NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be

aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold

and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the
publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events

portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously.

taming an impossible rogue

Copyright © 2012 by Suzanne Enoch.

Excerpt from Rules to Catch a Devilish Duke copyright © 2012
by Suzanne Enoch.

All rights reserved.

For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010.

ISBN: 978- 0-312-53452-3

Printed in the United States of America

St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / April 2012

St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth
Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 Chapter One

Keating Blackwood came awake with the sharpness of

gunfire. Someone was in the room with him. Someone he
hadn’t invited. Keeping his eyes closed, he stirred enough
that he could slip his hand under the pillow and curl his
fingers around the hilt of the knife resting there.
“You do know it’s the middle of the day, don’t you?”
Straightening his fingers again, Keating opened his
eyes and sat up. In the near total blackness of the room,
he could just make out the dark figure walking to the near-
est set of heavy, dark curtains. “Wait. Don’t . . .”
Blinding light filled the room. The sun seemed to spear
directly into his skull and lodge there, thrumming.
“Goddammit, Fenton,” he growled, squeezing his eyes
closed again. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“Looking for you. I need your help.”
“Then close the bloody curtains and go sit in the draw-
ing room until I join you there.”
“Very well. That’s a lovely black eye you’re sporting,
by the way.”
“You should see the other fellow.” With a rustling of
material, the room behind his eyelids darkened again.
When he opened his eyes, blinding red dots still swam
across his vision, but at least for the moment he didn’t feel
2 SUZANNE ENOCH

the pressing need to cast up his accounts. “And have

Barnes fetch you a very large pot of tea,” he added, press-
ing the heel of his hand against his temple.
“I don’t want tea.”
“I do. Go away.”
Once he was alone again in his bedchamber, Keating
dug a shirt and trousers out of his wardrobe and shrugged
into them. His boots were by the door, but he ignored
them, just as he did the jacket and waistcoat Pidgeon had
laid out for him sometime yesterday. Sending a dubious
glance at his door, he did pick up the freshly pressed
cravat and knot it tightly around his forehead. If he was
lucky, it might hold his brain inside his skull. God, he
needed to stop drinking Russian vodka— or whatever it
was he’d been imbibing last night.
“Are you supposed to be a pirate?” Fenton asked, as
Keating made his way into the drawing room with liberal
help from the walls on either side of the hallway. “You
might at least have put on slippers.”
“I don’t own any.” Keating limped over to the far win-
dow and closed the curtains, then sat opposite his cousin.
“At the risk of sounding incredulous, why do you need
my help? And make it quick, will you? I may pass out at
any moment.”
“Why do I need your help?” Stephen Pollard, the Mar-
quis of Fenton, repeated, eyeing him. “I know you’ve been
avoiding London, but surely you’ve been reading the news-
paper.”
“I’m avoiding London. Why the devil would I wish to
read about it?” The tea tray arrived, and without being
asked, Barnes poured a cup, dropped in five lumps of
sugar, and carried it to him. “My thanks,” he said to the
butler, taking a long, slow swallow.
 TA MI NG A N IMP O S S IB L E RO GU E 3

“Why bother with the tea?” Fenton asked, sitting for-

ward to pour himself a cup and making a show of adding
a solitary sugar.
Ignoring the question, Keating sipped carefully at the
too hot, too sweet brew. “I thought you didn’t want any
tea.”
His cousin looked down at the cup in his hand, then
with a grimace set it aside. “I don’t. I was attempting to
make a point, I suppose. About sugar.”
“Yes, I noticed that. I was positively wounded by the
jab.”
“The morning— or midday—after being three sheets
to the wind, I would think sweet tea would do you in.”
“I’ve had a great deal of time and opportunity to ex-
periment. Sweet tea helps. A little. Occasionally.” With a
breath he swirled the tea around in the full cup. “So do
you actually wish to discuss tea, then?” Keating took an-
other swallow, trying not to anticipate the dulling of the
hollow chasm of pain in his skull.
“No, I don’t.”
“Good. Because otherwise you’ve traveled a great dis-
tance for a very poor reason. Let’s get to your point, shall
we?”
Fenton hung his hands between his knees. “Yes, of
course. Do you remember Lord and Lady Montshire? The
idiotic agreement they made with my parents?”
Finally Keating cracked a grin. “God, she’s one-and-
twenty now, isn’t she? You getting the shivers over being
leg-shackled to a chit you’ve never met? I suggest closing
your eyes and thinking of England.”
“She’s two-and-twenty now.” The marquis scowled.
“The thing is, I actually enjoyed not spending the past
eight years having to court chits, forgoing all that wooing
4 SUZANNE ENOCH

