A Dangerous Temptation (Bow Street Brides Book 5)

by Jillian Eaton

  A Dangerous

  Temptation

  - Bow Street Brides, Book 5 -

  Jillian Eaton

  A LADY LOOKING FOR LOVE…

  As the only daughter of a duke, Lady Amelia Tattershall has everything she could ever want. Yet her heart yearns for the one thing her father’s money cannot buy: true love. Regrettably, her large dowry has made it all but impossible to find a man that desires her and not her fortune. Until she meets Tobias Kent, a ruthless Bow Street Runner who sets her blood on fire with a passionate kiss that leaves them both yearning for more.

  A RUNNER SEEKING REVENGE…

  Tobias isn’t looking for love. After his wife was brutally slain by The Slasher, the only thing he wants is revenge. Nothing else matters. Not money. Not fame. And certainly not an impertinent vixen with the bluest eyes he’s ever seen. Amelia is a distraction he can ill-afford, yet try as he might he can’t seem to stay away from the tempting beauty and soon they find themselves entangled in an affair that could have deadly consequences for them both.

  A DANGEROUS TEMPTATION…

  When the very monster Tobias is hunting goes after Amelia, he’s faced with an impossible decision. Will he avenge the wife he lost…or save the woman he loves?

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  © 2019 by Jillian Eaton

  Website

  Facebook

  Twitter

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

  Have you signed up for my newsletter yet? It only takes a second. Just click here to receive cover reveals, exclusive excerpts, giveaways, sales, and more – right to your inbox!

  Other Titles by Jillian Eaton

  A Duke for All Seasons

  The Winter Duke

  The Spring Duke

  The Summer Duke – July 2019!

  A Duchess for All Seasons

  The Winter Duchess

  The Spring Duchess

  The Summer Duchess

  The Autumn Duchess

  Bow Street Brides

  A Dangerous Seduction

  A Dangerous Proposal

  A Dangerous Affair

  A Dangerous Passion

  A Dangerous Temptation

  London Ladies

  Runaway Duchess

  Spinster and the Duke

  Forgotten Fiancee

  Lady Harper

  Wedded Women

  A Brooding Beauty

  A Ravishing Redhead

  A Lascivious Lady

  A Gentle Grace

  Swan Sisters

  For the Love of Lynette

  Annabel’s Christmas Rake

  Taming Temperance

  Christmas Novellas

  The Winter Wish

  The Risque Resolution

  A Rake in Winter

  The Christmas Widow

  Other Titles by Jillian Eaton

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  About the Author

  Bow Street Brides

  The Spring Duke

  Chapter One

  Prologue

  If Tobias knew what he would find when he returned home, he wouldn’t have stopped to get the flowers.

  The daffodils beckoned to him from across the crowded market square. They were bright and yellow and cheerful; a welcome splash of color amidst the dull and the dreary. He imagined Hannah’s face when he presented them to her, and even though the two pence he dug out of the bottom of his pocket cost dearly, he would have gladly paid thrice the amount just to see his wife’s smile.

  “Thank ye kindly,” he said, tipping his hat to the vendor.

  “Are those for a sweetheart?” the older man asked.

  “Aye.” Tobias grinned broadly. “The sweetest.”

  Tucking the bouquet under his arm and whistling a cheerful Gaelic tune under his breath, he set off towards home on the outskirts of Southwark. The one-bedroom flat tucked above a bakery was a humble place, but then he and Hannah were humble people, both having come from large families rich in love and poor in everything else. His da had been a potato farmer in Ireland. He’d come to London looking for riches and had found them in a pretty scullery maid with doe brown eyes and a shy smile. They’d dreamt of a future bright with possibility, and eventually settled for one filled with debt and a house filled with happy, healthy children.

  Tobias and Hannah had dreams as well.

  Big dreams.

  They wouldn’t live on the wrong side of the Thames forever. One day they’d look out their front window and see a lovely green park instead of crumbling brick and broken glass. One day they’d take their children on walks through Grosvenor Square instead of Seven Dials. One day he’d bring his Hannah enormous bouquets of pink roses instead of sad wilting daffodils.

  One day.

  Cutting through a narrow alley, Tobias started to walk faster, eager to see his wife after an entire night of being apart. He worked down at the docks, using his brawn and quick fists to keep the rats and pickpockets away from the mercantile ships before they were unloaded. Hannah was a seamstress who went from house to house, fixing the hemlines of fancy ladies and the cuffs of arrogant gents.

  Their schedules were completely opposite, but every morning there was a single hour where they intersected. A single hour where they could sit across the crooked table he’d found behind a tavern and smile and laugh and simply drink in the sight of one another. A single hour where their worries ceased to exist and anything seemed possible. A single hour where they filled their future with dreams.

