Miss Cameron's Fall from Grace Read online

  “Welcome to our house of pleasure, Miss Cameron.”

  In a seedy tavern in the backstreets of London, a case of mistaken identity leads respectable Miss Delphine Cameron to be unwittingly ravished by a devilish colonel: Lord Stephen Fitzwaring. Now she’s had a taste of lovemaking and, against her better judgement, she craves it again....

  But the colonel has ruined her honor, and there is only one way they can avoid a scandal—Delphine must marry her dark-eyed seducer!

  Now Lady Delphine Fitzwaring must decide between a life of chastity...or succumbing to her husband’s irresistible temptation....

  Delphine stood just inside the room. She could hear a man’s heavy breathing, but apart from that it was quiet, the light dim.

  It was a small room, but well furnished, and on a bed a man lay asleep. His arm was raised to cover his eyes, a bandage wrapped round his wrist. Assuming the wound it covered was the reason Mr. Oakley had brought her to the tavern, she moved toward the still figure.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment she was unable to utter a word. This was a man the like of which she had never seen before. A sheet covered him up to the waist, beneath which he was naked. His body was perfect. He was lean, his muscles hard, his dark chest broad, his shoulders strong.

  Sensing her presence, he slowly lowered his arm and opened his eyes—an extraordinary midnight-blue. Delphine’s heart turned over. His eyes remained fixed on her face, and she could feel her cheeks burning, but she could not look away....

  * * *

  Miss Cameron’s Fall from Grace

  Harlequin® Historical #331—May 2012

  Author Note

  Miss Cameron’s Fall from Grace was an exciting book to write—what I like to think of as romantic suspense. All my novels are historical romances set in varied backgrounds, and I’m equally comfortable writing stories in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I love inventing characters whose stories are worth telling, and I like my heroines to be strong-willed, with a spark of life and determination.

  As in my other books, my heroine has hopes and ambitions—until she meets Lord Stephen Fitzwaring, and then she has hopes and dreams of a different kind.

  I wanted to write an intensely romantic story. I hope I have achieved this in my latest novel, and have managed to create an enjoyable escape for you, the reader.

  Helen Dickson

  Miss Cameron’s Fall From Grace

  Other novels from HELEN DICKSON available in ebook format

  The Rainborough Inheritance #24

  Honor Bound #38

  Katherine #56

  An Illustrious Lord #80

  An Innocent Proposal #104

  Conspiracy of Hearts #114

  Lord Fox’s Pleasure #130

  Carnival of Love #137

  The Pirate’s Daughter #143

  Highwayman Husband #154

  The Property of a Gentleman #160

  Belhaven Bride #190

  The Earl and the Pickpocket #201

  Rogue’s Widow, Gentleman’s Wife #853

  His Rebel Bride #222

  Wicked Pleasures #873

  A Scoundrel of Consequence #248

  The Defiant Debutante #256

  Seducing Miss Lockwood #263

  Marrying Miss Monkton #271

  Traitor or Temptress #274

  Scandalous Secret, Defiant Bride #280

  Diamonds, Deception and the Debutante #283

  Forbidden Lord #290

  Destitute On His Doorstep #301

  Beauty in Breeches #313

  Miss Cameron’s Fall From Grace #331

  HELEN DICKSON

  was born and lives in South Yorkshire with her retired farm manager husband. Having moved out of the busy farmhouse where she raised their two sons, she has more time to indulge in her favorite pastimes. She enjoys being outdoors, traveling, reading and music. An incurable romantic, she writes for pleasure. It was a love of history that drove her to writing historical fiction.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Summer—1810

  It was not Delphine’s habit to visit bordellos, but she had a duty to ensure that Maisie, who had disappeared from the orphanage, was safely with her mother. Granted, this particular bordello was of a most prestigious kind, but although the location was not beyond criticism, it was certainly no place for a lady. The genteel world of Delphine’s mother and sisters, however, had begun to matter less and less of late.

  Delphine was usually accompanied by one of her mother’s footmen who drove her in the carriage, but today he had duties at the house so she’d gone to the orphanage alone. Two of the children had gone down with temperatures and a rash. After isolating them and on the point of leaving, one of the warders had informed her that Maisie was missing. Delphine had a good idea where she could be found—there was nothing for it but to go after her.

  The evening was warm and sultry and oppressive, the kind of oppression that comes before a storm. Mrs Cox’s was an imposing three-storey building, and torchlights burned on each side of the red-painted door. Delphine was admitted to this house of assignation by Fergus Daley, the man Mrs Cox employed to keep order within the house and the rougher elements of the district out. The purple livery he wore looked out of place on his huge frame. The bones of his face were pronounced, with a lantern jaw sharp enough to cut paper. His crooked nose, which had been broken several times during his years as a pugilist, and his eye sockets set deep beneath his heavy brow gave his face a sinister look. But now he smiled, for Miss Cameron was a regular visitor to the house when she was looking for young Maisie.

  ‘Welcome to our house of pleasure, Miss Cameron,’ he greeted jovially in a deep, baritone voice, his expression warm and welcoming.

