“I can blame him for forgetting that he’s at least nominally a gentleman,” Cam retorted. He turned to the doctor. “Dr. West, you are welcome to share my carriage back to Town if you have no wish to travel with Sir Grenville.”

  The doctor bowed. “Thank you, Your Grace. I still have to tend to my patient.”

  “Leave your infernal meddling,” Simon insisted. “You can wait five minutes.”

  The doctor cast him an offended glare before he stepped back with obvious reluctance. He clearly relished sharing in the dramatic events surrounding Lady Lydia Rothermere’s broken engagement. The story wouldn’t suffer in the retelling either, Simon knew, wishing the nosy sawbones to Hell.

  When they had at least the illusion of privacy, Cam leveled a frown upon his sister. “Now, my girl, I want some answers. How in Lucifer’s name did you manage to find us this morning?”

  Lydia glanced down and mumbled, “Last night, after the ball, I talked to Jenkins about what you’d planned. He always knows everything.” She paused, then met her brother’s gaze defiantly. Simon’s heart leaped with admiration and gratitude that such a spirited woman loved him. Her voice firmed. “I couldn’t let Simon die. Not when the mess we’d got ourselves into was mostly my fault.”

  Cam released a short laugh, amused despite himself, Simon could tell. “I should have guessed you’d twist Jenkins around your little finger. He could never resist your wiles, not since you were a lass. But I’ll wager that it won’t be just Jenkins who ends up learning of today’s events. Word will spread about your scandalous interference. The old tabbies will have a field day.”

  “Let them talk.” She paused and her voice lowered as she stared directly at her brother. “I’m so sorry, Cam. I know how hard you’ve worked to restore the family name. But you must have known you risked gossip when you invited Simon home.”

  He shrugged with seeming lack of concern and smiled at his sister. “I couldn’t bear to see you marrying without love. I knew you didn’t love Berwick. I hoped… I thought you still loved Simon.”

  “Heaven help us, you’re a romantic,” Simon said drily, although this was no revelation. Cam and Lydia had learned early to hide their passionate natures beneath an appearance of control, but Simon knew both of them too well to imagine the coolness was more than skin-deep. “If word gets out, you won’t be able to move for ladies swooning at your feet.”

  “I’m sure you’ll keep my dastardly secret.” Cam stepped back. “Now I assume that you two have things to say to each other.”

  “With your permission, old man, I’d like to propose.” Lydia turned to him with a soft smile that made his heart race. “Heaven knows I’m not good enough for your sister, but I love her, I’ve always loved her. I swear I’ll do everything in my power to make her happy.”

  Cam nodded. “You have my blessing and I hope soon my heartiest congratulations.”

  “Let me rig a sling for your arm first, Mr. Metcalf,” the doctor said, barging between them. “I’m sure your matrimonial intrigues can wait.”

  “And I’m sure they can’t,” Simon said. “I’ve waited ten long, lonely years to claim this lady. I’ll wait not one minute more.”

  “Hmph.” The doctor’s snort indicated what he thought of that sentimental nonsense.

  With ill grace, Simon stood restlessly while Dr. West completed his work. Lydia remained on Simon’s good side to prop him up as Cam wandered across to the carriages. In the distance, Berwick’s gig rattled away from the field with a speed that indicated high dudgeon.

  After the doctor ended his ministrations and trotted across to where Cam waited under the trees with his curricle, Simon forced himself to straighten. Be damned if he was going to propose marriage hunched over like a blasted gargoyle, although he couldn’t help his hand spasming on Lydia’s arm as fresh pain struck. With every minute, his arm worsened. Thank God it was only a flesh wound. If he hadn’t turned so abruptly at Lydia’s arrival, he had a nasty suspicion he’d now be lying dead on the frosty grass. He lost count of the number of ways in which she’d saved his life.

  At last they were free of eavesdroppers. About time. He burned to settle everything with his beloved.

  “My love,” he said huskily, making himself release her. He prayed he didn’t overbalance and end up flat on his arse. Fine proof of his potential as a husband that would give. “I refuse to ask you to marry me while I hang off you like damned ivy.”

