The Price of Temptation Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Content Warning

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Discover more Amara titles… When the Earl Met His Match

  Everything a Lady is NOT

  The Duke’s Wicked Wife

  This book 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 coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Harmony Williams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  10940 S Parker Rd

  Suite 327

  Parker, CO 80134

  [email protected]

  Amara is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Erin Molta

  Cover design by Mayhem Cover Creations

  Cover photography by Period Images

  ISBN 978-1-64063-753-5

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition November 2020

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for supporting a small publisher! Entangled prides itself on bringing you the highest quality romance you’ve come to expect, and we couldn’t do it without your continued support. We love romance, and we hope this book leaves you with a smile on your face and joy in your heart.

  xoxo

  Liz Pelletier, Publisher

  I’d like to dedicate this book to my wrists.

  Although they utterly abandoned me during the first draft, in so doing, they taught me that there is more to life than working around the clock.

  Though not more to life than books.

  Content Warning

  This book was written using my experiences with PTSD as a blueprint for Adam’s symptoms and triggers. It contains panic attacks, flashbacks, nightmares, and other references to trauma including child abduction. This book also contains violence, bloodshed, profane language, and described consensual sex. For more detail regarding content warnings including spoilers, please see my website: http://www.harmonywilliams.com/books/the-price-of-temptation/content-warnings/

  Prologue

  August 1801, Bristol

  Adam Darling pressed his wife into the door of their hotel room as he fumbled for the latch. The color rising in her freckled cheeks, she laughed and turned her head to peer around his shoulder. The sound warmed him like sunshine.

  “Adam—”

  He kissed her, swallowing her protest as his thumb found the latch. She squealed as the door swung inward, the sound dissolving into giggles as she stumbled into the modest room. The gray light of the day bathed the room, the window thrown wide to invite the trills of gulls and crash of the salty waves. Catching her balance, Lily whirled in a circle. Her skirts swirled around her legs in a froth of white muslin as she turned to face him with a devilish grin. She lit the room with a brilliance to rival the shrouded sun.

  Zeus, he wanted her. And she was all his.

  With a whimsical tilt of her head, she spread her skirts and started to dip in a curtsy. “Mr. Darling, why don’t you come i— Ee!” The question ended on a high note as she slipped. Paper scraped along the wooden floor beneath her shoe as she caught her balance.

  Stifling his chuckle—if not his smile—he kneeled at her feet. The hem of her dress tickled his knee as he saved her from the scrap of paper. Her foot free, he lingered at her heel, running his finger along the sensitive hollow next to her Achilles tendon.

  Her eyes darkened. Her tongue darted out to taste her lower lip as she shifted her weight onto the other foot, suddenly serious. She planted her palm on his shoulder for balance.

  The promise in her gaze caressed him, sending a tingle to the tips of his fingers. His voice a low rumble, he whispered, “Don’t mind if I do, Mrs. Darling.”

  Those tantalizing lips tipped in a smile again. In a barely audible whisper, she said, “I think you should shut the door.”

  Reluctantly, he removed his hands from the thin stocking shielding her ankle. Keeping his eyes on hers, full of intent, he groped for the door and shut it one-handed. The paper in his fist crumpled at the movement. With his thumb, he flicked open the note, giving it the barest of glances as the latch clicked into place.

  His heart skipped a beat. He looked at the words again, longer.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The words danced on the page in a familiar script. Your charade is up. Meet me at the pier at midnight.

  He stuffed the offending paper as deep into his pocket as possible. Despite the ice chilling his veins, he offered his new wife a practiced smile. “It’s nothing. A discrepancy in the payment downstairs. I’ll sort it out later.”

  If she’d been looking at him, she would surely have noticed the brittle edge to his smile, however practiced. He could hide nothing from her. In the act of toeing off her slippers, Lily froze. Her eyes widened as she raised her gaze to meet his.

  “Are you certain we shouldn’t do it now? I wouldn’t want us to be turned out.”

  She was beauty and intelligence and fierce independence. Everything a man could ask for in a wife—better if her arms were around him. But she was also as shrewd as an assassin’s blade, and her tongue was often as sharp. If he didn’t distract her, she would have the missive out of his pocket in a trice.

  And she, too, would recognize the scholarly scrawl.

  He crossed to her and snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him. The curve of her body fit against him as if made to settle there. It felt like coming home—a feeling only she evoked in his restless soul. He wasn’t about to let anyone, not even the cowardly sender of the note, strip that feeling from him. Lowering his head, he pressed his lips to hers in a slow, languorous kiss.

  When he parted their mouths, the raw pants of her breaths tickled his skin.

