Too Wicked to Kiss (Gothic Love Stories Book 1) Read online

  Too Wicked to Kiss

  Gothic Love Stories #1

  Erica Ridley

  Contents

  Too Wicked to Kiss

  Also by Erica Ridley

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Epilogue

  Thank You For Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2010, 2019 Erica Ridley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Too Wicked to Kiss

  His touch holds her captive

  From the ravens circling its spires to the gargoyles adorning its roof, Blackberry Manor looms ominously over its rambling grounds. And behind its doors, amid the flickering shadows and secret passageways, danger lies in wait…

  * * *

  to his every dark desire

  Evangeline Pemberton has been invited to a party at the sprawling estate of reclusive Gavin Lioncroft, who is rumored to have killed in cold blood. Initially, his towering presence and brusque manner instill fear… until his seductive attentions and unexpected vulnerability conquer her resistance.

  * * *

  But when a guest is murdered, Evangeline is torn. Could the man to whom she is so powerfully drawn, also be a ruthless killer?

  “A delicious, dark Gothic treat!”

  —Eloisa James, New York Times bestselling author

  Love romance? Have a free book, on me!

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  Also by Erica Ridley

  Gothic Love Stories:

  Too Wicked to Kiss

  Too Sinful to Deny

  Too Tempting to Resist

  Too Wanton to Wed

  * * *

  Rogues to Riches:

  Lord of Chance

  Lord of Pleasure

  Lord of Night

  Lord of Temptation

  Lord of Secrets

  Lord of Vice

  * * *

  Dukes of War:

  The Viscount's Tempting Minx

  The Earl’s Defiant Wallflower

  The Captain’s Bluestocking Mistress

  The Major’s Faux Fiancée

  The Brigadier’s Runaway Bride

  The Pirate's Tempting Stowaway

  The Duke's Accidental Wife

  * * *

  The 12 Dukes of Christmas:

  Once Upon a Duke

  Kiss of a Duke

  Wish Upon a Duke

  Never Say Duke

  Dukes, Actually

  The Duke’s Bride

  The Duke’s Embrace

  The Duke’s Desire

  Dawn With a Duke

  One Night With a Duke

  Ten Days With a Duke

  Forever Your Duke

  * * *

  Magic & Mayhem:

  Kissed by Magic

  Must Love Magic

  Smitten by Magic

  Chapter 1

  October 13, 1813

  Evangeline Pemberton’s head slammed against the carriage window, jarring her from another nightmare. For a moment, she thought she was still stuffed in a tiny, airless mail coach.

  No. She was almost free. She even had elbow room and a clean dress, thanks to the two scowling women seated across from her.

  Lady Stanton was a narrow, angular woman with approximately the same shape and warmth as an icicle. She stared down her nose at Evangeline with the same glacial expression she’d worn when Evangeline had appeared on her doorstep last evening. Then as now, Lady Stanton’s thin, bloodless lips pressed tightly together, stretching the single black mole hovering below her left nostril. A lavender gown swathed her sharp, bony limbs. Blond hair so limp and lifeless as to appear almost white coiled beneath her bonnet like the sloughed dry skin of a snake.

  Evangeline clutched her too-small pelisse around her shoulders and averted her gaze to Lady Stanton’s daughter. A pair of spectacles and a mint green hair ribbon softened the harsh pale beauty Miss Stanton—or Susan, as Evangeline had been bade to call her—shared with her mother, but the easy smiles she’d bestowed upon Evangeline earlier today had long fled from her face.

  Susan’s hands fell by her sides in loose fists to rest atop the crimson seat cushion. She wore mitts, long and tight as most gloves were, but without closed tips to cover the ends of her fingers. Perhaps she was immune to the harsh autumn chill.

  Evangeline straightened the blanket across her lap and tried to ignore the carriage window’s mocking reflection. Her borrowed dress was now wrinkled beyond all hope. Her stubborn hair refused to stay clasped to her head, choosing instead to cling to her neck and cheeks in damp curls. Grooves from the window frame left uncomfortable lines down her face.

  “Thank you again for the invitation,” she said, hoping to coax into the chilly confines of the carriage at least the pretense of a pleasant atmosphere.

  Lady Stanton turned her nose to the other carriage window, apparently preferring the lengthening shadows to idle conversation. Her thin fingers worked a delicately painted fan near her perfumed neck, filling the carriage with the cloying stench of unwatered roses left to wilt in a forgotten room.

