Dark Surrender Read Online Free Page B

herself for perhaps the hundredth time since the lock had automatically clicked home behind her. She was merely weak from lack of nourishment.
    But she had learned long ago to trust no man.
    Mr. Waldegrave stopped within arm’s reach, but did not offer his hand. He regarded her in silence, as if her appearance was equally as arresting as his own. When at last he spoke, his deep voice was shockingly seductive. “Welcome. I am Alistair Waldegrave. May I ask from whence you come?”
    No, the frantic voice deep inside her cried out, you cannot. She stared up at him.
    His gaze burned into hers. “What is your name?”
    “Violet . . .” she blurted out, the word torn unbidden from her tongue. “Smythe,” she added lamely, certain he would see through the paltry deception. What had happened to the practiced dissimulation that had saved her from more horrors than she cared to count?
    His raised brow provided proof of his disbelief, but he did not waste his breath demanding honesty. “I see,” he said in that incredible voice, smooth and dark. “Miss Violet Smythe, if that is your real name, pray tell me to what I owe the pleasure of your company this eve?”
    She gripped the edge of the pew. Had she appeared so dishonest, he hadn’t even believed her when she’d been fool enough to admit to her first name? Add that to the likelihood that this man never ventured far enough from his shadowed chambers to hear the barest whisper of news from a town as far away as upper Lancashire, and she might actually be safe . . . If she could convince him to grant her asylum for a spell before tossing her back into the wild.
    And assuming Waldegrave Abbey was safer inside than out.
    “I’m looking for work,” she admitted. The best lies were based on truth, and she would get nowhere with empty pockets. Like it or not, temporarily trusting her fate to this man was a risk she would have to take if she wished to avoid the gaol. That the mistrust was mutual spoke to his intelligence. “Have you a garden that needs tending or stockings that need darning?”
    If anything, the skepticism lining his coldly beautiful face deepened. “Am I to believe you a misplaced gardener, then? A wandering seamstress in search of torn hems?”
    She jerked her hands from the hard pew and laced her fingers in her lap to hide their trembling. “I don’t suppose my curriculum vitae would carry much weight in an abbey. I’m . . . a governess by trade.”
    The manservant at her side started violently, as if she’d brandished a blade and lunged at the unscarred side of his face.
    Mr. Waldegrave’s chiseled cheekbones paled further—if that were possible—as he cast his manservant a quelling glare. “A governess?”
    “Of a sort. I specialize in art of all mediums.” Not that she imagined him to be an enthusiast. She couldn’t prevent an involuntary glance at the boarded-over stained glass and wondered what devilry would incite a man to cover up medieval beauty in order to live in darkness.
    Mr. Waldegrave’s black eyes glittered. He clearly didn’t trust her, but hopefully the bit about teaching art held enough ring of truth to convince him of her harmlessness. At least long enough to get a scrap of meat in her belly and few more hours of sleep upon a wooden pew. With the lock securely engaged.
    “I will pay you two pounds per week—”
    She started. “You’ll what? ”
    “—for tutoring my daughter until she recovers from her . . . illness.”
    The manservant at his side tried to mask his shock, but he looked equally as blindsided by the proposal as Violet felt. This was madness. Why would Mr. Waldegrave offer such riches without requesting names and references or at least testing her basic literacy?
    Her stomach soured with suspicion. Was there a daughter?
    Perhaps she had misread the signs completely. Was the tension emanating from Mr. Waldegrave’s every muscle due to a desire to enslave her as his personal plaything rather than due to a