Seven Secrets of Seduction (7 page)

“Surely.”

She shifted under his penetrating gaze. “Your butler or an underbutler? Your housekeeper? They could arrange them alphabetically. Solve the entire situation. It would be a privilege to be so challenged.”

Preserve the precious volumes. Reassemble the glorious room. Shift his energy—so focused upon her, the heft of it pressing into her—to something or someone else so that she could recall how to draw breath…

How easy it was to imagine how he had become the apple of the gossips' eyes. It wasn't just his looks or words, his seductive actions. It was an intangible piece of him straining at some bond, making the viewer wonder if perhaps this time the bond would snap. Fascinating and terrifying. For what might he do when it snapped? Might he be captured forever? Or would he destroy everything in his path?

“I do need someone to catalog and organize the
books so that I know what I have.” His gaze shifted away from her, the tension easing from her a bit, and he picked up the illumination she had placed on the chair.

“Very good, my lord.”

He tossed it on top of a shorter stack and sifted through a taller one until he found whatever it was he was looking for. From the gilt glow, another illumination. He handed it to her, and she automatically took it, relieved that he wasn't tossing it to the floor too.

“Be here tomorrow at nine then?”

“Yes, very…pardon me?” She clutched the book against her chest in sudden light-headed alarm.

“You have convinced me. Be here at nine. Wear something comfortable, I'd think. See you then.”

He turned and was halfway through the doorway before she caught him.

“I don't think you understood. Or that I understood, perhaps. I was merely suggesting that you find someone to do it for you.”

“And I have. Thank you.” He smiled, a seductive curve of full lips. He touched his fingers together, and suddenly a severely dressed, very sober man appeared.

“My lord, you are needed in the drawing room.”

“Very well, Jeffries. Please fetch Mr. Rutherford's books for Miss Chase before she leaves.”

Miranda spared a half-second look at the man with the name she had cursed. He didn't even look her way before nodding and melting back into the shadows. Did everyone in this house live in them?

“Good afternoon, Miss Chase.” The viscount began to stride away from her.

“Wait.” She hurried after him. “I'm not coming here tomorrow. You have your books from the store. Finally.
I'll be on my way. I'm sure that you have someone quite competent to help you.”

“But you are the most competent person I know,” he said as he kept walking. “I'm sure it will be a marvelous fit. I will pay well, of course.”

“You don't know me. And this isn't about payment.”

“No? Twenty pounds a week is not enough? Shall I increase it to fifty?”

“Twenty p—…fifty p—” she sputtered. “Are you mad?”

He turned a corner. “My brother delights in telling me so.”

“I can't possibly—”

He stopped abruptly, turning, and steadied her as she nearly ran into his chest.

“No?” He touched her gloved hand. His fingers were ungloved again today, not the same class breach of protocol here in his own home. It was a fleeting touch. Almost as if it were accidental.

Her verbal sputtering died abruptly and her blood took up its cause, her skin a thin barrier to the heat suddenly searing beneath.

“Your uncle thought you might enjoy the task. I know I would enjoy it if you'd agree.” His fingers brushed hers again as he tapped the book held tightly against her chest, forgotten in her flight after him. “Keep the text regardless. I know you will find my key. I'll see you tomorrow.”

Another fleeting touch, then he pulled on leather gloves—produced from a pocket somewhere—turned on his heel, and disappeared into a room. She caught sight of a few faces and heard hazy chatter before a footman closed the door.

She stood mute, her fingers absently tracing the gifted book's carved ivory—embellished with what looked like molten gold casting beacons through the shadows. Closer inspection showed two figures entwined. An early instruction manual for medieval dances?

Or…or something else entirely?

Like Pandora's box, rife with seduction, her fingers hovered to turn the page. To open a box that might leave her bereft in the end. With only hope to keep her going.

She traced the gilded lettering and turned the page.

Secret #3: Pull forth or use the unexpected. Create havoc and relish in the chaos. Put her off guard even if she is on guard at the same time.

The Seven Secrets of Seduction

 

H
er cheeks were still blazing hours later, the book tucked under first one dress, then two, then hidden as deep within the bowels of her cracked armoire as it was possible to go.

And still she could hear it softly crooning. Inviting her to uncover it once more and discover what else lay within.

No monk had created
that
illumination. Not something that contained such vivid descriptions and pictures. She hadn't even realized some of those things were
possible.

Come. Open me.

Perhaps if she were to stand the armoire on
top
of it, it would muffle the call.

Did a woman really…really
do
that type of thing to a man? And he in return? Was that what
The Seven
Secrets of Seduction
had truly meant by kneeling to pay one's tribute? She'd always thought it was a veiled reference to worshipping beauty or nature or some such thing.

Not an allusion to how one might
physically
pay tribute. The image of it rose in her mind, the viscount's dark eyes looking down at her in concupiscence. She hadn't even known what the word “concupiscence”
meant
, had never even
seen
the word, until the illumination had
shown
her.

To imagine the ardent desire searing from his eyes. At her.

