In Temptation and Damnation with the Earl: A Steamy Historical Regency Romance Novel

by Violet Hamers

  His face slackened – his jaw dropped, and his eyes ran over her.

  Cleopatra had never known such embarrassment. She lurched for the towel to cover herself up.

  “How dare you!” she snapped at him, blushing bright red as she scrambled from the bath. “Have you never heard of knocking?”

  “I–” Alexander was clearly struggling for words, he spun round, turning his back to her and running his hands through his dark hair.

  Her stomach had tightened with embarrassment, she hurried to dry her body and reached for a dressing gown that she had discarded on the bed. Deep satin purple, she wrapped it quickly around her waist – cinched in, it fell to the ground in soft folds, revealing just a glimpse of her collar bone and neck. She needed the covering after being so completely revealed to him.

  “How could you just walk in here?”

  “I did not consider you would be bathing,” he snapped back with his head still turned from her. He closed the door, leaving the two of them alone.

  “I am covered now, Husband.” She threw the word at him as though it were an insult, walking around the bath so that she could put something between them. “You can turn back if you can bear to see the anger in my face.”

  He did as she instructed, turning slowly around. There was just as much frustration in his eyes as her own.

  “Why are you so filled with rage? I am the one between us right now who deserves to have such fury.”

  “You think so?” he scoffed, walking toward her until he reached the other side of the bath. “Your little brother has just destroyed a priceless heirloom. It was a vase from the sixteenth century. Nearly three hundred years old, irreplaceable, beyond compare and he has broken it.”

  “Is it beyond the chance of a repair?”

  “Completely so!” he almost barked the words. “It is shattered into pieces.”

  “Perhaps it was deserved.” She folded her arms and tilted her chin high, feeling a small amount of pride for her brother.

  “I beg your pardon?” Alexander leaned over the bath with his eyes wide.

  “What harm does it truly do you? Nothing really. It is still possible that you have done far worse to me and him. You may have taken our older brother from us!” At her words, he turned away from her, covering his eyes with his hands.

  Her doubts had grown by the day, but she still could not quite escape the possibility.

  “I cannot believe you still think that is true.”

  “It is not that I think it true. More than I am struggling to believe you truly had nothing to do with it.” She rounded the bath to stand before him, urging him to look at her, but when he kept his eyes buried behind his hand, she took hold of his wrist and pulled it away. His eyes shot to her in surprise. “What if you did take him from me?”

  “I did no such thing. I am not that kind of man.” He took hold of the hand that was on his wrist, holding it with both of his palms. “Cleopatra, after the last few days, do you truly still hold to this wild fantasy? Do you really still think me capable of such a foul crime?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cleopatra’s gaze flicked between Alexander’s gray-blue eyes. They were wide, pleading with her, almost begging her to believe him. She wanted to, especially with his hands holding her so. He was rubbing his thumb on the back of her knuckles, forming small circles that were making her hand tingle.

  “I cannot escape the evidence of my own eyes. I have your letters.” She snatched her hand from his grasp, fearful that if he had hold of her for much longer, she would feel herself relenting.

  “Letters?” his eyebrows shot up in wonder. “What letters?”

  “Let me show you. You can see it for yourself. If I am to believe you, then I need an explanation for this.” She walked away from him, searching through one of the bags that had been delivered to the corner of her room with her things packed neatly inside. She took out an ornate wooden box and lifted the lid to find the parchment.

  She stood again and walked across the room, delivering the letters into Alexander’s hand with a sharp throw.

  “Read them.”

  He took them with narrowed eyes and looked down at the parchments, quickly scanning their contents. He sifted between each paper, coming back to the first eventually with a scoff and a sharp shake of his head.

  “Upon this you have condemned me of murdering him? This is ridiculous. I can scarcely believe you think this is evidence against my name.” He dropped the letters on the bed nearby. “This is normal practice, Cleopatra. Any man who owed a debt to the Wicked Souls received such a letter. Most of the letters are written by my staff and I merely sign my name at the bottom to reinforce the idea that they owe the owner of the club their money.”

  “This is a standard policy?” Cleopatra repeated in wonder, grabbing the letters from off the bed again and brandishing them toward him. “It is full of thinly veiled threats!”

  “From your point of view, I can see how they look like threats, but they are nothing of the sort.” He was but a step away from her with outstretched hands, gesturing wildly. “Read them again from someone’s perspective who has not just lost a loved one. Does it sound like a threat of violence? Or does it sound merely the harsh realities of business?”

  She looked down at the letters, thinking he was wrong. He could be merely lying to her. He was a man who could lie easily, it was as simple to him as breathing. Yet her eyes read some of the excerpts again that had haunted her so.

