Passion and Pretense
Page 1
PRAISE FOR
Temptress in Training
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—RT Book Reviews
“An exciting amateur sleuth espionage thriller…Terrific romantic suspense as love and danger collide.”
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Damsel in Disguise
“I loved it!…For anyone wanting a nice, light tale that pulls you out of the everyday…I recommend Damsel in Disguise.”
—Romancemama
“Every page turns into a delight from this fantastic author who has an extremely quick wit. Not only is this book a great find for the romance readers out there who simply love historical novels, but it’s also filled with the twists and turns that adventure fans crave…[Heino] definitely has a gift, and readers will be glad that this author has chosen to share that gift with the rest of us.”
—Night Owl Reviews
“Passion, deception, disguises, and mayhem all combine in Damsel in Disguise. Susan Gee Heino has penned a story that’s almost Shakespearean in its plot, with lords and actors, villains and rogues, mysteries and a heroine who cross-dresses to rescue her hero…I like that Ms. Heino’s characters are unconventional, and her writing style definitely appealed to me.”
—Joyfully Reviewed
“A fun comedy of errors.”
—Midwest Book Review
Mistress by Mistake
“A funny, sexy romp! Destined to become a reader favorite.”
—Christine Wells, author of Sweetest Little Sin
“Sparkling with superbly crafted characters, humor, and deliciously sexy romance, Heino’s debut…is splendidly entertaining.”
—Booklist
“I loved…Mistress by Mistake.”
—Romancemama
“An amusing Regency romance…A wonderful historical.”
—The Best Reviews
Berkley Sensation Titles by Susan Gee Heino
MISTRESS BY MISTAKE
DAMSEL IN DISGUISE
TEMPTRESS IN TRAINING
PASSION AND PRETENSE
Passion and
Pretense
SUSAN GEE HEINO
BERKLEY SENSATION, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
PASSION AND PRETENSE
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / March 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Susan Gee Heino.
Excerpt from If I Fall by Kate Noble copyright © 2012 by Kate Noble.
Cover art by Jim Griffin.
Cover design by George Long.
Cover hand lettering by Ron Zinn.
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ISBN: 978-1-101-56150-8
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ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
To my sisters, Diane Gee Frasca and Ellen Gee Mangine.
You are beautiful, talented, funny, intelligent women.
But I still tell everyone you’re both older than me.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Ninteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
If I Fall
Chapter One
LONDON, ENGLAND
MAY 1820
The candlelight was lovely and Penelope knew hers was the prettiest gown in the room. She also knew this was not by any accident. Her brother spared no expense in his desperate efforts to get her married off. The only thing good about Anthony’s efforts was that this gown he’d paid for was the exact shade of blue to compliment her necklace. Indeed, she did love this necklace.
She put her hand to it, enjoying the feel of the warm gold and the smooth stones set into place to form the stout body of a beetle. Not just any beetle, though. This was a scarab—an amulet fashioned by Egyptian hands many, many centuries ago. Indeed, she’d paid a pretty penny for it and no doubt Anthony would scold when he realized that’s where all her pin money had gone, but she could not care. This was the finest piece of her collection.
She’d hoped whatever magic it might still contain would work to ward off the suitors her brother wished for, yet it appeared Anthony’s power was far greater than even that of the sacred scarab. Suitors had been hanging on her all night. Pity none of them actually suited her.
Mercy, but i
t had been nearly impossible to get rid of them. She’d managed, however. It had required she agree to stand up with Puddleston Blunk for the entire country dance, and there were fourteen couples to work through before she could finally claim exhaustion and send the lout off to procure her a lemonade. Now she was alone. If she didn’t dream up a way to disappear soon, though, he’d return and she’d be stuck with Puddleston on her arm until Mamma showed up to pry him off. And Mamma would likely not do that. Mamma said Puddleston Blunk was a good catch.
Heavens, but if there was ever a time to decide on a plan it was now. She had no intention of catching someone like Mr. Blunk, by accident or on purpose. There were other things she wished to do with her life, and all she needed was Mamma’s permission and a healthy pile of her brother’s money. So far both of those had been elusive.
