A Dangerous Temptation

by L. R. Olson

  “Blast it,” I snapped.

  If it hadn’t been for Jules none of this would have happened. I’d be marrying Penny in two days and I would be content with my choice.

  If not for Jules.

  I turned and rested my forehead to the closed door, my hands fisted at my sides. “Damn you, Julianna.”

  I would see she paid if it took the rest of my life.

  I wouldn’t be the only one miserable.

  Chapter 2

  Julianna

  “Penelope is gone!”

  Mother’s whispered words tore through my slumber, dredging me from the depths of sweet unconsciousness. I’d been awake half the night and had finally fallen into a fitful sleep only to be rudely awoken before dawn, the sun not even on the horizon.

  For a moment I thought I was dreaming. Hadn’t we been through this before? But no…Mother was leaning over my bed, a candle in hand, her eyes wide with worry and panic. Frantically she shook my shoulders.

  “Oh Mother,” I groaned, pulling my pillow over my head to block out the candlelight she carried. “I’m trying to sleep!”

  “This is serious, Jules!” She jerked the pillow away and pulled down the covers, destroying my warm cocoon. “Utterly serious! She’s gone!”

  “Yes, as serious as the last time she went missing,” I sighed, throwing my legs over the bed and sitting upright. “You must cease this nonsense, Mother.”

  She was nervous. So determined that something would go wrong to prevent them from becoming attached to an earl’s family.

  “Nonsense?” my mother squealed.

  I yawned, attempting to stay focused. It had been months since I’d had a decent night’s sleep thanks to James. James. It was only as I awoke fully that I realized tomorrow was the day Penny would marry James. A sudden variety of emotions battered me all at once, leaving my stomach aching.

  “Jules, did you hear me?”

  I raked the loose tendrils from my face, noting the way my hands trembled. Married. Penny was marrying the devil tomorrow morning. After slapping James, I hadn’t the heart to tell my sister the truth. No, instead, I’d retired to my room for the rest of the night, pretending to be ill, stewing in my own anger and shame.

  “Did you check the gardens?” I somehow managed to ask.

  “Of course!” Mother still wore her night rail and her cap tucked neatly over her head. Even in the middle of the night she was prim and proper like I would never be. “You don’t understand.”

  “Did you check Whitfield’s room?” I asked drolly. I wouldn’t put it past the man to have seduced her before the wedding. Bastard. But then again, he hadn’t even kissed her yet, which still made little sense to me.

  “Damnation Jules!” She shoved a piece of paper in front of my eyes. “Read it!”

  Mother never cursed. Startled, I took the note.

  My Dearest Family,

  I know you have hung all your hopes upon my shoulders, and by doing this, I am letting you down. But I can’t, will not, marry Whitfield. He doesn’t love me. I doubt, by the way he looks at me, that he even likes me. And yes, I know, Mother, that you’ve said our love will grow but it can’t because I’m in love with someone else.

  Yours,

  Penny

  P.S. Dearest Jules I am sorry, but I’ve taken your savings. I promise to pay you back someday.

  Slowly, I lowered the letter. Dear God, she’d done it. I’d begged her to run away, but now that she had it seemed insane. I wasn’t sure whether to applaud her courage or cringe. She was gone… with my money. If Mother found out I’d had a hand in Penny’s escape, she would murder me.

  “Where is she?” I asked, hoping the dim lighting covered my flush of guilt. “Do you know?”

  “On her way to Gretna Green, is my bet.” Mother grabbed my arm. “On your feet, child! By my calculations, she has been gone for over four hours. If we send the footmen—”

  “Mother,” I sighed.

  She ignored me and grabbed my blue day gown that lay over the dressing screen. “He might be able to—”

  “Mother!”

  She paused, my dress in hand. She wore the desperate look of someone being hunted. “What?”

