The Darkest Sin

by Caroline Richards

“What will it take to finally frighten you off, Miss Woolcott ? Don’t you already have enough with which to concern yourself?” He leaned down, his breath fanning the smidgen of skin left bare at her throat. She forced herself to look into the flat gray of his eyes. “Mistress? I don’t think so,” he said.

  Despite their audience, Rushford pulled her close against him, the pressure of his hands on her arms enough to slip her easily into his embrace. Then he lowered his head slowly and kissed her.

  A rush of confusion. Fear and danger blended with an intoxicating gust of desire. Rowena’s body began to fight against the logic of self-control at the first touch of his lips. She had never been kissed before, yet the contact with this stranger felt overwhelmingly familiar, her lips blooming and responding to his as though she’d been born to it. The incursion of his mouth began slowly and leisurely, as if they had all the time in the world, an easy exploration of every soft corner of her mouth, subtle and dangerous. The fire he stoked flicked through her veins, like a hot bath after a cold day outdoors, until she thought she’d die from the pleasure it invoked. His hands tangled in the knot of hair at her nape, his palms cradling her against him, sampling and seducing, until she no longer knew where his mouth left off and hers began.

  His tongue was rough velvet, tasting and teasing. What began as one slow kiss multiplied, the dance of his tongue conjuring erotic images, mirroring the tasting and touching, the thrust and parry, as shocking images flashed through her mind. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Her breasts brushing his chest, the tips swollen. The fullness between her thighs, inexorable and undeniable.

  She was brought back to earth when he pulled away from her mouth, only to begin trailing his lips down her cheek, to her chin and to the pulse that beat at her throat. He dragged his tongue along the small strip of skin made available by the collar of her cloak. His hot breath scorched, and she arched her back as he pressed her body more closely against him. Her thigh slid instinctively and familiarly between his legs, and even with the barrier of her skirts and his trousers, it felt strangely like coming home. Shocked, her mind suddenly clear, she pushed him away. Rushford released her instantly.

  Her breath was coming quickly. “I know what you’re doing,” she said, a sob nearly escaping her throat. “And it won’t work.” She stepped away from him, sawdust sliding beneath her boots, until she was halted by the table at her backside. Stingingly aware they were not alone, she retreated into herself with mortification. The three men at the adjacent table were sniggering into their tankards, while Rushford seemed entirely nonplused at the scene they had recently provided.

  “I was merely demonstrating,” he said distinctly and as though their shocking embrace had never occurred, as though he had no trouble shaking off the effects of passion to instantly recall the issue at hand, “the inadvisability of following through on your plan.” He lowered his voice. “I urge you to be cautious, Miss Woolcott. Your first instinct to remain in the shadows is in all probability your best choice. And now if you will excuse me, I must return home and prepare for what you probably already know is an evening of gambling pleasure far away from Mrs. Banks’s charnel house and your unwise demands. In short, stay away from me.”

  Rowena stepped back, her balance suddenly unsteady, struggling against the flush of desire and the specter of defeat. Her heart ached as she thought of Montfort, her sister and aunt, imagining them standing by her side. She fought the longing for their arms around her, to make her feel shielded, safe, and as though nothing had changed. Losing them would be the cruelest blow of all and made this moment in a Shoreditch tavern with Rushford seem worth the humiliation. Impetuous, impulsive, and relentless she might be, but those qualities formed the steel in her spine that would finally convince Rushford he had no choice but to do her bidding. The threat of the Frenchman stiffened her resolve, fueling a dangerous logic that refused to give way.

  Rushford took her arm, the matter closed—but only for the moment. “Allow me to escort you to the street and secure you a hansom cab,” he said, moving them toward the tavern door and into the light of the alleyway. Moments later, alone in the swaying carriage, Rowena considered her prospects as the image of Rushford, lifting his hand in salute, faded away. The conveyance surged forward, the aroma of leather, vetiver, and worse still, the indelible imprint of their embrace lingering in the close air. There was no room for hesitation, she thought, blood pounding in her ears. Meredith and Julia would not pay the price for her cowardice.

