Alec Mackenzie's Art of Seduction: Mackenzies (Mackenzies Series Book 9)

by Jennifer Ashley

  “As a recluse doing portraits of prominent men,” Alec finished. “You are using her as well.”

  Lady Flora turned a serene gaze to him. “As are you. The duke adores her and trusts her. Celia is the best way into her father’s knowledge. You must get her to trust you. I suppose that was the point of the nonsense of having her draw you without your shirt. How did you convince her? She knows she won’t be painting nudes.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She needs to learn anatomy if she’s to be any good as an artist. She’ll have to understand how the body looks under the clothes, to make the fabric have the right weight and drape.”

  Lady Flora sent him a severe look. “I know of your reputation with the ladies, Alec. A heart so warm it would melt a breastplate—that is what Will said of you. I believe you once had to be rescued from a man and his five brothers when you decided to dally with his wife.”

  “And much is made of that tale,” Alec said irritably. “His wife had already left him, and she scurried for freedom while I fought him. But I’m not here to make a conquest. I’m here to find my damned brother before it’s too late.”

  “Indeed,” Lady Flora said. “If you seduce Celia entirely, please keep it private and make her think it her own idea. I do not need her father bringing a lawsuit against me for not chaperoning her as I should.”

  “Trust me, any seduction will be very quiet and behind closed doors.” Alec would make certain absolutely no one interrupted if he managed to take Celia to his bed. It would be beautiful with her, not sordid. “The woman doesn’t need more troubles.”

  “If she has a child, she will have them,” Lady Flora said warningly.

  Alec scowled. “I know how to prevent wee ones from coming.”

  “A mercy you do.” Lady Flora returned to her mirror, lifting a strand of diamonds to test against her hair. “Else women would line the roads, hoisting up Mackenzie babes in their arms.”

  “Exaggeration,” Alec muttered.

  “Not by much.” Lady Flora dropped the diamonds into a tray, rejected. “While you pump Celia for information, I will also be prying it out of my acquaintances. I will host a salon tomorrow evening. You will be there, unobtrusively. You’re a gentleman and an artist, eking out a living teaching. No worry any will recognize you—these ladies and gentlemen have never been anywhere near Scotland and couldn’t possibly lift a weapon to join a battle. Soldiers and generals never attend my salons.”

  Alec knew Lady Flora would carefully choose the guests and he would have no reason to worry about arrest, especially if he kept his mouth shut. He’d be Mr. Finn, the talented Irish artist who’d been painting in France and was now down on his luck, helped by the charitable Lady Flora. She was known to give artists and writers she considered had merit a leg up.

  Alec lifted his emptied glass. “Here’s to it, then.”

  Lady Flora gave him a nod. Alec wasn’t certain he liked the scheming glint he detected in her eyes, but he said not a word.

  Celia paused outside the door to her father’s study, voices within changing her mind about opening the door. She had always been privileged to simply walk inside as she pleased, but when her father had guests, she politely did not interrupt.

  She seated herself in an armless chair in the gallery, her portfolio on the long table next to her. At least here the portfolio did not slip, fall, or spill open—none of the embarrassing tricks it played when inside Lady Flora’s pristine house. The landing was darker and colder than usual, and Celia shivered.

  The rumbles of male voices came to her through the walnut paneled doors. The flickering light of candles showed under the crack beneath it—Celia’s mother thought using too many candles a great waste of money, which was why the hall was quite dark—but the duke had his way on this one point, at least inside his private chambers. Her mother consoled herself that the duke wasn’t often home.

  “And you are certain they are safe?” the duke was asking.

  Celia heard the answer of her father’s friend, the Earl of Chesfield. “Of course. We have soldiers there, the best trained. Nothing will be lost.”

  Celia wondered what precious sort of treasure needed the protection of soldiers. Curious.

  Her uncle, her mother’s younger brother, the Honorable Perry Waterson, spoke next. “Not to worry, Charles. You leave such trifles to me and go bounce with Mrs. B.”

  “Really, Perry,” the duke said in a shocked voice. “No need to be unseemly.”

  The Earl of Chesfield chortled. “I’m sure he meant it fondly. Come along, Waterson, we’ll adjourn and let Charles rejoice in the bosom of his family. Or at least a bosom.”

