His Scandalous Lessons Read online

  Contents

  Newsletter

  The Private Arrangements Series

  His Scandalous Lessons

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Thank You!

  Sneak Peek

  A Touch Wicked

  Chapter 1

  About the Author

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  The Private Arrangements Series

  A Touch Wicked (Book 0.5)

  His Scandalous Lessons (Book 1)

  Coming next:

  Tempting the Scoundrel (Book 2)

  His Scandalous Lessons

  (A Private Arrangements Novel)

  Love and scandal make for a deadly combination . . .

  He is London's most notorious rogue

  Richard Grey is renowned for his escapades in the bedchamber. But he’s hidden the truth for years: his wicked reputation is a public front to hide his political machinations. So when the prime minister's daughter arrives on his doorstep with a scandalous proposal, he seizes the opportunity to gather information against her father, his corrupt political rival.

  She is determined to escape her past

  Anne Sheffield's life is dictated at the whims of her domineering father. Considered an asset for her remarkable memory, Anne is privy to intelligence passed between the prime minister and his allies — and he's determined to keep her close. Desperate to escape, she presents Richard with a trade: help her find, seduce, and secure a husband of her choosing in exchange for political information.

  The arrangement is supposed to be simple: his help for her secrets. But sharing secrets can lead to dangerous consequences . . .

  For the women still finding their voices.

  Chapter 1

  London, 1872

  Anne Sheffield had always followed her father’s rules. He’d said them so often that she could recite each one, as instructed, while her thoughts screamed as if muffled from within four prison walls.

  Many served as guidelines, principles of behavior intended to wear Anne down, little by little, until it appeared as if she had no opinions of her own.

  Then there were Stanton Sheffield’s three most important rules:

  1. Never leave the house without a bodyguard and chaperone.

  2. Never speak to those who were not among her father’s allies in Parliament.

  3. Never offer any insight beyond the weather and lady’s fashion.

  In short, Anne was not to give anyone the impression she was more than an expensive vase: beautiful, but hollow.

  Displayed for no purpose other than decoration.

  As she had no friends to speak of, Anne’s father and her fiancé, the Duke of Kendal, designated themselves the arbiters of her dull, constricted little world. Anne was their weapon, privy to political conversations that ought never reach a lady’s ears — but this was information she kept to herself. Her father and Lord Kendal never had any reason to doubt that.

  After all, she did not share opinions. She did not speak unless prompted. She kept her eyes meekly downcast. She showed no outward interest in gossip. Though Anne was well read, her expressions as she turned the pages never betrayed anything beyond lukewarm interest.

  Her father’s allies in Parliament praised the prime minister for the daughter he had raised. She was perfect, they declared. Their unspoken sentiment: perfect meant shallow, brainless, and attractive.

  A priceless artifact to display on the mantelpiece.

  The privacy of her own thoughts became a sanctuary. It was also like screaming into a silent, empty abyss. No one heard her, no one saw her, and Anne could do nothing but one day plan for her escape.

  Tonight, Anne Sheffield was going to break every one of her father’s rules.

  She had planned this for months with the utmost care, waiting until her father left for a late meeting on Downing Street. The prime minister’s servants were as efficient as the crew of a ship, always on schedule, never deviating. She had long since memorized their movements, the pace of each individual footsteps. They counted down the hours she’d have alone with her own thoughts to plan and dream for that one day.

  Tonight.

  Anne donned her plainest dress and slipped quietly through the house. Once in the garden, she hurried out the back gate and onto the street. The misting rain gave her the perfect excuse to raise the hood of her cloak to obscure her features. She shivered. The early spring weather in London was not warm, but brisk and wet. She tightened the fabric around her, quickening her pace.

  Not too fast, she thought.

  Rationality fought instinct; she could not look suspicious. She must appear as if she knew precisely what she was about. If anyone happened to come home to St James's and recognized her—

  No, Anne couldn’t think about that. In three months time, she would be the Duchess of Kendal, and there would be no escape for her then.

  Anne turned onto the main road and hailed a hackney. Ignoring the critical look from the driver, she gave him the address of her destination in a firm voice.

  She sounded calm; her heart was rioting.

  What seemed like an eternity later, the hack rolled to a stop in front of a quaint checkered walk leading up to a black door that gleamed as if freshly painted. Anne let out a breath. She schooled her nerves so her facade was one of cool confidence as she exited the hack. No one could have known she had to think a chant of inhale exhale inhale exhale to compose herself.

