Too Wicked to Kiss: Gothic Love Stories #1

by Ridley, Erica

  Despite the tall arched ceiling with its bowed wooden beams curving at the creases like so many rib bones, the air was thick, heavy, oppressive, as if she had not stepped into the foyer of an aristocrat’s mansion, but a long forgotten sepulcher untouched by anything but death.

  At Lady Stanton’s unveiled glare, Evangeline forced her feet further into the echoing anteroom. The cold marble floor spread from her battered boots to the edges of every wall.

  Were there no windows? Evangeline craned her neck to peer upward, just beneath the rafters. Ah, yes. Several. But not the kind to let in light. Only the slipperiest, blackest of shadows filtered through the thin cracks to fall upon her upturned face like the cool caress of ghostly hands. The wisps of damp hair on Evangeline’s neck fluttered nervously, touched by a breeze she could not feel.

  Lady Stanton, for her part, was momentarily nonplused. Gone was the calculating gleam in her eyes, replaced by…not fear, precisely. Wariness. As if she would cleave to her stratagem as planned, but was no longer convinced of its wisdom.

  Susan stood in the very center of the room, perhaps determined not to edge too near to the shadows seeping from the corners. Her wide, quick eyes took in the ceiling, the staircase, the narrow slits of lightless windows, and then her trembling hands were at her pallid face. She snatched off her spectacles and shoved them in a pocket. Evangeline had the terrible suspicion Susan did so because she had no wish to see just what they’d gotten themselves into.

  A gaunt, wizened butler stood silently against one wall, the sputtering candle above his head doing little to illuminate his expression. His gnarled face remained impassive when whispers came from an adjacent hallway, then footfalls, followed by a beautiful blond lady, four spindly-limbed footmen, and three cowering maids.

  The lady did not look at home in the mansion, despite her fancy dress. She looked frightened. After a jerking peek over her shoulder at the vacant marble staircase curving up from the anteroom’s furthest shadows, she hurried into the foyer to greet them.

  Lady Stanton moved forward, her steps hesitant. “Lady Heatherbrook.”

  “Good evening.” Lady Heatherbrook exchanged an indecipherable glance with the butler before facing her guests. “Lady Stanton, Miss Stanton, Miss…?”

  “Pemberton.” Evangeline joined the trio and gave her a tentative smile.

  The regal lady did not smile back.

  “That’s Lionkiller’s estranged elder sister,” Susan whispered to Evangeline. “The countess.”

  “The footmen will see to your trunks,” the lady continued, her voice low and hushed. “You must be exhausted after your journey. Hot water is on its way to your rooms.” She gestured to the three girls still hovering by the doorway. “Molly, Betsy, and Liza will be happy to—”

  “We have our own maids,” Lady Stanton interrupted stiffly. She appeared wounded the countess would even offer to supply such a common staple as ladies’ maids, but the crack in her voice suggested she was floundering for any sense of control.

  The countess did not appear affronted. If anything, she seemed to have forgotten she’d been speaking. Rather than continue her welcome, the countess glanced at the staircase again and bit at her lower lip.

  “I have no maid,” Evangeline said into the silence. Hollow echoes of her voice whispered from the recesses of the high-ceilinged chamber.

  Lady Stanton shot her an acidic glare, but Lady Heatherbrook’s mouth relaxed into a brief but grateful smile. Susan murmured a question and both ladies stepped closer to assuage some concern. Evangeline did not. She could not. A sudden chill descended upon the room and her every sense tingled with danger.

  Impossibly, she felt him before she saw him.

  Although she seemed to be the only one affected thus, she didn’t doubt the prickling sensitivity along her bare neck for a single moment. While the three ladies conversed quietly, gesturing now and again at a maid or a footman, Evangeline lifted her gaze upward once more.

  And there he was.

  He stood at the landing above the spiral stair, cloaked in shadow. Tall. Unnaturally so. Was it the angle, the skewed perspective of being so far beneath him? Or was his towering stature undeniable, evident in the width of his shoulders, the muscular length of his legs, the long pale fingers curved around the banister?

