The Deepest Sin

by Caroline Richards

  It was time to go. She walked her mount along the narrow path, kicking away leaves in her way, surprised that she was no longer beset by memories. Like the dusty mementos in an attic, the yellowed portraits, the forgotten toys and love letters tied with ribbon, they were the detritus of a squandered life. That was the reason she had come today to exorcise the past, without which she could not go forward into the future with Archer. She owed it not only to herself, but even more to him, Julia and Rowena.

  The small cottage had changed very little from her dreams and nightmares. And why should it? It had been built three hundred years before and would last another three. Tying up her horse behind it, she approached the door and peered through the window.

  Where there had once been a book-lined wall, there was emptiness, and the bed that had once dominated the main room was gone, along with its rumpled silk sheets and damask coverlets. She opened the door and closed her eyes.

  Muslin curtains wafted gently in a summer’s breeze. It was a book-lined room, papers scattered on the polished wood floor, a single candle burning low in its holder. The center was dominated by an opulent bed, fitted with the finest sheets and damask coverlets where two naked figures slept entwined, their bodies heavy with fulfillment. The girl lay on her back, her red hair fanned across the pillow, one arm falling loosely around the back of her partner. His dark head was pillowed next to hers, a leg flung possessively over her thighs, trapping her into the sumptuous feather mattress.

  A small sigh escaped her lips, a muted sound of remembered desire that faded into a contented breath. Meredith felt the familiar body by her side, in tune with hers after long hours of passion. She kept her eyes closed and a smile on her lips, breathing in the scent of the summer breeze finding its way through the open door.

  Meredith opened her eyes to an empty room, with wood floors covered in dust. The empty bookshelves mocked her save for one object glowing in the slant of sunshine. It beckoned, a finely tooled leather mask, calling her closer. She took a step, then another, the distance seemingly insurmountable. Her hands shook, hovering over the mask.

  “It has been a long time indeed.” A familiar voice came from behind her. “Welcome home, Meredith Woolcott.”

  With the slowness of nightmares, she tried to turn around just as her feet flew out from under her, spilling her to the floor. A blinding pain split the back of her head, and the room blurred, faded and then returned, before the light contracted to a pinpoint and finally disappeared.

  Each time Meredith tried to move her limbs, she felt her whole torso resist. She wanted to open her eyes, but she feared what she would see, preferring to stay in the protectiveness of deep sleep. She slipped away again, the surface under her hard and unrelenting. Gradually the darkness coalesced into a series of shapes and densities of gray. The silence was profound, deeper than anything that she had ever experienced and yet she sensed with sickening dread that she wasn’t alone.

  The warmth of an afternoon sun pouring through glass coaxed her eyes open. Her head pounded from a bruise at the base of her neck. She pulled herself upright against a wall. A man was sitting by the open door, his face obscured by shadows, the wings of the chair seeming to envelop him, cutting him off from the rest of the empty room.

  He held the mask in his hands. Meredith’s throat went dry, the pounding of her temples keeping time with the rising swell of bile in her throat. The man awaiting her was not Faron. She knew simply by the way he held himself and, when he turned his head away from the shadows, the way his lips thinned over his teeth.

  Giles Lowther. He slowly raised the mask and placed it over his face. Meredith struggled with nausea, swaying to a seated position on the floor, her hands and ankles bound. Her first attempt to speak was a rasp, inarticulate and cut short.

  “I never did think you were that intelligent.” The words hissed through the slit in the mask. “And this ridiculous denouement only proves it.”

  Meredith could not have reached for her pistol in the folds of her skirt. In any case, it would be gone.

  “For once, you don’t know what to say,” Lowther said, admonishing her with an upraised finger. He sat up straighter, and as though looking in a mirror, made a minute adjustment of the mask.

  There was nothing to say. She understood now, the pieces of the puzzle sliding into a horrifying whole. He was looking at her expectantly, forcing her silence into another kind of submission. “You were always jealous of Montagu,” she finally said, trying to control her voice. “It was never Jerome, was it? It was you who was behind the attack that changed everything.”

