Powder of Sin (34 page)

“Poor Mary,” Rosalie replied.

By the time they’d returned, her mother was packed
and ready to leave. “You’ll let me know of your plans. A quiet
wedding? Nothing for me to plan?”

“Mother, I will never again allow you to plan
another social engagement for me. Ever.”

“I am not convinced he is the best match for you, my
dear. I wanted someone more yielding so you wouldn’t face the same
sort of trouble I did with your papa. And I didn’t want you to
marry for love. It proves so inconvenient.”

She stopped to look at her mother. “Did you truly
marry for love?”

Deirdre looked astonished. “No, not I. But your poor
father did.”

Rosalie didn’t want to bother to explain that both
parties who loved might be a better balance. And that two people
who listened to each other as they argued might have a better
chance. But she’d long given up the desire to shift her mother’s
view of the world.

That’s what we have that Deirdre doesn’t, she
thought suddenly. She and Gideon were not afraid to change
themselves if the other required it—or even asked it. What a relief
to live with a human rather than a force of nature.

She thought of Miss Renshaw and Hawes and his
promise to go to church. Another case of love.

An hour later, Mr. Clermont and Mr. Trevner arrived
in a large traveling coach. They declined to leave the coach and
said they were only there to offer Lady Williamsford a ride.

Beels supervised the servants hauling out Lady
Williamsford’s trunks, something close to a smile on his face.
Relief, Rosalie supposed. But she didn’t feel particularly happy
about her mother’s departure. “Those men? You are going to go with
them?”

Deirdre was struggling to get her hands into her
gloves. “Yes. Walt has agreed to spend a few weeks with me. I think
with his elegant manners and those so very British airs, he’ll take
Spotsdale by storm. Mr. Trevner too.”

“They’ll be staying with you?” Rosalie squeaked.

“Naturally. It will be so much fun. I’ve rarely met
anyone as sprightly as Walt, and we’ll get along famously.”

Rosalie already knew her mother was never going to
change. Still, she felt she had to add, “Until he grows bored.”

“Why, yes, until then. But I have plans to entertain
him for a while. Perhaps you’d like to visit soon?”

“No, thank you,” Rosalie said. But she kissed her
mother’s cheek and stood on the step to wave good-bye.

Gideon stood next to her and watched the carriage
roll away. Clermont leaned out the window and winked. He mouthed
words Gideon could easily read:
I wish I’d seen you fuck
her.

“What do you suppose Mr. Clermont just said?”
Rosalie wondered.

Gideon tried, “I wish you all the best of luck in
your life with her.”

Rosalie only laughed and shook her head. “I doubt
it.”

She grew solemn then. “She’ll visit me again, you
know.” Rosalie stroked his arm. “No matter where I live, my mother
is bound to make an appearance.”

She turned and walked into the house. Gideon
followed, his hand resting on her lower back.

“With that woman in your life and that idiot in
hers, you must allow me to stay. I could never abandon you,” Gideon
said. “You need a knight to help you face all the dreadful
creatures you encounter.”

She was in front of the mirror, unpinning her hat.
Their eyes met in the looking glass. “Are you calling my mother a
dragon?”

He grinned. “She has been known to cavort with
dragons.”

“And satyrs and any other creature that happens
along.”

“Exactly.” He wrapped his hands around her shoulders
and kissed the back of her neck.

She stiffened, and he wondered if she disliked
physical displays of affection. His touch in the hallway might have
brought back memories of the party. If that was true, the memories
were not bad, because a moment later, she closed her eyes. Rosalie
heaved a sigh and leaned back. He stroked her slender throat in the
mirror as she rested the back of her head on his chest. Good. Her
response was pleasure. Which immediately brought on another heated
flash of his own pleasure. He turned her in his arms so he could
pull her against him and gave her a soft kiss that turned
harder.

“You undo me, sir,” she said. “Who will protect me
from the beast in you?”

“No one at all. If we are to play dragons, demons,
and satyrs, we don’t require any rescue.”

She slid her hands into his jacket and began to
unbutton his waistcoat. “Very well. I should love to play your
games, but only if you allow me to be the man-eating creature, at
least on occasion.”

He thought of other meanings for man-eating and
grinned.

“Wicked man, I can imagine your thoughts.” Her
exploring fingers discovered his engorged organ.

He gasped. She pressed a kiss to his throat. “Yes,
I’m more than ready to play,” she whispered.

Kate also writes as Summer Devon. She lives in
Connecticut and has the standard-issue two dogs, three kids, and
one husband. She owns a car that used to belong to Gene
Weingarten.

For more information, you can find her all
over the internet:

https://www.facebook.com/S.DevonAuthor

http://katerothwell.com
http://summerdevon.com
http://katerothwell.blogspot.com

https://twitter.com/KateRothwell

OTHER BOOKS BY KATE/SUMMER

As Kate
Rothwell

Somebody Wonderful, Kensington

Somebody to Love,
Kensington

Someone to
Cherish

Thank You, Mrs.
M

Seducing Miss
Dunaway

Protecting Miss
Samuels

Powder of Sin

As Summer Devon

The Knight’s Challenge, Samhain

Learning Charity,
Samhain

Revealing Skills,
Samhain

Taken Unaware,
Samhain

Taming the Bander,
Samhain

Direct Deposit,
Total-e-bound

Perfection, Ellora’s
Cave

Invisible Touch, Ellora’s
Cave

Irrational Arousal,
Ellora’s Cave

Futurelove, Ellora’s
Cave

Her Outrageous Lover,
Ellora’s Cave

With Bonnie
Dee:

Seducing Stephen
(m/m)

The Gentleman and the
Rogue (m/m), Duet

The Nobleman and the Spy
(m/m)

House of Mirrors
(m/m)

The Psychic and the Sleuth
(m/m), Samhain

Serious Play (m/f),
Carina

Coming soon!

