The Deadliest Sin

by Caroline Richards

Relaxing of her limbs against the seat as the coach devoured the miles, she allowed herself to think of Strathmore. His accusation of her cowardice was an indictment she would readily accept. It gave her a strange kind of strength, she realized with a newfound conviction, rising from the ashes of grief and defeat. Despite Rowena’s death—or rather because of it—Julia would never be imprisoned again. Not by Meredith and not by Faron. And certainly not by Strathmore’s endless lies and subterfuge.

  If there was anything of Rowena’s spirit that remained within Julia, it was her sister’s simple joy in life. It flowered within her and gave her a rare courage she had lacked. She would not wait for Faron to terrorize what remained of her family. She would go and meet the dragon in its lair.

  As for Strathmore—she shut away the memories that still had the power to wound her. She had been wanton and reckless, desiring something that had always seemed out of reach, but she would not allow that history to overshadow what remained of her future. Doubts continued to haunt her. How would she last the rest of her life, she despaired, damning Strathmore’s memory and his compelling imprint upon her body and soul?

  Julia ruthlessly subdued her unspoken wishes and undefined feelings. For Strathmore, without doubt, she would be too easily forgotten. What had he said so long ago? Despite your having read Catullus and de Sade, you are reluctant to admit the pleasure stimuli created between the male and female. Hypocrisy does not become you, Miss Woolcott.

  Strathmore’s knowledge of the world told him as much and he offered himself to women with a naturalness that justified his facile reputation with the fairer sex. The man had sampled wares from several continents. He would never have been satisfied with the likes of the scholarly Julia Woolcott. She should have taken note, she thought bitterly, rather than endowing their enforced companionship with a hopeless idealism that embarrassed her to her very core. Strathmore was wrong in one matter. She had not hidden from her fate but all too recklessly embraced it. As a result, her education had been short and painful. But she had learned the lesson well.

  As for Strathmore’s stunning resemblance to Montagu Faron—it was the continuation of a paralyzing nightmare, one she hoped and feared she would awaken from one day. The implications, she thought with sharp agony, could not bear scrutiny.

  Dusk had fallen when the coach finally drew to a halt before the country inn in Calais. The quay opposite the inn hummed with life as men came and went like ants. Even at that late hour, they tended to the merchant vessels that plied the narrow channel between England and France.

  Julia took little notice of the activity as she stepped down from the coach, averting her face and drawing the black netting securely over it. The aroma of the sea was pungent and strong, the shore of France a distant and imagined shimmer on the channel. Her dress hung limp and soiled, its ruined hem sweeping in the dust as she entered the front steps of the modest inn, eager for rest in a quiet room and decent bed.

  Julia moved toward the darkened interior, ignoring the elbows that jarred her progress. She set her sights on the rumpled figure of her coachman approaching the plump matron behind the bar at the back of the large room to secure rooms for the night. The air was heavy with smoke and ale as seamen, merchants, and travelers filled the tables, hoisting tankards in high spirits and boisterous talk. She squeezed through a maze of tables, endeavoring to catch the matron’s eye, her gaze sweeping over the crowd in search of a clear passage.

  Deciding it was better to wait in the darkened hallway leading to the upper story rooms, she edged her way through the thinning crowd. Her appetite, never keen, had all but disappeared since Rowena’s death but she realized she needed to eat and would have a note sent down to the kitchens for a simple meal to be delivered to her rooms. Taking the first weary step up the narrow stairway, she found her waist gripped from behind. Startled, she peered through the black netting of her bonnet at a lumbering seaman.

  “Yer, not goin’ up there all lonesome, is you?” he asked with a glint in his red-streaked eyes. Julia swallowed the bile rising in her throat, watching in horror as a hairy arm clamped around her waist, rocking her over the stairs despite the elbow she shoved in his bulky chest. “Yer a thin one, ain’t ya?” he said, pawing through her petticoats at her hips and buttocks before his hand, with dark-crested fingernails, closed over her bodice searchingly.