  Lowther ignored her, flicking a hand over the mask. “Nor for that matter, did I ever believe that Faron was so bloody brilliant.” His voice rose, echoing in the emptiness of the room. “I was the brilliant one. I was the one who came from nothing, the gutters of East London to the gallows of Paris where he found me. And a good thing he did. Because I was the mastermind behind every success Faron ever had.”

  Meredith’s mind flashed back in time, and saw the hazy outlines of Giles Lowther shadowing Montagu Faron, a mere silhouette that she could scarcely remember.

  He laughed softly, as though at a private joke. “Oh, yes, I recognize that you were barely aware of my existence. The two of you.” His lips curled in disdain. “I was the one who plotted to ensure we would get the maps that Lord Strathmore led us to, with your half-sister Julia used as bait. Don’t look so shocked. How long did you believe you could keep that a secret? That the two children you plucked from the nursery fire were your father’s daughters, his bastard children, the pathetic result of his affair with a village slut? The daughter of a priest who met her end in the nursery fire. Well deserved, if you believe in God and retribution.” He shook his head. “It was only Faron’s maudlin sentimentality, and the fact that you held him in thrall, that prompted him to allow those children at the chateau.”

  Meredith closed her eyes against the tears, but they came anyway. When she opened them, his eyes locked upon hers. “And Lord Rushford and your beloved Rowena—I was the one who strategized the theft of the Rosetta stone so Faron could add it to his bloody collection.” His pale eyes glowed behind the mask. “I did not attend the Sorbonne. I did not have the benefit of tutors, such as your well-respected father, the Cambridge don. But what I did have was the ambition and the sheer intellect to absorb knowledge as it came my way. As castoffs, as discards.”

  A moment ago, she had felt grief. But now something harder quickened her blood, a desire to know, to understand.

  “You attacked Faron that night after we met here. And later, you set fire to the nursery.” It was a test.

  Lowther took a deep breath, inflating his barrel chest. His eyes settled upon her, trying to gauge the depth of her knowledge. He smiled behind the mask, shaking his head slowly. “I didn’t have to, you fool. Jerome was easily led, the half-wit, the product of generations of aristocratic inbreeding.” He sneered. “And amazingly, after the accident, Faron was putty in my hands, eager to believe every last poisoned seed I planted in his mind.” He glanced at her slyly. “I even told him that you had rutted with his cousin Jerome. Urging him to set fire to the nursery was child’s play after that. Please forgive the figure of speech.”

  Lowther had stopped talking, but his voice continued to echo in her head. The pounding at her temples turned to a ringing in her ears. She twisted her wrists against the leather bindings, the scars on her forearms burning.

  “I watched him die, you know, my dear Meredith.” His tone had turned to a ragged whisper, whistling from the slit in the mask. “The first attempt at the hands of your half-sister Julia—immolation. And the second at the hands of your half-sister Rowena—drowning. And Faron did drown, I assure you, in the cold waters of the Channel.” His voice was hoarse with triumph. “I made sure he died once I no longer had need of him.”

  Meredith clenched her fists, the nails drawing blood. The physical pain sharpened her senses, giving her a window of clarity as she
forced herself to her knees. The door tilted and the walls rippled.

  Remaining seated, the mask still in place, Lowther watched. “You feel unwell,” he said at length.

  Another wave of nausea rolled through her.

  “There’s nothing to fear. Don’t fight it.” He sighed and then smiled behind the mask with something like compassion. “If I’m feeling generous, I shall ensure that the smoke kills you before the flames do.” And then he looked past her, through the glass wall of the French doors as though the cottage was already nothing more than smoke and ashes.

  A surge of anger spiked through her, straightening her spine, conserving her strength. If there was only a weapon, a wine bottle, a vase that she could use. Her eyes settled on her saddlebag sagging next to Lowther’s chair. Her stomach clenched.

