With Seduction in Mind

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  “What if I need you? Or you need me? Deuced inconvenient if we are in utterly separate wings of the house, don’t you think?” Without waiting for an answer, he glanced around and pointed to a substantial teakwood desk directly opposite the secretaire she had chosen. “I’ll use that.”

  “I’m not sure working in such close proximity would be conducive to our efforts. Wouldn’t it be too distracting?”

  “Quite the opposite, I think. I’ve no discipline anymore, you see. I need you to watch over me, make sure I keep my nose to the grindstone.”

  Given that he’d just tried to kiss her, Daisy had every reason to be skeptical of such virtuous-sounding motives. On the other hand, if he was under her eye, she could at least ensure he did some work each day. She capitulated. “Very well, then. We’ll begin first thing tomorrow. Nine o’clock.”

  “Nine o’clock?” He groaned. “I can’t remember the last time I rose at such an ungodly hour. “You’re a slave driver, Miss Merrick.”

  “Not yet.” She turned away. “That starts tomorrow.”

  Chapter 10

  I am a galley slave to pen and ink.

  Honore de Balzac

  “Sir?”

  Sebastian felt Abercrombie’s hand on his shoulder, but he did not even open his eyes. “Hmm?” he grunted.

  “Sir, it is half past seven.”

  Sebastian couldn’t remember the last time he’d been awakened at such an ungodly hour of the morning. With the monks, perhaps. He shrugged, trying to shake off his valet’s hand, but if he thought that would make Abercrombie go away, he was mistaken.

  “Sir, you wished to bathe, dress, and breakfast before nine. Remember? You are starting work on your book today.”

  Work on a book? Sebastian’s sleep-clogged mind scoffed at that. He didn’t write anymore. He gave a protesting grunt and rolled over, thinking that turning his back would do the trick and Abercrombie would leave him in peace. But when his valet gave a cough and once again shook his shoulder, he realized he had underestimated the persistence of servants who were owed back wages.

  “My apologies, sir, but you were most emphatic about being awakened at this hour. You said Miss Merrick would no doubt appreciate promptness.”

  Miss Merrick? Ah, yes. At once, images of her began drifting through his mind—of her slender body, of small, plump breasts and a shapely backside, of luminous skin and golden freckles. She thought freckles should be hidden. Silly woman. He’d love to kiss every freckle she had. Every…single…one.

  With these erotic notions going through his head, he burrowed deeper into the pillow and imagined touching her, gliding his fingertips across her collarbone and down to the peak of her breast—

  “Sir, your bath has already been prepared. If you don’t rise soon, the water will grow cold.”

  Sebastian groaned at this domestic intrusion on what could have been a deuced fine fantasy. Reminding himself it wasn’t a fantasy he could act upon, he forced down his arousal and got out of bed.

  As he bathed and shaved, Sebastian considered his plans in light of what had happened last night. He remembered the velvety feel of her lips against his thumb and the rather dazed way she’d looked up at him, and he’d been sure a kiss was in the offing. But she’d seen right through him, clever girl, and stopped him cold. There’d been a glint of determination in those lovely eyes of hers, something with which he was becoming quite familiar, and he realized winning her over would require more ingenuity then he’d first thought.

  When his valet brought out the old, well-worn clothing he’d always favored when writing, Sebastian eyed the comfortable gray flannel trousers and ink-stained white linen shirt with approval. If a man was trying to impress a woman, it was better to dress well, but in this case, the opposite would probably be more effective. He was trying to show her he was a tortured writer in the throes of creative agony. Best to dress the part.

  Once he’d donned the flannels, Sebastian leaned closer to the mirror above his dressing table and rubbed a hand over his freshly shaved cheek. He might have to stop shaving for a few days and go on a drinking binge. Nothing made a man look more wildly artistic and tortured than beard stubble and a hangover.

