His Wicked Reputation (Wicked Trilogy, Band 1) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Madeline Hunter is a two-time RITA award winner and seven-time finalist, and has more than twenty-five nationally bestselling historical romances in print. A member of RWA’s Honor Roll, her books have been on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly. More than six million copies of her books are in print and her novels have been translated into thirteen languages. She has a PhD in art history, which she teaches at the university level.

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CHAPTER 1

It was well past noon when the maid delivered the breakfast tray to Hendrika’s opulent bedroom. Gareth Fitzallen finished reading the final drafts of a complicated business contract while the servant threw back the curtains and opened the window.

Hendrika purred, stretched, and rubbed her eyes. Gareth collected the vellum sheets he had spread over her body, the better to keep them organized. The maid plumped up an assortment of pillows. Hendrika sat up and rested her back against them, exposing her lush, naked body to the maid, to Gareth, and possibly to the family who owned the tall, narrow house across the canal.

“Do you require anything else?” the maid asked. Her downcast eyes still allowed a gaze that rested on Gareth’s bare chest. She glanced up into his eyes for a second through her lashes. Her nostrils flared. The maid was becoming a problem. He did nothing to encourage her, but inevitably Hendrika would see one of the sly smiles or hot looks sent his way.

Hendrika shooed the woman away, then poured coffee into the two cups. “What are all these documents?”

“The shipment to England from Honfleur. We have finalized the terms of the sale. The count’s factor and I need only sign. And you, too, of course.”

Although fair like many of the residents of Amsterdam, Hendrika’s eyes could grow very dark when she became thoughtful. They turned black now. “You are sure your brother the duke will guarantee your payment? Elbert would turn over in his grave if he knew I took this cargo from one foreign port to another on credit alone.”

He set down his coffee on the tray, gently brushed a long lock of her curly blond hair aside, and bent to plant a distracting kiss on the full globe of her breast. “Of all that we have shared this last month, I suspect your late husband would find our partnership in this shipment the least of it.”

Strong fingers stretched through his hair, then held his head in place, encouraging him to distress Elbert’s ghost all the more. She squirmed, almost upsetting the tray, and giggled in the guttural way she had. Then she pushed him away and returned to her breakfast, her breasts now heavy and hard and their tips protuberant. She buttered some bread. “Which jam do you want?”

“Cherry.”

Two newspapers had come up with the tray. She took the Dutch one and gave him the one out of Paris. He munched his bread while reading the French political news.

Suddenly a grip closed on his arm. Hendrika exclaimed something in Dutch.

“Gareth, my love,” she whispered after taking a deep breath. “Look at this here. Can you read it? Should I translate?”

He took the paper. She stroked his arm while he read the short notice she indicated. Five words in he barely noticed her there.

“Zeus.” His own breath caught and held before he exhaled.

His half brother Percival, the fourth Duke of Aylesbury, was dead. He had died more than a week earlier. Suddenly. Abruptly. Unexpectedly.

“This is shocking. He was not a sickly man. Far from it. Young still, too. Only thirty-three.”

“What is meant, the inquiry is open?” she asked softly.

“It is just a formality. I must go back, of course. Immediately. I need to help the others, and—”

“Of course. Of course,” she cooed sympathetically.

He turned the paper’s sheets until he found the schedule of packets from Amsterdam to London. Cutlery and china clinked while Hendrika returned to her meal. He set the paper aside on top of the stack of vellum.

“We will need to sign these contracts today, now.” He gestured to them. “I will send a message to the lawyers and arrange a meeting.”

She examined her bread while she slathered jam on it. “With your brother dead, is that wise? His name swayed the count to extend credit to you. It swayed me too. That and other things.”

He stretched out beside her and helped himself to a bite from her bread. “There is now another half brother who is the duke, one who loves me even more. God forbid he drops dead as well; there is yet another in line. We never run out of them. Nothing has changed.” He gave her a reassuring kiss.

She made the kiss a long one, then looked into his eyes. “But you will leave now, and I do not think you will be back. So I must ensure I am paid one way or another.”

She dipped her short, blunt knife into one of the little blue and white pots, then smeared the garnet jam around her breast. “Cherry, I think you said you prefer this morning.” She took the pot in one hand, and the knife in the other, and gestured for him to remove the tray. Carefully, slowly, she drew circles of jam around her other breast, dabbed two large globs on her nipples, then painted streaks down her body.

“Here, too, I think.” She spread her plump thighs, and painted lower yet. “Oh, yes, and here. You must be your wicked best this morning, so I do not worry about your credit today.”

He let her finish as she wanted. Then he braced himself above her and began licking the jam, so she would think about nothing at all for a very long time.

CHAPTER 2

Eva hitched her clumsy bundle higher under her arm. A snapping breeze threatened to unveil the object shrouded in old burlap. She stopped to tuck the coarse fabric closer all around the heavily sculpted plaster frame. When she had chosen this painting, she had failed to consider how hard it would be to hide and carry it.

While she fussed with her burden, she kept one eye on a figure moving on the road. Another stranger. With nearby Birmingham’s growth, and with all the people displaced by the failed harvests, strangers moving through the countryside hardly merited note. Yet this one raised a tiny alarm, for reasons she could not name. Maybe he moved too slowly for a man with someplace to go. In fact, it looked as if he had actually slowed so he would not pass the house’s drive before she reached its end.

This was not the first time she found herself wondering about a stranger. Last week there had been another one, this time in town. Only she was sure she also saw him later, on the lane near her house.

She scolded herself for inventing ghosts. Her current mission made her nervous, that was all. She should not have this painting, and guilt made her overcautious.

She walked on. She glanced back at the house she had just left as she approached the point where its drive met the road. Years ago, before half the trees lining this private lane died, most likely one could not see much besides chimneys from this spot. Now the derelict condition of the building was visible to all. More a large hunting lodge than a proper manor house, it consisted of stone wings attached to a rustic Tudor core. Thirty years ago it might have been considered haphazard in design. Now the tastemakers would think it charming.

Each time she visited, more damage could be seen. Today a whole section of garden wall had vanished, its stones no doubt pilfered to build some outbuilding on one of the nicer properties of Langdon’s End. She expected to round the bend in the road one day and discover nothing more than a heap of rock.

She turned onto the road, fussing with the stupid frame, trying not to keep looking back at the man now walking behind her. Suddenly she heard something that froze her fingers. A horse approached. From the sound of its hooves, it was galloping toward her and nearing the bend in the road ahead that would bring her into view.

She quickly examined her burden to make sure nothing showed, then walked forward with long strides,...