The Secret of My Seduction (Scandals Book 7)

by Caroline Linden

  She fiddled with the comb, then set it aside. “Will lesson three include consummation?” she asked. “Or more of this pretend seduction?”

  His eyebrows went up. “Pretend seduction?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “You don’t have to seduce me. You know I’ll let you have me—I asked you to do it. All this…” She hesitated. “This exploration is lovely, but quite unnecessary. I merely wanted to experience the euphoric side of lovemaking—”

  “And you haven’t found pleasure so far,” he cut her off. “Is that it?”

  She blushed. “No, of course I have. I just didn’t expect it to take this long—”

  “The quicker the act, the shorter the pleasure.”

  Her face was on fire as he shredded her arguments in that dry, cynical tone. “I wouldn’t know,” she snapped, “since we’ve not done the act. Would you just get on with it?” She was beginning to think she had made a terrible mistake. Yes, these “lessons” had been pleasurable beyond her dreams. The longer they went on, though, the harder it was to keep her head clear and her heart safe. The best thing she could do was speed the lessons along as quickly as possible, so she could hold her head high and maintain her dignity in the months and years to come, when she would still be working with Liam.

  But he looked wildly annoyed. His eyes narrowed and his mouth formed a flat line. “Very well. As you wish.”

  As you wish. He’d been saying that all evening, and since the one thing she did wish more than anything—the one thing she most did not want to wish—had not happened and probably never would, her patience snapped. “Yes, I do wish,” she retorted. “Briskly and efficiently.”

  His gaze turned cool. “As you wish,” he said again, making her want to scream. “Come back a week from tonight. Plan to stay the entire night.”

  She gaped. “What? No! I cannot!”

  “Then you ought to find someone else.” From the hall came a loud rap at the front door. “The carriage is ready.” Without looking at her, Liam walked into the hall, leaving her to storm after him in frustration.

  “I only meant you don’t need to spend so much time on it,” she said, trying to placate him. “I know you’re a busy man! Three nights is already more than I expected you to grant me, and I’m grateful enough that I don’t want to try your patience.”

  “And yet you are.” He handed over her cloak and bonnet. The sash of his banyan had slipped, and she could see he still wore nothing underneath. The wild temptation to put her hands under the silk and explore at will nearly made her faint. Perhaps if he found as much pleasure in this as she did, he would want to prolong it—perhaps that accounted for his maddeningly slow pace.

  And perhaps he had to work his way up to it, teaching her something about being a good lover so she wouldn’t be inept and disappointing beneath him when the time came.

  “Then I am sorry,” she said, huddling into her cloak and tying the bonnet ribbons with unsteady hands. “It was not my intent.”

  Liam paused. “No? Then what was your intent? Did you hope I would throw you on the nearest horizontal surface and take you fast and hard? That’s not what you asked. You asked for deeper knowledge. By your own account you’re acquainted with the mechanics of the deed; I understood it was the pleasure of the deed you were missing. My intent was to show you that. If I have been mistaken and you only wanted a few more tumbles to check your memory’s accuracy, then by all means find a willing fellow at the assembly rooms. I daresay most of the blokes there will accept with alacrity and then not remember your face the next day, preserving the secrecy you requested.” He opened the door, revealing the carriage waiting. “If you want what I can teach you, come back a week from tonight—and plan to spend the entire night.”

  Mortified and furious, she blinked back tears and dropped a curtsey in mock deference. “Yes, sir. I will notify you of my decision in a few days.”

  “Notify me only if you won’t come,” he said as she swept out of the house. “Otherwise I’ll see you in a week.” And he closed the door without waiting to see her off.

  Bathsheba flung herself into the coach, alternating between numb shock and steaming fury. Find someone else! Stay the whole night! What kind of woman did he think she was? What sort of man was he?

  The man I want, her stupid heart mourned. Cold, calculating, sensual, wicked, and unquestionably the focus of her innermost desires. Bathsheba slumped against the carriage seat, exhausted, and wondered how she would contrive to get away for an entire night.

  Chapter Eight

  Liam brooded over her words. Briskly and efficiently! What sort of woman wanted that? Not that he hadn’t thought of taking her roughly and quickly, especially after she closed her soft pink lips around his erection and suckled so hard her cheeks hollowed out. He’d been about three seconds away from throwing her onto the hearth rug and riding her to the hardest, fastest climax of her life, and had counted himself very virtuous for restraining that urge.

  And that, perhaps, was the problem. He was not accustomed to virtue; it didn’t suit him. He wanted Bathsheba. Even worse, he wanted her more desperately every time he saw her.

  That was not what he had expected. At first he had thought there was a chance she would change her mind and decide she didn’t want to continue, after lesson one. She’d come apart in his hands, and deep inside Liam knew it would forever alter their relationship. He didn’t think he would be able to read her manuscripts without imagining that Bathsheba was Lady X and he was her lover, whoever that lover was, whether they were embracing against a tree in Hyde Park or on the finest linen sheets in Lady X’s town house. It wouldn’t stop him from publishing her tales—that would be stupid, as those stories accounted for a significant percentage of his income—but it would be an image lodged in his mind forever.

