Seven Nights of Sin: Seven Sensuous Stories by Bestselling Historical Romance Authors

by Victoria Vane

Their youngest brother Oliver was on the Victorious.

  “The report came in from a French vessel, claiming they’d last seen the Victorious floundering off Cape Horn. That’s all we know.”

  “How long ago?

  “Early December.”

  “Three months and no other news? Have you told Mother?”

  “No. Adam doesn’t want me to.” And their other brother Nicolas was in Canada hunting. By the time he returned to London, they would know the truth. As for the rest of the family, they needed more information before everyone grieved unnecessarily.

  “We don’t know for certain,” Adam said. “There is no reason to alarm everyone.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Roman said, “My thought was that I should travel to Brest and contact the captain of this French vessel. Home Office said the ship will be in port until mid-March. Maybe there are details we don’t know yet.”

  “What about the Home Office?” Joshua asked.

  “They’ll do the same thing I am doing, only slower.”

  “Jessum Hightower commanded that ship,” Adam said.

  “I know,” Roman said, swallowing back the last of his drink. “I plan to see Shelene when I get back to London. She’ll need to know and I don’t intend for her to hear it from the Home Office.”

  “Maybe that would be better,” Joshua said.

  Roman chest expanded as he took a deep breath. “Maybe so but if she finds out I knew and didn’t tell her…”

  “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Joshua added, fully understanding Roman’s emotion.

  Roman stared at his empty glass. “The carriage is waiting and I need to get back to London tonight.”

  “I’ll explain to Mother,” Adam said. “Let us know. Good or bad—whatever you find out.”

  * * * * *

  Joshua made his way back to bed and slid in beside his naked wife. For tonight he had to put his worry behind him. Tonight he was married—a strange and exhilarating state, he found. But strangely right. He could not think of a time when he’d been more content.

  If only he knew Oliver was save.

  Oliver had always lived dangerously, and Joshua supposed there were worse ways to die than doing what it was you wanted to do. Roman would find out the truth and until then Joshua would pray.

  Adam would tell Eloisa just as Joshua would share the news with Char. They would form a close-knit bulwark, shoring up each other’s hopes against the possibility Oliver really was dead.

  “Joshua?” Char said as she glanced toward him, a questioning look in her gaze.

  He leaned in and kissed her. “Have I told you today that I love you?”

  “What time is it?”

  “After midnight.”

  “Then you haven’t told me.”

  “I love you.”

  “You can tell me more than once a day.”

  “And so I shall.”

  He smiled, doubly thankful he’d found Char just when he would need her most.

  He shifted, positioning himself over her and settled between her thighs. He’d traveled the world looking for home and he’d found his with Char—a warm, welcoming place in the arms of the woman of his dreams.

  The End

  About Eliza Lloyd

  Eliza Lloyd currently has several novels published with Ellora’s Cave in their 19th Century/Legend historical line including several series: Wicked Affairs, Mad Duchesses and Birds of Paradise and a new series, Cold Play, in the Breathless line. Additionally, she has a new series of self-published books titled Body of Knowledge, stories with a lighter edge and para/proto sci-fi twist along with a contemporary series Far From Home.

  Eliza thinks romance writing is nearly as good as the real thing. Given her choice of professions, she would have preferred to be a 19th century archeologist, but she is perfectly happy living in the 21st century and comfortably writing about such romantic but inconceivably inconvenient times instead. She also writes contemporaries, romantic suspense and the occasional sci-fi when plotting and characterization don’t matter and invisibility does.

  Eliza wrote her first romance novel after years of yearning. She finally woke up one day and asked, “Why the heck am I not writing?”

  She enjoys traveling, movies, everyone else’s novels and a good meal out with friends on Saturday night. Her greatest flaw is that she believes there is such a thing as true love. Please don’t tell her otherwise.

