The Deepest Sin

by Caroline Richards

  “But your investigations here give your paper a certain weight, I suspect.”

  “That’s quite perceptive of you, Lord Archer.”

  “For a philistine, you mean.”

  She laughed outright then, the sound uninhibited and free in the night air. “I don’t think you are entirely indifferent to matters of intellect, sir. Although I must confess, I think you are more comfortable on your horse or The Brigand than in the hushed confines of a library.” Rushford and Rowena had, of course, told her of their journey on his yacht, The Brigand, and perhaps of his penchant for sailing. And his inability to stay in one place for more than a month.

  He bowed his head mockingly. “Thank you for that small crumb at least.” He reached for the leather bag and extracted a thin wool blanket. Without asking permission, he tossed it over her legs. “It gets cold in the desert at night.”

  Her hands stopped in midair, ready to intercept the blanket. “But what about you? Here, it’s big enough that we may share it. If you will come closer ...”

  The invitation was all crisp efficiency and Archer swore silently, aware that she was not in the least discomfited by their proximity and that he was. The knowledge rankled.

  “Let’s not stand on ceremony.” She had moved closer to him and her hands briskly made short work of distributing the blanket across both their legs.

  Archer cleared his throat. “Entirely unnecessary, Lady Woolcott.”

  “Nonsense. I insist.”

  “You were telling me about the stone and the implications of its inscriptions,” he pressed on. Anything to take his attention away from the slender length of her, the warmth burning beneath the blanket they now shared.

  “You’ve seen it at the British Museum, of course.”

  “I believe I was dragged there at some time by a tutor,” he said, suddenly inclined to let his mind wander back to the sour Mr. Athrop and his Latin declensions.

  Meredith rested her hands on the top of the blanket. “You were a challenge, I don’t doubt, and kept your tutors busy.”

  “And you were quite the opposite, I take it.”

  “My father was a scholar of ancient languages and it was he who first told me about the Rosetta stone. He in turn had studied philology at Cambridge and subsequently with the orientalist Jean-François Champollion, who was credited as the principal translator of the hieroglyphs.”

  “Fascinating,” he said.

  “I trust I’m not boring you,” she said, challenge in her voice.

  “Not at all. And what did Champollion ultimately discover? I can’t recall what my tutor had to say regarding the matter.”

  “You were clearly not paying attention to your lessons, Archer.”

  “I was not the most tractable pupil.”

  “I can well imagine. The attention span of a flea, no doubt.”

  “Give me a moment,” he said, putting his hands behind his head and looking up into the night sky, away from her. “Something about a tax amnesty, if I recall correctly.”

  “Very good,” she said. “The text comprises twenty paragraphs and speaks of a tax amnesty given to the temple priests of the day, restoring the tax privileges that they had traditionally enjoyed in more ancient times.” She paused. “But more importantly, the translation served as the template that allowed us to see into the minds and the culture of the ancients. Once we knew their languages, a whole world was opened to us.”

  For better or for worse, he wanted to say. “And your paper?”

  She gave him only her profile before she continued. “Hieroglyphics remained a mystery for hundreds of years, even though many people tried to translate the language. In my paper I should like to elucidate Champollion’s process, taking a closer look at the three sections of the stone with writing upon it. It is essentially one message written in three languages, hieroglyphics first, then Demotic and then Greek.”

  “One thing I do recall in the recesses of my memory is that after the Roman Empire expanded into Egypt, the hieroglyphic language was abandoned completely in favor of Greek and Latin.”

  Meredith looked impressed. “Sadly, yes.”

  “Very interesting, Lady Woolcott.”

  She turned to face him, her eyebrows arching. “I am too old to be mocked.”

  “Mocking you? Surely not,” he said, angling his body toward her. “But you are hardly too old.” The desert was silent, too dry to support crickets or bullfrogs. A wiser man would do nothing. He would relinquish the blanket and sleep under the stars, moving away from temptation.

