A Season to Be Sinful Read online

  “Why not?”

  “For the simplest of reasons: they were afraid she would send them away.” He spoke to his godmother’s skeptical expression. “It was a reasonable fear. If Lily thought they were doing things because of her that would endanger them, she would remove herself or remove them. Do not say you doubt it. That was her objection to this day’s piece of work by the scoundrels, and she cannot appreciate that the lads and I share a different view. She would bear all of the risk, and that is unacceptable to us. She might not agree with our perspective, but I should very much like her to respect it. Pinch, Dash, and Midge did nothing more today than they’ve done since taking her under their collective wing. What is different is that I knew it and she didn’t.”

  Lady Rivendale was quiet, considering this. “Lily is more out of sorts with your part in encouraging them than she is with the part they played. You shall have to set it right with her.”

  “You have some advice, I collect.”

  “I like her immensely, Sherry. My advice is simple: do not muck it up.”

  Lily’s sleep was restless. Several times since coming to bed she felt herself drifting off, only to awaken shortly after and trouble herself by reviewing the day’s events in her mind. Wondering what choices she might have made in Sherry’s position did not make sleep easy to find. Twice she rose and went to the boys’ rooms, not because she was concerned that they would not be abed but because she needed to believe she was doing something more than pacing off her unsettled nerves.

  It was tempting to go to Sherry’s bedchamber and settle with him, but she resisted, uncertain of her reception. She had taken him to task for all that might have happened—and didn’t—while demonstrating precious little in the way of gratitude for what he had been able to accomplish. It was very poorly done of her, she thought, and he would be well within his rights to show her the door, or at least insist that she stay on the other side of it.

  Lily was lying on her back, hugging a pillow to her aching chest and staring at the ceiling, when she heard the sound of breathing that was not her own. Her fingers tightened on the pillow. “My lord?”

  “Which lord is that?” Woodridge asked, stepping away from the deep shadow beside the fireplace. “You will understand my confusion, Lilith.”

  Lily pushed herself upright and peered into the darkness. She could make him out as he came to stand to the right of one of the wing chairs. He leaned casually against it, resting his elbow on the high back. Eyes narrowing, Lily saw that he carried something long and slender in his hands and that he was passing it back and forth between them. It was when the object tapped against the floor that she realized it was his crystal-knobbed walking stick.

  “Leave now,” she said, “and I won’t scream.”

  He shook his head. “If you meant to raise the alarm you would have already done so. You do not want to call those boys from their beds. Nor Sherry, either.”

  Lily screamed. It was a good effort: shrill, loud, and long. As Woodridge got his bearings and lunged for her, she rolled to the opposite side of the bed, taking the pillow with her. Before she could drop to the floor, the baron extended his reach with his walking stick and poked her in the chest. The pillow would have made the blow less punishing if it had only been the flattened tip that she’d felt, but Lily heard the revealing snap of the stick’s blade being released and understood what was going to happen. She had the fleeting thought that perhaps if she hadn’t known what to expect, she wouldn’t have experienced the pain quite so keenly, but that first prick was as sharp as the deep thrust of the blade had been in Covent Garden.

  She was not without any defense, however, and she used the pillow to keep the knife from sinking into her, deflecting the blade down and to the side. The tip rent her gown and sliced her skin along the underside of her breast, but she held on, protecting her hands with the pillow until she was able to turn and use Woodridge’s forward momentum to drive the blade and walking stick into the bed.

  The baron sprawled across the mattress and lost his grip on the stick. He groped for it blindly. Lily tossed the pillow and yanked the cane out by the knobbed end. Woodridge’s keening, wounded animal cry startled her so that she nearly dropped the weapon before she could fling it away. All the instincts of survival served her now, and she held on long enough to pitch it like a javelin in the direction of the door.

  She felt the baron’s fingers clawing at her, scrabbling to get a fistful of her nightgown. Lily tore herself away, rolling to the very edge of the bed and dropping over the side. Her knees banged the floor hard. Pressing one hand to her wound, she used the other to push herself to her feet. As her head rose above the edge of the bed, Woodridge cuffed her and knocked her sideways. Dazed, Lily lay there, unable to move. She heard the baron leaving the bed and sensed when he came to stand over her. Still standing, he straddled her. She tensed as he dropped to his haunches.

