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The Rogue's Redemption

By Ruth Axtell Morren

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The Rogue’s Redemption

Chapter One

Gerrit’s gaze wandered over the crowded salon and he wondered yet again why he had come to this masquerade. Something about a bet made late last night by some fellows from his regiment.

He surveyed the crowded room as he had all evening, feeling no inclination to talk to anyone. The London ton, his world—or so it had been. It was all foreign to him now. Peopled by fools dressed in nonsensical capes and masks, as if one couldn’t tell who was who and who was dallying with whom.

“My dear, that’s the Duke of Weatherspoon,” hissed an older feminine voice to the cloaked figure next to her. They had moved to stand just in front of Gerrit, close enough for him to hear them in the noisy salon.

Gerrit observed the pair of women in their masks and dominoes—one short and dumpy, the other tall and statuesque.

“He’s coming our way! Smile!” the older, shorter one entreated the taller. He recognized the peremptory tone as belonging to Mrs. Bellows. Was she still around? He’d known her when he’d first entered London society as a youth. Disdained wherever she went by the ton, known as a notorious social climber, she was barely tolerated by her betters, and that only because she clung to a few people who allowed her to attend their parties. Little had changed in the years he’d been away. Little but himself.

He swallowed another mouthful of his drink. Mrs. Bellows’ presence was only further evidence he was in the wrong place. A barometer was no more certain of predicting a storm than Mrs. Bellows in gauging the bad ton of a party.

Mrs. Bellows nudged her companion. “He’s looking your way!”

Gerrit snorted into his drink. She was at it again, “introducing” a young lady. That inevitably meant the young lady suffered some severe social impediment.

He followed the direction of Mrs. Bellows' fan. Sure enough, the Duke of Weatherspoon was walking in their direction, the crowd bowing and scraping before him like a bunch of peasants. The duke’s dark blue cape was thrown over one shoulder, revealing a perfectly cut coat with a lustrous white waistcoat beneath. Although tall and stately, he was beginning to show a rounded paunch.

As he approached, Mrs. Bellows stepped directly in his path, spreading her skirts in a magnificent curtsy. The duke and his colorfully garbed retinue were forced to stop. Gerrit watched in amusement, curiosity suspending his boredom. Weatherspoon was known as very high in the instep, but half the fun of a masquerade was the liberties people took with one another, pretending not to recognize each other and addressing them more freely than they would normally dare.

“Sirrah, there is a certain young lady desirous of making your acquaintance this evening.”

“Indeed, madam?” he answered in a languid tone, bringing his quizzing glass up to the eyehole of his black mask and examining her as if she were some particularly gruesome creature.

“Most assuredly, your grace.” She nodded for emphasis.

“Very well, if it will allow me to pass.” He sighed audibly, provoking titters among his party.

Mrs. Bellows grabbed the tall young lady by the elbow and brought her forward. Gerrit felt an instant of sympathy for the girl as he watched her stumble, then quickly right herself, being freed from Mrs. Bellows’ grasp in the process. She bent her knees in a smooth curtsy. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, your lordship.”

The titters grew louder.

She had a slight accent. Yankee?

“Oh, your grace,” Mrs. Bellows gushed with a knowing wink, “my young charge is overcome by your exalted status, but I’ll have you know she is a young lady of impeccable character—”

“Hoping to snag a title,” a lady by the duke’s side added in a low, mocking tone.

The young lady drew in a sharp breath and moved back a step, then stood rigidly straight.

Mrs. Bellows continued to chatter away as if she hadn’t heard the remark. Gerrit wouldn’t have been surprised if she hadn’t. “If you’d care to see her pretty countenance unmasked, she will be attending the Treadwells' Ball on Thursday. And she goes riding every forenoon in the Row...”

These last words were said to the duke’s departing figure. He’d barely given her a nod of dismissal before moving on with his entourage. “A pleasure I find myself able to forswear,” came floating back to them, followed by outright laughter from the duke’s party.

Bunch of sycophants. Since he'd been back from the Continent, Gerrit found his tolerance for these arrogant titled lords nonexistent. What had they done while so many of Britain's manhood had spilled their blood on foreign soil?

Gerrit tossed back the rest of his drink and turned to eye the hapless Yankee heiress once more. For an heiress she must inevitably be. Mrs. Bellows only took on those clients who made it worth her while.

“My dear Hester, I do believe he liked you.”

“If that is the way the British show their favor, I’m hard-pressed to imagine their disapproval.”

Humor laced her low, cultured voice. Gerrit found himself intrigued by the lady behind it. It couldn't have been easy to be so summarily dismissed by a pompous fool of a man whose only distinction was having been born with wealth and a title. He admired the aplomb of someone who could brush off the incident so easily.

“Oh, don’t regard it, Hester. The Duke is a funny man.” Mrs. Bellows patted the young lady’s hand. “You’ll see, he is sure to be at the ball on Thursday. Now, we just have to make sure you have the right gown, and he’ll be smitten.”

