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  Wanton in Winter

  The Wicked Winters Book Three

  By

  Scarlett Scott

  Cameron Blythe, the Earl of Hertford, is about to lose nearly everything he owns to creditors in the wake of his blackguard father’s death. The only way to stave off ruin is to find a wealthy wife, even if it means aligning himself with one of the infamous Winter sisters. Any of the chits will do. Except for Miss Eugenia Winter, that is, whose reputation has been tainted by scurrilous gossip.

  When Eugie spurned an odious, fortune-hunting suitor, the last thing she expected was for him to spread shocking lies about her. Determined to stop her beloved sisters from falling prey to a similar, painful fate, she will do anything to keep the penniless Earl of Hertford from making a match with one of them. Even if it means cornering him in a darkened winter’s garden and kissing him herself.

  But when one kiss turns into another, and then another, the strictly proper Cam cannot help himself from falling for the Winter with the most wicked reputation of all. And Eugie? Much to her dismay, she’s discovering the irresistible earl may be everything she has ever wanted. Does she dare trust her heart, or will the painful lessons of her past prove too impossible to overcome?

  Dedication

  For my readers, with more gratitude than I can put into words.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About the Book

  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

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt from Willful in Winter

  Don’t miss Scarlett’s other romances!

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Oxfordshire, 1813

  “I feel like a damned Michaelmas goose,” Cameron Blythe, the Earl of Hertford, muttered, sotto voce.

  At his side, Rand, Viscount Aylesford, chuckled. “Perhaps you can convince one of the chits that marrying you will be good luck, much like eating the goose.”

  Cam surveyed the ballroom before them. Lit with at least a dozen chandeliers, it was a study in festive gaiety. Lady Emilia Winter and her husband Mr. Devereaux Winter were celebrating the pending Christmas season in a fashion befitting their tremendous wealth.

  And also befitting a man who had five unmarried sisters he needed to settle with husbands. Title hunters, all of them, Cam was sure.

  “Succumbing to the parson’s mousetrap is only one breed of luck, Aylesford, and it is decidedly not good,” he ventured, unable to keep the bitterness from his tone.

  “Truth, which is why I have no intention of doing it myself.” Aylesford brushed at the sleeve of his coat, affecting ennui as few others could. “Ingenious of you to suggest a false engagement. It should be just the thing to convince the dowager I have reformed my rakish ways.”

  Cam tried to envision the august dowager Duchess of Revelstoke uttering the word rakish and failed. “The dowager would refuse to lower herself by saying such a word on principle.”

  Aylesford sighed. “You are right, of course. Your indefatigable sense of propriety is why she loves you. Pity you could not have been born her grandson instead of I.”

  Though a longtime friend of Cam’s, Aylesford was undeniably a rakehell possessed of a reputation to compete with Beelzebub himself. “The notion of what is proper was beaten into me from an early age by my wastrel sire.”

  His tone was mild, but the sentiment behind it was decidedly not. His father had been a ruthless tyrant who enjoyed inflicting pain on his family almost as much as he enjoyed gambling. As it stood now, Cam would have preferred additional beatings to the financial wreckage he had inherited from the former earl.

  Creditors hounding him everywhere. Estates on the brink of ruin. A darling mother he could not bear to see tossed into the streets after all she had endured. There was only one solution to the endless list of his worries, and it was finding himself an heiress and making her his countess.

  With all haste.

  “Pity the old earl is dead,” Aylesford drawled. “Had I an inkling of what he was about, I would have delivered him the drubbing he deserved before he stuck his spoon in the wall. If anyone ought to have his resting place ransacked by grave robbers, it is your father.”

  Cam flinched, although it was true. “There was nothing to be done. The money was his to spend, the estates his to fleece as he liked. Just as my mother was his to beat until I was big enough to defend her.”

  “Any man who would beat a woman ought to be horsewhipped himself,” his friend said somberly. “One can only hope he is receiving his true reward for a life of inflicting misery on everyone he knew and is roasting in the fieriest coals of hell as we speak.”

  Talk of graves and the pits of hell were creating a decidedly dampening effect upon Cam’s desire to dance with a lady.

  “You are a grim one tonight, Aylesford,” he observed.

  The viscount grinned back at him, unrepentant. “I am all manner of things I ought not to be. But hopefully one of them is a man who is not being harangued by his dowager grandmother to wed. That she is withholding Tyre Abbey from me until I am betrothed is out of bounds.”

  Tyre Abbey was a wealthy estate in Scotland, belonging to the dowager in her own right. And though an understanding had always existed that Aylesford would one day take possession of the property, the dowager was wisely dangling it over her grandson’s head in an effort to get him to do what she wanted.

  “Nothing like familial bribery to warm the heart,” he quipped, for in truth, he did rather enjoy the dowager, if not her attempts to wreak havoc upon his friend’s bachelor ways.

  “You like the old bird better than anyone,” Aylesford said. “Do you think my sham betrothal strategy will work?”