She shot off her bed, tripping on her flimsy rug and catching the edge of her dented oak dressing table just in time to save herself from a face-first landing on the frigid boards.

She laughed nervously. She'd almost ended up on her knees anyway. But without the flesh-and-blood devil looming above her.

Her bare feet shuffled on the rug bunched beneath and finally found purchase on the cold-split boards, tucking her toes under to grip better. For once the cold did nothing to sap the heat from her skin.

She quickly tucked her feet into her sturdy work slippers and threw on the heavy, unattractive night robe she'd long ago borrowed from her father. She'd never cared before that it was so bulky and, well, ugly. It functioned well, it was warm, and in the dead of a cold London night, that was all that mattered.

Until one saw women in diaphanous gowns, split down the middle, enticing their prey on the other side of the page.

She tied the strap of her robe with suddenly clumsy fingers. The ink-stained, chapped edges of them gripped
the heavy layered cotton and pulled. What was wrong with her?

She quickly walked down to the kitchen to pour herself some milk and tea. A nighttime indulgence she was feeling in need of at the moment. A light sifted from underneath the door of the attached work office down the narrow hall. Her uncle was still awake then.

She'd seen payment for “library restructuring” on the ledgers, so the viscount had been serious when he'd said that her uncle had already approved her help, or, well,
someone's
help at least, but she hadn't been able to speak to her uncle yet as he'd been out late at a tradesman's meeting.

His office door was closed. Should she seek him out? There was something about asking him that would make it all the more real instead of a continued illusion. Perhaps he would even stop her from going the next day, having not agreed to the plan after all—a scheme devised by the viscount instead.

Why she was questioning
whether
she should ask her uncle was the real question.

She wandered over slowly and paused outside the door. She could hear the scritch of her uncle's pen. It would take but a knock on the door and a quick word to take care of the entire question. He might say that he planned to send Peter. He might stop her from going. Forbid her from it.

And if he didn't, if he was just the absentminded man she had grown quite fond of in the past two years, then she could tell him that it was highly improper for her to go. Convince him to send one of the others instead.

Her feet didn't move. Her hands stayed at her sides. The light filtered through the bottom of the door, undimmed.

Somewhere inside her she knew that it would have to be her choice. Her uncle had already sent her to return the books without a thought to any proprieties being violated. What difference would her going to work on the viscount's library make in his mind? She would simply be another servant for a time.

She looked at her chapped hands. And why would she think otherwise, anyway? What sort of perverse spell had the viscount cast? Or cruel joke did he play? To make her Malvolio? To seduce her into wearing yellow stockings and cross garters?

But to feel his hands upon her, caressing
her
stockings, those fleeting touches turned into more…

She shivered, the chill of the night finally catching up and sifting under the hem of the robe, under her equally unattractive, worn nightgown. Icy tendrils clawing her calves.

She took a step back, then another. She would go. The viscount's words had held the ring of truth. She would worry about any decision she needed to make another day. There was always tomorrow to decide.

 

She was still chewing her lip the next morning as she approached the kitchen door to the grand house once more.

One of the maids from the day before, the one with the poor balance, was digging in a vegetable garden to the side with another servant. She looked up as Miranda drew closer.

“Cor, you are the girl from the bookshop.”

Miranda switched her weight to her other foot as the second servant, a middle-aged woman also looked up. “I am from a bookshop, yes.”

“What you doing back here?”

Miranda shifted her weight again, uncomfortable at the echo of the question in her own mind. “I am helping to organize the library.”

“Cor, girl, I know why you are here. What you doing
back
here instead of up front?” The maid motioned down the drive.

“This is the entrance,” Miranda said, her discomfort rising.

“For us, not you. No need for traipsing the sweaty kitchens.”

“I was hired—”

“Girl, don't care what you think your purpose is, your entrance is up front. Cook'll have my tail.”

“Again,” she thought she heard the other maid mutter.

“I don't think you understand—”

The maid shrugged. “I know you are supposed to go to the front.” She pointed. The other woman nodded sharply.

Miranda considered her options but bowed to the command and turned around. She'd likely be sternly put in her place up front, but there was something more unsettling about barreling past the two servants, who were eyeing her so curiously.

She trod back down the long drive and turned the corner to see Jeffries in the doorway, imperiously beckoning her inside as if she were an expected guest instead of a laborer.

She tripped over a stone but righted herself. She turned behind her, sure that there must be someone there to whom he was motioning; but only two gardeners strode the path, neither of whom were looking at the butler. She turned back to the entrance, and once again the butler beckoned her forth.

It was as if the news of her arrival had reached the front of the house before she had.

“Good afternoon, Miss Chase. May I take your coat?” She was a little stunned as she shed the garment, barely remembering her manners.

“Yes, please. Thank you, Mr. Jeffries.”

“Shall I show you to the library?”

She stared at him. A head butler didn't “show” servants. At most an underbutler might direct a new hire on where to go, but Miranda had expected to be assigned a random housemaid, or the housekeeper, if the latter felt her authority needed to be established over the new girl.

