An Invitation to Seduction

by Lorraine Heath

  “This is the most reckless, idiotic thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life!”

  “I wanted freedom!”

  “And you almost cost him his!”

  “Which is the very reason I refrained from coming forward the instant he was arrested. To have risked so much, then to lose it all because of a moment of fear”—he clenched his fist—“I wasn’t willing to chance it. Not until I knew for certain it was the only option.”

  She’d sacrificed her reputation because of his unwillingness to face his obligations. He’d risked lives, hurt hearts. How could she have ever thought she wanted to marry a man who’d do such things? And Richard had been an accomplice, which angered and hurt her as well.

  “I don’t understand how you think this deception will work,” she stated incredulously, still unable to believe he’d schemed all this simply to avoid his duties. “I’ve spotted you. Others are bound to recognize you. You can’t live your life in a hole.”

  He looked rather embarrassed. “I don’t intend to. I’m going to America…with Freddie.”

  “Freddie? He knows you’re alive?”

  He nodded. “He was in on the plans. He’d performed on the stage for a while, you see. He gave Weddington a few tips on how to act convincingly while pretending or delivering a falsehood.”

  “Richard never actually said you’d drowned,” she said with wonder. “He told me that you were gone.”

  “He’s an exceedingly honorable man.”

  “Which is more than I can say for you.”

  He flinched. “Quite right.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe there wasn’t another way to acquire what you wanted.”

  “Perhaps there was, and I was merely too cowardly or too selfish to go that route.”

  “I thought we were so well suited,” she said quietly. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for putting me through this.”

  “You see, Kitty? It would have been far better to have always thought me dead. You should have purposely lost the tennis match, my sweet. And you would have never known the truth of my deception.”

  “And Richard’s. And Freddie’s. You weren’t alone in it, Nicky.”

  “You mustn’t blame them. They weren’t responsible for the plan.”

  “But they helped you carry it out. Richard I can understand. He wanted to marry me. But Freddie? What in the world did he gain?”

  “Not losing me.”

  With complete bewilderment, she shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. He wouldn’t have lost you. I like Freddie. He would have always been welcomed in our home.”

  “Kitty…” He hesitated, sighed. “Kitty, Freddie is the one I love.”

  She stared at him, trying to make sense of his words.

  “You love Freddie?” she questioned in a whisper.

  “Yes. And he loves me.”

  Surely he was not implying what she thought he was. “As a friend?”

  “As much more.” He held her gaze, and it was apparent to her that it was the hardest thing he’d ever done—to not look away from her shock and possible revulsion.

  “But what of the attentions he gave Lady Priscilla?”

  “Playacting, my sweet.”

  Tears stinging her eyes, she wrapped her arms tightly around herself and slowly sank to the ground, her knees unable to support her. Nicky rushed forward, and she held up her hands. “No, don’t touch me.”

  He crouched before her, tears in his eyes. “Do you see now that I really did my family a kindness? How could I not marry when my family was in such dire need of funds? How could I marry when my heart belonged to another? My brother now holds the title. He will marry an heiress. My family is spared any embarrassment or pain that might have come about should my true feelings ever be discovered.

  “Nor would I have been able to bear them turning away from me—as Freddie’s family turned from him. You loved me, Kitty. And yet here you are, weeping, not wanting me to touch you, probably wishing you didn’t know all that you now know. I’m the same man I always was. Only now you view me differently. Few people can accept different. I was most fortunate that Weddington was the sort of friend who accepted the truth of who I am without judgment.”

  “He risked everything, Nicky.”

  “I am well aware of that, Kitty. We set into motion events that were terribly difficult to stop. We hurt people, we hurt you. And in a way, I suppose, we hurt each other. Weddington was right that we shouldn’t have kept our plans from you. He sought to be loyal to me, while striving to love you and keep you happy. In the end, he felt he had to choose, and he chose you, knowing that once you learned the truth, he might lose you. He didn’t feel he’d gained you honestly, and he was weary of the deception.”

  “What will you do in America?”

  He offered her a small smile, probably pleased that she still cared enough for him to wonder what he might do. “Freddie and I hope to settle in New York. They have excellent theaters there. We’ll write plays together. I shall change my name and hope we never acquire worldwide acclaim that might cause anyone to recognize me and undo all that we’ve worked so hard to accomplish.”

  “You have everything planned out.”

  “I’ve dreamed of this for so very long, Kitty, but I never dared hope that I’d actually be able to achieve the happiness that always eluded me just beyond the horizon. Now all that stops me is you.”

  “Me?”

  “I revealed all without asking for a promise in return. You could go to my family and tell them the truth.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not my place, Nicky.”

  She realized that Richard must have felt the same. That it wasn’t his place to reveal the truth about Farthingham. Not even to her.

  “I thank you for that sentiment,” he said quietly.

  “What if the storm hadn’t come in?”

