Too Sinful to Deny: Gothic Love Stories #2

by Ridley, Erica

  A mouth like that and the face of an angel. Evan held her a little closer. “This keeps getting better.”

  “Worse, you mean.” She thrashed to break free from his hold. “Let me go.”

  His arms gripped her tighter. Woman had a death wish. “Flail around like that and you’ll fall on your bruised arse again,” he informed her. “You don’t want that.”

  “You don’t know what I want,” she returned hotly, her entire body trembling.

  He arched his brows and let his gaze travel down to her mouth. His body tightened. He should walk away. He should run away. He should at least stop staring at her lips. “I always know what women want.”

  She started thrashing again.

  He let her fall.

  “Ow!” She stared up at him, mouth agape.

  “See?” He shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to pick her back up. “I knew you wanted down.”

  “You—you—cretin.”

  “And worse.”

  He turned and headed down the beach. He needed to get his mind off the softness of her body and back onto solving his brother’s murder. The unbidden reminder of Timothy’s vacant eyes caused a hitch in Evan’s step. Fingers clenched, he strode faster. Despite their differences, his brother had always been his best friend. Evan would find whoever did this. And exact revenge.

  “Wait. Wait! Where are you going?” The faint sound of footfalls on sand. “Can I come with you?”

  No. Lord no. Not now, not ever. Why was she following him? He did not need this type of distraction, even on the blandest of days. No ties, no expectations, no questions.

  She tugged at his sleeve. Unbelievable. All those warnings, and she still jogged at his side. What had he told Ollie just last night? Wenches were simple. Wenches were perfect. London ladies were an absolute mess.

  Evan stopped. “Woman—”

  “Stanton.” She gave him a suspiciously sunny smile. “Miss Susan Stanton. So pleased to meet you. Oh, and thanks for saving me. Even if you were surly about it.”

  “It’s my nature.” He raked a long glance up and down her frame. Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten ugly in the past few minutes. If anything, the run gave her cheeks a healthy glow and the exertion made her breathing sound like she’d just been—No. He refused to let that image in his mind. For long. “Where are you from, Miss Stanton?”

  “Mayfair. That is to say, London.” She eyed him doubtfully. “Er... if you didn’t know.”

  He chose not to respond to that comment. The only way to get rid of her would be to scare her off, once and for all. Because if she continued throwing herself in his arms... Well, what was a part-time smuggler to do? He couldn’t be held responsible for the aftermath.

  He let his gaze travel down her figure once more. Not quickly, surreptitiously, as he’d done before. Slowly. Enjoying the view. So she’d see him looking—and realize the danger she was in.

  “In this ‘Mayfair,’” he asked softly, “do unmarried young ladies trot off alone with respectable young gentlemen, much less conscienceless blackguards?”

  Color leeched from her once-pink cheeks. Ah. His words made her as uncomfortable as his gaze. He smiled.

  “N-not generally, no.” She glanced behind them at the empty beach and sucked in a shaky breath.

  “Know why that is, Miss Stanton?”

  “I...” She retreated a step. Then two. Then three. “You weren’t meant to notice me behind you.”

  He advanced. “Not notice a beautiful young lady all by her lonesome without a soul watching over her?” He allowed his meaning to sink in, then stepped forward, towering over her, and then lowered his mouth to her ear.

  * * *

  She swallowed nervously, her eyes wide and her body frozen. Except for the pulse pounding wildly at her throat.

  He framed her face with his hands, his ungloved fingers cradling her skull and sinking into the rich softness of her hair. He leaned back down until his mouth was a millimeter from her skin. The unshaven edge of his jawline brushed against the smooth curve of her cheek. She gasped but did not pull away.

  “If that’s what you fancy, Miss Stanton—to experience firsthand the sort of trouble a man like me can bring—then I might have a little time to kill this morning after all.”