  A combination of rage and fear erupted from her throat. Julia twisted and spat, struggles that only seemed to amuse her captor, who chuckled throatily in response. The black netting of her bonnet tore, the sound galvanizing her into action. With a cry of rage and humiliation and an uncommon surge of strength, she twisted to drive her fist into the seaman’s neck, knocking him momentarily off-guard. Seizing the opportunity, she lunged from his grip, and up the first stairs, only to hear his grunted curse as he clambered after her, snatching at her skirts.

  Her mind reeling, she gasped and turned, shoving her full weight against the onslaught. Her legs bucked and the stairs disappeared beneath her feet. Hauled up against the beefy chest, she was assailed with the scent of cheap rum and sweat, certain that at any moment they would go crashing down the stairs in one gruesome heap.

  The seaman grunted his impatience and his arms locked around her waist once more. Ready to drive her nails into his eyes, Julia was suddenly, miraculously freed, the realization so startling that she spun around only to find herself swept up into another set of arms.

  The instant recognition was shocking. The scent of forest and desert triggered lush memories, ones Julia desperately wanted to forget. Overcome with a sudden and irrational urge to collapse against the hard chest, she felt her legs going weak as her head burrowed into a clean linen shirt front.

  She breathed in the exotic yet familiar scent of Alexander Strathmore and closed her eyes against the onslaught of emotion.

  “I believe we’re finished here,” Strathmore said softly over her head with a decisive click of his pistol. Unwilling to look up, Julia heard the seaman shuffle away from them.

  “Didn’ mean no harm, me lord.”

  “I doubt that,” Strathmore said so quietly the ominous undertones were unmistakable even to a drunkard up to no good.

  “Thought she was a lonely widder, that’s all. Needin’ some company.” The voice faded into the din of the common room, and relief instantly sent warmth into Julia’s limbs. She twisted her fingers into the lapels of Strathmore’s topcoat, resisting the urge to slip her arms around his waist and hold on forever.

  Brushing the ruined black netting from around her shoulders, Strathmore remained silent as she resolutely stared at the ivory buttons gleaming on his shirt front, fighting the fingers beneath her chin, lifting her gaze to his. Strathmore’s expression appeared to soften as his eyes, gray and remote as ever, roamed her face. One corner of his mouth slanted upward slightly.

  “This is not a good idea, Julia,” he said, one thumb brushing over her cheek, his palm smoothing her hair from her forehead. “I suspected that you would do something like this.” He turned her toward the stairway, his hand on the small of her back, urging her up the steps.

  Julia had yet to look directly at him. She couldn’t. The daguerreotype image swam before her eyes, and a tumult of feelings swept over her. The floodgates that had been closed for weeks threatened to overflow.

  “I’ve let your coachman know all is well and I’ve secured a room for us. You are no longer a widow but my wife, in mourning for a loved one.”

  For my sister, Julia finished the words for him silently, inwardly rebelling against his high-handedness. There was a sense of finality about their meeting in a rough-and-tumble inn on the rugged English coast. Drained of will after her unsettling encounter, Julia had little choice but to accompany Strathmore, dismayed by the contradictory flicker of gratitude flaring in her chest. Her legs still shook beneath her skirts when she thought of her struggle with the seaman and what might have happened had Strathmore not come upon her in the darkened stairwell.

  He ha
d been looking for her. The realization hit her with the ferocity of a thunderstorm in midsummer, and a surge of energy nearly sent her speeding ahead of him to the top floor of the inn. But she knew she had nowhere to run. His presence behind her was implacable as his hand at her waist directed her up the narrow flight of stairs.

  Chapter 14

  The accommodations were the best the inn had to offer. A small alcove held a simple, narrow bed which gave onto a larger room containing a small round table and two button-backed armchairs. A tall window, the heavy curtains closed, and yellowing wallpaper that was once upon a time either blue or green, completed the basic appointments.

  Strathmore briefly glanced away from Julia’s slender silhouette standing by the table. She had yet to turn around and face him, offering him no thanks but only her enduring silence. She was draped in invisible armor, deliberately cutting herself off from him and the world.

