The Seduction of Lady X

by Julia London

  Harrison’s own smile suddenly faltered.

  “Good morning, Mr. Tolly!” she said brightly. “Isn’t it a beautiful day? I never thought I’d be quite so happy to see the sun, but after all the rain we’ve had, I feel a bit like dancing. You look astonished. You mustn’t fear—I promise I won’t.” She laughed. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Madam, I . . . Are you all right?”

  Her smile disappeared. “Of course!” She suddenly stood and walked to the windows, pushing back the open drapes even further. “I am determined to have a turn in the garden today and soak up the sun.”

  He moved toward her, but she deliberately kept her profile to him, leaning up over the deep window well and peering out. “The rain has made everything so green, has it not?”

  Harrison was too intent on the mark on her face to respond.

  “I should ask Brock to open the windows,” she said, and turned away from him again, moving back to the desk. Her hand skimmed along the edge of it as she walked around it, keeping her head turned to one side. She glanced at him sidelong, then fidgeted nervously with her hair, gathered up in knot at her nape. “Mr. Tolly, you stare so intently that I feel a bit uneasy.”

  “I beg your pardon,” he said instantly. “I do not mean to stare, but I was startled by—”

  “A mishap,” she interjected, and looked away. “It is nothing. I assure you it appears much worse than it is.”

  “A mishap,” he repeated skeptically. His heart was racing as the truth sank in. He could not believe Carey would lift a hand to her because of a bloody book. “Madam . . . please look at me.”

  She sighed softly and reluctantly did as he asked. He could see plainly the bruise on her skin. “It is truly nothing, Mr. Tolly,” she said quietly, and glanced at the footman who was standing at the door, ready to serve. “A mishap. Please believe me.”

  Harrison looked at the footman, too. “Richard, please leave us so that I might discuss some private matters concerning Everdon Court with her ladyship.”

  Richard nodded and walked out through the open doors.

  When Harrison was certain he’d gone, he turned back to Lady Carey, his eyes on her mouth. His heart reacted with a little leap at the sight of it, then constricted. Lady Carey stood behind the desk with her head bowed like a chastised child. Harrison wanted to say something to comfort her, but he hardly knew what to say. “If I may be so bold—”

  “How do you find Alexa today?” she asked, turning away from him again.

  He swallowed down his frustration and tapped his fist against the edge of the desk. “She has calmed considerably.” That wasn’t precisely the truth. Over tea the previous evening, she had railed at him about the unfairness of life, and then had fallen into quiet contemplation. “However, I think she is not quite resigned to any plans regarding her future.”

  “Then she must be much improved,” Lady Carey said with a wry chuckle. “My sister has never been resigned to any plans regarding her future.” She folded her arms across her middle and stared up at a pastoral painting above the hearth. It was a green valley where cows grazed, and in one corner, a family with three young scampering children picnicked beneath a massive oak tree.

  “In this instance, I suppose I can hardly blame her,” Lady Carey continued thoughtfully. “I had my fate planned for me, and it never has resembled what I’d imagined or hoped.”

  Harrison knew how her future had been planned for her; he’d been part of it. “Life has a disconcerting way of behaving in precisely that way.” He gazed at the happy family at their picnic and thought of the first night he’d seen Lady Carey. Harrison had been reared on the fringes of London’s high society, and there was nothing he’d not seen: beautiful women, dangerous men, and the games they played with one another. But the night Olivia Hastings had come with her parents to dine at Everdon Court, he had been bowled over. To him, she was the embodiment of feminine beauty with her creamy blonde hair, a smattering of freckles across her nose, and eyes as blue as violets. She’d been a shy eighteen-year-old girl, her life spent on country estates in the protective circle of her mother and stepfather, her governess, and her tutors. Her smile was easy and warm, free of the artifice in the games of seduction played in London.

  That young girl had been an innocent, laughing prettily at Lord Carey’s awkward attempts to tease her. She’d sung like a bird when pressed to perform after supper, and had innocently trumped Lord Carey at whist with a happy laugh of triumph. Harrison had stood by, his gaze riveted on her, his envy of Edward Carey growing by leaps and bounds.

