Too Wicked to Kiss: Gothic Love Stories #1

by Ridley, Erica

  Gavin.

  Evangeline shivered. She could not. She would not. Not even in her mind. Kindness did not outweigh violence. Although…his kindness did give her pause. Her stepfather—another murderer—was not a kind man. He terrorized her and her mother, just like he terrorized the simple folk in her hometown, just like he terrorized the poor creatures slaving for him in his factories.

  Gavin—Mr. Lioncroft, rather—did not seem to thrive on terrorizing others. He seemed to expect others to be terrified on their own. And used his reputation to his benefit. But did he seek to act upon the fear of others by striking out with vicious cruelty against innocents? No.

  Lord Heatherbrook was hardly an innocent. Evangeline would never say anyone deserved to die, but hadn’t she herself hoped Mr. Lioncroft would teach him a lesson about fear and revenge?

  Of course, she hadn’t expected murder.

  Susan yanked back a curtain and loomed over the side of the bed. “Ew. You look all pale and clammy. Are those bruises on your neck? Lionkiller didn’t try and strangle you, too, did he?”

  Evangeline struggled to sit up, failed, and sank back down. “How long have you been here?”

  “Ever since Lionkiller brought you in.”

  “And when was that?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps an hour ago? Time flies when reading sixteenth century treatises on metal extraction techniques. Truly, Evangeline. A novel would’ve been better.”

  “Thank you for the suggestion.”

  Susan settled on the edge of the bed and met Evangeline’s eyes. “Will you please tell me what happened?”

  What had happened?

  Evangeline had been in some kind of trance, reliving the final, panic-stricken moments of Lord Heatherbrook’s abbreviated life. The next thing she knew, she was warm and safe, tucked in Gavin Lioncroft’s strong arms. Protected. Evangeline frowned at the realization. In her entire life, her mother had been the only other person who had attempted to protect her. And in the end, she’d died. At the hands of a violent brute. In this case, Mr. Lioncroft was the violent brute—and also the protector.

  At the very least, the man was an enigma Evangeline had no clue how to solve.

  “I don’t know,” she said aloud, unsure whether she was addressing Susan’s spoken query or her own unvoiced questions.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? You were there! Did you learn whether Heatherbrook died peacefully or not?”

  Evangeline nodded reluctantly.

  “Well? Did he kick off in his slumber? Or was something more sinister afoot?”

  “Something more sinister, I’m afraid.”

  “Aaahh! I insist you divulge every detail. What happened? Who killed him?”

  Evangeline sorely wished she could tell her about her vision and how badly the experience shook her. For years, she’d ached for a friend, someone she could discuss her Gift with, someone who could be trusted. But Mama said the ton could never be trusted. Susan was nice, but also a member of the ton. And Susan’s mother, the very woman Mama had entrusted to keep her daughter and her secret, had been willing to inform a houseful of strangers of Evangeline’s visions over the breakfast table. Mama was right. The ton was not to be trusted.

  So Evangeline just shrugged, and winced as the motion pulled at her sore shoulders.

  “What?” Susan cried. “How don’t you know? You should know everything. And then you should tell me!”

  If only life were that simple. Just the very thought—the sensation of laying atop her mattress, just as Lord Heatherbrook had lain across his mattress—the soft cushion of the feathers beneath her head just like the pillow beneath the earl’s, just like the pillow that covered his face, stealing his breath, stealing the air, stealing his life—

  “Evangeline! Evangeline! Are you all right? You’re scaring—”

  The moment Susan’s warm knuckles pressed against Evangeline’s forehead, the bedchamber disappeared. Instead, a wide flat plain rolled out before her, a never-ending field filled with row after row of wilting plants. A strange, dead farm Evangeline had never seen.

  * * *

  Susan races down one of the soil paths, sweating, panting, skirt hiked up to her shins so she could run even faster.

  “Evangeline!” she yells. “Evangeline! Come back! He’s out there! He’ll kill you!”

  Susan clutches at her side with one hand. The scrawny bushes scratch at her skirts.