Sibling Rivals (m/m
contemporary) Samhain

Coming soon with
Bonnie:

Fugitive Lover (m/f
contemporary). Samhain

The Gentleman’s Keeper
(m/m, historical) Samhain

An excerpt from
Protecting Miss
Samuels
,

a historical novella by
Kate Rothwell:

1878, Yorkshire

Kitty Samuels tried to
move and couldn’t.

For some unfathomable
reason, she lay on the ground, not quite flat on her back. Above
her, branches swayed. The motion made her head swim. Nearby someone
shouted.

She opened her mouth to
call for help and something immediately covered her mouth, pressing
her lips to her teeth. Pain.

A man’s large hand. She
pulled in a deep breath through her nearly blocked nose to keep
panic at bay and she inhaled the scent of the stranger’s skin and
pine needles. They were in the woods on her father’s
estate.

She’d been out riding,
escaping the strange tension that gripped the household. Why would
she be in the thickest part of the woods? Treacle, her skittish
mare, didn’t like trees—she considered them enemies.

Dead leaves faintly
crackled as the man holding Kitty leaned toward her, his dark
silhouette filling her vision, blocking the sky. Warmth fanned over
her ear. A faint whisper. “Stay quiet, damn it, or they’ll find
us.”

Who are they?

She concentrated and with
a sickening lurch she found the memory.

The group of men. Angry
workers who’d gotten onto the grounds and decided to take out their
fury on the mill owner’s daughter. She’d fallen backwards off the
horse when they’d stormed her and Treacle bucked.

Dreadful riding. Her
father would have disapproved.

The shouts and footsteps
faded. A breeze kicked up and she shivered as the cool air touched
her breast.

Her
breast
? She shifted slightly, enough
to peer over the fingers covering her mouth. Good heavens, her
entire front was exposed.

She pulled herself up, or
tried to, and discovered her head wasn’t on a stump. It rested
against a leg. The man with his hand clamped over her mouth had
drawn her onto his thigh while she’d been unconscious.

She panicked, bit down,
tasted warmth—but she couldn’t bite hard enough to draw
blood.

He gave a sharp gasp, but
he only pressed his hard hand more firmly against her mouth, which
set the back of her head throbbing.

“
Shall I leave you for
them?” The whisper remained quiet but anger gusted in the breath
tickling her ear. “You shout and they’ll come back and finish what
they started.”

A large hand reached over
and pulled the edges of her ripped chemise and gown up and over her
bare breast. The gown slipped and he reached again, his fingers
grazing her skin briefly. Her nipple.

She gave a muffled cry of
surprise.

“
Damn,” he whispered as he
yanked hard at the edges of her ruined habit until it almost
covered her exposed flesh.

She tried to move so she
could see him, but the strong hands held her fast now, one hand
over her mouth, the other across her body under her
breasts.

“
I work for your father,”
the hushed voice came even closer to her ear. “I’ll take you to
him. Soon.”

Relief almost overcame her
pain, fear—and the memory of his hand brushing her bare skin. She
closed her eyes and waited. Time to gather her strength.

She would fight him again
if he proved to be a liar, but she was tired. Who knew fear and a
bang on the head could be so debilitating?

To her relief, he removed
his hand and left her mouth tingling and chilled in the air. She
experimented with moving and moistening her lips. The man sat
looming over her and she twisted back to examine him. He stared out
past the bushes, through the trees and didn’t look down at her. She
had an impression of dark curling hair, something white on the side
of his face, a jaw and neck in need of a shave. Rough clothes. And
then she had to close her eyes.

*****

Kitty awoke on a narrow,
unfamiliar pallet. Not even a bed. She sat up quickly grunting a
little as her headache increased. The small dim room reeked of
straw, kerosene, and earth. Some sort of storage shed with a single
window. In front of the window she made out a dark, bulky figure.
The man.

“
You said you’d take me to
my father,” she whispered.

He turned from the
grime-covered window. “He’s gone. Fled the place.”

She shrank away as he came
close but the big clumping boots stopped short of where she lay and
he tossed her a shawl. Not one of hers—a blue worsted shapeless
thing. “You need that.”

She wrapped the rough
shawl around her shoulders, grateful for its warmth and the way it
covered her ripped clothing.

“
We can’t stay in here.”
He glanced around the room. “Got to get you to somewhere
safe.”

“
No. I thank you. I—I
shall be fine. Thank you,” she added again when he didn’t
move.
Go away
.

“
You don’t trust
me.”

“
Of course I do. You, ah,
saved me.” Kitty wasn’t silly enough to anger a rough man who
outweighed her by at least three stone. The man who might have
knocked her unconscious and torn her gown.

No. He probably
hadn’t.

She didn’t think she’d
seen that lean face in the crowd of men who’d surrounded Treacle.
Yet still—he could be lying about her father. Ben Samuels was a
rich man and this ruffian might try to take her for the
ransom.

“
I don’t want to threaten
you,” the man said and held up a pistol. Threatening
her.

He didn’t point it at her,
merely showed her he had it. “You’re not safe here. Your father has
annoyed too many people.”

“
Yes, so I’m learning,”
she said and stared down at her hands twisting the ends of the
rough shawl.

What a fool she’d been.
She had seen the grim faces as she’d been driven home through the
little town six days earlier. A woman had even spat in the
direction of Kitty’s coach, causing Sadie, her maid, to hastily
lean forward and twitch the curtains shut. Any attempts to discuss
the matter with Sadie had been met with a shrug and a change of
topic. When Kitty had asked her father, she’d been greeted with
scowls and sharp requests for her to leave him be.