His Wicked Sins

by Eve Silver

“Indeed,” Richard replied, and sent him a sly glance. “I’d best be showing you the way of it, dear boy, given that your nuptials are soon to follow.” He heaved a mighty sigh. “It has always been thus, me showing you the way of things, guiding you on the right path.”

  Griffin snorted. “I need no guidance. I dally only long enough to allow for the arrival of my bride’s family.”

  The right path. Beth smiled. What a convoluted journey both she and Griffin had taken to reach this place in their lives. Feeling the rightness of her own path, she could only be grateful.

  Gwendolyn Percy, soon to be Mrs. Richard Parsons, glanced at the brooding sky.

  “Before the deluge, if you please, gentlemen,” she said, in her most stern headmistress voice. “I would rather attend my own marriage in dry clothing.” She glanced at Beth. The two women had begun a friendship, and Beth had learned that the woman Miss Percy and Miss Browne had discussed the morning she had overheard them, the morning she had thought her position to be at risk, had in fact been Miss Eugenia Doyle.

  They proceeded into the church, Isobel leading the way, carrying the small bouquet that Beth had fashioned for her.

  “I received a letter this morning,” Griffin said for Beth’s ears alone as they followed the others. “Two bits of news. Moorecroft is to be tried in London.”

  “Yes,” Beth murmured, glad that Griffin had not killed him that night. Vengeance was a tempting brew, and a part of her had wanted that, wanted revenge for the deaths of her family and for all that Moorecroft had stolen from her. A part of her had ached to take Griffin’s knife in her own hand and plunge it deep in Moorecroft’s breast.

  Griffin had looked up at her that night, the moonlight glinting off his blade, and he had offered her the choice. There in the woods, near the blood-drenched shack where Moorecroft had done his foul deeds, Griffin had offered to kill him. For her. So she could have her vengeance.

  Or he had offered truss him up and send him off to London, to face trial.

  The decision was hers. Griffin loved her too much to make it for her.

  Beth recalled that moment so clearly, the tone of Griffin’s voice, the rasp of his breath, the way she felt to know the lengths he would go to keep her safe. She recalled, too, the way he had bidden her make her decision with care, for she would live with it for the rest of her life.

  Those words had decided it for her.

  She did not want Moorecroft’s blood staining Griffin’s hands or his conscience. She wanted the monster to face a trial and a hanging. To face justice.

  “We expected that the trial would be in London,” she said. “And the second bit of news?”

  Griffin drew her close against his side.

  “The second bit is that your parents have accepted my invitation. Your family will be arriving within the month to witness our marriage and to take up residence in Rose Cottage. I trust that with a good cleaning and a fresh coat of paint it will be acceptable as a domicile.”

  Beth glanced at him askance. “Given that my parents’ entire flat would fit in the parlor of Rose Cottage, I suspect they will find a way to make do.”

  She paused, waiting until he stopped and looked at her, offering his full attention.

  “You know I am grateful for this. For everything. For the offer to give my family a home nearby,” she said in a rush. “My mother’s most recent letter says that my father is improving a little. He can say some simple words. I am very hopeful that he will show further improvement.”

  “I have sent word and funds to a doctor in London. A specialist in apoplexy. I asked that he make a visit to your father.”

  “I am”—she swallowed against the lump that formed in her throat, blinked against the tears that filled her eyes—”I am so grateful.”

  “No.” His lashes swept down, and he picked at bits of imaginary lint on his sleeve. “I do not so this for your gratitude, Beth, but for my own pleasure, and for the debt I owe your parents. Without them, I would not have you in my life. Isobel would not have you. And without you, we would both yet be shades, ghostly beings walking in this world without hope or succor.”

  “Griffin—”

  His lashes came up, revealing dark eyes lit with gold and green, beautiful, intense, so full of emotion it made her breath catch.

  “I do not want your gratitude, Beth. I only want one thing from you.” His voice was low, a rasp of emotion that wove through her veins and into her heart. “You. I only want you.”

  “You have me,” she laid her palm against his cheek. “My love. I love you. I love you.”