  But when the Hastingses had said goodnight for the evening and put themselves in their ornamental coach and driven away, Lord Carey had shrugged and said, “She’ll do, I suppose. As long as she can bear an heir, eh?” he’d said congenially, and had clapped Harrison on the shoulder as he’d strolled up the stairs to his rooms.

  Harrison had been stunned that Carey could see the beautiful and charming Olivia Hastings and have such a very different reaction than he himself had had.

  “I really should have been more resistant to all the planning for my future,” Lady Carey said, her gaze still on the painting. With a wry smile, she gave Harrison a sidelong look. “Will you be surprised to know that I never questioned it? I was told from the time I was a child that I would marry a certain sort of man and live a certain sort of life, and that I would take care of Alexa, and I never questioned it.”

  “I think we are all told as children what we are to become.”

  “Were you?” she asked.

  Harrison was told that doors would never open for him. That he’d be a bastard and illegitimate to society at large until the day he died. “I was told more what I could not be.”

  “Oh.” She sounded surprised. “I think you could be anything you desired to be, Mr. Tolly. I did not have the imagination, or perhaps the freedom as a child, to imagine all the things I might be.”

  He found that interesting. “Do you now?”

  She looked at him then. “Oh, yes,” she said emphatically. “My imagination is now quite vivid.”

  He would have given anything to know what she imagined. The innocence was lost in her, but in its place was a worldliness he found captivating. “Perhaps then, you understood that your parents wanted what was best for you,” he suggested.

  She gave him a dubious look, then turned her attention to the painting again.

  “My parents saw this match for what it was—an opportunity to advance their own standing as much as mine.”

  That was true. Harrison was well acquainted with Lord and Lady Hastings—he’d negotiated their daughter’s dowry on behalf of his lordship. He’d overseen the posting of the banns and some of the more bureaucratic elements of a marquis’s wedding. He’d had many occasions to meet Miss Hastings and her parents before her wedding and found her to be a delight in all things, always happy, always agreeable.

  He’d found them to be opportunistic.

  He looked at her now, with her head tilted back, her flaxen hair shimmering in the low light of the day, and thought of her on her wedding day. She’d looked so radiantly happy, so hopeful for the days ahead of her. And in Harrison’s personal experience, he’d never seen Lady Carey do anything but work hard to please her intractable husband.

  She’d entertained family and friends because Carey desired her to do so, and he criticized her choice of menu and entertainment. She made over the red salon, and he said her tastes derived from agrarian society. She tried hunting with him, and he said she sat her horse like a child.

  Harrison had never heard Carey compliment his wife or say anything kind, yet he’d never seen her be anything but unflaggingly cheerful.

  Until recently.

  Recently, he’d noticed a hairline crack in her serene façade, and the crack seemed to spread along with the marquis’s increasing fondness for drink.

  Unfortunately, there was only one thing about this beautiful, agreeable young woman that could please the
marquis, and that was conceiving an heir. Carey had said as much to Harrison—early in their marriage, he’d remarked that his wife had had “more than sufficient time” to find herself with child, as if it were a matter of selecting one at the local dry goods shop. As time went on and she had not conceived, the marquis complained that Lady Carey’s mother surely knew she was incapable of conceiving, and had “saddled” him with a barren wife.

  But after her ladyship had erroneously believed herself to be with child, something in the marquis changed. He openly insinuated that his wife was willfully not conceiving his heir.

  Harrison had been exposed to all sorts of men in the course of his upbringing, but he’d never heard a man speak of his wife as disrespectfully as Lord Carey. The worst of it was that his lordship was so cunning in his criticism of her, making his remarks so matter-of-factly that a casual observer might believe that his statements about her were indeed true.

  But in their six years of marriage—six years of scrutiny and belittlement—Harrison had never known Carey to hit her.

