One Wicked Sin

by Nicola Cornick

  “He is a French prisoner of war,” Lottie said.

  “He’s a renegade,” Theo said viciously, “a traitor to the British.”

  “He’s Irish,” Lottie corrected, surprised by the surge of anger she felt to hear her brother’s words. “His father may be a member of the establishment but Farne is still an Irish peer. And Ethan’s mother was an Irish girl, so I understand.” She glared at Theo. “Perhaps he did not think that he owed loyalty to the British. Perhaps he thought that loyalty and respect have to be earned.”

  “Farne did his best for him,” Theo said. “He had him educated with his legitimate sons, would have bought him a commission in the British Army had he wished it. Did he not tell you?”

  “No,” Lottie said. “I know little of his family or his history. I only met him two days ago,” she added, “and we did not spend much of our time in conversation.”

  Theo blushed. “No, well…” He cleared his throat. “Ryder was wild. All that gypsy blood.”

  “Because the Dukes of Farne have always been upright, respectable citizens,” Lottie said dryly, “with their gambling and their mistresses and various other ancestral vices… Or is that different because it is sanctioned by society?”

  “You are sharp today,” Theo complained.

  “I have every right to be,” Lottie said. “My own brother wishes me to be a government-approved whore, unless I miss my guess. And to think that before I was only doing it for the money,” she added bitterly. “Now I suppose you would say it is my patriotic duty to sleep with Ethan.”

  Theo shifted in his chair. “We only want information, Lottie,” he said. “Where he goes, whom he associates with, any letters, contacts, that sort of thing. He’s a dangerous man and we need to keep a close watch on him.”

  “Then lock him up!” Lottie said. “He would be easier to watch under lock and key, would he not?” She frowned. “From the moment I met Ethan I wondered why on earth he had been given his liberty if he is such a dangerous prisoner.”

  There was a pause. “I’ll allow that there is an element of revenge in it,” Theo said carefully. “Ryder has embarrassed the British authorities by his outspoken rejection of his father’s politics.”

  “So they leave him free—” Lottie broke off, suddenly seeing the truth. “Whilst his son is imprisoned,” she finished. “He is tormented by the knowledge that he walks around at liberty whilst Arland is in some hellhole prison and he can do nothing about it. That is true cruelty, Theo.”

  Theo shrugged uncomfortably. “War is a dirty business.”

  “How did Arland Ryder come to be captured and imprisoned?” Lottie asked. “He cannot be much more than a boy!”

  “He’s seventeen.” Theo fidgeted uncomfortably. “I do not know the details of it but I understand that the boy lied about his age in order to join the French army and be with his father. They were both captured at the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro in 1811.”

  “He can only have been fifteen then!” Lottie stared in horror. “This is not war! This is a personal vendetta!”

  Theo looked away, embarrassed. “Let us not quarrel,” he soothed. “The truth is that Ryder is also useful to us at liberty. He may lead us to other conspirators.”

  Lottie stared at him. “Ethan is involved in a conspiracy? To do what?”

  “If we knew that for sure we wouldn’t be requiring your help,” her brother said. “We suspect that Ryder has been involved in planning the escape of some of his fellow officers from various parole towns, and with the breakout of prisoners from some of the hulks and gaols for that matter.” Theo looked up and met her eyes. “There were mass escapes in ’11 and last year, and Ryder is known to be an expert in planning and strategy. We think he is active in a countrywide network of agents who facilitate prisoner escapes.”

  Lottie thought of Ethan. He was not the sort of man to sit quietly by, waiting for the war to end. He would chafe at the inaction. Theo might well be right.

  “We are giving him enough rope,” Theo was saying, “so that he will hang himself and anyone else involved in his treason.”

  Lottie shivered at the image. “And you want me to find out what it is that he is involved with,” she said bleakly. “You want me to betray him.”

  “You would be well rewarded for your help,” Theo said eagerly. “I know how important it is to you to regain your place in society, Lottie.”

  “Not even the government can help me there,” Lottie said dryly.

