Tempted by His Touch: A Limited Edition Boxed Set of Dukes, Rogues, & Alpha Heroes Historical Romance Novels

by Darcy Burke

  Devil take it, he didn’t either.

  “That doesn’t make it right.” He halted her progress down the street, gripping her thin arm. “I’ll pay you back for what that watch costs, on top of what I’ve given you for your help already.”

  “That’s not necessary.” She stiffened against his touch.

  He didn’t release her arm. They stood in the middle of the street, the traffic diverting around them. If he got through to her—well, he didn’t know what he’d do then.

  “I don’t want you to have to pay for my mistakes.” Reaching out with his other hand, Daniel brushed his thumb against her cheek.

  Her eyes closed for a half-second, transfixed by the moment. His breath caught in his throat.

  Her eyes fluttered back open, chocolate abysses deadened to his attempts. Steeled against what she must believe were lies. Maybe he’d never change. Maybe he was a drunk for life, doomed to repeat the same patterns.

  He let out the breath he’d been holding, let it out like he wished he could free himself of doubt. Time flowed once more, rapid and bitter.

  “I’ve paid for your mistakes and I’ll pay for mine.” Her voice was full of resignation.

  He sighed. Poppy had been seduced by a rogue because he hadn’t been there to protect her, and Kate had been tossed into the rookeries as though she were fresh mutton.

  “It shouldn’t have to be that way. Last night, in the wool warehouse—I couldn’t think of anything else other than the fact that you were in danger because of me.” His hand tightened on her arm, holding her close to him.

  She shook her head. The feather stuck into the trim of her gray straw bonnet bobbed too. “Nothing is perfect. For all we know, that man was after me for my own activities. You talk as though things will change because you wish them to. I don’t remember you being that naïve.”

  “It’s not naïve to dream. You used to know that.” He shrugged.

  “Look around you,” she commanded, stepping back from him to motion to the rest of the street. “Does this look like a place of dreams? The man loitering in that doorway there, covered in rags, do you think he cares about your high ideals? No. He wants to take whatever money he can glean from begging to buy enough gin to forget his very existence.”

  Daniel followed her glance to the same beggar he’d seen in the street before. As Kate turned her head to look further down the street, the beggar sneered sinisterly. Warning bells rang in his head as soundly as the old Charley’s time and weather announcement. He couldn’t explain it, this feeling that the vagrant knew something about him, that he had been watching him. Daniel tugged his hat lower on his brow.

  Kate stepped out into the street. As she did, a vendor moving the last of his merchandise out of the square bumped into her, jolting her forward.

  She fell into Daniel, face pressed against the metal buttons of his greatcoat. The bonnet perched on her head flopped askew. Her scent filled his nostrils, crisp and spicy. He breathed in deep, for she was the air surrounding him and all he needed to survive.

  He had to keep her close to him.

  That knowledge burned through his mind, even as all around them Shadwell High Street ebbed and flowed with nighttime activity. In their current stance, they could easily be trampled as the remaining vendors finished boxing up their stands from the day’s market.

  “We should go.” He took her hand in his once more, fully expecting her to protest.

  “Right.” She blinked twice, looking dazed.

  He tugged on her hand, leading her to a less crowded side-street near Surin. They crossed underneath the front awning of a three-story tenement house, with balconies spanning the second and third levels. A sheet hung from the rafters, once clean but now coated in soot drifting from the chimney. The decaying roof was patched in sections with swollen boards. Two young children played in the courtyard, their bare feet sinking in the sludge of snow and muck. Next to them, a goat chewed on a scrap of fabric.

  Pulling Kate into a darkened doorway off to the side of the house, Daniel released her hand with chagrin. The dying winter light barely penetrated the cavern of brick and grime, casting her features in a gloomy gray. She looked tired, gaunt.

  “I told you that you were wrong.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Papa was a good Christian man. Good Christian men don’t go digging up dead bodies in graveyards to sell for dissection.”

