by Hope Tarr
Praise for Hope Tarr
“Beautifully written…Callum and Alys make wonderful lovers.”
—RT Book Reviews on Twelve Nights (4 Stars)
“Twelve Nights is a spectacularly sensual historical and a joyously fun read.”
—Fresh Fiction
“This entertaining quick read is perfect for that rainy afternoon when you want to be in a far off place dreaming about kidnapping your very own alpha male. I know it’s one of my fantasies.”
—Barbara Vey, Publishers Weekly on Bound to Please
“Fury and passion go head to head in Every Breath You Take…. The emotional swings are dizzying, and will keep you captivated right up until the end.”
—Coffee Time Romance
“Heartwarming characters, wonderful passion and an innovative story make this the perfect Christmas tale.”
—RT Book Reviews on It’s a Wonderfully Sexy Life
Dear Reader,
Second chances, don’t you just love them?
When I concluded my Victorian trilogy Men of Roxbury House a few years ago, it occurred to me I’d left some loose ends dangling—two loose ends, to be exact. At the end of Untamed, the series finale, secondary characters Lady Beatrice (Bea) Lindsey and scalawag turned semirespectable private secretary Ralph Sylvester had begun falling for one another, landing squarely in the shadow land between lust and love. Only there hadn’t been time, or in my case, pages for me to devote to unfolding their story. And I thought that was rather a shame.
Readers agreed. Based on an outpouring of e-mail requests, I decided to give Bea and Ralph a book and a happily ever after of their own. To earn it, they both have some sexy lessons to teach—and learn.
I hope you enjoy The Tutor. And if you adore the Victorian era as much as I do, please look for my novella “Tomorrow’s Destiny” in a Harlequin Victorian Christmas anthology with bestselling authors Betina Krahn and Jacquie D’Alessandro this December 2010.
Happy summer and, yes, happy (beach) reading,
Hope Tarr
www.hopetarr.com
Hope Tarr
THE TUTOR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hope Tarr is the award-winning author of more than a dozen contemporary and historical romance novels. The Tutor, Hope’s seventh book for Harlequin’s sexy Blaze line, is set in one of her all-time favorite time periods: the late Victorian era. Hope lives in Manhattan where she finds the people-watching sublime and daily life more nuanced if not always stranger than fiction. She is a cofounder of Lady Jane’s Salon, www.ladyjanesalon.com, Manhattan’s first and, so far, only monthly reading series devoted to romance fiction and to “sharing the love” by supporting groups serving women in need. To enter her monthly and special contests or to read her blog, visit Hope online at www.hopetarr.com.
Books by Hope Tarr
HARLEQUIN BLAZE
293—IT’S A WONDERFULLY SEXY LIFE
317—THE HAUNTING
364—STROKES OF MIDNIGHT
407—BOUND TO PLEASE
441—EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE…
512—TWELVE NIGHTS
To my friend and editor, Brenda Chin, whose taste, talent and insight make every book not just a little bit better but a lot better. And to my friend and fellow author, Leanna Renee Hieber, who is always so great about planning writing dates, seeking out silver linings, and finding cool Manhattan coffee bars with lots o’ outlets.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Prologue
London’s East End, 1874
RALPH SAT ON THE SIDE of his mum’s unmade bed as she checked her reflection in the moisture-spotted mirror. Her curled hair and painted face meant she was going out for one of her “little strolls” along the docks though it seemed to him she was dressed uncommonly fine.
She swung about to face him, full skirts swaying like the Bow Street Church bell. “How do I look, ducks?”
“You look beautiful, Mum,” Ralph answered, both because it was true and because he knew how much male praise, even his, pleased her.
She grinned, revealing the gap in her gum line where one of his “uncles” had knocked out the tooth. On occasion, one of the nicer ones brought him a toy or treat but in the main they ignored him, followed his mum into her bedroom, and rolled about on the bed kissing for a good hour. Ralph wondered their lips didn’t wear out.
She reached down and ruffled a hand through his wheat-colored hair, the same shade and texture as hers. “I should hope so, for I’ve an appointment to keep with a very fine and generous gentleman.”