  Be brave. Knock.

  The butler opened the door. Anne had expected surprise or even disdain for a woman on the doorstep of a bachelor’s residence in the early hours. But he shattered that assumption by maintaining a politely bland expression. She supposed many a lady had darkened this particular doorstep.

  “May I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Mr. Grey. Is he at home?”

  “And whom may I ask is calling?”

  Anne lifted her chin. “Please tell him Miss Anne Sheffield is here to speak with him urgently.”

  “Of course,” he intoned, opening the door for her. “May I take your cloak, Miss Sheffield?”

  “No.” She wanted him to leave before she changed her mind. “No, thank you.”

  “Very good, miss. If you’ll wait in the front parlor, please.”

  Anne was surprised to find the parlor so pleasantly decorated and tasteful. Gleaming dark furniture was set against dozens of beautiful landscape paintings, each one displayed as if in a ga
llery. She would have said it had a woman’s touch, but perhaps Mr. Grey had intended that to make his usual guests feel at ease. From what she knew of him based on the gossip, he was a renowned lover. Considerate, and — they said — as handsome as the devil. More than one lady had blushed in Anne’s presence when sharing news of his escapades.

  Stanton Sheffield was less kind — he loathed the man. He considered Mr. Grey to be a manipulative bastard who used underhanded means to push progressive bills through Parliament that were intended to change the very fabric of British society.

  In the world of politics, Mr. Grey’s reputation oscillated between devious and considerate. Publicly, he was known as a donor for causes. Women’s suffrage, worker’s rights — things her father scoffed at due to his belief in the God-given birthright of the aristocracy. A world that, to her mind, was fading into obsolescence as businessmen, inventors, and merchants grew richer than nobility.

  Anne knew Mr. Grey’s machinations were a source of frustration for her father. Donating to such causes was one thing, manipulating and bribing Members of Parliament into supporting and ultimately voting for them was quite another.

  Mr. Richard Grey, renowned lover and most notorious rogue in London, was a Machiavellian schemer to rival Anne’s father.

  And that was exactly the sort of man she needed.

  Anne stared up at a painting, gathering her courage. She noticed, then, that Mr. Grey had more than one painting by this particular artist. Each was more striking than the last, vivid arrays of color splashed across the canvas. They sketched the outlines of beaches at dawn, the tempestuous waves of the sea, the gradient of the sands.

  Footsteps sounded behind her. Then, a voice as smooth as honey: “Miss Sheffield.”

  Anne turned, and couldn’t stop herself from sucking in a breath.

  She’d heard that Mr. Grey was handsome, but she didn’t expect him to be as beautiful as some Biblical seraph. Like warrior angels in paintings, his hair gleamed like spun gold and his eyes were the most startling shade of blue she had ever seen. It wasn’t their color that surprised Anne, but the intensity. The way they frankly and shamelessly assessed her as if Mr. Grey were trying to picture her stripped bare and vulnerable.

  It was a heated look, yes. It was also unnervingly astute, as if she were a cog missing from some clockwork contraption, and he were an inventor trying to figure out where she belonged. Where he could place her. Perhaps, how he could use her.

  But, then, Anne had grown accustomed to men using her.

  She planned to use this one back.

  Anne looked away first, back to the painting of the Cornish coastline. The name signed at the bottom was Caroline Stafford, who Anne recognized as the Duchess of Hastings. Her Grace’s paintings were all the rage among the beau monde for their distinctive style and vivid coloring. Anne had met the duchess before. She even wrote to compliment her work; no other intimacies were allowed, since her father had all her correspondence read.

  “You enjoy Her Grace’s work,” she murmured. “You have several of her paintings.”

  Mr. Grey moved to stand beside her. “Do you like them?”

  “The strokes show a lack of restraint,” she said. Then, with a small smile, she added, “But the duchess does this on purpose. It adds to the wildness, the . . .” He was staring at her now, and Anne tried not to squirm under his scrutiny. Her smile disappeared. “. . . The atmosphere,” she finally finished. “I think they’re extraordinary. But I suppose she must hear that often.”

  “I’ll still be certain to inform her of your compliments,” he said. “But something tells me you didn’t come to my house in the middle of the night to compliment my choice of art.”

  “No.” She sighed. “No, I didn’t.”

  How did she go about asking for his help? It was scandalous, what she came here for. Immoral. But she was desperate, and sometimes desperate women did regretful things to survive.

  He interrupted her thoughts. “Would you like me to ring for tea?”

