Fair Deception (Newmarket Regency Book 2) Read online

  FAIR DECEPTION

  by

  Jan Jones

  Secrets and scandal in Regency Market

  ~ A Newmarket Regency ~

  Fair Deception was shortlisted for the RNA Love Story of the Year in 2010

  Fair Deception copyright © 2008, 2016 by Jan Jones

  Kindle Edition

  Jan Jones has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the author at the address below.

  This is a work of fiction. All names and characters spring entirely from the author’s own imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Cover design and formatting www.jdsmith design.com

  All enquiries to [email protected]

  Fair Deception was first published by Robert Hale Ltd in 2008

  FAIR DECEPTION

  is dedicated to Barbara, with love

  and, as always, to the RNA

  CHAPTER ONE

  London. February 1816

  Susanna was half-way through the Indian hunters’ opening dance when she became aware of the flaxen-haired gentleman in the second tier of boxes. A moon-bright flash caught her eye as she pirouetted across the Sans Pareil stage and she glanced up to see one of the lanterns shining on his head. She would have looked away, should have looked away, but for two things. Firstly, the young man was quite extraordinarily comely and secondly, he was smiling directly at her.

  Susanna was so startled she nearly missed a step. There was nothing new in being ogled, the Indian hunters’ gauze tunics, like the majority of the chorus costumes, left shamefully little to the imagination. But this gentleman was smiling, not leering, and furthermore his eyes were on her face not her body.

  Susanna traversed the front of the stage in a series of leaping stretches, whirled around, laid her hand on her costume dagger and glanced up again. This time there could be no doubt. He was smiling in admiration. Directly into her eyes. A most peculiar sensation fluttered in Susanna’s breast. Just for a moment the shell of detachment she had learnt to cultivate in the thirteen weeks since the season opened cracked a little. She smiled back.

  On stage, the Indian chiefs were setting the scene. Susanna sank respectfully to one knee as if to listen. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the flaxen-haired gentleman’s profile. His countenance had an attractive openness. He wore a blue coat and only moderate shirt points so he was certainly no dandy. His lively expression showed that he was following the rather extravagant dialogue between the chiefs and their wives with appreciation. Another crack zig-zagged down Susanna’s shell. In her experience a London theatre-goer who paid attention to the play was quite a rarity. Most were more anxious to be seen themselves than to be entertained by the actors.

  It was time to spring up for the spear dance. In the front row of the pit, a group of drunken Cits cheered and ogled lasciviously. Susanna masked a shudder of distaste. The brief glow engendered by the fair-haired gentleman’s admiration died, swamped by the cramping, desolate reality of her situation. Why had she ever thought coming to London would prove the answer? All she had done was to swap one set of problems for another.

  “...and so, Miss Fair, I would appreciate it if you did not use my melodrama as a vehicle for attracting a beau.”

  “I beg your pardon, Miss Scott. It won’t happen again.” It irked Susanna to apologise for merely smiling at a young man in the audience when some of her fellow actresses went to far greater lengths to advertise themselves, but she needed to keep this job too badly to antagonise the Sans Pareil’s star and raison d’être.

  “I am glad to hear it. I should have thought you of all people would have learnt the danger of encouraging advances from admirers.”

  Susanna gritted her teeth. “I collect you are referring to the Honourable Rafe Warwick. I assure you, that gentleman’s pursuit of me is none of my doing.”

  “Dishonourable, surely? No honourable gentleman would lay a wager on your virtue as he has done.” Miss Scott smiled at her own wit, her good humour restored. “Well, well, go and change. You are singing tonight, are you not?”

  Susanna inclined her head and went into the chorus-room to put on her blue muslin dress. The neckline was lower than she liked, but one of the first lessons she had assimilated at the Sans Pareil was that one did not earn repeat performances at a variety theatre on the purity of one’s voice alone - and a song on the bill was worth three shillings in her purse at the end of the week.

