A Sinful Temptation

by Kelly Boyce

  Again, my most humble of apologies for the lateness in receiving this package. I hope it finds you well.

  Sincerely, Miss Evelyn Wickwire.

  Marcus read the letter a second time. Why would his mother have held onto the contents of the box for so long? Why not instruct the solicitor to give it to Lord and Lady Ellesmere upon her death? Then again, his mother had no way of knowing he would end up with her employers. She had arranged for him to stay with her brother and his family upon her death, unaware of what awaited him there.

  It wasn’t until Lord and Lady Ellesmere had arrived to check on the estate that he was taken from the squalor and abuse. He had never seen the grand lord and lady before that day. They had never ventured to Cornwall but ran the estate instead through correspondence with his parents. His father had run the lands as steward until his unexpected death. One of the workers had found him face down in the field one afternoon. His heart, the doctor claimed.

  Marcus remembered his mother’s sadness, though more as a sensory thing than a firm memory. The pervasiveness of it had tainted everything grey. Shortly after Father’s burial, Mother had taken ill. Sadness turned to fear for Marcus. He recalled arguments between his mother and his uncle during her illness and the message had been clear.

  Floyd MacCumber did not want him.

  Yet when Mother died, that was where he’d ended up. He did his best to be quiet and unobtrusive. To be helpful and work hard, hoping it would make his aunt and uncle and their brood of children warm up to him, or at least not resent him as strongly as they did.

  He lost that battle. After a few weeks, his aunt and uncle’s anger had turned physical and threats turned to promises of orphanages and workhouses. His fear grew to terror.

  Then Lady Ellesmere came to visit. He’d stood in a corner near the cook stove after bringing in the wood; wide-eyed and amazed at the lady dressed in such finery. Her presence brought a bright light to the dark and dreary room. He couldn’t pull his gaze away. Heat from the stove pressed against him until rivulets of sweat trickled down his back and dampened his shirt and still, he continued to stare. He pulled himself farther into the corner to avoid discovery.

  Mrs. MacCumber had not been pleased the grand lady had descended upon her household. Marcus could tell by her sharp movements and the way the dishes hit the hard surfaces beneath them and rattled. She prepared tea and scraped up some biscuits, though the lady had insisted it wasn’t necessary.

  She wasn’t there for tea and biscuits. She’d come for only one thing. He remembered the words as clearly as if she’d spoken them only yesterday.

  I’ve come for young Marcus.

  To claim Lord and Lady Ellesmere had changed the course of his life did not do service to their generosity. They had given him every advantage. A roof over his head, food in his belly, an education befitting any lord of the ton. They had given him the life he now had and they had asked nothing in return. They showered him with love and treated him as if he were a member of the family.

  But he had known better. For the longest while, he held tight to his loyalty to his parents and the fear that at any moment he would be sent back to the MacCumbers. That his time with the Ellesmeres was only a brief reprieve. Eventually, the fear ebbed and the memories of his parents faded and softened around the edges. But he continued to avoid the sense of belonging that tempted him. He did not trust it. He’d belonged somewhere once and it had been torn away.

  He would not be so complacent a second time.

  Marcus set the letter down and reached inside the box where a cloth had been wrapped around the contents. He peeled it back to reveal a gold pocket watch. A crest had been engraved on the outside, but time had worn down the fine lines making it unrecognizable to him.

  How had his mother come into possession of such an expensive piece?

  He opened the watch. It no longer kept time. The hands read half-past ten and the glass had a small crack beginning in the center and stretching to wrap around the number eleven. The inside lid bore more engraving. Was it an M perhaps?

  He closed it and set it aside to pull out the final item—a leather-bound journal. The well-worn bindings opened easily and inside the penmanship etched across the page, small and neat. A woman’s handwriting, clearly, though too refined to be his mother’s.

  His gaze ingested the words at the top of the page.

  It is difficult to say what will happen. Each day passes into the next and my worry grows. I know what Mother wishes, but I fear my own wants will make it impossible to honor hers.

  A strange sense passed through him, as if in those two sentences he could feel the writer’s desperation. Her fear. Who was she? And what was his mother doing with her journal? More curious, why had she passed it onto him years after her death?

  He flipped to the first page but instead of finding a name, he found yet another letter. It slipped out and landed on the desk in front of him. He set the journal down and picked up the folded vellum sheet.

  My dearest boy,

  Mother. She had always called him that. He could still hear her voice, though it had faded over the years to little more than a whisper.

  I have arranged for you to receive these items well after my passing and hopefully at a time when you will be closer to understanding. And forgiving.

  Marcus furrowed his brow.

  I loved you as my own, but the truth of it was you were not our true-born son. You may not have come from our bodies, but please know it mattered not. You lived in our hearts.

  His own heart pounded in his chest. There had been rumors, of course. Hardly an uncommon thing when a ranking peer took in an unknown lad, but Marcus had shaken them off. He had known his parents, known where he was from. He’d ignored the obvious signs—his parents were older, the lack of likeness between he and them. He once recalled his uncle telling him he wasn’t true family. He had not understood at the time, but he understood perfectly now as his mother’s words sunk in and turned his insides hollow. The thin thread of belonging he had clung to over the years stripped away until the edges of his life dangled loosely, attached to nothing.

