Ripe for Seduction

by Isobel Carr

  “That’s a no that means fetch me a drink, Mr. Devere,” she replied as she flicked her fan open. Dizzy, faint, flushed, she felt as though her skin might burn right through the layers of linen and silk that encased her. He looked at her as though she were a morsel on a plate. As though he could eat her in one bite. Swallow her whole.

  “Your wish is my command,” Devere said. “I shall return momentarily.”

  He stood and slipped into the crowd. Livy plied her fan a little more rapidly. Tonight he was every inch the gentleman, at least on the outside: hair formally dressed, its usual curl almost entirely tamed, wide shoulders encased in dark, subtly striped tobine, gloves and evening shoes lending him a polished air. But that smile was all pirate. Or all djinn, if she was to stick with the theme suggested by his quoting The Arabian Night’s Entertainment.

  Devere glanced back over his shoulder, dark eyes filled with promise. Heat pooled in her belly and a sudden wave of longing coursed through her. Livy crammed it down, crushing it ruthlessly.

  Roland Devere was a rake who’d made a reprehensible overture. Giving in to his blandishments and seductive glances was madness. Playing the jilt at Season’s end was going to put her beyond the pale as it was. Falling pregnant or being caught in flagrante delicto, however, would be mortifying to her father and would transform her false engagement into a real one instantly.

  Scheherazade had woven tales to preserve her virtue from the sultan. Livy suddenly realized the comparison was not as apt as she might like. She was more likely to spend the Season concocting reasons to keep herself from presenting her virtue to Devere like a present on Boxing Day. The thrill that skittered up her spine when he touched her, however decorously, was dangerous. And even knowing the danger, she couldn’t prevent herself from glorying in the sensation.

  Livy kept her chin up as several gentlemen eyed her as they passed. She knew them all. Mr. Gleeson. Lord William. Lord Medways. Their looks of open appraisement were exactly why she’d forced Devere into this charade.

  Give any one of them so much as a smile and they’d interpret it as an open invitation. Deny them what they expected, what they wanted, and she risked them claiming to have enjoyed her favors out of spite. There was no way to win the game, only to refuse to play at all. And no way to refuse to play except to out-maneuver them from the beginning.

  Devere stepped out of the crowd, wide shoulders blocking her from the three men’s view. Relief washed over her, the feeling almost more dangerous than simple lust. He wasn’t protecting her out of the goodness of his heart. She’d be wise to remember that.

  Devere reclaimed his seat and handed her another glass of peppery burgundy. When she looked up, the men were gone, doves fleeing before a hawk.

  “Let us return to the subject of negotiations.” Devere’s voice curled around her, seductive as a caress.

  Livy sipped her wine, steeling herself for battle, and watched Devere over the rim of her glass. The terms were hers, and they were firm. They had to be.

  Devere leaned in, close enough that she could feel his breath whisper hotly across her skin. Livy resisted the urge to retreat. If he thought for a moment he had her on the run, she’d never regain the ground she’d lost.

  “Perhaps what I’m speaking of isn’t really a matter of negotiations,” he said, the words barely discernible above the din of the room. “It’s more a matter of a confession. I promised to defend you, to protect you, to squire you about and spend my days at your beck and call, but I never promised to behave like a eunuch while doing so.”

  A thrill shot through her, and the wineglass tumbled out of Livy’s grasp, sending a shower of crimson liquid down her skirts. It wicked into the silk even as Devere cursed and yanked his handkerchief from his pocket.

  “Rolly?” Devere’s sister, the comtesse de Corbeville, appeared before them, her mourning gown stark but fashionable in every small detail. “What kind of dolt gives a woman red wine to drink in a squeeze like this? I could swear I taught you better.” She sounded half disgusted but looked entirely amused, her dark eyes brimming with laughter.

  “You did, dearest,” he said apologetically, ceasing to dab at the ruin of Livy’s skirts.

  “Come along, Lady Olivia,” the comtesse said, a sly smile hovering about her lips. “Let us see what can be done to remedy the situation.”

