Sinful (Hot Regency Romance Novella) (3 page)

She could not have stunned him more if she’d
hit him with a plank. She could see that from the way all six feet
of him lurched back on his heels. There was no doubt what he must
think.

“No, she is not
your
child,” she added
swiftly. “But I will be damned if I will end up like my mother—in
some stinking, wretched flash house, poor and starving. My daughter
is almost nine years of age.” She lied there. It had been ten years
since she had last seen Trevelyan. Since their “wedding night,”
when she had panicked, gathered up half of the money she knew Lyan
kept in his meager room, then run away with it. “You know what her
life would be like if I have to go back there.”

“Who is her father, Sal?”

“That is none of your business.”

Two strides brought him around the desk.
Before she could move away, he stood in front of her, forcing her
back until the edge of the mantelpiece pressed against her
back.

“As I remember,” he growled, “the last time I
saw you, you had agreed to marry me. We had our little ceremony in
that warehouse. We consummated our marriage on the floor of
it.”

It was just one simple word.
Consummated
. But it conjured memories of being beneath Lyan,
sweaty and dizzy with pleasure, feeling alive and feminine and
powerful. She could not forget the thrill of caressing his naked
body, of feeling hard biceps, cupping the curves of his bottom. His
body had been fascinating—his skin smooth and honey-colored in some
places, like his arms and chest, and pale everywhere else. He’d
been a stunning combination of youth and man, tall, slender, and
formed with bulging muscle.

He had been so beautiful. And she had thrown
it all away.

“I’d say that does make it my business.” He
had lowered his voice, and his words were a smooth-as-silk murmur
beside her ear.

Before she could stop him, before she could
even
react
, he spun her around, put his hands on her upper
arms, and slanted his mouth over hers.

At first, she froze in shock. Her body
remained as rigid as her metal mannequins. She was caught between
his broad chest, his lean abdomen, and the fireplace mantel. He
loomed over her, forcing her head to tip back, and his hand pressed
to her lower back, giving her no choice but to let her body fall
against his.

She expected a harsh mashing of lips. Fear
had spiked as he’d pulled her against him, as she’d waited for his
kiss to change, to become rough and full of anger. She’d thought he
had intended the kiss as a punishment. But he was so gentle. His
mouth caressed hers—firmly enough to make her lips sizzle and
tingle, but not enough to evoke more fear.

Her tension began to evaporate. Something
else pounded in its place.
Desire.
Hot, maddening,
inconvenient, disastrous desire.

He tasted of smoke, of liquor and coffee, of
heat and man and sin. He tipped her more, so she had to wrap her
arms around his broad back. She melted, like wax beneath a candle’s
flame.

She’d kissed him before. Made love to him
before, which had been the most dazzling, wet, hot, wonderful, and
heartbreaking night of her life. She had been able to run away
after sex; she should be impervious to his skill now. But he kissed
her so tenderly that she could not dredge up any defense. His lips
teased hers. His mouth coaxed hers to open wide and she loved it.
She moaned as his tongue slid in and played and reminded her of
what she’d dreamed of him doing for so many years.

It had been a whole decade since she had
kissed him. And the only kiss she’d had since then had been forced
upon her. A harsh, vicious assault she’d escaped when her attacker
had been struck with a frying pan. After that, she’d never wanted
to be touched again. Until now…

She had to stop.

But, to her shock, she couldn’t make herself
pull away. Lyan was the one to break the kiss. Setting her securely
back on her feet, he stared at her with green eyes that gleamed as
brilliantly as lanterns.

“W-why did you do that?”

A sardonic grin twisted his handsome mouth.
“I just wanted to see if it had been worth thinking about you for
all these years.”

His very answer terrified her. There was no
hatred in his voice. Only regret. “And was it?” she managed to
ask.

“Let’s just say I can have my secrets, too.”
But his gaze ravaged her mouth. Her lips were still so sensitive,
just the heat in his glance made them ache for another kiss.

“I promise you, Sal,” he growled. “I will get
to the truth. I will find out if you were involved with Lady
Maryanne’s disappearance.” His expression grew even harder, as
though, in a heartbeat, he had turned to stone. “And I will find
out if you are keeping
my
daughter from me.”