  “I am six and thirty, far too old,” she said without a trace of vanity. “In any case, I shall desist. Enough talk of hieroglyphics.”

  “Then I shall leave the choice of topic up to you, Lady Woolcott.”

  She paused awkwardly, as though noticing for the first time the fact of the proximity of the lower halves of their bodies. “I don’t suppose we have much in common. I don’t sail. I don’t gamble. And until recently, have not had much opportunity to travel outside the Continent.”

  “My life, shallow as it is, appears an open book.”

  She gave a small puff of derision. He closed his eyes for a moment, wishing to prolong the moment. A stretched silence followed, replete with unspoken thoughts. Experience had taught him that silence was oftentimes more effective than a battery of questions, albeit mightily uncomfortable. He was rewarded a moment later when she asked softly, perhaps more to herself than to him, “Are you concerned?”

  “About what?” He opened his eyes to see her hand stealing into her pocket to extract her pistol. She laid it carefully on her lap, atop the blanket.

  “That they may return.”

  “I sincerely doubt it,” he said, his voice a low timbre. “They could not do much in the dark, and we have the advantage. This is the remnants of a fort, after all.” He deliberately lightened his tone, watching her eyes darken.

  “I trust that you are right.”

  “Why not sleep awhile, Lady Woolcott?”

  “Meredith,” she countered. “We are acquainted after all.”

  “Meredith,” he said, watching as she handed her pistol to him. He carefully laid it against the wall with his own, then reached across to her in what he told himself was a bid to comfort. It was an ill-judged gesture because something odd happened when his skin touched hers. Time slowed and his mind worked not at all, only his senses, as he very deliberately traced the contour of her palm.

  It was difficult to ascertain how long the silence lasted. They stared at each other, Meredith’s color spreading from her cheeks to her throat. Her eyes darted about, searching behind him, emotion skittering across her features. She was barely breathing, lush lashes lowering over her eyes. He expected her to pull away, but instead she brought one hand up to trace his cheek, her fingers disturbingly gentle, brushing away a streak of sand.

  Archer froze as her finger traced the stubble that cut across his jawline. A shadow of a beard, slightly rough on either side of his mouth, pulled at the softness of her skin. Suddenly, any attempt at humor, at lightening the situation, was doomed. The scent of lavender and lemon verbena filled his nostrils, making him want to inhale more deeply.

  She still had powder streaks on her face, dusting her right cheek, almost but not quite obscuring a spray of freckles across her nose. When her finger completed its journey, she let her hand drop to rest on her lap, fingers splayed out. He exhaled audibly and brought his lips down to cover hers.

  It was a simple kiss. Chaste even, their lips briefly meeting. They both broke away at the same instant, separated for a heartbeat, their breaths mingling while the sliver of the moon watched overhead. Then his mouth descended again and this time, his lips were slow and hot. And not at all what Meredith had expected. Her own desperation came over her like a clap of thunder. He tasted of the brandy they had consumed together, sweet and powerful. His hands closed about her waist and she went utterly still, savoring the moment, allowing her tongue to dart out to meet his. He t
eased the soft edge of the inside of her lips, the sleekness of her tongue.

  She kept her mind deliberately blank, wondering what she was doing, succumbing to this urgency that was only a mask for her fear. She had loved this once, she knew. The feeling of a man’s hands, the way he tasted, the hardness of his body, the heat of his mouth. But this was not real, far from real. She did not know Lord Richard Buckingham Archer, did not want to know him; didn’t trust him with a fibre of her being. But at the moment, it didn’t matter as long as sensation blotted out the past and the future and left her with only the present.

  He caressed her throat, his lips sliding along the curve of her chin to nestle in the hollow of her collarbone. Her nipples budded, impatient against the stiff fabric of her stays and the ebony fastenings of her riding jacket. Heat pooled in her abdomen, a heavy ache that throbbed in time with her blood. She nipped at his lips, urging him on, wanting more. He slipped a hand beneath the blankets to cup her bottom, pulling her hips up hard against him, forcing her fists to tightly clutch the linen of his jacket. His arms beneath her palms were iron, as was the ridge of his erection riding against her stomach.

