Free One Wicked Night by Shelley Bradley Page A

something reminiscent of gardenias, then turned it over. The initials SB had been embroidered into the linen square with fine pink thread.
    “No, it doesn’t help. She’s still a mystery.”
    “What are you going to do now? Find her, I hope.”
    Visions of Chelsea brought back his onslaught of guilt. “No. It was one night, nothing more.”
    Niles crossed his arms over a silk, striped waistcoat. “Ah, so you’re going to resume punishing yourself for an accident you could not prevent.”
    Grinding his teeth, Lucien replied, “At least I might have prevented her death, had I been home, where she needed me.”
    “That’s bloody nonsense! When are you going to face that?”
    He gestured to the door. “If you dislike my attitude, Holford can show you out.”
    “For an old man, you lack all common sense.”
    “I only have two years on you, and I have a sense of honor , damn it.”
    Niles nodded. “Yes, but the truth is you don’t want to gamble with love again. Ravenna burned you too badly.”
    Throwing the covers aside, Lucien leapt out of bed and donned his breeches. “That’s over.”
    “Is it? I’ve no doubt you wonder every day what would have prevented her from trysting with Wayland. Nothing, I’ll tell you. The woman was no good.”
    “You meddle too much in others’ lives,” Lucien ground out, crossing the room to his wardrobe.
    “Clayborne, did you cut yourself?”
    The inquisitive tone in Niles’s voice gave Lucien pause. He turned to his friend. “No. Why?”
    Niles emitted a low whistle and gestured to the bed. “My friend, you may have another problem on your hands. A big one.”
    Lucien followed the direction of his friend’s gaze—and spotted the dark crimson spots on his stark white sheets. Disbelieving the proof his eyes presented him, he walked half-dazed toward the bed and peered closer.
    “Any chance your whore was a virgin?” Niles asked.
    A wave of hot confusion and disbelief swept over Lucien. “I thought . . . That is to say she felt like . . . Damn!” He raked tense fingers through his hair and loosed a long sigh. “Last night, I swore I felt her tear. But she didn’t say anything. She never indicated it was her first time.”
    “Not a word?” Niles looked confused now as well.
    “Just a gasp, so I thought I was mistaken or too much in my cups. No innocent miss I’ve ever seen could undress a man with her eyes as this one could. Surely a virgin wouldn’t come home with a complete stranger and offer him her virtue?”
    “It seems she did just that.”
    “Oh, Christ,” he breathed, shock permeating every nerve.
    “Who do you think she was?”
    Lucien shrugged. “I don’t know. She wasn’t a whore. But I practically took her in my coach, and she offered only a small protest. Given that, and the fact she wasn’t with a proper escort, I assumed she was someone’s mistress. I even wondered if she was a young war widow.”
    “It appears to me she is someone’s daughter,” Niles said.
    “Ruined daughter now.” Lucien scrubbed a hand down his face. “Damnation!”
    “Any chance her father is a member of the ton ?”
    “Her parents are dead.” Lucien reflected on the grief he had seen on her face. That and her compassion had been two of the qualities that had drawn him. “But she was dressed well, no mistake. It’s entirely likely she’s well-born, but she didn’t appear just out of the schoolroom. She was perhaps twenty.”
    “All right, so she’s a spinster.”
    Lucien shook his head with disbelief. “I suppose, but I can hardly credit that. I’ve never seen a spinster that looked as good as her. She was all moonlight and temptation.”
    “Regardless, that is the probability. Mayhap she has no dowry. The question is what will you do about her now?”
    Niles’s question wasn’t unexpected; he always thought something had to be done. Only this time the man was right, and one answer loomed, threatening to eat away at Lucien’s freedom and peace of