More or Less a Temptress

by Anna Bradley

  “Oh, please don’t think of it, Lady Dare,” Isla said. “We’ll miss your company, but of course, you must go at once.”

  “Lady Westcott is Lord Dare’s aunt, you know, and his only living relative. She’s a most beloved member of our family, and we can’t bear to think of her alone at Ashdown Park with only the servants to tend to her.” Lady Dare gazed at Isla for a moment, her brow furrowed with concern. “But perhaps Lord Dare can go without me. I could remain in London, just for a few weeks, until the worst of the gossip dies down, and—”

  “No indeed, Lady Dare,” Ciaran interrupted, shaking his head. “It’s kind of you to offer, but we won’t hear of it, will we, Lachlan?” He gave Lachlan a sharp nudge.

  “No, no. Not a word. You must go to your aunt at once,” Lachlan said, but his jaw had gone tight. He wished Lord Dare’s aunt a quick recovery, but he couldn’t help cursing the timing. Isla needed as many earls and countesses as they could get to support her claim to London society. Losing Lord and Lady Dare was a blow.

  But there was nothing to be done for it. Within the hour, the servants had loaded their trunks onto their carriage, and they were on their way to Lord Dare’s estate in West Sussex.

  Everyone stood about the drive for a moment after the carriage disappeared, then Lady Huntington said, “Shall we go upstairs and see Isla’s gowns now?”

  Lachlan smothered a derisive snort.

  Gowns, for God’s sake. If only it were as simple as a few pretty ball gowns.

  Fashionable clothing would do Isla little good if she didn’t also have an army of aristocrats standing beside her when she faced the ton. Unless Miss Somerset had some magical corsets and petticoats secreted away in her closet, or a few earls and a duke hidden among her underclothes, Isla’s success in London had just become a great deal less certain.

  “Ball gowns are beyond my area of expertise.” Finn paused to kiss his wife’s hand, then clapped a hand on Lachlan’s shoulder. “Fancy a drink?”

  “I bloody do,” Ciaran muttered, wandering off down the hallway toward Finn’s study.

  “I’ll come in a moment.” Lachlan gestured for Finn to go ahead, as well. “I need some air first.”

  Finn shrugged. “Very well.”

  Lachlan waited until Finn and Ciaran disappeared behind the study doors, then he went up the stairs after the ladies. He caught up to them on the second floor, cupped Miss Somerset’s elbow in his palm and, before she could do more than gasp in surprise, he drew her around a corner and into a shallow alcove at the end of the hallway.

  “Mr. Ramsey! W-what do you think you’re—”

  “Do you want to help my sister, Miss Somerset?”

  “Why, of course I do. What kind of question—”

  “Isla is much worse off without Lord and Lady Dare’s support, but you and Lady Chase could offset their absence. If you want to help Isla, you’ll stay in London for the season with her, instead of going to Brighton.” They needed a spare aristocrat, and Lady Chase was a countess. As far as Lachlan was concerned, one aristocrat was as good as any other.

  “I can’t stay in London without risking my health, Mr. Ramsey. My grandmother and sisters won’t hear of it.”

  His gaze roamed over her face, taking in the fresh glow of her skin, the becoming flush of her cheeks. Damned if she didn’t look the picture of health to him. “They hover over you as if you’ll crumble to dust in a vigorous wind, but I didn’t see any sign of feebleness when you were jerking Lady Bagshot about as if she were a marionette dangling from a string.”

  Her eyes flickered with surprise. “That’s different. That was…I was—”

  “And the other day, in the stables, when you called me an ass, and told me I should be on display at the Royal Menagerie. Now I think on it, I’ve only ever seen you overwrought twice. The night of Lord and Lady Huntington’s ball, and just now, in the drawing room, when you wanted to distract your family from your success with Lady Bagshot.”

  She bit nervously at her lower lip. “That’s nonsense, Mr. Ramsey. Why should I want to distract them?”

  Lachlan dragged his gaze away from the temptation of her mouth, now pink and swollen from the punishment her teeth had inflicted. He met her eyes. “Because you’re hiding.”

  She dismissed this with an awkward laugh. “Am I? Hiding from who?”

