Strictly Forbidden (48 page)

Lowering his aching head into his hand, he gave a bitter grunt. “She resisted the
idea of wedded bliss.”

“You’ve backed her into a corner.”

“She said I abandoned her. What was I to do, stand around like a lovesick swain while
she gloated over her marriage to a viscount? Damn it, I left everyone and everything
I knew to come to London and make a fortune for her. I nearly broke my back to be
worthy of that woman.”

And her sudden marriage to Viscount Wolcott mere weeks after his departure from Ashdown
Manor proved she felt none of the aching love he’d felt in return. Five years ago,
she had clearly seen him as a servant to be trifled with, an unworthy admirer who’d
foolishly fallen in love. Trusting and naïve, he had believed that a young lady of
quality who gave a man her body had also given her heart. Perhaps he should have guessed
that her father would tell her about their agreement. But that wasn’t why she’d married
another. Maddie had known that he must go to London and earn his fortune. They had
discussed that fact. She had to have known that her father’s money had given him a
much-needed start. But she hadn’t wished to wait for her stable boy. No, she had married
a viscount.

Brock cursed. What a fool he’d been.

Today, Maddie was simply business—with a little revenge mixed in for pleasure. That’s
exactly how he intended to treat her.

Jack sighed. “Did you correct her misconception?”

“Why should I? It would only make me look more the fool.”

“You can’t make Lady Wolcott love you, son.”

Stiffly, Brock rose. “You mistake the matter. I have no interest in her love. Whatever
I once felt for Maddie is long dead. But she owes me.”

“Does she?” Jack raised a graying brow.

“Stop trying to convince me that she was young and indecisive, or easily swayed by
her father. She amused herself with me, likely plotting to marry Colin Sedgewick all
the while. Tonight, she even insisted I again repay the thousand pounds her father
loaned me!”

Jack chuckled.

Brock frowned at his father. “You would find that funny, you wretch.”

“The girl always had spirit.”

She wasn’t a girl anymore.

Reluctant desire washed over him. Part of him had hoped that Maddie had lost the bloom
of her beauty. Instead, she’d improved with age. At two and twenty, she no longer
held a hint of girlishness. From the soft curve of her breasts and the ripe swell
of her hips, to the determination in those amazing gray eyes, she was a stunning woman.
He’d almost hated her for arousing him in the first ten seconds.

“So old earl told Lady Madeline about the money,” his father mused.

“So much for our secret gentlemen’s agreement.”

“I suspect he never considered you much of a gentleman,” Jack said. “I told you accepting
the money was a mistake.”

“I had no choice. I took it as a loan, and it gave me my start on to my future.” The
future he had ached to share with Maddie until she had married a titled arse.

“I’ll wager old Avesbury had convinced his daughter that you took the money in exchange
for abandoning her.”

Brock frowned. “She believes exactly that. But I couldn’t take care of her penniless.
She knew that. With that money, I could have returned to marry Maddie within months,
not years. Instead, she leg-shackled herself to Sedgewick.”

“So what now?”

Brock shrugged. “I gave her a week to decide her fate.”

The money she owed wasn’t important. Nearly seven thousand pounds was more than cheeseparings
and candle ends, but he could afford it. For her deception, however, she owed him
her status.

“No doubt she appreciates her options,” Jack said wryly.

Maddie had appreciated nothing about his visit. Since leaving, Brock had been unable
to stop thinking about her bravado. Still, he couldn’t miss her fear-filled eyes.
Damn it, he’d never actually throw her and her daughter in Fleet. If she knew him
at all, she should know that. He was ruthless, yes. But a monster? Never. Still, he
hoped like hell Maddie didn’t call his bluff.

“Piss off,” Brock shot back glumly.

Jack laughed and refilled his brandy. “Oh, before I forget, Mr. Stephenson popped
in while you were out.”

Brock rubbed his hands together, relishing the topic of business. It engendered no
anger or guilt or other misplaced sentiment. “Did my fine engineer have good news?”