  His first touch was unexpected. Warm. Wet. His fingertip slid too easily along her cheek, made almost frictionless by the thin liquid film that separated his skin from hers. Not tears, she realized. Blood. His blood.

  Lily flinched, but she could not escape him. He caught her on the chin, tilting it so he could run his fingertip along the underside and down her throat. She imagined the blood trail he was making, painting her face in the fashion of some ancient Celtic warrior. He continued across her collarbone to her shoulder, then turned her from her side onto her back and pinned her upper arms with his knees. There was more pressure than pain, and in very little time she was numb to the tips of her fingers.

  “They didn’t hear you,” he said softly. “Have you realized they aren’t coming?”

  Because she knew him so well it was far too easy to imagine his eyes boring into her, the ice blue glance sharp enough to cause physical pain. Lily sucked in a breath, and before he could realize her intent, she screamed again.

  The baron’s response was immediate. He sat heavily on her chest, changing the pitch of her scream as air was forced out of her lungs. He grasped the fallen pillow and jammed it across her face, stifling her completely.

  Lily struggled, kicking, flailing. She bucked, lifting her back and bottom entirely off the floor to try to heave him to the side. She hadn’t the strength to sustain the effort when he would not be moved. He pressed her down and held the pillow in place. Lily could not draw a breath. She recognized the difference between the dark that had surrounded her and the terrible blackness that was absorbing her now. Inky fingers clawed at her scattered thoughts, the vision of Sherry and the scoundrels that she held in her mind’s eye, and finally at her body’s inability to mount any defense.

  Woodridge pulled back the pillow.

  Long moments passed, and Lily did not move. She had no sense of coming to awareness, only the sense that she was not dead. She sucked in air, gasping as Woodridge raised himself just enough to relieve the pressure on her chest. The sound was harsh and loud to her own ears, but it was no more than a whisper in the quiet room. Woodridge did not even threaten her with the pillow again. Watching her closely, he laid it to the side.

  “Your bravado does not interest me, Lilith. I was not wrong that he has changed you, yet there is nothing admirable about what you have become. You should not have left me. I had appreciation for what you were; I did not demand that you become something you are not.”

  Lily’s heart slammed against her chest. Her breathing was ragged. Afraid she might be sick, she turned her head so she wouldn’t choke. Woodridge grabbed her chin and wrested it back. She moaned softly as her head swam and her stomach roiled.

  “Look at me,” he said. “Where are the documents?”

  Lily frowned. She understood the words, not their meaning. The light slap Woodridge delivered to her cheek did nothing to improve her comprehension.

  “Where are the documents, Lilith?”

  “I don’t know.” It was the simplest answer until she could think of what he meant.

  Frustrated, the baron plunged
the fingers of one hand into Lily’s hair and twisted until he had a fistful of it. “Will pain help you apply yourself?”

  “Why didn’t you stay away?”

  Woodridge’s grip tightened momentarily, then eased. “Shall I indulge you? Will that help you remember?” He did not wait for her reply. “I wonder if you fear for me. You shouldn’t, you know. I am able to hold my own with Sheridan, though he would have you believe differently. He was certain he had bested me; it made him overconfident. I took a room at Westin-on-the-Narrows as he could expect that I would, then I left by means that he would not anticipate. Can you imagine me lowering myself from a window, Lilith? It amuses, does it not?”

  Because he seemed to anticipate she would answer this time, Lily whispered that it did indeed amuse.

  “I knew you would find it so,” he said. “But then your understanding of me is very narrow. Would you agree to that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I left the inn and returned straightaway. Sheridan would have done well to send someone to watch for just such a thing, but it has always been his weakness that he is too trusting of a man’s word.”

