A TASTE OF SIN
“This is madness,” Ashton mumbled as he realized he had begun to undo her gown.
“’Tis a very sweet one.” She kissed his throat, savoring the taste of him, and heard him groan softly.
“Penelope, I am close to taking you right here, on the settee in your parlor.”
“Aye, it is, perhaps, not the best place for this.”
He lifted himself up on his forearms to look at her. Her lips were kiss-swollen, her eyes a hot blue that he now knew was caused by desire. She wanted him. He wanted her.
“You are an innocent,” he whispered.
“Innocent, but not ignorant. I live a short walk from a part of London where every sin known to man can be purchased. I may be innocent in body, but I know more than I like to. I know where this will lead and I know I want to follow…”
Books by Hannah Howell
ONLY FOR YOU
MY VALIANT KNIGHT
UNCONQUERED
WILD ROSES
A TASTE OF FIRE
HIGHLAND DESTINY
HIGHLAND HONOR
HIGHLAND PROMISE
A STOCKINGFUL OF JOY
HIGHLAND VOW
HIGHLAND KNIGHT
HIGHLAND HEARTS
HIGHLAND BRIDE
HIGHLAND ANGEL
HIGHLAND GROOM
HIGHLAND WARRIOR
RECKLESS
HIGHLAND CONQUEROR
HIGHLAND CHAMPION
HIGHLAND LOVER
HIGHLAND VAMPIRE
THE ETERNAL HIGHLANDER
MY IMMORTAL HIGHLANDER
CONQUEROR’S KISS
HIGHLAND BARBARIAN
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
HIGHLAND SAVAGE
HIGHLAND THIRST
HIGHLAND WEDDING
HIGHLAND WOLF
SILVER FLAME
HIGHLAND FIRE
NATURE OF THE BEAST
HIGHLAND CAPTIVE
HIGHLAND SINNER
MY LADY CAPTOR
WILD CONQUEST
IF HE’S WICKED
IF HE’S SINFUL
Published by Zebra Books
IF HE’S SINFUL
HANNAH HOWELL
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Contents
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
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter One
London—Fall 1788
There was something about having a knife held to one’s throat that tended to bring a certain clarity to one’s opinion of one’s life, Penelope decided. She stood very still as the burly, somewhat odiferous, man holding her clumsily adjusted his grip. Suddenly, all of her anger and resentment over being treated as no more than a lowly maid by her stepsister seemed petty, the problem insignificant.
Of course, this could be some form of cosmic retribution for all those times she had wished ill upon her stepsister, she thought as the man hefted her up enough so that her feet were off the ground. One of his two companions bound her ankles in a manner quite similar to the way her wrists had been bound. Her captor began to carry her down a dark alley that smelled about as bad as he did. It had been only a few hours ago that she had watched Clarissa leave for a carriage ride with her soon-to-be fiancé, Lord Radmoor. Peering out of the cracked window in her tiny attic room she had, indisputably, cherished the spiteful wish that Clarissa would stumble and fall into the foul muck near the carriage wheels. Penelope did think that being dragged away by a knife-wielding ruffian and his two hulking companions was a rather harsh penalty for such a childish wish born of jealousy, however. She had, after all, never wished that Clarissa would die, which Penelope very much feared was going to be her fate.
Penelope sighed, ruefully admitting that she was partially at fault for her current predicament. She had stayed too long with her boys. Even little Paul had urged her not to walk home in the dark. It was embarrassing to think that a little boy of five had more common sense than she did.
A soft cry of pain escaped her, muted by the filthy gag in her mouth, when her captor stumbled and the cold, sharp edge of his knife scored her skin. For a brief moment, the fear she had been fighting to control swelled up inside her so strongly she feared she would be ill. The warmth of her own blood seeping into the neckline of her bodice only added to the fear. It took several moments before she could grasp any shred of calm or courage. The realization that her blood was flowing too slowly for her throat to have been cut helped her push aside her burgeoning panic.
“Ye sure we ain’t allowed to have us a taste of this, Jud?” asked the largest and most hirsute of her captor’s assistants.
“Orders is orders,” replied Jud as he steadied his knife against her skin. “A toss with this one will cost ye more’n she be worth.”
“None of us’d be telling and the wench ain’t going to be able to tell, neither.”
“I ain’t letting ye risk it. Wench like this’d be fighting ye and that leaves bruises. They’ll tell the tale and that bitch Mrs. Cratchitt will tell. She would think it a right fine thing if we lost our pay for this night’s work.”
“Aye, that old bawd would be thinking she could gain something from it right enough. Still, it be a sad shame I can’t be having me a taste afore it be sold off to anyone with a coin or two.”
“Get your coin first and then go buy a little if’n ye want it so bad.”
“Won’t be so clean and new, will it?”
“This one won’t be neither if’n that old besom uses her as she uses them others, not by the time ye could afford a toss with her.”
She