  She trembled. “I—I—”

  “Shhh.” He dragged his mouth to her ear. “I’m going to walk down the beach. If you’d like a taste of the kind of trouble I can provide, feel free to follow me again.” He let his lips linger against her cheek. “If you don’t, then I suggest you return to Moonseed Manor while I still find it amusing to allow you to do so.”

  In one fluid movement, he straightened, let go, and faced the opposite direction. Before his enflamed body could talk his brain out of behaving, he strode forward without a backward glance.

  God help them both if she followed.

  Chapter 5

  Susan turned and ran.

  This was a nightmare. For the second time in her life, she’d been discovered whilst spying. Also for the second time in her life, a man’s lips had touched her face. The first such occasion had been that return-to-life-from-drowning incident with the river water and the horrible algae. Since she’d been unconscious, that contact was unavoidable. What did she have to say for herself this time?

  He’d caught her. Figuratively and then literally. But that was no excuse.

  She could accept being an incompetent spy (although of course she wasn’t). She could accept being stuck in Bournemouth a few more days until her money arrived. (Actually... no. That’s why she’d kept following him—in the hopes he’d pass by a carriage she could rent or borrow or steal.)

  But what she could not accept was the notion that Miss Susan Stanton, an accomplished young lady of unimpeachable marriageability, had behaved like a common tart.

  Untenable. She would return to London, to a life of crowds and gaiety and comfort. She would marry a rich, titled aristocrat with a busy social schedule at the first available opportunity. To do so, she had to remain untouched and uncompromised. She knew this. She’d always known this. What the bloody hell had she been thinking, standing cheek-to-cheek with that—that—

  She stopped dead.

  There. Up ahead. An abandoned village.

  Or, most likely, Bournemouth proper. But one could scarce tell the difference. Susan stared, eyes widening in horror. It was worse than she’d dreamed.

  Boxlike structures sprang up along the pale curve of the shore like rotten teeth from a giant’s jaw. Bone-white sand separated the ramshackle contraptions. The red of the rising sun gave the wooden exteriors a blood-tinted glow.

  No posting-house in sight.

  Even if she had a trunk full of gold, how the dickens was she supposed to get back to London with no posting-house from which to rent horses? How was one supposed to escape Bournemouth at all?

  Is Susan Stanton at home?

  Always.

  No. She refused to be stuck here the rest of her life. She would not dally in this miserable hovel a moment longer than necessary. Her carriage driver (God rest his soul) had told her the closest town was Bath, some sixty miles northwest. No matter. She’d walk twice that far if that’s what it took to hire a horse and get home.

  Of course, with a sense of orientation as bad as hers, she probably would have to walk twice as far. At least she had new boots.

  What was that, flickering up ahead? There, in the shadows between the giant’s teeth. Another person! Thank God. Maybe he could direct her away from this macabre village and back to Moonseed Manor.

  “Sir!” she shouted. “Sir, please!”

  He glanced up as if shocked to see her at the perimeter of the village. Or perhaps any inhabitant of this godforsaken countryside would be startled to see a woman garbed in a proper morning dress.

  The man was short and stocky, possessed of a bald pate and an unfortunate ginger-colored beard. He dressed in dull black boots spotted with muck. But he was human and
a local, which meant he could help her get out of there.

  “Sir!” she called again and sprinted in his direction. “Please!”

  When he stepped into the sunlight, his dark form did not get any clearer. His bearded face was as smudged and indistinct as when still in shadow.

  She really needed to take better care of her spectacles.

  He darted toward her so rapidly his feet did not touch the sand. In fact—his legs did not seem to be moving at all. Yet he came ever closer, faster than should be possible.

  Susan slowed down, worried they were about to collide.

  He closed the distance between them.

  She crossed her arms over her face and braced for impact. Her shadow trembled before her on the pink-hued sand.

  Yet, he cast no shadow at all.

  She glanced back up just in time for him to run right into her. Or rather…through her. Her lungs sucked in salty air as a cold, wet breeze blew straight through her bones. She whipped around to face the running man, her heart sputtering in her chest.

