The Deadliest Sin

by Caroline Richards

  “Perfect,” he said, sounding like a caress in her ear. “Now say something. As though you’re angry or quite thoroughly mad.” Together they edged their way through the room, stopping at intervals so he could kiss her—small, delicious incursions, his lips on hers.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, just as Felicity’s arm snaked around Strathmore’s waist.

  “Strathmore, my love, you are entirely too hasty,” pouted the older woman, her crimson-tipped hand extending downward to caress his chest.

  Strathmore ignored the questing fingers but Julia did not. For the second time in twenty-four hours, she wondered at the woman she had become. And whether she was acting at all. “I should advise you to desist, madam,” she said, each word as distinct as a knife’s thrust.

  The buxom blonde’s sloe eyes widened. “My, my, Strathmore, your kitty certainly has claws. Wherever did you find her? You are welcome to her for the time being.” Felicity took quick measure of the situation with the sharpness of a fishwife. “But please do hurry back,” she said, recovering her composure, lips curved in promise, “as I shall make it worth your while.”

  Julia did not have a moment to react. Wrapping a firm arm around her waist, Strathmore marched them both from the hall. Candles blazed and the chandeliers floated past, a blur of light in the dark.

  When Julia looked around again, he had deposited her in a music room, with a piano at its center surrounded by a half dozen gilded settees. Glancing at the double sets of French doors, her world began to right itself, fueled by a sudden overwhelming urge to flee. The thought crept in beneath the panic, despite a small voice that told her the evening at Eccles House was not yet finished.

  For a moment she’d forgotten Strathmore’s presence. Heat rushed to her face at the thought of what she had witnessed and what they had done. Her hands fluttered around her neckline, hastily securing the fragile ribbon that held her bodice in place. She’d scarcely taken one step toward the French doors when her body was jerked backward. There was nothing at all amorous about the grip.

  Julia tilted her head back willing herself to look into the deep set eyes above the strong cheekbones, dark hollows carved beneath. The mask had slipped. It was not Alexander Strathmore, passionate lover.

  “This is hardly necessary,” she said frowning at Strathmore’s large hand encircling her arm.

  “You’re mistaken, Miss Woolcott. It’s more than necessary.” The formality of his tone after what had transpired just moments ago made her feel as though she’d fallen into a deep, dark well. In the brief, silent impasse that followed, Strathmore’s grip did not loosen.

  “Very well. What now? I can tell you’re eager to tell me of your plan. You do have one, I suspect,” she said. She decided to appeal to his sense of reason, even as her pulse beat in time with the overwhelming need to get away from him.

  His eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you’d like to rejoin Wadsworth’s guests.”

  “Indeed. With a desire beyond my wildest dreams. Isn’t it what one would expect from a tempestuous wildcat?”

  He smiled. “Don’t tell me you’re offended, Miss Woolcott. The gambit worked, didn’t it? Otherwise, you’d already be splayed like a ripe peach for the delectation of at least several gentlemen. If you don’t believe me, we can rejoin the gathering.” To his credit, the last words were delivered with a trace of irony.

  Unsuccessfully, she tried to wipe out the outrageousness of the last hour. Worse, she could not reconcile the man manacling her wrist with the man she had touched, tasted, and all but devoured with a desire that scared her. “That’s utterly ridiculous and you well know it. I’m hardly here out of my own free will.”

  “Then follow my lead and I shall extricate you from this situation.”

  She shook her head, exasperation mingling with a desperation to understand. “Why ever would you do that? I’m here because of you, after all. You’re the one who invited me to Wadsworth’s little party, as I gleaned earlier this evening. I should like to know why the youngest son of the Dunedin duchy, vaunted traveler and explorer, would find it in his interests to forge a liaison with a woman of a certain age with no reputation—”

  “A country mouse,” he supplied bluntly.

  She glared. She was not herself. Truly. She licked her lips, trying to recall the quiet, even-tempered Julia, preoccupied with books and daguerreotypes, she had once been. Although it hardly seemed relevant anymore. All of the torturous, serpentine debauchery began and ended with Faron. She would do well to remember that.