  ‘House of depravity, more like, Fergus,’ she replied in hushed tones as she placed her brown-leather bag containing medicaments and dressings on the hall table, ‘but don’t tell Mrs Cox I said so.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it, miss,’ he replied, giving her a conspiratorial wink. ‘I think I know why you’re here—and I don’t think it’s to sell your body for what pitiful rewards a common man could offer you.’

  ‘How right you are, Fergus—not even for the king himself. I can only hope my parents never learn I come here.’

  ‘Not from me, Miss Cameron, and while you are here, you are solely under my protection.’

  ‘That’s a comfort to me, Fergus,’ she said, standing back to allow an inebriated gentleman to sway past and disappear into the salon, his clothes in some disarray. During business hours there were always gentlemen present.

  ‘If it’s young Maisie you’re looking for, she arrived an hour since.’

  Delphine uttered a sigh of relief. ‘Thank goodness. I do wish she wouldn’t run away like that. If only she knew how much trouble she causes. She’s just a child. She shouldn’t be here.’ What Delphine said was true. She’d been doing her charity work in and around the area of Covent Garden and St Giles long enough to know that wealthy and depraved gentlemen of the city would pay a fine price for girls as young
as Maisie.

  Fergus nodded towards the curved staircase. ‘She’s with Meg—or the Luscious Delphine as she’s calling herself these days.’

  ‘She does seem to have taken a fancy to my name,’ Delphine remarked, laughing lightly, ‘although last month it was Gorgeous Louella and the month before that Sweet Angel. I find her peculiar taste in names rather odd. She seems to change it whenever another takes her fancy. It must be very confusing for her clients—but I suppose it adds to her mystique. Can I go up?’

  He nodded. ‘She’s no clients tonight—which you can put down to Will Kelly. He was here earlier.’

  Delphine glanced at him in alarm. It was no secret that Fergus had no liking for Will Kelly, nor the devious and often brutal way he went about procuring girls for Mrs Cox’s brothel. ‘Has he hurt her?’

  ‘You’ll see for yourself—but I swear I’ll swing for the bastard if he lays a finger on young Maisie and he knows it, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, Miss Cameron. Go on up. I’ll have to tell Mrs Cox you’re here.’

  ‘Then I’ll disappear before she sees me.’ Delphine was hoping to avoid seeing the strict madam of this establishment.

  With such an impressive array of whores available, Mrs Cox’s business profited from well-heeled and aristocratic customers. Mrs Cox—if that was indeed her name—always dressed plainly in a black gown, her greying hair pulled severely back into a knot at the back of her head: the very picture of respectability. She might have been someone’s grandmother, but Delphine knew she was not. Mrs Cox had lived a life and knew how to make it pay.

  She was very proud of her establishment. Some of the girls were brought to her from the provinces by the ruthless procurer Will Kelly, who took a fair cut of the profits from the brothel’s immoral earnings. Mrs Cox chose the other girls from poverty-stricken backgrounds and girls whose indiscretions had made them outcasts from their own kind. She taught them how to give pleasure by offering clients temptations to which they could yield. Love didn’t come into it—what went on in Mrs Cox’s establishment made a mockery of love.

  From the spacious hall—which was hardly what one would expect of a bordello, with its light oak-panelled walls and black-and-white-tiled floor—Delphine, hearing excited ribald laughter and raised voices, glanced into the main salon where young women in various stages of undress were lolling about on sofas. She had been to the house several times during the day and thought nothing of it.

  Tonight, the sight of scantily clad female bodies both shocked and excited her. The flimsy garments clung to their figures, showing off curves of pearly flesh gleaming in the soft light. The tantalising half-sight of their bodies weaving into the heady scents of perfume was more arousing to the gentlemen pawing them than nakedness would have been. The girls were taking refreshment with clients before going upstairs. Sometimes the gentlemen preferred girls to come to their places of residence, a service they were charged extra for—and as for what happened after that, well, it was no business of hers.

  The salon was elegant with its dark-blue carpet and crystal chandeliers. Occasional tables and padded chairs were scattered about and scarlet-velvet curtains, deeply fringed with gold, hung at the windows. Venetian mirrors adorned the walls, along with gilded lewd pictures of nudes in elegant poses. There were ferns in jardinières so tall they almost reached the high ceiling; plinths on either side of the room held beautiful, life-sized Italian marble statues of male nudes of such quality one would expect to see them in the house of a nobleman, not in a bordello.

  Lifting her skirts slightly Delphine began to climb the stairs. The air was sweetened by perfumed candles. Reaching the top, she went down one of the two landings, halting at the door at the end. Knocking gently and hearing a voice telling her to come in, she opened the door and entered a rose-pink boudoir. Its furnishings were surprisingly cosy; facing Delphine was a dressing table littered with cosmetic pots, perfumes and a silver-backed hairbrush, the border of the gilt mirror carved with cherubs.

  Meg was reclining on a low couch, toying with her dyed red hair. With her big blue eyes, full soft lips and luscious form, there was little wonder men couldn’t resist her. Expecting her visitor, for she knew Delphine would come after the child, she gave her husky laugh and stretched luxuriously like a cat, raising a shimmering leg and admiring its shapeliness whilst watching Delphine out of the corner of her eye, trying to gauge the effect of the voluptuousness barely contained within her violet-silk robe. When she registered neither shock nor horror in Delphine’s countenance, she rose, drawing the robe tight about her body.

