The Sinner

THE SINNER

Assassins Guild Novel #4

C.J. Archer

Copyright 2014 C.J. Archer

Visit C.J. at
http://cjarcher.com

About This Book

Lies, desperation and an offer she can't refuse sends impoverished widow Lady Catherine (Cat) headlong into marriage with the man who killed her husband. 

Guilt and desire battle within Hughe, Lord Oxley's, soul. When the enigmatic leader of the Assassin's Guild learns that the widow of one of his targets is at the mercy of a cruel man, he does the only thing left in his power to do. He marries her. Then the worst thing happens. He falls in love with her.

With more than one person trying to kill him and a family to rescue, Hughe needs the help of all his Assassins Guild friends to stay alive and keep his wife from learning the truth. Because he knows, and dreads, what will happen when she discovers what he did.

"What nourishes me, destroys me."

― Christopher Marlowe

CHAPTER 1

Sussex, spring 1599

Catherine, Lady Slade, wasn't surprised by her husband's death, despite his youthful age. After all, Stephen was fond of over-indulging, both at the table and in bed, although not always
their
marital bed. What did surprise her was the manner in which he died. She expected a cuckolded husband to eventually take offence or mayhap a pheasant bone to choke him. Yet he'd been struck through the eye by an errant arrow during a hunt. It didn't make sense.

Not only were his retainers superb marksmen, but she'd been told Stephen had fallen back to fix a saddle strap that had worked loose. Someone would have had to turn around to shoot him from the front, implying a deliberate act of murder, but she knew his men loved him too much to have done that. Indeed, they'd not even seen it happen. Despite her protestations that something was amiss, the death had not been investigated.

Another thing that surprised Catherine—Cat—were the tears she shed for him at his funeral procession. They were genuine. Stephen, the second baron of Slade, hadn't been a bad husband, as husbands went. He made sure the drafty old stone house was fitted with warm tapestries and hangings, he gave her jewels on her birthday and pretty gowns to wear whenever he thought she needed one. Unfortunately, those trinkets and gowns came at a hefty cost—one her husband couldn't afford.

It was one of life's sureties that upon a man's death, his creditors will come knocking before the day was over. His brother, the heir, couldn't pay immediately, but he did manage to postpone them with promises of future repayment plus an additional sum. It had been a worrying time. It still was.

Cat was the only one who cried at Stephen's funeral. John, the new baron, was too busy insuring the two mourners he'd paid to walk behind the coffin looked suitably overwrought. Considering it was one of the coldest, wettest days of a bleak spring, they had no difficulty in giving off an air of misery. Cat had suggested twenty mourners more appropriate for the most prominent personage of the valley, but John had thought two ample, considering there was no way to pay them.

"Couldn't he have been buried with a banner of arms?" she asked John as they walked side-by-side behind the coffin, huddled beneath a canopy carried by the household servants who were now thoroughly drenched. "He deserves that at least."

"He deserves exactly what he's getting." Although he spoke quietly, Cat knew John was angry or frustrated, perhaps both. He'd hardly moved his lips. Ordinarily it was a sign that she should leave his presence, but this time she couldn't. He would have to endure her, and she him. But for how long?

John, now the third baron of Slade, was a tall, slender man with dark eyes and slick, black hair that skimmed his shoulders. That was the sum total of his virtues. His wet mouth rarely turned up in a smile and never in a laugh. He preferred silence and study to dancing, riding, hunting and, well, everything that required him to leave his desk. Although Stephen's younger brother had always lived with them, he kept to himself. That was the way Cat preferred it. Until now. Now she wished she'd gotten to know him better. After all, he held her future in his hands.

"He did run up some debts," she admitted, avoiding a muddy puddle only to brush up against old Doyle, one of the servants carrying the canopy who'd been with the family for years. He gave her a flat-lipped, sympathetic smile that she returned. "But a man ought to have a funeral befitting his status." She cast her eye over the pitiful number of mourners, the plain coffin and the tattered banner of arms leading the procession. Her father-in-law, the first baron of Slade, had been sent off with forty-eight poor men and women dressed in black to follow the coffin, several mourners, two heralds of arms, a goodly sized banner of arms and four smaller bannerolls. It had been a grand affair that suited the magnificent figure her father-in-law had been. Her husband had cut an equally impressive figure, yet his own brother wouldn't pay any more than he had to. It was a sorry sight.

"He emptied the baronial coffers and left me nothing but debt," John went on haughtily. It was as if pointing out his brother's lack of skill at managing the estate made him feel more superior. "If he wanted a grand funeral, he should have set some coin aside for it."

"Now, John, that's hardly fair. He may not have been much of a thinker—"

"He was as dull-witted as a hammer."

"He was a good man."

John merely grunted. He increased the length of his stride, whether on purpose or by accident, Cat couldn't determine. She had to hurry to keep up or be drenched by the rain, since the servants holding the canopy followed their new master and not their previous master's widow.

Widow. The word slammed into her chest with the force of a fist. She was a widow now, and a childless one at that. She was alone in the world with her own family gone, but luckily still young enough to remarry. Widows had certain rights, thankfully, and a lifelong income from her late husband's estate; but Cat didn't want to move out of Slade Hall until her cottage could be made ready. Hopefully her brother-in-law would allow her to stay until then.

"When can we speak about my future?" she asked, peering up at his stern, heavy-browed profile.

"Now."

"Now? But Slade is being buried as soon as we reach the church."

"What better time to discuss it? I'd rather talk trade than listen to the old vicar drone on."