  I took the candle and set it upon the bedside table, least she catch my gown on fire. I wasn’t the only one trembling, Mother was shaking as well. I worried about her. Ever since the engagement she’d been frantic, always in a hurry, as if time was running out. Perhaps she’d had a premonition that her carefully constructed plan would fall down around her sophisticated shoulders.

  “It’s too late,” I said. “It’s over.”

  She shook her head and shoved the gown into my arms. “No. It’s never too late. Hurry. Dress.”

  Never too late? They’d seemed to think it was too late for me. Disgruntled, I pulled the clothing on over my night gown. Mother would have an apoplexy with Penny missing, and I’d be left to deal with the mess. Perhaps I wouldn’t be sent to my aunt’s after all. One positive. “Mother, please, be reasonable.”

  “I am!” she hissed. Lord, she was on the edge of going utterly mad. “You don’t understand what this means!”

  “No!” I snapped, buttoning the bodice of my gown. It was tight without my corset and I was forced to leave the top two buttons undone. “I don’t! You’re trying to farm your children off as if we’re livestock! What happened to you? What happened to Father? We were a happy family once. You doted on us. You never would have—”

  “Your father is dying, Jules.”

  I froze as I was reaching for my slippers. “What?”

  “He’s dying.” She didn’t cry, her lower lip didn’t even tremble. It was as if she said we were having pheasant for dinner. “A weak heart. The doctor said he has a year, maybe two.”

  I collapsed onto the edge of my bed, my slippers forgotten. “No. He’s so fit…so….”

  “We’ve known for a year.”

  A year? Stunned, I couldn’t seem to find the words to reply. The entire world tilted off balance. Father had been more reserved lately. He’d been taking naps, but I’d assumed he was merely getting older. He’d said he should have forced me to marry Welch, a man he hated, those months ago but I had assumed he was merely angry with me.

  It suddenly all made sense. Oh God, they hadn’t been trying to force a marriage because they were the typical entitled parents out to climb the social ladder. They were trying to see that we were provided for when my father died.

  Mother handed me my slippers. “We wanted you to marry well so that we knew you would be taken care of when he is gone.”

  I slipped the shoes onto my feet. It was too much. All too much. Part of me wondered if perhaps I still slept and this was all a terrible nightmare. “We…we have our dowry.”

  “It’s gone.” She moved to my dressing table and sorted through my hair ribbons. “The trip to France last year…he used the savings to travel to the continent and speak with someone who might find a cure. When that didn’t work, he purchased a cottage for me near town. I will need some place to live when your cousin inherits. Of course you’ll be welcome to live with me. It will be tight quarters and little money, but…” She swallowed hard, her voice quivering. It was the first time in a long while that I’d seen her show emotion other than annoyance. “All will be well enough.”

  I grasped onto the bed post, my knees weak. Oh dear God, it was real. It was all real. “But Whitfield thinks he’s getting…”

  Mother shook her head as she started toward me, a white ribbon in hand. “We told him the dowry was much lower than we had expected. He still wanted to marry Penny even without the money. In fact, he said that whatever the savings, keep it. He doesn’t want money for our daughter. He truly is a gentleman.”

  I had to stifle my bitter reply. If only she knew what he had done. Or maybe she, too, would blame me for what had happened. “Are you saying he wants her that badly?”

  Mother nodded.

  Stunned, I merely stood there. He gave up th
e money for Penny? Good lord, was James actually in love with my sister? Why did that thought sting much more than it should have? I sank onto the bed. James actually wanted my sister so desperately that he’d given up what was supposed to be a hefty dowry, merely so he could marry her.

  “Apparently he does,” Mother replied with a trembling smile. “So you see why it’s so important for them to marry.”

  There was a soft knock on the door before Ramona peeked her head inside. She still wore her nightgown and cap. The entire house was in turmoil and all because I’d talked Penny into fleeing. I covered my face with my hands. I’d practically forced Penny into giving up her earl, a man who cared so much about her that he had decided to forgo her dowry. Who respected her so much he hadn’t even tried to kiss her. Father was going to die and Penny and Mother would live in poverty because I had talked her out of marrying her earl.

