A Warriner to Seduce Her

by Virginia Heath

  Not that Fliss had any desire to be a lady of the ton. She was perfectly content with the manners she had already. Perhaps she could be a bit abrupt and had an acid tongue when the situation called for it, but those minor faults were actually quite perfect in her role as the schoolmistress of Sister Ursuline’s School for Wayward Girls. Some of those young ladies required a firm hand and many more needed her guidance because they were prone to make poor choices—especially regarding men. Once this silly visit was over, those girls would need the Miss Blunt they relied upon. Not some improved version who was required to walk like a ‘wispy cloud’, whatever that meant.

  Although why it was considered essential for a lady to walk as if she had a book balanced on her cranium was beyond her. For the better part of two days, Daphne and Cressida had made her walk backwards and forward in Uncle Crispin’s ostentatious Egyptian-themed drawing room, with a Mrs Radcliffe novel perched precariously on her head, while they instructed her on the subtle nuances of etiquette she had never had use of before. Who knew that curtsies were graduated, for instance, saving only the deepest and most grovelling for dukes and the monarchy? There had not been much cause for curtsying in Cumbria, thank goodness. Nor for the baffling array of cutlery deemed necessary for every meal when a knife, fork and spoon had always served her perfectly well before, thank you very much. Before she had been a wispy cloud, of course.

  ‘And smile!’ Aunt Cressida nudged her with such force she lurched a little sideways. ‘Think of yourself as a swan, my dear. Graceful. Elegant. Effortless.’

  There was no point enquiring as to where the cloud had gone, because Aunt Daphne and Aunt Cressida rarely remembered what they had said five minutes before. However, she was sorely tempted to point out there was nothing effortless in gliding like a swan in a strange place sans spectacles, but Fliss smiled tightly and tried her best, holding her head so still it made her jaw ache. She was here for her mother. Uncle Crispin had apparently made her a solemn promise upon her deathbed to give his half-sister’s daughter a Season and, while she was fundamentally too old to be launched into society, the guilt had made her agree to the offer—the guilt, Sister Ursuline’s insistence Fliss needed to go and have an adventure, and the desire to do something for the mother she struggled to remember fully yet had missed keenly throughout her life. For her tragic real mother, and her incorrigible surrogate mother, she would attempt to be a cloud or a swan or whatever other nonsense her new great-great-aunts came out with in the next few weeks and she would do it with all the enthusiasm she couldn’t be bothered to feel.

  The new corset she had been trussed up in like a ham about to be boiled didn’t help. While it did serve to keep her from slouching, because bending at the waist was now quite impossible, it also constricted every organ from her lungs to her bladder. It had also pushed her bosoms up in a most inappropriate manner so they threatened to spill out of the neckline of her new, form-fitting white-silk gown. Of course, she had protested the unsuitable dress and the corset, but her aunts insisted such fashions were all ladies wore in the ton and de rigueur at Almack’s. And from the amount of foggy cleavages she could just about see all around her, presented like soft loaves on a baker’s tray, her new great-great-aunts appeared to be right. The knowledge did not make Fliss feel any better about exposing her own bakery goods to the eyes of the world.

  And Fliss had definitely been thrust into the window of the bakery, despite repeatedly insisting to both the aged women and her stand-offish Uncle Crispin that she had no desire to find a husband while in town. Never had and probably never would. After years of being on her own, and after watching her mother’s disappointing marriage to her unreliable father, she could see no reason why she would want to relinquish her freedom to just anyone. If, by some miracle, she ever did find a man who wasn’t controlling or unreliable, then perhaps she would reconsider. But if she did, it would be of her own choosing somewhere very far in the future. And finally, and this was completely unnegotiable, he had to absolutely adore her. She wouldn’t settle for anything less. She had agreed to a Season, not to any matchmaking, therefore introducing her to all and sundry was pointless. Solid, dependable and trustworthy men would hardly waste their time in this crush. They would be far too sensible and nothing like the fops, dandies and pompous aristocratic versions here, so why her new aunts insisted on parading in a constant loop around the room was beyond her. Not only was she unlikely to remember the fifty different names of gentlemen thrown at her so far, without her spectacles, every one of the fifty faces resembled blurred pink blobs. Aside from the varying colours of hair or clothing, none of the many men she had met had any discerning features which she could recognise them by, should she need to.

