Wedded in Sin Page 15

  Meanwhile, he went off to try and track down the other “witnesses.” He expected it would be a fruitless waste of time, but he felt certain aspects needed to be investigated simply for thoroughness. In the meantime, Penny went about her day as usual, stopping now only to put Tommy to bed and then…

  Then pace about the shop wondering what to do for the next hour. She tried to work but her mind wouldn’t focus on the task. So when there was a discreet tap on the back door, she opened it without thinking. Samuel stood there looking anxious, his hair curling every which way and his eyes darting left and right. Except for when they riveted on her.

  “Good God, Penny. Don’t just open the door to anyone! At least ask who it is first.”

  She grimaced, knowing he was right. “Um, who is it?”

  He glared at her. “Not now! It’s to be sure—” He cut off his words at her nervous giggle. “Ah. You were teasing me.”

  She smiled, her hands twisting in her skirt. “I’m sorry. I seem to be a bit nervous.”

  His expression relaxed as he exhaled in obvious relief. “No, no, that is an excellent thing,” he said as he shut the door behind him. “Breaking in is a dangerous business, even if you are breaking into your own home. I am glad that you are thinking better of—”

  She pressed her hand to his mouth. “I am going.”

  He grimaced and spoke beneath her fingertips. “Truly, I can accomplish this on my own.”

  She shivered. Not because of his words, but because the feel of his mouth moving beneath her fingers was unexpectedly erotic. A tingle centered in her palm, but she felt an answering tremble throughout her body. Without her willing it, she let her hand slide across his face to smooth the nearest wild coil of his hair.

  “I am sure you could, but I am going nevertheless. I have decided that there are a few more things I wish to get other than my Bible.”

  He frowned down at her, then released his breath in a huff. “Do you know I used to believe that knowing a smart woman would be a godsend?” He stepped forward, neatly pressing her backward until her bottom hit the worktable. “Turns out intelligence only makes her more stubborn and prone to taking ridiculous chances.”

  Penny bit her lip, her heartbeat thumping faster. “So you think I am intelligent?”

  “And stubborn and taking a ridiculous risk.” He pushed himself closer, his legs trapping hers, his torso close enough to touch. Which she did. She pressed her hands to his chest and held him still. Or rather he stilled. As strong as she was, he could still overpower her if he chose.

  Meanwhile, she lifted her chin. “It is my home, my risk to take. If I knew how to pick a lock, I would have gone already without you.”

  His hands hit the table on either side of her, caging her between his arms while his upper body pushed forward, forcing her to arch backward. Soon he was all but lying on top of her.

  “You will not go alone,” he stated loudly.

  “I already did. I walked by this afternoon. I have a key to my own home,” she said. “But Cordwain has already changed the lock. Probably did it the very first day.” She grimaced as a surge of anger heated her blood. “But I don’t think he is living there. Just working at the shop. If you can pick the lock, then we should be very safe.”

  He pressed his head against her forehead. The gesture was unexpectedly defeated and his next words confirmed it. “I do not understand this, Penny. I am a man who sees the truth in everything. But this”—he closed his eyes—“this I do not understand.”

  “What?” she whispered.

  He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Then his expression flickered to desperation, almost despair. Still there were no words.

  She was about to say something. His name if nothing else. But she got no further than to draw breath because, at that moment, his mouth was on hers. His tongue was pressing inside. And his groin was thick and hot against her pelvis.

  Oh! She didn’t speak the word aloud. It was more a word felt through her entire body. Oh, yes. Oh, please. Oh, more.

  His kiss was deep and heady. He thrust inside as if to stake a claim there. She felt his hands leave the table to grip her hips, steadying her as he ground against her. She had no thought to what he meant by that. Only that she enjoyed the pressure, and she raised her right leg to wrap it around him as much as her skirt would allow. He groaned as she did that, and his kiss deepened in frenzy. In and out he thrust into her mouth.

  She played back as best she could, but this was not a game to him. That was what that flash of despair had been before his kiss. The knowledge came as a kind of whisper into her body as she stroked his arms and soothed his back. This was not a game—she was not a game to him—and that frightened him as much as it startled her.

  He was a mad toff who played at life, but this was deadly earnest for him. For perhaps the first time in his life, he took something seriously. He took her situation seriously. And that pleased her as much as it seemed to frighten him.

  Or perhaps it was merely what he did that pleased her. One of his hands had left her hip to stroke upward. As he broke the kiss to press his mouth to her cheek then her neck, his hand worked between them to finally find her breast. His thumb rubbed across her tightened nipple, and her toes curled in delight. Her breath was coming in gasps as she arched into his touch.

  Never had anything felt like this! So wild, so passionate. It was so thrilling that she would not end it even as he started to lay her backward on the table. She resisted the movement, more because she wanted the hard press of his body. She had no desire to yield. But he was stronger and with better leverage. She was halfway to the table when he froze.

  He lifted his head, his eyes wild as he looked about the room. “Good God,” he gasped. “On the table. In the workroom. Good God!”

