Too Sinful to Deny: Gothic Love Stories #2 Read online

  Too Sinful to Deny

  Gothic Love Stories #2

  Erica Ridley

  Contents

  Too Sinful to Deny

  Also by Erica Ridley

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Thank You For Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2011, 2019 Erica Ridley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Too Sinful to Deny

  One look at the towering ocean-side manor that is to be her new home, and exiled socialite Susan Stanton knows: This is a place haunted by secrets, and riddled with menace.

  * * *

  For Susan, there is no escaping the most dangerous element of all—dark-haired smuggler Evan Bothwick, a man whose rakish countenance cannot hide his wicked intent.

  * * *

  But Susan has a secret of her own—a special gift that renders her privy to the darkest mysteries lurking within the walls of the manor and in the labyrinthine cellars beneath. And the only man who can help her is the very rogue she would do anything to be able to resist…

  “A delicious, dark Gothic treat!”

  —Eloisa James, New York Times bestselling author, on Too Wicked to Kiss

  Love romance? Have a free book, on me!

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  Also by Erica Ridley

  Gothic Love Stories:

  Too Wicked to Kiss

  Too Sinful to Deny

  Too Tempting to Resist

  Too Wanton to Wed

  * * *

  Rogues to Riches:

  Lord of Chance

  Lord of Pleasure

  Lord of Night

  Lord of Temptation

  Lord of Secrets

  Lord of Vice

  * * *

  Dukes of War:

  The Viscount's Tempting Minx

  The Earl’s Defiant Wallflower

  The Captain’s Bluestocking Mistress

  The Major’s Faux Fiancée

  The Brigadier’s Runaway Bride

  The Pirate's Tempting Stowaway

  The Duke's Accidental Wife

  * * *

  The 12 Dukes of Christmas:

  Once Upon a Duke

  Kiss of a Duke

  Wish Upon a Duke

  Never Say Duke

  Dukes, Actually

  The Duke’s Bride

  The Duke’s Embrace

  The Duke’s Desire

  Dawn With a Duke

  One Night With a Duke

  Ten Days With a Duke

  Forever Your Duke

  * * *

  Magic & Mayhem:

  Kissed by Magic

  Must Love Magic

  Smitten by Magic

  Prologue

  February 4,1814

  London, England

  * * *

  Miss Susan Stanton muttered a most unladylike curse as yet more black snow slid down her ankle and into her already ruined boots. No matter. Faster. If Mother’s watchdogs discovered her absence before she had the merest glimpse of Freezeland Street, Susan’s great escape would be for nothing.

  It was unfair enough to be confined to one’s quarters for months on end whilst living in the greatest city on earth, and quite another to be forced to do so during the most celebrated fête of the Season: the once-in-a-lifetime Frost Fair. (Technically twice in a lifetime, in her case, but as Susan was two years old the last time the Thames froze over, that occasion didn’t signify.)

  Dirty snowflakes streaked her spectacles, but Susan didn’t bother to clean the lenses. Her gloves were too wet to do much good, and her muff would only leave bits of fur in its wake.

  Susan glanced over her shoulder to make sure the driver waited for her as promised before she dashed across Blackfriars Bridge to what was left of the carnival below.

  Running on snow-covered ice, however, involved a fair bit of sloshing and sliding, and Susan was forced to slow her pace or risk breaking her neck. Devil take it. How long before someone realized the caged bird had escaped? Thirty minutes? Twenty? Scarcely enough time to regain the town house before Mother arrived home, even if Susan gave up now and left posthaste.

  But she was so close. Off-key music trilled from the gaudy tents. The elephants she’d read about were long gone, as well as the donkey rides and skittles, but the sharp wind still carried the garish laughter of the common folk and the pungent scent of fresh-brewed ale.

  Five minutes. She could spare five quick minutes, just to see.

  She paused at the foot of Blackfriars Bridge and gazed at the tattered tents still dotting the frozen river. Rot. There was no possibility of walking all the way to the designated Freezeland Street entrance in under half an hour, so she’d have to cut diagonally across the ice toward the tents. No more dallying.

  But the instant Susan’s boot touched the frozen river, her foot sank through the melting snow, touched the ice, and shot forward as if propelled by magnets, sending her lurching. After a few moments of windmilling her arms, she managed to transition from sliding on accident to sliding on purpose—that is, until the entire cacophony of colorful tents tilted drunkenly before her eyes.

