Seven Secrets of Seduction (21 page)

She wanted to experience it again. The wild cavorting that couldn't be captured on paper. His breath shivering over her skin. His hands pulling the ice from her bones, filling her with fire instead. His eyes dark and shining in the moonlight, something written there that she couldn't yet translate. The sound of her name falling huskily from perfect lips.

“I would dearly love to see which page has you so engrossed, Miranda.”

The warm, whispered words hit the back of her neck and she jolted. The book dropped from her fingers. She scrambled to catch it, dark hair and onyx eyes swimming in her vision as he reached around her and captured it. Her fingers hit a solid, warm hand—perfectly bare once again. She wrenched away, knocking the book from his hand, and lost her balance.

Solid, warm arms encircled her. The thrill ignited as if it had never dimmed.

From the pen of Miranda Chase

 

H
is hands clasped around her waist, feeling as if they belonged there the same way they had at Vauxhall.

The last week had been dreadful. Becoming involved in family drama long wished forgotten, pushing against Miranda's pull, drowning in the madness of the entire scheme. Hating himself for what he had done. What he would do.

And then he'd been unable to ignore it any longer. The pull toward her.

He felt her slight shiver and smiled into her hair, the fresh vanilla scent washing over him. Real and solid. Someone he could return to at the end of a trying day. A trying week.

His hands clutched more fiercely against her waist, and then skimmed down. He toed the book, flipping it open in front of her on the floor, a rather detailed depiction of a man taking a woman from behind visible on the page. He could
feel
the color rise to her cheeks.

“Interesting. Miss Chase, what
have
you been up to in my absence?”

“Nothing,” she squeaked.

“Nothing?”

“Just organizing,” she said quickly, trying to escape. But not forcefully enough for him to release her. He smiled against the soft strands at the top of her hair.

“I regret that I haven't been around for your
organizing
sooner.” He toed the book again, putting it prominently in her view, and moved his hands to her hips in the exact position that the man on the page held.

“Your lordship,” she whispered on a breath. “What are you doing?”

“You have cleared quite a path through this room. If only to get to the tomes you are more interested in, hmmm?”

He'd argued with himself, hunched over his desk days after Vauxhall. Then he'd thrown in his cards and decided if he was going to do the thing, he might as well do it with all of his chips in the pot. It was all written there in front of him that as long as he continued his path, he would get what he desired.

And his desire was not going to change, no matter what the suppressed voice at the back of his mind whispered.

Of a much higher price he'd have to pay.

He let her wiggle free.

She smoothed her dress along her hips. “You have many interesting books.”

“Some more than others.” He smiled lazily and was pleased with the reaction on her face.

She bent and scooped the fallen book, cheeks rosy as she quickly closed the cover and set it upon the shelf nearest her. She paused a moment, then her chin came up, and her expression smoothed into pleasant lines, the heat hidden beneath a carefully constructed barrier. “I trust that you have had a pleasant week?”

She moved away from him and over to the stack she must have been sorting before he'd entered. He had entered to see her flipping through the book, brows furrowed, lower lip drawn between her teeth, engrossed. He'd simply stood and watched her for a long moment, breathing the scene in before he had become too curious over what she was reading.

Too curious period, he had held himself away too long.

“The week has been…interminable.” Endless, really.

“Oh?” She lifted one book, then another, the hair nearest her face falling against her cheeks, hiding her expression. “That is a shame.” Her voice was pleasant, cool.

She took the books to the shelves and placed them in different spots, then returned to the stack.

The side of his mouth curled in amusement. “Are you trying to ignore me?”

“I am merely performing the task you set for me, your lordship.”

A week of dealing with Colin, their mother, his other siblings, Charlotte Chatsworth and her father, Dillingham and Easton. His father.

That had been the most trying. Always was. For all her obvious faults and flakiness, his mother was easy
to anticipate. Her motives transparent. His father's never had been.

“And also trying to ignore me, I think.” He took her hand in his, slowly pulling the book from her fingers. A week of hating himself for how he had left her. For what he had done. “Are you wroth with me?”

