Beyond Rubies (Daughters of Sin Book 4) by Beverley Oakley Page A

she opened the door to Kitty’s repeated knocking, pushing back the greasy strands of gray hair that had escaped from beneath her grubby nightcap, and pushing out her massive, equally grubbily upholstered bosom with a show of belligerence. “Wot yer doin’ ’ere when yer said, quite certain-like, yer’d not be sleepin’ ’ere agin. I got three in yer bed, so it’s the floor fer yer, miss.”
    With awful certainty, Kitty knew that meant no blanket, either. Before she had come to live with Mrs. Mobbs, her only real experience of deprivation had been when visiting the cottagers with her mother on some of their ‘do-gooding’ expeditions. Not that there’d been too many of those. Kitty well remembered the disapproving responses that had made her mother blush, and Lissa cry, before Kitty was old enough to realize that poor people liked to be able to take the moral high ground when it made them feel superior.
    “Well, are yer comin’ in or wot?”
    Kitty swung around and hailed John who was just climbing back onto the box. “I’ve changed my mind, Mrs. Mobbs,” she said over her shoulder. “Sorry to have woken you.”
    She didn’t wait to hear the inevitable grumbles, or worse, but instead climbed into Lord Nash’s carriage, reassuring Jack that Lord Nash would be delighted to be surprised. Hadn’t she’d spent the past ten days all but having taken up residence with Lord Nash, and, in fact, a number of articles of her clothing were in his keeping. He’d been immensely generous, buying her gifts to supplement her wardrobe, or just to please her during every jaunt they’d taken together. Of course, he’d be delighted to find her in his bed when he returned from his night of gaming or drinking at his club.
    Kitty understood it was too early for a marriage proposal, but was satisfied by the intensity of his Lordship’s devotion and confident it would lead to the ring, the legal union her mother had failed to secure. But then, her mother had been weak. Kitty would never have forgiven a man who had betrayed her as Lord Partington had betrayed her mother. She’d never have consented to live with him in sin, and bear his bastards.
    Bastards. The description never failed to make Kitty hot with shame, and deeply resentful toward her mother. Her whole life, Kitty had only ever known disapproval. It was only here in London that she felt accepted. She was good at her craft, and the exhilaration of being feted wherever she went, and admired—no, loved—by the handsomest, most eligible young buck in all the country was like an addiction.
    “Thank you, John,” she whispered to the coachman who had again tried to persuade her to return to Mrs. Mobbs. She stepped onto the pavement into the dark. It was only a few feet to the railing. Tonight she would take the servants’ entrance.
    Susan, the tweeny who slept on a pallet by the kitchen fire, let her in, rubbing her eyes and greeting her sleepily. With mounting excitement, Kitty crept along the corridor toward his Lordship’s bedchamber.
    She didn’t knock as she quietly turned the doorknob. She was too excited at the prospect of sliding into bed beside him and surprising him. She hoped he’d returned from his club. What would he do? He’d laugh his delight, kiss her nose and then make wild and passionate love to her. Oh, but he made her ridiculously happy. Kitty had never known such lighthearted joy in her whole life. She was young, beautiful, with the world at her feet, and soon she’d be slotted into the kind of life she ought to have had if her father had behaved as honor dictated.
    Kitty had no intention of being an object of derision, like her mother. She wasn’t going to slave for other people, like Lissa, whose whereabouts were still a mystery.
    Kitty closed the door quietly behind her, excitement bubbling in her veins. Lissa had always painted herself as the sensible, older sister, but Kitty was the one who was going to distinguish herself in the family