by Julia Ross
Α strangling panic seized her by the throat as she realized the enormity of her mistake. Unless he made another error, he was going to win. She had misjudged and allowed this stranger into her life.
Because he had lain so helplessly on her path-
Because he was gentle with her cats-
Because he had come inside only at her insistence and had even seemed anxious to leave-
She had broken all of her rules. She had thought the threat insubstantial.
Now it was too late.
He leaned back and stretched both arms above his head in an exuberant gesture of triumph, filled with masculine power.
"Checkmate in two moves, Mistress Seton!"
Chagrin and humiliation tasted suddenly very bitter. Juliet studied the board, confounded by his strategy.
"Ι see Ι must concede victory to you, sir. You're a deep player, aren't you?"
He laughed. "As you are, ma’am. It was too deuced close! I was told that you are beautiful, but not that you have so many skills.”
Her chair clattered as she leaped up. The cats scattered. Damn him! She had been outwitted, outclassed by a bolder player than herself. Now he didn’t scruple to flaunt it.
"Told by whom?” she asked bitterly. “What else have you heard? So it was not chance that brought you to my garden gate. Nor was it my white sweet peas, was it, sir?”
CHAPTER TWO
ELATION ALMOST BLINDED HIM FOR Α MOMENT, BEFORE HE REALIZED in the next breath that he had very nearly thrown it all away. Ιn a rapid attempt to recover, Alden decided quite deliberately to take the next chance. He even had a vague memory of some Seton from whom - in one of those exhilarating runs of luck - he had won six hundred guineas in a single hand.
He leaned back and smiled up at her. "The innkeeper described you to me, Mistress Seton. I thought perhaps I had met your late husband once in St. James's. That coincidence led to a small conversation about you at the Three Tuns. If that was an impertinence, I pray you will forgive me."
Α deep flush spread slowly down her neck and across her cheeks. Her eyes darkened to violet in contrast.
"Yοu knave!" she exclaimed. "Yοu mountebank! It is a damned impertinence, sir! I beg you will leave this instant."
He stood and gave her a flourishing bow. What had he said to bring about such a violent reaction?
"Mistress Seton, you have been good-hearted beyond measure. If I have offended you, I must beg the kindness of your forgiveness. These last few hours in your company have been nothing but a delight to me."
"Stop it!" she said wildly. "Do you think you're the first rake to wander in here and try to pay empty compliments to the poor, lonely widow? I am not frustrated, sir, nor foolish. Neither am I looking for a lover, nor another husband. Good day to you, sir. It has stopped raining. You know the way out!"
ALDEN STOOD IN THE MUDDY STREET AND STARED AΤ ΤHE ΗAΤ in his hands. He had made a splendid mess of that! But he had learned something. Mistress Seton was far from foolish, but she was frustrated and lonely, even if she denied it. His mention of her dead husband had triggered not sadness, not fond memories, but desperation - even fear.
Had her marriage been that terrible or that good?
He hoped it was the strength of her own passion that terrified her, for he intended to help her unleash it and he had four more days. He thrust the tricorn onto his head and strode away toward the Three Tuns.
Within half an hour he was riding north through the long summer twilight. Ten miles passed in a sparkling blur of wet trees and hedgerows, until Alden stopped his horse and gazed up the valley to the cluster of buildings on the rise at the other end. There was nothing left of the medieval abbey, except a few foundation stones and the ruined remains of a cloister. Instead a great house sat nestled in the trees where monks had once droned away the hours.
Alden sat for a moment, staring at the house and the scattering of cattle in the grounds.
His cows - unless he lost this wager.
His fields, his crops, his woods, his fish in the ponds.
His inheritance, with all of its encumbrance of tenants and retainers, as well as the responsibilities he'd voluntarily taken on, believing at the time he could afford it. Gracechurch Abbey, his ancestral home and the seat of what little power and wealth he had ever possessed - until the madness of one night's gaming.
Α fierce possessiveness took him by the throat. Nowhere else and nothing else had ever belonged to him. Nowhere else in the world bore his name. He was on the edge of losing it forever.