  Displeasure shadowed her face. “I’ve had quite enough of your ludicrous masculine pride. I’d think you’ve had enough of it, too. What on earth made you come out here to fight Grenville? You’d unequivocally won any contest you waged against him. After what happened between us last night, you must have realized I’d given him up for good.”

  Simon knew that she’d never understand the peculiarly male imperative that had made him keep his appointment with Berwick this morning. “I couldn’t play the coward. I don’t want our children tarred with the tale that their father turned and ran like a rabbit from a challenge. It’s a matter of honor.”

  “Honor!” She spat the word like a curse, stiffening with anger that he knew stemmed largely from her reaction to crushing fear. “What if he’d killed you? He meant to, you know.”

  “But he didn’t.” Only gradually was it dawning on him that the rest of his life stretched ahead. A life he intended to devote to Lydia. “My darling, let’s not quarrel. Not now. Not when after all this time, we’ve found each other. I know I should go on my knees, but if I promise never to fight another duel, will you have me, sweetheart?”

  Furious tears glistened in her amber eyes. “I don’t know if I should. You’ve been so reckless and stupid. You’ll just find more trouble to tumble into.”

  “Probably.” He smiled tenderly down at her and raised his left hand to brush moisture from her fluttering eyelashes. “I need a good woman to keep me in line.”

  Abruptly her anger seeped away. She blushed and caught his hand in a shaky hold. “I’m not that good.”

  He laughed softly. His arm might ache like every imp in Hades poked it with a red-hot trident, but hard-won joy soared above physical discomfort. “That suits me, my love. You can be a paragon in public and my wild, passionate Lydia in private.”

  Her lips curved into an uncertain smile. She stared up at his face as if searching for answers to eternal questions. “Cam’s right about the awful scandal, you know.”

  He shrugged, then winced. He really shouldn’t move both shoulders just yet. “I can live with scandal. I can’t live without you.”

  Happiness shone in her eyes and she lifted his hand to brush a quick kiss across the knuckles. Call him a lovestruck fool, but the gesture felt like an act of homage. The tension in his gut eased. Even after she’d given herself to him, part of him had remained convinced that a woman as exceptional as Lydia would never agree to his proposal.

  “When you came back, you never said you wanted to marry me.”

  “I’ve said it now. Several times.” Simon swallowed, all impulse to humor leaching away under fierce emotion as he released her. His voice emerged calm and deliberate. The next words he spoke would be the most important in his life. “Lydia, my first and only love, the woman I will cherish all my days, will you marry me?”

  “I love you, Simon.” In spite of her widening smile, a tear overflowed and trickled down her cheek. In the strengthening light, her beauty was so vivid, he was dazzled.

  “And I love you,” he said gravely. “Is that a yes?”

  She inhaled on a husky sob and reached for him with desperate urgency. “Yes.”

  “Oh, my darling,” he choked out. Heedless of his wound, he swept Lydia into his arms and kissed her with the promise of forever.

  Want to read more of Anna Campbell’s Sons of Sin series? Turn the page to read an excerpt from SEVEN NIGHTS IN A ROGUE’S BED

  Chapter One

  South Devon Coast, November 1826

  Storms split the heavens on the night Sidonie Forsythe went to her ruin.

  The horses neighed wildly as the shabby hired carriage lurched to a shuddering stop. The wind was so powerful the vehicle rocked even when stationary. Sidonie had seconds to catch her breath before the driver, a shadow in streaming oilskins, loomed out of the darkness to wrench the door open.

  “Here be Castle Craven, miss,” he shouted through the sheeting rain.

  For a second, terror at what awaited inside the castle held her paralyzed. Castle Craven indeed.

  “I can’t leave the nags standing. Be ’ee staying, miss?”

  The cowardly urge rose to beg the driver to carry her back to Sidmouth and safety. She could leave now with no damage done. Nobody would even know she’d been here.

  Then what would happen to Roberta and her sons?

  The remorseless reminder of her sister’s danger prodded Sidonie into frantic motion. Grabbing her valise, she stumbled from the carriage. When the wind caught her, she staggered. She fought to keep her footing on the slippery cobbles as she looked up, up, up at the towering black edifice before her.

