His Wicked Sins

by Eve Silver

  His Wicked Sins

  A Revised Version

  Eve Silver

  Revised edition copyright, 2015 by Eve Silver

  First edition copyright, 2008 by Eve Silver

  Kobo Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. This book may not be resold or uploaded for distribution to others.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  www.EveSilver.net

  PRAISE FOR HIS WICKED SINS:

  “...brooding, atmospheric... suspenseful, emotionally driven tale... A multifaceted plot, well-timed backstory clues, and steamy passion add sparkling currency to this intricately crafted story...”—Library Journal

  “Silver expertly matches a brooding sense of atmosphere with a generous measure of suspense...”—The Chicago Tribune

  “Silver juxtaposes past and present to create the ideal atmosphere for a darkly alluring gothic romance...” —RT Bookreviews

  Table of Contents

  PRAISE FOR HIS WICKED SINS:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  SAMPLE DARK PRINCE, Chapter One

  About the Author

  Books by Eve Silver

  Chapter One

  Stepney, London, January 15, 1813

  Crimson splatter painted a gruesome landscape on the pale walls of the Black Swan Tavern.

  Parish constable Henry Pugh picked his way around the stiffening corpse, taking note of the arc of blood that splashed far and wide and the congealing pool at his feet. Dark and glossy, it reflected the flickering candlelight and colored the air with a cloying, heavy scent, both sweet and sour.

  He had never seen so much blood.

  But then, today was Henry’s first day with the Shadwell Police Office, and he had never before seen foul murder.

  Outside, on the cobbled street, the night watchman called out the time. Half past midnight.

  Raising his candle, Henry squinted at the floor, noting the bloody footprints that moved along the hallway. Then his gaze slid back to the dead man, William Trotter, the landlord of the Black Swan. He was on his back, sprawled over the steps that led to the taproom, eyes wide and staring, face twisted in a look of surprise. From all appearances, he had been attacked from behind, likely never knowing the identity of his assailant.

  Bits of brain and bone speckled the landlord’s clothes, the wood of the step, the wall at his side. His head was bashed in, and his throat slit for good measure. Rivulets of blood wended down the stairs and across the floor, merging and puddling a small distance away.

  Henry squatted low. The stink of human refuse slapped him, and he reared back, appalled to witness such ultimate humiliation. Death was neither kind nor dignified.

  An ugly thing, this. An ugly thing.

  The coal-heaver, Jack Browne, a lodger here at 34 New Gravel Lane, had run to summon Henry when his banging and ringing failed to rouse Mr. Trotter to come open the door. On hearing the tale, Henry had expected that Jack was locked out for the night, and the Trotters gone to bed of an early hour as was their custom. Mrs. Trotter was insistent upon that, and lodgers, most of them sailors taking a room for a short while, knew that should they come late, the door would be barred against them. Odd, for a tavern to keep such hours, but that was the way at the Black Swan.

  Henry’s benign suppositions had proven bitterly untrue. Before him lay Mr. Trotter’s savaged remains. He’d not be answering the door this night, or any other. This man who had laughed and joked and drawn ale just hours past was cold and dead now, his life snuffed in a manner that was purely evil. Henry’s shock at discovering the body had been so great that he had barely managed to hold his composure and instruct Jack Browne to fetch more men.

  With a sigh, Henry reached out now and closed the landlord’s eyes.

  As he drew his hand away, Mr. Trotter’s lids flipped open once more, pinning him with a blank and eerie stare, the eyes filmy and gray.

  Startled, Henry cried out and scuttled back, slapping one palm against the floor to steady himself. The stare seemed to judge him and find him guilty. He should have listened earlier that day when Mr. Trotter complained of a stranger lurking in the shadows outside the parlor window. He should have listened.

  But in the end the landlord had clapped him on the back and made light of his own concerns, and so Henry had laughed along with him.

  Swallowing against the sting of bile that clawed up his throat, Henry shifted his gaze from the dead man’s eyes to the gaping slash across his throat, to the blood and brains and shards of bone. He lacked the experience to know how to set his feelings and abhorrence aside, to see only the crime that need be solved. Still, he was determined that he would not disgrace himself. He would not, though the provocation and justification were strong.

  Fingers trembling, he closed the landlord’s eyes once more, willing them to stay shut. Then he rose and went to find the others.

  He felt chillingly certain there were others.

  Chapter Two

  The Great North Road, Yorkshire, England, September 1, 1828

  A lone tree endured atop a distant, windswept hill, its dead branches stretched skyward. Charred, begrimed stones sat in the tree’s twisted shadow, the burned and blackened remains of old cottage walls. They prevailed against time and weather, with the desolate landscape stretched behind like a joyless painting colored in flat hues.

  Elizabeth Canham found she could not look away, for the scene touched a place inside her, one that nagged and ached like a sore tooth.

  That cottage must once have been a home, a haven.