  Despite the laugh, her eyes had gone wary, and Lachlan could see he was distressing her. The thread of gentlemanliness still buried deep inside him regretted it, but the other part of him—the rough part that lurked far closer to the surface—told him a little distress might move her in a way all the coddling in the world never would.

  He moved closer to her, and his voice dropped to a murmur. “From your family, Hyacinth, and from yourself.”

  She stared at him, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “How dare you? You’ve known me for less than a week, and you presume to tell me—”

  “Such a waste. She’s remarkable, that lady underneath the one you pretend to be. So clever, such a razor-sharp wit hidden behind that sweet angel’s face.”

  Her eyes went wide. “I’m not—I don’t pretend at anything, Mr. Ramsey.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re not fragile or weak, except when it suits you. Maybe you were delicate at one time, when you were younger, but you’re not anymore.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath, and an angry wash of red stained her cheeks. “Are you accusing me of pretending to ill health to manipulate my family? You must think me a monster indeed, Mr. Ramsey, if you believe I’d do something so underhanded.”

  It was quite a speech, and Lachlan couldn’t help noticing she didn’t stammer once.

  He wrapped his hand around her upper arm and lowered his face to hers, because he wanted her to look at him, to hear him. “I would never accuse you of such low behavior. It’s not manipulation, but instinct—a way to protect yourself. It’s easier that way. Easier if no one expects much from you.”

  She yanked her arm away. “You expect a great deal from me, I think, and you’re not even honest about it. You don’t truly believe I’m remarkable, but you’d try and convince me you do, to drag me through a season and smooth Isla’s way with the ton.”

  “I don’t deny it started that way, but now, I just…I don’t want to see you cheat yourself this way.” Lachlan blinked, surprised to find it was true. Somehow, after their call this afternoon, his feelings for Hyacinth Somerset had become more complicated.

  Her eyes narrowed to blue slits. “I don’t believe you. Ass is too kind a word for you, Mr. Ramsey. That is, you are an ass, but you’re a scoundrel, as well!”

  “I don’t deny that, either.” Maybe he was a scoundrel, because instead of the regret he should feel at having provoked her into a fury, fierce satisfaction shot through Lachlan. “You’ve a quick temper, Miss Somerset. What happens when it’s unleashed? Whatever it is, I doubt it’s delicate.”

  Her hands clenched into fists. “Whatever you may think, I’d never lie to my family, or hurt them in such an unforgiveable way.”

  “No. Anyone can see how much you care for them. But you’d hurt yourself. You’d lie to yourself.”

  As soon as he said them, Lachlan could see she recognized his words as the truth. The angry color faded from her cheeks, leaving her alarmingly pale. Damn it. He dragged his hand through his hair, regret heavy inside his chest. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, only to make her understand. “I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have said—”

  He wouldn’t have believed she could move so quickly. One moment she was standing with her back to the wall, staring up at him with burning eyes, and the next she’d skirted around him, and darted out of the alcove.

  He caught her arm, alarmed at the bleak expression on her face, and eased her back against the wall. “Listen to me. I should never have said that. I’m sorry I did.” But he didn’t take it back, and
he didn’t say he hadn’t meant it. He wasn’t going to lie to her. “I’d take care of you,” he murmured. “If you did go ahead with your season. I’d take care of you.”

  She let out a bitter laugh. “I don’t even know what that means, Mr. Ramsey.”

  “I mean in the same way I take care of Isla.” His feelings for Hyacinth Somerset weren’t what he’d call brotherly, but it didn’t matter. He had no intention of acting on them. “I may be an ass and a scoundrel, but like most brothers, I’m protective of my sister. Maybe more so than most brothers. Just ask Isla.”

  She shook her head, her mouth tight. “I don’t need your protection. I have Finn.”

  “You can’t have too many protectors. If you do this for Isla, in turn I swear to protect you from whatever it is you’re afraid of.”

  She looked into his eyes then, and hers were shadowed with an emotion that tugged at something deep inside his chest. “I’m afraid of everything, Mr. Ramsey, including myself. How do you intend to protect me from that?”

  The sadness in her voice made his breath catch. An unfamiliar urge to soothe her made him move closer—so close he inhaled each of her frantic breaths into his own lungs.