  He eased himself upward, his hands pulling off her body with a kind of a jerk. She mourned the loss of his touch. The heat of his body, the press of his organ—all of it excited her, and she did not want it to end. But he was relentless as he pulled away, though he did cup her elbow to assist her back to a stand. She did as he bade though her heart was still thumping in her ears, and her body ached with hunger.

  “I am a cad. I should leave immediately. You are not a woman to toy with.”

  “Then who will pick the lock on the door?”

  He groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. “Can you not tell me where the Bible is?”

  She shook her head.

  “Very well then. Let us go now. Smart of you to wear something dark. It is warm tonight, but you still might want a cloak.”

  She was dressed in an old work dress of serviceable wool. It was one of Wendy’s and fit fairly well, except that she was taller than the seamstress. The hem barely reached her ankles and the bodice was a little tight, but it was serviceable enough.

  “I don’t have a cloak to use,” she said as lightly as possible. That was, in fact, one of the things she wanted to grab once they were inside. She stepped past him to pick up an empty satchel. He frowned at it, but she merely folded it up and headed for the back door. “I told you,” she said firmly. “I wish to take a few more of my things.”

  He didn’t answer except to rush to open the door for her. That gave her a moment’s pause. She was used to opening doors on her own. That he hurried to do such a thing for her made her smile. As if she were a highborn lady and he, her knight errant. The idea kept the excitement simmering in her blood, but gave it a softer feel. A more romantic, dreamlike air that she cherished. With him, she felt more daring, more special, more alive than ever before.

  It was beyond odd. Not more than fifteen minutes ago, she would have scoffed at such silliness. She was a practical woman who dealt with harsh realities. Never would she have valued a tingling excitement in her blood. Of what use would that be in putting food in Tommy’s mouth? And yet she did value it, and she liked Samuel all the more because he gave her such moments.

  She
glanced at him as she walked outside, her mind quietly turning over the feelings she was still experiencing: excitement, passion, happiness. How could all these things be happening now when she and Tommy had just lost everything?

  Meanwhile, he took her hand and placed it on his arm as he guided them down the street. She glanced at him, startled anew at his actions. Then she grinned. It almost felt real. As if she really were a society lady out for a stroll with a handsome gent.

  “Thank you, Samuel.”

  He shot her a glance. “For what? Risking your life on a dangerous errand better suited for a thief? A male thief, I might add.”

  “Yes,” she said with a low chuckle. “Thank you for that.”

  He snorted. “And you call me mad.”

  Chapter 12

  Penny knew it wasn’t safe to wander through the streets of London at night, but against all logic, she felt safe with him. So she didn’t mind that they made it to the shop at a leisurely stroll. As the night air was lovely, the meandering path they took was a delight. They didn’t speak much. He talked a bit about Max, the affection in Samuel’s voice obvious. The boy was beyond clever and was clearly the closest Samuel had to a son. It didn’t take much prompting for him to expound on a half-dozen smart things the child had done in his short seven years.

  But then they arrived at the door. The shop was dark as were the family rooms above. Penny stepped to the side, giving him room to pick the lock. He set to it immediately, and yet still managed to chatter on about his nephew’s first experience with insects. Amazing that his mouth could be doing one thing while his hands and his mind were somewhere else entirely.

  Then the lock clicked. With a twist of his wrist, the door was open and she slipped inside the showroom, breathing in the air of her home for the first time in too long. Except even in the dark, she knew that something was wrong with the place. Behind her, Samuel shut the door then she heard the sound of him lighting a lamp before holding it aloft. It was only then that the horror hit as the flickering light fell on the debris of what had once been her father and her grandfather’s shop.

  Everything was in disarray. Not broken, she realized as she looked about, but slammed to the floor in fury, some of it probably kicked into the corners. Beside her, Samuel released a low whistle.

  “It wasn’t like this this morning,” he said. “You must have deeply upset the man.”

  “Good,” she said. She hoped he broke every single one of her father’s tools in his fury. She’d rather the implements were broken than used by that bastard.

  Meanwhile, Samuel headed for the back stairs, the ones that led to the family quarters. She stopped him with a touch on his arm.

  “Not up there. The Bible’s in here.”

  “What? Why ever would you keep your family Bible in the middle of a shop?”

  “That’s what I remembered this morning. My father had it on his worktable one day. I saw it and asked him why and he said that someone wanted to see the family history.”

  “Someone?” Samuel asked, obviously latching on to the one thing that she found most interesting as well.

  “I don’t know who. I don’t think he ever said. But knowing my father, he would never have remembered to take it back upstairs. He would have left it on the bench until it got in the way. Then he would have set it aside, intending to put it away later, but forgetting.”

  She moved into the back workroom, seeing that Cordwain’s fury hadn’t destroyed much of anything there. He probably had enough intelligence to see the value in the tools scattered about the room.

  She crossed quickly to the workbench, seeing the tools but nothing else of value. To the corner was a pile of rubbish, and right on top of it were the leather soles she’d been working before all this happened. As they were already cut for ladies’ slippers, they would be useless to Cordwain. She gathered them quickly and pushed them into her sack.

  “The Bible, Penny. Where would he have put it?”

