Sweetest Little Sin

by Christine Wells

  Jardine followed them, cursing, all the way back to Radleigh’s house. The notion that leaped to his mind was scarcely tenable, yet what other explanation could there be? Did Radleigh intend to force Louisa to marry him? Was this vicar complicit in the plan?

  When Jardine checked Louisa’s room, she wasn’t there, although she’d pulled the curtains around her bed so that no one could tell she was missing just by looking through the peephole.

  Dammit! Where could she be?

  He shouldn’t have left her alone, even for a second, out there in the dark. Someone must have been watching, but who?

  Panic rising, he’d searched the house but not found a trace of her. Finally, he asked at the stables and heard the strange tale of Louisa going off in a cart with Radleigh’s secretary and an unknown woman. They’d headed in the direction of the village.

  The only establishment open at this hour was the Bird in Hand. Before he’d had a chance to ask for Louisa, he’d caught sight of Faulkner in the taproom and collared him.

  Now, he glanced at the head of operations, who remained expressionless, as always. He stabbed a finger at him. “I hold you responsible for this. Lady Louisa’s missing, and Radleigh came in last night covered in blood.”

  “You would be unwise to leap to conclusions on that score,” said Faulkner. “She’s a resourceful woman. Perhaps she’s doing a little digging of her own. Perhaps you don’t give her sufficient credit for taking care of herself.”

  “And perhaps you would like me to slowly disembowel you with a fruit knife,” snarled Jardine. “She is a gently bred female and you were totally out of order sending her into Radleigh’s sphere. You will help me find her, or by God, you’ll wish you were—”

  He stopped. His eyes narrowed. The near-feral side of his nature prowled very close to the surface. Faulkner knew something. He could smell it. “Where is she?”

  Faulkner snorted, shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know?”

  Jardine sniffed out a hint of uncertainty. Silkily, he said, “Do you know how I operate in the field, Faulkner?”

  “Can’t imagine.”

  “If I have to kill, the kill is always quick and clean and silent. But sometimes . . . Sometimes the slow, inexorable infliction of pain is necessary, isn’t it, to extract information? I think this might be one of those occasions.”

  A flicker of emotion shook Faulkner’s stern features. “You forget who you’re talking to, Jardine. Your position would not save you if you harmed me.”

  “And nothing on this earth will save you if you have caused harm to one hair on that lady’s head.”

  Jardine lunged for Faulkner, who put up his hands. “All right, all right! She is upstairs, in my bedchamber.”

  “What?”

  “Tending to one of my operatives.” Faulkner waved a hand, his face ashen. “Go up, go up. It’s the second floor, first on the right.”

  Jardine took the stairs, two at a time, and kicked open Faulkner’s door.

  A girl with tangled blond hair lay on the bed. She looked vaguely familiar, and her injuries made his stomach rise up, not with revulsion, but fear. That animal.

  He moved toward the bed. Ordinarily, he’d have more compassion, but he couldn’t afford delay. He touched her hand, then squeezed it gently until her good eye opened a crack. Her head tossed a little, and he had to repeat his question twice.

  “Where is Louisa?”

  Her torn lips moved silently, then came a scrape of sound. “Radleigh . . . took her.”

  “Christ!” He turned to go, but her hand shot out to grab his wrist. He looked back.

  “Smith. Smith’s here.”

  The effort seemed to have taken all her strength. She was white to the lips, and her good eye fluttered closed.

  No more. Jardine charged downstairs to Faulkner. “Louisa’s not there. You tell me where she is, old man, or—”

  The genuine shock on Faulkner’s face stopped him. “But . . .” Faulkner kneaded his wiry eyebrows with a thumb and forefinger, then looked up at Jardine. “Dear God. She wanted a pistol—”

  “Where would Radleigh take her?” Jardine rapped out the words.

  Mutely, Faulkner shook his head.

  “You are a dead man, Faulkner.”

  Jardine was gone on the words.

