My Fair Temptress (6 page)

“Yet it is obvious
your
command of languages is superior,” Comte de Guignard added, “and we find ourselves missing our country. So you do not mind if we speak in Moricadian?”

“No…not if you want to.” Jude managed to sound both wistful and manly.

“But my dear Huntington, we would not want to exclude you,” Bouchard said.

“You don’t! You’re not! You can’t!” Jude assured them. “I’m very fluent. Go ahead.” And the truth was, he
was
fluent, as fluent as he claimed.

Enunciating slowly and carefully in Moricadian, Comte de Guignard said, “He is like a child who runs after his betters in hope their authority will rub off.”

The words sounded softly slurred, as if each consonant slipped from the tongue. When first Jude had heard it, he had found it difficult to follow, but the year spent in Moricadia had changed that. He would never be mistaken for a native speaker, as Michael had been, but these men misstepped by underestimating Jude.

“His taste in clothing is abominable.” Bouchard kept his gaze fixed on Jude and chewed on the damp end of his cigar.

“How true, how true,” Jude said in Moricadian, and he mangled the pronunciation.

Bouchard gave a bark of laughter, then abused his taste, his figure, his parents, and his country.

At every pause in the conversation, Jude smiled and nodded vacantly until the two men were convinced of his fatuity.

“Comte, with the singer’s help our quarry will be delivered to us,” Bouchard said in rapid Moricadian. “All will be as we planned.”

What have you planned?
Jude wanted to grab them until they answered his question. Instead, he kept quiet and grinned.

“Yes, but will this do as you promised?” De Guignard grew more agitated. “I would not have our friends attempt to console our hosts for their loss.”

Their hosts? Who? The British? Yes, the British. Their loss. What loss? “Oui,”
Jude said as he tipped his hat to Lady Sugden and her daughter.

“
Non, mon comte,
everything shall be as we wish,” Bouchard said, with more eagerness and less care. “You see, when we—” He stopped. He turned his head. In English, he asked, “What is that?”

“Oh, help!” A female’s faint call came from a stand of blooming rhododendrons off the side of the path. “I’ve fallen!”

Jude ignored her, fiercely willing Bouchard to say exactly what they wished.

“Help, help!” The call was stronger now, sweeter, more feminine.

De Guignard and Bouchard turned like bird dogs on point and headed for the bushes.

Jude stood in the middle of the path, his hands flexing into fists. Whoever this girl was, he wished her to perdition. He’d made a fool of himself to discover the information the Moricadians were about to impart, and she had ruined everything. He stalked after the men. She had better be badly hurt, or she would…she would…He grimaced. What paltry punishment could the ridiculous, elegant Lord Huntington inflict?

She would suffer his sarcasm!

Comte de Guignard lifted the dark green branches, heavy with pink blossoms, to reveal a young lady of unusual beauty, dressed in a riding habit of misty gray, laid out on the ground in an attitude of distress.

False distress, Jude noted. She hadn’t hurt herself. This had happened before; her trick was nothing more than a ploy to gain his attention. To gain the attention of that most eligible bachelor, the earl of Huntington.

“Oh.” She rested her sleeve on her forehead. “Thank heavens you discovered me. Gentlemen, my horse threw me, my ankle is twisted, and I’ve been in a faint ever since.” Her darkened eyelashes fluttered at each of the Moricadians.

Bouchard turned red from his collar to the top of his bald head and hastily discarded his smoldering cigar in the bushes.

“
Mademoiselle
, we are honored to come to your rescue!” As eager as a boy, de Guignard bowed, then bowed again.

Finally, she turned her dark-lashed, aquamarine eyes on Jude.

He felt the impact of her gaze like a bullet tearing into his chest. He recognized the feeling. He’d experienced that surprise and the agony in the mountains of Moricadia. He’d barely survived his wounds and the fever that followed them.

Now he faced a similar event, and he feared this experience would be as excruciating, as life-altering, and leave as big a scar. A wise man would turn and run from the exotic appeal of the beauty stretched out at his feet. Her smooth, tan cheek invited the touch of a finger. Her mouth, too wide for her face, begged to be kissed. With a single glance, she made him want to forget his duty, to gather the lovely miss into his arms and carry her to safety—which showed how incredibly talented this little performer must be.

“We cannot leave you here.” De Guignard dropped to his knee beside her, ignoring the soft squish of the mud beneath his blue trousers.

“You’re French.” In a graceful gesture, she brushed tendrils of hair back from her face. “How lovely.”

“Actually, we’re Moricadian,” de Guignard said, “although a great many people don’t make the distinction.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

With an enthusiasm that cared nothing for the unlikely surroundings or the mud beneath his knee, de Guignard explained, “You see, two hundred years ago during the reign of our good King Louis XIV, after he conquered Moricadia, he gave my noble family the highest title and asked that we rule the country as a French principality. It was only after the wretched French Revolution of the last century that we realized we had to seize control of our own country and mold its destiny with our own hands without interference from any upstart French government or its peasant leaders. So we are French, but more…” At her confused frown, his voice trailed off, and he affirmed, “Yes, we’re French.”

“It was a French horse that threw me.” Her smile trembled as she gazed on the comte. “You understand why I can’t allow you to help me, don’t you?”

Patent nonsense—and both de Guignard and Bouchard nodded as if they understood.

“Is
he
English?” She fixed her large eyes on Jude in melting appeal.

“Him?” De Guignard cast him a loathing glance. “
Oui
. He is English. He can, I suppose, help you.” With obvious reluctance, he made way for Jude.

Jude was hard-pressed not to groan.

When he didn’t move forward at once, Bouchard said “My lord!
La jeune fille
awaits you.”

“All right,” Jude conceded none too graciously. “I’ll get her up.”

Like a statuesque nymph, the lady lifted her arms in a fluid arc.

Briskly, Jude caught her elbow and brought her to her feet. She was tall. My God, so tall. He could hold her in his arms, and her mouth would be within easy reach when he kissed her. She had a lush, firm bosom and a waist that invited a man to try and span it with his hands. She was a lovely package, firm where a lady should be firm, soft where a lady should be soft, with a glossy finish on her skin one might see on a pearl, and, as he’d expected, she favored the leg, leaning against him for support.

He called himself to attention. He had no time for dalliance. He had a mission to complete—and until she had interfered, the end had been in sight. He steadied her, removed his support, then clapped his hands together. “That’s it, then. You’re standing, so we’ll be on our way.”

Shocked, Comte de Guignard staggered back, his hand over his heart.

“But Lord Huntington, see how bravely she smiles while she holds her foot above the ground. She is hurt!” A note of cynicism entered Bouchard’s voice. “Surely your English chivalry will not allow you to leave Miss…Miss…?” He looked inquiringly at the girl.

“Miss Caroline Ritter.” She dropped her name as if expecting a reaction, although Jude couldn’t imagine what that would be.

“Surely you won’t leave Miss Ritter here alone!” Bouchard said.

“I’ll hail a cab for her,” Jude said, from between his teeth.

Now she smiled both bravely
and
reproachfully, her lips trembling, her white teeth flashing in a glorious, smooth complexion that showed the effects of healthy exercise and time in the sun. Copper tipped her brown hair like riches found, and those eyes…a man could get lost in those eyes.

But he’d been lost in a woman’s eyes before, and somehow he’d always found his way out—and he
had
to hear what the Moridovians had been about to say.

In a voice that signaled heartbreak, she said, “Don’t worry about me. I know I’m not important, as are you gentlemen. I’ll make my way to my humble place of residence…alone. There I will try to heal my ankle from this dreadful fall.”

The melodrama was so thick, Jude could scarcely breathe. “Don’t you think you ought to find your horse first? Horses are usually valuable.”

A single tear slid over one of her high cheekbones. “The horse was a rented hack. Just let me limp on my way…” She struggled out of the bushes.

With an extravagant exclamation of Gallic disgust, Comte de Guignard caught her arm. “Please, I am an unworthy foreigner, but I cannot bear to see you in such anguish. Let me help you”—he cast a glance of loathing at Jude—“where your countryman will not.”

She sniffed, although her little nose was clear and unblotched. “I accept your offer with gratitude.”

Bouchard caught her other arm. “Allow me to assist you, too.”

“Yes, thank you, you are both so good.” As she walked away, taking both of Jude’s Moridovians, and all their goodwill, with her, she glanced back at Jude with twinkling eyes. “Some Englishmen need lessons in how to flirt. Perhaps, if they pay attention, they will get what they deserve—a bride.”

At the moment, Jude realized…she wore a red rose in her lapel.

He looked up the path where Lady Pheodora had escaped.

He stared the other way at the sinuous figure of Miss Caroline Ritter.

He had wooed the wrong girl.

M
iss Ritter rode off in a cab.

Comte de Guignard and Monsieur Bouchard walked in a wide circle around Jude and indicated their opinion with a haughty sniff in his direction.

How had that happened? In one fell swoop Jude had lost his influence with the Moricadians, and all so he could learn to flirt…with a woman who tied his guts to her garters. She was magnificent, a Helen of Troy who could launch a thousand ships, a woman of beauty and mystery.

He should discover where the cabriolet had taken Miss Ritter, follow her, and show her how very well he could flirt.

He should accost Comte de Guignard and Monsieur Bouchard, follow them, ingratiate himself with them.

He was torn between his brains and his balls, being the dashing cavalier he had sworn on Michael’s grave to become and the man driven by the need for vengeance for his brother’s death.

Before he could make a decision, he heard a voice he’d not heard for many a long year. “Huntington? Huntington, is that you?”

He turned to see Rodney Turgoose, the silliest man in London—and Jude’s best friend—bearing down on him.

“I heard you were back, but I didn’t believe”—Turgoose looked him over—“the report.”

Jude might as well allow de Guignard and Bouchard time to get over their pique and to follow up on the lead regarding Gloriana Dollydear. In addition, he saw no real sense in chasing after Miss Ritter. He’d see her often enough to suffer all the frustration a man could bear.

So, sighing, he fell into the role of fop and fool as easily as he might tumble into one of the shiny puddles left over from the rain. “Turgoose! As you see, I returned to England a new man!”

“Yes, I…see.” Turgoose stood a full foot shorter than Jude, but the elevated soles of his shoes brought his nose level with Jude’s shoulder. A soft fall of reddish blond hair hung artfully over Turgoose’s forehead. His lips were full, his smile fatuous, but he was warmhearted and generous to a fault.

Jude flung out his arms in exuberant exhibitionism. “Am I not the finest Beau Brummel you’ve ever had the good fortune to view?”

Turgoose’s eyes widened in alarm. “I heard you looked ridiculous.”

“I have my jealous detractors.” Jude chuckled humorously.

“No. You really do look ridiculous,” Turgoose insisted.

Jude fought the desire to laugh in real amusement. The two men had attended school together, and as one of the deans said, it was a good thing Turgoose was pretty, for he wasn’t smart. But he was honest, incurably honest, and Jude found himself enjoying the novelty. “Come, come, my dear Turgoose, you don’t mean that. I’m magnificent!”

“If you like vulgarity. You look as if you fell into a vat of paints from that crude Vermeer fellow.” Catching the glint in Jude’s eyes, Turgoose pounced. “Let me guess. You’re not serious. You’re playing a part. You’re driving your old man batty so you can take over the family fortune.”

Wrapping his arm around Turgoose’s neck, Jude pulled Turgoose’s head to his chest and knuckled him hard, messing up the careful arrangement of hair.

Turgoose sputtered and groused, and when Jude let him stand on his own two feet, dedicated a full two minutes to rectify the damage done to his coiffure. In an aggrieved tone, he said, “If you don’t want to tell me, you could just say so. It’s not as if I’m nosy.”

Jude stood, hands on hips, and grinned at Turgoose.

“All right, maybe I am.” Turgoose grinned back. “But I came by my nosiness legitimately. My grandmum spends so much time looking out her curtains, she caught her rings in the trim and was tangled there for an hour. Grandmum said she would have called for the footman to help her get free, but she caught her neighbor sneaking out in a lavender silk ball gown trimmed with handmade lace.”

Jude bowed to a group of four ladies. “So?”

“He was too tall for the style.”

Jude laughed again, and realized Turgoose’s friendship was worth cultivating for more than just diversion. He also knew London society and its secrets. “Let’s walk,” Jude said, “and you can tell me what I missed in my absence.”