  “As long as you can find the proper pretend-betrothed to agree to the farce, you ought to be able to buy yourself at least a year of freedom,” he reassured his friend. “Her Grace will be so pleased at the prospect of a reformed Aylesford, it will take her some time to realize the betrothal is becoming a lengthy one. I, on the other hand, will not be nearly as fortunate since my betrothal will necessarily be followed by the actual deed.”

  He suppressed a shiver at the thought of the manner in which he was being forced to sell himself. For Mother, he reminded himself. He would do anything for her, just as she had once protected him from the fists of his father.

  Aylesford sipped his punch, casting his eye about the lively gathering—presumably for his quarry. “Who shall I choose, I wonder? One of the Winters ought to do. Rumor has it Devereaux Winter is quite desperate to see them wed and off his hands, but the ladies are not as eager.”

  Cam’s gaze followed his friend’s to where the five Winter sisters had gathered, rather reminiscent of a battle formation. They were lovely, which somewhat aided in removing the stench of trade surrounding them.

  Their father had been a wealthy merchant, but their brother had turned their family fortune into an empire. Though they had been doing their utmost to buy entrée into society, it had only been Winter’s marriage to Lady Emilia King—coupled with the immense dowries each sister reportedly possessed—that made the thought of marrying them palatable for Cam.

  All of them except for the one with the bad reputation, that was.

  “Not the one in the red gown,” he said. “She possesses the worst reputation of the lot. Baron
Cunningham claims she allowed him to anticipate the wedding night. When he discovered he was not her first conquest, he cried off immediately. The dowager will never accept her.”

  “Cunningham is an ass,” Aylesford observed thoughtfully. “And also a notorious liar.”

  Cam found his gaze lingering upon Miss Eugenia Winter. Her curves were lovingly revealed by the scarlet net evening dress. Embroidery around the décolletage emphasized her plump bosom, as if intentionally drawing the masculine eye to that wicked place. He could not deny the allure of her creamy breasts or the flare of her hips. Or her mouth, which seemed far too wide and lush even from across the room.

  Indeed, everything about her looked like an invitation to sin.

  Cam tore his stare from her and settled it back upon his friend. “Cunningham may be an ass and a liar, but all one needs to do is take a look at Miss Eugenia Winter to know she is every bit as immoral as her reputation suggests. Just look at her in that dress.”

  “I am looking,” Aylesford said on a grin. “I fail to see the issue with an immoral woman. I have kept company with—and heartily appreciated—legions of them.”

  Cam snorted. “I have no doubt of that. But you must keep in mind you are not seeking your next mistress, Aylesford. You are seeking a betrothed to keep the dragon dowager from breathing fire at you for the next year. She will not approve of that one’s reputation.”

  “She will not approve of any of them, truth be told.” Aylesford’s sigh was steeped in resentment. “But that is too bad. My odds are one in five. Any of them will do.”

  That was rather the attitude Cam had adopted in relation to the Winter sisters. His debt was colossal. Only a sickeningly wealthy bride would save him from ruin.

  Except for the red gown, he reminded himself. He would sooner be cast into penury than accept the tainted leavings of an oaf like Cunningham. Wealth and reasonable respectability. In that order.

  Eugie used her fan to great advantage, shielding her lips as she spoke to her sister, Grace. “Would you look at the two of them? They are eying us as if we are, the five of us, about to be auctioned off at Tattersall’s.”

  Grace flapped her own fan, her expression one of keen boredom. “Preening peacocks. Little do they know, we have no intention of accepting a proposal from anyone. ’Tis almost sad, really. I would feel sorry for them if they were not such pompous hypocrites.”

  “But they are, judging us for our father, our brother, for our wealth and our reputations,” Eugie agreed, her gaze slipping back to the tall man with the light-brown hair, the slashing jaw, and expression of extreme disapproval.

  He was handsome, arrestingly so, and even from a distance. Which aggrieved her mightily, for she knew he was no different than any of his fellow lordling counterparts. The stains upon her reputation would never be lifted, and neither would the scars upon her heart.

  She would do anything, anything to keep her beloved sisters from suffering a fate similar to the one she had. For a time, she had fancied herself in love with Lord Cunningham, and she had truly believed he had loved her in return. Until she had discovered the awful truth, and he had turned against her in spectacular fashion, spreading gossip and lies so putrid they did not bear repeating.

  “Your reputation should never have been called into question by that spineless, sniveling fool,” Grace snapped, waving her fan. “Dev should have shot him when he had the chance.”

  “It is better for us all that he did not, and you know it,” she told her sister.

  Their protective and beloved older brother, Dev, had wanted to challenge Cunningham to a duel. Eugie had begged him not to. Better to lose her honor than to lose the man who held their family together. She had been right—her brother’s intense devotion to all his sisters had precluded him from taking the chance he would be removed from their lives forever. The duel had not been fought. Cunningham had continued to spread his lies.

  Oh, Dev had made his life a misery in the last few months, buying up his debts in preparation for a true reckoning, but the damage had already been inflicted by his lies. Eugie was damaged goods. Dev could pretend she was not. Her sister-in-law, Lady Emilia could invite every eligible parti in the realm to this blasted country house party.

