Sinful (Hot Regency Romance Novella) Read Online Free Page A

to keep a sneer
off his lips. He disliked Cavell. “You are free to hire one of
them, my lord. But this case has become personally interesting to
me. Whether I’m working for you or not, I will find out what
happened to Lady Maryanne.”
    Cavell grimaced. “Fine, then. Have you
learned anything?”
    In curt tones, he gave Cavell a report on
what he’d learned at Gretna. “As yet, there is no evidence she has
married,” he concluded.
    “So then it is possible her seducer never
meant to marry her—only ruin her!”
    “That is a possibility. That’s why I came to
you tonight—to find out whether there could be someone who would
seek revenge on you through your ward.”
    “Revenge? For what?” The eyes narrowed in the
fleshy face. “I will remind you I am a gentleman of honor. If I
have made enemies, they would meet me over pistols. On that you are
wasting your time.”
    “I want to examine every possibility.”
    “But you could find no sign of her in
Scotland?” Cavell barked.
    “None.”
    The marquis fell back into his large, leather
chair. “Do you think it is possible she never made it to Gretna
Green because she is dead?”
    “Again, it is a possibility, yes,” Lyan said.
Not one he would have wanted to leap to, if the girl had been under
his care. However, he had a young sister. It would be an agonizing
nightmare to lose her, so he could understand a tendency to fear
the worst. He studied Cavell’s face. There was something subtly
different in the marquis’s expression. It was not horror, nor
despair. It was a look Lyan knew from his days on the streets.
    Anticipation.
    Cavell pulled out a linen handkerchief to mop
his brow. “I have to know, Foxton,” he croaked. “I have to know
what has happened to her.”
    The back of Lyan’s neck prickled. Cavell had
been the best friend of Lady Maryanne’s father and was the trustee
of the girl’s fortune. Her father had made millions in speculative
ventures and had settled a large portion of his money—that part of
his estate not entailed—on his daughter.
    Lady Maryanne was a wealthy woman. Lyan had
reviewed the will left by Lady Maryanne’s late father. If she died,
Cavell got the fortune.
    “Find her. Or find evidence that she is lost
to me,” Cavell snapped. “I want it within the week or I’m done with
you. Don’t think I’ll just fire you. I have no patience with men
who fail me. I make them pay.”
    “I would advise you, Cavell, not to threaten
me,” Lyan growled. But he thought of Lady Maryanne. She was a
sweet, gentle young lady, very much like his younger sister, Laura.
She deserved a better life than being locked up in this mausoleum
with an old roué who hungered for her money. He prayed she was
still alive.
    His thoughts went back to Sally. There had
been a fleeting look of guilt in her shrewd blue eyes, along with a
quiver of apprehension, that told him she knew who had accompanied
Lady Maryanne on her escape. The discovery she had a daughter had
startled him, had thrown him off balance. Now he intended to get at
the truth.
    He would find out exactly what Sally
knew.
     
    * * * * * * * * *
     

Chapter Three
     
    After his interview with Cavell, he needed to
clear the foul stench of greed and arrogance from his senses. Lyan
went home. Walking up the steps to his house normally cheered him.
It pleased him to be able to provide a home like this for Laura.
She had spent twelve years in the slums, but those memories were
fading. He wanted to keep it that way. She deserved to think of
this as her world.
    He gazed up at the elegant façade with its
rows of mullioned windows glinting in the sun, the neat blue door,
the freshly painted wrought iron fencing, the promise of security
and position. He’d rented the house with the rewards he’d earned as
a Runner. Once he became the Earl of Delamore, he would give it up
and take Laura to the earl’s London house, an enormous mansion on
Park Lane. Laura was seventeen. Now that he’d been