And The Widow Wore Scarlet: Scandalous Sons - Book 1 Read online

  And The Widow Wore Scarlet

  Scandalous Sons - Book 1

  Adele Clee

  Contents

  Copyright

  Books by Adele Clee

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Thank you!

  Books by Adele Clee

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. All characters are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be copied or reproduced in any manner without the author’s permission. Distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement.

  And the Widow Wore Scarlet

  Copyright © 2019 Adele Clee

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-9164336-3-2

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  Books by Adele Clee

  To Save a Sinner

  A Curse of the Heart

  What Every Lord Wants

  The Secret To Your Surrender

  A Simple Case of Seduction

  Anything for Love Series

  What You Desire

  What You Propose

  What You Deserve

  What You Promised

  Lost Ladies of London

  The Mysterious Miss Flint

  The Deceptive Lady Darby

  The Scandalous Lady Sandford

  The Daring Miss Darcy

  Avenging Lords

  At Last the Rogue Returns

  A Wicked Wager

  Valentine’s Vow

  A Gentleman’s Curse

  Scandalous Sons

  And the Widow Wore Scarlet

  The Mark of a Rogue

  Chapter One

  Covent Garden, London, 1820

  Blood seeped from the wound in Damian Wycliff’s thigh as he lay slumped in a dank alley off Drury Lane. The blade had pierced his breeches, had sunk deep into his now burning flesh. A crimson pool soaked the beige buckskin. Had he not broken at least two fingers, had he been able to see out of his swollen left eye, he might have untied his cravat and used it as a tourniquet.

  Damnation!

  A man wanted to die clamped between the soft thighs of his mistress. A man wanted to die alongside his comrades whilst fighting for king and country, not alone and slouched against a wall reeking of vomit and piss.

  A curse vile enough to make a vicar faint burst from his lips.

  If he discovered his father was to blame for the vicious attack, there’d be hell to pay. The Marquis of Blackbeck would do anything to prove a point, to teach his bastard son a lesson.

  But there were other enemies.

  Had Lord Cockram sought retribution for Damian winning the fool’s Berkshire estate in a game of whist? Had Damian’s lover, Mrs Sidwell, punished him for giving the woman her congé? Once he discovered the identity of the person who’d paid the four men to beat him to a pulp, Damian would have his revenge—assuming he didn’t bleed to death on the pavement.

  Hoping to capture someone’s attention, he whistled loudly. But only a randy buck or a drunken sot wandered into a dark alley in the dead of night. If he could just send word to his coachman, Cutler. The fellow possessed the skill of a seamstress when working with a needle and thread. It wouldn’t be the first wound he’d sewn. It wouldn’t be the last.

  Depleted of energy after the violent brawl—and after the rampant activities with the actress used as bait—he lacked the strength to stand. The crimson pool continued to spread, saturating the material stuck to his thigh.

  What a blasted inconvenience!

  “For the love of God, can anyone hear me?”

  His cry for help echoed in the narrow passageway though no one answered his desperate plea. Had the blackguards not robbed him of everything except for the one item he truly valued, he might have bribed a gullible passerby.

  Despite being an unrepentant sinner, he tugged at his shirt, forced his fingers through the gap in the fine lawn and grasped the gold cross hanging around his neck.

  “Mother, if you are watching from your heavenly plane, do something to save your errant son.” The words lacked conviction, for he did not believe that the power of love could work miracles.

  He did not believe in the power of love at all.

  As his life drained from his body, he lay back on the damp cobbles and gave himself over to fate. Carriages rolled past on the street beyond. Distant voices filled his head: laughter, taunts and mocking jeers. Some real. Some imagined.

  The clip of footsteps reached his ears—a devil’s cruel trick to torment him.

  But then a woman appeared, dressed in nothing but a white chemise, a red shawl drawn tightly around her shoulders, her ebony hair tied in a single braid. She crouched at his side, frowned and tutted as she scanned the length of his body before her gaze narrowed on the cross gripped between his bloodstained fingers.

  Had she come merely to rob him, too?

  “Can you walk?” she asked with some impatience. The panic in her voice highlighted a fear for her own safety, not his.

  Damian opened his mouth to speak but found it impossible to form a word. A fuzzy sensation sent his world spinning. Nausea made him retch.

  “The door to my lodgings is but ten feet away, sir.” The woman’s head shot left then right. Her breathing came in rapid pants. “Can you make it there, do you think?” Her dainty hand came to rest gently on his cheek. Then she slapped him. Hard. “Sir, can you hear me?”

  Damian mumbled in response lest he receive another beating.

  The woman grabbed the lapels of his coat and tried to haul him to his feet. Twice, he collapsed back onto the cold stones. Twice, the woman almost came crashing down on top of him. After some perseverance he managed to stand—only to cast up the quart of brandy he’d downed two hours earlier.

