To Con a Gentleman: A Regency Romance (Dalton Family Book 1)
To Con a Gentleman
A Regency Romance
Sarah Adams
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To Con A Gentleman Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Adams
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.
First edition November 2019
Book design by Sarah Adams
Cover design by Sarah Adams
WWW.AuthorSarahAdams.com
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
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To Chris,
my love and inspiration.
This book wouldn’t be here without you.
Chapter 1
London, 1815
It was time to go, but Rose couldn’t leave yet. She stood there facing her rented flat of two weeks that only a few days earlier she had thought was dingy. Now that it was time to leave the place she couldn’t help but think it was quaint and charming and homey and other words that people used when they wanted to make a place sound more wonderful than it was. But honestly, it was just small and musty.
Sunlight slipped in through the single window, illuminating the heavy clouds of dust in the air. Even if the light had not attested to the apartment’s age and outdated mode, the smell certainly did. No amount of beating the curtains or airing the place out seemed to cure it of its heavy scent of neglect. And yet, here she stood, unwilling to look away from the place she had temporarily called home.
Why must she put herself through this after every job? It would be easier to just turn around and walk away without looking back. Instead, her feet felt cemented to the floor, keeping her from moving on. She felt an odd tug of emotion from somewhere deep within her she didn’t like, couldn’t name, and really just wished it would go away. She had been feeling it more and more lately. It made her feel incapable of not taking the last few moments in every rented room or apartment to look around and imagine—for just one fleeting moment—what it would be like if she stayed.
Time stretched for a moment as she stood still and allowed herself to imagine a different outcome. She pictured herself unpacking her worn valise and placing her few dresses into the oak wardrobe in the corner. She would trade out the dust in the empty vase on the table for a bundle of colorful flowers and try her best to remember to refill the water when it looked low. When friends came over for a dinner party, they would all comment on the beauty and vibrancy of her flowers and insist on learning the secret to their longevity. Or would they? Rose didn’t know exactly what close friends discussed at dinner parties because she had never allowed herself to have friends. And as for loved ones, well…Papa had been gone thirteen years now. All of this dreaming was really a useless waste of time.
She wouldn’t stay. She never did. Rose would continue to live her life the way she always had and the way she preferred it — alone.
The door behind her flew open and slammed into the wall, causing the dusty vase to teeter on the entry table. She lunged and caught the vase just as Uncle Felix rumbled into the room, tripping over Rose’s valise and practically trampling the poor old piece of luggage.
So, maybe she wasn’t completely alone.
“Blast!” he said leaning over his increasingly round stomach to pick up her valise.
Rose pursed her lips together to hold off the smile tugging at her mouth. The man had become quite clumsy in his old age, though he would likely give her a fine trimming if he knew she had ever thought of him as old. But this incident alone only solidified Rose’s decision to keep him on the planning side of their operation rather than join her on the performance side.
“Rosie girl, I don’t suppose you have a bit of that good Burgundy left that we swiped from the Pinkerton’s ball, do you?”
“I would,” she said, letting her gaze rest heavily on his round wrinkled face, “if you hadn’t drunk it all the very night I brought it home. But no, I don’t suppose you would remember that, seeing as how you were drunk as a wheelbarrow.”
“Aye! I remember now—” Somehow his Scottish brogue always intensified when he smiled. “You can hardly blame a man for enjoying a fine drink.”
“No, but I can blame you for singing those Scottish drinking songs at the top of your lungs throughout the night. I’m not sure if you or I had a worse headache the next day.” The fact that in the eleven years she’d worked with the man, the worst thing he had ever done when in his cups was sing loud tavern songs spoke volumes of his character. Well, that and the time he’d thrown his boots in a pond. Wading up to her knees to fetch them had been rather annoying. Annoying and cold.
His thick brows pulled together. “If we don’t have anything to drink, what are we doing kicking our heels in here?”
“Nothing.” Too sharp. Really, had she never lied before? She forced her shoulders to relax. “I was only…taking a moment to make sure I hadn’t left anything behind.” She was not about to tell him about her girlish ritual.
“There’ll be time enough for moments once we’ve stuck our spoons in the wall,” he said. “We’ve a large sum of money to take, my girl!” The man really should learn to lower his voice. They were going to get caught one of these days.
“And yet—you seemed to have enough time to spare a moment for a drink,” she said with a smirk.
He matched her smile and doubled it. “Aye. But, Rosie girl, if ever I’ve taught you anything it’s that there’s always time for a drink.” He winked. “Have your look-about moment while I take your bag out to the hackney. But be quick about it. We’ve a lot to discuss.”
