Rogues to Riches (Books 1-6)

by Ridley, Erica

  Camellia smiled weakly. On stage, she knew just what to do. Off stage, there was no script to follow. No curtain to end the scene.

  “More’s the pity. Your singing voice is second to none.” Lord Hawkridge touched his hat. “Miss Grenville, you truly are far better than the current reigning soprano.”

  Lord Wainwright’s brows lifted appraisingly. “In that case, she would be an international phenomenon at the opera.”

  Camellia’s teeth gritted at the earl’s choice to speak about her, rather than to her, despite standing less than an arm’s width away.

  “Miss Grenville? Part of the opera?” Lady Upchurch recoiled in horror. “Obviously she mustn’t join the theater, Wainwright. Think of her reputation! Why, we’d never be able to associate with a Grenville again.”

  Indeed. Camellia bared her teeth in a false smile.

  The earl had managed to link her name and, by extension, her entire family to the possibility of reputation-ruining scandal right in front of two of society’s most uppity busybodies as well as the grand dame colloquially known as the “old dragon” due to her ability to destroy the standing of society hopefuls in the space of a single breath.

  “I shan’t be singing anywhere but my family musicales,” she assured the ladies before the subject could spiral too far out of control.

  Lady Roundtree harrumphed. “I should hope not, child. The very thought of you sinking to the level of a common actress…”

  Mortified that the image had even been put into their heads, Camellia’s neck heated uncomfortably. She clenched her fists and sent Lord Wainwright a scathing glare. If she became fodder for salacious rumors… Her skin went cold.

  Living through the scandal would be bad enough if she really were an opera singer. But she wasn’t. She was no one. On purpose.

  In fact, she’d dedicated six-and-twenty years of her life just to avoid embarrassing moments like these. Unobtrusiveness was the perk of being a wallflower. Decades of hiding from the public eye kept her—and her reputation—safe. Yet all it took was one trip to the circus for a single comment from Lord Wainwright to undo all that sacrifice and thrust her straight into the mouth of the dragon.

  The next time any of these ladies attended a Grenville musicale, they would think of this moment and recall their threat to give Camellia’s entire family the cut direct if she were to be foolish enough to follow her dreams.

  She raised her brows at the earl in irritation. He’d started this nonsense. Surely he would come to her aid.

  “I don’t know,” Lord Wainwright said blandly. “I rather like actresses.”

  Her mouth fell open in disbelief. So much for rescue. Of course the cad liked actresses. The profession was often synonymous with prostitution. And now he’d linked her name to the same image.

  Lady Pettibone stared down her nose in utter distaste, as if no longer picturing Camellia merely a too-scandalous-to-associate-with opera singer, but now a painted trollop with loose morals. The sort who would be happy to entertain a man like Lord Wainwright however he pleased.

  Camellia’s face flushed in humiliation.

  “Perhaps a moneyed, titled ‘gentleman’ doesn’t mind being the center of scandal, but I have never wished for such attention, and I thank you to cease forcing it upon me,” she hissed between clenched teeth.

  He raised his brows. “I merely enquire why a woman’s talents should be seen as a strike against her.”

  “It depends on the ‘talents,’” Lady Pettibone said coldly, having clearly decided the earl’s comments had gone too far. “A lady of good breeding would never give a fallen woman so much as the time of day.”

  Mapleton dug his elbow into the earl’s side with a lewd look. “Wainwright will give anyone the time of night, though, eh?” He wiggled his brows. “Perhaps an opera singer is just what the earl needs.”

  Lady Pettibone’s haughty gaze did not waver. “Opera singers may be suitable for dalliances, but they are far from countess quality. Even for a rakehell earl.”

  “Oh, you mean the Grenville chit?” Mapleton snorted with laughter. “Obviously not her. A mouse that timid isn’t countess quality or courtesan quality. Too easy to forget in the morning.”

