Invitation to Ruin (40 page)

“Wait, no, Mama,” Janie cried out, pulling on her mother. “I need Mr. Mullet.” Her voice rose to a shrill sob.

Talen whirled around and squinted over Cara’s shoulder. “Mr. Mullet?” He eyed the living room entrance and then focused on the little girl.

Cara pressed a hand against his chest, settling her stance to protect her child. “Mr. Mullet is her stuffed bear—she doesn’t go anywhere without him.” If Janie could leave the room, Cara could really fight.

Talen raised an eyebrow, his gaze thoughtful. “Hurry, Janie. Get the bear—we have to go.”

Quick as a flash, Janie darted from the room. Dark eyes met Cara’s and she wavered, then shot her knee upward to
his groin, simultaneously punching her fist toward his face with a fierce grunt.

He shifted, allowing her knee to connect to the muscle of his upper thigh while his arm shot out to stop her punch. His broad hand enclosed her fist inches away from his chin, and the slap of skin on skin echoed around the room. The basket of clothes remained safe in his free arm.

Pain lanced through her leg, and fear cascaded down her spine. Panting out breath, she waited for retaliation. If he hit her, he’d knock her out. What about Janie?

Talen tilted his head to the side, his hand warm around hers. “Is your leg all right?”

He asked about her leg? Seriously? She’d just tried to turn him into a eunuch. “Fine,” she hissed through her teeth.

“Hmmm,” he said, twisting his hand to grasp her wrist and yank her into the living room. “You might want to work on not broadcasting your intent with those pretty blue eyes next time.” Mere politeness colored his tone, not an ounce of anger to be found.

Cara stumbled, truly off balance for the first time that evening.

“I got him, Mama,” Janie chirped, running into the room with the stuffed bear and her worn blankie. “We can go now.”

The front door hung drunkenly split in two. At the sight, Cara began to struggle again. With an exasperated sigh, Talen dropped the basket of clothes, shifted her to the side, and lifted Janie into his arms.

“No!” Cara cried out, reaching for her daughter before pounding on his broad back. Pure instinct moved her to protect Janie, and rage choked her as she beat on his dark vest.

“Get the clothes and move it,” he growled over his shoulder. He crossed the front porch, heading toward a black Hummer idling at the curb.

Cara threw herself against the man holding her child, knocking over the basket. Clothes scattered across the wooden planks.

“Let her go, you bastard!”

He may not intend harm, but he had no right to kidnap them. She clutched one arm around his massive neck as her knees dug into his spine. She jerked hard against his windpipe. A rush of anger slammed through her body, pushing out the fear.

Even with her struggling on his back, his long strides continued toward the vehicle unhampered. He yanked open the rear door, placed Janie in a booster seat, and buckled her in with quick motions. Cara moved to jump off him, only to have him close the door, grab her arm, and pull her around. Two strong hands held her aloft. Hard steel met her backside when he stepped into her, his face lowering to hers. “Stop fighting me.”

His strength was unbelievable. Her own vulnerability beat into her as she realized her nightshirt had risen to reveal pale pink panties. The cool night air rushed across her bare legs. Dark denim scratched the tender skin of her inner thighs, and she opened her mouth to scream.

One swift movement and his mouth covered hers. Hot, firm, and somehow restrained. The effort of his restraint belted into her. He fought to control himself. Heat slammed through her. A roaring filled her ears and her breath hitched. Her heart slowed, and time stopped. For a brief moment,
his
heartbeat echoed throughout her body to a spot below her stomach.

He growled low and his mouth moved over hers, no longer silencing her, but tasting. Exploring. One thick arm swept around her waist and pulled her into him; the other lifted to tangle a hand in her hair. He tugged, angled her head more to the side. He went deeper.

She moaned as his tongue met hers. He explored her mouth like he owned it. For a moment, he did. She forgot everything. There were only his lips on hers, demanding. Promising. His heat warmed her as she returned his kiss, pushing closer into his hard body, forgetting reality.

Pure strength surrounded her. Hot. Dangerous. Tempting.

Don’t miss A SENSE OF SIN, the second novel from Elizabeth Essex, in stores next month!