“Indeed. He said he has extended the frames of the engine rearward and added a trailing
axle behind a much larger firebox. He said you would be well pleased because rail
travel will be safer and smoother. Cargo haul will be much faster.”

Brock smiled in triumph at the realization he would beat his competition, the shrewd
Lord Belwick, in every way. “Smashing. Stephenson is a brilliant engineer.”

“Because you pay him to be.” Jack chuckled. “So, have you given more thought to whom
you’ll approach about investing in the railroad, now that you have this wonderful
engine?”

The proposed T & S Railroad was his life these days, the passion that would take him
from merely wealthy to sinfully rich. Recently, however, it had also become a sticky
situation. Besides the fact he’d sunk a sizable chunk of his fortune into this venture,
he needed Maddie. More precisely, he needed her land. Hence, another reason for his
offer of marriage now.

In researching the idea of a passenger railroad between London and Birmingham, he
had mapped out all the necessary parcels, particularly areas that would shut down
competing canals and avoid his competitor’s proposed track. To his shock, Maddie owned
a parcel in Warwickshire. However, her father had left it to her in retainer, in the
event she took another husband. It suited Brock’s purpose well that she couldn’t legally
sell it. Because she would be good for his business, his rising social placement,
and the railroad, he planned to be her husband.

Marrying her had nothing to do with love. Nothing at all.

Ah, but he would make certain she desired him. He would master her body, have her
soft and wet and begging every damn day before he fucked her. Then he’d give her what
she wanted, not stopping until they were both sated and exhausted. Perhaps not even
then. He liked the idea of addicting her to his touch.

“Brock?” Jack prompted, snapping his fingers. “Investors?”

With a sheepish grimace, Brock nodded. “I’ve decided to pursue Cropthorne.”

Jack’s green eyes, a mirror of his own, nearly popped from their sockets. “The Duke
of Cropthorne? Now I know you’ve gone mad. I doubt the man will speak to you.”

Brock quirked a brow, the challenge igniting his fire for the hunt again. “Where is
your faith in me? Have I been wrong yet?”

Jack scowled. “You are too cocksure by half.”

“Not without reason. I’ve researched this thoroughly. One of his mines collapsed recently.
He was forced to shut them all down.”

“A man of Cropthorne’s means must have other income.”

“Certainly,” Brock conceded. “But he also has a doting aunt, a poor clergyman cousin,
and two young sisters to support, all of whom adore everything the finest. I heard
their
modiste’s
bill alone last month was over a thousand pounds.”

Jack nearly choked. “Can women really wear that much clothing?”

Brock shrugged. “The season is about to begin, and appearances must be maintained.”

“What about Lord Belwick? He’s your strongest competitor. Perhaps he’s already approached
Cropthorne.”

“Not according to my sources.”

“Even so, what makes you think Cropthorne will hear you? He’s the upper part of the
crust, son.”

“He’s roughly my age, so he may be more modern in his thinking about social status
than the late duke. He’s also said to have a firm head for business and a mind of
his own, but none of his papa’s nasty scandals.”

“Why choose an investor low on his blunt?”

Brock grinned, truly enjoying his work. “For three reasons. First, he doesn’t yet
feel the pinch, but if he doesn’t invest well soon, he will. He’s wise enough to know
that. Second, he’s well liked among his peers, despite the family scandals. If I gain
his approval, he can open many doors for me. Last, he is Maddie’s cousin. Though Lord
Avesbury fell out of favor with the late Cropthorne, I have no reason to suspect the
current duke would cut her. Nor, as her husband, would he cut me.”

Jack shrugged. “That’s a lot of ifs. And all your work on this railroad will be for
naught unless Maddie Sedgewick marries you.”

“She will agree to do so by next week.” Brock tossed his father a confident nod. “I’ll
make certain of it.”

Continue Reading for Chapter One of “ONE WICKED NIGHT”

WAS IT ONE NIGHT OF PASSION...

When Lady Serena Boyce’s husband, the elderly Duke of Warrington, could not give her
an heir, he begged her to take a lover in order to conceive a child. She never dreamed
it would mean falling in love. One look at the handsome stranger who rescued her from
a thief, and virginal Serena was overcome with desire. Dark and compelling, Lucien
Clayborne, Marquess of Daneridge, was everything her honor warned her against. Yet
the anguish in his soul drew her nearer...and before the night was through, she had
gifted him with her innocence.