  Camellia’s mouth fell open at the horrific slight. Her cheeks burned. She wanted to sink right through the sawdust. Or beat the earl’s pretty head with one of the clowns’ wooden sticks. He was unbelievable. First he had made her an object of speculation, then he stood idly by as his associate made her an object of ridicule. She glared at him. Both men were despicable.

  “A mouse, am I?” she demanded, her voice shaking with anger and humiliation. She spun toward Mapleton. “You are an insufferable gossip who spreads tales about other people because you’ve nothing interesting of your own to say.” She turned back to Wainwright. “And even a lioness wouldn’t want to be this blackguard’s countess. You’re a successful rake because ’tis only women of loose morals who will have you.”

  Mapleton’s jaw dropped open. After a moment of stunned silence, he roared with delighted laughter. “Not even a lioness! Just wait until the caricaturists hear of this.”

  Lady Pettibone rapped the unrepentant gossip with her parasol. “If a single word of this entirely inappropriate conversation gets printed in any scandal columns or scratched into an etching, I will disavow its contents, deny my presence, and ensure you never step foot back into London again. Are we clear?”

  Mapleton’s laughing countenance drained of color. He swallowed visibly. “Fine. You’re hurting Wainwright, not me. He basks in the attention.”

  “Of course he does,” Camellia muttered. What else could one expect from a rake without a heart?

  “The last thing I want is scandal,” Lord Wainwright assured her, his gray-brown-green eyes wide with innocence.

  Mapleton nearly choked in disbelief. “That’s only because you’ve a wager in the betting books claiming you can exist forty days without your name in the scandal columns. We all know that’s going to fail.”

  What an absurd wager. Camellia turned away in disgust. The earl was the opposite of men like respectable, mature Mr. Bost. Lord Wainwright was scandal incarnate. His exploits had graced scandal columns and penny caricatures for years. She should not have expected more from him.

  Mapleton was right. There was no chance of a rakehell like Wainwright curbing his acclaimed flirtations. The only miracle was that he hadn’t lost the bet already.

  Camellia stood as far from them both as possible. As someone who had spent her entire life keeping her name out of the gossip columns, she found it appallingly distasteful for a man to be unable to do the same for forty short days.

  “Ladies? Gentlemen?” a groom called hesitantly. “The aisle is clear now, if you’d like to exit the box.”

  Like to? There wasn’t anything Camellia wanted more.

  She curtseyed to the three ladies, ignored all three “gentlemen,” and hastened out of the orchestra box before her once spotless reputation could come to any permanent harm.

  Chapter 13

  By the time of the masquerade that evening, Camellia was desperate to escape into the night for a few blissful hours in the company of Lord X. She could do well with a restorative dose of anonymity in the arms of a gentleman who had never once let her down. Her spirits lightened.

  Lord X would be the last person to allow her to be belittled or permit her to be uncomfortable in any way. From the moment they had met, he’d rescued her from unwanted attention and compounded his chivalrousness by giving her full control over the direction and pace of their relationship.

  Her heart tripped. Relationship. She could scarcely deny they shared one, no matter how difficult it might be to define. He was why she was here, decked head to toe in shimmering silver, save for a white-feathered mask and gray satin dancing slippers.

  More than that, he was the reason she awoke with a smile in the mornings and tumbled into her dreams with a wistful sigh every night. Lord X was open. Honest. Dangerousl
y perfect.

  And after tonight, there would only be one masquerade left before she was betrothed to a stranger.

  She shoved the disheartening thought away as the doorkeeper pushed open the entrance to the main hall and called out her name. “Please welcome Lady X!”

  “Lady X!” the boisterous crowd roared back, glasses of champagne raised high.

  A wide grin curved her lips at being back in the mad, exhilarating world of the masquerade. She touched her fingers to one of her earrings as she scanned the upper promenade for the only merrymaker who mattered.

  “Lady X,” came a familiar husky voice into her ear. “My heart thumps every time your name is announced, but it only leaps when I see that it’s you.”