  Chapter 5

  Ascant three hours later, Rowena looked at the reflection in the cracked glass that leaned against the pockmarked wall of a shop below her lodgings on Holburn Street. The warm afternoon sun streaked through the dirty windows, its bins filled high with a kalaidescope of velvets, silks, and lace. If one failed to examine too closely, it was simple to overlook the smudges of grease and dust that turned gold into dross, evidence of past lives lived in corsets and gowns now for sale to desultory bidders.

  “You are a delight, my dear, let me assure you,” announced Mrs. Heppelwhite, the owner of the dusty establishment and Rowena’s erstwhile landlady, whose attempts at genteel tones could not entirely obscure her Cheapside roots. Widowed in her prime, she had boldly continued in her husband’s footsteps as landlord, with the addition of opening a small shop on Holburn’s street level. All too often, unable to afford their rent, lodgers paid with a collar of Valenciennes lace, an evening gown which they would never have a chance to wear again, or a rabbit muff they could no longer afford to warm their hands with on damp winter days. A keen judge of character, Mrs. Heppelwhite had sensed immediately that this one, with her fine skin and lithe elegance, was of a different cast altogether. Clearly a lady of quality, judging by her educated, dulcet tones, Miss Frances Warren, as she called herself, had fallen on hard times but was destined for better things, and perhaps an illustrious protector, thought Mrs. Heppelwhite in a flight of romantic fancy. Not that she encouraged such goings-on in the five rooms above the store on Holburn, she reminded herself with a dose of righteousness. She only let rooms to women of reputable character.

  “The red velvet is perfect,” she fussed, nudging the gown with its portrait collar lower on Rowena’s shoulders. “Do not hide your assets, my dear,” she advised, shrewdly assessing her customer’s superior qualities. Long legs, a waist designed to fit a man’s hands, wonderful shoulders, firm but, alas, small breasts. “You are a trifle slender, perhaps, with regards to fashion’s dictates, but that can be easily remedied.” Producing two small sachets from a drawer with a flourish, she proceeded to tuck first one and then the other into Rowena’s bodice. “There, you see?” she asked triumphantly.

  Rowena bit back a grimace, acknowledging that she would accept any assistance Mrs. Heppelwhite had to offer, from her reasonably priced lodgings to the contents of the shop below. Her transformation would have to be both convincing and complete, and accomplished with the smallest portion of her meager reserves. Her head still spun at the outlandish plan, so brazen that it took her breath away.

  She glared at the image in the mirror. “This is considered stylish, then, Mrs. Heppelwhite, and perhaps a trifle provocative ?” she asked, soldiering on yet having no idea as to the vagaries of fashion and even less knowledge of how a mistress might comport herself. At Julia’s behest, she had read the various epistolary novels coming out of France, offering a cynical worldview of romance and flagrant immorality. Mistresses were practical, clear-eyed creatures unprincipled in their cravings for wealth and pleasure, their behavior and appearance designed to entice and beguile. Rowena’s life at Montfort had prepared her for neither, most of her time spent in the countryside. There had been ventures into London to visit a modiste once every year, during which Rowena had never paid the slightest attention to her wardrobe. Both she and her sister had other interests with which to occupy themselves, Julia her studies and daguerreotypy and she riding, the outdoors, and her poetry. Even so, she preferred Wordsworth and his paens to
nature over the rogue Byron whose overblown treacly romanticism made her teeth ache.

  Although their pursuits would have been considered unorthodox for gently bred ladies, Rowena breathed a silent prayer of thanks for Meredith’s insistence that her charges become learned individuals not tied to the dictates of proper feminine behavior. It was almost as though their guardian had suspected her neices would one day need great reserves of strength and fortitude. Alone and unmoored, beset with recurrent dreams that pushed at the edges of her sleep and sanity, Rowena had little choice but to persevere.

  Think before you act. You are far too impulsive, Rowena. Julia’s voice called out to her. And it was true. She rode Dragon far too wildly. She shocked the vicar with her outrageous pronouncements. And she had thought nothing of besting their groundskeeper, McLean, with her marksmanship. Unlike Julia, who could not hit the broad side of the gazebo on Montfort’s east lawn, Rowena could peel the bark from a tree at fifteen paces, nine times out of ten.

