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Authors: Caroline Richards

BOOK: The Darkest Sin
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She should have expected something like this. The lateness of the hour. The deserted house. At least he had not retreated behind the screen to disrobe. Heat rose beneath her skin. Rushford's shirt drifted to the floor, revealing a broad back whose intricate musculature reminded her of the sketches she had seen in one of Julia's anatomy books. Hard and sculpted as though from stone, he moved to undo the placket of his breeches, half turning toward her hiding place behind the screen to disclose a beautifully delineated chest, tapered waist, and narrow hips.
Rowena's mouth was dry, her lips tasting of parchment, and she clenched her hands by her sides. It was the strangest feeling, this desire to absorb the heat and smoothness of his skin beneath her palms, to imagine his hardness next to the softness of her body, his nakedness one with hers. She stilled her breath, trying to stop the flow of images, the chafing of her blood. Wherever were those thoughts coming from? Familiar and terrifying at the same time. Her head began to pound, her pulse fluttering in her throat. She had to stop this
now
.
Rushford was facing her.
Facing the screen,
Rowena reminded herself in a panic, watching one large hand grasp his breeches, inching the material down over lean hips. His eyes were hooded, yet Rowena sensed he was staring at her, through the screen, and into her eyes, prepared to call her out.
Her shoulders ached with the strain of standing perfectly motionless. Now was the time to say something, to reveal herself, but it was already too late.
His voice was deep, gravely. “How long do you intend to remain unannounced because, rest assured, I don't disrobe for simply anyone,” he said.
Nothing she had read in the broadsheets, or conjured in her feverish imagination, had prepared her for this encounter. And it was then she realized the full force of what she had set in motion with this strangely powerful man, a portrait of contrasts, a combination of overwhelming physicality and concentrated intellect. All of it, suddenly, focused upon her.
Meredith and Julia
, Rowena reminded herself. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out from behind the screen.
Chapter 3
R
egret. Like the metallic taste of blood, it left a bitter taste on one's tongue.
Christ,
Miss Rowena Woolcott was young. Rushford had forgotten, or more precisely had willed himself to forget. Until now, as she stood on the faded aubusson rug of his bedchamber, wide eyed and without a hint of recognition in that expressive, beautiful face. He swore silently, fluently, all the while considering his rapidly narrowing options like the virtuoso card player and pugilist that he was.
“I shan't bother with useless apologies, sir,” she began in that low voice that was an unsettling, indelible combination of innocence and sin. Emerging from behind the dressing screen, clasping her hands to her waist, she met his gaze with a boldness bordering on desperation, studiously ignoring the fact that she had not only broken into his home but also interrupted the intimate process of his disrobing. “I had little choice but to meet with you this way,” she continued. “Please hear me out before you seek to bundle me onto your doorstep.”
Rushford proceeded carefully, taking quick account of her questioning eyes, the downturn of her full mouth, to confirm that she had yet to recognize him. No small wonder, given the circumstances. He kept his mind deliberately blank, disinclined to dissect the exact state of his memories. “I take it that you are not here to make off with the silver,” he said, sweeping up the shirt he'd discarded and shrugging it on. Ironic that it was he, a decade her senior, a man who had had countless lovers over several continents, who felt the pull of modesty. “Shall we proceed into the drawing room for this discussion?”
Her eyes widened. They were a dark, impossible blue, he recalled with heavy reluctance.
“Oh, no, I beg of you,” she said. “I should prefer to remain discreet. I should rather not have any of your servants alerted to my presence.”
Subterfuge was a hallmark of Rushford's existence. It always had been, a mordant reminder of a life spent in shadows rather than light. “Then at least sit down,” he said. She startled, stiffening her shoulders, when he moved across the room to drag the chair out from behind the dressing screen. “I won't ask how you managed to enter my town house without arousing suspicion.”
“I prefer to stand, sir,” she said, ignoring the proffered seat and backing away from him two steps, staring at him as though he were an apparition. “And just so you know, I found easy entrance through the window at the end of the hallway, which was slightly ajar.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, aware that his shirt was hanging open. Rowena Woolcott believed she owed him an explanation, a cruel irony of which she was obviously unaware. He smothered another curse when in the next moment, he realized exactly how she had stormed his citadel. “You climbed, didn't you?” For any other woman to do so would have been outrageous. But then again, Miss Woolcott was of another ilk entirely.
