The Sinner Who Seduced Me (31 page)
Read The Sinner Who Seduced Me Online
Authors: Stefanie Sloane
The noise from the fight abovestairs grew louder, the thud of bodies hitting the floor intermingled with muffled shouts and curses.
Durand’s stony façade cracked and he scrubbed a hand over his face. “Come. I’ll not kill you quickly—that would be too merciful.” He walked around the desk, motioning both men toward the door. He waited while Talleyrand opened it. He then shoved the nose of the pistol into James’s back and urged him on. “To the kitchens,” he instructed.
Talleyrand obeyed, walking quickly down the hall. James followed, slowing as they entered the kitchens. Cooks and servants stopped what they were doing to look at the men, though none seemed all that surprised.
They were nearing the back door when James saw his opportunity. A bucket of potato peelings had spilled onto the floor in front of them. Talleyrand delicately avoided the refuse, while James pretended not to see it, stepping directly in the mess. He feigned a slip and pitched backward into Durand, knocking the man and his pistol to the floor.
Durand scrambled for the gun and reached it just as James grabbed it, the two wrestling for control. Durand punched James in the nose with his free hand and attempted to roll away. But James kept hold of the pistol and slammed his forehead against Durand’s. They wrestled, moving closer to the stove, the gun between them.
And then it went off.
James looked down at Durand, the man’s face contorting with pain. He mouthed something that James
could not make out, then his head sagged to the side and he stilled.
The sound of something connecting with metal caught James by surprise and he jumped up, the gun still in his hand.
Talleyrand lay immobile on the floor, the woman from earlier standing over him with a cast-iron pan in her hands. “He was trying to get away. An incompetent lover, that one,” Joëlle explained simply. “Took more of our money than he should have too.”
Agent Martin appeared in the kitchens, followed by two other Corinthians.
“Under control upstairs?” James asked, poking Talleyrand with his foot.
The man groaned.
Thank God
, James thought to himself, knowing Carmichael would have been very disappointed by the untimely death of the Les Moines’s leader. He was looking forward to interrogating him.
“Yes, sir,” Martin answered efficiently.
James nodded then ran full tilt from the room, his strides eating up the distance down the hallway.
“Clarissa!” he shouted, trying each door as he came upon it.
“James!” The scream erupted from the last room on the right.
He didn’t bother with the doorknob. Instead, James kicked the door in and ran for Clarissa and her mother, taking Clarissa in his arms and holding her tight. Her precious body was warm, alive, pressed against his. “Are you two all right?”
Clarissa pulled back and looked into his face. “We are now, my love,” she answered, her palms coming to rest on his chest reverently. “But please,” she added, relief in her voice, “promise me we’ll never be parted again, especially
by lock and key. Too hard on the door and frame, wouldn’t you agree?”
He smiled, a deep, relieved, loving, laughing grin. “I love you.”
“You are our savior,” Isabelle interrupted. “Truly, James.”
Clarissa smiled brightly at her mother. “He is, isn’t he,” she said possessively, beginning to cry as emotions overwhelmed her.
“Always have been,” James added.
“And always will be,” Clarissa confirmed, then tilted her head up to James’s and captured him with a kiss that told him she meant it.
“She’s more beautiful than I remembered,” Carmichael commented as he watched Clarissa sketch her mother. The light through the windows of the front drawing room at 27 Hertford Street in Mayfair, according to Clarissa’s comment only moments before, was perfect. And so she’d taken up her charcoal and drawing paper and set to work, everyone in the room agreeing that an artist’s intuition is never to be ignored.
“Yes, she is,” James agreed. “Funny, that. I thought the very same thing when I first saw her again in St. Michelle’s studio.”
Carmichael nodded. “Lady Westbridge as well.”
“Yes, I agree there too, though my first glimpse of her in France quite frankly stunned me. Those weeks spent with Les Moines left her pale and thin. Since returning to England she’s greatly improved.”
James and Clarissa had decided against telling her mother about the Young Corinthians. She’d been in far too much danger already, and it wasn’t as if it would change what had happened with her husband.