  She thought she’d been cold in the carriage. In the open, the chill was arctic. She cringed as the wind sliced through her woolen cloak like a knife through butter. As if to confirm she’d entered a realm of gothic horrors, lightning flashed. The ensuing crack of thunder made the horses shift nervously in their harness.

  For all his understandable wish to return to civilization, the driver didn’t immediately leave. “Sartain ’ee be expected, miss?”

  Even through the howling wind, she heard his misgivings. Misgivings echoing her own. Sidonie straightened as well as she could against the gale. “Yes. Thank you, Mr. Wallis.”

  “I wish ’ee well, then.” He heaved himself onto the driver’s box and whipped the horses into an unsteady gallop.

  Sidonie hoisted her bag and dashed up the shallow flight of steps to the heavy doors. The pointed arch above the entrance offered paltry protection. Another flash of lightning helped her locate the iron knocker shaped like a lion’s head. She seized it in one gloved hand and let it crash. The bang hardly registered against the roaring wind.

  Her imperious summons gained no quick response. The temperature seemed to drop another ten degrees while she huddled against the lashing rain.

  What on earth would she do if the house was uninhabited?

  By the time the door creaked open to reveal an aged woman, Sidonie’s teeth were chattering and she shook as though she had the ague. A gust caught the servant’s single candle, making the frail light flicker.

  “I’m—” she shouted over the storm but the woman merely turned away. At a loss, Sidonie trailed after her.

  Sidonie entered a cavernous hall crowded with shadows. Muddy brown tapestries drooped from the lofty stone walls. Ahead, the fire in the massive hearth was unlit, adding to the lack of welcome. Sidonie shivered as cold seeped up from the flagstones beneath her half-boots. Behind her, the heavy door slammed shut with a thud like the strike of doom. Startled, Sidonie turned to discover another equally geriatric retainer, male this time, turning a heavy key in the lock.

  What in heaven’s name have I done, coming to this godforsaken place?

  With the door shut, the silence within was more ominous than the shrieking tempest without. The only sound was the sullen drip, drip, drip of water from her sodden cloak. Fear, her faithful companion since Roberta had confided her plight, settled like lead in Sidonie’s belly. When she’d agreed to help her sister, she’d assumed the torment, however horrid, would be over quickly. Inside this dismal fortress, the horrible premonition gripped her that she’d never again see the outside world.

  You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Stop it.

  The bracing words did nothing to calm spiraling panic. Bile rose in her throat as she followed the still-silent housekeeper across acres of floor. She felt like a thousand malevolent ghosts leered from the corners. Sidonie tightened numb fingers around her bag’s handle and reminded herself what agony Roberta would endure if she failed.

  I can do this.

  The stark fact remained that she’d come so far and still might fail. The plan had always been risky. Arriving here alone and vulnerable, Sidonie couldn’t help considering the scheme devised at Barstowe Hall feeble to the point of idiocy. If only her clamoring doubts conjured some alternative way to save her sister.

  The woman still shuffled ahead. Sidonie was so rigid with cold that it was an effort forcing her legs to move. The man had offered to take neither her cloak nor bag. When she glanced back, he’d disappeared as efficiently as if he numbered among the castle’s ghosts.

  Sidonie and her taciturn escort approached a door in the opposite wall, as imposing as the door outside. When the woman pushed it open, it shifted smoothly on well-oiled hinges. Steeling herself, Sidonie stepped into a blaze of light and warmth.

  Trembling, she stopped at one end of a refectory table extending down the room. Heavy oak chairs, dark with age, lined the table on either side. It was a room designed for an uproarious crowd, but as her gaze slowly traveled up the length of board, she realized, apart from her decrepit guide, only one other person was present.

  Jonas Merrick.

  Bastard offspring of scandal. Rich as Croesus. Power broker to the mighty. And the reprobate who tonight would use her body.

  “Maister, the lady be here.”

  Without straightening from his careless slouch in the throne-like chair at the room’s far end, the man raised his head.

