“No, my dim friend. Dorsey got away; I was not able to tempt him back to my side at all. And I could strangle Lord Ingram for causing it. He frightened my quarry away with his dark looks. I would almost think there was something between them. Is it possible they are confederates and the viscount was warning Dorsey?”
Olivia considered it as she plucked a full-blown rose and twirled it under her nose. “I do not think so. Ingram is a different sort than Dorsey. Just as dangerous, but in another way entirely.”
“How so?” Ariadne took a seat on a carved wooden bench overlooking the river and patted the spot beside her. She would never admit to her friend that she found the brooding viscount intriguing, attractive even. She was not some gothic heroine, to be drawn to danger. She was just evaluating a man who could be allied with the enemy.
“Mmm, he is a dangerous man to cross, I have heard. And he has a despicable reputation.”
“Despicable?”
Olivia leaned toward her friend, the signal that truly delicious gossip was about to be imparted. “Despicable. At the age of just three-and-twenty, it is rumored that he . . . er . . . forcibly seduced a married woman.”
“Forcibly seduced?” Ariadne frowned and cocked her head sideways. “Olivia, what does that mean?”
The woman colored. “Best not to ask, Ariadne. Especially someone like you.”
Someone like her? Ariadne shook her head. “The man is well into his thirties. Has that scandal lasted all this time?”
“Oh, no, there is more. He went into business with a number of men, but when they lost everything—a ship sank, or some such thing—he was said to have cheated the investors of their money.”
“Olivia! ‘It is rumored,’ ‘He is said to have done this.’ None of it is fact.”
“You have seen his face. The man has a reputation as a fighter and he does not fight by any recognized rules. Last night he was seen beating poor Sir Jeremy May in an alley behind the house.”
Ariadne turned away and stared down at the sparkling river, as her friend chattered on. A barge on its way to London took advantage of the current to make time on its run. She watched, absently, counting automatically the vessels making their voyages, noting the different ways lowly scow and stately sail craft slipped through the flow.
She didn’t want to admit it. Pushing back stray tendrils of stubborn hair loosened by the stiffening breeze, she put her head back, easing the tension knotted in her neck muscles, as Olivia still rambled on. No, for some reason she didn’t want to concede that Lord Ingram was a nasty lot, a brute and a villain. An unrepentant rogue.
And yet, she must acknowledge the likelihood. It was not the first she had heard of the viscount. He was reckoned a bad enemy to make, drifting on the outside of society, barely admitted to ballrooms. She had never seen him before last night and it appeared that she was as foolish as any other woman she had ever castigated for an idiot. She did not want to believe the gossip, did not want to admit that it was possibly true, and all because of a moment’s powerful attraction to his undeniably masculine presence.
Ultimately it did not matter what she believed him to be, because it certainly did not make sense that he was in with Dorsey on his swindles. Dorsey had appeared afraid of the other man. And so Ingram did not figure at all in her plans. Which, thinking of that, she and Olivia must alter, as the night before had not worked out quite as they had planned. She would forget Ingram and concentrate on the task at hand.
And until then she would go back to work.
She stood. “Olivia, you must excuse me. If you hear where Dorsey is to be next, let me know; I will need an invitation. Until then I must get back to work.”
Chapter Three
Ingram handed the wizened fellow a half crown and peered at him through the thick cloud of smoke that was an ineffable part of the infamous Battersea tavern the Jolly Roger. It was a place where if you were wise, you watched your back, and yet Ingram felt completely at home, the misspent years of his youth preparing him far better to be a denizen of one of these taverns than to grace a ballroom floor. “So, what have you heard?”
“Feller in livery stable of th’rooms Dorsey an’ that doxy whut ’e calls ’is sister lives in, ’e says Dorsey were boastin’ o’ the juicy nest ’e were goin’ ta land in come a week or two from naow.”
“Is that it?” Ingram asked, ready to snatch back the half crown.
“No yer don’t!” The fellow clutched it in his grimy fist and stuck it down his even grimier pants. “Better’n better. ’E says ’e’s a goin’ ta . . .” The old man glanced around and leaned closer to Ingram, and then whispered a string of words containing several very nasty words for copulation.