  He ventured downstairs just as the clock was striking half past eight, and he expected to find Miss Merrick at breakfast, but to his surprise, she was not in the dining room. Aunt Mathilda was there, however, drinking tea and opening her letters. Miss Merrick, Auntie informed him, had already breakfasted and was in the library hard at work. Sensing a hint of reproof in his great-aunt’s eyes that he was not doing the same, Sebastian hastily gulped down a cup of tea and a plate of bacon and kidneys, rolled back the cuffs of his shirt to demonstrate an earnest willingness to do his best, and informed his aunt that he and Miss Merrick wished to write undisturbed until luncheon. Having eliminated any inconvenient interruptions from servants or his aunt for at least the next four hours, he departed for the library.

  He found her seated at her desk, scribbling away with quill and ink. In profile to him, with the sunshine from the window flowing over her body and lighting all the coppery glints in her hair, she reminded him of a Renoir painting. Sebastian paused in the doorway and leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb. She hadn’t observed his arrival, and he was content for the moment to watch her unnoticed and enjoy the view. Over the years, he’d become quite adept at finding distractions from writing, but Daisy Merrick could prove the most delightful distraction from work he’d ever had.

  Her hair was piled up in a mass of soft twists and curls that he liked, for it looked as if it would come tumbling down at any moment. He turned, leaning a bit to one side, appreciating the slender line of her neck and the winsome curve of her cheek above the prim white collar of her shirtwaist. He imagined leaning down, kissing the soft skin of her ear.

  Lost in these delightful contemplations, it took him a moment to notice that as she wrote, she did not stop or hesitate, but composed line after line without reservation. Unless he was flying high on cocaine, he’d never managed to write like that. Plagued by his constant doubts, he’d always been wont to stop and reexamine his sentences, but she seemed to have no such qualms. Her nib made scratching sounds as she moved it quickly across the page, and the only time she stopped was to ink her quill. He watched her with a hint of envy. How could anyone write like that? he wondered.

  She reached the bottom of the page, set the quill back in its stand and blotted the sheet. As she turned to set it on the pile of manuscript pages, she perceived him in the doorway.

  “You’ve caught me staring again, I fear,” he said, straightening away from the doorjamb, “but you seemed lost in creative composition, and I didn’t want to intrude on the moment. Besides,” he added as he entered the room, “you make a deuced pretty picture sitting there. It was like looking at a Renoir.”

  She didn’t seem impressed. “I already told you, buttering me up with compliments won’t help you.”

  “Perhaps it won’t help me,” he said as he crossed the room to her desk, “but I don’t think it will hurt either. Besides, as I told you last night, I don’t give compliments I don’t mean.”

  She didn’t debate the matter. Instead, she pointed with the quill to the teakwood desk behind him. “Your valet was down earlier. He brought your writing materials and arranged them for you.”

  Sebastian glanced over his shoulder at the teakwood desk. His Crandall had been placed neatly atop the blotter in the center. Above it on the desk stood a brass inkstand containing two quills and a penknife. To the left of the typewriting machine was his old, yellowed manuscript and a supply of fresh paper. He stared at the pristine white stack and the yellowed old one and felt a shimmer of apprehension.

  “I noticed you have a Crandall.”

  Her voice brought him out of his apprehensions. “Yes,” he answered, reminding himself that this was all a charade. He wasn’t here to write, but to find a way out of writing. “I’ve had it for years. It’s a battered old thing,
but it still works.” He glanced across her desk, noting for the first time that she had no typewriting machine. “I thought you were an accomplished typist. But you write your manuscripts in longhand?”

  “I have a typewriting machine at home, but I never use it. The keys stick, and it’s an upstrike machine, so I can’t see when I’ve made a mistake. I find it easier to write in longhand.” She glanced past him. “If I had a Crandall,” she added, sounding envious, “I wouldn’t hesitate to give up my quill. It’s a beautiful machine.”

  “Like you, I like being able to see what I’m typing. Also the Crandall is light. I’ve always traveled a great deal, and I can take it anywhere.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “But not through the Valais Alps,” she murmured.

