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Authors: Maggie Robinson

BOOK: Master of Sin
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He had his doubts, though. If Miss Peartree were still here, his comfort was bound to be a chancy thing.
She had been in a tizzy to discover Marc would be left alone while they ate their dinner, but it was clear even to her that once he'd eaten his own bowl of stew in the kitchen, he was still too sick and tired to keep his little blue eyes open. He'd fallen asleep on Andrew's shoulder as he'd carried him up the stairs to Miss Peartree's room, Miss Peartree trailing a step behind him like a guard dog—some sort of yapping little brown terrier that had been left out in the rain because it rolled in something unpleasant. She had made an effort with her hair, but it was clear to him if he meant to keep her something must be done about her personal hygiene. He'd not have his son cradled in such aromatic arms.
He'd corner Mrs. MacLaren in the kitchen tomorrow morning and beg for some new clothes for the girl. Insist she take a bath, too. Maybe when she smelled sweeter he wouldn't hold her in such aversion. Of course, her tongue would be just as filthy as ever. But Marc liked her. Hell,
loved
her. Andrew supposed he could put up with her for a while until he got his feet under himself again and his arm mended.
He looked around the simply furnished dining room. There was a round table and six turned Jacobean chairs, though he doubted he'd ever fill them with company. A nice seascape in desperate need of a cleaning hung over the Delft-tiled fireplace. A small sideboard, a polished brass chandelier—that was it. There was no carpet, no wallpaper. Andrew found the room suited him, although the echo of Miss Peartree's cutlery was insistent despite her surprisingly ladylike efforts. Her manners were unobjectionable as she dipped her pewter spoon into the white china bowl and fished out carrots and peas and potatoes to chew with her small white teeth.
“Do you not eat meat?”
She swallowed before she answered, another good sign. “Not often.”
“You should. You look like a scarecrow.”
She put her spoon down on the plate with a clank. “You may be my employer, but it does not give you leave to criticize my appearance.”
“It's not just about your appearance. You'll need stamina to keep up with Marc. He's a busy child, into everything when he feels well. In Italy—” He stopped himself. He couldn't tell her of Marc running in the lush villa gardens chasing orange butterflies. Or Giulietta tossing a red ball over his head to Andrew as Marc squealed, jumping up and down, his chubby fists reaching up. Or tumbling with his greyhound puppy, letting the dog lick him all over as he wriggled and laughed. Marc's life had been paradise before Gianni saw fit to end it. Andrew took a sip of wine. There were no palm trees and sultry breezes here, no pretty, light-hearted mother, no ducal father to spoil him. Just Andrew and this ragged little governess.
“I'm sure I can manage,” Miss Peartree said tightly.
“Just managing will not be enough. My son should have the best.”
“Then why did you bring him here? You are the only
gentleman
on the island.” The way she said it let Andrew know how little she thought of him already, and she knew nothing. “He'll have naught but the village children to play with. Do you know there is no school here? The parish priest comes but a few times a year. The islanders' lives are very basic. They steal seabirds' eggs to eat, for heaven's sake.”
“How do you know all this when you don't speak Gaelic?”
“I had fourteen days to occupy myself. I walked about, observed. Not everyone was as mean as Mrs. MacLaren.” She paused. “Some were worse.”
“What did you do to her to put her back up so?”
Miss Peartree's eyes dropped to her bowl. She appeared to be counting peas and spoke directly to them. “She came into the kitchen when I was bathing on the second day I was here. She—she didn't understand.”
“Didn't understand what? That you were dirty after traveling and needed to get clean? You do again, by the way,” he said baldly.
Miss Peartree's face was very red now. “I know. I'm sorry, but it was too much trouble to go to fill the tub. I ran out of wood—and—and anyway, there was no one to see me. Or smell me. I didn't know when you were coming.” She shrugged. “I'd hoped to befriend someone in the village to help me before then.”
“Well, you'll have a bath tomorrow, come hell or high water.”
Miss Peartree lowered her eyes again. “Yes, sir.”
Andrew wondered if he'd heard correctly, but decided not to press her further. He was nearly as worn out as his son. She continued to pick her vegetables out of the stew, but he was pleased to note she allowed one square chunk of lamb to pass her lips.
Her mouth was wide in her elfin face. Now that her hair was combed and pinned, he saw gold threads among the dirty brown in the candlelight. He supposed he shouldn't be too hard on her. She'd lost her luggage and been alone for two weeks in this nearly empty house. “So, tell me what else you've learned about the island,” he said, hoping to pass the time until he could fall dead asleep in his own bed instead of at the supper table.
