Too Sinful to Deny: Gothic Love Stories #2

by Ridley, Erica

  If the situation were different, she might never have guessed the truth. Part of her longed for her previous innocence.

  “Have you spoken to Timothy today?” he asked at last.

  She hesitated before answering. Eventually, she decided to take the question at face value. It might be a non sequitur, but at least they weren’t discussing piracy or her wanton behavior in his bedroom. Speaking to spirits was reasonably safe ground. Susan wished his acceptance of her dubious talent didn’t bring such a strong sense of relief. She didn’t need his approval or his understanding. She didn’t need him at all.

  “No,” she said aloud, and shook her head slightly. Where was Dead Mr. Bothwick? Had he borne witness to whomever had removed the Runner?

  The still-living, still heart-stoppingly handsome Mr. Bothwick shifted his weight as if uncomfortable in his boots. He remained just outside of touching distance and turned his gaze to the sea.

  “I wish he would’ve come to me.”

  Harrumph. Of course he did. What pirate wouldn’t have wanted advance notice that his non-pirate brother was about to turn him over to the Crown for a hanging? But since she didn’t dare ask such a question, Susan hoped the cynicism didn’t show on her face.

  She forced a one-shoulder shrug. “It’s not your fault. I didn’t ask for this ability, remember? The accident—”

  “I mean before,” Mr. Bothwick interrupted, shifting his gaze from the sea to her face. “I wish Timothy would’ve come to me while he was still alive. I wish... I wish we could’ve talked.”

  “Yes, well...” Susan faltered uncertainly. What could she possibly say in response to that? “Perhaps he had reasons to keep his thoughts to himself.”

  “Oh?” Mr. Bothwick’s brows lifted, his expression overly bland. “And is it your opinion that it’s fine to keep something like ‘investigating pirates’ a secret?”

  “Yes,” she answered honestly. She certainly wouldn’t have told him, if she’d been Timothy. The man had still ended up dead. She imagined he would’ve been murdered all the quicker if he hadn’t kept his mouth shut.

  “Would you keep secrets from me?” Mr. Bothwick asked, entirely too casually. “Are you, even now?”

  She stepped back a half-step, caught herself, and forced her feet to stand ground. He knew nothing about the missing body. Nothing about her complicity in the Runner’s arrival or her further missives to their headquarters. He also had no reason to believe she knew a single thing about his involvement with pirates. She had to keep it that way. Stay calm. Look innocent and trusting.

  “I—”

  “What are you doing out here?” he interrupted. Something in his tone made her believe he’d waited for her delayed response just so he could interrupt. His fist rose slowly, face up, something small clutched inside. “Have you... lost something?”

  Susan froze.

  The glove. He must have found the glove. His questions had nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with the man who’d bled to death on the sand beneath her feet. Perhaps by Mr. Bothwick’s own hand.

  He didn’t take his gaze from her face. She couldn’t tear hers from his closed fingers.

  “I believe,” he drawled, “you may have dropped this.”

  She couldn’t force her lungs to breathe.

  He smiled and opened his hand.

  Chapter 40

  Susan stared at the object in Mr. Bothwick’s palm for far too long before it finally swam into focus.

  “My hair comb.” Her voice was weak, a mere whisper. Her heart thundered.

  He raised a brow. “Have you lost something else?”

  She lifted her gaze to his too-innocent face.

  So he did have the glove. He wanted her to know, but he wasn’t yet willing to show his cards. But why play mum? Because he was guilty of the crime? Or for some other heinous reason? Unfortunately, she could scarce ask questions without being required to answer some of her own. And he knew it.

  “Thank you,” she said crisply.

  She plucked the comb from his hand with still-trembling fingers and deposited it in her pocket, where it clinked against the knife and coins. After having paid out a considerable sum in the sundry shops, there was just enough room for the comb. She’d have to take care it didn’t fall from her pocket. As she was now convinced her cursed glove had done.

  “My pleasure,” he responded, looking self-satisfied.