  Her curiosity was evident, but he had no intention of enlightening her. He was here to show her how impossible writing was for him, play the tortured artist, but he bloody well wasn’t going to bare his soul. “No,” he answered abruptly and turned away. “Not in the Valais.”

  He circled his own desk and pulled out the chair. He sat down, and as he stared at the polished black iron and gleaming steel of the Crandall, a feeling of dread settled like a stone in his stomach.

  He drew a deep breath, shoved aside his apprehensions, and reached for a blank sheet of notepaper. For his plan to succeed, he had to make some show of working. He rolled the sheet of paper into the Crandall, but the moment he put his fingers on the keys, he felt a jolt of pure, unreasoning panic. He jerked his hands back.

  “Is something wrong?”

  He glanced across the desks to find she was watching him with a hint of concern.

  “Not a thing,” he lied, even though the truth would have served his purpose better. “Why do you ask?”

  “You seem…restless.”

  “I’m perfectly well.”

  Satisfied, she returned her attention to her work. He once again put his hands on the keys and froze, paralyzed. The white sheet of paper loomed before him like a frozen Arctic wasteland. He closed his eyes, but that only made things worse, for he could feel the insidious craving for cocaine seeping into his bloodstream.

  He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t even pretend to try. His hands slid away from the typewriter, punctuated this time by a muttered oath.

  “My lord?”

  He looked up again, and watched her give a little cough. “Before you attempt to revise your manuscript,” she said gently, “perhaps you should read it?”

  “Read it?” He seized on that with profound relief. Reading, even if it was his own prose, was far better than pretending to write. “Yes, of course. That’s an excellent first step.”

  Shoving aside her revision letter, which lay atop the manuscript, he grabbed a handful of the yellowed pages, leaned back in his chair, and assumed what he hoped was a properly conscientious expression. He could feel her thoughtful, somewhat puzzled gaze on him, but he ignored it, and forced himself to begin reading the handwritten lines he’d penned so long ago.

  It was torture. By the end of the first chapter, he wondered how on earth, at seventeen, he’d had the conceit to think he had any talent. By the end of the second, he wondered how Harry could ever have had the bad taste to publish any of his work. By the end of the third, he knew he’d exercised excellent judgment in never submitting this novel all those years ago. It was rubbish.

  Throughout the morning, he slogged along, but by the time he had reached the end of chapter nine, the manuscript had become so unbearably dull and hackneyed, he simply had to stop.

  Opposite him, Miss Merrick was still immersed in her own work, scribbling away, and he wondered again how she could write like that. She’d been at it for several hours now, lost in that magical writer’s world where nothing mattered but the story.

  Ah, to be like that, to be able to forget everything and everyone and become immersed in the work. What a blessing when that happened. Before the cocaine, such moments had been rare for him, but he could still recall what it was like when they came—the exhilaration when the words just flowed, the joy of composing an eloquent, perfect sentence, the satisfaction of a pivotal scene done right, the relief of penning those two most beloved words, The End.

  But Sebastian remembered the dark side, too, and that was why he envied her. For she was fresh and naive, so eager for it all, wanting it so much. He’d been like her once, years ago, at the very beginning. The words poured out of her now, with an ease that was natural and unfettered by the inevitable doubts and disappointments and the biting criticisms. Those would come, and year by year, book by book, writing would become harder for her. Instead of pouring out, the words would start to come in dribbles, and then in precious drops. Desperation would set in, then panic. She might try cocaine, absinthe, or maybe gin, but regardless of what she tried, in the end, she would become like him. Empty, with no stories left to tell. All writers came to that in the end.

  As if to banish these gloomy speculations for him, the sun came out from behind a cloud. It flooded through the window behind her and filled the room with light, making the outline of her upper body plainly visible and brightening his spirits at once.

  She was wearing a corset, he noticed, for he could see the tiny puffed sleeves of what was unmistakably a corset cover silhouetted beneath the leg o’mutton sleeves of her shirtwaist. His conscience might not allow him to bed her in reality, but he could imagine it all he wanted. He’d remove her clothes for her, layer by layer, starting with that prim, starched shirtwaist.

