IfHe’sSinful Read online

  When Cratchitt and her minions were finished, she stood back and looked Penelope over very carefully. “Well, well, well. I begin to understand.”

  “Understand what, you bride of Beelzebub?” asked Penelope and could tell by the way the woman clenched and unclenched her hands that Mrs. Cratchitt desperately wanted to beat her.

  “Why the fine lady wants you gone. And you will pay dearly for your insults, my girl. Very soon.” Mrs. Cratchitt collected four bright silk scarves from the large carpetbag she had brought in with her and handed them to the younger women. “Tie her to the bed,” she ordered them.

  “Your customer may find that a little suspicious,” said Penelope as she fruitlessly tried to stop the women from binding her limbs to the four posts of the bed.

  “You are an innocent, aren’t you.” Mrs. Cratchitt shook her head and laughed. “No, my customer will only see this as a very special delight indeed. Come along, girls. You have work to do and we best get that man up here to enjoy his gift before that potion begins to wear off.”

  Penelope stared at the closed door for several moments after everyone had left. Everyone except the ghost, she mused, and finally turned her attention back to the specter now shimmering at the foot of the bed. The young woman looked so sad, so utterly defeated, that Penelope decided the poor ghost had probably just realized the full limitations of being a spirit. Although the memories locked into the bed had told Penelope how the woman had died, it did not tell her when. However, she began to suspect it had been not all that long ago.

  “I would like to help you,” she said, “but I cannot, not right now. You must see that. If I can get free, I swear I will work hard to give you some peace. Who are you?” she asked, although she knew it was often impossible to get proper, sensible answers from a spirit. “I know how you died. The bed still holds those dark memories and I saw it.”

  I am Faith and my life was stolen.

  The voice was clear and sweet, but weighted with an intense grief, and Penelope was not completely certain if she was hearing it in her head or if the ghost was actually speaking to her. “What is your full name, Faith?”

  My name is Faith and I was taken, as you have been. My life was stolen. My love is lost. I was torn from heaven and plunged into hell. Now I lie below.

  “Below? Below what? Where?”

  Below. I am covered in sin. But I am not alone.

  Penelope cursed when Faith disappeared. She could not help the spirit now, but dealing with Faith’s spirit had provided her with a much-needed diversion. It had helped her concentrate and fight the power of the drug she had been given. Now she was alone with her thoughts and they were becoming increasingly strange. Worse, all of her protections were slowly crumbling away. If she did not find something to fix her mind on soon, she would be wide open to every thought, every feeling, and every spirit lurking within the house. Considering what went on in this house, that could easily prove a torture beyond bearing.

  She did not know whether to laugh or to cry. She was strapped to a bed awaiting some stranger who would use her helpless body to satisfy his manly needs. The potion Mrs. Cratchitt had forced down her throat was rapidly depleting her strength and all her ability to shut out the cacophony of the world, the world of the living as well as that of the dead. Even now she could feel the growing weight of unwelcome emotions, the increasing whispers so few others could hear. The spirits in the house were stirring, sensing the presence of one who could help them touch the world of the living. It was probably not worth worrying about, she decided. Penelope did not know if anything could be worse than what she was already suffering and what was yet to come.

  Suddenly the door opened and one of Mrs. Cratchitt’s earlier companions led a man into the room. He was blindfolded and dressed as an ancient Roman. Penelope stared at him in shock as he was led up to her bedside, and then she inwardly groaned. She had no trouble recognizing the man despite the blindfold and the costume. Penelope was not at all pleased to discover that things could quite definitely get worse—a great deal worse.

  Chapter Two

  “This is ridiculous,” muttered Ashton Radmoor as he was stripped of his clothes by two scantily clad women. “A costume, Cornell?” He scowled at the youngest of his four friends, trying to emulate the look his late father, the viscount of Radmoor, had perfected. Cornell was unimpressed, judging by his wide grin. Obviously Ashton had to practice the look a great deal more.

