The Earl's Temptation

by Emma V. Leech

  Alex couldn't seem to remove the scowl of resentment from his face as he gave a curt nod in reply. His cousin looked rather discomfited but stood his ground, squaring his shoulders slightly under the weight of the Earl of Falmouth's black expression.

  "I understand I have to thank you for keeping Lady Lavelle entertained these past months?" Alex said, well aware that it didn't sound like he was the least bit grateful but rather like he would enjoy dismembering one of his closest blood relations- with his teeth.

  Aubrey coughed and coloured slightly. "I-I have had the honour of spending some time with her, yes, my Lord."

  "Hmmm."

  Aubrey was spared further scrutiny for a moment as Céleste returned to them. Her cheeks were prettily flushed, her eyes sparkling with glee as she had clearly enjoyed dancing with Blakeney. Lord Blakeney, Alex noted with satisfaction, had left her abruptly the moment she had been returned to the fold.

  "Your turn, Aubrey," she said, pulling at his cousin's sleeve in an all too familiar manner. He scowled and was pleased to see his aunt give her a look of reproach too. Instantly Céleste flushed and recalled a slightly more reserved demeanour.

  Alex frowned. He didn't want her exuberance dulled, nor her enjoyment, though he hated that it was Aubrey she looked at with such fondness and felt something dark and ugly twist in his chest.

  "All right, Jackson, I'm coming," Aubrey replied, laughing at her.

  "Jackson?" Alex enquired, earning himself a deeper blush from Céleste and an appalled expression from Aubrey as he realised he would need to explain.

  "A-after Gentleman Jackson," he stammered, looking increasingly awkward as Alex's scowl deepened.

  "You would liken the comtesse to a boxer?" he demanded, with a haughty lift of one eyebrow.

  Aubrey cleared his throat. "W-well, it's just that ... she has the most amazing right hook."

  Céleste stared at Aubrey, her eyes wide and furious, quite clearly impressing upon the young man that she would repay him dearly for that comment later.

  Alex felt his fists clench. If he found the little bastard had given Céleste just cause to hit him he'd tear the scoundrel limb from limb.

  "Why," he bit out, "would she need to hit you?"

  Aubrey opened his mouth and closed it again. "I believe the dance is beginning," he said, sounding rather desperate.

  "So it is!" Céleste exclaimed and the two of them ran away from him like naughty school children.

  Alex turned his furious gaze to his aunt who was looking at them go with affection in her eyes.

  "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, drawing on every reserve of patience to stand and listen to an explanation, assuming a reasonable one could be found, before he followed the young pup onto the floor and ejected him from the ballroom by the scruff of his neck.

  "Why, Falmouth," his aunt chuckled. "Don't be so stuffy, they are merely having fun."

  Alex blinked at his aunt in astonishment. This was the woman who wouldn't deign to use his own Christian name rather than his title, and she was calling him stuffy?

  "I don't see what kind of appropriate fun could be had that resulted in Céleste feeling the need to hit him?" he barked.

  "Keep your voice down," Aunt Seymour said, glaring at him. "Good Lord, the two of them are inseparable and the best of friends one moment and the next they are at each other's throats. How am I supposed to know which particular argument led to her striking him? From what I understand the first time they met she attacked him with her umbrella!" Seymour took a breath, and shook her head with an expression that spoke of a deep fondness. "Thankfully Aubrey seems to be the only one she reserves her appalling behaviour for, and only in the privacy of our own home. In public she is quite the lady," she said with unmistakable pride. "She has quite an entourage of admirers now."

  Alex gritted his teeth so hard that a pain shot from his jaw and radiated through his brain but he didn't seem to be able to relax it. He tried harder as his aunt's all too seeing gaze looked him over.

  "I would think you'd be pleased, Falmouth. This is what you wanted isn't it?" she demanded, but Alex didn't seem to be able to form a reply. He was watching Céleste laughing at something Aubrey said, the two of them circling the room with such obvious accord between them that he felt the dark and ugly sensation in his chest spreading through his blood like a disease.