  “Evangeline,” she pants. “No. Wait. Come back.”

  Up ahead, the neat rows of scraggy bushes ends. A pair of scarred brown horses chew at the closest plants. Stiff leather tethers the beasts to a small black carriage with dirty windows. An all-too-familiar driver perches aloft, holding the reins.

  Her stepfather’s driver.

  The vile blackguard bursts from an adjacent path. A kicking and biting version of herself flails in his arms, trying desperately to escape.

  As always, he silences her with his fist…and laughs.

  * * *

  Susan lifted her fingers from Evangeline’s forehead. “Good Lord. You look worse now than when you arrived.”

  Evangeline felt worse than when she’d arrived. Worse, even, than when she’d arrived at Stanton House just three days before. Then she’d believed she had a chance of evading her stepfather until her twenty-first birthday in just a few months. Now she suspected her efforts would be futile. Wherever Susan was in the vision, so would Evangeline be—and Neal Pemberton right behind her. But where were they? And when were they? How much time did Evangeline have before her stepfather found her? A year? A week?

  Now more than ever, she yearned for a friend.

  Which might be why, instead of saying nothing, Evangeline said, “Don’t touch me.” At Susan’s stricken expression, Evangeline added, “It’s better if you don’t. I-I get visions when people touch me. And headaches. Awful ones.”

  Evangeline expected Susan to laugh off the assertion, or at least to ask if Evangeline had just received a vision from their brief touch, or whether she’d gotten a vision from Lord Heatherbrook’s cold flesh.

  Instead, Susan’s forehead creased. “I was just feeling for fever. How else can you feel for fever? Has no one ever touched you? How can you live without being touched?”

  “My mother touched me. She felt for my fevers.”

  “But she’s dead. Who will feel for your fevers now?”

  Pain gripped Evangeline’s heart. “Nobody.”

  “What about children?”

  “I won’t have any.”

  “No, I mean other children, when you were a child. However did you play Fox and Hounds or Sardines or even learn to sew without touching anybody?”

  “I never did any of those things.”

  “You cannot sew?” Susan clapped her hands to her chest. “You are so lucky. If I never see another sampler as long as I live…but then, I don’t have visions to contend with, and I can touch anyone I please. Although, to be honest, I doubt I’d touch many corpses if it were left up to me. Did it not work?”

  “It worked,” Evangeline admitted. “But I didn’t see who did it.”

  “Lioncroft, of course. No question. How did Heatherbrook die?”

  “Smothered with a pillow.”

  “A what?” Susan stared at her, mouth agape. “Well. I admit, that hardly sounds like Lioncroft’s style. He seems much more forward with his aggression. For example, had you said he strangled Heatherbrook to death, I wouldn’t have blinked an eye. Likewise, had you told me Lioncroft bashed in his head with a large rock. Rocks can be vulgar and deadly. But a pillow, of all things. No…I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

  “What are you saying? You think him innocent?”

  “Well,” Susan said again. “Well. I guess I’m saying, now I don’t know. He’s probably the villain, but—a pillow?”

  For some reason, this small concession made Evangeline more unsettled, rather than less. The situation seemed so much more straightforward when everyone was convinced of M
r. Lioncroft’s guilt. Doubt…doubt made things murky.

  Evangeline tried never to doubt.

  “A pillow seems cowardly,” Susan was saying now. “Lioncroft may be many evil things, but he doesn’t strike me as cowardly. He seems the type to hurl Heatherbrook from the closest balcony window or impale him on a rapier, not the sort to sneak in on him when he’s sleeping and smother him with a pillow. Perhaps even Lady Heatherbrook’s pillow. She might’ve lain on it, not even knowing. How positively dreadful!”

  Susan clapped a hand to her throat as if she couldn’t wait to share this possibility with the lady in question. Evangeline would just as soon spend the rest of the house party sequestered in her room. She had far worse to worry about—Neal Pemberton’s relentless pursuit. She’d never heard of anyone outwitting an event foretold in a vision, but heaven help her, Evangeline hoped to do the impossible.

