Never Dare a Wicked Earl

by Renee Ann Miller

  “Westfield, I tell you m-my sister wouldn’t take lodging at any of them.”

  He stepped forward and slammed his fisted hand on the man’s desk.

  Swallowing, Kent grabbed his pen and frantically jotted addresses down. When done, he handed Hayden the paper.

  Damnation, the man was a bloody slumlord, no better than Crossingham or any of the other men who housed the poor in substandard ratholes.

  He noted the Little Marlie Row address halfway down the list, the same address where he and Trimble had found Sophia, where that monster Beckett had taken her. His breath seized in his lungs.

  He jabbed his finger at the paper. “This is yours?” he asked, his voice raw, incredulous.

  Kent stared at where he pointed, and then shook his head. “No, I shouldn’t have written that one. Sold it a couple of months ago to a chap called—”

  “Beckett?”

  Kent’s eyes grew wide. “Y-yes. How’d you know?”

  “Does Adele know him?”

  “I don’t believe so. The man’s a c-common thug. Deals in opium down in Spitalfields and Whitechapel.”

  Uttering a curse, Hayden raced from the room.

  As the hackney made its way to the East End, dread filled Hayden’s mind drawing him near the edge of hopelessness.

  Please, God, let Sophia be safe.

  * * *

  As soon as Adele Fontaine’s carriage turned away from Brook Street, Sophia realized something was amiss. “Madam, I . . .”

  Grinning, Adele withdrew a pistol from beneath her skirts.

  Sophia’s heart pounded in her chest. “I don’t understand.”

  “No?” Adele’s green eyes narrowed. “He doesn’t love you.”

  Suddenly, Sophia recalled where she’d seen Adele. Edith’s fundraiser. The woman Hayden had appeared displeased to see.

  Adele smiled. Then, as though delighted with some humorous joke, she giggled and burst into euphoric laughter. “I know why Hayden didn’t tell the police I shot him. My buffoon of a brother said it was because Hayden didn’t want the incident played out in the newspapers, but the truth is Hayden loves me. I’m sure he didn’t want me sent away.”

  A chill ran up Sophia’s spine. This woman had shot Hayden. Adele Fontaine was mad. Sophia peered out the side window. They were in the East End, traveling on Whitechapel High Street.

  The woman’s laughter ceased. The carriage interior grew quiet. A fine sheen of perspiration grew on Adele’s creamy skin and the pistol began to tremble. Adele made a noise like a wounded animal and pressed a palm to her stomach while beads of sweat trickled down the side of the woman’s pale face.

  “Mrs. Fontaine, you are not well. Will you allow my employer, Dr. Trimble, to examine you? He could give you something to alleviate your obvious distress.”

  The morose expression on Adele’s face cleared, and she gave another discordant laugh. “You’d favor that, wouldn’t you? If you think I’ll be locked away in some asylum run by religious zealots and moral reformers, it is you who is insane. Bad enough my brother hired that Mr. Finnegan to watch me. I don’t need a caretaker, and Finnegan learned that the hard way. He won’t be bothering anyone else. Ever.”

  My God . . . “Did you—”

  “Be quiet!” Adele rubbed her temple. “My head is pounding and your voice nauseates me. How poor Hayden tolerates it is beyond me.”

  “I—”

  Adele leaned forward and pressed the pistol to Sophia’s chest. “One more word from you and I shall immediately do Hayden the favor of disposing of you.”

  The carriage rocked to a stop and swayed as the driver jumped down from his perch. The door opened, and Sophia recognized the archway that led to Little Marlie Row. She swallowed the thickness in her throat. So her abduction had not been some random twist of fate. Adele had orchestrated it.

  “Out,” the woman snapped.

  After descending the carriage, Adele jabbed the muzzle into Sophia’s back, and they moved toward the entrance.

  When Beckett had forced her in there, the gloom of evening had marred the complete bleakness and dissolution of the narrow street. But she recalled the unworldly stench oozing from the brick arch, proclaiming it one of London’s portals to hell, if not hell itself.

