Discreet Young Gentleman

What the critics are saying about The Price of Temptation by MJ Pearson

"Pearson's charming, easygoing novel...is a well-crafted model of the genre...a breezy and solidly satisfying read."

—Richard Labonte

"[The Price of Temptation] is a lighthearted and fun guilty-pleasure type read. "

—Bay Windows

"[Pearson's] voice is unique, and the story itself is rather groundbreaking..."

—Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels

( www. smartbitchestrashybooks .com)

"The Price of Temptation offers lots of fun."

—LoveLetter (Germany)

Discreet Young Gentleman © 2006 M.J. Pearson

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Though it contains incidental references to actual people, products and places, these references are merely to lend the fiction a realistic setting. All other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

First Seventh Window Publications edition: September 2006

Cover illustration © 2006 Sean Platter-Studio Splatter-all rights reserved Published in the United States of America by:

Seventh Window Publications

P.O. BOX 603165 Providence, RI 02906-0165

http://www.SeventhWindow.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2006933643

ISBN-13: 978-0-9717089-5-2

ISBN-10: 0-9717089-5-9

For my high school English teachers Tom Brownell, Bob Swartz, and Bruce Buxton, with heartfelt appreciation.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to my agent, Sharene Martin; to Ken Harrison at Seventh Window Publications; to Kris Alice Hohls and Birte Lilienthal of LoveLetter magazine, who fixed my terrible German (any remaining mistakes are my own); to the Pearson Posse (Ma, Erich, Tray and Stef) for supporting me at the Lambda Literary Awards (with an extra hug to Erich for letting me borrow his name); to Kris Anderson for her comments; to Keith and Mark for thinking that I can write; and especially to Paul and Aidan, who put up with so much, every day.

Chapter one

A man is what he makes of himself, Dean Smith's father had always insisted. The words mocked him tonight to the clop of the horses' hooves as his ancient coach jolted over the pitted road back to Carwick. A man is what he makes of himself, over and over in the gathering twilight.

A few hours earlier, Dean had decided that tonight he would make himself into a Fair-But-Stern-Landlord. He had carefully dressed the part, donning his most respectable long-tailed jacket, a somber black that had been new for his uncle's memorial service in May, adding an embroidered grey-and-white waistcoat purchased for the same occasion. Tied his cravat neatly, if without flair. Even hunted through his things for an old diamond tie-pin that used to be his father's, and setting it to glimmer demurely on the knot of his cravat.

As satisfied as he could be with his appearance, and borrowing confidence from his new position as Earl of Carwick, he had tucked Uncle Parm's account book under his arm and set out for the first of several farms which seemed not to have paid any rents for several years. Soon, Dean wouldn't need the arrears, but the money would stand him in good stead for the wedding next month.

"Eh? What's that? Rent?" Farmer Dickenson laughed in his face, emitting a cloud of onion and tobacco. The elderly man then shuffled over to a worn wooden box kept on a shelf by the fire, producing two scraps of paper. The first, unarguably in the peculiar chicken-scratch distinctive to his uncle, stated that one Mr. William Dickenson, of Windy Farm in the county of Worcestershire, was exempt from the payment of rent for a term ending at Christmas Quarter Day in the Year of Our Lord Eighteen-Hundred and Twenty-One.

Dickenson poked at the date. "Got more than six years left, young man." His rheumy eyes dared his visitor to insist on a more suitable form of address, and Dean feared if he tried, Dickenson would laugh at him again and bring up some nonsense of having dandled his new landlord upon his knee on some mythical past visit.

"But why?" Dean asked, handing the scrip back to the farmer.

"Adored my apple brandy, your uncle did. Few years back, I was hankering to move up to Yorkshire, to be near my daughter, see? Parm give me ten years free rent if I'd a stayed."

"Ten years? But that's—" Absurd. Eccentric. Indicative of no business sense at all.

"Uncle Parm," Dean finished, shaking his head.

The farmer's second bit of paper sent Dean slinking off into the summer evening, tail firmly between his legs and any thought of visiting the other farms on his list in tatters. Not only was Mr. Dickenson to live rent-free for years to come, but shortly before his death Uncle Parmenius had promised to bear full responsibility for a brand new apple barn, to be completed before harvest. The work, the old man pointed out, had best be started soon if Dean was going to fulfill his obligation in time. Dickenson would hate to have to bring the matter to court.

A man is what he makes of himself. Dean had made a right fool of himself tonight.

Hell and damnation. How was he to pay for the barn? He'd been too proud to ask his future father-in-law for a loan thus far, and shrank from doing it now. Perhaps the workmen could be persuaded to extend him credit—after all, they wouldn't have to wait very long. He and Minerva would wed at the end of September, and after that—

A harsh wordless cry echoed from the driver's box, and Dean felt the carriage lurch as the horses crashed to a precipitate halt. "Erich," he called, "Was ist das?"

The answering voice did not belong to his coachman, being lower and richer of tone, and the words English. "Stand and deliver!"

"Oh, Christ." Dean took a brief second to bury his head in his hands. This, he was starting to think, was not going to rank among his favorite nights. Frustration welled up in him as he slowly opened the carriage door and unfolded the steps to the ground.

