The Seduction

by Julia Ross

  Juliet turned her head away, just as two horses came crashing along a track through the woods. In the lead cantered a stout black cob, carrying a small blond-haired boy. The second rider was a slender young man on a bay.

  The boy took off his hat and waved it. "Lord Gracechurch!"

  "Look out!" Juliet shouted. "There's a ditch!"

  She had a confused impression of blue eyes and a stubborn young mouth, then the blond head dipped as the child grabbed for mane with both hands. The black plunged awkwardly. The boy tumbled forward. His hat went flying as he fell over his mount's shoulder and disappeared.

  Alden had already vaulted from the carriage. He ran six paces and slid down into the ditch.

  His face white, the man on the bay dismounted.

  John pulled up the grays and Juliet clambered down, stripping Alden's jacket from her shoulders. In that one glimpse of the child's face, she had seen a ghost. Some trick of the light, no doubt. Some mad jolting of memory, of an image of another blond boy running away from his nursemaid, laughing at the world. Why must the sight of any carefree child bring back such excruciating echoes?

  "It's all right, Peter," Alden said. "He's unharmed."

  Juliet ran to the edge of the ditch.

  Ignoring satin breeches and high-heeled shoes, Alden Granville knelt in several inches of muddy water, holding the little boy in his arms. The lace at his wrists was solid with muck. The hem of his embroidered waistcoat dragged in the mire. The child's mouth was clamped shut under a layer of wet grime, his stubby fingers clamped onto his rescuer's clothes as Alden wiped the boy's face with a lace-edged handkerchief. The child was trying very hard not to cry.

  Alden glanced up at Juliet and smiled.

  She dropped the jacket into his outstretched hand. Alden wrapped the child in its folds and held him tightly as the little boy shivered against a broad shoulder.

  "My lord," the man named Peter said. He had tied the horses: his own bay and the child's black cob. "I am- You are sure he's all right?"

  "No broken bones. Α few bruises, a bit of a shaking-and a dunking, of course. We must get him inside and warm." Alden looked down at the boy with infinite tenderness. "Very precipitate, Sherry. You must prepare your mount properly before a leap, or he’ll take it awkwardly and dump you in the ditch. It takes concentration. Besides, a gentleman never leaps his horse while waving his hat to a lady."

  The child coughed up a little ditch water onto Alden's shoulder and wrapped both arms about his neck. "But you did. Mr. Primrose told me."

  Peter Primrose colored. "Alas, my lord, Ι did. Ι told him how you leaped. your horse right over the thorn hedge while waving your tricorn at Lady Gracechurch."

  "Thereby making my mother scream. Very bad manners. Ι have never done it again."

  The child tried to grin, but his lip wobbled and tears pooled in his eyes.

  Alden smoothed the yellow hair back from the round forehead. "Never mind, sir. "I’ll take you home and have Cook make you some currant buns."

  He handed the child, wrapped in the jacket, up to John, before he climbed out of the ditch. Peter Primrose hurried ahead of them to make a bed from the blanket and his own coat as the coachman carried the boy to the carriage.

  "The very devil, they say, with women, Lord Gracechurch," Juliet said dryly.

  He glanced down at her. She couldn't read his expression.

  "He's your son?" she asked.

  "Lud, no."

  "Obviously the child cannot ride home and you must take him back in the carriage."

  His expression was remote, almost cold, as he stared away toward his house. "And also carry a lady into my den of iniquity, when she is so deuced unwilling to go?"

  "I will not come back with you. It would achieve neither your purpose, nor mine."

  He ran both hands through his damp hair, pushing it back from his forehead. The ribbon had slipped away. Blond strands straggled across his shoulders and back. He looked rugged, very male.

  "My purpose being to ravish you shamelessly and add you to my list of conquests. Yes, it's true."

  "So it failed," she said. "See to the child. My purpose now is only self-preservation. Ι don't need you for that."

  Before she could react, he leaned down and kissed her once on the mouth. His lips were icy. "Yes, my seduction failed. We shan't see each other again. But the joke is on me, ma'am. I'm in love."

  Her heart stopped, then leaped back to life, pounding heavily. "But we part here. Good-bye, Lord Gracechurch."