  Insufferable blackguard. She’d let him feel like he had the upper hand for now. He wouldn’t be wearing his Cheshire grin when he and the rest of his pirate friends were led to the gallows.

  As before, this thought brought a devilish cramp to her insides. And as before, she staunchly ignored said cramp. She hadn’t forced him to go about pillaging and plundering and whatever else pirates got up to. So she certainly wouldn’t feel guilty about him being caught. Particularly if he’d been personally involved in murder.

  “How did you find me out here?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound suspicious. Or disillusioned.

  He nodded at the overturned rowboat. “Find you? I was just about to take a turn about the ocean. Care to join me?”

  Not on her life. “Perhaps another time.”

  Possibly the day after hell froze over.

  The dark sky was turning blacker by the minute. Apparently the recent rain had just been the beginning. Inclement weather aside, she’d have to be the veriest fool to go anywhere alone with him. Especially somewhere so prone to easily explainable “accidents” as the sea.

  He inclined his head, but made no move toward the boat. Probably because he well knew to row in such conditions would be tantamount to asking the gods to strike him down. Then why bother with the bluff?

  Deciding that trying to understand him would be the quickest path to madness, she turned her back without saying farewell. She headed toward Bournemouth proper with one hand pressed against her overstuffed pocket and the other cupped above her spectacles. The falling rain found her lenses anyway.

  She made it almost to the town border before glancing back over her shoulder. Despite her blurred lenses, the overturned rowboat was just visible in the distance.

  Mr. Bothwick was not. It was as if he’d been smudged from sight.

  Discomfited, she turned back toward town and focused on returning to the dry warmth of her bedchamber before catching her death of cold.

  After a change of clothes and a hot meal, the last of Susan’s energy drained from her exhausted body and she longed for nothing more than to go to bed. Unfortunately, someone was already in it. Hovering a few inches above the covers, rather.

  Dead Mr. Bothwick.

  “Good evening,” he said cautiously. Apparently her disposition showed on her face.

  She declined to answer. The only thing good about the evening thus far was that it meant the day was finally over. Well, almost over. First she had to get rid of a ghost.

  “The Runner is gone,” she informed him.

  “I know.”

  She knew he’d been watching!

  “Who took the body?” she asked eagerly.

  His face contorted in frustration. “I don’t know.”

  “How don’t you know?” She stared at him with incredulity. “Weren’t you there?”

  He shook his head. “I was watching over something more important.”

  “What could be more important than a murdered Runner?”

  “The box he came here to find.”

  That cursed box. Susan’s tired hands fisted briefly at her sides. Hadn’t she risked her life enough for one day?

  “You must take it tonight. We’re running out of time. They’re running out of time.” He floated away from the bed, toward the door. “And they know it.”

  “How would—Oh. Right.”

  Somebody had recognized the Runner for what he was, and eliminated the immediate threat with a sharp blade to the ribs. The Runner’s presence at all, however, indicated that there were others who suspected, who knew of his visit, a
nd would be coming to investigate and take permanent legal action against the pirates. They would not be content to sit and wait.

  “No doubt the scarecrow did it,” she muttered angrily. She wouldn’t have been half surprised to see a shovel rising from the Runner’s chest instead of a mere knife.

  “Who?” Dead Mr. Bothwick blinked, then laughed. “You think the butler did it? Unlikely. Murder is one of Ollie’s favorite treats. He would never delegate such a task to an underling.”

  “Perhaps you don’t know him as well as I do,” Susan began, then paused. His statement had been off-the-cuff and perfectly matter-of-fact. Perhaps Dead Mr. Bothwick did know the giant’s mind much better than she. Which could only mean...

  “You’re a pirate?” Incredulity was quickly replaced by a sense of betrayal. No wonder he’d been able to “investigate” the others. “You are a pirate!”

  “Was,” he corrected reluctantly. “And I never enjoyed it.”

  “Oh, as long as you didn’t enjoy it. That makes it all right.” She swiped at him angrily.

