Kissed by a Scoundrel (My Sweet Scoundrel Book 2)

by Aileen Fish

  Kissed by a Scoundrel

  Aileen Fish

  Kissed by a Scoundrel

  Copyright © 2017 Aileen Fish

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go to http://aileenfish.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  The Rake Takes a Wife Excerpt

  His Impassioned Proposal Excerpt

  About the Author

  Book List

  Chapter One

  April 1817

  London

  The burning sensation in Leo, Viscount Ringley’s gut had nothing to do with the amount of liquor he’d imbibed the night before. It wasn’t the result of eating too many petit fours in Lady Billingfield’s card room. No, the sole reason for his distress was the size of the vowels he’d been forced to render to the Marquess of Markham in said card room.

  With his pockets to let, he had no means to pay even a portion of the sum, and Markham expected payment in full today. Ringley couldn’t ask his best friend Jonas Tatum for a loan—he owed the man too much already. No, the only thing to be done was approach Father once again.

  He rode to Mayfair before he could come to his senses and leave Town. Simpson, Father’s butler, greeted him as he entered the house. “My lord, you’re here early today.”

  “Too early for my tastes. Is Father in his office?”

  “Yes, sir. Shall I tell him you’re here?”

  “No. I’ll go to him.” Drawing a confidence-building breath, Ringley strode upstairs and down the hallway, pausing just before reaching the doorway. There was still time to turn around. He could go home to Middlecroft and hide until he had some funds.

  If only he believed Markham would let him off that easily.

  The double doors were open and the sweet fragrance of Father’s pipe tobacco filled the air as he entered. “Good morning,” he said with all the cheeriness he could muster.

  Glancing up from his newspaper, Father wordlessly lifted a fuzzy, black caterpillar eyebrow.

  “I was out for a ride and thought I’d say hello.”

  “Don’t give me that falderal. If you’re here for breakfast, have Simpson order a plate from the kitchen.”

  “No, thank you. I ate at the club.” He hadn’t gone anywhere near the club in fear Markham would still be playing cards and would insist on payment of Ringley’s debt.

  “Get on with it, then. Why are you really here?”

  “I’ve come for an advance on my allowance.”

  “You have. Well then.” Father pulled out a drawer and withdrew a slim, black leather binder. Setting it on the desk, he thumbed through the pages filled with his scrawls. “Ah, here we are. Let’s see…yes…carry the five…Well, adding up your prior advances, you’ve used your income until you’re forty-three.”

  Ringley coughed, lowering his gaze. Sure, he hadn’t asked for so much as that. “My need is rather urgent. If you could give me even half my quarterly, it would suffice.”

  “What do you need it for this time? Damages from a brawl? Behind on your rent? Or have you lost another wager?”

  “Cards, sir. I was certain my luck was turning if I just played one more hand.”

  Drumming his fingers on the polished wood of his desk, Father stared for a bit before asking, “And how many more hands did you play after your money ran out?”

  “I lost count after ten.”

  Father leaned back in his chair, rested his elbows one the arms and steepled his fingers. “I’m not going to ask who you owe this time. It doesn’t matter. I’m not rescuing you.”

  Ringley’s eyes widened and he broke into a cold sweat. “But, sir—”

  “You’re thirty years old—”

  “Twenty-nine,” Ringley inserted.

  “And it’s time you took some responsibility. Pay your own debts. Settle down and find a nice, respectable young lady to marry. Not too rich, or you’ll drain her accounts, too. Grow up, my boy, it’s past time.”

  “But…” He couldn’t come up with a reasonable excuse to delay the inevitable. One day he’d marry, just not today…or this year. Father was wrong about one thing, though. He was too proud to spend his wife’s money.

  He left as gracefully as he could, tossed a coin to the boy holding the reins of his horse, and trotted off with no destination in mind. There must be a way to borrow money from someone. Who hadn’t he borrowed from lately, and which of those did he not owe money to? Failing that, he’d find some poor fool to play cards with and win enough to appease Markham for a time.

  Chapter Two

  Drowning in a sea of muslin, lustring, taffeta, and silk Lady Lavinia Gordon sighed. “I’m bored.”

  “How can you be bored with all we’ve bought? Here, try on my peach sarcenet,” Lady Selena Cornett offered.

  “Peach isn’t my color.”

  “My puce spencer would look quite well with your sprigged cotton, Lavinia.” Lady Clara held up her new bonnet. “Which ribbon looks better, the pink or the yellow?”

  “Don’t you have a green?” asked Lady Matilda.

  Lavinia yawned with no pretense of trying to mask it. “I don’t want more gowns, or hats, or slippers. I want to do something.”

  Always eager to please, Lady Clara rolled to her knees, shoving a gown off her lap. “Can we walk along the Serpentine and see which gentlemen have arrived? Mama said Mr. King’s aunt said he will be in Town this week.”

  “Walking is dull.” If Lavinia didn’t find some form of entertainment soon, something to stimulate her mind, she would go mad. At three-and-twenty years old, this was her fifth Season and she had no more inclination to marry now than in the past. Watching her mama sit day after day reading or working on yet another piece of needlework gave her no desire to give up the activities she enjoyed. “I need a challenge. Some sort of wager.”