  Cold, wet air scraped down Susan’s throat as she gasped. Before her eyes, the ice broke apart in jagged chunks. A terrible thunder filled the air. The river unfurled, rippling beneath the fragmented fair like a washwoman shaking crumbs from an old carpet. Far ahead, pie-men and toymakers alike abandoned their wagons in their mad scramble for the shore. The stench of the river’s fetid breath blasted from its frozen cage. Susan whirled around to dash back to the safety of solid land.

  The ice disintegrated beneath her feet.

  Susan flailed her arms for purchase as her body plunged into the frigid Thames.
A jagged hunk of thick ice intercepted her forearm with a sickening crack. Pain engulfed her. Susan’s head went under. Hungry river water swept through her clothes, weighing her down, dragging her below.

  She kicked with all her might and shot upward. The top of her head slammed against a floating sheet of ice with enough force to knock the spectacles from her face. Her thoughts turned sluggish. Her vision blurred.

  Where was the churning slush she’d fallen through? Had the current swept her so far already? Her fingernails bent backward as she clawed at the ice with one gloved hand. The other hand refused to respond to her commands, floating limp and heavy in the murk.

  Her glove tore. Faster and faster, she scraped at the unforgiving ice until blood seeped from her raw fingers with every thudding heartbeat. Numbness, everywhere. Was she making progress? She couldn’t see. Her boots were leaden; her luxurious fur a smothering blanket, her string of pearls a noose.

  Where were the peddlers, the barmaids, the fiddlers? So dark underwater. So cold. She beat at the ice, tried to scream for help, gagged when her aching lungs filled with frigid river water. Strange eyes peered at her from the darkest edges of her vision, then melted into shadow.

  Her limbs began to fail. Even her fluttering heart beat slower and slower, until…Nothing.

  The tumultuous river no longer tugged at her useless arm. Her lungs no longer struggled against the waves of foul water. The unrelenting cold no longer permeated her every pore.

  Unfamiliar lips sucked at Susan’s mouth, drawing up putrid river water and forcing dry air into her lungs.

  Her eyes flew open. People, everywhere. Not dozens, like before. Hundreds. Many of them stared down at her from pale, misshapen faces. Some of them in the water, oblivious to her. And dry. How could they be dry underwater? Her vision greyed as they faded before her.

  The sensation of lips returned, cold and clammy. More foul air blew into her throat. Disgusting. She jerked her head to the side, stretched out her good arm, and reached for one of the oddly dry people. Her hand floated through his chest and he blinked out of sight. Susan gasped, choked, vomited saltwater and algae. Her spinning head fell back hard, splintering a patch of ice.

  Blackness again.

  Chapter 1

  March 21, 1814.

  * * *

  The last of the plumed lords and ladies swooped into Town like crows feasting upon carrion. Susan had escaped both her splints and her bedchamber for the first time in six long, dark weeks—only to be bundled in the back of a black carriage and jettisoned into the vast void of nothingness beyond London’s borders.

  To Bournemouth. Bournemouth. An infinitesimal “town” on a desolate stretch of coastline a million miles from home. Less than a hundred souls, the carriage driver had said. Spectacular. Thrice as many bodies had graced Susan’s London come-out party four years ago, not counting the servants. Being banished was the worst possible punishment Mother could’ve devised.

  Nothing could deaden the soul quite like the prospect of Moonseed Manor.

  Susan’s breath caught in her throat. Her mind emptied of its litany of complaints as her eyes struggled to equate the stark, colorless vista before her with “town of Bournemouth.”

  Dead, brown nothingness. Miles of it. A steep cliff jutted over black ocean. There, backlit with a smattering of fuzzy stars, a bone-white architectural monstrosity teetered impossibly close to the edge.

  Moonseed Manor did not look like a place to live. Moonseed Manor looked like a place to die.

  Not a single candle flickered in the windows. The carriage drew her ever closer, its wheels bouncing and slipping on sand and rocks. Susan’s skin erupted in gooseflesh. She hugged herself, struck by an invasive chill much colder than any ocean breeze could cause.

  The carriage stopped. The driver handed her out, then disappeared back into his perch, leaving her to make her presence known by herself. Very well. He could stay and mind the luggage while she summoned the help. After all, Miss Susan Stanton was no shrinking violet. Although she wished for the hundredth time that her lady’s maid (and frequent collaborator in the very schemes that had gotten Susan in trouble in the first place) hadn’t been forbidden from accompanying her.