  Her skin flushed with pleasure as he lifted her gloved hand to his lips.

  “Lord X,” she murmured. “I wondered if you would be here yet.”

  “You needn’t wonder.” He lifted her palm to his cheek before releasing her hand. “I have been wretched with wanting to see you again for an entire week. You have made me a desperate man. It is quite unbecoming.”

  “You could never be unbecoming,” she said, and meant it.

  With a crooked smile, he pointed at his mask . “How do you know? I could be alarmingly monstrous beneath the black feathers.”

  “It would be a very becoming sort of monstrous,” she assured him. “The sort that might turn you into a prince, if the right woman were to kiss you.”

  “Then a prince I must be,” he replied softly. “For you have already kissed me.”

  Camellia’s mask hid her blush. She hoped. “I might be tempted to do so again, if you would be so kind as to take me for a stroll through the rear garden. Ever since I glimpsed the stone folly from the balcony, I have been eager to find the path that leads to it.”

  He brushed the side of her cheek with his knuckles, then proffered his arm. “As you wish.”

  “Thank you.” A sense of contentment washed over her. She looped her arm through his.

  “You’re very welcome.” He touched her hand. “Pleasing you pleases me, my lady.”

  As before, the sea of revelers parted as if by magic as Lord X led her toward the rear doors on the far side of the chamber. In minutes, they were out of the hot, riotous crowd and stepping into the cool stillness of the night.

  Although there were many other couples on the lawn, on the balcony overhead, or on one of the many stone paths below, their low conversations—if indeed there were any—were indistinguishable to the ear. By gazing at Lord X instead of their surroundings, Camellia could almost imagine them alone in the garden with only the stars as chaperones.

  “Tell me more about how ‘wretched’ you were to see me,” she teased as they strolled down a winding, circuitous path.

  “Wretched is too kind a word for the pitiful creature I have been.” He pressed her fingers to his lips in a kiss. “Last night, instead of sleeping, I spent the hours imagining this night instead. How you would look. What I would say. Whether you might press yourself against me in the stairwell again and abuse my poor tender heart with glimpses of passion.”

  “You’re certain it wasn’t you who pressed against me?” she asked.

  “It’s hazy,” he admitted. “Sometimes I get mixed up between what really happened, and the alternative versions that transpire in my dreams.”

  Amused, she cast him a speculative gaze. “Did you really lie awake practicing what you would say to me tonight?”

  “Absolutely. Then forgot every word of it the moment I saw you,” he answered cheerfully. “I’m afraid you get the real me, rather than the practiced me. What about you? Have you never rehearsed what you planned to say?”

  “No,” she replied honestly. When one did not leave one’s quarters except to sing memorized songs at the occasional musicales, there were no conversations that needed to be rehearsed.

  He glanced at her in surprise. “Not even for tonight?”

  “Especially not tonight.” She gave him a shy smile and hoped he could see her sincerity. “I want every moment with you to be as deliciously surprising as the last.”

  “Hmm.” He swung her into his arms and raced up a hidden trio of steps that opened into the rear of the stone folly. “Were you expecting that?”

  “No,” she admitted breathlessly as he set her back on her feet.

  “Good.” He cradled the back of her head in his hand and lowered his mouth to hers.

  Pleasure rushed through her. Not only from his kiss, but from everything about him. The romance of his words. His strength. His passion.

  The warmth of his embrace might weaken her knees, but his fearless honesty and eagerness to see her captured her heart. His face might be masked, but he willingly bared his soul to her. She had never felt closer to another person. Never imagined it could be like this. Never wanted it to stop. She was helpless to resist.

  She wrapped her arms about his neck and opened herself to him. The stars, the night, the moment was theirs. She kissed him with six-and-twenty years of loneliness. She kissed him with all the pent up yearning she suffered between each of their far too brief masked encounters. But most of all, she kissed him with the same honesty he’d given to her.

