Sweet Scandal Read online

  Heart’s Temptation Book 4

  By

  Scarlett Scott

  Sweet Scandal

  Heart’s Temptation Book Four

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2017 Scarlett Scott

  Edited by Grace Bradley

  Formatted by Dallas Hodge, Everything But The Book

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded, or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is punishable by law.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events, or locales, is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  For more information, contact author Scarlett Scott.

  www.scarsco.com

  Dedication

  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

  Preview of Restless Rake

  Other Books by Scarlett Scott

  About the Author

  Not the average lady

  Lady Helen Harrington is a spinster by choice. She hasn’t any desire to entangle herself in romantic nonsense. Instead, she prefers to spend her time championing the causes nearest to her heart through writing articles for the London Beacon. When a ruthless American tycoon suddenly buys the struggling paper with plans to turn it into a business journal, Lady Helen isn’t about to stand idly by or put down her pen. Even if the ruthless tycoon in question happens to be the most maddeningly handsome man she’s ever met in her life.

  Not the average man

  Levi Storm built his empire the hard way, spending years working his way out of the slums where he grew up. He won’t allow a spoiled aristocrat like Lady Helen to interfere with his plans to further his brand with the newspaper he’s just acquired. It doesn’t matter how lovely she is or how persuasive her arguments or how perfectly she fits in his arms.

  One sweet scandal

  When scandal looms and Helen discovers a shocking secret about Levi, she does what she must to protect herself. But Levi isn’t the sort of man who admits defeat, and he’s not ready to give up on the plucky Lady Helen, especially when he discovers that she has secrets of her own…

  This book is dedicated to the many NICU nurses who cared for our twins as if they were their own (especially Kelly, Kelsey, Fran, and Jade), who cried and laughed and cheered with us, who hugged us when we needed it most, and who were there for us and our precious girls when no one else was. Their kindness, compassion, and dedication to our children and countless others is utterly inspiring. To them and NICU nurses everywhere: thank you. Words can’t describe what you do for the parents and tiny babies whose lives you change forever.

  London, 1883

  ust as she had done each month she was in town for the last three years, Lady Helen Harrington stepped into the offices of the London Beacon. But on this day, something was frightfully out of the ordinary. She clutched her latest article to her silk pelisse as though it were a shield.

  The Beacon had never been a bustling hub of activity. Indeed, as a journal concerned with egalitarian matters rather than societal gossip or daily news fodder, it had suffered from both lack of staff and funds. Often, the only soul in the office was the owner and editor, Mr. Bothwell.

  And yet, somehow before her swarmed a veritable hive of activity. Men were everywhere. Wooden crates and plaster dust and papers littered the quarters. There was banging and clanging and shouting and, strangely, the entire building itself seemed to be buzzing.

  No one appeared to notice her as she stood in the entryway, gawking at the commotion. A man bearing tools almost crashed into her in his eagerness to reach his destination. She sidestepped him and managed to run smack into a hard wall of chest instead.

  Her papers and her reticule went flying and she nearly fell to the floor with the impact of the collision. Large hands caught her around the waist, pulling her far too close to an equally large, solidly muscled male form.

  “Oh dear,” she muttered, hastily stifling any quickening of her pulse that was inspired by the rather indelicate position.

  “Steady,” the man commanded in a distinctly American accent. One word and he’d given himself away.

  She looked up into his impossibly blue gaze and her pulse exerted a will of its own, kicking back into a gallop. Good heavens, he was beautiful. There was no other way to describe him. His wavy, dark hair was swept back from his forehead, perhaps a bit too long for fashion, his lips molded with enough perfection that even she, dedicated spinster, was not unaffected. The finely trimmed beard covering his strong jaw made him appear intensely masculine in the very best way possible. If ever Helen had laid eyes upon a man who could shake her unwavering resolution to never again be wooed or misled by a man, surely it was he.

  “I trust you aren’t injured?” he asked, his words managing to pierce the London-like fog that had taken up residence in her brain. Oh yes indeed, very American, that accent. There were certainly enough of them traveling in her circles these days. But not this man. She would not have forgotten him.

  “Madam?” he pressed when she failed to respond.

  “No,” she hurried to reply lest he realize the cause for her lack of alacrity. Goodness, she gawped at him as though she’d never before seen a handsome man. Or a man at all.

  “Excellent.” He released her and bent to retrieve her fallen papers and purse before handing them back to her. “Please see yourself out.”

  The tone of his voice was not one of concern but rather one of irritation. Had the man no manners? He was dismissing her, and with such insolence?

  “Who are you, sir?” she demanded, unnerved by his rudeness and determined to get to the bottom of the tumult before her. “What is going on here?”

  He raised an imperious brow at her. “May I ask who you are, madam?”