  Lowther caught the direction of her gaze. “Of course, of course,” he said like a remiss host. “Thank you so much for reminding me. I might have forgotten... .” He leaned over and opened the bag, extracting the copper cylinder, still wrapped in red silk. “You were most helpful, Meredith, even more so than your wards, in bringing me precisely what I wanted. Now can you guess what this kaleidoscope, this innocent child’s toy, holds? Other than a few glass beads that so delighted Julia and Rowena when still in the nursery at Claire de Lune?”

  Meredith forced herself not to wince when he smashed the glass opening on one side. With careful fingers, he coaxed out what at first appeared to be a piece of vellum. It was the papyrus, the spell from The Book of the Dead that she and Hamilton had admired at the Fitzwilliam. Awareness slammed into her like a fist.

  “He stole it. Hamilton.”

  Lowther shook his head. “Not quite. You stole it, and returned to France, as you longed to do, what with your questionable past and eccentric interests, so distasteful in a woman,” he explained as though to a small child who could not quite grasp the whole truth. “A fact to which Mr. Hamilton will attest, with perhaps the aid of some small coercion.”

  A strange smile lit his eyes. “And think of the poor dears, Julia and Rowena, when they hear the truth, believing that you’ve deserted them and returned to the arms of the man who has plagued them for so long.”

  And Archer. What about Archer? The question drummed in her mind. Would he believe that she had reunited with Faron?

  Lowther rose from the chair with deceptive nonchalance. “If only I’d left the door open, you would be able to savor the rich aroma of burning wood. The fire should be well along now, so with absolutely no reluctance after such a short reunion, I will bid you farewell, Meredith.”

  He walked a few paces toward her, his hand raised in mock salute. “You were ever the challenging opponent, albeit unwittingly, I’ll give you that.”

  If she listened hard, she thought she could already hear the crackling of the fire coming toward her. The noise would grow louder, a building crescendo, insinuating its way, curling toward her. The mask leered and she closed her eyes, only to hear a shattering cacophony like a thousand mirrors breaking.

  There was a swift movement of air, and she opened her eyes. Lord Richard Buckingham Archer moved quietly for a large man, his arm around Lowther’s throat, exerting pressure from behind. Meredith’s heart hammered as a combination of relief and horror cut into her belly. Archer towered over her so close that she could smell the fury emanating from him. The impact was of power and a deep rage that was capable of crushing anything or anyone in his path. She drank in the strong features, the lined face and piercing blue eyes of the man she loved with a conviction that seared her soul.

  Epilogue

  Two months later

  “Your beautiful nose has been buried in that book far too long for my liking.”

  “I always noted that you were hardly the scholarly type.” Meredith pretended to continue scribbling her notes, sitting cross-legged on the bed beside her resplendently nude husband, whose physical pull was nearly impossible to ignore.

  He sighed, one hand coming to rest on her knee covered in a wisp of silk. “How quickly the honeymoon fades.” Claire de Lune was now a distant memory, the remains of Giles Lowther buried in its ashes, Meredith’s past finally laid to rest. And then the future—they had spent the past four weeks first locked in her apartments at Montfort, after which they had reunited with Rowena, Rushford, Julia and Strathmore at Archer’s London town house, which suddenly no longer echoed with silence but was filled with laughter, friendship and love.

  The warmth of Archer’s hand burned through the thin silk draping Meredith’s leg. “I should like to finish this article detailing the latest discoveries at an archeological site just outside Alexandria. The translation, as far as I can glean, is nowhere near complete.” They had returned to Montfort three days ago and had hardly left the large bedchamber with its monstrous fireplace and large mullioned windows for more than a brisk ride over the rolling hills of the estate. Spring was coming, and a tender, nascent green enveloped the countryside.

  Archer’s hand crept along the inside of her thigh. Meredith snapped the book closed. Smiling, she turned to him, touching his mouth with a fingertip. “I wish I knew what it was about you that I find irresistible, Lord Archer, because you really are the most impatient man.”

  He caught her wrist, his fingers circling the bones, feeling the rhythm of her pulse. He placed a lingering kiss on the inside of each forearm, soothing the scars. “There must be something, madam.” There was a contentment in his voice that came with the realization he would no longer need to look for his next adventure—because Meredith was by his side.

