by Robyn DeHart
ROBYN DEHART
Deliciously Wicked
Emily, my partner-in-crime and favorite lunch buddy. I don’t know how I’d write without you, especially this book. But above and beyond that, you are the most giving person I’ve ever known. Words simply can’t express my gratitude. Give that baby-bug a kiss for me.
And to my husband, Paul, you are my true hero and I love you.
Contents
Chapter 1
Meg Piddington tried the heavy door one more time, to…
Chapter 2
Meg was still frowning when she crept into her bedroom.
Chapter 3
Gareth closed his eyes and bit down a curse.
Chapter 4
Meg waited in the phaeton outside the factory. Ordinarily she…
Chapter 5
Today they would start the work on the decorative boxes.
Chapter 6
Gareth had no sooner placed his coat in his locker…
Chapter 7
Meg walked into her family dining room not quite certain…
Chapter 8
Meg settled in her seat in Amelia’s parlor, waiting anxiously…
Chapter 9
It hadn’t taken them long to set things in motion…
Chapter 10
He led her to the carriage and closed the door…
Chapter 11
Gareth stood and threw his arms up. “Absolutely not. It’s…
Chapter 12
Meg sat at her dressing table while Charlotte put a…
Chapter 13
Gareth walked in silence next to Meg as they made…
Chapter 14
Gareth had no sooner stepped up to his machine than…
Chapter 15
Meg stared at the mirror. She’d spent the better part…
Chapter 16
Meg had dawdled before making her way home, choosing to…
Chapter 17
Her father had said Meg had gone to her friend…
Chapter 18
It had been three days since he’d seen Meg and…
Chapter 19
Meg closed the door silently behind her, then smiled at…
Chapter 20
Meg had not gone into the factory today. She wasn’t…
Chapter 21
The following morning, Meg and Gareth entered the factory together…
Chapter 22
Meg had said she was handling things well, but seeing…
Chapter 23
The following morning they received word that Colin had still…
Epilogue
“We solemnly swear to unravel mysteries by ferreting out secrets…
About the Author
Other Romances
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
Piddington Confectionery
Outside London, 1892
Meg Piddington tried the heavy door one more time, to no avail. “It’s locked.” She leaned against the barrier and eyed her fellow captive.
“I told you that already,” he said, the slight hint of an Irish brogue tickling at her ears. He leaned against a table stacked with small boxes.
“Well, how are we to open it?” she asked.
“I’m thinking.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you would but keep your mouth shut, I might think of something useful.”
She shot him an exasperated look, which he didn’t even notice.
Shut her mouth, indeed.
She took the opportunity of silence to study him as he propelled himself away from the table and began to move about the room. Gareth Mandeville had been in her father’s employ for only a handful of weeks. And he’d been in London only a few weeks longer than that, or so she’d been told. At the moment he crouched and leaned and moved things about, presumably trying to locate a way out of the locked storeroom.
Tall and undeniably handsome, he had attracted Meg’s notice the moment she’d seen him in her father’s confectionery. Something about him looked as if he’d feel more comfortable in a ballroom than in a factory. The way he carried himself, or perhaps it was the refinement of his well-sculpted features.
Light from an oil lamp flickered across his face as he turned to examine a shelf. He had the sort of eyes, thickly lashed and intense, that could see into a person—into the tiny, hidden places that housed dreams. She’d never stood so close as to determine their exact shade, but she pegged them for an intoxicating brown.
He turned and examined another stack of boxes. No matter what time of day she’d seen him, he always had a shadow of stubble outlining his mouth and along his chin. She knew it would feel devilishly prickly to the touch. His mouth, even though set in a frown, was enticing. Full-lipped and perfectly crafted, it was nearly mesmerizing to look at.
Oh, good heavens, she was becoming quite dramatic.
“How the bloody hell did you get locked up in here with me in the first place?” he muttered.
Attractive, but surly. Some women might find that mixture appealing, but Meg suspected that after a while it would begin to lose its effect. She frowned at him. “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.
His glance trailed across her, taking his sweet time as his eyes slid down her body. She shivered in response.
“It means, what are you doing here?” he asked. “It’s well past dark. What are you doing out at night all alone? Do you not require a chaperone or something?”
She thought she detected a slight smile. He was baiting her. “I do not need a keeper, if that is what you’re implying. I can very well take care of myself, thank you very much.” Perhaps he didn’t know who she was. “My father owns this factory; I have every right to be here.”
“I know who you are.”
Then again, perhaps he did. “Well, what are you doing here this time of night?” She planted her feet and crossed her arms over her chest. She wasn’t certain, but she believed that it wasn’t customary for employees to be here after hours.