 
That had been a near thing. Gemma thought for sure Mr. Ross would inquire more closely about her disagreement with Mrs. MacLaren. Thank the Lord he had not. For how could she tell him Mrs. MacLaren had caught her touching herself
down there,
her other hand cupped on her tiny breast flicking a flat brown nipple? She had been incredibly wicked for daytime but had needed release so badly. The past few months had been an absolute horror, and this new job looked to be no better. She had just wanted to unwind the spring that was so tight within her that even her hair hurt.
That day she thought she had the house to herself. Mrs. MacLaren had helped with the bath and then gone back down to the village to borrow fresh clothes for her. Gemma lost all sense of time in the cooling water as she kneaded and stroked with rigorous precision. She had been in the midst of a particularly fine peak and panting accordingly when Mrs. MacLaren discovered her abandon.
It would be hard to say who had been more shocked, but Mrs. MacLaren definitely had the last word, screeching at her, making numerous signs of the cross, and tearing upstairs to lock Gemma out from finding similar bliss on any bed. Needless to say, the housekeeper took the parcel of clean clothes and keys back home. At this point, Gemma's own brown traveling dress could stand up without her.
Gemma didn't think Mrs. MacLaren had told anyone about her sinful ways. While the villagers had been suspicious of her, they hadn't looked at her with the same degree of disgust that the older woman had. Maybe by now the housekeeper had convinced herself that Gemma was washing herself the English way.
She tugged off her dress and unrolled her dingy stockings. She had nothing but her shift to sleep in, and not nearly enough blankets. Gemma stirred at the coals and added another brick of peat. At least for tonight she would be toasty warm. She was looking forward to snuggling with Marc and welcomed his body heat. It had been a long while since she'd shared a bed with anyone, and then it had not been anyone as innocent as Andrew Ross's little son.
Gemma blew out the candle and crawled into bed. She pulled the child to her chest and said her prayers. Tomorrow she would have a bath, and that was nearly as good as being delivered from evil.
CHAPTER 3
H
e woke up to a bloody miracle. No, Miss Peartree was right. He'd have to edit himself if he wished Marc not to repeat phrases that were unsuitable for the only
gentleman's
son living on the island. It was a blessed miracle. The sun seemed to be shining, although the gusts were as fierce as ever, billowing the faded curtains even though the windows were closed. Andrew had lain awake most of the night despite his exhaustion, listening to the booming ocean below and the howling wind. He'd better get used to the sounds, for they were all he was apt to hear for the foreseeable future.
He'd discovered some ledgers in the desk yesterday afternoon and had pieced together a sketchy history of his new house. It was more than fifty years old, built on this spit of land for an English gentleman whose interest in ornithology might have been considered excessive, perhaps even unhinged. List upon list of the number of kittiwakes, shags, puffins, guillemots, razorbills, and other seabirds the man observed every spring and summer was rather mind-boggling. There were meticulous pencil sketches in one notebook that were fine enough to frame. But the Englishman had the good sense to leave the island every fall, so who was to say who was unhinged? It was only early December, and already Andrew felt a chill to his bones that seemed permanent.
Andrew reluctantly left the warmth of his covers and went to the window. Scattered diamonds of frost littered the machair on the beach below. The whitecaps were fierce but compelling. He sat in the deep window seat and placed his left hand on the glass. So cold. Too cold for a tramp out of doors, but who knew when the sun would shine again? He was lord of his manor now, should pace his boundaries and look for his ruins.
He was hungry. Judging from the pale yellow sun in the sky, it might be closer to lunch time than breakfast. He'd dress and eat and go for his walk. Exercise his arm as he was supposed to do, squeezing and unsqueezing the hard ball that the doctor he'd consulted in Paris had given him. Andrew had once been fond of exercise—boxing, fencing, and riding—it had kept his instrument in perfect tune. His body had been his fortune. Even if those days were over, there was no reason to let his fitness lapse.
He washed and fumbled with his clothing, cursing the buttons. The house seemed still, thank goodness. No caterwauling child or banging of pot tops. No arguing shrew. Perhaps they'd all taken advantage of the break in the weather and gone off to the village. Andrew hoped something had been left for him in the kitchen to eat. He took the back stairs and pushed the door open.
Steam was rising from an enamel tub, as was Miss Peartree. She had been reaching for a towel draped on a kitchen chair, but at the sight of Andrew had paused for one fatal second. Her wet hair was slicked back from her scrubbed little face and snaked past her waist to rest on her pert backside. Her skin was the color of coffee with far too much cream added, her nipples large and flat and brown, her breasts just the slightest swell over her rib cage. His eyes fixed upon her thatch of curls, mink-brown over slender thighs. She looked like a woodland nymph. A clean woodland nymph.
