One Wicked Sin (24 page)

“And if I succeed?” Lottie pressed.

“A house,” Farne said. He looked around. “Much bigger than this.”

“Naturally. And?”

“Servants. A carriage, a certain sum of money settled on you in perpetuity…” Farne shrugged. “My man of business will take care of it.”

“Of course,” Lottie said. “Of course he will.”

This, then, she thought, was the level to which the Duke of Farne would sink to manipulate his son. He would buy the support of Ethan’s mistress; worse, he
would seek to capture Ethan’s son and use him as a pawn in his maneuvering. He was vile, utterly without loyalty or family honor. He was also wasting his time.

She looked at him. “I do not believe that you know your son at all, Your Grace,” she said. “Ethan will never abandon his principles. He has fought for them all his adult life. Nothing I could say could make him change his mind whether I wished to help you or not.”

There was a silence. Farne was watching her with those bright predator’s eyes. After a moment he nodded slowly.

“Then,” he said, “I believe there is only one further course open to me.” He looked straight at her. “I offer you one hundred thousand pounds for any information you can give me about my son. Plus the house and the carriage and—” he sounded impatient “—whatever else you desire.”

Lottie’s mind reeled. Money had always been her only currency and one hundred thousand pounds was a huge sum. She need not worry about her future ever again. Those doubts and fears that had plagued her in the night, of where she would go after Ethan had left, of what she would become… They would all be gone. She would have no need to worry ever again. She would be rich. Her future would be assured.

All she had to do in return was to betray Ethan to his death, and Arland with him. Because that was what Farne was asking. The Duke would not be so indelicate as to say the words outright but he wanted information, her testimony that Ethan was committing treason. He wanted what Theo had asked for that day in London
when she had agreed to betray Ethan for the sake of her future security. And Farne was offering her one hundred thousand pounds to sweeten the deal. One hundred thousand pounds to secure her future…

There was a knock at the front door. Farne looked acutely annoyed. “I do not wish to be interrupted until our business is agreed,” he snapped.

“I can quite see why,” Lottie said. Then, as Margery tapped anxiously on the door: “Who is it, Margery? Pray tell them that I am not at home.”

“Begging your pardon, ma’am—” Margery gave a little terrified bob “—but I cannot. It is the Duke of Palliser, ma’am, and he demands an interview. Immediately, he said!” She gave an uncanny imitation of the Duke’s authoritative tone.

“Palliser!” Farne snapped. “What does he want here?”

“I have no notion,” Lottie said. “Since my cousin has been cutting me dead these three years past, the only way in which I find out the answer to that question is to admit him.” She nodded to Farne. “If you will excuse me?”

“I will wait,” Farne said. “I have invested too much time and effort in our conversation, Miss Palliser, to leave without your commitment to my plans.”

“If you wish,” Lottie said, shrugging. She turned to Margery. “Pray show his grace in here, Margery.”

The Duke of Palliser was a big, fair fleshy man in his forties. He carried his weight well with all the innate confidence and self-importance of his rank. He strode into the room, saw the Duke of Farne and stopped dead.

“Your Grace!” he spluttered.

“Your Grace,” Farne responded, bored.

“Cousin James,” Lottie said, “what a most unexpected pleasure.”

Palliser looked discomfited. “What is Farne doing here?” he demanded. Farne stiffened.

“His Grace has been making me an offer,” Lottie said. “Not of the amorous kind, you understand, of the pecuniary sort. So—” she fixed her cousin with a steely eye “—since I doubt that you have called on me to exchange family news, why do you not make your counteroffer, James, so that I may save us all time?” She walked across to the side table and poured wine into a fresh glass. “Let me guess,” she mused, as she passed it to him. “My presence a mere twenty miles from your ducal family home is causing such social embarrassment to you that you have come to make me a proposition. You are prepared to welcome me back into the family fold, to restore me to respectability and give me in addition—” she shot Farne a look “—oh, a house—bigger than this one, of course—servants, a carriage, a sum of money…” She sighed. “Gentlemen, you do me so much honor.” She looked from one to the other. “Which of you shall I choose?”