  Good Christian men do a lot of things you wouldn’t expect.

  “It is too soon to make assumptions,” he said vaguely. “We don’t have all the facts.”

  Kate pushed off from the wall she leaned against, coming to stand directly in front of him. “I’ve had enough of people harboring grudges for my father’s company. He didn’t do anything wrong. Investments sour all the time. It is the nature of the business.”

  “I am not endeavoring to—” He stopped, realized what she’d said. “Other people with grudges? Who are you talking about?”

  “Did you think I came to Ratcliffe because I wanted to?” She let out a laugh, harsh to his ears. “Had I other options, I would have taken them in an instant. So many people lost their jobs when Emporia collapsed. No one wanted to help the daughter of the man who had ruined them.”

  “What about your old friends? Diana, Justine—what happened to them?” He treaded dangerous territory by inquiring into her past, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking.

  He remembered the two girls being Kate’s constant companions, the daughters of Emporia’s department heads. One a blonde, one a redhead—the warehouse laborers had called them the Terrible Three.

  Her jaw clenched. “Mr. Balfour was furious over the loss of his job. He forbade Justine from associating with me because of Papa—as if it were Papa’s fault he’d gotten sick and the investments didn’t pan out.”

  “So she simply stopped speaking to you?” Outrage crept into his voice, when he had no right to be judgmental of Justine. Hadn’t he done the same by not communicating with Kate?

  “Yes.” She leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. The admission seemed to pain her, and he wanted to drag her closer to him, to tell her that he’d never leave her again.

  She wouldn’t have to be alone.

  But he didn’t. He simply waited for her to open her eyes again, for her breath to return to normal rhythms before he made his final inquiry. “And Diana?”

  “Diana married and moved to Yorkshire. I couldn’t afford the mail coach ticket.” Her gaze drifted toward her feet and stayed, unwilling to meet his questioning eyes.

  He vaguely recalled how she and Diana had been delighted to become engaged around the same time.

  He’d ruined everything.

  “You should have had the big wedding, from the announcing of the banns to the celebratory breakfast to everything in between.”

  She gave a half-hearted shrug. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Did you ever write to Diana?” He hated the thought of her cut away from her past, whether or not she had this new set of thieving acquaintances.

  Kate shook her head. “I didn’t want her to see me like this. I didn’t want you to see me like this.” She mumbled the last part, so he was not certain he’d heard her right. She didn’t look up at him.

  His voice softened. He leaned in closer to her, arm outstretched against the wall for balance. “You haven’t anything to be ashamed of with me.”

  A gentle flush spread across her cheeks but she remained silent. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, the smallest hint of a smile appearing. He seized onto that smile and the hope it presented.

  “Please, Katiebelle, if you take nothing else from this time spent with me, know that you needn’t feel shame,” he pleaded. He was emboldened enough to slide his hand forward, his fingers curled under her chin, bringing her eyes up to meet his own. “You are bold and beautiful and I would not change a single thing about you.”

  The flush deepened, spreading from her cheeks to her pert nose.
“Such pretty words,” she mused, tucking a loose russet curl behind her ear.

  He didn’t release her chin, wanting to hold on to her forever, keep her in this moment where she was not fighting him. They were simply a man and a woman together, as they should have been all along.

  “Pretty words for a pretty girl.” The line sounded trite even to him, but her smile grew so he would not doubt the prowess of the tried and true. He grinned back at her. “Though I’ll admit I’m not entirely fond of your flintlock. It is far too often pointed in my direction.”

  His joke seemed to jar her. She ducked underneath his arm. She stood in the alley, as if torn—not wanting to leave, yet not willing to stay in such close confines with him.

  “I held you at gunpoint once,” she said. “In the alley, when you first confronted me. It was justified.”

  He couldn’t help himself. He threw his head back and laughed. That startled her.

  Her brows furrowed quizzically. “I can’t see what is so amusing about my gun. I have been told I am quite intimidating.”

