His Dark and Dangerous Ways

  His Dark and Dangerous Ways

  Edith Layton

  For Jeanne Simpson Felber: Daughter-in-law, dancer, actor, writer, and gem, who taught toddlers ballet, and gave me an invitation to the dance.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  “As you were saying?” the lady cooed to her gentleman…

  Chapter 2

  Later that evening, in a tall town house in the…

  Chapter 3

  The Honorable Miss Leticia Harwood threw herself into the air.

  Chapter 4

  Well, she was a fool and a fool deserved whatever…

  Chapter 5

  “You’re still hobbling,” Simon said as Jane rose from the…

  Chapter 6

  “Today,” Jane told her eager students, “we will not be…

  Chapter 7

  “Welcome to the heart of fashionable London,” Simon told his…

  Chapter 8

  The mishaps she’d experienced in the past weeks had changed…

  Chapter 9

  Jane thought she’d rather be anywhere on earth than where…

  Chapter 10

  “Wait for me Jane,” Simon whispered with difficulty, as his…

  Chapter 11

  A timid figure came creeping out the front door of…

  Chapter 12

  “Miss Chatham, if I may have a word with you…

  Chapter 13

  “Not here. Go on please,” Jane told Simon as the…

  Chapter 14

  The landlord came rushing into the room, brandishing a fireplace…

  Chapter 15

  It was more of an attic than a room, but…

  Chapter 16

  He wasn’t surprised; he wasn’t disappointed. But a leaden feeling…

  Chapter 17

  Simon was a man of iron control; a man of…

  Chapter 18

  This time it was a private coach awaiting her. Jane…

  Chapter 19

  Jane gasped, and then ran wildly across the street to…

  Chapter 20

  “Alive,” Viscount Delancey said as he was shown into…

  Chapter 21

  He came up behind her and put his hands on…

  About the Author

  Other Romances

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  “As you were saying?” the lady cooed to her gentleman caller, when he paused for a moment. She was artfully displayed on a settee in her front parlor. She reclined, pleading a slightly turned ankle, and her flowing yellow morning gown was arranged so that it showed a peek of that one slender exceedingly well-turned ankle. Her gown also gave an idea of the generous form beneath. Gold curls and long-lashed blue eyes showed her pretty face off to perfection.

  Ordinarily, a lady would not be wearing such casual attire or be seen in such a casual attitude when receiving a morning caller. But Lydia Stanton, Lady Harwood, was no ordinary lady. She was a little on the raffish side and a lot on the willful one, and as a lady and a widow, there was a great deal she could get away with. Especially when she had a caller in her parlor with whom she’d obviously like to get away with a good deal more.

  Which was surprising, the gentleman thought. She was already involved with a wealthy young gentleman, or so he’d been told. That was why he was here. Simon Atwood, Lord Granger, was a match for the lady, at least in looks, and he surpassed her in charm. Tall, dark and deliciously sardonic, he was even richer than she was, and his title was inherited. She’d married into hers. And was now obviously contemplating adding a newer one.

  It was becoming clear that she’d hit upon the idea of a hurt ankle the moment his name had been announced. He’d had to wait in the hall a few minutes, which was odd, because though he hadn’t given advance notice of his visit, it was the proper time for a morning call. When he was finally shown in, she was a little flushed and looked as though she’d only just settled into her poised invalid pose. She wore no bandages, only a knowing smile when he found himself looking at her ankle.

  He was a little disconcerted by this unexpectedly warm reception, and sought a distraction so he could have time to think. So he cocked his handsome head to the side as though listening, although it didn’t take much concentration to hear what he was paying attention to.

  The door to the front parlor where they sat was ajar. Even a lady such as this couldn’t entertain a gentleman with it closed, at least not in the morning when another caller might drop in. So the hysterical giggling and high-pitched screaming coming from down the hall was clearly audible, along with the sound of marching, jumping, and clumping feet.

  “Your moving men certainly are jolly fellows, my lady,” he commented. “I didn’t know you were relocating. May one ask where you are going?”

  “Nowhere,” she snapped. She was ambitious, but no fool; her smile reappeared in seconds. “I have a young daughter,” she said. “Today she has a dancing lesson, and we invited some of her little friends to join in.”

  “Dancing lessons,” he said with a great show of surprise. “But, surely, she’s an infant.”

  She smiled again. “So she is. She’s but an infant with only two years in her cup. But I love to hear her laughter.” She cast down her gaze modestly.

  “You certainly have opportunity to,” he said as great thumping sounds of marching were heard, accompanied by the hammering of a tin drum and much giggling.

  “The dear creatures, I should love to see them,” she said piteously. “But they are exiled to the ballroom because there are so many things to break in here.”

  “Like eardrums,” he said agreeably.

  “Should you like me to ring and ask them to stop?” she asked eagerly, raising an arm to the tasseled cord hanging beside the settee, as another gust of laughter was heard.