  Strathmore watched her closely, his eyes on her mouth.

  She flushed. “Very well, then. Why all the subterfuge? Why do we not simply leave? I don’t believe Wadsworth has barricaded the doors to keep us here with him.”

  “You will simply have to trust me.”

  “Not very likely,” she snapped. “But since we find ourselves at yet another impasse, what is it you have in mind?”

  “What is required is a lover’s spat. A loud, violent one, if you please.”

  She gazed into those cool eyes and gave a reflexive tug at his hand at the same time. She could think of no other way to respond to his illogical demand. “You are not making any sense, sir. They expect us to fall into each other’s arms not engage in fisticuffs.” She gave another small tug of her wrist for emphasis unable to reconcile his calm demeanor with the heated nature of their exchange.

  “It’s not what they want that I’m interested in. It’s what I want.”

  She stilled, suddenly exhausted beyond all reason. “Which is what?” Never mind what he wanted. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore. To launch herself back into Wadsworth’s debauchery, to follow the thin skein back to Faron, or to flee through the French doors a few feet away?

  Strathmore let go of her wrist with an unnerving suddenness. With fluid motions, he leaned over to push aside the right leg of his trouser. A black pistol appeared unexpectedly in his hand which he cradled with the familiarity of a lover. “Prepare yourself,” he said bluntly. He looked briefly up at the ornate plaster moldings encircling the ceiling. “Pity.” And shot three perfect holes into a trio of rosettes.

  A shower of fine dust rained down upon them. It confirmed what she had instinctively known. She was next. He was going to kill her. She turned toward the French doors but his words stopped her more effectively than any bullet ever could.

  “Do you want to find Faron?” he asked.

  Shock bolted through her. Her throat constricted with emotion, rendering her silent.

  “Do you want to find Faron?” he repeated. The door rattled, the handle moving slowly. She realized with dismay she had moved back beside him.

  The door opened slightly. A low whisper hissed through it. “Whatever’s the commotion, Strathmore?” The voice belonged to Wadsworth, a little slurred from brandy and champagne.

  Julia was mesmerized by the pistol sitting so casually in Strathmore’s hand. “There’s been an unfortunate occurrence, Wadsworth. Simply give me a moment or two.”

  “I should say so. Those were gunshots we just heard. Sure of it.”

  Strathmore lowered his voice and held her gaze with his own, daring her to contradict him. “I shall look after everything, Wadsworth, rely on it.” He motioned her toward the French doors. Before they could slip through the opening, she felt a hard hand lifting the hem of her garment. Without saying a word, he quickly unwound the strip of white linen from her lower calf. Stained with streaks of drying blood, the bandage was tossed across the piano bench.

  “I shouldn’t advise entering at this moment,” said Strathmore. It was the voice of command. The door creaked shut. The shuffle of footsteps could be heard echoing down the hallway.

  Julia’s leg burned from his touch, the silk of her skirts brushing against the freshly exposed wound. Sanity was becoming a distant memory.

  “You’re very quiet.” He slanted her a glance. “And you haven’t answered my question.”

  It had happened only
three times in her life—a stone in her throat, holding back all words. When she had first arrived to live with Meredith, she had not spoken a word for a year. And once, when Rowena had nearly been taken from them by fever, she had felt the same suffocating thickness lodge in her throat.

  She felt the room darken, her mouth opening abruptly. Then she closed her lips at whatever she wanted to say, her brows coming together in frustration. Strathmore studied her for a heartbeat until some sort of realization gradually lit his eyes. As though he understood something about her that she didn’t want him to know.

  “It’s the only way,” he said. “You are most likely feeling the aftereffects of shock so I will cut to the chase. We haven’t much time.” He didn’t have to gesture to the closed door behind them for her to understand. “I am looking for Faron. As I surmise, you are, too.”