  “Mother Mary, give me strength,” she muttered, staring at her soiled boots.

  “Maria,” he whispered, draping his arm around his saviour’s shoulder. “My mother … her name was M-Maria.”

  “Then for her sake try to place one foot in front of the other.”

  “She’s dead.”

  A compassionate sigh left the woman’s lips. “And you will be, too, if you do not heed my advice and hurry.”

  They shuffled along together. Damian gripped the wall with his good hand while the woman at his side clutched his wrist rather than his broken fingers. As soon as they made it beyond the battered blue door, her shoulders sagged and she exhaled deeply before kicking the door shut with her dirty boot.

  She dragged him into a small room, sparse but clean, and settled him onto a bed.

  “Forgive me,” she b
egan in an eloquent voice so opposed to the crude living conditions, “but if I’m to help you, I need to remove your breeches.” Her hands came to rest on his thigh. “It is the only way I can tend to the wound.”

  Damian nodded but lacked the enthusiasm to offer the usual lewd suggestions.

  After tugging off his shoes and throwing them to the floor, she took a knife to the garment and used two hands to rip the material from his knee to his groin. Amid the chaos of his mind, he thought to inform her he never wore drawers, but then her fingers swept up his thigh, grazed his ballocks.

  “Good Lord!” Perhaps she was referring to his impressive manhood for her tone held a hint of panic. “I need to find something to stem the bleeding.”

  Perhaps not.

  “Argh!” His groan failed to convey the extent of the pain when she pressed the area around the wound. Damn, it ached like the devil.

  “Forgive me, sir, I have no choice but to use a needle and thread.” She raced across the room, rummaged around in a drawer and returned with a stocking and a small basket. “Do you happen to have a flask of brandy?” When he failed to answer, she said, “No matter.”

  She fastened the stocking around his thigh so tight his heartbeat pulsed in his leg, but it would stem the flow of blood.

  “N-name?” he managed to say. He would know the identity of the angel attempting to save his life.

  She drew a stool up to the bed and placed a bowl of water on the floor beside her. “If you survive tonight, you may call me Scarlett.” Grabbing the lit candle wedged into the neck of a green bottle, she moved it to the side table and then took a seat.

  Scarlett.

  The name didn’t suit her. She looked too prim, too wholesome to be loose with her affections. But then he recalled the red shawl draped over her shoulders and pondered the possibility that she used an alias to conceal her identity.

  “Now hold still,” she said in a voice not too dissimilar from that of his first governess—a wicked devil of a woman who found pleasure in torturing small children. “I’m afraid I have nothing to numb the pain. But if you can resist the urge to cry out, I will be most grateful. This may help.” She thrust a ball of material into his good hand. “The stocking is clean. I assure you.”

  Oh, he’d tugged a lady’s stocking off with his teeth on numerous occasions but could not recall ever forcing one into his mouth.

  As Scarlett threaded the needle, a sense of trepidation took hold. A woman lacked the strength of heart to stab a man’s skin. Cutler’s hands didn’t tremble when he contemplated the first stitch. Cutler didn’t frown and bite down on his bottom lip as if faced with a mammoth task.

  “My needlework skills are sufficient,” she said, more to reassure herself than him. Lord, if she did not get on with it soon, he’d be spewing bile.

  By way of a prompt, he scrunched the stocking and pushed it into his mouth. Even while skirting the edges of death, he found the action mildly erotic.

  A wipe with wet linen preceded the first jab of the needle.

  Damian closed his eyes and tried to breathe evenly through his nose.

  Scarlett dug too deeply on the first stitch. He might have cursed had he not been chewing on the lady’s hosiery. With the second stitch, the room rocked and swayed. An ominous black cloud swamped his field of vision. With the third stab, the swirling mass smothered him, sucked him down, down into the dark depths of oblivion.

  Damian woke to the distant sound of a door slamming, to the pounding of footsteps on the stairs beyond. His forehead burned, and his neck felt damp to the touch. A homemade splint supported his broken fingers. The wound in his thigh throbbed. Daylight broke through a small gap in the curtains covering the tiny window looking out onto Drury Lane. Lacking the strength to sit up, he glanced around the room and found no sign of Scarlett. He tried to call her name, but the word died on his lips as he slipped back into the void.

  It was dark when he woke for the second time, the room lit by a single candle that reeked of the acrid smell of tallow. Scarlett sat on the stool next to the bed, wiping his brow with a cold, damp cloth.

  When she noticed his eyes fluttering open, she gasped. “Saints preserve us! You’re awake. Do you think you might eat some broth? You must take something to bolster your strength.” Scarlett shot to her feet. “It will only take a few minutes to heat.”