  Mind you, parading around the ballroom was better than standing near the refreshment table. Her aunts had a worrying penchant for the lemonade—which they mixed liberally with the brandy they hid in hip flasks in their reticules, while they regaled her with outrageous stories from their pasts—and had pressed so many glasses into Fliss’s hand her head was beginning to spin. Thanks to the rigid corset, that wasn’t the only side-effect.

  ‘I think I need to visit the retiring room.’

  Both old ladies sighed. ‘How very tiresome. Ever since the great ball at Osterley we have trained ourselves to take no notice of such things. Isn’t that right, Sister?’

  Cressida nodded sagely. ‘Indeed. And a very prudent decision it has turned out to be.’

  They often talked in riddles, too, sharing knowing looks and wicked grins about experiences from their pasts which they frequently assumed she knew about. ‘That is all well and good, but the retiring room?’

  Daphne flapped her hand to the left. ‘It’s over there.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming with me?’ Because Fliss didn’t trust herself to get there unattended. Not when she wasn’t entirely certain where ‘over there’ was. With her glasses she had a poor sense of direction. Without them she would be hopeless. ‘I’m afraid I might get lost.’ An understatement. It was almost guaranteed.

  ‘As long as you have a tongue in your head, Felicity, you will never be lost. Remember that, dear.’ Daphne was also prone to issue random guiding words of wisdom at odd times. ‘Head towards the alcove and you shall find it in the furthest corner.’ The hand flapped ineffectually again. ‘We shall wait for you by the refreshment table, won’t we, Cressida?’

  Of course they would. Because that was where the lemonade lived.

  ‘Yes, indeed. Now that you mention it, I am a bit parched, Daphne.’

  To Fliss’s complete disgust, the older women immediately left her on their quest for yet more refreshment. She stood impotently and watched their ridiculously tall and elaborate feathered headdresses disappear into the sea of people and allowed her irritation to bubble.

  How perfectly splendid. She’d been abandoned by the only two people she knew in the room. Yet another thing to sour her already dour mood. She was stuck miles from home at a ball she didn’t want to be at, wearing a dress she feared she was spilling out of, trussed in a corset she couldn’t breathe in and, to make the occasion all the more perturbing, she couldn’t see more than two feet past her nose. As soon as she got back to Uncle Crispin’s soulless Mayfair house, she had every intention of penning a sternly worded letter to Sister Ursuline telling her the next time she had the urge to suggest Fliss have a little adventure, she could mind her own business.

  Typically, within a few minutes of squeezing past the silk-clad throng she was hopelessly lost and it didn’t feel polite to ask such personal directions of complete strangers. Aunt Daphne had said the ladies’ retiring room was in a corner and Almack’s was reassuringly rectangular. If she kept resolutely to the edge, she would doubtless find the dratted room eventually, even if that involved going around a few times. Retracing her steps to the refreshment table might be more problematic, but at least left to her own devices she was spared a few minutes of po
intless parading, smiling and gliding like a wispy, blind swan. A slow smile bloomed on her face at the prospect. Suddenly, being lost held a great deal of appeal.

  Chapter Two

  In a secluded alcove in St James’s

  Jake was still sulking when he arrived at Almack’s. Seducing an innocent, wide-eyed chit didn’t sit right with him. And, if he was being entirely honest with himself, neither did flirting with one. While he was supremely confident in his ability to do both with exceptional finesse, he made it a point of principle never to dally with nice young ladies. Bawdy young ladies, experienced older ladies and anyone who ran the gamut between was fair game, but impressionable virgins had always been off limits.