Ingram felt his stomach turn. So, Dorsey intended to seduce and compromise Miss Lambert, and then threaten to ruin her reputation if she did not hand over a large amount of money. It was the most despicable act yet in a long line of contemptible actions. If revealed, it would send him out of London and even the country, and would destroy Miss Lambert in the process.
Why did he even care? Miss Lambert was certainly old enough that if she wanted to make a fool of herself, no one could stop her. But this went beyond merely making a fool of herself. The woman appeared to have little social stock but her good name, and Dorsey intended to ruin that. Or seduce her first, and then threaten to ruin her. It would be a devastating blow. Ingram had seen how innocent were the woman’s eyes; she would be no match for the practiced wiles of a man of Dorsey’s stamp, especially as idiotic as she seemed to be. A cat named Prinny! Good God!
Ingram hammered his fist on the table. How did Dorsey get away with it repeatedly? He supposed it was still a sorry old world where a fair face was deemed a reflection of the soul, where good looks were assumed to presage a good heart. It was rarely true. The two had little or nothing to do with each other.
The old man had drifted away, secure with his half crown and now treating his cronies to a round of bitter. Ingram quaffed his own stout, relishing the bitter taste and wiping the foam from his mouth with the back of one hand. He had come looking for information; now, what would he do with it?
* * *
Ariadne laid down her quill and cupped her cheek in her hand. Spring sunlight streamed into her study, the room chosen carefully by her as the only ground floor room that had a view of the river. When she had first seen this Chelsea house, it was the situation overlooking the river that had first attracted her, and then she had entered.
It was a light and airy dwelling, with large square rooms and painted walls, white paneling and marble floors. Modern, clean, filled with light, she had fallen in love with it immediately, but concealing her admiration, she had dickered with the land agent until the price was more to her liking. Frugal by nature, a windfall could not change her now.
And what an unexpected stroke of luck her inheritance had been. Dutiful to the end, Ariadne still had never believed that her vinegary, ancient aunt would leave her fortune anywhere but to the charities she had, in her lifetime, supported. So when Ariadne found herself in possession of a fortune beyond what she could have imagined, her first thought had been What now? It hadn’t taken long to decide. What else would she do but devote herself to the dream of a lifetime, to write and publish a history of the river Thames? And where else to do it but this wonderful study?
And yet this morning the memory of a pair of coal-dark eyes intruded on her work. Foolish spinster, she chided herself, even as she sighed and stared, unseeing, out the window. If even half the rumors about Lord Ingram were true, then his heart was as black as his eyes. And what did she have to remember? The feel of a square hand at her waist, the gleaming depths of his gaze, the gruff tone of his voice. So little. She was not eighteen, so that a man’s physical attributes or lack thereof should have such weight with her.
And yet she had liked his voice, the burr in it, the honesty. It appealed to her so much more than the soft, caressing tones of Dorsey’s expert inflections. It was gruff, deep .
. . she caught herself and straightened. “Ariadne Sophia Lambert,” she said out loud. “You are not going to become that most foolish of things, a lovesick spinster, and over a man whose reputation is so very black! Most idiotic of women, behave and do something constructive.”
And so she went out to the garden to pull weeds.
* * *
The card room was full to capacity. There was no place to sit, and no card game to join. Ingram drifted to the door and stood, smoking a cigar while he watched the ballroom, noting with amusement the nervous looks cast his way. If he had taken the trouble he probably could have cleansed his reputation long ago. His errors were mostly callow youthful ones, though he still enjoyed a good fight and had a punishing left hook; that much was true.
His gaze drifted, but then sharpened. He straightened, his muscles tensing. Damn and damn again. There she was, and there was that weasel, Dorsey, paying court to her as if she was the season’s diamond.
He butted out his cigar and straightened his jacket. Fatuous spinster or not, Miss Ariadne Lambert did not deserve to be taken advantage of, and he would take it upon himself to stop him.