Fear knotted his stomach. “Not the one who hit you? Mum, you promised!”
Her mouth flattened, bringing out the fine creases at the corners. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Now I want you to eat the lovely supper nice Mrs. Hanson has set out and afterward you’re to say your prayers and go to bed straightaway. I’ll be back before you’ve had the chance to miss me.”
Despite her promise, the twist in his gut told him this was not a typical night. He grabbed her hand and held on tight. “Please, Mum, don’t go. Don’t…don’t leave me.”
“Crikey, Ralphie, don’t be such a baby.” She pried free and headed for the door. Halfway out, she turned back, eyes teary. “I’ll never leave you, Ralphie. Two peas in a pod, we are.”
He never saw her again.
“Nice Mrs. Hanson” hadn’t proven so nice after all. As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into a month, the lodging house lady became progressively stingy with her suppers. When at the end of the month his mother still hadn’t returned with the money for his keeping, she turned him out, not caring that it was winter and snowing. The one time she’d caught him sleeping beneath her front steps, she’d boxed his ears.
“It’s a respectable house I run, and I’ll not have some whoreson lollygagging about ruining my reputation. Now off with you, you little bastard, else I’ll call for the constable and see you sent to the workhouse, not that you won’t find yourself there soon enough.”
Even with his ears ringing, she hadn’t had to threaten a second time. Ralph had grown up on his mum’s stories of her childhood in a parish workhouse and from them he harbored a terrible, bone-chilling dread. He’d moved on, making his bed in a succession of stairwells and stoops.
The day he met Johnnie Black he’d been stealing his supper or trying to from a costermonger in Billingsgate Market. He’d gotten as far as stuffing one nicked sausage into his pocket when the food seller looked up from wrapping a roast and caught him. Ralph turned, intending to speed away. Before he could take more than a step, ham-size hands seized hard hold, lifting him from the ground.
A fury-reddened face shoved up close to his. “You thieving little bugger, I’ve a mind to spit you like a—”
“What’s the trouble, guv?”
Dangling, Ralph managed to turn his head to take stock of his seeming savior. Johnnie Black must have been only in his early twenties, but he’d seemed enormously worldly-wise to Ralph. He wore a tall black stovepipe hat banded with shiny black ribbon. Beneath it, his fringe of black hair hung in greasy ropes over deep set, darting eyes.
“Not that it’s any of your concern,” the butcher bellowed, “but I just caught this guttersnipe stealing my sausages.”
Black broke into a broad smile, revealing a gold-capped front tooth that Ralph thought very fine. “’Tis a misunderstanding is all. This should settle my little mate’s account.” He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a crown, and handed it over.
Within seconds, Ralph’s feet found the earth once more. Instinct screamed for him to
flee, only he feared his weak-kneed legs would fold.
Pocketing the coin, the seller’s scowl slid into a smile. “Lads will be lads, I suppose.” He pulled a second sausage from the spit and handed it to Ralph.
Too hungry for pride, Ralph tore in, juice dribbling his chin. While he ate, Johnnie wrapped a friendly arm about his shoulders and steered them away from the main market building.
On his way, he launched into his pitch. “Men such as we lot seize life by the hair with these two hands.” He hiked back his coat sleeves and held out his long-fingered hands and knobby wrists with obvious pride.
Starting in on the second sausage, Ralph managed to say, “Sounds grand.” He finished the food in a final gulp, wiped his palms on the front of his coat, and stuck out his hand. “Ralph Sylvester, sir. It’s pleased I am to make your acquaintance, mister…?”
“Black, but me mates call me Johnnie.” He enfolded Ralph’s hand in his bony clasp. Letting go, he looked Ralph up and down. “Ain’t you the fine gentleman for all you’re dressed like a dustman? With a bit o’ spit and polish, you might do handsomely, handsomely indeed.”
