bit out.
Mr. Bale stared back at him for a brief
moment as if considering whether or not it was wise to argue. Don’t. As if hearing him, Mr. Bale
turned and gave Miss Howard a curt bow. “Forgive me.” He strode off with an
apologetic glance at Griffin.
“I’ve a good mind to hit you right now,”
Miss Howard announced as soon as they were alone. “You were horribly rude to
Mr. Bale, who was merely trying to be helpful’.”
“Helpful?” Ha! “He was certainly trying to help himself to something, I’ll
grant you that. And you were not protesting.” He considered the sharp look in
her eyes and the way her jaw tightened in response to his words. For some
inexplicable reason he needed to know what her intention had been, so he took a
step closer and gazed down into her upturned face. “Were you?”
“Of course not.” She averted her gaze, and
he imagined that if it hadn’t been dark, he would have seen her blush.
Still, her blasé response shocked him. “Of
course not,” he repeated in a low murmur.
She sighed. “Mr. Bale and I are friends.
Nothing more.”
The relief he experienced in response to
that statement caught him completely off guard. He had no romantic interest in
Miss Howard himself. To suppose such a thing would suggest he was open to
marriage. Which he wasn’t. Not anymore. Not after Clara had broken his heart.
The keen humiliation he felt whenever he
thought back on how she had fooled him still smarted. He fought the urge to tug
on his cravat as the air in his lungs grew hot, and forced his attention back
to Miss Howard. A dalliance with his sister-in-law’s friend could only lead to
the altar, and that was a destination he meant to avoid at all cost.
He tried to keep his voice steady so he
wouldn’t sound too accusatory. “And yet I caught you embracing him as if you
meant to—”
“My earring is caught.”
Griffin stared back at her, confused.
“What?”
She turned the left side of her head
toward him and raised her hand to point at the strands of hair tangled in a
dangling collection of diamonds. “Mr. Bale noticed and offered to put me to
rights.”
“But…” Griffin’s thought process stumbled
as he considered her words. He’d seen her standing inappropriately close to Mr.
Bale, so he’d made an assumption. But it was also dark. So dark, in fact, he
could not discern her features very clearly. Which meant it was possible he’d
imagined something that had not been there.
He inhaled deeply and accepted that he had
been wrong. “I’m sorry.” His gaze slid to the asymmetrical mess at the side of
her head. “If you will permit, I would be happy to offer my assistance. ’Tis
the least I can do at this point.”
She shook her head. “Thank you, but it
would probably be best if I returned inside before someone else mistakes your assistance for something it isn’t.”
She stepped around him, moving so close he
managed to catch a hint of the sweetest perfume. Honeysuckle perhaps? Or
peonies? He wasn’t quite sure, but there was no mistaking the heady effect it
had on him or how it beckoned for him to pull her close and press his nose to
her skin.
He quashed that foolish idea as
immediately as it had formed.
“I shall ask Mama or Laura for help,” she
said as she started strolling away.
He followed behind while wondering how he
could make her stay. Which was silly since there was no point in furthering
their acquaintance when he would depart for Vienna soon. Nothing good could
come of it. If anything, the longer they stayed out here together alone, the
greater the risk of others imagining they’d had an assignation. But he found he
regretted their rendezvous ending so quickly. And with him having ruined what
would probably have been an enjoyable walk for her and Mr. Bale.
“Can you forgive me for thinking the
worst?” he asked.
She drew to a halt and turned to him, her
face more visible now that they were nearer the light from the terrace. A
polite smile captured her lips. “Of course. It was an understandable mistake.”
“You’re not upset?”
“No.”
He registered the mistruth because of how
bluntly it was delivered. “Are you sure?” She’d always seemed honest and
forthright, so it bothered him that he’d somehow caused her to put up a barrier
between them now. “I am not so sensitive that I can’t handle a set down.” Or at
the very least an honest response.
Her chin rose and she crossed her arms,
affecting the pose of a woman who was rapidly reaching the end of her patience.
