The Darkest Sin

by Caroline Richards

  “We are going to have to behave as though ours is an intimate relationship.”

  She stiffened beneath his hands. “I am a good enough actress that I don’t need the practice, my lord.”

  “That may well be,” he said, continuing his work unabated, unlacing her corset before tossing it aside. Underneath the sheer cotton of her chemise, her flat stomach was smooth and unmarred. He spanned his hands around her waist, her skin cool marble beneath the fabric.

  “We decided,” she said shakily, “that this would never happen again.”

  “Yes, we did,” he answered calmly.

  Rowena knew that she had every chance to back away from him, to bolt, that he would make no move to stop her. Yet she was honest enough to admit that she desired him. Seeing him so close, the austerity of his face, the wide mouth, the dark eyes, reminded her of what more she wanted him to do—to her. Her pulse leaped in rapid staccato, fueling the mad idea that he was a substitution for the man in her dreams. Aware that her breathing was coming fast and erratic, she focused her gaze past his shoulders, on the cream-colored plaster medallion overhead.

  They stood for an eternity, a frozen tableau. “This is but a dress rehearsal, Rowena,” he said softly, and then nodded as though coming to a decision. He strolled across the room, away from her.

  When she found her voice, she said, “What do you mean?”

  “Do you believe that whoever is after you and your family,” he said, standing by the fireplace mantel, this time not bothering to hide the mockery in his voice, “will be easily misled? This is a dangerous game you and I are about to play. Deception is never as easy as it looks.”

  His accusation stung. “You believe that I will not be able to carry off this plan, to play the role of your mistress.”

  He took a few steps back to lean a shoulder against the mantel. “Well, isn’t it true? You came to me with the preposterous proposition, going so far as to force my hand yesterday evening at Crockford’s, and now you cringe like a convent-bred schoolgirl at the very prospect of my proximity. Yet we shall be called upon to play the besotted couple, over and over again. And yes, in public.” He straightened away from the fireplace, his fluid movement startling her. He moved so differently from other men she’d encountered.

  Rowena shook her head, unclenching the fabric in her hands. “I will do anything to enlist your assistance in uncovering the threat to me and my family. And I can assure you, my lord,” she insisted, stepping off the footstool in only her chemise and stockings, “that modesty, false or otherwise, will never stand in the way of our achieving our ends. What is fair is fair,” she emphasized. “I will do whatever is necessary to ensure that you uncover what it is you are after.” She wished desperately to ask what, precisely, that might be.

  Instead, she hastily began gathering up her clothes, as unselfconsciously as possible, stepping into her velvet skirts and then fastening her corset, before finishing with the damnably long row of small hooks on the bodice. Her fingers fumbled under Rushford’s cool gaze, but she was relieved when he finally moved from the fireplace to wander over to the curtained windows, giving her time to collect herself. When she was finished, she turned toward him, took a breath, and gestured to the divan. Her need to explain was acute. “It’s impossible to continue like this,” she said, “unless we have candor and truthfulness between us.”

  He remained standing by the window, and Rowena thought she saw compassion in his gaze despite the neutrality of his voice. “What is it you wish to tell me?” he asked, reading the anxiousness in her eyes.

  Rowena sat down on the divan. “There is only one place to begin this discussion, and that is with the man who wishes my family ill—Montagu Faron,” she said abruptly. “I do not know why, but I do know that he is the reason behind my abduction and a continued threat to my aunt and sister.” She paused, trying to interpret his expression. “Does the name mean anything to you?”

  “It may well,” he said ambiguously. “How do you know this Faron is the man who represents the danger to your family?”

  She acknowledged silently that her assertions sounded farfetched, and even now she had difficulty separating the strands of reality from her recurrent dreams and fractured memories. She shook her head in confusion. “During my abduction, I remember little else but hearing his name, over and over, and his threat to make the Woolcott women suffer,” she continued, her voice low with distress. “I awoke in a haze of dull pain, several times, and I remember a voice urging me to drink something vile. I kept my eyes closed, waiting for the pain and nausea and confusion to subside. And always the voices . . .”

  “Whom else have you told about this? Have you confided in anyone?”