Oh, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t come up with a plausible scheme. Indeed she had, just this very afternoon. But it was somewhat outrageous. Risky, even. Did she dare consider it?
She glanced nervously around Lord Burlington’s crowded ballroom. Nothing out of the ordinary; no one she did not know. If she did have any hope of carrying out her plan, none of the men present would fit her purposes. Her eye fell on the row of young ladies seated with their chaperones against the far wall. Those were the plain girls, the girls with poor connections or even poorer dowries.
Her quiet friend Maria Bradley was there. She looked miserable. Penelope would have given nearly anything to have joined her there on that wallflower row. Oh, if only she and Maria could trade places. How cruel Fate was to truss Penelope up in a beautiful gown and surround her with suitors when any one of these young ladies might so much rather be in her satin shoes.
Then again, it hadn’t been Fate at all who’d done this to her. It had been Anthony. If he could only listen to reason! She did not wish to marry. She wished to travel to Egypt and dig for mummies. Was that so very much for a woman of three and twenty to dream of? Apparently it was, because both her brother and her mother became nearly apoplectic at the very mention of it.
Which was why she had tried to soothe them by announcing her hope to go there and meet the well-known Egyptologist, Professor Oldham. They’d exchanged several letters and she’d found him fascinating. He was mature and respectable, and she’d be in the care of some family friends who were planning a journey there. How could Anthony or Mamma possibly object to such a sensible venture?
But Mother had had to call for her salts and Anthony had declared he’d burn in hell before he allowed his sister to drag the family name through mud—well, more mud, as he put it—and go chasing off to Egypt after some fortune-hunting Lothario. As if her correspondence with Professor Oldham had ever been anything beyond intellectual! Why, she’d not even written to him using her own name. Still, Anthony ordered her to cease all communications with the man and confiscated her letter-writing paper. Honestly, was that even legal?
If Anthony would but listen to her! Couldn’t he see that sending her to Egypt would only make her more responsible, more respectable? She would have a purpose, meet educated people, and fill her idle time with noble, scholarly pursuits. The longer she was forced to dance around here in London like a mindless ninny, the more desperate and unpredictable she would become. Surely no mere husband could remedy that.
If only there were some middle ground, something between wasting away in genteel uselessness and being married. Something that could take her out from under Anthony’s wing, yet not shackle her to someone else. But what could that be?
She’d come up with the only plausible solution: an engagement. And she’d tried that. Four times now she’d been engaged, hoping that would buy her some leeway, that as an engaged woman she’d finally be allowed to make some of her own choices or pursue her own goals. In each case, however, she found it provided her even less freedom. And by now Anthony would recognize another engagement for what it was—a ruse to escape his rule. If she tried that route again, no doubt Anthony would call her bluff and drag her immediately to the altar with whatever sap she’d chosen and make it final. That would not help her at all.
Unless, of course, Anthony might not call her bluff. Ah, that was the scheme that had invaded her mind earlier and would not quite let go, despite its outrageous ridiculousness. Still, she could not help but wonder…
If she found a fiancé so unacceptable, so objectionable, wouldn’t Anthony’s brotherly concern cause him to intervene? And if he truly believed she wanted to marry such an objectionable person, wouldn’t it stand to reason he might see fit to put some distance between her and the object of her misplaced affection? Perhaps given the choice between seeing his dearest sister wed to some ogre or gone off to Egypt, Anthony might just choose Egypt. She knew she certainly would! All it would take was careful planning on her part, and selecting just the right man to play his part.
This was where her scheme hit a snag. A big one. Where on earth would she find such a fiancé? Someone so dreadful that even Anthony would not want her to keep him, yet at the same time there would have to be something about him, something that Anthony might believe was irresistible to her. The scheme would never work if Anthony did not fully believe she honestly wanted the fellow.
So just what would this wantable yet objectionable man look like? Certainly she’d never seen anyone like that, not in the tight, dull circle Mamma and Anthony kept her in. But perhaps her sister-in-law Julia might know someone who…
A blustering shout interrupted her imaginings.