  Damian tried to move his parched lips, to beg for a drink, but his tongue was so dry it stuck to the roof of his mouth. He reached out and captured her wrist hoping to convey his intention, but her sudden yelp shocked him.

  Scarlett pulled her hand free and rubbed her wrist. It was then that he noticed the purple bruise. The sight stole his breath. Damn it all. Had he done that whilst thrashing about consumed by a fever?

  “You are not to blame,” she said, for there was no doubt this woman could read his mind. “In my line of work, men think they own me.” Bitterness coated every syllable. “Either that or they’re determined to act the hero, desperate to drag me from the pit of despair.”

  Her line of work?

  Damian considered her pink lips and rouged cheeks. As a virile man with a huge appetite, his gaze had lingered more than once on the soft swell of her breasts spilling from her dress tonight. And yet he could not imagine her sprawled naked on a bed in a brothel. Judging by her shabby lodgings, Scarlett was no rich man’s mistress. From her elocution and diction, from the graceful way she walked around the room, from the books stacked on the side table, she had not been dragged up on the streets, either.

  “I’m an actress.” Her smile failed to reach her captivating blue eyes, and a tidal wave of melancholy swept through the room. “Success, I have discovered, depends upon which gentleman acts as your patron. Indeed, it is not the late hours that wear me to the bone but the effort it takes to keep the lecherous hordes at bay.”

  Anger flared in Damian’s chest.

  Resentment festered.

  The arrogance of the aristocracy sickened him. The Marquis of Blackbeck was one of those men who claimed the right to bed whomever he wished. The Marquis of Blackbeck had seduced the opera singer, Maria Alvarez, with total disregard for the bastard son he was to sire.

  “You … you were not always an … actress.” Damian forced the words from his lips. “I may be knocking on death’s door, b-but I hear good breeding in your voice.”

  Scarlett kept her back to him as she stirred the pot hanging over the fire. She sniffed numerous times, but he doubted it had anything to do with inhaling the pungent aroma of vegetable broth.

  “No,” she said, the answer carried on a deep sigh. “I attended the Rushbridge seminary for young ladies in Bath until a tragedy forced me to return to town.”

  Had he the energy or the inclination to further their acquaintance, he might have probed her for information. As it was, only one question lingered in his still woozy mind.

  “Then why would an educated woman, one tired of dealing with troublesome men, rush into an alley to rescue a rogue?” Innocent ladies avoided men like him. Men whose conscience lay buried beneath a hard shell, one impossible to crack.

  Cradling a bowl of broth, she returned to sit on the stool. “Because my mother taught me to help those people less fortunate.” She scooped a spoonful of the rotten-smelling liquid and forced it into his mouth. “Because I believe we reap what we sow, sir. Is the broth too hot?”

  “No.” Damian swallowed the bland concoction, grateful to feel something moist against his lips. “So you hope fate will see your kindness repaid?” Was it kindness or utter foolishness to take a stranger into one’s home?

  “Look around you. Hope is all I have.”

  An uncomfortable silence descended.

  With patience, Scarlett fed him until the spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl. Exhausted from the effort it took just to swallow, he lay back on the lumpy pillow and speculated how long it would be before a man wore her down and destroyed her resolve. She was pretty, demure, would have an appealing figure had she
a little more meat on her bones. If she had any hope of escaping the drudgery, there was but one option open—take a wealthy lover, bleed him for every penny and find a quiet place in the country, somewhere to live off her ill-gotten gains.

  By the time she returned from washing the pot in the room across the hall, the fire had burnt to naught but glowing embers. For a long time, she stared at the grate in dismay. The deep furrows on her brow undoubtedly stemmed from more than concern over firewood.

  “It’s late,” she said as she turned to face him. She glanced at her feet before steeling herself—raising her chin and straightening her shoulders. Perhaps she wanted him to leave but didn’t know how to broach the subject. “I slept on the floor last night, but the temperature has plummeted. I don’t have enough wood to keep the fire burning all night. It is imperative we keep warm.”

  As a man used to the many ploys a lady used to get him into bed, this one was rather novel. “You wish to sleep with me tonight?” A woman brimming with benevolence would not force him to sleep on the floor.

  Scarlett gave a half shrug. “Unless you can think of a better option.”

  Amorous thoughts flooded his head. Indeed, for the first time since being stretched on his back, his cock twitched. Even in his sorry state, he could rise to the occasion. But that was not how one repaid the woman who had breathed life back into his bones, who had dragged him back from the flaming gates of hell.

  “Though I warn you, sir,” she continued, reading his thoughts once again, “dare lay a hand on me, and I shall claw at your wound like a wildcat. After I have punched you in your swollen eye and squeezed your broken fingers until the bones shatter.”