Sinful Kiss (Sinful Ladies of London Book 2) Read online

  “Why me?”

  “I trust you the most. Particularly since something else has arisen and you saved my arse more than once in the war.”

  Roberts had known Blackthorn for many years, and their history went far back to fighting in the war against Napoleon and working for the Home Office together.

  “I know you are on leave to assist with your mother’s investigation and trial, but you are the only man I trust with this. However, I also know how you feel about protecting a former thief, but she assured me she has given up that life,” Blackthorn said. “If you want to refuse, I will understand.”

  Roberts’s occupation was to apprehend women like Ms. McBride, and now he was being asked to protect her. One of the reasons why he chose this profession was to protect citizens against people like her and his cruel father, who had victimized his mother.

  While he didn’t like the proposal, he understood the need for his presence if Blackthorn felt she was in danger. If it were anyone else asking, he would decline without a hesitation. But they’d been through hell and back while spying for the Crown. If Blackthorn thought she, or his children, needed his protection, he’d honor it. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’d like to question this woman myself. Sooner the better,” Roberts said.

  CHAPTER 2

  Newgate Prison

  Kane Roberts halted at the shrill cries of the prisoners that surrounded him. Rubbing his beard with his hand, he took a deep breath and walked in.

  He despised this damn place, but this visit was an obligatory one. The security in this prison was tight, and even though this was his third visit in the last ten days, he was asked to wait in the warden’s office.

  This was a ritual, or course.

  No one liked having a Bow Street Runner in here.

  The warden welcomed him into his office. Kane handed over the money to ensure the prisoner had the necessities to keep her comfortable. This was becoming very expensive, and something that he didn’t think he could keep up for more than a month. As it was, each time he visited, the warden raised the amount of money he required to keep her happy.

  He was given a wooden chair to sit in in front of the prisoner’s cell for fifteen minutes.

  “I don’t enjoy you seeing me in here,” Anne Roberts, his mother, said from inside of the dark cell.

  “Would you rather I didn’t come here at all?” Kane asked. At least they’d given her a mattress and a blanket, as well as a book and candles he’d asked the warden to provide for her. If his mother asked him not to come, he would try to do as she wished, but he surmised it would be a promise he would have no choice but to break.

  She lowered her gaze. “No,” she said. Then she added, “This place is not a place for a son to visit his mother.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks.

  Clearing his throat, he ignored her comment; it was a moot point. “Have you been getting regular meals?”

  “Yes,” she said with a faint smile.

  “Good.”

  “Are they treating you well?”

  “As well as one can be treated in a prison. I know this is your doing.” She stood from her mattress and walked over to the wooden desk and picked up a parchment. “Here,” she said, handing him the paper through the rusted bars.

  He took it. “What is this?”

  “Don’t read it now,” Anne said. She turned to look away from him. “Take it home. Read it when you’re ready.” She paused. “I appreciation your discretion… Not asking about your father, not asking questions when I wasn’t ready to answer them. I had my reasons.” She gave him a faint smile. “The letter should provide you with the details.”

  The only question he had asked on his first visit was if she had killed his father and she replied with an adamant, “No.”

  His father was not a patient man, especially with his mother. When he drank, he was cruel. That was one of many reasons why Kane left home and joined the army at sixteen. It was better than witnessing the fights, his father’s anger, and his ruthless punishments if he wasn’t satisfied.

  It was hard to watch. Even harder to see his mother tolerate him.

  Ten days ago, when he was called to the scene, his father’s body had already been removed and his mother was headed to Newgate. There was a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs at the scene of the crime. He’d been told his father died of a stab wound and a broken neck. His blood was all over his mother’s hands and dress.

  He’d been working on a case that took much of his time, but with his current predicament, he needed time to help his mother before it was too late. Leaving Bow Street on a temporary status was the only way he could help his mother. In ten days, he’d had no success in finding the maid who had been there with his mother that night.