* * *

Lyan followed the tall, icily correct butler
down the gloomy halls of Cavell House and felt as if he were
trailing a walking cadaver. As he neared his client’s study, he
planned what he would say. What he would reveal.

He hadn’t expected Sally to give him any
information. But he’d observed her shock when he’d said Maryanne
was missing, and it had told him more than words. Sal had known he
would question her about a marriage, but she obviously hadn’t
anticipated he would ask about a disappearance. It meant Lady
Maryanne’s vanishing act had not been planned.

He hadn’t anticipated kissing Sally. His
mouth had been on hers before he’d realized what he was doing. Her
kiss had burned a path through his hardened heart like a flame
along a fuse. He couldn’t think of anything but getting her back
into his arms, keeping her there forever, kissing and kissing her
until she was panting, needy, and begging him to make love to
her.

Never, on a job, did he lose control. Never
had he stopped thinking with his head and let his cock take charge.
He couldn’t afford to do it now.

Yet, knowing that, he was still mentally
undressing Sally as he sauntered down the corridor of the Marquis
of Cavell’s home. He could imagine what she would look like naked,
completely bared to him and draped sensuously across her desk. For
his pleasure, he arranged her on her front—on her small round
breasts and smooth tummy—with her naked rump saucily lifted to
tempt him.

Hell.

Even with their past hanging between them,
with her betrayal sitting in his gut like a knife blade, he had to
admire her. He’d always known she was tough, but now he appreciated
she was also intelligent and clever. A better life agreed with her.
She had changed from a stick-thin seventeen-year-old with dirty
hair to a tall, striking beauty. Her severe hairstyle had made him
hunger to tear out her pins and watch the whisky-colored mass fall
down her back. Ten years ago, he never would have guessed her hair
was that rich amber hue. If he hadn’t known Sally from the past, he
would have been enjoying himself. A canny, beautiful woman: she was
the type of adversary who made his work interesting.

When he’d looked at her, he’d felt not anger,
but sorrow and regret. Yet when he’d walked through her feminine
shop, he’d been stunned by one realization—the tumultuous ending of
their relationship had been for the best. Where would they have
been if she hadn’t taken half their money, run out on him, and
built up her business? Where would he have been if he hadn’t gone
after her, gotten himself stabbed by a footpad in his distraction,
and realized he had to get out of the stews before that world ate
him alive?

The butler rapped upon a dark study door.
“Mr. Foxton has arrived to report, my lord.” A raspy voice barked
at him to enter, and Lyan found himself once again in the dark,
cave-like study of Horace Beckworth, the Marquis of Cavell.

The marquis tossed back a glass of brandy and
stomped forward. His jowls shook as he bellowed, “Bloody hell,
Foxton, you haven’t found her yet. I don’t know what you hoped to
accomplish by coming to see me without my ward, but if your goal
was to infuriate me, you have succeeded. There are other Runners in
London. Other successful private investigators.”

It was a struggle for Lyan to keep a sneer
off his lips. He disliked Cavell. “You are free to hire one of
them, my lord. But this case has become personally interesting to
me. Whether I’m working for you or not, I will find out what
happened to Lady Maryanne.”

Cavell grimaced. “Fine, then. Have you
learned anything?”

In curt tones, he gave Cavell a report on
what he’d learned at Gretna. “As yet, there is no evidence she has
married,” he concluded.

“So then it is possible her seducer never
meant to marry her—only ruin her!”

“That is a possibility. That’s why I came to
you tonight—to find out whether there could be someone who would
seek revenge on you through your ward.”

“Revenge? For what?” The eyes narrowed in the
fleshy face. “I will remind you I am a gentleman of honor. If I
have made enemies, they would meet me over pistols. On that you are
wasting your time.”

“I want to examine every possibility.”

“But you could find no sign of her in
Scotland?” Cavell barked.

“None.”

The marquis fell back into his large, leather
chair. “Do you think it is possible she never made it to Gretna
Green because she is dead?”

