Too Sinful to Deny Read Online Free Page A

the entire collection of wild hair and bony limbs collapsed in an awkward curtsy. “At yer service.”
    Susan removed her spectacles, cleaned the lenses slowly and carefully in the folds of her skirt, then replaced her spectacles on her nose.
    Janey was still there.
    “Er, delightful,” Susan said at last. Was this what became of those who stayed too long within these walls? No wonder Lady Beaune could no longer venture out-of-doors. “I was hoping you could post this letter and help me lace up my gown.”
    One of Janey’s clawed hands shot out and snatched the folded parchment from the escritoire. The missive immediately disappeared into an unseen pocket.
    “Quick as ye please, mum, and none the wiser.”
    What the dickens was that supposed to mean? Susan prepared to rise to her feet, but on second thought, remained seated. Although she wasn’t much taller than the average Town deb, she towered over the spider-limbed lady’s maid. Instead, she leaned forward in her chair to allow better access to the laces.
    Despite being possessed of bones so thin they looked ready to snap at the slightest pressure, Janey’s fingers made quick work of Susan’s vestments. In fact, Susan could scarce breathe, so inhumanly tight were her stays. Mother would be beside herself to see her daughter exhibiting correct posture for once.
    Thank God she wasn’t here. Susan hated pleasing her mother.
    She thanked Janey and sent her on her way before belatedly recalling she had no idea how to quit Moonseed Manor short of throwing herself from her second-floor window. No matter. She refused to sit in a cold, echoing bedchamber like a fairy-tale princess trapped atop a tower.
    If she could escape her mother’s watchdogs long enough to make her way to the Frost Fair (even if that particular incident resulted in being banished from the only city in which she’d ever lived), then surely she could find her way out of a lonely country house in the middle of nowhere.
    Spine straight and shoulders thrust back with resolution—or possibly due to Janey’s skill with laces—Susan pulled open the bedchamber door and stepped into the faded, lifeless hall.
    Each passageway expanded endlessly before her. Myriad paths of pale nothingness.
    Susan took a shallow breath. One of these identical corridors must lead to the spiral staircase. The spiral staircase led downstairs. And the downstairs antechamber led to freedom.
    She just had to find it.
    Several wrong turns later, Susan was forced to admit that at this point, she wouldn’t be able to find her way back to the guest quarters. Nor had she stumbled upon the spiral staircase from the night before.
    The upside, however, was that she now stood at the top of a very tall, very narrow, very non-spiral staircase that, while not being the precise staircase she’d hoped to encounter, still pointed in the desired direction. Down.
    The only reason she was still hesitating at the top of said staircase instead of hurtling toward freedom was that at the bottom of the staircase, she could hear voices.
    Male voices. Familiar voices. Angry voices.
    Whenever Susan Stanton, undisputed queen of London gossip, found herself in a position where she could overhear conversation without being discovered herself—she didn’t move a bloody muscle. Particularly when the first words to waft upstairs were:
    “Dead, you say?”
    That deep, disinterested voice belonged to the giant who’d married his way onto the Stanton family tree.
    “Shot between the eyes.”
    And that rich, cultured voice had to belong to the dangerous “gentleman” from the night before. The one with the overlong chestnut hair, well-muscled figure, and devastating bow.
    “Hm,” came the giant’s voice again. “That would do it.”
    “Don’t provoke me, Ollie. I hate it when I have to kill friends.”
    “Have you got a weapon on you, then?”
    “Never mind that.” The smartly accented voice turned low, suspicious. “A better question would be: