The Lady's Guard (Sinful Brides Book 3)

by Christi Caldwell

  OTHER TITLES BY CHRISTI CALDWELL

  Sinful Brides

  The Rogue’s Wager

  The Scoundrel’s Honor

  The Theodosia Sword

  Only for His Lady

  Heart of a Scandal

  In Need of a Knight

  Schooling the Duke

  Heart of a Duke

  In Need of a Knight

  For Love of the Duke

  More Than a Duke

  The Love of a Rogue

  Loved by a Duke

  To Love a Lord

  The Heart of a Scoundrel

  To Wed His Christmas Lady

  To Trust a Rogue

  The Lure of a Rake

  To Woo a Widow

  To Redeem a Rake

  One Winter with a Baron

  To Enchant a Wicked Duke

  Lords of Honor

  Seduced by a Lady’s Heart

  Captivated by a Lady’s Charm

  Rescued by a Lady’s Love

  Tempted by a Lady’s Smile

  Scandalous Seasons

  Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride

  Never Courted, Suddenly Wed

  Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous

  Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love

  A Marquess for Christmas

  Once a Wallflower, at Last His Love

  Danby

  A Season of Hope

  Winning a Lady’s Heart

  Brethren of the Lords

  My Lady of Deception

  Nonfiction

  Uninterrupted Joy

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 Christi Caldwell

  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, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477848920

  ISBN-10: 1477848924

  Cover design by Michael Rehder

  Cover photography by PeriodImages.com

  To Rory

  Every day I stand in awe of your resilience, courage, and strength in the face of adversity. I am so very lucky to be your mama.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  London, England

  Spring 1822

  Biting the inside of her cheek, Lady Diana Verney kept her gaze trained forward and continued walking.

  She didn’t want to be here.

  It was not the stench of decay and death that hung heavy in the air that repelled her, but rather—fear.

  As a pockmarked attendant led her through the wide corridors of Bedlam, silence reigned. Their footsteps echoed eerily off the whitewashed walls.

  There is nothing to be afraid of. It is not as though there are souls streaking these halls, wailing with their own madness . . .

  An endless scream sounded from deep within the old hospital, kicking her heart into a frenzied rhythm. Diana quickened her steps, those rapid strides setting her skirts dancing wildly about her ankles. It spoke to the hell of this place that she’d take her chances with the burly guard against the distant sounds of agony pealing around the halls.

  After a long, winding journey, the man stopped alongside a nondescript wood door, nicked and marked, showing its age. It was just a wood panel, and yet Diana stared at it, transfixed. How very different this slab of oak was from the ornate, carved doorways in her family’s many residences.

  “Ya’ve ten minutes, my lady,” he ordered, bringing her back to the moment.

  Ten minutes. Coward that she was, Diana didn’t even want one minute.

  And it did not have anything to do with the fact that if she was discovered in this very place, she would be ruined. Diana had been ruined long before this moment.

  Nor was it fear for her reputation that kept Diana frozen.

  It was an altogether different fear. One that could come only from catching a glimpse into your future. Given the one awaiting Diana, she wanted to flee. She wanted to run as far and as fast as her legs could carry her until the building, the woman inside, and all of it just faded to a distant memory that belonged to someone else.

  Fingers shaking, Diana stuffed the handkerchief inside her cloak and pressed her palms against her skirts.

  It is time.

  Battling back her panic, Diana managed to nod once.

  The servant pushed the door open, and immediately the scent of feces and urine slapped at her face, burning her nose. She gagged and yanked out a kerchief, pressing it to her nose.

  The old guard chuckled.

  She’ll end up locked away . . . just like her mother . . . just like her mother.

  Diana’s fingers twitched with the need to clamp her hands over her ears and blot out those whispered words from gossips all over London.

  It took a moment for Diana’s eyes to adjust to the darkened space. Not a sconce or otherwise strategically placed candle lit the windowless cell.

  “What do you want?”

  That harsh voice, familiar and yet not, rasped around the cramped chambers. Diana searched for the owner of it. Her heart lurched.

  Her mother, the once regal, proud duchess, sat in a corner of the small cell. With her knees drawn tight to her chest and hair hanging greasy and unkempt around her back, she bore no hint of the woman she’d once been.

  The all-powerful, leading hostess of London had been reduced to this animalistic creature curled in the corner.

  With fingers that shook, Diana pushed her hood back.

  “Diana?” The duchess struggled to her feet and took a lurching step forward. She stumbled and then crawled over like a wounded dog.

  Emotion clogged Diana’s throat at seeing the shell she’d become. “M-Mother,” she greeted, taking a hesitant step forward.

  “Diana,” the duchess whispered. The stench of sweat and her unwashed body filled Diana’s nostrils. She choked on it, hating herself for noticing, hating herself for caring. In the safety of Diana’s sheltered existence, it had been so very easy to hate her mother for her crimes. Only to find herself humbled and hurt by her mother’s suffering.