  “And I you.” He leaned close then, until their breath mingled and her heart pounded. Her eyes closed and she waited, waited, for the touch of his lips, the taste of him in her mouth.

  He brushed her lips with his, and she could not stifle the sound of disappointment as he drew away.

  “Later.” He made a low laugh, filled with promise. Taking her hand, he drew her into the church. “Right now, we have a wedding to attend. Later, we can have a private celebration.”

  “But it is not our wedding,” Beth protested.

  “No matter.” Griffin shrugged and sent her a wicked, sinful grin. “We will enjoy a wedding night tonight and every night that follows, for the rest of our lives.”

  THE END

  If you enjoyed Beth and Griffin’s story, please consider leaving a review.

  Keep reading for a sample of Eve’s DARK PRINCE.

  SAMPLE DARK PRINCE, Chapter One

  Desperation made for a poor walking companion.

  Jane Heatherington studied the horizon, dread gnawing at her with small, sharp bites. The sky was a leaden mass of churning gray clouds that hung low on the water, and the ocean pummeled the shore with a strength that heralded the furor of the coming storm. Breathing in the tangy salt scent of the sea, Jane clenched her fists, making the edges of the delicate pink shell in her hand dig into the skin of her palm, grounding her as she struggled to hold her misery at bay.

  Life was burdened by tragedy. Naive girl, to have believed that fate had dealt out all her cruel jests years ago. Jane shook her head. No, not fate. She could blame no one but the true perpetrator of this terrible thing that had come to pass. Her own father had consigned them both to uncertainty and despair.

  How much money?

  Five hundred pounds.

  Yet fate was there too, lurking, laughing, playing her horrible game. Was not Jane’s presence here this morning some act of chance?

  Ill chance, to be sure.

  Less than an hour past, as the cold, gray dawn had crawled into the heavens, Jane had left her father’s hostelry, needing a few moments to understand, to accept the terrible choices he had made, the dreadful consequence he had brought down upon them. She had walked along the beach, mindless of any destination, seeking only to calm her concerns and fears. Fate had brought her here.

  She shuddered, studying the two men who stood in the churning surf. They waited as the waves carried forth a grim offering, a single dark speck that dipped and swayed with each turbulent surge, growing ever larger, taking on defined shape and macabre form.

  Indeed, desperation made a poor walking companion, but death even more so.

  The dark outline floated closer, closer, discernable now as human, facedown in the water with arms outstretched, long tendrils of tangled hair fanning like a copper halo.

  A woman, bobbing and sodden.

  And dead.

  Heart pounding, Jane took a single step forward as the men sought to drag their gruesome catch from the ocean’s chill embrace. She was held in thrall by the terrible tableau unfolding before her, and she swallowed back the greasy sickness that welled inside her. ‘Twas not morbid curiosity, but heart-wrenching empathy that froze her in place.

  Most days, she could look at the ocean as a thing of great beauty.

  Most days.

  But not today.

  Today there were disquieting clouds and churning surf and the icy kiss of the mist
that blew from the water’s surface to touch land. Too, deep in her heart, there was the awful knowledge of her father’s actions and the terrible feeling of foreboding, of change, unwelcome and unwanted.

  It seemed all too similar to a day long past, a day best buried in a dark corner of her mind. The sea. The storm. And there, just beyond a great outcropping of rock, the brooding shadow of Trevisham House, looming silent and frightful against the backdrop of gray water and grayer sky.

  Separated from the sweeping curve of sandy beach by swirling waves, the massive house was a lonely, empty shell balanced atop a great granite crag that rose out of the sea like the horny back of a mythical beast, a fearsome pile of stone and mortar that offered no warmth. Trevisham was linked to the mainland by a narrow causeway that was passable at low tide or high. Unless there was a storm, and then it was not passable at all.

  Chill fingers of unease crawled along Jane’s spine, and she tore her gaze away, glancing to her right, to her left, feeling inexplicably wary. She was given to neither fanciful notions nor wild imaginings, yet today it appeared she was subject to both. Her heart tripped too fast, and her nerves felt raw as she scanned the beach, searching for the source of her unease. She could swear there was someone watching the beach. Watching her.