“Why would I be?”

“For not reappearing after a lovely night in the gardens?”

For ignoring her for reasons he dared not name. Decisions made in the dark of night to perhaps change his course and embark on a new tack. Fear, an emotion he didn't often deal with, lacing his thoughts. That he might make an irreparable mess of the whole thing and lose her completely.

“I have no reason to be angry with you. You are free to do as you please.” She looked away from him. “There is no commitment between us, other than for my work here.” She looked back to him, actual sincerity beneath the lingering irritation. “It was a nice dinner, and I thank you for taking me.”

That she was thanking him made him feel like the lowest cad. He
was
the lowest cad.

“You make it sound as if I simply sold you some shoes.”

“I am expressing my gratitude.” Fire lit in her eyes. “I am not the disingenuous one.”

“You
are
wroth with me.” He was pleased at the decided snipe in her voice. Fire he could work with. If she broke into tears, he just might offer to stick a sword in his own gut.

She pursed her lips and gathered another stack. “Why ever would I be angry with you?”

“Why don't you tell me.”

She tilted her head for a second as if thinking, then said, “No,” and continued her trek.

“No?”

“No.”

“Well, that hardly seems fair.”

“Are you speaking to me of fairness, your lordship?”

He raised a brow. “Is it a subject that is disallowed?”

“You deliberately seduced me in the garden.”

He smiled. “That is hardly newsworthy or aggravating. I have been trying to seduce you for weeks now.” Months.

“No, not that. You
nefariously
seduced me.”

“Nefariously seduced you?” His lips quirked automatically.

“You did it to create an overriding scandal.”

Ice crept into his bones. He knew he shouldn't have left her to her own devices for so long. She was far too perceptive. It was part of what had drawn him to her in the first place.

That and the keen desire to be someone better. To be the apple of her eye, not to let the pleasure of that go to some anonymous source.

“You think that I feel the need to grace the gossip pages?”

She tapped her finger against the book in her hand. “I don't know. Do you?”

“No. In fact, I'll retire to the country. Live a pleasant bare existence.” He tilted his head at her snort. “If only you'll but come with me.”

Ah. There was the color he loved, blooming under her skin. The jump in her pulse. The lovely awareness in her eyes.

“You are not amusing.”

“No?”

“No. Is this part of your plan to stave off boredom? To tug me to and fro? To use me in order to divert the gossip?”

“May I use you in such a manner? Spread you fully over the paper, crinkling the pages beneath you?”

She colored more deeply and lifted her chin. “You probably could, should you set your mind to it. I am hardly much of a challenge to the likes of you.”

She discounted herself far too often. He wanted to dress her in silks and satins, dress her in nothing at all. Teach her all of the ways that she was intoxicating.

There was too much passion there waiting to be released. And perhaps if he were just seeking a physical game—like he had planned at first—then she wouldn't pose much of a challenge. He could have methodically continued to seduce her. Turned the entire scene at Vauxhall to furthering his cause. The masked, illicit encounter. Freedom for her to be scandalous.

He could have approached her again the next day. Probably had his way with her right here on the library floor, or in the chair, or up against the wall. Thrusting into her, sating his physical thirst for her, swallowing every lovely cry she was sure to utter, watching her eyes drunk with passion.

But he hadn't been able to do it. The path of seduction had grown murky and deadly. He no longer wanted a simple physical response from her. He had been deluding himself into thinking that he ever did.

And he didn't want his own response to be simply physical. Therein lay the true danger now.

So he had banned himself from the house and given his parents their ultimatums. Then he'd gone to plant
the seeds for a mad alternative quest. The start of his own destruction, surely. For any sort of permanence never ended well.

He smiled without humor, and her brows drew together at the expression. He smoothed out the lines of his face intentionally.

“There is still our challenge.”

“Did you seduce your governess before she finished your lessons on mathematics?” She plopped a stack of books onto a shelf. “The week has long since passed. And you won.”

