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  Meet a Rogue at Midnight

  Midnight Meetings Book 4

  Gina Conkle

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to all the grandparents out there. You make a difference.

  Copyright © 2017 by Gina Conkle

  Kindle Edition

  Published by Dragonblade Publishing, an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Books from Dragonblade Publishing

  Knights of Honor Series by Alexa Aston

  Word of Honor

  Marked By Honor

  Code of Honor

  Journey to Honor

  Legends of Love Series by Avril Borthiry

  The Wishing Well

  Isolated Hearts

  Sentinel

  Heart of the Corsairs Series by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  Captive of the Corsairs

  Also From Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  Dark Heart

  Knight Everlasting Series by Cassidy Cayman

  Endearing

  Midnight Meetings Series by Gina Conkle

  Meet a Rogue at Midnight, book 4

  Second Chance Series by Jessica Jefferson

  Second Chance Marquess

  Imperial Season Series by Mary Lancaster

  Vienna Waltz

  Vienna Woods

  Vienna Dawn

  Blackhaven Brides Series by Mary Lancaster

  The Wicked Baron

  Queen of Thieves Series by Andy Peloquin

  Child of the Night Guild

  Thief of the Night Guild

  Dark Gardens Series by Meara Platt

  Garden of Shadows

  Garden of Light

  Garden of Dragons

  Garden of Destiny

  Rulers of the Sky Series by Paula Quinn

  Scorched

  Ember

  Viking’s Fury Series by Violetta Rand

  Love’s Fury

  Desire’s Fury

  Passion’s Fury

  Also from Violetta Rand

  Viking Hearts

  The Sons of Scotland Series by Victoria Vane

  Virtue

  Dry Bayou Brides Series by Lynn Winchester

  The Shepherd’s Daughter

  The Seamstress

  The Widow

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  Books from Dragonblade Publishing

  Acknowledgment

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About the Author

  Acknowledgment

  Lots of hands go into the making of a book. This novella is no exception to that rule. When I heard Kathryn Le Veque was interested in a Georgian romance, I was excited to work with her. Her vision for Dragonblade Publishing along with her dedication to helping authors has been evident from day one. From the drool-worthy cover (thank you Dar!) to the great PR from Beth and Kris to Scott Moreland keeping my story in line(!), thank you for the Dragonblade welcome. You all have done a super job.

  I also want to send a big hug to my agent extraordinaire, Sarah Younger, and my assistant, Kelly Oakes, for all the fab ideas. Lastly, thank you Brian…for making lots of dinners, doing lots of dishes, and for lots of wisdom and love.

  Thanks again, Dragonblade Publishing. You rock!

  Chapter One

  Jonas stood bare-arse naked before a crackling fire, bathwater dripping down his chest. There was no time for a proper dry off. The drapes were stirring in his bedchamber though the window was closed. He snatched velvet breeches off the chair and slipped them on, casual as you please—minus his smalls. All his clothes sat in a battered sea chest next to a pair of black boots peeking out beneath blue drapes.

  Boots that weren’t his.

  With a cautious hand, he lifted a heavy dragoon pistol off the mantel, keeping an eye on the modest-sized side boots. A lad? Who would want to ambush him here? His coming home to Plumtree should be of no consequence, not after ten years gone.

  The village and his grandfather’s stone house hadn’t changed much. Humble, quaint, and cramped. He didn’t belong here. Not anymore. The sooner he took care of matters with his grandfather, the Captain, the sooner he’d be on his way.

  But, his first order of business was dispatching the unskilled housebreaker.

  “I know you’re hiding behind the curtains. Show yourself.”

  The boots didn’t move. Howls of laughter drifted up from downstairs. Christmas Eve celebrations must be going well in the parlor. The house burst with fresh pine boughs and spiked cider, the green and spicy scents floating everywhere.

  “Come now,” Jonas said, buttoning his placket with the pistol in hand. “This is not a night for ill will.”