  For all the many notches on his bedpost, he had not been a single woman’s first lover, nor had he ever wooed a woman who didn’t know how the game of illicit courtship was played. He might well be a scandalous good-for-nothing scoundrel, but even scoundrels had standards. A line in the sand which they did not cross. Yet now he was being asked to cross it for King and country—another standard he held sacrosanct. Despite a whole day to ponder the moral dilemma he still wasn’t entirely sure he was prepared to make an exception.

  Lord Fennimore had no such reservations, but then Lord Fennimore was not the one who was going to be whispering sweet nothings into her inexperienced ear or trying to trick her tender heart into trusting a man who shouldn’t be trusted. But if his gut instinct was correct, then her uncle deserved all that was coming to him. Aside from the French double agent, every single person who had brought them closer towards the dangerous smuggling ring had wound up dead. All in very believable circumstances, of course—a carriage accident, a nasty fall, drowning in the docks while roaring drunk—but all cases a little too convenient and too close to their investigation to be dismissed. It positively reeked of foul play and Rowley was at the heart of it. And they did have to stop him, the sooner the better, but Jake sincerely hoped not like this. The whole situation left a very bad taste in his mouth.

  Careful to stay in the shadows in the alcove, he scanned the room for the latest crop of debutantes. Fortunately, they were easy to spot. They were all obscenely young, eager and clad in the palest silk gowns. They were also all wearing permanently awestruck expressions. With no clue as to what Miss Blunt looked like, he instead searched for the Sawyer sisters, a task which didn’t take long. The two ladies were glued to the refreshment table, clearly enjoying their matching glasses of lemonade too much for the contents of their glasses to be purely lemon.

  Lady Daphne was sporting what resembled a whole peacock’s tail on her head, while Lady Cressida’s coiffure sprouted ostrich plumes dyed pink to match her garish dress. The weight of both headdresses, and perhaps the hard spirits the two women had a legendary fondness for, was making the feathers list. Or perhaps it was the ladies who listed. From this distance, Jake couldn’t be sure. He watched them closely for a full ten minutes before he could say for certain they had already misplaced their charge. With nothing else to do, he propped himself against a pillar and settled in for a long wait. With any luck, the chit would have already been waylaid by a handsome fellow who’d have already swept her off her juvenile feet, thus providing Jake with a ready excuse to throw in Fennimore’s face when Jake failed in his unsavoury mission. Surely they could get to Rowley another way? He could work his way through the man’s changing parade of mistresses, seduce a willing and lusty maid—hell, if it came to it, Jake was even prepared to whisper sweet nothings into the ears of Rowley’s housekeeper as long as the woman was not a complete hag. Anyone, in fact, but an innocent child.

  It was the perfume which distracted him first. The heady scent reminded Jake of fat summer roses, fresh air and sunshine. Nothing like the stuffy smell of Almack’s. His nostrils twitched as they sought the source until his eyes located her.

  Now this was more the kind of woman he would choose to seduce. Too bad she was not his assignment. He’d even go as far as admitting the tantalising vision that had just turned the corner would be pure pleasure, for once, rather than business. Thick honey hair, sultry almond eyes and the lushest pair of lips he’d seen in a long time. And the sensuous way she moved drew his eyes and imprisoned them. Her own had a faraway look in them as she hugged the wall, trailing the tips of her gloved fingers along the plaster as if she had all the time in the world and was in no hurry to go anywhere. He liked that about her.

  Here in Almack’s the ladies always had a higher purpose. To be seen. To be noticed. To make a good impression. To find a husband. This woman preferred the shadows and had no interest in the nonsense going on outside the alcove. Just like him.

  She still hadn’t noticed him, despite the fact he stood barely ten feet away, so Jake watched her gaze out towards the dancers and sigh. There was a distinctly dreamy look about her, as if she wished she was somewhere else, something he also empathised with. If he hadn’t been working, he might have walked over and suggested they go elsewhere together. But alas, he was on a mission and needed to see it through as swiftly as possible no matter how distasteful he found it. Something which would not happen if he gave in to the overwhelming temptation to talk to her. Jake watched her scan the room again, this time with very narrowed eyes which made him wonder exactly what it was she suddenly disapproved of until she clearly saw something—or someone—she didn’t want to. She darted behind a pillar and straight into a potted palm.