  Livy rose and Devere’s sister bore her off, pushing her way through the crowd as though her mother’s guests were nothing but chickens loose in the garden. She clearly expected them to make way, and they did, though the entire room seemed to follow their every step with rapt attention.

  “Don’t worry,” the comtesse said as they ascended the stairs. “Paxton was with me at Versailles. She’s got worse than wine out of silk over the years, believe me.”

  They reached the quiet refuge of the comtesse’s suite of rooms, and Livy found herself thrust down into a chair while a maid of indeterminate years frowned over the damage to her gown and then set to work with powders and brushes and chamois cloth.

  Devere’s sister strolled over to her dressing table to fuss with her hair. She toyed with the curls of her fringe, primping them into place, and then turned her attention to adjusting the small silhouette that adorned her bodice. She caught Livy watching her, and her eyes sought Livy’s in the reflection. “Are you really going to marry my brother?”

  Livy glanced at the maid, and the comtesse burst into laughter. “Paxton doesn’t speak a word of English.” Devere’s sister turned about and sat down on the delicate gilded bench beside the dressing table. “You and my brother put on quite the little show the other morning, but whatever was in that letter, it wasn’t a proposal. Rolly looked as sick as a horse when you handed it to him.”

  Livy bit her lip and studied the comtesse. She was beautiful, but there was something almost brittle about her, and it wasn’t merely the severity of her mourning clothes. If anything, black suited her. It made her look like a Spanish noblewoman, darkly intriguing.

  “Is it so hard to believe that your brother would ask me to be his wife?”

  “It’s impossible to believe,” the comtesse said, though her tone wasn’t unkind. “Just as it’s impossible to believe you’d say yes if he did.” Devere’s sister held her tongue for a moment, waiting for an answer. When Livy remained silent, the comtesse smiled and shook her head. “Not going to admit it’s a sham? That’s fine, too. I wouldn’t either if I were playing a deep game.” She picked up a small glass bottle and applied the stopper to her throat. The faint scent of orange blossoms wafted across the room. “I shall simply have to watch and speculate. It should make for an interesting Season at the very least.”

  The maid finished with her ministrations, and Devere’s sister came over to examine the results. “Bon!” she said. “Good as new. And now I shall return you to the ballroom, but not, I think, to Rolly. Let’s give him something—someone—to be jealous of, non?”

  CHAPTER 5

  Making headway, are we?”

  Roland turned to find Anthony Thane had appeared silently beside him, the sound of his approach masked by the din of the music and chatter that filled the room. The big man had a wry look of amusement on his face.

  “More so than you.” Devere sipped his wine and continued to study the crowd, waiting for his sister and Lady Olivia to return. They’d been gone entirely too long for his liking. Lord only knew what Margo might say. His sister had always verged on the outrageous, and a decade at the French court certainly hadn’t done anything to change that. She’d been dubbed la folle Anglaise at Versailles—the mad Englishwoman—and she was still very much the same madcap.

  Thane chuckled. “Should I cut you out, popinjay?”

  Roland fought back the urge to warn his friend off. He’d find out soon enough that Lady Olivia wasn’t inclined toward a turn as a wanton widow. In the meantime, it might be entertaining to watch him try his luck.

  “Feel free to make a fool of yourself, mountain. In fact, I’ll take my
self off to the card room, leaving you a clear field, if you’ll promise to come and fetch me when you can no longer stand the pain of rejection.”

  Thane’s brows rose, but he didn’t lose one iota of his smug confidence. And under normal circumstances, he might have stood a chance.

  Roland’s mouth curled into a grin as he made his way to the card room. It almost felt like cheating, but Thane was more than overdue for a set-down. Bastard had the devil’s own luck with women and cards. Women tended to be impressed with Thane’s impressive height and his elegant demeanor. A tame beast. That was what his last ladybird had called him.

  Inside the room the countess had dedicated to gentlemanly pursuits such as cards and smoking, Roland found a handful of his friends gathered round one table, some of them playing hazard while the others merely looked on.

  “Mamma would have apoplexy if she knew you were dicing in her house.”