  “Freddie would have moved to America. I would never have seen him again. I would have married you, and we might have been content. But we deserve more than contentment in life, I think.”

  “I simply don’t understand how you could love Freddie in that way.”

  “I don’t understand either. When Weddington and I were young men, we would go to brothels together. He would stay all night, which I doubt he’ll appreciate me telling you. I, on the other hand, was ready to leave as soon as I’d looked the selection over. I can’t explain it. I don’t expect you to understand, but when I’m with Freddie I’m happy. No pretense, no playacting. With Freddie I am always exactly who I truly am.”

  More tears surfaced in her eyes.

  “It’s not a sad thing, Kitty. Most people search their entire lives for what I have with Freddie. They die never having found it.”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t thinking that it was sad. I was thinking that’s how I feel with Richard.” Reaching out, she took his hand and leaned toward him. “Nicky, there are things about me that I never told you. Secrets. Dark secrets that I always kept buried deep within me. But I told Richard. I told him everything. At the time, I felt as though it was the most natural thing in all the world.”

  He squeezed her hand, and she realized that holding his hand felt natural as well. But not in the same way it did with Richard. Never as it did with Richard.

  “I still care about you, Nicky. I don’t know if I understand everything you’ve told me. But I do still love you. You were my first love.”

  “But not your last I hope.”

  Rather than answer him, she glanced around. “It’s getting dark.”

  “Yes, I should walk you back to shore.”

  He helped her to her feet.

  “How will you get off the island?” she asked.

  “Freddie’s waiting with a boat, hidden away where you can’t see him, but I can find him.”

  “Will you write me from time to time?”

  “Of course, my sweet. Look for letters from Nicholas Farthing.”

  They walked back to the shore, hand in
hand. There was comfort in his nearness, just as there had always been, the comfort of a friend, not a lover. It was only now that she was beginning to understand what Richard had been trying to tell her, to show her all along. Being with Nicky was very much what she suspected it would be like to be with one’s brother.

  Then she spotted Richard, standing at the water’s edge, gazing out to sea. Preparing to face the murky, choppy waters that terrified him. The unforgiving sea that had taken his father from him, that had injured him in ways few people realized, twisting his back until he was in agony, torturing his mind with doubt, with the inability to accept that there was nothing he could have done to prevent his father’s death.

  He’d faced it time and again. When he swam at dawn, when he took his yachts out onto the water. For Farthingham, he’d faced it at its worst, with the tempest roaring down on him. He’d done it out of friendship and loyalty to Nicky, out of desire for her. And perhaps more than desire. For his love of her and his wish to see her happy, regardless of the cost to himself.

  He couldn’t have known when he embraced Nicky’s plan that Kitty would become pregnant with his child, couldn’t have known for certain that she would be the prize, or that storms would still have to be faced.

  “I’ve been so unfair to him, Nicky. I held him responsible for your death.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s always terrified me.”

  “He’s a good man, Kitty. The very best I could have in a friend.”

  “I understand that now. But he makes me feel things. He stirs to life these strong physical urges that frighten me.”

  Nicky smiled sadly. “Those urges are natural, Kitty. They’re wonderful, actually, to be savored. Not everyone has the fortune to meet someone who can make them as powerful as they have the potential to become.”

  “I’m going to miss you.”

  “Only for a short while, my sweet. Then you’ll be too busy with all the children I’m certain Weddington would like to bestow on you.”

  “Be happy, Nicky.”

  Nicky leaned toward her and placed a kiss on her forehead. “I would wish you the same, Kitty, but I know Weddington well, and I have no doubt he will see to it that you’re happy. The man likes to control everything, including happiness. So there is no need for me to wish for you to find it. I suspect it’s there already if you only look.”

  Tears stung her eyes as she hugged him tightly, one last time, a man she now realized she’d hardly known. He’d brought smiles, laughter, and a safe harbor into her life, and she’d thought it enough.

  There was comfort in a safe harbor, but more excitement in the storm.

  She left Nicky there and walked across the sand, leaving her footsteps behind until she reached Richard.

  He turned his head slightly and looked down on her as though he were almost surprised that she’d returned to his side. “Did you find what you were searching for?”

  “Yes, I believe I did. I wish there was a way to go home without traveling on the sea.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “But the sea terrifies you.”

  “Not as much as the possibility of never possessing your heart. Are you leaving it here in Farthingham’s keeping?”

  Reaching up, she cradled his face. “Oh, Richard, how can you know so much about what I need to be happy and not know that I love you?”

  With a groan, he drew her to him and kissed her, hard, thoroughly, passionately. Then he moved his mouth to her throat. “I was so afraid, Kitty. So afraid when you found out what we’d done that I’d lose all hope of ever truly having you as mine.” He braced his hands on either side of her face and held her gaze. “I wanted to tell you that night. When I saw your pain. In the bathhouse, I thought if I could only make you forget it”—he shook his head—“I would do anything for you. You have but to ask.”