  "She is a great success," his aunt continued. "There will be offers for her in the next week or two, you mark my words."

  A dull buzzing sound had begun in his head and his aunt's words seemed to take form and dance inside his brain, cutting at him like scalpels, tearing at the last shreds of his sanity.

  "What are you scowling at, Falmouth?" his Aunt demanded. "Anyone would think you were jealous."

  He jolted and swung around to look at Seymour who was staring at him, those cool grey eyes so like his own, watching him with a knowing expression.

  "If you would excuse me," he said, his tone clipped and icy. He strode away from the ballroom, needing to get some air, needing to get away. Before he lost his damn mind for good.

  ***

  Céleste put her hand on Aubrey's sleeve and allowed him to lead her back to the aunts, and Alex.

  "How could you embarrass me like zhat?" she scolded him. "I am beyond vexed with you," she added with a little huff.

  "Oh, we're back to zhat are we?" he replied with a snort. "I've not heard your accent in weeks. You must be in a foul temper."

  "Oui," she said, shaking her head and making her ringlets dance. "I am. 'Ow am I supposed to make 'im fall in love with me, when you go and tell 'im you have named me after a ... a boxer!"

  "I shouldn't worry on that score," Aubrey muttered with a dark tone.

  "Why?" she demanded, stopping in her tracks, her eyes wide.

  Aubrey scowled and ducked his head to hiss in her ear. "Because the fiend was staring at me with murder in his eyes. He clearly wants my blood, and if it's all the same to you, I'd like to keep every drop exactly where it currently resides!"

  "Bah!" Céleste replied, with an irritable snap of her fan. "I told you I might require your 'elp to make 'im jealous. Don't tell me you are backing out already? What are you, a man or a mouse?" she glared at him, furious that he would fail her at the first hurdle but Aubrey just returned her furious gaze with his own placid expression.

  "Squeak," he replied succinctly, before turning on his heel and leaving her beside Aunt Seymour.

  "Oh!" she fumed, biting her cheek to stop herself from stamping her foot in frustration. Well then, if Audrey wouldn't help her she would have to use the slightly more daunting prospect ... of flirting with the Duke of Sindalton.

  She cast her gaze out around the ballroom and didn't take long to find him. As tall as Alex and as broad, he was the one other man in the room whose presence demanded her attention. Though where Alex's strength and arrogant demeanour didn't frighten her a bit and in fact made her feel safe, the duke made shivers of unease run over her skin. His reputation was every bit as bad as the earl's and she could easily believe he had earned every word of it.

  He was leaning, with a bored and indolent posture, against one of the ivory columns that ran the length of the ballroom, and he looked up, perhaps sensing her interest, and their eyes met. His were dark and full of silent invitation. A slight smile tilted the edges of a sinful mouth and she didn't need to wonder how he'd earned his nickname and it had nothing whatsoever to do with his title. Sin, the word seemed to wrap around him, taunting you, daring you ... Céleste took a breath and looked away, casting her eyes over her dance card. Three more dances and she would be in the duke's arms. She wondered if Alex would even notice.

  "Where is his lordship," she asked Aunt Seymour who turned her attention away from her sister and Henri.

  "I believe he needed to go and cool off," she replied, with something that looked almost like a smirk on her face.

  "Oh," Céleste replied, disappointed. "It is most dreadfully hot in here," she said, m
aking Seymour smile and pat her arm in an encouraging manner.

  "You are doing beautifully, child," she said with a warm smile. "I am very proud of you."

  Céleste looked up at her in surprise. Seymour had never once said anything that even resembled approval in all the months she'd lived with her. Aunt Dotty was full of warmth and smiles and encouraging words, but the most she got from Seymour was a hmmm, of more or less approval depending on how badly she'd fared.

  "You are?" she asked, quite unable to keep the scepticism from her words.

  Seymour, Dotty and Henri all laughed at her obvious surprise, and Seymour linked her arm to Dorothea's, the two sisters putting their heads together.

  "We both are," she replied with real affection in her words that made Céleste's throat tight. "And one way or another, we will have the offer for you that you so desperately deserve in the next day or two or I'll eat my hat."

