The Seduction

by Julia Ross

  At last, with the single flame dancing and flickering behind her, she turned to face him.

  "Lord Edward Vane," she said. "To what do Ι owe this unexpected pleasure?"

  MARION HALL WAS LIT FROM TOP TO BOTTOM. ALDEN'S SHOES rapped up the steps. Lace rustled. The smallsword at his hip clinked once. Silver satin whispered its own song of luxury. The elaborate clothes of the court. The dress that spoke of wealth and fashion, with those witty little touches that hinted at hidden power.

  Such a pretty irony, when he felt ferocious, wild, as if he were about to fight a duel to the death.

  His harsh steps echoed as he strode along hallways and through doorways, until at last a footman flung open a door and he stepped into a small parlor.

  Α blaze of candlelight assaulted him. Every face turned in his direction.

  Alden stopped and pressed his whimsical handkerchief to his lips for a moment, before giving the company his most exquisite bow.

  "Dear me," he drawled. "A party."

  Lord Edward Vane, Sir Reginald Denby and some other gentlemen lounged about the room, drinking. Three of them were men he had fairly recently encountered during long evenings at the tables: Lord Bracefort, the Earl of Fenborough and young Kenneth Trenton-Smith.

  The last guest, Robert Dovenby, was a man Alden hardly knew, except that he had a rather odd reputation and was sometimes referred to, rather mockingly, by a nickname: the Dove. As if to flaunt the bird he was named for, he was dressed entirely in shades of soft gray and silver. His expression was bland, but a keen intelligence lurked in his deep hazel eyes. Alden met that shrewd gaze for a moment, before he glanced back at the others.

  Why Dovenby?

  Alden didn't imagine for a moment that the guest list was arbitrary.

  Lord Bracefort he thoroughly disliked. In one evening's play the man had lost badly, then offered his wife's favors in payment. Alden had refused. Α duel had, unfortunately, resulted. Bracefort had fainted before the fighting began and been forced to withdraw - a humiliation not easily forgiven.

  Fenborough, alas, had possessed a wife who was more than willing, then tried in vain to defend her dubious honor at sword point. His left arm was probably still in bandages.

  Trenton-Smith had not only lost a great deal of money to Alden - though not more than he could afford - he also had a sister: who had wanted to become a nun.

  Dovenby, obviously, must have some connection to Lord Edward. What, exactly? Alden rapidly considered everything he had ever heard about the man. 1t wasn't much, but it was certainly food for thought. Why was such a man here, tonight?

  The men stared at him in silence as Alden closed the door behind him.

  He glanced at their faces with indifference. Nothing mattered here tonight but Juliet's good name - his to save, if he could.

  "Were the conversation more lively, Ι should think Ι had stumbled into an Oriental bazaar," Alden said. "Such an overwhelming display of bad taste! Bracefort, you really shouldn't wear puce, unless you truly wish to indulge in some bloodletting-"

  Bracefort choked on his wine.

  "- and my dear Fenborough, that brilliant green does not become you, though Ι am relieved to see you so well recovered from your recent sad accident."

  Fenborough's hand flew to his sword hilt as he leaped to his feet. "My injury was no accident!"

  "Then you plunged deliberately onto my blade? Faith! How original! Trenton-Smith! How is your sister? Enjoying unholy revels with her husband or has she already taken a new lover?"

  Like an uncoordinated marionette, Trenton-Smith began to lunge across the room.

  Alden ignored him. "And Mr. Dovenby? You and Ι have no quarrel that Ι remember. Is that because there is none, or because you are too insignificant for me to remember? Don't tell me that you are here - like myself - just from idle viciousness?"

  Dovenby smiled as if only he had escaped insult, as perhaps he had. "My viciousness is never idle, Gracechurch. Like you - if Ι hear correctly - I take great pains to perfect it."

  Alden laughed. He felt truly amused.

  "Do sit down, Fenborough, Bracefort." Lord Edward Vane thrust out one hand to grip Trenton-Smith by the arm. "Gracechurch will apologize."

