by Anne Mallory
Why not go back to your correspondence and literary pursuits? Sell your melancholy memoirs?
He wouldn’t be caught holding a book of sonnets he hadn’t written himself. The words permeated the heavy haze.
His brother Colin had lighter hair. Brown with a bit of a wave. If he styled it correctly and affected a less dour attitude…he could have been the man in the hall.
But sober Colin who supported order and rules? He was a man she would hardly credit with writing a tome on seduction. Then again, it appeared that same sober man was perhaps fighting a fierce flirtation with her maid at the house.
Could Eleutherios be the viscount’s brother? It would give the viscount a personal push against her interaction with him.
She thought hard on the man from last night. Not Colin. Similar, but not the same. But…but there was a younger brother. The youngest. A hellion. He had been in the papers before, going on his Grand Tour. His name started with a C too. Georgette would know it.
Pretending to be his middle brother?
She thought about the interaction between the viscount and the fake author with that information in mind. She tapped the sonnet militantly. Yes. She’d bet her monthly stipend that the viscount’s youngest brother was the man at the Hannings’.
The viscount had been irritated. Extremely irritated, yes. But that seemed true for his family in general. For he hadn’t seemed to hate Colin at Lady Banning’s. He had been defensive and fed up.
He had been more irritated that Miranda might be taken with the idea she had met the author, and her response again to the author’s writings. Jealous even.
She looked down at her correspondence—the pages from Mr. Pitts interspersed with those from Eleutherios—and traced the letters absently. Everyone seemed to like sonnets these days, she thought just as absently.
Then stopped. Her fingernail creasing a small dent in the sheet.
What was to stop the viscount from also…but no, that would be silly.
She looked at the sheets splayed around her. At the vitriol against Eleutherios. Surely someone wouldn’t write that against oneself? She gripped the page, creasing the words.
Muttonheaded, rattle-pate, twit…
And yet, when she went over the papers with a critical eye, and clenched fingers, there were similarities in sentiment, in voice. Though one voice was full of darkness, and the other light. Only that small dark current under Eleutherios’s words was a link.
She put a hand to her forehead, to the cold sweat gathering there.
The marquess…the brother…even the mother stepping in to help her husband play whatever trick had been concocted that night. The marquess had been looking for the fake Eleutherios before he had entered. Had said of his own admission that he had thought to play him himself.
She wiped her palm on a cloth, searching for something that would put the mad thoughts to rest. The handwriting…it was completely different. Written by two different hands.
She gave a relieved, if slightly hysterical, laugh. Perhaps she would be accusing Galina of being Eleutherios next.
Her laugh cut off, and she promptly felt the need to put the cloth directly to her head. The viscount had a hundred servants. And his valet would know all of his secrets. And he traveled with him everywhere. Could put everything to the page that Eleutherios wrote.
Or everything that Mr. Pitts wrote.
The viscount had declared Eleutherios to be a fake right off. Perhaps simply because he knew that the man was his brother. But it could also be a simple statement of normal fact.
Was he truly both men? Sent to bedevil her?
She examined the notes. Never had she been so affected by a man, and in the space of half a year she had been affected by three in succession. But perhaps not three men, at all. Instead, three thirds of a man. Incomplete.
She swallowed. All of the feelings that she had for each of the three swirling around and striking against one another. Looking for places to absorb. To connect.
Why?
Who was Viscount Downing? Which one of these incarnations was the real man himself, if any?
Sent to bedevil her. A shiver of warmth followed a sudden heaviness in her throat. Hope and unease mixed in a strange cordial. Why had she been the one he had singled out?
And what was she going to do with the knowledge…
Chapter 16
Secret #6: Find the secret. What she he keeps hidden from others. That is the key to her his embrace.
The Seven Secrets of Seduction
(annotated by Miranda Chase)
“Good morning.” His voice was a purr in her ear. It sent the hair on her arms straight up and the heat of her body climbing, but she concentrated on her hand atop the shelf. She tapped the book there, militantly, casually, with purpose. Il Principe.
She turned and ran a finger under his chin. “Good morning,” she purred back.
His smile froze for a fraction of a second, then grew. He lifted her hand and brought it to his lips, the touch of his mouth searing her palm beneath the silk.
“New gloves?”
“Oh? Yes. I thought it was time for a new pair.”
That morning, she had dipped into her savings to purchase a pair that was better than most of the gloves she owned. All of the gloves she owned, for she didn’t feel she owned any of the ones he had given her to wear. The new gloves were worth every penny. The price of a shield never to be underestimated in battle.
And gloves such as these were something she had wanted but always denied herself. Her practicality quashing extravagant pleasure.
“Do you like them?” She pressed her hands against the waist of her gown and pulled them down, defining her hips through the material, letting go only when they reached her thighs.
He paused, eyes following the motion, then glanced up. A lazy regard was the only thing in evidence. The moment of unease quickly buried. She would never have even noted it had she not deliberately inspired it. He was too good really.
The man needed to be taught a lesson.