  Dominic de Moulines grinned at him with boyish abandon, his teeth blindingly white against the dusky skin he’d inherited from his African mother. He rattled the dice in their box. “Then it is a good thing la chère comtesse won’t be coming in to verify that we’re playing decorously at whist, non?”

  Roland shook his head at the Frenchman and claimed a spot beside him. De Moulines sent the dice tumbling down the table and there was a collective groan of annoyance as he won yet again.

  Lord Leonidas Vaughn caught Roland’s eye. “I’ll bet you a guinea our chevalier can’t keep hold of the dice for another three goes.”

  Roland met Vaughn’s gaze. There was a disreputable glint in his green one, and Roland had learned long ago to never trust the sincerity of the blue one.

  “I think I’ve had enough of one-guinea bets this week,” Roland said, reaching for the decanter on the table and refilling his glass.

  There was a collective, silent pause at the table before his friends burst into guffaws of laughter. One of the tables of whist players grumbled loudly while glaring at them.

  “How are you progressing?” Lord Malcolm Reeves said when he’d regained the ability to speak. “You appear to have all your limbs intact, so I assume she didn’t show the letter to her father.”

  Roland glared at his friends. “How could you have let me send such a letter?”

  “You were unstoppable,” Vaughn replied.

  “Dead-set,” Lord Malcolm added.

  “I believe the phrase you used at the time was a slave to your muse,” de Moulines said, twisting the knife with obvious glee. “You were adamant that your poesy be sent immediately. There was no deterring you.”

  “You could have stopped me,” Roland protested.

  Vaughn smiled, pleasure and amusement leaking out of every pore. “Isn’t our pledge to aid and abet one another in our endeavors?”

  Margo propelled Lady Olivia back into the ballroom with one hand at the small of her back. They were nearly of a height, but there was something about the girl that made Margo think of her as delicate, as younger than she actually was. With her big blue eyes and heart-shaped face, she looked like a child, or, more accurately, like a child’s expensive doll.

  If Lady Olivia wanted to survive the season and whatever game she and Rolly were playing, then Lady Olivia was going to have to set the tune. If the girl let Rolly get away with doing so, it would be disastrous. Margo sighed as the girl’s expression hardened when the swirl of guests swallowed them up. What was her family thinking? She wasn’t ready to face down the ton. Not by a long shot.

  “Let me see,” Margo said, surveying the room, one finger at her lips. She needed just the right candidate. Her perusal stopped as Anthony Thane nodded to her. Margo smiled back, but shook her head no. Thane was tall, imperious, handsome in a rough sort of way, but he wouldn’t make Rolly the least bit jealous. They were too good friends for that.

  Thane put his hand over his heart as though shot, and Margo burst into laughter. The man she’d known when she made her come-out hadn’t had a humorous bone in his body. He’d changed while she’d been gone. Well, if the truth be told, so had she.

  “Come away, my dear,” Margo commanded, pushing her charge forward into the crowd. “Mr. Thane won’t do at all for our purposes. Well,” she added, glancing back at him through the crowd, “he might do for mine, but not for yours. We need someone a little grander than Thane to torture Rolly with.”

  Lady Olivia stared at her, looking slightly thunderstruck.

  “Have I’ve shocked you?” Margo said with a sigh, cursing her blithe tongue. “Sometimes I forget how English the English can be.”

  “But—but you’re English,” Lady Olivia said, a hesitant smile that looked to be half confusion pulling at her lips.

  Margo made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “I was English,” she said, steering the girl firmly past one of her own hopeful-looking swains. “Stay away from Lord Omsbatch.”

  “You just smiled at him.”

  Margo stopped and turned to face her brother’s supposed bride. “What I might do is very different from what you should do, Lady Olivia. After the life I led in France, and the roué I married, no one really expects me to play the grieving, saintly widow. Etienne’s death is generally thought to have been a relief, though most people aren’t rude enough to say so to my face. You, on the other hand, are balanced upon a knife’s edge. Smile at Lord Omsbatch, and you’ll fall one way. Turn up your nose, and you’ll at least maintain your precarious position.”

  Lady Olivia opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out. She licked her lips. “And if I marry your brother?”

