Rogue Around the Edges (The Scoundrels of Parkhorne Hall #1)

Chapter One

Malcolm Brown, the eldest of the late Alexander Salisbury’s bastard children, awoke from his dream with a moan.

It was not a moan of surprise.

The dream was the same as usual.

This dream, in fact, was always almost exactly the same.

In the dream, he, Malcolm Brown, had his cock buried deep inside a woman—always the same woman, although he did not know who she was.

Her sweet scent overpowered him. He had one hand on her bare breast and the other on her ample arse.

He pumped into her from behind, so he couldn’t see her face, but she was nevertheless close enough that he had his lips at her neck.

And in the dream, he knew he loved the woman, the one he was brazenly tupping.

In the dream, joining with her, in this way, was his peace on earth.

Most often, he woke up from this dream, panting, his cock hard.

Exasperated, he would nevertheless palm himself and quickly dispatch of this strange visitation of arousal.

The memory of the dream woman would fade with the pleasure of his orgasm—until she returned again some other evening and the process would repeat itself.

Now, however, as sometimes happened when he had recently been particularly abstemious in his self-pleasure, he found climax as he came into consciousness.

“Christ.” He swore when he realized what had happened.

He was now very awake and very much coated in the sticky results of his own spend, as was the sheet that had been wrapped around his waist.

Perhaps the mess was partly his fault. His punishment for sleeping completely bare.

In fact, Malcolm Brown always slept nude.

It was improper, of course, but he was an improper man.

As said eldest bastard of Alexander Salisbury, Malcolm’s very existence was itself improper.

While his younger half brother, George, was the young master of Parkhorne Hall, Malcolm ran the farm, so he spent all day in the sun, with his hands in the dirt or on a plow and conversing in none too civil language with his fellow laborers.

His father had been a gentleman, yes, but Malcolm wasn’t. He was a gentleman farmer, at best.

Thus, he could commit such sins against propriety.

After all, no one expected him to ever do more than manage the farm at Parkhorne. He was not meant for society. His younger brothers, even the ones who were also illegitimate, had made their way into that world. But he never would.

As a testament to that fact, his rooms were set a half mile off from the main house in what was once a hunting lodge.

And under normal circumstances, no one else occupied the place. Its three other bedrooms stood empty.

No one was likely to see what nightclothes he wore—or, in his case, didn’t wear—to bed.

Malcolm stood, crossed to the basin, and cleaned himself.

A glance through the curtains confirmed what he didn’t want to accept.

It was already morning.

He groaned.

And this time there was no pleasure in it.

He must dress. He must hasten to the hall and eat breakfast with his siblings, instead of heading out to the fields as he usually did.

Because today was not a normal day.

Today was the first day of the house party.

A month-long house party in which prospective brides—and their mamas—would descend upon Parkhorne Hall.

The young ladies were coming for his brother, George, five-and-twenty years of age, master of Parkhorne Hall, and, according to himself, ready to marry.

George’s mother, Mrs. Salisbury, wanted to make sure that her son made the right choice.

She had devised the house party as a way to ensure that the girl who became the next Mrs. Salisbury was well-suited for both George and Parkhorne.

Malcolm understood why she cared so much about her son’s marriage.

His union had consequences for everyone who cared about the estate.

A foolish match by George could harm Parkhorne irrevocably—and a good one, well, it could secure prosperity for a generation, at least.

And because Malcolm cared very much about Parkhorne, he had to care about the house party.

Even though the idea of good society made his stomach twist.

Ridiculous.

He was two-and-thirty years old. Far too old to fuss about where he belonged in the world.

His sister, Beatrice, who ten years ago had married the Marquess of Leith, was very fashionable herself. And she had begged him to come to London many times.

But he never could accept.

It had never felt right.

He knew Beatrice didn’t see him clearly.

She thought he was acceptable, but she was his sister.

She was used to him.

For these reasons, Malcolm had never even left Somerset.

He had hardly left this village.