  Mother had also forbidden her from contacting her friend Evangeline, who had married amid scandal of her own. If Susan was to have any prayer of returning to her parents’ good graces, she would have to play by their rules.

  Which meant… she was well and truly exiled.

  The back of her neck prickling with trepidation, Susan found herself curling trembling fingers around a thick brass knocker, the handle formed from the coil of a serpent about to strike. The resulting sound echoed in the eerie stillness, as if both the pale wood and the house itself were hollow and lifeless.

  The door silently opened.

  A scarecrow stood before her, all spindly limbs and jaundiced skin. A shock of straw-colored hair protruded at all angles above dark, cavernous eyes. The sharpness of his bones stretched his yellowed skin. His attire hung oddly on his frame, as though these clothes were not his own, but rather the castoffs of the true (and presumably human) butler.

  “I... I...” Susan managed, before choking on an explanation she did not have.

  She what? She was the twenty-year-old sole offspring of a loveless titled couple who had banished their ostracized disappointment of a daughter to the remotest corner of England rather than bear the sight of her? She nudged her spectacles up the bridge of her nose with the back of a gloved hand and forced what she hoped was a smile.

  “My name is Miss Susan Stanton,” she tried again, deciding to leave the explanation at that. Mother had written in advance, so what more needed to be said? “I’m afraid I was expected hours ago. Is Lady Beaune at home?”

  “Always,” the scarecrow rasped, after a brief pause. His sudden jagged-tooth smile unsettled Susan as surely as it must frighten the crows. “Come.”

  Susan slid a dozen hesitant steps into a long, narrow passage devoid of both portraiture and decoration before the oddity of his answer reverberated in her ears. Always. What did he mean by that, and why the secret smile? Once one entered Moonseed Manor, was one to be stuck there, entombed forevermore in a beachside crypt?

  “P-perhaps I should alert my driver that your mistress is at home.” She hastened forward to catch up to the scarecrow’s long-limbed strides. “I have a shocking number of valises, and—”

  “Don’t worry,” came the scarecrow’s smoky rasp, once again accompanied by a grotesque slash of a smile. “He’s being taken care of.”

  Normally, a lady of Susan’s class would’ve bristled with outrage at the effrontery of being interrupted by a servant. In this case, however, she was more concerned with the rented driver’s continued well-being. She was not sure she wanted him “being taken care of.” Shouldn’t the butler have said her trunks would be taken care of? She glanced over her shoulder at the corridor now stretching endlessly behind them, and wondered whether she was safer inside these skeletal walls or out.

  Susan didn’t notice a narrow passageway intersecting the stark hall until the scarecrow disappeared within. She stood at the crossroads, hesitant to follow but even more nervous to stay behind. After the briefest of pauses, she hurried to regain the scarecrow’s side before losing him forever in the labyrinthine walls.

  If he noticed her moment of indecision, he gave no sign. He made several quick turns, passing one tall closed door after another before finally making an abrupt stop at the dead end of an ill-lit corridor.

  This door was open. Somewhat.

  A candle flickered inside, but only succeeded in filling the room’s interior with teeming shadows.

  “Sir,” the scarecrow rasped into the opening. “It’s Miss Stanton. Your guest.”

  “Guest?” came a warm, smartly accented voice from somewhere within. The master of the house? No. “You were expecting guests at this hour, Ollie?”

  Ollie? Susan echoed silently in her head. Lady Beaune’s hu
sband was named Jean-Louis. Perhaps she was about to meet a distant relation. A cousin would make a lovely ally.

  “All guests arrive at this hour,” a deep voice countered. “It’s midnight.”

  Before Susan had a chance to parse that inexplicable response, the door swung fully open and a fairy-tale giant filled the entirety of the frame.

  Her shoulders reached his hips. His shoulders reached the sides of the door frame and very nearly the top as well. His broad back hunched to allow his dark head to pass beneath the edge. Small black eyes glittered in an overlarge square face, his mouth hidden behind a beard the color of fresh tar. Arms that could crush tree trunks flexed at his sides. He did not offer his hand.

  “Miss Stanton.”

  Although her name was more a statement than a question, Susan’s well-trained spine dipped in an automatic curtsy as her mouth managed to stammer a simple “yes.”