Excerpt of Tainted By Temptation by Katy Madison

Chapter 1

“That’s where Mr. Pendar threw his wife off the cliff,” the
housemaid pointed out to her traveling companion in the
mail coach. “See, there’s his house.”

Threw his wife off a cliff? Shock jolted through Velvet
Campbell.

Her fellow occupants crowded against Velvet to see the
jutting spike of land. An imposing square-built hall of
dark gray stone perched on the outcropping like a demonic
gryphon. Below the sinister house, a rocky cliff dropped
down and down to jagged teethlike boulders. Waves gnawed
hungrily against the rocks waiting for any scraps the
gryphon might drop—or to devour the beast itself, should he
fall.

That house contained her new living quarters. Mr. Pendar
had employed her. What kind of man threw his wife over a
cliff? A wave of dizziness assaulted Velvet.

“They found her broken, bloody body on those rocks,” added
the maid. “Not three years gone.”

Velvet’s stomach roiled. She wished she could plug her
ears or cover the mouth of the young woman spewing the
local lore. He’d written his wife had passed, but he
hadn’t spoken of the violence of her death.

Velvet shook her head. Gossip was often exaggerated, or
just plain wrong, but a shiver slithered down her spine and
moisture beaded her upper lip.

“That must be a hundred foot drop,” murmured a rotund
cleric. “May God have mercy.”

The idea of falling so revolted her, she retched. She
swallowed repeatedly, fighting against the bile rising in
her throat. She fumbled in her reticule for her
handkerchief. Her fingers brushed the letter from her
employer, and her heart thumped erratically. With the limp
lawn, she dabbed at the perspiration and wished for an end
to this journey.

Velvet wanted to look away, but the sight of her future
home mesmerized her, though the darkness of it repelled
her. It was as if the house had been built to defy God and
nature.

The thin young man who had tried for the last twenty miles
to engage Velvet in conversation pressed
closer. “Beautiful view, is it not?”

Beautiful was not the word she would have chosen.
Daunting. Menacing. Those were the words that jumped to
mind. “Quite,” she answered dryly.

“Can’t say I like that house there disrupting the vista.”
He pushed his thigh against hers. She turned away, lest
her refusal to look out the window give him encouragement.

Velvet forced her gaze beyond the crashing waves pummeling
the jagged rocks. Under the threatening skies, the ocean
eased into white-capped swells that did not look as hungry,
but dark and murky and every bit as dangerous. But if she
had her druthers, death by drowning was a thousand times
more preferable than death by falling.

She leaned back in her seat wishing she could think of
anything other than the plummet and Mrs. Pendar’s violent
death. She closed her eyes reminiscing about the easy
green roll of the hills and dales of Dorset where she’d
grown up. But instead her mind’s eye recalled the last
sight she’d had of her brother: his face twisted in
terror. Her eyes jerked open.

“’Tis said her ghost wanders the cliffs at night,”
whispered the girl. Not that a whisper was effective in
the cramped coach.

“What happened to him?” asked the friend.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” repeated the girl with the appropriate amount of
horror and fascination.

The girls’ conversation interested Velvet more than she
wanted to let on. He wasn’t in prison. Surely that meant
he hadn’t murdered his wife.

“He had scratches on his face, but he said she fell.”

“And they believed him?”

“No one saw him do it.” The storyteller shrugged, her
expression smug. “At the inquest his servants gave
testimony that he hadn’t left the house.”

“Then he couldn’t have done it.”

The former housemaid gave her companion a look that
suggested the girl was far too naive. “A lot of them heard
her screaming at him. I was to start work there a
fortnight later, but no decent woman will work for him now.”

“Oh my,” said the country girl.

Velvet pressed her lips together. She had been called much
worse than “less than decent.”

“Fitting house for Lucifer.”

The name Lucian formed on Velvet’s lips. His name was
Lucian Pendar, not Lucifer, but she resisted the urge to
blurt it out. The young man pressed his leg harder against
hers.

She rearranged her skirts, piling as much of the excess
material between the encroaching young man and her limbs as
she could.

The road finally began to curl away from the cliffs, moving
farther inland. Velvet unclenched her fist.

“His fortune comes from smuggling, you know,” said the
informed maid. “My grandda told me the Pendars smuggled
French brandy when good Englishmen were dying fighting the
French.”

Another quarter hour of swaying and mumbled conversation
about brutal deaths and how there were those who misused
their authority dragged by. Velvet resisted the urge to
voice her opinion. In her experience men in power could
get away with anything—or at least they believed they
could. But as her father had always said, God would be the
final judge.

The coach drew to a halt. Velvet clutched her reticule to
her bosom and made her way to the door.

The storyteller stared. Her smugness was gone. “You
aren’t getting out here.”

“Yes, I believe this is my stop.” Velvet lifted her chin.

An hour away from the inn where they stopped for lunch, the
coachman had said. She no longer had her father’s watch to
check the time, but it felt like a year since she’d paced
the yard while the others ate.

You’ll see the house afore we reach it, the coachman had
told her. Then he’d given her a look. Iffen you’d don’t
want let out there, it’ll be the inn at Lands End.

Of course, I shall get out there, she’d answered. She had
no choice. She was expected, and her new employer had paid
her fare. If she didn’t arrive, she could add theft to the
accusations leveled against her.

The coachman opened the door. “Here you go, miss.”

Relieved to be free of the close confines and the five
other passengers, Velvet descended the stairs. “It was
good to meet you,” she said generally. Even better to take
her leave of them and the gossip making her dread her new
position.

The young housemaid paled. She reached her hand out as if
to call Velvet back…