“Not bloody
again
!”
She clasped her arms around her body. She didn't have quite enough hands to cover herself, not that there was an extra ounce of flesh on her. Andrew stepped forward and handed her the towel. She hastily wrapped it around herself, missing one breast entirely.
Andrew had been mistaken yesterday. What little she had under her clothes was strangely, sinfully appealing. He felt a tug to his groin, which startled him. He hadn't felt real desire in years.
“How dare you?”
She blinked. Her eyelashes were wet. Spiky, tangled. Andrew blinked back but couldn't move any other part of him.
“Don't just stand there! Go away! Go away!” she screamed.
Andrew woke from his trance. What was wrong with him? His feet seemed glued to the floor. He couldn't even find his tongue to say he was sorry.
Because he wasn't sorry. Not one bit.
But he did go away, without breakfast. Without a taste of what seemed like the most delicious skin he'd ever seen.
She was so tiny. Everywhere. Almost childlike. He'd never had a sexual interest in children as so many satyrs did. As Donal did. But she was no child. He wondered just how old she was. Twenty? Twenty-five? His hand went to his cock to adjust himself in his breeches. He was rock-hard and nearly in pain. What sort of cosmic joke was being played upon him now? Had he not been punished enough?
Evidently not.
He imagined those perfectly formed legs locked around his hips. He imagined his lips suckling on the cocoa disks of her nipples, teasing them to fullness. He imagined her long lashes fluttering on her cheeks, her wide mouth open in ecstasy as he drove into her.
And he would be alone with her in this house every night, his sleeping son the only chaperone.
God help him. She had to go.
A blast of wind nearly knocked him over. He'd come to the point overlooking where the Sea of Hebrides met the Atlantic. Waves slapped together, sending spray high into the sky. A collision of forces too elemental to ignore. If he were at all fanciful, it resembled what would happen if he and the diminutive yet delectable Miss Peartree ever united in his bed.
It would never happen. It
should
never happen. He'd given all that up to raise his son. No more dallying, no more sneaking around,
no more sin
. He'd done his share for twenty-five years, both involuntary and voluntary. He was two-and-thirty now, the age when many men finally settled down and became leg-shackled. But marriage was forever beyond his touch. No woman could possibly ignore what he had been, what he had done.
He glanced behind him at the forbidding gray box of his new home, its myriad windows focused on the sea. On him. Was Miss Peartree peering out, shaking her little fist at him? Was she packing? No, she had nothing to pack. The ferry had surely left by now, and it returned only every two weeks until the winter weather might make it altogether impossible. He would be trapped with her at Gull House for another fortnight at least.
There were village women. Girls. Not for him, of course. For Marc. They could serve as caregivers until he secured another Italian-speaking governess. Even if he had to wait until spring for someone to come, he could manage. Couldn't he?
He thought of Marc burrowing into the curve of Miss Peartree's neck, happy at last. Bloody, bloody hell.
He'd spent a lifetime feigning interest. Now he'd just have to feign disinterest. It shouldn't be hard. A flat-chested little thing like Miss Peartree had probably never attracted a man. She wouldn't expect or want him to fall at her feet. So he wouldn't.
He was her employer. A father. Celibate.
He didn't even know her first name.
Hortense. Prudence. Brunhilde. More likely Circe, turning him into a pig to root about looking for his lost good sense.
Andrew shook his hatless head. He'd need to find a knitted cap like the islanders wore if he were to go outdoors this winter. He and Marc would need sweaters and scarves and thick boots. The warm clothes he purchased for them in temperate Paris were totally inadequate. He'd go back to the house and make a list—
No,
she
was in there.
There had been no trace of Mr. or Mrs. MacLaren or his son. They were probably in the village. He'd walk down the rutted track and explore. Make new acquaintances. Wave his good hand wildly about gesturing his thoughts. Talk to a goat or two along the way. Andrew turned his back to the sea and set off, hoping when he returned Miss Peartree would be dressed from her pointed little chin to her narrow little feet.
 
“
Scheiss!
Bloody wonderful!” Gemma slammed around the kitchen, pulling up her towel. She had locked the hall door to the room with a polite little note tied to the door handle. Who would have thought he'd use the back stairs when there were perfectly good front ones to descend? They even had carpet, threadbare though it was. But he'd snuck up on her like a servant when he was supposed to be a gentleman.