  Uncle Perry sniggered, and Celia went hot with embarrassment. Uncle Perry knew exactly what a mismatched marriage his sister had made, but she wished he wouldn’t be quite so blatant that her father sought his comfort elsewhere.

  Celia got quietly to her feet when she heard the men make for the study door. She ducked into the next room along, not wanting either of them to see her. She had to leave her portfolio, but the gallery was so dark she doubted they’d notice it in the shadows or have any interest if they did.

  The Earl of Chesfield had a booming voice. He was tall, with a large, red face and big-boned body. His wig was always half askew, but for some reason it never looked comical. Perhaps because he was so loud and terrifying—that is, he’d terrified Celia when she’d been a little girl. These days, she found him rude and boorish.

  “A very good night to you, sir,” the earl thundered to Celia’s father. “I suggest you take your brother-in-law’s advice. Until tomorrow.”

  He marched out and made for the stairs. Uncle Perry followed him, but Celia knew he’d stop to visit her mother in her sitting room before departing the house.

  When the voices and footsteps had died away, Celia left her hiding place and tapped on the study door.

  “It’s Celia, Papa.”

  She heard a sound of delight and then her father’s pattering steps before he yanked open the door. “Ah, my dear, how wonderful to see you. Come in, come in. How was the drawing lesson? You must show me what you’ve done.”

  “Oh,” Celia tried. “It’s nothing very …”

  “Nonsense. Is that your portfolio? John—” The duke called to a passing footman. “Be a good chap and carry that in here.”

  John, in the red silk livery of the Duke of Crenshaw, his wig far more tidy and straight than the Earl of Chesfield’s, materialized out of the shadows, snatched up Celia’s portfolio, and carried it into the study. John deposited it on the large table in the center, bowed, and glided out.

  “Now then.” Celia’s father, a short man running to fat but not too stout, moved to the portfolio and undid its clasp with quick fingers. He opened the leather case and caught sight of the drawing on top, that of Celia’s face. “Oh, my.”

  Mr. Finn had taken Celia’s rudimentary sketch and filled in lines and shadows until the drawing glowed with life. She’d done the same when she’d sketched him, catching the spark inside that made Mr. Finn himself. Whatever his true name was didn’t matter—the essence of the man had shone in her drawing.

  Was this how Mr. Finn saw her? Outwardly quiet but inwardly blazing with restlessness, a need to move, to know, to discover the world?

  She did have those desires, Celia realized with a jolt. She’d told herself she’d be content to remain sequestered in her father’s house, quietly reading or painting for the rest of her life. But now she realized the confinement of that existence, how she’d have to stifle her own needs all her days. She’d grow more solitary and bitter with each passing year—she’d already begun down that path.

  Her thoughts spun until she was dizzy, as the duke gazed, enraptured, at the drawing. “A self-portrait. My dear, how enchanting.”

  Celia barely heard him. Why the devil had Mr. Finn done this to her—shown her what she could be, what she was losing? This morning, she hadn’t mourned her existence, and then in a few swoops of the pencil, Mr. Fin
n had showed her devastating truth.

  “Might I keep this?” Her father lifted the paper, turning it to the light, completely ignoring the stilted sketch of Mr. Finn’s arm on the next page. “It is delightful. I shall frame it and hang it where I can look upon it every day.”

  Celia snapped back to herself. The floor rocked beneath her feet, and she dragged in a breath. Her father was being kind, affectionate as usual. At least Celia had that. Her father bothered with her, a refreshing oddity in a time when so many fathers were sublimely uninterested in their daughters.

  “Yes, certainly,” Celia said, her voice a croak.

  “Thank you. I’ll have Matthews take it to be framed. A most lovely gift, my dear.”

  He patted Celia’s shoulder, the closest the duke ever came to making an overture of affection. She’d never seen him so much as touch her mother. Edward always jested that it was a miracle he and Celia had been conceived at all.

  Celia patted her father’s hand in return and daringly kissed his cheek. The duke jumped and then waved her away good-naturedly.

  “Tell me about your drawing master. This Mr. … Finn, is it?”