  Now that combination of impulsiveness and perseverance was responsible for this mad scheme. Leaving the tavern earlier in the day, Rowena had made the decision with lightning speed. Rushford was a gambler, and he would discover she was prepared to raise the ante and match intimidation with intimidation. His words were prophetic, she thought with strange satisfaction that intensified the knots in her stomach. She refused to think about the pressure of his lips on hers, the hard body pressed close, his breath hot on her skin. She had no intention of becoming the man’s lover, absolutely not.

  She would have to think about how to convince him to participate in the masquerade. He was as interested as she in getting to the bottom of the actresses’s murder, and once his hand was forced, he would see the judiciousness in collaboration. Lord Rushford and his mistress and the demimondaine, she thought.

  “What else do I require to complete my ensemble, Mrs. Heppelwhite?” she asked, not sparing a second glance in the mirror for fear of what she would see.

  The landlady placed a finger on her chin, contemplating her creation, before producing from a drawer beneath the counter a sparkling necklace of paste, the gems the size of robins’ eggs. “I do believe we need something to call attention to your outstanding shoulders,” she said. The necklace against Rowena’s pale skin glowed, but the older woman quickly shook her head. “No, I was quite mistaken, my dear. No use gilding the lily and covering up that flawless skin,” Mrs. Heppelwhite murmured, more to herself than anyone else. “What of your coif, then?” she asked. “Perhaps you could dress your hair with these?” They both knew there was no maid to help with the task, but the older woman held up the necklace in any case, the paste glittering in her hands in the harsh afternoon light.

  Her hair was a dark auburn, and her most distinctive feature. Suddenly, Rowena felt heavy with exhaustion, the burden of the past year almost too much to bear. She could not waste another moment in the purgatory where she’d been cast, neither dead nor alive, destined to remain ineffective and in the shadows. She plaited the worn velvet of her skirts in her right hand, the movement an attempt to soothe her agitated thoughts.

  “Are you quite all right, my dear?” the landlady asked. If truth be told, she had rarely enjoyed herself as much, dressing this young woman in the once sumptuous evening gown, which, though she had not given it much thought, would net her a pretty penny. Her lodger was obviously primping for a suitor, whose intentions might not be quite honorable. But then such was life. “Is your gentleman,” she probed carefully, “difficult?”

  Difficult, echoed Rowena under her breath. She should have expected that Rushford would be an unusual sort, eccentric perhaps given his unusual interests, but nothing had prepared her for the intensity of his presence, simultaneously alarming and compelling. She could not begin to account for her physical reaction to the man, the flush of desire rather than embarrassment that had overtaken her at the tavern, the sensations at once foreign and familiar. She thought again of her nocturnal fitfulness, and most disturbing of all, the dreams.

  Impatient with herself, she said, “The difficulty, Mrs. Heppelwhite, is that my gentleman prefers women with fair coloring. Is there a solution that you may have at the ready?”

  Bloody ridiculous, men, thought Mrs. Heppelwhite, her own late husband included in the mix, who had seen fit to die inconveniently and with a mountain of debt that she had somehow managed to shoulder. Nonetheless she clucked consolingly for Miss Warren’s benefit. “Aren’t these gentlemen silly with their preferences? But pay no mind, my dear.” She eyed the thick head of hair. “Bleaching is clearly out of the question, but I do have several wigs at hand.” Never mind that they had come from old Mrs. Grenville, whose vanity had far outstripped her ability to pay her rent. “Oftentimes the ladies prefer to change their look at the whim of their gentlemen,” she rambled on, all the while congratulating herself on scraping together a small living rather than subjecting herself to the whims of so-called gentlemen.

  Leaving the young woman in front of the mirror, Mrs. Heppelwhite bustled to the mustiness of her storeroom, returning shortly brandishing Mrs. Grenville’s yellow curls in her hand like a spring bouquet. “And real human hair,” she exclaimed, promptly slipping the confection over Rowena’s head, scraping loose tendrils beneath the tight fit. In a matter of moments, Rowena’s features were transformed, her eyes a darker blue and catlike in tilt, her lips darker and fuller against the light canvas. No one would connect this arresting creature with the nondescript governess from Wales, and better still, no one would ever recognize her as Rowena Woolcott who had died over a year ago.

