Too Tempting to Resist

by Cara Elliott

  Gryff followed his friend’s eyes to a clump of trees shading the walkway, where half-hidden by the hanging branches, a couple were engaged in what looked to be an intimate discussion. As the man reached up to brush a curl from the lady’s cheek, he let out a low hiss.

  “I take it you recognize the baronet’s fair companion?”

  “Perhaps,” said Gryff, but he did not elaborate.

  Cameron stared thoughtfully at the shifting patterns of light and dark for a moment or two before looking away. “I’m heading east, so I’ll part ways with you here.”

  Gryff nodded absently, his attention still on the swirl of shadows. Cameron’s voice faded away, as did the clatter of the carriage wheels and the yapping of the little dogs. All he could hear was a strange sort of thrumming in his ears.

  He balled a fist, fighting off the urge to go grab Brighton’s hand and yank it away from Eliza’s face.

  Quelling the flare of temper, he turned on his heel and chose the perimeter path. He had been intending to return home to work on his writing, but suddenly a stop at his club for a taste of its famed French brandy seemed a far more attractive alternative.

  Why the devil hadn’t Lady Brentford mentioned that she was coming to Town?

  The question had no sooner taken shape in his head when he dismissed it with a rueful grimace. He had no right to feel possessive. Their mad little moments of intimacy were just that—sweetly serendipitous lapses of sanity. Pursuing the acquaintance would only lead to trouble.

  “Trouble,” he muttered under his breath.

  Frowning, two elderly matrons gave him a wide berth.

  “Trouble.” Gryff said it again, hoping the audible reminder would carry more force than his mental scold. Repressing the urge to dart another look at the trees, he kept on walking.

  “A talented artist?” Eliza was totally bewildered by Brighton’s words. “I can’t imagine why that would matter to you. I’m under the impression that you prefer to pursue more mundane activities than the quiet contemplation of drawings or watercolors, sir.”

  “Correct, Lady Brentford. I like endeavors that make me money. Preferably a lot of money.” He looked at her expectantly. “And you will help me turn a handsome profit for precious little investment.”

  “Are you drunk?” she demanded. “Or simply demented?”

  “Neither,” replied Brighton, the sneer thinning from his face. “Enough of your nattering, Lady Brentford. Let us get down to business.”

  She waited.

  “Listen, and listen very carefully. Your brother owes me a fortune, and he’s offered you as a means of paying it back. You’re right, I don’t find your gangly looks or shrewish temper attractive. But then…” His lips formed a curl of contempt. “I don’t need a wife for pleasurable pursuits.”

  Eliza maintained a stoic silence, trying to pretend that he wasn’t frightening her.

  Brighton seemed a little disappointed that she didn’t react. His voice hardened. “Do as you’re told, and I’ll leave you to rusticate in the country, once I beget a brat or two on you.”

  Her skin began to crawl at the thought.

  “And just what is it you want me to do?” asked Eliza softly.

  “A very simple thing for a lady of your prodigious skills.” He was enjoying this taunting. Malice intensified the color of his eyes, adding a reddish glint to the pale brown hue. “All you have to do is copy some prosy old paintings of flowers and bugs.”

  “I won’t.” It took Eliza only an instant to grasp his meaning. “I won’t be party to your plans.”

  “Oh, but I think you will.”

  “Forgery is crime. I’ve no intention of going to prison.”

  “Then I’d think twice about making an enemy of me, Lady Brentford. You see, your first endeavor is already in the marketplace.”

  “Impossible!” whispered Eliza. And then bit her gloved knuckle as she remembered a long-ago practice painting…

  “That’s right,” gloated Brighton. “A lovely rendition of a Maria Sibylla Merian botanical painting, done so masterfully that even the experts have been fooled.”

  “But I did it as a learning exercise,” she protested. “Copying is an age-old practice in art. It’s meant to teach an artist about technique and brushwork.”

  His laugh was sharp as a razor’s edge. “Perhaps the magistrates will appreciate a lecture on art history. But I rather doubt it.”