  At this, her first sight of him, the breath jammed painfully in Sidonie’s throat. From nerveless fingers, her bag slid to the floor. Swiftly she looked down, hiding her shock under her hood.

  Roberta had warned her. William, her brother-in-law, had been merciless in his excoriations on Merrick’s character and appearance. And of course, like everyone else, Sidonie had heard the gossip.

  But nothing had prepared her for that ruined face.

  She bit her lip until she tasted blood and fought the urge to turn and flee into the night. She couldn’t run. Too much depended upon staying. In childhood Roberta had been Sidonie’s only protector. Now Sidonie had to save her sister, no matter the cost.

  Hesitantly she lifted her gaze to her notorious host. Merrick wore boots, breeches, and a white shirt, open at the neck. Sidonie tore her gaze from the shadowy hint of a muscled chest and made herself look at his face. Perhaps she’d detect a chink in his determination, some trace of pity to deter him from this appalling act.

  Closer inspection confirmed that hope was futile. A man ruthless enough to instigate this devil’s bargain wouldn’t relent now that his prize was within his grasp.

  Abundant coal black hair, longer than fashion decreed, tumbled across his high forehead. Prominent cheekbones. A square jaw indicating haughty self-confidence. Deep-set eyes focused on her with a bored expression that frightened her more than eagerness would have.

  He’d never have been handsome, even before some assailant in his mysterious past had sliced his commanding blade of a nose and his lean cheek. A scar as wide as her thumb ran from his ear to the corner of his mouth. Another thinner scar bisected one arrogant black eyebrow.

  A gesture of the graceful white hand curled around a heavy crystal goblet. In the candlelight, the ruby signet ring glittered malevolently. The claret and the ruby were the color of blood, Sidonie noticed, then wished to heaven she hadn’t.

  “You’re late.” His voice was deep and as replete with ennui as his manner.

  Sidonie had expected to be frightened. She hadn’t expected to be angry as well. This man’s palpable lack of interest in his victim stirred outrage, powerful as a cleansing tide. “The journey took longer than expected.” She was so furious, her hands were steady when they slid her hood back. “The weather disapproves of your nefarious schemes, Mr. Merrick.”

  As she uncovered her features, she had the grim satisfaction of watching the boredom leach from his expression, replaced by astonished curiosity. He straightened and glared down the table at her.

  “Just who in hell are you?”

  The girl, whoever the devil she was, didn’t flinch at Jonas’s irascible question. Under disheveled coffee-colored hair, her face was pale and beautiful in the heavy-lidded, voluptuous manner.

  He had to give her credit. She must be scared out of her wits, not to mention as cold as a cat locked out in a snowstorm, yet she stood calm as a marble monument.

  Not quite. If he looked closely, faint color marked her cheeks. She was far from the indomitable creature she struggled to appear.

  And she was young. Too young to tangle with a cynical, self-serving scoundrel like Jonas Merrick.

  At the bella incognita’s side, Mrs. Bevan wrung her wrinkled hands. “Maister, ’ee said to expect a lady. When she knocked—”

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Bevan.” Without shifting his gaze from his visitor, he waved dismissal. He should be piqued that his original prey evaded his snare, but curiosity swamped anger. Just who was this incomparable? “Leave us.”

  “But do ’ee expect another lady tonight?”

  A wry smile twisted his lips. “I think not.” He cast an assessing glance over the silent girl. “I’ll ring when I require you, Mrs. Bevan.”

  Muttering displeasure under her breath, the housekeeper stumped away, leaving him alone with his guest. “I take it the delightful Roberta is otherwise occupied,” he said in a silky tone.

  The girl’s full lips flattened. She must be repulsed by his scars—everyone was—but apart from a slight stiffening of her posture when she’d entered, her composure was remarkable. The delightful Roberta had known him for years and still reacted with trembling horror at every encounter.

  Thwarted malice darkened his mood. He’d rather looked forward to teaching his cousin’s wife to endure his presence without suffering the megrims. This impetuous beauty’s arrival dashed those hopes. He wondered idly whether she’d offer adequate compensation for his disappointment. Hard to tell. So little of her was visible under the worn cape dripping puddles onto his floor.