  “I believe this shall do, Mrs. Heppelwhite,” Rowena said. The landlady beamed her approval.

  Felicity Clarence had been a fine morsel. Galveston settled into his box at Covent Garden, the shrieking of the well-padded soprano onstage undermining the comforting satiety of knowing that all was right with his world. Beside him, his wife Lucinda sat in rapt attention, not at all focused upon the swelling music emanating from the orchestra pit but rather upon the fashionable company that attended such events. Her ridiculous sausage ringlets quivered in anticipation of meeting Lady Sophie Crittendon’s new son-in-law, a freshly minted duke from Italy. Her hopes momentarily dashed, she raised her lorgnette from her ample bosom in anticipation of catching the Duchess of Osborne in her box. Securing an invitation to her weekly salon was her fondest desire.

  Galveston rested his head on the velvet cushion of the settee, shutting out his wife who, with a dowry and allowance as generous as her form, had allowed him to pursue his leisurely pursuits as should have been his birthright. The fact that generations of his family, on both maternal and paternal sides, had squandered their patrimony on horses and brandy was of no account. Lucinda’s merchant-class bona fides were unfortunate, save for the munificent sums that flowed consistently from her family’s coffers.

  The soprano’s voice soared in supplication, an annoying counterpoint to Galveston’s more pleasurable ruminations. Felicity had been a tasty morsel indeed. The images repeated themselves in his mind. He missed her rather salacious enthusiasm most of all. When he had first been introduced to her at Garrick’s in the West End by the Baron Francois Sebastian, an aristocratic gentleman who traveled in the same discreet circle as most of Madame Recamier’s guests, he had been delighted. The actress had been as voracious in her appetites as in her penchant for trinkets. But it was Felicity’s irritating ambition to rise above her station that had halted the enjoyable proceedings, most inappropriately. Not the thing at all, to ask him to be introduced to the more august personages in his sphere, the diplomats and the earls who littered his realm. He recalled the glitter of determination in Felicity’s eyes.

  It had all ended rather in a muddle—were it not for Sebastian, who had been most helpful with his suggestions for a tidy cleanup, a way of sending Felicity her congé. The Baron had unwittingly encouraged Galveston in his own dark directions, with an enthusiastic Felicity happy to comply. A familiar tightening in
his groin joined with images of the actress, her head flung back, her mouth in a rictus of pain. Until that last evening, when matters took a rather drastic turn. It was difficult to remember exactly who had suggested the little game. Was it the Baron or the slyly lovely Miss Barry? Galveston did not care to recall.

  It was unlikely that the body recently disgorged by the Thames belonged to the actress. Even if that did prove to be the case, there was no way to connect her disappearance to Lord Ambrose Galveston, or so Sebastian had assured him. As long as Rushford did not insert himself into the mix, thought Galveston darkly. Baiting him last evening at the club had been about as wise as baiting a lion in its den, but necessary all the while. Galveston had wanted to remind Rushford of the dangers of revisiting his past.

  Galveston, annoyed at the tapping of her lorgnette on his shoulder, turned to his wife. She pointed somewhere into the sea of theater patrons, but he could not hear her words over the soaring voice of the soprano. No matter. He nodded in any case, following her gloved hand as she discreetly pointed in the direction of the Duke and Duchess of Osborne. But it was not the Duchess’s bejeweled diadem that caught his attention.

  The Baron Sebastian, sleek as an otter in his evening clothes, sat in the adjacent loggia, his dark eyes finding him like a bullet homing in on its mark. Galveston ran a finger around the stiff collar beneath his cravat. The crush of people, the cacophony of voices onstage, and the Baron’s gaze closed in upon him to a distressing degree. Excusing himself abruptly to a startled Lucinda, Galveston exited their box, his mind already on a night at the gaming tables, always soothing to unexpectedly frayed nerves. The last images of Felicity Clarence flashed through his mind. Uncharacteristically disturbed, he shook off the vision with impatience, standing on the steps of the theater, summoning his carriage with a flick of his gold-handled cane.