  Tobias treasured that hour more than diamonds, and he was loathe to miss a single minute of it. Turning left out of the alley he quickened his step and then abruptly slowed, brow creasing, when he saw a cluster of people standing around something in the middle of the street. His first thought was that a horse had broken a leg on the uneven ground and had been put down or another drunkard had been struck by a passing carriage. But such sights weren’t unusual, and hardly grounds for such a large spectacle.

  “You there,” he said, placing his hand on the shoulder of a young lad who was straining to see through the growing crowd. “What’s happened?”

  The boy turned. His narrow face flush with excitement, he said, “There’s been a murder.”

  “A murder,” Tobias repeated. Unfortunately that, too, was far too common in this area of London. They weren’t in St. Giles or one of the other rookeries that infested the city like a bad case of the pox, but they were close enough that the occasional bounder stumbled through on his way to the next pub. A temperamental word or a flash of coin was all it took for a knife in the belly and then another body would turn up floating in the Thames or, if the murderer was feelin
g lazy, left out on the street for the birds to find in the morning.

  Such was the cost of being too poor to live behind large gates and heavy doors guarded by footmen and butlers. It was the main reason Tobias wanted to leave Southwark once and for all. It was why he worked himself to the bone every night. Why he staggered home every morning instead of drowning his sorrows in a pint like all of the other dock workers. Why he refused to give up on his dream of a better life even when that life felt too far out of reach.

  One day, he reminded himself even as an unexplained knot of unease coiled in his belly.

  “What’s everyone standing around for?” he asked the lad. “You’d think a nabob died.”

  “Not a nabob,” said the boy, shaking his head. “A woman. And whoever it was cut ‘er up real good.”

  The knot in his stomach tightened. Tobias didn’t know why. He had no reason to think the woman was Hannah. No reason at all. He glanced down at the daffodils. His wife was safe in their flat, no doubt wondering where he was. But if that were true, why couldn’t he stop the prickling of apprehension working its way up his spine?

  “Move,” he ordered gruffly, fighting his way through the crush of bodies. People were murmuring excitedly amidst themselves which only served to heighten the unshakeable feeling of disquiet that had settled over him like a heavy cloak. He hadn’t seen Southwark this worked up since the baker went mad with jealousy and killed his wife and his wife’s lover. Although to be fair, the residents hadn’t been bothered by the murders so much as the temporary lack of bread. But this didn’t feel like that. There was something in the air. Something rotten. Something dark.

  Something wrong.

  Shoving between two men, one of which was holding a leather bound journal and pencil, he stopped short at the sight in front of him. The bouquet of daffodils fell to the ground as he stared, disbelieving.

  And then he fell to his knees.

  Blood, red and wet and awful, stained his trousers as he lurched across the cobblestones and reached for Hannah. It trickled down his wrists as he lifted her onto his lap. It filled his nostrils as he cradled her head against his chest. There was more blood than there was Hannah, and he knew she was dead even before he started shouting, for how could someone live with no blood in their veins?

  “Help,” he cried desperately to the wide-eyed crowd who collectively stepped back to form a loose circle around him. “Help us. For the love of God, someone help us!”

  No one stepped forward because there was no help to give. There was nothing to be done. Hannah, his beautiful, laughing, bright-eyed Hannah, was gone.

  “One day,” he whispered hoarsely, gathering her lifeless, bloody body in his arms. His tears dampened her hair and ran down her pale cheeks as he rocked back and forth. “One day, my love. One day.”

  But there wasn’t going to be a one day for Hannah.

  There wasn’t going to be any other days at all.

  Chapter One

  Five Years Later

  Hyde Park, London

  “Do you think he’s dead?” Poking the dark-haired man with the tip of her parasol, Lady Amelia Tattershall crouched down to get a closer look. “He doesn’t look dead,” she decided after noting the shallow rise and fall of his chest. “Best put him in the carriage, Higgins.”

  “In the carriage, my lady?” her driver asked, visibly aghast she would dare suggest such a thing. Amelia did have to admit it was rather bold, even for her, but what else could she do? They’d struck the man. Or, to be more accurate, he had struck them. Her lips compressed. Regardless of who was to blame, the stranger was clearly in need of medical attention. And despite what her suitors said about her, she wasn’t so heartless that she’d abandon him in the middle of the lane to be pickpocketed or worse.

  “Well we can’t just leave him here.” She tapped her parasol against the tip of her boot as she watched Higgins and the footman struggle to lift the stranger. “Do be careful,” she cautioned when they more or less tossed him onto one of the velvet-lined seats. “Mother will have a fit if she finds blood on the upholstery again.”

  “Where do you want us to go?” Higgins grunted.

  “Go?” Amelia blinked. “Why, I want you to go home, of course. Where else would we go?”

  “The nearest body of water?”

