The Shadow of Sin (Bantam Series No. 19) Read online

“I wanted to ask you...” Celesta began in her soft musical voice, only to be interrupted as the man said:

  “I were a-just comin’ t’find ye, Ma’am. ’Tis awful crowded in the main Saloon and I thinks ye’d be more comfortable in th’private parlour.”

  “I wanted to ask you...” Celesta began again, only to find that the Inn-keeper was stumping ahead of her down the panelled passage to fling open a door at the end of it.

  ‘Perhaps it will be easier to talk to him somewhere quieter,’ Celesta thought.

  The noise of voices and laughter from the Saloon and the Public Bar echoed round the passages and made it difficult for her to make herself heard.

  She walked through the door the Inn-keeper had opened, intending to turn and ask him to talk to her.

  Then before she could speak, almost before she could realise what was happening, she saw that the parlour was not empty.

  There was a man standing by the mantelpiece! She looked at him and felt it was impossible to move.

  She heard the door close behind her.

  Animated by fear, she would have turned to escape but Lord Crawthorne spoke:

  “I have been waiting for you, Celesta.”

  “Why are ... you here?”

  It seemed to Celesta that her voice sounded weak and as if her lips could not form the words.

  He was looking more sinister than ever in dark travelling clothes and polished boots.

  “It was not difficult to find out where you had gone,” he answered. “Your old Nurse lied quite convincingly, but everyone in the village was ready to tell me that you had left on the Dover coach. I passed you on the road an hour ago.”

  With an effort and because Celesta would not let him see how afraid she was, she put up her chin.

  “I am ... going to my ... mother.”

  “I guessed that was your intention,” he replied, “and I shall be delighted to take you to Paris, if that is your wish.”

  “I have no desire to go anywhere with you, My Lord, nor do I intend to ... marry you.”

  He smiled and she thought it made him look more evil and more debauched than before.

  “I agree with you that marriage is quite unnecessary,” he answered. “We can fare very well together, my pretty one, without involving ourselves in the tortuous legalities of our union.”

  Celesta looked at him scornfully. It was what she might have expected.

  “If you are following in your mother’s footsteps,” he continued jeeringly, “you can, I assure you, my dear, start your career no more advantageously than with me!”

  Celesta felt her temper rising, so she was no longer so afraid.

  “How dare you speak to me in such a manner!” she stormed. “Let me assure you that I have no intention of going anywhere with you, My Lord, nor having anything to do with you. I will sit with the other passengers in the Saloon.”

  She put her hand out towards the door.

  “That would be a mistake,” Lord Crawthorne said silkily, “for I assure you I shall follow you. The fact that we were brawling with each other would doubtless cause a great deal of curiosity and speculation.”

  “Leave me ... alone!”

  “That is something I have no intention of doing! You have promised yourself to me and you must keep your promise.”

  “I have done nothing of the sort!” Celesta replied. “Giles told you that I must marry you but ... Giles...”

  She stopped, realising that what she had been about to say would reveal that she knew of Giles’s death.

  “But Giles is not with us,” Lord Crawthorne interposed, “and therefore we can plan our future for ourselves. Yours and mine, Celesta, for I am determined, and make no mistake about this, for I am a very determined man, that we will be together!”

  He moved towards her and there was an expression in his eyes which told Celesta what he was about to do.

  She turned to pull open the door but was too late!

  With a swiftness she had not expected, his arms went round her and he crushed her against him and pulled her back towards the fireplace.

  “You are very desirable!” he said in a thick voice, “and I intend to possess you!”

  She struggled against him, but his arms enveloped her so that she could not move and he was very strong.

  “Let me ... go!” she cried desperately and knew that in some horrible manner her resistance excited him.

  “You are lovely! Very lovely!” he said, “and when I have taught you to be a little more womanly, you will be lovelier still!”

  There was a passionate desire in the thickness of his voice which made Celesta turn her head away from him, thinking he was seeking her lips.

  But instead he toppled her backwards onto the couch which stood beside the hearth.

  She screamed, but the weight of his body as he lay on top of her made it hard to breathe.

  Smiling at her discomfiture, he took her chin with the fingers of his free hand and forced her face round to his.

  She gave a despairing cry as his lips, hard and lustful, were on hers.

  She tried in vain to struggle and she felt a degradation and horror that was beyond expression.

  It was as if he dragged her down into some foul slime from which she could never escape.

  Then as she felt his hand fumbling at her breast there was the sound of the door being flung violently open.

  Involuntarily Lord Crawthorne raised his head.

  It was the Earl who stood there, seeming too big for the small room.

  He looked to Celesta like an avenging angel with his face contorted with anger as he saw what was happening.

  He slammed the door to behind him.

  He was carrying his tall hat in his hand and, flinging it on the floor, he walked across the room.

  Lord Crawthorne attempted to rise but he was too late.

  The Earl hit him full on the chin with all the force of his clenched fist and Lord Crawthorne fell to the floor beside the couch.

  “How dare you hit me, Meltham!” he cried. “If you want satisfaction we can fight like Gentlemen!”