  A young boy, in tattered clothing, ran up to them and held out his dirty palm. “Penny, mum?”

  Adele’s wet breath puffed against Sophia’s neck. “I’d shoot the child just as easily as spit on him, so I advise you not to say a word to anyone.”

  Even though the air was cold and damp, sweat trickled down Sophia’s spine. She shook her head at the child and continued walking.

  “You know where we are going, don’t you?”

  Sophia nodded and walked toward the green blistered door of Number Five.

  Once inside, they moved into a room on the second floor. Sophia cast a quick look at the lone window in the bleak space. Fighting the nausea threatening to overwhelm her, she strode to the windowed wall.

  The unhinged woman’s bizarre behavior suddenly intensified. She ranted unintelligibly and paced. With her back pressed against the wall, Sophia slid closer to the window. She froze as Adele ceased her manic movements to cast a contemptuous look at her.

  Sophia tried to hold her expression unfathomable. The woman appeared to garner a great deal of malicious pleasure whenever Sophia showed fear. Adele moved to the only table in the sparsely furnished room and lifted one of the amber bottles marked CHLORODYNE. The vessels of opium elixir appeared empty. Nevertheless, every few minutes Adele picked one up, brought it to her lips, and then slammed it down. Without warning, Adele hurled a bottle. It ricocheted off the wall, nearly hitting Sophia before it skittered across the floor.

  Don’t react. Don’t react. She prayed the woman wouldn’t notice her knees shook or that she used the wall for support.

  Bang. A noise like the front door crashing inward echoed from downstairs.

  Adele spun toward the sound.

  “Adele, are you here?” Hayden called out, a frantic tone in his voice.

  “Yes, I’m here!” Adele rushed to the room’s threshold. “Hayden, you aren’t angry, are you? Of course not. I know you don’t love her!” She turned to Sophia, triumph burning in her eyes.

  Fast footfalls raced up the stairs. Hayden came into view at the end of the long corridor. Her husband, usually so in control, looked as pale as a marble statue.

  “Let her go, Adele. Then you and I can go to France together. Wouldn’t you like that?” With a discreet tip of his hand, he motioned Sophia to the window.

  Sophia nodded and inched closer to the glass panes. A lean-to abutted the back of the building, its roof no more than three feet below the sill.

  “Paris?” Adele stared at him.

  “Yes.” He took a single step forward.

  “If she’s dead, you can marry me.” Adele turned and aimed the gun at Sophia.

  “Adele!” Hayden screamed, drawing her attention back to him. “You are angry at me, not her. If you wish to shoot someone, shoot me.”

  Shoot him? Sophia’s heart raced. “No,” she cried out.

  “Shut up.” Adele lifted the gun and pointed it at Hayden. “You love her?”

  “No, never.” Hayden crept closer to Adele with each syllable he spoke. “Just you. Come to me.”

  The gun in Adele’s hand wavered.

  Quietly Sophia opened the sash and flung first one leg, then the other out the window. Hands gripping the sill, she lowered herself onto the structure below. She couldn’t leave Hayden with Adele. The lunatic had shot him once, she would do it again. If she called to Adele—got her to come to the window, Hayden could seize the madwoman from behind.

  With her body pressed flat against the building, Sophia stepped down the incline. “Adele,” she screamed.

  “You bitch, get back here!” Footfalls moved toward the window. Adele leaned out, her pale face crimson with rage as she shook the gun wildly in the air. Grabbing the casing with he
r free hand, the madwoman knelt on the sill and leveled the pistol at Sophia.

  “No!” Hayden’s frantic voice and hurried footsteps boomed from inside the room.

  As though unaware of her precarious position, Adele released the casing to glance over her own shoulder. She pitched forward, headfirst. A shrill cry rent the air, silenced when the woman’s head hit the roof with a sickening thud.

  With the gun still clasped in her hand, Adele’s body slid down the roof, stopping mere inches from Sophia’s feet. Sophia knew the vacant look of death, but somehow Adele’s lifeless green eyes accused as they stared up at her. With a sob, Sophia pressed her face against the rough brick of the building.