  Celia experienced another jolt. She thought of Mr. Finn as she’d left him today, the gleam of golden eyes as he’d swept his gaze over her, the corners of his mouth lifting as though holding back a smile.

  He’d made light of his bruises, but she’d known he’d been in a fight for his life.

  Did she dare reveal that Mr. Finn was a Highlander, here in London for who knew what purpose, using an assumed name?

  She’d tried to ask him about his background today, and he’d answered evasively. But she must be right that he had nothing to do with the Uprising, if only because Lady Flora would never condone a traitor to the crown living under her roof. Not only was she a staunch loyalist, she’d thought the Scottish Prince Charles a buffoon too young to have an opinion about anything, and the rebelling clansmen foolish and ungrateful knaves. Lady Flora would have found out every scrap of information about Mr. Finn before she let him set foot in the front door.

  Mr. Finn had denied fighting for either side of the Uprising and supposedly had been living in France for some years, painting for a living. Then why had he inexplicably decided to travel to London and try his luck here?

  None of it added up to anything reasonable.

  Celia cleared her throat. “He is Irish, I believe.”

  “So Lady Flora has said. But I did not mean his nationality. I mean, is he a gentleman? Not a ruffian or a shopkeeper with talent?”

  “Oh.” Celia hadn’t thought about him in those terms. Her father meant—is he one of us?

  Not necessarily an aristocrat, but at least from an established, landed family who hired people to do anything laborious. Celia thought about how she’d come upon Mr. Finn yesterday morning, sleeping with Jenny in his arms, and the authority in his voice when he’d told Lady Flora that he’d dismissed the nursery maid for giving his daughter gin.

  Command had rung in his words, and Lady Flora had responded apologetically, a thing unheard of.

  “Yes,” Celia managed. “I’d say he was a gentleman.”

  “I wondered if I might have a word with him—there’s an Irish question in debate and I’d enjoy the opinion of a man from there. Straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.” The duke beamed at his own joke.

  Celia did not want her father anywhere near Mr. Finn. The duke wasn’t a fool—when he engaged Mr. Finn in conversation, he’d soon realize the man knew nothing about Ireland.

  “He’s spent many years in France,” she said quickly. “It’s likely he knows nothing of what is happening in his own country at present.”

  The duke shrugged. “Possibly. I will have Lady Flora quiz him. She ought to have been an interrogator for the army, that lady. We’d have no more traitors or even any lost buttons if soldiers knew they’d have to face her for it. Eh?”

  Celia agreed completely with her father’s assessment of Lady Flora. She nodded, and the duke laughed.

  “Don’t tell your mother I said so. Now be off with you, my daughter. Have a good evening.”

  “And you, Papa.”

  Celia gave him another kiss, at which the embarrassed duke shooed her away, and took herself out and closed the door, not bothering with the portfolio. Celia did not trust herself to carry it, and one of the footmen would bring it upstairs later.

  The paneled walls of the hall, the large framed painting of their estate in Kent at the end of it, and the high ceiling with its gilded cornice spilling golden vines down the walls, had changed since she’d walked into her father’s study. She was trapped inside this cage, Mr. Finn had showed her, a prisoner of her world. Instead of the light and airy feel her mother had forced upon the house when she’d redecorated ten years ago, the atmosphere was heavy, the painting a reminder of the duke’s power, and the cornice Celia had always found charming overwrought.

  Like her senses. There is nothing wrong with me, Celia chided herself as she made for the staircase to her bedchamber. Mr. Finn only made the sketch of me better. It has nothing to do with my life.

  But Celia’s fingers shook on the stair railing as she ascended, and she knew in her heart that her two drawing lessons with Mr. Finn had already changed everything.

  Celia did not have a lesson the next morning, because at breakfast in the soaring dining room, her mother instructed that she wanted Celia to attend Lady Flora’s salon with her that evening.

  Celia froze in the act of lifting the pot of chocolate to pour into her cup. “What on earth for?”

  The duchess eyed her with displeasure. “Really, Celia, you are in no position to be rude to me. Lady Flora has graciously allowed me to bring you. She has invited the right people for you to be introduced to as a portrait painter.”