  Yes, he’d tried it once. He’d been foxed out of his mind and Harrison had stopped him. Carey had been contrite and apologetic the next day, and Harrison had believed it was a moment of madness brought about by inebriation.

  “I never questioned the plans, and perhaps I should have,” Lady Carey continued. “Now my sister questions the plans for her future, but unfortunately her actions have left her no options. Still . . . I have been thinking, Mr. Tolly,” she said, and turned her attention to him. “I believe that while my husband is away, cooler heads might discuss what is to be done with Alexa. By that I mean your head and mine, for Alexa’s thoughts are not particularly helpful.” She gave him an apologetic smile.

  “I understand. You mentioned a cousin in Wales—”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  No? Harrison had been nursing some very high hopes for the cousin. “I understand that his lordship did not—”

  “The truth is that it has been many years since I have corresponded with her. I cannot say with any certainty that she is indeed in Wales . . . or that she has four children. That is the best of my recollection. I offered that idea with a bit of wishful thinking and a lot of panic, to be perfectly truthful.”

  “Ah,” Harrison said. That certainly limited their options.

  “I think you must find a situation that might be suitable,” she said hopefully. “I would do it myself, if I could do so without causing talk or suspicion. I cannot bear to think what Edward might do if he thought I was cavorting about the country looking for a widow as a companion or a widower as a husband for my sister. He is one cousin removed from the king, you know.”

  Harrison heard the hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  If only he knew of a situation for her sister, but it wasn’t as if they were hanging from trees, ripe for plucking. Lady Carey was not the only one who had spoken out of hope and a bit of panic yesterday.

  “We’ve a full fortnight before Edward returns. I thought perhaps you might . . . you might say you are traveling to the properties at Ridgeley, but use the time to make some delicate inquiries.”

  “I must be honest, madam. I am not very hopeful.”

  “Yes, but we must try, Mr. Tolly.”

  He shook his head. “It is a strange request to make of anyone.”

  “I have thought about that,” she said, nodding. “I have saved all my pin money. That should help.”

  That was the amount Lord Carey allowed her for the things she might want. “How much?” Harrison asked.

  “Seventy-two pounds.”

  If the situation weren’t so dire, he might have laughed. “Good Lord, Lady Carey. That might keep her until the child is born—”

  “I have jewels I can sell, as well,” she quickly amended.

  He felt an all-too-familiar twist in his gut at that. It was precisely what his mother would have done—she sold jewels for lodging, to bribe Harrison’s way into a proper boy’s school. To pay for his apprenticeship. “Let me do what I can first,” he said.

  She smiled gratefully. “Thank you. I will do what I can, too. We’ll begin today?”

  Where exactly did one go to place an unwed woman carrying an unknown man’s child?

  “Discreetly, of course,” she added.

  “Of course.”

  “We will find something,” she said, as if he were the one who needed reassurance. “It must be settled before Edward returns, as there are only two options he will entertain if I have not settled it. I can’t have my sister banished from me; she is all the family I have.”

  “What is the other option the marquis will accept?” Harrison asked curiously, looking for any angle he might exploit.

  She blinked up at him; the mark on her lip clear in the direct sunlight. “That I should find myself with child. If I could deliver him an heir, the entire kingdom would be mine for the asking.” She smiled ruefully.

  It moved Harrison, such bone-deep sadness glimmering in such beautiful eyes. How many times had he tossed in his bed, imagining those very eyes in some impossibly intimate circumstance? How many days had he walked about the sprawling Everdon Court, hoping for just a glimpse of them? To see the depth of her sorrow was as hopelessly frustrating as when he’d been a boy, unable to help his mother. He wanted to touch Lady Carey, to hold her and soothe her. To stroke her hair.

  Lady Carey said, “I beg your pardon. I have made you uncomfortable with my woes.”

  “Not at all,” he said, but it was true that he felt anxious, as if he had skated onto a newly frozen lake, uncertain of where the ice was thin. Yet he couldn’t keep himself from skating farther and farther away from his shore. He’d held himself back for so long, had kept his true feelings so deeply buried under duty and honor. He wanted her to know happiness, to understand how a man could feel about a woman.