  The clumsy manoeuvre made him laugh out loud. Her head whipped around in alarm at the sound.

  ‘Don’t worry. I shan’t tell whoever it is that you are hiding from them.’

  ‘I am not hiding.’ But she didn’t move from the safety of the pillar. ‘Oh, all right, I am. Have they gone?’

  Jake scanned the area and nodded. ‘There’s nobody here but you and me. If it’s any consolation, I’m hiding, too.’ Hiding from the inevitable. ‘What are you hiding from?’

  ‘The gentlemen my chaperons appear intent on introducing me to. What are you hiding from?’

  ‘Responsibility and duty.’

  Those lush lips instantly turned up in a smile and she was prettier for it. ‘You can’t hide from those.’

  ‘I can and I have for the better part of a decade. What’s wrong with the men your chaperons are foisting upon you?’

  ‘Nothing, I suppose, other than the fact they are being foisted upon me. I didn’t come here to meet gentlemen.’ That in itself set her apart from the sea of eager hopefuls in the ballroom.

  ‘Then what did you come here for?’

  She sighed and looked miserable. ‘My mother. Apparently, it was her dearest wish that I visit Almack’s—among other things. Although I fail to see the appeal of the place.’

  ‘Such enthusiasm.’

  ‘I have no enthusiasm.’ The corners of those plump lips twitched again. There was the vaguest hint of the north in her accent, more northern than where he came from in Nottingham. Yorkshire, perhaps, or Lancashire? ‘That is part of the problem. I got lost half an hour ago and I find myself surprisingly content with being lost and by default reluctant to be found again just yet.’

  Intriguing. Much more intriguing than the onerous task he was meant to be doing. ‘What is it about this quintessential society ritual which has forced you into hiding?’

  Her nose wrinkled endearingly before she spoke. ‘I find the whole thing pointless and a little shallow, if I am honest.’ Something he had a feeling she always was. A northern trait. Brutal honesty and the inability to suffer fools or foolishness gladly.

  ‘I can see how the attraction soon wears thin. Especially as Almack’s has so many tiresome rules one has to obey. How many visits to this stifling establishment did it take for you to become so jaded?’

  ‘Oh, this is my first. I was presented to the patronesses an hour ago.’ She smiled a little shyly, but leaned a little closer than was proper, treating him to more of her delicious perfu
me, more alluring now that it was closer to her skin. ‘I am being launched into society tonight. Rather reluctantly as I am sure you can see.’

  She looked nothing like the traditional debutante. For a start, she had at least five years on most of them and lacked the dewy-eyed innocence prevalent all around them which Jake found so distasteful. ‘This is your come-out?’ Laughter threatened at the preposterousness. She had to be well past the age of majority, but, age aside, she was too canny a woman. Too comfortable in her own skin and mind when all around her were awed and awkward girls.

  ‘I can see, sir, that you are as staggered by it as I am and are racking your brains for a polite way to say I am a bit too old to be coming out. Which I patently am.’

  There was no point in denying it. ‘How come a matron of such advanced years is only just being launched into society?’ As he had hoped, she smiled at the sarcasm. He had no time for people who didn’t understand it. Irony and sarcasm were two of his very best friends.

  ‘I confess, I honestly have no idea. One minute I was happily enjoying my dotage in Keswick and then I was dragged here.’

  Very north, then. The more she spoke the more he could hear it in the lilt of her voice. ‘How awful for you. Were you dragged from the bosom of Cumbria against your will?’

  ‘Not completely. When the invitation came, I’ll admit to being intrigued. London is an adventure, I suppose, and I was due one. And I was curious about the city I was born in, but have no memory of. I wanted to visit some of the sights I’ve only read about. The Tower of London, the British Museum, St James’s Palace...’ She sighed dramatically to amuse him. ‘But alas, my uncle expressly forbade any touring about until I was launched properly.’

  Little flags raised in his mind. ‘Your uncle?’ Surely it was a coincidence?