  “Have you found anything?” Mother demanded.

  Ramona hesitated. “Samuel is missing.”

  Mother shook her head, confused. “Samuel?”

  I lowered my hands as dread washed over me. She didn’t. She couldn’t have!

  Ramona looked positively ill. “The stable hand, my lady.”

  Mother went white as a ghost. “Are you implying that my daughter ran off with a servant?”

  All the kind comments Penny had made about Samuel made sense. And we’d thought she’d merely loved horses. She hadn’t loved horses, she’d loved him. She’d told me months ago he’d kissed her, I should have known she had feelings for the man. I’d been too involved with my own problems to notice their growing attraction.

  “Yes, Mother, she is implying that Penny ran off with Samuel.”

  “Oh dear Lord.” It was Mother’s turn to grip the bedpost. “No.”

  Well, at least I would no longer be known as the ruined sister. I now got to share the title with Penny.

  “Ramona, water,” I said, slipping my arm around Mother’s waist. Part of me, a selfish part deep, deep down that I didn’t want to dwell upon, was relieved Penny wouldn’t be marrying James. And I hated myself for the thought. Hated myself for caring.

  “No.” Mother pushed the glass of water away and handed Ramona my hair ribbon. “I have to speak with your father.”

  She rushed from the room.

  “What a terrible mess,” Ramona said, moving to my side. She did quick work of braiding my hair and smoothing down my skirts, as if how I looked mattered at the moment. “Your father will be forced to go after them. Poor man.”

  Poor Father indeed. Penny and Samuel were the least of our issues for there were more important things to worry about. Father…gone in a year? No. It wasn’t possible. Despite my mishaps, we’d experienced so much happiness in our young lives. At some point things had crumbled, and I had started the destruction years ago in London.

  “Your parents will never forgive her. They will be shunned.”

  I swallowed hard, fighting back my tears. What did it matter when Father was dying? I closed my eyes, feeling dizzy. Images of my father reading me history books when I was a child came to mind. I hadn’t understood half of what he’d said, but his deep voice had always soothed me like no other. He’d never made us feel unworthy for being girls. He’d never acted as if he would have preferred a boy.

  How would we live without his sturdy reassurance?

  “Come, dear,” Ramona said gently. “We must go to your parents to see what we can do, if anything.”

  She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and led me into the hall. We had at least twenty guests staying but all was quiet. They had no clue something was amiss as they slept so soundly. They would realize come morning. Mother and Father would be ruined. Two disastrous daughters. They had been good, decent, caring parents and we had destroyed them.

  “I didn’t realize,” I whispered. I didn’t realize the ramifications of the situation when I’d tried to talk Penny into calling off the marriage. “I didn’t think she would…”

  “Of course you didn’t,” Ramona whispered, fiercely loyal. But she had no idea what I had truly done. “How could you have known that your sister would cry off?”

  “Ramona,” I whispered, feeling as if I had to tell someone the truth, least it eat me alive. “There’s something…”

  We paused in the dark corridor. “What is it?”

  “You don’t understand what I…”

  I saw the dark shadow only too late. Ramona gasped, while I froze. For a long moment no one uttered a single word. I didn’t need to see his features to know who stood there. I felt his presence in the very air around me.

  “You were saying,” James finally drawled out from the darkness as he leaned casually against the frame of his door. “Something about my missing fiancé?”

  ****

  James

  “He’s an evil, evil man, Penny, and I will do whatever it takes to see you don’t marry him.”

  The damning words rang through my mind over and over, never leaving me in peace. I wasn’t sure what bothered me so about the honest comment. I shouldn’t have been angry, for she merely told the truth when she’d warned her sister from me. She certainly wasn’t the first person to call me evil. But it didn’t make it any easier to accept her opinion. How dare she judge me after she’d lied and manipulated, trying her best to trap me into marriage.