  “It’s our honeymoon. They’ll let us be.”

  The last of her tension left her body as she twined her arms around his neck, fastening him to her. She returned his kiss without reserve, without self-consciousness. He lost himself in her.

  And as he did, he renewed his vow. For better or for worse.

  Adam had seen the worst of life. For Lily, it would only bring the better. No matter the cost.

&
nbsp; …

  As he approached the lanky, shadowed figure on the end of the pier, Adam breathed shallowly through his mouth. The air stank of fish and brine, undoubtedly wafting from some of the crates clustered near the moorings. The moon was a sliver in the sky, casting the barest glimmer of light on the wood glistening with ocean spray.

  If not for this cretin, he would be nestled in bed next to his wife. A dark mood settled over his shoulders like a cloak. As he stalked forward, he slipped his hand into his jacket pocket, caressing the pistol within.

  No. He kept it for self-defense, but it would take a threat far more lethal than this man to force Adam to use it. He didn’t kill. He had too much blood on his hands already.

  A half-shuttered lantern cast fluttering shadows in the ocean breeze across the lanky man’s cheeks, fat with affluence and youth. His disheveled hair wisped across his forehead, burnished with gold highlights from the lamp. As Adam approached, the man stared off into the distance, consumed by his thoughts.

  Adam fought the urge to hurl the figure off the pier, but his wife would not thank him if he tried. For whatever reason, she was fond of this worthless piece of sheep dung.

  Rigid, Adam stepped closer, commanding the situation. “You nearly bothered my wife with the note you sent.”

  The man flinched, returning to himself. He rubbed his thumb along his jawline absentmindedly. “Did I?” His breath came a bit quick, the only outward sign that he was intimidated by Adam.

  At his full height, Adam topped him by a few inches, and he’d retained the hard muscle he’d earned while in the navy. “See it doesn’t happen again.”

  “You’ve lost the right to make demands, Mr. Darling.”

  The way he drew out Adam’s name, the ring of his voice smug, sent icicles splintering into Adam’s lungs. “Have I?” Adam registered the bored tone of his voice as if from a great distance. He studied his enemy, but the other man’s demeanor only grew in confidence.

  He took a paper from his pocket but didn’t hand it over. Without breaking the hard stare of challenge, the other man drawled, “You have. And if you truly want to remove Lily from our dealings, you’ll do precisely what I say. You see, you should never underestimate a scholar. I’ve learned something about you.”

  His tone of voice spoke volumes. Whatever he’d learned, it was something Adam would rather keep hidden. He’d run from his past for years. And now that true happiness was within his reach, his ghosts had finally caught up to him.

  No matter what, it would not affect Lily. He would pay the price. Alone.

  “What have you learned?”

  “Why, Mr. Darling, I’ve learned that you ought to be dead.”

  A chill raised gooseflesh on the back of Adam’s neck. If he’d been facing any other man, he would have considered the words a threat. But this indolent scholar didn’t have the spine.

  Unfortunately, as he flapped the paper—his sharpest weapon—he appeared to have none of the scruples those of his class pretended to have. “This is information I’m certain others would be keen to know as well. Perhaps a certain personage aboard the Nemesis?”

  If the officers aboard the Nemesis had had the wherewithal to care about the absence of one young conscript, they would have searched far harder for his corpse. However, navy captains were nothing if not self-serving opportunists. But if Adam suddenly landed in their laps…

  Worse than the very public punishment due to fall at his feet, Lily was now tied to him—body, soul, and name. Whatever befell him, he would be hard pressed to keep her unaffected.

  “Show me the page,” Adam said through gritted teeth, needing the morbid confirmation.

  “Or what, you’ll take it from me by force? You’re out of options.”

  “And you’re bluffing.”

  The young man laughed, but there was little mirth in his expression. “Even if I were, you’ve only confirmed there is something to find. It’s a letter from the captain of the Nemesis and no, I’m not imbecile enough to let you have it.”

  Although every muscle in his body urged him to move, to push this cretin off the pier and put an end to this foolhardy attempt at intimidation, Adam held himself still. “So you admit the letter is your only copy?”

  For a moment, the younger man quavered. Then his chin firmed and he answered, “I wouldn’t do anything rash, if I were you. The good captain is awaiting my response. What I tell him depends entirely on what you do next.”

  If Adam had only himself to think about, he would have taken his chances. However, with Lily’s future in the gamble, he had to tread carefully. Clenching his fists to concentrate his simmering anger away from his tongue, he tried one last time to end this peaceably. “I thought you cared for Lily.”

  “I do. Which is why I’ve undertaken to ensure her happiness.”

