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She realized she’d never been so close to him, not even during their betrothal. Back then he hadn’t even tried to kiss her. Her cheeks burned with humiliation at the remembrance of just how distasteful he must have found her.

  And yet here she sat—fool that she was—acutely aware of Sparrow’s powerful form behind her when she should be at the altar exchanging vows with Edmund. Instead, she breathed in the scent of bergamot and male exertion like it was oxygen, her heart slamming against her ribs with the same force as the mount’s hooves struck the cobblestone street.

  She wanted to whack herself on the head—if she dared loosen her death grip on the saddle—to shake the idiot romantic thoughts from her head. She had a willing bridegroom waiting for her at the altar. The man behind her, whose body occasionally rubbed up against hers, triggering unladylike sensations deep in her belly, had jilted her. He was no Prince Charming. More like Prince Misery and Disappointment, at least when it came to her happiness. She’d do well to remember that.

  She focused on where they were going. He turned down Park Street and, up ahead, Portman Square came into view. It was empty of people, and as they approached, she eyed the iron enclosure around the grassy lawn, which was dotted with trees and manicured high bushes. When they were near enough, she saw her chance for escape. Before she had time to overthink the haphazard plan, before the fear of falling consumed her, she seized her opportunity and threw herself off the mount and over the perimeter fence, landing hard on the softer grassy surface.

  “What the—?” Irritation quickly supplanted the concern in Sparrow’s voice from atop his huge animal. “Bugger! What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  She shot up, stumbling over the folds of her gown, her dratted bonnet impeding her vision. A sharp pain arrowed up her left leg. “Ow! Judas! My ankle.” She hopped a little in her once-snowy wedding slippers.

  Anger blazed in his blue eyes. “What did you expect, considering how you jumped from my stallion in such a careless manner?” He was off the horse and leaping over the fence with his long, well-built legs before she could plan any kind of effective escape. “You could have impaled yourself on the iron spikes. What were you thinking?”

  “What was I thinking?” Her ankle throbbing with agony, she wobbled back away from him. “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps I was reflecting upon the bedlamite who kidnapped me on my wedding day and ruined my chance at happiness.” Her voice rose in a combination of fury and frustration, edged with hysteria. “Maybe I was thinking that if, by any wild stretch of the imagination, I do manage to find my way back to St. George’s that maybe, just maybe, Edmund will still have me!”

  He watched her with an odd gaze, as though she were a scientific specimen he hadn’t quite puzzled out. “Come away with me, Emilia. I promise to explain everything.” His tone softened. “What choice do you have, really? If you are seen alone in public with a strange man in your bedraggled state, your reputation will be immeasurably tarnished.”

  She skewered him with a furious look. “And whose fault is that?”

  “I’ll fix everything.” Speaking soothingly, he stepped closer and took her arm as she imagined he might gentle one of his skittish mounts. “I give you my word as a gentleman.”

  Something cracked in the air. It took her a moment to comprehend what it was, but Sparrow seemed to know immediately because he practically tackled her to the ground, covering her with his large, taut form. “Stay down,” he hissed. His weight pressed on her, his muscles rigid with alertness, his unique virile scent blanketing her as surely as his body.

  “Listen carefully,” he said in a harsh whisper in her ear. “When I get up, you are to move under the cover of the bushes. Do you understand?”

  “Was that a gunshot?”

  “Just do as I say.” His breath was warm on her cheek. “And wait here for me.”

  “You’re leaving me alone?” she whispered incredulously into the ground.

  “I’ll be back directly.” Then the reassuring weight blanketing her lifted and she saw Sparrow running toward the fence in long, purposeful strides. He drew something from his jacket that glinted in the sun. A pistol. Why was Sparrow carrying a weapon? Where was he going?

  Staying low, she scrambled toward the bushes and plunged into them, her skirt catching on a branch while another bit of foliage scratched uncomfortably against her cheek. Perspiring and breathing erratically, she scooted back against one shrub and hugged her knees to her chest, wondering, not for the first time, how she had come to be in this frightening and ridiculous predicament on her wedding day.