  "By no means, sir. Ι meant every word of it." Alden helped himself to port from a side table. "Young Kenneth defends his sister in vain and knows it. Although Bracefort might be indistinguishable in appearance from dowagers past a certain age, that particular shade of puce really should be reserved for those ladies. And alas, that green casts bilious shades of envy across Fenborough's leafy countenance."

  "My coat, sir!" Fenborough sputtered, his fist still closed on his sword hilt. "You scorn my damned coat!"

  Setting down his wine for a moment, Alden stripped off his silver brocade to toss it to the earl. "Never mind, sir, you may have my own jacket, although it won't fit your regrettably pugilistic purposes - too snugly cut for a brawl."

  Sir Reginald Denby lurched up. "Do you mean to insult us all, Gracechurch?"

  "Of course." Alden raised his glass in salute. "I would never insult anyone by mistake."

  "Let it go, Denby! Fenborough!" Lord Edward said. The patch at the corner of his mouth winked as he grinned up at Alden. "So tell us, Gracechurch: How goes our wager? Did you already tup the lady in the shrubbery or under the back stairs? Do you bring us the proof we agreed on?"

  Alden waited a moment, gathering absolute attention. Then he dropped his words like ice crystals into the expectant silence. "The lady's virtue remains irreproachable and unblemished. Ι discovered a personal distaste for the terms. Thus I have lost our wager."

  There was silence for a moment, before Denby leaped up in triumph. "He has failed. What did Ι tell you, sirs? Gracechurch has failed."

  Lord Edward smiled like a snake. "Thus everything he has is mine, including his lovely person. As it happens, Ι am in need of a personal servant to empty my chamber pot."

  Alden raised a brow. "But Sir Reginald is also my creditor. Doesn't he have a chamber pot?"

  "I have already purchased from Sir Reginald your entire obligation to him," Lord Edward said. "Thus your debt and your forfeit are mine alone."

  Α small shock, though not one that mattered - everything was lost either way.

  "My pleasure, of course," Alden said. "One chamber pot is less work than two - or do you both share the same one?"

  The duke's son stood and crossed to a desk at the side of the room. "No amount of bravado can change the facts, proved here before these witnesses. You have lost. You are mine." He looked up. "Do come here, Gracechurch, and accept your punishment like a man."

  "Like a man, sir? Or like a woman?"

  Lord Edward's face reddened beneath the powder. He picked up a quill. "You waste your breath. Ι have already designed a pretty enough recompense for your loss of our wager. You may begin by signing these papers."

  "Not yet." Alden raised his glass and downed the contents. "It is still two hours to midnight."

  The quill bent. "At midnight, sir, you will sign. Title to Gracechurch Abbey, your funds and investments, your personal effects-"

  "And my carcass, of course. The pound of flesh."

  "To put your person at my disposal - for a year, shall we say? - is the added forfeit I have chosen for your losing our last wager and not redeeming it now. An unofficial form of indentured servitude-"

  "I forgot to ask at the time. Careless of me." Alden strode to the window and stared out. "Though I imagined something of the kind."

  "Do you wish to wager for further terms?" Lord Edward asked. '' "Another day to win the lady? What is her virtue worth to you, sir? One more year in my service? I might even agree. I’ faith, I’m sure every gentleman here would think me most generous if I did."

  The steel blade at his hip felt cold, whispering its own frostbitten need. Alden kept his back to the room, not quite trusting himself to control his expression. "Your servant, sir - after midnight. Yet while my person is still my own, I ha
ve the rest of the company to insult-"

  The door opened. Chairs scraped as men scrambled to their feet.

  Alden froze where he was.

  Α haze of rose satin danced at the edge of his vision like a half remembered dream to reflect its scattered petals in the window glass.

  He did not have to look around. His entire body - blood, sinews, bones, skin - would know her scent anywhere.

  Catastrophe coalesced into an intense, bright pain.

  Juliet.

  Α silken curtsy rustled in his ears, then her high-heeled shoes walked farther into the room. Her scent intensified until he knew she stood directly behind him. Questions formed and broke in his mind as he waited for her public denunciation - the deserved blow to the heart. He felt stripped, without defenses, offering her only his rigid back and the broken rhythm of his breathing. It seemed to roar into the quiet night as if a lion were surrounded by jackals.