  “No,” she said. “I would not like tea.”

  “Then if I may be so bold, I find the easiest thing in this situation is simply to tell me what you want.”

  “I suppose you’re not at all surprised,” she murmured, as if to herself. “This can’t be the first time a woman has shown up on your doorstep.”

  “That’s true,” he answered. “But never the daughter of the prime minister.”

  “What about the daughter of a man who loathes you?”

  Mr. Grey shrugged. “That’s a sentiment I’m well acquainted with. Though they generally come after a clear invitation for the obvious.”

  “Lovemaking,” she said with a nod.

  “Fucking.”

  The word was shocking. Anne ought to have been scandalized, but she admired the honesty of it. Some relationships, she understood, did not require sentiment.

  When she didn’t respond, Mr. Grey added, “I have a rule against debutantes, if that’s what you’re here for.”

  “A rake with rules,” she said. “How refreshing. I suppose I should have figured you’d have some integrity, based on your support of progressive bills. You have an impressive habit of annoying my father.”

  “Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. I consider it my mission in life to annoy Tories.”

  Anne couldn’t help but smile at that. She still wasn’t looking at him; she didn’t think she could. Though she prided herself on not succumbing to her father and fiancé’s mutual goal of making her submissive and brainless, she had difficulty meeting the gazes of men. Look down, her father had always told her. It is a bold woman who stares directly into a man’s eyes; it assumes they are on equal terms. They are not. He’d told her that a downward gaze showed humility.

  Anne hated it. Hated that despite her mental rebellions, she found herself staring so often at her feet.

  Or, she thought bitterly, paintings of Cornish coastlines.

  Mr. Gray reached out and tilted her chin so she was forced to meet his gaze. His fingers were warm, gentle. Anne pulled away with a startled gasp.

  “Easy,” he said, dropping his hand. He had a kind expression, patient, as if sensing her internal battle. She did not like it. “I’m quite sorry, I shouldn’t have touched you without permission.”

  All at once, Anne’s eyes stung with tears. It was novel for her to speak to a man who thought women mattered. Apparently, they asked for consent. They had rules that did not whittle a woman away until she was a hollowed out vase. They didn’t touch them without permission.

  Even a manipulative man like Mr. Grey understood such things.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “You have some integrity despite your habit of blackmailing politicians.”

  Mr. Grey scowled. “If you’re here because you want me to blackmail someone for you—”

  “On the contrary. It’s your skills in seduction that I require,” Anne said, standing straighter. She blinked away her tears and evened her expression. “I need your help to find a husband.”

  Chapter 2

  Richard tried not to laugh. Miss Sheffield’s expression a moment ago had been too vulnerable for him to jest about her proposal. “Miss Sheffield, as we’ve already established, I’m a rake. Marriage is not for me.”

  Miss Sheffield raised an eyebrow. “I said that I require your help to find a husband, not that I wanted to marry you.”

  Now Richard let out a laugh; he couldn’t help it. “Finding a debutante a husband is not exactly in the job description of a rake.”

  Not that he didn’t appreciate an attractive woman on his doorstep. And Anne Sheffield was beautiful, quiet and intensely so. She was all graceful lines and petite, delicate framing. Red hair framed her small, lovely face, so vivid it was almost unreal. Her eyes surprised him most: they were wide enough to be innocent, but filled with an awareness he hadn’t seen in many debutantes.

  When she had first met his gaze, he felt as if the world had tilted on its axis. Her scrutiny left him
as off-kilter as a blade to the gut, and he’d lost control and touched her without asking.

  What had compelled her to come to him? It was well known in social circles that Prime Minister Sheffield hated Richard Grey with a passion matched only by people’s hatred for rodents.

  Not that Richard felt any differently.

  Stanton Sheffield was a cold, greedy bastard, and was in the pocket of more than a few rich, conservative aristocrats.

  It had been Stanton Sheffield who taught Richard that politics could rarely be won with honesty. It required lying, cheating, and stealing to force progress, and the men on the other side would not allow the country to move even a fraction from the status quo without a fight.

  And they fought dirty.

  Richard doubted Sheffield treated his only child better than his opponents in Parliament, otherwise she wouldn’t be here talking about marriage.

  Richard had to hand it to her, though: it took bollocks to come in the middle of the night and take a risk on a man with his reputation.

  “We’ve already established that you’re not just a rake, Mr. Grey,” Miss Sheffield said. “You’re a manipulative schemer with enough political secrets to rival the length of a Roman history, I suspect.”