  I’d had a plan. A carefully constructed plan. She’d ruined that plan. I should have been preparing for my upcoming wedding with my sweet, naïve fiancé who wouldn’t know she’d entered into a pact with the devil until it had been too late.

  I hadn’t thought much about marriage until I’d hit the ripe old age of thirty. Hell, as much as I hated to admit it, I was getting old, my life half over. It was my damned duty as an earl to marry well. It was time to carry on the family line, for it wasn’t as if I could count on my brothers to do the deed. And if I didn’t carry on the line, then what would be my purpose in this wretched life?

  As for a wife, I knew I wanted someone bright, happy and caring. My children would not be raised in a home with angry and bitter parents. I wasn’t a complete monster; I would get Penny with child, and then I would do the most humane thing I could and leave them in peace…alone. They could stay in the country, I’d purchase property for her near her parents, or she could move to London. I didn’t bloody care where she lived as long as she took care of my children and provided a happy home.

  I was very much aware of the fact that I would never be a good father. I didn’t pretend to be the romantic man most women dreamt of. But the family line would remain intact and the children would be content with their mother. My life would have a purpose.

  Now the time I’d spent courting Penny was destroyed. I would be forced to start anew. Jules had tried to completely upend my carefully constructed plan three months ago. She had finally succeeded.

  I rested in a leather chair across from the woman who remained foremost in my thoughts. The woman who had destroyed my everything. Sitting in an identical chair, Jules looked bemused, guilty, and exhausted as she stared unblinkingly at the fire in the hearth.

  She’d changed in the three months since we’d met. There was a thinness about her previously lush frame that I didn’t care for. Dark circles marred the area under her once vibrant eyes. Guilty conscience? At least it didn’t seem as if she was with child. I’d been watching her waistline carefully, cursing myself the fool for not pulling out before spilling my seed. Siren. Enchantress. She’d burrowed into my wretched soul.

  I stared hard at her as her parents talked back and forth between the two of them, attempting to uncover a solution to this problem. Rafe sat by the windows looking partly amused and completely entertained. Jules and I weren’t alone, but it felt as if we were the only two in the room. The world had slowed, voices faded. Only the clock on the mantel seemed to tick in time with my heart beat. It felt as if my life was teetering on the edge of some precipice, about to change drastically. For better or worse, I could not sa
y.

  She didn’t once glance at me, but I knew she was completely aware of my presence. On the rare occasion when I responded to a direct question from her parents she would stiffen, the pulse in the side of her neck pounding so furiously that I could see it from where I sat. She was trying her hardest not to look at me, to pretend as if I didn’t exist.

  Hell, she didn’t fit the definition of an earl’s wife in the least. She wasn’t demure and elegant. She wasn’t obedient or quiet. I should have despised her. I certainly despised the fact that memories of our time together kept me up at night. Hated that I hadn’t been able to kiss her blasted sister because she reminded me too much of Jules. Yes, the woman had ruined everything. Months of careful planning. Days of courting Penny. And I wanted nothing more than to see her suffer as I suffered.

  “We will find Penny,” her father said. “I promise. Before anything happens.”

  With my gaze still pinned to Jules, I replied, “Do you honestly think I want your used daughter? A tainted woman in love with a stable hand?”

  The man glanced helplessly at his wife. But she was of no assistance. The older woman choked on her tears. I’d grown numb to the pain of others. The tenderness between the two disgusted me. Weak fools. One took care of one’s family because it was one’s duty, not out of emotional attachment.

  And Jules, she finally met my gaze only to narrow her eyes into a glare. “My parents are not at fault!”

  “Then who is?” I dared to ask her. “Surely she didn’t think of running off on her own. Perhaps I don’t know Penny as well as you, but I do know your sister would never be so devious.”

  Jules, on the other hand…