  …there will be a penalty for your lack of payment…

  …failure to pay your debts will surely result in a greater price for you to pay…

  …you will not be allowed to escape with this debt–

  The words could easily have two completely different meanings. She had read them as something dark, something full of the promise of violence. It seemed Alexander was right, there was another way of reading them. Cleopatra closed her eyes, his words breaking through the mist of anger in her mind at last.

  Could he really be telling the truth?

  She pushed away the thought from her mind, rebelling from it. Just because there was another meaning to the words did not make his argued interpretation of the letters true. Yet the doubt lingered, it would not let her go.

  Have I really destroyed his reputation for a crime he did not commit?

  “I know you have no liking for the gaming halls, but it is business to me,” Alexander continued, his tone just as harsh and refusing to let the matter go. “People who renege on their debts are bad for business. It is my practice to send letters to demand payments. I do not corner debtors in dark alleyways under pain of death if they do not pay up.”

  “I have heard worst tales about gaming halls. It is said that such places employ men who are willing to do the deeds for you.” She looked up again, shaking her head and holding the letters tightly to her chest. They were a last link to her brother.

  “Not my gaming hall.” He snatched one of the letters from her hand, pointing out the obscene number that her brother owed at the bottom of the parchment. “Wake up, Cleopatra. Your brother owed a truly repugnant amount of money to me.”

  She took the letter back, her hand trembling as she re-read the number.

  “Perhaps Robert was not the saint you are so determined to believe he is. He could have owed money to half of the gaming halls in London, maybe more, and not all hold the practices I do. For all you know, he could have owed money to swindlers and every crook in Covent Garden.”

  “Do not speak of him so. He was a good man.” She turned away, crumpling the pages as she held them to her stomach. They pressed into her fingers, threatening to cut her.

  Her action appeared to soften him. She was breathing heavily, refusing to look at him when she felt his touch on her shoulder. Part of her wanted to recoil away from him, the other part wanted to lean back into his chest. She settled for standing perfectly still. Her mind debating on the warmth of his hand through the dressing gown.

  “I ap
ologize. I am not trying to insult your brother’s memory.” Alexander moved closer toward her, so near he was almost whispering in her ear. Her neck tingled at the proximity, wanting him to lean down toward her. “I am only trying to be sensible of the fact he must have owed money elsewhere, other than me.”

  He placed the softest of kisses on the crook between her neck and collarbone. Her breath hitched as she closed her eyes, tilting her chin back to allow him better access.

  “Please believe me, Cleopatra. I am no murderer.” His lips still brushed her neck though he did not kiss her again.

  “I want to.” The words were barely a whisper, but a murmur in the air.

  He sighed at her words.

  “Then give way to that want.”

  “I cannot trust you on your word alone.” She opened her eyes again, leaning back to allow him to explore her neck all the more. He hesitated at her words. “Where were you when he was killed?”

  He froze. “I was at the gaming hall.”

  “That is a lie,” she shook her head, recognizing it in his manner. “I know you were not at the gaming hall.”

  “What makes you say such a thing?”

  “I know your carriage was not at the gaming hall that day.”

  He looked away, running his hands through his hair.

  “I walked to the hall.”

  “All the way from Larson Manor?” she scoffed. “If you wish me to believe you, then please, tell me the truth.”

  “I cannot tell you.” He pulled back, urging her to turn and look at him. He had his eyes on the ceiling and a hand at the back of his neck.

  “Why ever not?”

  “Because it is another matter entirely. It has nothing to do with your brother.”

  “Then how can I trust you? I want to. Yet you have just lied to me.” Watching him, something completely shattered inside of her. As though the vase that lay broken downstairs could not match her fragmented heart.

  Tears threatened to fall. She tried to blink them away, but they were coming too quickly. She walked past Alexander, determined to not let him see her cry, but he was following her. She dropped the letters on a nearby table and hunted through her things for a handkerchief as the tears trickled down her cheeks.

  “Cleopatra?”

  “Please, leave me.”

  “I cannot leave you now.”

  She dropped the reticule she was searching to the floor with despair as the gasps took hold. She covered her face with her hands, trying to block out Alexander’s presence, but it was no use.

  There was an arm around her waist, pulling her toward him, and a hand at the back of her head, making her drop her face against the center of his chest.

  “Cleopatra…I am so sorry,” he whispered into her hair as she cried. He placed a soft kiss onto her temple as he ran his fingers through her black curls. “Your life has become something of a whirlwind since his death, has it not?”