Her eyes flickered over to the wide high windows. “If I can do it, I imagine any number of thieves and cutthroats could do the same. I should have that attended to, if I were you.”
That scenario was the least of his worries now that this young woman, despite his best efforts over a year ago, had returned to haunt him. She was wearing a simple brown merino day dress, insipid in both color and cut, with a short cloak over her shoulders, none of which gave a hint of the long slender limbs and firm curves beneath. But he knew. He remembered. That was the problem. The warmth of fine French brandy still heated his belly, mingling with a heightened awareness that had everything to do with her presence and his resurrected conscience.
“Thank you for your concern. I shall have a word with my footmen,” he said with deliberate calm, leaning a shoulder against the bed's newel post. “But the hour is late, as I'm sure you're aware, so perhaps the time has come for you to tell me what you're about. Before I do decide to call upon the good offices of the constabulary.”
In the light of the single lamp, he could see her turn pale beneath the translucence of the finest skin, skin like silk under his hands. He pushed away the recollection, watching as she straightened her spine, her tone hardening. “I'd prefer that you didn't,” she said with a shocking arrogance, peculiar for a woman, and for one so young. Unbidden, Rushford heard Kate's voice intruding, bravado lacing her low contralto, that fluent, fluid confidence that came readily to a duchess assured of her beauty and wit.
Rowena's words cut through the inconvenient reverie like a knife through butter, drowning out the cadences of Kate's singular intonations. “I shan't take much of your time,” she promised, her spectacular eyes summoning him.
Rushford forced himself back to the present. “So you say,” he replied, his voice miraculously even. “And yet you forced your way into my home to do what precisely?”
Rowena took a deep breath, stilling her hands, the slender fingers both elegant and capable, not at all pink, plump, or ladylike. “I come to seek your expertise,” she declared, as though it was obvious, and for a wretched moment he thought he had misheard. He was bloody expert at very little these days, as it turned out. “Your expertise as a detective of crime,” she elaborated. “I have heard and read of your exploits.”
The back of his neck tightened. Of course, the Cruikshank murders. Had he known the uproar the case would engender, he would never have taken it on, goddamn the broadsheets. Galveston's supercilious gaze came all too readily to mind. So that was what Rowena Woolcott was after,
his help
. Now wasn't that rich? Like asking the devil for guidance. “Go on,” he said, not liking himself much at the moment.
Gazing upon Rowena Woolcott, he wondered whether she realized how beautiful she was, the effect she could have upon men, if she chose, with the elegance of her profile, those dark blue eyes, slanted at the corners and that mouth, stained like the ripe raspberries of summer. Rushford was the last man on earth who heard poetry in his soul, but experience had taught him a stinging lesson about the siren call of desire. One more complicating factor, he realized, when it came to the fate of Rowena Woolcott.
She was watching him, calibrating his response, as any young woman would, trapped as she was alone in a man's bedchamber late at night. “I read about the Cruikshank murders,” she said. “How you spent days and weeks collecting evidence and hunting down the felon,” she continued in a low whisper, as though recounting tales of knightly deeds. “Those poor women about whom no one cared, other than you, sir.”
Rushford scrubbed a hand down his face, groaning inwardly, the burn of stubble against his palm somehow welcome. “Is that what you believe, Miss? Madam? Forgive me, but I don't even know your name.”
She shook her head. “It doesn't matter. For now.”
“Ah yes. More mystery.” A deadly joke, of which only he was aware.
“But I know you can help me.” There was a stubbornness in her tone. “As you helped them.”
“Flattery doesn't go nearly as far as one might wish. I am not the helpful sort, believe me.” If the past three years didn't prove that point, nothing would. Ridding himself of Rowena Woolcott would be in her best interests, although she might not appreciate the fact at the moment. It dawned upon him then how simple it could be to be done with her. To frighten her. Drive her off. It was mere coincidence, as opposed to fate or poetic justice, that had delivered her once more into his hands. Thank God. “May I pour you a brandy before I see you on your way?” he asked with no solicitousness in his voice.
Rowena's head jerked up, causing a thick strand of hair, the color of deep burgundy, to fall loose from her chignon over one shoulder. “But I haven't explained. Everything.”
Rushford moved over to the bedside table and poured a healthy measure of brandy into a heavy lead crystal glass. “No need.” He picked up the drink and strode directly opposite her. A faint scent of soap and something else, achingly familiar, slammed his senses. He shut down the memories, thrusting the glass into her slender hand. Challenging himself to touch her, to see if he dared, he closed her cold fingers around the glass. “I don't need to hear details. Because I am not for hire, madam.”