  Footsteps stomped toward her, the bushes in front of her rustled. She held her breath. Then Sparrow came into view and, because he wasn’t some random footpad, relief spiraled through her. This time when he reached out a hand, she took it immediately and allowed him to pull her up.

  “Let’s go.” The words were brusque.

  She stumbled behind him, pain pulsing in her ankle, as he pressed on toward his waiting mount. “What happened? Did you locate the person who fired the shots?”

  “Yes,” he said grimly. “I found him.”

  “And?”

  Her breath caught as he swept her off her feet and onto the mount. “Let’s just say he’ll no longer be a problem.”

  Chapter 2

  Emilia awoke to the salty scent of the sea. She stretched, feeling cozy and comfortable, snuggling into the firm width of a contoured chest. Then memory assailed her, firing in her belly. It was her wedding day and Hamilton Sparrow had ruined it. Again.

  She stiffened. How on earth had she fallen asleep?

  “You’re awake. Perfect timing.” She could feel the vibrations of Sparrow’s words against her cheek. “We’ll stop soon.”

  She straightened to take in their surroundings and winced at the soreness of her bottom from being in the saddle for too long. They were passing out of a seaside village perched between two cliffs. “Where are we?” she asked, her voice rough with sleep.

  “Hastings.”

  “Hastings?” The late-afternoon sun slung low over the horizon, a long golden gleam against the water. Ordinarily, she’d be tempted to capture the picturesque scene on her sketch pad. But this was no ordinary day. “As in the Battle of Hastings?”

  He turned up a narrow street. “The very same. This is where the Conqueror came ashore.”

  “You brought me to Hastings.” She rubbed her eyes. Hastings was at least fifty miles from Town. And here she was alone with a man who was neither her husband nor a close relative. Apparently, ruining her two weddings wasn’t enough for Sparrow; it seemed he was determined to ruin her reputation as well. They came to a stop before a thatched-roof stone cottage on a bluff overlooking the water.

  “Here we are. Watch your ankle.” He alighted and reached up to help her down. “We’ll go in and clean up and then I will explain everything. You have my word.”

  She breathed in the fresh sea air. Disbelief wrapped around her when she considered the disjointed reality of being on the coast with Sparrow instead of celebrating her nuptials with Edmund. “What is this place?”

  “It’s called Foxhill.” He gave his horse over to the care of a young man who’d appeared from one of the outbuildings behind the cottage. “I’ve recently inherited it.”

  “From whom?”

  “My father’s second cousin.” She knew his father’s distant cousin had been a viscount. He must have left this single piece of unentailed property to Sparrow as a token of affection.

  “Were you close to him?”

  “No, I never met him. I don’t think Father ever knew him either. Viscount Vale spent most of his time in Devonshire.”

  She studied the cottage’s neat lines. Hamilton Sparrow was not a man of means, so this modest structure must be of great significance to him. She knew he had a situation—that he performed some sort of service for the Home Office that earned him a modest income. Years ago, when their two fathers arranged their betrothal, she’d assumed her fortune was th
e primary draw for him. After all, Sparrow was a handsome, well-formed man who could have any woman.

  Given her own flame-colored waves and freckled skin, he certainly couldn’t have been attracted to her looks. The unfortunate shade of her hair came from her great-grandmother on her father’s side, a woman rumored to have been an actress of great allure before Papa’s grandfather, a baron, made her respectable, although no one in the St. George family would admit to such a dubious connection. Emilia had inherited the woman’s unfortunate hair color but not, she thought sadly, Great-Grandmama’s famed sensual allure.

  A hardy-looking young woman with honey brown hair and a wide flat nose bustled out of the cottage. “My lord, we weren’t expecting you back so soon.”

  “Hello, Trudy, I’m afraid there’s been a change of plans.”

  She cast a brazen look at Emilia. “I’ll see what I can arrange for supper, my lord.”

  “Thank you. Do not concern yourself overmuch. A cold repast will do well enough.” He turned to Emilia. “This is Trudy, my housekeeper. She will see to your needs.”

