The Saint and the Sinner!
Eliot Ridley, Viscount Colville, is a man of immaculate character with lifelong ambitions to make his mark in parliament. Lady Verena Gerard is a headstrong, independent widow with a string of lovers in her scandalous past. Two people with absolutely nothing in common, apart from the irresistible desire that draws them into an explosive, secret affair.
Now Eliot is so determined to claim the reckless beauty as his own that he’s ready to throw away his stainless reputation and his political hopes. What choice does Verena have when he proposes but to end the liaison? Taking a notorious woman as his wife will taint Eliot and his family, not to mention that after the brutal misery of her first marriage, she’s vowed never to wed again.
Never say never.
In the glamorous, sophisticated world Eliot and Verena inhabit, wickedness thrives behind closed doors and the only unforgivable sin is falling in love. Will the handsome viscount defy society and Verena’s fears to win the bride he wants? Or will Eliot and his wild lady part to follow their separate destinies and forever spurn the forbidden longing in their hearts?
An international e-book release ~ 31st August 2021
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Comerford House, Mayfair, London, April 1816
The Lumsden ball was held in their magnificent mansion in Lorimer Square. It was always accounted one of the highlights of the London season. This year, the event was more spectacular than usual, because it also served as the official launch for their daughter Harriet Comerford.
Verena stood with Celia and Freddie Edgecombe and fanned herself idly, as she studied the Comerford chit. Pretty. Blonde. Lively. She was already acclaimed as a diamond of the first water. The Lumsdens should have no trouble marrying her off in style.
Harriet was great friends with Eliot’s sister Imogen. Down in the wilds of Gloucestershire, the Lumsdens and Ridleys were neighbours. The two girls were inseparable, although at this moment, when Verena glanced around the ballroom, Imogen was nowhere to be seen.
The rest of her family was present, though. Near the French doors, Deerforth was holding forth on some topic dear to his heart to a clearly bored Lady Tierney. The mousy cousin was here somewhere, too, Verena was sure. After dancing with Elizabeth Tierney, Eliot was escorting her back to her mother, which might offer that lady some relief from Deerforth.
Elizabeth Tierney was as pretty as Lily Bilson. Another girl who would make Eliot an excellent wife, which must explain why Verena wanted to scratch the little poppet’s big brown eyes out.
She really must do something to control her murderous impulses toward this year’s crop of debutantes.
“Who are you engaged to partner for the next dance?” Celia asked her a few minutes later.
“Your husband,” Verena said with a smile. She turned to Freddie. “My lord, shall we proceed?”
“With pleasure.”
As Freddie held out his hand, a deep voice spoke from behind her. “I believe this is my dance.”
Shock and unwelcome pleasure rippled through Verena. She turned slowly to meet Eliot’s steady gray gaze. As was always the case when she encountered him in public, his expression was all cool composure. Only she saw the fire blazing in his silvery eyes.
“Lord Colville, I don’t recall you asking me.” Because he hadn’t, the rogue. The reckless rogue, which was something she’d never thought to call him before this. “I promised this dance to Lord Edgecombe.”
Freddie, who was twenty years older than Eliot and half a foot shorter, cast Eliot an uncertain glance and let his hand drop to his side. Eliot, as ever, was all that was polite, but his air of determination hinted that he had no intention of retreating.
“We arranged things yesterday in the park. I’m devastated that you don’t remember, my lady.”
She narrowed her eyes on him. They’d exchanged a few words in Hyde Park during the fashionable hour, but they hadn’t ventured beyond pleasantries. He’d certainly never warned her that he intended to risk dancing with her under society’s gaze. “As I don’t recall that conversation, and Lord Edgecombe has—”
“Verena, I’ve danced with you already tonight,” Freddie said with a cheery lack of chivalry that she couldn’t help but resent. “If there’s been a mix-up, I’m happy to yield to Colville’s claim on this occasion.” He beamed, as if he’d sorted everything out to general satisfaction.
Which was far from true.
Verena bit back an irritated response. Celia’s inquisitive stare made the hair prickle on the back of her neck.
“Thank you, Edgecombe. Very gentlemanly of you.” Eliot extended his gloved hand. “My lady?”
The orchestra played the introduction to summon the dancers to the floor. It had to be a waltz, didn’t it? Verena smoothed out her expression, although inside she was fuming. Didn’t Eliot realize that this mad gesture put seven months of hard-won discretion in jeopardy?
When she met his eyes, he smiled at her, which made her want to hit him with her fan. Or something heavier, like a club, if only she could lay hands on one. The ballroom was sadly lacking in suitable weaponry.
Any further objections to partnering Eliot would only draw more attention. So she plastered a smile on her face and took his hand. “Then I accept with pleasure, my lord.”
Was she alone in noting the wolfish satisfaction that lit Lord Colville’s face? It was a very un-Eliot expression. At least in public.
“Excellent.” His fingers curled around hers, and even through two layers of gloves, she felt a zing of heat. She might be annoyed with him, but that didn’t lessen the animal attraction raging between them.
