To Kiss a Thief Read Free

lifetimes to earn.
    â€œMy parents?” Sarah interrupted.
    â€œYour mother was unwell. Your father took her home. He offered to return, to sort things out, he said, but Estley insisted that would not be necessary. You must understand, Sarah, if you wish my help to leave, you must cut all ties with them, with everyone you know. Forever.”
    Sarah felt one hot tear slip down her cheek. Did her parents believe her guilty, too? She thought of Mama’s downcast eyes, Papa’s sagging shoulders. Even if they did not, in Lord Estley’s world they were powerless to do anything to help her.
    â€œIt will be for the best,” Lady Estley insisted. “If you could have seen your mother’s face . . . The scandal will destroy her, I fear. This way, your parents can go back to Bristol and begin to put this unfortunate episode behind them.”
    Her parents, her husband—although Sarah had never been one to run away from her problems, it was difficult not to conclude that everyone would be better off if she simply disappeared.
    Perhaps it would even be best for her.
    She could live for herself. Choose for herself. Dream a different dream.
    â€œAll right,” Sarah whispered. “I’ll go.”
    Although Lady Estley had asked no question, Sarah’s reply obviously pleased her. “Very good, my dear. I’ll see that you have what you need. Come this way.”
    As Sarah took a last look around the room, she spied something on her dressing table. Almost against her will, she laid her gloved hand atop the small object, curled her fingers around it, and followed her mother-in-law down the servants’ stairs to the rear of the house.
    Lady Estley had had faith in her powers of persuasion. A hired coach and four were waiting in the mews, and her small trunk was already loaded—how long ago it had been packed, Sarah could not bear to guess. She stepped into the carriage without assistance and felt it sway into motion almost before she was seated. The coachman clearly had his orders.
    For the first time, she allowed herself to look at what she held in her hand. In the half light of early morning, the leather miniature case lay dark against her palm. Lady Estley had been showing it to her just the day before when preparations for the ball had called her away. Doubtless she would miss the picture before long.
    What, then, had possessed Sarah to take it?
    With her thumb, she flicked the clasp and St. John’s face was before her: aquiline nose, pale eyes, and hair the color of ripening wheat. It was an undeniably handsome face. Young. Arrogant. Almost a stranger to her.
    And yet her stomach did a curious flip-flop when she saw it.
    She snapped the case closed, leaned her head against the squabs, and resigned herself to the necessity of closing her eyes at last.

Chapter 1
    Three years later
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    â€œB ut why did you leave, Fairfax? I still cannot fathom it!”
    Because I was afraid .
    God knew it was the truth, although he was not a man who liked to admit feeling fear—who liked to admit feeling anything. In any case, it was not an answer to satisfy his stepmother, who had asked some version of the same question a dozen times since his return.
    â€œBecause dueling is illegal,” St. John offered instead, not for the first time.
    She waved an impatient hand. “Oh, pish posh. One hears of duels being fought forever.”
    He glanced out the window of his stepmother’s sitting room at the pallid September sky and the nearly empty London street below. “There was also the small matter of believing I might have killed a man. And the death of a military officer is no insignificant thing.”
    â€œBut he didn’t die,” she protested.
    â€œThree witnesses swore to me that Brice would be gone in a matter of days,” he said. “I could only act on the information I had in front of me in the moment. This house had been overrun by the boys from Bow