Kat Martin - Innocence Undone

v1.5

July 28, 2008

To some of my best friends in the writing business, Meryl Sawyer, Olga Bicos, and Brenda Joyce, for all their help and encouragement through the years, and for understanding how difficult it is to undertake the task of writing a book. Thanks, guysyou're the greatest!

England, 1798

"S tay away from me, ye bloody prig!"

"You little hoydenhow many times have I warned you? Now you're going to get what you deserve!" Newly commissioned naval lieutenant, Matthew Seaton, clamped his jaw against the fury surging through him. He had only just stepped out the front doors of his country estate, Seaton Manor, dressed in his brand-new, spotlessly clean officer's uniform. Now there were mud stains on his snug white breeches. Half a rotten apple made a wet, gooey streak on the collar of his dark blue coat. And the little hellion had done it on purpose!

He stalked toward her. "I've had enough of you, Jessie Fox. For the past two years, you've plagued me at every turn. You've picked my pocket, called me filthy namesnow you've ruined my clothes. It's time someone took you in hand and it looks as though I'm the one who's got to do it."

"Ye won't catch me, ye sodden toad." Jessie backed up two steps for every step Matt took in her direction. "I'm smarter and I'm faster." In her filthy ragged breeches and torn homespun shirt, her dirty blond hair stuffed up beneath a moth-eaten gray wool cap, she looked more like a boy than a twelve-year-old girl. Reaching down, she snagged another rotten apple that had fallen from the tree beside the house. Matthew ducked as it whizzed by his ear, a fresh jolt of anger shooting through him.

"You little vixen, you're the scourge of Buckler's Haven. You're a pickpocket and a thiefthe bane of every traveler passing through the village. One of these days, you'll wind up in Newgate prison."

"Go to bleedi'n' 'ell!" Jessie shrieked as he grabbed for her, whirled, and sprinted away. She darted left, feigned right, and scooted just out of his reach. Matthew swore an oath beneath his breath.

"A bloody prig is what ye are," Jessie taunted, staying just a few feet away. "All dressed up so clean and fancy. Just because yer a sodden lord don't mean yer nothin' special."

His dark blond brows drew together in a furious scowl. "I can't believe you're a girl. You talk worse than any foul-mouthed sailor." He made another unsuccessful lunge, but Jessie just laughed. Turning, she raced off toward the gnarled old apple tree. A white wrought-iron bench sat beneath it. Jessie shimmied up the trunk, her thin legs working, carrying her toward safety among the branches.

If he hadn't been so tall, she would have made it.

Matthew smiled with fierce satisfaction as his hand clamped around the girl's slender ankle. With a yank that forced her off balance, she lost her hold on the branch above, screamed, and toppled backward. Matthew caught her just before she hit the ground.

"Let me go, ye sodden bastard!"

Gripping her shoulders, he shook herhard. "You had better learn to behave, you little hellion." Another hard shake knocked the cap from her head, but Jessie remained unrepentant. Before he realized her intent, she had grabbed a shiny gold button on the front of his coat and wrenched it loose. The sound of rending fabric betrayed the rip she had made in the bright blue fabric.

Fury tightened the muscles across his shoulders. Ignoring the horror that now marked Jessie's face, Matthew dragged her over to the wrought-iron bench in front of the tree. "You've deserved this for a very long time, Jessie Fox, and now you're going to get it." To her wild shrieks of protest, he hauled her across his lap. "I warned you," he said. "And dammit, I'm not going to feel one bit guilty."

Jessie shrieked as his hand came down hard on her bottom, her tattered gray breeches little protection against the sting of his palm.

"Bleedin' sod!" she cried out.

Two, three, four.

"Bloody pompous prig!"

Five, six, seven. Another child would have been pleading for him to stop. Not Jessie Fox.

Matt jerked her upright and she stumbled to her feet. Huge blue eyes stared into his face. It surprised him to discover they were glazed with tears.

"You're a hoyden, Jessie. The next time you start trouble remember the price you paid this day. If you don't change your ways, you're going to be sorry. Sooner or later you'll suffer the consequences, and they'll be far greater than this."

"Yer the one who'll be sorry," she said, sniffling behind a dirty hand. She took a step away, her bottom lip trembling, fresh tears welling in her eyes. There was anguish there, he saw to his surprise, and burning humiliation. "I'm gonna be a ladya right proper lady wi' fine silk dresses and rich, 'andsome men to squire me 'bout. I'll show ye. I'll find a way. I'll be a real lady. Thenbloody lord or noye'll be sorry ye treated me this way."

Matthew simply shook his head. With a last glance into the waifish features of Jessie Fox, he turned away, ignoring a pang of regret. Not for what he had done. God knew she needed a good sound thrashing and perhaps it would do her some good.

Unfortunately, odds were far greater Jessie would continue her thieving, troublemaking ways and wind up in some dank prison.

Or more likely still, flat on her back in a room above the Black Boar Inn, earning a living as a whorejust like her mother.

England, April, 1805

"F or pity's sake, luv, 'e ain't the bloody king of England."

Feeling the faint tug of a smile, Jessica Fox turned away from the froth of expensive ball gowns strewn across the foot of her silk-draped bed. "No, I don't suppose he is. Perhaps if he were simply the king, I wouldn't be so worried about what I should wear."

"Ye'll look beautiful, no matter what ye choose." Viola Quinn, the buxom gray-haired woman Jessie had known since childhood, cast her an affectionate glance. "Odds are, the capt'n will be so taken wi' ye, he won't even notice what yer wearin'."

Jessie leaned over and hugged the heavyset woman who was more a mother than her real flesh-and-blood mama ever had been. "Thank you, Vi. You always say just the right thing."

Once a cook at the Black Boar Inn, at fifty years old, Viola Quinn was hardly a proper lady's maid, but Jessie loved her. And the aging marquess who was now Jessie's guardian had finally given in and brought Viola Quinn to Belmore Hall.

The hefty woman lifted one of the magnificent gowns strewn across the bed. " 'ow 'bout the gold un'?" A glittering creation with a bodice shimmering with rhinestones. "The color'll match ye 'air."

Jessie shook her head, moving the long golden curls to which Vi referred. "Too formal. Lord Strickland has been at sea for the past two years. I want him to feel comfortable this eve."

Vi lifted another elegant gown. "What 'bout the ivory satinperfect wi' yer pale, peachy skin?"

Jessie caught her bottom lip between her teeth, studying the demure neckline and simple capped sleeves. "Too plain. I don't want him to think I'm a wallflower."

Viola sighed. "Then what about this un'?" She held up an exquisitely fashioned, high-waisted blue silk gown with a moderately low-cut bodice. "The blue is the same shade as yer eyes, and the silver threads in the overskirt gives it plenty a sparkle."