Ariadne simpered coyly. “La, Mr. Dorsey, but you do talk such foolishness. A girl might be forgiven for thinking you were a practiced flirt.”
Dorsey pressed her hand warmly. “Miss Lambert,” he whispered, his tones caressing. “I would never merely flirt with a lady of your caliber. You deserve so much more. My intentions . . . but there. I get ahead of myself.”
Sighing inwardly at the role she must play, Ariadne tried again. She swallowed her distaste at the dampness of his palm in the overheated ballroom and turned her hand so it was clasped within his. She widened her eyes and assumed her most beatific, asinine expression. “You may get ahead of yourself as much as you wish, Mr. Dorsey, for who is there to stop you?” She sighed dramatically and glanced away, eyes downcast. “I have no guardian or relative to protect me. I am so alone in the great, terrifying world!”
Dorsey moved closer. “No one?”
“Not a single person.”
“But who takes care of you?”
“That is left to me,” she said, with a piteous smile.
“No lady of such tender sensibilities should be left alone to deal with finances. How deplorable! But then, if you do not have much money to worry about . . .”
“But I do! My aunt left me . . . oh, but it is vulgar to speak of sums.” Ariadne glanced away to conceal her smile. She was enjoying this far too much. She should be moving on to the resolution of this little game as quickly as possible but she could not help dangling the treat in front of Dorsey’s nose, only to snatch it away.
“You could never be vulgar,” he murmured.
“You flatter me again, Mr. Dorsey.”
“I only speak the truth. How I wish I could be the one to shield you from life’s harshness,” he said. “But I have no right . . .”
“You have as much right as anyone,” Ariadne said.
“If only that were true. If only I could prove to you . . . would you meet me somewhere private, Miss Lambert, somewhere where we could discuss . . .”
“I have often longed to go to Vauxhall . . .”
“Highly overrated,” a deep voice from above said.
Ingram. Ariadne looked up into the dark eyes she had dreamed of the night before. She seemed to have lost her voice and knew her mouth hung foolishly open, her expression as vacuous as any dimwitted gudgeon of more breeding than brains.
Dorsey bolted to his feet. “Ingram, old man. Thought you never went near ballrooms, and yet here you are . . . again.”
“I have come to ask Miss Lambert to stand up with me,” he said, grimly.
Ariadne pressed her lips together and pushed her glasses up on her nose with a swift, impatient gesture. Infuriating man. He was asking her to dance yet again, but with a tone of voice that told her it would be more chore than pleasure. Was he merely in competition with Dorsey? Was that the beginning and end of his seeming preference for her company?
“I have no wish to dance,” she said.
“Are you refusing me?” Ingram asked, dark brows furrowed.
Ariadne clenched her fists. Dorsey would surely wonder if she did. It would look peculiar, and perhaps there was a way after all to use this odd turn of events. She cast a fluttering glance at Dorsey, eyes wide, as much idiocy as she could feign forced into her smile. “Why, no! But I must beg leave of Mr. Dorsey, who has been so kind as to sit with me this half hour.”
“You do not need to beg leave of anyone,” Ingram growled, and took her hand, leading her to the dance floor.
A waltz was just starting, but Ariadne was too busy watching Dorsey, and stepped on the viscount’s toes.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” she said. They bumped into each other and her glasses skewed to one side. She righted them.
“Miss Lambert,” he said, through gritted teeth, facing her and taking her hand in his. “Mr. Dorsey will not go away, not while he thinks there is a chance of your favor.”
That was enough to gain her attention, and she gazed into his dark eyes. She took a deep breath as he swept her onto the ballroom floor. This was a most unaccustomed feeling. As he had proved in their minuet, he was a rather good dancer, with an athletic grace she would not have thought such a stocky, muscular gentleman would possess. Where Dorsey was lithe and slim, Ingram was heavyset. Dorsey’s cherubic fairness was the opposite of Ingram’s swarthy darkness.
She stuttered back into speech, saying, “D-do you think he seeks my favor?”
