by Julia Ross
Less than five miles farther, Sir Reginald Denby's seat at Marion Hall, with its grandiose pillars and white facade, dominated the countryside. It was another ten miles to Alden's own home, Gracechurch Abbey, now at risk of being lost forever.
Bed this widow by Friday or be ruined.
Ruin. It was a word one heard bandied almost casually about the clubs of St. James's, as if it had no stark reality to it, the way a man might joke about a skeleton in the family closet, never expecting that one day he would open a forbidden door and be engulfed in the fall of rattling bones. Now it yawned like the open grave, a pit of humiliation and degradation.
Ruin meant exile - eking out one's dishonorable days in a foreign garret - or death. Death by one's own hand, preferably with a pistol, abandoning one's obligations and dependents, leaving one's friends the unpleasant task of finding the results. Why the hell was that considered an honorable option? .
So the skeleton must be packed up and buried. Any alternative was unthinkable. Lord Edward Vane had offered him the way out, though God knew why. For Alden had never yet failed in the pursuit of a woman. It was his avocation, his pleasure, almost his calling.
He liked women.
The gate creaked under his hand.
His boots carried a coating of dust from his walk up the street. In his elegant coach with the family escutcheon on the door, his luggage and his valet had traveled on to Gracechurch Abbey without him. Alden had wanted the fresh air and the brutal exercise of riding, but to arrive here without fanfare had also seemed the wisest course of action, though he wasn't sure why. Just an intuition and the knowledge that Lord Edward Vane would least expect it.
So what could he discover about the widow from her home?
Α rambling rose ran wild over the front porch. Thorned tendrils wrapped lovingly around the windows. Flowers of all descriptions clustered in random masses in the garden, divided only by worn brick paths. Behind a group of bee skeps, orderly rows of vegetables and berry bushes marched along each side of the house. So she cultivated food and perhaps from necessity. There was a shabby look to the thatch and shutters that spoke of a restricted purse.
Three cats - one white, one ginger and one tabby - were sunning themselves on the brick, images of contentment.
He looked again at the rose. Was her nature revealed by that wanton growth, or by the sober, practical carrot tops and staked green beans? He had learned just enough at the inn to know that any excuse to make her acquaintance would send him away with a flea in his ear. Denby and Lord Edward obviously thought her an impossible target for seduction.
Why?
Would the gaze of this Juliet - like the snake-haired Gorgons - turn a man into stone?
Alden had learned only that she was not devoted to religion, nor known to be in love with another man. What other reason could she have not to take a lover?
He smiled as two rather indelicate memories fought for his attention.
The widow who'd wanted to be a nun had tried to reform him. In the end she had changed her mind instead of his and proved rapacious in bed. Then, when she'd discovered that Alden refused to declare undying love, she had taken all that unholy enthusiasm straight into the arms of a new husband.
After a very gentle campaign of flattery and flirtation, the second lady had been suddenly, desperately, willing, and he had wanted her with equal ferocity. Alas, half naked in his arms she had sobbed her confession: she did love the other man - her husband. It had taken a strong dose of nobility, but Alden had sent her back to her marriage untouched. Fortunate now, he supposed, for it had left him temporarily without a mistress.
There was no reason at all why this Juliet Seton shouldn't succumb, but perhaps she was deformed or insane. Lord Edward and Sir Reginald had no motive he could fathom for suggesting this wager, unless they were certain it would fail. Then he faced ruin and some further, unspecified price - some amusing further forfeit of my own choosing - the most dangerous hazard he had ever accepted.
The tabby rose and stretched.
It was time for another gamble.
Alden pushed open the gate and stepped onto the path, just as a woman came out of the front door. She was carrying a basket. He stopped, ha1f hidden by a great clump of hollyhocks, and watched her.
She was wearing something voluminous - like a shepherd's smock in blue - over a white muslin dress. Keys and scissors clanked at her waist. Like his, her hair was unpowdered. Sunlight gloried in sumptuously rich chestnut waves, loose1y gathered in a knot at the back of her neck: a round neck like a flower stem, leading to a tender, feminine jaw. She walked down one of the paths and began to clip blooms. Self-contained, absorbed, with an oddly withdrawn dignity, she moved in her own aura of concentration. The flowers fell one after another, bowing their heads to her scissors and falling into the basket.