  He was gone. The beach was empty. She was alone.

  Susan swallowed and hugged herself tight, arms shaking. There was only one logical explanation for a man to vanish in the breeze after walking through her body. Moonseed Manor wasn’t being haunted after all.

  She was.

  Chapter 6

  Evan stared at the empty captain’s chair in disbelief. Timothy’s body had been right here just yesterday. What the devil was going on?

  First, the pirate ship had mysteriously disappeared from shore and docked itself in the secret cave the crew used to load and unload cargo. Now that Evan had found the ship, Timothy’s corpse had disappeared from the wardroom. How was he supposed to have a burial without a body? Evan made another slow round of the ship.

  No little brother. No crew. No answers.

  What the devil was he to do now? No sense going back to Ollie’s. Whatever secrets that brute knew, he wasn’t telling. Besides, he’d been standing right in front of Evan when the ship decided to mosey down the coast and anchor itself in the hidden cave.

  Evan checked the current log. Empty. No—not empty. A missing page. Damn it.

  He would have to talk to the captain. Except you didn’t find the captain. The captain found you. And without his brother’s body to back up his claims, what precisely was Evan going to say?

  The boat was back, at least. He was slated to sail this Friday. All four of them together—him, Timothy, Red, and Ollie. But they’d be missing one this time. Maybe even more than one, if Red and the rest of the crew didn’t show up either. Hell, someone had to have steered the damn thing and delivered all the cargo. Had to’ve been Red.

  If that drunken sod had the slightest culpability in Timothy’s death, Evan would kill him on sight. That’d leave just him and Ollie to do a four-person job…but vengeance would be well worth pulling a little extra weight. Even if the captain forced them to sail with a pair of scalawags from the other crew. Those cutthroat knaves took untrustworthiness to a hazardous level. Even for pirates.

  First things first: Before he could take care of Timothy’s killer, Evan had to discover the rotter’s identity.

  There was no chance of talking with the captain before midnight Friday when he arrived to give final orders to Evan’s crew. Red, however, was a more predictable sort. If he wasn’t on the sea, he was in the nearest tavern. Evan headed to the gang-board sloping down to the rocky cave floor. After casting a final dark glance toward the frustratingly vacant wardroom, he disembarked the abandoned ship and strode back to Bournemouth.

  At nine o’ clock in the morning, the Shark’s Tooth boasted half a dozen sundry customers in its rank, ill-lit interior.

  Two of the town’s drunkest inhabitants sat beside a barmaid who’d collapsed face-first onto a dirty round table. A flash of white at another man’s throat indicated the town priest sipped his usual whiskey in the far corner.

  The local magistrate leaned against the counter, murmuring to the barman. Probably trying to convince Sully not to open until noon from now on, so as to curb public drunkenness. God, how Evan hated self-righteous toadies who felt compelled to uphold the letter of the law. The magistrate was one of the worst.

  Since Red wasn’t part of this morning’s mix, Evan would’ve turned around and left right then, had Sully not taken that moment to glance up and catch sight of him.

  “Bothwick! Did you br—would you like a whiskey?”

  Evan cringed inwardly. Drunken half-wit had been about to ask if Evan had brought him a new supply of smuggled French brandy. Right in front of the magistrate. Christ. Sully’d get them both hung for treason.

  “Got my own.” Evan patted his chest where spare bullets, not a flask, filled his inside breast pocket.

  The magistrate’s focus remained on the bottles behind the bar.

  “Good Lord.” Sully leaned halfway over the counter. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Sully’s blurted words caused the magistrate to slowly turn around. Evan gritted his teeth but otherwise kept his expression impassive.

  Gordon Forrester’s sanctimonious gaze took in Evan’s sand-specked hair, salt-starched greatcoat, and stockingless legs. He was no doubt wracking his brain to think of a way to turn excessive dishabille into a gaol-worthy offense.

  “Fell off a pier.” Evan flashed Forrester a you-can’t-touch-me smile and settled atop a barstool. “Seen Red lately?”