  Thinking of the boys’ mad scheme to follow Woodridge, Lily shuddered. The small movement made him bear down on her again as he misinterpreted it as the beginning of another struggle. She forced herself to remain calm and draw short, even breaths. “My lord Sheridan believes in honor.”

  “I know. He has never embraced the notion that it is merely something to be manipulated and exploited. Pity, that. For you, I mean. His failure has left you unprotected. That was never so when you were in my home. You were cherished there, Lilith. You cannot deny that it was my way to cherish you.”

  It was truer that Lily chose not to deny it. His words did not surprise. She had always found that his ability to view his actions in a benign, even benevolent, light to be the single most frightening aspect of his character. It was no different now. She knew he would be able to kill her and justify it to himself as necessary to free her soul.

  The baron placed his hands on either side of Lily’s head and bent closer. “I was not certain I would find you alone. As I waited for the house to grow dark, for the servants to retire, I tortured myself with thoughts of you in Sheridan’s bed. I wondered what I would do if I found you there. I don’t believe there would have been any pleasure in watching you with him. I think it would have enraged me.”

  The matter-of-fact manner in which he spoke of these things was chilling. Lily’s skin prickled. She could no longer feel her arms below the point where he kept them pinned with his knees. She tried to curl her fingers into light fists, but without turning her head to one side to look at her hand, she could not judge her success.

  “I saw you at your window before you extinguished your candle. I thought you looked lonely, though perhaps it is merely that I want to believe it. Are you lonely, Lily? Were you looking for me when you stood at your window?”

  She did not respond. The lie would have cost her dearly, perhaps even more than the truth.

  “Where are the documents?” Woodridge asked. “What has Sheridan done with them?”

  “I don’t know. He told me nothing about—”

  Woodridge pressed his thumbs into her throat, cutting her off. He counted to five under his breath before he eased back. “Again,” he said softly. “Tell me again that you know nothing, and I will kill you. But know that I will find the children next and kill them as well, then Lady Rivendale. Sheridan will be the last, and he will learn that everyone he cares about has gone before him. Can you imagine his suffering? He will beg for me to end it. Mayhap he can be persuaded to do the thing himself.” Woodridge moved this thumbs lightly along her neck from the underside of her chin to the hollow of her throat. “Will you have that on your conscience, Lilith?”

  She shook her head.

  “Good. I will ask only once more. Where are the documents?”

  “In the library.” Because Lily could not predict how he would react to learning that one of his confessions was already in the hands of Sherry’s solicitor, she chose the safer course of gaining some time and perhaps an advantage. “Do you know where it is?”

  “Yes, though I don’t expect he has allowed them to remain where they were when I left.”

  Lily heard the faint inflection in his tone that made it a question. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s where I saw them. On his desk.”

  “You will show me, then.”

  He stood so abruptly that Lily could not grasp immediately what had happened. Relief at being able to draw her first full breath warred with a profound sense of humiliation that she could not lift herself. Her arms and hands tingled painfully as blood flow returned, but they were still useless in supporting her effort to rise. She blinked back tears as Woodridge grasped a handful of her nightshift and pulled her upright, first to a sitting position, then to her feet. She weaved unsteadily when he removed his support.

  “Cover yourself,” he said.

  Lily looked down and saw that her gown was laid open where he had split the fabric with his blade. She managed to close the gap with fingers made clumsy by their weakness.

  “You understand what I will do,” he said, “if you scream again.”

  “Yes.” If he was unconvinced by her answer, her husky, slightly strangled voice offered further proof that he had defeated her in this regard.

  Woodridge turned on his heel, unconcerned that he gave her his back, and began searching for his walking stick. He found it lying close to the door of the adjoining sitting room. It had missed being embedded in an upholstered footstool by mere inches. Shaking his head, Woodridge bent to pick it up. The deep cut in his own palm made it difficult to grasp. Blood still flowed freely from the wound, and the stick was made slippery by it. It was only when he started to rise that he realized his mistake in underestimating Lily’s resolve and her ability to act on it.

