Double Deception (22 page)

And there was someone standing beside her bed.

Some second sense warned Athena that the intruder was not her aunt, and she became suddenly still. Gingerly, she moved her head and her hair fell away, revealing a stalwart pair of masculine thighs encased in buckskin.

Quickly, she closed her eyes again, squeezing them shut and willing the apparition to disappear. She was obviously still asleep and dreaming, she told herself. There could not possibly be a man in her bedchamber.

But there was, of course. And Athena knew instantly who the intruder was. There was only one man who had the unmitigated gall to imagine he could accost her in the privacy of her own room. Only one man who would dare to assume he had the right to badger her.

"Athena," Lord St. Aubyn murmured softly, dispelling any doubt as to the reality of his presence, "I need to talk to you urgently, my dear."

Athena reared up, suddenly angry. She pushed her tangled hair out of her eyes and glared at him, "Well, I have nothing to say to you, my lord, so you may leave at once. You should not even be here."

"Do you think I am not conscious of that fact, Athena? But you will not come downstairs, so I had to come to you."

"I do not
wish
to see you."

"But I had to see you, my dear. Please believe me." There was something in his voice Athena had never heard before. A note of urgency, of sincerity, perhaps. She disregarded it instantly. This man had never been sincere with her; why should he change now?

"I shall never believe you again," she said curtly. "I am amazed that you would imagine that possible. I may be a fool, but I am not stupid."

"I never imagined for a moment that you were either foolish or stupid, my dear."

His voice curled about her insidiously, causing her heart to flutter uncomfortably, although it must know by now how adept the rogue was at lying.

"Please go," she said, furious at the quaver in her voice.

"Athena," he said, moving closer until his thighs touched the bed, "please do not make me out to be more of a villain than I am, love."

The endearment caused Athena to bury her face in the damp pillow again, willing him to go away before she committed an act of irreparable foolishness. She felt him touch her shoulder with gentle fingers and flinched, shaking him away.

"I confess I have made a terrible muddle of this whole affair. But believe me, I never intended it to end this way."

"Please leave," Athena muttered from the depths of the pillow. She did not want to hear any of this. She did not want to forgive the terrible deceit this man had practiced upon her. She wanted to learn to hate him for breaking her heart.

He appeared not to hear. "I merely wanted to distract Perry," he continued. "To make him realize that... that his infatuation with an older woman was not enough to sustain a lifetime of marriage."

"That she was not good enough for him, I think you mean," she cut in sharply. "I was a fortune hunter, remember?"

He was silent for a moment. The she heard him sigh. "That was a natural assumption, my dear, although foolish, as it turned out. And I apologize for it. I never intended it to be more than a distraction. That was foolish of me, too, of course. I did not anticipate seduction."

He paused again, and Athena wondered which seduction he was referring to, Perry's or her own.

"That was not in the plan at all, Athena. It is important that you believe me. I never imagined that you would witness ... well, witness what you did, my dear. I wish there was some way I might make it up to you."

"There is," she muttered harshly into the pillow. "You may leave at once, and never come near me again."

"Athena, my dear," and suddenly she felt the unnerving touch of his hand caressing her back, "you cannot mean to be so cruel to me—"

"Sylvester!" came a shocked exclamation from the door, and the caress ended abruptly, leaving her—despite her resolution to hate this man—aching for the tenderness of his fingers again.

"What on
earth
do you think you are doing here, boy? How dare you intrude upon dear Athena like this? Have you taken leave of your senses?"

She heard the earl step away from the bed. "I was attempting to persuade Mrs. Standish to come down to Perry's ball tonight, Aunt. The lad will be quite cast down if she is not there."

"It is not your place to do so, as you must know, Sylvester," Lady Sarah retorted in icy tones. "Now, leave at once, if you please."

Athena heard his footsteps grow fainter and the door close with a sharp click.

There was an uncomfortable silence broken by Aunt Mary, who came over to help Athena sit up and pull her gown down over her ankles.