But the day of James and Clarissa’s wedding, Isabelle had summoned James to an antechamber in the church and asked for his forgiveness. Her husband’s infidelity had torn her in two, she’d explained, and she couldn’t let the same thing happen to her daughter. Isabelle had ignored James’s plea that fateful day so long ago and failed to tell Clarissa that he’d come to their home. It
had weighed heavily on her conscience ever since, and now that they’d found their way back to each other, Isabelle couldn’t let another day go by without telling James of her part. Seeing them together, so happy—so complete—had forced her to accept that closing one’s heart to the possibility of sorrow also closed it to the likelihood of love.
The man James had been mere weeks before would have tasted bile in his throat at such a revelation. He would have held tight to his bitterness and told the woman, in so many words, that she deserved to be tortured by her regrets.
But he was no longer that man. When Carmichael had recruited James for the Les Moines assignment, James had suspected it would be the most important case of his career. But he couldn’t have known that it was to be the seminal moment of his life. He’d found himself—after holding on far too long to the man he thought he was. He’d let go and taken a chance. And he’d won.
“You’ve not asked after Talleyrand.”
James felt his jaw threatening to tense and mentally forced himself to relax. “The man deserved to die. Still, I completed my assignment, Carmichael. You have to know that I can no longer serve in the same role—”
“Talleyrand is very valuable, Marlowe.”
James leaned forward in his chair and propped his elbows on his knees. “Do you think he’ll hold up his end of the bargain and help dismantle Les Moines?”
“If we pay him enough, yes, I do. Besides, he’s the only one who can,” Carmichael answered. “You did it, James. You not only completed the assignment, you completed it with more than expected success.”
James looked at Carmichael, and his heart, previously brimming with happiness, tipped over and welled with satisfaction. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Carmichael replied sincerely. “Now,
James, I would be remiss if I did not mention a noteworthy observation I’ve made during my visit today: Marriage seems to agree with you,” Carmichael added, an infinitesimal smile appearing on his lips.
James chuckled, not about to disagree with him. He was, after all, James’s superior. And he was right. “You can’t imagine the fights, Carmichael,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Ah, but the reconciling—well, that makes it all worthwhile.”
“Is that all?”
James fidgeted with one of the ridiculously puffy pillows Clarissa seemed so fond of arranging everywhere in the house. “No,” he admitted sheepishly. “I love her. Always have. Always will. But then, you knew that already, didn’t you, Carmichael?”
“Well, as you know, Marlowe, I’m not one to gloat,” Carmichael began in an even tone, turning his attention back to the ladies. “But, yes, I did.”
James couldn’t help himself. He let out a roar of laughter, garnering the attention of not only Carmichael, but the two women as well.
“You, Marlowe, have never looked happier, truly.”
James clapped Carmichael on the knee, hardly able to suppress the emotions that seemed intent on overtaking him. “I’ve never been better than right now, my good man.”
“It’s beautiful, is it not?” Clarissa lay against James’s chest, the flickering candlelight catching rainbows in the crystals sewn into the bodice of her wedding gown.
James chuckled, his chest hair tickling her cheek. “How long do you plan to leave the gown there—on the chair, displayed like a vase of flowers.”
“Perhaps a year—or two, depending upon a number of factors, which I’ll not bore you with,” she teased, trailing her fingers down his taut stomach to the edge of
the silken bed linens, then slowly walking them back to where she began.
“And you’re absolutely certain you do not want a honeymoon?”
James had asked after a honeymoon since the day he’d proposed. He seemed to feel that he’d failed her in some way by not packing her up and dragging her across several nations, over large bodies of water, and through battlefields.
“James, I do believe that three Channel crossings within weeks of each other is all the travel I can possibly endure at the moment. Perhaps, when we’re eighty and our children have their children—”
“Just how many children?” James interrupted, his interest pleasing Clarissa.
“Four, I believe. Or eight. I cannot decide. Which do you prefer?”
James’s muscles rippled in response to Clarissa’s curious fingers. “They’re both nice, round numbers. Perhaps we should simply go forward with one and then decide?”
“Four it is,” Clarissa declared. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes, when we are eighty and our four children have children of their own, perhaps then we’ll take a tour of the world.”
James sighed. “I can hardly wait until I’m eighty to give you your consolation prize.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Clarissa asked, her curiosity piqued.
“Consolation—you have to know that my not being able to give you a honeymoon has been—”
“Hush.” Clarissa sat up and placed two fingers on his lips. “Not the definition of the word, James. The reason why you cannot wait to give me the prize.”
“Oh,” he answered. “That’s simple enough. He’ll be dead by then.”
