Seduced by the Scoundrel (12 page)

‘I was just saying that I have no idea what to do about suitable clothing,’ her sister-in-law interjected.

‘I am sure I have something I can spare—we are much of a size, I suspect. If you tell the maid to come and see me, Sister, I will put out some clothes for Miss Heydon.’ She glanced down at the shocking trousers. ‘Do tell me, are those as comfortable as they look?’

‘They chafe rather when wet, but the freedom is a revelation, Miss Gordon. Thank you so much for offering to lend me clothing.’ Beside her, Lady Olivia tutted under her breath and urged her along the corridor.

‘The next door on the left, Miss Heydon. I will send the maid along.’ Averil found herself in a medium-sized bedchamber. Not a garret then. Perhaps Lady Olivia
would unbend still further when she saw Averil properly dressed.

Lord, but she was tired. And hungry. And thoroughly uncomfortable with damp clothes and dirty, tangled hair. As she thought it there was a tap at the door and a maid came in.

‘Good morning, miss. I am Waters, miss. There’s hot water and a bath on its way up. Would you like some breakfast afterwards? Miss Gordon said you probably would, before you go to sleep. Her woman’s bringing a nightgown and fresh linen and a gown.’ She ran out of words and stood, mouth slightly open, staring at Averil.

‘Thank you, Waters. I would like some breakfast very much. I expect you have been very busy with all the survivors brought here.’

‘Yes, miss. None of the ladies had trousers though, miss.’

‘Er, no, probably not. But I had to wear something, you see.’ There was a knock at the door and Averil made a hasty retreat behind the screens in the corner while thumps and the sound of pouring water heralded the arrival of the bath.

When she looked out there was another maid spreading a nightgown on the bed while Waters tucked items away in the dresser. ‘Here you are, miss. You’ll need some help with your hair, I expect.’

Averil shed her damp, sandy clothing with a sigh of relief. ‘Can these be washed and returned to Captain d’Aunay’s man, Ferris? He was sent to the kitchens for some food, but I don’t know where he’ll be now.’

‘Oh, yes, miss.’ Waters waited while Averil settled with a sigh of blissful relief in the warm water, then produced soap and a sponge and left Averil to wash
herself while she poured water over her hair and knelt to try to rinse out sand, salt and tangles.

It was pure bliss, despite the frequent tugs and tweaks at her hair. Averil lathered up the sponge and washed her hands and arms slowly, luxuriously, as she relaxed. And then she reached her body. The scented bubbles slid down the curves of her bosom and she looked at them as they crested the rosy nipples that peaked at the touch of the suds, ran over the slight swell of her belly, down to the point where the water veiled the dark curls. Her thighs rose above the surface, smooth and pink, marred with bruises and abrasions, and the innocent pleasure she was taking in the bath turned into something else entirely.

While she had been unconscious Luc had washed her naked body. His hands had lathered the strong soap that she had smelt on her skin, his eyes had rested on her breasts as his fingers had washed away the salt and the sand and cleaned her cuts. When she had woken she had felt clean—all over, so his attentions had not stopped with limbs and breasts—and yet, somehow, everything else that had happened, the shock and the grief and the fear, had stopped her thinking about the intimacy of the way he had cared for her.

She could feel the blush colouring her face and hoped the maid patiently working on her hair had not noticed. The realisation should have been mortifying, yet it was not, and she wondered why. Because she had come to trust him? Because she knew with a deep certainty that he had nursed her with integrity and not to gain gratification from her helpless body?

It was more than that, Averil realised as she started to stroke the sponge over her legs. It was erotic, and
just thinking about Luc’s hands on her body, slick with soap, was arousing her. It had never occurred to her that bathing might be part of lovemaking, but the thought of him kneeling here, beside the tub, produced a soft moan.

‘Oh, I am sorry, Miss Heydon! It is such a tangle I don’t know that I can do it without pulling a bit.’

‘Don’t worry, Waters, it was not you. I have so many bruises, I knocked one, that is all.’
I must stop thinking about him bathing me,
she thought as the maid, reassured, went back to tugging the comb thorough her hair. She made an effort and the phantom touch of Luc’s hands ceased.
What would it be like to bathe him? Oh, my goodness!
Averil made a grab for her toes and washed them with quite unnecessary vigour. It did not diminish the image of his naked body under her hands, slick with water and soap.

