Margaret McPhee - The Regency Season - Gentleman Rogues - The Gentleman Rogue / The Lost Gentleman

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Rebels with no rulesThe Gentleman RogueIn the middle of a Mayfair ballroom two apparent strangers stand in amazement. Ned Stratham and Emma Northcote never thought they would see one another again – this rogue’s charm once captivated her but now she’s a different woman. Their pasts are full of secrets and Ned realises he can’t rekindle their romance because, if Emma discovers how deep their connection is, it could ruin everything…The Lost Gentleman Kate Medhurst’s days on the high seas are numbered as she’s ruthlessly chased by the fearsome Captain North! Once captured Kate knows she should fight him, hate him and challenge him – but she cannot. This Captain is no longer a gentleman and when he confronts Kate, North realises his lost honour is a small price to pay to save the woman he loves…

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Her father was not shirtless and glistening in sweat. The clothes he wore were new—a fine fitted tailcoat and matching breeches, pale shirt and stockings, dark neckcloth and waistcoat. His grey hair was cut short and tidy and combed neat. A new pair of spectacles was perched on the end of his nose. He was the very image of respectability, sitting there at a large desk in the middle of the room writing within a ledger. Like the gentleman he had once been. So many emotions welled up at the sight. Surprise and relief, pride and affection. She pressed her gloved fingers to her lips to control them.

‘Emma!’ He set the pen down in its wooden holder. Got to his feet, came to her and embraced her.

She heard the office door close behind the foreman.

‘Oh, Papa! How on earth...?’ She looked him up and down before gazing around them at the change in his environment.

‘It is a miracle, is it not?’ He laughed. ‘The very day that you left the company deemed they had a need of someone who could manage the accounts in-house rather than farm it out to an office on the other side of town. A money-saving venture they said. They seemed to know that I had something of an education and offered me the job. Fate has dealt us both good fortune, Emma.’

‘It seems that it has,’ she said quietly.

‘And the vast increase in wage means I can afford some very fine rooms not so far away in Burr Street, although I have not yet had a chance to write to Mrs Tadcaster so that she could inform you.’

‘And you are eating?’

‘Like a king. There are some splendid chop-houses in the vicinity.’ There was a twinkle in his eye as he said it.

Her smile broadened. It was so good to see him like this.

‘Now tell me all about how things are with you, my dear girl. I have been worrying over you.’

‘I accepted the position with Lady Lamerton so that you would not worry.’

He smiled. ‘Ah, it is true. But I confess that my worry is a great deal less than it used to be. And besides, it is a father’s duty to worry over his daughter.’

‘And a daughter’s duty to worry over her father.’

They laughed and talked some more. She told him that young Lord Lamerton was making enquiries as to Kit’s whereabouts. She told of her life with the Dowager Lady Lamerton, of what was the same in the ton and what had changed. But she made no mention of the newcomer Mr Stratham.

‘You see,’ said her father. ‘Am I not proved right? Accepting the position was the best thing to do.’

‘It was,’ she said, but she did not smile.

Her last view of him as she left was of him sitting at the big wooden desk, a contented expression on his face, as he dipped his pen into the inkwell and wrote entries into the large ruled ledger open before him.

Emma left the London Docks and headed west towards Mayfair, walking with a hundred other people across roads and along pavements. All around was the hurried tread of boots and shoes, the buzz of voices, and, louder than all, the clatter of horses’ shoes. But what she heard in her head as she walked were the words that Ned had spoken to her on a morning that seemed now to belong to another time and another world.

I used to work on the docks... I still know a few folk in the dockyard... I could have a word. See if there are any easier jobs going.

And she knew that it was neither fate that had rescued her father from hefting crates upon the warehouse floor, nor a miracle, but Ned Stratham.

Chapter Eight

Mrs Morley’s picnic in Hyde Park took place three days after Ned and Rob’s early morning drive in the same place. The weather had grown hotter and stickier. It was a select affair arranged by one of the ton’s grande dames to raise funds for her husband’s regimental charity. The price of the tickets guaranteed only a select attendance; as did the limited number of places.

Ned was there, with Rob, not because he enjoyed such frivolous wastes of time, or displaying the style of his dress. Ned did not care about clothes or fashion or the style of his hair. He kept the knot in his cravat simple and had looked at his valet in disbelief when the man suggested tying rags in his hair overnight to curl it. To give the valet his due, he had not asked again. Ned was there because he knew the importance of maintaining a presence when it came to doing business with these men. And being on a level meant attending social functions like this on a regular basis. It meant dining with them and being a member of a gentlemen’s club.

He nodded an acknowledgement at Lord Misbourne across the grass. Misbourne was of particular importance to him, more so than the others. But Ned had sown the seeds. Now he had to wait for Misbourne to come back to him.

‘Quite the turnout,’ he said, looking over to where Spencer Perceval, the prime minister, and the Prince Regent were speaking to Devlin and his cronies. Beyond them he could see Emma Northcote and Lady Lamerton.

‘Old boys’ club,’ said Rob.

Ned gave a small smile of amusement and accepted a glass of champagne from the silver tray the footman offered.

‘Such a fine day for our picnic, don’t you think, Mr Stratham?’ Amanda White, a pretty young widow of a certain reputation, announced her arrival. Her neckline was just a low enough cut to afford an unhindered view of her cleavage and transparent enough to more than suggest what lay beneath. She looked at him with bold, seductive eyes and a lazy, sensuous smile.

‘A fine day, indeed, madam.’

‘I’m positively famished and need some advice over which are the tastiest morsels on offer.’ She glanced across at the feast of extravagant dishes set out on the line of tables, the tablecloths of which gleamed white in the sun. ‘Whether to have the wafer-thin sliced chicken or ham. Or something bigger, more masculine and...substantial. Like steak. Such a choice as to quite confuse a lady.’ She touched her teeth against her bottom lip, biting it gently. ‘What do you think, sir?’

From the corner of his eye he could see Rob’s gaze fixated on Amanda White’s ample bosom.

‘I think you need the guidance of a renowned epicure. What good fortune there is one so close at hand...’ He glanced round at Rob. ‘Mr Finchley...?’

‘I would be delighted, ma’am,’ said Rob and offered his arm.

Amanda White could not in all civility refuse. She eyed Ned for a moment, knowing full well what he had just done, but then she smiled and tucked her hand into the crook of Rob’s arm.

Rob smiled, too, as he led her away towards the picnic tables.

Ned’s eyes moved across the distance to where Emma Northcote and Lady Lamerton had stood, but both were gone. He located the dowager at the far edge of the party, talking intently with Mrs Hilton. His eyes were still scanning the crowd when he heard Emma’s voice behind him.

‘Mr Stratham.’

A tiny muscle tightened in his jaw. Other than that, not one other sign betrayed him.

‘Miss Northcote.’ He turned to face her. Did not smile. ‘Shouldn’t you be with Lady Lamerton?’

‘She and Mrs Hilton are discussing something which they deem unsuitable for an unmarried lady to hear.’ She gave a small ironic smile. And in that moment, standing there dressed in their finery with champagne glasses in their hands and the extravagance of pineapples upon a banqueting table, surrounded by the elite of London’s ton, Whitechapel and all that had happened there whispered between them.

The hint of a breeze flicked lazily at the olive-green satin of her bonnet ribbons. The colour suited her dark complexion well, highlighting the velvet brown of her eyes and the glossy dark gleam of her hair.

Neither of them drank their champagne. Both stood there, glasses steady in hands, appraising the other with calm measure. She watched him with those same dark perceptive eyes as the woman he had met in the Red Lion.

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