She didn’t speak, as he led her out onto the dance floor and put his arm around her waist. Over his black-clad shoulder, Verena saw Lord Deerforth shoot them a disapproving glare. He would consider Verena an unsuitable partner for his much-admired son. A faint whisper rose above the music. She and Eliot had never waltzed together before. The pairing would strike the ton as bizarre. And infernally interesting.
“You’re creating a spectacle,” she hissed under her breath, as she set her other hand on his shoulder. “What on earth are you up to, you lunatic?”
His smile didn’t falter. “I’m dancing with the woman I want to hold in my arms. It isn’t a crime.”
The music turned to a lilting melody, and she and Eliot began to move in time. “It mightn’t be a crime, but it’s certainly a mistake.”
He glanced down at her, and as ever, the warmth in his eyes made her silly heart squeeze tight and flip over. “It doesn’t feel like a mistake.”
“It will in the morning, when the world is gossiping about the saint and the sinner, and your political backers are asking themselves whether you’re really such an upright character after all, or whether I’ve managed to corrupt you.”
“It’s a dance, Verena. I’m not copulating with you in full view of the beau monde. You’re overreacting.”
She scowled. “No, I’m not. Because now that we’ve danced together, people will start to speculate about what else we might do together.”
“I can cope with a bit of talk.” He kept smiling, plague take him. “I’m sick of other people setting the agenda for my life.”
They might be conducting a furious argument in murmurs, but the physical compatibility that produced such fireworks in bed held true here, too. She felt like their bodies moved as one. Freddie Edgecombe danced like an arthritic cart horse. Her toes at least appreciated Eliot’s bold invitation.
“So you’re setting the agenda for my life instead.” The dangerous sweetness in her tone should warn him of her displeasure. But then, he was aware of that already, wasn’t he? He was the most perceptive man she knew, and she wasn’t doing much to conceal her crankiness.
“You’re making too much of this,” he said lightly. “Although if you don’t start looking just a tad happier, you really will have people asking questions about what we mean to each other.”
He was right, to blazes with him. She might be lecturing him on decorum, but she was doing very little to maintain it.
Verena sucked in a tattered breath and struggled to restore an appearance of long-suffering boredom. It was harder than it should be. What she wanted most of all was a chance to give Eliot a good shake. She could weather a little – or a lot – of gossip. After all, she was already the notorious widow. But Eliot had a reputation to uphold. Not only that, his sister was on the marriage mart this season. His behavior mattered even more than usual.
It was odd, and surely a figment of her imagination, but as she drew breath, she caught Eliot’s spicy scent. He was holding her at a proper distance, and the overheated air was sickly with the perfumes the women wore and the fragrance of wilting hothouse flowers. Not to mention a good dose of upper-class perspiration.
Her senses were so attuned to Eliot that the drift of male musk set her pulses racing. In the last six months, that rich scent had become the aroma of paradise.
A purely private paradise.
“What in Hades do you hope to achieve with these antics?” Her voice remained stony, despite the forbidden longing that found a home inside her.
Still he smiled, the scoundrel. She wanted to kick him in the shin and remind him that she wasn’t a fit partner. It was the smile that he gave her when they were alone and nobody was watching. It was the smile that told her he judged Verena Gerard to be the most marvelous being in creation and he knew how lucky he was to hold her in his arms.
Even in private, that smile always made her skin itch. Partly because it made her nitwit heart flutter like a trapped linnet in a cage. Here, where hundreds of eyes focused on their unlikely pairing, it betrayed far too much about his penchant for the naughty widow.
“Antics? I’m a gentleman dancing with a lady at a society event. All perfectly acceptable.”
Except it wasn’t, and he knew it. Imogen waltzed past in the arms of Anthony Comerford, the Lumsdens’ oldest son. As she stared at her brother, her features were vivid with curiosity. She’d been in Town a mere fortnight, and already she’d heard of the wild and willful Lady Verena, it seemed.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she muttered, struggling to maintain her pretense at ennui. Eliot might have lost his mind, but she could still do her best to convey an air of distance.
“How am I looking at you?”
Her eyes narrowed again, then very deliberately she glanced over his shoulder and nodded at Shelburn, who was dancing with Elizabeth Tierney. The devil had the temerity to wink at her and shake his head in theatrical commiseration at her incompatible partner.
If only he knew how compatible she and Eliot in fact were. Physically at least. But of course, she didn’t want Shelburn to know that. She didn’t want anyone to know that.
“Like I’m a chocolate éclair, and you’re a man with a taste for good pastry.”
His low laugh vibrated under the hand that she’d placed on his shoulder. She might be annoyed with Eliot. She was annoyed with Eliot. But that rumble of a laugh always sent pleasure rippling through her. Tonight was no different, although she heartily wished it was.
“That’s just how I feel.”