  “Well, maybe matters cannot be as they were,” Theo agreed, “but there would be a generous sum of money and a house somewhere where you could start over, marry again perhaps, with wealth and respectability behind you. I think that I could even persuade the family to accept you back if I explained, discreetly of course, that you have been…”

  “Whoring myself out for the sake of King and country?” Lottie said sweetly. “You set yourself too high a task, Theo. The Pallisers will never take me back. And I am not sure that I would want them to do so,” she added. “If they cannot help me when I need them then I want nothing of them.”

  “I thought that you were a pragmatist, Lottie,” her brother said. “Take their charity if it is offered and be thankful.” He paused. “I think I would be able to persuade them and—” there was a wealth of sincerity in his voice “—I swear I want to help you. I want it above all things.”

  Lottie looked around at the couples chatting, laughing and drinking in Gunter’s. A young buck had drawn his phaeton up outside and had come in to fetch an ice cream for his fair companion. The sun was shining, the day bright with promise, and yet Lottie felt again that odd sense of detachment she had experienced when she had seen Lady O’Hara’s carriage. This was no longer her world. She had forfeited her right to it. And what had she gained in return? Nothing but a temporary role as Ethan Ryder’s mistress and a handsome payoff at the end of their association. She knew there was no other future for them. The shockingly tender lovemaking of their first night together had counted for nothing and she should not allow it to influence her. She would be a sentimental fool to do so. She had promised Ethan nothing other than her sexual fidelity for the length of their affaire. She owed him nothing. She had only herself to rely on.

  And here was Theo offering her the tempting chance to regain, if not her original place in society, then a home and sufficient wealth to make her almost respectable again, offering, too, his influence within the family to take her back into the fold, smooth over her indiscretions and make all well again.

  She was not sure that she believed he could do it, but she wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe it very much, almost as much as she wanted Theo to save her and restore her to her rightful place in society. And he was saving her in his own way. Her sore heart eased a little at the thought. Theo did want to help her. He was her brother and he loved her. It was simply that there was a price to be paid for his help. And if she paid that price, if she pleased him, she would regain his approval as well as feel secure in his love.

  She drained the fruit punch. Its alcoholic sweetness made her head spin on such a hot day. A lady in the most adorably roguish and fashionable bonnet crossed her line of vision and Lottie was shot through with sadness. She wanted to regain all that she had lost, to be rich, never to have to sell herself again simply to survive, to be safe. Oh, she wanted to walk on soft carpets, to smell the scent of cut flowers as they reposed in a priceless china vase, to ride in her own smart landau again and become once more a part of the world she had lost. She wanted it so much that she felt breathless at the thought, her heart constricted in her chest as though it were in a vise.

  She would do anything to go back.

  “So you want me to work for you.” Lottie tried to sound businesslike but beneath her cool tone she found she felt a little sick. The memory of her short time with Ethan tugged at her again. It was so little to build on when it was fleeting and illusory and when Theo was offering her heart’s desire: money, comfort and a return to th
e life she once knew. Yet for some reason the urge to remain loyal to Ethan gripped her fiercely. She felt torn. She found that her hands were shaking at the thought of betraying him, and she pressed them together to still the trembling, hiding them in her lap.

  “It is not really spying, Lottie,” Theo was saying persuasively. “It is simply…passing information on to us if there is anything that you think might be useful…”

  “Spying,” Lottie said. “You should be honest and call it what it is.”

  Theo shrugged uncomfortably. He looked up and his dark eyes met hers. “So,” he said. “Will you do it?”

  There was a long, long silence. Lottie could hear the chink of china and the murmur of voices and the sounds of the carriages outside in Berkeley Square. She felt hot and shaken, and the sweet echoes of the time she had spent with Ethan—such a short time and yet so intense and so compelling—kept running through her mind.

  Ethan would leave her. Men always did. There was no forever and they had never for a moment promised it to each other.

  She wanted to be rich again. She wanted Theo to smile at her with a brother’s love and approval. She wanted him to save her.