  Housebreaking was a serious crime with grisly consequences. He’d give the lad an earful while sneaking him out by the scruff. But, it’d have to be quick. The Captain was expecting him…all the better to convince Jonas to stay for good. Raucous guffaws exploded through the floorboards. Mr. Goodspeak, fine soul that he was, brayed the loudest. Fiddle music played a Yuletide carol in double time while salty, old sailors stomped a bad rhythm. The Captain must’ve shared his best whiskey, the kind that warmed a man as good as a woman.

  Weary from a hard day’s ride, Jonas could use a dram. And a woman.

  “I’ll count to three.” He padded barefoot across the room, holding the dragoon against his thigh. “One…two…”

  The drape bulged with the business end of a pistol. Jonas froze. This changed the complexion of things. Eyes narrowing, his finger curled over the trigger.

  “…thr—” Jonas dropped low and rammed his shoulder into the housebreaker’s midsection.

  “Umph!” A shiny piece clattered to the floor. A fine Spanish wheel lock.

  Jonas kicked the weapon backward. Fists pummeled his back as white hot pain shot up from his toes. He looked down at a black boot mashing his foot.

  “Enough,” he growled, hoisting the lad over his shoulder.

  Foot throbbing, Jonas spun away from the window. Cloth ripped overhead. The drapes and rod crashed down on their heads. Whoops and hollers rang through the house. The Captain and his cronies had to be deep in their cups not to hear this scuffle. Jonas knocked the wool off his face as the housebreaker kicked and…squealed.

  Squealed? He squinted at the bottom wiggling against his cheek, and the split second cost him. A knee jabbed his ribs.

  “Oomph!” His gun slipped, and the brass buttcap hammered his already aching toes. Air hissing through clenched teeth, Jonas hop-stepped to the bed. “Stop!” he bellowed and landed all his weight on the lad.

  The bed rattled from the assault. The housebreaker sunk into the down mattress, fighting hard. Blue drapes sheathed the fool from head to toe. Jonas drove his head into the criminal’s chest and two mounds pressed his face. Soft, round, and jiggling.

  He blinked, a slow smile forming. He was nose deep between sizeable breasts—an excellent pair as breasts go swathed in old drapes.

  “Well, bugger me.”

  The housebreaker wheezed. “I’d…rather…you get off me!”

  Jonas rolled sideways and clamped his thigh across her thrashing legs. The woman’s mouth gaped behind wool like a caught fish. She flopped like one, too. A feminine hip
squirmed at the juncture of his thighs. Fingers clawed the curtain. His midnight visitor tussled fiercely with the drape, the bed ropes creaking madly beneath her.

  “Shhh. Let me uncover you,” he said, staying her busy hands.

  “So you can shoot me?”

  “No. So you can breathe easy.” His grip on her wrists was full of authority. “We can stay like this all night, or you can trust me. It’s your choice.”

  Yellow firelight danced on waves of mussed bed sheets. Land-locked sailors sang off-key below stairs. Music pitched fast and high from the parlor, but the storm on his mattress calmed. Tautness in the wrists he held eased a fraction. The housebreaker lay stiffly against him, smelling oddly of…vinegar.

  She panted against the drape. “You call those choices?”

  “Best I can do for a woman who pointed a pistol at me.”

  Grumbling came from the drape. Jonas’s blood pumped with satisfaction. His lush, midnight visitor was at his mercy. This homecoming wasn’t so bad, not when the housebreaker’s hip brushed his ballocks. He grinned, liking her pliant against him. The skirmish was over.

  “Well?” she said, her body lax. “Are you going to get this off me?”

  Copper-hued hair shined through a tear in the cloth. The woman in his bed was a gift trussed in blue wool, excitement in his otherwise dull Christmas Eve. It was time he unwrapped his present. He stuck a finger in the hole and yanked. Threads snapped, showing bold brown eyes staring at him through tangled hair. Ready to see the rest of her, he ripped thick cloth with both hands down to the soles of her scrubby boots.