Trade? Since when was her future a matter of commerce? Her pace slowed but John and the canopy did not. An icy drip fell off the canvas and trickled down her neck into her ruff. She shivered and hurried to catch up, stepping in a puddle that was deeper than it appeared. Water sloshed over the top of her ankle boots and thoroughly wet her hose. She wished she'd worn pattens. 

"And don't call him Slade anymore," John said with an abrupt nod at the coffin winding its way ahead of them up the hill to St. Alban's church. "I am now Lord Slade and you'll address me appropriately."

"I'm going to find it difficult to adjust." She blinked back fresh tears and touched her gloved fingers to her tingling nose. "He may not have been the brightest star in the sky, but he was a good husband. A good man."

"He was a lout and a poor baron. Look what he sank to." He indicated the two pathetic mourners, the tattered banner, the small number of retainers and servants. Cat's heart lurched. She should have insisted on something grander.

"You'd better adjust to life without him, and adjust quickly," he went on. "You've got work to do."

"Pardon? What sort of work?"

"Catching your next husband."

She stumbled and put out a hand to John's—Slade's—arm to steady herself. He snatched it away almost as soon as she regained her footing. The man loathed being touched, something he'd made clear on her wedding day when she'd gone to kiss her new brother-in-law's cheek only to have him lean out of the way.

"I've not even buried my last one!" she protested.

"We don't have the luxury of time. The sooner we make it clear you're available, the better."

We?

Cat bit her lip and managed not to snap back at him. He wasn't a man to trifle with. She had often argued with Stephen, and usually won, and was no stranger to speaking her mind, but something about John's—Slade's—countenance made her hold her tongue. He was in a dark mood today, more so than usual. Perhaps his brother's death had affected him more than he let on. Her heart softened a little.

"It's a shame you're so plain and small," he went on in that tight way he had of speaking. "I hear there are a few earls on the hunt for a new wife, but you're not up to their standards. It'll have to be a baron or knight for you, at best."

Well, of all the ill-mannered things to say to a woman, that was quite possibly the rudest! She may not be the prettiest woman, or have been blessed with a comely figure, but she wasn't ugly. Just plain. It hadn't seemed to worry Stephen too much when he'd chosen her over several other women. Apparently he had admired her gentle nature and sensible manner. On the other hand, he
had
strayed from their bed. Frequently. A gentle nature and sensible manner apparently made for a good wife, but not lover.

"I have the summer cottage," she said, more in an attempt to make herself feel better than remind John that she had an asset to bring to a marriage. "Indeed, I don't have to find a new husband straight away. I can live there until I'm ready." That way she could be out of John's way and live her own peaceful life while she mourned her first husband and carefully chose her second.

He shook his head, spraying droplets of water from the ends of his oily black hair. "You can't. Your charming yet stupid husband sold it."

"He did what!"

"Don't make me repeat it, Cat. The servants are listening."

"But it was my mother's! My dowry!"

"So? He sold it to pay off some such debt. I don't know which one. The paperwork looks as if it were done by a five year-old. If only he'd employed a man of business who hadn't cheated him, he wouldn't have gotten himself buried so deep."

The cottage…gone. The only link to her family, sold off as if it were an excess apple from the orchard. Why had Slade never told her he'd sold it? He'd not once indicated he was in financial difficulty. The man she had trusted to have her best interests at heart had left her vulnerable and poor. John was right, and yet he was not. Stephen was indeed foolish, and it seemed he possessed a heartless streak after all.

Cat would never cry over his death again. She would still miss him, like she missed a misplaced button or the sun on a day when she'd planned to go for a ride, but his loss was an irritation, nothing more. She wouldn't mourn him to any great degree now.

"What am I to do?" she murmured. "My widow's portion…?"

"Is worth nothing, if the estate's income is nothing," John said, speaking with cool disinterest. "You're to come with me to London and find yourself the best husband you can." He looked at her chest. Admittedly her breasts were small, but did he have to wrinkle his nose like that? "I'm afraid you'll have to call on some other womanly virtues. With no money and no connections, you'll have to use what you can. I suggest you take the first offer that comes your way."

Tears sprang to her eyes again, but she dashed them away with the back of her hand. "Why are you being so horrible?"

"I'm not being horrible, Cat, I'm being practical. I can't afford to keep you. Since Stephen made no arrangements for you and I can't send you back to your family, you're now my burden. I want you to become someone else's burden as soon as possible. Do you understand?"

She hated when he spoke to her as if she were a child. She was the same age as him! "Of course I understand," she snapped. Forget being cautious and demure, this was important. "The fact that I am Lady Slade means nothing. You would rather see me sold off like the summer cottage than cost you a single shilling. I suppose if a cruel earl wishes to wed me, it doesn't matter."

"I doubt an earl would be interested, but I follow your gist and the answer is yes. You're in no position to choose. Indeed, you should be thankful for any offers that come your way.
If
they do."

She tried to voice her indignation but all that came forth was a splutter. How could he be so cold? They were brother and sister in the eyes of the law and it was his moral duty to care for her. Did that mean nothing to him?

"Your father was too soft on you, Cat, and my brother too. It has made you a little too willful, if I am honest. It's time you learned some discipline. A hard husband will do you good."

"And if I cannot find a husband at all?" she asked weakly. "Where will I go?"

"I hear the blacksmith needs a new wife to care for his children."

"The smith! But I am Lady Slade! How dare you suggest—"

"Those sorts of airs will not do you any good as a smith's wife."