  She blinked, finding his arrogance and audacity most vexing. “Who I am?”

  “That is indeed the question I just posed.” His expression remained an icy mask.

  He wasn’t about to budge. Very well. She too could be persistent. “Where is Mr. Bothwell?” she asked instead of answering him.

  He waved a dismissive hand as though to suggest that Mr. Bothwell’s mere mentioning was as bothersome to him as a fly. “Bothwell is gone. Off happily counting his pounds somewhere, I’d suspect.” His gaze flicked over her person, boldly taking stock of her in a way that had her cheeks heating. “What business have you with him?”

  “Business?” She frowned then.

  Ladies of her station did not have business. No, indeed. The articles she wrote for the Beacon had initially earned her a bit of pin money, but as time had worn on and the Beacon’s pockets were increasingly to let, she had merely volunteered her services instead. After all, it had been the platform she relished and not any meager funds once associated with it. The opportunity to give voice to the causes that were important to her was of the greatest significance. Through it, she and her
fellow reformers had already done a great deal of good by raising funds and awareness both.

  His sensual mouth compressed into a firm line. “Are you dimwitted, madam?”

  The question took her aback. Of all the insolence she’d encountered in her life, the man before her surely took the proverbial cake. “How dare you?”

  “Hang it, I haven’t time to squabble with a woman who keeps repeating every word I say.” He all but growled before hailing one of the men engaged in the industry of hauling away some battered old furniture. “You there, please see that this lovely, confused lady is taken to her personal conveyance at once.”

  And then without preamble, without even so much as another glance in her direction, he turned his back on her.

  She had been dismissed.

  Helen stared at his infuriating back, noting despite herself just how broad and well-muscled it appeared to be. Precisely who did he think he was? Did he not know she was a lady? That she was the daughter of an earl? That she ought to be at least treated with a modicum of respect if not gallantry?

  Oh no he didn’t.

  She sidestepped the poor fellow assigned with the task of escorting her to her carriage and hurried after the source of her discourteous dismissal. “Sir, I must insist on an answer. What in heaven’s name is going on here?”

  He spun about on his heel, surprise evident in every line of his visage. Perhaps he had expected her to meekly do his bidding. If so, he was bound to be sorely disappointed. “Madam, kindly leave my building as you’ve been instructed. I have a great deal more important things to do than answer your hen-witted questions.”

  His building? His arrogance knew no bounds. And now he called her hen-witted? Surely the man must be daft. Either that or he was utterly mad, for there was no other explanation for such an appalling lack of couth. “This building belongs to the London Beacon,” she pointed out. “I write a monthly column for the Beacon, and I won’t be going anywhere until I can speak with Mr. Bothwell directly.”

  “Damn it all,” he muttered, startling her by taking her elbow in a firm grasp and propelling her toward Mr. Bothwell’s office. “Come with me.”

  He said the last as though he gave her an option. He hadn’t. The man all but dragged her across the floor and into the room that had once housed Mr. Bothwell’s sturdy old desk and a bookcase laden with fine literature. He slammed the door behind them, and she should have flinched or objected to the impropriety but she was too engaged in taking in her surroundings to notice.

  Mr. Bothwell’s office had changed. A brand new, fine mahogany desk with intricate carving and an inlaid mother of pearl monogram bearing an ‘S’ dominated the room. The carpet was lush beneath her feet and the gaslight had been replaced by gleaming electric globes. A fresh coat of paint had been applied, and it all looked very costly and very unlike any expense that could be afforded by the haphazard Mr. Bothwell.

  Understanding dawned upon her at last. The forbidding man before her and his insufferable demeanor had so flummoxed her that she hadn’t listened carefully enough to what he’d said. “Do you mean to say that Mr. Bothwell has sold the paper?”

  The old rotter hadn’t said a word to her when she’d last seen him. He had simply accepted her article and said he would see her in a month’s time. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. Mr. Bothwell’s fingertips had retained their typical ink stains, his thinning shock of white hair mussed as always. He hadn’t suggested at all that anything was amiss.

  “That is precisely what I mean to say.” He towered over her, so near she could detect the faint, masculine scent of his soap. “I own this building and the London Beacon both. Mr. Bothwell won’t be returning, and your services will no longer be required.”

  Dismay rattled through her. “But I have an understanding with Mr. Bothwell. I’ve been writing a monthly for three years now.” The Beacon had been the only publication where she’d managed to publish her views. Bothwell espoused reform, and he’d been willing to give her free reign in venting her sometimes de trop and sometimes shocking notions. Indeed, the Beacon had always been a paragon of reform, at least until the interloper before her had greased the old man’s palms. She very much feared she couldn’t find another paper that would dare to publish her work, and she had yet so much to say and do. Why, she had only just begun.