There was a knock. “Lord St. Severin,” Margery said, from the doorway.

“Y
OUR
G
RACES
…”
Ethan strolled forward and sketched an elegant bow to the Dukes. “Your carriages have stopped the traffic in the street outside.” He could feel his father watching him, his gaze cold and antagonistic. The hairs rose on the back of Ethan’s neck even to be in the same room as Farne.

He had not seen his father within two years, not since he had been captured and his father had railed at him and demanded that he change sides and declare his allegiance to the British cause. His refusal then had driven the alienation between them to deeper and more painful levels than ever before. There was no way back for them.

But it was Lottie who drew Ethan’s gaze. She looked cool and serene, the perfect hostess serving wine to her guests. But he could feel the tension in her, as tight and coiled as a trap.

He knew at once what must have happened.

His loving father had offered Lottie a huge bribe to betray him, or betray Arland, or both of them.

The thought turned Ethan’s blood to ice. Would Lottie take the money? He wanted to believe she would not, could not, do such a thing, but he was desperately unsure of her. The terror cascaded through him, the fear for Arland and the damage that Lottie could do. True,
she did not know where Arland was now, but if she were to breathe a word about last night’s events, the authorities would surely arrest him and then Arland would be trapped, alone and abandoned again, whilst the British did their best to torture his son’s whereabouts out of him. And what if Lottie were to mention his activities on the night that Chard had died? Her testimony would be enough to see him swing on the end of the hangman’s noose for a murder he had not committed. That would please his father.

Yet if Lottie chose to sell him out, how could he prevent it? He had offered her nothing—how could he, as an enemy of the state, a prisoner. He could not hold her loyalty if others gave more. He had always understood her. Lottie was for sale. Men had used her all of her life and so she took; she took what was offered to give herself the security she craved. He ached for it to be different, for
her
to be different, but he knew it was not.

Three nights ago, when she had helped Arland, he had trusted her for the first time and she had not let him down. But this was not the same. This time his father would be offering her so much; a huge sum of money, he guessed, security, riches beyond her dreams, to put her back where she wanted to be, as a woman of consequence. The temptation to accept the bribe, the financial imperative to ensure her safe future, was surely too strong for her to resist. Her brother had offered to help her but the Duke of Farne was a hundred, a thousand times richer and more influential than Theo Palliser. Ethan could not see how Lottie could refuse.

He strolled forward with every indication of
nonchalance, not showing by the slightest flicker of expression, the fear that was in his heart.

“I came as soon as I heard, my dear,” he murmured. “May I be of assistance?”

“I am so glad to see you, my love,” Lottie said. She smiled at him but he could not read anything in her face. “Your father and my cousin,” she said, “are both most generous, for both of them are offering me a very great deal to see matters from their point of view.”

The Dukes both shifted uneasily.

“I see,” Ethan said. So it was true.

“Two high bidders in one room,” he said. “You are to be congratulated.”

“So I think,” Lottie said lightly. She looked at him. Her gaze was opaque.

James Palliser cleared his throat. “Cousin Charlotte,” he began. “I really do beg you to accept my offer and sever your scandalous connection to this man.”

Lottie looked highly entertained. “Cousin James,” she said, “I fear I am too steeped in my dissipation to give it up now.”

“You should think about it a little,” Ethan said abruptly. The role of devil’s advocate came easily to him and he understood why. He would far rather that Lottie accepted her cousin’s protection because that would be no true betrayal. If she sold herself to Farne instead he would want to kill them both, his father for his craven-hearted treachery and Lottie for being the most conniving, duplicitous creature ever to have crossed his path.

He cleared his throat, forced the words out. “It is
what you want,” he said. “Remember? You wish to be reconciled with your family.”

Their eyes met. Lottie’s gaze was pensive. “Is that what you want me to do, my lord?” She asked. “You want me to leave you?”

“This is nothing to do with me.” Ethan tasted bitterness in his mouth and found that he was within an inch of begging her to stay with him, begging her to put principle and loyalty to him above money.

“You told me that it was your dearest wish to regain what you had lost,” he said. “This is a way that you can do it with honor.”