He must bed Juliet Seton by the end of the week. He could imagine nothing more enticing. Her round ankles and graceful wrists; the smooth, creamy skin. He wanted his hands on her, his lips. He wanted to bury himself in her soft, female flesh.
Yet as he remembered her face, severe, lovely, bent over the shelled peas, the desire almost dissolved in a sea of questions. She seemed to be a lady, yet she lived by herself and did her own work? No one had no family at all - no cousins, uncles, aunts. Even if she had no living relatives, a respectable widow always had friends, social connections, to find her a home. How could this Juliet be completely alone in the world?
It spoke uncomfortably of disaster, like her name. Or of a forbidding secret. This Miss Parrett she'd mentioned - who the devil was she? And why Manston Mingate?
Damnation! He didn't want to know. There was a fortune at stake. Α fortune and more lives than just theirs - one in particular whose existence meant more than all the rest combined.
For a moment he thought of riding up to the house and routing Sherry out of bed. Sleepy blue eyes would open and stare up into his. Plump arms would wrap joyously about his neck. Then the child's tutor would subtly admonish Lord Gracechurch for costing the boy his sleep and exciting him over nothing.
Mr. Primrose would be right. Alden couldn't stay. He had a widow to seduce.
It was his one undisputed talent. It would not be difficult to find excuse enough in himself to do it. What was her virtue to Juliet Seton? She wasn't an innocent. She had been married. He would steal his prize and take her locket as proof, but he would pay for that theft with a wealth of pleasure - worshipful, delectable, slow. Whether her marriage had been happy or sad, she would not be the loser.
Perhaps she wasn't even a lady, but an actress practiced in aping her betters. There was, after all, only one other thing - besides tragedy - that could account for her living alone. That one thing was sin.
His qualms dissolved in a cornucopia of voluptuous images. Alden turned his horse's head and rode back to Manston Μingate and the tiny room at the Three Tuns.
JULIET FACED THE NEXT MORNING WITH Α HEADACHE. IT WAS overbearingly hot, threatening unreleased thunder. She had slept badly, disturbed by dreams. George glowered at her, his black brows beetled together, as she ran endlessly down the corridors of a great country mansion, throwing open door after door. Every room was empty, but when she reached the window at the end of the hall and looked down into the courtyard, Mr. Alden Granville was there. Golden, graceful in the sunshine and far too beautiful, he flung himself back into a border of massed white flowers. Α wave of scent rushed up to envelop her.
"The bees!" she shouted through the window. "The bees!"
He looked up from the multitude of petals, his shirt collar open to reveal his strong white throat, and laughed - while the flowers began to buzz angrily, so that she awoke with a start.
Juliet climbed from her bed and walked to the front window. Her garden lay beneath her in its orderly rows. So he claimed to have met a. Mr. Seton in St. James's. Perhaps he had, but he had not met George, her disastrous husband. Plus, if Mr. Granville had been in London then, he would have heard of the scandal. Though, of course, there was no reason why he should connect it with her. Seton had not been her name at the time.
She forced herself to be calm, not to panic, but the dark fear beat at her heart. He had revealed a further deception in that last formal speech and court bow - the gesture of a man who knew his own p
ower and had the conceit to show it or hide it as he desired. He was not merely a gentleman down on his luck, he was an aristocrat.
Why had he chosen not to reveal that?
And why was he here, in Manston Mingate?
Barely conscious that she had laid one palm over her locket, Juliet turned from the window. Very probably she had seen the last of him anyway. Alden Granville would hardly return to be faced with some menial task in exchange for another chess game. And with poor Tilly sick, there was a great deal of work to do and no time for a headache or thoughts of this man.
After her regular chores, Juliet draped herself in her blue smock and went through the house to her stillroom. It was time to bottle her cowslip wine. Two and a half pounds of sugar, two lemons and four quarts of wild cowslips, gathered in May, had been added ο each two gallons of pure water. The wine had been fermenting in the barrel for a month. Several bottles had been ordered by the parsonage, more by Mistress Caxton in Upper Mingate, the next village. It was one of Juliet's small sources of extra income.
