by Anne Mallory
She rolled off him, her back to him as she perched on the edge of the bed, trying to calm her breathing.
“Stay with me.” His voice was quiet.
She looked at her hands. Her stained, chapped hands. “I’ve met Charlotte Chatsworth. I think you can be happy with her.” It hurt to say it.
“Stay with me.”
“You will be married. Duties to your wife. Your children,” she whispered, closing her eyes, unable to look back at him. While marriage to the viscount, so out of her realm, had never been a thought, marriage to Mr. Pitts, her confidant on the other side of her pen…marriage to Eleutherios, who wrote such lovely, thoughtful lines to her…those tugged at the core of her, whispering what-ifs.
Watching his children gambol around while she stayed in the background with a pleasant smile, avoiding his wife, his wife avoiding her. Perfectly acceptable to the masses. Perfectly unacceptable suddenly to her.
She stepped away from the bed, from him. “No, I can’t.” She looked back at him kneeling in the middle of the mussed sheets and parchment, the sight of his face almost enough to make her recant. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
“And if I tell you…if I tell you I love you?”
The pain of it ripped into her. “I…” The thoughts swirled around, making her mad with the desire to grab what she could. To have him however she could. She pushed backward on her feet, stumbling away from him, turning. “I—I must go.”
“Miranda.”
She stopped at the door, hearing the pain in his voice. She could believe he did love her, in that moment. That she could have that whispered to her every night. Could have children of her own, locked away in some manor, only gossiped about when they made their way into society. Maybe even made respectable—with bright futures and opportunities. Holding her own court across from Charlotte Chatsworth, no Lady Downing, a strange sort of tug always pulling at the viscount, away from Miranda.
“I do love you, you know,” she said without looking at him. “In all your guises, with all of your strengths and faults. There has never been anything I’ve been so sure of.”
“Miranda.” She couldn’t look. Couldn’t bear to see his face. She closed her eyes against the pain and put her hand upon the handle of the door, pushing down and cracking it open.
“And I also know that I must go. Perhaps to Paris. For a time. See what I’ve been hiding from. Perhaps, perhaps I will see you upon my return.” It was a question. A sorrow. A wish. A broken bone, unevenly set.
She drew her fingers over the juncture of the door, where the wood protruded, separating the spaces into two—the halls for the servants, the rooms for the masters. “Farewell, Maxim,” she whispered.
And she walked through the portal and into the hall.
Chapter 21
Secret #7: Turn the key. Open the lock and take the treasure within. And once the key is found…never let it go.
The Seven Secrets of Seduction
The morning light shone through the windows. Too early for most Parisians to visit. She had discovered that going right after the museum opened was the best time. The light was soft and divine, the benches free, the mood calm and serene.
She had been in Paris for a month. A strange month. At first filled with introspection and regrets, then steadily filled with resolve, with a new thought to where she would carve her future.
A thrice-weekly reading club was already in the works. To be held in the back of her uncle’s London bookshop—which was undergoing renovations, expanding into the shop next door. A backer had been lined up to help find and fund staff to teach the classes. For free. To anyone who might want to attend. Miranda knew that Galina, at least, already planned to do so.
She caressed the sturdy parchment on her lap. The echo of bergamot lifting from it. Unsurprisingly, it had been easy to find someone interested in backing the project.
She touched the rest of the notes at her side, written by one hand, not three. Combining all of the men she loved into one, making it so hard to stay away, and at the same time reminding her of the tentative bridge between them. Of a relationship built on truth and trust. Honesty and friendship. Intimacy and humor. And of course, passion. Tentative, sensual notes that had turned into seductions of their own.
Questions answered, and others that she had been too afraid to pose.
Her pen had never flown over—and her eyes had never devoured—as many notes as she had exchanged in the past few weeks.
Notes full of recrimination had arrived first.
I can’t apologize for all of it. For tasting you or having you. Holding you in anyway I could. But for the half-truths and misdirection, for my willingness to expose and have you in the only way I thought might last, I would lie before the butcher should you desire my split heart.
Then more chatty ones, less emotional, but equally personal.
Spoke to the marquess this eve. He confessed that he has known about the authorship for months and was delighted. We shared a bottle of port and even Mother joined in when she saw it was I in his study. They have decided to take a trip across the sea. To stop in each port and see what they discover. The marquess seemed to think you might find the news amusing. As to why he would think such, I have no idea, but his thoughts do sometimes run to madness…
And finally to a renewed sense of kinship and seduction. One where they were finally equals on the field.
My love. My salvation.
She looked up from the note she had been caressing. She had to keep her wits together. Couldn’t fall apart after everything. Not after the most recent news had hit her desk.
She was as aware of the events in London as someone could be so many miles away. Georgette had written her immediately upon her arrival. Kept her up to date on what was happening in town. Encouraged her to go forward, her stalwart supporter.
Her uncle had tasked her with speaking to their contacts. Finding new books. And she had written him, first posing, then beginning to implement plans for the new additions to the shop. He had responded with absent tidbits that she wouldn’t have been able to glean from other sources.
The ladies in her book club and friends around town had also written and imparted interesting information, though they were still mystified by her sudden departure.
And then…then she had seen the news. A clipped piece from the Daily Mill that Georgette had sent and others had echoed. Followed by the note in her hand. Arriving on her doorstep—the contents giving her little time to grasp the words, no matter that she had had four weeks at large to do so.
She heard the strong footsteps upon the marble in the hall. The echoed scent of bergamot and parchment. Of jasmine and lilies. A strange sort of calm descended upon her, over the fast thump of her heart. The picture in front of her blurred and brightened.