  "Madly. Passionately." He gave her a lighthearted grin. "So, you see, you have won, after all. However, we still have a problem: Ι cannot leave a lady abandoned beside the road."

  "I will borrow one of the horses."

  "You can hardly ride home in hooped skirts and without a lady's saddle."

  "Watch me," Juliet said.

  Still meeting his gaze, she backed up to a tree and reached up under her skirts at the back to untie laces. He lifted one eyebrow - incredulous.

  Juliet raised her chin. Her hooped petticoat fell to the ground. She stepped out of the folded whalebone and gathered her limp rose satin skirts in both hands to walk swiftly to the tied horses. The black cob was little more than a pony. With the help of a nearby stump, Juliet climbed astride onto the child's saddle. She adjusted the stirrups, arranged her dress, and turned the animal's head toward Manston Mingate.

  She didn't expect Lord Gracechurch to stop her or say good-bye. He did not.

  Without a backward glance, in all his ruined finery, he spun about, strode to the carriage and stepped inside. The child cuddled against him, rubbing one fist over a tear-streaked face.

  "You will escort Mistress Seton to the Dower House, Mr. Primrose, where you will secure a carriage to take her home," Lord Gracechurch said over his shoulder. "John will take Sherry back to the Abbey with me. Meanwhile, Ι pray you will not be careless enough to allow this lady to end up in a ditch."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE CARRIAGE BOWLED AWAY. JULIET GLANCED BACK. SHE would never see him again. Restless emotions surged whether anger or heartache she wasn't sure. Had he, in one week, forever destroyed her peace?

  The young man rode up beside her on his bay. "My name is Peter Primrose, ma'am. Ι pray you will allow me to escort you?"

  "Of course, sir." She tore her gaze away from the departing carriage. "Nevertheless, we shall ride straight to my home."

  He colored a little and pushed his tall bay to block the road. "Lord Gracechurch is an indulgent employer, ma'am. However, it would be wiser to secure another carriage. The Dower House is quite close." He glanced at the sky. ''It's going to rain again."

  Α chill breeze stirred through the damp leaves. It was at least ten miles back to Manston Mingate. The Dower House was probably unused except for storage. The rational choice. It would be senseless to insist otherwise.

  "Very well, Mr. Primrose," Juliet said. "I put myself in your hands."

  They left the road to follow a track across the fields. Peter Primrose stopped his horse to open a gate for her.

  "The little boy," she asked. "Who is he?"

  "James Sherwood, ma'am. We call him Sherry. I'm his tutor. He's a brilliant child, remarkable for his age." Mr. Primrose maneuvered his mount so that she could ride past him into the next field. ''He's an orphan. No relation to the family."

  "Yet Lord Gracechurch gives him a home?"

  He glanced at her with thinly veiled scorn. "I'm sure it seems odd to a lady such as yourself for Lord Gracechurch to care so much for his dependents, yet Ι would say that he and the child love each other like father and son. Without the viscount's protection, the boy would starve."

  Α lady such as yourself! What did that mean to this severe young man with the look of a cleric? Among other, more obvious and insulting, implications, that she was incidental, irrelevant, to the viscount's life, to this tutor's life, making a home for an abandoned child.

  Yet she replied gently. "You are very loyal to your empl
oyer, sir."

  He seemed to soften a little. "As is everyone at the Abbey. When the viscount came back from Italy, he found nothing but debts. Creditors were out for his blood. Anyone else would have sold up or at least trimmed the staff, forced ruthless frugality. Lord Gracechurch promised to pay, then assumed the burden of a ruined estate and all of its dependents without a second thought." He closed the gate and rode up beside her. "His servants are more than loyal. They're devoted."

  Juliet looked away across the open farmland. Every cow, every blade of wheat, every worker - his responsibility. Was it a romantic madness to make no economies, keep on all the old servants?

  "Yet if the viscount fails, all of his dependents will suffer, instead of just a few. When his debts are so severe, how can he possibly recover?"

  Mr. Primrose rode ahead of her and tossed the answer over his shoulder. "Through the only path open to any gentleman, ma'am: he gambles."

  Juliet followed, not wanting to think about what she'd just learned and could clearly imagine. An old estate encumbered with dependents. Servants too ancient or infirm to find employment elsewhere, retired workers, widows, children…and an orphan boy. Lord Gracechurch tried to support all of them and still stave off his creditors by relying on wins at the tables?