  “Will you make me scream?”

  He laughed. “Every night if you wish.”

  “Oh, Richard, I never would have been happy with Nicky.” She was as guilty as he for the tangled web that had been woven. “I realized it the night before the storm. I’d made the decision in the early hours before dawn to tell Nicky that I couldn’t marry him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’d come to realize that I loved you.”

  He brought her back up against him, and she felt the shudder ripple through him. “Doubts have plagued me for so long that you were mine only because Farthingham was not yours.”

  “I promise you’ll never again doubt my love.”

  “Will you be happy with me?”

  Standing up on tiptoe, she wound her arms around his neck and right before she kissed him, she whispered. “I already am.”

  Epilogue

  The package was delivered to Kitty in the drawing room. A sense of gladness filled her as she opened it, removed the letter, and began reading.

  My dearest Kitty,

  It is difficult to believe that five years have passed. I know I have been negligent in writing, and I beg your forgiveness for my inconsiderateness. As Weddington can attest, I’m often more inconsiderate than I am considerate.

  Be that as it may, at long last here is the letter I promised.

  I must confess that I love New York, far better than I ever did England. Those with old money, Knickerbockers they’re called, are as pompous as our aristocracy, and I enjoy them. Freddie and I have been welcomed into the fold—quite an accomplishment from what I gather.

  But then everyone in New York seeks to welcome us. We are quite the toast of the town. Our play has turned into a smashing success, much to our utter astonishment. Our secret remains safe. People believe us to be only writing partners, and we’ve come to accept that there are very few people who will ever truly know us.

  Give my best to Weddington and to those sons of yours. I saw the announcements of their births in The Times. Yes, we actually receive it here, late, but better than not at all.

  You and Weddington must come visit us sometime. I can find no one here who will wager with me as eagerly as Weddington did. But then again, neither have I found a truer friend.

  Freddie sends his best. We’ve enclosed a little gift for you—our latest play. We hope you’ll enjoy it.

  Take care, my sweet. You’re never far from my heart.

  Nicky

  Kitty pressed the letter against her breast. Oh, Nicky. How she missed him.

  She pulled the play out of the box, curled up in her chair and, with a laugh, began to read.

  Invitation to Seduction

  Written by Frederick Montague

  and Nicholas Farthing

  Act 1

  Scene 1: The Cornish coast. A man stands on the shore. Enter a lovely young woman…

  Richard heard his wife’s laughter long before he entered the drawing room. He’d left his sons, ages four and two, under the close supervision of their nanny to play with the latest batch of spaniel puppies.

  “Now that is a sound I enjoy hearing, second only to your screams,” Richard announced as he approached.

  She snapped up her head, wiped tears from her cheeks, and smiled at him with boundless love in her eyes. Her affections toward him always humbled him. When he’d sought her love, he’d not realized how very much she had to give.

  “I received a letter from Farthingham.” She shook her head. “I suppose I shouldn’t call him that.”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” he said, as he sat in the chair beside her. “What mischief is he up to?”

  “Success apparently. He and Freddie have written a successful play. It’s quite good. You’ll have to read it.”

  “I suppose I shall at that.”

  She set the papers aside, rose to her feet, sat on his lap, and wound her arms around his neck. “He wants us to come visit.”

  “That is a long journey on the sea, but we shall go if you like.”

  “Would it terrify you to go?”

  “Only if in the going, I risked losing you.”
>
  “You shall never lose me. I love you, Richard. I love you more each day. It terrifies me sometimes, to love you so much, and to think that I might have never loved you at all.”

  “There was little chance of that happening, my darling. I told you shortly after we met that I was not a man who easily gave up when he determined that he wanted something, and I wanted you.”

  “I’m ever so glad you did.”

  Bringing her lips nearer to his, he whispered, “As am I.”

  Note from the Author

  I believe strongly in reaching for dreams. When I first pursued writing as a career, my husband explained that the odds were against my getting published. He’s a realist. I’m a dreamer. A little over ten years later, with more than fifteen books published for adult and young adult readers, titles on the USA Today bestseller list, and several awards including the RITA, the HOLT medallion, five Texas Golds, and a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, I’ve convinced him to believe in the magic and power of dreams.

  I love hearing from readers.

  You can write me at lorraineheath@comcast.net

  or visit my website at www.lorraineheath.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Other Romances by

  Lorraine Heath

  AN INVITATION TO SEDUCTION

  LOVE WITH A SCANDALOUS LORD

  TO MARRY AN HEIRESS

  THE OUTLAW AND THE LADY

  NEVER MARRY A COWBOY

  NEVER LOVE A COWBOY

  A ROGUE IN TEXAS

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  AN INVITATION TO SEDUCTION. Copyright © 2004 by Jan Nowasky. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.