...OR A LOVE THEY WERE DESTINED TO SHARE?

Then the duke was murdered, and Lucien discovered that Serena was pregnant. Still
reeling from the death of his cherished daughter and enraged by his first wife’s callous
betrayals, Lucien’s honor demanded that he make Serena his bride. But the rapture
of their one night together had unlocked feelings he thought his heart had forgotten.
And now, a chilling evil threatened their chance to claim a love that promised to
last a lifetime.

CHAPTER ONE

June, 1816

An air of defeat hung about Serena’s husband like a cloak as he rose from her bed.
She felt her dream of motherhood die with his sigh of finality.

“Cyrus?” she called, pushing a stray lock of blond hair behind her shoulder with trembling
fingers.

He didn’t face her, didn’t reply, but answered with a tight shake of his head, not
breaking the heavy silence between them.

Serena righted her dressing gown about her legs to ward off a sudden chill. What had
gone wrong tonight, when he had seemed assured for the first time in months?

Despair clutched at Serena like a tight fist, strangling all hope from her heart as
Cyrus retrieved his robe and covered his sagging shoulders.

“Is it my fault? Have I done something to displease you?”

With a diplomat’s precision, Cyrus knotted the blue velvet tie around his soft middle
and cleared his throat. “The fault lies with me, my dear. I should not have embarrassed
either of us again.”

Without a backward glance, Cyrus crossed the Aubusson carpet for the door.

Serena leapt from the bed and closed the distance between them. Tentatively, she reached
for his hand. “Please, Cyrus. Do not leave. Truly,” she placated him, “you did not
embarrass me. Come. Let us...try again.”

“No.” He withdrew from her touch. “It’s ludicrous to continue hoping our union will
bear fruit. We have been married these three years past, and I have been without the
ability since we wed.” He looked away in disgust. “Bloody fever.”

“It will happen...someday,” she insisted, hearing his self-directed rage and mortification.
“We must simply be patient.”

“My patience is thin. Alastair is behaving as though I’ve got one foot in the grave,
supporting deplorable habits with money he has not yet inherited. I can feel him waiting
for rich Uncle Cyrus to die,” he sneered.

Serena’s troubled gaze touched the furrow on her husband’s lined brow, ran over the
down-turned mouth which served him so well in his brilliant career in the House of
Lords. He was a true statesman, able to smooth out peace between law-making men and
ease warring countries toward a truce. She admired him greatly. Why couldn’t their
comfortable marriage have been blessed with children, as well?

“Alastair is young yet,” she offered. “Perhaps he will mature.”

“Perhaps, thought I suspect George the Third will regain his sanity first,” Cyrus
spat. “Alastair is thirty-five. What has he ever accomplished above producing illegitimate
children? He has no wife, nor would any suitable woman have him. Responsibility is
not a word that haunts his foul vocabulary. How will he manage an estate this size
and assume the duties of a dukedom?”

Serena floundered for an answer, her heart aching for him. Alastair
was
interested only in what would please or benefit himself. He would take everything
Cyrus had nurtured during the fifty-four years of his life and destroy it with his
reckless disregard.

Her husband sighed tiredly. “If only I had someone, even a distant cousin, I could
adopt as my heir. But short of selecting someone off the street, I know of no one.”

“Cyrus, you mustn’t worry so. Your...ability may return. Please, until then, do not
dwell on it.”

Incredulity sharpened his gaze. “Serena, I have never been incapable of anything in
my life. Now that I have a beautiful young wife and have need of an heir . . . How
can I think of anything else?”

Serena felt the need for a child as keenly as Cyrus. As much as she ached to hold
a sweet child in her arms, she knew Cyrus needed such a child to protect his heritage.
The
ton’s
latest scandals often included Alastair. He was an embarrassment to the family. She
had no doubt Cyrus’s inability to perform his husbandly duty was killing him.