  "I am given to understand by Lord Edward, sir, that you sought my acquaintance only in order to win an infamous wager," she said. "Is that true?"

  He forced himself to turn.

  Her hair was powdered and formally dressed. Someone had found her a new hooped petticoat. She even wore a fresh rose satin dress - an evening gown - though still five years out of date. Three white rosebuds nestled in her décolletage, a harmony to the purity of the skin beneath her gold locket. Under a fine dusting of powder, her face seemed carved alabaster.

  She was perfect. Α perfect court lady. Every lush curve, every female charm, offered with deliberate coquetry. Anything natural, human, vulnerable, was lost behind the flawless, artificial grooming. Alden felt almost as if he stared at her corpse.

  Yet her eyes shimmered like violets, intensely blue and burning with rage.

  With the grace of a queen, she flicked open a si1ver-and-ivory fan and arched both brows. "Lord Gracechurch? Is it true? "

  "Madam," he said, bowing. "It is true."

  Her skirts lifted as she stepped even closer. His pain intensified. Wou1d she strike him?

  "Then you might like to know this: earlier today Lord Edward Vane asked for my hand in marriage."

  Constriction racked his gut as if he were about to be sick, or as if he might kill someone. His blade still hung sweetly enough at his hip. Yet he didn't seem to be able to move. His face felt rigid, as if it belonged to someone else.

  "Struck dumb, sir?" Lord Edward asked. ''How very entertaining! The wit of London caught at a loss for words! Perhaps you didn't know that Lady Elizabeth Juliet Amberleigh and myself were once engaged to be married?"

  "Were you?" Alden heard himself ask as the words spun in his brain - Lady Elizabeth Juliet Amberleigh? ''How odd, since the lady obviously married someone else-"

  "My father's secretary." She turned away, her dress swaying in graceful folds. "Mr. George Hardcastle and Ι ran away together much to my father's displeasure." Her spine like a ramrod, she moved into the center of the room. The men scrambled aside to make room for her skirts. "It created a great scandal. I'm sure everyone here has heard the story of Lord Felton's infamous daughter, except you, sir, since you were out of the country."

  Alden realized then that he had snapped the stem of his wineglass. The bowl lay at his feet, slowly bleeding over the floorboards. He set the broken foot carefully onto the windowsill and tried to put together the shreds of the story.

  Lady Elizabeth Juliet Amberleigh, daughter of the Earl of Felton. She had been engaged once to Lord Edward Vane. She had instead married this other man, her father's secretary, George Hardcastle, but been widowed…

  She would marry Lord Edward now-?

  Then why the devil the wager in London?

  His entire world seemed to have become unglued, to be spiraling away into chaos.

  Why the devil the wager?

  The palm of his hand smarted. He glanced down at it. Not just wine. Blood. He had cut himself. Carefully controlling each movement, he wrapped his handkerchief about the small wound. Rage boiled just below the surface, a white-hot blaze of anger at Lord Edward Vane, at himself, at the world. If he were not careful, he might explode.

  He raised his head and gazed at Juliet.

  She fluttered the fan in her right hand, then moved it in front of her face.

  Alden stared at her, reading the language of the ivory sticks: Follow me!

  Follow me? Where? He looked again at her face. This time he saw it: the high courage and the hard beat of the pulse in her throat. Juliet was angry, but she was also terrified. Whatever she said, she was terrified, with a bone-deep terror. She glanced at the duke's son and her nostrils flared, just a little, while the tendons in her throat stood out like cords. He had once seen a man with that very same expression on the scaffold, before the hood was dragged over his head.

  The engagement must have been announced. Α great society wedding planned. Dowries and settlements agreed to - and she had repudiated a duke's son to elope with a secretary. The resulting scandal would have consumed society and the broadsheets. Had anyone ever imposed such a public humiliation on Lord Edward Vane and not paid in blood for it?

  How the devil had she come here? What was Lord Edward to her? What was he to anyone who crossed him? Α damned dangerous enemy!

  Alden had no idea what she was doing, but she had clearly taken charge. Lord Edward stood in silence by the desk, his painted lips curved in a small smile. The other men were each caught, as if frozen, where they had been standing. Alden very deliberately relaxed his fingers. If any of these men did or said anything to increase her fear, he would have their blood, too, on his hands.

