Wicked Seduction Read Free

They had arrived at Michael’s elite London residence.
    Alex tumbled out first, all gangly limbs and uncontrolled movements. The boy was too thin for his large frame, but months at sea had made him strong. A month or two of his mother’s good food would see that he filled out nicely, though the scars would last a lifetime.
    Kit stepped out second, wincing as his thigh pulled painfully through his back. Sadly, a month, a year, or a decade of good food would do nothing for him. His wound had become infected and he’d spent much of the trip to England in a feverish haze. He’d survived, but his days at sea were at an end. Walking was painful, climbing the rigging was impossible. His leg would no longer lift as it needed to, and Kit had seen enough injuries to know that he would never again use his leg as fully as God intended.
    “We should have bought new clothes,” Alex said as he tugged at his coarse seaman’s shirt.
    Kit shrugged. “This is the best we own. He should respect that.”
    Alex wasn’t satisfied but knew better than to comment. Instead, the boy grabbed his seamen bag from the cabbie and began walking up the path to Michael’s door. Kit followed slowly, carrying his own satchel while using all his senses to find something familiar. He failed. Birds chirped rather than squawked or honked. The air tasted bitter with coal dust but without the smell of fear and sweat. The ground was solid beneath his feet, and that alone made him nervous. But most of all, even in this exclusive neighborhood of the very elite, buildings and trees seemed much too crammed together. There was no ocean expanse and no gentle rock of waves.
    He was still struggling to orient to that when the front door opened. Owen stood there, his face craggy with an extra seven years’ age, but his uniform and his expression remained as haughty as ever.
    “Hello, Owen,” Kit said. “Do you remember me?”
    The man narrowed his gaze over his pointy nose. His brow furrowed, but there was no mistaking the moment his eyes widened in shock. “Master Kit? Master Kit! It can’t be. You’re dead!”
    Kit quirked his lips. “I’m not a ghost.”
    Owen stared at him, his eyes watering from emotion. Kit could see his hands twitch as if the man wanted to embrace him but knew it wasn’t his place. Kit didn’t stand on ceremony, finding a well of emotion he hadn’t expected. Owen remembered him. And Owen was the first positive breath of his past he’d felt since returning to England. Stepping forward, he embraced the man, startled to find his own eyes moist with tears.
    “Oh, Master Kit, they said you were dead,” Owen breathed in his ear. Then he pulled back, wiping his eyes as he gestured inside. “Come inside, come inside.”
    Kit stepped into the foyer, moving with an odd sort of disassociation. His body stepped into the house and went about the usual routine of stripping off his gloves and handing over his hat. Except he had no gloves or hat and hadn’t for seven years. So he stood there awkwardly gripping nothing while he looked at his surroundings. Had it always been this clean? Had the footmen always sneered so clearly, their faces pasty white without so much as a smudge or beard to mar their pale skin? He had seen opulent palaces in the last seven years, displays literally dripping with jewels, but this dark wood that gleamed golden brown even as it absorbed every sound was distinctly English.
    Kit rubbed at his dirty face, realizing now how filthy he appeared compared to everything here. Even the butler’s clothing was pristine. Perhaps Alex was right and they should have bought new clothes. He’d forgotten how much refinement was possible in fabric and style. Even his shoes appeared a horror against the elegant wood.
    “We should have waited,” he murmured and was about to turn around when a cascade of feminine laughter flowed from the drawing room. Multiple women, multiple laughs, all musically delightful. His memory conjured up