Three Nights of Sin

Chapter One

London, 1825

The brass ring in the lion's mouth glimmered in the faint light of the gas lamps. Fierce yellow eyes surveyed her from above the loop, questioning her nerve. Marietta Winters curled trembling fingers around the bottom of the metal and forced it against the door knocker.

The brisk night air sliced into her skin. She adjusted her loathed shawl more tightly around her shoulders and pressed her ear closer to the door. Nothing.

She looked into the lion's eyes, swallowed, then rapped the knocker once more.

Silence echoed in the night, only the shifting breeze an answer to her desperation. She wondered if this was to be the end of her search—an empty hall and no one at home. Another closed door. The final nail in Kenny's coffin.

No. She couldn't think that way.

A faint trembling shook her. Nerves and stress and fear. She hadn't slept in days. Hadn't eaten a real meal in twice that time—a loaf of bread stretched between. Her older brother's insistence on no one knowing their straits had turned the food money into ... read full excerpt from Three Nights of Sin ebook