  Or maybe it wasn’t about soothing her. Maybe he just wanted to touch her again. He reached out to stroke her cheek, or caress the curve of her lower lip, but as his hand drew closer to her face, her eyes widened with alarm. “Mr. Ramsey?”

  He forced his hand back down to his side.

  Brotherly.

  It was better if he forgot her skin was even softer than it looked, better if he didn’t know if her lips would feel like velvet under his thumb.

  When he made no further move toward her, she slid a few inches away from him, her back still pressed to the wall. “Even if you could protect me, I wouldn’t accept your help. I don’t trust you.”

  Lachlan said nothing to this, because there was nothing he could say. He knew well enough he hadn’t given her any reason to trust him.

  So he did the only thing he could do. He stepped aside to let her pass.

  She darted away from him and hurried down the hallway, her skirts billowing out behind her. Lachlan watched her go, half-hoping…

  But in the next breath she’d disappeared around the corner, without looking back.

  Chapter Eight

  Hyacinth tucked a fold of the pale blue silk between her thumb and finger and held it against Isla’s waist. “An inch at least, I think.” She cocked her head from one side to the other, assessing the bodice of the gown with a critical eye. “Perhaps an inch and a half, but no more than that, or she won’t be able to breathe.”

  Madame Bell made the sort of derisive noise only London’s most sought-after French modiste could get away with, and marched toward Isla with an air of ruthless determination. “Non. Two inches.” She plucked at the back of the gown, pinching until she found another scant half inch of loose silk. “The gown must be tight here, see? Mademoiselle can breathe after the ball has ended.”

  Hyacinth gave Isla a wry smile, then turned to her grandmother, who was ensconced in her favorite chair, with a tufted ottoman under her feet and a plate of biscuits at her elbow. “What’s your opinion, Grandmother? A comfortable inch and a half for Miss Ramsey’s bodice, or two inches, and a fainting fit before supper is served?”

  Lady Chase popped a biscuit into her mouth. “I advise you to listen to Madame Bell. She knows what she’s about, and in any case, Miss Ramsey’s corset will be tighter than that.”

  “Welcome to the London season, Miss Ramsey,” Hyacinth murmured, so only Isla could hear her. “Where fashion takes precedence over respiration, every time.”

  “Perhaps I can learn to breathe through my ears,” Isla murmured back with a grin.

  “We must make the most of her figure.” Lady Chase pointed at Isla, the biscuit still clutched in her hand. “Such a tiny waist you have, Miss Ramsey! Oh, I remember those days. Did you know, Hyacinth, your grandfather could span my waist with his hands when we were courting?” She stuffed the biscuit into her mouth with a dramatic sigh. “Oh, my, yes. I had the narrowest waist in London in my day.”

  Madame Bell stuck a few last pins into the bodice of the gown, then stood back and assessed her handiwork with a satisfied smile. “Ah, such a gown!”

  “Such a gown!” Lady Chase, Hyacinth and Isla echoed the sentiment with rapturous sighs, because there was no denying the gown was a masterpiece—a young lady’s dream come true. It was a symphony, an aria, a shimmering confection in the finest silk, every line of it so graceful a lady’s heart ached to behold it, and the color just as glorious as the cut and fabric. It was the softest sky blue imaginable, and trimmed with Belgian lace so delicate it could bring a lady to tears.

  Hyacinth fluffed a stray fold of the skirt and indulged in a private little sigh of her own. She didn’t regret not having a season—of course she didn’t, she was quite reconciled to it—but she couldn’t help a quiet sigh of yearning for all the beautiful gowns she’d never have the chance to wear. Her youthful heart delighted in fine silks and brightly-colored satin ribbons as much as the next young lady’s did, and this gown in particular, oh, that delicious blue! It looked like a slice of the morning sky, and the lace, so dainty, like woven threads of gossamer. It was quite simply the most perfect gown she’d ever beheld, and she had the dearest little blue slippers to match it—

  “What are all those scraps of white at the neckline? They’re all over the waist, too. They look like bits of those old lace caps Mrs. McGurty, our housekeeper in Lochinver used to wear. Don’t they, Lach?”