What would it feel like to run her hands into the dark hair on his chest, to follow it down as it arrowed into the water? Would he like it if she touched him there? Of course he would, he was a man. Very much a man.

And I am straying into very dangerous waters.
Averil dropped the sponge and wriggled her toes to rinse them. Luc d’Aunay was not for her and Andrew, Lord Bradon, was waiting for her in London. Or, more accurately, he was mourning her; she must send a message as soon as possible

‘There, miss. All clean and no tangles. We’d better be getting you dry and into bed before the food arrives.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Averil got to her feet, dripping, and reached for the towel the maid held out. She had washed Luc from her life as she had rinsed the last traces of soap from her skin. She was going to be Lady Bradon
and she was going to start thinking like a viscountess from this moment on. Her throat tightened. It was not going to be as easy as arriving on his doorstep to universal relief that she was not drowned.

‘I
f you feel sufficiently revived, perhaps we should discuss our tactics, Miss Heydon.’ The Governor put down his tea cup and the atmosphere in the drawing room changed subtly.

She had slept until woken in the early evening, dressed in her borrowed gown of dusky pink, had her hair coiffed and had walked in Miss Gordon’s silk slippers down to join the party for dinner.

Her reception had been gratifying. Lady Olivia nodded approval, Miss Gordon beamed at her and Sir George enquired kindly if she had slept well and felt rested. Luc had looked at her, expressionless, then bowed over her hand with what she could not help but feel was excessive politeness for a small family dinner. She had been entertaining the fantasy that he would be bowled over by the sight of her, elegantly gowned, her hair up, her femininity restored.

But of course, he needed no prompting to think of her as female. He knew, none better, that she was a
woman. But it was galling, despite her resolution, to be treated to such comprehensive indifference. Obviously, dressed and respectable, she was no longer attractive to him.

Now she felt them all looking at her. ‘Tactics, Sir George?’

‘For mitigating the consequences of your belated rescue,’ he said.

‘I have been thinking about it,’ she said with perfect truth. She had thought of nothing else since she had woken and very uncomfortable her reflections had been.

‘Indeed,’ he said before she could continue. ‘And Lady Olivia and I think the best thing would be for us to say nothing publicly about the time you have been … missing. I can write to Lord Bradon regretting that the fact that I was unaware of your betrothal. We will tell him that you have been unconscious for several days being cared for in a house elsewhere in the Isles. Both those statements are perfectly true and will give the impression that you have been with some respectable family all the time. What do you say to that?’

He was so obviously pleased with his solution, and so positive about it, that Averil found herself nodding her head before she realised what she was doing. Then her conscience caught up with her.

‘No! I am sorry, Sir George, but I cannot lie by omission and I cannot involve you and others in your household in a deception.’

‘Well, in that case,’ Lady Olivia said, ‘there is only one thing to be done. Captain d’Aunay must marry you.’

Luc’s
‘Non’
beat her own emphatic ‘No!’ by a breath. The other three stared at them.

Averil made herself breathe slowly in the long, difficult silence that followed. She felt as though she had been punched in the chest. Of course she did not want him to marry her, but he might at least have hesitated before repudiating the idea with such humiliating vigour! It was incredible how much that sharp negative hurt.

‘I have matrimonial plans,’ Luc said when it was obvious that she was not going to speak. His eyes were dark and hard and there was colour on his cheekbones under the tanned skin.

‘You are betrothed, Captain? Oh, dear, that does complicate matters.’

‘I am not betrothed, Sir George. But I am intending to marry a lady of the
émigré
community. A Frenchwoman. I see no reason why Miss Heydon cannot adopt your most sensible solution.’

‘Because it is a lie, as I said.’ She lifted her chin a notch and managed not to glare at him. That would have revealed too much of her feelings. ‘I am contracted to marry Lord Bradon and I intend to honour that contract. I shall go to him and tell him all.’

‘All what?’ Lady Olivia demanded.

‘That I was washed ashore, found by a group of men on a covert naval mission, protected by their officer and returned safely to your care, ma’am.’

‘Safely?’ There was no mistaking what the Governor’s wife meant.

Averil hung on to the ragged edge of her temper with an effort. ‘If you are enquiring if I am a virgin, Lady Olivia, the answer is, yes, I am.’ She managed, somehow, to say it in a chilly, but polite, tone of voice.

