His Wicked Sins (20 page)

wet her lips, stared again at her wrist, and ran the tip of her index finger over the base of

her thumb. He found her actions sensual.

Innocence held a powerful allure.

Flashing him an unreadable look, she sank her teeth into her lower lip, gave her skirt an

irate twitch, and stepped the rest of the way around him. She stalked to the stone bench on

the verandah without looking back, retrieved her ecru bag, then strode on toward the

garden gate. There she paused, and he saw her shoulders stiffen, her body tremble just a

little, and she ran her fingers along the inside of her wrist once more.

Her actions gave her away. She had liked it, his tongue and teeth on her skin.

In that instant, Griffin found himself wishing that he could rip both his anger and the

stain of his crimes from the black, roiling void of his soul, that he had something better to

offer her than what he was.

"Miss Canham," he called. She froze, her back to him, one hand resting on the iron

grillwork of the gate.

He had tantalized her, but he had also distressed her. A part of him was glad. He wanted

her to be wary, careful. His actions ought to have done more than cause her distress; they

ought to have terrified her. But they had not. He thought of the irate way she had flicked

her skirt, and he was puzzled, intrigued.

From whence did she draw her courage, her strength? 'Twas a well of great depth.

"My apologies," he said, and meant it, but not for the reasons she likely imagined.

Not for the fact that he had detained her, touched her, tasted her in a way most sensual.

No, he was sorry that he would not be noble or kind or good, that he would not be able

to stay away from her.

He was sorry that he was not, at his core, the man he was on the surface, a man without

demons and ghosts and dark secrets.

She yanked open the gate, and the hinges cried out in protest, a strident noise. A wasp

buzzed by her cheek, and she waved it away, then again and again, but it came at her once

more.

HIS WICKED SINS

Page 76 of 103

A few steps and he was by her side, his hand shooting out, faster than hers. He closed

his fist, leaving the wasp trapped inside. A sharp flick of his wrist and fingers, and he set it

free to fly off in the opposite direction with an angry buzz.

Beth spun to face him, lips parted, eyes wide.

"You did not kill it."

He studied her, intrigued. "You are pleased by that. Pleased that I let it live, that I set it

free."

"I am," she said. "To kill it would have been a simple matter. A sharp swat and the

danger is gone. But to control the urge, to risk a sting … well, there is valor in that."

The way she looked at him, bright and honest.
Bloody hell.

"You choose to label me as something I am not."

Her pretty lips compressed in a tight line, then released. She opened her mouth. Closed

it. Looked to the ground.

He wanted to kiss her in truth, to pull her hard against him and drag the pins from her

hair until the wild mass of her curls tumbled free. To gather the golden strands tight in his

fist. To put his mouth on hers, push his tongue inside her, rough, ungentle, to kindle a

flame in her blood that matched the burn in his own.

Christ
. The tiny sample he had stolen was not enough; it had only whetted his appetite,

stirred the beast to life.

"There are rumors…" she said, hesitant, pulling her gaze from the ground.

Of course there were. "Yes," he agreed.

"Do you know what they say?"

She was brave; he had known it all along. And she liked to seek answers, to solve

puzzles. Here was most definitely a puzzle. Rumors branded him a killer. Her own

observations might suggest to her that that he was not.

"The rumors?" He inclined his head. "Yes, I know what they say."

Her knuckles had gone white where they yet clutched at the gate.

"Whom—"Just a single strangled word. She could not manage the rest of the query. He

could not blame her.

"Go on, now," he said softly, reaching around her to pull the gate all the way open, then

resting his splayed fingers at the small of her back to give her gentle direction. The contact

and the urge to slide his hand lower, to the tempting curve of her bottom, made his groin

ache.

She took a handful of steps, then stopped and looked back at him over her shoulder, her

blue eyes bright and intent. She held his gaze, waited, waited.

Her sharp, shaky intake of breath almost stayed his next words, then he thought,
Tell

her.

Tell her all? No, not yet. But tell her part. She would only hear it elsewhere if he did

not. Still, he found himself reluctant to offer the ugly truth.

In a low, emotionless voice, he said, "My wife, Miss Canham. The rumors state that I

killed my wife."

* * *

HIS WICKED SINS

Page 77 of 103

dismayed by the events in the garden, by Griffin's touch and the press of his mouth to her

wrist, she had been further confounded by his quiet admission. What was she to make of

that? Of his assertion that he had killed his wife?

Only, that was not what he had said. He had not admitted murder. He had admitted only

that the rumors
claimed
he had killed her.

Griffin Fairfax was full of contradictions. A puzzle. Recollections and images teased

her: His expression as he looked at his daughter, filled with such bewildered yearning. His

movements as he caught the wasp, then set it free. The sound of his voice, warm and

seductive, then coldly emotionless as he unveiled the darkest of his secrets.

My wife, Miss Canham. The rumors state that I killed my wife.

The rumors state…

Rumors. Rumors.

They hung about him like a choking miasma.

Was that his darkest secret, then? That there were suppositions and whispers that

dogged him, or was there a darker secret still, a truth she could not wish to know?

Had he killed his wife?

The part of her that was her father's daughter looked to the rationality of that and

decided that if he had, he would be incarcerated now. The part of her that was purely

herself was disinclined to believe his guilt.

With a sigh, she turned, locked the door behind her, and took the key from the hole. She

paused, took a long, slow breath, and forced herself to bury the urge to fling open the

portal and free herself from this confined space. The time she had spent with Griffin

Fairfax had befuddled and confused her, a situation that boded ill for her continued

emotional constraint, and made her acutely aware of the small, restricting box her chamber

had become.