  Nineteen

  LOUISA woke with a painful throb in the back of her head that was so severe, darkness threatened to overtake her once more. Tears gathered in her eyes as the motion of the carriage she rode in exacerbated the pain. The scant light that filtered into the vehicle hurt her eyes, and the image of Radleigh sitting opposite her blurred and swayed.

  Radleigh.

  It took all her strength to muster the will. She opened her mouth and screamed, and the sound tore into her skull like hot shards of glass.

  Nausea welled, threatened to rise. She clamped her mouth shut and breathed in and out deeply through her nose to quell the sick feeling. She would not cast up her accounts in front of him.

  “There’s no one to hear you.” Amused, Radleigh surveyed her critically. “Otherwise I’d have made sure you were gagged.”

  Her wrists were bound. He’d left her feet free, but in soft slippers she couldn’t do much with those.

  Radleigh’s slow, wide smile made her stomach churn anew.

  “Saunders has been very sly, hasn’t he, my dear? I must say, I never knew he had it in him. He was very loyal to you for a time. But pain, I find, makes most men weaken. Very soon, they can’t tell you what they know fast enough. Eventually, they betray everything they hold dear.” His smile grew. “It makes women do all sorts of interesting things. As you will see.”

  She thought of those locks of hair, and of Harriet. The damage he’d done to Harriet’s body would heal, albeit leaving scars. But the nightmare of enduring what Harriet had endured . . .

  Panic all but choked her. She couldn’t. She’d do anything to avoid that fate.

  Yet, the only knowledge she could offer Radleigh in return for her freedom was that she’d been working for Faulkner, that Harriet had been working for him also, that Jardine wanted that list of names on the government’s behalf. That her brother’s name would be among those listed.

  Betraying any one of those people was out of the question.

  Will you still think that when you are cut to ribbons, lying in your own blood?

  Through stiff lips, she forced herself to ask, “What do you mean to do with me?”

  The carriage slowed and swept around a bend. The hard hazel eyes glinted.

  “Why, Lady Louisa, I mean to marry you. What else?”

  Oh God. But she would not show him fear. Pointedly, she looked down at her bound hands. “I regret to say that I believe we should not suit.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “Do you know, I’m beginning to think you’re wrong about that.”

  “You’ll never get away with it. No clergyman would marry an unwilling bride.”

  A cynical expression fell over Radleigh’s features. “How odd that I needed only to travel to the next village to find just such a cleric.”

  He patted his pocket. “I have the special license right here.”

  Desperate, she licked her lips. “I shall make an outcry. One of your guests will come to my aid.”

  “Unfortunately, a rumored outbreak of typhus in the village has sent my guests fleeing for the hills and my servants hurrying home to their families. There will be no one in my house except you and me, the vicar, and the witnesses we need for the ceremony.”

  He flicked a glance over her. “A pity you are so shabbily dressed for your wedding day, my dear, but it cannot be helped.”

  She’d worn a simple dimity gown and a straw bonnet when she’d wed Jardine, and he hadn’t cared a button.

  She curled her lip. “You are so fastidious? I wonder that you could bear to be seen with such a rag-tail specimen as I.”

  He waved a careless hand. “It’s a closed carriage, after all.”
/>
  A sense of unreality shimmered around her. He couldn’t get away with this. He was mad.

  The suspicion that Radleigh truly was unhinged and not simply evil crept into her brain. Such a wedding as he proposed would never stand up to challenge given Radleigh’s coercion and her prior marriage to Jardine, but legal challenges took time. One day as Radleigh’s wife would be one day too many.

  “My brother is a duke. He will never take your word or the word of a corrupt clergyman or a hundred witnesses over mine. He’ll move heaven and earth to sunder this marriage. He’ll destroy you.” If Jardine didn’t beat Max to it.

  Radleigh’s smile tightened. Her logic made some impression, then. To any but the most irrational mind, it must.

  Clearly, he’d been caught unawares by this latest development with Harriet and had made his plans hastily. He’d thought he had time on his side, but now that Louisa had seen his handiwork, there was no point in continuing to woo her.

  His alternative scheme was flawed. He was off balance, and although that made him more dangerous, it also made him more vulnerable.