So he couldn’t help but be a bit anxious. Because today London was coming to Parkhorne.

He winced at what these fine people would think when they looked at him, the rough, weather-beaten old bastard of the place. Luckily, he shouldn’t have to interact with any of them overmuch.

Shaking away such thoughts, Malcolm dressed and tried to steel himself for the day, the month, ahead.

He finished dressing and then looked out of his window, steadying himself with a deep breath. He took in the meadow, which his room overlooked, a sight that always calmed him.

He could make it through the next month.

It was only a society frivolity.

And he would have no part in most of it.

A half hour later, Malcolm Brown strode into the breakfast room at Parkhorne. To his dismay, when he entered, he confronted every one of his siblings and Mrs. Salisbury, already seated at the table.

Avoiding making eye contact with any of them, he slunk into a chair at the far end of the room and began slathering bread with marmalade.

“Good of you to join us, Malcolm,” Beatrice said tartly. “I didn’t know you’d become such a slug-a-bed.”

He gritted his teeth at the jibe.

The reference to him lingering in bed made him think of his dream and the woman in it.

Such comforts weren’t for him—and yet, he had dwelt too long between the sheets because of that ridiculous fantasy.

“I wasn’t aware my presence was so necessary on today of all days,” he bit back. “I thought a house party was being planned, not a harvest. Nor did I think such a happening would require your presence, Bea. Don’t you have a husband and a passel of children in London? Why are you in Somerset?”

“Yes, why are you here, Beatrice? Doesn’t the marquess need you? All the scandal sheets say that he will expire from longing if you leave his side,” Philip, the youngest of his siblings, broke in.

“Leith and the children will be here in a week, Philip,” Mrs. Salisbury chided. “You know this.”

“Yes, Philip,” George said. “Haven’t you committed my mother’s entertainment plan to memory? There hasn’t been a more important set of tactical maneuvers since the Battle of Waterloo.”

“Careful, brother,” Severn, who was the same age as George, but a bastard of their father’s, just like Malcolm, said. “You should not jest about traps in which you are the bait.”

Severn lived his life, as far as Malcolm could see, as George’s illegitimate shadow.

He was all daring slyness to George’s steady sunniness.

They were a funny pair, these two brothers of his, who functioned almost as if they were twins, despite really only being half-siblings, no different than the rest of them.

But it had never felt that way. George and Severn had always seemed bound by something deeper.

They weren’t just brothers but best friends, too.

George had been in many ways born to the better lot.

Since a young age, he had been master of the estate around which all of their lives revolved.

However, his club foot had given him, Malcolm knew, no small bit of trouble.

It made walking long distances and riding difficult.

Nevertheless, George’s frustration over this impairment, if he felt it, never showed.

No, instead, he was assiduously considerate of his siblings and the position of worldly advantage he held over them.

And he was as upstanding and respectable as any young man could be.

As far as Malcolm understood it, George did not partake in any vices when he was in London—or when he was anywhere else.

Severn and George had the same dark good looks, but there their similarities ended.

In all other ways, Severn was more like Beatrice.

Like their sister, Severn could be cynical and not a little conniving.

And to hear Beatrice tell it, Severn had begun to acquire, in London, quite the reputation for …

sensuality. And that was putting it mildly. Apparently.

Unlike Malcolm, Severn had accepted every one of Beatrice’s invitations to Leith Manor in Grosvenor Square.

In fact, he essentially lived there. And he had to accept his sister’s generosity.

He had only a very small income of his own, which consisted of a small sum in the four percents left to him by his maternal grandfather, and whatever his mother, Mrs. Westmore, who owned a small estate nearby, could spare him from her own expenses.

Malcolm still had a hard time believing that the mischievous little snipe who had once followed him around like a puppy was now a metropolitan libertine.

“George isn’t bait,” Sally, the only illegitimate sister, retorted. Her grin recalled that which crossed her face when she and Malcolm had first ferreted out wild blackberries down near the pond. “He is the prize. There is a difference.”