IfHe’sSinful Read online

  “I can take her now.” Artemis reached for Penelope.

  “To where?” Ashton glanced toward the open window. “Out that way? Carrying her?” He could tell the boy wanted to say he could do it but had enough good sense to know it could prove impossible, even dangerous. “I need to find my friends to help us.”

  “In this place? Do you mean to knock on every door?”

  “I mean for you to go out the window, go up to the door, and ask for Sir Cornell Fincham. Tell the man at the door that the Duke of Burfoot has sent you with an urgent message for his son. They will fetch him or lead you to him. Tell Cornell I need him and the others to come to this room as quickly as they can. And as stealthily as possible.”

  “Which room is this?”

  “Twenty-two,” Penelope replied and rubbed her cheek against the soft velvet of Radmoor’s coat.

  “And I may trust in their discretion as well, may I?” Artemis frowned. “Why should I?”

  “Because they are my closest, most trusted friends and will protect my name as fiercely as they would their own.”

  “They will want explanations.”

  “Tell them they will get answers as soon as they join me here.” When Artemis still hesitated, Ashton added in a voice that held both command and counsel, “We shall need their help to get her out of here safely and unseen.”

  Artemis nodded and, after ordering the other boys to guard Ashton and Penelope, slipped out the window. There was barely a whisper of sound as the youth descended the outside wall and Ashton had to admire the boy’s skill. He sat down on the bed to await his friends and settled a limp Penelope on his lap.

  She felt right there, fit perfectly in his arms. Ashton heartily wished Clarissa fit so perfectly instead of this unknown girl. Not that he had actually embraced Clarissa yet. Worse, he found himself wondering if the hints of passion he had seen in her were born of his touch or the potion the madam had forced her to drink. It was not something that should concern him but he suspected he would be wondering about it for a long time. He also knew that he would soon question the veracity of the passion his past lovers had shown in his arms, few and far between though they were. Once a man began thinking of such things, he entered into a vicious circle of doubt.

  “Is she going to die?”

  Ashton looked at the small boy called Delmar. “No. She is just weakened by the potion given to her. It will loosen its grip upon her soon and she will be fine.” There remained a glint of doubt in the boy’s eyes and Ashton forced as much confidence as he could into his voice as he added, “Truly, your sister will fully recover from this.”

  “She is not my sister. She is my cousin. Stefan and Artemis are her brothers. The rest of us are her cousins.”

  “Ah, I had thought you all lived with her.”

  “We do. She takes care of us.”

  “All of you?”

  “Enough, Delmar,” said a boy who looked nearly as old as Artemis. “The man does not need to know our business.”

  “But, Stefan, I was just talking. I was being polite.”

  “No need of that, either. The man is not a guest in our home. Recall how we found him and what he was trying to do to Pen.”

  Delmar glanced at Ashton and then pressed his lips together. Ashton gave the boy a brief smile before looking at Stefan, Penelope’s other brother. “She will need to rest. The potion will flee her system but it may take hours to do so and, I believe, she will not feel well afterward. Is there someone who can care for her?”

  “We will.”

  Ashton was about to argue the ability of a pack of boys to care for a sick young woman when Artemis and the others slipped into the room. Brant was the first to reach his side and Ashton waited patiently while his friend studied Penelope and then looked over each of the boys. When Brant finally looked back at him and cocked one dark brow, Ashton sighed. He explained what had happened as quickly and plainly as possible.

  “So Mrs. Cratchitt’s is not quite the genteel establishment it pretends to be,” Brant said and then looked at the boys again. “Do you know how and why she was taken?”

  “Nay,” said Artemis and moved to braid Penelope’s hair. “She was late coming home. The ones who took her must have seen her as easy game.”

  Ashton exchanged a brief look with his friends. He knew the boy was not telling the truth. The expressions his friends wore told him they shared his suspicions. Penelope had secrets and the boys were holding fast to them. It was hard for Ashton to think they were dark or dangerous secrets, but having tasted the madness of a fierce lust, he was not sure he could trust his own instincts when it came to Penelope.