  Harrison hardly realized what he was doing as he put his fingers under her chin, turning her face so that he could see the bruise. “The truth is, madam, that you deserve a kingdom and more,” he murmured, and lightly passed his thumb over the bruise. “You do not deserve this.”

  Lady Carey’s breath caught. Her eyes widened with surprise. But she did not move away from him. Bold desire swelled in Harrison. He gently touched the bruise again, wishing he could erase it.

  Lady Carey’s eyes shut. “You have always been so very kind to me, Mr. Tolly. What would I do without you?”

  The words wrapped like a tendril around his heart. If only she knew, if only she understood how his heart called to her, had sought her from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her.

  “I pray that neither of us must ever know the answer to that,” he murmured. “We shall find a solution, madam. I give you my word.”

  She opened her eyes, and Harrison felt something. It was small, but fierce, like the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings between them.

  The sound of the door opening startled them both, and Harrison quickly dropped his hand.

  “What is happening here?” Miss Hastings demanded.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Alexa, for heaven’s sake,” Olivia said. She was shaking. It had taken every bit of strength she had to move away from Mr. Tolly—she’d been one breath away from falling into his arms. His arms! What was she thinking? Was there anything that could possibly make her existence worse than it was? Was there anything more dangerous?

  “What?” Alexa demanded.

  “We are speaking of your predicament, naturally, for there is nothing quite as urgent to occupy our thoughts,” Olivia said as she moved across the room.

  Alexa looked curiously at her. Then at Mr. Tolly.

  Olivia’s heart had begun to beat the moment Mr. Tolly had touched her, and now it throbbed with a want that made her breathless. She put her hand to her chest in a futile attempt to calm it. “On my word, I do not know what I would do without Mr. Tolly’s counsel.” She dared not look at him, certain that her burning cheeks would give her away.
Instead she continued on to the sideboard and examined the various decanters there.

  She could feel Alexa’s gaze on her as she picked up a crystal decanter. “Whiskey, Mr. Tolly?”

  “No, thank you.” His voice was as calm and confident as always.

  “Whiskey?” Alexa said suspiciously. “I was not aware that you had a liking for whiskey, Livi.”

  “Yes, well . . . I do.” Olivia poured a small amount and then drank it like water, coughing a little at the burn. Perhaps whiskey was not the best idea. “What has kept you?” she asked, and put the tot down. When she glanced up, she caught her reflection in the mirror above the sideboard. Gray shadows dusted her eyes and the bruise was dark against her skin.

  “I did not feel well this morning, if you must know,” Alexa said. “I am fatigued quite a lot.”

  “Here then, you must sit,” Mr. Tolly offered, and moved a chair closer for her.

  Alexa eased herself into it.

  “I should like—Olivia!” Alexa said suddenly. She came out of her seat and grabbed Olivia by her arms, staring in horror at the bruise. “Dear God—what happened?”

  Olivia turned her head away and moved out of Alexa’s grasp. “A mishap.”

  “A mishap! He did this! I suspected him to be the sort! The man has a black heart.”

  “Alexa!” Olivia said, and looked at the open door. Mr. Tolly understood her and moved to close it. “Have a care what you say in this house,” Olivia warned her sister. “You are speaking of my husband and, at present, your benefactor . . . and the walls have ears,” she added low.

  “I do not care if they do! You must leave him, Livi!” Alexa insisted. “You cannot allow such treatment!”

  Sometimes it seemed as if Alexa were eight instead of eighteen. “Do you think I allow it?” Olivia said hotly.

  “You allow it by staying here, with him,” Alexa snapped. “You should leave this place.”

  “And exactly where do you suggest I go? To do what, pray tell?” Olivia demanded. “I cannot leave Edward. He is my husband and he has the legal right to do with me what he will. Even if he allowed me to leave him, where would I go? With you? To a convent in Ireland?”