  A lovely mouth opened wide and sucked fresh air. “Thank you.”

  His comely housebreaker lay dressed in homespun breeches and a plain shirt open at the neck. A gentleman’s faded bottle green coat flopped wide as she brushed hair off her face. Exquisite breasts free of a corset, shift, and waistcoat ruined the mannish disguise. Cambric stretched across dainty nipples at the center of curves flattened as nature would have it when a woman was on her back. The siren’s chest rose and fell with alluring rhythm, the sight striking him speechless.

  “Did you get your fill?” She snapped her coat shut and laughed. “Welcome home, Jonas Bacon Braithwaite.”

  *

  Sin-black hair with angelic blue eyes shouldn’t be an earthly possibility, yet Jonas wore the combination as though his appeal didn’t matter. Plumtree’s rebel son was never one to charm the ladies; his brother Jacob owned that talent. In his youth, Jonas had muddled through conversation when the fair sex flirted with him. From farmer’s daughters to highborn ladies, women were drawn to the quiet lad like flies to honey, but this man with a gold piece twinkling from his ear dripped with confidence.

  Olivia sat bolt upright. “What’s this?” She tapped the gold hoop. “Were you a gentleman of fortune? Possibly a pirate?”

  His head jerked back at her familiar touch.

  She smiled and braced a hand on his bed. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  The notion pricked her pride. Her chin tipped higher and she waited. She’d been a girlish fourteen when Jonas last saw her, and he a strapping young man of twenty.

  Eyes scrunching, he searched her face and form, a warm tingle following wherever his gaze touched.

  “Livvy? Livvy Halsey?”

  “In the flesh.” She nodded at his well-formed chest. “And you might want to cover some of yours.”

  Massive arms crossed his chest, the muscled hills and trenches of those limbs earned from years of sea going adventures if the tales she’d heard were true.

  “You’ve seen my chest before.”

  Oh, but not this fascinating version of Jonas. The flesh she’d seen had been when village lads held a wrestling match in her family’s meadow. Battling barefoot in shirtsleeves and breeches, Jonas took all comers. Two of them attacked him at once. A boy grabbed his shirt and the fabric ripped in two.

  “Explain yourself,” he said. “What are you doing in my bedchamber at midnight?”

  Skin on her neck flushed, the heat dancing feather-soft to her cheeks. She wasn’t a child to be reprimanded. Or was it Jonas in a state of dishabille? His placket was half-fastened, and the fire’s dim light touched shoulders wider and stronger than she remembered. Black curls framed brown male nipples, the discs as intriguing as the coarse black hair encircling them. Her body wanted to stay put, but her brain cried for distance.

  “I, I came to get something.” She slid off the mattress, her bottom brushing his bed sheets, the intimate sound seductive. The Jonas of her childhood was the heart of mild infatuation, but this man made her body sluggish and her pulse heavy. She gripped the ends of her coat, needing something to hold. Their tumble warmed her to the core, so did the view of him bathing.

  She’d not timed this well at all.

  “Don’t play coy,” he said. “Last I saw you, your braids were flying as you galloped away.”

  “And last I saw you, your lips were stuck to my sister.”

  Chuckling, he leaned back on the bed post. “How is Elspeth?”

  Her fingernails dug into her coat. “She’s well. Married and widowed since you’ve been gone.”

  Black brows knit together as Jonas absorbed the news. Head shaking, his blue gaze pinned her. “Sorry to hear about her loss, but you need to explain yourself.”

  “I think not. Years ago, I might’ve done your bidding like a tame puppy, but I’m not a child anymore.”

  His smile pinched at the corners. “I noticed.”

  Barks of laughter rang through the house. The Yuletide song was done, the cue for her to leave. She smiled gamely, taking a cautious side-step toward the wheel lock. Jonas must’ve read her intent because he was off the bed nimble as a cat, standing between her and the gun.