  He flashed backward, out of arm’s reach. “I tried to do the right thing at the end, didn’t I?”

  “I don’t know.” She crossed her arms and added uncharitably, “I don’t see that you did much of anything.”

  Dead Mr. Bothwick swirled above her head. “I gathered evidence, which I need for you to please go retrieve. Now, before they take the box somewhere inaccessible.”

  She glared up at him. “Like where?”

  “Like the ship! Like the bottom of the ocean! It doesn’t matter where, so long as we get it first.”

  “Why wouldn’t they just destroy the evidence?”

  “They can’t. It’s locked inside the jewelry box.”

  “Why wouldn’t they just destroy the box?”

  “They can’t. It’s forged from iron.” He floated through the door, then poked his head back in through the wood frame. “Listen to me. The strongbox is indestructible, not unsinkable, so if we could please move this conversation from your bedchamber to the dining room—”

  “Why the dining room?”

  He sighed dramatically. “If you would take your meals somewhere other than your room once in a while, perhaps you would have noticed the box in plain sight on the mantle.”

  Her hands clenched into fists. “If you would take your head out of your arse once in a while, perhaps you would notice nobody in this house has offered to dine with me.”

  “Miss Stanton, could we please—”

  “I can’t believe you lied about being one of the pirates!” She would have guessed long before, if she hadn’t foolishly trusted the man she’d come to love.

  “If we must hash over the details, I was actually a smuggler, not a pirate.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “We paid for the goods we took from France.”

  “Paid, as in ‘giving aid or comfort to an enemy of the Sovereign,’ thereby committing high treason punishable by death?”

  He paused. “Yes.”

  “You thought your involvement wasn’t an important detail?”

  “I thought you would go get the damn box instead of sitting around asking questions about it all day. They can hardly hang me, since I’m already dead. If you’re so concerned about crimes against the Sovereign, here’s your chance to make a difference to the living.”

  “Fine. Lead the way.” Susan wrenched open the door and stalked into the corridor behind the ghost. At least the jewelry box was in a common area. If she got caught inside the dining room, she could say she was looking for biscuits and tea. If the giant didn’t kill her on sight.

  She glared through the back of the ghost’s semitransparent head as they made their way down the darkened hallways. He hadn’t been honest with her. But then, would she have helped him if he’d introduced himself as a smuggler? She had to admit, he was nothing if not eager to correct his wrongs. Which meant not all pirates were irredeemable. This one, at least, had turned rogue and gone good. If only his brother had made a similar transformation.

  “Evan would like to speak with you,” she blurted.

  Dead Mr. Bothwick halted, then rematerialized facing her direction. “Regarding?”

  “I know you said not to let him know we’d been speaking, but he deduced the truth on his own,” she said quickly, then hesitated. “He said he wished you had come to him... before. And that he wished you could come to him now.”

  “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.” He gave a casual shrug, but something in the ghost’s eyes hinted he was not as indifferent as he strove to appear.

  “We could, you know,” she said slowly. “All three of us. It would be awkward, but possible. If you wanted to try.”

  Well, presuming she got both men together in the same room fairly soon. Once she helped the ghost complete his mission, he’d disappear forever, and the chance would be lost.

  Dead Mr. Bothwick turned and continued through the maze of corridors without responding.

  At least he hadn’t said no.

  She hurried to catch up. “How did your proof get into the strongbox if you’re not the one who put it there?”

  Dead Mr. Bothwick closed his semitransparent eyelids. “I was getting ready to secretly set sail. I knew if I were caught, I would be killed, and every inch of my property searched. I needed to entrust the evidence to someone who knew what was going on, yet could be depended upon not to breathe a word.”

  She cast him a doubtful glance. “It could just be me, but a fellow pirate doesn’t seem—”

  “Not Ollie. His wife.”

  Susan stumbled. Lady Emeline had been helping?