Stomach full, Ralph felt his pride return and with it a stab of shame. He folded his arms across his chest, wishing the moth-eaten wool of his coat might miraculously thicken. “I haven’t the blunt to pay you back.” Seeing as how they’d met over him stealing food, he supposed that much must be obvious, but he thought it best to make matters clear all the same.
Johnnie Black shrugged, button eyes beaming. “What’s a quid or two between mates? And I mean for us to be mates, the very best.”
Now that his belly was no longer banging against his backbone, Ralph found himself smothering a yawn behind the back of his hand.
“Fancy a lie down?” Black asked. “I’ve a feather bed as broad as a boat with a goose down quilt waiting for someone to warm it.”
Ralph hadn’t lain in a proper bed for coming on a month and his stiffened body longed to stretch out. Still, thinking back to his mum and the uncles, he hesitated. “I won’t have to kiss anyone, will I?”
Johnnie tossed back his head and cackled. “Not on the mouth or the arse, either, not ever again.” He whipped around and started off, leaving Ralph to follow.
Ralph shoved his gloveless hands inside his hole-worn pockets and ran after him. Passing through crooked, cobbled streets thick with gin shops and street corners where painted women like his mum congregated and called out, “Are you good-natured, dear?”, he did his best to match his benefactor’s long, fast strides. Finally Johnnie drew up before what looked to be an abandoned tenement, the windows boarded, the main door barred with a placard that read C-O-N-D-E-M-N-E-D.
Taking in the mound of busted boards and rotted roofing, Ralph began to suspect his new friend might have greatly oversold the bed, but still he followed Black to the back of the building, too tired to seek other shelter.
Johnnie kicked aside the crate, revealing a cubbyhole-size crawl space. “After you, mate.”
Ralph hesitated, his bloated belly sinking. He’d grown up rough enough to know that what he was about to do meant putting his life in the hands of a stranger. Yet what choice had he?
Ducking into the darkness, he felt sweat break out over his body. The space was close as a coffin, and the skittering and squeaking nearby suggested his first acquaintances would be four-legged and curly-tailed. He pressed on. A pinprick of light, or at least a lesser darkness, greeted him on the other end. Tunneling toward it, he tamped down his fear of rats and general foreboding. The space gradually broadened. Lifting a testing hand above his head, his palm met with slimy stone. Ralph rose from his bruised knees and straightened. As his vision adjusted to the dimness, he became aware of a dozen or so pairs of watchful eyes fixed on him, some narrowed with hostility, others seeming only curious.
“Lads, come meet your new mate, Ralph.”
Black’s voice behind him nearly sent him shooting out of his shoes. He swung about to find Johnnie towering over him. How he’d managed to stuff that long, angular body through the hole was a mystery Ralph was determined to solve, but for now, worry for the immediate future crowded out his curiosity.
“Is this a workhouse?” he demanded, poised to dive back into the earth if need be.
Johnnie took off his top hat and tossed it to one of the boys, a brawny, blunt-featured lad with reddish-brown hair, a blackened eye and what looked to be a recently broken nose. The boy wasn’t especially tall, but the breadth of his shoulders and the size of his hands would have drawn envy from many a full-grown man.
Black made a sound low in his throat, somewhere between a scoff and a growl. “This is the antidote to the workhouse. Do you know what an antidote is?”
Ralph hadn’t a clue. The poverty of his experience struck him anew. “N-no,” he ground out, painfully aware of the other boys’ sniggering.
“’Tis the cure,” Black supplied, expression sobering. “Me operation is run in the manner of a school and me, I’m the headmaster. I take in boys like you, boys with no prospects and no place in life, and I turn them into men, gainful men. You do want to be gainful, don’t you, Ralph?”
Ralph sensed it wasn’t really a question, but he nodded nonetheless. “Y-yes.”
He dared another glance. The room was blanketed in cobwebs and dust, the air stale and close, and yet it was also snug and warm, certainly more commodious than the stairwell he’d last called home. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful. More questions might well be met with being turned out, and like Johnnie Black’s other “pupils”, he truly had nowhere else to go.