  “It is all a part of the game,” Cornell replied. “Part of the gift we are giving you.”

  “I am not sure I ought to accept this gift. I am to speak with Clarissa’s brother tomorrow.” He had no intention of following in his father’s faithless footsteps, the ones that had put his family into the dire straits they were now in.

  “Exactly,” said Brant Mallam, Lord Fieldgate, “and we all know that, once you do, you will consider yourself bound up tight. You will undoubtedly become quite pious in many ways. Consider this your last hurrah.”

  Ashton grimaced as one of the women dressed him in a tunic and the other put sandals on his feet. “What sort of game requires me to dress like some ancient Roman?”

  “The Pagan Sacrifice game.”

  “God rot it!” Ashton shook his head. “Whyever should you think I would enjoy something like that?”

  “It is harmless and we decided that you needed the memory of something rare and exotic, even a little shocking, before you became a staid, old, married man. If you do not enjoy it, I am quite certain the woman will be able to give you whatever you decide you do want. Mrs. Cratchitt trains her girls well. Fly free and wild for one night, Ashton. We have purchased you a full night of delight. Fulfill a few dreams. Even you must have some. After tonight there is only Clarissa and the breeding of heirs.”

  There was no denying that hard, cold truth. His forthcoming union with Clarissa Hutton-Moore was no love match, not that he particularly believed in love, anyway. It was a union based upon the usual need for an heir and a nearly desperate need for money. Clarissa had the appropriate bloodlines, was beautiful, and had a very impressive dowry. She would be an excellent hostess, which was also important now that he was a viscount. She moved about in society far more comfortably than he ever had. She was a perfect choice for a wife.

  So why did he feel as if the weight of the world now rested upon his shoulders? That question kept invading his mind more and more with each step he took closer to marriage with the much praised Lady Clarissa. True, there was no real affection between them, and little passion, but such things were luxuries few men in his position could afford. Yet a little warmth in one’s wife would be nice, he mused, and he had not yet detected even the smallest spark in Clarissa.

  And that, he suspected, was what made him continue to drag his feet. The thought of a marriage bed where only cold duty existed was a deeply chilling one. He feared it could eventually cause him to act against his own principles and begin to seek out a little warmth elsewhere. Ashton knew his friends thought him too full of ideals or, worse, a hopeless romantic, but he had always wished for a good marriage. He did not want the more common arrangement found in society, one where the wife was simply a hostess who occasionally bred a child for her husband while the husband indulged in a long succession of mistresses. That sort of marriage had destroyed his family, had torn his poor mother’s heart to shreds. It began to look as if that was exactly what he would be stuck with, however.

  He was abruptly yanked from his dark thoughts when one of the women began to blindfold him. “Is this necessary?”

  “Adds to the mystery,” replied Cornell.

  “I feel bloody foolish.”

  “It is to be hoped that you will feel a great deal better soon. We shall see you in the morning.”

  As he was led away from his friends, Ashton was not sure he would want to spend an entire night playing silly games. He was no innocent, but he was not the rake his friends were, despite what rumor and gossip tried to make him. It was an indulgence he
had never been able to afford since his father’s reckless waste of a fortune on such indulgences and gaming had left the Radmoors nearly destitute. Ruefully he admitted to himself that his father’s actions were part of the reason he struggled to remain temperate in all things. That and the disease that had finally ended the man’s life. He was even somewhat staid in his lovemaking. The need was there but not the inclination to be inventive or daring. He prized his control in all things.

  The problem was that, although he had felt a need for a woman before, he had rarely truly lusted after the woman herself. On the few occasions he had felt a stirring of a hearty lust, it had faded quickly when it had not been returned in kind or he began to think he was losing control of his passions. He had never experienced that knee-weakening, limb-trembling, fire-in-the-blood sort of lust others spoke of. That madness had been fleeting for those who had claimed to suffer from it, yet Ashton could not help but fear that there was something wrong with him since he had never felt it at all. Just once he would like to be gripped by that madness, but since he would be thirty soon and was about to commit himself to the cool, elegant Clarissa, he doubted he would ever know it.