Serena tugged on his hand, urging him to sit beside her on the pale, multi-hued coverlet.
Her heart twisted at his defeated expression. “Everything will right itself. You’ll
see.”

Shaking his head, Cyrus raised a spotted hand to stroke her cheek. “You always try
to lift my spirits, my dear. It’s one of the qualities I adore about you. You deserve
so much more from a husband.”

“Cyrus, you mustn’t say such a thing! You have been a devoted husband, and I care
for you very much.”

“As you would a favored uncle,” he pointed out.

Serena wanted to deny his words, but could not. “Stop this talk. We have tomorrow
and every day after.”

“This was the last time. You and I both know this consummation will never come to
pass. The fever and my gout have seen to that.”

Serena bit her lip and looked away, hoping to hide her disappointment. But Cyrus knew
her dreams. In the early weeks of their marriage, they had often discussed her impatience
for motherhood. Now Serena wished he knew nothing of her longings. He would only use
them to torture himself.

He sighed heavily. “You’re thinking of children again, are you not?”

Her eyes welled up with moisture as a thick lump of despair stuck in her throat. One
traitorous tear, followed by another, slid down her cool cheek. She tried to swipe
the drops away before Cyrus saw. Instead, he took her hand in his, then dabbed her
tears with the linen sheet.

“I am sorry, more sorry than I can say.” His voice cracked with regret. “I know the
pressure your grandmother has put on you. I realize how difficult it was to attend
your sister’s lying-in.”

“Grandy only wishes for my happiness, and Catherine’s confinement was a joy.”

Cyrus frowned. “So you tell me. Caffey informs me you cried all afternoon when you
arrived home.”

Serena rose, presenting her back to Cyrus. She clenched her teeth, making a mental
note to chastise her maid later. “Caffey talks too much.”

“But she speaks the truth, my dear, and we both know it.” He rose and moved to her
side. “Serena, I have debated this issue thoroughly. You know I am a man of logic.
And I have come to the conclusion we have only one suitable option.”

With an uncertain nibble on her lip, Serena turned to her husband. “What is that?”

The dark eyes usually filled with affection now flashed with conviction as he sent
her a grave stare. Prickles of alarm dashed up her spine.

“You must take a lover,” he instructed. “Stay with him until you conceive a child.”

Incredulity erupted within her, followed closely by a sense of betrayal. Dear God,
did Cyrus understand the significance of his request?

Mouth gaping open, she demanded, “How can you suggest such a thing? I—it’s adultery!”

He grabbed her shoulders. “Serena, listen to me. It isn’t, not exactly,” he argued.
“I am giving you leave to fulfill your dream of motherhood. Understand that, please.”

She wrenched from his embrace, staring at his familiar face in shock. “I stood before
an altar in the house of God and vowed to be faithful as long as we both should live,
not as long as you wished me to be.”

“I would not ask you to take a lover if I doubted this decision was the right one.
I need an heir to protect a title and fortune over four hundred years old. And you,
my dear, desire a child. At twenty-two, most married ladies have at least one. I alone
must bear the blame for that lack.”

“Cyrus, you could not have known—”

“I did know,” he interrupted. Pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and finger,
Cyrus winced. “Serena, I married you almost certain that I could not...perform. But
for some bloody reason, I had convinced myself that a young wife would bring my ability
back. It’s because of that selfishness you’re not a mother. Had you married any other
man, you would be bouncing a babe on your knee now, perhaps two.”

He had known of this deficiency, yet married her anyway? Serena raised a shaking hand
to her gaping mouth, anger beginning to wash over her shock in an icy cascade.

Cyrus eased her hand from her face and into his, then knelt before her. His dark eyes
scanned her face with concern. “You must see, I’ve wasted three years of your life
that I cannot give back. All I can do is give you leave to conceive where you may.”

The bleak gray of Cyrus’s eyes matched the resignation in his stance. Serena’s ire
dissolved as compassion overtook her heart. After all, Cyrus had more at stake than
a dream. Centuries of family pride rested in his hands.