Ralph was tired of being turned out, tired of being cold and stiff and empty in ways neither food nor gin could fill. He wanted a place in the world. It needn’t be the very best place, not Buckingham Palace or anything so grand. It only had to be a place, safe and warm from where he wouldn’t be chased off, beaten or starved. A place he might come to call home.
Home. Of all the things Ralph longed for, a home topped the list.
Seemingly satisfied, Black nodded. “Off with you lot.” A snapping of bony fingers sent the bystanders scattering, except for the beefy boy holding the hat. He leaned down to Ralph, settling icy fingers upon his shoulders. “You bide here until you work off the crown you owe me. Afterward, if you fancy another go at it on your own, you’re free to walk out or you can stay on as you wish. Sound fair?”
“Y-yes.” Evenhanded as the terms seemed, they were a far cry from Black’s earlier friendliness. But beyond anything to do with terms, the feral gleam in those button eyes had Ralph’s heart pounding.
“Capital.” He slapped Ralph upon the shoulder, and then beckoned to the brawny boy with the hat. “Rourke, show Sylvester the ropes and mind you keep your humbugging to a minimum.” Turning back to Ralph, Johnnie added, “Rourke is a bit o’ a scrapper though he’d be better served to work on his fingers and give his knuckles a rest.”
Silent still, the boy, Rourke, regarded Black with smoldering eyes.
Black darted his gaze between them. “You two are partners now.”
Rourke shoved the hat at Black’s middle. “Scarce good some scrawny stripling will do me,” he said, speaking at last, and Ralph detected the faintest trace of a brogue.
Ralph pulled back his shoulders and stuck out his chest. “I can hold my own.” Admittedly, he was only of average size for his age and a month of mostly missed meals guaranteed he hadn’t much to bring to a fight. But he was also nimble-fingered by nature, able to tie a string to a fly’s wing and perform sleight-of-hand tricks since the age of six.
“Close your clapper, paddy,” Black snarled, “and mind you’re on probation. If you don’t start bringing in your share, the next time I may just let you swing.” He shifted back to Ralph, his scowl smoothing. “Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite, and I’ll see you at breakfast in the morning. We’ll have sausages, I think. Sausages will be rare tasty,” he added, elbowing Ralph in the side.
Swallowing his fear, Ra
lph waited for Johnnie to leave. Once he had, disappearing behind a quilt used as a curtain, he turned to Rourke and whispered, “What exactly are we’re partners in?”
The look Rourke sent him seemed almost pitying. “Dinna worry, laddie, you’ll find out soon enough.”
1
Lesson One
“In all these things connected with love, everybody should act according to his own inclination.”
—The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
Linlithgow, Scotland, December 1891
“I LEAVE FOR LONDON on the morrow.” The announcement made, Lady Beatrice Lindsey turned her attention to the carrot in her gloved hand and Princess, her sister’s grizzled pony, gobbling it as she spoke.
Ralph stole a glance at the blond beauty standing at the paddock fence beside him, her downcast gaze veiling her cornflower-blue eyes. For the first time since she’d arrived a week ago, Beatrice was avoiding looking at him. Rourke’s lovely sister-in-law had beguiled him since they’d first met in London the month before on Rourke and Lady Katherine’s wedding day. That he was a former felon turned semirespectable secretary and she the daughter of an earl placed his romantic hopes somewhere between dashed and doomed.
He dipped into the burlap bag of carrots he’d brought along and handed her another. “This is…news.”
Propping one foot upon the fence rail, he plucked at his corduroy-clad knee, privately considering why he should feel so very stunned. He’d known she must leave eventually—very well, imminently—but need it be so very soon? The Christmas week they’d spent together had been the happiest he’d known in some time, a long time—very well, ever. Growing up, Christmas had been just another day for him, another day for doing without. Whether holed up in the East End lodging house with his mum or the thieves’ den run by Johnnie Black, he’d never known what it was to have a tree or presents or a bed of his own from where those ubiquitous sugar plums might dance about in his dreams. Having survived for thirty years without such sentiment, really, why take up the burden of keeping Christmas now?