She stepped nimbly off the ladder, and his arms automatically went out to steady her. “Oh,” she said, breathlessly, stealing Georgette’s best material ruthlessly, and with a single-mindedness even her friend couldn’t claim. She knew her delivery was flawless because her determination wouldn’t allow for anything less. “Thank you.”
His arms tightened fractionally, but then he twirled her. “Of course, sweet Miranda.”
She let her hands drift down his chest and wrap around his waist, hugging him. “I had such a lovely evening.” She let her body rub lightly against his, and as soon as his arms tightened to secure her, she whisked herself away. “I have this section nearly complete. Isn’t it wonderful?”
She didn’t turn around to see his expression though she desperately wished to. The hook wouldn’t work if she tipped her hand too soon.
Let him feel the topsy-turvy emotion for a while before she ground him to dust.
“A whole section done?”
“Yes. I decided that I was being silly with the way we were organizing by author.” She smiled at him. “Much better to organize chronologically.”
“Chronologically?” he echoed.
“Yes. It’s brilliant, isn’t it? That way you have to simply want to find a Baroque author or a Renaissance one, go to the section, and voilà! A whole bevy awaiting perusal.” She brushed by him, allowing her skirts to curl around the edges of his trousers as she spun to point at the titles. “Think of the Enlightenment section.”
“Indeed.” He looked as if he could dearly use some enlightenment at the moment. Her smile spread.
She turned, her chest brushing his elbow. “And you are brilliant, of course, so it should be easy to find and increase the breadth of categorizing.” She leaned in just a bit, then retreated before he could grab her.
She couldn’t tell which was confounding him more, the thought of what she had suddenly done to his library or the way she was teasing him, bre
aking from her passive role.
She smoothed her hands down the bodice of her dress as if there were a crease there in need of pressing. “I have a silly status report from my uncle though. It needs a statement from you that work is progressing apace. Oh, and a signature.” One finger curled a lock of hair against her ear, her nail rubbing down the strands, a calming well-used tactic, then waved out in a careless fashion toward the library desk.
She sauntered over, bent slightly—unnecessarily—and picked up the paper she had laid there. A small inkpot stood at attention. She was hoping it wasn’t the only thing doing so in the room. She turned slowly, bending back up, stretching the material taut over her front. If only a lower-necked gown had been at all appropriate, she would have been dipping forward, allowing it to gape instead.
His eyes caressed her. Her traitorous body reacted, not averse to a seduction taking its toll upon the perpetrator as well.
“A status report?”
“He just wants to make sure you are satisfied.”
“Oh, that is one emotion I feel quite strongly.” His hot eyes engulfed her, turning her body into flames wherever they lit as he walked toward her.
“Very good,” she said more huskily than intended. She stretched into him under the pretext of handing him the quill. “I do so hope it continues.”
He lifted the quill from her fingers with his left hand and started to put it to the page, his eyes still upon her. Then he paused and casually, too casually, switched the quill to his right fingers, looking down. Awkward lines scratched the surface. A sentence, then a scripted signature.
She’d bet the entire rich sum he was paying that he was left-handed. That he didn’t write that chicken scrawl with his left and instead produced the beautiful sloping and cutting lines she loved to trace.
He pushed the paper toward her. “Acceptable?”
She took the paper and smiled brilliantly in return. “That was perfect. Just what was needed.” She ducked from his arms and folded the paper into the sleeve she had brought with her. She would compare it later. There were only so many ways one could change one’s handwriting before certain elements connected.
His eyes traveled over the shelf behind her. His brows creased. “What is this?”
“Oh. Your travel books are wonderful. So many lovely tomes.” And she truly meant it. She had been hard-pressed not to lose herself in their midst. But she had needed to get them on the shelves, and so she’d put them up in a most interesting fashion.
“Are they arranged…” He paused, the barest hint of concern sifting in to the tone. “By the length of the title?”
She laughed lightly. “Don’t be silly.” She waved a hand, and sauntered away, determined to get his eyes off them. “You have delightful engineering books as well. Travel and engineering are interesting subjects.”
And she had intermixed them in a way that even she would be hard-pressed to explain.
She turned in front of a waist-high pedestal, hiding the vase she had placed there thirty minutes prior. Perhaps they’d need to rename the Red Room the Bone Room now. The skull she had placed in the room below was lovely in its own way—if one enjoyed the macabre. Personally, someone who treasured Shakespeare should be pleased.
She ran a finger along her lips, entreating his eyes to follow, moving them away from things better left for a later surprise. “I saw a grand phaeton on the way here and have been engrossed in locating your books on transportation. It must be wonderful to travel with the wind upon one’s cheeks in such a vehicle.”
His eyes sought the stacks once more, a touch of consternation mixing with the heat still present.
“We must satisfy your curiosity,” he said, lifting a hand as if to escort her away. “I have been meaning to have another look at the Serpentine since you defied me to give it a second glance.”
She could almost hear the underlying thought that perhaps he should get her out of the library until sanity returned.