Lady Sarah cleared her throat rather noisily. "I do apologize for my nephew's improper behavior, my dear Athena," she said finally, with something less than her usual
sangfroid.
"I cannot imagine what has come over him. He is not usually so inconsiderate of his guests, I can assure you."

Athena said nothing. There was much that she might have said, much that the poor lady was probably better off not knowing, including the earl's deliberate deceptions regarding Miss Rathbone.

Miss Rathbone!
Athena suddenly went rigid. If Mrs. Rathbone was a bosom bow of Lady Sarah's from the days of their youth, surely the earl's aunt must know that the Beauty was not her granddaughter. Had she been duped by the old lady as well as by her scheming nephew?

Before she could open her mouth to demand an answer to this uncomfortable question, Lady Sarah came across the room and took Athena's cold hands in hers.

"You have been grossly misused, child," she murmured in a strangely subdued voice. "And I must bear part of the blame, for it was I who invited Augusta to St. Aubyn Castle."

"Miss Rathbone is not your friend's granddaughter at all, is she?"

Lady Sarah gave a snort of derision. "I should hope not, my dear. For all her unconventional choices in life, Augusta is a lady. I cannot say the same for that blond hussy. But they are both gone now, my dear, and for Perry's sake I would like to restore a little sanity to the Castle on his special day. I have come to ask your help, child."

Athena gazed at the old lady in astonishment. "I cannot imagine why you are telling me this, my lady," she said. "I am at a loss to know how I might help you."

"Would you if you could, my dear?"

Both her aunt and Lady Sarah seemed to be regarding her with some trepidation, a circumstance that made Athena wary.

"Of course, she will, Sarah," Aunt Mary assured her hostess, her eyes darting a silent message to her niece. "Will you not, dear?"

"Let the gel speak for herself, Mary," the old lady said. "Let us ring for tea," she added unexpectedly. "Tidy yourself a little my dear, and come along to my sitting room. I think it is time you knew the whole story behind Sylvester's foolish plan."

Sylvester's plan? Athena mused, at a loss to know what to think of Lady Sarah's participation in her nephew's deception.

"Come along, child," the old lady commanded, her tone indicating that she had recuperated her spirits considerably. "There is much to do this afternoon if Perry's birthday is to be a success."

Although she still did not see how Perry's ball had anything to do with her, Athena followed the two elder ladies down the hall without further protest.

Lord St. Aubyn curbed his impatience as he stood beside Lady Sarah Steele and Viscount Fairmont at the top of the gently curving stairs, welcoming those of their guests who had not attended his son's intimate birthday dinner. Taking advantage of a pause in the flow of guests up to the ballroom on the first floor, Sylvester glanced over at the narrower stairs leading up to the private chambers above. They were empty.

"Athena came down ten minutes ago, while you were complimenting Squire Mason on his prize Jersey," his aunt remarked in an undertone. "I presume she is whom you are watching for, Sylvester."

The earl wished his aunt had not such sharp eyes, which saw far more than he found comfortable. Her blue gaze softened as he grinned ruefully.

"You promised you would not pester the poor child, dear," she added softly, after greeting old Sir James and Lady Potter, the latter dressed as always in her purple velvet ball gown and favorite turban with its huge spray of tattered ostrich feathers. "It took Mary and me an hour to persuade her to come down at all this evening."

"Perry will appreciate your efforts, Aunt," he growled under his breath, watching the weighty Mrs. Rowellen and her two stringy daughters ascend the stairs slowly. "He is anxious to request a dance with the lady."

As the garrulous Mrs. Rowellen and her tongue-tied daughters paused to greet Peregrine, Lady Sarah turned to murmur gently in his ear. "You will keep your distance from Athena, my boy, if you know what is good for you. The poor gel has had enough to stomach for one day."

"We cannot allow her to take the Mail Coach back to London, Aunt," he whispered back. "Particularly if Mrs. Easton is to remain here with you."

"I hope she may be persuaded to delay her departure for a day or two, dear. Mary has promised to lend her entreaties to mine, but Athena is sorely put out with you, Sylvester. And I would not be at all surprised if you deliberately set out to seduce the poor gel."