  Emilia bit back a retort. Trudy seemed awfully young to be a housekeeper, and the audacious glances she threw Sparrow’s way weren’t very servantlike. She shoved such thoughts away and forced herself to refocus on her own situation.

  She shouldn’t care if Sparrow’s housekeeper admired him. It was nothing to her. And she didn’t plan on being here long enough to need Trudy’s assistance. She must find a way to return to Town before she was ruined beyond saving.

  She tested her weight on her injured ankle and winced. It was still sore, but she could walk on it. She took Sparrow’s proffered arm, and they followed Trudy into the cottage. Emilia noted the housekeeper was the second servant to refer to Sparrow as “my lord.” Joe, the young boy outside the church, had done so as well. Sparrow was not titled. Not even remotely close. Perhaps he didn’t care to correct his servants as to the proper way to address their master.

  They entered the cottage to find it clean and comfortably furnished, with white plaster walls, beamed ceilings, and flagstone floors. In the sitting room, an old inglenook hearth took up one wall opposite large windows facing the sea.

  Emilia was shown to a neat little room that also faced the sea. She went to the window and threw it open, her gaze drawn to the ruins of an old castle on a nearby bluff. Under different circumstances, she might have been enchanted by this scenic place.

  “Trudy will bring you water so that you may refresh yourself. She will also see about getting you something to wear.” Sparrow spoke from the corridor outside her chamber. “And then, if you’d care to join me, we can take some nourishment and I will tell you everything.”

  —

  Sparrow lounged in a sitting-room chair with a glass of arrack, his drink of choice, dangling from his fingertips. A gentle ocean breeze blew in through the open window. The briny scent made him think of Marie, who had loved the sea. A sharp pain burned its way through his chest when he recalled their last intimate evening together.

  He’d rolled over on her silk sheets in a haze of sexual satisfaction after a vigorous lovemaking session. They’d quarreled violently earlier in the day, and he’d regretfully anticipated that this time the break would be permanent. Consequently, when she sent for him that evening, he’d obliged, even though one of his most critical missions was to occur in a few hours, in the earliest morning, when most of Paris either slept or frolicked at endless routs.

  He should have sent his regrets, but Marie was a tempestuous woman, and he couldn’t resist being swept up in the storm of her passion. Besides, he’d been painstaking in his preparation; the operation had been planned to perfection. His men were ready. Sparrow would be back at his quarters in plenty of time to hear their report and, hopefully, to learn of their success.

  He’d arrived at Marie’s to find her draped naked, legs askew, over a stuffed chair in her bedchamber. She lounged like a goddess, with swathes of honey-smooth skin gloriously on display, demanding to be worshipped. He’d gone down on his knees before her and obliged with his mouth and probing, knowing fingers. He liked pleasing her as she pleased him.

  Dragging each other to the floor, they’d gone at it like wild beasts; the sexual congress between them always felt more like a competition, a battle for domination, than any expression of tender feelings. Afterward, exhausted and satiated, the feel of cool silk caressing his bare skin, he’d sprawled out on Marie’s bed, admiring her nude willowy form as she poured champagne and joined him in bed with two full glasses.

  “None for me.” He shook his head, preferring to keep a clear mind for the evening ahead. “I have work later.”

  “Un peu.” She held out the glass. “You cannot allow me to drink alone.”

  “Just this once, mon amour, I regret that I must.”

  She’d smiled, smoky and sensual, a knowing look glistening in her ebony eyes. “We shall see about that.”

  Even now, over a year later at his cottage in Hastings, far from Paris and Marie, the husky French lilt of her words echoed in his brain. We shall see about that. He should have declined what she offered next. But he hadn’t.

  She’d reclined on the crumpled sheets and dribbled his champagne all over her body, over the pert breasts, down the soft curve of her belly, and even lower. And of course he hadn’t resisted. He never could when it came to this temptress. Besides, what harm could a little champagne do?

  He’d suckled her nipples, tongued the heady libation from the concave slope of her slender stomach, and followed the liquid trail down to the enticing place between her thighs. She kept pouring and he continued to indulge until the sheets were soaked and the glass empty—the taste of Marie and the bubbly spirits becoming indelibly linked in his mind. After that evening, he loathed champagne and he hadn’t touched the stuff since.

