The Greatest of Sins by Christine Merrill

Author:Christine Merrill [Merrill, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Historical Romance, fullybook
ISBN: 9780263898231
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Sam entered the duke’s London home with the sort of grim resignation he saved for delivering bad news to patients. He had received the invitation with indifference and refused it out of hand. But after his talk with Evie, he reconsidered. She would likely be attending as well. Since she did not intend to see him alone, he had best take any opportunity offered to be in the same room with her.

And perhaps a small show of co-operation on his part would sate St Aldric’s desire to know him better. He had stopped Sam again, before his exit from the Thorne home, to renew his offers of aid, advancement or at the very least a good meal. It appeared that the duke meant to badger him non-stop until he had made a brother of him.

Sam could halt such efforts in their tracks by announcing that his plans to seduce the man’s fiancée would make friendship difficult, but such honesty was more likely to reduce his contact with Evie than increase it. He had always thought himself a moral man, other than the repellent desire to bed his own sister, which put him square on the road to damnation. But now that his love was proved innocent, it appeared that he was capable of covetousness, duplicity and any number of other vices, if it helped him gain her back.

He would not hurt her, of course. But he would not have to. It would take only the smallest of nudges and she would drop the plan to marry another, and come running back into his arms. Then things would finally be as they had been meant to be, from the first.

Tonight, she was playing right into his hands. The duke must have informed Evie of Sam’s reticence. This morning, he’d another visit from Tom the footman and a terse note from Evie, reminding him of his promise to help her with this match. Unless Sam wanted to make the breach between them plain to St Aldric and answer the questions that would follow, he must put on a smile, come to dinner and prove that he had accepted the new boundaries of their friendship.

He had jotted down a hurried answer. The fact that she had set boundaries did not mean that he must be contained by them. When he had encouraged her to marry, he had not been in full possession of the facts.

When he had realised that he could offer no other explanation than that, he had ripped the paper to bits. Some things must wait until they were alone and face to face. Perhaps, by then, he would have come up with a better answer than this, for it sounded weak, even to him.

Instead, he had written a single line of assent to her and another to St Aldric. He would go to dinner and make nice, as long as it suited him to do so. If an opportunity presented itself to further his plans for Evie, he would take it and boundaries be damned.

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