The Seducer

by Madeline Hunter

  “Why not a hundred?” he said.

  Tyndale’s lids lowered appreciatively, but his response was interrupted as the door of the sitting room eased open with a squeak.

  A new visitor slipped in. His rump appeared first. He backed in as he checked the corridor to make sure he had not been noticed.

  Hampton set down the cards and crossed his arms over his chest. Vergil appeared angry enough to kill, so much that Daniel put a restraining hand on his arm. Tyndale smiled with amusement.

  Their visitor closed the door with great, silent care. He turned.

  It took the Earl of Glasbury a moment to realize he had not surreptitiously entered an empty chamber, but interrupted a little party. He stood immobilized with surprise, his slack mouth open in astonishment.

  “Did you want something, dear?” the countess asked.

  The earl’s mouth flapped.

  Everyone waited, letting him twist in the breeze. Even his friend Tyndale enjoyed the moment more than a friend ought.

  It was Hampton who let him off the hook. “No doubt you heard about our private gaming from a servant and hoped to join.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Not completely off the hook. “It is fortunate the servant’s gossip was correct, or this might be misinterpreted and cost you dearly.”

  The earl flushed a deep rose. Composing himself, he looked down his nose at the assembly. “The gossip was in error. I was told the table would include more interesting players.”

  “So long as there is money to be lost, we are not fussy about the stripe of the man losing it,” Daniel said. “Therefore, you are free to join us.”

  The earl straightened with indignation at the insult. His hand reached back for the door latch. “I think not. I am very fussy myself regarding the stripe of the men I associate with. Excuse my intrusion.”

  “Sleep well, my dear,” the countess said sweetly to his departing back.

  Diane appeared very concerned for Tyndale’s erratic progress over the next hour. Her face lit with delight when he won and fell when he lost.

  That raised the devil in Daniel. In response, he dragged out the destruction he had every intention of wreaking.

  As play got more rash, Hampton, commenting that the night would end with one man’s fortunes greatly diminished, bowed out of play completely, lest the man accidentally be him.

  Down three hundred, Vergil bowed out too.

  Daniel used the opportunity to lose a thousand very quickly to the only opponent left.

  “Your luck had improved considerably, St. John,” Tyndale said as the cards were dealt once more. “It appears the tide has turned again, however.”

  “I find that my luck is always erratic. Also, the countess is a great distraction.”

  “As is your cousin,” Tyndale said jovially, giving Diane a smile.

  As far as Daniel was concerned, a gauntlet had been thrown.

  “If we are such distractions, it is time we retire.” The countess rose, and everyone else did too. “Make this chamber your own, gentlemen. Thank you for your company.”

  Diane followed her into the next chamber. Daniel heard the vague sounds on the other side of the wall that spoke of women preparing for bed. He allowed himself the fantasy of imagining Diane undressing and washing and having her long hair brushed, and lost another two thousand pounds as it unfolded.

  Finally the sounds stopped. A maid slipped out and away.

  Daniel pictured Diane huddled on her side, her lids closed and her lovely face in repose.

  He wiped the image from his mind. He turned every bit of his attention on Tyndale. “Shall we get serious now? What do you say to two hundred?”

  chapter 15

  Diane, what are you laboring over?” Pen called.

  “A letter.” Diane had written two last night and not been satisfied with either of them. The long one that explained her entire history certainly would not do. Nor would the one that dissolved into begging pleas. Now she hurriedly scratched a simple request for information regarding one Jonathan Albret, the shipper, if the vicar of Fenwood happened to know of him.

  She provided her address in London and sealed the letter before she could start fussing over it. She carried it into the bedchamber where the maid was finishing Pen’s hair.

  “How can I have this posted?” she asked.

  Pen took the letter and thrust it at the servant. “Give it to the butler. Go now. I am done here.”

  The woman left. Pen peered in the mirror and tweaked one of the loose curls framing her face. “What a dreadful day I am facing. An excursion to the sea, no less. It will be biting at the coast, no matter how fair the day is here. The men are leaving earlier, to fish before we join them, but I will have to be near him most of the day, and, after last night, he frightens me more than ever.”

  Pen was referring to the earl, but her words spoke of Diane’s own discomfort. After last night, Daniel frightened her even more than before too. Or rather, he made her frightened of herself.

  It had been both horrible and wonderful, sitting in the outer chamber while the men played cards. She had barely looked at Daniel and he had only glanced at her, but the physical sensations he had aroused by the brook had returned when he entered the sitting room. The hands that held his cards might have been caressing her body, and the mouth that sipped at wine might have been kissing her neck and breast.

  He had known. That one hot look had said so. He had toyed with her, too, keeping the memories alive, making it worse. She had been helpless to stop it and too weak to claim a headache and leave the way she should. The physical stirrings and vivid awareness of each other were too compelling, too delicious, to deny.

  The notion of spending the day in such a state dismayed her. She needed time away from him, to collect her emotions. Time to try and put things back in order.

  “I am not feeling very well, Pen. I think that I should stay here and rest.”