  This marriage was vitally important to Radleigh. How could she use that?

  Louisa stiffened. She could bargain to get that list.

  She licked her lips. “Perhaps we might come to an arrangement.”

  They lurched over a rut in the road. Radleigh gave a faint smile, spread his arms along the top of his seat. “You are in no position to bargain.”

  “Oh, but I think I am.” She tried to give him a relaxed smile, but she wasn’t sure if she succeeded. “I cannot see this marriage will work the way you want it to unless you have a quiescent wife. And it so happens that you hold a certain piece of paper which is of great interest to me.”

  His head jerked up. So he hadn’t guessed why she’d betrothed herself to him. He didn’t know of her connection with Faulkner, then.

  “For that list,” she continued, “I would be prepared to wed you.”

  Shock flared in his eyes. “I’ve rarely heard of such altruism,” he drawled. “Who told you about this document?”

  It was easy to tell half-truths convincingly. “Your latest victim managed to tell me. She was looking for the list when you caught her, you see.”

  A gleam came into his eye. He crossed his ankles. “Was she, indeed? It seems everyone is after that precious document.” He fingered his mouth a little, thoughtfully. “I should have killed her, of course. But that damned busy-body must needs spoil my fun.”

  No doubt he meant Saunders. How had the secretary managed to make him stop?

  With heavy irony, Louisa said, “She might yet die of her wounds, if that’s any consolation.”

  “Well, that is something,” Radleigh admitted.

  She couldn’t quite believe she was having this conversation. As long as he wants me as his wife, he won’t hurt me. She held fast to that thought.

  “Do you agree to my terms?”

  He sighed. “Oh, very well. I agree to your proposal, Lady Louisa. I’d shake hands on it, but . . .” He indicated her bindings with an airy wave of his hand and laughed.

  Perhaps she wouldn’t wait for Jardine to take Radleigh into custody. Perhaps she’d shoot the blackguard herself.

  “A pity I sent Beth and all my guests away,” he mused.

  “We could have made quite an occasion of it. However, now that I have your agreement, you will have the opportunity to rest this evening and make yourself presentable. I shall content myself with anticipating our wedding night.”

  Louisa barely suppressed a shudder. She certainly would shoot him if he tried to lay a finger on her with amorous intent.

  The carriage slowed and finally came to a stop. Between her teeth, she said, “Perhaps you ought to untie me if you wish me to look like a willing bride.”

  Laughing, he did so, not troubling to be gentle. She hissed with the sting of small nicks from his knife as he sawed through her bonds. Eventually, the ropes fell away and Radleigh opened the carriage door and got out, leaving Louisa chafing her wrists. Even through gloves, the rope had burned.

  Though it took a great force of will to allow Radleigh to touch her after all she’d seen last night, she gave him her hand and alighted.

  He kept her hand and kissed it with gallantry that would have been romantic coming from another man. Thank goodness her glove stood between his lips and her bare skin. She thought of the pistol under her bed. If he came near her tonight . . .

  “One more condition,” she said. “I don’t wish to see you until the wedding tomorrow.”

  “You are a coy damsel, aren’t you? Very well, then. I suppose I might curb my impatience for twenty-four hours if that is your wish.” Spreading his hands, he added, “You see how well we will deal together, my love? How accommodating I can be? I trust you won’t mind if I lock your bedchamber door.”

  She swallowed, then managed to say lightly, “Not at all. Until tomorrow, then.”

  He smiled into her eyes. “Ah, but the wait will be an eternity.”

  RADLEIGH had been right. The wait was an eternity.

  Louisa slept for some hours, the weariness of her body finally overtaking her spirit. She woke to the fading light, wondering where Jardine could be. She hoped he was safe. Part of her longed for him, yet part of her wanted him to stay away and not disrupt her plans.

  Apparently, not all of the servants had left their posts due to the typhus rumor, or some had returned upon finding that it was untrue. Merry came in shortly before the dinner hour to ask Louisa what she needed.

  According to the maid, Radleigh had left the house and was not expected to return for dinner.