  The shadows made discerning features difficult. Evangeline could not tell if he were truly as savage as he appeared, or if a trick of the light—or lack thereof—caused the slatted darkness to undulate across his form. Almost without realizing it, she began to back away.

  He continued down the spiral stairway, silent and sure, the leather of his boots making no noise on the cold marble. Although shadows obscured his face, his eyes glittered like those of a wolf loping alongside a lonely carriage. Thin fingers still curled lightly around the gleaming banister, he took another step forward. When there were as many steps behind him as there were before him, a brief flicker from a nearby sconce lit his face.

  Evangeline swallowed a gasp.

  Not because of the obsidian eyes framed by equally black lashes. Nor because of the angry slash of cheekbones, the flash of bared teeth, or the scar just above the edge of his jaw. Those things, though separately terrible, together formed a face of cold, cruel beauty.

  Another flutter of orange light as he reached the final stair, and Evangeline could no longer breathe.

  He was angry. Horribly angry. His eyes glittered like a wolf’s because he was a wolf, a beautiful, powerful, violent wolf, prowling toward his unsuspecting prey. His dark hair slid across his face, snapping Evangeline from her trance just as his long, gloveless hand fell atop the countess’s shoulder.

  Lady Heatherbrook started, froze, blanched. Her fingers touched her neck, grasping at her bare throat. Her shoulders curved inward, her spine slumped, as though his mere touch had the power to melt her very bones, deflating her from countess to servant in the space of a breath.

  “Gavin,” she said, the name almost a whisper. “You’ve come to meet our guests.”

  His brow arched. “Have I?”

  She winced, but continued on, louder now, her voice infused with false gaiety, as if she were an ordinary hostess greeting ordinary guests, and not a shell of a countess with her unprotected back toward her parents’ killer.

  “This is Lady Stanton,” she said. A brittle smile stretched her mouth, making the words came out unnatural and strange. “This is her lovely daughter, Miss Susan Stanton.”

  Trembling, Evangeline waited to hear her name. It was not forthcoming.

  In light of their host’s murderous expression, she was more pleased than offended by the omission. But then Susan—still without her spectacles—gave a weak wave, indicating the edge of the room where Evangeline had stood to watch the wolf’s descent.

  “Miss Pemberton,” Susan squeaked. “Miss Pemberton is also with us.”

  The wolf’s gaze snapped to Evangeline’s, his face turning so fast she’d barely caught the motion. Trapped, she could neither breathe nor blink.

  His shoulders rolled back, his lips hardened, his muscles flexed. No—he was not a wolf, but a lion. Twice as dangerous.

  His eyes were black, recessed as though he hadn’t slept well. For decades. His gaze, however, was dark and quick, as if nothing so trivial as a sleepless night would stop him from tracking her down, should she be foolish enough to flee.

  She couldn’t flee. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. Evangeline could only stare, wide-eyed and helpless.

  He returned the scrutiny, made her the object of his sole and endless focus. The sheen fell from his eyes until they were flat and hard. Even candlelight no longer reflected on their surface. The corners of his lips quirked in a smile that was more ferocious than friendly.

  “Guests.” The single word, a belated echo of the countess’s earlier statement, seemed to scatter the charged air, prickling them all with a unleashed fury. “So I see.”

  This time, the countess did turn to face him, althou
gh her gaze did not meet his. “May we discuss our matter privately?” The unsteadiness of her voice belied the reproach in her words.

  He turned toward the countess. Released from his stare, Evangeline desperately sucked in air. He stiffened, as if he could hear her uneven breaths above the pounding of her heart, but his gaze stayed on the countess. “Be assured, Rose. We will.”

  After an uncertain moment, Lady Heatherbrook angled her body to one side, gesturing with one gloved arm. “Lady Stanton, Miss Stanton, Miss Pemberton. May I present my brother, Mr. Gavin Lioncroft.”

  Ignoring both mute Stantons, Lioncroft’s eyes fixed on Evangeline once again. In one fluid movement, he gave a sweeping, mocking bow. The murderer, it seemed, had both elegance and grace.