  “Oh no, you most certainly are.” He supposed his agreement was less convincing when he grinned like a buffoon. “But you must admit it’s absurd. Once you and I were lovers, and now you greet with me a gun up my nose. We are a pair, you and I.”

  “A match made in hell, I’d venture.” She tried to play off the comment with a smirk, but he saw through her.

  Once we were perfect together.

  She returned to the task at hand. “I assume now we try and find the lightskirt Cyrus mentioned.”

  “Yes, but I thought we’d visit Atlas to see if he knows of Sally Fletcher. There must be hundreds of prostitutes on Jacob’s Island alone. I don’t fancy checking each brothel.” Daniel frowned.

  Kate arched a brow. “A man who does not want to go to a brothel. I never thought it possible.” She turned away from him, about to head down the alley.

  His hand snaked out, grabbing hold of her wrist and spinning her back to him. Her eyes widened, alarmed by the sudden change in his demeanor. He closed the distance between them, backing her up against the wall.

  His taller frame loomed over hers, leveraging his weight to keep her trapped, hands placed on either side of her head. His hips pressed into hers, his legs spread so that she fit in between his thighs.

  God’s balls, this was how they should always be.

  She shivered. Her eyes were locked on his lips.

  “Listen to me,” he said, his breath hot upon her cheek. “You are the only woman I need. Every woman I’ve ever been with—they were substitutes for you. Nobody’s ever read me like you could. I’ve made every mistake a man can make, I know that.”

  She leaned her head back against the wall, exposing the long, kissable line of her neck. “I can’t be that woman I was with you anymore. I know you want me to, and maybe a part of me wants to go back, but this can’t work.”

  “Why not?” He kissed her neck, right underneath her left ear, continued to nuzzle her down the column of her throat.

  “I can’t—” Her protest broke off, turning into a little moan of pleasure.

  “Maybe you don’t want to forgive me right now. Maybe I have to work for it, earn your trust back.” He nipped at her ear and she shuddered, pliant against him. “I promise you, love, I’ll convince you I’m worth the trouble if it’s the last thing I do.”

  He laid a kiss upon her cheek, his whiskered chin scratching against her soft skin for a second before he pulled away. “Come, let’s get you a carriage home.”

  ***

  That night, when the clock struck three in the morning, Kate perched on a barstool at the Three Boars. She should be sleeping, but her mind was far too alert for rest. She would not think of Daniel, would not ponder the delicious way his lips glided against her skin, and she definitely would not remember the thrill of being between his thighs once more.

  Except in not thinking about it, she somehow managed to recreate every single bloody moment in vivid detail. She needed a drink. Or four.

  “He’s here.” Jane came to her side of the bar, a glass of crank already in hand for her. She slid the glass across the bar-top.

  “Who’s here?” Kate croaked. She checked her hair to make sure her headband held back her coiffure nicely.

  Jane cracked a smile. “Owen.”

  Kate’s breath released in one loud exhale. What was that niggling feeling in her gut? It could not be disappointment at Owen arriving instead of Daniel. No, Daniel was nothing but trouble. She should be overjoyed to have a break from him.

  Too slowly, she composed her face, plastering on a smile.

  “Somehow I don’t think that is who you expected,” Jane remarked. “But whether or not you want him, he is heading this way.”

  Kate hazarded a glance over her shoulder. Owen strode toward them, shoulders back, tight beige pantaloons stretched across lean, Corinthian legs. He wore a black and silver striped neckcloth, a silver waistcoat with a starched white shirt, and a black jacket wide and oval in cut. In this room of unwashed drunks and scoundrels, Owen was ripped from the pages of The Gentleman’s Magazine of Fashion.

  She thought of Daniel’s worn coat, his scuffed low-boots and cheap trousers. When had such tattered apparel begun to appeal to her? She ran a hand down her patched gold skirt, smoothing out the wrinkles.