As they started down the walk, Turgoose said, “It didn’t take you long to find Miss Ritter, and she herself is no small scandal.”

Grabbing Turgoose’s arm, Jude yanked him into a fenced garden off the beaten path. “Scandal? What scandal?”

“She’s a woman with a past,” Turgoose said significantly.

“She’s experienced?” Jude didn’t believe his father would hire a woman of easy morals. More important, Jude didn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want her to be one of the demimonde, a woman of easy virtue. It didn’t make sense, but he wanted her to be exactly as she appeared to be—a lady of perhaps desperate means, a lady who would trap a man with her beauty, but a lady nonetheless. “I don’t believe it.”

“I know. That angelic face, the perfect figure, the grace, the charm…a fellow doesn’t want to consider it. But she got tangled up with that scoundrel Freshie and poof!”—Turgoose snapped his fingers—“went her reputation.”

“Freshfield,” Jude said slowly. “We were up at Eton with him. Brilliant fellow. Cunning and totally without ethics.”

“But from a good family,” Turgoose said.

Jude stared at him questioningly.

“That’s what my mother says when I point out that other stuff. Nothing else matters to her. She says Miss Ritter is totally beyond the pale. Not acceptable. I only wish—”

Sharp and still, Jude asked, “What do you wish?”

“I liked the girl. I liked her a lot. I just wish I had the bottom to take up the cudgels on her behalf. But my mother would break me like a crust of toast.”

“She certainly would.” Turgoose’s mother, Lady Reederman, was a stickler for propriety, a guiding light of society, and she inspired fear in every one of her seven children as well as in her husband, all her servants, and every debutante who had made her bow for the last twenty-five years. Funny that Jude even cared whether Turgoose, of all people, was eliminated from the competition for Miss Ritter. With an intensity that he felt down to his toes—no, to his groin—Jude said, “Tell me the details.”

“Debut year, Miss Ritter was as glorious a creature as any I’ve seen, and she was constantly in trouble. Men were always trying to kidnap her, or declaring their undying love on their knees in the middle of a quadrille, or threatening to commit suicide for her.”

Jude should have been acting languorous, but the thought of her and all those men, all those suitors, kissing her hand, whispering about her charms, trying to sneak a kiss made him furious. They made him jealous, and of a girl he had met once, in the bushes, in the mud. A woman who’d ruined the plans he’d so carefully set in motion and made him lust when he should be focused on vengeance. Yet he managed to sound amused, to look casual, when he asked, “Bodies strewn in her path, eh?”

Seriously, Turgoose said, “Not really. They always stopped short of shooting themselves. But you get the idea.”

“The Season was a circus that revolved around Miss Ritter.”

“Precisely!” Turgoose clapped Jude on the shoulder. “You may look like a damned fool, but your understanding is still superior.”

“Sh,” Jude said softly. “Don’t spread that around.”

“No, of course not! No man wants to be known as intelligent! I wouldn’t like that at all.”

“I think you’re safe.”

“Exact…” Turgoose paused as if suspecting sarcasm.

Jude kept his face blank, and prompted, “You were telling me the tale of Miss Ritter.”

“Oh. Yes! Mr. Manfred Ritter was mightily pleased with Miss Ritter’s success.” Turgoose sneered. “He saw the chance to advance his family name at last. He’s not only a cold fish, but he clutches the coin so tight his shillings scream in agony.”

Jude swung his monocle back and forth on its ribbon. “I don’t understand.”

“He’s cheap! The damned fool didn’t obtain a responsible chaperon, and when Lord Freshie started romancing Miss Ritter, that viper of a chaperon took a bribe to convince Miss Ritter of Freshie’s good intentions and persuade the gel that he could be trusted.”

Jude felt his face settle into grim lines. “But he’s married.”

“Precisely. She should have known better, and that is what her enemies point to as conclusive condemnation.” Turgoose drew out his handkerchief and blotted the perspiration on his forehead. “Walk slower, will you?”

Jude hadn’t realized how his gait had speeded up beyond the appearance of a stylish man loitering down the path on a spring day. So he did slow, but with his cane he poked at Turgoose. “So Miss Ritter was a fool.” And Jude, who remembered Freshie and his reputation for perversions, thought he might take the time, when he’d finished his mission, to take Freshie apart joint by joint.