  “Mama hasn’t given me my allowance,” Mattie said. “I can’t wager anything. Will you allow me to pay you in a few weeks?”

  Clara’s laugh bubbled. “Mattie, you always assume you’ll lose.”

  “I do always lose.” She plucked at the drawstring on a new reticule.

  “We’ll bet with something other than money. I have enough of that,” Lavinia said with all modesty. “We’ll make it more interesting.”

  Selena shook out the gown in her arms and draped it across the bed. “I’ll play along. What will we wager, and what must we do to win?”

  “Kiss a man.” Mattie lifted her chin and tilted her head, quite pleased with herself.

  “What?” Clara’s eyes bulged at the thought.

  “Who?” Selena looked ravenous. “There are a few gentlemen who I’d love to kiss.”

  “Do you mean there are some you haven’t?” Clara puckered her lips and passionately kissed the air. Selena tossed a bonnet at her.

  Lavinia walked to the window to look out on the street. There were more riders and carriages each day as everyone returned to Town from their country houses. More morning calls, more invitations, but nothing held her attention for more t
han half an hour.

  “We’ll each choose a man,” Mattie explained, “from among the friends of the Miscreant Marquess.”

  Turning around sharply, Lavinia fisted her hands on her hips. “I wish you would stop calling him that. He’s my brother, after all. Show him some respect.”

  “I’m not calling him anything the rest of the ton hasn’t. All of his friends are wicked in their own way.”

  “Well, no one may choose Markham. I couldn’t bear to think of any of you kissing my brother. How horrid!”

  “Give me some paper and a pen,” Clara said. “We’ll choose four men, put their names in a hat and each pick one.”

  Minutes later, they allowed Lavinia to choose first, given her status as the daughter of a duke. “Viscount Ringley. How am I to kiss him? Whenever he ventures out of his club, he hides in someone’s card room.”

  Clara grinned, and the other two ladies giggled. “You wanted a challenge.”

  The three laughed at her, then drew names for themselves.

  This could turn into an interesting wager. Not only did she have to find a way to trap Ringley outside a ballroom, but she must also do it in a way that her brother wouldn’t find out. She’d hate to think what Markham would do to Ringley.

  Selina folded the name she’d drawn and put it in her pocket. “How do we know we can believe each other? Any of us could lie about it. Not that I would. Nor am I suggesting you would, either. Oh, forget I said anything.” She hung her head.

  “She has a point,” Clara said.

  Lavinia tapped her finger on her chin while she ran ideas through her head. “The kiss must be witnessed. By one of us, or someone we trust.”

  “But others will find out,” Mattie complained. “My mother would take me back to Grandmama’s cottage in Little Marsh and I’d miss the entire Season.”

  “You’ll simply have to be extremely devious, won’t you? Look, we’ve chosen four rakehells. How difficult will it be to entice one of them to kiss us? It won’t be, of course.”

  Clara glanced once more at her paper and then sighed. “Mr. Taylor doesn’t even know I exist. I shall have to pay him to kiss me.”

  “You miss the point entirely,” said Mattie. These rogues will kiss anything in a skirt. We might have this all decided at Almack’s next week.”

  “Have we said what we’ll wager?” Selena stole Mattie’s turban and pranced to the mirror to try it on.

  Lavinia looked over their pile of hat boxes, torn wrapping paper and shoe boxes. Anything she wished to own Papa would buy. To her, the challenge itself was the entire point. That was her only motivation in life. To play the pianoforte better than Mattie, which she’d yet to master. To sing better than Selena. Her dear friend was gifted with the most beautiful voice ever heard, so Lavinia would never accomplish that. Clara…she did everything well. Her paintings drew compliments from all who saw them. The emotion with which she read poetry made her friends cry.

  Come to think of it, there was nothing Lavinia did better. They all looked up to her, but she’d done nothing to deserve it.

  She did have more nerve than her friends, however. She wasn’t too shy to flirt with a man—she wasn’t too shy about anything. This scheme would be easy, something at which she could best her friends.

  “Lavinia? What do you think? About the prize for our wager.”

  “Oh, yes. Well. Mattie, you’ll put in your turban. Selena, your half-boots. Clara, what did you buy today? Oh, your reticule. No, not that one, it matches the pelisse. The silver one.”

  “But I haven’t even used it yet,” Clara whined.

  “That’s the point,” Mattie said. “You’ll try that much harder to win.”

  “I’ll put in my peacock shawl. Are we all in agreement?” Lavinia asked. She looked from one girl to the next.

  “Yes,” they answered almost in unison.

  “Excellent! We’ll begin at Almack’s on Wednesday next week. I can’t wait!”

  Chapter Three

  The assembly room at Almack’s wasn’t as crowded as Lavinia expected, but it was still early in the Season. Mama insisted she remain at her side until her friends arrived, when all she wanted was to visit the gambling rooms to look for Lord Ringley. While she waited, she kept her eye on the doors just in case he ventured into the ballroom.