"I did not such thing, Aunt," he growled under his breath. But his aunt had already turned away to greet another noisy group of arrivals.

He was glad his aunt had not heard his denial, because it was patently untrue. He
had
set out to seduce the lovely widow. Not at the beginning, perhaps, but after that feverish kiss in the dungeons there had been little doubt in his mind about his own intentions. His own desires. He had
wanted
to seduce Athena Standish. He
still
wanted to seduce her.

Who could have predicted that Sylvester Steele, renowned collector of Oriental art, would be drawn out of his comfortable shell by a diminutive, auburn-haired widow of undistinguished lineage and no fortune? It had been those eyes, of course. He was sure of it. Those two pools of molten amber that had tempted him, set him on fire, consumed him with a passion Sylvester had thought safely behind him.

And now she was going to leave Cornwall. How was he ever going to settle back into his sedentary scholarly life again? he wondered. During the past week he had hardly spared a thought for Oriental pottery, much less the completion of his treatise. He had not written a single word in all that time.

Life at the Castle would never be the same again, he thought regretfully, offering his arm to Lady Sarah and leading her into the ballroom, where the musicians had started to tune their instruments. They moved among the throng of guests, and Sylvester glanced around the gaily decorated room, illuminated by hundreds of candles suspended in the huge crystal chandeliers and set in elaborate sconces on the walls.

And then he saw her. She had taken refuge among the elderly matrons at the far end of the hall with her aunt.

Sylvester felt himself smile. The mere sight of her sent shivers of delight through his body. It had been a long time since a woman had managed to do that, he mused, feasting his eyes upon her small frame swathed in deep blue silk, momentarily oblivious of where he was.

"Who is she?" a deep, amused voice inquired beside him, and Sylvester turned to meet the laughing gaze of his longtime friend and contemporary, Martin Douglas, the Earl of Ridgeway.

His smile became wry. "None of your damned business, Ridgeway," he answered casually. "And if you dare to show any interest in that direction, I shall have you out behind the stables at dawn, my lad."

"Do not say that you are already misbehaving, Martin?"

Sylvester turned to encounter the intelligent gaze of the new Countess of Ridgeway. Old Martin—who must be Sylvester's age, if not older—had quite surprised them all when he suddenly married the Earl of Weston's eldest daughter a scant two months ago. Lady Jane Sutherland had never been a Beauty as far as Sylvester could remember, but she was elegantly tall, possessed of a quite luscious bosom, and a pair of eyes that were almost the exact shade of Athena's.

She was also quite obviously enamored of her new husband, and Martin seemed to be equally besotted with the tall redhead. Sylvester smiled, although their obvious happiness with each other reminded him painfully of his own disconsolate state.

Martin Douglas had been his best man when he had wed Adrienne so many years ago. He had been at the funeral, too, when Sylvester had lost her. Full of their own happiness, he and Adrienne had paraded many a young beauty for Martin's benefit, but the young Viscount Hammond, as he had been then, merely laughed at the efforts to entangle him in matrimonial webs and gone back to London where he had acquired, over the years, the reputation of a consummate rake.

And now Rogue Martin, as he had been called back then, had succumbed to the least likely of females, but Sylvester could not doubt that his friend's joy was deep and sincere.

An uncomfortable twinge of envy snaked through him as Sylvester watched his friend smile seductively at his countess and slip an arm about her trim waist. Had he and Adrienne been this obvious about their love for each other? he wondered. No wonder poor Martin's visits to Cornwall had so often ended in abrupt departures for the glittering, seductive life he led in London.

It was no fun watching the happiness of others from the outside.

Lady Ridgeway met his eyes and blushed. Sylvester thought her quite enchanting, but her amber eyes reminded him so vividly of Athena's that he glanced towards the far end of the room.

"You really must tell us who the delightful creature is," Ridgeway insisted. "I trust it is more than a summer dalliance, old man. It is high time you brought another bride to the Castle."

Sylvester stared at his friend in alarm. Martin had given shape to the illusive notion that had invaded his mind recently and which as yet he had not dared to identify. He looked over at Athena again, his heart beating unnaturally fast.