Affair

Prologue

Midnight: London

Charlotte never knew what it was that awakened her in the early hours before dawn. Perhaps her sleeping brain had registered the squeak of a floor tread or a man’s muffled voice. Whatever the cause, she opened her eyes abruptly and sat straight up in bed. She was consumed with a sense of overwhelming urgency. A cold foreboding permeated her entire body.

It was the housekeeper’s night off. Her stepfather, Winterbourne, never came home before dawn these days. Charlotte knew that she and her sister, Ariel, should have been alone in the house.

But someone had just climbed the staircase and walked down the hall.

She tossed aside the covers and stood, shivering, on the cold floor. For a moment she had not the least notion of what to do next.

Another floorboard groaned.

She went to the door, opened it a few inches, and gazed out into the darkened corridor. Two figures shrouded in voluminous greatcoats hovered in the dense shadows at the end of the hall. They stood in front of Ariel’s door.

One of the men held a candle. The light revealed Winterbourne’s thick, dissipated features.

“Be quick about it,” Winterbourne said in a slurred growl. “And then be on your way. It’s almost dawn.”

“But I wish to enjoy this rare pleasure. It is so seldom that one has the opportunity to savor a genuine virgin descended from such excellent bloodlines. Fourteen, did you say? A good age. I intend to take my time, Winterbourne.”

Charlotte bit back a scream of rage and fear. The second man’s voice was a darkly played musical instrument, a thing of grace and power even when pitched at a whisper. It was a voice that could have soothed wild animals or sung hymns but it was the most terrifying sound she had ever heard.

“Are you insane?” Winterbourne hissed. “Hurry and be done with it.”

“You do owe me a great deal of money, Winterbourne. Surely you do not expect to settle the debt by allowing me only a few minutes with my very expensive little innocent. I want an hour at the very least.”

“Impossible,” Winterbourne muttered. “The older girl’s just down the hall. She’s a bitch. Absolutely ungovernable. If you wake her, there’s no telling what she’ll do.”

“That is your problem, not mine. You are the master in this household, are you not? I shall leave it to you to deal with her.”

“What the devil do you expect me to do if she awakens?”

“Lock her in her room. Bind her. Put a gag in her mouth. Beat her senseless. I care not how you manage the matter, just see to it that she does not interfere with my pleasures.”

Charlotte eased her bedroom door closed and whirled around to gaze wildly about her moonlit bedchamber. She took a deep breath, collected her panic-stricken senses, and hurried across the carpet to a chest that stood near the window.

She fumbled with the lock of the chest, got it open, and yanked aside the two blankets on top. The case that contained her father’s pistol lay at the bottom of the chest.

Charlotte grabbed the case, opened it with trembling fingers, and removed the heavy weapon. It was unloaded. There was nothing she could do about that. She lacked the necessary powder and ball as well as the time to figure out how it all went into the pistol.

She went to the door, flung it open, and stepped out into the hall. She knew intuitively that the stranger who intended to rape Ariel was the more dangerous of the two men. She sensed that he would be emboldened by any show of anxiousness or uncertainty, let alone a glimpse of the raw panic that was coursing through her.

“Stop at once or I will shoot,” Charlotte said quietly.

Winterbourne lurched about in surprise. The flame of his candle revealed his gaping mouth. “Hell’s teeth. Charlotte.”

The second man turned more slowly. His greatcoat swirled around him with a soft, rustling sound. The weak flame of Winterbourne’s candle did not cast any light on his features. He had not removed his hat. The wide brim,
together with the high collar of his coat, obscured his face in deep shadows.

“Ah,” he murmured. “The older sister, I presume?”

Charlotte realized that she was standing in a stream of moonlight that poured from her window through the open door. The stranger could likely see the outline of her body silhouetted through her white linen nightgown.

She wished with all her heart that the pistol she held was filled with a ball and a strong charge. She had never hated anyone as much as she hated this creature. Nor had she ever been so frightened.

In that moment her imagination threatened to run roughshod over her intelligence. Some elemental part of her was convinced that it was not a mere man she faced, but a monster.

Guided only by instinct, Charlotte said nothing. She wrapped both hands around the pistol, raised it with deliberate precision, just as though it were fully loaded, and cocked it. The unmistakable sound was very loud in the quiet hall.

“Damnation, girl, are you mad?” Winterbourne surged forward and then came to a shambling halt a few feet away. “Put down the pistol.”

“Get out.” Charlotte did not allow the weapon to waver. She kept her whole attention focused on the monster in the black greatcoat. “Both of you. Get out now.”

“I do believe she means to pull the trigger, Winterbourne.” The monster’s mellifluous voice oozed honey and venom and a terrifying degree of amusement.

“She would not dare.” But Winterbourne took a pace back. “Charlotte, listen to me. You cannot be so foolish as to think that you can simply shoot a man in cold blood. You will hang.”

“So be it.” Charlotte held the pistol steady.

“Come, Winterbourne,” the monster said softly. “Let us be off. The chit means to lodge a bullet in one of us and I rather think she intends to make me her victim. No virgin is worth this much trouble.”

“But what about my vouchers?” Winterbourne asked in a quivering voice. “You promised you would give them back to me if I let you have the younger girl.”

“It would appear that you must find some other way to pay your debts.”

“But I have no other resource, sir.” Winterbourne sounded desperate. “There is nothing left to sell that will fetch enough to cover my losses to you. My wife’s jewelry is gone. Only a bit of the silver remains. And I do not own this house. I am merely renting it.”

“I’m sure you will come up with some means of repaying me.” The monster walked slowly toward the staircase. He did not take his attention off Charlotte. “But make certain that whatever it is, it does not require me to get past an avenging angel armed with a pistol in order to secure my payment.”

Charlotte kept the pistol trained on the stranger as he went down the stairs. By avoiding Winterbourne’s candle, he managed to keep himself cloaked in shadow the entire time. She leaned over the banister and watched as he opened the front door.

To her horror, he paused and looked up at her. “Do you believe in destiny, Miss Arkendale?” His voice floated up to her from out of the night.

“I do not concern myself with such matters.”

“Pity. Given that you have just demonstrated that you are one of those rare persons with the power to shape it, you really ought to pay more attention to the subject.”

“Leave this house.”

“Farewell, Miss Arkendale. It has been amusing, to
say the least.” With a last swirl of his greatcoat, the monster was gone.

Charlotte was able to breathe again. She turned back to Winterbourne.

“You, too, sir. Begone, or I shall pull this trigger.”

His heavy features worked furiously. “Do you know what you have done, you stupid bitch? I owe him a bloody fortune.”

“I do not care how much you have lost to him. He is a monster. And you are a man who would feed an innocent child to a beast. That makes you a monster, too. Get out of here.”

“You cannot throw me out of my own house.”

“That is just what I intend to do. Leave, or I shall pull this trigger. Do not doubt me, Winterbourne.”

“I’m your stepfather, by God.”

“You are a wretched, contemptible liar. You are also a thief. You stole the inheritance that my father left for Ariel and me and you have squandered it in the gaming hells. Do you think I feel any loyalty to you after what you have done? If so, you are quite mad.”