  “The problem now is how to get her out of here without anyone seeing her,” said Ashton. “She is incapable of walking out of here and will be for several hours yet. It is not simply to save her reputation, either. I have a strong feeling she was not brought here because Mrs. Cratchitt was on the hunt for new girls.”

  “Someone is coming for me tomorrow,” Penelope said, not surprised at how weak and soft her voice was. She was clutching tightly to a thin, fraying thread of consciousness. “She did not tell me who.”

  “Yet she sold you to me for the night?”

  “Said she could make sure the man did not know. Someone paid for me to be brought here.” She ached to say who she suspected had done so, but kept the words back. She had no proof.

  One look into her cloudy eyes told Ashton there was no sense in questioning her about that now. She was barely conscious. He looked at his friends, praying one of them had devised a plan. This was not something he really wanted or needed to get mixed up in at this time, but he could not desert the woman and certainly could not leave her at Mrs. Cratchitt’s.

  “The boys can go back out the window,” Brant said. “As soon as they are on the ground, we will draw up the rope. I will tie it about your waist, Ashton, and while you hold the girl, we will lower you out the window. Cornell, you go to the carriage and wait for them. Whitney, Victor, and I will wait here while you take the boys and the lady to their home. There are a few things I wish to do before we leave this place,” he muttered and frowned at Penelope.

  “We do not need help to get her home,” said Artemis.

  “Do not be so proud you refuse help when it is truly needed,” Brant told the boy. “She cannot walk far, if at all, and you cannot carry her through the streets without drawing a great deal of unwanted attention to yourselves. Now, out the window with you. We do not want to have someone catch all of us in this room, do we?”

  Artemis’s lips moved and Ashton suspected the youth was cursing, but he did as he was told. In but moments all the boys were gone and Brant was pulling up the rope. As Ashton prepared to take his turn, he noticed that the rope was similar to what sailors used to catch the side of another ship, the sharp tines of the grappling hook deeply embedded in the wall. He wondered how he had missed the sound of that striking the wood and digging in. Lust had obviously deafened him, he thought as he handed Penelope to Victor with an unsettling reluctance and stood still while Brant secured the rope to his waist. When Brant declared the rope secure, it took all of Ashton’s willpower to stop himself from grabbing for Penelope like some greedy child.

  Shaking aside his unease over his tortured emotions, Ashton sat on the windowsill. He carefully swung his legs around until they hung outside, and then held his breath as he was slowly lowered to the ground. The way Penelope clung to his neck, her face pressed against his shoulder, told him she was still aware enough to realize what was happening around her.

  When his feet touched the ground, he set Penelope on her feet. Artemis and Stefan hurried over to support her as he untied the rope around his waist, but it was clear they were having trouble keeping her upright. Once freed, Ashton waved to his friends who were still in the window and then picked Penelope up again before striding toward the carriage.

  “This is a bad business,” muttered Cornell as the boys scrambled into the carriage.

&nbs
p; All Ashton could do was nod in agreement. He set Penelope on the seat between her brothers and climbed into the carriage to sit down across from her. Cornell climbed in right behind him. It was crowded, and even as he rapped on the roof of the carriage to tell the driver to move, Delmar climbed into his lap. He would have preferred Penelope there, he thought, but put a steadying arm around the boy when the carriage began to move.

  “Do you live far from here?” he asked Artemis.

  “Nay,” the boy replied. “I told your man the way to go as we waited for you and Pen.”

  When they pulled up in front of the house Artemis said was theirs, the tiny hope Ashton had not even realized he had been cherishing died a swift death. The area was home to mistresses, minor aristocracy with empty pockets, and those in trade who had progressed beyond living above their shops. Even if Penelope had good bloodlines and the training to be a viscount’s wife, she would have little or no dowry. He detested being so mercenary in his choice of a wife but the small horde of dependents he was responsible for required him to be so. Penelope might really be the daughter of a marquis but the man had obviously been as reckless with his riches as Ashton’s father had. Or she was not the marquis’s legitimate child.

