by Kari Miller
The Devil’s Good Intentions
By: Kari Miller
Book 1 of 2 of The Brotherhood Series
SMASHWORDS EDITION
PUBLISHED BY:
Kari Miller on Smashwords
The Devil’s Good Intentions
Copyright © 2013 by Kari Miller
Cover Image courtesy of adamr at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Adult Reading Material
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - The Cost of Freedom
Chapter 2 - The Death of Freedom
Chapter 3 - Fire & Ice
Chapter 4 - Sealed Fate
Chapter 5 - A Lesson in Trust
Chapter 6 - Clearing the Air
Chapter 7 - The Journey Home: Day 1
Chapter 8 - The Journey Home: Day 2
Chapter 9 - Home Sweet Home
Chapter 10 - Rags to Riches
Chapter 11 - A Taste of the Brotherhood
Chapter 12 - A Darker Breakthrough
Chapter 13 - Loose Ends
Chapter 14 - Growing Obsession
Chapter 15 - The Green Mile
Chapter 16 - The Brotherhood
Chapter 17 – Family
Chapter 18 - Butting Heads
Chapter 19 - The Devil is a Woman
Chapter 20 - Tongue Tied
Chapter 21 - Moving Forward
Chapter 22 - May I have this Dance?
Chapter 23 - A Possessive Declaration
Chapter 24 – Charles
Chapter 25 – Hope
Chapter 26 - A Beautiful Realization
Chapter 27 - Time Away
Chapter 28 - A Storm is Brewing
Chapter 29 - A Waking Nightmare
Chapter 30 - Meet the Captain
Chapter 31 - A Storm of Rage
Chapter 32 - Picking up the Pieces
Chapter 33 - Requests & Declarations
Chapter 34 – Simon
Chapter 35 - A Journey to the Past
Chapter 36 - A Home that is Not a Home
Chapter 37 – Shattered
Chapter 38 - Lost & Found
Chapter 39 - Where You Belong.
Chapter 1 - The Cost of Freedom
Standing in the shadows of the ballroom brought back memories of a time when she was happy in her life and when she didn't have to worry about where she would get her next meal from. Lady Katherine Rochester had lived a grand life of wealth and freedom. She always had the best of educators and she soaked up information like a sponge. When her mother and brother died in child birth, her Father had started to drink more frequently than he already was and let the world around him crumble, including his only daughter.
Katherine had tried to pick up the pieces and maintain the estates, but without her father continuing his business ventures, the money began to dry out. By the time she was fourteen; her Father had brought them to financial ruin and dragged all of his partners and investors down with him. Katherine tried to take over the chores that the servants had occupied since their dismissals, but even that was too much.
Barely able to feed herself from the small amount of money they had left, she had instead lived off of the eggs and vegetables in the garden while dedicating the remainder of their money into medical bills for her father.
When Katherine turned 15, her Fathers health took a turn for the worst and the doctor declared after careful examination that his liver could give out and poison him at anytime. While trying to nurse her Father back to health, she spent the majority of her days dealing with creditors and debt collectors.
It saddened her to watch all of their possessions sold off and her home become an empty hole. She had lost all but two estates, the one they resided at and a small cabin that she had managed to destroy all evidence of, that was buried deep into the forest. Katherine was no fool, she knew that once her Father passed on she would need to flee and her survival skills were strong. She had started moving family heirlooms over to the cottage as well as seeds for planting and most of her wardrobe. She often worried about money and survival but refused to dwell on it until the time came for her to flee.
Right before her sixteenth birthday, her Father passed on. By that time she was well prepared, emotionally and physically, to deal with the death of her Father and of her life as a Rochester. She knew that her Father had left her a severe debt that she could never in two life time’s pay off and feared that his debts would become her responsibility. The night that her Father died, she mourned him into the morning and then without a backwards glance, she ran.
Katherine didn’t want to know what had happened to the estate. For two years now, Katherine had managed to make a home in her small cottage and stay out of the public’s eye. With the wardrobe she was able to salvage, she would attend open balls and masquerades only staying long enough to fill up on food and flee. During the winter months Katherine suffered the most. The cottage was drafty and she could never seem to cut enough wood to last her throughout the winter and spring. She knew she was a smaller version of what she could be. When her Mother had been alive and her life had been filled with love, she had been told that she had the makings to be a beautiful woman and even had families who attempted to corner her into an early betrothal to strengthen alliances and secure a beautiful bride. Her Mother was against such contracts and protected Katherine from that fate. When her Mother died, her father was too drunk and beaten down to care about anything. The freedom that her Mother was so adamant to protect gained Katherine a type of freedom that no parent would wish on their child. Katherine was independent and saw how her Mother bowed to every one of her Father’s demands and just how weak of a character her father really was when push came to shove. She much preferred to have to scrape for food and shiver at night then to have to bow down to a man, men to her were bullies and not dependable.