  "There are other options," she insisted. "He's a viscount. He could marry for money."

  The tutor stopped his horse and turned to face her. "That is hardly my business, is it, ma'am?" he asked. "Nor yours."

  He spun the bay about and rode away down the track.

  Alden, Viscount Gracechurch. Α man who, when he married, must marry an heiress. Why had he not done so years ago?

  Her family must have known his, of course, though she didn't recall ever meeting any of them. She had never known anything about Alden, the younger son, not even his name. The heir, Gregory, had been killed, she thought, in a duel-?

  Five years older than I. He died while Ι was in Italy. There are no words sufficient to comfort such a loss. Nothing that ever really heals it. Ι won't ask you, Juliet.

  Another part of the tenuous bond, deeper than mere physical attraction, that had somehow sprung up between them. But he had not been the cause of his brother's death, whereas she had been the cause of hers.

  She concentrated on mundane details, the passing scenery, the flexible spine of the young man who rode ahead of her, until they arrived in the stable yard of a large mansion. The rain started again.

  Mr. Primrose helped her dismount. Α closed coach already waited for them. Alden - Lord Gracechurch - had obviously sent word as soon as he'd arrived home with the little boy. Holding her trailing skirts off the wet cobbles, Juliet walked to the carriage.

  "Lady Elizabeth Juliet Amberleigh?" a woman's voice asked. In stark shock, Juliet spun about.

  Peter Primrose bowed deeply to the lady who had just joined them. "Lady Gracechurch, your servant, ma'am."

  Though a paler, more abstracted copy of her son, it could be no one else. Alden's mother stood in the archway that led to the house. She glanced away, as if not quite paying attention, or as if paying equal attention to the clouds or the cobbles or the horses harnessed to the carriage. Then she looked directly at Juliet once again and frowned.

  "I remember you as a girl, Lady Elizabeth," she said. "You were an ungrateful child. Children are a great trial to their parents. If I’d had daughters, Ι would have wished them to have been more obedient and grateful. Yet sons are so very, very difficult. Your father has no children, does he? Not now?"

  Juliet felt ill, as if struck by a knife. She did not remember ever having met Alden's mother, but Lady Gracechurch must have seen her at home when she was still in short skirts. One of that procession of nameless fashionable guests to whom she had made her curtsy before being ushered back to the schoolroom.

  Lady Gracechurch would remember the scandal. She would know what had happened.

  Your father has no children, does he? Not now?

  Alden's mother turned away and disappeared. Juliet lifted her head and climbed into the carriage. Peter Primrose swung himself onto the step, ready to come with her.

  Juliet forced herself to speak calmly. "Pray, sir, go straight home to the little boy. Ι am quite safe. Sherry needs you far more than Ι do."

  The tutor glanced at her face, bowed his head, and stepped down again.

  Two minutes later Juliet sat alone in the coach as it started out for Manston Mingate. Was rage the only antidote to despair?

  ALDΕΝ HELD SHERRY ON HIS LAP, WRAPPED WARMLY IN Α towel, and told stories - stories Gregory had told him when they were children, of the foolish brother who fished for the moon, of Jack who found the magic beans beside the road.

  Children died every day from fevers and chills. Α serious influenza had been going about. Yet by the time they arrived back at the Abbey and a gang of nursemaids had fussed over Sherry, putting him in a hot bath and feeding him currant buns, the child was glowing with health. Half an hour later, replete with tales and warm drinks, he fell happily asleep with his guardian by his bedside and no trace of fever.

  Alden strode to his room then and ordered a bath of his own. Lud, he looked as if he'd been dragged backward through a hedge! His hair was still damp. The mud-covered shoes, stockings and breeches would have to be thrown away - even the coat and lace cuffs were ruined.

  Nothing could be more irrelevant. His clothing had only ever mattered when it served a direct purpose, although when he put his mind to anything, he liked to do it well. Alden turned away from the mirror.

  For a split second something seemed ω reflect pinkly behind him. He almost spun about, as if he would see Juliet in her rose satin gown standing in the room, but no one was there.

  Watch me!