  He remained impervious to her pleas. “Whatever arrangement you had with the former editor and owner is no concern of mine.”

  Well. It would seem that he was equal parts good-looking and callous. He appeared quite inflexible. But she too was made of stern stuff. One had to be when one possessed three minx sisters and three wayward brothers. “You needn’t be so dismissive, sir. I’ve put a great deal of research into this article, and it’s about—”

  “I don’t care,” he interrupted. “I don’t care if it’s about butterflies or your grandmother’s shoes. It won’t be published by my paper, and nor will anything else you write. As I said, your services will no longer be required.”

  The blighter. Butterflies and an old woman’s shoes indeed. As though she would have nothing of greater import, no topic weightier than fripperies and nonsense to offer the reading public. Now her temper was rather beginning to get the best of her. “Sir, your manners are deplorable.”

  He flashed her a grin that wasn’t polite or kind but somehow still had an effect on her. Dash it all, the man had dimples. Dimples, of all the preposterous things! As though he needed anything else to enhance his looks.

  “Madam, if I had ever concerned myself with manners, I wouldn’t have a cent to my name. As edifying as I find this discussion, I truly do have more significant matters requiring my attention. Would you care for me to have you escorted to the door or would you prefer to be thrown over my shoulder like a haversack and carted there?”

  “Are you threatening my person, sir?” Surely he wouldn’t dare.

  He closed the distance between them, setting his hands upon her waist. Apparently he was and he would. “You have until the count of three, madam. One. Two.”

  She placed her hands over his, trying in vain to tug free of his grasp. It was a mistake. Even through her gloves, the contact felt somehow oddly, delightfully intimate. She gazed up into those ethereal blue eyes and realized he’d stopped counting. Her corset had grown unaccountably tight and an unsettling sensation had taken up residence deep within her. None of it made a whit of sense since each time the man opened his mouth the sentences he uttered were even more rude than the last. He was difficult. Arrogant. Irritating.

  Handsome.

  “Sir, you must release me at once,” she forced herself to say in her haughtiest tone.

  For a moment, he simply stared, their enmeshed gazes yielding a simmering tension that was as undeniable as it was unwanted. His grip on her waist tightened, almost becoming possessive. She found it hard to breathe. His head dipped to hers, his mouth alarmingly near. He was going to kiss her, she realized, and the prospect wasn’t disquieting. Not in the least.

  “Three,” he said. “You had fair warning.”

  Abruptly he bent and did as he’d promised, scooping her over his shoulders, kilted skirts of her fashionable polonaise walking dress and all. She was treated to an upside-down view of his desk, shimmering in the other-worldly glow of the electric lights despite the gloominess of the outside day. She couldn’t believe it. The man had actually thrown her, the daughter of the Earl of Northcote, over his shoulder. It was the outside of enough.

  So she did what any lady in her incredible predicament would do when she’d finally caught her breath. She made a fist and pounded on his insufferable back.

  Hang it, the woman was thumping on his back. She was a troublesome scrap of silk, this one. No doubt about it. She was as feisty as she was attractive, and saints be damned, he wasn’t entirely immune to her more than ample charms. But that didn’t mean Levi would allow her to meddle in his plans.

  He hadn’t traveled an ocean just to permit a blonde beauty with
a sharp tongue to send his train rattling off the rails. North Atlantic Electric’s success in dominating the market in England depended upon his maintaining a clear head. And by the time his work was done here, not only would all of London harness the power and function of electricity, but so would the entire country. From there, the rest of the civilized world.

  What had begun in New York City as a business competing to create the most efficient light bulb would take over the entire globe. It all started right here in this newspaper office. He’d learned his lesson back in New York City. A man with a good mouthpiece could dominate anyone he wanted. And make no mistake, he wanted to win the race.

  Never mind the minx draped over his shoulder and her ceaseless chattering about articles and old Mr. Bothwell. He wasn’t a man easily deterred.

  Neither, it seemed, was the lady in question. “Unhand me,” she ordered as though she was in a position to do so.

  But unfortunately for her, she was not in such a position. Rather, she was quite at his mercy. And at the moment, he was feeling considerably ill-tempered. His dynamo had nearly caught fire and a harpy had invaded his offices. It was not a good day on this side of the Atlantic.

  “Silence,” he ordered her when she refused to stop issuing commands against his back, adding a swat to her derriere to punctuate the order. This was not a request. He’d had enough of her disruption. It was time for her to be deposited on the street so he could proceed with lighting the world, lining his coffers, and growing his empire.

  “I’ll not be silenced, you brute!” Her voice was comically muffled. “Cease your manhandling of me at once.”

  Damn it all. He couldn’t very well walk through his newly acquired offices with a woman in high dudgeon tossed over his back. Could he? Levi briefly weighed the wisdom of doing so.