  This was not the first time she had suspected such. Twice yesterday she had spun quickly, peering into darkened corners and shadowed niches, finding nothing but her own unease. She sighed. Perhaps it had been a portent rather than a human threat, a chill warning of the news her father had been about to share.

  “She’s been in the water less than a week, I’m thinking,” Jem Basset called grimly, drawing Jane’s attention to where he stood thigh deep in the water, the corpse bobbing just beyond his reach.

  “Where’s she from?” Robert Dawe asked, wading a step farther into the waves. “A ship, do you think?”

  “There’s been only fine weather for more than three weeks. No ship’s gone down here. If she’s from a ship, then it was wrecked on the rocks to the north, I’m thinking.”

  The two men exchanged a telling look.

  Jem grunted and reached as far as he could, but the waves carried the body just beyond his grasp. He glanced up, saw Jane, and shook his head. “Go on now, Janie. No need for you to see this.”

  He was right, of course. There was no need for her to watch them drag this poor, unfortunate woman from her watery grave, but Jane could not will her feet to move. The talk of wrecks and rocks haunted her.

  There had been whispers of late that the coast to the north was safe for no ship, that in the dark of the night wreckers set their false lights where no light should be. They were vile murderers bent on luring the unsuspecting to their doom, tricking a ship into thinking it was guided by a lighthouse’s warning beacon, only to see it torn asunder on jagged rocks.

  Torn asunder like the fabric of her life.

  But at least I have a life, Jane thought fiercely as she watched the corpse bob down, then up, long, copper hair swaying in the current like snaking tendrils of dark blood.

  Pulling her shawl tight about her shoulders, Jane blew out a slow breath, steadying her nerves, battling both her fears for her future and the ugly memories of her past. Dark thoughts. Terrible recollections of storm and sea and Trevisham House.

  Jem lunged, and this time, he caught the dead woman’s arm, and then Robert came alongside him, and together they wrestled her from the frothing waves.

  “You think there’ll be others?” Robert asked, breathing heavily as they slogged toward the shore, the sand sucking at their booted feet, the woman’s body dragged between them, her head hanging down, legs trailing in the water.

  Shaking his head, Jem cast a quick glance toward Jane. “Not likely. Bodies usually sink into the deep dark. Strange that this one didn’t.”

  “They sink only until they fill with bloat, and then they float up again like a cork, don’t they?” Not waiting for a reply, Robert waved his free hand and continued. “Her skirt. See the way it’s tangled round her ankles? It must have caught the air when she went into the water and held her afloat. That’s why she did not sink.”

  Drawn despite herself, Jane took a step along the beach, and another, gripped by the image of this poor woman, her limbs growing heavier and heavier as she was tossed about on a cruel sea. Struggling, gasping, praying.

  And finally, dying.

  Such an image.

  Such a memory. She could feel the tightness in her chest, the great, gasping breath that brought only a cold burning rush of water to fill her nose and throat and lungs. With her heart pounding a harsh rhythm in her breast, she struggled against the strangling recollection, determined to hold it at bay.

  Jem laid the drowned woman in the back of a rough wooden cart, mindful of her modesty, though such was long past any value to her. With a twist of pity, Jane saw that the woman was both bloated and shriveled at once, her face white, in frightful contrast to her copper hair, and her eyes...

  The woman’s eyes were gone from her skull, leaving only empty black sockets.

  Jane wrenched her gaze away, swallowing convulsively as she stared at the wet sand dusted with a smattering of white and pink shells.

  Shells.

  She had come to walk on the beach to soothe her soul, and to fetch a handful of shells to carry with her. Just a handful of shells for her mother. Those were her reasons for being on the beach. Now, instead of shells and ease of mind, she would carry the memory of the dead woman’s bloated face and the empty holes that had held her eyes.

  A new nightmare to haunt her rest. Imaginings of another woman’s suffering, as though her own was not companion enough in the darkest hours of the night.

