Sins Read Free Page B

grandson of the late duke’s great-uncle–if that was who he was–was now the next in line.
    But what about the last duke’s widow, who was now remarried? What about his daughter, Lady Emerald? Dougie couldn’t imagine them welcoming him, muscling in on what he guessed they must think of as their territory.He might not know much about the British upper classes, but he knew one thing and that was that like any other tight-knit group of people, they would recognise an outsider when they saw one and close ranks. That was the way of the world, and nature’s way too.
    A young woman with tired eyes and shabby clothes, her hair dyed bright yellow, her skin sallow, pushed herself off the wall on which she had been leaning and called out to him, ‘Welcome ’ome, sailor. ’Ow about buying a pretty girl a drink, and letting ’er show you a good time?’
    Shaking his head, Dougie walked past her.
Welcome home.
Would he be welcome? Did he want to be?
    Hefting his heavy kitbag further up on his shoulder, Dougie straightened his back. There was only one way he was going to find out.

Chapter Two
    Janey felt wonderfully happy. She should, she knew, have been feeling guilty, because she should be at St Martins right now, listening to a lecture on the history of the button. Mind you, she was in one sense concentrating on the importance of the button. She had unfastened the buttons on Dan’s shirt very carefully indeed.
    An excited giggle bubbled up in her throat. What she was doing was dreadfully bad, of course. Not only had she skipped a lecture, she had come back to Dan’s basement flat with him and they were now cuddled up against the January icy damp in Dan’s single bed with its lumpy mattress. Whilst Dan’s shirt now lay on the floor, Janey was still wearing her sweater, although the bra she was wearing underneath had been unfastened and pushed out of the way so that Dan could squeeze and knead her breasts, causing delicious quivers of pleasure to run right through her.
    Yes, she was
very
bad. Her sister Ella would certainly think so. Ella would never have missed a lecture, never mind let a boy fondle her naked breasts. But she, Janey,wasn’t Ella, thank goodness, and Dan, an actor whose sister was also at St Martins, was such a gorgeous boy. Janey had been attracted to him the minute she had laid eyes on him. And Dan was so very happy that she was here with him. Janey adored making people feel happy. She could remember the first time she had realised that she could stop herself from feeling frightened and unhappy simply by doing things that other people had wanted her to do. It had been when her mother had been in one of her frightening, erratic moods, and Aunt Cassandra had come to visit.
    ‘I’m glad you’re here, Auntie Cass,’ Janey had told her aunt, ‘because you make Mummy happy.’
    To Janey’s relief, immediately the atmosphere had changed. Her mother had started to laugh and had actually hugged her, whilst her aunt had been so pleased by her comment that she had given her a penny. Janey had been very young when her mother had died but she could still remember very clearly how frightened and miserable she had felt when her mother had been angry. From then on she had gone out of her way to say and do things that would make people feel happy…
    She had continued ‘being thoughtful’, as her teachers approvingly described her behaviour, all through school. Janey had always been eager to share her sweets and her pocket money with her schoolfriends, especially if she thought it would stop them from being cross about something. And now she somehow needed those around her to be happy before she could be happy herself. If one of her friends was unhappy then it was Janey who went out of her way to coax a smile from her. She hatedquarrels and angry, raised voices. They reminded her too uncomfortably of her childhood.
    She was so glad that she wasn’t like Ella–poor Ella, who always took things so seriously, who