The Scoundrel in Her Bed (Sins for All Seasons #3)(4)

Oh, the gall of him, speaking to her in the tone one used when addressing a recalcitrant child. “What makes you think I haven’t?”

Then she took her tightly balled fist and delivered an uppercut blow to that well-defined jaw she’d once peppered with kisses that had him dropping her rapier and reeling back two steps. She was rather certain the punch would have felled any other man, but he was all sinew, muscle, height, and breadth. However, her actions had momentarily stunned him, which provided all the distraction she needed to swiftly snatch up her weapon and close her fingers securely around it. Before he fully recovered, she lunged forward and pressed the tip of the blade between the part of his coat, against the linen of his shirt. She took immense satisfaction in how still he went, how he barely breathed, watching her, waiting. The temptation to skewer him had her fairly trembling with the possibility of gaining retribution against him. He deserved it for proving himself a scoundrel of the first water by stealing her heart and then crushing it beneath his boot heel once he’d gained what he wanted, what she’d willingly surrendered to him because she’d loved him so madly.

Tightening her hold on the weapon, she fought the memories bombarding her, memories of the kind and gentle fellow she’d once known, the one with whom she’d begun falling in love when she was a mere fifteen.





Chapter 2




London

1861

At First Blush



“Send for the slaughterer.”

Her father’s words had sent a bone-numbing chill through Lavinia, and now she stood near the stall with her forehead pressed to her mare’s, the hand of her uninjured arm brushing over Sophie’s gorgeous white coat. She’d pleaded with her father not to send for the horrid man who would take Sophie away.

“I’ll not keep a horse that throws a lady off its back,” he’d said sternly before marching toward the residence.

She’d known it would be fruitless to argue, but still she’d raced after him, trying to explain the truth of what had happened—but he wasn’t having it. The horse was a danger, and he’d not risk his only daughter’s safety. He would be rid of this one and purchase her another, his tone brooking no further arguments.

It wasn’t fair, wasn’t fair at all. It hadn’t been Sophie’s fault. If anyone was to blame it was the Duke of Thornley—known as Thorne to his intimates—for inviting Lavinia to go riding with him along Rotten Row, then inviting her brother as well, paying far more attention to Neville, who was nine years her senior, than to her. At birth, she’d been promised to Thorne, but that didn’t mean she didn’t require some level of wooing, didn’t yearn to be his sole focus. But no, in spite of her presence, the two men had been discussing some new gaming hell that was rumored to be “just the thing” and how they might go in search of it, because in spite of being “just the thing” it was apparently hidden away somewhere.

As always, they were treating her like a child, to be humored, not a girl on the cusp of womanhood, whose body had been changing for some time now in preparation for marriage and childbirth and who had recently acquired a lady’s maid. Feeling jealous and petulant, she’d given the usually docile Sophie a stinging slap on the rump with her riding crop, intending to send the horse into a frenzied gallop in order to pretend to have lost control of the beast so her future fiancé would dash after them and rescue her. However, instead of bolting, Sophie had reared up at the abuse and unseated Lavinia, who had then landed hard on her arm, which had landed even harder on a rock. She’d screamed at the pain that had torn through her and then stared stupidly at the shard of white just above her wrist that protruded through her sleeve and the red that was soaking into the lime-colored fabric of her riding habit.

She couldn’t remember exactly—being in shock, she supposed—how her brother had lifted her and she had ended up in Thorne’s lap as he sat astride his gelding. Holding her close, while urging his horse to canter at a fast clip, he’d escorted her home, leaving Neville to retrieve her mare. In spite of it being the most excruciating journey of her life, she’d welcomed Thorne’s arms about her, his nearness. He’d even carried her into the residence, up to her bedchamber, as though her leg and not her arm was broken.

He’d make an exceptional husband, even if he was eleven years her senior, and presently in no rush to marry, apparently. He hadn’t officially asked for her hand, but their fathers had signed a contract upon her birth giving Wood’s End, a small estate that bordered up against Thorne’s much larger one, to the duke upon their marriage. So her future was settled and done, without poetry, flowers, or grand gestures. The entire arrangement was all so dashed boring, lacking in passion, desire, and mad yearning.

Once he’d deposited her on the bed, Thorne had respectfully taken his leave, turning her care over to the servants who scurried about with words of worry as though she were not long for this world. Although she knew full well a gentleman did not remain in a lady’s bedchamber if he was not married to her, she was still so deuced disappointed that he hadn’t hovered over her himself. The physician had been sent for, the bone reset—a process that had pained her immensely—and a splint secured about her forearm to prevent the bone from moving again until it was properly healed.

Slightly woozy from the laudanum she’d been given to dilute the pain, she’d made her way to the stable in order to check on Sophie and ensure she was unharmed. She’d arrived just as her father made his proclamation. And now there was no hope for it. Her beautiful Sophie would be led to slaughter.