The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray Read online

  THE VIRGIN AND LORD GRAY

  “I need you, Sophia. Come here.”

  She hesitated for a moment, as if trying to decide whether it would be more fun to obey or defy him, then she flung herself into his arms.

  “That’s it, pixie,” Tristan whispered. He tumbled her onto her back in the bed, the long, hot length of his body pressing against every inch of hers, from her shoulders down to her toes. He dropped a sweet kiss on her lips, and cupped her face in his palms, his gray eyes serious. “Tomorrow, when I wake, I want to find you right here, in my arms. Don’t leave me again, Sophia.”

  Sophia’s heart rushed into her throat. “I didn’t want to leave you yesterday morning, Tristan. You were asleep, your limbs flung wide and your hair falling over your face. You looked so warm, so peaceful, I wanted to curl up next to you and fall asleep with my head on your chest.”

  He touched his forehead to hers. “Then why didn’t you?”

  Sophia heard the hurt in his voice, and a soft sob rose in her throat. “Because it’s hopeless, Tristan. Surely you see that? You’re the Earl of Gray, and I’m no—”

  “Brave and passionate. Clever, kind, and beautiful.” He tipped her chin up. “You’re everything. I don’t want only a single stolen night with you, Sophia. I want all of you, always.”

  She sucked in a shocked breath, but his lips took hers in a devastating kiss, and her thoughts scattered…

  Books by Anna Bradley

  LADY ELEANOR’S SEVENTH SUITOR

  LADY CHARLOTTE’S FIRST LOVE

  TWELFTH NIGHT WITH THE EARL

  MORE OR LESS A MARCHIONESS

  MORE OR LESS A COUNTESS

  MORE OR LESS A TEMPTRESS

  THE WAYWARD BRIDE

  TO WED A WILD SCOT

  FOR THE SAKE OF A SCOTTISH RAKE

  THE VIRGIN WHO RUINED LORD GRAY

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray

  Anna Bradley

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Copyright

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2020 by Anna Bradley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational, or institutional use.

  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 119 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018. Attn. Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  First Electronic Edition: October 2020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-1037-7 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-5161-1037-4 (ebook)

  First Print Edition: October 2020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-1041-4

  ISBN-10: 1-5161-1041-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Books by Anna Bradley

  The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray

  Copyright

  Contents

  Quote

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Epilogue

  Author’s Notes

  Quote

  “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”

  —Benjamin Franklin

  Prologue

  Sophia Monmouth was the first.

  She’d been six or seven years old at the time, a tiny, grubby little thing, indistinguishable from every other ragged street urchin in London. Lady Amanda Clifford might not have noticed the girl at all, if it hadn’t been for the blood.

  It had dried by then, Sophia’s mother having met her fate some days earlier, but such a quantity of blood—great, dark red gouts of it streaked across the child’s pinafore—wasn’t the sort of thing one overlooked.

  Then there’d been the child’s eyes. Green, rather pretty, but mere prettiness would not have swayed Lady Amanda in Sophia’s favor. No, it was the shrewdness in those green depths that decided her, the cunning.

  It was far better for a woman to be clever than beautiful.

  Lady Amanda chose the child’s surname to please herself. Arrogant of her, perhaps, but it was best when Lady Amanda was pleased. As for everyone else…

  In the Year of Our Lord 1778, Seven Dials was a sweltering, fetid warren of narrow streets, each one piled on top of the next like rotting corpses in a plague pit. One could only assume the doomed souls residing in Monmouth Street weren’t pleased either by the name or by their fate.

  But it couldn’t be helped. It was pure arrogance to think one could leave their past behind them, the past being, alas, a devious, sneaking thing, apt to spring up at the most inconvenient of moments, in the unlikeliest of places. One could never entirely escape their origins, and Sophia Monmouth—tiny, grubby little thing that she was—was no exception.

  And so, her surname was Monmouth, despite it being a name that pleased no one, aside presumably from the succession of dukes who’d borne the title, excepting perhaps the first of them, who’d been beheaded several hundred years earlier.

  Treason.

  Grisly business, but then it so often was, with dukes.

  If Lady Amanda had suffered any misgivings about upending the child’s fate, she didn’t recall them now. And truly, who was to say what fate had decreed on Sophia Monmouth’s behalf?

  Not Lady Amanda Clifford.

  After all, if the son of a king could lose his head on the edge of an executioner’s blade, there was no reason to suppose a Seven Dials orphan—tiny, grubby little thing that she was—couldn’t someday turn the tide of history.

