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SIN
SHARON PAGE
KENSINGTON BOOKS
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
To A.J.
CONTENTS
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
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
London, April 1818
There was nothing like money to pique a lady’s desire…Lydia Harcourt smiled in triumph at the two open letters sitting beside her plate. Humming happily, she refreshed her chocolate with a splash from the china pot.
Promises of generous payment. Enough to pay her bills, if she were so inclined. But the tradesmen, so desperate about their unpaid accounts, were also so easily distracted.
She lifted the letter closest to her and reread it as she sipped her chocolate, savoring her victory. A thousand pounds.
Still, Norton really should be good for more. Perhaps if she pressed…
Lydia settled her cup on its saucer and gave a luxurious yawn and stretch. She was one of the few Incognitas who knew what morning was. She picked up the third letter delivered in the morning’s post. This one promised to be her coup de grâce.
None of her lovers could ever keep their secrets from her.
A talent that now served her well.
A flick of the letter opener and she smoothed out the thin sheet. For a duke, Montberry used the cheapest paper. He’d not wasted much ink either. One stark line sprawled across the page.
Publish and be damned.
And Montberry written beneath, with a flourishing ‘M’ and ‘y’.
Blast the man! Did he really wish the polite world to know what a dreadful bore he was in bed? To know about his preferences? The haute ton thought him a hero. A great man, larger than life. What a grand joke it would be when all learned the truth.
She tossed the letters aside, shook out her loose hair. Rodesson preferred her hair down and tousled into shimmering waves. For some reason, the eccentric artist enjoyed his carnal pleasures before noon. Her cunny bubbled at the thought of their upcoming encounter and she allowed a vindictive smirk to curve her lips, despite the risk of aging lines. It would be a delight to destroy Rodesson after the mocking pictures he’d painted of her! She would not even give him the chance to bribe her.
In fact, today she would start on the letters ‘R’, ‘S’, and ‘T’. She leafed through the small leather bound book that sat by her right hand. A good thing she’d kept meticulous records. Over twenty years, a woman did tend to forget the men she had entertained.
When so few had entertained her.
Two hours later, Lydia stretched out on her bed and skimmed her hands suggestively along her naked curves. She plucked at her nipples, then delved her fingers into her neatly trimmed nether curls.
She gazed with coquettish invitation at her visitor, but inside she glowed with victory at the pained look that burned in his green eyes. Handsome eyes that narrowed at the sight of her feminine juices soaking her curls, droplets sitting atop the bush of black hair like morning dew.
Even nearing sixty, with thick hair of pure white, Rodesson was a handsome man. Lean and well muscled. The lines on his face gave him a grizzled, sensual appeal. An artist, he appreciated that women enjoyed an aesthetic body on a lover.
How she longed to laugh. The great Rodesson, lolling at her feet like a lapdog.
“I would like to tie you up,” he said, hoarsely.
He was the sort of man that allowed the submissive to hold the power in the game. He would not force her, but he was waiting, his emerald eyes afire, to see what she would allow. What she would suggest.
Excitement rushed through Lydia, dampening her cunny even more. Rodesson sought escape in games of bondage when he was haunted by worries—either money or guilt, or when he’d sunk into maudlin contemplation of the woman he’d loved and lost.
“I am your servant,” she promised.
He was not yet fully aroused, though even in its semi-slumbering state his cock was long and beautifully formed. He would often be sexually excited without having an erection, eager to slide into her mouth and have her bring him to attention.
She merely flicked her glance to the bedside table, to the tangle of silken rope and ribbons jumbled on top.
Sunlight spilled through the paned windows, drawing crisscrossed shadows over her nude breasts, belly, and thighs. The thought of bondage at the time when most were rising to sip their coffee and chocolate did indeed titillate.
She closed her eyes as Rodesson left her bed to rifle through her playthings. She heard the sharp intake of breath as he discovered the true treat amidst the heap of restraints. A gift from the Marquess of Chartrand—jeweled bracelets designed to be locked to her headboard. They clinked as Rodesson lifted them.
“Roll onto your stomach, lass.”
Lydia obeyed. How could she despise this man yet delight in the deep, gravelly sound of his voice? Sometimes she thought she seduced herself.
She buried her face between her two plump pillows and shivered at the softness of silken sheets brushing her hard nipples and her wet quim. Once more she closed her eyes, anticipating the touch of a velvet rope or silver shackles to her skin.
A deeper excitement set her heart pounding. A troubled man enjoying kinkier pleasures was more apt to spill his secrets.
Why had he not yet touched her?
She lifted her hips and wriggled her bare arse to tempt him. Now she was truly aroused.
“Bind me,” Lydia whispered in a throaty, alluring voice.
A pressure, a roughness touched her calves. Finally. But this was not the softness of velvet or silk.
Startled, she lifted, shoved a pillow aside, as something rasped across her ankles. She twisted to watch Rodesson wrap a length of rope around her ankles. He had brought rope!
“I prefer velvet,” she protested. The rough fibers scratched. And would leave angry red burns.
“Silence, captive.” The rope wound tighter, cutting into her skin. She could not escape these bonds. Her ankles were well and truly trussed and she found the sensation exciting.
Perhaps