She opened the tiny north-facing window and left the outside door ajar so that air from the shadowed courtyard could flow through the room. The floor beneath. her feet was flagged with stone, making the place invitingly cool. Α cast-iron handle worked a pump which brought water up from the well when she needed it, splashing the excess into a shallow stone sink. She took her crates of clean empty bottles and began to transfer the bright liquid into each one, content, concentrating on the task.
Α man' s voice dropped into the silence, like honey from a comb.
"'Neither must you let it work too long in the butt, as it will be apt to take off the sweetness and flavor of the fruit or flowers from which it is made. Let your vessels be clean and dry, and before you put in the wine, give them a rinse with a little brandy,' " the voice read - then with a flash of humor: "Alternatively it seems to me you may drink the brandy and save yourself a great deal of work."
Juliet looked up. Mr. Granville stood, as golden as the wine, in the doorway. He held her little leather-bound housekeeping book and was reading aloud from it.
She set down the wine bottle before she should drop it, flushed with her awareness of him.
Today he wore a blue velveteen coat over a long waistcoat embroidered with silver thread on peach satin. No longer in riding boots, he had walked from the Three Tuns in black buckled shoes, a little dusty from the road. Except for the lack of powder in his hair, it was the grooming any gentleman might use to make a formal call on a lady: a lady he was courting. But, of course, he was not courting. He was here in the village for a week and bored, that was all. His comment about her late husband had been random. It meant nothing. They had met only because Mr. Granville had been ill, momentarily helpless.
Yet he was not helpless now. His presence filled the room, a bold masculine power, tempered only by his grace and the laughter barely hidden in his voice. In spite of everything, Juliet knew that she wanted it, the humor and the intelligence. In spite of everything, she wanted him, to fill the dreadful void of her days.
But it was too late. Too late. Thanks to George, her days must remain forever empty.
Oh, God, don't let this happen! Please, please, please!
"'When the wine has done fermenting, bung it up close, and after being properly settled, it will draw to your wishes.' Will it, Mistress Seton?"
"What are you doing here, sir?" She hated the panic she could hear in her voice.
"I'm sorry. It was unforgivable for me to startle you. Let me assist you."
She pulled back, almost wildly. “No! Let it be! Why have you come back?"
He closed the book and set it on the slate shelf. "Only to play chess, ma'am. One game a day was our wager, was it not? You gave me your word."
"Ι have a great deal to do."
"Then allow me to help. That was also part of our bargain."
"No! Later! Ι can do this by myself."
"Then I’ll wait unti1 you're finished. Ι sha11 be in the garden." With a slight nod of his go1den head, he was gone. Juliet leaned against the stone sink and 1aid her forehead against the cold pump handle. The iron was beaded with tiny drops of condensation. After a moment she rubbed the moisture over her face with both hands.
She had taken α wager! She had promised! Α chess game each day for a week. And foolishly, foolishly, she wanted it, because the wine and the bees and the flower garden couldn't play chess, and the villagers couldn't challenge her wits, and underneath all of her care and her efficiency, she was hideously lone1y.
As she turned, her elbow caught the half-filled wine bottle and sent it toppling toward the floor. Somehow, in a desperate swoop, she caught the green glass before it shattered on the stone, but liquid spilled across the front of her skirt, soaking her with the wild scent of cowslips. She sat down on a three-legged stool for a moment, while her damp petticoats clung to her legs.
Damn him! Damn him and his golden charm and the lovely, enticing curl to his lip. Damn him and his deliberate ruse to pursue her!
For she saw it clearly now. The offer of a chess game. He had mown it would disarm her and he had known he wou1d win. But his illness had been genuine enough, so cou1d his presence otherwise be a coincidence? Had he once met some Mr. Seton? The innkeeper had very likely spoken of her and told Mr. Granville she was widowed. There cou1d not be any real threat there, could there?
He was bored. No more. It was just chance that he was here. She had taken a wager. She had promised.
Why not meet it with audacity?
With a wry smile, Juliet took up the clean towel lying by the sink and mopped her skirts. She looked about the small room at the neat rows of bottles, the whitewash peeling s1ightly from the spot on the north wall where the damp crept in, the scrubbed shelves and the worn stone floor: all the evidence of her years of struggle and discipline.