  Pen turned from the mirror with concern. “What ails you, dear? If I have caused you to get ill by keeping you awake until all hours—”

  “It is nothing serious. I am merely very tired.”

  “Perhaps I should stay with you, just in case. . . .”

  “That is thoughtful, but it is not necessary. I am not ill. I think that I will get some air and then come back and sleep.”

  Pen debated it. Finally, she shook her head. “If I stay, everyone will say it is a ruse on my part, in response to last evening. No, I have to brave this out. I will stand my ground although the day promises to be dreadful.” She laughed, bitterly. “To think that I did not seek a divorce in order to spare him the scandal. Well, Mr. Hampton warned me that it is always the woman who pays.”

  Andrew Tyndale watched from the window as the carriages rolled down the lane. His gaze locked on a very expensive one. Four black horses led it, finer by far than the cattle that Andrew himself owned. It galled him that Daniel St. John could afford such luxuries.

  It galled him even more that, as of today, St. John had the means to purchase many more of them.

  Twenty thousand pounds worth.

  How in blazes had it happened?

  Andrew had been asking himself that question all through the early hours of the dawning day.

  He never lost big at the gaming tables. He despised men who did not know when to walk away, men who risked too much and saw ruin as a result. He did not even enjoy cards very much. He much preferred games where luck played no role. Games he knew he would win, because he made the rules.

  It had been the girl’s fault, he decided. She had distracted him badly while she was there. She couldn’t be more than seventeen, he judged, but she had a poise, an air, that suggested a luscious sensuality waited beneath her demure innocence. It had been a very long time since he had a refined one, and that had increased her appeal. The girls Mrs. P. found were ignorant, stupid calfs. He much preferred well-bred fillies.

  Yes, she had distracted him badly. He had been in a sta
te of arousal while she stayed in that room. Actually, he had been that way a lot since he first noticed her at that ball.

  Somehow, their contest had become about her. He hadn’t realized that at the time, but thinking back . . . Her smiles when he won, her concern when he lost, her cousin’s disapproval—it had all played a role, he was very sure now.

  Still, twenty thousand pounds? No pretty face could do that to him. He had been up so often during the night, by vast amounts, that realizing how much he had lost in the end had shocked him.

  Worse, this gentleman’s debt had witnesses no one would doubt.

  The carriages grew small in the distance, heading to the coast. He had begged off the fishing excursion, claiming illness, even though St. John would see it for what it was. He didn’t give a damn about that. He had bigger problems than the opinion of a shipper.

  An ugly fury split in his head, as it had many times since he left the countess’s sitting room. He saw again the glint of triumph in St. John’s eyes as Hampton worked the tally. The devil probably looked like that when he won a man’s soul.

  There was only one explanation, of course. The lowlife bastard had cheated. How, Andrew was not sure, but that was what had transpired.

  The carriages had disappeared and the drive was deserted.

  A movement close below, near the house, caught his eye. A slender form with unfashionable piles of chestnut hair walked into view.

  As he watched Diane Albret, a way out of the dilemma occurred to him. It had a touch of righteous justice, and it would work too. St. John had the arrogance and pride that ensured it would.

  For all her polish, the girl was an obscure nobody. St. John was, too, when you got down to it. After it was over, the people who mattered would agree that St. John had been a fool and Andrew greatly wronged. Furthermore, the twenty thousand pounds would no longer matter.

  After all, dead men can’t collect on private debts.

  After Diane got some air, to clear her thoughts, she returned to her chamber. She stayed in the room until she heard the activity outside that said the women were leaving to join the party at the coast.

  They would not return until early evening. That meant that she had a long day to herself.

  She had already decided how to spend it. While walking outside, she had taken a hard look at her life. She had not been pleased with what she saw.

  She had admitted to herself that for all Daniel’s reassurances, she was not safe from his interest.

  She went to her wardrobe. As she slipped into her half boots, she admitted that she was not safe because of her own reactions. His kisses might be scandalous, but no more than the way she permitted them.

  Well, she was not the girl who had left Madame Leblanc in Rouen. She had learned something of the world in the last months. She knew that Daniel had made some decision about her yesterday beside that brook, and that the next time those kisses would not stop.

  And there would be a next time. She did not doubt that.

  She retrieved her cloak from the wardrobe. She wished that she had brought her old garments from school, and not only because they would help her to look less conspicuous. It would embarrass her to complete today’s mission wearing the things purchased for her by a man who was neither a relative nor a guardian.

  Everyone knew what that usually meant.

  She had been unbearably naive to believe Daniel when he said it did not in their case.

  Suitably dressed for her outing, she made her way through the silent house. It was time to remember why she was even in England. If she discovered the life she’d had before Daniel St. John entered it, perhaps there would be something to anchor and sustain her when she severed her ties with him.

  She hoped so. She wasn’t sure that she could do it otherwise. The very notion pained her so deeply, left her so bereft, that she had sat in the garden, blocking it from her mind. Eventually she had accepted what she had to do, however.

  She needed to abandon his house, and his sister, and his gifts and generosity. She needed to run away from his warmth and embraces.

  She needed to leave him.