  It seemed to be both an acknowledgement and a warning. When she still didn’t respond—couldn’t respond—she focused on the door behind him, the handle turning slowly and ominously. She pointed mutely.

  Strathmore took in the situation instantly. “Now is the time to scream, Miss Woolcott,” he said tightly.

  “Do what?” The words finally came, hoarse and tentative at the same time. It was some kind of macabre test. He aimed his pistol at the door. A charged second followed. He kept the pistol trained on the door and expertly wedged the back of a chair under the doorknob. With a quick move, he removed the pin anchoring his cravat and jammed the lock with an expert thrust.

  “Give us a moment, will you, Beaumarchais?” He made his voice low and furious. “Miss Woolcott isn’t herself.”

  How could he possibly know it was Beaumarchais lurking behind the closed door? Julia’s mind spun.

  “Is the lady unwell?” It was Beaumarchais’s voice.

  “I shall manage.”

  Time was suspended as they both listened to receding footsteps. Julia swallowed hard, convulsively, before finding her voice. She needed to leave. “Your honesty is timely, sir,” she said aware of the French doors behind her as well as an overriding and competing compulsion to know him—the man who could bring her closer to the shadow that threatened her family. “What is your connection to Faron?”

  “You mean our mutual connection to Faron.” His response was curt and distant.

  Very well, then. The throbbing in her lower leg kept time with her rising pulse. “Did he hire you? Promise you something in exchange for harming me and my family?”

  “This is not the time for this discussion. But clearly we want the same thing—otherwise neither of us would be here this evening.”

  “Who arranged to hire you, then, if it wasn’t Faron?”

  Strathmore hadn’t the time or patience for discussion. “Look here, Miss Woolcott. If I were to fulfill my obligations you would be dead by now.”

  “You are to kill me,” she said in a rush, and took two steps backwards.

  “However, I decided not to.” It was a simple declaration. His face was in partial shadow. There was no regret, anger, or weakness in his expression.

  Panic accelerated her thoughts. She glanced at the piano, the blood-stained bandage and then at Strathmore. It was all beginning to add up with a strange logic. “So we are to make it appear as though a murder has taken place. Hence, the directive that I scream bloody murder, as it were.”

  “It’s a way out, although you don’t appear grateful.” Strathmore, the infuriating man, seemed distantly amused. It was Julia’s turn to make a quick decision.

  “We have yet to quit this place successfully,” she said, “so gratitude is not yet in order. Against my better judgment, I have no choice but to wait for your explanations. I can see for myself that we have no time.”

  “And I for yours,” he said, the words taut.

  Julia’s thoughts were a pattern of images and emotions, fatigue making it difficult to shape them into coherence. She barely recognized herself. She had left her home against her aunt’s wishes, attacked a footman and, dear lord, pressed herself into Strathmore’s long hard body with a flagrancy and need that was completely foreign to her. And she’d listened to that same man declare his intention to kill her.

  Delirium. There was no other explanation. She tried to imagine looking at the tangle of events through the frame of her camera. The lens never lied, she told herself. What she saw was Strathmore at the center of the composition, the axis that would lead her to Faron. She felt a sickening dread that Faron would not desist, that her involvement in the debacle was just the beginning, that Meredith’s and Rowena’s demise stood at its tragic end.

  She said, “I shall follow your lead.”

  He didn’t bother to reply, gesturing to the floor by the piano bench. “Lie face down, turned away from the door. The story is that we argued, you produced a pistol, shot wildly in anger”—he gestured to the splintered plaster overhead—“and proceeded to shoot yourself whilst aiming for me.

  “Clearly, a lover’s spat,” she said wretchedly as she crumpled to the floor, favoring her injured leg with a quickly stifled wince. The carpet against her cheek was soft, the oriental pattern swirling around her like a whirlpool.

  “I tried to staunch the blood,” Strathmore continued, gathering up the discarded linen from the piano bench before bunching it at the indentation of her waist.