  “No, not at all,” he said. “They seem to be enjoying themselves enormously. I don’t want to be the cause of their being told to be still. Children need exercise and dancing can’t be taught too early.” He rose to his feet. “I came without warning, as it is. May I come another morning when they are out of doors, so we can speak? Or better yet, when your ankle is healed so that we can go for a ride to the park?”

  “Oh yes,” she said with a sparkling smile. “What a good idea. In a day? Two days, perhaps? I should be vastly improved by then.”

  He had a fairly good idea that she could hop off the settee in an instant and leg it down the hall, but her pose on the couch was alluring and the excuse for it had condemned her to remaining with it today.

  “In two days then,” he said, bowed, and left the room.

  But he didn’t leave the house. Instead, he stopped in the outer hall, cocked his head to the side again, listening. “They’re having such a good time,” he told the butler. “I’d love to see them at their play. May I?”

  “Certainly, my lord,” the butler said, and led him down the hall to the source of the merriment.

  The ballroom was shrouded in white drop cloths, but they had been pushed back to clear the polished wood center. An aged governess sat at a pianoforte and pumped out music, but the noise from the children was louder. Simon stood in the doorway and watched as a ragged, giggling parade of them passed by him. An extraordinary young woman led the ragtag procession. She had a lithe body, padded sweetly where it ought to be. But it was her legs he noticed first. He could hardly help it.

  She’d hitched her skirts up and swagged them at her waist, so that they dropped to her knees, leaving the rest of those shapely limbs free and unencumbered. Her straight honey-colored hair had also been pulled up on the top of her head, but now strands of it came coiling down around her oval fac
e, which was pink with exertion. A passably lovely young woman, he thought. But at the moment she looked more like a goose than a goose girl. He smiled.

  Her long neck bent forward, and her firm derrière pushed back and outward, making her supple form into an S shape. She stepped with her feet turned all the way out as she chanted, “Honk, honk: make way for the geese.” Behind her, like so many drunken little goslings, a hilarious assortment of young girls, weaved and honked, tripping over their own feet. They wore a Gypsy kaleidoscope of tulle and scarves, coronets and feathers, and every little foot wore tiny dancing slippers.

  “There, that’s our little lady, Leticia,” the butler murmured fondly, indicating the lass clomping along just behind the dancing instructor. The child was beating a tin drum. She wore a flowing gauze skirt and had a tinsel tiara on her blond head. As Simon had thought, if Lady Harwood’s infant was two years of age, he was one hundred and two. The child clearly had at least three or four years to her exalted name.

  Simon stood watching, enchanted, and not only by the daughter of the house. The dancing instructor, if that was what she was, looked amusingly gooseish, and yet still quite human, feminine and delicious.

  “Now,” she said, stopping slowly, and turning to face her followers. “Remember what we learned last week? How to go from a goose to a ballet step? Fifth position everyone, and hands making a lovely circle over your heads.”

  That caused riotous mirth. The children struggled to keep their balance with hands up, legs straight and feet together, each foot faced opposite the other.

  “More geese,” pleaded one poppet as she tipped over and fell to the floor. “More, Miss, please.”

  “All right,” their instructress said. “One more round of geese. Then some real steps, and leaps.”

  There was an excited stir. The children obviously loved leaps.

  “Now, necks out, bottoms out, feet apart,” the instructress said. “Let’s go!” She marched them goose-like, in a circle. That was, she did until she saw the gentleman standing in the doorway, staring at her. Then she stopped abruptly. The girl behind her crashed into her, as did the one behind her, and in a moment the line of mirthful children were sitting or rolling on the ballroom floor, collapsed with laughter.

  Simon grinned too. The instructress did not. She glared at the intruders standing in the doorway. She raised her chin and straightened herself as she helped the girls to their feet again. “Why are you here, Simmons?” she asked the butler tartly. “Our hour surely isn’t up yet.”

  “No, Miss,” the butler answered. “But Lord Granger wished to see the children because they sounded so merry at play.”

  “So they did,” she snapped. “But we are not putting on an exhibition today. Are you father to one of my pupils?” she asked Simon.

  “No—” he began to say.

  “Then brother, uncle, or guardian?” she went on angrily. “If not, please leave.”

  “I just wanted to see Lady Lydia’s charming daughter,” he said. He bowed. “Sorry to intrude.”

  She ducked her head in an answering bow, then dropped to her knees and was immediately covered in the flutter of small girls who were howling with laughter at the effort of getting up again.

  She may have muttered something, but Simon couldn’t hear it. He strolled to the door with the butler.

  “The ladies bring their children every week to get dancing instruction from Miss Chatham,” the butler explained as they walked to the front door. “It may all seem like nonsense for such young children, but they do leaps and bounds and dance to music as well. It’s started quite a rage among the ladies, beginning dance instruction so early. How clever of my lady to think of it! Play turned into lessons with an English dancing instructor and a female at that, instead of some sneaking, sneering Frenchie dancing master as is the general custom. Bad enough,” he sniffed, “that it’s the fashion to have French chefs and French ladies’ maids.

  “But this young woman puts the children’s mothers quite at ease,” the butler went on. “They are clamoring to have their children invited here for a lesson. Why, Lady Haverstraw actually attempted to hire her away the other week! But she remained loyal to my lady. Miss Chatham comes here twice each week.”

