Cover
Books by Donna Lea Simpson
Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark
Revenge of the Barbary Ghost
Curse of the Gypsy
The Viscount’s Valentine
A Rogue’s Rescue
A Scandalous Plan
Title Page
Copyright
Beyond the Page Books
are published by
Beyond the Page Publishing
www.beyondthepagepub.com
This novella was first published in the anthology Untameable by Kensington/Zebra in 2002, copyright © 2002 by Donna Lea Simpson.
Material excerpted from A Scandalous Plan copyright © 2003, 2013 by Donna Lea Simpson. It was first published under the title “A Father’s Love” in the anthology A Match for Papa by Kensington/Zebra in 2003, copyright © 2003 by Donna Lea Simpson.
Beyond the Page edition copyright © 2013 by Donna Lea Simpson.
Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
ISBN: 978-1-937349-65-3
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Excerpt from A Scandalous Plan
About the Author
Chapter One
Ingram stalked the crowded ballroom, his presence at the edge making the others nervous, like prey at a water hole that raise their heads and sniff the air to catch the scent of the black panther, rustling through the underbrush. Some, sighting him, moved away, pulling their impressionable daughters away from him, as if the merest touch of his shadow would taint.
But Viscount Ingram, formerly plain old Mr. Lovell Melcher, did not appear to notice. He scanned the throng for a particular face, weak-chinned, bespectacled, but vicious rather than foolish in its vacuous emptiness. And there was his despised quarry! His gaze sharpened; his dark eyes narrowed. There was the man who had escaped without paying his rightful debt and would now suffer the consequences. He started forward but was blocked in place by a sudden movement of the crowd.
“That, my dear,” a voice near him hissed, “seated so forlornly at the edge of the ballroom floor, is Miss Ariadne Lambert. Poor, poor woman. Looked after her elderly aunt for fifteen years; devoted herself wholly to the old woman’s care. Wasted all her youth. Too bad really. She was only just passable as a girl, but of course, the sickroom, and all that . . . she has dwindled into the fright you see before you.”
Ingram, unwillingly caught in one spot by the press of the crowd, became the reluctant confidant of a woman he hadn’t even seen yet, her shrill voice cutting through the murmur like a knife through curd. The elegant blue and silver ballroom was stifling, and there was a general movement just then toward the supper room; even he could not worm through.
And the voice droned on.
“She should be in caps, of course. But look at her! For all the world as if she thinks a beau is going to stride out of the crowd and sweep her off her feet.” The woman tittered. “She must be . . . oh, all of thirty-three? Now she lives for tea, gossip, and to read the most dreadful of novels, you know, only gothics and romances. Too bad. She was rather good ton at one time; never top-notch, of course, but acceptable. ’Course, she is rich now. Oh, yes, positively oozing money. The old aunt left her pots and pots of filthy lucre, if I must be vulgar, and that makes up for a multitude of faults. Gains her access to these events.”
Ingram, impatient and restless, leaned against the stout back barring his progress—his quarry was sure to move on and be lost in the crowd if he did not accost him soon—but the big fellow in front of him was wedged securely and could not move. And he would not retreat, as there was supper to be had yet. Hostage to his spot near the curtained entrance to the refreshment room, Ingram sourly observed the pair who were gossiping. The gossip purveyor was a thirtyish matron, well-dressed, well-moneyed, and she spoke to—
He frowned. Where had he seen the other woman before?
The matron sighed. “I just hope poor Ariadne does not fall for the first gamester or adventurer who says a pretty word to her, for she is terribly, terribly gullible, poor dear. She would give her last sou to be married, or at least courted.”
At that moment the stout fellow moved and Ingram could see the woman being indicated by the tilt of the gossipy matron’s plumed headdress.
She sat alone at the edge of the ballroom, her slippered toe tapping in time to the country dance that was the last number before supper. She was plain, gaunt of face and angular, with spectacles firmly planted on her nose and a hideous dress in pea green highlighting her sallow complexion. Even alone, though, she seemed cheerful, smiling and nodding as a couple passed by her.
Ingram turned away, intent, once more, on finding the man who owed him money, for the fellow was going to be beaten badly within the hour, though he did not yet know it. Ingram let no man cheat him without the severest of reprisals. In that moment, as he passed by the two gossiping women, he remembered whom the one listening so intently was. She was sister to Dapper Dorsey, an ineffectual cardsharp and villainous roué who skirted the edge of respectability so successfully that he managed to never be paid back for his incursions on feminine purse strings. The viscount cast one look back at the gaunt spinster, and then at the two gossiping women. Damn, but he should warn that foolish, gossiping idiot whose ear she was dropping such precious information in.
But no. Not his business. He turned and spotted his prey. There was his business. In ten minutes he would be breaking a nose in the back alley. That would satisfy the debt between them.