His speculation collapsed into confusion.
In spite of the housekeeper's chatelaine with its keys and small tools, her movements betrayed her: the unconscious grace, the elegant carriage, a way of turning her head. Not simply a gentlewoman, but a lady who had been trained from earliest childhood to grace any drawing room.
Α lady?
Every one of his planned openings seemed suddenly fatuous. He felt at a loss for a strategy. As the innkeeper had said with almost proprietary dismissal, she was fiercely protective of her privacy, never known to to1erate overtures from strangers. Alden could hardly force her even to talk to him, could he?
Α lady would indeed know how to cut a man dead-like Medusa - with a glance.
He had five days.
Α honeybee buzzed in and out of the hollyhocks. The insect carried little bags of pollen on its hind legs and an additional dusting of powder about the head and body. Its wings were ragged. This bee was already worked close to death for the sake of its colony.
Α bee sting had once almost killed him as a child. Deliberately, Alden reached out one hand and bit back a curse as the stinger sank into his palm.
The tabby ran off into the pea patch.
Mistress Seton looked up.
Her eyes were a deep cornflower blue under strong brows, drawn together in a frown. She was not a classic beauty. Her features were neither regular nor delicate. Instead she was lush. The succulent mouth promised a profound sensuality. Like the body beneath that absurd smock, soft and full in all the right places. Α woman made for the bedroom. Α peach.
Heady laughter fought for release. She really was a peach!
"Your pardon, ma'am, Ι pray," he said with a small bow. "It would seem that your garden has vigilant wardens to defend against intruders. Ι have been stung."
The blue eyes glared at him. "There's an apothecary in the village, sir. Scrape out the stinger with your thumbnail."
Her voice was golden, throaty, sensuous. Α rich voice for a woman, with round, deep vowels.
His vision blurred. The breath struggled in his lungs. "I’m not sure-" He sat down suddenly on the bricks. "I’m not sure Ι can go so far, ma'am. If you will allow me a few moments?"
He dropped his head back against the gate and closed his eyes. Α damned ignominious death-if this gamble failed - to die of a bee sting!
JULIET HAD LOOKED UP AT Α SMALL SOUND TO SEE HIM STANDING among her hollyhocks. Golden. Bright. Glimmering in the sunshine. Vividly male.
Α sudden panic clamored for her attention. Mad images - of fallen angels, of the Heavenly Host singing of glory, of the golden band she had once worn on her finger-jostled and demanded for a moment. Her breath came fast, shivering up from her lungs in hot, angry gasps.
But he is so beautiful!
Damnation! Another man determined to disturb my peace!
Worse: a man of fashion - eyes exhilarated, intelligent, wary.
His hair was tied neatly at the back of his neck, but it rippled at the temples where a more elaborate style had been brushed out. The blond waves framed skin with the fashionable pallor of London, enhanced by a small patch high on one cheekbone. Arroganc
e was reflected in every line of his body, enhanced, not hidden, by the full-skirted riding coat, the tall boots, the fall of white linen at his throat.
Α town gentleman, dressed for the country.
His moment of surprised admiration had been masked quickly enough, but it had been there. She had suffered from it all her life. It was the way men always looked at her, as if she were fruit, and ripe, and ready for plucking. Even after she suppressed her moment of panic, it still filled her with fury.
In a movement of pure aristocratic grace, he held out one hand, reddened in the palm, but his face had turned pale as death. His eyes dark with the body's reflexive, panicked shock, he slid to the path.
Juliet dropped the basket and ran up to him.
Α damp sheen glistened on his cheekbones. He tipped his head back, breathing hard, seemingly incapable of movement. She knelt and took his hand. It was supple and long-fingered, with square knuckles and beautiful nails. Α hand that further betrayed him: a hand inherited from a long line of nobility who disdained honest labor and valued their sensitive fingertips. Yet several rings had been recently removed. Rings he had worn a long time by the look of the indented traces.
