Prologue
London
Spring, 1827
Asher Holt jolted awake as a woman’s soft, warm body landed hard against his hips. Grunting from near castration, he shifted her lush figure to the left. “Easy now, sweets, or my Thoroughbred will never leave his stall.”
He blinked groggily up at a pair of wide hazel eyes, studying the peridot green irises rimmed with a rich penumbra of cinnamon, and tried to recall her name. Nothing came to him. Brushing aside the disheveled mane of sweetly fragrant reddish-blond hair, he took a closer look at her heart-shaped face, gently rounded chin and carnation-pink lips. A tiny constellation of freckles emerged through a fine dusting of face powder, her cheeks red and blotchy beneath. Absently, he wondered if she used lemon juice to diminish blemishes like so many women did.
Such a pity. He’d always been partial to freckles.
Though, with such a complexion, society would never declare her a great beauty. And yet . . . there was something about her.
But not enough to spark his memory.
Then again, his skull was about to crack open like a desiccated milkweed pod and he could hardly put two thoughts together. His brain seemed caught in a mire of fuzz and fluff that even coated the back of his tongue.
“You’re foxed,” the lush creature accused, wrinkling her nose. “And you smell like a rum pot.”
That would explain things. “Peculiar. I never imbibe to excess.”
“Well, you certainly picked a fine time to begin. We don’t have an instant to waste.”
She pushed herself clear of him with a huff, affording him the view of a four-strand pearl necklace and heaps of cream-colored taffeta, enswathed by silver netting and bespeckled with even more pearls.
The mystery woman looked like she’d exploded straight from an oyster bed . . . or a treasure chest.
A dull buzz of alertness niggled at the back of his mind. Though at the current trudging pace of his thoughts, it would take days for any information to breach the thick fleece threatening to burst through his eye sockets and ears.
Head spinning, he maneuvered into a more upright position. Only then did he realize he was still clad in yesterday’s riding clothes, greatcoat, and weathered top boots. He also recognized the aged burgundy interior of the carriage surrounding him, the familiar upholstery worn thin to an apricot hue over the squabs.
The girl in pearls tugged on the sparse, uneven tassel strings at the ends of the shades. He hoped she was careful. He was almost certain that this decrepit conveyance was held together by nothing more than a few boards and some clever stitching. Pull on the wrong thread and the walls might very well crash down onto the street.
The tassel broke off in her gloved hand and he braced himself, just in case. Thankfully, the walls remained intact.
Unconcerned, she merely flicked it from her fingertips, then peeled back the brittle fabric from the window. A dull wash of gray light entered the cabin and opened another crag in his skull. Grimacing, he recoiled into the corner of the bench as she peered outside toward a fine mist collecting on the church steps.
Apparently, she didn’t like the view either, for she turned back to him, worrying her plump bottom lip between her teeth. Her gaze met his, beseeching him with some unknown plea.
All at once, he felt a strange sense of recognition . . . while still having no idea who she was. Though it was becoming clear that they must have met before.
“Well?” Her hand impatiently stirred the air between them, her lips parting on panted breaths of . . . anticipation? Disquiet?
Either way, he felt compelled to take in a lungful of air for her. “Well, what?”
“Shouldn’t we be . . . getting on by now?”
Ah. At once he understood.
His appreciative gaze drifted over her voluptuous form, then focused on those strands of pearls above the rapid rising and falling of her lush bosom. Clearly, she was a young courtesan. Perhaps she’d been looking for a new protector and, drunk out of his gourd, he’d invited her into his carriage.
A pity, really. “My apologies, sweets. I wish I had the coin to afford you. Alas, I do not. Nor do I ever mix business with pleasure. In my opinion, carnal delights should be uninhibited and unconstrained by the obligations of monetary transactions.”
Her tawny brows furrowed and a tiny rosebud of wrinkles formed above her nose. “Whot are you—”
Abruptly, her cheeks flushed to crimson. Then her mouth formed a small round O.
She swallowed and shifted back on the bench with a crunch of taffeta. Surrounded by voluminous netting, she looked like a fuzzy-headed caterpillar in the midst of slipping into a chrysalis for an overdue nap.
A grumpy caterpillar, who started to wag her finger at him.
“You should be ashamed of yourself. I’m not going to become a harlot or a street . . . strumpet. Jane said you were slow-witted but, honestly, I didn’t realize she’d left me in the hands of a proper buffoon.” She darted another glance through the carriage window. “Oh, this was a mistake. I knew it all along, and yet there was no other way. And now, there’s no going back either. I just made certain of that.”
Asher ignored the buffoon remark for the moment. “Jane?”
“Your cousin, of course!”
He was fairly positive he didn’t have a cousin named Jane. But there was the off chance that he’d merely lost her in the opaque quagmire between his ears.
The courtesan speared him with an impatient glare as if she’d expected him to say something in response. When he didn’t, she groused, “Honestly. Do you think it possible for us to continue this . . . introduction en route since my father is doubtless discovering my absence and bound to burst upon us at any moment?”
The threat of her father’s wrath—or any father, really—spurred Asher into motion. He called out to the driver and, with a crack of the whip, the carriage jolted. And so did the contents of his skull.
Squinting, he took another long look at his companion. When she was perturbed, the outer cinnamon band of her irises seemed more like a ring of fire encircling molten green pools. And as he stared into them, his head cleared bit by bit.
Stretching out his legs, he kicked an empty bottle that coggled a few memories into place. “Your father a tyrant, is he?”
“Not entirely. He isn’t one to shout or to raise his hand when an opposing argument is set before him. However”—she hesitated, pursing those pink lips thoughtfully—“he has a knack for turning conversations into mazes and, before you know it, you’ve agreed to whatever he wanted in the first place.”
He nodded in commiseration, having been sired by a master manipulator as well.
In fact, come to think of it, he was the reason Asher was here. If it wasn’t for his dear old pater, then he wouldn’t have heaps of debt waiting to bury him alive. Asher even recalled forming a desperate plan to finally liberate himself from the Luciferian tyranny.
But what was that plan, precisely?
He had no idea. Though he seemed to recall being disgusted by his own actions. Enough to drink an entire pint of rum. Enough to take a carriage to the church last night. Enough to wait outside until morning for his chance to . . . to . . .
No.
Asher sat forward as realization dawned, and he winced at the shaft of silver light lancing through the center of the carriage.