  Other Works By Eliza Lloyd

  Historical

  Wicked Affairs Series

  Wicked Desires, Book One

  Wicked Temptation, Book Two

  Wicked Lord, Book Three

  Wicked Secrets, Book Four

  Wicked Indiscretions, Book Five

  Wicked Siren, Book Six

  Birds of Paradise Series

  Another Lover

  The Darkness in the Marquess of Dane

  Mad Duchesses (series complete)

  One Last Night

  From Now On

  Age of Innocence

  The Day After

  Mad Duchesses Box Set (coming December 1, 2015, ebook and print)

  The Curse of the Weatherby Ball

  An Occasion to Sin

  An Inadvisable Wager (TBA)

  The Infamous Forresters

  All A Mistress Wants (also part of the Wanton Christmas Wishes anthology)

  My Dear Mr. Forrester (part of the Seven Nights of Sin anthology, release March 2016)

  Imogene Farrell series

  Imogene (November 2015)

  Jack’s Hellion (December 2015)

  The Frenchman’s Widow (December 2015)

  Lady Prescott’s Confidential Matter (January 2016)

  Body of Knowledge series

  The Timeless Earl

  The All-Seeing Eye

  The Trouble With Scots

  A Sleight of Hand (TBA)

  Contemporary Romantic Suspense

  Cold Play series

  Best Served Cold

  On Thin Ice

  Play It Cool

  Contemporary

  Far From Home series

  Lessons in Mountain Climbing

  Lessons in Fly Fishing

  Lessons in Horse Whispering (TBA)

  PLEASURE HOUSE BALL Suzi Love

  Love revealed at a courtesan’s ball.

  Brenton, Lord Mallory, attends his first courtesan’s ball in ten years to appease his concerned friends, though he’d rather stay home and read to his motherless daughters. To protect his friend, Lady Lillian Armstrong, Brenton hides her in a wardrobe, but his resistance, and years of self-imposed celibacy, shatters when her soft curves press against him.

  Though mortified that Brenton unmasked her at the scandalous ball, Lillian doesn’t regret their night together. But will the object of her girlish adoration still treat her as his best friend’s little sister, or will he now see her as a mature and willing woman?

  CHAPTER ONE

  1820 Blackstone House, twenty miles south of London.

  BRENTON, EARL MALLORY, secreted himself behind a life-sized statue of a naked man and willed himself to stay as still as the statue shielding him so he remained invisible to those on the dance floor. Hidden from the two hundred guests spilling through the various rooms Lord Browning had opened for the Pleasure House Ball.

  Clearly he’d suffered a moment of insanity when he’d yielded to his friend’s emotional pleas to accompany him to this ball, because Brent had no intention of participating in the adventurous romps and or indulging in the hedonistic behavior that made these debauched balls famous amongst his British peers. Within a few hours, most of the attendees would be drunk on spiked punch and the illusion of sexual freedom, passed out on the floor, or claiming one of the dozens of upstairs bedchambers.

  Michael, Viscount Laidley and Brent’s distant cousin, may be the best friend any man could wish for but, like Brent’s family, Michael fretted that Brent would never agree to reenter society. Hence
Michael’s determination to push Brent into attending this ball, despite him having little interest in watching a parade of ladies of the night select and seduce their next patron. Keeping a mistress was the last thing Brent was considering. If his often-expressed wish to be left in peace was respected by his friends or family, Brent would happily remain in seclusion at his estate and thus avoid mixing socially with his peers, the vast majority of whom had enjoyed sullying his wife’s reputation and had ridiculed Brent’s defense of Marion.

  Four years ago, he’d lost all respect for a large portion of the upper echelons of London’s society when spiteful gossip about his wife’s affairs had shattered their marriage and destroyed Brent’s taste for a hectic social life. Nothing had happened since to convince him that the morals of Britain’s rich and titled had improved and he’d enjoy spending more time with them. If anything, the newspaper reports confirmed, each and every day, that London was a cesspool of rumors and that not one of those gossip-mongers cared a whit if their gossip was true or if their hatefulness drove people to drink and despair.