He shrugged. “I was working late,” he said, then turned away from her to examine a tower of boxes stacked on the floor.
Evidently she was wrong. Not only did she not know if it was legitimate for employees to work late, she still hadn’t figured out all the different rooms. This part of the factory housed the main divisions; her father’s office overlooked the grinding and mixing floor. There was still much to learn.
A voice inside her insisted that she should probably be alarmed. It was late. Not the middle of the night, but still past dark, and she was alone in a factory with a strange man. Well, not precisely strange in the odd or peculiar sense, but more so in the never-spoken-to-him-until-today sense. For all she knew, Gareth was a ravager of innocents. She barely suppressed a shiver.
Then she sighed with resignation. No, her father would never have sent her out if he believed she might be in danger, she reminded herself. She was being silly and allowing her imagination to wander to one of the many adventure stories she’d read in the past. Where ladies wound up in all sorts of trouble.
Since her papa had broken his leg, he’d had to do business from Piddington Hall. Tonight he’d sent her to the factory to retrieve last quarter’s ledger book for a meeting with his factory director the following morning. But before she made it into her father’s office, she heard a noise and came in to investigate. Then the door had shut behind her. And locked.
She’d found the source of the noise. It was Gareth digging through his locker. And here they were, half an hour later, locked in with no discernible route of escape. She surveyed the room. Lockers neatly lined one side of the room. These were used by the employees to store any belongings they brought with them to work, as the men were u
sing this storeroom until their dressing room was completed. The other side of the room housed supplies: shelves and tables piled with smaller boxes, and larger boxes stacked into towers on the floor.
She walked closer to him and peeked over his shoulder to better view what he was examining.
“What did you find?” she asked without moving away from him.
He straightened, causing his back to brush against her arm. Stepping away, he turned to face her. “Boxes,” he said flatly.
“I can see that.” She frowned. “You’re not terribly friendly, are you?”
A slight grin slid onto his face. “No, I don’t suppose I am.”
He was peevish, rude, and uncivilized. There was simply no reason for him to be irritated with her. It was not her fault they were locked in here together. Meg knew that the life of factory workers was rough. It was why her father’s employees were so loyal and why everyone in London wanted to work for him. They were treated kindly, paid well, and even provided with affordable living quarters on the factory grounds. The factory was outside London, where the air was cleaner. Purer air resulted in more refined cocoa. Fewer health complaints from the employees as well. But perhaps Gareth’s past employment had not been so pleasant. Perhaps that was why he was so surly.
Because it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her. She’d always gotten on well with everyone. There was no discernible reason that this man should be any different. She didn’t like to consider that she might not be quite so put out by his poor humor if he wasn’t so handsome.
Still, she desperately wanted to see if she could make him smile or even laugh. Even those with poorly developed humor laughed on occasion. And she wanted to get close enough so she could decipher the precise shade of his eyes. Shameful as it was to admit, she wanted to brush her lips against his just to see if they would be as soft as they looked.
Gracious, what was the matter with her? She’d never been accused of being level-headed, quite the contrary, most thought her impulsive, but she’d never wanted to kiss a man she scarcely knew.
Hoping to distract herself from the temptation, she opened her mouth to ask him a question, but he held up his hand.
“Now is not the time for idle chitchat. We need to find a way out of here. We cannot stay in here locked together all night long. So if you’re not going to help, find somewhere to sit. And be quiet.” He waved his hand in front of him. “You rattle my concentration with all of that chatter.”
She stood back for a moment and watched him return to his investigation of the boxes. “I don’t believe you’re going to find anything useful back there.” She resisted the urge to mock his irritated tone.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that you’ve grown up in this factory and you know where everything is.”
“Actually no, we only moved to this location last year.” If they were keeping score in this verbal battle they were engaged in, that would have earned her a point. “What precisely are you looking for beneath those boxes? A trap door? Because I don’t think you’ll find one.” There, she was being helpful. Two more points.
“It’s not the floor I’m trying to get to. It’s the opposite wall. There could be a door.”
He had her there. Perhaps there was a door. She actually hadn’t been in this particular storeroom very often. And every time she’d been in here, that side of the room had been laden with boxes. You could scarcely see the opposite wall. Either shelves or boxes climbed all the way up to the ceiling. For all she knew there was a circus hiding behind all the supplies.
Gareth did not wait for any additional commentary from her. He turned back to the boxes and began shifting some of them aside.
He made it impossible for her to be even remotely flirtatious, not that she was giving it great effort. Nor should that have been her goal for this evening. Nonetheless, he had not looked at her long enough for her to offer him a coy glance beneath her lashes. No, he simply took all the fun out of the situation with his surly mood. She nudged a box with her toe. “What is in all of these?” she asked.