She couldn’t quite see over the ballroom crush, but she could certainly hear some sort of racket going on at the far end of the room, near the door. Drat, if only she were just a bit taller! Finally something interesting was occurring and she could not see it.
She pressed through the crowd to get a closer look. There was, after all, no way she was going to miss ogling at what might be her only bit of excitement all Season.
Whispers and scandalized murmurs breezed through the pack around her, but she could not hear enough to get the gist of things. She could, however, begin to pick out a few words here and there from the loud male voice shouting over the hushed din. Indeed, things were getting more than interesting. She ducked under Lady Davenforth’s enormous bosom and pressed past Sir Douglas MacClinty’s portly abdomen. No one noticed her, so she kept on, moving slowly toward the front of the room. Mamma would surely have a fit, but Mamma hadn’t seen her so far. She could gawk as blatantly as she liked.
“It just isn’t seemly, sir!” the blustering male voice was saying.
“Yes, it seemed a bit unusual to me, too,” another male voice said.
This was a deep voice, a voice with tone and texture that Penelope was certain she’d recognize if she ever heard it again. It was a good voice, warm and amused and certain. She could picture the man it belonged to as smiling while he spoke. She could imagine he had a glint of mischief in his eye.
She could also tell he was more than a little bit drunk.
“But for shame, sir! You had your hand on my wife’s, er… arm!” the first voice stormed.
“No, sir,” the second man corrected. “I had my hand on your wife’s, er, bosom.”
The crowd gasped. Someone—most likely the blustering gentleman—choked. The man with the warm, amused voice said nothing, despite all the tumult around him. Penelope decided she simply must get a look at this person.
There was a chair against the nearby wall, so she scooted herself to it and hoisted up her skirt. Surely with all the fuss these gentlemen were causing no one would so much as notice a woman with strawberry ringlets standing atop a chair, would they? Of course not. Up she went, steadying herself by grasping onto the nearby fern propped securely—she hoped—on a plaster column.
Ah, now she could see the men. She easily recognized her host, Lord Burlington, and he appeared much as he usually did: red-faced, jowly, and, well, blustering. The other man was a different story. She drew in a surprised breath.
For all his
cultured tones and textured warmth, the man appeared very unlike his voice. She expected someone dashing and rakish, someone who lived by his wit and reveled in the stimulation of intelligent conversation, among other things. Someone who appreciated fine spirits and looked down his nose at lesser men. A dandy, even, who was sought after and used to being admired. That was how he had sounded, at least.
What she saw when her eyes fell upon him was something quite different.
By heavens, but the man was a hermit! He was unkempt, with dirt in his hair and whiskers on his face several days old. His clothes were a disaster. If he had been dressed for mucking a stable or plowing a field, he would have been only slightly overdone. The man was a positive horror!
And now he noticed her. She clutched the fern for support when his eyes locked onto hers. When he smiled she thought she felt the chair shift beneath her feet.
“If you’d let me explain, Burlington,” he said to the blustering man, although his eyes remained fixed on Penelope. “I was trying to tell you that you have reached a hasty conclusion where your wife is concerned. I was walking into the room as she was walking out of the room and we merely collided. There was nothing more than that.”
“But you were alone with her. Your hand was on her… Well, don’t think I haven’t heard of your reputation, sir.”
“Yes, yes. I daresay everyone has heard of my reputation and this is hardly going to rectify that, is it? Oh well. I assure you, in this instance, at least, I am innocent.”
“I ought to call you out!” the first man blustered on bravely.
“Well, I suppose I could shoot you on a field of honor if you insist, but I really would so much rather not. My head is going to be bloody ringing enough in the morning, as it is.”
The crowd laughed at that, and the red-faced man went even more red-faced. He seemed to realize he was running out of practical reasons to continue his blustering, but it was obvious he wished to continue. He glanced around nervously and at last was reduced to giving his disheveled companion a frustrated sneer.
“Since my wife would be very much distressed at the thought of a duel, I shall let you go this time.”