  “I knew about the jewelry box,” the ghost continued as he floated from one corridor to the next. “Everyone who’d ever been in the dining room had seen it on the mantle, open and empty. But since there was no key, it served no higher purpose than decoration. To me, it was my contingency plan. If I didn’t return by midnight, she was to shut the papers inside and hide the box until someone trustworthy came looking for answers.”

  “And she did,” Susan marveled. “Cousin Emeline escaped the cellar, and—”

  “No. To my shame, her assistance is why she’s now trapped in the cellar. She was the only one who could’ve taken the box and the cellar is her punishment for having done so. Ollie was furious.”

  “He knows what’s inside?”

  “He has a fair idea. Compounded by the fact that Lady Emeline isn’t stupid. She would never have crossed him without strong motivation.”

  Such as seeing her evil husband drawn and quartered. Susan couldn’t blame her. She, too, would have done whatever it took to protect the proof from the pirates. Lady Emeline, like her mother, was willing to risk both life and freedom. Susan could not remain passive.

  “Let’s get that box.” Squaring her shoulders, she marched past the ghost.

  “Wait,” he murmured, hovering so close to an unassuming door that one of his arms was no longer visible. “I hear Ollie talking.”

  “Good. That means he’s not in the dining room.” She waved him to follow. “This is our chance.”

  “Shhh. I want to listen.” With that, he disappeared inside.

  Spectacular. What was she to do now? Wait for him? Or fetch the box alone?

  Sighing, Susan pressed her ear to the wall and decided to give the ghost thirty seconds before she left in search of the dining room.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” sounded a deep voice. Dead Mr. Bothwick was right. That was definitely the giant.

  “Don’t be so skittish,” came the calm rejoinder, the voice gentlemanly with a touch of country. Mr. Forrester?! “After that near-debacle with your houseguest, at least I have a story to spin. If she asks, I can always say I’ve called to check on your wife. I assume you’ve purchased thicker chains?”

  Susan gasped, then belatedly clapped both hands over her gaping mouth.

  “Watch what you say,” the giant growled. “The walls
have ears.”

  Trembling, she pushed away. She had heard enough. Whatever was going on between the giant and the magistrate, Mr. Forrester knew about Lady Emeline—had known the truth all along—and deliberately chose to do nothing. He was a hypocritical cad, at best. Another man not to be trusted. What else might he be turning a blind eye to?

  She could no longer trust him. With anything. She needed a real man of the law. Would find one, the moment she arrived in Bath. She had to arm herself with as much proof as possible. Frantic, she raced down the corridor. She had to steal the strongbox.

  It was her only hope.

  Chapter 41

  The moment Miss Stanton had turned her back to him on the beach, Evan had resumed his march toward Poseidon’s cave.

  With no outbound journey scheduled for over a week—and that voyage being of the one-way variety—this could be Evan’s last opportunity to sneak aboard the ship. Having decided that saving his own neck now took precedence over determining his brother’s killer, he desperately wanted another look at the captain’s logbook. In fact, he planned to destroy it. With any luck, the previous diaries were also back on their shelves. He’d destroy those, too.

  Or, since those dated back to long before he joined the crew, perhaps he would be wise to keep hold of them for leverage.

  Like the glove.

  His blood simmered as he recalled the panicked expression on Miss Stanton’s face when he’d first held out his hand. She had been out looking for her glove. Not that he blamed her. Misplacing easily identifiable blood-soaked garments was never a good idea.

  What the glove’s presence meant, however, he had no clue. He’d asked around as carefully as he could. He’d looked around even more carefully. Yet there was no gossip of any altercations involving Miss Stanton. No signs of struggle. No injured man or woman. Certainly no dead body.

  Just a single glove with a hell of a lot of blood.

  Evan slipped into the mouth of the cave, flattened against the wall, and listened. The cave should be empty. With no cargo to guard—and the threat of discovery thick in the air—the last thing the sea dogs would want to do was get caught aboard a notorious smuggling ship. They’d been sighted enough times that their mere presence on board might be enough to connect them to the crimes.