  “I expect to hang,” she admitted.

  The day she’d been arrested, he approached the magistrate regarding the matter, and the magistrate informed him that it was out of his hands, indicating that the neighbors saw his mother with the knife and blood all over her dress and hands. However, the magistrate gave Roberts a full month to investigate and come up with a witness supporting her innocence.

  “Not if there is anything I can do about it,” Roberts said to his mother.

  “Listen to me, son,” she said, “no matter what happens to me, promise me you will find a nice girl from a respectable family and marry. That would make me happy.”

  “I think that is the least of my priorities right now.”

  “Promise me,” she said. “I need to know you won’t be alone after I am gone.”

  A nice girl from a respectable family? How could he promise her such things? He had neither the need nor want to marry at this point in his life.

  Besides, after years of fighting in the war and spying for Home Office, he didn’t know how to live any other way. This was all he knew how to do, but he could not disappoint a woman who was facing her death if he didn’t find the maid who had been at the house.

  “I will do what I can.” It was a promise he knew he could not keep, but he wanted to make her happy in this dire situation.

  He left after that with a sense of melancholy pulling at his heart. When he arrived home, he carefully placed the letter in the dresser in his bedchamber and closed it. He didn’t want to know the contents. Not now. In truth, he feared it. He feared she would confess she had done it, and that there was no hope left for her.

  God knows his father deserved to die.

  ~ ~ ~

  Ethan was dead.

  The young, vibrant Ethan who had become her friend was really gone. This sudden news squeezed her heart painfully, an utter sadness that overran her with emotions she hadn’t felt in a long time. Normally she shoved it down deep inside her, but this time she didn’t want to push it away.

  What happened, Ethan?

  In the stillness of her room, she quietly sobbed for her dead friend. Tears slowly dripped down her cheeks with memories that had been long buried. Fond memories of a young man who treated her like a goddess and she teased him for it.

  Amelia and Lord Blackthorn had left for their trip to Italy an hour ago. The lovely couple made arrangements for Lady Emily Wentworth, their newly acquainted friend, to stay with her at the house until the couple’s return in two months. The Duke of Kemp, Emily’s brother, needed some convincing, but he agreed as long as Emily had her personal maid as her chaperone.

  The rat-looking dog suddenly jumped on Kate’s lap and looked up at her, his pink tongue hanging out. No matter how much Francis—the youngest of the six girls Amelia and Lord Blackthorn had recently adopted—brushed the mutt’s hair, it had a mind of its own. It looked as though it been hit by lightning.

  “Why do you insist on sitting on my lap?” Kate wiped the tears off her cheeks and looked at the dog with a frown. Honestly, the dog looked petrified, and the hairs on her tail stood up like he was in a constant state of shock.

  Kate stroked the dog, who w
as looking up at her and appeared to be smiling, begging for a scratch. “We really need to give you a name. We can’t very well call you Rat and Mutt like the other girls do. Francis wouldn’t allow it.”

  Francis was full of spirit and energy. Despite their mother passing away not too long ago, Francis was faring well. The eldest, Beatrice Bell, on the other hand, wasn’t. The grief was clear in her eyes. She missed her mother terribly, Kate was sure of it. She was certain the rest of the girls missed their mother terribly too. Not that Kate would understand such things. She couldn’t recall her parents, as she had no memory of them.

  Footfalls alerted her, and Kate looked up to see Beatrice at the door.

  “Hello, Bee,” Kate said, watching her. The young woman had donned a new dress the modiste made for her a few days ago. The soft yellow dress with the lacy ribbon brought out her dark eyes and her dark locks. Then Kate noticed her eyes were red.

  She’d been crying.

  “There you are, Rat.” Bee walked over to her and frowned at the animal.

  Francis, the little darling, stomped in to the room and faced Bee. “Stop calling her that.” Francis crossed her arms and glared at her sister.

