A Kiss of Lies (38 page)
Authors: Bronwen Evans
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #Regency, #Victorian, #Suspense, #General
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Read on to learn more about Sebastian and Beatrice’s story …
“She’s coming round. Stand back and give her some air.”
Beatrice felt nothing except a bone-chilling cold. Her teeth chattered. Her eyelids were too heavy to open, but she wondered if, should she manage to pry them apart, would her brother Doogie be there to greet her?
However, any thought of being dead vanished when a very large, very masculine hand pressed hard on her chest. Water spewed out of her mouth. Her nose. As she choked and retched, the hand simply flipped her on her side as if she were nothing more than a landed fish.
“She’ll be fine once the river she swallowed comes back up.”
Through the agonizing cramping and heaving of her stomach, the authority-saturated voice calmed her. She focused her mind away from the need to be sick and onto the man’s deep baritone voice. The sound flowed as smooth as her favorite sherry, stroking her insides, calming the rollicking within and giving her courage.
Beatrice forced her eyes to open. She blinked the blurs away. Blinked again. She was lying on her side. The hardness beneath her cheek was wood. She was on a ship. They were men’s legs, sailors’ legs, all except one pair. Those well-shaped calves covered by dripping wet stockings were bootless. The legs obviously belonged to the refined voice she’d heard.
She moved her head slightly and blinked again, following those bootless legs up the sodden trousers to the clinging shirt, all of which delineated a body that was no stranger to exercise. Exquisite, was her first thought. And then she reached his face.
Her breath caught in her throat and she was drowning once more. Not exquisite. Arresting. Arrogant. His ruthlessly handsome face was looking at her as if it were her fault she’d fallen in the Thames. Worse, his eyes held another emotion deep within—heat and lust. The gray-blue of his eyes penetrated the cold, and the wickedness within seemed to warm every inch of her skin.
She quickly looked away and down her body. The sight that greeted her made her gasp and try to sit up. Her dress had been ripped open and her corset lay several feet away in tatters. Her breasts were on full display for those on deck to see.
Heat flamed in her face as she tried to pull the tattered sides of her soaking clothes together. She didn’t know where to look. No wonder he stared. No wonder he looked so …
“You tore my dress.”
“Guilty.” The deep, seductive notes of his voice mocked her. “A thank-you would suffice. I did just save your life.”
Of course he had. Blast the man.
“Oh, yes, thank you,” she mumbled, too embarrassed to look anywhere but at her feet.
“It was my pleasure. Lord Sebastian Coldhurst at your service, my lady.”
Coldhurst
. It would have to be Coldhurst who had saved her. He was the last man on earth to whom she wished to be indebted.
Confound it. She’d heard Lord Coldhurst was a handsome man, and the reaction of her body made it impossible to deny the truth. He was exceedingly handsome, his look dark and very dangerous. With his deep auburn-brown hair and chiseled, harsh, yet gorgeous, features, he would be any woman’s fantasy. Any woman’s fantasy but hers!
His sinful lips curved in a mocking smile at her obvious assessing gaze.
She held her head high. “I know who you are. If not for you I would not have been here in the first place.”
“Really, how fascinating.” He looked down at the dock below them. “I’m flattered. Such a warm welcome from lovely English lasses, although you’re in a different class to the rest of the ladies at the bottom of the gangplank.” His finely arched brows knitted together as his eyes swept over her.
Indignation momentarily robbed her of speech. Her chin lifted. “I’m not here to
welcome
you.”
His skeptical study made her flush even hotter. “The captain informs me you were waiting with the other, shall we say, ladies. However, I do not believe I’ve had the pleasure …”
When she remained silent, he added, “I must admit falling into the Thames is a unique way to gain my attention. Your charms are quite adequate, from what I have seen. However, I must inform you that if you are after a protector, I do not ever keep a mistress. But if you’re interested in a short interlude of immeasurable mutual pleasure, I’m all ears.”
