Too Sinful to Deny (4 page)

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Authors: Erica Ridley

Tags: #Man-Woman Relationships, #Historical Fiction, #Smuggling, #Smugglers, #General, #Romance, #Historical, #Secrecy, #Fiction, #Love Stories

BOOK: Too Sinful to Deny
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“Know why that is, Miss Stanton?”
“I . . .” She retreated a step. Then two. Then three. “You weren’t meant to notice me behind you.”
He advanced. “Not notice a beautiful young lady all by her lonesome without a soul watching over her?” He allowed his meaning to sink in, then stepped forward, towering over her, and then lowered his mouth to her ear. “If I see you trailing me again, I promise to show you exactly what those conscienceless blackguards do when they catch unmarried young ladies unprotected and all alone.”
He watched her.
She swallowed nervously, her eyes wide and her body frozen. Except for the pulse pounding wildly at her throat.
He framed her face with his hands, his ungloved fingers cradling her skull and sinking into the rich softness of her hair. He leaned back down until his mouth was a millimeter from her skin. The unshaven edge of his jawline brushed against the smooth curve of her cheek. She gasped.
“If that’s what you fancy, Miss Stanton—to experience firsthand the despoiling of an innocent young lady caught very far from home—then I might have a little time to kill this morning after all.”
She trembled. “I—I—”
“Shhh.” He dragged his mouth to her ear. “I’m going to walk down the beach. If you’d like a taste of the kind of trouble I can provide, feel free to follow me again.” He let his lips linger against her cheek. “If you don’t, then I suggest you return to Moonseed Manor while I still find it amusing to allow you to do so.”
In one fluid movement, he straightened, let go, and faced the opposite direction. Before his enflamed body could talk his brain out of behaving, he strode forward without a backward glance.
God help them both if she followed.
Susan turned and ran.
This was a nightmare. For the second time in her life, she’d been discovered whilst spying. Also for the second time in her life, a man’s lips had touched her face. The first such occasion had been that return-to-life-from-drowning incident with the river water and the horrible algae. Since she’d been unconscious, the contact was unavoidable. What did she have to say for herself this time?
He’d caught her. Figuratively and then literally. But that was no excuse.
She could accept being an incompetent spy (although of course she wasn’t). She could accept being stuck in Bournemouth a few more days until her money arrived. (Actually . . . no. That’s why she’d kept following him—in the hopes he’d pass by a carriage she could rent or borrow or steal.)
But what she could not accept was the notion that Miss Susan Stanton, an accomplished young lady of unimpeachable marriageability, had behaved like a common slut.
Untenable. She would return to London, to a life of crowds and gaiety and comfort. She would marry a rich, titled aristocrat with a busy social schedule at the first available opportunity. To do so, she had to remain untouched and uncompromised. She knew this. She’d always known this. What the bloody hell had she been thinking, standing cheek-to-cheek with that—that—
She stopped dead.
There. Up ahead. An abandoned village.
Or, most likely, Bournemouth proper. But one could scarce tell the difference. Susan stared, eyes widening in horror. It was worse than she’d dreamed.
Boxlike structures sprang up along the pale curve of the shore like rotten teeth from a giant’s jaw. Bone-white sand separated the ramshackle contraptions. The red of the rising sun gave the wooden exteriors a blood-tinted glow.
No posting-house in sight.
Even if she had a trunk full of gold, how the dickens was she supposed to get back to London with no posting-house from which to rent horses? How was one supposed to escape Bournemouth at all?
Is Miss Stanton at home? Always.
No.
She refused to be stuck here the rest of her life. She would not dally in this miserable hovel a moment longer than necessary. Her carriage driver (God rest his soul) had told her the closest town was Bath, some sixty miles northwest. No matter. She’d walk twice that far if that’s what it took to hire a horse and get home.
Of course, with a sense of orientation as bad as hers, she probably
would
have to walk twice as far. At least she had new boots.
What was that, flickering up ahead? There, in the shadows between the giant’s teeth. Another person! Thank God. Maybe he could direct her away from this macabre village and back to Moonseed Manor.