  "Delightful," Alden said, shattering the silence. "An earl's daughter preferred a commoner over a duke's son! Ι wonder why?"

  She raised both brows. "The secretary was a better figure of a man."

  Lud! Alden leaned back against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. It's your play, Juliet. Whether you hate me or not, let me know where you would lead me.

  "My dear." Lord Edward's patch flattened. "After this, there will never be another offer. Pray, think!"

  Juliet curtsied. "But why should I think? I am here only to be decorative, am I not? In the gown you kept for me since our engagement five years ago and with my hair dressed by a woman you brought with you from town for that very purpose. Alas, I'm just an empty-headed female, whose words tumble without meaning from her mouth."

  "You are naturally distressed to learn of your husband's recent death," Lord Edward said.

  Recent death! Alden had thought her widowed years ago.

  "So silly!" Juliet paced, fluttering the fan. "Until tonight I had thought that George lived, that I was still a married woman, until you were kind enough to tell me otherwise."

  Shock compounded on shock. She had believed that her husband lived? While Alden had played out his wicked game of seduction, she had believed George Hardcastle to be alive - and only discovered otherwise tonight?

  The implications spun and twisted, like mad flurries of leaves in a gale, all structure lost in turbulence. All along she had believed her husband to be alive… Dear God!

  To Alden's surprise, Lord Edward laughed. "Α lady may follow any whim she chooses. I offer you my hand and with it, social redemption. Yet perhaps you prefer the reckless Lord Gracechurch to an honorable offer from a duke's son?"

  She snapped her fan shut. "There is nothing between Lord Gracechurch and myself, Lord Edward, except a much simpler wager than yours. Alas, it remains unfulfilled-"

  "And what, pray, was that wager, ma'am?" Dovenby asked. He had been standing quietly, watching their exchange.

  She tipped her head. "You do agree, sir, that a lady's wager takes precedence over a gentleman's?"

  Dovenby smiled. " Of course, ma'am. Α lady's desires must always come first."

  Skirts belling, she paced down the center of the room, like a queen with her court, until she faced the duke's son. "Lord Gracechurch and I must discover who wins our contest before you see which of you
wins yours. You agree?"

  Lord Edward was trapped. He nodded. "By all means, ma'am."

  "What the deuce is this wager?" Denby blurted. "Damme!"

  Her smile seemed almost sweet. "A chess match for each day this week, Sir Reginald, where the winner may ask for a boon. Lord Gracechurch still owes me our last game."

  "I am content to concede the wager, ma'am," Alden said immediately. "Assume you have won and done as you wished from the beginning - sent me away."

  "I do not wish for any such thing," she replied. "Α wager is a wager. Ι would play our final chess match now."

  Alden closed his eyes for a moment. He had no idea where this was going, yet he owed it to her to use him however she wished. To make up for what he had intended, he would owe her the world if she asked for it.

  Fenborough threw back his head and guffawed. "Then you must agree, Gracechurch!" He slapped one hand on the arm of his chair. "Must he not, gentlemen?"

  Dovenby took a pinch of snuff. "Definitely. You have a set, Denby?"

  "Α chess match?" Sir Reginald almost shouted. "Why the deuce should they play chess? We expected better sport than that tonight!"

  Dovenby had the grace to look slightly uncomfortable. He closed his snuffbox with a snap. "One infamous wager at a time, don't you think?" He turned his head and glanced at Alden. "You demur, sir? Your last chess match with the lady?"

  Juliet seemed calm, even amused, but her eyes were desperate. "It was promised, Lord Gracechurch."

  Lord Edward lowered his lids and turned away. So the duke's son would not step in to prevent this. Alden glanced at the clock. Ninety-nine minutes to midnight.

  It was promised.

  Alden swept her a bow. "Your servant, ma'am, as always."

  He did not want to play chess. Especially like this, with an audience.

  When he won, what the deuce should he demand? Take me to bed, Juliet, and save me? He saw it then, the look on a couple of the men's faces - Bracefort and Denby. It was what they expected, anticipated with foul eagerness. Α sick shiver ran up his spine. Had he ever been so damned that he had thought he could bed her here, at Marion Hall?