“Again, it is a possibility, yes,” Lyan said.
Not one he would have wanted to leap to, if the girl had been under
his care. However, he had a young sister. It would be an agonizing
nightmare to lose her, so he could understand a tendency to fear
the worst. He studied Cavell’s face. There was something subtly
different in the marquis’s expression. It was not horror, nor
despair. It was a look Lyan knew from his days on the streets.

Anticipation.

Cavell pulled out a linen handkerchief to mop
his brow. “I have to know, Foxton,” he croaked. “I have to know
what has happened to her.”

The back of Lyan’s neck prickled. Cavell had
been the best friend of Lady Maryanne’s father and was the trustee
of the girl’s fortune. Her father had made millions in speculative
ventures and had settled a large portion of his money—that part of
his estate not entailed—on his daughter.

Lady Maryanne was a wealthy woman. Lyan had
reviewed the will left by Lady Maryanne’s late father. If she died,
Cavell got the fortune.

“Find her. Or find evidence that she is lost
to me,” Cavell snapped. “I want it within the week or I’m done with
you. Don’t think I’ll just fire you. I have no patience with men
who fail me. I make them pay.”

“I would advise you, Cavell, not to threaten
me,” Lyan growled. But he thought of Lady Maryanne. She was a
sweet, gentle young lady, very much like his younger sister, Laura.
She deserved a better life than being locked up in this mausoleum
with an old roué who hungered for her money. He prayed she was
still alive.

His thoughts went back to Sally. There had
been a fleeting look of guilt in her shrewd blue eyes, along with a
quiver of apprehension, that told him she knew who had accompanied
Lady Maryanne on her escape. The discovery she had a daughter had
startled him, had thrown him off balance. Now he intended to get at
the truth.

He would find out exactly what Sally
knew.

* * * * * * * * *

Chapter Three

After his interview with Cavell, he needed to
clear the foul stench of greed and arrogance from his senses. Lyan
went home. Walking up the steps to his house normally cheered him.
It pleased him to be able to provide a home like this for Laura.
She had spent twelve years in the slums, but those memories were
fading. He wanted to keep it that way. She deserved to think of
this as her world.

He gazed up at the elegant façade with its
rows of mullioned windows glinting in the sun, the neat blue door,
the freshly painted wrought iron fencing, the promise of security
and position. He’d rented the house with the rewards he’d earned as
a Runner. Once he became the Earl of Delamore, he would give it up
and take Laura to the earl’s London house, an enormous mansion on
Park Lane. Laura was seventeen. Now that he’d been confirmed as the
long-lost heir to the Delamore title, he could give her the
come-out she deserved.

Lyan paused with his hands on the smooth,
painted railings that framed the steps.
Earl of Delamore.
He’d never believed his mother’s tale—that she’d been wed at
sixteen to an earl’s younger son, abandoned by him, and finally
widowed when the young man had died of consumption. Lyan had known
nothing but guilt when the solicitor found him and told him her
story had been the truth.

His mother had married again when he was
nine, to a Whitechapel butcher. When that man died three years
later, they were all out on the street again, but this time his
mother also had Laura, a fragile little child of two.

Lyan jogged up the steps, opened his glossy
blue door, and stepped into his spacious, marble-tiled foyer. He
handed his greatcoat and gloves to a footman, and he shook his head
at the vagaries of fate.

Even at twelve, when they had been tossed out
of their meager home, he had vowed he would keep Laura safe, no
matter what. It was a man’s duty to take care of the women who
relied upon him. He’d always sworn he would never leave a wife the
way his father had deserted his mother. Ironically, he had been the
one abandoned.

“Lyan!”

Laura leapt to the bottom of the stairs,
sailing down a half-flight, her muslin skirts flying up. He fought
to look disapproving of her boisterous behavior, but it didn’t
work. She gazed at his raised brow and giggled. Thieves might quake
in fear when he confronted them, but his sister just laughed.

“It was all the talk at Gunter’s today,” she
cried, “that you were investigating at Madame Desjardins’ dress
shop. Heavens, what were you looking for there?” Her dark green
eyes were alight with humor and she flashed a coy smile. “Some of
the ladies are speculating you were hunting for a potential
bride—by going where you could view the debutantes in their
underclothes.”