  Ignoring Artemis’s protest, Ashton lifted Penelope out of the carriage and carried her up the steps to the door. He had only just reached the top step when the door was flung open and more young boys appeared, surrounding him. Penelope was taken from him before he could utter one protest. The boys all thanked him for his aid and hurried a staggering Penelope inside, slamming the door in his face.

  Ashton considered banging on the door but shrugged aside the urge. He had to put the woman out of his mind. On the morrow he would be facing Lord Hutton-Moore, taking that first formal step toward marrying the beautiful, cold Clarissa. He noticed a placard by the door that read WHERLOCKE WARREN and frowned. An odd name for a house, even for one bought for a mistress, he mused as he turned away.

  Once back in the carriage and on his way to Mrs. Cratchitt’s to gather up his friends, Ashton decided he wanted to go home. He needed quiet, needed time to think and strengthen his resolve to do what he had to do for his family. He needed time alone to push all thought and memory of a woman who stirred his blood as none had ever done before right out of his mind.

  Chapter Four

  “Pearls cast before swine, that is what it was.”

  Ashton gave Brant an uneasy smile as his friend walked into his breakfast room and helped himself to a large plate of food from the sideboard before sitting down. “What are you talking about?”

  “The great wisdom I imparted to you two nights ago.”

  Was it only two nights ago? Ashton mused. It felt like months. He had not gotten much sleep since then, haunted by dreams of a woman with odd-colored eyes and knotted up with unquenched lust. Worse, he was starting to see Penelope everywhere. He was sure he had seen her pale face in an attic window as he had left Clarissa’s home yesterday, but that was impossible. Clarissa would have no reason to hide the daughter of a marquis in her attic.

  “Which great wisdom was that?” he asked Brant.

  “About waiting before you asked for Clarissa’s fair hand, before making it all official.”

  “But I did heed that advice. I had to keep my meeting with her brother, but I kept the talk very vague, more of an official request to court his sister. The most basic and formal first step. Foolish really because it is time I married and the family coffers definitely need an infusion of funds.”

  “Well, either you were not vague enough or someone willfully misunderstood you.”

  Ashton cautiously accepted the paper Brant handed him, wondering why he had not noticed his friend carrying it. He really needed a few nights of good sleep, Ashton decided. He was getting as blind and as absentminded as his ancient grandfather had been. Ashton had been young when the old man had died, wandering off one night onto the moors to drown in a bog. He felt as if he was drowning in an emotional bog, one that was making him question his every decision.

  The paper was folded open to a section listing betrothals, marriages, births, and deaths. It took only a quick glance over the various announcements to find what had brought Brant to his home at such an early hour. Featured quite prominently and filled with a tactless listing of his ancestry and prospects was the announcement of his betrothal to Lady Clarissa Hutton-Moore. Ashton felt his breakfast turn into a seething ball of acid in his belly. He had been trapped.

  “I never asked her,” he muttered. “No dear, would you do me the honor. No ring.”

  Brant filled a cup with coffee and frowned. “Bad ton, then. Yet what can you do?”

  “Nothing, I suppose.” Ashton continued to stare at the notice and had the fleeting thought that it would be better placed beneath the obituaries. “My courtship of Clarissa, my marked interest in her, has been very public and an announcement has been anticipated. It was always my plan. I but faltered for a moment.”

  Faltered was a weak word to describe the turmoil that had beset him since that night at Mrs. Cratchitt’s, he thought with a sigh. To say he had fallen on his face would be a better way to describe it. That night he had gone out with his friends fully accepting his future with Clarissa and had come back dreading it to the very depths of his soul. He had not been given time to regain his balance and good sense. Ashton frowned, suddenly wondering if Clarissa’s brother, perhaps even Clarissa herself, had sensed the change in him and acted quickly to stop him from walking away. Despite his hesitation of the moment, that would not have happened.

  “Scented your change of heart,” Brant said, echoing Ashton’s thoughts.

  “Possibly, but it was only a brief change. I would have wrestled it back onto the path of necessity. My mind was still set on the betrothal. To be honest, my heart was never involved anyway.”

  “Did not think so. Clarissa is beautiful, a perfect gem of the ton, but I never saw anything there that would bestir you much at all.”