A faint scratching sounded at the door between Clarissa and James’s bedchamber, followed quickly by an irritated “Yeow!”
“Did you?” Clarissa exclaimed, her eyes widening with comprehension. “You did not! Did you?”
James smiled wide and pushed Clarissa gently from his side. “Well, if you’re so curious, perhaps you should go and see.”
Clarissa, her glowing skin and beautiful limbs bared for James’s appreciation, leapt from the bed with robust enthusiasm and ran across the room to the door, pulling it wide with all of her might.
“Meow,” Pharaoh said by way of a greeting, rubbing himself about her ankles with obvious feline pleasure.
Clarissa gathered him into her arms and carried him back to the bed. “I must admit, I missed him dreadfully,” she said to her husband, her eyes misty with tears.
“Then you’re happy with your consolation prize?” James asked, clearly quite proud of himself.
Clarissa kissed Pharaoh on the soft, black fur between his ears then set him on top of one of her favorite pillows.
She threw back the coverlet and climbed into the bed, wrapping herself about James’s warm, male form. “Quite so. Shall I tell you how much it pleases me, or would you rather I show you, Mr. Marlowe?”
“For the love of God, please show me, Mrs. Marlowe. Show me now.”
“Pharaoh, close your eyes,” she commanded the cat, then turned back to James, drawing the coverlet over their intertwined bodies, and spending the remainder of the evening showing her husband just how happy he made her.
Junessa Viloria for her continued support and expert eye. Jennifer Schober for her awesome agent skills and general coolness. Franzeca Drouin for ensuring that I don’t make a fool of myself. Lois Dyer for everything. And the Girls for keeping it real.
Read on for an exciting preview
of Stefanie Sloane’s next novel
in her Regency Rogues series
The Saint Who Stole My Heart
Spring 1815
L
ONDON
“Pardon me, my lady, but I think I’m going to be sick.”
Lady Elena Barnes, the daughter of Robert Barnes, the Marquess of Salisbury, had reason to take her maid Rowena seriously. The poor girl had already cast up her accounts three times that day, the carriage ride from Dunwell doing little to ease the agony of Rowena’s sour stomach.
“Right,” Elena said reassuringly, thumping the roof of the conveyance and yelling for the driver to stop.
The carriage jerked to a stop on the perfectly raked gravel drive of Hardwick House. Elena turned the golden door handle and pushed hard.
Rowena dove from her well-appointed seat, landing safely on her feet, and proceeded to vomit into a manicured patch of roses.
Elena rushed out after her, settling her hand at the base of the poor maid’s back. “Oh, Rowena, are you all right?”
“Might I be of assistance?”
Something slithered in Elena’s stomach at the sound of the rich, deep male voice. That, or she’d
managed to secure Rowena’s ailment for herself. “Yes, if you wouldn’t mind,” she began, rubbing Rowena’s back lightly as she turned to look at the servant.
Only it was not the liveried form of a Hardwick House footman that met her gaze. It was Lord Hardwick himself. “My Lord, I beg your pardon.”
Now she remembered who Dashiell Matthews, the Viscount of Hardwick, was.
Adonis
, she thought to herself.
Looking at the man was not unlike what Elena assumed mere mortals would experience when encountering the gods. His hair was quite similar to spun gold. And she’d never been one prone to flights of fancy, but his piercing blue eyes and sculpted cheekbones found Elena peering about for signs that they’d taken a wrong turn and somehow ended up in heaven.
Or Valhalla, if those cheekbones were to be believed.
What is wrong with me
?
“For what, Lady Elena?”
Elena suddenly realized the man was slowly waving his hand in her face. “I’m sorry?”
Lord Hardwick offered her a lop-sided grin. “You asked that I pardon you. I was simply curious as to the offense.”
Oh, God, his mouth. His full, full mouth
.
She shook her head and strained to take in anything but the sight of Lord Hardwick. “For my maid’s … For your rose bush, which will most likely require a serious pruning …” Elena paused, realizing belatedly that, in addition to making no sense at all, she’d also
stopped the carriage nearly a furlong from the home’s front door.
She stared at the line of servants in the distance, all waiting awkwardly to dance attendance on her.
“For the vomit, Lord Hardwick,” she finally ground out, deciding the most direct course was more than likely the best at this point.
