Reckless by Anne Stuart Page A

her with his desperate flailing. She lay there and watched him die, a deep, cold satisfaction filling her. And she didn’t allow herself to pass out until he was gone.
    There was no scandal, of course. No one mentioned the widow’s bruised face and broken arm, and her pale, bloodless complexion they attributed to grief, not blood loss and fever. By the time she called Charlotte to her side, her body, at least, had healed.
    Lina looked out the window of Hensley Court, toward the just-visible spires of the ruined abbey, where the Revels went on without her. No orgy for her this time. No chance to once more show herself that men were crude and worthless. No chance to laugh and lie and play the part.
    She didn’t know what drove her, and she didn’t care to find out. The adoration of men distracted her,and if their intense pleasure never migrated to her, she was too good an actress to let on.
    Occasionally she would feel a twinge of desire, and she would hope that she would finally feel the pleasure so many talked of.
    It never happened.
    The green dress was just right for someone who most definitely wasn’t attending an orgy. And it would amuse Monty, who knew her better than anyone, even Charlotte.
    At the last minute she took an outrageous beauty patch and placed it near the corners of her lush mouth. It would draw the good vicar’s attention to her lips, and most probably fill him with outraged disapproval and contempt. He thought she was a whore, knew she was a whore. Even in demure clothes she needed to remind him that his belief was correct.
    It was just past dawn when she moved down the deserted hallway of Hensley Court. No one was in sight but an early-morning housemaid, lugging a bucket of coal. She turned in to the center wing of the large, Elizabethan house, built in the shape of the letter E to honor the reigning sovereign. It hadn’t done much good, Monty had told her, since said ancestor had been deprived of his head anyway, but the house had remained in the family. At least as long as Montague lived. Since he had no issue, God only knew what would happen to the place and the title.He must have an heir somewhere, a distant cousin or the like.
    Someone was standing outside Montague’s door, and in the unlit, shadowy hallway she thought it was Dodson, her friend and coconspirator. But Dodson was a skinny man, with slightly bowed shoulders. A footman, perhaps, she hoped with a dismal faith that she was right. The shape of the man showed him to be tall, well built, and Monty liked his footmen pretty. But it wasn’t a servant.
    The man moved away from the door out of the shadows, and she readied herself for battle.
    â€œHe needs sleep,” Simon Pagett said.
    â€œI have no intention of keeping him awake. I want to bear him company while he sleeps.” She kept her voice calm and reasonable. If it came to a battle of wills she had no idea who Dodson and the servants would choose. On the one hand, they liked and trusted her. On the other, Pagett was a male, and a vicar, to boot, and none of them would fancy the idea of hell.
    Someone had heard the sound of voices, and before Pagett could reply, a footman appeared, bearing a candelabrum. She reached out for it, but Pagett had longer arms, and he overreached her, taking it in one capable hand. “We shouldn’t argue outside his door, Lady Whitmore,” he said, his eyes taking in her somber garb, then rising to see the provocative beauty mark on her cheek. There was an arrestedexpression in his eyes, most likely disgust, though she couldn’t be quite certain.
    â€œI have no intention of arguing with you,” she began, only to find her arm taken in his firm grasp as he propelled her away from the door, down the hall. She didn’t struggle—it was too undignified. Besides, this proper vicar wasn’t going to hurt her.
    He took her all the way to the end of the wing, where a small salon waited. There were