  “We really need to give her a name, don’t you think?” Kate said diplomatically, intervening with a smile. “Hopefully sooner the better.”

  “I don’t know why you persist on keeping that mutt,” Bee argued, looking down at her little sister. “It’s filthy.”

  “No, she isn’t. I gave her a bath last night.”

  “You mean the maid gave her a bath?” Bee corrected.

  Francis stuck her tongue out and took off with the mutt in her arms.

  Bee started after her little sister. “You little—”

  “Just a moment, Bee,” Kate said. “May we talk?”

  Bee turned around and reluctantly nodded. “What about?”

  “Come, sit by me.” When Bee walked over and sat down on the settee next to her, Kate took a deep breath and smiled. “I want to let you know that you can speak to me about anything.”

  Bee looked confused for a moment, then realization took hold and she lowered her gaze. “I am all right.”

  “It’s all right to allow yourself to share your emotions with those you trust.”

  “I can?”

  Kate nodded. “I think it’s quite unhealthy to not share.” She didn’t quite believe this, but knowing the burden Bee had for her sisters, it needed to be said. “We are all here for you and your sisters. We may not share the same blood, but we are a family.”

  Tears dripped down Bee’s cheeks. “I miss her…terribly.”

  “I know, my darling.” She pulled the girl into her arms and Bee rested her head on Kate’s shoulders.

  “Sometimes I wonder if this is just a terrible dream and I am going to wake up and she is with us again.”

  “I never knew my parents,” Kate confessed. “But you had the pleasure of knowing your mother, however short it was. You can share the memories with your sister, to keep them alive.”

  “I thought about it.” Bee lifted her head and wiped the tears away. “But I fear it may do more damage than good.”

  “I think, considering how much they all miss their mother, it’s fine. Besides, it will bring you all closer. I am sure they will love you for it even if they don’t show it.”

  “You think so?”

  “Of course.” Kate hooked the loose strand of Bee’s hair behind her ear. “Francis will need you to help keep the memories alive.”

  Bee smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Ms. McBride,” Andrews said at the threshold.

  “Yes, Andrews?” she said, looking at the impeccably dressed butler.

  “Mr. Hawk wishes to speak with you.”

  What does he want now? “Tell him I am unavailable.”

  When the butler started to walk away to inform Johnathan, she called to him. “Wait, tell him I am not here, that I won’t return for days…weeks will be better, actually.”

  “I knew you’d say that,” came a voice behind Andrews. Johnathan was standing half a foot taller than the butler and had invited himself in without solicitation.

  The butler frowned, giving the American a disapproving look. “Sir, this is highly inappropriate.”

  “You are harboring a murderer in this house. Did you know that?” he said to the butler.

  The butler’s eyes widened, but he quickly composed himself. “I must insist you—”

  “It’s all right, Andrews.” Kate stood and faced her accuser. “Some tea, please. Beatrice, go upstairs. I will join you once I am finished here.” Reluctantly, Bee’s eyes darted from Johnathan to Kate. “It’s all right. Now, go.”

  Once Bee left the parlor, Kate looked the American squarely in the eyes and said, “A little discretion in the presence of the girls, please.”

  “And this is coming from a woman who has managed to cajole, thwart, and murder her so-called friend.”

  “You have a strange way of distorting the truth.”

  “How did you manage to befriend an earl and the countess?” He scoured the room. “With more lies?”

  After arriving in Scotland two years ago from Boston, she had met Amelia at a dinner party Amelia’s grandmother had invited her to attend. They lived only half a mile away and were neighbors, so it was customary. There was a sense of loneliness about Amelia that Kate understood too well. They became instant friends, and it was a blessing, even though their relationship was based on a lie.

  “Say what you came to say,” she said, “then leave.” The Johnathan she knew would never resort to intruding as he did now.

  “It would be easier if you just confessed.”

  “I have no confession to make,” she said. “I grieve Ethan’s death too. He was like a brother to me.”