  Dear God. For an instant, Eliza went numb with shock. She had always dismissed the baronet and his oily attempts at charm as simply an unpleasant wastrel. But apparently she had underestimated his capacity for cunning cleverness.

  “As I said, think on it, Lady Brentford. Refuse me and your brother will end up on the sponging house and you—well, at best you will be reduced to abject poverty, your family name in deep disgrace. But it’s far more likely you will be residing in Newgate Prison.”

  “Accept you and I shall be enslaved in a marriage where I am forced into criminal activity, with no control over my person or my purse.”

  A wicked grin. “Pick your poison.”

  He had her trapped between a rock and a stone, and no matter which way she turned, it seemed that the rough-cut slabs were squeezing in with unyielding force.

  No, I won’t let myself be crushed, vowed Eliza, though in meeting Brighton’s gaze, it was hard not to let her resolve waver.

  Swallowing a surge of panic, she made her mind focus. “H-how much does Harry owe you?”

  The question seemed to take him by surprise. His brows pinched together as he growled. “Why do you ask?”

  His wary expression encouraged her to press on. “How much?” she repeated a little more forcefully.

  Brighton hesitated and then named a figure that nearly made her swoon.

  Steady, steady. Eliza forced herself to think. “That’s a great deal to recoup through selling forgeries. I wouldn’t imagine that you are taking the chance to offer my copy at a legitimate auction house, so I am curious—where do you seek a buyer?”

  “I don’t see that such information is any of your concern,” he replied slowly.

  “On the contrary, sir. You are asking me to enter a lifetime business arrangement, so I have a right to know whether it has a chance of being profitable.” The past few years of dealing with Harry had taught her to put on a brave face. “I’m not nearly as stupid as my brother. If I am going to put myself under your thumb, I want some assurances that I’m going to get something in return.”

  He narrowed his eyes in a calculating squint. “You may prove even more useful than I thought. Very well, there’s little harm in satisfying your curiosity.” His self-assurance was back. “The painting is currently being offered for sale at a flash house here in London.”

  Eliza remembered overhearing Harry use the term when he and his friends had been discussing a rash of robberies in Mayfair. “That is a place run by some unscrupulous person who sells stolen goods brought to him by thieves.”

  “A private emporium,” agreed Brighton with a smirk. “Open only to a select clientele.”

  “I see.” An idea—an admittedly wild idea—was beginning to take shape in her head. But conventional wisdom wasn’t going to save the day. Lowering her lashes, she swirled the spoon in the now-melted ice. “Please, sir, this quite a lot to digest. I—I need some time to think about it.”

  “Go ahead. But keep in mind that there’s only one choice that will save you and your brother from ruin.”

  “Harry knows about your offer?” she asked.

  “But of course. And he’s given it his enthusiastic blessing.”

  Eliza expected no less, and yet it still hurt. Taking care to keep the hollow ache in her chest from echoing in her voice, she said, “If there’s nothing further to discuss, I would like to return to Gunter’s.”

  The baronet leaned in as she accepted his arm. “Smile, Lady Brentford. You wouldn’t want people to think we weren’t the happy couple, would you?”

  A patch
of pale lavender petunias caught Gryff’s eye. Damnation—Nature seemed to be sending mixed messages regarding Lady Brentford, he thought wryly. The flowers said “your presence soothes me,” while his brain was communicating exactly the opposite signal to his body. He tried to dispel the strange prickling sensation on his skin by loosening the knot of his cravat. The grit from travel was rubbing a bit raw, and the sooner he returned home to a bath and fresh linen, the better.

  Seeing that Eliza and her companion had moved out of the shade, Gryff turned up a parallel path and moderated his pace.

  “I’m not spying,” he muttered slowly. “I’m merely observing.”

  And he didn’t much like what he saw.

  Her face looked like a marble mask, a pale, lifeless stretch of stone, save for two hot spots of color painted along the ridge of her cheekbones. Despite the sunlight, her eyes were dull, reflecting a hard-edged glimmer that lacked any inner fire.