  He watched as she removed the shambles of a bonnet from her head. Her heavy hair had come loose in the struggle, intensifying the paradoxical aura of vulnerability and determination that clung to her. Unbidden, he moved behind her and took the bonnet from her hands, tossing it carelessly on the table.

  “I don’t have to ask you where it is you’re intending to go,” he murmured, “not that you would answer me.” For the first time, her eyes met his. He was surprised at the heat that burned there before she drew back from him as though he were the devil himself. The translucence of her skin scared him, as did the fineness of her bones more delicately defined than ever.

  “You intend to find and confront Faron and yet you look as though you could be buffeted about by the slightest breeze,” he said.

  Her lips quivered and she brushed past him, moving to the other side of the table, gripping its scarred edge as though to keep herself upright.

  “Do not look so astonished at the sight of me,” he continued. “My family’s solicitors are the best in the country and it took very little for them to unearth your itinerary. Although what you hoped to accomplish in Paris, I’m not certain, given that you do not know the whereabouts of Faron.”

  The fleeting changes of expression on her beautiful face held a fascination for him that was patently unwise. Her wide eyes raked him over, looking for something she couldn’t exactly determine, her full lips widening in frustration. He realized that he could watch her forever. Perhaps not so odd an insight considering he hadn’t given the rashness of his actions a second thought since the moment he’d met her.

  Strathmore had known when he left Montfort over a week ago that he would not allow Julia Woolcott out of his sight. He had been a man consumed with tracking her every movement, convinced that she would strike out on her own. The slight bullet wound that he’d received the night at Birdoswald was healing quickly—if only his conscience would do the same. Damn Julia Woolcott and damn her family. It might have all been so very simple. For reasons he could not articulate, he wanted answers. He wanted an explanation that made sense to him and to the world he had so carefully constructed for himself.

  Worse still, Strathmore wanted her.

  Pushing away from the wall, he watched Julia hungrily, recalling the motion of her hips beneath the heavy black of her skirts as she had walked slowly ahead of him on the stairs, her slender shoulders and neck erect as if the coils of her dark hair were almost too heavy for her frame. The scent of lavender and freesia hung in the room, mingling with the aroma that was purely her own.

  He was stunningly aware that since he had first met Julia Woolcott he had subsisted almost solely on reckless emotion. While no one would ever accuse him of being prudent or wise, the risks he usually took were heavily balanced in his favor. The memory of his recent encounter with Lowther and Beaumarchais flashed through his mind. Strathmore had effectively jeopardized the last three years of dangerous, back-breaking work to protect the woman who, for some inexplicable reason, meant more to him than she should.

  As though Strathmore were not in the room, Julia sank into a chair by the small table, weariness in every line of her supple body. He wondered what she was thinking even as he questioned the wrenching relief he’d experienced the moment he’d found her in the darkened stairwell. And the overwhelming desire to pull her into his arms and breathe in her essence like a man lost in a desert, desperate for water.

  He had come so far. He shoved a hand through his hair and stood behind Julia’s chair. Her eyes swept closed when she felt the gentle pressure of his palm against the nape of her neck. A pulse throbbed there, keeping time in rhythmic intensity with his own rush of blood.

  “Where do we go from here?” he murmured, more to himself than to Julia, his fingers curving around the softness of her neck with a strange combination of tenderness and possessiveness that shocked him. Suddenly frustrated beyond measure, he pulled her from the chair with such fierceness the room spun around them.

  Julia’s mouth opened to protest, her lips moving against the skin exposed by the open neck of his shirt as she was propelled against his chest—where he intended to keep her. She jerked her head and looked up at him, barely concealing the desperation in her eyes as she searched his face. Then she pushed against his chest to achieve some distance between them.

  “Perhaps it is better that you maintain your silence,” he said with a hint of a growl in his voice. “If only because it gives me an opportunity to say what I think you need to hear.” His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears, a trace of savagery hinting at passions barely tamed, reminding him of his own weakness with her.

