Never Kiss a Rake
A
LSO BY
A
NNE
S
TUART
H
ISTORICALS
The House of Rohan
The Wicked House of Rohan
Shameless
Breathless
Reckless
Ruthless
Stand-Alone Titles
The Devil’s Waltz
Hidden Honor
Lady Fortune
Prince of Magic
Lord of Danger
Prince of Swords
To Love a Dark Lord
Shadow Dance
A Rose at Midnight
The Houseparty
The Spinster and the Rake
Lord Satan’s Bride
R
OMANTIC
S
USPENSE
The Ice Series
On Thin Ice
Silver Falls
Fire and Ice
Ice Storm
Ice Blue
Cold As Ice
Black Ice
Stand-Alone Titles
Into the Fire
Still Lake
The Widow
Shadows at Sunset
Shadow Lover
Ritual Sins
Moonrise
Nightfall
Seen and Not Heard
At the Edge of the Sun
Darkness Before Dawn
Escape Out of Darkness
The Demon Count’s Daughter
The Demon Count
Demonwood
Cameron’s Landing
Barrett’s Hill
C
OLLABORATIONS
Dogs & Goddesses
The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes
A
NTHOLOGIES
Burning Bright
Date with a Devil
What Lies Beneath
Night and Day
Valentine Babies
My Secret Admirer
Sisters and Secrets
Summer Love
New Year’s Resolution: Baby
New Year’s Resolution: Husband
One Night with a Rogue
Strangers in the Night
Highland Fling
To Love and To Honor
My Valentine
Silhouette Shadows
C
ATEGORY
R
OMANCE
Wild Thing
The Right Man
A Dark and Stormy Night
The Soldier and the Baby
Cinderman
Falling Angel
One More Valentine
Rafe’s Revenge
Heat Lightning
Chasing Trouble
Night of the Phantom
Lazarus Rising /
reprint as
Here Come the Grooms
Angel’s Wings
Rancho Diablo /
reprint as W
estern Lovers
Crazy Like a Fox /
reprint as B
orn in the USA
Glass Houses /
reprint as
Men at Work
Cry for the Moon
Partners in Crime
Blue Sage /
reprint as W
estern Lovers
Bewitching Hour
Rocky Road /
reprint in
Men Made in America #19
Banish Misfortune
Housebound
Museum Piece
Heart’s Ease
Chain of Love
The Fall of Maggie Brown
Winter’s Edge
Catspaw II
Hand in Glove
Catspaw
Tangled Lies /
reprint in
Men Made in America #11
Now You See Him
Special Gifts
Break the Night
Against the Wind
N
OVELLAS
The Wicked House of Rohan
Married to It
(prequel to
Fire and Ice
)
Risk the Night
Married to It
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2013 Anne Kristine Stuart Ohlrogge
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
PO Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781477807323
ISBN-10: 1477807322
To
Jane and Miriam
For always watching my back
1869
M
ISS
B
RYONY
R
USSELL SAT
in front of the dismal fire in the tiny terrace apartment on the very edge of Whitechapel. It was a dangerous area, and well she knew it, but with the small amount of money left the three sisters hadn’t had much choice. Lodgings in London weren’t to be had cheaply in the thirty-second year of Queen Victoria’s reign.
Bryony looked at her sisters and cleared her throat. “I believe there’s no choice for it, we’ll have to go into service.”
Her sisters looked at her with a mixture of interest and horror. “Service?” her youngest sister Sophia echoed faintly. “As in, work? As a maid?”
“What else does ‘service’ mean, you silly goose,” her middle sister Madeleine said. “I think it’s a brilliant idea.”
“I don’t,” Sophia said decidedly.
Bryony surveyed them impatiently. “Not you, Sophie. You’d get fired within a fortnight. And I’m not saying you should do it either, Maddy, if you don’t wish to. But the only way we’re going to find out the truth about what really happened to Papa is to get inside the households of those we most suspect, and I can think of no better way.”
It had all happened so swiftly. One day they were the pampered daughters of a wealthy shipping magnate, the next they were
destitute, orphaned, and under a cloud of shame. Eustace Russell had been a self-made man, amassing a fortune through the shipping company that had started out a mere fledgling business and ended up being the foremost company in England and half of Europe. He’d married a great and titled beauty who’d given him three daughters; he lived life well.
And six weeks ago he’d supposedly embezzled a massive amount of Russell Shipping’s finances and then died in a carriage accident as he raced for the Continent, plunging to his death over the high cliffs on the southwest corner of England. His three daughters were finally beginning to emerge from the shock and grief that had overwhelmed them, only to find they were in social disgrace as well.
Two banks had failed immediately following the discovery of their father’s perfidy, setting off a financial panic that had wide-reaching effects. It was no wonder the name of Russell was viewed with scorn and mistrust nowadays.
For the past six weeks Bryony and her sisters had been in a fog, numbed by grief and confusion. Everything was gone—the money, their good name, their faith in their father. Their former town house on Curzon Street had been set on fire, presumably by Eustace to cover his tracks, and the ruined shell of it remained, mute testament to the shame that had come to their family. Even Renwick, the vast country estate in Somerset, had been taken, the entailed property returned to the heir upon Russell’s death. The three daughters had arrived from the country with no place to stay, and it had taken all Bryony’s force of character to keep her sisters from feeling the shame and hopelessness that was crushing her. It was a blessing that their delicate, high-strung mother wasn’t still alive to endure the public recoil. It was hard enough on Bryony, and she accounted herself far sturdier than their mother had ever been.
It hadn’t taken long for Bryony to pull herself together, take a clear look at the so-called proof of her father’s iniquity, and realize it was all a lie. The scribbled note, in her father’s own hand, had further convinced her.