  He knew her well enough by now to sense that something was wrong.

  His gaze flicked to Brighton, who in contrast appeared smugly satisfied with whatever had just passed between him and the lady.

  The couple left the garden and crossed back to the tea shop. Gryff halted inside the gate and under the pretense of consulting his pocket notebook, slanted a sidelong look through the wrought iron bars. A few moments later, a grinning Brighton and Leete emerged from the interior and sauntered off, looking for all the world like two schoolboys who had just stuffed themselves with sweets.

  Recalling the night he met Eliza and her half-jesting wish that he kick some sense into her brother, Gryff was tempted to follow them and thump a pair of rumps. But then, the jingle of the tea shop’s bells drew his eyes back to the ornate entrance. Eliza was leaving, followed by a young abigail.

  Let her go. Bloody hell, he had enough trouble of his own without seeking more.

  “Yes, but a gentleman does not turn his back on a damsel in distress.” As the low mutter trailed off, his lips quirked up. And rescuing this particular damsel had become something of a habit.

  Slipping though the opening, Gryff hurried to catch up with his quarry.

  “Lady Brentford! What a surprise to encounter you.” He touched the brim of his hat. “I didn’t realize you were planning a trip to Town.”

  The greeting drew a slanted glance. He saw only a flicker of her shadowed lashes and then her eyes snapped back to staring straight ahead. Her unladylike hurry had her bonnet ribbons flapping around her cheek, further obscuring her profile.

  “Why would you?” she replied coolly. “I am not in the habit of confiding my personal plans with strangers, sir.”

  Gryff gave a pointed look at the abigail, who immediately dropped back a discreet distance. “I should hope that we are rather more than strangers, Lady Brentford,” he murmured, hoping to soften the jut of her chin.

  His words drew no hint of a smile. Instead she tightened her jaw and started walking faster, despite the limping hitch in her stride. “Oh, and just what exactly are we, Lord Haddan?”

  The visit to Gunter’s appeared to have left a sour taste in her mouth.

  Without giving him a chance to answer, she went on in a rush. “As far as I can see, men are wont to see a female as naught but another of their countless toys, to be used until it breaks or ceases to amuse.” Her half boot scraped against the pavement as her lingering limp caused her to stumble over a rough patch of cobbles. Gryff reached out a steadying hand, but she jerked back out of reach.

  The misstep seemed to goad her to greater ire. “A toy can simply be discarded, and a new one acquired to take its place.”

  Leete must have done something to strike a very raw nerve.

  “I saw your brother leaving Gunter’s,” he said. “I take it he has done something to upset you.”

  She kept walking.

  That the baronet may have stepped in to try to comfort her did not improve his own mood. “It may be none of my business, but I would counsel you not to seek solace from Sir Brighton. His reputation is not one that should engender much confidence in a lady.” As he spoke, Gryff was uncomfortably aware of the irony in his words.

  Eliza did not throw them back in his face. She merely replied, “You are right, sir. It’s none of your business.”

  Gryff refused to be brushed off. “Lady Brentford, you are clearly upset. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Satin snapped in the breeze, the ribbons tangling and pulling her bonnet slightly askew. A sharp exhale blew them clear of her pinched mouth.

  “Forgive me for sounding shrill, Lord Haddan,” she answered after a moment. “I appreciate your concern, but it is a private family matter.”

  There was little he could say to that, save to incline a polite nod. “It is I who should apologize. I did not mean to cause you further distress.”

  “It’s not you who are to blame.” A nonchalant shrug punctuated the reply, but as she stepped through a patch of sunlight, he caught a quicksilver glimmer of moisture clinging to her lashes.

  Repressing a frown, Gryff pretended not to notice. Looking up at the carved cornices and mortared brickwork of the building up ahead, he spent the next few strides mentally pummeling her brother for upsetting her. A bleakness had wrapped itself around her, snuffing out every bright spark of her spirit.