  “She came.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Guilt and regret made those words come out hoarsened. She’d spent days working up the courage to come to this place. In the end she’d come because this was the woman who’d given her life and she’d owed her a visit. Now, seeing her again, sadness weighted that sense of obligation. Diana stretched a hand out, and her mother immediately slipped dirt-stained fingers into her own. She stared down
at her mother’s jagged nails. Her skin was coarse and callused against Diana’s previously immaculate glove. The juxtaposition of hand and glove filled her with another wave of sorrow. How quickly a person went from living to . . . this.

  “She is here,” the duchess whispered. “She’s returned.”

  Is this what a life of solitariness did to a person? Where one carried on as though speaking to oneself?

  “I am here.” Diana gave her hand a slight squeeze. “I’m sorry I did not come soon—”

  “Are you a duchess?” her mother entreated, releasing Diana’s hands. She grabbed her daughter. “Tell me you’re a duchess.” Ragged nails bit painfully through the fabric and into Diana’s arms.

  This is what she’d said?

  The note smuggled from Bedlam into Diana’s hands had not been a need to see her only daughter or to express regret or shame for what she’d done, but to probe Diana on her married state? A vicious pain stabbed at her breast. “Mother?” she asked cautiously. For the whole of Diana’s life, her mother had hung to a hope that Diana would wed the Duke of Somerset’s son and heir, Lord Westfield. She’d been so determined to see that match made, she’d tried to orchestrate the murder of Lord Westfield’s true love—Diana’s half sister. It had driven her outside these walls and by her questioning consumed her even within them.

  “Lord Westfield,” her mother said, with an eerie normality to her tone at odds with her vacant eyes.

  “Mother,” Diana said slowly. “Remember, Lord Westfield married Helena.” Please show remorse. Please demonstrate shame and horror and guilt for what you attempted to do.

  Her mother went as motionless as those macabre statues that lined the steps of the hospital. “Helena?” she parroted, as though she’d never before heard the name. The name of a woman she’d sold to a brute in the street and then tried to have killed by that same man years later. Her mother cocked her head at an unnatural angle. Then a mad glimmer lit her eyes. “But is she not dead?” the duchess whispered. She shot dirt-stained fingers out and gripped Diana hard by her cloak. Dragging her close with a surprising strength, Mother shook her. “Tell me she is dead. Tell me it was not for naught and that you are to be the future duchess. Then it will be all right. A debt paid.”

  Her stomach roiling with nausea, Diana wrenched away from the madwoman who’d given birth to her. She stumbled back, knocking against the thin metal bed with stained white sheets. “I am no duchess,” she said on a breathless exhale. “Helena and Lord Westfield are married.”

  Her mother grabbed strands of hair and pulled. “No. No. No,” she moaned and began to pace the cramped quarters. Then she whipped her head up. The seeds of her hatred and madness glimmered in her eyes. “Payment is due. Must pay. Must pay. Must pay.” While the mad duchess muttered and mumbled to herself, Diana slinked slowly away.

  She’d come here desperately hoping to see a scrap of good in her mother. Needing to see it. For both selfish and unselfish reasons. But there was no goodness left in her. Mayhap there never had been.

  As she rambled on, Diana inched closer to the door, taking a step away. Away from this woman who’d given her life . . . and who’d also attempted to take away life. Two of them. Diana’s half brother and half sister.

  Diana gave a quick rap, welcoming the uncertainty posed by the guard who stood in wait over the madwoman now prattling and giggling to herself.

  The door opened.

  “Diana?” her mother cried, as Diana stepped out into the hall. She quickened her steps, not allowing herself to look back. Not allowing herself to look in the other cells that had been stirred to life.

  Diana stumbled, tripping over herself in her bid for escape. Her body shook. This is my future. The pleading patients’ screams rose, bloodcurdling and desperate. Diana’s breath came in ragged little pants as she hurried onward to freedom.

  Heart pounding in her ears, she sprinted down the steps. Holding her hood in place, she bolted across the street, her eyes fixed on the hackney that marked her path to freedom. She staggered to a stop.

  Out of breath from her exertions, she drew great, heaping gasps of air into her lungs. Moments later her driver handed her up into the carriage, drawing her away from Bedlam and the horrors someday awaiting her there.

  Diana let her head fall back on the squabs.

  I am safe.

  Chapter 1

  St. Giles

  London, England

  Spring 1823

  Niall Marksman, the most lethal fighter in the Dials, hadn’t come into his ruthless surname by coincidence.

  A former guttersnipe turned proprietor, and head guard at the Hell and Sin Club, he had picked his name with the same methodical precision he had picked the pockets of fancy lords and ladies.

  When one was the baseborn brat of a cheap London whore, whelped in the streets and turned over to a thug, one was afforded certain rights and responsibilities.

  Picking one’s name fell into the first category.