  "Which one?" Dotty asked, laughing. "For if you fail in this I shall be so dreadfully unhappy I will insist that it's that bilious green one with the feathers. It looks awful on you and I'm sure it would be revolting to eat."

  Seymour sniffed and looked at her sister with disgust. "I like that hat, and I never fail," she replied with dignity.

  "You have for the past seventeen years," Dorothea muttered, making Henri and Seymour smile unexpectedly though Céleste had lost the train of their conversation.

  "Well some things just take a little longer than others," Seymour said, and then reached out and took Céleste's hand. "And the right woman," she added.

  "Quite," Henri said, nodding her agreement.

  "I don't understand?" Céleste replied, knowing that they were placing their confidence in her but not really understanding why.

  "You will," Seymour said, squeezing her fingers tightly. "You will, if only we can bring my idiot nephew up to scratch." She winked and Céleste felt her heart jump.

  "Y-you mean, Alex?" she stammered, uncertain that she wasn't still floundering in the dark.

  She stared at Henri, wondering if she had betrayed her confidence.

  "I never said a word," Henri replied, putting her hand to her heart, as though she had read her mind.

  "You do still love him don't you?" Dorothea asked her, such anxiety in her eyes that Céleste couldn't reply for a moment.

  "I--I," she said, her cheeks blazing with embarrassment.

  Seymour laughed at her obvious discomfort. "I knew the day we met, dear. We both did. It was perfectly obvious. What I was slightly less sure of were his feelings for you."

  "Oh," Céleste replied, casting her eyes down. Whilst she was more than glad that his aunts didn't disapprove of the match, she didn't want Alex harried into offering for her from some misplaced sense of duty. She wanted him, with a desperation that was beginning to border on obsession, but she wanted him to love her. If he didn't love her she couldn't bear the idea of being with him, knowing he was only doing his duty.

  She felt a slender knuckle touch her chin, and looked up to see Aunt Seymour watching her with amusement.

  "I think I have put to rest any doubts I may have harboured on that score," she said gently. "The poor man is at his wit's end already and we're barely half way through the evening. It shouldn't take much to tip him over the edge. And," she added, winking at Céleste in the most scandalous fashion. "You have yet to dance with Sindalton."

  Céleste gave a little gasp of surprise and the three women began to chuckle.

  "Now run along," she said, gesturing to the smiling countenance of Viscount Trenchard who had come to claim his dance, and leaning down to whisper in her ear. "You have a husband to catch."

  Chapter 25

  "Wherein torments are endured and the stakes raised."

  Céleste watched as the duke approached her and hoped she looked outwardly calm because her nerves were doing an intricate dance all of their own. Prickles of unease ran up and down her spine as envious looks were cast her way from every female in the room. She didn't blame them in the slightest.

  Standing beside Alex, darkly handsome and exuding a dangerous appeal, her skin ached with desire. And with the infamous, deliciously wicked Sin stalking through the ballroom towards her as though no one else in the room existed, she felt rather like a haunch of venison dangling between two starving tigers. She could feel tension rolling off Alex in waves. There was a muscle ticking at the side of his jaw that was disturbing what remained of her peace of mind, and the leashed violence in his eyes and the rigid set of his shoulders had kept any possible male suitors from spending a moment longer in her company than was absolutely necessary to claim their dance. She had the distinct feeling that more than one of her amorous admirers had found their ardour quickly cooling under the earl's icy gaze, and would have happily not danced with her at all had honour not bound them to come and claim it.

  The duke, however, seemed to have no such qualms and met the earl's eyes with an arrogant tilt of his lips. Alex bowed with such an insolent manner that murmurings of shock rippled around the great room as the closest to them noticed. Frankly Céleste was just relieved he'd managed it at all for she had the breathless feeling that she was standing on a precipice as the two powerful men stood close beside her. Any sudden move by either party could result in disaster.

  "Falmouth." Sindalton acknowledged the earl with a mocking glint in his eyes and for an alarming moment she had the terrible feeling Alex was going to hit him.