“But I have money,” she persisted. “Not much but some.” Her fingers tightened momentarily around his, and to his surprise, she raised the glass to her lips and took a sip, closing her eyes as the warmth slipped down her slender throat.
Send her on her way
. The words pulsed in his brain.
As he should have done that first time.
“I cannot help you,” he said simply. Decisively. Any other woman might have implored, begged, or wept, but Rowena Woolcott stared at him with a tensile strength that would have shaken a lesser man.
Her hand on his arm was surprisingly strong, the fingers long and elegant and he'd wager, accustomed to handling a horse's reins with ease. There was a wildness about Rowena Woolcott, he noted not for the first time, a willfulness that refused constraints. She had scaled his town house, broken into his bedchamber, confronted him—he stopped the flow of thoughts, the cool of her hand penetrating the sleeve of his shirt. Most of all,
Rowena Woolcott had survived
—as though he could ever forget.
She removed her hand, taking a few steps away from him, needing the safety of distance to collect her thoughts, to marshal her argument. “At least allow me to tell you of the circumstances—of my circumstances,” she amended, getting the facts out brusquely. “This is all about two sisters and their aunt. And a man who wants them to suffer in the worst possible way.”
Rushford made his face granite. “Not my problem, alas. I am not a detective, as you seem to believe. The Cruikshank situation was entirely anomalous. I simply had a surfeit of time on my hands. As for your own circumstances, surely a difficult guardian is not unusual.”
“He is not a guardian. You don't understand.”
“Perhaps I do not wish to.”
She took a step closer to him, careless in her courage, the dull dun color of her cloak unable to subdue the subtle radiance of her skin. “But you must,” she said, all but stamping her foot. “I was abducted from my home and then left to drown. I don't recall many details, because my memory has somehow been impaired, but I know for certain that someone wishes to do away with me and those I care for the most.”
Rushford feigned skepticism. “Murder? I believe we're being a trifle melodramatic here.” Of course, her memory would be impaired, given the amount of opiates she had been given. He steeled himself. Rowena Woolcott really left him little choice, but his eyes still searched hers for a glimmer of recognition. He found none. “Still not interested, madam, miss, or whoever you are,” he said. “I am not the shining knight in armor or the clever detective whom you seek. You have the wrong man, someone who has entirely no interest in seeking to punish evildoers, in righting old wrongs, or however you choose to frame the situation in your no-doubt overheated imagination. Now I will ask you politely to leave.”
“And if I refuse?” she asked with a graceful shrug of her shoulders.
Christ,
she was young and foolish, he thought for the second time that night. He was tired, unaccountably irritated and determined to rid himself of Rowena Woolcott once and for all. Though overt vulgarity was not in his repertoire, it was the only recourse that readily came to mind. He closed the distance between them and removed the glass of brandy from her hand. “I shall not invite you to leave twice,” he said distinctly. “Instead, I may have to act upon my baser instincts, for which few could fault me, given the presence of an uninvited, albeit comely, female in my rooms. Do I make myself understood?”
For once she was speechless, her lips parted in shock. And yet she didn't move, her sensible riding boots riveted to his aged carpet. His fingers reached for the fastenings of his shirt, only to remember that it still gaped open. Shrugging out of the garment, he threw it on the floor before beginning to loosen the waistband of his breeches.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and tugged off first one boot and then the next. Rowena watched in horrified fascination, her breathing having come to a halt sometime between when the first boot and the second hit the ground.
“You have a choice,” he said finally, rising from the bed. “Either you depart now, front door or rear window, I couldn't care less, or the breeches come off. And what happens subsequently”—he paused just long enough to see the darkening of her spectacular eyes—“should not come as a surprise to a woman as intelligent as you appear to be.”
She licked her bottom lip, pretending to ignore his outrageous threat. “So you refuse to help me? Why? When you helped those other women? When you have the expertise to discover who wishes to murder my sister and my aunt.” Her response was breathless with shock. “And to kill me.”
Rushford shoved his hands into the pockets of his breeches. None of this could come to any good. “You have the wrong man,” he repeated. After a lifetime of risk and of loss, Rushford realized that he'd never really experienced this particular sense of dark unease. Not once. Not even for Kate, a small voice echoed. But he felt it now. For Rowena Woolcott. And worse, for himself.

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