  Then tonight, he’d thought she was embracing the spirit of the enterprise, unflinching in her admiration of his body. Liam had felt that to the marrow of his bones, the realization shocking him but also enthralling him. This was a side of Bathsheba he’d not guessed at. It was one thing for her to respond to his touch and follow where he led her. Tonight she was the leader, and he thought she could make him lose all sense if she kept it up. Perhaps this relationship didn’t need to expire after she’d satisfied her curiosity. They were both discreet adults, living in the same town and well able to contrive reasons to see each other. This could become a lasting affair, stretched over as many sensual months as pleased them both.

  But then she’d gone mad: would you just get on with it? She didn’t want the affair to last. She wanted a quick coupling, maybe two, so she could get back to her life and not be hampered by coming out to St. John’s Wood and spending the night in ecstasy with him.

  He stalked back into the library, where things had gone so splendidly until her last outburst, and scowled at the scene. His clothing was scattered on the floor where she had thrown it—she might be innocent but she wasn’t shy. He dropped the banyan and snatched up his shirt to fling it over his head, then stepped into his trousers. Was the woman totally deranged? She asked him to show her passion and pleasure, then grew impatient when he did so. Liam knew she’d had the best climax of her life. When she screamed in release and he threw himself on top of her to ease his own raging lust, he’d seen the awestruck wonder on her face. Whoever her inept previous lovers had been, Liam was very certain neither of them had ever made her scream like that.

  His gaze fell on the chaise. He could still picture her sprawled on the pillows, legs spread wide, all that silky wavy hair lying around her, her eyes starry and her mouth pink. He could still taste her on his lips, and he could still feel the hot suction of her mouth on his erection. God. What more could any woman want than the incendiary passion they shared?

  There was something under the chaise. He reached down and picked up her reticule, a sturdy plain bag of dark gray wool. He pulled the string and looked inside, not surprised when he shook out a small notebook and short pencil. She’d planned
to take notes again, even after the first lesson.

  Liam knew he had a reputation for being cold. He preferred to think of himself as focused, rational, and logical in every situation. In fact, he thought Bathsheba was like him in that; her practical streak went bone deep, and once her mind fastened on a problem or question, she would pursue it until she conquered it. He flipped through the little book, wondering what she would have written, and saw, with some surprise, it was half full of notes already.

  He shouldn’t read it.

  He shouldn’t even look at it.

  He sat down on the end of the chaise and opened to the first page.

  It began with scribbled ideas for her next book. He’d read the first few chapters of that manuscript and recognized the plot and character names. Then came a list of queries, some answered, some not, about practical matters: schedule of mail coaches to Kent? Ease of sailing from Deal to Calais? Visit British Museum and assess possibilities for rendezvous locations. The last made him smile, picturing Bathsheba striding through the museum, her head swiveling from side to side in search of an alcove or closet where two people could conceivably be intimate, briskly and efficiently.

  He kept reading. Her notes changed as she wrote more of the book, deciding that Lady X would not meet a lascivious country vicar after all, but a strapping blacksmith instead, when her horse threw a shoe. A rough man, powerful and large in all ways, she’d written, a faint line under the word all. Liam smirked; he knew what that meant, but had Bathsheba? She must have done, but now he was very curious to read those chapters of the tale. Without thinking, he picked up the pencil.

  Make him a clever fellow—a gentleman’s bastard, educated with his half-brother or similar—or else it will seem coarse and depraved of Lady X, he wrote. Surely you don’t expect her to be satisfied by an ordinary brute.

  He turned ahead and read more. Several queries about fashion, which he mostly skipped, and a few about the timing of certain events. Bathsheba delighted in working in mentions of notable occasions, and in two places she had copied in reports of a ball and an art viewing for possible inclusion.

  Liam made a few more notes—consider some public spectacle, such as the King’s progress to Parliament, as a way to introduce her to a new gentleman—and was feeling entertained by the whole thing when he reached the last pages with writing.

  Seduction, read the title on one page. Clothing or not? Who removes? What clothing is most suitable? There was space below, but no answers.

  Timing, read the next page. Duration of the act? What shortens or lengthens? How long does seduction last before, and what does one do after?

  Again there were no answers.

  Damn.

  Slowly Liam turned another page. Location was the next subject. Is a bed the best place? What other options? Can it be done against a wall? In the manner of animals? Benefits and drawbacks of various positions?

  But the worst, Liam discovered, was the last. Kissing was the title, and it was underlined heavily. Is it important? How does one do it well? What does it mean for the rest? Why do men avoid it? Is it a sign of true affection?

  Liam ran one hand over his face. Bollocks. He couldn’t pretend he’d never read it, because he’d rashly written on earlier pages. But he sensed Bathsheba would be both furious and humiliated if she knew he’d seen these notes on seduction, these questions she’d yearned so desperately to answer that she asked him to make love to her.