Miss Gordon gave a gasp and Sir George went red.
Luc merely tightened his lips and breathed out, hard. ‘I am glad to hear it,’ Lady Olivia retorted. ‘One only hopes that your betrothed believes you.’

‘Of course he will. He is, after all, a gentleman.’

The Governor’s wife inclined her head. ‘He is certainly that and will have expectations of his wife-to-be.’

‘I will call on Lord Bradon,’ Luc said. ‘He will wish to assure himself of Miss Heydon’s treatment.’

‘I do not think that would be wise,’ Averil said. ‘It would make it appear that there was something that needed explanation.’

Luc stared at her profile. He could not read this new Averil. The half-drowned sea nymph, the innocently passionate woman, the boy-girl in her borrowed clothes had all gone and in their place was this elegant young lady. The intelligence was there still, of course, and the courage and downright inconvenient honesty. But those attributes lived in the body of this elegant, angry, beautiful creature he did not know how to reach.

And what had possessed him to snap out that one word? In French, too, which somehow made it worse. A few seconds and he could have been politely supporting Averil. As it was, his reaction had been one of deeply unflattering rejection. He, the last of the d’Aunays, was not going to marry an English merchant’s daughter, however well brought up and however elegant her manners, but he could have managed the thing more tactfully.

‘I think it would be helpful if I were to speak to Miss Heydon alone.’ He had to explain, he could not leave it like this. He no longer had any responsibility for her, he could stop being concerned for her—thank the heavens—but even so, this must be ended properly.

‘I hardly think—’

‘If they were to stroll in the gardens, Sister?’ Miss Gordon intervened. ‘I could stay on the terrace as chaperone. The evening is balmy and the fresh air would be pleasant.’

‘Very well,’ Lady Olivia conceded.

Luc did not wait for her approval. He was on his feet, extending a hand to Averil, even as he said, ‘Thank you, Miss Gordon. Miss Heydon? It seems a very clement evening. It would be best if we could agree a mutually satisfactory approach to this, after all.’

‘Of course.’ Averil got up with grace, as though he had asked her to dance at a ball. ‘Thank you, Miss Gordon.’

It was not until they had walked in silence down the length of the path that bisected the long garden that he realised just how angry she was. She turned, slipped her hand from his forearm where it had been resting, and faced him. In the distance, well out of earshot, Miss Gordon strolled up and down the terrace.

‘How dare you!’

‘Averil, I have explained. You know who I am, what I am. I cannot marry—’

‘A merchant’s daughter,’ she spat.

‘An Englishwoman.’ Even as he equivocated he felt guilt at not matching her burning honesty.

‘That is not what I meant. Of
course
I don’t want you to marry me any more than you want to marry me, but could you not have trusted me to refuse? Did you think I want to trap you into marriage?’

‘No, I did not think that.’ Was that the truth? Why had he been so vehement? It had felt, for a second,
almost like fear. Fear of something he did not understand, something that would turn his world on its head. He tried to focus on the important thing, protecting her from the consequences of all this. ‘Lord Bradon may not understand. He does not know you as I do.’

‘That is most certainly true—no man does!’

‘Exactly. Averil, listen to me. He does not need to know about any of this.’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes, he does. This is the man I have promised to marry. I intend to spend the rest of my life with him and I will, God willing, bear his children. I cannot be anything less than honest with him just because I do not know him.’

He took her by the shoulders and pulled her round so he could see her face in the moonlight. ‘You will tell him that I found you naked, that I nursed you for days, that you slept with me in my bed?’

‘Certainly.’ If he did not know her so well he would have missed the slight shake in her voice. ‘It is only right that he knows that I am not quite what he expects me to be. But I am contracted. My father gave his word—’

‘You are not a shipload of tea that has been bought and paid for, damn it!’ He shook the rigid shoulders under his hands. ‘Forget this merchant’s obsession with contracts and use some sense. He will reject you out of hand if you tell him all this.’

‘I doubt it,’ she said, cool as spring water. ‘I have a very large dowry and I hope he is able to see beyond his male prejudices and recognise the truth when he hears it. Will you let go of me, please?’

He kept his hands right where they were. ‘You know he wants you for your money and yet you will humiliate
yourself by confessing all this to him? You talk about a lifetime together, children—do you think
he
thinks about these things?’

‘I am sure he thinks about children. This is, whatever you say, a business deal, a partnership with the succession a major factor. Don’t tell me that the marriage you are considering will be anything else—a love match, perhaps? You will buy a French bloodline to ally with yours. Would you want your wife to come to you with lies on her tongue?’