  Wait. Shadows. “How long was I asleep?”

  Susan nudged her spectacles with the back of a gloved hand. “Hours.”

  “Hours?” Evangeline repeated, staring out the window in confusion. It had taken hours and hours to flee from her home in the Chiltern Hills all the way to London, but how could it possibly take hours to go from Stanton House to a local soiree? “Where are we?”

  Susan glanced at her mother, who was still pointedly focused on the setting sun disappearing behind the skeletal gray arms of leafless trees stretching their knobby limbs toward the heavy sky. Perhaps Lady Stanton was worried the impending storm would delay their travel. But their travel where?

  “Braintree,” Susan whispered at last, as though wary of speaking the word aloud. “We’re almost there.”

  The view from the dusty window dimmed with the setting of the sun, tinting the thick forest surrounding them from pink to purple to gray, until the only light came from the exterior carriage lamps.

  Evangeline’s flesh began to prickle. “I thought the house party was in town.”

  “I believe I said ‘outside London,’” Lady Stanton corrected without removing her gaze from the window.

  From ten in the morning to twilight meant more than a little “outside London” but having thrown herself on the Stantons’ mercy, Evangeline doubted she could complain and still expect shelter. A single day’s drive was far preferable to the living hell awaiting her at home.

  If her stepfather let her live. At this precise moment, he was either whipping his servants for allowing her to escape from the pantry or well on his way to finding her and bringing her back.

  “Your betrothed lives in…Braintree?” she asked Susan, seeking to replace memories of small dark rooms with a more pleasant topic.

  “Actually,” Lady Stanton answered, “he’s not her betrothed.”

  “Actually,” Susan echoed without making eye contact, “he’s never met me.”

  An uneasy tremor rippled through Evangeline’s stomach. That was not precisely the same story they’d told her back at Stanton House when they’d loaded up the carriage and set off for a “local” party.

  “I must have misunderstood,” Evangeline said slowly, although she was certain her hearing was as sharp as ever. “I thought you said you were going to marry him.”

  Susan adjusted her spectacles. “I am.”

  “That’s where you come in.” Lady Stanton closed her fan with a snap. Small hard eyes much paler than the blue of her veins glittered like a matching pair of hard, colorless
diamonds. “To help her win his hand and his pocketbook, by fair means or foul. After all, recluses cannot spend their wealth alone. A simple compromise should do the trick. Merely get them alone, then ‘accidentally’ stumble upon them, screaming for all the world to hear. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “What?” Evangeline stared openmouthed at the Stanton women, momentarily abandoning her intention to appear calm and biddable. “I’m to entrap an innocent bachelor into marriage with a complete stranger?”

  “He’s no innocent,” Susan said darkly, her gaze finally meeting Evangeline’s. “Quite the opposite.”

  Meaning what? Evangeline focused on the two women before her. Something wasn’t right. She shook her head, unable to believe the people she’d trusted to provide her with shelter had abducted her in a mad scheme to win an unwilling husband. “Why not seek marriage in a more…traditional way?”

  “Would that we were able.” Lady Stanton cast a quelling glance at her daughter. “Desperate measures must be taken now that the impertinent baggage is no longer welcome in London. Or by anyone who knows anyone who is welcome in London.”

  “If I were, we wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near Blackberry Manor.” Susan smiled, but the humor didn’t reach her eyes. “Of course, we might be caught dead anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” Evangeline fought the frisson of cold slithering between her stays and her spine. “Has there been an accident?”

  “Not at all.” Susan straightened her perfectly straight bonnet. “Lionkiller strikes on purpose.”

  “Lioncroft.” Lady Stanton rapped Susan’s knee with the fan. “Don’t bait the beast with that horrid nickname, or I shan’t be surprised to see your body join the others.”

  Evangeline froze, unable to tear her gaze from Lady Stanton’s hard, colorless eyes. “What others?”

  One hand rubbing her knee, Susan glared at her mother. “Just his parents. Perhaps mine are next.”

  Lady Stanton returned her attention to her window. “Your father won’t be attending the party.”

  Susan’s eyes narrowed. “Pity.”

  Evangeline’s gloved fingers dug into the squab. Such jests were never funny. “May I remind you,” she said quietly, “I’ve just lost my mother.”

  “Five days ago.” With her thin nose held high, Lady Stanton flapped a gloved hand toward Evangeline’s face like a frantic bird unable to take flight. “If that’s long enough to leave your home, it’s long enough to ensure we return to ours with a betrothal contract.”