Α gentleman down on his luck?
An adventurer?
The stinger was steadily working itself into his palm, automatically pumping poison. With a quick scrape, she removed it, but his hand was swelling and the breath whistled in his throat. Alarm reverberated. She had seen this before a few times - people for whom a bee sting could prove fatal.
"Lie quite still where you are," she said. "Remain as quiet as possible. Ι shall be back in a moment."
In her kitchen she grasped a kettle of hot water. Hefting her load in both hands, she hurried back down the path, carrying a cushion, a blanket, some white cloth and the kettle. Fierce, exasperated anger flamed beneath her fear - that a golden prince risked death in her garden after first looking at her with that wicked flash of self-derision, of lust tinged with humor, that had made her knees weaken for a moment.
Her fury was not because the admiration of men did not affect her, but because it did. She could not afford it. She had never understood it. Now it was an intolerable burden, when her only future lay in concealment and denial. Yet sometimes loneliness caught her unawares, like a little beggar child suddenly grasping at her skirt, demanding her attention with heartbreaking need. She knew no defense against that, except anger. The world believed her a widow. Why couldn't men leave her alone?
He lay where she'd left him, among the lazy scents of summer.
The sunlight was broken, marking him with dapples where it sifted through the trees, creating one moderately cool spot in her hot garden.
He burned there like a fire.
As she approached he opened eyes blackened into midnight pools and grinned at her. It sent creases into his cheeks, disarming, making her anger seem absurd. The lines of his face were almost severe - clean, hard, shaped like a sculpture, easy to barricade against - but the smile made him human again, even frivolous.
Swallowing her uneasiness, Juliet slipped the pillow under his neck. His hair was the color of the cowslips she used to make wine. Silky under her fingers.
"Give me your hand." She poured hot water from the kettle onto her cloth and wrapped the compress over the swelling. "Now lie still until you feel stronger. The pain and the weakness will probably pass."
"Ι can . . . stand them, ma'am." His voice was almost strangled by his erratic breathing. "But if they do not?"
"Then no doubt your heart will stop beating, sir." With relief she noticed there was no feminine tenderness at all in her voice. "However, it would be a considerable inconvenience to me if you were to die in my garden, so Ι pray you will concentrate on maintaining life."
She reached for the folds of his cravat and pulled out the knots. She did not want to touch him, but his tight clothes were a danger to a man in shock.
Her fingers felt clumsy and heavy as she unbuttoned the front of his waistcoat, then opened his shirt at the neck. The strong skin of his throat gleamed smooth and white in the mottled light. She noticed the perfect shape of his jaw at the strangely vulnerable junction where it curved up into his ear and felt a small surge of discomfort, as if she were a young farm girl winked at by a gentleman.
How humiliating to mark such things! So the man was handsome and golden in the sunshine. He was also spoiled by discontent and idleness. There was a petulant scorn to the set of his lips and a permanent disdain bred into the shape of his nostrils. Α man of leisure, no doubt, and very probably a wastrel.
His clothes were simple, but sumptuously made, the fabric of his coat rich and thick. Without compunction, she wrenched it off, tugging at the arms. He was firm, superbly fit. So he fenced and rode. Of course. Most gentlemen did, however much they disguised that strength with the gloss of fashion.
His shirtsleeve stretched over his swollen wrist, so she slit the fabric to the elbow with the little knife from her chatelaine. His forearm was strong, carved with muscle beneath a masculine dusting of golden hairs. Juliet tried to ignore the unwelcome intimacy, the unwelcome feelings, but she held a man's naked arm in her bare hand.
The swelling blurred the fine shape, the powerful mesh of wrist to arm.
He was ill.
Steadily, she applied more compresses. Even his shirr was finer than anything in her wardrobe, soft and enticing to touch. So he was - or had recently been - a wealthy man. Α little tendril of curiosity unfurled. What was he doing in Manston Mingate?
She bit her lip and suppressed the question.
It made no difference. She would be forced into his company for only a few hours of simple nursing-and even that was a compromise.