  “May I ask a favor, Susan? Two of them, actually?”

  “Of course.”

  “First, I must beg you not to mention my visions to anyone. Speaking to God may not be any more believable, but at least people rarely make waves against things having to do with the Church.”

  “As long as you’ll keep me informed of whatever visions you experience,” Susan said with a laugh. “Truly, you have my word.” She drew a cross over her bodice with one finger. “And the other thing?”

  “If you—If I—” Evangeline paused, unsure how to phrase her request. “Should you hear even the smallest whisper of my stepfather’s presence, would you warn me immediately?”

  “Where? Here? He’s invited to Blackberry Manor?”

  “No, not here. Perhaps we’ll be on a farm, but I’m not sure where or when. Just if you would catch wind of my stepfather, please alert me as soon as possible. His name is Neal Pemberton. Stay as far away from him as you can. He’s dangerous.”

  “All right.” Confusion ebbed the good humor from Susan’s face. “I think you may still be overtaxed. Try to sleep some more. I’ll check on you again before lunch.”

  She reached out to pat Evangeline’s arm, checked herself midair, and returned her hand to her side with an embarrassed smile.

  “Forgive me,” she murmured. “I’m far more used to touching than I realized.”

  Without waiting for a response, she pivoted on one heel and strode from the bedside. She dropped the small leather-bound book atop the bookcase before slipping out the door, closing it firmly behind her.

  Save for the crackling of the fire, silence filled the chamber. And yet, Evangeline knew she would not sleep. Had no wish to sleep. Only nightmares awaited her there.

  She rose from the bed and crossed to the row of bookshelves lining the large, windowless wall. As before, she tugged on the books overflowing the top shelf. As before, they did not budge. She moved to the next shelf and pulled at one of the books. It flew into her hands, almost knocking her off balance.

  What in heaven’s name…?

  Evangeline hunched before each of the bookstands, jerking titles at random from each shelf.

  Volumes fell into her fingers from every shelf—save one.

  She returned to that first shelf, crouching until she was eye level. The books looked real enough. Perhaps they were just stuck?

  Her fingertips ran across the dusty spines, gliding up to where the binding met the pages, letting the uneven paper rub against her skin. With as much force as she could muster, she yanked at the biggest book on the top shelf.

  It did not budge. Not only did it not budge, the effort threw Evangeline off-kilter, rocking her back on her heels. Arms flailing like windmills, she pitched forward in a frantic attempt to regain her balance. She fell hard against the bookcase, crashing her shoulder against the immobile top shelf. The entire bookcase swung inward. Inward—into the wall.

  And Evangeline tumbled with it.

  After a helpless sneezing fit, she picked herself up, smacked the dust from her gown, and stared in wonder.

  No wonder her room had no windows.

  The secret passageway—for, of course, it was that—hid all the windows. Small circles of glass dotted the wall above her head, much like the portholes of a passenger ship. Evangeline wished she were tall enough to peer through them, to see what lay behind the mansion. Undoubtedly, the windows had been positioned to prevent just such an action, so that whoever lurked between the walls could skulk about undetected.

  Had she truly believed in Mr. Lioncroft’s complete innocence? What kind of man dwelled in a mausoleum like Blackberry Manor, creeping about betwixt the walls? Had he—had he spied on her? In her bed? As she slept?

  Gooseflesh rippled up her arms. As she hugged herself, her hip bumped against the open bookcase.

  And the concealed door swung closed.

  The thick walls swallowed Evangeline’s cry as she flattened her palms against the dirt and cobwebs, scrabbling her fingernails for purchase. Nothing. How could there be nothing? The door swung inward, so certainly there must be a knob, a handle, some mechanism by which to reopen access to her chamber. Still nothing. She banged with her fists, screaming for someone to help her.

  No one came.

  She scratched at the cracks until her fingers bled before finally admitting defeat. This was even worse than being locked in the cursed pantry. She sagged against the wall, her back to the unyielding surface, her face tilted toward those tiny round windows high above her head.