  Michael’s face appeared around the statue’s well-endowed groin, and his cousin pointed at the marble man’s appendage and laughed. ‘Hoping the ladies will compare your equipment favorably to his if you stand beside him?’

  Brent snorted. Although he’d dug in his heels and resisted Michael’s efforts to encourage him to attend this ball, his cousin knew him well and could always tease Brent into seeing the humorous side of situations. With a nod of thanks, Brent accepted a glass of tepid champagne from his friend, took a sip, and choked. ‘Damn it, Michael, I’ll need something stronger than this horse piss if I’m to last longer than an hour in this chaos.’

  Michael laughed. ‘Drink up, my friend, because it’s either warm bubbles or the house punch, which Browning will have laced with anything and everything he could beg, borrow, or steal.’

  Brent shuddered. ‘For God’s sake, Michael, why are we wasting our time here? I’ve no intention of engaging a mistress and, if you really have your eye on one of the duke’s daughters, you’ll want to keep your distance from any of these…ladies.’ He waved towards the hundred or more females who continuously giggled and squealed, while prancing around the dance floor in a startlingly colorful display, as if their next meal was entirely dependent upon outshining every other female and being the first to catch the eye of a wealthy man. ‘They’re on the prowl for a rich protector and you, Laidley, are known to be one of the richest viscounts in Britain. And as your father’s health deteriorates every week, you’ll soon inherit his titles and estates. Making you an even juicier target.’

  They watched in crowd in companionable silence. Women, and girls, spent a fortune primping and preening for this ball, as their working life and future survival relied on catching the eye of a gentleman and encouraging him to spend his fat purse in support of a mistress.

  ‘Michael, please may we leave? I’ve a superb brandy at my townhouse, aged for twenty years, and smuggled into the country at high cost.’

  ‘Huh! You mean given to you, the local landowner, in exchange for turning a blind eye to the vast amount of smuggling that happens on your beaches.’

  Brent shrugged. ‘Little point trying to stop smuggling in Cornwall. They’ve been making their living that way for centuries. Besides, the wars are finally over and embargoes are being lifted. I’ll soon be purchasing my brand legitimately.’

  ‘Your local smugglers won’t like losing one of their best customers.’

  ‘I'm trying to convince them that they could earn a living in legal ways, but it's an uphill battle. Smuggling is in their blood, so it’s hard to...’

  He sniffed, and sniffed again. Shook his head. No, no. Ridiculous to imagine that the wearer of that country orchard scent was Lillian. Bloody hell, perhaps his family’s worst fears had become a reality and he’d morphed from a recluse into a madman. Brent’s passions, and his minor obsession with waterways and farming, distressed his mother and sisters because they believed, wrongly, that his idiosyncrasies indicated a slide into madness, especially after they’d discovered that he held lengthy discussions on sheep herding and field drainage with Lillian, his neighbor and lifelong friend.

  Those conversations happened as he rode around his estate, alone, and while Lady Lillian Armstrong was living in London with her family. Her forced presence in the metropolis was a concession to her father, the duke, who didn’t believe that any daughter of his should hide in the country while the scandalmongers, generally peers of lesser status than his own distinguished family, questioned whether Lillian was blameless over the betting and horse race that caused her husband’s demise.

  Even as children, Lillian had known more about land and farming than Brent had absorbed from the thick agricultural volumes his father had insisted he read. Though Brent wasn’t so far lost to sanity that he expected an illusory Lillian to reply, talking through farm improvements with someone who understood the rainfall and flooding in this part of England helped him visualize drainage problems, and satisfied his need to discuss Cornwall with someone locally bred and who loved the area as much as Brent did. If Margaret, his quick witted daughter, had grasped the benefits of his one-sided conversations with Lillian, surely his family, as adults, could see how it helped farm planning and staved off loneliness. Margaret’s constant chatter engaged Brent for a large slice of every day, but a child’s chatter was a long way from having a satisfying adult conversation.

