Rogues to Riches (Books 1-6)

by Ridley, Erica

  No matter what it took.

  Chapter 17

  For Dahlia, the most unreal part of executing a double flip off a supper sideboard onto the school’s dancing rug wasn’t the men’s trousers covering her legs or the squeals of her students as she flew through the air, but the fact that she had an audience at all.

  Other than with her sisters—and her brother Heath, who had taught her acrobatics for lack of anyone else to play with—her facility with contortion and fearlessness to taking flight had always been a well-kept secret. If her parents had ever suspected their children of practicing the tumbling feats they witnessed at the circus, they would have ceased the family outings altogether and likely forbade Heath and Dahlia from being in the same room.

  When Heath grew of age, he was able to join Gentleman Jackson’s, and practice fisticuffs with all the other fashionable gentlemen.

  For Dahlia, there was no such outlet. Without her brother, she could only tumble alone, which was both less fun and less safe than their previous teamwork.

  It was the one moment in her otherwise unremarkable life when excitement raced through her veins and every nerve came alive. Colors were brighter, sounds sharper, her reflexes lightning fast.

  For years, tumbling had always been her favorite pastime. Her truest self. And, above all, her most guarded secret.

  Until now.

  She couldn’t let anyone outside of her school know of her activities. But here, inside these walls, she and her girls would be free to be themselves.

  “Today’s class is not about acrobatics,” Faith called over the noisy cheers.

  The students booed good-naturedly.

  “That’s right.” Dahlia drew herself up in the center of the room and clapped her hands for attention. “Today’s tumbling class is about two things: exercise, and self-defense. If it goes well, we’ll do it weekly. Especially during inclement weather.”

  “I hope it always rains!” shouted a girl in the back to loud laughter.

  “Next lesson in self-defense,” Dahlia announced. “Always be aware of your surroundings. Are there people? Slippery surfaces? Sharp edges?”

  “You was in the Army?” one of the students called out.

  “Worse,” Dahlia answered. “I have a brother.”

  The girls erupted in giggles.

  “The reason we want to know who else is within shouting distance,” Dahlia continued, “is because the best way to win a fight is not to get in one at all. If help is near, or someone who could go find help, that is always the first step. With luck, it’s the only step needed to a peaceful resolution.”

  “What if nobody else is near?” called out one of the girls.

  “What if there’s lots, and all of them are bad people?” called another.

  Dahlia nodded. “That’s why you’re paying attention to sharp edges and slippery surfaces.”

  “So you can push them?”

  “Precisely. And so you don’t hurt yourself. In many situations, our biggest enemy is ourselves. When you panic, you lose logic. You can’t think. You only react. That’s why you have to be aware of your situation well before panic sets in.”

  “But how?”

  “You train yourself to pay attention. Your brain can learn to do it automatically.” Dahlia took a step back. “Everyone, close your eyes.”

  “Miss Digby’s eyes aren’t closed,” called a voice.

  “Neither are yours!”

  “Everyone means everyone. Ready?” Dahlia grinned at Faith. “Without opening your eyes, name the slippery surfaces inside this room.”

  “The center carpet?”

  “The wood, when we wax it.”

  “Top of the sideboard!”

  “Not for Headmistress.”

  Dahlia clapped her hands. “Open your eyes. Did you miss anything? If you can’t call for help, your next goal is running away. Without tripping over branches or slipping on pebbles or falling against a sharp surface.”

  “What if you can’t run away?” called a student.

  “What if he catches you first?” called another.

  Dahlia knew that “he” meant someone different for every one of them. It was her hope to save her students from finding themselves in those situations again.

  “Step three,” she said. “Twisting out of an unwanted grasp. Miss Digby and I have been practicing. Let us see if I can escape her grip.”

  Given that Dahlia had been escaping her elder brother’s best holds for nearly fifteen years, Faith would have little chance of keeping Dahlia trapped. But the self-defense segments before the tumbling classes weren’t about standing still—it was about breaking away.