  ‘I suppose you’re looking for Maisie.’ She nodded towards the ten-year-old child asleep on the bed. ‘She went to sleep straight away. I didn’t want to wake her.’

  ‘No—of course not. I had to come, Meg, to make sure she was safe. I know Mrs Cox thinks I ought to mind my own business, but anything could have happened to her.’

  A wry smile twisted Meg’s lips. ‘Mrs Cox? Don’t be fooled by her.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘She’s a trollop as old as sin, but she’s right. You should mind your own business,’ Meg remarked, sitting back on the couch.

  ‘I come here because I care.’

  ‘Why should you?’ Meg said, with a haughty toss of her head. ‘You with your fancy name and fancy clothes and all your airs and graces. Why would someone like you care about people like me and my Maisie?’

  ‘Because I do. I do care about you and Maisie, otherwise I wouldn’t be here—and as for my name, you appear to be making good use of it.’

  ‘Aye—maybe. I like it, that’s why, but I don’t own it and there’s the difference. You don’t belong here.’

  ‘Neither do you, Meg. None of the girls do—and Maisie certainly doesn’t.’ Delphine glanced across at the sleeping child curled up against the pillows. She was an extremely pretty child, with large green eyes and an abundance of light blonde hair, and she remained devoted to her mother, despite her neglect.

  Meg shrugged. ‘I can’t help it if she keeps on coming. And as for the others, it’s become a way of life for them—most of them driven to it by one hardship or another.’

  ‘Don’t make it a way of life for Maisie. She deserves better.’

  ‘I have to make a living,’ Meg replied, her voice hard and flat.

  Delphine crossed the room and crouched on the floor beside her. ‘You don’t have to stay here. Take her away, Meg. Somewhere decent. I’ll help you all I can.’

  ‘I don’t want charity; besides, I can’t leave. You see, this is where I want to be—where I choose to be.’

  ‘Why? Because it excites you? Because you can’t leave Will Kelly? For heaven’s sake, Meg, look at you,’ Delphine hissed, taking one of Meg’s arms and shoving up the sleeve to reveal a host of bruises, some purple and some yellowing with age. ‘He’s a cruel, overbearing bully. I simply cannot for the life of me understand why you tolerate his ill treatment.’

  Meg shrugged, jerking her arm out of Delphine’s grasp and pulling down her sleeve. ‘I’ve had worse. He does care for me.’

  ‘Nonsense. He merely seeks to use you. If he cared for you, he would not have brought you here. You know full well, Meg, he may be all flattery and honey when he’s sober, but once he starts drinking—well—I’m the one who patches you up. I’ve seen the results of his behaviour once too often. Oh, Meg, please think about it.’

  ‘I try not to think. I accept what there is.’

  ‘Don’t give him the chance to hurt you again. I implore you.’

  Meg’s face clenched up like a fist as she fought to keep her voice under control. ‘I need no instructions from you on how to conduct myself.’

  ‘Of course not—but really I am most concerned about you.’

  ‘Save your concern for someone else,’ she grumbled ungraciously. ‘I
’m quite capable of taking care of myself.’

  ‘Are you?’ Delphine pressed. ‘I beg you to go away somewhere—for Maisie’s sake as well as your own. She is but a child and deserves better than this. You once worked in the theatre as an actress, touring the provinces. Could you not go back? It has to be better than this.’

  Meg’s lovely face became almost ugly as she looked down at Delphine. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to gain by this,’ she said nastily, ‘but I’m not going anywhere. I can look after myself—as I’ve always done. I won’t leave Will. I can’t.’ She looked away. ‘That’s the way it is.’

  Unable to understand Meg’s loyalty and devotion to Will Kelly, Delphine’s heart sank with defeat. Meg had grown partial to Will’s silken tongue and good looks whilst on tour with an acting troupe; when he’d offered to take both her and Maisie to London and a better life, she’d packed her bags and gone with him—to Mrs Cox’s place, to become one of her whores. Now she was at the service of any lecherous rogue with gold in his pockets and Maisie stayed in the nearby orphanage. Will was the first man Meg had loved. She would do anything to keep him. He had been the first male to reject her, scorn her, beat her, awake in her all the fury of which only hell has the like, yet she would not leave him.

  ‘And Maisie? Can you look after her?’

  Meg’s eyes narrowed and anger sparked in their depths. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but don’t,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m her mother—not a good mother, I admit, but I am still her mother. Do you think I’d let any one of the dirty brutes who come here touch her? I’d kill her and myself before I let that happen—after killing the man who tried.’

  Delphine nodded. ‘I know you would. But there are men who come here who would take a young girl—whether she was willing or not.’

  ‘They won’t. You don’t understand one thing about me. Do you think I don’t worry about Maisie? That’s why I put her in the orphanage. If anything should happen to me…’ She swallowed audibly, weakening and allowing her emotions to show. ‘I worry about what would happen to her.’