  “She’s happy with me.” Her bright smile, her warm laughter. She was his light in the dark. The one good thing he’d ever had in his life.

  “She doesn’t know your true character. She doesn’t know what you’ve done.” For a moment, it looked as if the young man’s temper would get the better of him and he would inadvertently tear up his bargaining chip. Then he stuffed the paper out of sight, safe in his pocket. “I know the sort of man you are, which is why I know you will do exactly as I say to ensure she remains unsullied by your misdeeds.”

  Adam took three breaths, buying himself time to think. Still, with Lily’s future at stake, the only words he found were, “What would you have me do?”

  When the scholar grinned, he looked more like a fool. All he was missing was the face paint and the hat. “To begin, you will never approach or contact Lily again. Not tonight or any other. If you so much as sniff her shadow, I’ll consider her complicit in your crimes and act accordingly.”

  Never. Adam felt the word as a visceral reaction, a hook reaching down into his bones to chisel out the marrow. He could never walk away from Lily Darling. His wife. His life.

  “You cannot claim to be her friend if you do this.”

  With a gaze as cold and empty as glass, the man snapped, “She belongs in the bosom of her family, not gallivanting around with you. The ends justify the means.”

  He was a prick who took to heart the words of a man dead for three hundred years.

  “In a way, she has been harboring a fugitive.”

  He’d probably learned that out of a book, too.

  “Not knowingly,” Adam answered, his voice hoarse.

  The scholar cocked his head to the side, his soft cheeks making him look younger in the moonlight but no less devious. “I wonder if the courts will see it the same way.”

  Adam had no faith in the moral character of magistrates. His heart squeezed for what he knew he must do, if only to buy himself time to move Lily out of the line of fire. If he’d known when he’d risen from bed that would be the last he’d see of her…

  Her family will take care of her. They were a sight more loyal and supportive than his, barring his late brother. Lily would survive. She’d be spared the humiliation of a trial, the torture of prison. But will she ever forgive me?

  “I see from your silence that you have enough intellect to see reason, after all.” The scholar took a step forward, strutting like a rooster. “Now, then…” His smile widened. “Let’s discuss the money you owe me.”

  Adam ran his tongue over his lower lip. “I don’t have it all.” With his most recent windfall, he’d been generous one last time, distributing much of it to injured veterans unable to work and keeping the rest to begin his life with Lily.

  “As I recall, you’ve recently come into a fortune.”

  Reid was referring to the dowry. Lily’s dowry.

  Chapter One

  Four years later

  It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a married man crosses his wife, it is expected of her to sell eve
ry precious item he ever bequeathed her.

  However, this keepsake was different. Lily Bancroft stared at the intricately etched ring on her left finger, poised above the black velvet backdrop of the jeweler’s display. If she caught the owner’s attention, he would give her thirty pounds for the ring, if not more. It was, in her estimation, a masterpiece. Artfully wrought vines climbed the gold band that glinted in the sunlight streaming through the lone window of the Bond Street shop. The vines opened into delicate curved petals with a deep, clear sapphire in the center. In the past four years, Lily hadn’t removed the ring once.

  Not due to sentimentality over her capricious husband. No, he—and his gifts—meant less to her than Prinny’s ablutions. But the ring represented more than the naive flight of fancy that had led her so far down the path to perdition that she’d stumbled to the altar with an unsuitable man. The ring had been sold to her husband by her father. It had been one of the last creations Papa had ever made. She couldn’t part with it.

  Not even to feed my sisters? Papa would have wanted that.

  If Papa had gotten what he’d wanted, she wouldn’t have to deal with so much confounded resistance to her attempts to step into his shoes. He’d had no sons. Therefore, when his health had started failing a month after her wedding, he’d trained her in the art of crafting jewelry. But without a man at her back—even with the dubious respectability of her married state—the shop was failing. Her gaze drifted to the Bond Street wares. The delicate chains attached to pendants might have fooled the vapid lords and ladies who frequented the shop, but Lily’s trained eye noticed every imperfection in the cut of the jewels and the fragile chain work. How lowering, to contemplate selling a work of art to a mountebank.

  But if she didn’t, she and her sisters were in danger. More creditors haunted their doorstep every day, and Lily alone was no longer enough to assuage them. If Mama had been in the proper mind to handle this…

  No ifs. Lily stopped herself from contemplating what could have been. Her mistake had cost her family everything. Because she’d married the wrong man, their lives had careened out of control. The once-lofty Bancroft family, mingling with the upper crust of Society due to the wealth and affluence of Papa’s shop, now relied solely on Lily for sustenance.