“Oh, honor…” Lottie smiled. “In truth you know that I have little truck with that.”

She turned away and Ethan watched the gentle sway of her hips as she walked across the room. Odd that he could still want her with such an aching need when he also knew with a sick dread that she was going to abandon him one way or another. When he had told her about Arland and she had comforted him, then he had believed that matters might be different between them. He had allowed himself to think of a future where Lottie came with him, in poverty perhaps, in adversity certainly, hunted, running away, with nothing but each other. He was no green youth. He should have known better. Such dreams were in shreds with two rich men here offering her more money than she would know what to do with.

“You told me that I could never regain what I had lost,” Lottie said. She had come to him and placed one hand on his sleeve. Her eyes were clear. “You were right, Ethan. I know I cannot.”

“It is the best offer that you will get,” James Palliser said stiffly.

“Taken back under the ducal wing to spare your blushes?” Lottie turned toward him with a rustle of silk. “A year ago, two years, you did not step forward to help me.”

“That was different,” Palliser said. He had the grace to look a little shamefaced. “A matter between husband and wife… I could not intervene—”

“You did not wish to be sullied by the scandal until I was practically sitting on your doorstep,” Lottie said sweetly, “and even now you only come to see me because I have become too embarrassing to ignore.”

“Take the offer,” Ethan said, between his teeth.

But she shook her head. “I do not wish to be condescended to by my stiff-necked relatives for the rest of my life. How intolerable that would be! To be reminded every day with little slights and pinpricks that I am a fallen woman saved only by their generosity…” She sighed. “To be left to molder in some country village, denied all entertainment and pleasure?” She shook her head. “You know it would not serve, Ethan, darling. I would have run off with the curate within a week and be a fallen woman all over again.” She turned to James. “Thank you, cousin, but I must decline.”

The Duke puffed himself up. “You won’t hear from me again,” he said.

“Oh, good,” Lottie said.

The air shivered with violence as the door banged behind James Palliser. Farne, who had stood quietly whilst his fellow duke was given his marching orders,
smiled sinuously and moved forward. “So…” he said suggestively.

Ethan clenched his fists.

“Yes,” Lottie said. “Your offer was both more interesting and more lucrative than that of my cousin, was it not, Your Grace?”

“I like to think so,” Farne said, licking his lips. He looked from her to Ethan. “I quite appreciate that this is awkward for you, my dear. Would you care to come with me now and we may continue our discussions elsewhere? I am sure that you do not wish to prolong your farewells with my son.” Ethan waited.

“Oh, I don’t think so, thank you,” Lottie said briskly, whisking over to the door and opening it wide. “I am afraid that I cannot help you, Your Grace. I’ll bid you good day.”

The shock hit Ethan so hard he rocked back on his heels. For a moment he could have sworn that Lottie’s eyes were full of tears, although there was a defiantly wicked smile tilting her lips.

Farne had also recoiled like a snake whipping its head back for the strike. “You make a grievous mistake, Miss Palliser,” he hissed.

“Alas, I am renowned for it,” Lottie said regretfully. “Do you think I would be where I am today if I had not made many mistakes?”

Ethan stepped in front of her. “If you have anything else to say, Your Grace, you can say it to me. Otherwise I suggest that you leave.”

Farne’s eyes narrowed to slits of fury. “I have nothing to say to you,” he said.

This time the house shuddered so hard with the slamming of the door that some plaster fell from the ceiling to scatter on the rug.

“How very untidy,” Lottie said, staring at it. She made for the door. “I must call Margery to sweep it up—”

“Leave it,” Ethan said. He caught her wrist. “Why did you do it?” he said softly.

She evaded his eyes. The light went out of her face. Some sort of caution crept in, as though she was hiding something. “I meant what I said to James,” she said. “Can you truly see me living quietly in a country village, Ethan, darling? You know how bored I get and how easily I am distracted.” She freed herself and moved away from him. “Besides,” she said, back turned to him, “I do have some self-respect, and to be condescended to by James’s ghastly wife, to be perpetually reminded of my scandalous past with little gibes and sneers every day until I run mad…” Her shoulders hunched. “What sort of life would that be?” She turned aside, running her hand along the table and the exquisite little china figurines that decorated it. “Though no doubt I shall regret my stance in the morning,” she said, on a sigh. “I am too impetuous and pride cannot feed me.”