nonsense. What could be more convenient than just set-

ting a date, going to the church, and then simply getting
on with fathering an heir?”
“You make domesticity sound exciting as a tombstone.”
More interested now despite himself, Keating kneaded a
knuckle against his bruised eye. The swelling was going
down a bit now. Yesterday he hadn’t even been able to
open the thing. “What’s your trouble, then?” he prompted.
“Or should I guess? You did meet her, and she has the face
of a harpy. She squints. She’s missing a leg. She—”
“Do shut up, Keating, will you?”
“I’m merely attempting to scribble something in the
blank spots you’ve left.”
“She’s pretty enough. Just over a year ago my solicitor
took the paperwork to her, she and her parents signed in
all the proper places, we placed an announcement in the
newspaper, and I went to the church. I even invited you
to attend the ceremony.”
“Fancy that.” The invitation must have been buried in
the middle of one of Fenton’s ten-page sprawling letters.
As if he had the least bit of interest in who’d invited his
cousin to dine or which duke had nodded in his direc-
tion. “Last year? What happened, then?”
“The chit fled.”
Despite the fact that he expected to hear that some ca-
lamity or other had occurred, Keating blinked. “She fled?
Do you mean she balked at marrying you?”
“I mean she appeared in the church doorway wearing a
lovely white gown, and then she turned around and ran.
Knocked over a candelabra and nearly set the church
ablaze.”
Keating gazed at his cousin for a long moment. They’d
grown up nearly as brothers, but in the past decade or so
had drifted apart. The difference in destiny between the
 TA MI NG A N IMP O S S IB L E RO GU E 5

son of a marquis and the son of a marquis’s younger

brother, Stephen had always said. To Keating it had meant
that once Stephen had realized he was to inherit a title and
wealth and lands, he’d become so insufferably high in the
instep that none of his lessers could stand to be in the same
room with him. As for him, he’d inexorably become one of
those lessers.
“Well, you’re a fairly . . . pleasant-looking fellow,” he
returned, fighting the urge to squint his eyes even in the
dim room, “and you’re a marquis with a fortune you keep
bragging about and then refusing to lend me, so I have to
ask if you said something to frighten her.”
“Frighten her? Why would I frighten her? How could I
frighten her, when I’ve never spoken a word to the chit?”
“Not a single word?”
“I saw her on several occasions, from a distance, but
I . . .” Fenton flung up his hands. “You know me; I’m not
glib. I don’t have a charming conversation like you do.”
“You would, if you could be bothered to remove the
broomstick from your arse and do more than look down
your nose at everyone else.”
“There’s no need to be insulting. I am as I am. And
you are as you are.”
That didn’t sound promising. In fact, it sent a be-
lated alarm coursing through his already throbbing skull.
“Considering that she’s been signed over to you, Fenton,
I would assume she won’t have gone far. Perhaps you
should attempt writing her a letter or—I’m merely
speculating here—speaking with her to discover what
happened.”
“I would do so, except that my bride-to-be did go far.
She disappeared, and when she emerged again, she’d . . .
found employment.”
If his cousin hadn’t been sitting there, anger and
6 SUZANNE ENOCH

frustration and embarrassment etched into his expres-

sion, Keating would have laughed. He was tempted to do
so anyway, but he’d only just gotten both eyes open. Two
or three days between brawls seemed more reasonable
than beginning another one immediately. “Employment
as what? A lady’s companion? Surely not as an actress.
That would be too—”
“At The Tantalus Club.”
“What the devil is The Tantalus Club?” From Stephen’s
tone alone it didn’t sound promising, and the name was
certainly evocative. Had London become even more sin-
ful in his absence? That was unexpected. He’d thought
that after he left everyone would have turned into saints
simply out of fear of being compared to him.
“Good God, you have become a hermit.”
And abruptly Keating wasn’t amused any longer. Set-
ting aside his tea, he pushed to his feet. “Considering
that you know why I’m here,” he ground out, “I can only
wish you luck in your pursuit. If I may suggest, attempt a
small measure of . . . well, if you can’t manage compas-
sion, then at least humanity. Now get out of my home.”
“Damnation, Keating. It’s been six years. I hadn’t real-
ized the subject was still so raw. You . . .” Fenton cleared
his throat. “I apologize. It’s only that everyone knows
about The Tantalus Club. It’s the newest rage in London.
Lady Cameron— or rather, Lady Haybury now— opened
a damned gentlemen’s club just under a year ago, and she
only hires chits.”
With a breath, Keating returned to his chair. Fenton
had never been concerned with anyone but Fenton, and
the present fiasco certainly didn’t point to the fact that
the marquis had altered his behavior. Expecting Stephen
to be different would simply be an error on his own part.
 TA MI NG A N IMP O S S IB L E RO GU E 7