  Rowena thought of the few acquaintances in their small circle at Montfort, none of whom she would wish to entangle in her plight. “I’ve told no one and have not contacted Meredith for fear that I would make things worse if our enemies discover that I am still among the living and that their plan had failed. The last thing I wish to do is to add flames to the fire.”

  Rushford sat down beside her. “Do you have any idea as to why Faron would wish the Woolcotts harm?”

  If only she did. “I don’t know,” she said with desperation, burrowing back into the cushions of the divan and into her years at Montfort. “It all seemed to begin after my sister Julia published a monograph featuring her botanical daguerreotypes. It was against my aunt’s wishes, as she was acutely afraid of any kind of notoriety, any activity that might prompt outside attention. In the village, Meredith was always considered somewhat peculiar because of her independence and need for privacy. She was always hesitant about letting us go out in the world, and in retrospect, I now see that she was mightily afraid of something—of someone—finding us.”

  Rushford listened patiently.

  “I don’t remember much after my abduction, about which I have already told you,” she paused, the moment heavy with guilt, fear, and desire. She placed her hands on her flushed face. “And the rest I can’t recall other than this anxiety that I must somehow find Faron before he can get to Meredith and Julia. And yet, I wish desperately to tell them that I am still alive. Their anguish must be—” Rowena could not finish, despising her weakness when Rushford reached for her and removed her hands from her cheeks. His face was blurred by her tears, and she blinked to hide the evidence of her torment.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I realized that once I recovered, I had no choice but to go to work as a governess. There was little else I could do to support myself and earn the means to find Faron.” She did not try to hide the hope in her voice. “And then I read about your exploits in the broadsheets.”

  His hand tightened on hers, adept at sensing her responses, knowing her better, somehow, than she knew herself. She realized that she should be worried, but pushed the doubts away. Instead, she looked at the man so close to her, wondering if she would ever see behind the gray eyes that watched her as though he knew her most inner workings. There was a connection between them both, if she could only grasp it, but it melted like fairy dust between her fingers.

  Her head hurt and her eyes burned with unshed tears. “I wonder if I know anything anymore, if I can possibly recall something, something that’s missing.” She sounded incoherent now, even to her own ears. Struggling to maintain her hold on reason, she said, “I can’t say why but I sense the situation with Galveston and Miss Clarence is somehow associated with Faron.”

  Rushford was silent, and his weight shifted away from her. As always his proximity was disturbing, making it hard for her to think clearly, trust giving way to misgivings. She smoothed her cheeks, warm under her palms. “I have told you all I know, Rushford,” she said simply. “But there is more, I suspect, that you have been reluctant to reveal to me.”

  He sat back on the divan, watching her carefully. “Perhaps not everything is as complicated as you suppose, Rowena,” he said. “After spending several years abroad, I found myself at a loss upon my
return to London. You yourself have pointed out that I have little enough to fill my days, save gambling and boxing.”

  “But what of the Cruikshank murders?”

  “Mrs. Cruikshank was an acquaintance of mine. She confided in me one day the distressing fact that three of her courtesans had suddenly passed away.” He shrugged. “Out of courtesy and yes some curiosity, I began to investigate the peculiar circumstances. And you already know the outcome.”

  Mrs. Cruikshank a friend? Highly doubtful, thought Rowena, that Rushford would count a madam as merely an acquaintance. Annoyance now mingling with her anxiety, she struggled to keep her counsel and pursued doggedly onward. “What about Miss Clarence?” she persisted.

  Rushford stretched an arm across the back of the divan. “My reputation precedes me, as you have noted several times. The situation was brought to my attention,” he said. “You are not the only one who read about the resolution of the Cruikshank murders.”

  An amateur sleuth. Why did the mantle sit so awkwardly on his broad shoulders? “I still believe that you’re concealing something from me,” she said, aware that she was treading on dangerous ground. The late Duchess. She had no right to ask, but nonetheless she resented his reserve about the life he had led in the years and months before their meeting. Looking around the overtly feminine bedchamber with its lemon-colored walls and peach curtains only managed to heighten her unease.