  And what of Brighton? Surely he deserved some of the blame, for whatever he had said to Lady Brentford, it had brought her no comfort. Gryff thought of her hands clenched around the dish of melting sorbet, and was suddenly reminded of Cameron’s comment about the baronet being a thoroughly dirty dish.

  Gentlemanly scruples demanded that he honor the lady’s request to respect her privacy. But no such code covered the baronet. Another glance at Eliza’s stiff-legged gait and steeled spine and Gryff made up his mind.

  Brighton needed further scrutiny.

  “I turn here, Lord Haddan.” Eliza paused just long enough to let the abigail catch up. “So I will bid you adieu.”

  “Are you staying long in Town?” he inquired politely. “If so, perhaps you and your friends would like to attend the theater?”

  “No, my business is finished here,” she said brusquely. “I intend to return home on the morrow.”

  “Ah. Another time, then.”

  “Yes, another time.” She turned, her dark skirts flapping like stormclouds around her legs. “Goodbye, sir.” Reverberating off the surrounding stone, the words took on an echo of finality.

  Gryff watched until the two figures were swallowed by the slanting shadows. “Goodbye,” he repeated. “But only for now.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  In the mist-swirled darkness of the midnight hour, her plan seemed even more absurd than it had in broad daylight. Eliza lingered at the mullioned window, tracing a random pattern on the fogged glass. If only she could spot a pinprick of light through the pall of coal smoke hanging over the London rooftops. A star to help her find her way.

  The ticking of the mantel clock did not offer much encouragement. Amplified by the nighttime silence of her guest bedchamber, the sound took on a doleful rhythm. Hope-less, hope-less.

  “It may be hopeless,” she whispered. “But I have to try.”

  She lifted the flickering candle and carefully drew the numeral “2” through the silvery vapor that had reformed on the pane. Her plan had two parts. First, she had to raise enough money to pay off Brighton. Second, she needed to locate the incriminating painting and somehow get it back.

  “Oh, and while I am at it, why don’t I conjure up a turbaned genie who will crown me the Queen of Sheba and whisk me away to a land of milk and honey.”

  For a lingering moment, she let the image of a magical hero wrap around her like a swirl of sweet-scented smoke. He had long, dark hair, green eyes, and a musical laugh that made her heart dance against her ribs…

  Eliza blew away the thought with a mirthless laugh. Fantasizing that Haddan would swoop in to rescue her was just as unrealistic as dreaming of magic lamps. Tha
t she had, against all reason, against all resolve, allowed her emotions as well as her body to succumb to his charms, was only further warning that he was a dangerous distraction.

  “I can’t afford girlish dreams,” she whispered. “Not when reality requires every ounce of my strength.” The challenges facing her were daunting, to put it mildly.

  Her hard-won savings would cover maybe half of Harry’s debts. As for the other half…The reflected light caught the rueful quirk of her lips. “I suppose I could make more forgeries and sell them on my own,” she said to herself, drawing another little squiggle on the glass. “At least I would profit from my crimes, and have control over my own destiny.”

  Unfortunately, what she knew about the fine points of engaging in illegal activities could be painted on the head of a pin.

  “Money,” she muttered, focusing on the problem in front of her rather than the nameless longing fluttering inside her chest. “There aren’t many ways for a female to earn more than a few paltry pennies…”

  The flame shivered in a whoosh of breath as she suddenly thought of someone who might be willing to offer her advice.

  After all, the battle would not be won by the faint of heart.

  Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. Gryff paced along the silk-fringed perimeter of the Turkey carpet, his slippered feet kicking up a soft, sinuous whisper. Left abandoned in the shadows, the empty desk chair sat in silent reproach as he passed it yet again. He gave a guilty glance and kept going, too restless to settle down with his pens and papers.

  Damn. He knew he should be obsessed with his writing and not with a country widow whose troubles were none of his concern. She did not want his interference, and had said so in no uncertain terms.

  And yet her eyes had sent a far more ambiguous message.