Beauty and the Earl (30 page)

“Dry your tears, sweetheart,” he’d murmured. “Things are never as bad as you think them.”

They had been every bit as bad, but still Katherine had treasured the moment. And the handkerchief.

The second time she saw him was when she was being taken back to her cell from the doctor’s rooms—she had been ill with gaol fever—and he had passed her in the corridor, perhaps also having visited the physician. He had caught her eye and smiled, just a twitch of his lips, and then he’d bowed.

Katherine still remembered the heat of her cheeks afterwards, the bewildering sense that he admired her. She, the teacher’s daughter, the innkeeper’s mistress, the girl who never quite fit in anywhere.

The third time…well,
this
was the third time. They had met briefly only twice and yet incredibly he’d thought of her tonight, his last night. He’d chosen Katherine to be his final wish.

“You know you must do as I tell you, Katherine.” That deep voice again, making her tingle, bringing her back to the here and now. “This is to be my last night. My last wish. Do you promise to obey my commands?”

She’d already made her decision. Her voice was firm and sure.

“I promise, sir.”

“Good. Then I command you to sit down.”

She took a step forward and then another, aware of her ill-fitting clothing, her clogs almost falling from her otherwise bare feet, and her wet hair dripping down her back. It was so luxuriously warm in here. There was a fire in the grate and she wanted to run to it and hold out her hands. Instead she sat on the divan he’d pointed to and watched him the way a mouse watches a large cat.

He was watching her too, candlelight reflected in his dark eyes, a faint curve at each corner of his sensual mouth. He was the sort of man who could have anyone he wanted, she knew that. Women must be begging for him to spend the night with them.

And yet he’d chosen her.

Well that was a good thing, surely? She rallied herself. For after tonight she would be free of the filth and misery of Newgate, free to take up her life again, free from her lover’s debts. She would make a new life for herself…somewhere.

But that was tomorrow and there was still tonight stretching ahead of her. To her own surprise she felt a tingle of excitement and it was stronger than any doubts or fears she might have. Like a yearning. Or a promise of things to come.

Beauty and the Earl

Jess Michaels

Desire as essential as breath…deception as fragile as sanity.

The Pleasure Wars, Book 3

Liam, the Earl of Windbury, had everything when he held his secret lover in his arms. Until a feud between their families left her dead, his body broken, and his sister married to his bitterest enemy.

Wracked with guilt, simmering with rage, he’s spent a year in seclusion, seeing no one except a few servants as he does his best to forget the past and patently refuses to think about any kind of future.

When courtesan Violet Milford enters Liam’s lair, she’s on a secret mission to gather information for Liam’s desperate sister, who fears for his sanity, even his life. What she finds is a man scarred inside and out, whose dark, controlling sensuality hides the kind, wounded man within.

Violet awakens a sexual desire more powerful than Liam has ever known, and her stories weave a spell that begins to work its way past his defenses. But when the truth inevitably comes out, it could well destroy the love that is saving them both.

Warning: This book features a sexually experienced woman who will use every trick in her book to save a man from himself.

eBooks are
not
transferable.

They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

Beauty and the Earl

ISBN: 978-1-61921-343-2

Edited by Amy Sherwood

Cover by Kim Killion

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: April 2014

www.samhainpublishing.com