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Informationen zum Autor Jillian Stone was the 2010 RWA Golden Heart winner in Historical Romance for her debut novel, An Affair with Mr. Kennedy , the first in her Scotland Yard trilogy. She also writes a steampunk series for Kensington books. Visit her at GJillianStone.com. Klappentext A scorching Victorian-era romance featuring a stoic Scotland Yard investigator and a beautiful painter—the debut novel from 2010 Golden Heart Award winner Jillian Stone. Detective Zeno “Zak” Kennedy is considered a hero in London after breaking up a plot against the Crown. But villainy never sleeps, and he’s now after a ring of Irish anarchists plotting a bombing campaign. When he discovers that one of these treacherous lords is acquainted with his new tenant, widowed Cassie St. Cloud, he sets out to get closer to the lady. Cassie is no Victorian prude; the daughter of two prominent doctors, she is a freethinking artist and a volunteer at a girls’ school. She’s set her sights on her handsome new landlord, and soon they’re enmeshed in the most passionate affair of her life. But when she discovers that their meeting was not purely accidental, will she be able to forgive him?Chapter One London’s West End, 1887 Detective Inspector Zeno Kennedy unbuttoned his collar and pulled out a shirttail. “What have you got for me?” Scarlet, aka Kitty Matthews, reclined on the mattress and struck a seductive pose. Propped on her elbows, the girl lowered and raised sultry green eyes in a brazen inspection of his person. “You blokes from Scotland Yard are a handsome lot.” She arched her back and thrust her breasts up and out at him. Quite a robust figure—ample bottom and curvy topside. Studying her, he decided she could not be more than seventeen or eighteen years of age. A shapely little thing with chestnut-colored hair, big green eyes, and a button nose. She could easily raise a man’s temperature. Zeno did his best to ignore the girl’s bountiful charms as he took up a post at the end of the bed-frame. “Actually, I work for Special Irish Branch.” He leaned over the brass rail. Scarlet gaped at a bit of exposed chest. “Blue eyes and dark hair—Black Irish, are you?” Zeno hastily pulled his shirt closed and admonished himself to be patient with his newest recruit. “Special Irish Branch is a division of Scotland Yard aimed at investigating anarchists. Fenians mostly. We’re after the blokes who want Home Rule for the Irish at any price, by any means.” Her eyes grew wide. “The dynamiters?” A low groan and squeaking bedsprings drifted through the wall. Zeno raised an index finger to his lips and gave a nod to the adjoining room. The budding beauty in front of him typified the adolescent female offerings of this pleasure house. Mrs. Jeffries’s, as it was referred to in hushed tones among gentlemen at their clubs, was a popular brothel marketing young women—very young. Some were girls who had not yet been spoiled, for a steeper price. With venereal disease rampant, and the Contagious Diseases Act repealed, men of means found the idea of a virgin, even if less bawdy, certainly a healthier amusement. It seemed the baser instincts of gentlemen of privilege would continue to find ways to avoid the pox at any cost, both to their pockets and to the lives of the innocent juveniles conscripted for such harsh duty. Scotland Yard’s Criminal Investigations Department of the Metropolitan Police had moved on some of the worst offenders, but there had been tremendous pressure from the top echelons to keep the safer brothels open. As for the use of young girls, Zeno’s position was well known. Turning a blind eye to their plight made them all dirty. “You sent an urgent wire, Scarlet. Anything to report?” “No, sir—I mean yes, sir.” She rolled her eyes. “Evening last, I was on my way home from the bedside of me sick mum. Ju...
