A Rogue's Rescue

Cover

Books by Donna Lea Simpson

Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark

Revenge of the Barbary Ghost

Curse of the Gypsy

The Viscount’s Valentine

A Rogue’s Rescue

A Scandalous Plan

Title Page

Copyright

A Rogue’s Rescue

Donna Lea Simpson

This novella was first published in the anthology Untameable by Kensington/Zebra in 2002, copyright © 2002 by Donna Lea Simpson.

Material excerpted from A Scandalous Plan copyright © 2003, 2013 by Donna Lea Simpson. It was first published under the title A Father’s Love in the anthology A Match for Papa by Kensington/Zebra in 2003, copyright © 2003 by Donna Lea Simpson.

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

Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

Published by Beyond the Page at Smashwords

Beyond the Page Books

are published by

Beyond the Page Publishing

www.beyondthepagepub.com

ISBN: 978-1-937349-65-3

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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.

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Excerpt from A Scandalous Plan

About the Author

Chapter One

Ingram stalked the crowded ballroom, his presence at the edge making the others nervous, like prey at a water hole that raise their heads and sniff the air to catch the scent of the black panther, rustling through the underbrush. Some, sighting him, moved away, pulling their impressionable daughters away from him, as if the merest touch of his shadow would taint.

But Viscount Ingram, formerly plain old Mr. Lovell Melcher, did not appear to notice. He scanned the throng for a particular face, weak-chinned, bespectacled, but vicious rather than foolish in its vacuous emptiness. And there was his despised quarry! His gaze sharpened; his dark eyes narrowed. There was the man who had escaped without paying his rightful debt and would now suffer the consequences. He started forward but was blocked in place by a sudden movement of the crowd.

That, my dear, a voice near him hissed, "seated so forlornly at the edge of the ballroom floor, is Miss Ariadne Lambert. Poor, poor woman. Looked after her elderly aunt for fifteen years; devoted herself wholly to the old woman’s care. Wasted all her youth. Too bad really. She was only just passable as a girl, but of course, the sickroom, and all that . . . she has dwindled into the fright you see before you."

Ingram, unwillingly caught in one spot by the press of the crowd, became the reluctant confidant of a woman he hadn’t even seen yet, her shrill voice cutting through the murmur like a knife through curd. The elegant blue and silver ballroom was stifling, and there was a general movement just then toward the supper room; even he could not worm through.

And the voice droned on.

"She should be in caps, of course. But look at her! For all the world as if she thinks a beau is going to stride out of the crowd and sweep her off her feet. The woman tittered. She must be . . . oh, all of thirty-three? Now she lives for tea, gossip, and to read the most dreadful of novels, you know, only gothics and romances. Too bad. She was rather good ton at one time; never top-notch, of course, but acceptable. ’Course, she is rich now. Oh, yes, positively oozing money. The old aunt left her pots and pots of filthy lucre, if I must be vulgar, and that makes up for a multitude of faults. Gains her access to these events."

Ingram, impatient and restless, leaned against the stout back barring his progress—his quarry was sure to move on and be lost in the crowd if he did not accost him soon—but the big fellow in front of him was wedged securely and could not move. And he would not retreat, as there was supper to be had yet. Hostage to his spot near the curtained entrance to the refreshment room, Ingram sourly observed the pair who were gossiping. The gossip purveyor was a thirtyish matron, well-dressed, well-moneyed, and she spoke to—

He frowned. Where had he seen the other woman before?

The matron sighed. "I just hope poor Ariadne does not fall for the first gamester or adventurer who says a pretty word to her, for she is terribly, terribly gullible, poor dear. She would give her last sou to be married, or at least courted."

At that moment the stout fellow moved and Ingram could see the woman being indicated by the tilt of the gossipy matron’s plumed headdress.

She sat alone at the edge of the ballroom, her slippered toe tapping in time to the country dance that was the last number before supper. She was plain, gaunt of face and angular, with spectacles firmly planted on her nose and a hideous dress in pea green highlighting her sallow complexion. Even alone, though, she seemed cheerful, smiling and nodding as a couple passed by her.

Ingram turned away, intent, once more, on finding the man who owed him money, for the fellow was going to be beaten badly within the hour, though he did not yet know it. Ingram let no man cheat him without the severest of reprisals. In that moment, as he passed by the two gossiping women, he remembered whom the one listening so intently was. She was sister to Dapper Dorsey, an ineffectual cardsharp and villainous roué who skirted the edge of respectability so successfully that he managed to never be paid back for his incursions on feminine purse strings. The viscount cast one look back at the gaunt spinster, and then at the two gossiping women. Damn, but he should warn that foolish, gossiping idiot whose ear she was dropping such precious information in.

But no. Not his business. He turned and spotted his prey. There was his business. In ten minutes he would be breaking a nose in the back alley. That would satisfy the debt between them.

* * *

Ingram nursed his knuckles. Who would have thought the cheating dolt would have such a hard chin? And give as good as he got. Limping, Ingram was heading to the supper room to have a bite to eat before leaving the stifling affair, when his progress was arrested by the one sight he had hoped not to see.

The spinster—what was her name?—was still sitting in the same chair on the edge of the ballroom floor. But at her side was Dorsey, gazing at her with a kind of stunned adoration. Nobody was better at that look than he, and women found it irresistible, without exception believing in his fervent declarations of devotion. To Ingram’s eye the man was too good-looking, almost pretty, with curling fair hair and smooth skin. But perhaps that was just the opinion of a man who had had his nose broken on three separate occasions and whose jaw did not quite run straight, the way nature intended.

Ingram plunked down in a nearby chair. Dorsey was leaning toward the