Don't Tempt Me

by Loretta Chase

  She nodded, plumes bobbing.

  He started to lean forward, to kiss her.

  The carriage stopped.

  He glanced out of the window and sat back hastily. “Drat. We’ve arrived at your house already—and speaking of crazy people, there’s a trail of black feathers to the door.”

  Zoe knew there were girls in books who declined financially advantageous offers on noble principles. She knew there were fictional girls who threw everything away for love. She certainly knew that only a short time ago she’d decided that Marchmont would not make a good husband.

  She still believed that.

  He was the kind of man who was quickly bored. He’d soon grow bored with his wife. He’d stray, and no matter how discreet he was, she’d know, and it would hurt her.

  All the same, she knew what she had done and she knew that sort of thing led to babies and she knew that having relinquished her virginity, the correct thing to do was to marry the man she’d relinquished it to. If she didn’t, she’d not only shame her parents and—if a baby did result—be ostracized from the world she’d worked so hard to get into, but she’d be throwing away the chance to be one of the premier ladies of the realm.

  She’d brought this on herself. She would have an unfaithful husband, as other women did, and she would simply have to live with it, as other women did.

  It wasn’t as though there weren’t any compensations. Marchmont was extremely handsome and extremely rich, and she had greatly enjoyed losing her virginity to him—except for the moment when it actually went.

  Only a crazy woman would decline his offer. Zoe was uncivilized, and she hadn’t got her inhibitions back yet, but she was not insane.

  She could leave madness to Lady Sophronia, while basking in the knowledge that she’d soon be a duchess and she and Marchmont could do more of what they’d done in the carriage. And no one could object then, at all.

  Zoe and Marchmont found everyone gathered in the large drawing room. Everyone included, along with Lady Sophronia and Lady Emma, Zoe’s parents, sisters, brothers, and the assorted spouses.

  Mama must have told them of Zoe’s success, because there was a chorus of “Well done” and “I knew you could” and such when she and Marchmont entered.

  Lady Sophronia soon reclaimed the audience’s attention and launched into a detailed description of what the attendees had worn to the Birthday Drawing Room. It was the usual family hubbub until her ladyship’s gaze lit upon Marchmont.

  “You, sir,” she said. She had the same kind of commanding voice Marchmont had. The noise in the room abated.

  He looked up from his conversation with Samuel. “Me, Auntie?”

  She beckoned with one diamond-covered hand. Marchmont left Samuel and approached the corner where she presided, with Emma Sinclair nearby, looking worn out.

  “You,” said Lady Sophronia.

  “Yes, it is I,” he said. “Your nephew Marchmont.”

  “I know who you are,” she said. “You’re the one who played tricks on me.”

  “Did I, Auntie?”

  “Don’t play the innocent with me. You deliberately encouraged me to get into the wrong carriage. I never was so surprised in all my life as when I found myself at Lexham House instead of on my way to Kensington.”

  “How shocking,” he said.

  “You tricked me,” she said.

  He made a show of thinking hard. “Hmmm,” he said. “Ah, yes, it comes back to me. I had something I wanted to say to Zoe Octavia. In private.”

  He glanced at Zoe, and the devil glinted in his green eyes. That look put straight into her mind vivid images of what they’d done in the carriage. Her skin became very hot.

  “I cannot believe it,” said Augusta. “That was most improper. Indeed, Zoe, you ought to blush. To drive unchaperoned with a gentleman immediately after Mama presented you to the Queen. I vow, it is as though you deliberately—”

  “Her Majesty took particular note of Zoe Octavia,” Lady Sophronia said in her commanding voice. “Everyone there remarked it. The Princess Sophia—or was it the Princess Elizabeth? Never mind. One of them drew her aside for a word. The Regent spoke to her. I recall nothing of the kind occurring at your presentation, Augusta Jane.”

  Augusta subsided in confusion.