“Sir!” she shouted. “Sir, please!”
He glanced up as if as shocked to see her at the perimeter of the village. Or perhaps any inhabitant of this godforsaken countryside would be startled to see a woman garbed in a proper morning dress. This simple creature had probably never even seen a mirror.
He was short, stocky, wide. Possessed of a bald pate and an unfortunate ginger-colored beard. He dressed in dull black boots spotted with muck. But he was human and a local, which meant he could help her get out of there.
“Sir!” she called again and sprinted in his direction. “Please!”
When he stepped into the sunlight, his dark form did not get any clearer. His bearded face was as smudged and indistinct as when still in shadow.
She really needed to take better care of her spectacles.
He darted toward her so rapidly his feet did not touch the sand. In fact—his legs did not seem to be moving at all. Yet he came ever closer, faster than should be possible.
Susan slowed down, worried they were about to collide.
He closed the distance between them.
She crossed her arms over her face and braced for impact. Her shadow trembled before her on the pink-hued sand.
He cast no shadow at all.
She glanced back up just in time for him to run right into her. Or rather . . . through her. Her lungs sucked in salty air as a cold, wet breeze blew straight through her bones. She whipped around to face the running man, her heart sputtering in her chest.
He was gone. The beach was empty. She was alone.
Susan swallowed and hugged herself tight, arms shaking. There was only one logical explanation for a man to vanish in the breeze after walking through her body. Moonseed Manor wasn’t being haunted after all.
She
was.
Chapter 3
Evan stared at the empty captain’s chair in disbelief.
First, the pirate ship had mysteriously disappeared from shore and docked itself in the secret cave the crew used to load and unload cargo. Now that Evan had found the ship, Timothy’s corpse had disappeared from the wardroom. How was he supposed to have a burial without a body? Evan made another slow round of the ship.
No little brother. No crew. No answers.
What the devil was he to do now? No sense going back to Ollie’s. Whatever secrets that brute knew, he wasn’t telling. Besides, he’d been standing right in front of Evan when the ship decided to mosey down the coast and anchor itself in the hidden cave.
Evan checked the current log. Empty. No—not empty. A missing page.
Damn
it.
He would have to talk to the captain. Except you didn’t find the captain. The captain found you. And without his brother’s body to back up his claims, what precisely was Evan going to say?
The boat was back. He was slated to sail this Friday. All four of them together—him, Timothy, Red, and Ollie. But they’d be missing one this time. Maybe even more than one, if Red and the rest of the crew weren’t here either. Hell,
someone
had to have steered the damn thing and delivered all the cargo. Had to’ve been Red.
If that drunken sod had the slightest culpability in Timothy’s death, Evan would kill him on sight. That’d leave just him and Ollie to do a four-person job . . . but vengeance would be well worth pulling a little extra weight. Even if the captain forced them to sail with a pair of scalawags from the other crew. Those cutthroat knaves took untrustworthiness to a hazardous level. Even for pirates.
First things first. Before he could take care of Timothy’s killer, Evan had to discover the rotter’s identity.
There was no chance of talking with the captain before midnight Friday when he arrived to give final orders to the crew. Red, however, was a more predictable sort. If he wasn’t on the sea, he was in the nearest tavern. Evan headed to the gang-board sloping down to the rocky cave floor. After casting a final dark glance toward the frustratingly vacant wardroom, he disembarked the abandoned ship and strode back to Bournemouth.
At nine o’ clock in the morning, the Shark’s Tooth boasted half a dozen sundry customers in its rank, ill-lit interior.
Two of the town’s drunkest inhabitants sat beside a barmaid who’d collapsed face-first onto a dirty round table. A flash of white at another man’s throat indicated the town priest sipped his usual whiskey in the far corner.
The local magistrate leaned against the counter, murmuring to the barman. Probably trying to convince Sully not to open until noon from now on, so as to curb public drunkenness. God, how Evan hated self-righteous toadies who felt compelled to uphold the letter of the law. The magistrate was one of the worst.
Since Red wasn’t part of this morning’s mix, Evan would’ve turned around and left right then, had Sully not taken that moment to glance up and catch sight of him.