  “Don’t be stubborn, Liv. What about your mother and father? They must be worried.” A subtle frown clouding his face, he focused on his half-fastened placket. “This goes beyond the pale…even for you.”

  Spine straight, she owned her choices. There’d been many painful ones of late. The timing aside, she didn’t regret her theft. But, stealing from a dear, childhood friend—even a long absent one—wasn’t easy.

  Not when his gentle baritone chided her.

  “You’re not answering me.” Jonas slipped a brass button into its red velvet hole.

  Such large hands. Mouth slack, a shiver skimmed her body. Facing him, she couldn’t make her tongue work. A muscle bulged in the valley between his thumb and forefinger. Long fingers skimmed his placket with a deft touch, the veins and sinew twisting under his skin. Was he as careful when touching a woman? She swallowed peculiar thickness in her throat. Jonas required answers. It’d be nice to tell him who carried the burdens at home now, but to what end? Childhood was gone, taking some of her openness with it. Jonas wasn’t long for Plumtree. Better to give blithe evasions, same as she did with everyone else this year.

  “My mother and father are safely abed,” she said. “Where I need to be, if you’d be so kind as to forget about my being here.”

  “Not likely.”

  Ruby red velvet hugged brawny thighs. Jonas glowed with good health, his flesh brown as a roasted coffee bean. Above his placket, stomach muscles flexed with grooves and hollows. He’d seen the world and by the looks of all his gloriously sun-kissed skin, the world had seen Jonas.

  She licked her lips, her boots shuffling a side-step to the window. “Come now. We always looked past each other’s questionable exploits.”

  “As you aptly pointed out, we’re not children anymore.” Brows furrowing, he glanced at the door. “How did you get in here anyway?”

  She tipped her head at mullioned glass. “The window by way of your oak tree.”

  “A grown woman climbing trees.” His face split with a lovely grin. “Haven’t lost your spirit, have you?”

  She smiled back. Strong and quiet, Jonas was the steady one in childhood storms, even when he stirred up trouble. She was tempted to curl up by the fire an
d ask him to spin tales of his travels. Being with Jonas had been the best part of growing up, but reckless days following the Braithwaite brothers were long over. She had her work and her family’s circumstances to consider. A raven-haired adventurer wasn’t part of her path. Seizing the moment, she took quick steps to the window before the night worsened. The Spanish wheel lock would have to wait.

  A long arm blocked her way. “You should leave by the front door. It’s safer.”

  “I can’t,” she cried. “The Captain and his guests will see me.”

  “What? You break into my bedchamber at midnight and you’re worried about what’s proper?”

  “I don’t make a practice of this.”

  “I can tell. You’re not very good at it.” He flipped open his sea chest. “You haven’t told me why you’re here. Settling some score with the Captain?”

  She held her breath when he searched the chest. Would he notice the empty leather purse? Jonas peppered her with questions, his hurried hands grabbing clothes before shutting the lid. This wasn’t about the Captain. This was about Jonas. The pilfered piece was tucked in her coat pocket.

  “I’ll…I’ll tell you before Twelfth Night ends. I promise.” Her voice was strained. “Let me leave quietly. Consider it a boon to an old friend.”

  Jonas held his shirt aloft, his deep blue stare scalding her. Her heart thudded. Air was heavy between them as laughter exploded through the floorboards. Jonas fit the white shirt over his head, the corners of his mouth tight when his face showed again.

  “It’ll cost you.”

  His smooth baritone sent a delicate shiver across secret, feminine skin.

  “You can count on me to pay my debts.”

  The surprise was how much she still cared for him, the unexplainable depth beyond friendship and girlish infatuation. Their lives entwined from years of scrapes and merriment. Time hadn’t diminished the bond. Contrary to what she’d said, she wanted him to bid her sit by the fire and question her midnight visit. Instead, Jonas gave up easily. He quietly accepted her refusal like a man keeping polite distance, a man who couldn’t involve himself in her affairs. Not anymore.