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CHAPTER ONE

GRAVESEND, DECEMBER 1817

In fleeing the society wedding of the year, Sophia Hath-away knew she would be elected to consider how infamy smelled

She paused in the doorway of the fetid dockside tavern Even fro bile into her throat A burly man elbowed her aside as he went out the door "Watch yerself, luv"

She pasted herself against the doorjaular form of address implied in "luv" The man’s comment had clearly been directed toward both of her breasts

With a shiver, she wrapped her cloak tight across her chest Taking one last deep breath, she sidled her way into the dank, drunken confusion, forbidding her gray serge skirts to brush against anything Much less anyone From every , this tavern abounded ineyes, set in hard, unshaven faces It was enough tolady of quality, traveling alone, under the flimsy shield of a borrowed cloak and a fabricated identity …

Well, it was alh to make Sophia reconsider the whole affair An unseen soers instinctively clutched the envelope secreted in her cloak She thought of its brethren, the letters she’d posted just thata scandal of Byronic proportions Seeds of irrevocable ruin, scattered with the wind

A cold sense of destiny anchored her rising stoh far worse than this shabby pub, if ither restrictive life behind She could even endure these coarse limpse the secret strapped between theht the eye of a bald-headed h--or at least, too old to strike quickly She sesture with a co, she ventured, "I’ for Captain Grayson"

" ’Course you is All the co pate jerked

"Gray’s in the back"

She followed the direction indicated, h the crowd on tiptoe in an effort to keep her hem off the floor The sticky floorboards sucked at her half boots Toward the back of the room, she spied a boisterous knot of men and women near the bar Onecleaner than that of his company A brushed felt beaver rested on the bar nearby, an oddly refined ornaled for a better view, a chair slid out fro her in the knee She bobbled on tiptoe for a ht on her boot, and the cloak wrenched open, exposing her chest and throat to the sour, wintry air In her desperate atteht herself, she clutched wildly for the wall--

And grasped a handful of rough linen shirt instead

The shirt’s owner turned to her "Hullo there, chicken," he slurred, his breath rancid with decay His liquor-glazed eyes slid over her body and settled on the swell of her breasts "Fancy bit of goods you are By looks, I would have priced you beyond my pocket, but if you’s offerin’ …"

Had he ue curled with disgust Perhaps she was disguised in siarments, but certainly she did not look cheap

"I ale away, but with a quick ainst the bar

"Hold there, lovely Jes’ a little tickle, then"

His griers dove into the valley of her bosom, and Sophia yelped

"Unhandbrute!"

The brute released one of her arms to further his lascivious exploration, and Sophia used her newly freed hand to beat hiers squir in the dark

"Stop this," she cried,his ear, to no avail Her efforts at defense only aht," he said, chuckling "I likes irls with plenty o’ pluck"

Desperation clawed at her insides It wasn’t simply the insult of this lout’s hands on her breasts that had her panicking She’d forfeited her genteel reputation the roped closer and closer to the one thing she dared not surrender If he found it, Sophia doubted she would escape this tavern with her life intact, much less her virtue

Her attacker turned his head, angling for a better look down her dress His gri distance If she bit it hard enough, she o She had all but made up her mind to do it, when she inhaled another mouthful of his rank sweat and paused If her choices were putting her ht rather die

In the end, she didn’t do either

The repulsive beast gave a yawp of surprise as a pair of massive hands bodily hauled hihed nothing, until he writhed in the air above her like a fish on a hook

"Come now, Bains," said a smooth, confident baritone, "you know better than that"

With an easy motion, her rescuer tossed Bains aside The brute landed so wood