  Merry gazed at her with sympathy at such shabby treatment by her prospective spouse. Louisa could hardly restrain a skip of joy.

  “A quiet night, I think.” She ordered a bath and a dinner tray to be brought to her room.

  The bath was pure, unadulterated heaven. A Chinese screen blocked the view from the peephole, in case Radleigh returned unexpectedly.

  Louisa trailed a hand through the water and watched the drips fall from her fingertips. She turned her head to speak to Merry. “Thank you. I can manage for myself now. Lay out my night rail, please, and then you may retire.”

  The door soon closed behind the maid, and Louisa sank deeper into the steaming water.

  The lavender scent she’d poured in soothed and calmed her a little. She closed her eyes, and her aches loudly voiced their presence in her joints and muscles. She massaged them, kneading deeply with her fingertips. She made herself concentrate on the physical, every sensation, every twinge, every slow release of pain.

  Worries and doubts clawed at her mind, but for this brief space, she refused to allow them purchase. She needed calm and rest to face the following day.

  The water temperature had dropped a little. Louisa was in that languorous state where getting out of the bath seemed far too much effort, while staying in the gradually cooling water would spoil the entire effect.

  A scrape of sound made her eyes snap open, to find the candlelight snuffed, the room plunged into darkness. She gasped as two hands shoved under arms and plucked her from the bath as if she weighed no more than a child’s doll.

  “Damn you, Louisa.” The soft growl was all she heard before a savage, beautiful mouth found hers.

  I thought you’d never come. The bleat of her little girl self drowned in a flood of pleasure. He filled her senses, beat like a drum in her heart, throbbed in her blood.

  His arms enfolded her, and the damp chill down her back was a sharp contrast to the furnace inside her, to the heat of his mouth and hands.

  He feasted on her, claimed her mouth as he’d long ago taken her heart. She gave him back everything with equal force, slid one hand up to his nape and urged him to delve harder, farther.

  He kept kissing her as he palmed her breasts, kneaded her peaked nipples, caressed and traced his fingertips over them until excitement snapped and fizzed through her bloodstream.
/>
  She groaned softly as his mouth replaced his fingers. His hands slid down to hold her hips firmly, forcing her to surrender to this delicious assault. He gave no quarter, drove her into a frenzy of desire.

  Between her thighs, sensation heated and pooled, intensifying to a sweet ache. This was heavenly, sublime, but it wasn’t enough. When he touched her there, it wasn’t enough. He went to his knees, put his mouth on her, licked into her, and no, it wasn’t enough, wasn’t . . .

  She shuddered, her climax powerful, overwhelming, rocking her body. And he was merciless, prolonging the agony when she begged him to stop, sending her over again.

  He let her go, briefly, to shuck his clothes. She turned from him, panting, clutching at the edge of the bed to steady herself.

  She felt his presence behind her, solid and silent. His flesh touched hers as he bent over her. She felt the warmth of his breath in her ear, the faint roughness of the hair on his chest brush her back. The smooth, incendiary heat of his skin, his erection pressing against her. The strength in his hands as he gripped her hips, silently urged her to climb on the bed.

  She crawled over the coverlet and would have turned, but he stayed her, pulling back a little so that she supported herself with her elbows, her rump high, presented to him.

  In the darkness, he couldn’t see her, but she felt vulnerable all the same. She twisted a little and gave a soft cry of protest, but he held her there, without speaking, waiting for her submission.

  “Jardine,” she whispered, but one hand covered her mouth while the other parted her thighs a little wider, then spread the folds between her legs, caressing, exploring with gentle, insistent fingertips.

  The tip of his member nudged into her, and she moaned, forgetting her dignity, opening her mouth against his hand, feeling the heat and wetness of her own harsh breathing.

  He eased into her, letting her feel every slow, hard inch. She moaned again and licked the hand that covered her mouth, grazed the flesh of his palm with her teeth.

  His agonized groan in response made her bold. She squeezed him with her inner muscles, longing to take more of him, while she laved his hand with luxurious abandon.