  Chapter One

  Great Marlborough Street, London

  Late July, 1793

  There was a boy, lying on the roof of Lord Everly’s pedime
nt.

  Tristan Stratford, Lord Gray, frowned down at the glass of port in his hand. No, it was still half full. He wasn’t foxed. Delusional, perhaps? It didn’t seem so far-fetched a possibility as it once might have done. Even the sanest of gentlemen could be harassed to the point of hallucinations.

  But a boy, on his neighbor’s roof? It seemed a curious choice, as far as delusions went.

  Tristan abandoned his port on the corner of his desk and crept closer to the window. He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, then snapped them open again.

  Blinked.

  There was a boy, lying on the roof of Lord Everly’s pediment.

  He was a puny specimen, all in black, more shadow than substance, more figment than flesh. Tristan was a trifle disturbed to find he’d conjured such a singular delusion, but questions of sanity aside, a boy on a roof must spark a tiny flicker of interest, even in a chest that had remained resolutely dark and shuttered for weeks.

  The boy wasn’t doing anything wrong. Just lying there on his back, quite motionless, staring up at the sky. Still, a boy, on a roof? No good would come of that.

  Perhaps he should alert someone. It was what a proper neighbor would do. No doubt Everly hadn’t the faintest idea there was a boy on his roof. Even the most perceptive of men might overlook such a thing, and Everly wasn’t the most perceptive of men. Tristan had never cared much for his lordship, Everly being a shifty, squinty-eyed creature, but neither would he stand about gaping while a child thief stripped the man of all his worldly possessions.

  Whether the boy was real or a product of Tristan’s fevered imagination remained in question, but if he wasn’t a phantom, he was certainly a thief. There could be no innocent explanation for his presence on Lord Everly’s roof.

  After all, Tristan knew a thief when he saw one. He’d been a Bow Street Runner, once upon a time. He couldn’t say what he was now. An earl who lazed about and sipped port while his neighbor was robbed, apparently.

  Another useless earl. Just what London needed.

  Still, since fate had doomed him to a lifetime of aristocratic idleness, he was obligated to do the thing properly. So, after weeks spent haunting his townhouse, Tristan had reluctantly agreed to accompany his friend Lord Lyndon to White’s tonight. He’d had vague notions of engaging in activities earls were meant to find amusing—drinking, wagering, that sort of thing—but Tristan hadn’t been amused.

  He’d found it all utterly pointless. He’d left early, and was nearly home before it occurred to him White’s was meant to be pointless.

  Pointlessness was, in fact, rather the point.

  Given that the evening had been a spectacular failure, Tristan didn’t hold out much hope for any of the other gentlemanly pursuits London had to offer. Indeed, after tonight, he couldn’t think of a single reason to remain in the city at all.

  Aside, perhaps, from the boy on Lord Everly’s roof.

  Tristan retrieved his port, sank down into his chair, and tipped his glass against his lips. A proper earl didn’t waste perfectly good port. The boy was bound to do something interesting sooner or later. Tristan was content to sip his port, and wait until he did.

  And wait, and wait, and wait…

  Time didn’t hesitate to take liberties with Tristan—the past few weeks had dragged on for years—but never had the minutes crawled by as reluctantly as they did now. The shadows lengthened, the fire burned to embers, the long-case clock on the first-floor landing chimed the hours, and somewhere, an entire civilization rose and fell again.

  And still, Tristan waited.

  Surely it was unnatural for any boy to remain motionless for so long? But even when it started raining, the lad never twitched. He simply lay there, still as a corpse—

  Tristan jerked to his feet, his empty glass tumbling to the floor. He peered down at the still figure, but it was too dark for him to tell if the boy’s chest was moving.

  Was it possible he was a corpse? How the devil would a corpse end up on Lord Everly’s roof? Then again, if a phantom thief could appear on a roof, mightn’t a phantom corpse do so, as well?

  No, no. That wouldn’t do. There were limits to what Tristan would tolerate in his delusions. A phantom thief was one thing, but a corpse quite another. That was one hallucination too far. And so, Tristan was left with a single, unavoidable conclusion.

  There was a dead boy, lying on the roof of Lord Everly’s pediment.

  A dead boy on one’s neighbor’s roof wasn’t the sort of thing a gentleman could overlook, and that, Tristan would later reflect, was the cause of all the chaos that followed.

  If the situation had been even a trifle less alarming than a dead boy on a roof, he might not have ventured out at all. He might have remained in his library, helped himself to another glass of port, and gotten sotted, like a proper earl was meant to do.

  As it was, chaos found him, and once she had him, she showed him no mercy. She seized him by the neck, sank her talons into his flesh, and hurled him headlong into a tumult without even the courtesy of a second glance.

