CHAPTER 1
London, England
October 1826
LORD JULIUS THORNE felt a prickle run up his spine the moment he stepped into his elegant bedchamber in the Huntsford townhouse sometime after three o’clock in the morning. He was foxed, but not so deep in his cups that he could not sense something was amiss in here. It was dark…unusually dark, even for this late hour. “Who’s there?”
Someone must have closed the drapes all the way so as not allow the smallest trickle of dawn’s light to steal in. Whoever that someone was, he was still in here. Julius could feel the intruder’s presence in the thickness of the air.
He slowly reached into the lip of his boot to grab his pistol, but had yet to withdraw it when a soft feminine voice called to him from behind those drawn curtains. “Julius?”
His heart shot into his throat upon recognizing who had called to him. “Gory?”
Was he more foxed than he realized?
There was no chance Lady Gregoria Easton, better known as Gory to her friends, would ever be in his bedchamber. Especially not now that she had caught herself a viscount and would be married by this time next week.
He did not like to think of her married to that pompous clot, Chandler Allendale. The man was completely wrong for her, but what right did he have to judge when he had never let on about his feelings for her?
Now, he feared it was too late. “Gory, I’m drunk. Am I imagining you?”
“No, Julius. It’s really me,” she said, little more than a slender shadow stepping out from behind her hiding spot. Her voice was so thin and shaky, he’d never heard her sound like this before. “I did not know where else to turn.”
“So you came to me?” He hurriedly lit a lamp before rushing to her side.
That he was drunk and lovesick did not help the situation. Nor had his foolish agreement to escort Gory around London all week long because her betrothed was too busy to attend to it helped in the least, either. It was hopeless to believe spending more time in each other’s company might rid him of his feelings for Gory.
He was wrong.
She was stubborn, opinionated, independent, and infuriating in many ways. But she was also brilliant, warm and witty, and relentlessly determined to become the greatest forensic specialist in all of London. What other young lady would rather spend more time examining dead things than going to balls, musicales, and fashionable dinner parties?
Her quirky traits and stubborn disposition ought to have cured him of these unwanted feelings he had for her.
His stupid ploy had failed.
He was falling more deeply in love with her than ever.
He held the lamp up for a better view, and his heart immediately surged into his throat. “Dear heaven! What happened to you?”
She was wearing her wedding gown, a soft, pearl silk that he had seen when taking her to the fashionable modiste for a final fitting only yesterday. Not that he had wanted anything to do with enabling her to marry that dimwit viscount, Allendale. But she had needed a ride and he, like the clot he was, had volunteered to assist her as she went on this wedding errand.
He blinked.
And blinked again.
The blood splattered all over her gown was still there.
It wasn’t a drunken delusion.
Crimson trails of it had seeped into the delicate silk, and dried splotches of crimson red stained her hands. “Never mind. You’ll tell me later,” he said gently, realizing she must be in shock when she did not immediately respond to his question. “Let me check you for injuries first.”
He set the lamp on a nearby table, and then ran his hands along her body with aching care.
Once. Twice.
He was not surprised by the soft allure of her curves, for he’d gotten a good look at her yesterday, accidentally walking into the modiste’s fitting room while she was still undressed. Why had the modiste’s helper told him Gory was finished and needed assistance with her packages when she was still in there, standing in her chemise of sheerest fabric that hid nothing from his view?
Even though her back had been turned to him, there were several large mirrors in the room, so that in addition to her sweetly curved backside that was pointed at him as she bent slightly to retrieve something out of her reticule, he could make out her nicely shaped breasts in the mirror’s reflection. Those ample mounds that were about to spill out of the bodice could fill the cup of his hand. He refused to dwell on what else he saw, but it was not an exaggeration to admit he would pay a king’s ransom to explore her body.