  Surrounded by harsh moorlands, it was now a friendless place, steeped in loneliness, calling to her as the stagecoach rumbled on its way. There was a haunting beauty to the sight, and an odd, disturbing afterthought, a warning... but perhaps that was only the tuneless echo of her own melancholy.

  Beth turned in her seat and leaned close to the window, watching the ruin until it disappeared from view.

  What had happened to them, the family who had once lived there? Her imagination conjured all manner of terrible visions, but in the end, she decided to lean toward the hope that they had escaped the fire and gone on to live healthful and content lives. To think otherwise was horrific, for she had intimate knowledge of the damage that fire could do to human flesh.

  After a time, she glanced down and unclenched her fingers where they curled and crushed the material of her black bombazine skirt. She was not in mourning, but the dress had been both available and inexpensive, two
factors in favor of its purchase.

  The drone of a woman’s voice buzzed through the confined space of the coach. Today, Beth was not alone in the conveyance, but tomorrow she would be. That was an eventuality she could not despise. Blessed quiet would be most welcome.

  Her carriage-mate, Mrs. Beacon, had nattered on the entire trip from the coach yard at the Saracen’s Head in London. A well-meaning and fine woman of incomparable verbosity, she was free with both her words and her advice.

  “You are pale as a shroud,” Mrs. Beacon offered now, shifting on the seat beside Beth and leaning close to peer at her from beneath her bonnet. She evinced no hesitation to offer such personal observation to a near stranger. “That dull black makes you look whiter than a cod’s belly. With your blond hair and fair skin, you need a bit of color.”

  Mrs. Beacon’s observations aside, Beth was well pleased with her drab and sad wardrobe, purchased at a significant discount when the young widow who had ordered it never arrived to claim the dresses from the seamstress. Mindful of her limited funds, Beth had bought only the bare minimum that she needed, serviceable garments of black and gray, clothing suitable for her new position.

  Mrs. Beacon clucked and produced a tin of peppermints, offering one to Beth, then to each of the two gentlemen occupying the opposite seat.

  One was plump and pasty, and rather green about the gills. Coach travel appeared to disagree with him.

  The other was bland as oat pudding, with thin sandy hair worn in a disheveled style, and small, pale eyes that darted nervously about until landing on Beth and remaining there.

  “Blond hair and blue eyes... my youngest daughter has the same coloring as you, though she is by no means as skinny. There, there” —Mrs. Beacon patted Beth’s knee consolingly— “you’ll put on a bit of meat when you reach my age.”

  Her monologue continued throughout the ride, and then, close to Grantham, the sandy-haired gentleman took advantage of Mrs. Beacon’s need to draw breath and spoke in the rare instant of silence.

  “We are near to Gonerby Hill. ‘Tis just to the north of Grantham,” he said, leaning forward in his seat. The movement pushed his high collar and stock even higher, and his chin was nearly swallowed by the cloth. “Steep it is. The steepest on the Great North Road. Why, I heard that last winter there was so much ice and snow that the wheels could not hold to the road and the stagecoach slipped and careened down to the bottom, flipping end over end and crushing the driver and guard.”

  No one said a word.

  “Everyone died,” he continued, his tone tinged with morbid glee. “And the horses, as well.”

  A cheering thought.

  “Oh.” Beth could summon no more appropriate rejoinder.

  Mrs. Beacon made a sound low in her throat and, after a moment, leaned close to Beth and spoke for her ears alone.

  “Remember, luv, you must pay the coachman an extra shilling per stage, and the guard, lest you find he loses your luggage. At the inn where you stay the night you must give sixpence to the chambermaid and tuppence to the boots. My son and his wife are in Grantham and their twelve little ones. I’ll not be going on with you to Northallerton...”

  There, Mrs. Beacon made a lengthy pause, cleared her throat, blinked again and again, her rheumy gaze locked on Beth’s, until at last Beth understood the hint and spoke. “I am bereft to lose your fortifying companionship, Mrs. Beacon,” she murmured, attempting to instill the observation with the appropriate tone of regret. In truth, her thoughts were consumed by Mrs. Beacon’s talk of shillings and sixpence and tuppence, inordinate sums when compared with Beth’s rapidly dwindling resources. Those resources, or lack thereof, being the reason she had left home and family to travel north.

  Closing her eyes, Beth battled a sharp pang of loss, not for the thought of leaving Mrs. Beacon, but for her home, her parents, her brother, for everything known and customary.

  She opened her eyes to find the gentleman who had spoken of the carriage accident studying her with interest.

  “I believe you mentioned Northallerton... Do you stay on there?” he asked.

  “No. I go to the village of Burndale, to Burndale Academy. I am to be a teacher.”

  To Burndale Academy. Her mother had not wanted her to go, but there had been little choice that Beth could see. Unless starvation was an option. Food was not free, nor lodging, nor coal.

  The gentleman made a rude sound that snuffled out his nose. “I know of such places, such academies.” He sneered and nudged the man next to him. “William Shaw, the headmaster at Bowes Academy, was prosecuted... oh... some years past, on account of two boys went blind from his beatings. And he starved them, too.”

