And The Widow Wore Scarlet (Scandalous Sons 1)

Wicked whispers reached her ears.

Every man with immorality flowing through his veins wanted to be the first to bed the Scarlet Widow. A group wager had been made by the members of White’s. An amount large enough to keep every downtrodden actress in firewood for more than a few cold winters.

In the crowded drawing room hedonists were dancing, telling bawdy tales, downing wine straight from the bottle. One frolicking couple lay sprawled on the chaise, so overcome with lust that they writhed and bucked for their audience. Smoke, thick and heavy, lingered in the air like Satan’s sinister mist. Hell’s fire blazed in the hearth. The pungent smell of tobacco and some other woody essence clawed at her throat. Devilish laughter rang loud amid the singing and sighs of pleasure. Honing her gaze, she searched this party of sinners, looking for her elusive quarry.

She did not find Damian Wycliff there, nor was he amongst the drunken sots playing hazard in the study. Lord Merrington grinned at her with his wine-stained lips and invited her to roll the dice. Only when she noticed the lord’s bare legs did she realise the stakes were clothes, not money.

Making a quick exit she moved to the billiard room, relieved to find naught but coloured balls rolling around on the green table. Two gentlemen were playing, one she recognised as the golden-haired Adonis from Jermyn Street who had ferried the injured Mr Wycliff home.

Both men studied her, leering at her figure as she stepped closer to the table.

“I’m looking for your friend,” she whispered to the gentleman who had once looked upon her measly lodgings with a sneer of disdain. “The one who once brawled in a dank alley off Drury Lane.”

He did not reply but glanced behind him to where Mr Wycliff lay stretched on a red velvet sofa, minus his coat and cravat and with his shirt hanging open at the throat to reveal a dusting of dark hair. The buxom lady straddling his thighs moaned and rubbed against him in such a provocative way one could not mistake her intention.

An image of Mr Wycliff lying wounded on Scarlett’s bed burst into her mind. She had run her hands over those thick, solid muscles, felt the power beneath her quivering fingers. Lord Steele’s legs were pale and puny spindles that struggled to support his ever-increasing paunch. Never had she met a man who possessed the same raw, rugged masculinity as the one currently tugging down the bodice of his eager lover’s dress.

The dark-haired man playing billiards cleared his throat. When Mr Wycliff failed to tear his gaze away from the lady’s breasts, the gentleman said, “Wycliff. You have a visitor.”

With his mouth but two inches from the woman’s protruding pink nipple, Mr Wycliff glanced in Scarlett’s direction. Dark, hooded eyes observed her with such intensity a shiver shot from her neck to her navel. His mouth curled into an arrogant grin and he moistened his lips as if he had just picked out his next dessert should his current one prove unsatisfying.

Lord, he was as sinfully handsome as she remembered.

With her eyes screwed tight, she had thought about his wicked mouth and cocksure grin many times while performing her wifely duties. It was never Lord Steele’s hands fondling her breasts. It was never her husband’s body squashing her into the mattress.

“You’re not an easy man to find, Mr Wycliff,” she said softly, teasing him from the depths of her hood. Judging by the empty wine bottles discarded about the floor, his memory might not be so sharp. “Do you remember me?”

“Should I?” The words rang with conceit.

“We met a few years ago.”

“A man cannot remember every woman he’s kissed.”

“Oh, we did not kiss. Well, not that I can recall.”

Damian Wycliff’s mocking chuckle rent the air. He sat up, forcing the woman on his lap to shuffle backwards and drag her bodice up to cover her exposed breasts.

“Trust me, had you experienced the rampant sweeps of my tongue, the moment would be seared into your memory.”

“Perhaps you proved to be a disappointment.”

“A disappointment?” Mr Wycliff glanced briefly at his friends, who seemed to find the comment just as amusing. “Then I highly doubt we’ve ever met at all.”

This was not the man who swooned while she stitched his leg.

This was not the man who cradled her to his chest to banish the cold.

This brash beast lived up to his rakish reputation.

Scarlett skirted around the two men using their upright cues as leaning posts as they watched the exchange. She came to stand in front of the man she had spent a month trying to locate. “It is difficult to have amorous thoughts for a man when he is bleeding to death on one’s bed.”

He drew his brows together in a look of curious enquiry. “And yet I never fail to rise to the occasion.”

Scarlett couldn’t help but smile. “And I would not swoon after the third jab of a needle.”

Recognition sparked in his eyes. Maintaining his calm, unruffled composure, Mr Wycliff swung his legs to the floor and rose to his feet. “Lower your hood.” The command carried a dangerous undertone that would make the most hardened criminal obey.

Excitement fluttered to life in Scarlett’s chest.