Wicked. Beth Henderson
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“First off, you are an extremely desirable woman….”
Lilly wanted to believe Deegan, wanted to very badly. Experience had convinced her otherwise. “I’m too tall.”
“Just right.”
“I’m not beautiful. In fact, only kind people would even term me a pretty woman.”
“Then they are not merely kind, they are blind,” Deegan assured her. “You have a beauty that transcends time.”
Lilly linked her arms around his neck. “I see you are one of the blind, then.”
He chuckled. “Perhaps I am. Blinded by your loveliness.”
“What is it they claim the Irish practice? Blarney?”
“It isn’t a religion, it’s a gift,” he corrected, “and I haven’t uttered a bit of blarney to you, my lass. If things were different, I would court you in earnest.”
If things were different. But they weren’t. She was still the strapping daughter of a city clerk and he was still a man in love with someone else….
Praise for Beth Henderson’s earlier book
RECKLESS
“An elegantly told tale in a Gilded Age shower of mystery and romance. Enjoy.”
—Mary Jo Putney
“Packed with interesting characters and an intriguing plot, Reckless will give the readers hours of pure pleasure.”
—Rendezvous
“The romantic intrigue storyline wrapped inside a nineteenth-century historical brings a freshness to both sub-genres.”
—Affaire de Coeur
#595 CARPETBAGGER’S WIFE
Deborah Hale
#596 HIS LADY FAIR
Margo Maguire
#597 THE DOCTOR’S HOMECOMING
Kate Bridges
Wicked
Beth Henderson
MILLS & BOON
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Available from Harlequin Historicals and
BETH HENDERSON
Reckless #370
Wicked #598
Other Harlequin works include:
Silhouette Special Edition
New Year’s Eve #935
Mr. Angel #1002
Maternal Instincts #1338
Yours Truly
A Week til the Wedding
Seducing Santa
In Memory of the Olde Pages Mom Squad:
Jean Kemper Kastner
and
Dorothy Lupp Murray
We miss you, ladies.
Contents
Prologue
San Francisco, January 1880
The noise from the surrounding bars was muted from what it had been earlier in the evening. Outside, the fog had risen, inching its way up the streets from the bay, turning the byways into a netherworld where men disappeared easily, some with the help of a crimper, others out of natural orneriness or through the manipulations of a local devil’s minion.
Wrapping a threadbare shawl around her shoulders, Belle Tauber leaned against the cool, clammy brickwork in the doorway of her crib, watching as her last john of the night stumbled away into the mist. It must be her lucky day, she thought ruefully. Not only had half the men Severn steered her way been quick to reach their pleasure and leave, but one had passed out before his trousers hit the floor, and another two had fallen into a stupor after a few halfhearted pokes, and been unceremoniously