  “Galveston and the Frenchman—Sebastian—is that what you’re referring to?” he asked. Rowena read the challenge in his eyes and met it by forcing herself to relax, smoothing the folds of her skirts with damp palms.

  “To begin with—yes.” Even though there was so much more she wished to know.

  “Because the two are French?” he asked doubtfully.

  “There is that commonality, tenuous, I’ll concede. But then the modus operandi is curious. Murder by drowning. A mere coincidence?” She paused awkwardly. “More importantly, of all the murders in London, why did you choose to investigate the Clarence drowning?” How did your duchess die? she really wanted to ask. The question intruded like an ugly stain upon a pristine swatch of silk. She broke off, unable to continue, momentarily staggered by the words that hovered on her lips.

  His eyes darkened, and she wondered whether she’d gone too far, if he could indeed read her mind. “You’re wondering if I’m hiding some dastardly secret? Some unfathomable sin?” he asked, injecting a humorous tone in his voice, a deliberate attempt to diffuse some of the tension between them.

  Her face warmed. “You needn’t condescend, Rushford. You misunderstand. I am merely inquiring about your motivations. You yourself said to me earlier that Galveston is merely a means to an end. Why is it so unusual that I wish to learn more, or that I suspect there is something more . . .” she rambled, embarrassed. She trailed off hopelessly to examine the intricate embroidery of the brocade divan.

  The silence weighed heavily. Then Rushford touched her arm. “My apologies. I did not intend to be condescending,” he said, rising and forcing her to look up at him. “You are absolutely correct in your assumption that there is more to this recent drowning than meets the eye, particularly if Galveston is in any way involved. The man has a penchant for getting into trouble in areas far outside his comprehension. Which, to answer your question, leads me to suspect that we must discover more about Felicity Clarence’s last days and the whereabouts of the Frenchman, Sebastian. And perhaps that will lead us to your Faron.”

  His answer both raised her hopes and doused them. On the one hand, she had succeeded in gaining his assistance. However, she also sensed a guardedness that was years in the making. She was reminded of a cunning animal in the wild, protecting its territory from dangerous incursions. Rowena clenched her fingers together in her lap to keep from reaching out to him, to touch her fingers to his forehead, the slant of his nose, the hard lines of his jaw, as though reading a topographical map.

  “And there you have it,” he said, interrupting the disturbing drift of her thoughts and closing down the discussion neatly. “Tomorrow evening we shall have our first excursion—we shall go to the Garrick and visit with Miss Clarence’s coterie of friends and colleagues. And in the interim, I shall endeavor to discover what I can about Sebastian and Montagu Faron. I promise you.”

  Rowena nodded halfheartedly, realizing that she should be grateful. She now had a powerful ally in her quest to find Faron. She studied the profile of the man about whom she knew almost nothing but who now held her fate—and those she loved most—in his hands. “I should like to thank you, my lord,” she said.

  He was already at the door and turned briefly, his eyes unreadable. “Thank me? That’s the last thing I want,” he said. “I cautioned you, Rowena, about going ahead with your mad scheme. So just remember, you started this.” And then he was gone.

  Chapter 9

  Rushford left the Knightsbridge apartments as though the hounds of hell were at his heels. The cool afternoon air hit his face as images unspooled in his mind with fierce intensity.

  Rowena on the stool, her profile turned toward him. Several strands of her hair arced toward her mouth, her full lips pressed tight.

  Rowena’s beautifully naked back, the delicate indentations of her spine a magnet for his lips and tongue. It had taken every ounce of self-control not to trace a kiss down the expanse of skin, his palm pressed into buttocks barely covered by her pantalets.

  He growled to his driver to return to Belgravia Square, slamming the carriage door shut. He leaned back against the squabs, attempting to ignore the heaviness in his groin. The mirrors in the apartments had given him Rowena Woolcott from every outrageously erotic angle. He’d forgotten that mouth, sensual without any need of rouge, the startled blue of her eyes with their flared brows. Her hands had gone up to clench the sheer fabric around her neck, the motion curving her young, lithe body away from him.

