Reforming the Rogue

  Cover

  Reforming the Rogue

  With nowhere else to go, penniless Linnet Pelham is forced to take refuge with her sister in London, only to learn that her sister’s betrothal to Lord Cairngrove is the scandal of the ton. Never one to shy away from an unpleasant situation and convinced of the couple’s devotion, Linnet is determined to see them wed, if only she can persuade Cairngrove’s brother, Nic Barton.

  Nic, a notorious rogue who is all too aware of his dashing good looks, is dead set on preventing his brother’s marriage. Even as he schemes to frighten Linnet’s sister into walking away from the engagement, he sets his sights on seducing the lovely Linnet with whispered promises of lessons in love.

  But Linnet has a few lessons of her own to teach, and as the two match wits and spar over their siblings’ fate, the undeniable passion growing between them might force them both to learn the meaning of true love.

  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 My Dashing Groom by Kensington/Zebra in 2002 under the title “Love Lessons,” copyright © 2002 by Donna Lea Simpson.

  Beyond the Page edition copyright © 2013 by Donna Lea Simpson.

  Material excerpted from A Scandalous Plan copyright © 2003, 2013 by Donna Lea Simpson.

  Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

  ISBN: 978-1-937349-79-0

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher.

  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.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Excerpt from A Scandalous Plan

  Classic Regency Romances by Donna Lea Simpson

  Books by Donna Lea Simpson

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “You cannot marry your whore, Cedric. It is just not done.”

  Cedric, eighth Earl of Cairngrove, did not look up at the speaker. Instead, he frowned down at the papers—marriage settlements newly prepared by his solicitor and sent around for his approval—splayed out in front of him. He made a careful notation in the margin of one paper and turned it over on his massive oak desk, one of several enormous pieces in the stately library of the Cairngrove London residence. “Wrong, Nic,” he said, gazing over his glasses with an expression that mingled affection and irritation. “I can, and I certainly will.” He paused and his expression hardened, the soft, jowly lines of his face becoming granite. “However, if you refer to Jessica as my whore one more time, I will call you out.”

  Unfazed by the threat, the younger man said, “You shall be the laughingstock of London.” He paced away from the desk toward the window, but then whirled and returned, planting his hands on the burled oak surface and leaning over to emphasize the urgency of his words. “Nay, you shall be an absurdity, held up to ridicule throughout English society. You must see that you will make of the family name a mockery!”

  Dominic Barton—Nic to his intimates—the younger of the two men, was also the more striking. The hands that he laid on the desk as he leaned across it were not soft, but they were immaculately kept, with a ruby insignia ring on the right ring finger. His arms were solid and clad in the finest of superfine wool, part of an exquisitely well-cut coat. Where the earl was descending comfortably into middle age, advancing into his forties with a spreading stomach and thinning hair, Barton, at thirty, was just coming into his most attractive years, lean and athletic, with broad shoulders, narrow hips, dark hair and intense eyes, almost coal-black.

  But where good humor and lively intelligence sparkled in the earl’s eyes and danced on his lips, the younger man’s features told a tale of self-indulgence, debauchery, almost, and . . . well, there was no other word for it. Strangely enough, there was a priggish cast to his expression that hinted that though he was quite content to indulge his own carnal appetites, there was a definite line between what he thought fit for himself and what he thought was owed his family name and history. For all of his man-about-town airs, Mr. Dominic Barton was a bit of a puritan, and never more so than where his family was concerned.

  “Nic,” Cairngrove said, taking off his glasses and polishing them on the cloth that lay next to his inkwell. “I do not care if people laugh. Not one whit. Let them. Let them have a jolly great roar at my expense.” He frowned at an inky smear on his glasses and wiped it off.

  Barton slapped his palm on the desktop. “But a Cairngrove has never wed a whore!”

  Cedric stood swiftly and his ringed hand, bearing the insignia of his old and respected title, flashed out. But the young man was quicker and caught the earl’s hand before the slap was delivered.

  “Really, old brick,” Nic drawled. “I thought you more tolerant than that. And swifter.” He dropped the older man’s hand.

  “I meant what I said,” Cairngrove growled. “I will have no one speak ill of Jessica in my hearing. She is to be my wife, and the man who dishonors her in my hearing will pay for it with the slash of my sword. I mean that, Nic. I will spill even my own brother’s blood.”

  Barton gave him a long look and said, “Cedric, old man, you know I would never accept a challenge from you. It would be just too drearily Cain and Abel. Except this time it would be Cain lying in bloody mortal peril.” He faced his older brother across the desk. Dark eyes flashing in the sunlight that pierced the deep gloom of the high-ceilinged library, he continued, “Remember this, though, brother, you may be able to control what people say to your face but you cannot command what they say behind your back. And behind your children’s back. What price will they pay for your decision?” He turned on his heel and marched out of the room, the heavy thunk of his boot heels evidencing his disapproval of the recent turn of events in his older brother’s life.