Ingram’s generous mouth turned down in a scowl. “I think he seeks to loosen your purse strings. I must most strenuously warn you, Miss Lambert, not to entertain that scoundrel alone. I have it on good authority that he means to rob you of your money in a most disagreeable way.”
Ariadne gasped. This turn of events stunned her. What was Ingram doing, seeking out such information? Was he still playing his own game, as she had conjectured from the beginning? Or was he trying to do her a good turn? She had never heard him spoken of as quixotic, and yet, how else could one interpret this behavior?
He took her speechlessness as horror. “I am sorry if I have shocked you,” he said, his voice more gentle, but still easily heard through the music. “But Dorsey does not have a good reputation.”
“He is invited everywhere, sir.” She lost her footing for a moment, but Ingram expertly righted her, and they moved on effortlessly.
“So am I, but that does not mean I am good company.” His tone was bitter.
“Are you warning me away from yourself, as well, sir?”
His gaze caught hers and held. There was a searching look in his eyes. The music drifted over them, and in that moment they both seemed to become aware of what they were doing. He was holding her close—closer than before—and they were swaying together, his broad hand at her waist. Her cheeks flushed and she was mortified, worried that he would misinterpret—or would it be only too correct to judge her affected by his nearness?—her pinkness.
“I would ask you to be careful, Miss Lambert. I would not see you hurt.”
She swallowed. This was not good. He sounded far too much like the gallant Ingram of her dreams, and she had determined that that Ingram was a phantasm raised by her own rich imagination. Everything she had heard of Lord Ingram had served to make her cautious. He was regarded as a blackguard, a dangerous man to cross.
She looked away.
There was Dorsey at the edge of the ballroom, speaking to his sister, if sister she was. Ariadne was not convinced of that. He was glancing their way, and whispering again with the young woman.
And so she must be cruel, must be rude to the viscount, to give him a disgust of her. If Dorsey felt too threatened by Lord Ingram, he might slip off the hook. He did not appear to be the kind who would stand up to a man of Ingram’s dangerous stamp.
“I will take your warning under advisement,” she said, frostily. “Though most assuredly, is that not a
case of the pot blackening the reputation of the kettle?”
Unexpectedly, Ingram grinned. The affect was to twist his pugnacious visage and light his dark eyes. “Between the two of us, ma’am, Dorsey and I, there is enough black to spread, trust me.”
Feeling her lips twitch, so badly did she want to smile with him, Ariadne assumed instead the faintly idiotic expression she was growing weary of. How awful to make herself appear so in front of a man whom she had reluctantly begun to like. And that after he had already crept into her maidenly dreams. People would be shocked if they knew what kind of dreams Miss Ariadne Lambert experienced, but then, they would be shocked by much of her thinking, if she was so incautious as to reveal her deepest musings.
The music ended, and Ingram returned her to her place. “May I call on you, miss? What day are you at home?”
This unexpected twist left Ariadne genuinely flabbergasted. “I entertain Thursday afternoons.”
“Good. I expect I can find out where you live,” he said. “I shall get to meet Prinny.”
“P-prinny?”
“Your cat.” Ingram bowed and pushed through the crowd, toward the card room.
Olivia Beckwith approached Ariadne. “My dear, what are you doing dancing with Ingram? How did that come about?”
“He asked me.”
“How strange.” Olivia’s bright gaze followed Ingram’s progress, people parting before him like the seas before Moses. “He never asks ladies to dance.”
Ariadne shook herself. “Stranger still, my dear. He asked me to dance to warn me away from Dorsey. Can you credit it?”
Olivia gave a hoot of disbelieving laughter. “Is that not the most . . . oh, dear. I must slither away, Ari. That despicable Dorsey is coming this way and I do not want to be seen talking to you too long. We are supposed to be merest acquaintances.” She drew herself up and assumed her haughtiest look, difficult in so plump and pleasant a woman. “My dear Miss Lambert,” she said, in a stagy voice, as Dorsey approached. “You would do well to stay away from men of Lord Ingram’s stamp. He can only be trouble for an unwed lady.” She serenely cruised away.
A Rogue's Rescue Page 2