Well, he was no gentleman. She'd have to be blind not to notice the look he gave her, like a starving dog staring in the butcher shop window. She was not a chop or a rasher of bacon.
She
would
have to leave. There was no way on earth she could remain here to be hounded and fight off his lust. She'd made all the mistakes she was going to, worked too hard and come too far to find herself in the same predicament as when she left school in Bath and returned to Vienna. She'd allowed herself to be trapped. Never again.
Her father had been no help when she'd fled to London, but at least she'd stolen his seal and stationery and forged a glowing letter of recommendation for herself that had impressed the sniffy Baron Christie. During her interview, she'd rattled off greetings in all her languages and remembered every bit of her boring deportment lessons from Miss Meredith's School for Young Ladies. She had been so very desperate for this job, and now that she had it, she'd be mad to stay.
Two weeks until the next boat came. Two weeks to avoid Marc's father. It could be done. She'd station the crib across the threshold of her room.
Gemma stomped up the back stairs. Perhaps she was mistaken. Maybe Andrew Ross had goggled at her because he'd never seen anybody so unappealing in all his life. He might not see her as a tasty chop but just a scrap of bone. Just because she'd caught the eye of one man—
No, she mustn't think of it. She'd been a fool, but now she was not.
Where in hell were the MacLarens and Marc? They were supposed to come back with fresh clothes for her. She was not ever going to touch any of the clothes she'd been wearing these two weeks.
Mr. MacLaren had delivered the crib on his pony cart, and the little boy had gone back to the village willingly with the couple, already picking up a word or two of their language. To give her privacy in the bath, Mrs. MacLaren had indicated as she'd pointed elaborately between the child, the tub, and the back door, although she'd looked stern and waggled a finger at her as though she expected Gemma would touch herself again given the first opportunity. Not bloody likely with Adonis upstairs sleeping.
Well, he was awake now. And she was freezing and mortified. She wrapped the towel tighter and looked out the window. He was on the point, his unbuttoned jacket blown back by the wind. His fair cropped hair stood on end. He must be colder than she was. He turned suddenly and she ducked back against the wall, heart hammering. She waited, but there was no slam of door or footsteps below. She was safe for the time being.
Taking the toothless comb, she struggled to get her hair untangled, then braided it, wound it up, and pinned it. There was nothing to do but get back under the covers to try to get warm.
Wherever was her trunk? It had been filled with lovely things, ungovernessy things. Her mother would never have permitted her to dress in ugly black mourning clothes, and she hadn't. It had caused a bit of scandal in Vienna, but what she had done out of her pretty frocks was far worse.
She had taken the precaution of buying a few gray and brown dresses for her new job, but buried beneath them in the missing trunk was her favorite bronze silk evening dress and some of her mother's clothes, including a scandalous sheer nightgown that had spent more time upon the carpet than on her mother's body. Gemma had her mother's jewelry, too, if thieves hadn't absconded with it. Of course, she had stolen it herself from Franz's safe. It was only fitting after what he had stolen from her.
Even as a child, Gemma had been fascinated with the gifts that her mother's male friends had given her. The pieces rightfully belonged to her—Herr Birnbaum had not given her mother much in the way of trinkets over the five years that they were married. Francesca Bassano Birnbaum sometimes lamented this fact in the letters she sent to Gemma at school. Gemma wondered exactly how happy her warm-hearted Italian mother had been with her strict Viennese husband, but at least she was financially secure and Gemma's school tuition paid for.
“To grow old alone,
bambina—
that is not for me,” her mother had said to her time and time again. Worried about losing her looks and her hold on men, Francesca had decided to leave mistressing behind and look for matrimony. She had snared Herr Birnbaum but wasn't able to grow old with him after all.
Even if she never got her belongings back, Gemma heard her mother's musical voice in her head and felt her presence in her heart. Francesca had done her best to raise her, although her methods would be considered unorthodox by most standards.
Which is how Gemma wound up shivering at the ends of the earth, torn between committed loneliness and unwelcome desire for a man who could tempt her from her best intentions. Gemma needed this job, but she didn't need the complication of Andrew Ross. But perhaps given time, she could manage him as she did his son. She wouldn't quit quite yet.
She burrowed under the thin quilts, wondering if she would ever feel warm again. Her mother had often spoken of the warm Italian sun, but they had never, in all their travels together, returned to her home country. Gemma wondered if her mother was ashamed of what she had become—an astronomically priced courtesan sought after by any man with sense and sufficient coin.

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