  More than that, it was about giving hope to twenty-four little girls. All the lessons in the world wouldn’t enable them to overpower a man twice their size. Their attacker would know that. He’d be counting on intimidation to do most of the subduing.

  What the girls had was the element of surprise. Their attacker might anticipate a tug on the wrist, a feeble kick to the leg. Tears. What he wouldn’t be expecting were the moves Dahlia was about to teach her girls today. All they needed was a single second’s surprise or weakness to break free and run for help. She would give them every advantage she could.

  “Form a circle, and pay close attention,” she called. “I’m going to show you several different options. First you’ll practice with each other, and then every one of you is going to try to escape me. Ready?”

  “Ready!” The girls scrambled into a circle around Dahlia and Faith.

  By the time the exercise class was over, two hours had passed in a flash. The girls were sweaty and excited and energized. Some were better than others already.

  But all of them now had hope.

  “Baths,” Faith called out. “Two lines, come with me.”

  Dahlia sagged against the sideboard as the girls filed out of the room after Faith.

  Dahlia’s exhaustion was emotional, rather than physical. She had spent more time watching and coaching the girls than feigning being an attacker, but keeping her eyes on twenty-four students at once was an impossible task. Twenty-four students who considered her their family. Twenty-four children who counted on her to keep them safe.

  She wouldn’t always be there, looking over their shoulders. Maybe the school would outlive Dahlia, and maybe it wouldn’t last more than a few years. Either way, at some point the girls would strike out on their own. They would be old enough to find work. Homes of their own.

  Perhaps even fall in love.

  A knock sounded on the front door.

  Dahlia waited a second, until she realized all the girls were off having baths. There was no one to answer the door. Not that she could do it herself—not in trousers and her brother’s old shirt, anyway. This time, her dress was upstairs in her wardrobe.

  The knock sounded again.

  With a sigh, she pushed away from the sideboard and jogged to the locked front door.

  “Who is it?” she asked, doing her best to disguise her voice.

  The caller paused, then said, “Miss Grenville?”

  Mr. Spaulding. Dahlia ran a hand through her tousled hair, then grimaced when she recalled that was the least of her concerns. If he’d been shocked to briefly spy her in trousers before their first dancing class, he’d fall into a dead swoon if he saw her like this.

  “If this is a bad time,” he began.

  “No,” she blurted. She didn’t want him to leave. She just… “Are you alone?”

  “Yes, why?”

  She unlocked the door, jerked him in by the wrist, and slammed the door shut behind him. “If you’d been in my class, you would have been able to break free of my grip.”

  “Why would I want…” His eyes darkened as he took in her form-fitting outfit. “What are you wearing?”

  “The latest fashion,” she assured him. “I just failed to check whether the invoice said ‘gentlemen’ or ‘ladies.’”

  He frowned at the too-long hems. “You purchase
d these garments?”

  “I borrowed them.” She sighed and cleared her throat. “Permanently.”

  A muscle tightened in his jaw. “From a lover?”

  Dahlia stared at him, secretly overjoyed at the possessive, highly improper question. Mr. Spaulding wasn’t shocked or appalled at catching her in men’s clothing. He was jealous.

  “Why do you ask?” she asked lightly, touching her fingers to the front of his waistcoat. He caught her wrists. She didn’t try to break free.

  “You must tell me if there’s someone else,” he growled.

  She lifted her lashes and let him see the truth in her eyes. “How could there be anyone else?”

  He pulled her arms about his neck and covered her mouth with his.

  After a lifetime dreaming of her first kiss, Dahlia had spent the last several weeks praying it would be with Mr. Spaulding. He did not disappoint.

  His lips were as firm as she had imagined, his mouth as hot and demanding. Every inch of his body seemed tightly coiled. Being pressed up against such hard, solid muscle made Dahlia feel all the more soft and feminine.