Griffin braced himself in anticipation of what she would say. Her words,
however, where most unexpected. “You ought to know me well enough by now to
realize that I am not the sort of woman who would ever invite a man to ravish
her at a social event where anyone might happen to see.” Her eyes were almost
black, shimmering fiercely in the moonlight. “The fact that you did so is a
testament to your opinion of me, which is frighteningly low.”
“I did not think you’d let Mr. Bale go
quite so far as to ravish you, Miss Howard.” And now that she’d put that
picture in his head, he was having a damned hard time dislodging it again.
Which added a terse element to his voice that she did not deserve.
She marched forward, closing the distance
between them “Nor would I throw away a kiss so easily, without a thought or a
care in the world.”
Griffin did his best to come to terms with
her statement. There was something in what she had said. Something meaningful
just beyond his grasp. “I take it the men you have kissed in the past were
important to you, then?”
A sudden dislike for these men swept
through him, and his desire to learn their names and discover who he would have
to avoid in the future was particularly unsettling.
She stared back at him for a long, hard
second and eventually snorted. “No such man exists, Lord Griffin, which is
rather the point, don’t you think?” Spinning about, she started toward the
terrace once more. Griffin blinked, the relief easing the tension within so
soothing, it took him a second to respond. He hastened after her without even
thinking and grabbed her wrist before she reached the stairs. She turned, eyes
wide with surprise and wonder.
“Kisses are overrated,” he murmured, his
voice almost breathless. What was it about her that made him so desperate to
keep her out here with him and away from the ballroom? He did not know and
wasn’t even sure it mattered. But the fact that she’d never been kissed…that was important. And yet, the only
thing he could think to say, most likely in an effort to make her feel better,
was, “You have not missed much.”
A soft little scoff conveyed her derision.
“What a comforting sentiment from someone who’s likely enjoyed the experience a
dozen times by now.”
Griffin raised an eyebrow and watched her
surprise sink deeper. “Two dozen times?” His lips quirked. “Three dozen?”
“I believe the number’s so high it would
take you a while to reach it at this rate,” he muttered.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s
sake.” Her gaze found his and he was surprised to find humor there. “I suppose
you’re just as roguish as all the ladies claim then?”
He knit his brow. “I was not aware such a
rumor existed.”
“I’m sure it arose because of your scar,”
she said as if this was so evident that his not knowing it surprised her.
“My scar,” Griffin echoed flatly. He’d
allowed himself to forget about that while they’d been talking, to forget the
way it slashed his left cheek in an ugly red line. It was thick and uneven,
puckering his skin in a way that was most unappealing.
“There are those who find such things
attractive.”
What
about you? he wanted to ask.
He dropped his gaze to her lips and
wondered if she would retreat if he made an advance. “We should probably go
back inside.” Anything else would be a mistake. He meant to return to Vienna,
to live a peaceful life there without the complications of marriage. The last
thing he needed was to kiss Miss Emily Howard out in the open where anyone
might see.
And yet, Griffin desperately wanted to
chase away all the anger and pain her comment had stirred by distracting
himself in the simplest way possible. She
wants her first kiss to matter. You cannot take that from her. But when she
licked her lips and whispered, “Yes,” his restraint took off like an army
fleeing a battle. Because the truth was he’d wanted to kiss her since the first
time he’d seen her at Clearview. So he did the only reasonable thing he could
do when she was standing right there, stunning and utterly tempting.
He leaned in closer and pressed his mouth
to hers.
About Sophie Barnes
Born in Denmark, Sophie has spent her youth traveling with her parents to wonderful places all around the world.
She has studied design in Paris and New York and has a bachelor’s degree from Parson’s School of design, but most impressive of all – she’s been married to the same man three times, in three different countries and in three different dresses.
While living in Africa, Sophie turned to her lifelong passion – writing.
When she’s not busy, dreaming up her next romance novel, Sophie enjoys spending time with her family. She currently lives on the East Coast.