“Not in my heart, I didn't.” Not in the seeds of his demise.

“If I believed in its existence, perhaps I could concur.”

“Oh, it is there. Shriveled and bound. Just waiting for you to set it free.”

“You are an unrepentant tease, your lordship.”

“As I said previously, a tease doesn't follow through.” He stretched a finger along a strip of softly bound leather.

“An
emotional
tease. You are physically quite happy to follow through, but you make far too many empty promises concerning your feelings.”

It took effort to call forth a sunny smile, a breezy, languid look. He nodded to the stacks of unopened gift boxes in the corner. “Did you not enjoy my presents?”

She gave him a dark look. “I question their existence.”

“A token of my affection. A nod to your acceptance of the challenge.”

“A handwritten note would have sufficed.”

Of course it would have. For above all else, he knew
she treasured such. But it was the one thing that was out of the question.

“Not a declaration of my affections?” he said lightly.

Her eyes narrowed.

He walked toward her. Her back and shoulders tightened as he neared. “Come with me.”

“No.” But he saw the shiver there at her nape.

“You do not even know where I wish to take you.”

“I am sure that I will be at a disadvantage no matter where it is.”

“If so, it would be a change. You more frequently have the advantage over me.”

Honest and irritated disbelief darkened her features as she crossed her arms. In truth,
his
advantage was only maintained by her not knowing how accurate his statement was.

He kept his voice light. “Then come with me because I promise you will find it a treat.”

“I'm busy.” She pointed at the stacks around her.

He smiled lazily. “And I'm the boss.”

Her shoulders tightened further and she turned. He wished he could see her face. She thumped the books down, obviously irritated if the less-than-gentle way they hit the others below them was any indication. Her face was unreadable when she faced him once more. Her expression clear.

It unnerved him. Was he corrupting her already then? Dragging her into his hell?

“Very well.”

 

Miranda didn't trust the slow smile that spread across his face, not for a second. Not with the darkness reflected in his eyes, beneath the temptation. As
if he was mortally wounded and needed her to find the injury, to heal the harm.

He turned, and she followed him from the room. Down the hall. Her ire thumped along with the beat of her too-fast heart, and her brows drew together as he entered the room that had been designated as hers.

If he thought he was going to finish what he had started in the gardens of Vauxhall right now, then she would quickly disabuse him of the notion.

She hadn't been in the room since that night. There had hardly been any reason to visit after all. And she had felt distinctly as if she didn't belong.

He touched the armoire at the side, sliding his fingers along the wood, crooking them into the notch and opening it. A selection of beautiful gowns hung inside.

They all looked to be her size. As if they had been continuously delivered throughout the week, populating the belly of the wooden chamber as soon as they were sewn.

Some seamstress at Madame Galland's assuredly had pricked and sore fingers. And a fatter purse.

She swallowed, touching her own fingers together through her gloves. Feeling the urge to touch the gowns even as she pushed against the idea of it all.

“This one.” His thumbs smoothed a path down the fine green muslin of the gown on the left. He rubbed the edge between the pads of his fingers, then lifted and draped it against her like a lady's maid might. Except the sweep of the dress rested across the bared upper skin of her throat, the hanger dangling over her shoulder, sliding down a fraction, the back of his knuckles caressing her…all of it in a way that no servant would dare. “Yes, perfect.”

She cleared her suddenly dry throat. “Perfect for what, your lordship?”

“I really think you should call me Maximilian. Or Max. Or Maxim, if you like.”

He said it lightly, the offering of the name only his family dared call him, but there was something there under the words. A thread that caused her ire a momentary pause.

“Given names are used only by those quite familiar to each other.” Her ire crept back in. “Such as those who might speak every day.”

The edges of his lips curved invitingly. “I really must make you wroth with me more often.” He let the dress slip farther down, the edge of the hanger lightly tickling the sensitive pulse of her throat. “And I must rectify your notion that we aren't yet familiar with each other. I plan to be quite familiar with you, Miranda.”