  She frowned as she scanned the room, her gaze landing on the shelving next to the closet where the likes had been stored. There was nothing on the shelves and likewise nothing left in the closet when she opened it. Everything had been thrown on the floor, no doubt as Cordwain searched fruitlessly for the likes.

  Samuel was moving about the room, searching methodically. But she was the one who had lived here all her life. She was the one who knew her father’s habits. Where would he have set something valuable to be out of the way and yet not back in its place upstairs?

  She snapped her fingers. “Of course!” She crossed to her father’s desk. It was a small thing, more suited to a child than a man, mostly because her father never used it. It was where she used to sit, sorting through the receipts and cataloging bills. But her work had always been on top of the desk—bills and receipts which were now thrown willy-nilly about the floor.

  What few people realized was that the top lifted completely off. It was meant to be a child’s secret compartment for toys. Instead, it was where her father kept a plate and a cup for when he ate a meal in the shop. Her desk—papers and all—would be lifted off and set aside. Then he would sit as if at a table and eat his food. The compartment was deep enough for his cup and wide enough for anything he meant to take care of but forgot about.

  “Here!” she cried, picking up the heavy tome.

  “Excellent!” Samuel said as he rushed to her side. They stood breathless as she flipped through the pages. She did it quickly, moving to the beginning where her family’s names were written. There it was, her father’s bold handwriting clear as day. He wrote his name married to her mother and then her own name came below.

  Beside her, Samuel pulled out the piece of foolscap he’d written on before. The one with a copy of her father’s signature from the false will. They both looked and then he cursed softly. The signatures were not identical, but they were close enough.

  “But that can’t be,” she cried.

  Samuel didn’t answer. Instead, he touched her hand gently. “What about the marriage license? Where is that?”

  “In here, too,” she said as she flipped through the pages. Except there were no marriage licenses. None at all. “But they were all kept in here. My parents, my grandparents. I’m sure of it.” She looked about the floor, knowing she hadn’t seen the ancient pages scattered about but looking nonetheless.

  Samuel helped her without a word. He quickly scooped up the scattered pages, scanning them easily before tossing them back on the floor. When she cried out at the mess, he shook his head.

  “They can’t know we’ve been here.”

  She grimaced. Of course. So she stood with him as they flipped through the pile of correspondence. None of them were the marriage licenses.

  “But where could they be?” she asked.

  “With Addicock, most likely,” Samuel said grimly. “He was probably the one to ask to see your family history. Your father brings it down to show him, and in a moment’s inattention, Addicock pulls out the marriage licenses. It would be enough to copy the signature to make the will appear real.”

  “But it’s not real!” she ground out, even though she knew her protest was fast becoming reflex. “My father wouldn’t sign everything over to some solicitor he barely knew.”

  “Of course not,” Samuel said as he dropped the last of the correspondence on the floor. “But as the constable so assiduously pointed out to me yesterday, we need proof. Proof that would hold up in a court of law.”

  “But how if the signature appears real?”

  He gently closed up her Bible. “I’ll think of something. There are other ways to prove a will false.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was just saying that to make her feel better or if he meant it. Either way it didn’t matter. They didn’t have time for her to sit around moaning about what had been done to her and to Tommy.

  Pulling the Bible from his hand, she set it into her satchel. Then while he was closing up the desk, she headed for the back stairs.


  “Where are you going?” he called after her.

  “Upstairs for my clothes.”

  He caught up to her easily, taking the steps two at a time. Then he lifted the satchel off her shoulder.

  “I’ll hold the bag while you stuff. But we must be quick…” His voice trailed away as she stopped at the doorway to her bedroom.

  Her room had been smashed to bits. Her bed, her dresser, even her shoes had been ripped apart as only a cobbler could. And then all the things had been thrown into the fireplace and burnt. Not well. The pile had been too big so it had flowed out of the grate. Penny could see the scorched remains of her mother’s favorite candleholder in the center. Someone had kicked everything she owned into the grate and then tossed the candle—holder and all—onto the top of it.

  The fire must have been bright. She hadn’t realized how much clothing she had until it was all there in a pile, half ashes, half a sodden mess. Apparently, once the fire had threatened to rage out of control, someone had thrown a bucket of water on top. The fire had gone out, and the rest was left a half-burned mess.

  “Yes,” drawled Samuel from beside her. “I’ll wager you got him more than solid with the broom.”

  “Yes,” she answered as she leaned against his strong support. “Yes, I suppose I did. Enough to make him right furious.”

  He let his cheek set atop her head as he pulled her close. They stood there a moment while she struggled to breathe. Somehow this fire—this burning of everything she owned—was more personal than everything else. The loss hit her straight in her belly, and she was hard put not to sob.

  “Come on,” he said as he gently turned her around. “Is there anything else you want? Something of your parents? Or maybe Tommy’s clothing?”

  She nodded, unable to speak. He turned her toward her parents’ bedroom, but she stopped him, guiding him toward Tommy’s room. Everything of her parents had already been cleaned out. In the early days after their deaths, she’d had to sell what she could just to get food. If she hadn’t found work at the dress shop, she and Tommy would have been in terrible trouble.