  Five long, long days of unspeakable grief. Five equally long nights of sleepless terror. And one desperate attempt to escape Evangeline’s damp shift stuck to her skin as she rolled back her shoulders.

  “No matter what you think, I am still in mourning. Nothing will change that.”

  “Nobody’s asking otherwise.” Her lip curled at Evangeline’s still-shaking head. “You can mourn your mother and help Susan win Lioncroft at the same time. It’s not as if he’d prefer whiling away his time with you.”

  Susan adjusted her hair ribbon. “Do you dance?”

  No. But how humiliating to admit such a lack. Evangeline hesitated before replying, “When I’m not in mourning.”

  The eerie cries of unseen animals rose in harmony with distant thunder.

  “She doesn’t look like she’s in mourning,” Lady Stanton informed her daughter, sotto voce.

  “That’s because she’s in my castoffs,” Susan murmured back. “And I’ve never mourned anything.”

  “I’m grateful for your generosity.” Borrowed silk scratched against her skin as Evangeline shifted uncomfortably. “But I can’t condone tricking a man to the altar just to get his money, nor do I think locking ourselves up with a murderer for two weeks is in any of our best interests.”

  “Increased coffers are always in one’s best interest,” Lady Stanton countered. “But if you feel otherwise, so be it.”

  Evangeline’s eyes widened. “Truly?”

  “Of course.” Lady Stanton’s crystal eyes turned calculating. “Have a delightful walk back home.”

  A sudden burst of lightning lit up both the carriage and the countryside seconds before heavy drops of rain pelted the rattling windows.

  Evangeline shivered as an icy breeze snaked through the cracks. “There’s nowhere to walk to. Not even an inn.”

  “And you have no money,” Susan put in, casting a pointed gaze at Evangeline’s borrowed gown. “Which means you’re dead either way, so you might as well help.”

  “Just so,” Lady Stanton fanned her thin neck. “Miss Pemberton must do as she’s told. As do you.”

  “Only because it’s the lesser evil, I might remind you.” Susan turned to Evangeline, her tone apologetic. “It was this or stay confined to the town house until summer. I’d rather wait until the end of the party to trap him, but Mother wishes to get the compromise over with first thing. Either way, we do need your assistance.”

  To win the hand of a murderer? Evangeline rubbed the gooseflesh prickling her arms. “Why wasn’t he sent to the gallows?”

  “Nothing was ever proven,” Lady Stanton said with a snap of her fan. “Lioncroft’s quite clever.”

  “And both reclusive and exclusive.” Susan leaned forward, eyes shining. “We wouldn’t even be invited if Mother wasn’t a close personal acquaintance of his sister, Lady Heatherbrook. Just think—Lioncroft’s first social engagement since he killed their parents. Scandal sheets would pay dearly for first-hand accounts of this party!”

  Evangeline would have preferred to work in their scullery than join them on such a venture. “I must insist I be left out of any schemes to—”

  “Too late,” Susan interrupted, tapping the window. “We’re here.”

  A castle rose in silhouette against the stark light of the moon. The house, if one could call it that, was a massive, sprawling mansion with three stories and a circular tower, all made of wide gray stones. Two wings jutted forward from either side, forming three sides of a square, with a large gate in the center. Darkness enshrouded the whole, for few candles burned at the windows. Heavy clouds gathered over jagged eaves. Two hulking guardsmen heaved open thick wrought-iron gates. Thunder growled across the sky.

  “Blackberry Manor,” Susan breathed, and straightened her spectacles. “Black, like Lionkiller’s soul, and berry because he’s going to bury us back in the garden with the rest of the bodies.”

  “Not until after your wedding,” Lady Stanton snapped. “Coffers first, coffins second.” She pointed her fan toward Evangeline. “And you’ll do exactly as I say, Miss Pemberton, or you won’t have a bed to sleep in.”

  “Then I’ll just wait in the carriage,” Evangeline muttered, her breath steaming against the window. She cleared the glass with one sleeve. Fat droplets splattered against the rain-streaked pane as she stared at the looming mansion. Stone beasts glared at her from their crouched positions upon the roof.

  As they neared, more and more orange light flickered in the windows. A flock of ravens settled atop each tower. She could never live in such a dark, lonely place.

  She wasn’t even certain she could survive a fortnight.

  * * *

  As the heavy iron doors closed behind her with ominous finality, Evangeline came to a dead stop inside the entryway to Blackberry Manor.