  She took a deep breath.

  “Very well,” she said. “I’ll spy for you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THERE WAS A LARGER than usual crowd in Wantage Market Place on Saturday afternoon waiting for the mail coach from Oxford. Ethan was gratified; he had spread the word of Lottie’s arrival assiduously and would have been disappointed if the natural curiosity of the townspeople had not resulted in a crowd. The appearance of so disreputable a woman as Lottie Palliser, her role as his mistress, a bird of paradise amidst the dull sparrows of this little market town, was bound to cause a furor and that was precisely what Ethan wanted.

  The Wantage Parole Agent had summoned him for a meeting as soon as he had heard the rumors of Lottie’s impending arrival. Mr. Duster was a fussy little man, neat and precise in his person and his dealings, very anxious to do everything by the book. The book in question this time was the Transport Department’s rules and regulations governing the conduct and terms of parole for prisoners, and Mr. Duster was flicking through it irritably when Ethan was shown into his office.

  “This is a bad business, St. Severin,” Mr. Duster had said, waving Ethan to a chair and summoning a servant to fetch him a glass of wine. “I can see no reference in any of the regulations to whether or not a prisoner of war is permitted to keep a mistress. Really, it is most remiss of the department not to have covered this eventuality.”

  “Surely,” Ethan said, “the absence of any rules against the keeping of mistresses suggests that it must be permissible?”

  Duster looked at him sharply as though suspecting Ethan of making fun of him. “I cannot be sure,” he said. “And I certainly cannot make such a decision on my own initiative. I have written to the Transport Department for a ruling.”

  “Of course,” Ethan said, inclining his head. “Thank you.”

  “Why on earth you need to bring such a woman to Wantage completely confounds me,” Duster continued.

  Ethan shrugged elegantly, a French habit he had picked up over the years.

  “What can I say, Mr. Duster? I am bored kicking my heels here on parole. Your town, whilst charming, lacks amenities, and I have been used to a far more exciting existence.”

  “I cannot see why you do not use your time as the other officers do,” Duster said, running an exasperated hand over his sweating forehead. “Can you not learn a musical instrument or practice your fencing? Those are the occupations of a gentleman.”

  “Keeping a mistress is also the occupation of a gentleman,” Ethan said dryly. “You must forgive me. I have no taste for either the theatricals or the games of billiards in which my fellow officers indulge, and my swordplay is already of a high standard. I confess that I far prefer amorous games.”

  Duster had reddened and puffed up like a turkey cock but he had not forbidden Lottie’s arrival. And now, as the Oxford coach turned into the square, Ethan reflected that he was going to look the most abject idiot if Lottie had played him false and absconded with the money. A wry smile tilted his lips. Had he been a fool to trust her with several hundred guineas?

  Jacques Le Prevost had insisted on accompanying him to meet the carriage. “I am here as your friend, St. Severin,” he said, clapping Ethan on the shoulder. “If Madame fails to arrive I will take you to the inn to drown your sorrows, and if her arrival outrages the populace—” he gave a very Gallic shrug “—I will stand as your second when someone calls you out for offending public decency.”

  “Very good of you, Jacques,” Ethan said. “I appreciate it.” The outside passengers were descending from the coach now. Naturally Lottie would have taken an inside seat. He imagined that it would be indignity enough for her to travel post rather than in a private carriage. Rattling along on the outside would have been out of the question.

  One by one the passengers descended the steps: a clergyman clutching a Bible and with a face as tightly pinched as if he had a stinking Stilton cheese under his nose; a couple with a small child; a shabby-genteel female with a small portmanteau, who could have been a governess companion. And then a bonnet appeared, followed by a gloved hand clutching a gilded cage that contained a small, silent canary. Ethan let out the breath that, until that moment, he had not been aware he was holding.

  “Enfin,” Jacques murmured.

  Lottie, Ethan realized, was making an entrance, just as he had requested.