  “I can think of a few things, but with great difficulty,” she said teasingly. She put her head on one side as though giving the question real consideration. “Lust, I think, might be one.”

  Archer smiled. “Finally, you admit to it.” His mouth curved beneath her caressing finger. From the first, Meredith had ignited his response, seeming to have no fear of his limits or hers. She was not an ordinary woman who would be satisfied with a circumscribed life and he would make sure that she never had to. A sizable donation to Burlington House and its Learned Societies was the first step in ensuring they would eventually open their doors to women. It was only a matter of time.

  She was a challenge, the most exciting he’d ever met, and he could no more resist her than keep the sun from rising every day. Catching both her wrists in one hand, he pulled her against his body. “Time to prove your assertion, Meredith,” he challenged. She laughed beneath his mouth, her breath mingling with his. Her teeth nipped his lower lip, the sensual sting sending his blood racing.

  “With pleasure,” she said, her body melting into his.

  Did you miss the other books in Caroline’s fabulous series?

  The Deadliest Sin

  Dark Dreams

  They had haunted Julia Woolcott all her life, but the strangest of all began with an invitation to a scandalous house party, and a game more dangerously arousing than any she’d ever imagined.

  Unbound Desires

  Driven by his ruthless ambition, Alexander Strathmore would do anything to come face-to-face with the mystery man who’d challenged him to first decauch Julia, then destroy her.

  Deadly Sins

  A wild shot ... a frantic carriage ride through the night ... a forbidden seduction. Rakehell adventurer and sheltered spinster, Alexander and Julia will break every rule of propriety to chase down their nemesis and consummate their unlikely passion.

  The air was like a heavy linen sheet pressed against Julia’s face, yet a cold sweat plastered her chemise and dress to her body. It was peculiar, the ability to retreat into herself, away from the pain numbing her leg and away from the threat that lay outside that suffocating room.

  A few moments, an hour, or a day passed. She found herself seated, her limbs trembling from the effort. Guilt choked her, a tide of nausea threatening to sweep away the tattered edges of her self-regard. Why had she ignored Meredith’s warnings and accepted Wadsworth’s invitation to phot
ograph his country estate? Flexing her stiff fingers, Julia felt for the ground beneath her. A film of dust gathered under her nails. If she could push herself higher, lean against a wall, allow the blood to flow ...

  The pain in her leg was a strange solace, as were thoughts of Montfort—her refuge and the splendid seclusion where her life with her sister and her aunt had begun. She could remember nothing else; her early childhood was an empty canvas, bleached of memories. Lady Meredith Woolcott had offered a universe unto itself. Protected, guarded, secure—for a reason.

  Julia’s mouth was dry. She longed for water to wash away her remorse. New images crowded her thoughts, taking over the darkness in bright bursts of recognition. Meredith and Rowena waving to her from the green expanse of lawn at Montfort. The sun dancing on the tranquil pond in the east gardens. Meredith’s eyes, clouded with worry, that last afternoon in the library. Warnings that were meant to be heeded. Secrets that were meant to be kept. Wise counsel from her aunt that Julia had chosen, in her defiance, to ignore.

  She ran a shaking hand through the shambles of her hair, her bonnet long discarded somewhere in the dark. She pieced together her shattered thoughts. When had she arrived? Last evening or days ago? A picture began to form. Her carriage had clattered up to a house with a daunting silhouette, all crenellations and peaks. Chandeliers glittered coldly into the gathering dusk. The entryway had been brightly lit, the air infused with the perfume of decadence, sultry and heavy. That much she could remember before her mind clamped shut.

  The world tilted and she ground her nails into the stone beneath her palms for balance. She should be sobbing but her eyes were sandpaper dry. Voices echoed in the dark, or were they footsteps? She strained her ears and craned her neck, peering into the thick darkness. She sensed vibrations more than sounds. Footsteps, actual or imagined, would do her no good.