“I feel a bit of headache. It must be this crowded room. Would you mind very much getting me some refreshment, Mrs. Bellows?”

“Of course not, my dear. Why didn’t you speak sooner? I’ll have it for you in a thrice. Are you sure you’ll be all right here by yourself? I’ll only be gone a minute.”

“I shall be fine. If no one has spoken to me before this, I’m sure they’ll leave me alone while you are absent.”

“Are you quite certain?”

With a few more reassuring words from her charge, Mrs. Bellows bustled away.

Gerrit watched her disappear into the crowd before taking a step forward to stand in the place she'd vacated. Noticing his move, the young woman turned her caped head and their glances met.

Hazel eyes stared back at him through the wide holes of her half-mask. They were the color of a dark pond which reveals deeper shades behind its mottled green surface.

He tried to tear his gaze away, but found himself helpless during those seconds. There was a directness in her glance, which he wasn't used to in a woman. He detected no coyness or false modesty there. Instead, they told him more than words that she knew exactly who she was and pretended no more. He envied her that knowledge; what he wouldn’t give to be able to start with a clean slate and be able to look people straight in the eye.

Drawing in a deep breath, he ignored the command of common sense that told him to flee from her presence. Instead, he inclined his head a fraction.

He read the first uncertainty in her eyes, as if she wasn’t sure the proper protocol to follow, very much aware that the arbiter of taste, the worthy Mrs. Bellows, was conspicuously absent. He wanted to shout to her, Run, run while you still have the chance! I’m a wolf in sheep’s clothing, known to devour little innocents for breakfast.

Instead, he smiled, that charming smile to which countless damsels from highborn to low had willingly succumbed over the years. “Although we haven’t been properly introduced,” he told her softly, “permit me to address you. A masquerade allows a certain license not normally observed in polite society.”

“I see,” she answered in matter-of-fact tones. “Are you also a duke?”

He appreciated her wit. “Alas, no. A mere soldier.”

She tilted her head a fraction, considering. “A redcoat.”

He chuckled. “Two strikes against me, I see.”

“I must remind myself repeatedly you are no longer the enemy.”

For someone who had been feted and admired since his return to England following Waterloo, it was deflating to be viewed as the defeated foe. “I suppose the overthrow of the tyrant Boney is viewed differently across the Atlantic.”

“Our immediate threat was in the guise of redcoats encroaching our border from the north. Do you know they even invaded our city?”

“And which city is that?”

Her chin lifted a notch. “Bangor in the District of Maine.”

“Ah...a namesake of our Welsh city.”

“No. Actually it was named for a hymn.”

“I see,” he said. “In truth, I didn’t know of the invasion. I was too busy keeping track of our campaigns on this side of the Atlantic to follow what was going on in the Colo-” He coughed. “Excuse me, in the United States.”

“Yes, we won our independence, you know.”

“Yes, I was aware of the fact. It was before my time in His Majesty’s army, however.”

“Would that have made a difference?”

He stared at her. She was laughing at him. In her quiet, dignified tone, she was making sport of him. He looked down at his empty glass. “Who is to say?” he murmured.

“Thank goodness for the peace treaty then,” she countered lightly.

He chuckled again, raising his glass to her. “Otherwise we might not be meeting here tonight.”

“We haven’t yet been introduced, have we?”

“A mere technicality. I am acquainted with your Mrs. Bellows, although I doubt she would give me a recommendation.”

She pursed her lips, making their soft fullness all the more appealing. “Are you so very bad?”

“I have no title, unless you count a military one, and less fortune. I doubt you’ve sailed across the Atlantic for less.”

She neither admitted nor denied the assertion. Instead, her focus continued on him. “You are a soldier. Are you decorated?”

Her questions were as direct as her look. Was it merely the mask that made her so bold? “I doubt my medals would recommend me, since they were gained killing your allies. I suppose I should be thankful I was never in the Colonies, so I can claim no Yanks on my conscience.”

“Perhaps you would not have lived to tell the tale.”

He laughed, a heartier laugh than he’d enjoyed in a long time and enjoyed watching her lips curl upward, almost reluctantly.

“Perhaps not,” he admitted cheerfully, setting his glass down on the tray of a passing waiter.

“What rank are you?”

“Recently promoted to major.”

“Almost as good as a duke,” she murmured.

He found himself laughing a second time. She had a fine lips, he conceded, soft red, wider on the bottom, finely bowed above. Her skin, what was visible beneath the mask, was smooth and a shade darker than was fashionable.

She was also tall, coming up to his mouth at least, unlike most ladies who barely reached his shoulders. Her build was slim from what he could ascertain under her lightweight cape.

“Bye the bye,” he said, taking out his snuffbox from a waistcoat pocket, “a duke usually prefers to be addressed as ‘your grace’ rather than ‘your lordship.’”