“Fine.” Rose shooed him out of the room, eager to be alone again, and listened as he left the room, chuckling his usual infectious laugh as he did.
Sometimes she caught herself thinking it was too bad the man wasn’t really her uncle. But as quickly as she thought it, she pushed it away. No matter how much she liked him, she would never let herself grow attached to him or anyone else. Having someone to love meant having someone to lose. She didn’t care to have that happen again.
Rose picked up her single remaining piece of luggage and shut the door behind her as she went outside to join Uncle Felix in the hackney. The December air bit at her face and hands and she tugged her wool coat more firmly around her. A curse slipped from her lips and hung as a cloud in front of her. Winte
r had never been her friend. Every gust of frigid wind reminded her of those miserable years as a little girl sleeping alone in a damp alley and wondering if that would be the night her toes were going to fall off as that other urchin’s did. She pushed those memories away and hurried toward the hackney.
But just then, something down the street caught her eye. A man—a familiar man—crossing the street. Rose knew that tall, skinny frame anywhere. It was the Bow Street runner that had been trying to catch her for years. Rose had never worried too much about the boyish-looking law officer because, in the past, she had always stayed one step ahead of him.
Although Uncle Felix tried to hide it from her, she knew that he had accomplices all over town that kept him informed about the runner’s movements. He had no idea that Rose had asked those same people to tell her the information first. And they always did, allowing her to anticipate the runner’s moves almost before he made them. But she had not anticipated this particular movement, and he felt too close. Alarmingly close.
Before he had a chance to see her, Rose jumped up into the hackney with Uncle Felix and shut the door. Part of her wanted to worry about finding the runner so unexpectedly close to them. But what good was worrying? It never helped anything. Decisive action was what had kept her alive all this time. So she decided to be more careful going forward and sat down on the bench.
She blew out a puff of air and attempted to shake the cold from her fingers.
“If you’d stop giving all your blasted gloves away your fingers would likely stay warm,” he said as if he had just presented her with a revolutionary idea. Rose tried not to find it endearing when Uncle Felix accidentally allowed his protectiveness to show despite her years of censure anytime he tried to coddle her.
“Where am I off to now?” Rose asked, pushing past his comment and focusing on what really mattered—the next job.
The hackney lurched into motion and began bobbing over the familiar cobblestone streets. Uncle Felix’s smile broadened enough to reveal the gap in his teeth which never failed to remind Rose of the time he ran straight into a street lamp while outrunning the watch. “We’ve got a big one this time. I’d say it’s big enough that you’d finally be able to hang up your bonnet somewhere if it was agreeable to you.”
Rose cringed. “And why the devil would I want that? I can’t think of anything less agreeable.” No. She would never do that. Her life was fine how it was.
Uncle Felix fixed his eyes on her a little too intense for her comfort. “You never wish you’d chosen a different path all those years ago? Taken up life in service instead of learning under an old fool like me?” Rose watched Uncle Felix look down at his clasped hands and fidget his thumbs round and round. What was this insecurity? The man really must be getting old.
“Not for a minute,” she said, meaning every word. “Do you regret teaching me everything you did?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer. It wasn’t that she needed his approval. But the thought of hearing him say that he regretted the years he’d spent with her stung a little.
“Regret is a fickle mistress, Rosie. I’ll never regret teaching that grubby little urchin the means to look after herself,” he said. “But sometimes I regret that I didn’t teach you to do it differently, in a way that didn’t require so much risk. Perhaps then you would feel more inclined to shackle your leg to a good fellow.” His grin went lopsided. “Maybe even a gentry cove who could treat you right and proper.”
Oh. Was that all?
Rose adjusted her posture and smoothed out the thick blue fabric of her skirt. “Well, I rarely ever do what’s right and I find being ‘proper’ deucedly dull. Can we quit being missish and get on with it?”
“You know, Rosie,” he continued, his eyes still looking as if they held a sermon within their depths. “You rig yourself up in all that armor, but I suspect that underneath it there’s a woman wanting to be loved and cared for.”
She tried but couldn’t resist the urge to grimace. “Keep talking to me about what I want, Uncle Felix, and you will likely find yourself with a hole blown through you.” He knew her ways. And he knew that she was perfectly serious about the pistol she kept strapped to her leg at all times. It was most likely why he laughed a full hearty laugh.
“Alright, you don’t have to warn me twice! I’ll quit prosing and tell you what we’ve got.”