  “Sophia!”

  Through her tears, she peered at Hayden crawling out the window.

  “Don’t move!” he said.

  “I couldn’t even if I wished to.”

  With a hand on the tenement, Hayden made his way down the slope toward her. As soon as he reached her, he pulled her to him, and pressed his lips to hers.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sophia parted the curtains and peered out the window onto Brook Street. Only one carriage remained. The others had driven away to be swallowed by the fog and darkness.

  The front door of their residence opened, spilling light upon the black uniforms and solemn faces of the policemen who stood on the pavement below.

  “Get on with it, men! About your business,” an authoritative voice commanded.

  The men dispersed.

  Sophia recognized the voice of Edmund Henderson, the Commissioner of Police. He, along with a Detective Williams, had questioned her in the drawing room while Hayden had paced, stopping occasionally to glare at one or both men.

  Neither Henderson nor Williams had been oblivious to the dark expressions cast at them, and when Hayden insisted she retire before they questioned him, they’d said not a word.

  She watched the commissioner climb into the carriage while her mind turned over everything Hayden had disclosed during the ride home from Whitechapel. He’d told her about Adele—his affair with the woman and his shooting, then revealed Lord Simon Adler’s observation on Piccadilly. Explained why he’d been so adamant she not leave their residence, and told her about Varga and the man who had followed her. He had even revealed he’d been trying to confirm Adele’s whereabouts the night they were to attend the theater.

  The horses’ hooves echoing in the still air drew her attention back to the carriage as it vanished into the thick night. She let the curtain fall and surveyed the feminine room with its yellow décor. She’d not slept in this bedchamber in weeks.

  The door connecting this room to the one she and Hayden shared flew open. Hayden stood at the threshold, dressed in shirtsleeves, the top buttons unfastened and the sleeves rolled up.

  His gaze drifted downward, over her unbound hair trailing over her shoulders to her bare toes peeking beneath the hem of her cream-colored nightgown. Briefly his eyes closed and a visible tremor escaped his body.

  What had he thought when he’d entered their bedchamber and not found her there? Had he believed she’d taken the time afforded her to slip away from this house and him? She had only come in here to peer out the front window, hoping most of the policemen had left.

  His eyes shifted to the bed, and she knew he wondered if she intended to sleep in here instead of with him. Earlier today that had been her plan. Not now. Her stomach churned as she remembered him telling Adele to shoot him. He’d been willing to give up his life for her and their child.

  “Sophia, you must be weary. Why aren’t you asleep?”

  She’d been waiting for him. Their empty bed held little appeal. She needed the contact of his warm body, the scent of his skin, and the soothing cadence of his breathing weaving gently in and out of his lungs to ease her tattered nerves.

  He moved across the room and took her hands in his. His expression grew intense and his touch firm, as though he feared she would disintegrate if he relinquished his hold. During the carriage ride home, he’d pulled her atop his lap, held her tightly, and begged her forgiveness.

  “Do you wish me to read to you?” With his chin, he gestured to a book set on the windowsill.

  “That’s Thomas’s new book, Lectures on Germ Theory and Treatments for Specific Abscesses.”

  He grimaced. “I should retrieve something more conducive to lulling one to sleep.”

  Without responding, she stepped closer and rested the side of her face against his chest. She needed to listen to the rhythmic beating of his heart.

  He embraced her.

  She took a deep breath. “You haven’t asked me why I called on your sister.”

  The palm of his hand moved in little circles over the small of her back. “I presumed you went to show me you wouldn’t be dictated to.”

  She pressed her nose into his shirt and breathed in his familiar scent. “No, I went because I wished to ask Edith some questions about your past.”

  His hand stilled.

  “She believed you should be the one to answer them. Would you be forthright with me, Hayden? Would you answer my questions?”

  Silence filled the air. “Yes, of course.”

  “Are you the proprietor of J. H. Mason?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who is responsible for the donations?”

  He pulled back, but she caught the front of his shirt and held tight.