  Julia partially closed her eyes, willing to shut out the sheen of his booted feet as they rested by her head. She heard him step away, remove the chair from underneath the doorknob. A quiet click as the lock turned and then Strathmore’s low growl. “Have my carriage sent around.”

  Julia slowed her breaths, watching through her lashes. Four pairs of eyes appeared at the door, staring at the scene—the woman on the gleaming parquet floor, bleeding onto the carpet. Whether they were breathing hard in lust or shock, she couldn’t tell. But Robertson had gone so pale the spots on his face were as vivid as the scarlet waistcoat he wore.

  “There has been an unfortunate accident,” Strathmore said. He ostentatiously waved the pistol in his hand as evidence.

  Wadsworth’s eyes, beneath the purple pouches, were the size of billiard balls. “I say, old boy, this is entirely unacceptable. I should have expected that you could manage the woman, histrionics and all. I can’t have this type of scandal getting out,” he blustered, his multitudinous chins wagging in disbelief.

  “Is she dead?” asked Beaumarchais abruptly. He was to the side of the doorway, outside Julia’s sight.

  “I presume so,” said Strathmore with supreme unconcern and to no one in particular. “I shall see to it that nothing mars your evening or your reputation, Wadsworth.”

  “Perhaps I should have a look myself,” said Beaumarchais. Julia held her breath.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” For emphasis, Strathmore added, “I find myself quite unaccountably irritable. Any untoward movements will put you at risk of seeing one of your body parts summarily removed.” There was a collective inhalation of breath. The threat was casually delivered but hit its mark.

  Felicity gave a high, tinkling laugh, totally at odds with the tension in the room. “All’s well that ends well. Miss Woolcott was not to my liking in the first place.”

  “The feeling was entirely mutual,” Strathmore said. “And in part responsible for Miss Woolcott’s uncontrollable outburst of jealousy.”

  Julia clenched her teeth.

  “I do have that effect on men, I’m told,” Felicity purred, choosing to interpret the words as a compliment, not in the least concerned or discomfited by the drama unfolding before her eyes. “Whenever you find yourself at loose ends, Strathmore—”

  “She shot herself accidentally?” Beaumarchais interrupted, impatience tightening his tone.

  “There was a struggle—I tried to take the pistol from her,” Strathmore said just as curtly. “I presume my carriage has been brought around.”

  The discussion came to an abrupt end. Cool night air rushed into the music room as the French doors opene
d. Strathmore scooped Julia from the floor, holding her fast, his arm snug beneath her knees and her shoulders. She kept her breathing shallow and low, trying to ignore the half-cocked pistol riding hard against Strathmore’s thigh or the rise and fall, rise and fall of his chest against her back.

  Surrendering was all she could do.

  Chapter 5

  Strathmore narrowed his eyes on the fork in the road ahead. He instructed the driver to follow an alternate path, a longer, more circuitous route to London. He needed time to think. The carriage wheels jolted over uneven country roads as the driver negotiated the turn on two wheels.

  A soft rain began to fall, leaving rivulets on the small window framing the dark countryside east of London, which Strathmore knew to be pockmarked with abandoned chalk mines and gently rolling hills, seemingly forever mired in mist and fog. The air was heavy and damp, the layers of his high cravat clamping like a wet vise around his neck. Damned English climate, worse than anything he had ever endured in Bombay or Tanzania. A man could survive in dry heat but it was the endless rain that could drive one mad. He loosened the layers of silk before turning his eyes on the still figure of Julia Woolcott.

  Silence blanketed them like a shroud, relieved only by raindrops hammering the coach roof, reminding him that neither was willing to breach the divide. Julia Woolcott feigned sleep. He didn’t blame her.

  She was supposed to be dead. And for all intents and purposes, she was. It had become patently clear to Strathmore as the evening at Eccles House wore on that Beaumarchais was Faron’s conduit, the man who would deliver the news of Julia Woolcott’s demise not only to his master but also to her family. Word would get back to her aunt and sister, a cruel revelation that Faron would obviously relish.