Lord Hardwick looked at her, his brow clouding with confusion. “But you’ve not vomited, have you Lady Elena?”
Ah, yes, it was all coming back to her now. Of course, she’d never been privy to the conversations of the more desirable debutantes of her day, but Elena had heard snippets of delicious gossip here and there.
And the whispers about Lord Hardwick claimed that the man was as dim-witted as he was beautiful.
Perhaps even more so, actually.
“No, no I have not, my lord,” Elena replied, releasing Rowena into the care of a footman who’d made his way across the expanse.
Elena almost,
almost
wished Lord Hardwick had not opened his mouth.
“Shall we ride the remaining furlong, Lady Elena?” the viscount asked, pointing to the carriage’s open door. “Seems a waste, after all.”
Now she most certainly wished that the man was mute.
Elena watched as the footman escorted Rowena toward the waiting servants, then turned her attention back to Lord Hardwick. “In the carriage, then?”
“Of course, Lady Elena,” he replied incredulously.
“I’d hardly ask you to sit astride one of your matching blacks.”
She peered deep into his blue eyes, searching for intelligence.
And deeper.
And found nothing.
Oh, God
.
Elena sighed. “Actually, if you would not mind ever so much, I do believe I’d prefer to walk.”
Lord Hardwick shrugged his shoulders and gestured toward the house. “Suit yourself, Lady Elena.”
The two walked in silence to the waiting servants. Lord Hardwick introduced the principal staff in a leisurely manner, finishing with the butler, Bell.
The man bowed politely. “Lady Elena, if you would allow me,” Bell began in a low, firm tone, “may I make the proper introductions?”
The short, round man looked as uncomfortable as Elena felt.
Lord Hardwick laughed. “Hardly necessary, Bell. We met over there, just a moment ago. Couldn’t you see from here?”
Elena looked at Bell with relief. “Yes, Mr. Bell, that would be lovely.”
“Lady Elena Barnes, may I introduce Dashiell Matthews, the Viscount of Hardwick.”
Elena dipped into a tasteful curtsy then offered her hand to the viscount.
His lop-sided grin appeared again, and Elena suddenly realized she felt sorry for the man. It could not be an easy lot in life, his idiocy.
The viscount managed a dignified bow and took her hand in his, placing a chaste kiss across her
knuckles. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Elena,” he pronounced, rising once again and finishing the introduction with a wink.
Elena smiled warmly at the man, much the same way she did every time she encountered Peter Hoskins, a pig farmer who lived not far from Salisbury Manor, her home in Surrey. Some years before, Peter had made the unfortunate mistake of coming between a sizable sow and her offspring. The mother stomped the pig farmer into the mud until he could hardly be found.
He’d never been the same in the head after that, nor would he ever be.
“And yours, Lord Hardwick,” she replied conspiratorially, noting yet again the man’s devastatingly handsome looks.
Such a pity
, she found herself thinking, though she could not imagine why.
Dashiell Matthews, the Viscount of Hardwick, drummed his fingers on the arm of the upholstered chair as he looked about the library. He’d promised to give Lady Elena the grand tour of the massive room. Actually, Bell had offered him up then conveniently disappeared upstairs with the woman in tow.
He couldn’t help but admire the man.
A right, good agent Bell would have made
, Dash thought to himself as he looked about. Literally hundreds of books lined the shelves, the topics they covered as wide as his father’s interests—which were vast, indeed.
Mathematics, religion, astronomy, history—the list went on and on. Dash had always admired his
father’s thirst for knowledge, but his love affair with the mountain of volumes before him? That was something he’d never understood.
Oh, Dash devoured books as voraciously as his father—if not more, when it came to particular areas of interest. But once he’d read a book, he had no need of it any longer, his mind capturing the information so precisely that Dash could conjure up exactly what was printed on any given page at any given time.
“How on earth will you be able to part with them?”
Dash looked to the entryway where Lady Elena stood.
“Easily,” Dash answered, standing and walking to her side.
She nodded in understanding, a small, pitying “Oh” escaping from her lips as she took his offered arm.
Dash fought the urge to add “because I’ve read each and every one—and committed them to memory, no less,” but he didn’t, of course. It was never easy to watch the fruit of his labors blossom so easily, the realization that it was simple enough for people to accept his dim intellect hardly reassuring to his ego.