  This had to stop. Once and for all. Not for the first time since Kate had been murdered, Rushford sensed the earth suddenly sliding from beneath his feet, felt a downward pull toward the deep hole of guilt he’d been attempting to crawl out of ever since. Kate had been made for him. They had been made for each other, he believed. He’d been a reformed cynic who had spent years casually sampling the world’s female bounty before being stopped dead in his tracks by the Duchess of Taunton. He’d first clapped eyes on her across the crowded lecture hall at the Royal Geographic Society. He had forgotten what the lecture was all about and could only recall the challenge in the Duchess’s dark eyes as she lured him into a spirited conversation about the latest contretemps over the Elgin Marbles. It did not take long to discover that the Duchess’s marriage was a typical arrangement predicated on bloodlines rather than passion. And certainly, Kate was not the first married woman with whom Rushford had involved himself—but he knew from the start that she would be his last.

  He would be forever hurt, betrayed and furious at her death, and he mourned her acutely, missed the swift cut of her mind, her physical beauty, her courage. She was the strongest woman he’d ever known, and the most vulnerable. Vulnerable to the passion they had created between them.

  The carriage swung around a corner, the cobblestones grinding beneath the turning wheels. He had thought that the pain of losing Kate would lessen but it hadn’t, and now he was searching for excuses for his indefensible behavior. There was no justification for the lust he felt for Rowena Woolcott, born of a moment of susceptibility and need over a year ago, heightened by drastic circumstances that had tumbled out of control. That she did not remember was his good fortune, but for how long? She sensed, rather than knew, there was a connection between them, as evidenced by her blind insistence that he was the only man on earth who could help her.

  And it was bloody well true. But in helping he could also do her grave harm—the late Duchess of Taunton was proof. He clenched his fists in frustration, swallowing the urge to have his driver take him to the London Boxing Club on Maiden Lane, in the Strand. He w
anted nothing more than to sweat away his frustration in the ring.

  The carriage pulled to a stop on Belgravia Square. Rushford leaped from the conveyance and up the stairs, brushing past his butler and into his study. Dust motes spun in the afternoon air, the clock on the fireplace mantel ticking entirely too loudly for his liking. The drinks table beckoned, but he turned away from the brandy decanter, sitting down and throwing his legs up on his desk. He needed to think—and to plan.

  Rowena’s faith in him was entirely misplaced. Of course he knew of Montagu Faron’s whereabouts and had for a long while. Claire de Lune was outside Paris in the Loire Valley, and about as penetrable as Faron’s medieval fortress of a soul. Despite rumors to the contrary, that Faron had actually set foot in England over a year ago, no one had seen the devil, hidden behind his omnipresent leather mask, for decades. His acolytes killed and lied on his behalf, singlemindedly intent upon the collection of ancient relics and scientific spoils.

  When Rowena Woolcott had reentered his life, Rushford had merely been suspicious, but the demise of Felicity Clarence had intensified his unease that he was being strung along. It all had the markings of a well-laid trap, especially Galveston’s readiness to give up the name of Baron Sebastian, one of Faron’s lesser known disciples. Rushford gritted his teeth. And all for a few ancient tablets.

  “You seem more miserable than usual, Rush.”

  Rushford uncoiled from his chair at the familiar voice coming from the doorway. Archer was an imposing figure as he stood smiling just inside the study, his broad frame filling the doorway. He moved damned quietly for a man his size.

  “And you more cheerful than usual. Gives me a bloody headache, Archer.”

  Archer’s smile broadened. “Happy to be of use. I didn’t think you would mind my intrusion, and I didn’t want to ring the bell and disturb your skeleton staff. This place looks like a mausoleum, by the way.”

  “Your opinion means the world to me, as you know.” Rushford sat back down and stretched his legs on the desk again, strangely grateful for his friend’s intrusion. He knew better than to ask how Archer had gained entrance to his town house, aware that the man could make himself a ghost, if needed, remembering another time and another place. The port of Alexandria in Egypt, when Archer had saved the day by materializing with preternatural timing to head off an ambush set up by the Emir Damietta. Rushford allowed himself a ghost of a smile. “Have a seat,” he said, “and pour yourself a drink. I think the butler’s disappeared.”