  Johnathan’s jaw tightened, and his eyes went hot. “Don’t you dare speak of him thus! You knew he’d do anything for you, and you played your game to get what you wanted out of him, didn’t you?”

  She was utterly lost. “What games have I played, Johnathan?”

  “Your lies disgust me,” he said.

  “You need to leave.”

  “Not until I get what I want.”

  “You’ve become a bitter and cruel man, Johnathan.”

  “And you are no better than a thief. Had I known who you really are, I would have left you where I found you.”

  “Why didn’t you?” she said boldly. “I never asked for your help.” He took a step forward, and she took a step back. He wouldn’t dare try anything here, would he?

  “You are an ungrateful bitch,” he said. “You used Ethan’s friendship for your benefit and now he is dead.”

  “Believe what you like, Johnathan.”

  “There is no way out of this, Kate. Not this time. You were seen with him the night he died. I have a witness.”

  The last time she was with Ethan was at Mr. Harris’s ball. She had no wish to go, but Ethan had begged her to go with him as his lover, Daniel, was going to be at the ball. She had gone to the ball, and at the end of the evening, told him of her travel to Scotland and wished him well.

  “I know you’re grieving. So am—”

  He swiftly approached and gripped her neck with his hand. “Stop the lies. This is how you pay me back for what I’ve done, for what my family has done for you?” His voice hissed in her ears. Just then, the footman entered the parlor and Jonathan instantly released her and backed away.

  Her hand on her neck, her chest rose and fell. For the first time, she truly feared Johnathan.

  “Is everything all right, Ms. McBride?” the young footman said as he glared at Johnathan.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Thank you.” The footman placed the tray of tea and biscuits on the table by the settee and left the room. She sat down, weak-kneed and shocked at what had just transpired. She couldn’t look at this man.

  “What happened to you?” When she’d been ten, he’d been a kind gentleman who had rescued her f
rom poverty.

  “I am what I am.”

  “Are you?” she said softly. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”

  “Unfortunately for you, I know exactly what you are. You’re a lying, stealing, and cavorting bitch who doesn’t have much credit for honesty,” the US marshal replied. “I would drag you back to the States now if I could.”

  “I will never go anywhere with you.”

  Something had caught Johnathan’s attention, and she followed his gaze to see Emily Wentworth standing by the door.

  “My apologies, I did not realize you had a guest.”

  “He is not a guest.”

  The two locked gazes for several seconds.

  “Shall I come back later?”

  “No, Lady Wentworth,” Kate said. “What is it?”

  “The girls wanted to know if they can have a picnic in the garden today.”

  “That would be lovely,” Kate answered. Lady Wentworth stood still, as if waiting for an introduction.

  “This is Mr. Johnathan Hawk. He was just leaving.” Emily gazed at Johnathan curiously. Neither of them said anything for a moment. “Lady Wentworth?”

  “My apologies,” she said. “You reminded me of someone. Well, then, I shall leave you to converse,” Emily said. “Mr. Hawk,” she said cordially before leaving them.

  “If you confessed—”

  “Do not say a word,” came a man’s voice by the door.

  She turned around and saw Mr. Kane Roberts glaring at Johnathan. The tall, intimidating Bow Street Runner faced Johnathan as if they were at a standoff in some wilds of America. “Next time, you are to speak with me before approaching Ms. McBride.”

  “On who’s authority?” Johnathan blurted out.

  “Mine,” he said. “You don’t have any jurisdiction in London to take legal action against Ms. McBride.”

  The two men glared at each other for several more seconds, then Johnathan said to Kate, “I will be staying at Grillon’s. If you want to confess, you can reach me there.”

  When she was about to tell the marshal what she thought of his comment, Mr. Roberts said, “Get out.”

  The two men left her in peace in the parlor. She slumped down on the settee, realizing she was shaking. She tried to still her hands without success.