  Now though, his olfactory senses were conjuring her up in person, or at least sniffing out some unknown woman who favored the citrus scents that surrounded Lillian like a cloud, and alerted everyone to her presence.

  Michael stared at him and snorted. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ His friend looking amused, or perhaps bemused.

  Brent shook his head again. ‘Must be imagining things. I know only one person who wears that perfume and she mixes it herself, her own blend of citrus fruits. That woman is a lady and a duke’s daughter and certainly wouldn't be attending a courtesan’s ball.’

  ‘Good God! You don’t mean−’ As Michael was the only family member Brent had allowed stay for more than two nights at his estate, Lillian was well known to him, and she’d once given Michael a tour of her greenhouse and her distilling room and shown him the ingredients for her citrus scent.

  ‘Shush. Don't even mention her name in this licentious crowd.’ He looked around but thankfully didn't glimpse anyone who might be the woman they whispered about. ‘She's very protective of her private recipe. She wouldn't give it to anyone except one of her sisters. Perhaps one of them has escaped their parents and somehow ventured into this ball. If that's the case, Lillian will be furious when she finds out. As the older sister, she goes out of her way to protect the younger girls, though I’ve always likened that to locking the stable door after the horses have bolted. Her sisters… how shall I put it? They have a tendency to be behave in a reckless manner, no doubt because they often stayed with Lillian during her marriage. They had a ring side seat to every sordid thing that happened to Lillian at the hand of her husband. Geoffrey Armstrong, as we well know, wasn’t a saint. Far from it. If even half the rumors we heard were true, Geoffrey took everything to dangerous extremes. Those ridiculous bets he was notorious for writing in the club betting books. Whoring in every bizarre brothel in London. Mark my words, Lillian’s sisters will have had their eyes opened living in that household.’

  Brenton swore under his breath. ‘Damnation! You know what this means? I'm going to have to investigate that citrus scent. Find whoever is wearing a fragrance containing oranges and lemons. I’d like to pretend my senses were mistaken and I didn’t suspect one of the duke’s girls is here and chancing being exposed. Lillian will shoot me if I don’t at least look, and perhaps stop whichever sister it is from falling into disgrace.’

  Michael threw back his head and laughed. ‘Sounds simple. Push your way through this crowd and sniff every lady you pass. Can’t wait to see what ha
ppens after you’ve stirred up half the women, and men, in that drunken crowd.’

  Brenton groaned. ‘What else can I do? Lillian will think me an appalling friend if I don’t search, especially if one of Lillian's sisters has arrived at Browning’s without an invitation. Or been coerced into coming by some rogue who may threaten to expose her in return for favors. Or even worse, the lady might be mistaken for a courtesan. If one of Lillian’s family members is in trouble, I duty bound to save her.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Mallory the savior of women and their reputations, even Marion the cheat.’

  ‘I’m going to look anyway. If I locate one of the girls, I must at least see that she leaves, immediately. Get her out of here unnoticed and return her home safely.’

  ‘Which one could possibly be?’ Michael peered out at dense crowd, as if willing one of the Mitchell sisters to rip off her mask and wave it above her head and give them a better chance to recognize her. ‘Surely they’ve more sense than to venture into this debauchery, and I’d like to believe that no gentleman would bring an innocent lady here.’

  ‘Candace is the most likely. She's next oldest after Lillian and has a very inquisitive mind. Always asking me difficult questions. Has reformist ideas on the way she, and all women, should be treated. But whichever sister it is, her presence at this ball is unacceptable. Whoever it is, she needs to leave immediately.’

  ‘Yes.’ Michael grimaced. ‘The duke will explode if he hears that one of his precious girls is here. Heaven help any man who had the stupidity to escort one of them.’

  ‘This crowd loves gossip more than champagne, so if Candace is recognized, word will spread faster than a grass fire in dry weather.’