  “But I’ve only had two lessons.” Celia slopped chocolate into her cup and thumped the pot back to the table. She took a sip of the bitter, thick liquid, trying to let it soothe her.

  “Do not be obdurate. No one will expect you to whisk out a palette and start in. You will be presented as an artist in training. It is good that you go and ease the stain of your disgrace. These ladies and gentlemen have done far more scandalous things in their lives than be found kissing a man they refused to marry. There will be no debutantes there for you to shock. You will attend.”

  And that, Celia knew, was that.

  When she walked into the salon at nine that evening, wearing the most modest ensemble she owned, her dread fell away and her heart began to pound. In the far corner of the grand drawing room, in the shadows as though keeping to his relatively lowly position, was Mr. Finn.

  Chapter 7

  Alec felt the air change when Celia entered the drawing room. A lightness floated through the cloying perfume of the ladies and gentlemen, the scent of powder, the odor of bodies in silk and brocade.

  Celia’s gown was an olive green open-robe design over underskirts of mustard yellow. Her stomacher was unadorned, unlike Lady Flora’s which fluttered with deep pink ribbons marching from abdomen to a very low décolletage. Lady Flora didn’t quite let her nipples show at this gathering, but he’d seen her in ensembles that bared her entire bosom.

  In contrast to the other ladies here, Celia looked like a nun. Her parents might be too Church of England to send her to a convent, but they treated her as though she were in one.

  Celia’s dark hair was hidden under a modest cap and she kept her eyes cast down, as befitting one in disgrace. Her mother, who wore a silver and blue gown as dazzling as Celia’s was drab, walked next to her daughter like a jailor who couldn’t afford to let her prisoner out of her sight.

  Celia’s head might be bowed, but she was not in any way submissive. Alec saw the sparks in her eyes as she glanced about, watched them flare when she spied Alec in the corner.

  Alec caught her gaze, and in that moment, everything stopped.

  In the stretch of time between one heartbeat and the next, Alec saw al
l the way down inside Celia Fotheringhay—her stubbornness, her determination not to be broken. He saw as well her vulnerability, her awareness that she was trapped, caught in her mother’s machinations as well as the hypocrisy of the world in which she existed.

  The ladies and gentlemen in this room were not guiltless of sin—in fact, they boasted of their sins, yet at the same time condemned Celia for refusing to be shackled to a man she despised. The difference? They’d capitulated to loveless marriages to please society, while Celia had dared to defy the rules.

  Alec’s estimation of her rose. The part of him that was Alec the loving man warmed, and he wanted to raise his glass to her. Celia had courage and beauty, and he longed to unleash both.

  Another heartbeat and Celia was turning away, shepherded by her mother to a corner. Celia sat on an armless chair, taking the glass of sherry her mother handed her, the duchess not even allowing Celia to be served directly by a footman.

  The disgraced wallflower, made to sit amongst those who censured her, to be useful to the people who castigated her, bent her head and sipped her sherry.

  Alec saw in her a beautiful woman with fire beneath her skin, the restlessness of a tethered being who yearned to fly. The artist in him wanted to strip away her confining clothes to reveal the beauty beneath, the passionate man in him wanting to touch that beauty, kiss it, taste it.

  Little brother Malcolm, the Runt, was right about Alec—when he lost his heart he did it rapidly and completely.

  But there was no question of losing his heart, Alec thought reluctantly. Perhaps protectiveness was what he felt about Celia, pity for a vulnerable young woman. Alec would have to find some armor and polish it up if he were going to be a valiant knight to the ladies, like a tarnished Sir Percival.

  By the time Celia had been settled, the room had already forgotten her. The salon commenced, ladies and gentlemen discoursing on topics of the moment.

  The company was graced today by Mrs. Reynolds, Lady Flora’s companion. Mrs. Reynolds was a black-haired, blue-eyed vivacious beauty—some claimed she’d been a courtesan in her younger days. After she’d been widowed and left penniless, Lady Flora, her girlhood friend, had taken her in. Mrs. Reynolds set off her dark looks with a raspberry colored brocade robe à la Française over a shimmering gold silk underskirt, lace adorning her décolletage and three-quarter sleeves.