  “We shall not ask what you had to say to Zoe Octavia, Lucien,” Lady Sophronia continued. “These are private matters best understood by the young people involved. I myself was young until Friday of last week.” She turned away from Marchmont to address Mama. “We were not so prim in the old days, were we, my dear? A dull king and a court that drove us witless with boredom. But we were not dull. I always say there is nothing like a man in knee breeches. A man, that is, possessed of a good leg. Lucien, you see, has his father’s legs, my late brother. My legs, too, have been remarked upon in their time. My ankles, as you know, have inspired odes.”

  It was going to be interesting, indeed, being the Duchess of Marchmont, Zoe thought. Among other things, she was going to acquire some colorful relatives.

  While his aunt held her audience spellbound—or dumbstruck or vertiginous, as the case might be—Marchmont casually strolled to Lord Lexham’s side and said in a low voice, “I should like a word with you, sir.”

  Lexham’s eyebrows went up.

  Marchmont’s conscience became very shrill, painting lewd pictures of what he had done with this gentleman’s youngest daughter. “About Zoe,” he said.

  Lexham glanced toward Zoe. She was watching his aunt, and wearing, instead of the customary look of embarrassment and/or confusion and/or horror, a small smile.

  He wanted to kiss the corners of her mouth where it turned up that very little bit.

  “My study,” Lexham said, and led the way there.

  Marchmont closed the door behind him when he entered. “I want to marry Zoe,” he said.

  “Do you, indeed?” said Lexham. He stepped behind his desk, which was heaped with papers, as usual. “What’s done it? The hoops? The plumes?” He picked up a piece of paper, frowned at it, and set it down again.

  “I’m not joking,” said Marchmont.

  “I didn’t think you were. But you know, she did make you a most handsome offer some weeks ago, as I recall, and you turned it down.”

  “As I recollect, I said at the time that I was tempted but accepting would be taking unfair advantage,” said Marchmont. “She believed then that she had no alternative.”

  She didn’t have one now, either.

  “I thought she wanted to meet other men,” Lexham said. “I thought that would mean more than two fellows she hadn’t clapped eyes on before.”

  “I find that I prefer she meet other men after we’re married,” said Marchmont. “I’m possessive, you see.”

  “Are you, indeed?”

  “Zoe explained it to me,” Marchmont said.

  “In the carriage,” said Lexham. “When you were quite private.”

  Guilt ate at Marchmont like acid.

  “Where I proposed,” he said. “Contrary to my aunt’s assertions—”

  Lexham put up his hand. “My lady told me what happened. Lady Sophronia has her own distinctive view of the world. The rest of us must bear our doubts and uncertainties, but she is always certain. We all know how difficult it is to persuade the lady out of a misapprehension. You could hardly make the rest of the company wait while you embarked upon that Herculean labor. You’d make quicker work of cleaning the Augean Stables.”

  “I owe her thanks for this particular hallucination,” Marchmont said. “When I found myself alone with Zoe…Well, I believe it’s enough to say that I realized I didn’t want her to marry anybody but me. She said she’d have me. All we want is your consent.”

  There was a long pause. Lexham left the place behind his desk and walked to the fire. He stood there, looking into the grate, as he so often did when cogitating.

  After a time he looked at Marchmont. “I notice that you don’t say you’re over head and ears in
love with Zoe.”

  Marchmont found himself at a loss how to answer, a rare experience for him, though not surprising in the circumstances. When he’d set out this day, the last thing he’d expected was to be standing here, asking Lexham for his daughter’s hand—and all the other delicious parts of her.

  He was over head and ears in lust, beyond a doubt. He had no idea what anyone meant by love in these cases. He’d always assumed it was a euphemism for a strong attraction.

  “You don’t say, either, that without her your life would be a desert,” Lexham added after a moment. “But that isn’t the sort of thing you’d say.” He shrugged. “And it isn’t the sort of thing I could easily stomach. No, I suppose I don’t expect it, though I’m not altogether surprised at this turn of events. You’ve always had the knack of dealing with her, and I’ll feel less anxious trusting her to you than to anyone else I can think of.”

  Ah, yes, I’m to be trusted. Give me half an hour alone in a carriage with your daughter and her virtue’s done for.