  She marched on, her eyes misting, the hated void sitting fat and vacant and heavy in her heart.

  A few servants wandered the house’s corridors, and she asked one to find Mary. The pretty girl met her in the kitchen.

  “How does one find your town?” Diane asked.

  “Are you thinking to go there, my lady?”

  “Someday, perhaps.”

  “I only know how to get there from here. You take the west road to Witham, and turn north aways, then go west again at Brinley.”

  “It is two hours away, you said?”

  “Maybe a bit longer. The roads are only dirt once you get to Witham. Don’t know how far it is from London.”

  Diane left the house by way of the servants’ entrance near the kitchen. It seemed only right to do that, as she had those first days in Paris. It was not the doll of the wealthy Daniel St. John sallying forth today. It was the penniless orphan too obscure for anyone to notice.

  Two hours by cart, Mary had said.

  A person could walk faster than a cart rolls.

  Diane headed west on the road. She should return well before Pen and the others got back from the coast.

  An hour later, she knew why people chose slow carts over faster walking.

  She had put on her half boots, but the fashions sold in Paris shops were flimsy at best. The thin-soled ones on her feet did not appear likely to survive a day on the road.

  It got worse once she turned onto the dirt road at Witham. Ruts and stones gouged the bottoms of her feet. She tried to ignore the discomfort and scolded herself for being so soft. That was what luxury did to people, Madame Leblanc had always taught. It made them soft and weak and prone to sin.

  How true. How very, very true.

  She pictured Madame intoning her moral lessons. She tried to accept the pain to her feet as punishment for enjoying Daniel’s kisses. She told herself that every touch had been wrong and sinful and spoke of a man not to be trusted. A seducer. A predator. A devil.

  Her heart would not accept it. She did not feel sinful when it came to Daniel.

  She was contemplating that new truth when the sound of an approaching carriage penetrated her attention. She angled off the road, to let it go by.

  To her surprise it rolled to a stop right next to her. Andrew Tyndale sat in a curricle, holding the ribbons, looking at her with surprise.

  “Miss Albret, what are you doing here?”

  “Oh, just walking. What are you doing here?”

  “I decided to visit a friend in the country for the day. Allow me to take you back to the house first, however. I fear you have walked farther than you realize.”

  “Please, no. You have things to do. I could not think of delaying you.”

  “It will only be a small delay, and insignificant in any case. Please allow me to assist you.”

  “I would never forgive myself for causing inconvenience. I will be fine. Truly. I enjoy long walks. Adore them. You go on your way, as planned, and I will—”

  He climbed out of the carriage. “I would not think of it. Let me help you in.”

  It was too much. Every time she worked up her courage to pursue her goal, some man, determined to help and protect her, interfered.

  She ignored Mister Tyndale’s offer and plopped herself onto a large boulder alongside the road. She propped her face in her hands and stared down at the toes of her mangled shoes.

  “Is something wrong, Miss Albret?”

  “Everything is wrong.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She looked up at him. His eyes were not deep and unfathomable and dangerous like Daniel’s. They were transparent and kind and very sympathetic. His open expression made her feel better at once. There was no mystery to this man, no confusing darkness, no brooding distraction.

  She had worried a bit for him last night. Seeing him playing card
s with Daniel, he had struck her as no match for the Devil Man and doomed to lose. Since he appeared in good humor, evidently it had not turned out so bad.

  “I am not just walking for pleasure,” she said, the confidence slipping out without any real decision. “I am going to a village called Fenwood. I learned that I have a relative there, and I decided to call on him.”

  She braced herself for the polite suggestion that she should have told her hostess or Pen so one of them could arrange for a carriage to take her. She did not want to explain that she did not want anyone knowing she was doing this. She would have to pretend that she was too stupid to have thought of such things.

  Instead his expression cleared, as if her explanation made all the sense in the world. “Is this relative expecting you?”

  “No. I only decided to go this morning. I have never even met him. There was this estrangement . . .”

  “Are you sure he will receive you?”

  She hadn’t thought of that. The vicar could well be a relative, but one who wanted nothing to do with Jonathan Albret’s daughter. She saw herself standing at the vicarage door as it was slammed in her face.

  “There now, it will probably turn out as you expected.” Mister Tyndale smiled so kindly as he reassured her that she had to smile back.

  “My visit can wait until tomorrow,” he said. “Why don’t I take you to Brinley? It is near Fenwood. You can wait there, and I will carry a message from you to your relative. If he is agreeable, then you can go make your visit. This way you will not have to walk back, either, and we will return to the house before the others.”

  A merry, conspiratorial note entered the last sentence. He thought that she was hiding this visit from Daniel because the estrangement was his doing.

  Mister Tyndale’s misinterpretation was convenient, however. She could hardly explain that she really wasn’t Daniel’s cousin and that this relative was hers alone. Also, it might be best to do it as Mister Tyndale suggested, and have a request brought to the vicar first.

  “You are being very kind and generous, Mister Tyndale.”

  “Not at all, Miss Albret. Not at all. That is what friends are for.” He gestured to the carriage. “Shall we?”