  “Ah, but there was her dowry and the fact that I would not have to snuff all the candles in order to beget an heir on her.”

  Brant grimaced. “But you will have to build up the fire in the bedchamber ere you crawl beneath the sheets or you will be chilled to the bone.”

  “So you think her lacking in passion, too?” Ashton asked.

  “The kind that can warm a man who looks for more than scratching an itch? Most assuredly.”

  “And you think I look for more, do you?”

  Brant smiled, but there was a tinge of sadness in the expression. “In the end, most of us do. We just rarely find it. We turn to money and appropriate bloodlines instead, and then spend the rest of our lives trying to find that warmth elsewhere. Thought I had found it once,” he added in a soft voice.

  “It proved false?” Ashton felt certain he knew exactly when Brant had suffered his disappointment for there had been a distinct hardening in the man a little over a year ago.

  “I am not sure. She was a vicar’s daughter.”

  “I suspect your mother was chagrined,” Ashton murmured.

  “A mild word for dear Mama’s reaction to my choice. She was absolutely enraged, especially when the match she thought I should make was lost to her and her chosen candidate was snatched up by another. My chosen one had a very small dowry and was but the child of the youngest son of a minor baron. I was determined to have her, my pretty Faith. But she disappeared. Her father said she had run off with a soldier.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Some days, no, but most of the time, yes. Her father is a respected man, a vicar well known for his piety. I find it hard to believe he would lie to me or not search far and wide for his daughter if she had just disappeared. So I decided that, if one cannot trust a pious vicar’s daughter named Faith, what hope is there? I will, at some point, find a suitable girl who makes Mama happy and grunt over her until she breeds me a brood of heirs and spares, all the while keeping a mistress to satisfy my less di
gnified needs.”

  Ashton felt a chill go down his spine and not because of Brant’s bleak portrayal of his future. In his head he could hear Penelope say, Someone died in this bed. Poor Faith. He firmly told himself not to be a superstitious fool. It helped only a little, as did reminding himself that Faith was not such an uncommon name, and even if Penelope could sense such things, it did not mean she had seen Brant’s Faith.

  He forced his wandering mind back to the subject at hand—his newly announced betrothal to Clarissa. “That is a dark and dismal future,” he said, not completely referring to Brant’s last statement.

  “As titled gentlemen, burdened with history, duty, and far too many dependents, it is a future we all face.” Brant spread honey on his toasted bread. “Are you going to even complain about the Hutton-Moores’ presumption?”

  “Some. A few cutting remarks as I give Clarissa a ring. Mayhap I will purchase one, letting the fact that I did not adorn her delicate white hand with the famed Radmoor emerald speak for itself. I believe I am angry enough to deliver that insult. Although it is little more than a tightly trapped man’s last howl of defiance.”

  “An excellent idea, however. It will be interesting to see how she explains that to all who will rush to gawk at her ring. Myself, I would no longer trust her any further than I could spit.”

  “Oh, I am not sure I trusted her that much even before this trickery. I trust her brother even less. I cannot really say why, just instinct.”

  “God’s tears, Ashton, if that is so, why are you going to marry the chit?”

  “Because she was the only one with a hefty dowry who would look with any favor upon a nearly penniless viscount who has too many people living off his meager and rapidly diminishing funds. And one who carries the taint of a licentious father to whom ‘scandal’ was just another word.”

  “Ah, there is that. What about the fair Penelope?”

  Ashton slumped in his seat. “I wish I could say I will just forget about her. I remind myself that I am a man of reason. Reason tells me to get my wandering mind back on the path I need to take, the one that will keep my family out of debtor’s prison. Reason reminds me, continuously, that I need money, that my estates need money, and that my family needs money. Reason tells me that I need to repair the Radmoor reputation, repair all the damage my father did as he drank, gambled, and rutted his way to an early death. Reason tells me that I will gain none of that if I chase after a girl named Penelope who lives in a house in a just barely genteel part of the city with what appears to be a vast horde of younger brothers and cousins, somehow ends up in a brothel, and thinks she can see spirits and the like.”