  “Get up, you swine!” the Earl retorted. “I intend to teach you a lesson and I do not fight with murderers!”

  “What the devil do you mean by calling me a murderer?” Lord Crawthorne asked.

  But as he rose to his feet there was a wary look in his eyes which told Celesta he was uneasy.

  She pulled herself to a sitting position on the settee. Lord Crawthorne attempted to strike the Earl but he was obviously too slow and with two hard professional punches the Earl knocked him down again. This time His Lordship made no effort to rise.

  There was blood oozing from between his lips, but there was still an expression of fanatical hatred in his eyes as he looked up at the Earl towering above him.

  “I would like to thrash you insensible,” the Earl said and there was no mistaking the raw anger in his voice. “But Miss Wroxley is here and I do not wish her to be in the company of filthy lechers of your type.”

  “You will—pay for this!” Lord Crawthorne said through gritted teeth.

  “I doubt it,” the Earl replied, “because in future our paths will not cross.”

  He paused to add slowly:

  “There is a warrant out for your arrest, Crawthorne, for the murder last night of Sir Giles Wroxley in the woods outside the Priory!”

  “I do not believe it!” Lord Crawthorne snarled, “and if Giles is dead you cannot prove that I killed him!”

  “I can not only prove it,” the Earl answered, “but the information is already before the Magistrates.”

  “It is not possible!” Lord Crawthorne mumbled.

  There was no mistaking the pallor on his face which proclaimed his fear.

  “There is irrefutable evidence of your crime,” the Earl answered, “because after your behaviour at my Ball I suspected you might attempt to abduct or in some way interfere with Miss Wroxley. I therefore arranged for a Bow Street Runner to watch you.”r />
  Lord Crawthorne did not move or speak but it was obvious that he was listening.

  “The Runner heard you quarrel with Giles last night,” the Earl went on. “He was black-mailing you for cheating at cards into marriage with his sister. Your quarrel became violent and in an apparently ungovernable rage you shot him in the back.”

  Lord Crawthorne stared but he did not speak.

  “You then tried to implicate me in your cowardly act,” the Earl continued. “The Runner watched you writing my name in the sand.”

  Lord Crawthorne’s tongue wetted his dry lips but still he was silent.

  “It was a clever idea,” the Earl said mockingly, “but it failed ignominiously. When the Military arrive they will take you to Newgate Prison.”

  The Earl paused to step back from the fallen man. “But because,” he said sharply, “I have no desire for Miss Wroxley’s name to be involved in this unpleasant situation, I am giving you a chance.”

  “What sort of a—chance?” Lord Crawthorne murmured almost beneath his breath.

  “If you can leave the country before the Warrant is executed you will remain a free man,” the Earl replied, “but if you are brought to Trial there is no doubt at all that you will be hanged.”

  The Earl walked across the room and opened the door.

  “Get out!” he said harshly, “and do not let me set eyes on you again or I promise you, Crawthorne, nothing will stop me from handing you over to the hangman!”

  Lord Crawthorne rose to his feet.

  He was beaten and he knew it.

  He went from the room without raising his head.

  The Earl shut the door behind him and stood looking at Celesta.

  She had risen to her feet and now as their eyes met she moved towards him as if she were a ship coming into harbour.

  He put his arms about her and held her very close. She hid her face against his shoulder.

  “It is all over, my darling.”

  She was trembling and he said quietly:

  “Where do you want to spend your honeymoon?”

  “With ... you!” she whispered without thinking.

  The Earl gave a little laugh.

  “That is something of which you can be quite sure,” he answered. “I am only sorry that I took so long in reaching you, but I stopped at Canterbury for a Special Licence.”

  Celesta raised her head.

  “You ... you are to ... marry ... Lady Imogen.”

  “I am to marry no-one but you.”

  She looked at him for a moment, then deliberately disengaged herself from his arms to walk towards the mantelpiece and stand looking down into the fire.

  “No!” she said. “I am going away! You must not be ... involved with me ... I should ... only damage your ... reputation.”

  The Earl’s expression was very tender but he did not move.

  “Do you really believe that?” he asked.

  She turned her face towards him, her eyes very dark and troubled.

  “It is not only ... Mama ... it is ... Giles. He tried to ... murder you!”

  “But he did not succeed—thanks to you!”

  “The men will ... talk!”

  “I doubt it,” the Earl replied. “I gave them the choice of being tried for attempted murder, which means at the very least transportation, or of disappearing and never being seen in the vicinity of my house again.”

  “You let them go?” Celesta asked incredulously.

  “I did not want my future wife’s name to be mentioned at any Trial.”

  Celesta gave a little sob.

  “You tried to save the Wroxley honour but ... you did not know ... then about ... Giles?”

  “I did not know he was dead or that Crawthorne had killed him,” the Earl answered, “but the two men they had employed told me what they were to be paid for murdering me.”

  Celesta put her hands up to her eyes.

  “I am ... ashamed!” she said in a low voice. “Ashamed that my brother should have behaved in such a ... manner.”