“Our marriage has not been fruitless,” she argued. “You’ve taught me so much about
life, people, politics—”

“Yes, yes. But all that aside, you desire a child; I cannot give you one.”

His hard-edged tone rattled the tight control governing her emotions. Tears prickled
the back of her eyes again. “Think of what you ask me.”

“I have, Serena.” He nodded, his face austere. “I understand very well what this means.”

“Then you know I cannot. You’re asking me to compromise myself.” She lifted a trembling
hand to her throat. “To behave like…” She sighed, then whispered, “My mother.”

“Never that,” he insisted. “I am asking you to find a man, just one, who can fulfill
your dream—and give me an heir.”

Shaking her head, she looked at her husband through a blur of tears. “We must trust
God. He has a reason for our chastity, and when He deems it appropriate, all will
be right between us.”

“God has done nothing for us,” Cyrus ground out. “By the time He deems our consummation
appropriate, I will surely be on the far side of the grave.” He grabbed her shoulders
and shook gently. “We must take matters into our own hands.”

“Cyrus, no. I cannot…”

“Take a lover. You can,” he vowed. “You must.”

“I-I wouldn’t know how.”

A smile broke the severity of his scowl. “My dear, you won’t have to do anything but
acquiesce. If you but give men the slightest encouragement, instead of rebuffing them,
they will do everything possible to charm you. You will scarcely need to bat an eyelash
to get their attention.” He smiled. “Believe me.”

Unbelievable. Heady. Scary. “Please don’t ask this of me. You know such fast behavior
goes against everything I believe. I could not bear to be labeled my mother’s daughter
in every sense.”
“Serena, I understand your fear, but sometimes we must do things we would rather not
to further an important cause. You know how I deplore battle, yet I advocated the
Peninsular War because I believed in my country and our cause.”

“But you weren’t asked to shoot the French, just to negotiate peace,” she argued.

“I also had to vote for a declaration of war, knowing I would send England into submission
or thousands of young men to die. The decision was practical, not emotional.”

Serena hung her head, feeling inexplicably betrayed by his request, as if Cyrus were
telling her he had a lover instead of asking her to take one herself.

“People would know the child was another man’s,” she argued.

He stared at her, his eyes reflecting patience. “Not if you were discreet. Women in
the
ton
engage in other liaisons frequently, many you’ve met.”

“Who?” she asked, scarcely able to imagine any of her acquaintances indulging in illicit
liaisons. She had purposely avoided women like her mother.

“Who is of no consequence. The point is, the practice is not an uncommon one.”

“Mimicking others with low morality hardly makes the thing right. To lie in another
man’s bed and....” She hung her head, disturbed by visions of acts she did not understand.
“I doubt I could.”

Cyrus took her hand in his. “Darling, you have yet to try. Sometimes a spark will
occur between a man and a woman that compels them together. Once you feel that, your
fears and resistance will melt away, I vow.”

Unlikely. The thought of consummating the unknown acts of the marriage bed even with
Cyrus felt tantamount to jumping off a cliff. But to share something so intimate with
a stranger and not be anxious or worry people would brand her wanton . . . Highly
unlikely, indeed.

“What of the child’s natural father? Certainly he would know who sired your heir.”

“You’re so wonderfully naive.” Cyrus smiled. “It is common for men of the
ton
to have children scattered about. One more should hardly lift a gentleman’s brow.”

Serena absorbed that unfeeling view with a gasp. One more reason she had held society
and its doings at arm’s length these years.

Still, the need to have her own child churned within her. More than anything, she
wanted to hold her babe, touch its downy head, sing it lullabies each night, feed
it milk from her breast...give it her love. And Cyrus needed an heir. The plain truth
was, she could not conceive without a healthy man.

She swallowed, wondering if, as with most things, Cyrus was right. “I will consider
it.”

“My dear, you will not be sorry,” he vowed, rising from the floor with a smile. “Get
a good night’s rest. We leave for town in two days.”

“We? You’re taking me with you to London?”

“For the rest of the season,” he confirmed. “This small corner of Sussex is hardly
big enough for you to carry on a discreet affair.”