  Cairngrove slumped back down in his green leather chair and passed one hand over his eyes. He hated this chasm between him and his only sibling but it did not change his determination. How could he bring Nic to understand what it felt like to be deeply in love for the first time in all of his forty-three years?

  And damn it, he had earned his happiness! When their father died unexpectedly at a relatively young age, Cedric had done his duty, marrying at the tender age of twenty-one an eminently suitable heiress, Lady Wilhelmina Stuart. Before her unfortunate passing, they had produced five children, three of w
hom had survived to adulthood. William, Viscount Darden, the Cairngrove heir, was now twenty and in Vienna as a diplomatic assistant. Allan, eighteen and William’s younger brother, was also in Vienna with the horse guards. Their sister, Melanie, Allan’s twin, was married and touring the Continent with her new husband.

  So with his children settled in life, what had Cairngrove to do now but please himself?

  And marrying Jessica would please him. He knew it was unconventional. And good Lord, he knew no Cairngrove had ever done it. But he was going to make his mistress his wife and be damned to the world.

  If Nic could just once experience love—just once—then he would understand that there was almost nothing in the world one would not sacrifice for it.

  • • •

  Linnet Pelham, an elegant young lady of twenty-three, gazed at the gauzy material in her hand and said, “Jess, I hope this turns out all right. I had such high hopes of it when I started, but I should have known I am not the dab hand at stitchery that this fussy work requires. I should have left it to the milliner.”

  Jessica Landry, a fretful expression on her narrow face, turned onto her side and said, “It doesn’t matter, Lin. Don’t finish it if you don’t want.”

  “Jess, I did not mean that! I meant . . .” Her voice trailed off and she gazed over at the other woman, who lay in bed, pale and wan after another bout of nausea. If only Jessica would allow her to call in a doctor! But she wouldn’t hear of it, becoming violently agitated whenever it was mentioned. “Jess, you do love Cairngrove, do you not?”

  Tears filled the young woman’s blue eyes before she squeezed them shut. “I do.”

  “Then you want to marry him.”

  “Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know!” She thrashed around on the bed, turning onto her back again, then onto her other side. Finally she rolled back over, hugged a pillow to her thin bosom and stared at Linnet again. “Why can’t he just leave things as they are; why did he have to make such a fuss?”

  Exasperated, Linnet threw aside the awkward attempt at a veil that she was sewing and said, “He wants you to be his countess. You should be ecstatic! God, Jess, he loves you! Is that so hard to understand? He loves you and he wants to be with you always.”

  Great fat tears rolled down the other woman’s cheeks. “Don’t be angry, Lin, I just—”

  “Oh, honey, I’m not angry!” Linnet knelt down by the side of the bed and put her arms around the weeping woman.

  “I am his m-mistress,” Jessica sobbed, almost doubled over as she curled into a ball under the covers. “I never expected him to m-marry me!”

  “But now he wants to.”

  “People will m-mock him! Gillray will make drawings, and others will poke fun, and—”

  “Jess, stop it!” Jessica was quickly making herself hysterical and Linnet felt it was time to inject some common sense into this emotional bathos. “Listen to me! If anyone can weather the storm that will erupt, it is Cairngrove. He is a strong and intelligent man and he loves you! There is a clear path here; either you love him and will marry him or you do not love him and will break it off.”

  A little calmer, Jessica said, “It is not that easy!” She sniffed and used the handkerchief Linnet gave to her to blow her nose. “I am only thinking of him. And . . . oh, God, Lin, what about his children? They will hate me!”

  Linnet stood awkwardly and rubbed the feeling back into her legs. “Don’t be an ass! They will not hate you.” Forced into honesty by her own realization that Jessica could have the right of it, she finished, “Or if they do, it will be their own problem, not yours. Cairngrove will support you.”

  “But I will not stand between him and his family!”

  Sighing in exasperation, Linnet said, “Then if you think that his spoiled daughter and sons’ hurt feelings are of more importance than Cairngrove’s happiness, go ahead and break it off.”

  “I didn’t mean that!”

  “Then don’t break it off!”

  “You just don’t understand, Lin, and you never will. I’m exhausted; I am going to sleep for a while.” Jessica turned to face the other way.

  Linnet gazed at her steadily for a moment, then said softly, “Sleep, Jess. I will be close by if you need me.”

  Perhaps she had been too impatient, Linnet thought. She had no idea what Jessica was going through, what doubts, fears, inadequacies. And Jess had not been well for some time.