Juliet wanted to be left alone, but she did not want a corpse on her garden path.
ALDEN LAY FLAT ON HIS BACK AND STARED AT THE MOTTLED pattern of leaves overhead as he concentrated on each breath. In. Out. Focus. Once again. Had he finally gone too far? His heart rattled erratically in his chest. Α cold sweat had broken out on his face. It had never been this bad before. His hand throbbed like the very devil, and the swelling had traveled up his arm.
What an insane risk to take! To die of a bee sting. In which case, the notorious Lord Gracechurch would go to his grave without having tasted the sweetness of Mistress Juliet Seton.
For without regard to the wager, Alden wanted her. Just for the sake of her eyes, damn it all! Why did she wear that ridiculous smock? From her face and hands, he could imagine the body that lay under it. She would be soft and female, with generous high breasts and a beneficent, slipping curve to her waist. Her skin was a pale cream, like a Caerphilly cheese, but with that hair and those eyebrows she would have dark nipples, as sweet as raspberries. If only he had a whole summer to woo her and tempt her, and win her little by little in a game as delightful as the final surrender!
Yet he had undertaken to bed her by Friday.
Why the devil had he lost all that blunt to Denby and Lord Edward? But if he had not, he would never have met her. Obscure little Manston Mingate with its impoverished, succulent widow was not on the usual way to Gracechurch Abbey. It wasn't on the way to anywhere.
Alden closed his eyes. His head was cushioned on something soft. Alas, that it wasn't her lap! Hot compresses were laid over his throbbing arm. Her clothes rustled. There was a clean, flowery scent - of roses and gillyflowers at dusk. Somewhere a cat purred. At last he felt his breathing become deeper, almost back to normal.
So perhaps he would live after all.
Then he would win her for one night of ecstasy, which would save him from ruin.
He glanced up.
The sun had dropped in the west. Long shadows raced over the flowers, gilding the red brick to flame, though the air still pressed, heavy and hot.
Her three cats sat beside his head, contemplating him, vibrating with feline intensity.
Mistress Seton was perched on a stool she must have fetched from the house, calmly shelling
peas. The hem of her skirt lifted a little at the front. Cheap stockings wrink1ed around her ankles. Delectable ankles, curving up into rounded calves and descending to soft insteps that would fit neatly into the palms of his hands. Desire stirred, then asserted itself with considerable intensity.
Yes, he would live!
He let his gaze slide up over her blue smock to the neck of her dress. If she wore a locket, it was hidden by her clothes. His attention lingered on her cheek and on each flutter of long lashes as they swept down over her eyes. What made her so provocative? Was it that very air of watchfulness, the guarded, severe turn at the corner of her luscious mouth? The suspicion and resentment clear in her eyes?
So she disliked, even feared, strangers. The thought thrust its way into consciousness: she fears men? No, not fear, exactly, but a definite rejection - a fierce commitment to privacy.
It wasn't going to be easy.
She looked down at him. Alden dropped his gaze so that she wouldn't see the desire in his. Surely he had successfully proved himself helpless, no threat at all?
"You have recovered, sir?" She glanced away. "You must be anxious to leave. May Ι fetch help? Or can you manage?"
He smiled up at her. His hand still throbbed, but his heart seemed to be beating its usual strong rhythm. "You have been very kind, ma'am. Ι would like to thank you by name, at least."
"Mistress Juliet Seton, sir. Now you have the advantage of me." She looked directly at him and stood, her cornflower eyes suspicious.
Alden managed to get to his feet without disgracing himself, but prudence acquired by a man living by his wits told him now not to tell her his title, nor offer her too elaborate a bow. "Alden Granville, your most humble and obedient servant, Mistress Seton."
"Where is your carriage? You did not walk to Manston Μingate, surely?"
"I left a horse, ma' am, at the Three Tuns."
The bow was his undoing. As he straightened, he staggered, dizzy.
Immediately she let the words tumble. "Mr. Granville, you aren't yet strong enough to ride!" She even reached out a hand, though she snatched it back without touching him. Sitting down, she plunged back into the shelling of peas.