  She had chosen a favourite ballad this evening, that of an innocent country lass led astray by a fine gentleman. She walked to the centre of the stage, to where her voice would reach the whole theatre. She preferred performing by herself like this. It felt better. Calmer. It was more akin to the audience intimacy that she had experienced when acting with the Chartwell Players. She took a deep breath, felt the persona of the wronged maiden settle around her and started to sing. When she looked up at the close of the final refrain, still in the grip of the girl’s emotion, it gave her a piercing thrill to see the flaxen-haired young man on his feet applauding. His warmth was quite dazzling and Susanna found herself unable to resist it. For a full five seconds their eyes met and held. Ridiculous, said a sane corner of her mind. Ridiculous to read anything extraordinary into a smile and a pair of vivid eyes. But for that moment, it did not seem so absurd. The feeling filled her, clothed her in stardust...

  An irritated hiss from the wings recalled her. She was taking too long over her exit. Flushing, she left the stage to make way for the spectacle of a man climbing an eight foot pole with no visible means of support.

  The interval passed uneventfully. Susanna told herself she hadn’t expected the young man to brave the crush of the greenroom to meet her. He was a lively swell out for an enjoyable evening with friends. There was no more to it than that. She changed into her Young Witch of the Woods costume for the pantomime and brushed out her hair in order to appear wild and untamed. She winced as she crossed in front of the glass. Her red-gold curls went almost indecently well with the bronze gauze of the costume. As had become her custom, she left her day clothes ready for a swift exit. She might deal in fantasies on stage, but her reality was rooted in common sense. It had been borne in on her that just because the deeply unpleasant Mr Warwick was not in the audience, it didn’t mean he would not be waiting outside as soon as the curtain fell.

  The show was done. Susanna pulled the hood of her cloak closer and inched out of the alley. A dozen steps would take her past the portals of the Sans Pareil. Another dozen and she would be safely in the midst of the departing crowd. She scanned the faces for Rafe Warwick... and stopped, her feet stuck fast to the cobbles.

  Directly in her path, moon-bright head shining in the glow from a lantern, stood the flaxen-haired gentleman. He was tall, she hadn’t realised that, and more finely dressed than he’d appeared in the box. An ache like an impossible dream swept through her as she took in his bright hair, vivid blue eyes and loose-limbed form. Even though every instinct was screaming that she must get away now in case Warwick appeared, she found herself unable to move.

  The gentleman was half-laughing, half-arguing with a dark-haired lady and another man into whose arm her hand was tuck
ed. “Why should I not?” he was saying. “Deuce take it, Nell, it’s devilish off-putting having you and Hugo smelling of April and May all day long. Why should I not find a little comfort for myself?”

  “Because you have no money with which to buy it, brother of mine. Or do actresses now give away their favours as freely as their smiles? Come away, Kit, do. We are trying to solve your pecuniary problems, not compound them.”

  They were talking about her. Susanna’s cheeks burned with mortification. She made to withdraw into the shadows but her movement must have alerted him. Over his sister’s head his eyes met hers. They widened with recognition and she felt her heart beat faster. Then, with the tiniest quirk of his lips, he returned some laughing answer and gestured to his companions to proceed along the Strand.

  Susanna leant against the wall, weak with relief. For a devastating moment, she’d thought him another in the endless line of men who thought they had only to admire her hair and toss her a couple of guineas for her to be in their bed. He had transcended them though, and shown himself to be a true gentleman. It mattered not a whit that she would in all likelihood never see him again. Her feeling on stage had been vindicated. As she moved, her hood caught on the rough brickwork. Without any sense of danger, she fumbled to free it. And felt a vice-like grip on her shoulder.

  “Well, well,” said a smooth voice. “If it isn’t my little songbird. And there I was thinking you were avoiding me. Has nobody taught you it is impolite to spy upon your betters, wench? Or are you imagining that a pretty face is like to be looser in the pocket than an experienced man of the world such as myself?”