  Linnet, after all, had only been there for a couple of weeks, at loose ends after being told abruptly, at the end of Easter term, that her services as English Mistress at Fox Hall School for Young Ladies were no longer required. Her sin, she thought, though it had never been stated outright, was in telling a girl of fourteen what would be required of her in the marriage her parents were contracting for her fifteenth birthday. The child was astoundingly callow, and being somewhat acquainted with the girl’s mother, Linnet knew that the poor girl would go to the marriage bed woefully ignorant. Linnet could not delay the marriage but she would have the child aware of what she could expect.

  How could she have known that Ellen, the girl in question, would then rebel at being expected to do such intimate things with the “poxy old fart,” as she referred to her intended bridegroom? The wedding never took place, the mother of the bride blamed Linnet, and Linnet was “released” from her employment. In secret she gave a quick hurrah for Ellen’s newfound independence and her stubborn resistance to marrying her fifty-three-year-old prospective bridegroom. But still, though she had no regrets about her actions—Ellen’s future was worth the sacrifice—she did regret her lack of a wage, the impossibility of getting another teaching job with no reference from Fox Hall, and the necessity of descending on Jessica unannounced and unexpected.

  And yet it appeared she was not a moment too soon. Masterful at breaking up a wedding, could Linnet now save a marriage she fully believed would lead to great happiness for both parties? She recovered, from the bedchamber floor where she had tossed it in her fit of pique, her lamentable attempt at creating a marriage veil fit for the future Countess of Cairngrove, and slipped from the room as Jessica’s breathing became even and deep. Down the hall in the room designated for the seamstress creating a lovely ivory dress for Jessica’s wedding, she handed the veil over to the woman inside, saying, “Mrs. Semple, if you can make something of that, I shall be eternally grateful.”

  The woman took one look at it and said, “Looks, Miss, like an ideal strainer for Cook’s whey.”

  Laughing, Linnet closed the door on the sight of yards and yards of frothy silk and Brussels lace and headed down the dark hall toward the stairs. Her reflection flashed by in a mirror in the hall and she paused, glanced at it, and then glanced away. Every time she looked in the mirror these days she found herself wondering, could she, dare she, take the same path Jessica took a few years before—should she go onstage? Should she try to find a new way to make a living, since there was no likelihood of her finding employment as a schoolmistress again?

  But Jessica had had a natural talent, a dramatic flair that broke the audience’s heart and held them spellbound, unable even to summon the brass to pelt her with rotten oranges or sing loud drinking songs, as audiences were wont to do. If Linnet ascended to the stage all she would do would be act as target practice.

  So what would she do with her future? With Jess making such an astounding match it was possible that Linnet, on the earl’s coattails, could wheedle her way into society, insinuate herself into some man’s good graces and elicit a marriage proposal. Cairngrove was an absolute lamb, and if Jess asked him he would, without a second thought, foist a shabby-genteel spinster schoolmistress onto the ton and pass her off as marriageable. But since she had already dismissed her dramatic abilities, she did not see herself any better able to act demure and conceal her natural streak of acerbic wit and untimely sense of the ridiculous. No, and neither did she see her way clear to becoming one of the earl’s pensioners, though she knew Cairngrove well enough by now to k
now he would give her a wage as a companion to Jessica. But she cringed from that thought. She was not and never would be a sponge. No, she would just have to find a way on her own to make a living.

  She descended the first flight of stairs to the landing and turned the angle to go down the rest when she heard a commotion at the door. Her lips firmed into a straight gash of displeasure across her face. Another troublemaker. Boxley Square, the site of Jessica’s townhome, was in a moderately well-to-do section of the city, but still they had their share of hawkers and peddlers.

  Linnet straightened her back, took a deep breath, and descended the last set of steps. There had been a spate of importunate visitors to the door of late. The news of the Earl of Cairngrove’s marriage was not supposed to have leaked out yet, but there had been numerous visits from “silk merchants” and such, all with absolutely the best prices in London on cloth from India, china from the Orient and jewels from the French royal family’s treasures. Linnet found a kind of satisfaction in turning them away with her natural brusqueness.

  “I will handle this, Meg,” she said to the maid who had answered the door. “What can I do for you?” She pushed the exasperated Meg out of the way.

  “Are you the, uh, ‘lady’ of the house?” His tone insolent, the man at the door had marked off the word “lady” in such a way as to surely give offense.

  Narrow chin down, Linnet felt an almost savage joy in the fury she would now unleash, and yet . . . and yet, this man in front of her looked like no peddler nor even Fleet Street type she had ever chanced to meet. Too handsome, too self-assured, too well-dressed. Too high up in the social hierarchy. Within seconds she had assessed him. His unassailable position in society was spelled out in immaculate linens, perfect tailoring, gleaming Hessians and a diamond stickpin.