  Lexham nodded to himself. “Then, too, she’ll be a duchess, and I’m no different than any other father in wishing to see my child well set up in life. Yes, it will do, it will do.”

  Marchmont let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  Lexham gave him a quizzical look. “Did you think I’d say no?”

  “She’s been back for only a few weeks,” Marchmont said. “I thought you might tell me I was too hasty—or you weren’t quite ready to give her up.”

  “I shan’t see her any less than I do at present,” said Lexham. “She lives under my roof, but I’m hardly ever at home. And when I am at home, my daughters usually turn up, I find. They’re the very devil to get rid of.” He laughed then. “Come, Marchmont, give me your hand.”

  His former ward did so and thanked him.

  “A most satisfactory day this has turned out to be,” Lexham said. “The royal family has smiled on my daughter, and she’s netted herself London’s most sought-after bachelor. A duke, no less.” He laughed. “I always said Zoe was a clever girl. Well, then, you have my blessing, Marchmont. Now let me speak to her.”

  Late that night

  Zoe stood at the window, looking down into the garden. This time she’d obediently donned her nightgown, as well as the heavy wrapper Jarvis had insisted she wear.

  “Miss, I hope you’re not thinking of running away this time,” said Jarvis as she turned down the bedclothes.

  “If I did, it would only be to get away to think,” Zoe said. “I can hardly believe all that’s happened in one day. My head is a jumble.”

  Marchmont at the bottom of the stairs…the presentation…Marchmont lifting her up and spinning her about…the wondrous end of her virginity…and then he’d asked her, and yes she’d said, because no other answer was possible.

  She smiled. He must have had a very anxious few minutes while she was alone in the study with her father.

  The duke needn’t have worried.

  Yes, she was uninhibited, as Marchmont said. She was not a fool, however. She knew better than to tell Papa what had happened during the return from the Queen’s House.

  She had only assured her father that Marchmont had had no trouble persuading her to become his duchess. “I’ve never felt about any man as I do about him,” she’d said, and that was simple truth.

  “The Duchess of Marchmont,” Jarvis said in awe-filled tones. “I can hardly take it in myself.”

  “I still haven’t taken it in,” Zoe said. “What chance had I to think, with all of them about?”

  The hubbub attendant on her arrival from court was nothing to the uproar ensuing this evening at the family dinner celebrating her debut. When the dessert course arrived, her father said he had an additional treat for them all. That was all the warning he gave before announcing her engagement to Marchmont.

  “It was funny,” she said. “Everyone was so surprised. Well, not so much Priscilla. She wasn’t quite as much aghast as the rest of them. But it did stop some of my sisters fussing about my traveling alone with him in a closed carriage. They all assumed he took the opportunity to propose because he was blinded by my finery. They couldn’t imagine why any man in his senses would marry me—and they could see he wasn’t drunk when we arrived at Lexham House.” She laughed. “They thought it was the dress—and perhaps it was.” He seemed to find her hoops as exciting as she did.

  “Miss, if His Grace hadn’t asked, there’s a hundred who would,” Jarvis said loyally.

  “That’s a hundred who don’t know me,” Zoe said. “I know he won’t be an easy husband, but I won’t be an easy wife. Still, we understand each other well enough…” She let out a sigh. “And I’m afraid I do love him.”

  “Nothing to be afraid of, miss. I’ve no doubt he loves you, too. Leastways, he will, once he comes to know you better. Come to bed, please. You’ll be needing your rest after such a day. And we’ll be very busy in the next few days, packing your things and getting you ready to move to Marchmont House.” She shook her head. “Oh my, oh my, I can hardly believe it. Back into that house—that Mr. Harrison—and this time you’ll be his mistress. I do wonder what’s going through his head.”

  Zoe approached the bed. “Oh, yes. Harrison. I’d forgotten about him.”

  “I haven’t,” said Jarvis. “I’m glad at least I shan’t be going there as a housemaid. As you said, I answer only to you—and I shan’t have much to do with him in any event, except at mealtimes. Not that I complain, miss. It’s an enviable place to have. Lady’s maid to the Duchess of Marchmont. Who could have thought it!” She shook her head in wonder.