  Her knees were weak, it was true, but the real reason she held fast about his neck was because the last thing she wanted was for him to let go. A kiss like this wasn’t to be dispatched with swiftly, but rather to be enjoyed. Savored.

  Every brush of his lips, every lick of his tongue against hers, sent shivers of pleasure along her skin and made her clutch him all the tighter. Her heart beat wildly, each frantic pulse in her breath pressing her closer and closer to him.

  This was no longer a kiss.

  This was a claiming.

  A taking.

  What was unclear was whether either of them were winning the battle. It felt like they both were drowning, melding into each other until nothing existed but the thunder of their heartbeats and the hunger in their kisses. Her thoughts were no longer her own, her body less so.

  This was how virgins got despoiled. At this point, it was practically her idea. Now that she had sampled a taste of heaven, she no longer wished to settle for mere kisses. She wanted to feel his hands not spanning the many layers of muslin hiding her curves, but rather touching her bare skin. She wanted to know every inch of him.

  “Miss Grenville,” he murmured between kisses each hungrier than the last. “We shouldn’t.”

  Of course they shouldn’t. That was part of what tasted so intoxicating.

  “Dahlia,” she whispered as she nibbled the edge of his lip. “I believe you know me well enough to call me Dahlia, Mr. Spaulding.”

  “Simon,” he growled, capturing her mouth with his so she couldn’t keep talking.

  But everything she wished to say, she was telling him with her body. Her fingers gripping his hair, her gasps against his jaw, her hips pressed to his—all of it was an eloquent conversation that bore no need for words.

  He had no need to ask if she wanted him. To wonder whether it would be all right with her if he ripped her trousers from her body and taught her the advantages of being a woman. If he didn’t start soon, she might begin ripping fabric herself.

  “We cannot,” he panted as he tore his mouth from hers.

  Before she could do more than clutch her hands to her thundering chest, he spun toward the door and strode out into the night.

  Chapter 18

  There was nowhere Simon wished to be less than a shadowy table in the back of the Cloven Hoof.

  He was far from convinced there was any mystery to be solved. Like as not, Lady Pettibone had sent him on a wild goose chase that was wasting Simon’s time and the Crown’s money. But she hadn’t earned the hushed moniker “the old dragon” because she was a pushover. The Justice of the Peace had made it perfectly clear: the case wasn’t over until Simon definitively proved Maxwell Gideon’s guilt or innocence.

  “In what, exactly?” Simon had asked.

  The Justice of the Peace had simply sent him on his way.

  So there he was in the back of a gentlemen’s club that was simultaneously both more and less exclusive than Brooks’s and Boodle’s. Here, the yardstick of a man’s worth was not his money or his title, but rather whether the club owner felt you worthy enough to be entrusted with the secret knock.

  The alternative method of entry being learning the knock from someone already accepted into the club.

  None of that was illegal. There wasn’t even a ledger listing member names. Either you knew the knock, or you didn’t. And if you knew the knock when you shouldn’t… well, Gideon had placed hired muscle at the door for a reason.

  That might be illegal. Depending on how Vigo the doorman chose to resolve conflicts.

  Thus far, however, Gideon seemed to keep a remarkably amicable club. Gamblers were allowed to wager as much and as often as they wished. Drinkers were allowed to run as obscenely long a tab as they pleased. Any fights resulted in immediate eviction of all parties involved, with the instigator banned for life. Even the betting book was no more outrageous than the one the fashionable set kept at White’s.

  The most obvious question wasn’t whether Gideon was making money illegally, but whether the man was making any at all. Which, Simon had to admit, was in itself suspicious.

  Perhaps Lady Pettibone was right.

  He crossed his arms and leaned back into the shadows to watch the night unfold.

  While his eyes focused on the dark, candlelit scene before him, however, part of his mind was not present in the Cloven Hoof at all, but rather replaying the most sensuous moments of his recent interactions with Miss Grenville.