The news had shaken her world again.
Miranda stared ahead of her, barely seeing the paintings. Feeling the caress of movement at her back. The taste of all things delicious. The desire that arched under her skin.
“So what do you think of the museum? Of Paris?” The voice curled from behind her. Husky. Not as if the owner had been playing naughtily all night but as if he had traveled without sleep. Needing to be somewhere.
“I think that I shouldn’t have waited so long,” she said quietly.
He stepped to the side of her, dark clothing with the hint of white, black hair, and chiseled features. The most gorgeous thing she had seen all day, week, month. “I was thinking the same thing,” he said. “Though my desperation to leap at what I wanted most only led to the near destruction of what I held most dear. And so waiting became my penance.”
She turned back to the wall, swallowing. “Have you seen this one?” She pointed blindly at the painting she had been absorbing before he’d entered.
“When I was on my Grand Tour I must have gazed upon that one a thousand times.”
“You must be tired of it then.”
“No.” He touched he
r crown. “No, each time is a new lure. One I never want to be without.”
She looked down for a second, then back up. Asking the question that had been on her mind since she’d seen the speculation in the gossip sheet, forwarded to her from Georgette.
“Your wedding?”
He sat next to her, and she turned toward him as he touched her cheek. “I’m not going to marry Charlotte Chatsworth.”
“No?” Her heart picked up speed. The rumors were true then. She had been too scared to ask him on paper. And then his most recent note…
“I’m cold enough for two. I need something warm to wake to every morning.” He lazily twirled a finger around a curl touching her temple.
“Separate beds are a time-honored tradition.”
“I’ve always hated the notion of separate beds.”
“Oh? Whatever will you do then?”
“I suppose I will just have to make sure that I marry someone I look forward to curling around every morning. Whom I can’t be without before breakfast. Or in the noon. Whom I need to race home to see after each appointment. Determined to lock her in my rooms, not because I need to hide anything but because I’d just as soon have her all to myself. To look upon her beloved face and hear her lips whisper in my ear.”
“That sounds…divine,” she whispered. The resonance of his words echoed the print in her hand.
“Then I must be speaking of you.” His lips touched hers. Soft, beautiful. She could almost have wept from the emotion that exploded inside of her. “You can’t imagine what this last month has been like.”
“Oh,” she said lightly. “I lived it too.”
He touched her chin. “Had you decided to stay silent, not to answer my letters, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“I never had ill intentions toward you.” She swallowed. “I left because I had to. Because I needed to. And you needed me to as well.”
“I know. I know.” His eyes closed. “I can’t tell you what it was like, the wait between my first letter to you and your reply.”
“You sent your own courier.” She raised a brow. “He lurked around the corners, you know, waiting to see if I’d post mail. Offered to take whatever I had, free of charge.”
“I—I can’t apologize for it.”
She touched his thigh. “I told him right off that I was going to reply. I must say that he amused me, kept my mind off what I had done, waking in a brand-new city, having everything in front of me and not knowing where to start. He was a touch of home.”
“I will make sure to increase his wages.” His lips curved, but his voice was sincere.
“I’m happy you are here.”
He stroked her cheek. “And I as well. Have you answered my most recent letter?”
She touched his cheek in return. Words nearly clogged her throat—relief and hope and happiness that she had read it right. The question that she had thought he would never ask. “I received it only an hour past.”
“That was forever ago.” His hand slipped down her side. “I watched the clock tick each tock.”
“You posted it from Paris.”
“Yes.” He lifted her hand. “I wrote it on the way over. I had to know. Couldn’t wait one moment longer. I love you, Miranda.”
“And I love you, Maxim.” She smiled, then touched a hand to the papers surrounding them. Lifting a page that had her answer on it. An answer that would always be yes. “Take me to the Cirque Diamant, then take me home?”
He didn’t even look at the sheet. He simply smiled. “With pleasure, and always.”
Acknowledgments
A thousand thanks, as always, to Mom, May Chen, and Matt—the triple M threat.
A special extra thanks to May for the title of the book (which spurred the story). When it popped up in a title brainstorming session for a previous book, it stuck with me and didn’t let go. :)
Thank you to Amanda Bergeron, Karen Davy, and Sara Schwager for production and copyedit mastery.
Also thank you to Bill, Chris, Chris, Ed, Flo, Gabi, Grace, Janet, Josh, Maureen, Matt, Nyree, Robert, Shannon, and Teresa, who all played a part in helping me work, even if it was to simply (and exquisitely) let me sleep in after being up all night. And to S.
About the Author
ANNE MALLORY is a lifelong romance reader who sold her first novel to Avon Books after becoming a finalist in RWA’s Golden Heart contest. Seven Secrets of Seduction is her ninth book.
Aside from writing, she is an enthusiastic hobby collector, game player, water girl, cat lover, chocolate consumer, and homebody—not necessarily in that order. A native Michigander, Anne currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Visit her online at www.annemallory.com. She loves hearing from readers, so feel free to drop her a line if you’re there!
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
By Anne Mallory
SEVEN SECRETS OF SEDUCTION
FOR THE EARL’S PLEASURE
THE BRIDE PRICE
THREE NIGHTS OF SIN
WHAT ISABELLA DESIRES
THE EARL OF HER DREAMS
THE VISCOUNT’S WICKED WAYS
DARING THE DUKE
MASQUERADING THE MARQUESS
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.
SEVEN SECRETS OF SEDUCTION. Copyright © 2010 by Anne Hearn. 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.
First Avon Books paperback printing: June 2010
EPub Edition © April 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-199548-4
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