Wickeds Scandal (The Wickeds) by Kathleen Ayers

gave
potential employers pause. Sutton, knowing how it felt to be an outcast, hired
McMannish on the spot. The grateful Scotsman acted as butler and bodyguard to
Sutton.
    “Robbins tried
to warn you.  He sent ‘round a note.”  McMannish lowered his tone. 
    “A lady,
McMannish?”  Damn Robbins.  Sutton had found his erstwhile valet at a
house party held by the Earl of Lantham.  Robbins spilled out of an
upstairs window after being discovered with the Earl’s mistress.  The man
was a decent valet but could be distracted by a show of leg or a pretty
smile.  He was likely just now recalling he needed to get a note to
Sutton.
    McMannish
sniffed.  “I’m sure some would call her that.  No lady I know would
show up at a gentleman’s home, unescorted in her widow’s weeds.”
    Ah.  It
was Caro then and not his stepmother.  Thank God.  He really wasn’t
up for sparring with Jeanette this afternoon, especially since she was trying
to have him killed.  The morning at the solicitor’s had been quite
illuminating. Jeanette spent the Cambourne fortune at a furious pace.  Her
dressmaker’s bills alone boggled the mind.  She ordered jewels and
fripperies by the dozens.  Employed a servant just to hold a parasol over
her in the garden least the sun spoil her complexion. Her allowance, exceedingly
generous, seemed to disappear amongst the pile of gambling debt she
accumulated.  Sutton instructed the solicitor that the Marchioness no
longer had an open line of credit, anywhere.  Sutton alone controlled
Jeanette’s allowance. She was not going to bleed Cambourne any longer with her
excess.
    “Cam,
darling?  Is that you?”  A feminine voice echoed down the hallway.
    McMannish wiggled
his brows in distaste.  His lips pressed firmly into a grimace of
disapproval.  “It’s that Lady Fellowes.”
    “So I see.”  Sutton
sighed in frustration.  Caro refused his polite brush off at Lady
Dobson’s.  He did not wish things to become nasty, but Caro wasn’t taking
the hint.
    He
approached the study, swinging the door open.
    “You should
shut the door, darling.  I wouldn’t want to catch cold.” Caro giggled.
    Lady
Caroline Fellowes was spread across his leather coach in nothing but a lacy
chemise.  The filmy chemise hid nothing of her form beneath.  Her
flaming red hair trailed over the arm of the couch to pool on the floor below.
    “Come warm
me up!”  Her arms opened wide to greet him, a seductive smile on her lips.
    Sutton
quietly shut the door.  He would have to instruct McMannish that Lady
Fellowes was not to be let in the townhouse again.  A headache began
behind his eyes.  His near murder and the excess of his stepmother
exhausted him.  Sutton wanted a drink, a warm fire and to be left alone.
    Her blue eyes
widened as they took in the scratches on his cheek and the torn jacket. “What
happened?  Did you fall off your horse?”
    Anxiety and
worry suffused her lovely features.  He admitted that Caro probably did care something for him. She loved the jealous looks from other women
when he chanced to escort her out.  Loved his wealth. Adored his title.  So transparent, his dear Caro, but one had to admire her
tenacity.
    “I stumbled
in the street.  It’s of no import.”
    Rain
trickled down the study windows in rivulets, giving a wavering appearance to
the street outside.  Sutton shivered. Damn he was cold.  The flames
in the fireplace roared into a crescendo of heat.  Caro looked nice and
warm, even in her chemise.  No, it was England that chilled
him.   This cold, hard,island of his birth.  Did he even belong
here?
    At night he dreamt
of a suffocating heat, a heat so wet with warmth a man had difficulty
breathing.  The kind of heat in which no cold, could live.  A man
woke every day with sweat already clinging to his brow. The dense, green
jungle, reeking of rotting vegetation mixed with the exotic, floral scents he
much preferred over the rotting refuse to be found in the