  Using her shoulder and the strength of her forward motion, Lily struck the baron hard from behind. Dropping the walking stick, he stumbled across the threshold of the sitting room and fell to his knees. Lily kicked the door closed, then kicked Woodridge’s weapon under the bed. She ran for the door to the hall. Her fingers fumbled with the knob, and she cursed softly when she realized she would not be able to turn it quickly enough to make her escape. Turning, considering what course was left to her, Lily dove for the foot of the bed. She did not seek protection on top, but under it. Pressing her mouth against her forearm to quiet her breathing, Lily listened as the door to the sitting room opened and Woodridge stepped out.

  Lily waited, alert to the sounds that meant he was crossing the room. What she heard, though, was the unmistakable sound of feet pounding down the hallway. He could not miss it either, and her breath seized as she anticipated his next action. Lily searched blindly for the walking stick and found it with her fingertips moments before Woodridge threw himself across the top of the bed and rolled to the other side, landing on his feet closer to the window just as the door to her room was thrown open.

  “Lily?”

  “Miss Rose!”

  It was Sherry and the scoundrels. She had never held out any hope that Sherry would hear her scream from this distant wing. It was a calculated risk to rouse the boys, knowing they might choose to act alone again, but she had prayed that today’s bit of heroics would convince them to seek Sherry out. Lily felt tears sting her eyes as they called her a second time. Fear that they all might advance incautiously kept her from revealing her place under the bed.

  Her position was such that she could not see them, but at the periphery of her vision was the soft flood of candlelight they carried with them. She turned her head to one side, looking for Woodridge. Where was he? Why hadn’t Sherry seen him yet?

  “Wait here,” Sherry ordered the boys. “Keep your candles high. Good.” He stepped into the room. “Lily?”

  It was then that Lily saw the tips of the baron’s boots parting the delicate gold fringe of the velvet drapes.
Behind her, she heard Sherry begin to go in the opposite direction toward the sitting room. Using her elbows and forearms, Lily pulled herself closer to where the baron was hiding. When Sherry’s steps paused, so did she. If he looked for her under the bed, the baron would have all the advantage of surprise. He started again, and she crawled forward as well, this time gripping the walking stick with fingers that were beginning at last to know their strength.

  When he halted a second time, she didn’t hesitate. Lily thrust the blade end of the stick toward the drapes and felt the sickening plunge of it into Woodridge’s flesh.

  The baron cried out, grasped the drapes to steady himself, and pulled them down instead as he staggered forward. Lily withdrew the weapon and thrust it like a spear again, this time pricking him just above the ankle. At Woodridge’s cry, all of Sherry’s attention shifted to the window. He closed the distance in a few strides but stepped aside to let the baron fall rather than attempt to catch him.

  The drapes themselves were the handiest restraint, and Sherry used them to good effect, rolling Woodridge over and over so they became his shroud. The baron struggled to free himself, but with each successive turn the fit was tighter.

  “Bloody hell, Lily,” Sherry said. “Will you show yourself now?”

  From the doorway, Pinch waved his candlestick wildly. “Look! My lord! The bed!”

  Lily poked her head out from under the bed frame, then drew her shoulders forward. She glanced up at Sherry, smiled weakly, and continued scooting out on her belly. He took her so strongly by the arms that she was lifted off her feet. His embrace was so tight that she could barely draw breath, yet she didn’t think of trying to release herself from it.

  “M’lord! M’lord!” From the doorway, Dash begged for Sherry’s attention. He was joined in short order by Pinch and Midge. The candlelight danced as the boys jumped up and down. “’E’s gettin’ out!”

  Sherry looked over his shoulder, saw that the baron was indeed making a good attempt at wriggling free, then motioned the boys forward. “Guard your lady, lads.” He set Lily from him. His face lost some of its color when he saw the condition of her shift and the bloodstains outlining the tear at the front of it. “Here, take this.” He swept one of the coverlets off the bed and thrust it at her. Go with the scoundrels.” When she hesitated, casting her eyes once in the direction of Woodridge, Sherry nudged her toward the door. “Go. Give the boys this moment.” His dark eyes became implacable. “Give me mine.”