He looked behind him to the one she’d just moved. “Boxes,” he muttered.
She frowned. “Pardon?”
“That group there beside you are all filled with decorative chocolate boxes. Those were a special order.”
“Oh yes, Lady Glenworthy’s order.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I keep abreast of the goings-on at the factory. But why are they in this storeroom?” One more point; she might be winning this imaginary competition.
“I don’t know. Best I can tell, they’re using this room for a little of everything right now.”
“The rest of the enlargement should be completed soon,” she said. She peeked into the container to see the decorative chocolate boxes. “Such a lovely idea. Don’t you agree?”
He ignored her.
He was trying her hospitality. He went beyond simply not being friendly. He was completely insufferable, if she was honest.
Perhaps no one had ever told him. “You are an insufferable man,” she said. There, she’d done her duty and notified him.
But rather than turn to her and apologize, he kept his back to her and chuckled.
That was not how she’d intended to make him laugh. “I was not being funny,” she said.
“Yes, you were.” He turned to face her then. Walking toward her, he wiped his hands on his pants leg, drawing her attention to his long legs. “Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?”
She swallowed. “Of course not.”
“Well, then no one has been honest with you. You talk entirely too much.” He inched closer still. “So much so that someone ought to bind your mouth simply to give the world some peace and quiet for a few hours a day.”
Boldly she took a step toward him and pointed one dainty finger in his direction. “That was rather boorish of you. No one has ever told me that because everyone finds me, and what I have to say, pleasant and interesting. What gives you the right to stand there and accuse me…” She felt herself sputtering for words. “Can you not be kind?”
“Madam, so far this evening you have called me unfriendly, insufferable, and boorish, and you want to question my kindness? I’m trying my damnedest to get us out of here so that you might lay your pretty head on a nice pillow tonight. But I find that I simply cannot concentrate while you are talking. All I want is some peace and quiet. Peace and quiet,” he repeated with a flash of resignation. Then he closed the distance between them and grabbed her by the shoulders. Without another word, he leaned in and kissed her.
She’d been forming a saucy retort, but the thoughts flew out of Meg’s head as Gareth’s soft lips slanted across hers. His kiss, unlike his words, was gentle and teasing. His tongue made no great assault of her mouth, but rather coaxed her lips and teeth. And then, as abruptly as the kiss began, it ended.
She stood there staring at him, not completely certain if, when he released her, she would slide to the floor. He stepped away from her and went back to moving the boxes. Luckily the kiss hadn’t affected her balance as much as she anticipated, because she was still standing.
With one kiss he’d won their little competition, because there was nothing she could do to recover from that. But how could he walk away and say nothing of the kiss? Continue working as if nothing at all had occurred? As if their lips had not created sparks and tiny explosions within his flesh as they had her own.
She frowned. Of all the audacious things to do. She marched over to him and prepared to tell him precisely how she felt. If she had been unkind it was most definitely his fault. He seemed to spur her to unkindness.
“There. This is it,” he declared.
She swallowed her words. “What is it?” she asked.
“A window. Up there.” He pointed to a spot above one pile of boxes.
She peered up and did, in fact, spot the window. But it was terribly small. “It’s tiny.”
He nodded. “True.”
“Well, what good will it do us?”
He leveled his gaze on her. “You are going to have to climb through that window and walk around to the door and let me out.”
She eyed the window a second time. He was delusional. “How do you suppose I do that? The window is far too narrow.”
“No, it is big enough for you to fit through. With a few adjustments.” He looked from her to the window. “Take off your dress,” he said simply.
She felt her eyes go round and her cheeks warm. “Are you mad? I cannot take off my dress.”
“It’s either that, or we’re locked in here all night. I am too large to fit through that window, else I’d crawl up there myself. But you are the perfect size.” He motioned to her. “Without all that fluff attached to you. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”
Her stomach betrayed her and growled in agreement. He smirked. He was right; they could not stay in here all evening. But it was immensely annoying that he was right.
Meg didn’t know if she was angrier because he wanted her to save them or because he hadn’t acknowledged their kiss. It was ridiculous. And now he wanted her to remove her dress. Not so that he might ravish her, she couldn’t help but notice, but so he could be relieved of her company. Clearly she did not actually wish to be ravished.
The window was far too narrow for the breadth of her dress with her puffed sleeves and bustle. She could clearly see that. And she could also see that without the excess material, she would be able to squeeze through. If they were to escape before morning, she would need to climb out of the window. Only one problem. She could not get out of the dress on her own. The buttons went from her neck to her waist. Earlier today, it had taken her maid a good five minutes to button them. She’d have to be some sort of contortionist to reach them all. Narrowing her eyes at him, she asked, “Can you behave as a gentleman would?”