  “You cannot understand.” She lifted her head, trying to fight the tears that were falling, but it was futile. He still held her to him with one arm around her waist as his other hand weaved into her hair.

  “Not entirely, I know.” His hand left her hair and went into his pocket, pulling out a handkerchief from his jacket. He gently dried her cheeks.

  How is he capable of such a gentle action?

  “I have no doubts Robert was a good man in his heart.” Alexander caressed her cheeks with the handkerchief. It made her ache, made her long to believe him.

  “He was. He loved us. He would not willingly leave us in such debt.”

  “Of course, he would not. How did he end up at the gaming halls to begin with?”

  “He was supposed to enlist in the army.” Cleopatra was trying to breathe deeply to recover and talk through her gasping breaths. “When our father died, he took it rather hard. I had not realized to the extent that he was visiting the gaming halls.”

  “Perhaps he thought he was protecting you by keeping it a secret.” The softness of his tone broke her again. She tried to turn away as her tears renewed, but he would not let her. He cradled her against his chest.

  She felt such anger at showing weakness in front of him, but it could not be helped. She did not really want to leave his arms.

  “Listen to me, Cleopatra. I cannot undo the past. I cannot change what has happened to you, but we are husband and wife now,” he was whispering against her ear.

  His words created such tenderness inside her that it surprised her. She curled her fingers around his jacket lapels.

  “Let us be friends. Let us start anew.”

  “How can we?” her voice was muffled by his jacket.

  “We forget the past. I forget the story you sold to the newspaper and you believe me that I had nothing to do with Robert’s death.”

  “But…” she lifted her head again, finding his gaze, “I cannot trust you.”

  “Yet.” He planted the softest of kisses to her forehead. She leaned into him, never wanting it to end. “Maybe someday you can.”

  I wish I could.

  “Come,” he pulled away and took both of her hands, leading her gently across the room until they reached a dressing table topped with a vanity mirror. In front of the table was a small ornate gold stool. “Sit.”

  “Whatever for?” She looked at him curiously, though she followed his words and sat before the mirror.

  “It seems it is the purpose of my life now to persuade you that I am no demon.” He picked up a hairbrush from the dressing table surface.

  “I do not think you are a demon.” She held his gaze for a moment, urging him to believe her.

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  She considered these words for a moment, looking away from him. When they had first met, yes, she was afraid of him. Yet every moment since had shown he would not harm her. He had never harmed John either. He had welcomed them both into his home.

  “No, I am not afraid of you,” she replied, looking back up to him.

  “Then that is a start.” He stood behind her and started to brush the damp tendrils of her hair. She closed her eyes at the action, basking in the tender feeling of him running his hands through her hair. “I was worried you would fear me.”

  “No. I do not believe you would harm me.”

  “I never could.” He continued to brush her hair, loosening the knots formed from her bath. “In the piano room, you certainly did not appear to be frightened of me.”

  Cleopatra could not help the small laugh that escaped. Her smile spread wide as she dried the last couple of tears that dripped down her cheeks with the backs of her hands.

  “Here,” he passed her the handkerchief so she could dry them properly.

  “Thank you. The piano room was–” she struggled for the right words as she fiddled with the handkerchief. It was embroidered with Alexander’s initials and a family crest.

  “You cannot think of the right word?” He smiled at her in the mirror as he worked. “I can think of many words to describe that evening.” She laughed again, watching him move around her as he brushed.

  “Do feel free to share some of them.” She teased with raised eyebrows.

  “Exciting is the first one that comes to mind.”

  “It certainly was.”

  “There are others too.” He held her gaze in the mirror. “Breathtaking. Passionate. Intimate.”

  She looked away, feeling the heat rise up her neck and spread onto her cheeks. She was aware of the blush and wished the mirror were not displaying it so easily for him to see.

  “I hope you will not always be embarrassed by our explorations.”

  “How can I not be?” she laughed with a small shake of her head, “It is all so new.”

  He finished combing her hair and placed the brush back onto the table. He wound the tendrils around his fingers and then let them fall loose in front of one of her shoulders. He dropped his hand to those shoulders next, staring at her in the mirror.

  Her breathing quickene
d, wondering what he would do.

  “Did you like that evening?” His hands were perfectly still.

  She watched him, trying to control her breathing as she admired his handsome features. The angled jaw was clean shaven, his tanned skin complimented the darkness of his hair perfectly, cropped short, it just leaned down across his forehead. Those eyes were something she was sure would never leave her, even if she escaped him tomorrow. Not that she especially wanted to at that moment.

  The gray-blue color stared at her, waiting on her answer.