  “She teaches nowhere else?” Simon asked as the footman handed him his hat.

  “As to other districts, milord, we cannot say,” the butler said loftily as he signaled for the door to be opened. “But we are the only ones she instructs in this area. Good day, my lord.”

  “The children have all been dressed, delivered, and collected by their nannies, Miss,” the butler said to the lingering dance instructor.

  But Miss Chatham, also dressed and looking collected, merely stood by the door. “I know, Simmons,” she said as she smoothed on her gloves again. “And it is getting late. But I haven’t been paid. Much as I dislike bringing up such a sordid subject, my salary is three weeks in arrears now. If your lady doesn’t pay me now, I fear I’ll be unable to return. I will not and cannot let the debt grow any higher. You understand, I’m sure.”

  He frowned. “Will you wait here, please?”

  Miss Jane Chatham stood by the door and waited. This was a gamble, one she had to take. She needed the money, and hoped she’d interested enough other ladies of fashion to be hired somewhere else if Lady Lydia got on her high horse and refused to come down with the money on demand. The fashionable world was famous for its debts and Lady L was nothing if not fashionable.

  Still, it was a risk for Jane as a lady of good birth who had to stay three steps ahead of her landlord or she’d find herself staying in less respectable rooms. She had to keep up appearances. If she didn’t have a room in a decent district, being hired to serve the rich would be more difficult. Her idea of teaching dance to girls just out of the nursery had been brilliant, and she’d been paid readily enough when she’d begun. But she knew she probably had competition now, or soon would. As daughter of a deceased baronet she was good ton, but what if some clever baron’s widow or viscount’s daughter hit upon the same scheme? And why shouldn’t they? There were few enough occupations for women of good birth and misfortune these days.

  “Miss,” the butler said when he returned. “Here is your payment. She was mad as fire, but you did your job and she can’t say no. But if I was you,” he added in an under voice, “I wouldn’t threaten her again. She got fairly high up in the boughs.”

  Jane sighed. “If I were me, I wouldn’t threaten her either. But I can’t help it. My landlord, the butcher, and the baker won’t tolerate money owed, and so then neither can I. Thank you, Simmons.”

  She placed the money in her reticule, nodded to him, and left the town house.

  If I were me, Jane thought as waited for a carriage to go by so she could cross the street. She tried to avoid the street sweeper’s eye at the same time because she couldn’t afford the gratuity he’d expect for getting the horse droppings out of her way. If I were me, I wouldn’t be teaching dance to infants. It wasn’t that she didn’t love the moppets, but she’d rather be back home at Brightwaters: reading, riding, writing, and gardening…Anything, she thought sadly. But Cousin Harvey had inherited the place, lock, stock and debts, and she wasn’t welcome there anymore. And she didn’t welcome the idea of charity from anyone.

  Shaking her head to clear it from maudlin thoughts, Jane walked with renewed purpose. She’d left Brightwaters for London to find a way to make a living. And she had. She was proud of herself and her accomplishments.

  But for any woman alone in London, there were dangers and indignities to bear. The way that high-nosed nobleman had eyed her just today! As though she were prime roast rib of beef. He’d been handsome and elegant, amused and aroused, and she’d longed to slam the door in his arrogant face.

  Jane continued down the street. Clouds were overtaking the sun, and a damp chilly breeze brushed her cheeks, murmuring false promises of spring coming right around the next corner. At least, she thought, pulling up her collar,
the gentleman had only been visiting. She doubted she’d see him again. One of the advantages of working for a female on the hunt for a new husband was that though there were many male visitors, there were no stray gentlemen lounging about the place, at least not for long. This had been an unusual encounter and probably, when Lady Harwood heard of it, would never be repeated.

  “Pardon me,” the deep voice said from her side. “If I may have a word?”

  She stopped. She shot the gentleman who had appeared beside her a sidewise glance. Speak of the devil and he appears, she thought angrily. Her thoughts had surely summoned him. Now she had to be rid of him. Embarrassing experiences here in London had taught her that there was nothing a tall, dark, elegant gentleman had to say to a female who worked for her living that was remotely polite or legal.

  “No,” she said, marching forward again. “You may not.”

  “Harsh words,” he murmured, keeping pace. “I mean you no harm.”

  “Of course not,” she muttered, her sense of unfairness rising. “Proper gentlemen always accost inferior females in the street to discuss politics or fashion, or the weather. I work for a living, sir. I do not, will not, and cannot work for you in any sense of the word. Now, if you are indeed a gentleman: go away.”

  “But you haven’t heard what I propose,” he said as he sauntered beside her.

  “I don’t have to,” she said. She stopped, turned, and confronted him. “I can guess. You saw me dancing, cavorting with the children, with my lower limbs exposed. Aha, thought your over-heated brain! A dancer! And not clothed properly. A female with no morals. I’ll just wait and waylay her in the street, offer her money or fine clothes, and she’ll dance for me, privately. No sir, no, and no. I am not that sort of female.