  His nostrils flared. “I am.”

  “And that is a secret because?”

  “Because it is no one’s business.”

  “Forgive me, I thought we had gained some sort of understanding.” She released his shirt, stepped back, and twisted her wedding ring about her finger.

  He took a deep breath, shattering the silence that hung between them like a physical wall. He placed his hand under her chin and tipped her face up to his. “I beg your forgiveness. As my wife, you have every right to know I am responsible for the alms. Though, I do not wish it common knowledge.”

  “No, of course not. Such knowledge might shatter the image of indifference you have arduously cultivated, even with me.”

  He gave a humorless smile. “Yes, in truth I’m a prince among men. Isn’t that what you were thinking after I allowed this to happen? I should have told you what Simon revealed to me, but I did not wish to upset you. I wanted to protect you.”

  “I am stronger than you think, Hayden.”

  “You are. But this morning you looked so pale. Too pale. And you are with child. I didn’t wish to frighten you.”

  “I was confused by your behavior. The lies. Your mandates.”

  He took her hand and set her palm to his heart. “Sophia, do you feel that?”

  His heart beat strong, the tempo elevated. She nodded.

  “That’s what happens when I ponder what could have befallen you today.”

  “Because of the child I carry?”

  “Not just the child, Sophia. When I thought I might lose you, my world felt as if it was crumbling at my feet.” He framed her face between his palms. “I realized how much I love you.”

  His admission startled her—words she had longed to hear. Tears pricked her eyes. She wanted to say, I love you as well. But what did his avowal, his affirmation mean? He’d divulged his love to Laura, then forsaken her. She wanted to ask him about Laura, but right now she felt too raw. Adele’s face kept flashing in her mind. She pressed her body to his, just wanting to feel—to forget today.

  “Show me,” she whispered. “Show me you love me.”

  Gently he swung her up into his arms and carried her to their bedchamber. He set her down on her feet, and his nimble fingers moved over the tiny pearl buttons that lined the bodice of her silk nightgown. The fabric gaped, exposing her breasts.

  The hunger in his eyes excited her and quickened the rhythm of her heart.

  “You take my breath away.” His voice sounded low and raspy.

  She brushed the fabric off her shoulders. The nightgown s
lithered over her arms and hips to pool on the floor like a silken cloud.

  Hayden reached out. One finger traced the length of her arm. His light touch nothing more than a whisper of breath against her skin. It inflamed her desire, a tease that stroked anticipation, but did not feed it.

  Eager to touch him, she unfastened the remaining buttons of his shirt, and he tossed the garment to the floor. The desire to taste him overtook her, and she pressed her open mouth against his chest, let her tongue absorb the salt lingering on his warm skin, while her nose drew in his masculine essence. She wished to flood her senses, to forget the memory of Adele’s dead eyes.

  A primal hunger she could not contain took hold. She bit Hayden gently on the shoulder as her hand slid over the front of his trousers. A shudder shot through him. Where her assertiveness came from, she did not know, but it pleased her. She desired control—something she’d little of during the day. She reached lower, cupped him more firmly.

  He unbuttoned his trousers and slid her fingers against his arousal. She filled her greedy hand with his flesh. His breath hitched. He jerked back, shed his remaining clothes, and pulled her body to him. Soft and supple skin collided with hard muscle while his mouth covered hers.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and parted her lips, begging him to deepen the kiss. His tongue slid into her mouth, a movement that seemed as frenzied as hers, like a man deprived of a woman’s touch and sensual contact all his life. His palms glided over her skin, a possessive caress. They smoothed over the curve of her hips to capture her bum. He lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs about his naked hips as he kissed her deeply, roughly.

  Movement assailed her, and the next thing she knew she sat perched on the edge of the high bed, her legs still wrapped about him. She ran her hands over his broad chest and taut abdomen before twining her fingers around his jutting manhood.

  Indrawn air hissed through his clenched teeth as she slid her hand over his silken skin. He tipped his head back, and his nostrils flared. When he looked back, his blue eyes appeared as dark as her own.