“I hesitate to put such a label on that darling gel, but Freshie
can
be charming and she
was
infatuated with him. Certainly she trusted him beyond all propriety, and at a party given at his house, he carried her away to his study. Alone. And locked her in with him.” Turgoose ran his finger under his collar. “I was the one who realized what he had done. I broke into the room.”

“Really?” Jude examined his friend with renewed interest. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“I was rather more than infatuated,” Turgoose mumbled.

“You were in
love
,” Jude teased, but he wasn’t laughing. He was furious. This was his friend, and he didn’t even appreciate Turgoose’s efforts on Miss Ritter’s behalf—because Jude wanted to be her rescuer.

“Buckle your beak.” Turgoose put his hands on his waist and glared. “We’re talking about Miss Ritter, and my dedication is undiminished.”

He was simply, Jude diagnosed, too afraid of his mother to do anything about his passion, and that was fine. Turgoose’s fear almost made him likeable again. “My apologies. Go on with the tale.”

“Trouble was, that whoreson Freshie had more than seduction on his mind. He wanted to use Miss Ritter to obtain a separation from his wife. Figured Miss Ritter was safe because her commoner father couldn’t call him out. So when I tried to get her out of the room, Freshie made a fuss to attract attention.” Now Turgoose blotted his upper lip, and his perspiration wasn’t from exertion, but from remembered horror. “It was a nightmare. A nightmare, I tell you. When his wife broke in, she shrieked like an Irish banshee and blamed it all on Miss Ritter. Freshie came off innocent as a rosebud.”

Jude scarcely moved his lips as he asked, “With as many suitors as you said Miss Ritter had and Freshie’s reputation, why wasn’t she able to find someone who would marry her?”

“Because her father threw her from his town house in a dramatic scene. You can imagine the calumny for her.” Turgoose’s color fluctuated. “Eighteen-year-old girl. No resources. No dowry. Reviled by her family. Frightened…”

If Jude had been there…what would he have done? Until the day he had stared down at his brother’s body, he had been shallow, conceited because he wasn’t a worthless bon vivant like Michael, superior for no more reason than the ability to hold his liquor and a talent for logical thinking. He probably would have shrugged and agreed that no
beautiful
young woman should have to suffer such an inequitable fate…yet, remembering his reaction to her face, perhaps he would have been as indignant as Turgoose. “Why, my good man, what did you do?”

“Nothing. I did nothing untoward!”

Lifting his monocle, Jude fixed his gaze on his friend.

“I didn’t,” Turgoose insisted. “Her younger sister gave her her allowance. The servants sneaked her food. But she was truly destitute, so I recommended her for a position teaching singing and pianoforte.” He scuffled his feet. “She lost the position. But Mrs. Cabot loved Miss Ritter, as does everyone who meets her, and she gave her a glowing reference that found her another position.”

Seeing the developing pattern, Jude suggested, “Which she lost?”

“If only the dear gel could discover something she did well for which she could be paid.”

A plan slid easily to the surface of Jude’s mind. For the first time he blessed his father’s interfering ways. “She may have already have done so.”

“Really? As what?”

“I imagine if someone attempted to resuscitate her reputation, it would cause an immeasurable fuss.”

“But what kind of fool would attempt that?” Turgoose’s gaze slid up Jude’s frighteningly green jacket, and he backed up a step. “I mean, it would be absurd to think anyone could bring her back into the fold.”

“You insinuated she had been used for nefarious circumstances by a known libertine and yet remained innocent.”

“Yes, of a certainty.” Turgoose rubbed his shining forehead. “But no maiden can survive such a blow to her reputation.”

“What if a duke’s heir attended her at the opera?” Which, considering her face and figure, would be a labor most enjoyable.

Turgoose chuckled weakly. “You are jesting. Why would you do that?”

Because the Moricadians liked her. Because the resultant scandal would both draw attention to Jude and allow him to do his work under the cover of gossip and resentment. And because—this was no small matter—it would make his autocratic father think twice before he again attempted to control his second son.

Turgoose pleaded, “Jude? You are jesting, aren’t you?
Aren’t
you?”

“No.” Jude smiled a sharp, predatory smile. “I don’t believe I am.”