  “Here we be, m’lord,” said the woman leading him along as he heard her open a door. “I’ll just tug ye o’er to the bed and then take off the blindfold so’s ye can see the fine gift your friends got ye.”

  When the woman removed the blindfold, Ashton looked at his gift and experienced a sensation that he compared to the time he had fallen out of a tree and landed so hard that all the breath had been stolen from his body. The woman tied spread-eagle to the bed was small, delicate. Ashton wondered if she were too stretched out to be comfortable. He was only dimly aware of a woman setting a tray of wine and cakes on the table by the bed while another placed his clothing on a chair. All of his attention was firmly centered upon his gift.

  The white diaphanous gown she wore hid little from his gaze. His breath quickened, became something just short of a pant, as he studied her lithe shape. Her breasts were not particularly large but they were perfectly shaped, round and plump with dark pink nipples. She had a tiny waist and it accentuated the womanly curve of her hips. His palms began to sweat while he looked up and down the length of her beautifully formed, slender legs, and he slowly wiped them dry on the sides of his tunic. Her body was cushioned by thick, rippling waves of brown hair enlivened with glints of gold and red and reached almost to her knees. He wanted to wrap it around his body. His gaze was then caught by the tidy vee of curls between her pale thighs. He trembled and his heart began to pound.

  When he heard the women leave the room, he quickly sat down on the edge of the bed. He felt oddly unsteady. Ashton fought the urge to throw himself at her as he studied her heart-shaped face. Her small straight nose was lightly dusted with unfashionable freckles and he wanted to kiss each one. There was the hint of a few more on her breasts and he wanted to count them, too. With his tongue. Fine cheekbones and a faintly pointed chin made for a face that was pleasing, but not elegant. Her eyes, however, were stunningly beautiful. A strange blend of blue and green, they were wide, surrounded by thick, long dark lashes and set beneath neatly arched dark brows. Her mouth would tempt a saint, he mused. It was a little too wide for fashion, was no rosebud or cupid’s bow, but it was perfectly shaped with slightly full lips. He wanted to nibble on them.

  “Is that uncomfortable?” he asked and decided he deserved the scornful look she gave him. “A stupid question.”

  “I would never be so rude as to say so.”

  She spoke very well for a common whore, Ashton thought, and inwardly winced. He hated to think of her as one of that sad breed, which was utterly foolish of him. She was working in a brothel and was tied to a bed, prepared to play the part of a maiden sacrifice in some idiotic sex game with a total stranger. It embarrassed him a little to admit to himself that he was now prepared to play that game; was, in all truth, eager to participate. He would untie her ankles in a few minutes, he decided and reached out to stroke her thigh.

  The soft gasp she gave and the sight of his hand upon her thigh made Ashton slightly feverish. This was lust, he realized; that blinding sort of lust he had just decided he would never experience. Suddenly what had seemed foolish now appeared highly erotic. Ashton discovered that he did have an imagination and it was filling his mind with a vast array of truly licentious plans. He removed his sandals and stood up to pull off his tunic. The way her eyes widened flattered him and he tossed the tunic aside. It took an effort not to preen in front of her like some vain fool.

  Nick me! Penelope thought; she was looking at a naked man. Even more astonishing, she was looking at a naked Lord Radmoor. She had been infatuated with the man from the moment she had first set eyes on him, but not once in all her silly romantic little dreams had she imagined him naked. And if she had, Penelope decided, unable to stop herself from staring at his groin, she would never have imagined that particular appendage to be so inspiring. The little knowledge she had gathered concerning the male anatomy had come from caring for young boys. She had always suspected that a man’s appendage would be larger than a boy’s, but would never have guessed it could be that large. Penelope did not know what emotion seized her more firmly, amazement, or terror over the fact that he actually thought he could put that inside her.