  “No-one will ever know of it, and I am quite certain that it was all due to Crawthorne’s bad influence when he encouraged your brother to drink until he could no longer think straight.”

  “That is ... generous of you,” Celesta murmured.

  “All that people will know and talk about,” the Earl went on, “is the fact that Giles tried to be free of Crawthorne and died in the process. There will be no Trial. There will be very little publicity, and I am quite certain that Crawthorne will save his skin even if it means crossing the Channel in a row-boat!”

  There was a silence and then the Earl said softly: “That just leaves you and me, Celesta!”

  Celesta clasped her hands together.

  “There is ... something I want to ... say to you.”

  “Could you not say it a little closer?” the Earl suggested.

  She shook her head.

  “No! It ... is ... difficult.”

  “I am listening,” the Earl said quietly.

  Celesta’s elegant Parisian gown revealed the soft curves of her breasts, the smallness of her waist, and its colour made her skin seem dazzlingly white.

  Looking at her the Earl thought he had never known a woman who was so unself-conscious of her beauty.

  “When I came to dinner with ... you at the Priory,” Celesta began in a tremulous voice, “you suggested ... something to me and I ... refused you.”

  “If I remember correctly,” the Earl replied, “you said you would rather die than accept such a proposition.”

  “I did not ... understand ... then,” Celesta murmured.

  “Understand what?”

  “That you were ... right about love ... It is ... irresistible!”

  “That is what I have found.”

  “Then ... if you still … want me,” Celesta went on, “I will come to ... you because I am ... afraid by myself ... and because ... because I want ... so much to be with ... you.”

  The Earl smiled.

  “If you only knew, my darling, how much I have wanted to hear you say that,” he answered. “But I also have some explaining to do and I find it very difficult to say what has to be said when we are so far apart.” He opened his arms and because she could not help it, Celesta went towards him.

  It was like stepping back into Heaven, she thought, to feel him holding her; to know a sense of safety and security that she had never known before.

  She raised her face and found his lips were very close to hers.

  “I love you!” he said. “I love you more than I believed it was possible to love anyone!”

  Celesta drew in her breath and waited for him to kiss her; but he did not do so.

  “I want you!” the Earl said. “I want you until I can think of nothing except you. Your face is always before my eyes—you are with me every moment of the day—and I hold you in my arms all night!”

  There was a depth to his voice that made her tremble, but she was not afraid.

  She only knew that she vibrated to the desire in his tone and she felt again the flame flicker within her that had been awakened the last time he kissed her.

  “I love you, Celesta!” the Earl said again. “I knew the first time we met that I had found something very wonderful that I have been seeking all my life.”

  His eyes searched her face before he went on:

  “I had never before seen anyone so beautiful! I had never before felt an inexplicable magic which made me sure I must never lose you.”

  He felt a quiver run through her.

  “We both knew instinctively we were a part of each other, my precious, but I told myself it was because I was seeing you in the country without the competition of other women.”

  “Was that ... why you asked me to your Ball?” Celesta asked.

  “One reason,” the Earl replied, “and another, somewhat hard to explain, is that I was using you, because at the precise moment you arrived at my house to tell me Giles was in prison, I saw ho
w you could save me from what had become an intolerable situation.”

  Celesta knew he was speaking of Lady Imogen.

  “I thought you ... loved ... her,” she whispered.

  “I already loved you completely and irrevocably,” the Earl replied, “but I would not admit it to myself, would not acknowledge that my much-vaunted independence was at an end.”

  “I do not ... wish you to feel tied.”

  “I am a very willing prisoner, my lovely darling, and I knew in my heart I was your captive the first moment we met.”

  “I thought I ... hated you,” Celesta murmured.

  “Like you,” the Earl said, “I did not understand about love—although I thought I did—so I offered you what I called ‘my protection’!”

  “That is what I ... want!” Celesta murmured.

  “And that is what you will always have,” the Earl replied, “but what I suggested that night in the Library was, although I tried to pretend otherwise, an insult!”

  His arms tightened.

  “It was an insult not only to you, my darling, but also to our love, which we both knew was something so tremendous, so perfect, that there was no escape for either of us.”

  Because what he was saying thrilled her like quicksilver running through her body, Celesta turned her face against his shoulder and as she did so she drew closer to him.

  She could hardly breathe as he went on:

  “I had sworn never to marry, but that was only because I had never in my life met a woman whom I wanted as my wife until I met you. But, Celesta, when I kissed you for the second time it was so very different in every way to what a kiss had ever meant to me before.”

  His lips touched her hair.

  “At Carlton House I found the King had been buying toys for another man’s children. I knew then that I wanted to buy toys for my children—our children, my darling—yours and mine!”

  Celesta gave a little sob. Then she looked up at him.

  “It is because I love you so much ... that I could not let our children be ... touched by the ... shadow of sin.”

  The Earl’s eyes were on her face as she continued: “Let me come to you. I would be ... proud to be your ... mistress ... happy as long as I can be with you. But I would not want our children to suffer as I have suffered ... or to hate as I have ... hated.”

  “They will never do that!” the Earl said, his voice deep and positive.