  Lachlan only grunted, but Madame Bell’s assistant, Eliza, who was on her knees pinning the hem of the gown let out an appalled gasp, and Hyacinth, Isla, Lady Chase and Madame Bell all whipped their heads around to gape at Ciaran Ramsey, their mouths open in identical expressions of feminine outrage.

  Ciaran, who didn’t seem to have the faintest idea of the devastation he’d wrought, stepped closer to peer at Isla’s gown, then drew back with a cheerful laugh. “Good Lord, I’d forgotten all about those lace caps until now. Poor Mrs. McGurty. She was a kind old soul, but I used to have nightmares about her when I was a boy.”

  “Lace caps?” Madame Bell staggered backwards, her hand pressed to her chest as if to keep her heart from bursting out of her bodice. “Housekeeper?”

  “Scraps of white?” Lady Chase’s face had gone purple. “Those scraps, Mr. Ciaran Ramsey, happen to be the finest Belgian lace that can be had in London!”

  Hyacinth squeezed her eyes closed. After a great deal of effort she’d almost managed to forget Ciaran and Lachlan were here at all, but now Ciaran had gone and given Madame Bell an apoplexy, and her grandmother looked as if she were about to collapse face first into her plate of biscuits.

  “Ciaran Ramsey!” Isla turned a furious gaze on her brother, who was poking cautiously at the lace trim with the tip of his finger, as if he thought it might rear up and bite him.

  Ciaran gave her a surprised look. “Why, Isla, what’s made you so cross?”

  Isla slapped his hand away. “You and Lachlan promised you’d remain utterly silent if I didn’t fuss about your coming with me today.”

  “I have been silent. Mostly. Why, I’m sure you hardly knew I was here.”

  Isla planted her hands on her hips. “Do you call chattering on about white strings and lace caps being silent, Ciaran?”

  Ciaran turned to Lachlan with a helpless look. “What did I do?”

  Lachlan had hardly spoken a word since he arrived, but now he roused himself for long enough to scowl at Ciaran. “Never mind him, Isla. Just go on with your fitting as if neither of us are here.”

  Hyacinth couldn’t prevent her soft snort of disbelief. Weren’t here, indeed. One was as likely to forget Lachlan Ramsey as they were to forget a lion pacing from one end of the room to the other. The sprawl of his lon
g, muscular legs in those tight blue breeches seemed to take up every spare inch of floor space, and the way he kept fondling the head of his walking stick with those enormous hands was so distracting Hyacinth wanted to snatch it away from him and hurl it into the fire.

  Whatever she might think of Lachlan Ramsey, there was no forgetting him.

  After their argument in the hallway yesterday, she hadn’t expected to see him again until she returned from Brighton. For pity’s sake, what gentleman insisted on sitting through an entire afternoon of gown fittings?

  But here he was, his hazel eyes following her every move.

  If she spoke, he sat up in his chair to hear what she said. If she sighed, his gaze jerked toward her to see why. If she so much as stroked a fold of silk or fingered a ribbon, he noticed it. She’d been so disconcerted by him she’d pricked herself at least a dozen times with Madame Bell’s pins. Her poor fingertips looked like pincushions.

  “I’ve got it, Lach!” Ciaran had gone back to studying Isla’s lace, and now he turned to his brother with a triumphant smile. “It’s the same as the lace on Mrs. McGurty’s night rails!”

  “Madame Bell!” Hyacinth leapt forward, caught the modiste, and hurried her to a chair just as the poor lady’s legs gave out beneath her.

  Ciaran attempted to give the lace another poke, but Isla slapped at him again, and he jerked his hand away. “Ow! That stung. Good Lord, Isla. All this fuss to protect you from the ton, when it’s the ton who needs protection from you.”

  Isla pointed toward the door. “Out. Both of you. This instant.”

  “Why? What did we do?” Ciaran looked from one outraged lady to another with a baffled expression. “It wasn’t the lace that gave me nightmares. It was Mrs. McGurty.”

  Isla stamped her foot. “Never mind Mrs. McGurty! I don’t want to hear another word about her. I want you to go, right this second. I don’t know why you insisted on coming. You’re both obviously bored to tears.”