  Suddenly, she froze, and her head snapped up. The hair at her nape prickled and rose. She rubbed her hands briskly along the outsides of her arms. Apprehension chilled her from within, swelling in tandem with the rolling waves.

  Someone was watching them.

  Lips slightly parted, the tip of her tongue pressed between her top and bottom teeth, Jane turned to face the great wall of sea-carved cliffs that rose alongside the long, slow curve of sand. Tipping her head up and back, she studied the stark precipice with measured interest. The sound of the waves hitting the shore surrounded her, punctuated by the cry of a lonely gull high overhead. From the corner of her eye she caught a hint of motion, a shadow, far, far to her left, up on the cliff.

  There was a blur of movement, a dark ripple of cloth that might have been a man’s cloak.

  She spun so quickly, her balance was almost lost. Reaching down, she pressed the flat of her palm to her left thigh, adding sheer will and the strength of her arm to the paltry force of the muscles that would straighten her knee and hold her upright—if she was lucky. If not, her leg would crumple as it was often wont to do, and she would sink to the sand in a graceless heap.

  After a moment, she righted herself, and turned her attention to the place she had glimpsed the shadowy stranger.

  The cliff was barren. There was no one outlined against the ominous backdrop of gray sky. The man—if in truth she had seen one—was gone.

  But the sinister unease that clutched at her remained.

  o0o

  Leaving the beach, Jane inched along the narrow dirt path that hugged the jagged cliffs, her thoughts awhirl with both her own personal turmoil and the horror of the drowned woman’s tragic and pitiable fate. She climbed to the top and paused, her attention snagged by her father’s cousin, Dolly Gwyn. The frail woman stood by the edge of the cliff, arms raised, her wild gray hair unbound, whipped by frantic eddies of air, her form swathed in layer upon layer of faded black cloth. Before her lay the roiling turmoil of the angry sea, above her the leaden sky that pressed its ominous weight down upon her as she perched there atop her precarious roost, summoning the storm.

  Jane sighed. “Cousin Dolly!” she called, cupping her hands about her lips to amplify the sound. “Come away from the crag!”

  The wind
and the crashing sea swallowed her cry, or perhaps Dolly chose to ignore her. ‘Twould not be the first time. As Jane reached her side, Dolly stretched out a thin arm, waving her hand to encompass the stormwashed beach and the sea cliffs that extended as far as the eye could see.

  “I saw a light, oh, about a week past,” Dolly said, diving into the topic without preamble. Her voice was strong, though her body was beginning to weaken as years and hardship took their toll. “Far to the north it was. An evil light. A false light.” She cast a glance at Jane. “‘A wrecker’ s light.”

  “Never say it,” Jane whispered, a sick feeling rising inside of her.

  “I say it because I saw it,” Dolly insisted. “We’ll be hearing the tale of a ship gone down within a short time, my girl. You heed me now. We’ll hear of a ship gone down and all aboard her dead. What can that be but wreckers, I ask you? What?”

  A wrecker’s light, so close to Pentreath.

  Jem and Robert had guessed that the dead woman had been in the water but a few days. They had hinted with brief words and subtle glances that they believed she had come from a wreck on the northern shore. And if Dolly spoke true ...

  “I pray you are wrong,” Jane said.

  “As do I, Janie. As do I. But I tell you ...the woman pulled from the waves this morning ...she came from that ship. She died for men’s greed.” Dolly wrapped her thin arms around herself and swayed to and fro in the wind as they stood, shoulder to shoulder, facing the crashing surf, listening to the building furor of the ocean.

  “And it’s him, his coming, what’s brought the evil down upon us,” she continued, stretching out one gnarled finger toward the sea, and toward Trevisham House, guiding Jane’s unwilling gaze.

  This of all days, with the horrible news her father had shared and the image of that poor drowned woman so fresh in her mind, Jane would have preferred not to think of Trevisham, not to remember. But wasn’t that ever the way of things, with one tragedy recollecting others?

  “He is in league with the devil. I feel it in my bones.” Dolly pulled back her lips in distaste, revealing the uneven outline of her three remaining teeth.