She shifted in his grip but he held tight to the slender shoulders. ‘Of course I would, if there was nothing serious to confess and if by speaking she ruined everything! Every marriage must contain secrets—and that way lies peace and coexistence. An arranged marriage is not some emotional entanglement.’ That was what he wanted. That was safe. No one could hurt your heart and your soul when neither of you cared deeply. He took another deep breath and tried to convince her.

‘You are a virgin, you are not carrying my child, I am never going to see you again once you leave this island. It is over, finished. Why ruin the rest of your life for nothing?’

‘Honour?’ Her tone made him flinch.

‘A woman’s honour lies in her chastity. You are a virgin.’ She gave a little sob that was not grief. Anger, perhaps, or frustration. ‘If you insist on this course then I must come with you. Bradon will want to call me out.
That
is a matter of honour.’

He must have jerked her closer without realising. His senses were flooded with the scent of her, the familiar Averil-scent of her skin mingling with the soap she had
bathed with and the musk of excited, angry female. His body stirred into instant arousal.

‘I have no intention of telling him who you are. This mission will remain secret, I assume? I cannot imagine that they will want it trumpeted that an admiral’s cousin has been involved in treason and was thwarted by a Frenchman. Do you think I want you swaggering in, provoking a duel? What if you are killed?’

‘I would not be the one killed. And I do not swagger.’

‘Ha!’ She tossed her head. ‘And if you kill my betrothed? Do you think that a duel could be kept secret? You will ruin me—for what? Your honour. Not mine.’

‘Damn it, Averil.’ What she said was the truth. If she insisted on doing this insane thing then he must stand aside and allow her to do it, at whatever cost to his own honour. ‘What will you do if he rejects you?’

‘I do not know.’ She stared at him, her face black and white and silver in the moonlight. He saw her bite her lip and a tremor ran through her, a vibration of fear under his hands. Then she collected herself. ‘He won’t. He wouldn’t.’

‘He might, he very well might. And then you
will
be ruined. Think of the scandal. Where will you go?’

‘I don’t know.’ There was that shiver again. Her brave front was just that—underneath she knew the dangers of what she was intending to do. ‘I suppose … I could always go home again.’

‘Or you could become my mistress.’ Even as he said it, Luc knew it was what he was hoping for. He wanted her and if Bradon rejected her the choices before her were few.

She could travel back to India, a perilous three-month
voyage with the shame of her story following her; she could seek, without support, to find herself a less fastidious husband or she could join the
demi-reps.

‘Your mistress?’ For a moment she did not seem to understand, then her whole body went rigid with indignation. ‘Why, you … you bastard! You don’t think I am good enough to marry, but you would keep me for your pleasure!’ She wrenched round, fighting his grip. ‘Let me go—’

Luc shifted his grip, afraid of hurting her, too aroused to release her. She thudded against his chest and he held her with one hand splayed on her back, the other in her hair, and kissed her.

He told himself it was to stop her creating a scene and bringing the others out into the garden. That degree of rational thought lasted long enough for him to open his mouth over hers and thrust his tongue between her tight lips as though he thrust himself into her virgin body. It was wrong, it was gloriously right, it was heaven. She tasted of wine and fruit and woman and he lost himself, drowning in her, until she twisted, jerking her knee up. If it were not for her hampering skirts she would have had him, square in the groin. As it was, her knee hit him with painful force on the thigh and he tore his mouth free.

‘How could you?’ she said, her voice as shaky as his legs had become. Luc took an unobtrusive grip on the statue base beside him and opened his mouth to apologise. Then he saw her face in the moonlight. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted, but it was not the face of a fearful woman, a woman who had been assaulted. It was the face of a woman in the throes of passion and
uncertainty. There was longing and fear and excitement; she was as affected by that kiss as he was.

‘You value honesty and truth,’ Luc said, ignoring her question. If he was right her words had been aimed as much at herself as at him. ‘Tell me that you did not want me to kiss you. Tell me that you do not want to be my lover. Make me believe you.’

‘You arrogant devil,’ she whispered.

‘Go on, tell me. Surely that is much easier than confessing what happened on St Martin’s to Bradon?’

‘It would be wrong. Sinful, if I felt like that.’

‘I asked for facts, not a moral judgement,’ he said and saw her flinch at his harshness.