  Nothing would change the fact that everyone in this ballroom believed she had allowed the horrid Lord Cunningham liberties she ought to have reserved for her husband.

  “Dev would have won,” Grace insisted. “Oh dear Lord, here they come with our own brother.”

  “Et tu, Brute?” Eugie muttered at the sight of her brother and sister-in-law leading the two lords in their direction.

  “At least they are handsome,” chimed in their sister, Christabella. “And I have heard wicked things about Lord Aylesford. He is a rake.”

  Eugie sent a disapproving frown in Christabella’s direction. “Do stop reading Minerva Press novels, sister. Rakes do not a good husband make.”

  “Nor do barons,” Christabella shot back.

  “That was an unbecoming taunt,” Grace informed their sister from the corner of her mouth as Dev and his coterie drew nearer.

  “She is right, however,” Eugie admitted. “If I can spare you all the pain I suffered, I would experience it again a hundredfold.”

  “No need to be a martyr,” said Pru, the eldest—and, by chance—tallest of her sisters. “We are all aware that many lords are snakes in sheep’s clothing.”

  “Gads. It is a wolf,” Grace drawled, waving her fan in a more pronounced fashion, as though her presence at the ball bored her.

  “What is a wolf?” Eugie asked, quite lost, as was often the case when one was attempting to converse with four sisters at once. Speaking of which, where had her youngest sister gone? “Where is Bea?”

  No one said a word.

  “A wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Grace added. “You had it all wrong, Pru.”

  In the next moment, the approaching storm had reached them. Both the lords in question—the Earl of Hertford and Viscount Aylesford—were strikingly handsome. They were near enough now, Eugie could see all the details escaping her from across the chamber.

  The Earl of Hertford was the man with the jaw and the light-brown hair and the mouth, Lord in heaven the mouth, and the disapproving hazel stare that raked over Eugie in far too familiar a fashion.

  Stopping upon her bosom.

  It was not the first such look she had received, and nor would it be the last, she knew. She frowned at him as her heart thumped with a steadily increasing rhythm. Stupid heart. It had proven itself untrustworthy.

  Dev was saying something, and since he was her brother, Eugie had ignored most of it. Only the last few words reached her ears.

  “…delighted.”

  Very well, only the last word, quite specifically. Which did her not one whit of good.

  Because everyone was staring at her expectantly.

  She blinked. That hazel gaze was upon her with the weight of an anvil.

  “The next dance,” Lord Hertford was saying.

  To her.

  Eugie blinked. Oh dear, what else had she missed? And had Dev truly just promised she would dance with the Earl of Hertford? She had been so caught up in her thoughts, she had not heard the majority of the discourse happening around her.

  Grace was accepting Lord Aylesford’s arm.

  Eugie frowned at her, sending her a look that said what are you doing?

  Grace shrugged, returning an expression that said I have no idea, but I am bored.

  Drat Grace. And drat Dev for introducing them to these detestable lords, for harboring this nonsensical idea he could give their family name some respectability if they all wedded a lord just as he had married a lady.

  The earl offered her his arm.

  She glanced to Christabella, who was notoriously abysmal at hiding her emotions, and whose expression was a mask of pity. Instantly, she looked to her brother’s wife, Lady Emilia, who rolled her lips inward, her brows furrowing as she met Eugie’s gaze w
ith a beseeching look of her own.

  Forgive me, it said.

  “The dance is beginning,” Dev prodded her. “You will not wish to miss it.”

  “Miss Winter,” the earl said formally, his tone cool. Cold, even.

  He, too, was privy to the rumors. She knew it in her gut the way she knew winter was descending upon them, the way she knew Christmas was a few weeks hence.

  Of course, he was aware of the vile lies being spread about her. Was not everyone in all London? She knew, instinctively, that Dev had somehow cleverly maneuvered the earl into offering to dance with her.

  And also that the earl was decidedly not so inclined.

  But he had accepted, in spite of himself.

  “Eugie,” her brother prodded then, “the dance will begin at any second. You do not wish to tarry, do you?”

  Eugie’s lips compressed, and she did not miss the look her sister-in-law sent in her brother’s direction. But she would save him, just as she would save them all.

  She placed her gloved hand on Lord Hertford’s proffered arm, and she allowed him to lead her away from her siblings. The heat of him seeped through her gloves, irking her, as did the remarkably firm sensation of his well-muscled arm beneath hers.

  Perhaps he was a gentleman who had taken to boxing, or some other means of physical toil, for Lord Cunningham had certainly never been so firm. Never so strong. Nor had he been so handsome, and while Lord Hertford smelled deliciously of shaving soap, man, and leather, Cunningham had smelled of pipe smoke and hair wax.

  She should have taken heed of such a sign before it had been too late.

  “Thank you for paying me the honor of this dance, Miss Winter,” the earl said stiffly as they approached the dancers forming in lines on the polished parquet of the dance floor.

  How formal he was. How joyless. She disliked his mannerisms every bit as much as she loathed her unwanted reaction to him. He was not, after all, the first handsome man she had ever seen. And she was weary of gentlemen looking upon her sisters as if they were purses of gold rather than ladies with hearts and minds.