  Trapped in the walls. Oh, God. Oh, God. She hated closed spaces. She hated dark, closed spaces. And she hated being trapped in dark, closed spaces the most. No solution presented itself but to continue on the passageway and hope to find an exit.

  With a tiny, distressed moan, she inched down the dusty corridor. How did Mr. Lioncroft fit inside the narrow passage without his shoulders scraping against the sides? Evangeline had to be careful not to keep grating her knuckles against the rough walls. She would’ve put her gloves back on if she’d known she was about to tumble through a bookcase. In fact, she would’ve fled the manor altogether.

  After walking no more than five minutes, the path diverged. She could either continue straight, following the feeble light cast by the small windows overhead, or she could turn right and venture into darkness.

  Evangeline chewed her lip, then grimaced when her skin tasted like dust. She assumed straight led further along the guest wing. As hers was one of the last occupied chambers, she doubted much help lay in that direction.

  She squared her shoulders and strode into the shadows.

  Chapter 15

  Evangeline hadn’t gone more than a dozen paces into the dark, musty corridor before running into the first cobweb. By the time she’d clawed sticky strands from her cheeks for the third or fourth time, the idea of a secret passageway had gone from distressing to hellish.

  Dust clogged her nostrils with each footstep. The dank passage narrowed, at times causing her to twist her arms before her stomach or edge sideways with her heels to one wall and her toes touching the other, pressing in on her the further she went.

  Briefly, she considered turning around, but for what? There was nothing to return to but more dust and shadow and spiders. Her fingers still ached from scratching at the swinging door.

  Inside the walls…walls which grew thicker, closer.

  She drew a shaky breath. One would think years of her stepfather locking her into cramped, dark places would lessen the impact of such an environment, not fill her with instant terror. The vile pantry he preferred to keep her in was almost large enough to lay prone upon the floor, arms outstretched. Here in the walls, she barely fit upright and wouldn’t dare to lie upon the floor. At home, enough feeble light flickered around the edges of the pantry door to illuminate the shelves, the jars, the occasional rat. Nothing but blackness filled the sliver of space between the walls of Blackberry Manor.

  Her fluttering heart was edging closer and closer to panic.

  Hot tears stung at Evangeline’s eyes when she found herself at a crossroads. Which way sh
ould she go? She was trapped. Helpless.

  She stood in the center of the intersection, reaching blindly with both hands. The opening straight ahead was as tight and narrow as the one she had just escaped. She refused to select that path. The passages to her left and right were wide enough to let her stand with her hands on her hips without fear of her elbows scraping against the rough walls.

  Think, she commanded herself over the roaring in her ears. Right or left?

  Eyes squeezed tight against the oppressive blackness, she did her best to picture the guest quarters in her mind. Behind her was her own room, an impossible distance away. To her left lay the furthest bedchambers, empty of guests. Before her was another passage too narrow to risk entering. To her right must be the other guest hall, leading to the Heatherbrooks’ and Rutherfords’ chambers—and possibly a murderer.

  Evangeline turned right.

  This passageway was not only wider than the previous one, it seemed friendlier. Less dusty. Less dank. No cobwebs. Although she was grateful for that small favor, something was amiss. What could make one secret passageway cleaner than another, but recent use? Had Mr. Lioncroft slipped into Lord Heatherbrook’s chamber through a false bookcase in order to smother the earl as he slept?

  Light. She gasped, and choked on the musty air.

  Pale, flickering orange glowed through four skinny cracks, forming a perfect rectangle against the wall up ahead. Evangeline sprinted forward. She hurled herself at the dark expanse in the center. The door flew outward, flinging Evangeline with it. She tumbled to the ground in a jumble of bruised elbows and knees. The door swung closed as she rolled to a stop. She untangled herself and stood, facing the spot where she’d emerged. A large oil painting stared back at her. She tugged on the gilded frame. It creaked and eased forward, awarding her with a glimpse of the darkness beyond. She jumped backward. The painting clicked into place. The painting…seemed vaguely familiar. Oils on canvas hung along the entire corridor, just like they did…where?