  “Nah.” Sully poured himself a whiskey. “Been about a week. Don’t know where that good-for-nothing disappears to. Seems every time there’s a new moon, he up and—”

  “Maybe he’s a werewolf,” Evan interrupted. Lord have mercy. How had Sully not realized Red was part of Evan’s crew, and therefore his actions ought to be secret from the magistrate? “Changed my mind. Give me one of those whiskeys.” He turned toward Forrester. “How about you, Judge? Buy you a drink?”

  The magistrate pushed away from the bar with a shake of his head. “Disgusting habit.”

  Of course it was. That was why Evan liked it. He downed his whiskey in one gulp.

  Forrester stood and watched for one long, uncomfortable moment before tipping his hat at Sully and sauntering out the door.

  “What bee’s in his bonnet today?” Evan asked, shoving his empty tumbler toward Sully. The smudged glass stuck to his fingers.

  “Dunno. You’re the one what chased him off.”

  Evan shrugged. “No bigger killjoy at a bar than a teetotaler. Why come in here if he’s not going to drink?”

  “Ain’t the only one not drinking today.” Sully jerked his head toward the rear of the tavern. “New gel’s a peach to look at but hasn’t spent a farthing.”

  Since when did any Bournemouth establishment have new customers?

  Evan turned to take a closer look at what he’d thought was a barmaid passed out on a corner table. The light was too dim to make out much more than her silhouette, but he’d bet a barge full of French brandy he knew the identity of the mystery woman.

  “Why have you been plying her with liquor if she’s not paying?”

  “Haven’t. She came in all white-faced and trembling, and collapsed on the table herself. Been still as a corpse ever since.”

  If Evan hadn’t already known London ladies were both incomprehensible and more trouble than they were worth, those words would’ve convinced him. Sure, he’d given her a hard time earlier today, but it hadn’t been as bad as that.

  “Two whiskeys.”

  Sully poured two healthy shots.

  Evan carried them to the back table. The unsavories looming over the woman’s slumped figure dispersed at the first glance at his expression. Good. He kicked a chair out from the table and plopped down beside her. Jasmine. Definitely his favorite houseguest.

  “Thought I told you not to follow me.”

  Her head came up from the scarred table, but this time her eyes held no fire. They stared through him. As empty as Timothy’s.

  E
van hesitated. Something wasn’t right. He snapped his gaze toward the drunks who’d just quit the table. There were women you could touch, and women you couldn’t. They knew the difference as well as Evan did. If either of the fools had laid a finger on the misplaced debutante, he’d slice off their bollocks.

  Both men’s hands flew into the air, palms out. They shook their heads rapidly, as if reading his mind and disavowing all knowledge of Miss Stanton and her inexplicable condition. Fine.

  “Drink.”

  He’d meant to share the whiskey with her—if he could goad her into trying it at all—but it now appeared to be a medical necessity. He pushed both glasses toward her.

  Her hand shot forward and touched the back of his, then gripped it tight. Her fingertips were colder than the sea. At the contact, her lips trembled and her eyes filled with tears.

  Damn it. He did not do crying females, but he especially did not do publicly crying females.

  “Get up.” He pulled her to her feet. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  Despite his hand at her waist, she half-walked, half-stumbled to the door. Evan cast a murderous glare at the barman.

  “I swear,” Sully stammered nervously. “Nobody touched her, and she didn’t drink a bloody drop.”

  When she swayed on the single step and almost fell sideways into the sand, Evan sighed and swung her small body up and into his arms for the second time that morning. She clung to his neck and trembled. But this time, he doubted it was due to his touch. For now.

  If he knew what was good for them both, he’d march her straight back to Moonseed Manor and lock her in her bedchamber himself.

  Pale blue eyes watched him from behind tear-streaked spectacles. “Where are you taking me?”

  Evan gave up. He never had been one for doing the right thing.

  “My house.”

  Chapter 7