  “Don’t be silly, Higgins. It’s obvious the man is still breathing. If he expires before we reach our destination then you can have him tossed in the ocean, but not before. Is that understood?”

  “Her Grace isn’t going to like this,” Higgins predicted ominously before he climbed up into the driver’s seat and gathered the reins.

  “You’re probably right,” Amelia agreed cheerfully. “But then when does my mother like anything I do? Home, Higgins, and be quick about it.”

  Hopping into the carriage, she sat down across from her unresponsive guest and regarded him with a bright smile. “Don’t worry. Higgins’ bark is worse than his bite. It’s Mother you really have to look out for. But what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, will it?”

  Still, it would probably be best if they used the servant’s entrance. The Duchess of Webley was attending a charity luncheon for young orphans across town, but there was no telling when one of her megrims would set in and she would return home. As for the duke, well, he was on another one of his grand hunting trips in India and there was absolutely no telling when he would return home.

  Amelia could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen her father in the past six months, and she only needed two hands (and perhaps a foot) to keep track of how much she’d seen him over the past six years. A family man the Duke of Webley was not. He never had been and, given that his only child was rapidly approaching her twenty-first year, it was doubtful he ever would be.

  The carriage lurched forward and Amelia braced her feet on the floor to steady herself, her gaze never leaving the stranger’s pale face. He was definitely handsome, she decided. Bold slashing brows and high cheekbones gave way to firm lips and a strong jaw. A layer of ebony bristle clung to his chin and extended all the way down to his neck, giving him a rather piratical appearance…and making her wonder what he would look like with an eye patch.

  “Dangerous,” she whispered, her blue eyes lighting with excitement.

  As it happened, he was just the sort of man she’d been searching for. Unfortunately, ‘dangerous’ wasn’t often a word used to describe the foppish dandies that populated the ton. Conceited, weak, and simpering, yes. But dangerous? Her mouth twisted in a smirk at the thought.

  The only thing dangerous about the Earl of Reinhold was the size of his ego. Any larger and he was going to have a difficult time fitting through a doorway. And she didn’t even want to get started on Lord Bentley or Lord Ascot, the latter of whom had cornered her in the drawing room this morning and proceeded to launch into a glowing list of his personal accolades, the greatest of which seemed to be his ability to discuss himself at length.

  She’d been on the brink of following her mother’s example and feigning a megrim when he had been abruptly called away. Before any other suitors could show up – she had begun to suspect the vile creatures slept outside the front gate like rats in a sewer – she’d escaped to her carriage for a peaceful ride through Hyde Park.

  And found a dangerous stranger instead.

  Biting her bottom lip, she leaned forward and gently brushed a thick lock of hair out of his eyes. He wasn’t wearing a hat and his clothes, while clean, were simple and roughly sewn, indicating he was not a man of means. Her hand lingered by his ear as she wondered if he was a doctor or a merchant or – her heartbeat accelerated – a Bow Street Runner.

  There’d been a lot of discussion about the Runners as of late ever since Lord Grant Hargrave, a Runner himself (and the third son of a duke), ran off to marry some red-haired commoner no one had ever heard of, breaking the hearts of ladies all across England and setting the gossip tongues to wagging like they hadn’t in months. Even Amelia, who wa
s never one to indulge in idle speculation, had found herself unwillingly fascinated by the rags-to-riches story. She had followed it along with the rest of the ton in the pages of The London Caller, and when the bans were announced she’d done a little cheer. True love was rare amidst the nobility and it deserved to be celebrated. More than that, she believed it was something to aspire towards.

  “I wonder if you’re married,” she mused aloud, her gaze traveling across the stranger’s face before wandering down across his lean torso and pausing at the waistband of his trousers. Color heated her cheeks when she realized his shirt had been pulled up when he’d been thrown into the carriage, giving her a clear view of his abdomen and the outline of rigid muscle beneath golden skin.

  My, my, she thought faintly. You’re about as far from a lord as they come, aren’t you?

  If the man wasn’t a Runner then he should have been, for this was exactly how she pictured them in her mind: rough, hard, and menacing. With the exception of Lord Hargrave who was similarly handsome but fair instead of dark, she’d never met one of the men who defended London’s streets against all manner of criminals...but she’d certainly heard of them. Even in the elite social circles Amelia was accustomed to keeping, the Bow Street Runners were well known. Particularly following a rash of burglaries that had left ladies clutching their pearls and lords going to bed with pistols tucked beneath their pillows.

  As if they possessed the temerity necessary to shoot a thief.

  Snickering under her breath as she imagined Lord Ascot wielding a gun against anything larger than a partridge (even a fat defenseless bird was asking a lot of him), she started to sit back in her seat. But before she could withdraw her hand from the stranger’s brow he suddenly grabbed her wrist in a vicelike grip that had her gasping in both pain and surprise.