  I swore to never reveal your mother’s true identity and I have kept my vow in this regard. But I also made a promise to pass these things onto you when I deemed it appropriate. The time has come, and the items enclosed are now yours. I am sorry I cannot give you more than this, but it is the only way I know to keep my promise to one, without breaking it to another.

  Please know you were loved, my dearest boy. With all our hearts we wished you were truly ours. We hope we made you feel no different.

  All my love, Mary.

  Mary. Not Mother. Perhaps in telling the truth she no longer believed she owned the title, had only borrowed it for a short time and now must give it back. But to whom?

  Something welled up inside of him. Something he couldn’t define. Anger? Betrayal? Disbelief? Perhaps all of these things mashed together so tightly he could not tell one apart from the other.

  He fumbled for the journal again flipped through it, letting the pages fall one on top of the other, the same neat penmanship followed throughout, ending halfway through. He found no indication of ownership on the front or the back.

  He set it down again, not ready to read the words. To accept the revelations his mother passed on from beyond the grave. How could it be true? His heart rejected her words at the same time his mind opened to them and let them in.

  If the Bowens were not his parents, who was? And who owned the journal—the woman who had given birth to him? And what of her? Had she abandoned him? Left him with the Bowens? If so, why?

  Questions tumbled through his brain with no corresponding answers save for one. The Bowens were not his true parents. He did not belong to them.

  He did not belong to anyone.

  His jaw clenched and he closed his eyes against the sense of loss rushing at him. His eyes burned beneath their lids. He’d been up since daybreak and another dawn fast approached. Part of him w
anted to dive into the journal and devour its words, looking for answers. The other part of him shied away, reeling from the impact of the truth.

  He needed time to absorb it. To believe it. He returned the journal to the box it arrived in and set the watch on top of it before closing the lid firmly, as if he could lock away the truth it had revealed, but he could not. It echoed in the quiet of the room, soaked into the walls and the furniture. It tainted everything around him and left nothing untouched. Everything he’d once believed crashed around him like broken glass.

  In the aftermath, one question demanded an answer.

  If the Bowens were not his true parents, then who?

  The question was as simple—and as difficult—as that.

  Chapter Five

  June 22nd

  Mother has determined we will travel away from London. She fears what will happen if we stay. I will miss Father horribly, though I have shamed him and likely he wishes me gone so he is not faced with my disgrace should it be discovered. I know he wants to ask me why I allowed this to happen, but I have no answers for him. It simply did and I cannot change it, nor do I care to think about it, though try as I might I cannot forget it. I was such a fool to trust as I did and for that folly I paid a horrible price.

  * * *

  “Marcus?”

  Rebecca stood in the open doorway of Marcus’s office. He stood on the far side of the room, his silhouette framed by the large bay window that overlooked the street beyond. At the sound of his name, he set something on the table next to him—a small book, but did not immediately turn around.

  Her gaze traveled over him, past the breadth of his shoulders and down the long, lean lines of his back, buttocks and legs. He still wore his clothes from the night before, though his jacket had been tossed on a nearby chair and his cravat, once wound around his neck with crisp efficiency, lay atop it. His waistcoat and shirtsleeves remained, though the latter had been rolled up, leaving his corded forearms bare.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Weariness invaded his tone. Had he not been to bed at all? Had he returned from Lord Berringsford’s birthday party only to take up his work when he arrived home?

  It was moments like this when the difference in their stations hit her and how escorting her to parties that ran late into the wee hours of the morning might affect him. Though he never said a word of complaint, his less than hospitable greeting indicated the lack of sleep wore on him. It was unlike him to be so brusque.

  She tried to cajole him out of his ill humor. “I would have gone for something a bit different. Perhaps, ‘Good afternoon, Lady Rebecca. You look lovely this day. Would you like to come in?’ But I suppose, ‘What are you doing here?’ has its own special charm.”

  His shoulders slumped, though he did not offer an apology or amend his original greeting. Marcus could generally be counted on to be the epitome of politeness, regardless of the situation. She found it odd to see him less so now. Did he regret agreeing to help her last night, or the three dances that had the gossips whispering? Mother had read the scandal sheet delivered this morning intimating a certain lady of good reputation had spent an inordinate amount of time on the dance floor with a gentleman of no consequence.

  Of no consequence.

  The untrue reference made her want to roll the sheet up and beat the writer over the head with it until he retracted it for the piece of drivel it was.

  Marcus Bowen was a man of great consequence.

  “Are you well?” She could think of no other question to ask him.

  He turned to face her and something in his expression caught her, but she could not see into the depth of it, as if his wary gaze held her at arm’s length and obscured her view.

  “Why do you ask?”

  She smiled, wishing he would do the same. He did not. “Because the last time I saw you in such a state, you had just finished fishing me out of a lake.”