She didn’t require the previous lungful of water to splutter. “How dare you! I am not here for your pleasure, my lord. I’m here to collect on a family debt.” At his confused frown she
added, “I’m Beatrice Hennessey.”
His seductive smile disappeared immediately, and his hands fell from where they were bracing his hips. The eyes that, moments ago, gleamed with a blatant invitation were now filled with guilt and pain. Perhaps he wasn’t as callous as his actions had dictated.
“As I wrote in my letter,” he said, “I’m sorry for your loss. I should never have allowed the duel to proceed. If I could change what happened that morning I would. I did not mean to kill your brother. I’m sure my shot was wide, and the Prince Regent agreed that it was a terrible tragedy and has issued a full pardon.”
He’d paid for a pardon, more like. The Prince was always desperate for money. Suddenly Beatrice was very tired. She sat in her wet clothes, the cold numbing every part of her. Her heart clawed in her chest thinking of her brother, and the unfairness of what she had to do.
She took a deep breath. “This is not the time or place to have this discussion.”
He obviously agreed with her. The words were scarcely out of her mouth when he bent and scooped her into his arms. Even though his shirt was soaked, the heat coming off his muscled chest seared as if she’d strayed too close to a roaring fire. She held the tattered edges of her dress together even tighter and let the warmth begin to seep into her bones.
Lord Coldhurst strode with her down the gangway to his stateroom, where he deposited her gently on his bed. His manner made it clear his motives had no nefarious purpose.
He passed her a towel. “Best rid yourself of those wet clothes. I’ll find dry garments for you.” Then he left her.
She sat staring at the closed door. Finally, when the increasing ferocity of her shivers almost made her fall off the bunk bed, she rose and stripped off her ruined dress. Another expense, she thought as she peeled sodden stockings down her legs. Terrified of Coldhurst’s return before she was decent, Beatrice made quick work of drying herself with the towel. Then, spying a blanket at the foot of the bed, she wrapped it around herself, and was instantly engulfed in Lord Coldhurst’s scent. It was a heady mixture of stale cheroots, a spicy cologne, and maleness.
A knock at the cabin door made her jerk her nose guiltily from the blanket.
Lord Coldhurst entered the room and handed her what appeared to be a clean garment very similar to the ones the group of ladies on the dock had been wearing. “It’s all I could find.” With that he turned his back and pulled his shirt over his head.
She couldn’t help her cry of outrage. “What on earth are you doing?”
Read on for an excerpt from
Sharon Cullen’s
Loving the Earl
“Come now, Alice, we must hurry if we’re to make the ship before it sails without us.” Lady Claire Hartford, Viscountess Chesterman, grabbed her newly minted maid by the sleeve and pulled her through the crush of people milling about Dover’s port.
Alice dug her heels in and pulled back. Her wide-eyed gaze took in a drunkard staggering out of a nearby tavern, then moved to the majestic ship docked across the crowded street.
Claire adjusted her hold on Alice and tugged harder.
“Oh, good, there you are.” Claire breathed a sigh of relief when the boy she’d hired to bring her bag from the carriage appeared at her side, his face red from exertion, his small hands wrapped tightly around the handles of her bag. ’Twas only a small bag she’d brought with her, having sent her larger luggage ahead to the ship, but it contained important papers such as letters of introduction to her brother’s acquaintances in France and Italy, and letters from her brother to his banks so she had access to money.
Tapping a gloved finger to her closed lips, Claire’s gaze swept over the busy dock, looking for someone of authority to hand over her baggage.
As a sailor hurried past, she let go of Alice long enough to snag his coattail. “Pardon me, but can you tell me with whom I may secure my luggage?”
The sailor looked at her, his gaze moving from the navy cap covering her hair to her blue traveling gown to her fine boots then back up again. “I can take it for you, m’lady.”
“Lovely.” She pulled a crown from her reticule and handed it to him.
He looked from the coin to her, his brows furrowed.