D
el had not known who she was when he first laid eyes upon her, but he instinctively didn’t like her. He distrusted beauty. Because beauty walked hand in hand with privilege. Unearned privilege. And she was certainly beautiful. Tall, elegant, with porcelain white skin, a riot of sable dark curls and deep dark eyes—a symphony of black and white. She surveyed the ballroom like a queen: haughty, serene, remote and exquisitely pretty. And beauty had a way of diverting unpleasantness and masking grievous flaws of character. No, beauty was not to be trusted.

Her name was confirmed by others attending the select ball at the Marquess and Marchioness of Widcombe’s. It wafted to him on champagne-fueled murmurs from the hot, crowded room: “Dear Celia,” and “Our Miss Burke.” And the title that everyone seemed to call her, “The Ravishing Miss Burke,” as if it were her rank and she the only one to wear that crown.

The ravishing Miss Celia Burke. A well-known, and even more well-liked local beauty. And here she was, making her serene, graceful way down the short set of stairs into the ballroom as effortlessly as clear water flowed over rocks in a hillside stream. She nodded and smiled in a benign but uninvolved way at all who approached her, but she never stopped to converse. She processed on, following her mother through the
parting sea of mere mortals, those lesser human beings who were nothing and nobody to her but playthings.

Aloof, perfect Celia Burke.
Fuck you
.

Yes, by God, he would take his revenge and Emily would have justice. Maybe then he could sleep at night.

Maybe then he could learn to live with himself.

But he couldn’t exact the kind of revenge one takes on another man: straightforward, violent and bloody. He couldn’t call Miss Burke out on the middle of the dance floor and put a bullet between her eyes or a sword blade between her ribs at dawn. No.

His justice would have to be more subtle, but no less thorough. And no less ruthless.

“You were the one who insisted we attend this august gathering. So what’s it to be? Delacorte?” Commander Hugh McAlden, friend, naval officer and resident cynic, prompted again.

McAlden was one of the few people who never addressed Del by his courtesy title, Viscount Darling, as they’d known each other long before he’d come into the bloody title and far too long for Del to give himself airs in front of such an old friend. And with such familiarity came ease. With McAlden, Del could afford the luxury of being blunt.

“Dancing or thrashing? The latter, I think.”

McAlden’s usually grim mouth crooked up in half a smile. “A thrashing, right here in the Marchioness’s ballroom? I’d pay good money to see that.”

“Would you? Shall we have a private bet, then?”

“Del, I always like it when you’ve got that look in your eye. I’d like nothing more than a good wager.”

“A bet, Colonel Delacorte? What’s the wager? I’ve money to burn these days, thanks to you two.” Another naval officer, Lieutenant Ian James, known from their time together when Del had been an officer of His Majesty’s Marine Forces aboard the frigate
Resolute
, broke into the conversation from behind.

“A private wager only, James.” He would need to be more circumspect. James was a bit of a puppy, happy and eager, but untried in the more manipulative ways of society. There was no telling what he might let slip. Del had no intention of getting caught in the net he was about to cast. “Save your fortune in prize money for another time.”

“A gentleman’s bet then, Colonel?”

A
gentleman’s
bet. Del felt his mouth curve up in a scornful smile. What he was about to do violated every code of gentlemanly behavior. “No. More of a challenge.”

“He’s Viscount Darling now, Mr. James.” McAlden was giving Del a mocking smile. “We have to address him with all the deference he’s due.”

Unholy glee lit the young man’s face. “I had no idea. Congratulations, Colonel. What a bloody fine name. I can hear the ladies now:
my dearest, darling Darling
. How will they resist you?”

Del merely smiled and took another drink. But it was true. None of them resisted: high-born ladies, low-living trollops, barmaids, island girls or
senoritas
. They never had, bless their lascivious hearts.

And neither would
she
, despite her remote facade. Celia Burke was nothing but a hothouse flower just waiting to be plucked.

“Go on, then. What’s your challenge?” McAlden’s face housed a dubious smirk as several more Navy men, Lieutenants Thomas Gardener and Robert Scott joined them.

“I propose I can openly court, seduce and ruin an untried, virtuous woman.” He paused to give them a moment to remark upon the condition he was about to attach. “Without ever once touching her.”

McAlden gave a huff of bluff laughter. “Too easy, in one sense, too hard, in another,” he stated flatly.

“But how can you possibly ruin someone without touching them?” Ian James protested.