  Her fingers touching the muscles of his arm, sliding up the front of his chest. His hands cupping her face, sinking into her hair. The victory of finally kissing her. The rush of bliss when she kissed him back. The moment she’d bade him call her Dahlia.

  Dahlia. A delicate flower. An undeniably strong woman. Yet the name fit perfectly. Both were vivid, multifaceted, extraordinary.

  And if Simon had not been sent on tonight’s mission, he might have been kissing her lips right now.

  As viscerally as missing their weekly dance lesson disappointed, his responsibilities as an inspector would always take top priority. One man missing a dance or a supper or a few hours of sleep was a small price to pay for keeping London as safe and lawful as possible. If his childhood had taught him anything, it was that criminals must be apprehended and punished for their crimes at all costs. It was the only chance to keep order in a chaotic world.

  His eyes flicked to the front of the club as the doorman cracked open the door to allow in another patron. Simon let out a sigh at the sight of dark-haired, penniless Lord Hawkridge.

  Simon’s titled half-brother. Naturally. The night had only wanted this.

  He remained in the shadows as the marquess entered, declined a drink from the barmaid, and joined a clump of dandies who were cheering on a trio of pink-cheeked gentlemen casting entire fortunes onto a wine-stained hazard table.

  Why was Lord Hawkridge watching wastrels risk the rest of their lives on a toss of the dice? Did he wish he had the blunt to join, or a purse to lose? Or did his inscrutable expression hide contempt for his fellow spendthrifts, and their eagerness to flirt with a misfortune that mirrored his own?

  Simon could not guess at the answers. He had never even spoken to his brother. Their social spheres were too distant, and the marquess didn’t even know a half-brother existed.

  He did, however, have years of observation to draw from. His jealousy of his brother’s better life had made it impossible to look away as his younger brother received top marks first at Eton, then Oxford. Simon had consoled himself with the knowledge that Zachary’s professors were praising his title, not his performance. The supposed only child of a marquess would not have spent grueling years hunched over ancient, water-damaged books trying to teach himself mathematics and grammar without aid of a tutor.

  Simon’s discovery that he had a natural ability for memorization and logic had changed the course of his life
.

  Zachary’s life, on the other hand, had only ever had a single course. He was born heir to a marquessate. The end.

  There were no decisions to be made, no exams to study, no Justice of the Peace with the power of promoting or sacking his officers at will. Zachary was born to be Lord Hawkridge someday, and now that he’d inherited the title, he would remain marquess for the rest of his life. What care had he for numbers or hard work?

  Except perhaps that long-held narrative wasn’t true after all. If the marquessate was already destitute when he became the new lord, then Hawkridge clearly wasn’t half bad at figures. He was impoverished, but not beggared. He would have to wed an heiress, rather than find a love match, but had managed to postpone that unhappy day thus far. In fact, an impartial observer might conclude that having a fair head for figures was something both brothers had in common.

  The corner of Simon’s mouth twitched. Once upon a time, he would have been horrified to think he shared any talent with his younger half-sibling. As an adult, however, Simon was oddly almost proud of him. He couldn’t help but wonder what Hawkridge might think of Simon if he suddenly learned he had a brother.

  Well, no sense wondering, was there? Simon was here. Hawkridge was here.

  A dark, possibly illegal gambling den was perhaps not the most ideal locale to spring a surprise sibling on a chap, but since a marquess and a Bow Street employee were unlikely to run into each other in the House of Lords or at a private ball, the Cloven Hoof was likely the best opportunity they would ever get.

  Simon had always been a fan of taking action. Sure, he had done his fair share of sulking over life’s relentless unfairness as a lad, but he’d simultaneously made a new plan and worked his arse off until he achieved it. That mixture of resolve, determination, and fearlessness served him well in his career, speeding him up the ranks with each impossible caper solved, every dangerous criminal apprehended.

  After so many years of charging into frays and confronting armed malefactors, approaching a weaponless stranger in a public room ought to be child’s play.