From the corner of her eye, Katherine saw one of her childhood friends enter the room not five feet from where she hid herself. Laura Ramsay had just been wed to Lord Jeremy Bright and judging by the look on Laura’s face, as her new husband admired the bosom of a passerby, she was at the tail end of her honeymoon phase. Katherine stepped back even further into the shadows and adjusted her mask and hair, the last thing she wanted was for Laura to recognize her.
After she had fled from the estate, she caught wind that the remainder of the Rochester Estate was auctioned off and that she was a wanted woman. Katherine was always careful and had not yet been caught. She had accepted a few go a rounds the dance floor by gentlemen who happened to notice her, but she never stuck around long enough to find out if she had been identified. Now Katherine had sufficiently stuffed her belly and stashed a good portion of food into her purse. She just needed to get out and she would be safe once again.
“Could you at least wait until my back is turned” Katherine heard Laura hiss at her husband as they passed by. All she received in response was a disrespectful chuckle and a roll of the eyes.
Katherine bowed her head and stepped out of the shadows, making
her way to the door.
“Leaving so soon?” She heard from behind her.
The voice was low and uttered in a seductive drawl. Goose bumps licked across her skin and her heartbeat kicked up to a noisy clanging in her ears. Deciding that turning around to respond to the gentlemen who owned the velvet voice would be more dangerous than pretending that she did not hear him, she opted to continue and make her escape.
Picking up her pace – and her skirts – she neared the door and breathed out a breath of relief when the cool night air filled her lungs.
Once outside, she dared not look back. Keeping her head down and sticking to the shadows, she made her way back home, which would take her close to an hour of walking in the dark. Katherine had accustomed herself to the dark and rarely got frightened anymore. Once she reached the forest and her familiar pathway, she took off her mask and her shoes, breathing in her first real breath of air since the sun had set that night.
When she reached her cottage, she quickly placed the stolen food into the ground cellar, disrobed and dropped into her bed with nothing but her petticoat, her attached petticoat bodice and a thin blanket to ward off the cool breeze that steadily made its way through the gap in the window sill.
Chapter 2 - The Death of Freedom
Her Mother would die if she saw Katherine as she was. Because she was so secluded and barely fit into her clothes anymore, she had limited options as to what she could and could not wear. While she remained at the cottage, she wore nothing but her petticoats and that suited her just fine.
The sun had kissed her skin and left a golden hue that was not sociably acceptable and had lightened her once dark chestnut brown hair. Her green eyes were often referred to as cat eyes, which was ironic since Katherine had taken on the habits of her feline friends, climbing trees just for the fun of it, bathing in the sun and seeing very well in the dark. She was truly surviving and she loved her freedom.
Leaning against a tree, Katherine breathed in the smell of the fire and listened to the sounds of the forest.
The birds are restless today, she thought to herself as she eyed the sky, seeing if a storm was brewing. Of course from where she was sitting she could only make out patches of the sky through the tree tops. Closing her eyes, she allowed her mind to wander and dream of the time when she belonged to a family.
Katherine’s eyes flew open as a twig behind her snapped.
Looking around frantically for a log or something that could act as a weapon, two boots came into view and she froze.
“Am I disturbing you?” A velvety voice asked her in a lazy male way.
Katherine’s heart thundered in her chest at the recognition of that voice. She tightly shut her eyes in hopes that that would somehow make him go away.
A low seductive chuckle rang through her ears as she heard him approach her.
Oh God Oh God Oh God, she thought to herself as she tried to figure out how to rid her of this man in the quickest and easiest way possible.
“What a tempting picture you make” he commented as he knelt down in front of her.
She had no choice. She needed to open her eyes and deal with this situation head on. She could not afford to make any mistakes.
Katherine slowly opened her eyes and sucked in a breath as she took in the sight of the man in front of her. Tall and broad shouldered and maybe mid-twenties, she could tell that he spent most of his time on horses by his muscular thighs. By the look in his forest green eyes that contrasted against his midnight black hair, he was sizing her up just as much as she was sizing him up.
“I’m sorry, you caught me off guard” Katherine managed to get out in a rather calm voice as she collected her wits and took control of herself.
His face slowly changed from intense curiosity to a lazy drawl. His lips quirked ever so slightly as he stood up and took a step back.
Tilting her head back to look up at him and squinting against the sun, she decided that she didn’t like having him hovering over her - prompting her to set her book aside and stand up.
His eyes raked over her body, slowly making her aware that she was wearing nothing but her petticoat ensemble, with her semi-dried hair hanging loose around her shoulders and down her back to her waste.
“It’s rude to stare” she bit out, without attempting to cover herself up.