  He kept his hands firm around her waist, his thumbs moving over the stiff indentation where her bodice met her skirts under the heavy cloak she wore. He couldn’t let her go if he tried, he recognized grimly. If only he could mine her secrets, mine the depths of the mystery that was Julia Woolcott. “This has happened to you before,” he said carefully, trying to keep his vexation in check and wondering exactly how to begin healing a wound so resistant to ministrations. “The muteness, this unwillingness or inability to speak.”

  Heat swept up her neck and flooded into her cheeks. He caught her beneath the chin with one finger and tipped her face to his. His eyes lowered to her mouth and her lips tightened in response despite the controlled gentleness of his tone. “You should be aware by now, Julia, that I will finally prove myself not only your protector but also entirely noble of purpose—difficult though that may be to believe. I will not push you, that I promise. However, you will not be rid of me either. Slowly and with patience you did not even know I had, I mean to help you get to the source of your tribulations.”

  Julia swayed nearer as the pressure of his hands at her waist brought her breasts to brush against his chest. Her lips opened with surprise at the contact, and a glint of satisfaction burned low in his belly. He reminded himself of his promise which, he thought grimly, included managing what Julia Woolcott would call his baser instincts.

  As though reading his thoughts, she pressed her palms against his biceps half-heartedly and found herself pulled closer, her hips nestling against him. Unwillingly, her mouth hovered just below his. She held her breath, clearly startled when he bent to press his mouth to the tender spot modestly revealed by the high collar of her cloak.

  She stiffened in his arms, her eyes fluttering closed when he lowered his head further to the base of her throat where the high lace collar of her bodice parted under the heat of his lips. Her pulse leapt against his mouth, thundering in his ears. It was absurd, his reaction, his intemperate response to the thought of her silken skin beneath the stiff bombazine, aching for the touch of his hands.

  Unbelievable. His jaw set for a transient second while a muscle high over his cheekbone twitched. Up until his meeting with Julia Woolcott, the idea of a woman taking center stage in his life was incomprehensible. Women were purely ornamental and entirely beside the point. He knew his mother had not set the bar particularly high, souring him from his earliest years on the female sex. Furthermore, his years of exotic experiences
had unearthed in him an enticing sensuality. If he happened to have the time and inclination, it was easy for him to turn women’s heads. A bevy of female admirers was at his disposal both at home and on several continents, although he realized he had never given any single one a serious second thought.

  He would not apologize for his past. It was too late for that.

  Julia bit her lower lip when he lifted his head and gazed into her eyes. Perhaps she believed she would see triumph there, or an arrogance that would justify her hatred of him. But he made sure she saw neither. He would give her time. He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip slowly, with a supremely controlled patience that told her more than he could possibly say.

  “You are tired,” he said, dropping his arms to his sides and stepping away from her. “There is always tomorrow,” he declared. “The bed is yours as you are sorely in need of sleep.” He didn’t say that he would be spending the night sitting by the window with his pistol cocked.

  A few moments later, he heard the sound of her heels on the floorboards as she moved to the bed, modestly shedding her traveling cloak and a layer of her petticoats before she gingerly lay down on the mattress fully clothed, pulling the thin comforter over her body.

  Strathmore cast off his jacket in one shadowy moment and hauled out a chair by the table decorated with Julia’s discarded bonnet. He stretched his legs in front of him, listening to the soft sounds of her even breaths.

  He blinked into the darkness, entirely awake, still pulsing with lust despite every reasonable argument warring in his brain. Without looking, he imagined that she lay back on the pillows at the farthest edge of the bed, as far away from him as she could get. He sat staring into the dimness, listening to her breathing, strangely content with the moment—to have her near, where he would could protect her.

  The night held no fear for him, accustomed as he was to finding himself in harsh environments with every imaginable obstacle presented by man or nature arrayed against him. His ears had become attuned to the hiss of poisonous snakes hiding in the scrub and the ominous chant of carrion birds, the grim reapers of the desert.