  “Let go of me!” All thoughts of the flaxen-haired gentleman vanished. Susanna twisted out of her captor’s grasp, cursing under her breath for letting herself be distracted.

  “Let go of me, sir,” corrected the Honourable Rafe Warwick. His half-lidded eyes glinted. “It is going to be such a pleasure to teach you manners, my dear.”

  Susanna suppressed the nausea that rose in her throat. From the moment Rafe Warwick and his friends had strolled into the greenroom just after Christmas and his calculating gaze had rested on her unusual hair and gauze-clad figure, she had hated and feared him. She loathed his cold eyes, his dissipated countenance and his small, cruel smile. She detested the way his long fingers closed on her arm as if judging just how much pressure was needed to bruise the delicate skin. It hadn’t needed company gossip to tell her he was rich and merciless and not accustomed to being crossed. She had known it from the first flesh-crawling inspection through his quizzing glass. Susanna swallowed. For over a month now she had managed to avoid him by hastening home as soon as she came off stage or else staying close to her fellow players on her way to and from her lodgings. Tonight it seemed her luck had run out.

  A malicious smile played on Warwick’s lips as he relished her dilemma. Susanna’s eyes flicked desperately down the alley, but there was no one in sight and he was cutting off the route back to the stage door. With a quick movement, she gathered up her skirts in order to sprint along the open street.

  “No you don’t, jade.” Warwick’s cane whipped out to strike hard at her ankle. Her thin shoes offered no protection at all. As she screamed and stumbled, he grabbed a handful of her cloak and dragged her towards him. “I have been patient long enough. Tonight I’ll have my reward.”

  “Never. You’ll never have me.” Susanna struggled in his nightmare hold. He laughed, overpowering her easily, enjoying his mastery, enjoying her fear. She smelt spirits on his breath as his mouth came closer to hers. “Help,” she screamed, really terrified now. “Help me!”

  His eyes were distorted with lust. “You delude yourself, my pretty. No one is like to interfere between a gentleman and his lightskirt.”

  Susanna wrenched her face aside, the fierce, stabbing pain in her ankle hampering her efforts to escape. “I am not a lightskirt. Nor will I ever be yours.”

  An icy voice spoke from behind her. “Which appears to make you wrong on three counts, sir. Four if you include the fact that you are assuredly no gentleman either. Be good enough to unhand the lady at once.”

  In the instant of incredulity when Warwick’s muscles stilled, Susanna broke from his grasp, falling against the opposite wall of the alley with a cry of agony as her injured ankle gave way. Looking up, her heart thumped with disbelief. The flaxen-haired young man from the audience stood there, breathing hard. Inside his well-cut evening clothes he was alert and tense. He flicked a quick glance at her, then trained an implacable gaze on Rafe Warwick.

  “Lightskirt, actress, whore. Three words with but a single meaning,” drawled Warwick. “Take your misplaced zeal elsewhere, puppy. The wench is mine.” He stretched out his gloved hand to seize Susanna’s wrist in a grip of iron.

  “The lady does not appear to think so.”

  “The lady,” Warwick made the word an insult, “is well aware of the strength of my feelings for her.” He twisted her wrist upwards without compunction, forcing a whimper from her lips. “You see? She pants for me.”

  Still the gentleman kept his steady, blue-eyed gaze on Warwick’s face. “I have not heard her say so.”

  “Nor will you,” ground out Susanna. “I would rather die.” The pain in her ankle and wrist was near making her faint; she had to bite her lip in an effort to remain upright.

  The gentleman’s friends had arrived by this time. His sister whispered something in her companion’s ear. He nodded and disappeared.

  “This really is too foolish,” said Warwick in a dangerous tone. His free hand caressed the top of his cane. “Go home, boy, you are becoming tiresome.”

  Susanna’s champion smiled widely. “My besetting fault,” he agreed, and cut upwards without warning to land a powerful blow on Rafe Warwick’s chin, following it with a solid left-hand drive to the midriff.