  Mechanically, Evangeline dipped in an answering curtsy—or, at least, tried to. Her blistered heel gave way beneath her. Her boot slipped across the slick marble, pitching her forward.

  At first, she thought her dark-haired tormenter had moved closer, as though to catch her before she toppled to the ground. But then she was being righted by a footman, and Lioncroft seemed to be laughing at her with his black glittering eyes and beautiful unsmiling mouth.

  He looked, Evangeline realized, like someone accustomed to having commoners like her faint dead away at the sight of him. And why not? He was an aristocrat, a murderer, an animal.

  A man perhaps even worse than the monster she had fled.

  Chapter 2

  Gavin Lioncroft, outcast and killer, caged himself in his office until he was certain his sister had deposited the “guests” safely in their rooms on the opposite side of his aging mansion. Only then did he take the shortest path to the west wing, using the unlit corridors between the walls.

  The murky interior was as dark and cold as the rest of the house. The edges of his shoulders brushed against the sides of the dank, narrow walls as he prowled through the blackness, taking a sharp turn here, another there. He had no need for map or candle when memory served him just as well.

  Centuries ago, the secret passageways had been built for a far deadlier purpose than avoiding the pathetic quivering of unwanted visitors. But it was better for Gavin, and better for the uncertain futures of the guests themselves, if they did not chance upon his company while his blood still steamed with fury.

  It had taken all of his willpower not to roar at them from atop the stairs, and send them fleeing into the night from whence they came. Somehow he’d restrained himself. His solitude was already ruined without adding death to the evening. Dangerous to tear off down the pitted roads at twilight.

  He pivoted at another intersection. Light. There, at the end of the passageway. Just a tiny flickering crack. The guest wing, where his unwelcome visitors were housed.

  Lady Stanton, a ridiculous birdlike woman with a pointed nose and a tremulous mole perched above pursed lips, her claw-like hands clutched about a hideous painted fan as though it possessed the power to save her from evil. Her daughter, the unfortunate Miss Stanton, a portrait-perfect waif dressed and coiffed and painted just so, as though she were nothing more than a lifelike doll for her mother to play with.

  And the other one. Miss Pemberton. Not anyone’s doll. She looked like a wild thing, with her dark mass of flyaway hair, sun-bronzed skin, and censorious eyes. She looked no less terrified than the rest of them, but in a different way. As if she saw straight through his exterior, and judged the real man twice as frightening.

  Gavin was not in search of his guests, however. And the time had come to make a few things clear.

  He swung a secret panel and stepped into the hallway right behind his sister. The painting-adorned panel closed silently, sealing the passageway from prying eyes until the landscape in the gilded frame looked no different than the dozen others lining the hall.

  “Evening, Rose.”

  His sister froze, just as before in the foyer when he’d caught her welcoming the unwelcome arrivals. “I wanted to make sure the chambers were ready for the others.”

  “Ah. The others,” he growled softly, stepping forward until he could see her face. “To what do I owe the pleasure of such unexpected company?”

  By the twisting of her hands, Rose did not mistake his meaning. “We—they—” She coughed and started anew. “I didn’t think you’d mind a few extra heads overmuch.”

  “No?” Gavin kept his voice low, smooth, modulated, the sarcasm hidden beneath the words. “Am I so welcoming?”

  After an interminable pause, she mumbled, “Never. That I know of.”

  Never was right. Solitude was much preferred over those who tolerated his company only to get closer to his pockets.

  Gavin moved closer, purposefully crowding her until she backed against the closest wall and shivered. People tended not to feel safe when he was near. They sensed his inability to suffer fools. He stared at her until she blinked and looked away.

  “And yet,” he said then, “you are cavalier with my goodwill.”

  “I…No, of course not, I—” she broke off, unable to say more. She glanced down both sides of the shadowed corridor before returning her nervous gaze to Gavin’s face.

  “You,” he said, “have done enough. All guests leave tomorrow morning.”

  “But the house party,” she stammered, fixing him with watery puppy dog eyes. Gavin was unmoved by beasts with watery eyes, especially those who used them to manipulate. “You said they could stay a fortnight.”

  “Nonsense,” he corrected softly. “I said ‘family’.”