And if the marquis needed assistance . . . well, that could

benefit his wayward cousin in several ways. “Haybury’s
married?”
“Yes, to the former Earl of Cameron’s widow.” Fenton
scowled. “Don’t alter the subject. This is about my bride,
not Oliver Warren’s.”
Keeping his jaw clenched, Keating nodded. “Very well.
The Tantalus Club. Is it a brothel, then?” he commented,
deciding it wouldn’t be that far-fetched for the Marquis
of Haybury to be involved with such a thing. “If that’s
where your betrothed has gone, then you’d best look else-
where for a bride.”
The marquis’s face reddened. “It’s not a damned brothel.
But you’re not the first to think it is.”
“Perception, my friend. It is what everyone thinks it
is. Look elsewhere for your Lady Fenton.”
Slamming his fist on the arm of his chair, Fenton
scowled. “If she had become . . . soiled, I would look
elsewhere. But the place is wildly popular, very exclu-
sive, and members swear it’s aboveboard. And I’m a
laughingstock, because the daughter of the Earl of Mont-
shire would rather work for a living, serving my peers,
than marry me. She didn’t even have the decency to go
hide away in the country somewhere where everyone
could forget her—and what she did to me.”
“Then go fetch her.”
“I’ve considered that, as well. Firstly, Lady Haybury
has refused to grant me admission to The Tantalus Club
even as someone else’s damned guest. I’ve been black-
balled. Me. Secondly, I have no idea how to approach
such a . . . rebellious, self-absorbed chit, and thirdly I’m
not even certain that’s how I should proceed. I want her
back in that church—any church—beside me, and I want
8 SUZANNE ENOCH

her to be grateful to be allowed a second opportunity to

live the kind of life she should be thankful for.”
“Ah. So a bit humbled, then.”
“She made a mistake. A very large one. I am willing to
give her a second chance for the sake of her future and—”
“And to stop everyone from laughing at you.”
“Yes, that, as well,” Fenton snapped. “But you, of all
people, should appreciate the rarity of second chances.
She could return to her family’s good graces, have a com-
fortable, pampered life, and see her children enjoy the
same. I’m not a cruel man; yes, I suppose I’m a bit pomp-
ous, but if a ninth-generation marquis cannot be proud of
that fact, then he may as well be a farmer.”
Keating refrained from glancing about the morning
room of his small, comfortable house. Havard’s Glen might
not be a farmhouse, but it was close enough. And he’d cer-
tainly sheared enough sheep to earn the title of gentleman
farmer himself. “Indeed.”
“All I’m saying is that she would be wise not to squan-
der a second chance. There won’t be a third.”
That, he did understand. And it bothered him im-
mensely that his cousin knew precisely how to manipulate
him and seemed to have no hesitation at all about doing
so. Clearly he needed to bury his scars more deeply if he
didn’t want anyone else picking at them. For a moment
Keating gazed toward the darkened window. “I want
something in return,” he said.
“I thought you might. That five thousand pounds you’ve
been asking me to give you for the past four years, per-
haps?”
“That would suffice.” Hm. He hadn’t thought it would
be that simple. Which meant that Fenton wanted Lady
Camille Pryce more badly than he cared to admit. “If
accompanied by an additional five thousand pounds.”
 TA MI NG A N IMP O S S IB L E RO GU E 9

Fenton blinked. “Ten thousand pounds in exchange

for bringing a chit to a church? I think not.”
“Keeping in mind the fact that the chit’s been evading
you for better than a year already, we both know it’s more
complicated than that. But if the price is too steep, find
your assistance elsewhere.”
“Damnation, Keating. You’re a villain, you know.”
“So I’ve been told. Do we have an agreement?”
“I wish you’d take that cravat from around your head.
It doesn’t inspire much confidence.”
“I’m not here to inspire your confidence. In fact, as
you’re the one who came to see me, I’m perfectly content
to sit here in my bare feet and glare at you until you stop
insulting me and leave.”
“Just say you’ll do it, will you? Some subtlety is re-
quired. I don’t trust anyone else to step in as my second.”
“And my poor reputation eclipses your status as a
laughingstock.”
“There is that. I doubt many even remember we’re
cousins. I hope that’s the case, anyway. But your pres-
ence will . . . shift that negative attention away from
me.”
“To gawk at me.” With a sigh, Keating closed his eyes.
“I don’t owe you any favors, Stephen. Ten thousand
pounds. And yes, you know you may trust me.”
With a hard breath the marquis pushed to his feet and
stuck out his hand. “Yes, damn it all. Ten thousand pounds,
twenty-four hours after I am a married man.”
Keating rose and shook his cousin’s hand. “I want it in
writing. And I expect you to do as I say in this matter.
Because clearly following your own advice where this
Lady Camille is concerned didn’t go well.”
“Yes, yes. In writing, and I will follow your recom-
mendations. Just be in London by Friday.”
10 SUZANNE ENOCH

“Just have the agreement ready for my signature when

I arrive, or I’ll be leaving again.”
Once Fenton exited, Keating sank back into the near
darkness to finish his tea. Returning to London. At one
point he’d sworn never to do so. Lady Camille Pryce had
just made a great deal of trouble for him, but at the same
time perhaps she could be the means to something in
which he’d ceased to believe six years ago. Redemption.