Seven Secrets of Seduction (8 page)

To adventure into the figurative meanings of his words was where the inherent danger resided. The insidious echo of a
soon
sounded in her mind. To feel those assuredly warm and capable lips upon her.

No. Best to start out as she wished,
needed,
to continue when it came to the viscount.

“I find plain speaking less confusing,” she said.

“And yet are you not the one who likes to think that there is underlying meaning to seductive words and silly guides? That is nothing, if not figurative.”

She tried to shake off the heavy feeling that had descended. She focused on his eyes instead. Stygian portals and mercurial darkness. “Books allow readers to determine what they wish. People often aren't quite as forgiving if you don't read or see exactly what they wish you to.”

He shifted on the chair arm, looking up at the bare shelves. Something shifted in his eyes as they caught the stacks. “So where will we begin?”

“‘We'? Begin what?”

“With the books.” His dark eyes connected back with hers. “What else could I mean?”

With the way he said it and the look in his eyes, it was obvious that he meant something quite different.

“I am fine on my own.”

His eyes traveled her face, studying her, leaning just an extra inch toward her, urging her to pull forward too. “No one is fine on his own. People just say they are.”

“I assure you that I am quite content.”

He touched the edge of the chair. A studied gesture. “Contentedness is not happiness.”

“I like to think that contentedness is synonymous.”

The intensity of his gaze increased. “Which is why you beg to be transformed.”

Miranda tried to stay her breathing and think of Georgette instead, who thought the same. “Perhaps you would care to meet a friend of mine? She would be quite willing to be transformed.”

“No. I am quite satisfied with my choice of you.”

She swallowed, searching for anything that might allow her to escape from the intensity of his gaze. “Your lordship, forgive my bluntness, but don't you have other activities requiring your time?”

And where were his servants? Silent or not, servants were always about in grand houses. Even in the presence of their masters, they melted into the shadows, ever ready. But she hadn't seen hide nor hair of one—even in the hall door—since he'd entered.

“I veritably survive on your bluntness, my dear. And I can hardly leave you in here on your own.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending. She was quite used to blending into the shadows herself and not being noticed. She was akin to his staff after all, on par with their status. When she was on deliveries—or even when she had helped at the academy—she had learned how to be neither seen nor heard.

“You need my help,” he said.

“I do not.” She didn't know that she would survive any kind of help he might give.

“I know just the trick too.” He slid from the arm into the belly of the chair. Like a country boy on a
haystack rather than a lord in his manor. He reached out a hand and pulled hers to him.

She stared at him, caught. Long fingers, ungloved, stroked down her sleeve, to the frill at the edges, then over her lilac glove. Her breath caught as one finger dipped into the bowl of her palm and pulled.

His lips curved as his eyes held hers. He was so close. Uncomfortably close, leaning across the chair next to her, chairs she would have pulled apart if she'd had any thought that someone else might sit there.

He pulled and she leaned forward just a bit, following the pull, unable to stop herself from it as his dark gaze bewitched her. Using some masculine magic—a sailor's call to a siren, instead of the other way around.

He smiled and held the spell a second longer before leaning back just the slightest bit, lifting weight from her palm. Her lips parted on their own. This is what it was like to fall under a spell then, she realized. To even feel the imagining beneath one's skin.

His eyes dropped. “The
Aeneid
. Alphabetizing by title?”

It took her a second to realize that he had just removed a book from her hand. A book she'd forgotten she was holding.

“I—No. Yes. That is—”

He raised a brow.

She snatched the book back. “You are trying to lure me.”

“Lure you?”

“Yes.” She hugged the book to her chest. “Stop it.”

“I don't know of what you speak.”

“Sirens.”

“I think you have the wrong book.” He leaned back and knocked the top portion of a stack down with a flick of his wrist, somehow keeping the bottom half stable. The twenty or so books on top fell in an avalanche, toppling the stack next to it and threatening the one after, crashing to the floor in awkward heaps, set adrift on a sea of pages.

She half rose. “Your lordship!”

He ignored her cry and idly flicked another book off the top of the stack, letting it crash with the others. He picked up the next one, surveyed the cover, then offered it. She took it without thought, glancing down.

“The
Odyssey
?”

He tapped the cover twice, the tremors vibrating up the book and through her fingers.

“Sirens.”

She stared at the cover, then up at him. “Do you do it to everyone?”

“Do what? Offer a book?” But his lazy posture belied a coiled thread, like the core of a willow when it was anticipating a wind.