  Her cheeks leeched of color. “N-not our family.”

  “I see.” And he did. He saw it was the height of foolishness for him to think his siblings could forgive a murderer, even after more than a decade. And twice as foolish to believe that his sister’s sudden interest had been anything more than a ploy to use him for her benefit. Gavin clenched his teeth. He had known better. “Whose family should I be expecting?”

  Rose’s lip trembled. “Mine, any moment. My husband’s brother and sister-in-law, Benedict and Francine Rutherford. And their cousin, Edmund Rutherford.”

  He raised his brows. “And the Stantons? Whose cousins are they?”

  “No one’s,” she admitted, tugging at her bare fingers.

  “Then why are they here?” He spun to face her, eyes narrowed. “You dare to match-make under my roof?”

  Her response was a vivid blush and a violent shake of the head.

  “How convenient for me,” he mocked, stroking a finger along his jaw as though pretending to consider the possibility. “Which chit is fit for a killer? The prim, vacant-eyed one with the blue eyes and yellow ringlets, or the unfashionably bronzed one, with the wild hair and clumsy curtsy? Perhaps I’ll have the former for my days and the latter for my nights. How kind of you to sacrifice such innocent creatures.”

  “They’re not for you,” Rose blurted out, horrified. “Leave them alone.”

  Gavin stared at her with a ghost of a smile. “Why invite them, if not for the master of the house?”

  She slumped against the wainscoting lining the shadowed hallway. “I’m not matchmaking them. I’m matchmaking my eldest. My husband hopes Mr. Teasdale will offer for Nancy.”

  Nancy. Yet another niece Gavin hadn’t been allowed to get to know. He hadn’t been a welcome caller ever since his parents’ fateful ride the night he’d—

  Gavin glared at his sister, realizing now how she’d managed to turn his dark sprawling mansion into grounds for a house party. How dare she use the past against him, dangle forgiveness as a lure? The stratagem had worked. He had been enticed. Eager. But no longer. He would send them all home at dawn. Not just the Stantons.

  “I needed other guests here to make it seem…” His sister’s voice faded to nothing, but he somehow still heard her final word. “Respectable.”

  That much was true, at least. His company could hardly be seen as respectable.

  “Why come at all?”

  A sudden draft accompanied his words, setting the wall
sconces to popping. Shadows flickered across the whorls and swirls of his papered walls, giving the dark gray pattern the appearance of movement.

  Rose’s shoulders shook. “You mean…who would accept the invitation of a known…”

  He inclined his head, his expression hard.

  “I—I’ve known Lady Stanton for years and years.” Rose nibbled at her lip, as if deciding whether a breach of confidence would occur if she told a secret to a man with no one to pass it on to. “Her daughter got into a scrape last Season and is most likely not welcome back. I knew they would jump at a diversion.” Rose tossed him a nervous glance as she clenched her fingers together so tightly the knuckles went white.

  “I was utterly alone in the hallway, I would swear it. And then there you were. I even looked over my shoulder to see if…” Her words trailed off as another crimson stain spread up her throat.

  “Ah,” he said. “You worry you will be spied upon. Have you something to hide?”

  “As I recall, you are the one who sneaks about sabotaging carriages.” Although the words were bold, she did not meet his gaze.

  “Exactly so,” he agreed, despite the tightness in his jaw. She started and blanched, looking as though she wished she’d never mentioned carriages in the first place. “Make no mistake, you’ll be getting in yours tomorrow morning. You all will.”

  Her eyes widened, their blue gaze first dry, then damp. She looked away, eyelashes quivering, and he could smell the unease in her sweat. “Can we not start anew, brother? Nancy marrying well is of the utmost importance to me. I cannot stress that point enough. She’ll be eighteen soon, and the sad truth is we cannot afford a Season. We’ve already sold our town house, our best horses, let go most of the servants. The jewels I wear are paste. Please. Just let me have one fortnight.”

  A very pretty speech, but he didn’t believe a single word from her lips. After all, Rose had just admitted that only the outcast and the destitute were willing to risk their lives and reputations beneath his roof. “May I ask what you have planned for tonight, Rose?”