  It was not only Mrs. Cratchitt’s potion that kept her from demanding, loudly and hysterically, to be set free, and Penelope knew it. Her infatuation with the man also held her captive. Until now she had seen him only from a distance or as she indulged in some spying, creeping about her own home like a thief. Everything about the man had drawn her, from his aura of strength and reserve to his elegant handsome appearance. She had been struck stupid by his beauty from the start. Clothed, he had often caused her to sigh with appreciation like some moonstruck girl. Unclothed, he left her unable to find the breath to even sigh.

  She was finally able to lift her gaze to his face in the vain hope of easing the odd warmth infecting her blood. The sight of his body had stirred a strange fever inside her and she needed to shake free of it. His thick golden hair was unrestrained, hanging past his shoulders. A shorter strand dangled over his broad forehead. A long, straight nose, elegant bones, a firm jaw, and a mouth that begged for kisses with its slightly full lips equaled perfection in her eyes. It was a face she knew she would never tire of looking at. It was his eyes that held her spellbound, however. They reminded her of the mists upon the moors, a mystifying bluish gray that could lighten to clear silver or darken to the almost black color of threatening storm clouds. Thick, almost feminine lashes of dark brown tipped with the glint of gold encircled those incredible eyes. Sleek, faintly winged brows of that same color added to the exotic look, enhancing the faint hint of an upward slant to his eyes.

  Her thoughts about his beauty abruptly scattered when he joined her on the bed, crouching between her spread legs. He stroked her thighs with his elegant, long-fingered hands, and pure, unfettered lust swept over her. Penelope knew the potion was at fault, but suspected its effects were strengthened by all the emotions the man already stirred in her heart and body. The vile potion the madam had given her had also shattered all her shields, opened wide the inner doors she kept shut to protect herself from the turmoil of sensing the emotions of others and from being overwhelmed by the spirits all around her.

  Aunt Olympia had always said that those born of Wherlocke blood were passionate. Penelope was not pleased to discover the woman was right, not now, not when she was too helpless to control any of her emotions. Unless some miracle happened, she, who had never even been kissed, was soon to experience the full measure of passion. The fact that that thought more intrigued than frightened her was just another sign that she had no control at all.

  “Your legs are so beautiful,” Ashton murmured as he stroked them, reveling in the softness of her skin.

  “They are too thin,” she said, and the small, still sensible part of her drugged mind told her that that w
as a particularly foolish thing to say. His smile was beautiful, however, and held no ridicule.

  “Sleek and strong. And soft. Deliciously soft.” He gently nipped the inside of each of her thighs and then soothed the spots with tender kisses and slow strokes of his tongue. “You are too sweet for this sort of life,” he whispered and looked at her. The tips of her breasts had hardened and there was a slight flush upon her cheeks. “And very responsive. You are new to this life, I think.”

  “Oh, aye, quite new.”

  Ashton would have smiled at her use of the word “aye,” which revealed her country roots, if it had not been so sad. Too many country girls came to the city to find honest work only to end up selling their bodies just to survive. He intended to ask her just how new she was but was distracted by her body and his own lust. She even smelled delicious, he thought as he pressed his body against hers.

  Penelope started to explain everything, only to gasp in a strange mix of shock and delight when he settled his long body on top of hers. He held his upper body up by propping himself up on one forearm, but that did little to ease the intoxicating touch of his warmth and his weight. Even more startling was how eagerly her body responded when his hard length pressed against that mindlessly hungry place between her legs.

  “Let me take you away from this,” he offered, surprising himself.

  “Aye, that would be most kind of you,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper as she watched him slowly untie the silk ribbons holding the front of her immodest gown together. She should be shocked but she was mostly concerned that he would find her lacking.

  “I could set you up comfortably someplace, in a little house all your own.” He was not sure how he could afford it but was determined to find a way. Ashton ruthlessly silenced the little voice that whispered in his head, telling him he was acting as recklessly as his father.