  She paused on the top step of the mail coach, looking around her with acute interest. She was wearing an enormous and extremely fetching straw bonnet tied under her chin with pink ribbons. Her dress of white muslin was what was known in London as in the naked style, for it was cut with a high waist to emphasize the bosom and then cut low over that same bosom to reveal as much naked flesh as possible. It was also light and airy to the point of transparency. She was wearing a spencer over the gown but it was also cut to show off her figure. What the good burghers of Wantage would make of such indecent fashion, Ethan thought, was anyone’s guess. He liked it well enough. Suddenly the three days’ abstinence since he had last made love to Lottie felt like a total desert.

  “If you could hurry it up a little, madam,” the harassed guard was saying as he checked his watch, “we do have a schedule to keep.”

  “Ethan, darling!” Lottie cast herself into his arms, canary and all, and gave him the sort of kiss that was best enjoyed in private. It was long and deep, an outrageous embrace to display in front of a fascinated audience of the assembled citizens of Wantage. Lottie tasted of sweet, wicked temptation that almost swept Ethan away, plunging him into a maelstrom of heated memory and back into that hot, intimate night at Limmer’s Hotel. His body tightened with undeniable desire.

  Then she released him and stepped back and Ethan saw in her eyes that she was laughing—the kiss had meant absolutely nothing to her other than that she was playing her part to the hilt—and Ethan felt an odd sensation, as though he had stepped off a cliff into thin air. For a moment he felt a naive fool for wanting to recreate what had been between them on those nights in London, the honest feelings, the sweetness of true intimacy. Had he not been the one who had walked away swearing that such closeness had been no more than an illusion? Had he not wanted a sophisticated mistress who would make no emotional demands on him? Yet still he felt discomfited for some obscure reason. He felt angry with Lottie for dissimulating and with himself for wanting it to be any other way.

  Everyone was staring at them and whispering.

  Lottie’s fellow passengers were gathering their baggage and whisking away as though the sight of such immorality on the streets might be infectious. Respectable housewives with their marketing baskets could not quite disguise the gleam of prurient curiosity in their eyes. Many of them had gathered specifically in order to be shocked and outraged and they were determined to have their money’s worth.

  �
�I am so sorry, darling,” Lottie said, peeling herself off him, a wicked glint still in her brown eyes, “but my bonnet was so vast that I took up two seats in the carriage so I am afraid that you will have to pay the cost of another passenger.”

  “Jacques,” Ethan said, recovering himself, “if you would be so good? I fear I do not have my pocketbook with me.”

  “Enchanté,” Le Prevost murmured ironically. He bowed to Lottie. “Madame, such a very great pleasure to see you again.”

  “Merci, monsieur.” Lottie’s smile was delicious, flirtatious, and Ethan was almost knocked flat by a wave of possessiveness that was unexpected, unwelcome and, he thought, completely inappropriate when the object of it was a woman who had been bought for a few hundred guineas and would no doubt sell herself again for a few guineas more. Nevertheless, desire gripped him like a vise. He needed to remind her of who was paying her bills. The odd tension that possessed him tightened a notch.

  Lottie slipped her hand through his arm. “I have portmanteaux,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “Several of them.”

  “I am sure that you have,” Ethan said, a little grimly, wondering how much of the money he had given her was left.

  “I am afraid,” Lottie continued, as though she had read his mind, “that I rather exceeded my allowance, Ethan darling. They will be sending you the bills from London.” She smiled limpidly. “I did warn you.”

  “You will have ample opportunity to earn the money back,” Ethan said, even more grimly. He gestured to a porter from The Bear Inn who was loitering in the hope of business. “Pray get a cart and take these portmanteaux to Priory Cottage,” he said. “Hopefully you will be able to fit them all in one barrow.”

  Lottie was looking around the market square with a certain amount of disfavor. “A duck pond!” she said. “How quaintly pretty!” She sighed theatrically. “I know that you said that Wantage was a parochial little place, Ethan darling—” her voice was carrying to everyone in the vicinity “—but I did not expect it to be quite so provincial. I am sure that I shall simply expire with boredom here!”