  Margo broke into a grin of pure amusement. “If I thought for a moment that you were going to commit such folly, I’d throw you at Lord Omsbatch without hesitation. He’s not a very nice man, but at least he has the title and fortune to resurrect your standing in society.”

  “And you think that’s what I want?” Lady Olivia sucked in a sharp breath and caught her lips between her teeth.

  Margo stared the girl down. “No, I’m fairly certain that it isn’t. That’s what worries me—”

  “Livy, dear, there you are.” The Earl of Arlington’s greeting cut Margo off, and his daughter sighed with obvious relief. “Hello, Papa.” Lady Olivia offered her cheek to her father, and the earl kissed it. “Done fleecing your friends at cards?”

  “Impudent brat,” the earl said with an indulgent smile. “Madame de Corbeville, isn’t it? I think you were younger than my daughter when I last saw you.”

  “I think you must be right, my lord. Though it makes me feel ancient to own it.” Margo found herself staring at the man. She certainly had been much younger, so much so, in fact, that she remembered Lord Arlington as being old, and he was nothing of the kind. Chagrin flooded through her.

  “Fishing for compliments?” the earl responded with a lively, teasing look. Instead of lines of dissipation, Arlington had laugh lines etched into his face, and his eyes were every bit as blue as his daughter’s. Ridiculously, Margo’s heartbeat wavered and then ticked upward.

  “Were you ready to go, Papa?” Lady Olivia said, a proprietary hand on her father’s arm.

  “So early?” Margo said, even as the earl said, “No, darling, I just couldn’t seem to find you earlier.”

  “Nothing to worry about,” Lady Olivia said, glancing uneasily between them. “Just a little mishap with a glass of wine.”

  The sudden awkwardness of the moment was shattered by the appearance of Anthony Thane. He greeted them all with a very elegant bow. “Lady Olivia, I was hoping for the honor of a dance. My lord, with your permission?”

  Lord Arlington nodded and waved them off. Thane swept Lady Olivia out into the sea of dancers. “And you, my lady,” the earl said, holding out his hand to her, “perhaps we could—not dance, obviously—take a turn about the room, and you could tell me the latest news from Versailles.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Livy glanced back over her shoulder. Her father and Devere’s sister were flirting. And at the moment, th
ey looked as though they were unaware anyone else in the room even existed. She’d never seen her father look at a woman that way. In fact, she’d never seen her father look at a woman period. Somehow, it had never occurred to her that he might.

  Livy swiveled her head about again as she and Thane slid into the set that was already underway. Her father and the comtesse were gone, lost in the crowd. Feeling a bit at sea, Livy forced her attention back to her partner and the dance.

  A woman several couples up the line glared down at Livy, her face pinched and haughty. Lady Pearson. They’d been friends before and during Livy’s marriage, or so Livy had thought. After a whispered conversation and a long, pointed stare, Lady Pearson and her partner stepped out of the set.

  Anger snapped through Livy, bringing her chin up. Her head began to throb, a sharp stab behind her left eye. Livy shook off the pain. She had every right to be here. She’d been invited just as they had, and she’d not done anything wrong. Not once in her life had she taken a misstep that was worthy of even mild reproach, let alone banishment. At least not until a couple of days ago…

  She circled palm to palm with Thane, and he bent to whisper, “Don’t pay them any mind.”

  Livy forced herself to smile and pretend that such a snub didn’t smart, that having her partner notice didn’t make it infinitely worse. This was only the beginning. Engaged to Devere or not, there were surely plenty more slights to come in the next few months. He could keep the gentlemen at bay, but nothing could prevent the ladies of the ton from treating her poorly. And clearly previous friendship wasn’t going to save her either. Did Lady Pearson think Livy’s disgrace was catching?

  “Thank you, sir, I won’t,” she said on the next pass, forcing the words out as she pinned a smile to her face.

  Thane led her through the steps with surprising grace. She’d expected a certain roughness based on his size alone. There didn’t appear to be an ounce of fat on him, but he was almost intimidatingly large. Devere topped her by a good six inches. She barely reached Thane’s shoulder.