  “I only thought of Marchmont,” Zoe said. “I never thought about the house, that great, immaculate house and all the servants. My goodness. I’ll be mistress there. What fun!”

  “Miss, you said I could say my opinion, and my opinion is, Mr. Harrison isn’t going to be much fun.”

  Zoe looked at her. “You’re not afraid of that man?”

  “Yes, miss, I’m afraid I am.”

  “Pish. Nothing to be afraid of. Yusri Pasha’s chief eunuch—now that was a man to fear. It took me years to understand him. But this one, who has all his manly parts?” Zoe paused. “The servants do keep all their manly parts in England?”

  “Miss, I don’t think it’s allowed to make eunuchs here,” Jarvis said.

  Zoe waved her hand dismissively. “Then there’s nothing to be uneasy about. I do know how to manage a household, and I’ll manage that one.”

  Twelve

  By Thursday night, the rumors were racing through the Beau Monde.

  The servants, as usual, heard the rumors long before their betters did.

  At Marchmont House, however, rumor swiftly turned into certainty, and members of the duke’s upper level staff knew well before nightfall that calamity had struck: Their master was marrying the Harem Girl.

  They knew it because he told them so.

  After the Birthday Drawing Room, when the Duke of Marchmont returned to change from court dress into evening dress, he summoned Harrison into his study. Osgood was there, too, as he always was, to write down whatever needed writing down. He did a great deal of writing down wagers lost and won.

  He knew, therefore, that he could expect a draft for a thousand pounds from Lord Adderwood, who’d bet that Miss Lexham would not make her curtsey to the Queen before the end of the month.

  He did not know until this moment that His Grace had lost the wager regarding Miss Lexham’s being wed before the end of the London Season.

  “I’m getting married,” His Grace informed his two employees. “To Miss Lexham. Next week, perhaps.”

  Both men maintained their usual wooden expressions. Both offered the correct form of congratulations.

  Both felt queasy, albeit for different reasons. Osgood feared that a lady in the house would upset his neat order and disturb his papers.

  Harrison, who had no intention of letting any female interfere in any
way with his arrangements, was mortified at the prospect of having to abase himself to a person who had made a spectacle of herself in the newspapers—one who had, furthermore, administered to him a setdown that a certain footman had repeated to another. Harrison had dismissed both servants without a character.

  His Grace knew nothing about this. His Grace didn’t know one footman from another.

  “I shall make a note for a special license,” said Osgood. “And the purchase of a ring.”

  “I planned to go to Doctors’ Commons for the license tomorrow,” said the duke.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” said Osgood. “Have you any particular requirements regarding the ring?”

  “Indeed, I do,” said His Grace. “I shall see about that, too, tomorrow. While I’m in the neighborhood, I’ll stop at Rundell and Bridge.”

  Rundell and Bridge were royal goldsmiths and favorites of the Prince Regent. The shop at Number Thirty-two Ludgate Hill included among its regular customers not only English royals and nobility but those European crowned heads who’d managed to keep theirs attached to their necks.

  If Harrison had ever worn an expression, it would have grown grimmer. But all his thoughts were written on the inside.

  His master, to his knowledge, had never personally selected and purchased a piece of jewelry for anybody since coming into the title. It was Osgood’s responsibility to buy the gifts His Grace gave to his amours. The duke’s wishing to visit Rundell and Bridge himself and choose the engagement ring himself boded ill. The Harem Girl, clearly, had her hooks in him very deeply, indeed.

  “I must pay a brief call tonight,” Marchmont said casually to his secretary. “I shall wish to bring a gift.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  No more was said. No more needed to be said. The duke was getting married. A gift to the party he was not marrying was in order, and Osgood would be expected to have a suitable parting gift on hand.

  The duke gave no further instructions. It wouldn’t occur to him to do so. Osgood, who operated independently of the household staff, knew exactly what was required of him. Harrison, as usual, would ascertain what needed to be done next in his sphere and would communicate these requirements to those in the lower ranks.