  * * * *

  If Sophia Monmouth had realized how easy it would be to scale the front of a London townhouse, she’d have left her footprints across every rooftop in Mayfair by now.

  A single leap, and she was balanced on the top edge of the wrought iron railing flanking the stone steps. A bit of a scramble and a discreet shimmy or two, and she was clinging to one of the columns on either side of the front door, her arms and legs wrapped around it, albeit in a most unladylike fashion. From there it had been easy enough to haul herself up and clamber over the edge of the pediment.

  Unnecessary risk, Sophia.

  Lady Clifford’s voice often found its way into Sophia’s head at times like these. If ignoring it caused her the tiniest pang of guilt, Sophia had nonetheless become accustomed to shrugging it off.

  It wasn’t that Lady Clifford was wrong, exactly. Strictly speaking, Sophia hadn’t had to scale the front of Lord Everly’s townhouse. She could have hidden around a corner or behind a tree like an ordinary intruder, but she’d been curious to see if she could manage the thing. After all, a lady never knew when she’d be obliged to make use of some lord or other’s rooftop. It was a simple matter of knowing one’s capabilities.

  Besides, where was the fun in being ordinary? She was here now, snug as you please, lying on her back on Lord Everly’s roof. Goodness, he had a great many windows, didn’t he? Six of them on the first floor alone, marching in a tidy row across the front of the townhouse. The symmetry was pleasing, but then aristocrats did like for things to be in their proper places.

  All things, not just their windows.

  Curious, she nudged the toe of her boot into a tiny gap at the bottom edge of the window above her and pushed. It slid open, and an amused snort fell from her lips. Heavens, the nobility were foolish. It would be the easiest thing in the world for her to slip inside the house and pinch the family silver.

  Truly, it was a pity she wasn’t a thief, because she would have been a tremendously good one. Most of the townhouses on Great Marlborough Street boasted wrought iron railings and columns on either side of the doors with lovely, wide pediments on top. No doubt the aristocratic owners were proud of their pediments, and considered all the cornices, columns, and canopies to be the height of elegance.

  Ah, well. Pride was a wicked, detestable sin.

  Really, what was a wrought iron railing but a footstool, a column, a makeshift ladder, and cornices and decorative arches footholds and finger grips? Rooftops all across Mayfair were now crooking their fingers at Sophia, daring her to attempt them. That was the glorious thing about London, wasn’t it? Just when one thought they knew her, she offered an entirely new landscape, ripe for exploration.

  As for Lord Everly, his silver was safe enough from her. Fortunately for him, Sophia wasn’t here to steal. She wasn’t here for
Lord Everly at all.

  No, she’d come for someone else, and now there was nothing to do but wait for her quarry to venture out the door. He might not do so tonight, but she’d happily come back for him tomorrow, and every night afterwards until he did.

  Sophia hummed to herself, gazing up at the dark sky as she waited. After a short time, it began to drizzle. The fat raindrops struck the slate roof in varying notes, transforming what might otherwise have been a dreary evening into a symphony.

  She lay still, listening to the rhythmic patter. She’d never minded the rain, but neither had she ever noticed how pleasant the sound of it was. Then again, she’d never been as close to it as she was now. It didn’t have the same pleasing resonance when it hit the pavement, but from up here it was like music, or clocks chiming.

  The sky above Sophia deepened to an opaque midnight blue as the moments slipped past. The clouds that had been hanging over the city all day skidded this way and that, playing a game of hide and seek with the moon. Yes, she’d be spending more time on London’s rooftops, once this business was done.

  Her heartbeat took up the soothing tempo of the rain, and it might have lulled her into a doze if the creak of a door opening below hadn’t roused her. Sophia kept her head down, but rolled over and slid on her belly to the edge of the pediment and peered over the side, taking care to keep out of sight. The street was thick with shadows, but the faint light from the entryway briefly illuminated the figure of a man before he slammed the door behind him.

  Sophia’s lips curled into a smile.

  He was a small, rat-like thing, stoop-shouldered and twitchy, easily distinguishable. A flaw, in Sophia’s opinion. Far better to blend, if one was a criminal.

  He had a pipe between his fingers, and he paused to suck on it before he ambled down the steps and turned left onto Great Marlborough Street, toward Regent Street. A thin stream of smoke trailed after him like a second shadow as he disappeared around the corner.

  Sophia let him go. There was no need to rush after him. She’d never once lost her quarry, and she wouldn’t lose him now. She waited, still humming, until the sound of footsteps faded and a glance revealed nothing but the empty street below.