“Oh?” Turned away from him as she was, her real emotion was allowed free rein. She smiled slowly and smoothed her hands together, the silk gliding, then creating friction in the opposite direction. She altered her expression into one of innocence and turned. “That sounds lovely.”
“And you can show me what beauty I can possibly concentrate on with you so near.”
“‘Sweet lord, you play me false,’” she said lightly, quoting her namesake.
“‘I would not for the world.’”
Oh, yes, a lesson awaiting teaching, indeed.
He snapped two fingers, and immediately a servant appeared, as if he had been waiting behind the doorframe. “Tell Fredericks to ready the phaeton.”
She could decide when they left the room as to whether she wanted him to see the new position of the Vermeer or not.
The servant cleared his throat. “There is a light chance of rain, my lord.” He had obviously been listening to their conversation and was loath to impart the news.
“Oh.” Miranda spared a look at her hands, a secret smile curving her lips before she wiped it away. “I don’t want to ruin my new gloves—”
“Then we will go tomor—”
She met his eyes once more. “—but I would like nothing better than to visit the waters with you on a misty day.”
The viscount’s eyes suddenly narrowed the slightest bit as he regarded her.
She silently repeated a mantra of innocence. “To see the mist’s shadowy fingers curl over the surface.” She smiled artlessly.
He watched her for another few seconds of held breath, then said over his shoulder, “Ready the closed carriage then.” There was some odd hint of relief in his eyes that she couldn’t pin down. “You don’t mind if we don’t take an open-air vehicle?”
“Actually, I quite enjoy the interior of the closed carriage these days. Perhaps I might impose on your good humor to try the open-air another day?”
“I insist.”
But there it was again, that small hesitation.
It struck her suddenly. The masks, the closed spaces, the empty theaters, the games. Was he trying to help her, to guard her reputation? Or was he ashamed of her? Her heart sought the former, but her mind clasped around the latter.
She put her hand on the volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets that he claimed to have stolen from his brother. “Thank you for lending the book to me. It has been quite enlightening.”
“You are finished with it?” He looked at the cover, the edge of a finger touching the paper innocently sticking out.
“Not yet. I’m just getting started, really.”
She turned so he couldn’t see her face. So that he could satisfy his curiosity, peek under the cover, just as she wanted him to.
She hummed and picked up a book on a stack as if she were returning to her task during the wait for the carriage to be ready. “I heard from Eleutherios this morning. I was composing my response.”
The letter had been a lovely thing, full of vibrant words and glittering phrases. It had made her sigh and clasp the paper to her chest. It had nearly changed her mind about the course she had planned.
She could hear the soft crinkle of paper behind her.
“Did you tell him what a disappointment he was?” The words were dark. But there was a thread of emotion beneath. A rash longing.
“No. Why would he be a disappointment?” She kept looking straight ahead, away from him, for surely she would give herself away in that moment. “I don’t think he could ever be a disappointment,” she said quietly. There were limits to revenge. Making his world topsy-turvy was excellent, deliberately hurting him was unacceptable.
“I am sure that is not true.”
“Well, I wasn’t the least disappointed in his letter nor in meeting him.” She waved a hand over her shoulder. Shocked when she realized she had met him long ago, yes. Disappointed, no. “I was quite surprised at his appearance, I must say. But I am intrigued enough by his words to want to see underneath the mask.”
S
he could see him reading the unfinished note she had left in the book, even though her back was still turned. “Now that he has shown himself, I think we can meet face-to-face. He seemed quite the charmer, if young.”
“You wish to meet with him?” The words were dark.
“Why would I not? He wrote me an exquisite sonnet.” She shivered in real remembrance. The words had wrapped around her and squeezed. All the more so because she knew exactly who was on the other side of the pen. That he had written it in the dead of night after their activities. “He writes the most beautiful words. Full of emotion. I can feel the longing and desire. I just want to—”
“You want to what?” He spun her around, forcefully pulling her against him, leaving her breathless.
“Clasp him to me.” She clutched him against her. “The way he writes emotion,” she said, nearly panting. “Veritably Shakespearean.”
“Never.” He crushed his lips against hers.
She responded, wrapping herself around him gladly. For her plan included plenty of opportunity for seduction. Tipping his world as he had tipped hers.
“Your lor—”
The servant’s words abruptly cut off, melting away to leave, but Miranda untangled herself from the viscount anyway, breathing hard. The viscount’s eyes were dark and intense. He barked over his shoulder without taking his eyes from her.
“What?”
The underbutler stood at the door with his eyes averted. “Whenever you are ready, the carriage is out front.”
There was no apology. For to apologize would call attention to the fact that something had been interrupted. It again made her wonder how many women had been brought here in the past. Giving way to the unsettling thought of what type of guest it truly made her.
They made it into the carriage before a light drizzle started, pattering upon the roof. She burrowed into the plush carriage blanket. Her knee brushed his, her shin loosely touching his ankle.
Here in the carriage, armed with her new knowledge, able to act with an abandon she otherwise wouldn’t employ. Another game, a masked maneuvering that allowed her to be free.