He wasn’t ruffled. Slowly finishing his assessment of her, he finally gazed right into her eyes and held her stare.
“What is your name?” He asked with a mild curiosity.
Now what do I do? I can’t give him the name that I do at the balls because he can clearly see that I am not residing at an estate with relatives. Who is this man and how did he find me? Is it coincidence that he is the man who spoke to me last night as I was leaving? I think not.
“It does not matter who I am since it is you who is intruding. Should I bother asking who you are? Or simply skip to the part where I politely ask you to leave?” Katherine responded with every bit of polite authority she could muster up, leaving no hint of fear.
“So you would prefer to skip all of the niceties and get right to the point?” he drawled out in that lazy manner that was starting to irritate her.
Katherine nodded and held her ground.
“I am Lord Salvador Cresta. This cottage belongs to me, this land belongs to me and you belong to me. I’ve come to take you home.”
Katherine gasped and shook her head in denial.
“No, you are mistaken.” She whispered out as her mind scrambled to process what he was saying.
Her hands were shaking and she was certain that her knees would give out from under her if she didn’t place her hand on the tree behind her for support.
“You are Lady Katherine Rochester are you not?” He responded coolly, sending shivers down her spine.
Katherine only shook her head in denial, but it wasn’t his words she was denying, knowing that it was pointless in doing so, but denial to her loss of freedom!
If I run then I will have no place to go and nothing but a petticoat to clothe me. If I go willingly with him, then I lose my freedom. What if I can convince him to let me stay?
“You deny that you are Katherine?” he retorted with disbelief.
She couldn’t look at him if her life depended on it and was terrified of what this man represented.
“No Lord Salvador, I do not deny that I am indeed the Katherine that you seek, however I do deny your claim of ownership.”
He handed her some documents and continued on as she looked them through.
“When I purchased your Family Estate, I was informed that you were in severe debt and had fled. To keep the authorities from pursuing you, I paid your debt in full with the agreement that once you were found you would be returned to me. When your father passed away, his lawyer automatically became your legal guardian and because you were under age at the time, he had full power to draw up a betrothal contract between you and me.”
There’s no way out of this. I am legally his! I would prefer to be chased by the authorities than legally belong to this man!
“Please, leave me be! This cottage should be nothing to you and I am more than happy to stay out of your way and continue on as I am. Please!” She begged.
Inching her way back from him, she held her hands out in front of her as if to ward off a predator.
“If I intended to leave you be, I would not be here.” He responded coldly as he stalked her.
“My reputation is ruined and I cannot live among the ton.”
“We will not remain in Camden. I only came back to retrieve you.”
Still shaking her head in denial, she bumped against a tree, just as he braced both hands on either side of her, caging her in.
“I don’t understand” She whispered out as a tear spilled down her cheek.
Just this morning she was free and now her world was once again being flipped upside down.
“Your Fathers lawyer sent word that he found a copy of a deed to this hunter’s cab
in and I was able to put 2 and 2 together. I will be taking you to my estate in Oxford. You will not be known by the ton so therefore will not have to live like a hermit.”
Oxford! Oh God this can’t be happening.
“Why?” she whisper, just as her knees gave out on her.
Salvador caught her by the upper arms and held her to him.
“You don’t even know me. Why would you do this?”
“I have my reasons. Now pack up what you want to take with you and leave the rest.” He ordered her without emotion as he pulled her along to the cottage.
~
Katherine quickly threw a dress over her petticoat and started collecting the memories she was unwilling to give up. Salvador sat at her kitchen table and watched her through hooded eyes. He had seen Katherine at a social function not long before her father had passed on. She was accompanied by a friend of hers. He remembered thinking to himself that when she came of age she would be a beauty, now he knew he was right. When her Father’s lawyer had informed him of the fate that Katherine was facing once she was caught, he knew that he could do nothing other than pay her debt and tie her to him. There was no way that Katherine could pay him back and now she was his. He liked having power over her and was in no way going to take his eyes off of her now that she was within his grasp. He hadn't stopped thinking about her since that evening. She haunted his dreams and invaded his waking thoughts. He wanted to dismiss her as just another pretty face, but there was something about her he couldn't shake.
Raking his eyes over her once again, his cock twitched as his eyes registered the plump breasts that struggled to breathe beneath the too-tight dress she was wearing. It was obvious that her clothes no longer fit her and he looked forward to dressing her in the finest silks and decorating her with jewels that matched her light green eyes. She could stand to gain some weight, but that was to be expected. Her bone structure told promises of a voluptuous body, once properly nourished. Her hair, a waterfall of chestnut silk, cascaded down to her petite waste. Although she was malnourished, he could see that her muscles were toned and her skin healthy and vibrant. Her skin was golden satin that begged to be touched - tasted. She was his now and no matter how much she begged and pleaded from here on in; he would never let her go.