“Please do,” she said, feeling more inclined to jump out of the moving carriage than endure one more second of personal conversation.
Uncle Felix leaned down and picked up a small bag that looked to have come from a fancy milliner’s shop off Bond Street. Whatever was inside that bag, Rose would not let herself become attached to—no matter how much she liked it. Discarding the finery after a job was a necessity. She could not risk being identified by the objects after a job was finished.
He sat the bag in his lap and pulled out a light blue bonnet with a touch too many ruffles for her taste, along with a pillow. So. It was that kind of job, was it? She had, unfortunately, pulled it off enough times to recognize the costume. Dread settled over her.
“Which unlucky gentleman is about to find himself with an increasing mistress?” said Rose.
That dangerous glint entered Uncle Felix’s eyes—the same one that had helped them scam wealthy gentlemen out of thousands of pounds over the years. “That would be the Earl of Newburry.”
Rose’s body stiffened. “Lord Newburry?”
Although she had never personally seen the disreputable earl in person, she knew everything about him. Actually, anyone with ears in most of England knew who the imbecile was. The notorious libertine was known for his extravagant tastes and a fortune to match them. If the rumors were right, the man possessed an income of ten thousand pounds each year.
Lord Newburry—her nose crinkled even thinking the name—was just the sort of entitled aristocrat who felt himself at liberty to call a housemaid into his bedchamber in the dead of night for reasons that had nothing to do with housework. Unfortunately, too many young women felt the need to obey their master’s orders out of fear of losing their post without pay or reference.
That was one particular reason Rose decided to hold the strings to her own life instead of entering service. And even though hers was not the noblest profession, it kept her stomach full and her body untouched. She made her own rules and would be dashed before willingly handing herself over to another’s untrustworthy authority.
She narrowed her eyes at Uncle Felix. “I’ve been hoping to get my hands on that devil’s fortune for years. Why now?”
The hackney bumped and jolted, making Uncle Felix’s full smiling cheeks vibrate. “Because I’ve finally got the perfect reason to pay the rakeshame a visit.” But the far too eager twinkle in his eyes gave Rose a little pause. “Didn’t even have to dig around for information with the usual gossips. The tip came from my own flesh and blood.”
“Brutus?” It wasn’t difficult to figure out since Rose knew that Brutus was Uncle Felix’s only living relation. And although usually Uncle Felix had nothing pleasant to say about his starched-up, know-better-than-anyone-else, butler of a brother—his words not hers—it would seem that the man’s tip was good enough for him to claim kinship again.
“Happened a few months ago. Seems our mighty lordship went for a visit to old Grantham’s estate and took a fancy to one of the chambermaids. The girl found herself in the family way a few weeks later and was kicked out without a reference.” Poor girl. Why was it always the servants who were left to pay the devil for a gentleman’s indiscretions?
“And I’m to play the part of this chambermaid?” she asked, already knowing the answer and not at all relishing the idea.
“Right! And you won’t take less than two thousand pounds to keep this business quiet. Play your hand right and we will walk away from this one with plump pockets.” He patted the pockets of his waistcoat as proof of where he would stuff the banknotes.
But something tugged inside her. She didn’t
feel good about profiting from another woman’s misfortune. The pregnant young maid was most likely scared, alone, and penniless. Those feelings were all too familiar to her. “I’m assuming the girl has not already approached Lord Newburry herself about the matter?”
Uncle Felix shook his head. “Was too scared of word getting out and her never being able to work again after the baby is born. Brutus says she’s gone to hide it out at a tenant’s farm as long as they’ll have her. If you ask me, I say the girl’s daft to not go bleed the earl dry herself!”
“Well, I didn’t ask you,” she gave him a reprimanding look. “And I dare say the girl is too afraid to face him.” Most females had not grown up as self-sufficient as she had.
Uncle Felix eyed her for a long moment, searching her face for something. And then, he cringed. “Oh Lud, there’s the look. Devil take it, Rosie, you aren’t gonna give our money to the girl are you?”
She smiled. “Of course I am. No, don’t give me that look. She ought to have a cut of the haul since it’s her story we are using.”
He eyed her from beneath heavy, suspicious lids. “How much do you intend to give her?” Excitement did not touch his voice.
“I think it’s only right that she gets half of the cut since she’ll be the one with a child to support.”
He agreed, but only after a dramatic sigh of long-suffering. Rose knew that inwardly, he was just as content to give the money to the girl as she was. It’s probably why they were the poorest and yet most successful criminals in England.