She’d very much like to tug at the crisp golden curls at his nape to bring him back to reality. But if she did, it would look like a caress. Verena tried to stiffen and pull back, but the hand at her waist wouldn’t budge.
Most of her lovers did her bidding. She’d learned early in their affair that Eliot had a mind of his own. However much he desired her, she’d never managed to turn him into a lapdog. “How much longer will this pestilential waltz last?”
He laughed again. Her ill humor didn’t seem to depress his spirits at all. “Long enough.”
“I’d like to sit down.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
No, she wouldn’t. Because despite her worry and fluster and irritation, waltzing with Eliot was like flying.
Verena had always loved to dance, ever since her first season. She rarely had a partner to match her, though. Eliot was just right, so that she became part of the music, a feather floating around the room without her feet touching the ground.
It was a pity that they were arguing. It was a pity that they would never dance together again. Eliot was the best dance partner that she’d ever had.
The devil was the best lover that she’d ever had. It was even more of a pity that the affair had to end. He was becoming reckless, and she couldn’t bear the thought of his association with her causing him lasting harm.
“Smile, Verena. The éclair is glaring at me as if it’s got murder on its mind.”
He performed a dizzying circle and when he reversed direction, they’d edged closer. The evocative smell of his skin made her head swim, even without taking account of the whirling movements of the waltz. His hand was warm at her waist and made her wish that he was touching naked skin. The layers of his glove and her silk gown and all the petticoats beneath were an annoyance. She fixed her gaze on his snowy white neckcloth and reminded herself that she was angry with him.
“The éclair does,” she retorted, to her relief hearing the music proceed to the coda. The dance was nearly done, thank goodness. She could go back to showing the world that Eliot Ridley meant nothing to her.
He tightened his hold and sidestepped with a grace that under different circumstances, she might have admired. Too quickly for her to realize his strategy, let alone do anything to stop him, she found herself twirling into a corridor leading off the ballroom.
“Eliot, what the devil game are you playing?” she asked, as she realized that they were now alone.
He stopped moving but kept hold of her. “I want to talk to you.”
She wanted to talk to him, too, to ring a peal over that handsome head and remind him of what was at stake in keeping their affair secret. But she remained conscious that they were in public. He seemed to have forgotten that. How the ton would laugh to know that right now, the bold widow counseled caution, while the saint tested the rules of propriety.
“Anything you say can wait until Friday,” she snapped, pushing back on the hand on her waist. But Eliot was in a commanding mood. That chiseled jaw was set in adamant lines. Even more than usual, he looked like Galahad resolved to seize the Grail.
Despite the promptings of good sense – and whatever her flighty reputation, Verena possessed her share of practical intelligence – she couldn’t suppress a reluctant thrill at how masterful he was. If they’d been on their own, she’d have melted into his arms and begged him to take her.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? They weren’t on their own. Although when he ushered her down the corridor and into a small salon, they were as unobserved as a crowded ball permitted.
The hand on her arm was implacable as he shut the door behind him. Sconces lit the room. It wasn’t bright, but there was enough light for Verena to make out Eliot’s urgent expression and the muscle flickering in his cheek.
He’d kept up his urbane manner when he danced with her and fended off her demands to cease this outlandish behavior. There was nothing urbane about the man who now faced her down. He looked like he’d reached the limit of his patience. What on earth was wrong with him?
“Yes, I can wait until Friday if I have to.” His voice wasn’t that easy musical baritone either. It was rough with intense emotion.
As she pulled away, she frowned. “Eliot, what are you doing?”
She wasn’t even sure that he heard her question. He flattened his elegant hands against the gleaming wood of the door, and the expression in his eyes scalded her. His behavior all night had unsettled her, worried her. But as she stared into his taut features, for the first time, she was afraid.
Because for six months, she’d tried to ignore the tensions between them. Right now, she had a sick feeling that those tensions had reached breaking point. Eliot certainly looked as if he was close to shattering.
It was colder in the small room than it was in the overcrowded ballroom. But the chill that iced Verena’s blood had nothing to do with the spring night.
His voice vibrated with feeling as he went on. “But aren’t you sick of always having to wait until Friday? Aren’t you sick of squashing our real life into a couple of hours a week, then spending the rest of our days barely surviving on a word here and there? A few moments as partners in the line of a dance? A glimpse across a crowded room with a silent message that neither of us can acknowledge? Don’t you feel like you’re starving to death, Verena?”
Dear God, he really was going to smash everything. She supposed that she should be pleased. If he kept going like this, she’d have the perfect excuse for sending him away.
She wasn’t pleased. She was devastated to think that all the joy between them came to a bitter end.
Licking dry lips, she backed away another step. A shaking hand lifted to where her heart raced as if it tried to escape the confines of her chest. “We decided when we came together that we’d keep our liaison secret.”
When he straightened, his glare cut through all the comfortable delusions that she’d wrapped around herself for more than half a year. Comfortable delusions that had threatened to strangle her as the weeks went on. “Then I’m deciding now that it’s not enough.”