How to Sin Successfully. Bronwyn Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ set down the wine glass and rose. ‘If you’ll excuse me, the hour is later than I anticipated and my presence is required elsewhere, as tardy as it is. Feel free to partake of the cheese and fruit without me.’ He offered a short bow and left. It was quite possibly the most expedient exit she’d ever witnessed and most definitely one of the rudest.

      His bachelor ways indeed! Maura fumed up in her room afterwards. Everything he did, everything he said, reminded her of his ‘bachelor ways’. Even his departure from the dinner table had reeked of them. Apparently he was expected at the Rutherfords’ ball and the Duke of Rutland’s fête before meeting up with some fellows at a gambling hell on St James’s. He wouldn’t be back until early morning.

      It had been on the tip of her tongue to reprimand him for his less-than-fatherly behaviour, but she’d already angered him once today and she knew he wasn’t the only man who habitually spent the night on the town while leaving his children in the hands of others. That didn’t make it right. Maura didn’t hold with the laissez-faire parenting of the aristocracy. Her own upbringing had run quite counter to the norm and for that she would always be grateful.

      She’d also be grateful for her bed. Maura began taking down her hair and stowing the pins carefully in a little trifle box on her bureau. It had been an eventful day and she was beyond tired. She smiled to herself as she went through her evening toilette. Maura pulled a white nightgown over her head and surveyed her room. It was smaller than what she was used to, but it was a nice room on the third floor. There was a window overlooking the garden and it was hung with fresh curtains. The walls were papered with a tiny pink-floral print and the bed was covered in a pink-and-white counterpane. A clothes-press stood in one corner and a small chest of drawers in another. It would do, and after three days on the mail coach it seemed like heaven.

      She might not be living the life she’d been born to, but she’d done well today. She’d got a position, navigated the streets of London and met the intriguing Earl of Chatham. Not bad for a gently bred girl from Devonshire. But she would need to tread carefully. The earl might flirt, he might raise his wards with the same benign insouciance with which he lived his life, but that didn’t mean he didn’t see far more than he let on.

      The perceptive Lord Chatham had implied correctly that she wasn’t the usual governess. She hadn’t meant to give herself away and yet she had in ways she couldn’t control. Hopefully he had guessed nothing more and was not interested in guessing anything more. As long as she did her job with his wards, she hoped he would look no further. The last thing she needed was for someone to get too curious about her origins.

      Maura hopped into bed, revelling in the cool sheets and the fluffy pillow at her head. That was one thing Lord Chatham might have in common with her; she wasn’t the only one with secrets. That was all right with her. He could have his secrets as long as she could have hers.

      It had not escaped her notice when she’d stepped down from the mail coach that morning that it was to have been her wedding day. If she’d stayed in Devonshire, she’d have been married to Wildeham by now and subjected to a lifetime of his obscene attentions, a fate certainly worse than throwing in her lot with the Earl of Chatham.

      Maura blew out the candle beside her bed and whispered in the darkness, ‘A toast, Lord Chatham. Here’s to our, ah, relationship. Cheers.’

       Chapter Three

      Acton Humphries, known to most in that part of Devonshire as Baron Wildeham, watched the scene unfold from his favourite position, recumbent on Lucas Harding’s divan, post-dinner brandy in hand. Across the room, Harding fiddled distractedly with the heavy paperweight on his desk. Harding could split the messenger’s head with the leaded-crystal ornament and he was mad enough to do it. The man’s colour was high and it wouldn’t be the first time rage had driven his actions. ‘You mean to tell me that my niece has managed to elude you and disappear entirely?’ Harding ground out when the messenger finished his report.

      Acton sat up to join the proceedings. ‘Surely you must understand how improbable it seems. Miss Caulfield is a gently bred young lady who hasn’t been beyond Exeter in her entire life and you gentlemen are trained professionals,’ he drawled lazily, but only a stupid man would be drawn in by his apparent nonchalance. Acton was as angry over this latest development as Harding was. His long-standing relationship with Lucas Harding had developed a certain tension in the last week, ever since it became obvious Harding’s ungrateful niece had simply disappeared a coincidental four days before she was due to become his wife and Baroness Wildeham to boot.

      ‘I am sorry we don’t have better news.’ The messenger shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, sensing that anger was indeed boiling just beneath the surface in a barely disguised simmer.

      ‘Better news? You don’t have any news!’ Harding exploded. The explosion was justified, Acton mused. Maura’s disappearance had put her uncle in dire straits and she’d made him look the fool. She was contracted to marry him in exchange for erasing a gambling debt her uncle had rather rashly acquired. Harding had never believed his stallion, Captain, would lose to Acton’s Jupiter. Most fortunately, Acton was willing to take payment in the form of a bride as opposed to cash, especially when that bride was the delectable Maura Harding.

      When he’d struck the deal, Harding had had a bride to offer. Now, he had neither bride nor money and the deadline was looming. If Harding didn’t retrieve Maura soon, he’d be destitute. Acton knew very well Harding was a mere knight and his property wasn’t entailed. If he took the house, Harding’s family would be left unsettled: his wife, the young twins and the two older sons. Maura was a fair trade for her uncle’s continued stability. The man had cared for Maura since she was sixteen and this was how she repaid him? Acton would never tolerate such disobedience. It was a woman’s lot in life to serve her family. Marrying him had become Maura’s duty, her service for the four years of living under her uncle’s roof.

      ‘Find her,’ Harding ground out, his temper cooling a bit. ‘Expand your search. Try the coaching inns again in case anyone remembers her.’ Acton privately disagreed. If she’d gone to a coaching inn, chances of finding her became slimmer. Hundreds of travellers passed through those inns and people’s memories could be dulled as time went on. The Runners could end up chasing false leads. But Acton knew Harding had honestly thought they’d find her in a nearby village or attempting to get work in Exeter. Harding had guessed wrong on that score and her trail was growing cold. Now it was time to do things his way.

      ‘What about London?’ Wildeham offered. ‘It seems a logical choice if someone wanted to hide and we haven’t tried there yet.’ It had only been a handful of days. By his calculations she would only just have arrived. A trail in London, if there was one, would still be very warm.

      Harding shook his head in disagreement. ‘Unlikely, Wildeham. Maura has little to no money that I know of and no skills. Even if she could have afforded coach fare or begged a ride, she’s got nothing to live on once she reaches the city. She’s a gentleman’s daughter. She’s been raised to marry, not to labor.’

      Wildeham saw the logic in Harding’s argument. If a girl like Maura thought to find employment in London, she’d be quickly disappointed. The town would devour a girl like her, and that worried him very much. He didn’t want Maura dead. He wanted her alive and penitent, very penitent.

      Wildeham shifted in his seat to accommodate the early stirrings of arousal. Penitence conjured up all sorts of images of Maura on her knees before him. If anyone was doing any devouring, it was going to be him. He’d spent quite a few hours imagining the fantasies he’d play out with her once she was his. She would be sorry she’d run. There was nothing like the thrill of laying a rod across the СКАЧАТЬ