Del felt his mouth twist. He had forgotten what it was like
to be that young. While he was only six and twenty, he’d grown older since Emily’s death. Vengeance was singularly aging.

“Find us a drink would you, gentlemen? A real drink and none of that lukewarm swill they’re passing out on trays.” Del pushed the youths off in the direction of a footman.

“Too easy to ruin a reputation with only a rumor,” McAlden repeated in his unhurried, determined way. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

Trust McAlden to get right to the heart of the matter. Like Del, McAlden had never been young. And he was older in years as well.

“With your reputation,” McAlden continued as they turned to follow the others, “well deserved, I might add, you’ll not get within a sea mile of a virtuous woman.”

“That, old man, shows how little you know of women.”

“That, my darling Viscount, shows how little you know of their Mamas.”

“And I’d like to keep it that way. Hence the prohibition against touching. I plan on keeping a very safe distance.” While he was about this business of revenging himself on Celia Burke, he needed to keep himself safe—safe from being forced into doing the right thing should his godforsaken plan be discovered or go awry. And he didn’t
want
to touch her. He didn’t want to be tainted by so much as the merest brush of her hand.

“Can’t seduce, really
seduce
, from a distance. Not even you. Twenty guineas says it can’t be done.”

“Twenty? An extravagant wager for a flinty, tight-pursed Scotsman like you. Done.” Del accepted the challenge with a firm handshake. It sweetened the pot, so to speak.

McAlden perused the crowd. “Shall we pick now? I warn you, Del, this isn’t London. There’s plenty of virtue to be had in Dartmouth.”

“Why not?” Del felt his mouth curve into a lazy smile. The town may have been full of virtue, but he was full of vice. And he cared about only one particular woman’s virtue.

“You’ll want to be careful. Singularly difficult things, women,” McAlden offered philosophically. “Can turn a man inside out. Just look at Marlowe.”

Del shrugged. “Captain Marlowe married. I do not have anything approaching marriage in mind.”

“So you’re going to seduce and ruin an innocent without being named, or caught? That
is
bloody minded.”

“I didn’t say innocent. I said untried. In this case, there is a particular difference.” He looked across the room at Celia Burke again. At the virtuous, innocent face she presented to the world. He would strip away that mask, until everyone could see the ugly truth behind her immaculately polished, social veneer.

McAlden followed the line of his gaze. “You can’t mean—That’s Celia Burke!” All trace of joviality disappeared from McAlden’s voice. “Jesus, Del, have you completely lost your mind? As well as all moral scruple?”

“Gone squeamish?” Del tossed back the last of his drink. “That’s not like you.”

“I
know
her. Everyone in Dartmouth knows her. She is Marlowe’s wife’s most particular friend. You can’t go about ruining
—ruining
for God’s sake—innocent young women, like her. Even
I
know that.”

“I said she’s
not
innocent.”

“Then you must’ve misjudged her. She’s not fair game, Del. Pick someone else. Someone I don’t know.” McAlden’s voice was growing thick.

“No.” Darling kept his own voice flat.

McAlden’s astonished countenance turned back to look at Miss Burke, half a room away, now smiling sweetly in conversation with another young woman. He swore colorfully under his breath. “That’s not just bloody minded, that’s suicidal. She’s got parents, Del. Attentive parents. Take a good hard look at her mama, Lady Caroline Burke. She’s nothing less than the daughter of a Duke, and is to all accounts a complete gorgon in her own right. They say she eats fortune hunters, not to mention an assortment of libertines like you,
for breakfast. And what’s more, Miss Burke is a relation of the Marquess of Widcombe, in whose ballroom you are currently
not dancing
. This isn’t London, you are a guest here. My guest, and therefore Marlowe’s guest. One misstep like that and they’ll have your head. Or, more likely, your bollocks. And quite rightly. Pick someone else for your challenge.”

“No.”

“Delacorte.”

“Bugger off, Hugh.”

McAlden knew him well enough to hear the implacable finality in his tone. He shook his head slowly. “God’s balls, Del. I didn’t think I’d regret having you to stay so quickly.” He ran his hand through his short, cropped hair and looked at Del with a dawning of realization. “Christ. You’d already made up your mind before you came here, hadn’t you? You came for her.”