  Mattie was the first of her friends to arrive. She was easy to pick out because of her red peacock feather dancing through the crowd.

  “Mama, there’s Matilda. May I go to her?”

  Her mother held up her lorgnette and searched in the direction Lavinia pointed. “Yes, but don’t go too far. You’re to dance the first dance with Mr. Hailey.”

  Mr. Hailey was a kind enough man, but that’s all he was. Luckily, he had no title nor was he heir to one, so her parents didn’t push her to encourage his affection. He was a fine dancer, though, allowing her to display herself for the other gentlemen to see. Of course, that assumed she wanted the other men to think of her as a future bride, which she had no intention to do but it made Mama happy and when Mama was happy Lavinia was free to do as she would.

  When Mattie was close, Lavinia took her elbow and led her far enough away that Mama couldn’t overhear them. “Have you seen the others?”

  “Not yet. Have you seen Mr. Ringley?” Mattie’s rose silk gown brightened the delicate shade of her complexion. She was likely the prettiest of the four friends. “We should stop this foolishness before anything untoward happens.”

  “What’s so untoward about a little kiss? You’ve been kissed before and you’re still allowed in Almack’s.” Lavinia stood on her toes to see over the heads of the people crushed around her. She stomped her foot. “We could be three feet away from someone and never know it.”

  “I don’t see many men here. Let’s look in the card rooms,” Mattie suggested.

  When they finally managed to escape the ballroom, Lavinia took a deep breath and let poise mask her excitement. A new challenge was just what she’d needed to enjoy the evening. Clutching Mattie’s elbow, she lifted her chin. “Look bored. All the Patronesses do, you know.”

  Giving off such an air gave them a cloak of mystery while they strolled the card rooms. No one would know their real intent.

  From the lack of gentlemen who took notice of them, no one cared what the girls’ intent was, real or not. The ladies glanced up from their cards with varying expressions of jealousy or derision, but Lavinia was used to that. Such was the life of the daughter of a duke. Everyone felt she was either scandalous or spoiled. If only they knew what was expected of a young lady in her position, they might see her differently.

  A duke’s daughter must be perfect. All other young ladies were allowed the occasional foible or faux pas, but the elite daughters must always be seen in a favorable light. It was all so dull.

  Skimming over the faces of the gentlemen in the room, Lavinia was prepared to give up hope for the evening until they reached the third room. “Look, there’s Nobby. At least Selena has a chance to win tonight. It’s not fair, though. We should have included a rule that all the gentlemen be present at the same time.”

  “Don’t let anyone hear you call him that,” Mattie reprimanded her.

  “Why not? It’s what Markham has called him for as long as I recall. Very well, Lord Noblegreen. Better?”

  Mattie squeezed her arm. “I wish the matrons of the ton could see you as I do. They’d be so shocked and appalled.”

  Seeing one of those matrons peering through her lorgnettes at the girls, Lavinia relaxed her features in the mask Mama had taught her so many years ago, then smiled and nodded in greeting. “They’d be no such thing. They’d be delighted to see their gossip had been correct all along. Come, we’ll speak to Nobby and see what he knows of Markham’s other friends.”

  Chapter Four

  Standing in the doorway of a card room at Almack’s, Ringley watched Lady Lavinia make a beeline to the table he’d hoped to join. Suspicion crawled up his spine like a spider. Had Ma
rkham resorted to using his sister to lure out Ringley?

  He should never have come. He should never have wagered so much beyond his means the other night, but that was nothing new. Father shouldn’t have cut him off. That was where the problem lay.

  Lady Lavinia walked among the close-set table as if she were hostess and all these people were her friends. Most wished they were, he was certain, because cachet that relationship carried with it. He knew her a little, mostly from Markham’s complaints when they were all young, and the one thing he knew about her was her loyalty. Once one became a friend, she’d never allow a harsh word to be spoken of you.

  The person she was most loyal to was her brother, and due to that, Ringley seriously considered leaving Almack’s and finding another assembly. Yet this was his best chance at finding card partners who were unaware of the seriousness of his lack of funds. He would simply outwait her, then join Nobby’s table and hope Markham hadn’t mentioned his gambling losses.

  Staying close to the walls, but close enough to the table that he could quickly bend to greet someone if needed, Ringley followed Lady Lavinia and Lady Matilda. Markham’s sister was much too pretty to remain unmarried this long, and he knew her well enough to know it wasn’t her manner that put off any beaux. She must prefer to remain single, which likely gave her father much duress.

  Her income was more than enough to solve all of Ringley’s problems, but even though Father suspected him of doing so, he would never consider marrying for money. The thought of paying Markham with the duke’s money made him chuckle. Another man wouldn’t hesitate to seek a betrothal by whatever means necessary, but not Ringley.

  Twenty minutes later when Lady Lavinia finally left the room, he was able to join his friend’s table and was making a small dent in his debt when Markham strode into the room with all the pomp a marquess could muster. Ringley’s heart jumped. He downed the last of his port and stood. “Gentlemen, it’s been nice. Enjoy your evening.”