  When they’d first been introduced at Montfort, she’d felt the thin veneer of control she’d cultivated for the last eighteen years of her life crack like a mirror. Her reflection—her understanding of herself—had shattered in that instant. He was tall, imposing, with black hair, and eyes an incongruous cornflower blue over a bold nose and hard jaw. As he stood in the great hall of the house that had been in her family for generations, she’d wished she’d been the type to give him a practiced, flirtatious smile, welcoming him to her home, but easy feminine ways had never come readily to her. That she should find him compelling was incomprehensible, this man who smelled of the outdoors, of the sea, and whose forceful masculinity caused the bottom to drop out of her stomach whenever he entered a room.

  This was madness. It had to be. Breathing in his scent, a part of her said that she was simply reacting to the shock. She had killed a man. Something primal had clawed its way through her, past the rational, logical self-possession that had kept her and her loved ones safe for so long. She certainly had not been looking for rescue. And certainly not by Lord Archer, who had left Montfort without a backward glance a day after the wedding of Rowena and Rushford. As though he couldn’t get away fast enough.

  And yet, she burned for him. No, that was not right. She burned for herself, lost for nearly twenty years and brought back to life at this moment. His hand went to the ebony fastenings of her jacket, slipping one button loose. She inhaled sharply, her whole body tightening, shaking. She rested her forehead against his, keeping her arms loosely around his neck. She felt his thumb trace slow circles over her throat, comforting and arousing at the same time.

  She shivered, desire flooding her limbs. With difficulty, she steadied the hands that stroked the stubble of his chin. It was too tempting to lose herself in such a moment, too easy to drown in sensation, too agonizing to resurface and contemplate her reality. A woman whose youth was well behind her and who had lived most of her years in the shadows should not be allowing this, the last sane corner of her mind, dictated. She told herself to break his hold, but her body would not comply. Her arms remained around his neck, one hand locked in the thickness of his hair, never wishing to let go.

  Above their heads the moon had risen to its full height in the sky. The silence of the ancient land surrounding them was all-encompassing save for his deep breath as he raised his head from hers and moved back a fraction. Her eyes opened fully, her arms trailing reluctantly across his shoulders, down the hard wall of his chest. It was her turn to take a breath, pulling herself back under control.

  “You’re in shock,” he murmured into her hair.

  “I am not,” she returned, aware that he was staring at her when all she wanted was for him to touch her again. She longed to turn and curl into him, bask in the warmth of his body, of desire and of forgetfulness. Her face flushed, testament to her mortification. Not morality. She was beyond the simple bourgeois calculations of society, her past dictating that she balance precariously on the margins of life. But the fact that she had welcomed him and had thrown herself into the moment only reminded her that she was running away once more from the past.

  But she was finished with running. Only moments before she’d been secure in the knowledge that she would never hide again. She had aimed at a man who would do her harm and released the hammer of her pistol to take his life. Taking control because anything else was unthinkable. For the past few months, she had felt alive for the first time in years. Rowena and Julia had come back to her. They were safe and she would never let anyone rob her of that security again.

  His warm breath fanned her cheek. “Rest,” he said, and she wondered whether he was rejecting her, regretting their embrace. He smiled, confident and sure, as though he found himself in similar situations often. Which, she was sure, he had. She wondered what he’d wanted and why he’d kissed her. But she wasn’t about to ask him, not just now.

  Men like Archer did not find women like Meredith Woolcott to their taste. She was too clever. Too challenging. Too old. Another reason not to trust him. With an inaudible sigh, she forced herself to look away from those penetrating eyes, the sensual curve of his mouth that promised pleasure. A sudden constriction in her chest reminded her of her folly. Romance and intrigue did not fall within her purview. She was six and thirty, for pity’s sake, ready to welcome Rowena and Julia’s children, content with her studies, with her horses and with whatever travels her newfound freedom allowed.