  Her pulse quickened as their kisses became deeper. She wanted him to know how interminable each hour was outside of his arms. The highlight of each week was being here, with him. She had missed him far more than was wise, but she was no longer wholly in charge of her heart.

  An important piece of it now belonged to him.

  When at last they broke their kiss, he led her to a small stone bench between two fluted pillars. They sat in the center, their bodies touching, his warm arm wrapped snug about her to cradle her close.

  Only then did she recall that the folly was visible from the balcony. Anyone at all could have seen him swing her into his arms. A dozen revelers might have witnessed their kiss.

  Her breath caught. Not with embarrassment, but with excitement. The idea pleased her far more than it should. Despite the royal gown and the extravagant mask, Camellia was a proper young lady. An unremarkable wallflower.

  Yet, knowing that no one would ever know it was she who allowed herself to be carried in a stranger’s arms, she who returned his passionate kisses on the roof, in the stairwell, inside a folly—the anonymity gave her a power she had never before experienced.

  Even Lord X did not know the identity of the woman he was wooing. It was a different sort of attachment. A romance that was only real during the night. As ethereal as a dream.

  This was her dream made true. An impossible adventure. Limitless freedom, if only for the night. If others wished to watch, then let them watch. She was not here for them. She was here for herself.

  And for Lord X.

  She laid her head against his chest and listened to the comforting rhythm of his heart.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “For you, what would constitute a perfect day?” she countered, rather than admit the truth.

  “This,” he responded without hesitation.

  “This is a perfect night,” she corrected, despite the rush of pleasure at his answer. “What do you do when you can do anything you want?”

  He was silent a long time before responding.

  “I’m not sure I ever have days where I do solely what I want,” he admitted at last. “To some people, it may look as though that’s all I do, but the truth is that even when I am not devoting my time to my responsibilities, every action I take, every word I say is often picked apart or misinterpreted or exaggerated beyond its intended meaning. So even when I am doing what I want, I am not able to do it how I want, which makes it not what I want after all.” His self-deprecating chuckle rumbled against her ear. “If that makes any sense.”

  “I think so.” She nodded slowly. “I am rarely misinterpreted, but I live in fear of just such an occurrence. That fear has prevented me from doing almost everything I have ever wished to do.”

 
“Almost everything?” he prompted.

  “I’m here,” she said simply. “That’s more than I would have believed myself capable of even a month or two ago.”

  “And yet, you must have had a perfect day like you asked me about. Or at least an idea of what yours would be.”

  “I am lucky enough to have had a perfect moment many, many times,” she admitted. Her hideaway restored her equilibrium and gave her peace. “For me, it is a large round rock on the shoulder of my favorite river. No one knows about the spot but me. It is simultaneously open to the universe and completely private. It is the one place I can be free inside my head and out.”

  “It sounds magnificent.” His tone was wistful. “I wish I could see it. I love nature more than anything. Not that I would interrupt your private sanctuary, of course.”

  “I wish you could,” she said softly. “That’s what would make it a perfect day.”

  He wrapped his arms about her and snuggled her closer. “What would we do if we were there?”

  “Exactly this.” She nestled against him. “Instead of a stone bench, we’d be seated atop the rock, nestled in each other’s arms. Instead of a folly, we’d have trees and flowers and a river.” She pointed beneath the cupola to the masked couples in the shadows of the balcony. “And instead of merrymakers… we’d have complete privacy.”

  His lips brushed her hairline. “To do what?”

  “This.” She cupped his cheek with her gloved hand and brought his head down to meet her lips.

  He pulled her close, sinking a hand in her hair as though to keep her locked in his embrace. Foolish man. There was nowhere else she would choose to be. No one else she would rather be kissing. The days that separated them between each masquerade made the nights their mouths joined all the sweeter. Her breasts felt full, her body suddenly demanding.

  When she was not in his arms, she yearned for his embrace. Longed for his smile, his scent, his strength, his taste. Here beneath the stars, she belonged only to him.