  “Ah.” But he said no more and a strange silence created a barrier between them she struggled to breach.

  “I had been testing my theory that day,” she blurted out, then wished she hadn’t as it meant explaining said theory and surely that would make her appear quite the fool.

  “Which theory was that?”

  Heat burned her cheeks but she forced herself to continue. “My belief that you were a pirate king and therefore, if my hypothesis was correct, would be able to swim like a fish.”

  “A pirate king?”

  Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? Marcus did not need to be informed of her silly girlhood fantasies. “Your past allowed for such imaginings, I suppose.”

  “You must have been quite disappointed to discover I could not swim.” A small flicker of a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth but quickly disappeared.

  “Not at all.” Nothing Marcus did disappointed her, save for ending their first and only kiss. “Surprised, perhaps. You pulled me to shore safely regardless.”

  In truth, she had been unsure what to make of his dislike of water, and in the end decided that if he did not care for water, he could not possibly be a pirate king. And, as she had already determined his parents were steward and housekeeper for Lord Ellesmere’s property in Cornwall, he therefore, must be just as he presented himself. An ordinary man.

  Yet looking at him now—his gaze dark and penetrating, the rush of sensations his behavior of last night had conjured within her—she wondered if she didn’t have it wrong after all, as in that moment, he seemed anything but ordinary.

  He looked away, breaking the tension coiling around them. “To answer your earlier question, I am perfectly well. I wish people would stop inquiring after my health as if I were about to drop dead at their feet at any given moment.”

  The irritation in his tone made her lift one eyebrow skyward. “Then I retract my question and replace it with a statement. You look awful. Well, perhaps not awful—” She wasn’t sure a man as handsome as Marcus could ever manage that. “But you do look tired and while I doubt you are about to drop dead at my feet, I would not be surprised if you did fall onto the rug and into a fitful slumber. Better?”

  Marcus rubbed at his eyes then let his hand drop away. His expression eased but a hint of whatever had him in such a bear of a mood remained kindled in his eyes.

  “Do you not have tea and biscuits to return to, my lady?”

  “My lady.” She made a face at him. She loathed his insistence on the use of her proper title and address. A practice he’d renewed with a vengeance after their kiss. “How perfectly formal of you, Mr. Bowen. And yes, I do. But I thought I might pay you a visit while I was here and return your book to you.” She held out the volume of Voltaire he’d lent her last month. It provided nothing more than a reason to see him. “And I wanted to thank you for last night. I’m sure there were a hundred things you would have preferred to do.”

  “You would be correct.” He made no move to take the book from her.

  Her own irritation peaked. It had been him, after all, who stole the last waltz, but she held her tongue and tried to maintain a sunny disposition with the failing hope she may still lighten his.

  “You should be happy to hear that our ruse has met with success. I received a lovely bouquet of flowers from Lord Selward today with a note indicating he looks forward to seeing me at Lady Blyton’s garden party tomorrow.” She tried her best to infuse her delivery with a modicum of enthusiasm. She could not attest to the results, however.

  “I am beyond thrilled,” he said in a tone that indicated he was clearly not.

  “Good heavens, Marcus. You’re like an angry bear today. Can I say nothing that pleases you?” She walked further into the room and didn’t stop until she was a few feet from him. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot and weariness clung to his rumpled appearance. Neither of which made him any less appealing. If anything, it somehow made him more so, as if he had just tumbled out of bed. “Are you certain you’re feeling well?”

  “I am fine. I simply wish to be
left alone so I might go about my business in peace and quiet.”

  She ignored his plea. In her opinion, he looked as if he could use a respite from business, or whatever had put him in such a surly mood, and given the good turn he had done for her, it was the least she could do for him. She set the volume of Voltaire on the table. Its edge hit upon an object hidden within the shadow his body had cast across the table. She reached for it.

  “What is this?”

  Marcus moved to snatch it away but she tucked it close to her breast and his hand dropped before reaching her as if scalded.

  “It is a watch.”

  Rebecca turned it over in her hand and laughed. The chuckle bounced off the walls around them as if they were unfamiliar to the sound. “You’re quite adept at stating the obvious.”

  He gifted her with a withering glare.

  She ignored it and moved closer to the window to lift the watch up to the light to better reveal the detail carved into its top cover. Standing this close to Marcus, who had not budged an inch, made concentrating difficult at best. She corralled the turmoil roiling within her at being only inches away from him as best she could and focused on the watch. It took her a moment to realize what she saw, and then another moment to convince herself she was not mistaken

  What she saw made no sense.

  “Is that the Walkerton crest etched into it?”

  Marcus didn’t move. “I beg your pardon?”

  She turned to face him and looked over the edge of the watch. “Finally, a hint of politeness. Well done.”

  His lips pulled into a grim line. “You are not nearly as amusing as you seem to think.”

  “Of course I am.” She held the watch up again and closed one eye, but before she could confirm her suspicions he plucked it out of her hand. His fingers brushed against hers, startling her, making it easy for him to wrest it away.