He heard another intake of breath and watched as a slow suffusion of red stained the lower half of her cheeks.

“Well, that only makes one more blunder on a shockingly long list. I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to beg his grace’s pardon,” she added.

“What, don’t you think he’ll show at the Treadwells’ Ball?” he asked.

Her eyes twinkled in reply and he found himself enjoying the company of someone who could laugh at herself.

“I would wager the duke will not show at the Treadwells’ Ball. I am sure dukes do not make it a habit of being seen anywhere near a Treadwell.”

“Especially young, wealthy, unattached dukes. They would have a horror of the Treadwells,” he confirmed for her.

“I suppose you know the intricacies of London society?” Her tone held a trace of wistfulness.

“Inside and out. I enjoyed a season or two before joining the Coldstreams and shipping off to the Peninsula.”

“How fortunate for you.” Again, he had the suspicion she was mocking him.

“That depends from which side you are looking at it.”

She tilted her head sideways. “What are the possible angles?”

He looked down at his blue-enameled box, a gift from a young demoiselle in Paris for those weeks he’d spent in her company last summer after the liberation. “There is the duke’s exalted view. Avoiding fortune hunters, fighting the inevitable tedium of a life of leisure...”

“How difficult for him.”

“Then there is the less exalted view of the third son of a minor baronet.” He grinned. “Some days it’s fighting off the creditors, others it’s fighting off the parental pressure to marry an heiress. Younger sons are the bane of their mamas, I vow. So have a care.”

She frowned. “Is that a warning?”

He shrugged. “Do you need one?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Are you so sure of your safety? There are quite a number of impoverished, unattached members of the ton floating around these days.”

“Are there indeed?”

“Yes. A wealthy young lady must beware. She presents quite a catch for some of them, even if she hails from the Colonies.”

“Former colonies, I believe you meant to say.” She laughed, an infectious, joyous sound. “They would have to pass Papa’s inspection. I pity them.”

“Is he so formidable?”

Again, that slight tilt of her head, like a bird knowing it could fly away at any moment. “Let us say, he is not easily fooled.”

He clucked his tongue. “People can be very cunning when the stakes are high enough.”

“Papa is very astute. He looks at a man’s heart.”

He felt a sudden chill at the simple words. How would he fare if his own heart were laid open to examination? “That is a daunting thought.” He surveyed the company before them, wondering where the officious Mrs. Bellows had got to. He spied her struggling to make her way across the crowded room. “Tell me, are you in London in search of a title?”

“Not particularly. Do I look as if I am?” she asked. He detected only curiosity in her voice, no coyness.

“Those who engage Mrs. Bellows' services are usually known to be fond of a title.”

“Oh.” She sounded nonplussed. “Papa merely wanted someone to take me about London before we return home.”

That was a first. “I see. So, no interest in vying with the London misses for a duke? I hear a collective sigh of relief from the wings.”

She laughed again. “Is competition so fierce for—how did the lady put it—snagging a title?”

“Competition can be cutthroat. Mamas and their daughters spend countless hours discussing strategies for catching the attention of the latest young earl or duke on the Marriage Mart. If they suspect another of encroaching on their territory, they'll stop at little to thwart her.”

“Oh, my.” Her eyes sparkled, and he was caught once again by their fascinating depths. “It sounds like a challenge.”

“You like a challenge?”

“At times.” She sighed. “However, Papa is not easily impressed by a title. Quite the reverse, I should imagine.”

“A pity. You'd be a prime target for someone with a lesser title, say a baron of good repute but very little means, who'd find a young lady of...” He hesitated, eyeing her.

“Substantial means, but no breeding, attractive?” she finished for him.

“Precisely,” he answered, amused at her frank admission. Before he could say anything more, she asked him, “Are you, like my esteemed companion, hired on by the month to provide discreet introductions for wealthy tradesmen’s daughters?”

“I should think not!” he retorted before realizing she was again poking fun at herself and not at him. “I suppose anything’s possible for the right price, but I haven’t as yet had to stoop so low.”

“I do beg your pardon,” she said quickly. “I hadn’t meant any offense.”

“I am flattered that I appeared as one who has free access to every fashionable address in town, but alas, I am the last man you’d need in your camp if your plan is to 'snag' a respectable title.”

“Why is that?”

“If your name is linked to a rakish, reprobate like me, you’ll have it tarnished faster than—” He had no chance to finish his sentence, as Mrs. Bellows came panting up to them, her ample bosom heaving.

“Oh, my dear, forgive my delay. I could scarcely make my way to the dining room, there was such a crush. And then I ran into Mrs. Palmer. I haven’t seen her since her godson’s christening—” The words died on her lips as she noticed Gerrit.

He smiled, realizing she probably recognized him behind the mask. Time to pay the piper. It had been an amusing few moments. More entertaining than any he'd spent among the ton since his return from Belgium.

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