“Bothwick! Did you br—would you like a whiskey?”
Evan cringed inwardly. Drunken half-wit had been about to ask if Evan had brought him a new supply of smuggled French brandy. Right in front of the magistrate. Christ. Sully’d get them both hung for treason.
“Got my own.” Evan patted his chest where spare bullets, not a flask, filled his inside breast pocket.
The magistrate’s focus remained on the bottles behind the bar.
“Good Lord.” Sully leaned halfway over the counter. “What the hell happened to you?”
Sully’s blurted words caused the magistrate to slowly turn around. Evan gritted his teeth but otherwise kept his expression impassive.
Gordon Forrester’s holier-than-thou gaze took in Evan’s sand-specked hair, salt-starched greatcoat, and stockingless legs. He was no doubt wracking his brain to think of a way to turn excessive dishabille into a gaol-worthy offense.
“Fell off a pier.” Evan flashed Forrester a you-can’t-touch-me smile and settled atop a barstool. “Seen Red lately?”
“Nah.” Sully poured himself a whiskey. “Been about a week. Don’t know where that good-for-nothing disappears to. Seems every time there’s a new moon, he up and—”
“Maybe he’s a werewolf,” Evan interrupted. Lord have mercy. How had Sully not realized Red was part of Evan’s crew, and therefore his actions ought to be secret from the magistrate? “Changed my mind. Give me one of those whiskeys.” He turned toward Forrester. “How about you, Judge? Buy you a drink?”
The magistrate pushed away from the bar with a shake of his head. “Disgusting habit.”
Of course it was. That’s why Evan liked it. He downed his whiskey in one gulp.
Forrester stood and watched for one long, uncomfortable moment before tipping his hat at Sully and sauntering out the door.
“What bee’s in his bonnet today?” Evan asked, shoving his empty tumbler toward Sully. The smudged glass stuck to his fingers.
“Dunno. You’re the one what chased him off.”
Evan shrugged. “No bigger killjoy at a bar than a teetotaler. Why come in here if he’s not going to drink?”
“Ain’t the only one not drinking today.” Sully jerked his head toward the rear of the tavern. “New gel’s a peach to look at but hasn’t spent a farthing.”
Since when did any Bournemouth establishment have new customers?
Evan turned to take a closer look at what he’d thought was a barmaid passed out on a corner table. The light was too dim to make out much more than her silhouette, but he’d bet a barge full of French brandy he knew the identity of the mystery woman.
“Why have you been plying her with liquor if she’s not paying?”
“Haven’t. She came in all white-faced and trembling, and collapsed on the table herself. Been still as a corpse ever since.”
If Evan hadn’t already known London ladies were both incomprehensible and more trouble than they were worth, those words would’ve convinced him. Sure, he’d given her a hard time earlier today, but it hadn’t been as bad as
that.
“Two whiskeys.”
Sully poured two healthy shots.
Evan carried them to the back table. The unsavories looming over the woman’s slumped figure dispersed at the first glance at his expression. Good. He kicked a chair out from the table and plopped down beside her. Jasmine. Definitely his favorite houseguest.
“Thought I told you not to follow me.”
Her head came up from the scarred table, but this time her eyes held no fire. They stared through him. As empty as Timothy’s.
Evan hesitated. Something wasn’t right. He snapped his gaze toward the drunks who’d just quit the table. There were women you could touch, and women you couldn’t. They knew the difference as well as Evan did. If either of the fools had laid a finger on the misplaced debutante, he’d slice off their bollocks.
Both men’s hands flew into the air, palms out. They shook their heads rapidly, as if reading his mind and disavowing all knowledge of Miss Stanton and her inexplicable condition. Fine.
“Drink.”
He’d meant to share the whiskey with her—if he could goad her into trying it at all—but it now appeared a medical necessity. He pushed both glasses toward her.
Her hand shot forward and touched the back of his, then gripped it tight. Her fingertips were colder than the sea. At the contact, her lips trembled and her eyes filled with tears.