* * *
Ingram nursed his knuckles. Who would have thought the cheating dolt would have such a hard chin? And give as good as he got. Limping, Ingram was heading to the supper room to have a bite to eat before leaving the stifling affair, when his progress was arrested by the one sight he had hoped not to see.
The spinster—what was her name?—was still sitting in the same chair on the edge of the ballroom floor. But at her side was Dorsey, gazing at her with a kind of stunned adoration. Nobody was better at that look than he, and women found it irresistible, without exception believing in his fervent declarations of devotion. To Ingram’s eye the man was too good-looking, almost pretty, with curling fair hair and smooth skin. But perhaps that was just the opinion of a man who had had his nose broken on three separate occasions and whose jaw did not quite run
straight, the way nature intended.
Ingram plunked down in a nearby chair. Dorsey was leaning toward the woman, whose foolish face was lit with a brilliant smile, displaying strong, even white teeth in a most unladylike display of joy. Dorsey’s sister must have whispered in his ear about the woman’s fortune, and now he was going in for the kill. He was a skilled seducer, and would have the idiotic woman parted from her money in a trice, especially if she insisted on bestowing those radiant, surprisingly beautiful smiles on him.
Damnation.
Fighting with his conscience, Ingram stayed planted on the blue brocade chair as the party swirled around him, frolicsome young women dancing the waltz with dark-clad gentlemen, nobody sparing a glance for the foolish rich spinster and her amorous swain.
Where was her friend? She should be warned. Ingram glanced around, but the woman who had gossiped so effusively about her acquaintance’s money was now nowhere to be found.
Damnation.
Dorsey was kissing her palm, and she was coloring an unattractive flame red.
Hellfire and damnation.
Ingram looked away. He should leave. He had done what he came for, and that was to plant a facer on a lying, cheating knave. He could leave and forget he had ever seen . . . what was her name? Miss Ariadne something. No one had talked to him and he would ask no young lady to dance. Ingram was skirting the fine edge of being considered bad ton; another scandal and he would be dropped from the invitation lists of all the better hostesses. He knew it and didn’t give a damn. Or so he told himself often. Right now, because he was a viscount and well-moneyed, he was invited everywhere. When people stopped inviting him, he would concentrate on his business enterprises and consort with those who valued him for who he was.
The irony was that Dorsey, with no money and of doubtful ton, was invited everywhere because people genuinely liked him and thought him a fine fellow. His occasional “lapses,” as they were called in polite circles, had been successfully hushed up to preserve the women in question’s reputations. In fact, most of his thievery had gone undetected. But Ingram cruised in many circles and Dorsey was known in the money-lending spheres, his name bandied about as a cardsharp and cheating varlet.
Miss Ariadne Whatever-her-name-was, eyes wide in an absurd parody of the most innocent of green girls, was listening intently to Dorsey’s honeyed words.
Ingram, unwilling hostage to his own conscience, rose from his seat and moved closer, concealed by a couple at the edge of the ballroom who were having a whispered conversation of their own.
“. . . knocked flat on my back,” Dorsey was saying, his emotion-filled voice quavering. “Never have I met a lady who has done that, who has made my heart beat faster just at the sight of her brilliant eyes and . . . and handsome . . . handsome teeth.”
Ingram rolled his eyes. This was Dorsey’s idea of flattery? Surely the woman would tell him to take flight.
“Mr. Dorsey,” she said, in a breathy, high-pitched voice. “You overwhelm me with your kindness.”
“No, my heart, my life, you overwhelm me! I am stricken, flattened. Please, tell me there is no one else. Tell me I do not need to feel the agonizing pangs of jealousy.”
“I . . . I have no other beaux.” Here, she giggled.
Ingram was set to walk away. There were hundreds of foolish spinsters and it was not his business—
“Then say you will meet me at . . . oh, anywhere. I long to see you in private, to touch your hand. I would suggest my little house at Richmond . . .”
“Mr. Dorsey!”
Good. She was going to tell him he was an impudent donkey for suggesting such a thing. He strained to hear her next words, to make them out through the hissing altercation that consumed the standing couple.
“Mr. Dorsey,” she said. “I could never meet you out of town like that. But perhaps we could have a moment alone somewhere closer . . . Vauxhall, mayhap?”
Oh, for— Ingram circled the quarreling couple that had concealed him ’til now and presented himself before Dorsey and his quarry.
“May I have this dance, Miss . . .” The name finally came back. “Miss Lambert?”
Chapter Two
Ariadne glared up at the strange man who had just asked her to dance in such an abrupt and ill-tempered manner. He had a bruised chin and his bare knuckles were grazed and bloody. “No,” she blurted out.
Dorsey’s beautiful blue eyes were wide. “Ingram!”