  "Your Grace," Alex replied, though somehow the words were infused with menace.

  "My dance I think?" the duke said, his tone changing to something low and intimate as his heavy-lidded eyes slid to Céleste's.

  She gave a low curtsey, aware of the man's heated gaze settling appreciatively on the revealing neckline of her dress as she dipped down in front of him. He gave her his hand to raise her up and she arched a glance up at him from under her lashes, wondering how she dared give him such a seductive look, but not nearly brave enough to see how Alex was taking it.

  The duke placed her fingers on his arm and led her to the dance floor.

  "I wonder, are their scorch marks on my back?" he murmured, as he turned her towards him for their dance. "I rather feel there should be."

  Céleste suppressed a giggle but couldn't help but smile up at him. "Oh?" she replied, affecting an air of innocence. "Why would that be, your Grace?"

  The Duke snorted and held her gaze, giving her ample opportunity to admire his deep brown eyes, so very dark that the brown almost merged with the black. She was intrigued to notice tiny flecks of gold in their depths, like stars in a night sky.

  "I have the growing suspicion that the earl doesn't care for me," he replied, keeping his tone and his face grave, though his dark eyes were alight with humour.

  "The earl doesn't care for most people," she replied, with equal gravity, though she was struggling to keep a smile from her lips. "So I shouldn't let it trouble you unduly."

  "Oh, I'm not troubled in the least," he said, his words far softer now and he pulled her closer to him as the dance brought their bodies almost but not quite flush. He lowered his head so she could still hear his whispered words. "Not by Falmouth at least." His warm breath tickled the side of her neck and the moment seemed very intimate, despite knowing how many people were watching them.

  Céleste blushed. She really didn't want to flirt with this man. He was very handsome, clearly extremely charming and his wealth and title were obviously bait enough for any unwed young lady, but he wasn't Alex. Alex, however, was an idiot, and if she was to have any chance of getting him to realise that fact desperate measures were called for.

  "Then what does disturb you, your Grace?" she asked, looking up at him once more from under her thick lashes, with what she had been told was a seductive tilt of her head. It seemed to have the desired effect as his eyes darkened further.

  "You," he replied. The word shivered over her skin, thrilling and succinct as he turned away from her, the dance forcing them in opposite direct
ions for a moment. When they returned together his hand slid around her waist, pulling her closer to him for a moment, and there was an intensity in his gaze that made her breath catch and her cheeks heat. "I want to call on you," he said. There was no preamble, no pretty words or may I have the honour. It was a demand, tinged with urgency.

  The dance drew to a close but he stood over her, his hand still at her waist, his eyes fixed on hers. Somehow she found the nerve to raise one eyebrow at him.

  "I imagine a duke can do most anything he chooses," she replied blinking up at him in an innocent fashion.

  He chuckled, a slow smile bringing warmth to the strong lines of his face.

  "I'm going to take that as a yes," he replied, placing her hand back on his sleeve and keeping his own covering her fingers in a lingering caress. "And now we had better brave the lion's den and return you from whence you came ... for now at least."

  There was a promise in his words that didn't escape her and she looked at him in surprise, gasping as he winked at her. It was a deliberate gesture, acknowledging his interest in her and sure to have been seen by everyone watching. It implied that there was a level of intimacy in their relationship that would be seized upon and whispered about before she even returned to Alex's side. She could almost hear the words floating on the air and the bets being taken on how long it would be before he offered for her.

  She ought to be victorious, she thought ruefully. This was the kind of match her mother would have considered only in her wildest dreams of a future for her daughter. But it only filled her with panic. What if Alex allowed it? What if he didn't change his mind and offer for her himself? Could she accept such a man, knowing she would always love another? With such disturbing thoughts buzzing in her mind she was too distracted to even notice if Alex was in any way affected by her dancing with the only man in the room who could rival him for looks or eligibility.

  Her distraction was short-lived, however, as Alex took her hand, his grip almost painful as he set her fingers on his sleeve and almost marched, rather than walked her to the dance floor. Her heart set upon an unsteady series of leaps in her chest as she realised this was his dance.