He led Lady Elena across the room to where the books on mythology were housed. “The Greek gods and such live here,” he explained, pointing to the volumes. “Romulus and Remus and all of that. Father said you were a student of such things?”
Lady Elena patted him gently on the arm before pulling away. “Romulus and Remus are Roman, my
lord,” she gently corrected. “But yes, it’s true. I am a most enthusiastic student.”
Dash watched as the woman reverently ran her fingers over the volumes, landing on a deep blue bound book and carefully pulling it from its place.
Of course, he knew that Romulus and Remus were Roman. But she’d taken the bait, always satisfying when it came to the bluestockings.
And what a bluestocking she was. Her bun was so severe Dash wondered if she was able to actually close her eyes, the tension caused by such a supply of pins surely causing the skin about the sockets pain.
Though the color of the hair imprisoned within the torturous circle was not precisely mud brown, as he’d originally estimated so many years before. Actually, it was closer to a rich sable, he realized, with hints of gold intertwined throughout.
Her face was more fetching than he’d given her credit for as well. He continued to peruse her person as she returned the book to the shelf and walked slowly down the long, carpeted aisle.
Her hair color was reflected in her eyes; her nose was charmingly pert, as was her mouth. Dash paused at her mouth, noting the full, pink lips as she silently read off the titles of books to herself.
She bent to examine the lower row, giving Dash a rather nice view. He could have sworn the woman had been entirely too plump to be fashionable when she came out, but here she was, her deliciously curved backside perfectly complementing two rounded, firm breasts. An hourglass. A wonderfully proportioned hourglass.
Dash was suddenly annoyed. His memory was a
thing of beauty—or so he thought. Of course, Lady Elena’s drab dress, a dull taupe color cut entirely wrong for her figure, was what he’d expected of her.
But the curves? Not at all. Nor the mouth or the silky hair …
“Oh!” Lady Elena exclaimed in a hushed tone, her excited intake of breath pulling Dash from his thoughts.
She rushed toward the end of the aisle, nearly skidding to a halt in front of a glass case situated against the wall.
Dash couldn’t help himself. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and he followed.
“Francois D’Aulaire’s
Greek Mythology,
” Lady Elena whispered, as though speaking a sacred prayer.
Dash moved closer to the case, studying the book. His father must have acquired the volume shortly before his death, its presence wholly surprising. “Have you read it, Lady Elena?” he asked, the delicate scent of a single note flower reaching his nose as he did so.
“Hardly,” she replied, leaning closer to the case. “This volume—the only one still in existence, mind you—was lost for years. Your father was incredibly fortunate to find it, my lord.”
Rose? No, the scent was more complex than that. Lavender? He discreetly breathed in the scent of her, suddenly desperate to identify it.
Gardenia! “Ha,” he said enthusiastically, causing Lady Elena to jump.
“I beg your pardon, my lord?” she asked, looking at him as though he were mad.
Dash checked himself belatedly, straightening his crisp cravat. “Funny that, wouldn’t you agree? My father found a book that so many could not,” he replied, looking at the volume with childlike glee.
“Yes, well,” Lady Elena began, her voice laced with strained patience. “The late Lord Hardwick was not the man who actually found the volume. But we can all be thankful that he had the foresight to provide such an admirable and efficient home for it. Look here,” she paused, gesturing to the case. “See how it is perfectly situated away from the sunlight.”
Dash hardly heard a word the woman said, his focus entirely turned to the quality of her skin, a pleasing flush running from her forehead to the dreadful neckline of her dress.
“Fascinating stuff,” he interrupted, needing to be anywhere but next to Lady Elena. “But I’m afraid I must be off. I’ll leave you to your books, my lady.”
She smiled at him as though he was the village idiot. “Of course, my lord. This must all be terribly boring to you,” she replied, curtsying.
Dash bowed then turned to go.
“Thank you, my lord,” she added. “You’ve no idea what these books mean to me—and my father, of course.”
Dash paused, but did not turn around, fearful that she’d draw him back. “Oh, don’t thank me, Lady Elena. It’s all my father’s doing.”
It was the truth, after all. Though Dash was having a hard time being thankful to his father for anything at the moment.
“I look forward to seeing you at dinner, my lord.”
The woman could not bear to relinquish the last word. “Yes, Lady Elena,” he replied.
“Excellent.”
Christ Almighty
.