Damn it. He did not do crying females, but he especially did not do
publicly
crying females.
“Get up.” He pulled her to her feet. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Despite his hand at her waist, she half-walked, half-stumbled to the door. Evan cast a murderous glare at the barman.
“I swear,” Sully stammered nervously. “Nobody touched her and she didn’t drink a bloody drop.”
When she swayed on the single step and almost fell sideways into the sand, Evan sighed and swung her small body up and into his arms for the second time that morning. She clung to his neck and trembled. But this time, he doubted it was due to his touch. For now.
If he knew what was good for them both, he’d march her straight back to Moonseed Manor and lock her in her bedchamber himself.
Pale blue eyes watched him from behind tear-streaked spectacles. “Where are you taking me?”
Evan gave up. He never had been one for doing the right thing.
“My house.”
Susan had never planned on being carried over a threshold by a man who by the light of day looked far more like a footpad than a gentleman.
Who knew how he’d managed to carry her a mile past the village and up a winding path to a surprisingly adequate two-story house perched in a hidden crevice in the side of the cliff. All right, perhaps his wide shoulders and strong arms and muscular frame accounted for that much. But as to why he’d bothered to help at all . . . the reasons for his altruism still remained a mystery.
She would be wise not to trust him. He’d concurred with that conclusion himself.
He deposited her on the softest-looking sofa in what could only be described as a sumptuous drawing room, and stepped back to give her a critical once-over.
“How’s your arse?”
“Bruised.” Susan rubbed at the gooseflesh covering her arms at the absence of his body heat. She’d actually forgotten the misadventure with the cliff . . . until he’d mentioned her backside. She chose not to be disagreeable. Much. “Thank you for inquiring.”
Grains of sand speckled the carpet as he threw himself into an emerald-green wingback chair opposite her perch on the sofa. He stretched his legs out before him. Even in such unfathomable disarray, he cut an arresting figure. “You may be wondering why my stockings are missing and there’s dried seaweed crumbling from my clothes.”
“Er, not at all,” Susan lied, intrigued despite herself. “One scarcely notices.”
“Excellent.” He gave her a satisfied smile. “Then I shan’t bore you with the details.”
Susan’s jaw dropped to realize the insufferable man had just managed her. He
knew
she was dying to know the explanation, and purposefully broached the topic in such a way as to close it forever.
“Bore me,” she tried anyway. She leaned forward, certain
here
was an excellent story.
His smile only broadened. “I couldn’t possibly. I pride myself on my ability to not bore women. I prefer to keep them . . . entertained.”
Her eyes narrowed. Once again, he had successfully changed the subject without overtly changing the subject. In fact, he was now expecting her to rejoin with something like,
Oh? And how do you plan to keep me entertained?
but she was too prudent to say something so leading. After four years of spying on the upper ten thousand, one got a fairly good idea of the sort of “entertainment” a couple alone might get up to.
She would only resort to such tomfoolery when she was back in London, safely ensconced in the arms of a titled gentleman about to find himself with a Stanton bride. Any flirtation, no matter how minor, with the man reclining in the chair opposite—devilishly handsome though he might be—could only get in the way of her goals. Susan
never
allowed anything to get in the way of her goals.
She tore her gaze from his and glanced about the drawing room. Frowning, she tried to reconcile the cozy nook awash in luxurious jewel tones and velvet-covered cushions with the unshaven reprobate lounging before her in wrinkled breeches and salt-hardened linen. She failed.
This had to be someone else’s house. Someone well-bred and elegant. Someone who was going to come home, catch them inside, and kill them both.
Her gaze returned to the gentleman sprawled across from her. He was still watching her. One corner of his lips quirked up in a half-smile. The slight crinkle at the edge of his hazel eyes indicated he was laughing at her and trying not to show it.
Nobody laughed at Susan Stanton. Not the
ton
in their fancy dress, and not this overgrown footpad in his water-shrunken breeches. If the proper owner of the house didn’t show up and start shooting, she’d shove the blackguard off the cliff herself. Then again, he’d probably pull out his pistol and shoot her on the way down, and where would that leave her then?

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