She knew herself well enough to recognize the danger signs.

Taking a deep breath, she glanced about. For a moment, she simply stood in place, then

she moved into the room, set her candle on the small table, and crossed to the bed. There,

she reached for her pillow, intent on retrieving her nightdress.

Her heart slammed against her ribs as certainty slapped her, swift and brutal.

Someone had been here, touched her pillow, moved it. Her hand trembled as she

reached out and clasped the edge of the pillowcase, gingerly dragging it to one side. Her

nightdress was there, folded yes, but not the way she had left it. The hem faced the head of

the bed rather than the foot.

She was ever meticulous in her organization. She would never have left her nightdress

so.
Who—

Spinning, she went to her wooden keepsake box, a treasure that her father had gifted her

with in a better time. She lifted the lid, her breath frozen in her throat, and then exhaled in

rushing relief. It was there. The small pearl brooch that had belonged to her grandmother

and passed to Beth was still there.

Which implied that her clandestine visitor was not a thief, for the brooch would have

been easy pickings.

HIS WICKED SINS

Page 78 of 103

Slowly, she made a circuit of the room, noting the details as a tugging dismay pulled at

her. Strange, how she imagined she could hear the sound of her father's voice, patient,

calm, cataloguing each finding.

It appeared that nothing was taken, though many of her things had been disturbed.

Oh, the evidence was subtle enough. A few hairpins turned the wrong way. Her brush

shifted a hairsbreadth to the right so it no longer lay perfectly aligned with the edge of the

table. Her small pile of handkerchiefs, folded neatly in her press, rearranged so the top

square had its edges misaligned.

In all likelihood, most people would have noticed nothing amiss. But Beth was not most

people. From the earliest age she had been determined to maintain order over the small

things in her life because so many things were beyond her control. Large things.

Frightening things.

She closed her eyes as memories crept forth, rank and ugly. With a shudder, she thrust

them aside and focused her thoughts on the question at hand.

Who had been in her room, touched her belongings? A maid, to straighten up?

Of course, that was the likely explanation, but something nagged at her, something that

made her think otherwise.

With nervous energy, she ordered and tidied every article of her clothing, aligned her

brush and comb and each and every hairpin, smoothed the bedsheets until they were free

of any crinkle or crease. Finally, she prepared for bed.

As she slid between the cool sheets, restless agitation left her hot even in the chill of the

autumn night, and she knew her suspicions of an intruder were only partly to blame.

She could find no peace because he had kissed her.

Griffin Fairfax had
kissed
her. Not the sort of kiss she had innocently dreamed of in the

past, as girls were wont to do. Not a soft, safe brush of warm lips on her own. No, his had

been a kiss of decadence and magnificence, a kiss meant to lure desires she had never

imagined she possessed.

And, oh, he had succeeded.

The recollection made her anxious, uneasy, her limbs liquid, her senses flooded with

awareness. His mouth had been warm on her wrist, the damp trail of his tongue drawing a

flood of heat, the sharp press of his teeth sinking into her flesh leaving her weak and

panting.

A shaky sigh escaped her. She brought her hand to her mouth, dragged the base of her

thumb back and forth across her lower lip, recalling every nuance of Griffin's touch.

Inexplicably, she wanted him to do those things again, to her wrist, to her mouth. She

wanted him to press his lips to hers, just as he had on the skin of her wrist, to stroke his

tongue over her mouth, to bite her lips as he had her thumb.

She felt such
wanting
of him, such
yearning
.

She was afraid and enticed and confused. She needed to be free of it, free of such

dangerous desire.

But a part of her wished to be chained by it.

With a gasp she flung herself from the bed and began to pace.

Spinning sharply, she strode to the window and yanked back the heavy draperies. The

HIS WICKED SINS

Page 79 of 103

back garden was a mass of shapes, slate and pewter and black, washed in paler gray

moonlight. She raised her eyes to the moon and the onyx sky.

In London, her family would see that same moon. That same slice of beautiful moon.

She took some comfort in that, in the familiarity of her thoughts of them and her

memories of home. She thought of her mother, humming softly as she prepared a meat pie

with rich gravy. She thought of her brother's laughter when he won at chess. She thought

of her father … but no, to think of him as he was now—trapped in a wheeled chair and a

body that did not do what he wished—was a road too painful to travel. Instead, she

thought of him as he had been years ago, taking her hands in his and dancing a jig while

they laughed and laughed.

She missed them horribly, and longed to write a letter home. Well, that was out of the

question. As the recipient, her mother would be expected to produce the postal rate of

three pence, an amount she could ill afford. But, oh, to be able to unburden herself, to pour

out the details of her long journey, her arrival at Burndale, the experiences she had had

since coming here.

Her encounters with Griffin Fairfax.

She ran her fingertips along the crease of her wrist, remembering the powerful emotion

his touch had engendered, then jerked her fingers away. Perhaps she would not wish to

share every nuance of those encounters.

Closing her eyes, she imagined his face, his windblown hair, the lean, hard line of his

cheek. The way his eyes lit with a secret amusement that lured her into a feeling of

kinship. The way he moved. The way he smelled.

Her skin heated and her eyes popped open, the wayward turn of her mind leaving her

confused and dismayed.

Worse than her unfortunate and inappropriate attraction was the fact that she
liked
him,