He'd had reason to expect that he would end this day more prosperous than he'd begun it. Now, after losing ten years of rent and the price of a new barn, he was supposed to give up even his meager purse and his father's tie-pin? Dean halted on the steps, tight-lipped with anger.

The highwayman stood in the shadows on the road, a black horse looming behind him. His shirt billowed whitely in the fading light, the black mask covering the lower half of his face a dramatic contrast. A wide-brimmed hat covered his hair and shaded his eyes. In one hand he held a pistol, and a second was tucked into the wide scarlet sash at his waist. Dean glanced up at Erich on the driving box, and his hands curled into fists at the frozen look of fear on his coachman's face.

"That's right," the smooth voice said, amused, from beneath the black mask. "Your driver is being very sensible. I suggest you do the same." The robber took a step toward the coach.

Sensible? Erich was terrified. Red dots of fury danced in front of Dean's eyes, and without stopping for thought, he launched himself at the highwayman, hoping vaguely that the height advantage from the coach steps would work in his favor.

It did. With a cry of surprise, the robber folded backward onto the road, Dean atop him. There were taut muscles beneath the billowing shirt, strength in the wide shoulders, but the highwayman, apparently winded by the impact with the road, did not attempt to fight back. His gun flew from his grasp, skidding several feet down the roadway.

"Wait," the highwayman gasped. "This wasn't—"

"Shut up." Dean grabbed the second pistol from the man's sash, flinging it as far as he could into the bushes by the side of the road. A horse whinnied at the crash of gun into brush, and Dean looked up to see the highwayman's mount wheeling and cantering off into the distance. He pulled himself onto his knees, staring down at the highwayman, who was still struggling for breath on his back. If a man is what he makes of himself, this man had failed to make himself a very effective criminal. Dean reached and pulled the black mask, which proved to be a length of heavy silk, from the robber's face.

The highwayman was younger than he would have expected, perhaps in his mid-twenties, and dark of hair and eye. "Get in the coach," Dean said. "I'll be taking you to justice for this."

The dark-haired man managed to draw a long breath, and incredibly, laughed. "Am I to assume," he said, "that you weren't expecting me?"

"Don't be stupid. Of course not." Dean herded the man into his carriage, calling a destination to his coachman. "Fraulein Minerva—zum Haus ihres Vaters, ja?"

"Honestly, I'm not a highwayman," the dark-haired man continued, settling into one of the worn leather seats. In the late-summer twilight creeping into the carriage, he looked remarkably calm for the circumstances. "Would I have made such a botch of it if I were?"

Dean, on the seat opposite, folded his arms, his breathing returning to normal.

"One can, of course, understand my confusion. It's not so much the mask." He considered, tilting his head. "I'm not in with the dandy set, so I'd believe you if you said everyone's wearing them this season. And the pistol? I assume it's just a sensible precaution in these troubled times."

"It wasn't loaded, you know," said the other man, a hint of inappropriate amusement flickering in his dark eyes.

"More the fool you," Dean said mildly. "Now, the part where you blocked the road with your horse and shouted 'Stand and deliver!.'That was...?"

The highwayman laughed. "Poor Nell! Our little set-to scared the liver and lights out of her. She was a hire—I hope she finds her way back to the stable in town."

"A lesson learned: skittish horses are not an asset on the High Toby. Too bad you won't live to profit from it." It was a pity, in a way, that a man who faced his end with such apparent bravery had to die, and Dean couldn't help but wonder how the robber had turned out as he did. Perhaps he was one of the thousands of soldiers left to their own devices since Boney's defeat at Waterloo in June. Even so, becoming a highwayman was his own choice, and he had to suffer the consequences.

"Oh, for heaven's sake." Dean's prisoner settled himself back against the coach cushions, raising a long-fingered hand to smooth his dark hair, disordered in their brief scuffle on the road. To Dean's disgust, the sleek locks fell instantly into place. The miscreant's mane was positively ruly, in sharp contrast to his own wiry hair, of an unfortunate shade of ginger.

The hair wasn't the man's only asset, either, Dean noted sourly. The highwayman's legs, long and sculpted, displayed to advantage in skin-tight buckskins and knee-high Hessians. His fine linen shirt had been torn down the front, and the chest that gleamed through it was equally well-muscled, tapering to a trim waist. And although the light was too uncertain to see clearly, Dean was unaccountably sure that the smooth skin sported not even a single disfiguring freckle. Oh, women would weep when this one dangled on the gallows.

Grooming seen to, the highwayman continued. "It was a simple mistake, sir. I thought you were someone else."

Dean raised his brows, so pale as to be almost invisible. "Obviously. Someone who wouldn't fight back."

The other man threw back his head and laughed, a merry sound. "I'm not much of a fighter, but you were remarkably handy with your fists." A tone of admiration crept into his voice as he assessed Dean's physique. "But perhaps you box to keep fit? The speed with which you disarmed me was quite—"

"Excuse me," Dean said. "But in this case, flattery will get you absolutely nowhere."

Gazing at him sidelong through a thicket of black lashes, the highwayman murmured, "Pity, that."

"Yes, I'm sure you would prefer not to face justice. But the laws are rather unambiguous on this one, I'm afraid." Dean frowned, reminding himself that the man was a criminal, and deserved death. Of course he did. "And don't think you can charm the magistrate, either. He's my future father-in-law, and knows the sort of man I am.