  Was it only for her writing? Liam had never really thought so, but he had to admit he hadn’t spent much time wondering exactly how much of her motivation was due to the tales and how much sprang from her own personal desires. Now…he wondered. She’d only known lovemaking from a callous seducer and a grocer more in search of a mother for his children than a woman to love and cherish. Bathsheba had told him from the start that she wasn’t a virgin, but Liam thought she’d only forsaken that condition on technical grounds; she’d never known passion or even physical satisfaction in her liaisons. And now he suspected no one had ever really kissed her.

  Including him.

  He surged to his feet, recoiling from that. That was not a fair comparison. He deliberately hadn’t kissed her. She said she only wanted some experience of lovemaking itself, as if a few encounters would answer all her questions about how it ought to be done. She’d never mentioned kissing, or embraces, or anything else that might hint at a deeper connection.

  He hadn’t kissed her because she didn’t want to fall in love with him, and therefore he didn’t want to fall in love with her.

  And yet…he’d wanted to kiss her. When he put her in the carriage a few nights ago, the thought had crossed his mind. Tonight, after he’d spent himself against her belly, imagining all the while he was driving himself inside her, he’d come within a moment of kissing her when she looked up at him with glowing brown eyes and said something about lesson two. It was so like her, and so like him, that he’d wanted to laugh and kiss her and repeat the lesson all over again. He’d had the unexpected thought that he’d finally met a woman who thought the way he did, who understood—and wanted—him as he was…

  Perhaps she did—too much so. It was the memory of her businesslike demeanor at the start that kept him from crossing the line. But as much as Liam told himself this had begun as pure business for him—well, pure business with a healthy dose of curiosity, and perhaps a little delight at being pursued… Damn it, it had never been pure business. He’d spent more time this past fortnight thinking about seducing Bathsheba than he’d ever spent on another woman.

  He looked at the little book. Did she want kissing? Did she want him to kiss her, or had that page been written before she decided to ask him to show her passion? And—come to think of it—who else had she considered? Had she asked other men and been turned down? Liam realized he was scowling at that thought; what bloody bastards would turn her down? Bathsheba was the cleverest woman he knew, as well as the most sensible; she knew when to hold her tongue and when to carry a conversation. She was quick to recognize a business opportunity, immensely practical and capable, but also liable to turn into a bold and uninhibited lover with the slightest encouragement.

  The only reason he could think of was that she was not a beauty. Well—not until a man saw her naked, hair wild about her shoulders, with her face flushed and her eyes gone liquid after a shattering climax. Something primal growled in his chest that he had been able to bring her to that point, that no other man had been a skilled enough lover to do it, but he had seen her that way. She’d been beautiful then, on his lap with her arms around his neck. Under him on the chaise, with her fingernails digging into his arse.

  He slid the little book into his pocket, suddenly afraid she would not come back next week at all.

  The week passed in a blur. Bathsheba found herself hideously distracted, unable to concentrate on her work. At times she would feel furiously angry with Liam, and resolve that she would not go back at the end of the week, nor would she ever again mention the subject to him. She’d done well enough making things up so far, and she could keep on doing so, thank you very much. Perhaps Liam would think she’d taken his advice and found some other man to do what he hadn’t. Yes, let him think that; she even wrote a draft of a letter implying that very thing, just to put him in his place and demonstrate that she was not going to tolerate his high-handed attitude at all.

  Then she threw the note in the fire, because she knew Liam and if she hinted that she’d been letting other men make love to her, he’d ask where and who and when. At best he would be annoyed that she’d wasted his time instead of finding some other fellow from the start, and at worst he’d tease her and ask horrible questions she wouldn’t be able to answer. And of course it was impossible to think of asking another man to do what Liam had done.

  She never should have started down this road. Much better if she’d asked a stranger to do it, for then she wouldn’t have to see her former lover every week and know what he looked like in the throes of pas
sion or how his skin tasted, or how his hands felt moving over her skin, driving her wild, thrusting deep inside her. She wouldn’t be dying of anguish because she still wanted him months from now, after these lessons were over, or because her silly heart would probably always hold out some tiny hope that someday, somehow, he might fall in love with her. If she’d asked another man, some careless rake who wouldn’t remember her name the next day, her secret infatuation with Liam could have continued undisturbed and forever unfulfilled.

  She wrote another note, this time on dry impersonal business matters. This was to show that she was capable of carrying on with life even with this unfinished affair between them, and that she had not turned into a silly female mooning over him now that he’d given her a few climaxes. She read the note again, realized the entire thing could be read as an oblique metaphor for coupling, and that letter joined the first on the fire.

  After four days she realized her choices were few: let go of the whole mad idea and try to regain the comfortable business relationship they’d had before, or figure out how she would be able to spend an entire night away from home without Danny rousing the constabulary.

  She hadn’t been exaggerating when she told Liam it would be difficult. When she and Danny had set up house together originally, he had been still recovering from losing his arm. He was a year younger than she, and she had been terrified that he would give in to the melancholy that engulfed him regularly. The war was over, and he was no good to the navy with only half an arm. London was filled with soldiers and sailors, and wages were low for the few jobs to be found. It had taken very hard work, stretching every farthing to its limit, to survive the few years following Waterloo, and if not for Fifty Ways to Sin suddenly dropping into their laps, Bathsheba wasn’t sure they would have survived.