  Sir Richard Arthur was anomalous, as out of place in her life as a shooting star in a cloud-filled night. She closed her eyes, shifting away from him.

  She stroked the raised ridges of skin beneath the linen sleeves of her jacket, the scars everlasting reminders seared onto the inside of her wrists. Although she knew the tissue was dead, the pleated skin burned and throbbed when she least expected. The image of Montagu Faron rose stubbornly in her mind. He was dead, but she could still remember the intimacy in his voice. She recalled looking at him with young love in her eyes, at the tall and handsome youth with the coal-black hair, his cloak slung over his arm, a loose white shirt open at the throat. It was the image that remained with her, now an image from her dreams, dark and brooding like the heroes in the novels she’d loved to read as a girl.

  He had been her soul mate, their love forged by the hours spent together in his father’s chateau outside Paris, scouring ancient texts in the library, exchanging heated words in heated debates. She had always felt an inexplicable premonition of a shared fate.

  Meredith opened her eyes to the desert sky, the pain in her heart unbearable. Faron’s men had come for her today. Looking into the dark, she wondered how her life had taken such a perverse turn and why the only man she had ever loved was now the man she would hate to her grave.

  Chapter 3

  “You are four minutes late,” the man in the tufted chair behind the screen said, his eyes closed. He was in the midst of his toilette, shaving being the ritual that it was, and the razor did not stop in its ministrations.

  “I came down from Paris the moment I could, but the roads were swamped with autumn rains, delaying my travels.” The countryside had been wreathed in gloom and mist, the skeletal branches of oncoming winter wrought-iron against the gray sky.

  The apology was met by silence interspersed only by the soft grating of the razor. There was an audible sigh, as the man in the chair opened one eye. His mouth turned down at the corners. “How go your pursuits?” he asked perfunctorily, looking through the gap in the screen.

  Tall and slight, with spectacles perched on his nose, Mr. Hector Hamilton had an annoying way of clearing his throat. Even from a distance, the man could see the ink stains on his hands and the hesitation in his stance. Nevertheless, it wasn’t Hamilton’s comportment that he was interested in but rather his research, ongoing at Cambridge. The Book of the Dead wo
uld add quite wonderfully to the collection, he thought. Most fascinating and useful, this book of ancient Egyptian spells that were deemed necessary by the ancients to pass safely through difficult and dangerous situations in the afterlife. The irony was not lost upon him.

  It was his wont to keep a keen eye on the universities in England, France and Germany; their dons and professors were harbingers of knowledge that could prove of incalculable value, in the right hands. Of course, his own laboratories and library were the envy of the world. The best maps, the most accurate depictions of the planets and a veritable museum of artifacts from distant lands filled shelves groaning from floor to ceiling with labeled jars and yellowed papyrus and coiled codexes.

  “Very well, thank you, monsieur.” Hamilton’s voice was a dull monotone, but the sharpness of his eyes behind his spectacles indicated that he was keen to see the face behind the screen. It was only a footman arriving with a tea tray for Hamilton that halted the proceedings momentarily. He himself preferred strong coffee.

  He was in a surly mood. Motioning his valet aside impatiently, he took up the linen towel around his neck and daubed at what was left of the soap. The servant dutifully collected his tray and backed out the door on silent feet. Rising from the chair, he looked away from Hamilton to the French doors that framed the parterre with its plane trees and disciplined shrubs.

  Hamilton was biddable enough, not daring to look beyond the screen to the man who had been paying his gambling debts these past few months. If only Hamilton’s prodigiously scholarly mind were as adept at cards. He’d no doubt been mesmerized by the agile fingers that cleverly shuffled cards in parlors and dens across London.