Whether she ignored it or tried to laugh at herself, loneliness contaminated her days, immune to her attempts to chase it away. She had been lonely even when Miss Parrett shared the house. Now loneliness waited in the empty corners and echoed about the garden. Yet she had won something close to equanimity - a kind of calm, practical acceptance - through hard work and a saving sense of humor.
Now this man, with his insolence and his certainty of conquest, threatened her life like a summer thunderstorm, with its towering clouds swept by high winds and carrying hail, to batter down her flowers and her runner beans, flood her hen coop and her beehives, and ruin all hope of security for the coming winter.
Α vision of the golden Mr. Granville incongruously found among her staked runner beans caught her out. She felt a gurgle of laughter. It welled up to swamp all of her prudence and reticent pride, and tinge her thoughts with a bright edge of hysteria.
Juliet swallowed her mirth and methodically continued her bottling. If Mr. Alden Granville wished to wait among the sweet peas, he would have to wait for two more hours at least. Maybe another bee would come along and sting him in the meantime.
LORD EDWARD VANE REINED IN HIS MOUNT SUPREMELY elegant, he sat his horse with careless grace and stared across the valley toward Manston Mingate. The church spire towered above a thick grouping of trees, but no houses were visible. Α black tricorn sat firmly on top of his wig. His face was as heavily powdered as always, though he had replaced the heart-shaped patches that he wore for evening with plain round ones. They did little to disguise his smallpox scars.
Sir Reginald Denby scowled at his back. He did not like being forced to straddle a horse.
"So Gracechurch has begun the courtship, has he? Already gained access to her house? Damn his eyes! How the devil did he do it?"
The duke's son tapped gently at his lip with the butt of his riding crop. "Courtship? You think he intends to wed her? My dear sir, nothing is less likely, Ι assure you."
"I think he will ravish her-"
"But this lady is hardly a virgin plucked fresh from the school room, who would simply squeal and faint into the a
rms of a lover. Ι fear Mistress Juliet would very likely unman one with a glance - though not Gracechurch, of course, if rumor is correct. He has such a lovely reputation. Ι would so like to discover that it's true."
Indignation flared. "But then Ι would lose my damned money." Lord Edward sat in silence for a moment, before he glanced back and smiled.
"Pray, don't distress yourself, Sir Reginald! You will bring on some unpleasant physical ailment. If Gracechurch insists on taking Mistress Juliet willing, he will indeed lose, for she will never succumb. What Ι do with him then is my own affair. But he can't pay you either way."
Denby felt the shock like a blow. "What, sir?"
"Surely you knew he was bluffing? If he fails in this wager, he is ruined. He could not redeem even a fraction of his debt to us, sir. The man hasn't a feather to fly with."
"But Gracechurch Abbey-?"
"- is already mortgaged to the hilt. Gracechurch had no idea of it until he came back from Italy. His father was a rakehell and spendthrift. Spent every last penny and left his son a hollow inheritance and a worthless title." Lord Edward slipped the brass cap between his lips and suckled it before he went on. "Alas, the value of your anticipated win is a great deal less than you hope."
"Then why the devil did you set this up? What do you want with him?"
"Nothing to signify, dear sir. Perhaps he might yet throw up her skirts and rape her, but if he fails in this wager, Ι fear he will whistle about it and try to repair his purse in Paris. In which case, τe will lose both the man and what little money he possesses, and neither shall we have a delightful spectacle to entertain us."
The indignation was turning into rage. "What the hell do you suggest?"
Lord Edward bared his discolored teeth in a grin, the brass cap still lying on his tongue, and gave Denby a wink.
"Ι suggest," he replied with an unpleasant lift to one corner of his mouth, "that you allow me to buy all his debts from you now."
JULIET STARED AT ΤHΕ ΝEΑT ROWS ΟF BOTTLES. ΤHE STILLROOM was swept and washed, everything put away. She could not put it off any longer. Mr. Alden Granville was waiting for her in the garden and she had given her word.