  Warwick collapsed onto the greasy cobbles of the alley. Susanna gaped at his insensible form, unable to take in her miraculous escape. She barely heard a horse clatter to a halt.

  “It is well for you that Hugo has a talent for finding hackney drivers, Kit,” said the dark-haired lady with some asperity. She turned briskly to Susanna. “You had best make haste and tell the jarvey your direction. I doubt your admirer will be incapacitated for long. My brother has always had more enthusiasm than science.”

  Reaction was beginning to set in. Susanna felt her whole body start to shake. Her bruises throbbed. “I thank you, ma’am,” she said in a thread of a voice, “but I fear I am unable to...” And indeed, as she moved away from the support of the alley wall, the white-hot pain in her ankle pitched her forward.

  Strong arms were instantly around her, taking the weight off her crippled foot with a gentleness that almost made her weep after the violence that had been buffeting her up until now. She received a confused impression of dancing blue eyes and gleaming hair that feathered her face as her rescuer bent to hoist her up.

  “Truly a maiden in distress,” he said, a laugh in his voice to match the irrepressible devilry in his gaze. “The evening gets better and better. She had best come to Half Moon Street, Nell. So talented as Hugo is, I feel sure you will soon catch us up.”

  Before Susanna could gather sufficient words to protest the impropriety of any such action, she was lifted bodily into the hackney carriage and the driver given the off. The sudden lurching motion, coupled with the pain in her ankle, made her feel very sick indeed. She closed her eyes until the sensation receded. Upon opening them again, she found herself being regarded with wry sympathy.

  “I am afraid I do not commonly carry a bowl around with me,” said her rescuer, “but if you wish I can ask the driver to pull over for a few minutes.”

  Oh, good heavens, she hadn’t imagined it. She was in a hackney carriage with a gentleman she had seen for the first time tonight. “I... certainly not.” Susanna might be momentarily disoriented, but nothing would induce her to vomit in the street. “I may be only an actress, sir, but I do have standards.”
br />   “There is no ‘only an actress’ about it,” he said. “I have never heard that song performed so well. Why did you not have any speaking roles?”

  Susanna blinked at the unlikely question. “By the time I joined the Sans Pareil they only had chorus parts to offer.” And after walking the streets for a week, she had been glad enough to accept.

  “But you are a proper actress.” It was less a question than a statement of fact.

  “I... yes, I was formerly with a touring company in the West Country.” The hackney lurched, knocking Susanna’s foot against the side panel and bringing on a recurrence of her nausea. “Sir, I am most grateful for your intervention, but I beg you will take me to my lodgings now.”

  He frowned. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  Susanna’s heart thumped in alarm. Had she jumped, or more correctly fallen, from the frying pan into the fire? To be sure, this gentleman was a thousand times more comely than Mr Warwick, but even so... That overheard snippet of conversation about finding a little comfort drummed in her ears. She swallowed hard and looked at him directly, colouring to the roots of her hair. “Sir, I must tell you that you may have mistaken my... That is to say, I am not in the habit of...”

  “Lord, I could tell that,” he said, thrusting his long legs out as best he could in the cramped space. “It is the Dishonourable Rafe’s habits which concern me more than yours. He doesn’t have the reputation of letting sleeping dogs lie.”

  The carriage jolted again, jarring Susanna’s foot so badly that she could not suppress a gasp of pain.

  “You really are in no condition to fight him off should he pursue you, you know.” Her companion inclined his head in a mock-formal bow. “Christopher Kydd, at your service. My friends call me Kit.”

  Reluctantly, Susanna shook his hand. Even though she could not see his face properly in the shadows, his presence filled the space between them with a terrifying potency. She was right to be wary. The mere touch of his fingers was enough to set a tingle of heat rushing through her veins. “Miss Fair,” she said, jerking her hand away. “And I assure you that my landlady is quite capable of...”