Then again, a viscount wouldn't pick up a package of books from a store. Who knew what sort of crazed household they ran.

“I—That would be nice, thank you.” She remembered the way but knew better than to say so. Her mother had drilled protocol into her, hoping that she might follow in her footsteps one day. The ladies who ran the academy had been disappointed when she had not.

“This way.” He bowed, but it was obvious from his tight manner that he did not approve of her. She opened her mouth to say, “I'm only here to organize the library,” but that would sound silly beyond measure.

Two maids they passed in the hall stopped what they were doing to watch her—one surreptitiously and the other quite openly. The glances were repeated throughout the house.

If there were ever a day when she felt quite as on display and out of belonging as today, she wasn't sure she had lived it yet. She hadn't realized what a relief it was sometimes to blend into the woodwork.

They reached the library, finally, and she nearly
gave in to the urge to run inside and firmly close the door behind her.

“A lunch tray will be brought for you.”

“Oh, no, I can walk to the—”

Jeffries held up his hand. “No need to trouble yourself, Miss Chase. We will be happy to bring a tray to you. Is there anything else you require?”

She shook her head, nothing springing to mind. She couldn't think when she was this on edge.

“Then good day, Miss Chase.” He bowed, another tight movement. “Please ring should you require anything.”

The movement and the way he said it stated that he very likely expected her to do so. Repeatedly.

It spoke to the types of guests they had entertained in the past. What that said for her she didn't know.

Clipped footfalls faded into the silence of the hallway. Servants were so skilled at moderating their movements to being as quiet as possible in the common areas and halls. Not disturbing their masters. Only the back rooms and kitchens would have a jubilant air. Something that proclaimed them as individual spirits.

Sometimes she wished she could return to the country but not be remembered as the daughter of a strict, well-respected academic, expected to be proper at all times. To go somewhere where all she had to do was enjoy the pleasant diversions of village life. Live in her books and find solace in the forests.

But some forests weren't made of trees. She looked around the large, airy room choked by the stacks of towering books. The room would look beyond marvelous when reassembled. She walked through the plugged space, around the stacks, touching a binding here, picking up a copy there. She couldn't believe that the
entire shelf space was bare. Whatever had occurred in the viscount's mind to cause him to remove every copy, then shuffle them all together?

Such random thinking, the Quality possessed. Do what is on the forefront of the mind and leave someone else to clean it up. She supposed that was what came of having manors full of money. Things like time and effort didn't even enter into the equation.

She cursed the crazy temptation that had lodged within her, enticing her here once more.

She stroked a copy of the
Aeneid
. The treat of discovering all of the treasures within was enticing by itself, though the actual task of organizing them might as well have been given to Psyche by Aphrodite herself.

But the other reason for coming…a purely flesh-and-blood reason…she shook her head and deliberately focused on the Herculean task before her. She lifted the book, sighed, and dropped into a chair located in the middle of the hurricane.

It would take a week just to partially sort through them and discern which categories to use and where, depending on the breadth of the subjects. Of course, she could easily organize the books into alphabetical categories as they did in the store. Though some of the grand houses preferred a straight alphabetical listing. And some went by merit. Or by the sizes of the volumes, as someone had done in the viscount's study below—maybe by the viscount himself.

She snorted at the last.

“If it is too big a task…”

She jerked to see the viscount silhouetted in the doorway, hands in his dark pockets, brow raised. An invitation or challenge in the way he stood.

She straightened in her chair, her heart suddenly
lodged and thumping in her throat. “I was just pondering how to begin.” She gripped the book in her hand, trying to calm her nerves. She had half expected,
anticipated,
him to appear based on the previous days' conversations, but it was still a shock.

Like something exquisitely formed from the inky letters and drawings of the books and papers she read, the stark black-and-white character stepping forth from the page and onto the Aubusson rug hugging the floor at the room's entrance.

“Did you want them organized in a certain sequence?” she blurted in a rush of words trying to corral her thoughts. “Is there a way you'd prefer?”

He sauntered into the room, one hand caressing the crown of a stack as he read the words written on a spine. “What care have I? Other than for them to be in good order.”

She tried to keep the jumpiness in her fingers from showing. “For someone with so many books and such desire to obtain new copies, you seem awfully ambivalent about them.”

“I know their power and impact. It is all about perception, is it not, Miss Chase?”

She studied him. “I like to think it is about content, Lord Downing. But perception does lay a gloss on the surface. A finger must but swirl beneath.”

He breached the chasm between them and sank onto the arm of the chair next to hers. Far too close. Looming next to her, over her. The only saving grace was that he was perched on the arm farthest from her.

“Then what do you do with it?” His lips moved in a beautiful fashion. Such a contrast to the starkness he at times projected.

She somehow managed to answer him, the automatic
response forming. “I organize it, of course.”

A faint smile curled his mouth, and a vague buzzing tickled her senses as she watched his beautiful lips part, then come together. “So literal, yet again.”