  She moved, but that did not interrupt Sebastian’s torrid imaginings, for she closed her eyes and tilted her head back with a groan, exposing the tender skin of her throat and jaw, which only served to add fuel to the fire in his body. She squeezed her shoulder blades together, a move that pushed her breasts forward, and his arousal blazed into hot, powerful lust. In his mind, she was suddenly naked and he was cupping her breasts in his palms.

  “You are doing it again.”

  This abrupt return to reality was painful. He stirred in his chair and forced his gaze up to meet hers. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re staring at me.”

  He glanced down at chapter seven, then back at her, and decided he just couldn’t take any more. He needed a distraction. “Sorry. I was wondering how you manage to write like that.”

  The disapproval in her expression changed to bewilderment. “What’s wrong with how I write?”

  “I didn’t say anything was wrong with it. It’s just that you write without any hesitation, and it intrigues me.”

  These observations seemed to take her back. “Well, there isn’t much need to pause at this point. It’s just a draft, after all.”

  “Yes, but don’t you ever pause and reflect?”

  She seemed even more bewildered. “Not really, no. As I said, it’s a draft. At this stage, I simply write as fast as I can, trying to end each day with at least ten new pages.”

  He’d been able to do that for a while. One shot of cocaine and four of espresso, he thought with a hint of nostalgia, and he’d been able to compose pages and pages without stopping. He glanced at the lines of script she’d penned so quickly, then at the blank sheet of paper in his typewriting machine, and felt his envy deepen into despair. He’d never write like that again. He’d never write like her.

  “How much do you write each day?”

  Her voice broke into his thoughts, and Sebastian forced aside memories of Italy. He lifted a blank sheet of notepaper with a wry face. “That’s typical of my daily output every time I try to write nowadays. Give or take a sentence or two.”

  “Every time? You’re exaggerating.”

  “No, petal, I’m not. Which is why I stopped.” He tossed the sheet down on the desk beside the Crandall with a sigh and rubbed his fingertips over his eyes. “It’s too damned hard.”

  “It’s hard, yes. Sometimes.”

  He lowered his hand and glared at her, resenting her and her enthusiasm and her damned ten pag
es a day with a vehemence that surprised him. He’d thought he didn’t care anymore.

  “It can also be very satisfying,” she said gently. “You must know that. You have produced an extensive body of work. Without finding some sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, why would you have kept doing it?”

  “Insanity?”

  She did not seem to give that suggestion the seriousness it deserved. “You must have found something rewarding in it.”

  “Perhaps,” he acknowledged, “but most of the time, it’s torture. It’s like climbing a jagged mountain on your hands and knees. Naked,” he added for good measure. “With your muse whispering to you the whole time that you’ll never reach the top and you must be insane to try.”

  She studied him without replying, her pretty, freckled face filled with compassion.

  He couldn’t stand it. Jerking to his feet, he walked to one of the French windows that led onto the terrace. He started to open the door, thinking only of escape, but her voice stopped him.

  “What if you could view it differently?”

  He paused, his hand on the door handle. “What do you mean?”

  “See it as an amusement rather than a torture.”

  “An amusement?” he echoed with scorn and turned to look at her over his shoulder. “You’re not serious?”

  But she was. He could tell by the earnestness in her face. “I think believing that would help you,” she said.

  “No, it wouldn’t. It’s a lie, and a lie is never a help to anyone.”

  She set down her quill with a sound of exasperation and stood up. “Changing the way we choose to look at a thing is not lying!” she said, coming to stand beside him at the French window. “There’s nothing wrong or false about keeping a positive outlook.”

  “The glass is half full, is that the idea?” He shot her a wry glance. “Are you always like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “All sweetness and light? All sunshine and good cheer?”

  She didn’t become angry. Unexpectedly, she smiled. “I am, rather,” she confessed. “I’m afraid it quite irritates my sister.”