“Nor can principle,” Ethan said. “So why did you turn down Farne’s generous offer to betray me? I imagine that his terms were far more liberal than those your cousin was offering.”

Lottie froze. He saw her fingers tremble a little as she withdrew her hand. “You gained no financial advantage from refusing to help Farne,” Ethan continued. “You
have betrayed me several times in the past. Why stop now?”

Lottie gave a little, light shrug. “Your father is a vile man. I did not care for him or his offer.”

“True, he is,” Ethan said, “but it shows damned poor judgment to let that sway you when he could have secured your future.” He paused. “How much did he offer you?”

“One hundred thousand pounds,” Lottie said. She shrugged again. “I thought he might cheat me,” she added. Even though he was not touching her, Ethan could feel the tension in her. “I did not trust him and I did not wish to help him. And your son—” Her voice caught a little. “He does not deserve to be betrayed to such a man.”

“Whereas I,” Ethan said, with a lopsided smile, “am able to take care of myself?”

Her face lightened. She smiled that wicked little smile he knew so well. “Of course you are, Ethan, darling. You always have been.” She came across to him and put her arms about his neck. Something had eased in her, as though she felt more secure again, on familiar ground.

“Come upstairs with me now,” she whispered. “We can celebrate vanquishing the joint forces of the dukedoms of Farne and Palliser. We are both disowned twice over.” She pressed closer to him. “We are renounced, rejected, cast out,” she murmured against his lips. She was smiling.

“We are irredeemable,” Ethan agreed, feathering kisses along her collarbone and down to the soft skin
of her upper breasts that was exposed by the neckline of her pretty pink-and-white gown.

“Utterly disreputable,” Lottie whispered. “Both of us.”

Ethan released her. “Come riding with me,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

She looked confused. “Talk? Now? I thought that we would go to bed.” She started to pull him toward the door, tugging on his hand.

“No,” Ethan said. “Lottie. We must talk.” There was an odd sort of urgency in her, he thought, as though she were trying to deflect him—or to reassure herself. He wondered if it was because she had burned all her boats to be with him. He still did not understand why she had done it. She had not answered a single one of his questions, turning him away with light answers, attempting to distract him. It was true that he was easily distracted when presented with Lottie’s body, so temptingly offered, but this time he had more urgent matters on his mind.

“We can talk later,” she murmured, pressing her abundant curves against him in a blatant attempt to arouse. “Afterward. I want you now.”

She kissed him again, and he knew that she was trying every trick, every artifice she knew, to seduce him so utterly that he forgot all that had happened before. He did not respond and after a moment she stiffened in his arms, and then took a couple of paces back. It was the first time that he had turned her down. Her eyes were bright with emotion, her mouth pink from his kisses and she looked terrified.

“What is it that you are hiding from me?” he asked.

Lottie spun away from him. “Nothing! I don’t know what you mean!”

“Yes, you do,” Ethan said. “Why did you choose me? Why did you turn down all the lovely material benefits offered by both my father and your cousin and settle for nothing but me?”

She shrugged a careless shoulder. He knew the gesture was false. “Your company amuses me,” she said. “For now.”

“You burned your boats for me.”

She was fidgeting, another sure sign of her agitation. Her restless fingers were shredding the petals off the bowl of roses on the table. “Another boat will come along when I need it. They always do—for me.”

“I think it is because you care for me,” Ethan said.

For a second Lottie looked bewildered, then scornful.

“Oh no,” she said. “You cannot order my feelings and emotions, Ethan. They are not for sale. You have bought everything else—” Her gesture encompassed the room, all it contained, her own body. “It is yours. Be satisfied with that. You cannot own me heart and soul.” Her tone eased slightly as though she was still trying to please him, still trying to be the perfect mistress. “Why should you wish for more?” she added lightly. “You have all you wanted.”