  But back then, before he’d learned what she really was, he’d relished it all. Light-headed and completely beguiled by her, perhaps even slightly obsessed, he came to a decision while lying there in bed next to her with the smell of the champagne saturating the air and soaking the sheets beneath them. “Marry me.”

  “What?” She’d stared at him. “I thought this was just a passing liaison.”

  “As did I.” His brain seemed fuzzy. “But now I feel differently.” His tongue felt thick and enlarged, as though there wasn’t enough room in his mouth for it.

  “How amusing.” She rose from the bed. “C’est trop tard.”

  He blinked. “Too late for what?” The words were slurred. He attempted to sit up but couldn’t seem to move his limbs. Each one felt weighted and sluggish. “Too late for what?” he asked again; this time his words were more garbled.

  She stood looking down at him. Something akin to triumph flashed in her dark eyes. “Everything.”

  Shadows fell across the room, as if someone had doused the candles. It hit him then. The champagne. She’d put something in it. Marie had drugged him. His temptress was the devil.

  And he was in a hell of his own making.

  —

  “My lord.” Trudy appeared by his chair.

  Grateful for the distraction from his unwelcome memories, Sparrow turned his attention to his housekeeper. “Yes?”

  “What time shall I serve supper?” She stood closer than was appropriate, but then theirs wasn’t exactly a proper master-servant relationship. His housekeeper enjoyed a good romp and possessed a lusty sexual appetite to rival his own. They were well matched in that way, but neither of them harbored any illusions about the status of their occasional liaisons. He wasn’t Trudy’s first lover and certainly wouldn’t be her last.

  “We’ll dine once my guest comes down.” He sipped from the arrack. “Did you find something for her to wear?”

  “I sent Jed down to the village and he got a gown for her. Not fancylike, though.”

  “It’ll have to do. Thank you, Trudy.”

  Expectation sparked in her brown eyes. “There is a way you can thank
me proper.” She slid a hand up his shoulder to toy with the lobe of his ear.

  He brushed her hand away, uncomfortable with the idea of Emilia finding him in flagrante delicto with his servant. “Not this evening, love.”

  She pouted. “It’s because of her, ain’t it?”

  “No.” At least not in the way Trudy thought. Emilia was gently bred, an innocent who would never understand the coarser aspects of his life. Lord knows, his new valet certainly took issue with his comportment often enough. He could practically hear Gibbs’s prim, clipped voice…A gentleman of your station never consorts with his servants.

  Hell’s bells. In his old life, he’d have thought nothing of indulging in a bit of bed sport with Trudy, a willing wench if there ever was one. He released a breath. There’d been so many changes in his life recently. He still reeled from it. England could be suffocating. Its rules and the ridiculous constraints of polite society served as a reminder of everything he’d lost.

  He realized Trudy hadn’t moved. “Thank you.” He stared up at her. “That will be all.”

  She left with a quiet huff, but not before he saw disappointment flash across her sturdy face. Once his unhappy housekeeper departed, he forced memories of Marie out of his mind and contemplated Emilia’s situation.

  Who would benefit from her demise? Unfortunately, the possible culprit could be any number of people. She was an heiress, and greed often roused people’s darkest instincts.

  Before long Emilia appeared wearing a plain navy gown and with loose, flowing hair. He stood when she entered and tried not to gape. He’d never really seen her hair before, not in all the years he’d known her, because she always seemed to wear some bonnet or cap that hid all of that glorious bounty.

  Long and thick, her flowing, fiery curls were magnificent, a striking bold color more suited to lusty vixens than gently raised females. Before him stood Titania, queen of the fairies, rather than the plain, shy girl he’d left behind five years ago.

  His gaze dropped to her gown and the room suddenly seemed warmer. The simple frock fit her rather more snugly than it should, caressing and showcasing a plump bosom and generous curves he felt fairly certain he would have remembered had they existed back when he’d known her.