The Darkest Sin Read Online Free PDF

was entirely anomalous. I simply had a surfeit of time on my hands. As for your own circumstances, surely a difficult guardian is not unusual.”
    â€œHe is not a guardian. You don’t understand.”
    â€œPerhaps I do not wish to.”
    She took a step closer to him, careless in her courage, the dull dun color of her cloak unable to subdue the subtle radiance of her skin. “But you must,” she said, all but stamping her foot. “I was abducted from my home and then left to drown. I don’t recall many details, because my memory has somehow been impaired, but I know for certain that someone wishes to do away with me and those I care for the most.”
    Rushford feigned skepticism. “Murder? I believe we’re being a trifle melodramatic here.” Of course, her memory would be impaired, given the amount of opiates she had been given. He steeled himself. Rowena Woolcott really left him little choice, but his eyes still searched hers for a glimmer of recognition. He found none. “Still not interested, madam, miss, or whoever you are,” he said. “I am not the shining knight in armor or the clever detective whom you seek. You have the wrong man, someone who has entirely no interest in seeking to punish evildoers, in righting old wrongs, or however you choose to frame the situation in your no-doubt overheated imagination. Now I will ask you politely to leave.”
    â€œAnd if I refuse?” she asked with a graceful shrug of her shoulders.
    Christ, she was young and foolish, he thought for the second time that night. He was tired, unaccountably irritated and determined to rid himself of Rowena Woolcott once and for all. Though overt vulgarity was not in his repertoire, it was the only recourse that readily came to mind. He closed the distance between them and removed the glass of brandy from her hand. “I shall not invite you to leave twice,” he said distinctly. “Instead, I may have to act upon my baser instincts, for which few could fault me, given the presence of an uninvited, albeit comely, female in my rooms. Do I make myself understood?”
    For once she was speechless, her lips parted in shock. And yet she didn’t move, her sensible riding boots riveted to his aged carpet. His fingers reached for the fastenings of his shirt, only to remember that it still gaped open. Shrugging out of the garment, he threw it on the floor before beginning to loosen the waistband of his breeches.
    He sat down on the edge of the bed and tugged off first one boot and then the next. Rowena watched in horrified fascination, her breathing having come to a halt sometime between when the first boot and the second hit the ground.
    â€œYou have a choice,” he said finally, rising from the bed. “Either you depart now, front door or rear window, I couldn’t care less, or the breeches come off. And what happens subsequently”—he paused just long enough to see the darkening of her spectacular eyes—“should not come as a surprise to a woman as intelligent as you appear to be.”
    She licked her bottom lip, pretending to ignore his outrageous threat. “So you refuse to help me? Why? When you helped those other women? When you have the expertise to discover who wishes to murder my sister and my aunt.” Her response was breathless with shock. “And to kill me.”
    Rushford shoved his hands into the pockets of his breeches. None of this could come to any good. “You have the wrong man,” he repeated. After a lifetime of risk and of loss, Rushford realized that he’d never really experienced this particular sense of dark unease. Not once. Not even for Kate, a small voice echoed. But he felt it now. For Rowena Woolcott. And worse, for himself.
    He leaned close, inhaling her scent, watching her tense, the porcelain of her skin pale with alarm and disbelief. He was so ready to touch her, taste her, all in a feeble attempt to lose