“Do you know this man, Mr. Dorsey?” Events had taken a peculiar turn. Ariadne had not expected to have her hand solicited for a dance, and certainly not in such a manner. The man who stood over her appeared angry, as though he had been forced into making the request.
And it had happened at such an interesting juncture, just as she and the terribly handsome Mr. Dorsey were coming to an understanding.
“No?” the angry man said, folding his arms across his broad chest.
“No,” Ariadne replied, folding her square hands together. “I do not know you, sir.”
The angry man turned to the still-seated gentleman. “Introduce me, Dorsey!” he barked.
“This is Ingram,” Dorsey said, forcing the words out, his voice quavering.
“Viscount Ingram at your service, miss,” the fellow grunted.
She expected that Dorsey would find some way to get rid of the viscount—she really could not believe such a swarthy, brutish-looking fellow was a viscount—but instead her beau melted away, with just a whispered, “Your servant, Miss Lambert.”
Ariadne gazed up at the man in front of her. He now wore a self-satisfied smirk. So, his intent was to get rid of Dorsey for some unknown and likely personal reason. She knew just the way to eradicate that complacent smile. She stood, her height about the same as his. “I have changed my mind. I will dance with you.”
“What?”
“I said, sir, that I have changed my mind. A lady’s prerogative, you know. I would be delighted to dance with you.”
A sprightly minuet began that moment. She eyed his stocky, broad-shouldered figure. Let them see who would have the most satisfaction. She did not dance well, and he was certainly not built for the elegant minuet. They joined the dance.
As they came together and parted in the figures, him sweating and she silent, she examined him. Her first impression of brooding, glowering anger was not diminished, but she felt an unexpected stirring within her. He was not handsome, certainly not like Mr. Dorsey, who had the fair good looks of a seraphim.
But he was compelling. His nose was crooked, his chin pugnacious, his shoulders broad and his eyes dark and piercing. His whole personality simmered as though he were a cauldron. One could not guess at his true nature except in glimpses as it broke the surface.
And now she was being just fanciful.
But when he took her hand and put his other to her waist as they turned and stepped down the line of dancers, she felt a little flushed. He knew the dance, she had to admit. And he did not look as foolish on the floor as she had assumed he would. She regretted her earlier mean-spirited assumptions and admonished herself that a book would not always be known by its cover, something she should understand better than anyone.
The dance over at last, he walked her back to her chair. She expected him to depart, but he glanced around and then sat beside her. And did not talk. Was his sole purpose of seating himself with her to guard her, like a dog does a bone it does not particularly want but will share with no one?
The thought made her smile; when she looked again at the man next to her it was to gaze directly into his eyes. She swallowed. No, he was not good-looking, but many a woman would swoon at the expression of glinting steel behind the dark eyes. He was brooding, but not in any pretty, Byronic way. She was not a foolish enough woman to find menace fascinating, and yet—
“At whom are you smiling?” he asked, his dark eyes narrowing.
Ariadne rolled her eyes. “I was just thinking how funny it was to have a guardian at this late stage in my
life.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Are you really a viscount, sir?”
“I am,” he said, shifting in his seat as if admitting it made him uneasy. “Lovell Melcher, Viscount Ingram at your service, ma’am,” he said, and put out one hand.
“Miss Ariadne Lambert, spinster, at yours, my lord,” she said, shaking his hand.
He flashed a smile, and she felt her heart thud. How odd that just the briefest of smiles, there and gone in a heartbeat, should have that affect. Mr. Dorsey was much more free with his and they did not have near that impact. Perhaps that was the secret.
Spotting Mr. Dorsey lingering in the distance, there one moment and then concealed again by the crowd, Ariadne swallowed. She turned to Ingram and desperately scrabbled for conversation. “I have three cats, my lord, whom I have named Prinny, Maria and Caroline. Prinny, as you may have guessed, is the tom, and he spends his time mostly with Maria; oddly enough, he despises Caroline and they hiss at each other whenever forced to share the same bowl of milk. Do you think I forced that relationship on the three when I named them?”
Ingram gazed at her with a furrowed brow. “Really, uh, I do not know,” he said. He glanced around and rose. “I have business to attend to. Your servant, Miss Lambert.”
Ariadne sighed. “Good evening, my lord.” Now that she had chased him away, she felt bereft. How silly. But now she could go on with her evening’s plans. She rose, patted down her ugly skirts and began to circle the ballroom.
* * *
“He got away, Olivia. I could just strangle that man with my own bare hands.” Ariadne Lambert was walking with her friend in the front garden of her Chelsea home the morning after the ball.
Olivia Beckwith, whom Ingram would have recognized as the gossipy matron, frowned. “Strangling Dorsey would not serve, Ari, it would—”
A Rogue's Rescue Page 1