  Beth felt a wary tension creep through the muscles of her limbs, her shoulders, her back. His assertion shocked and horrified her. Pressing her lips together, she suppressed a shudder.

  Her horror would only burgeon and grow to unmanageable proportions if she let it.

  Beatings and starvation.

  “Burndale Academy has no such reputation,” she said firmly.

  “So you say.” The man shrugged. “But such schools always harbor death, from maltreatment, neglect, disease.”

  “If that is the case, who would send their children to such a place?” Beth demanded.

  “Well, I suppose some do not know, and others do not care. Some of the children are born on the wrong side of the blanket—”

  Mrs. Beacon cleared her throat loudly, and the gentleman broke off and gave a nervous little laugh.

  “I would not lodge a dog at Bowes Academy,” he finished vehemently.

  “You ain’t got a dog,” the second gentleman pointed out, and gave a loud guffaw, the noise drowning out Beth’s rejoinder as she said, “Then it is a fine gift of fortune that I do not travel to Bowes.”

  For some inexplicable reason, Mrs. Beacon chose this moment to cocoon herself in silence. Beth gritted her teeth and turned her gaze back to the window, her heart heavy.

  What viciousness had precipitated such discourse?

  She recalled the gleam in the gentleman’s icy pale eyes as he spoke of the carriage accident. Some people were malicious creatures who thrived on tales of horror and pain. Perhaps he was such a one and had set out with the purpose of creating unease.

  She should not allow it.

  Still, a troubling wariness gnawed at her. Was there a possibility that the man’s horrific assertions sprouted from a seed of truth? She truly knew almost nothing of Burndale Academy...

  No, she would not cast her mind to needless worry. Her correspondence with the headmistress of Burndale had been most pleasant, and she would carry that positive expectation until such time as it might be proved faulty.

  Not so very far now, she thought, though she felt as though she had been traveling for an eternity. The jolt of the wheels as they dipped into grooves and ruts in the road shook her bones, leaving her feeling bruised and broken.

  But worse still was the confining nature of the carriage, the walls close, the space small and tight. Panic tugged at her, and she tamped it down lest it surge free and drown her in an icy deluge that would rob her of breath, of rational thought, leave her in a despised state of mindless terror.

  An attack of dismay, her mother called it. Beth thought that a polite and benign term for the ugly reality of her secret infirmity.

  Forcing her shoulders to relax, she turned her gaze to the carriage window and the vast space beyond. She could only be grateful that her destination was not so far as Edinburgh, which would take a full fourteen days of travel. A fortnight in a small, restricting coach. Dear heaven, what a thought.

  Mrs. Beacon shifted closer, pressing her tight to the corner. Beth fixed her gaze on the patch of sky she could see through the window and deliberately ignored the walls that surrounded her.

  Despite her current discomfort, she knew herself to be fortunate. Many women in her position would be driven to truly desperate ventures. Surely traveling to Burndale, alone, with only a let
ter to guide her and without friend or even acquaintance, was not desperate. After all, she had secured honest employment as a teacher at Burndale Academy, and so must count herself as privileged.

  Her strengths lay in French, English language, music and drawing, and she was quite competent in geography and history. She was glad of her mother’s tutelage these many years, else they would all be in a terrible fix.

  Yes, well, a worse fix than they were in.

  You must not be afraid. The thought brought a sad smile to her lips, for she could hear her mother’s voice, kind but firm, recalling that exact sentiment so many times over the years.

  She must not be afraid.

  Yet, in a secret corner of her heart, a place she shared with no one, Beth admitted only to herself that she was always afraid of so many things...the memories...the dreams.

  The truth.

  o0o

  Northallerton, Yorkshire, September 3, 1828

  Sarah Ashton lugged her third load of coal up the stairs to the fireplaces of Briar House. So many fireplaces in this cursed place. Midmorning sun streamed through the window, showing the dust on the table and the mantel. Sarah sighed. She would need to take care of that before her workday ended, else Mrs. Sykes, the housekeeper, would make her stay back on her afternoon off.

  When the last of the coal was done with, she scrubbed her hands over her apron, careful not to soil her dress. It was a pale blue cotton print, faded from many washings, but the color was fine on her. She hoped to keep herself clean until the afternoon.

  Fetching a wooden bucket, she started on her next task. Down on her knees, she dragged forth the chamber pot from beneath the bed. She emptied the contents into her slops bucket, then wiped out the pot with a wet cloth that hung from the waist of her apron. Her nose wrinkled at the smell and she thought herself better than this, better than chamber pots and slops and fetid rags.

  He thought so too, her gentleman. He thought her worth pretty ribbons, a silver thimble, a lace handkerchief, a silver watch. Imagine! She kept the delicate little watch pinned to her dress, hidden beneath her apron so none would see. No sense inviting questions. Likely, the housekeeper would think she’d pinched it.