  Shaping oneself into the merciless, unapologetic fighter of the underbelly fell into the latter.

  Kill or be killed. These words, etched in his flesh and in his mind, had served as the basis of his rotted existence. That mark burned through the fabric of his Dupioni silk shirt.

  Seated in the far corner of the Devil’s Den, Niall made a show of drinking from his full tankard of ale. All the while he surveyed the enemy’s surroundings. Niall was many things: a bastard. A former pickpocket and murderer. But he wasn’t a fool. He knew better than to step inside the enemy’s lair and sip his spirits. The pungent hint of vinegar burned his nose, speaking to the dregs who ran this hell. It also spoke to how vastly differently Niall and his brothers ruled their gaming empire at the Hell and Sin.

  Niall scraped his gaze over the crowded hell, inventorying floors. His eyes missed nothing, from the lax guards, busy eyeing the prostitutes, to the deft-handed dealers skimming from the bottom of the decks. The lords who’d recently begun to frequent these hells were too in their cups and too arrogant to see they were being fleeced by the man whose establishment they frequented. And the guards were too damned stupid to see they’d allowed the enemy within their midst.

  Even through the din of the club, a loud buzz went up.

  Niall’s every muscle thrummed to life. He worked his gaze over the floor. Searching, seeking. And then finding—Broderick Killoran. The ruthless enemy who’d nearly killed the wife of his brother, Ryker Black, and who’d infiltrated the Hell and Sin. A golden-haired devil, Killoran, in his vibrant green attire better suited to a fancy lord, strolled through his club, lifting his hand in greeting to his noble patrons, while bypassing the sailors and street toughs who’d built up his fortune.

  A stinging hatred iced Niall’s veins, and the fighter who lived inside him screamed to be set free. To storm the floors and tear the bastard apart. But as a street tough, Niall had been schooled on the valuable lesson of patience. So, he remained frozen, the brim of his hat pulled low over his face, as he watched Killoran’s every move. The bastard’s lazy steps were so full of cocksure arrogance, Niall grinned around the rim of his tankard.

  He lay in wait until the moment Killoran started for the back entrance of his club. As soon as he’d passed, Niall set his drink down and came stealthily to his feet. “Lovely evening, is it not, Killoran?”

  The proprietor spun around with a lack of finesse that would have earned him a caning at Diggory’s savage hands. He felt a rush of satisfaction at the man’s ashen hue.

  Donning the same lethal smile he’d worn when he’d killed to survive, Niall touched his brim in greeting. “Killoran.”

  The owner of the Devil’s Den briefly flicked his gaze about. Indecision raged in his eyes. Another baseborn brat reared by Mac Diggory, Killoran would appreciate how damaging this moment was. To have one’s enemy slip inside so easily, for a confrontation, was a mark of a person’s weakness. In a world where people looked to you for protection, one had to be above reproach.

&nb
sp; Which I haven’t been . . . First there had been the infiltration of the private suites, and then Penelope’s almost murder. That tattoo on Niall’s chest throbbed with the life lesson handed down.

  Killoran quickly regained control of his emotions. The other man’s lips formed a grim line. “Marksman.” To falter only weakened one. It was a lesson this man would know. “Are things so dire at your own club that you’d seek out work here?”

  Niall chuckled.

  “What do you want?” Killoran demanded.

  “I don’t intend to have this conversation in the middle of your gaming floor with your henchmen about.” Niall slipped his jacket open, revealing the gun at his fingertips.

  Two street toughs born to darkness and mentored by the king of evil, they now wrestled for supremacy, and Niall would sell his already blackened soul to the Devil ten times over before he allowed this man to defeat him.

  Kill or be killed . . .

  It thundered around his mind as real now as when his mentor had first placed a dagger in Niall’s hand and ordered him to murder. His insides knotted as he fought the pull of memories.

  “Brodie! Where in blazes are you? I told you, you were needed abovestairs. Ophelia and Gert—oh, excuse me.”

  Both men looked to the bespectacled girl. The child couldn’t be more than fourteen years. Slender as every last waif in the streets, the only thing that set her apart from St. Giles was the fine fabric of her satin gown. A gown that spoke to her elevated station inside this hell.

  “Go abovestairs now, Cleo,” Killoran said with a succinctness that roused a scowl from the girl.

  Niall watched on as he was dealt the trump card.

  Killoran noted Niall’s focus and swiftly moved himself between Niall and the girl. Murder raged in his eyes. Of course, he wanted to end Niall. It was in their blood. It was part of the fabric of who they were and could not be divorced from their worthless lives.

  But everyone had a vulnerability. The girl and the Devil’s Den indicated two for Killoran.

  Tension snapped off the proprietor’s tall frame. “I’ll join you shortly,” he pledged.

  “You said that before,” she snapped. The odd girl jerked her chin at Niall. “Who is this?”

  “Not now, Cleo.”