  Owen slid into the stool next to her without asking if it was occupied; he assumed she’d saved it for him all along. He winked at Jane, who simply stared back at him, humorless. Owen wasn’t Chapman Street and Jane had little patience for thieves outside of the gang. She stood with one hand on her hip.

  He angled his stool closer to Kate. “Three threads and a refill for Miss Morgan.”

  “Miss Morgan drinks gin,” Jane said testily, moving to pour a glass of half-double ale, to mix with stale and double beer.

  “Bloody wretched stuff,” Owen pronounced. “But if she prefers it, then sky blue it is.”

  Jane harrumphed. She pushed Owen’s tankard to him, along with another glass of gin for Kate. A customer called for her attention.

  When Jane’s back was turned, Owen leaned closer, his knee brushing against Kate’s. Leather and musk filled her nose. His hand came to rest on the back of her stool. In the dim light of the public house, she doubted anyone else could see his fingers.

  Why shouldn’t she let him touch her? Hitherto, he had been a gentleman. They had a sort of understanding, given their mutual interests. She was no untouched virgin, and it had been a long time. Too long.

  “I have something for you.” His voice rumbled in her ear, smooth without the hint of a brogue or East London sloppiness. She had heard a prostitute compare his voice to melted caramel.

  “It’s something shiny.” He pulled back from her, hunting in the pocket of his coat until he found the small bit of gold. Triumphantly, he dropped it on the counter, the ring twinkling.

  She picked it up and stood, holding the ring up to the lamp that hung from the bar. In her palm, it felt right. The oil light tinged the gold with a fiery glow, highlighting the two outstretched hands braced around a heart. A crown perched on top of the heart.

  Her stomach plummeted. There could be a thousand rings like this in England, it didn’t mean—she ran her thumb across the inner ridge of the ring.

  Devil take it.

  There was a deep scratch in the gold, confirming what she already knew. The ring was hers.

  Or rather, it had been hers, once. Three years ago.

  “Where did you get this?” Her voice came out strangled, her breath in tiny pants. She held the ring so tight that blotches of red appeared between her thumb and forefinger.

  Owen watched her, confusion flickering in his deep brown eyes. His chiseled cheekbones appeared even more statuesque when cast with concern. “My man cloyed it off some toff on King’s Street. Standard bungnipping, a dumb bob cull who couldn’t watch his pockets and so my man got lucky.” He stood, coming up behind her. He was shorter than Daniel, a
lmost her exact height, and so his chin fitted over her shoulder. “Do you like it? If it isn’t up to snuff, I can get you something else.”

  “No, it’s fine.” She closed her hand over the ring.

  “Are you quite certain?” Owen reached forward, his hand covering hers.

  “Quite.” Her nails bit into her palm, so tightly latched was her hand over the ring. She knew a thief like Owen could lift it from her otherwise, and damn it all, she wasn’t going to part with this ring again. “It’s lovely. I don’t have the funds on hand for it now, but I think I could get you a good price—”

  Owen held up a hand, cutting her off. “Kate,” he said quietly, his breath a whisper on her cheek. “I meant it as a gift, not something for you to fence.”

  “Oh.” She wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. Could she accept a gift from Owen in good conscience?

  And then there was Daniel, who had given her this bloody ring as a token of his love for her. The ring had been passed down through generations of his family. It was an embodiment of what it meant to be an O’Reilly, and the life she should have had. A life that she now knew she couldn’t have.

  Bollocks.

  She must have appeared startled, for Owen sat back down. “As a thank you for all the work you’ve done for me,” he clarified. “The crown made me think of you. You’re very regal, Kate. A man could fall in love with you and you’d hold his heart right there in your pretty hands.”

  His gaze softened as he reached for her hand again. His larger palm covered hers, yet no flurry of emotion filled her. “I think we would make sense together, but I won’t push you. Keep the ring. I wanted you to have something that would remind you of me.” He leaned in closer, locking eyes with her and ignoring Jane’s glare from across the bar.

  He released her hand. “If in time that ring puts thoughts in your head, you know where to find me.”

  Chapter Eight