“This is for your trouble,” she said. “We will be in cabin number four if you could have it waiting for us when we get there.”
He bobbed his head and with a hurried, “Certainly, m’lady,” grabbed the bag and disappeared into the crowd.
Claire straightened her shoulders and brushed her hands together. “Well, that went very well. Don’t you think, Alice?” If Richard could see her now. No, her late husband wouldn’t at all be pleased to see her now. In fact, he was probably rolling in his grave. Good. She hoped he was
rolling. This stretching of her wings, finding her freedom, was even more exhilarating than she’d believed possible.
Alice took a step back. “M’lady. I don’t think … That is … Your brothers …”
Claire grabbed Alice’s sleeve and yanked her out of the way of a wagon pulled by two tired-looking horses. Poor Alice. She was a new kitchen maid to Claire’s brother’s home and a last-minute substitute for Claire’s adventure. Claire had thought the girl would be much more appreciative of the chance to see a part of the world she never would have had the chance to see otherwise.
“Never mind my brothers.” Claire breathed deep of the crisp, briny air, and wrinkled her nose at the sharp, pungent odor of the tanning shop a few streets over. “Sebastian and Nicholas will be fine without us,” she said, referring to the brothers of which Alice spoke. Of course Sebastian and Nicholas had no idea that she and Alice were in Dover. Sebastian thought she was leaving on tomorrow’s ship with her old nanny, Betsy. Claire had outmaneuvered him by secretly making plans of her own, leaving Dover earlier, on a ship that didn’t belong to her other brother, Nicholas. Did Sebastian truly think she would be content with Betsy? The woman was a dragon and would surely have stifled Claire’s adventure. Probably the reason Sebastian insisted Betsy accompany her.
With a bright smile Claire turned to her maid to find the poor girl cowering. “Shall we?”
Alice whimpered. Claire ignored her and headed for the tall ship.
She wasn’t ignorant about sailing although she did suffer a moment of trepidation when approaching the gangplank. She’d never been on a vessel other than Nicholas’s and
never
had she actually been on one that sailed to another port. But she pushed the apprehension away. Her choice of a shipping company other than Nicholas’s had been deliberate—for the express purpose of cutting the ropes that tethered her to her overprotective, overbearing family.
The crowd grew more dense, and suddenly Alice’s arm was torn from Claire’s grasp. Whirling around to locate her maid, Claire slammed into a hard surface. She raised her hand to catch herself and found her chin pressed against the buttons of a waistcoat.
“Oh.” She stumbled back just as a man’s hands settled over her shoulders, steadying her.
She looked up, up, up into the darkest brown eyes framed by the longest, blackest eyelashes she’d ever seen on a man. He released her shoulders but not before the heat of his hands penetrated her cloak.
He cursed and dropped to his knee. Shocked, Claire looked down upon dark brown hair, intermingled with bits of vibrant red. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed various papers scattered on the ground, some crushed beneath others’ boots. He scooped up as many as he could, but a brisk breeze lifted several sheets and spread them farther.
“Oh, dear.” She bent to pick up a stray paper but a passing foot came down on it at the same time, crushing her fingers. She bit her lip to keep from crying out and yanked her hand from beneath the boot.
Suddenly his large hand was on hers. “You’re hurt.”
She tried to pull free but he held tightly, pulling her glove off to examine her red knuckles. She hesitated, shocked that a stranger was touching her bare hand in such an intimate manner. Their faces were so close that their noses almost touched, and for the first time she noticed that his eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot, and his auburn hair mussed as if he’d not had time to comb it that morning.
She pulled her hand from his. “I’m fine. Truly. But you will lose your papers if we don’t get them now.”
She spotted a few some feet away, again trampled by the crowd. She hurried over and managed to retrieve them.
The gentleman—for that was exactly what he was; no one other than a gentleman could afford a waistcoat that fit so perfectly to such wide shoulders—was looking down with a look of disbelief at the crumpled, muddy and torn papers in his hand.