  Devil take it! She'd have done it, too. Ridden all the way back to Manston Mingate on the child's pony, shedding campion and heartbreak.

  I'm in love. Madly. Passionately.

  He shivered. Just words, of course. He'd used them before to countless women. He' d never meant them. Faith, he definitely did not mean them now!

  Yet whatever he'd meant, for whatever insane reason, he had failed to win her. He had lost the wager and forfeited his entire estate.

  He was ruined.

  Nausea twisted in his gut. He shivered again. Somehow, from somewhere, he must still provide for Sherry. Was there time, before midnight tonight, to salvage something, set up some kind of trust that Lord Edward couldn't claim?

  Why the hell had he been so confident of victory?

  Alden glanced around as a string of menservants entered the room. Bathtub. Hot water. Towels. Fresh linen. The silver coat with the matching shoes and rose-and-silver waistcoat. The clothes he'd planned to wear for his triumph at Marion Hall, symbols of a life that now seemed only brutally empty. He laughed. He would still sport all that gilt finery. But only to admit his failure and take his punishment.

  If it weren't for Sherry, he wasn't sure he wou1d care.

  JULIET WALKED STRAIGHT INTO HER KITCHEN. ΤILLΥ HAD already gone home. Betty and Sarah were scrubbing the floor. Kate was busy with the flatiron.

  "Leave it," Juliet said, swallowing hard. "Leave everything. Lady Gracechurch's coach is outside."

  With a thud, Kate set the iron back on the hob. "Ma'am?"

  "Your services here are done. Collect your things. Do not keep the coachman waiting."

  They obeyed instantly. She had known they would. Whatever arrangements Viscount Gracechurch had made, these maids were used to Gracechurch Abbey or the Dower House. Quite a comedown to be employed in a cottage in Manston Mingate!

  Juliet sat alone in her parlor until she heard the coach leave. The mud from her shoes had tracked across the rug. She had stepped into the wet road, hadn't she, when the child fell into the ditch? Would all small boys, always, remind her of her dead brother?

  The pain came in sharp waves. She wrapped her arms over her breasts and concentrated on breathing steadily. It was foolish, self-indulgent, to l
et the memory do this to her after all these years.

  There are no words sufficient to comfort such a loss. Nothing that ever really heals it.

  Yet what loss should she weep for? It was even more foolish to regret the loss of a libertine's empty flirtation.

  Α rake had promised a few hours of ecstasy. No more. No less. Pleasure without consequences. Without ties. Why hadn't she grasped the opportunity? Why not have kissed him again and kept kissing? What loyalty could she possibly owe to her husband? George had abandoned her. Was she to live here in lone1y celibacy until she died of old age?

  She stood up and began to pace. And she had thought she was brave! Now it seemed only a wretched cowardice to have made a life hiding here in Manston Mingate. Why hadn't she gone to London and faced down the world? Become a courtesan or actress? Because she couldn't face the reaction of her father, or because she had been forced to be realistic about the power he and her husband held over her?

  Francis Amberleigh, Earl of Felton, might have abandoned his daughter to her fate, but he would never have idly stood by and seen her disgrace the family name in public. In truth, there had been no other option but this retreat into a private sanctuary. Anything else was just a romantic fantasy.

  As was loyalty to an abusive husband? Or fatuous ideas about honor and chastity? Or the hubris of false pride?

  The day was fading outside. Deep shadows fell across the parlor window.

  "You fool!" she said to the empty air. "What did you have to lose?"

  "Lud, ma'am," a man's voice said behind her. "What is this? Regrets? He's a wastrel and gambler, like his father, but very charming. Did you enjoy his attentions? Did you long to allow him into your bed? No one, they say, is more skilled there."

  Breath stopped.

  Like Lot's wife, she thought wildly, a pillar of salt!

  She had fallen into a nightmare where even if she ran and ran until her lungs shattered in her chest, she wou1d go nowhere. But it was not yet night. She wasn't asleep. This was real.

  It took intense self-control, but Juliet waited until she was able to breathe normally. Meanwhile, without looking around, she reached for the tinderbox and lit a candle on the mantelpiece. The light would throw her into shadow while illuminating the face of the intruder. Not that she needed to see his face. She would recognize his voice anywhere.