“Try to seduce them?”

He relaxed into his chair, an odd reaction. She would think a person challenged abruptly would tense. “Is that what you think I am doing? Seducing you?”

It was ludicrous, of course. Everything about it ridiculous. A viscount with means and attraction—an overly virile presence. And she a lowly bookworm with little of either. Yet there was something bone deep within her that stated it the truth. Something even beyond the book buried in her room—the licentious text he had given her.

“Yes. I do.”

He smiled. A feline smile full of nocturnal secrets. “Why, Miranda. I'm shocked.”

“You are hardly shocked, my lord. I think you highly amused.”

His smile grew languid. “I am at that.”

His amusement vied with some distinctly male satisfaction. And there was almost a
fondness
there that she didn't understand.

“You consider me some sort of challenge?”

“I consider you the answer to a question that resides in my very soul.” His eyes held hers, an intensity there that she didn't understand.

A knock sounded at the door. The viscount didn't so much as glance away.

He waved in the direction of the door without looking, but she glanced over to see Jeffries bow and disappear back through. She turned back to see the viscount still watching her.

“I think you are needed,” she said. She needed him to leave. Needed him to get out and stop putting strange, illicit thoughts in her head.

“And here I thought it would take far longer for you to admit to it.”

“By your
staff
.”

“Only?”

“Yes,” she said firmly, squishing down any thoughts to the contrary.

“Pity.”

He continued to watch her, one finger tapping the arm of the chair in thought.

“Lord Downing? I'll think the saying that madness runs in the wealthy is true if you continue to sit there and stare at me like that.”

She half expected him to take offense, but instead he simply smiled. “Shall we initiate a challenge?”

“What? No,” she said quickly, automatically sensing danger.

“You don't even know what I was going to suggest.”

“I'm sure that it would be to my disadvantage. Knowing what I do of you from the papers.”

His eyes tightened momentarily. “Ah, an even greater incentive then. I duly need to be brought to heel, don't you agree?”

She stared at him.

“Ever since I heard you nattering on about looking beneath the surface, I've been slightly adrift.” He tilted his head toward her. “You will show me what you mean.
If
you can.”

“What I mean?”

“Try to convince me that the Serpentine is not boring. That the theater is not full of the same idiotic play. That the breeze in late spring shows a whisper of the gods.”

She stared at him. That last bit was almost…poetic. She touched the cover of the
Odyssey.
“I am not the one you should be asking. That is what I said about Eleutherios's work.”

“Fine. We'll use that.” His lips curved. “Use that rattle-pate guide to show me all of these strange and wonderful new things.”

There had to be a catch somewhere. “And?”

“And I'll use it to seduce you.”

She continued to stare at him, as if he had rendered her incapable of movement, frozen her with a Medusan strike.

His lips curved fully, and he raised a brow. “You
are the one who initiated the challenge, in truth. In your bookshop.”

“I—I did nothing of the kind.”

“Oh, you certainly did. Besides, there is much for you to gain by accepting. If you succeed…” He drew his finger along the arm of the chair. “I may be able to find a copy of
The Bengal
. And perhaps a cuff designed by Tersine.”

She disregarded the outrageous offer of diamonds and focused on the more pertinent piece of the bribe.
The Bengal
? Her uncle would push her into a hack and direct her to show the viscount
whatever
he wanted if she could obtain a copy. He would sit on top of the carriage and call out directions to wherever they needed to go. And her uncle disliked traveling by carriage only slightly less than she did.

She could see by the viscount's face that he was well aware of her uncle's desire. But she could barely breathe seated next to the man now. And she was to offer herself up as a conquest?

“How would you measure my success?” Her mouth moved without the express permission of the rational part of her mind. Something else, her own desire perhaps, curled around, covering her good sense like a tendril of ivy creeping over stone.

“Well, that is dependent on you. Me? I'll be working to have
you
whispering to the gods.” He smiled. Slowly. Fully. All lovely lips and chiseled features. “We'll see who
bends
first.”

It felt as if her heart would beat clear of her chest at any moment.

“You are going to seduce—” She cleared her throat forcefully. “
Try
to seduce me?”

“I thought I had been quite direct on the point.”

“But that is ridiculous.”

“You don't care for people saying what they mean?”

“The notion of your
seducing me
is ridiculous.”

“I might take that as a blow to my confidence if I had any concept of humility.” The look in his eyes, full of the lazy strength he always projected, said that he was deliberately misinterpreting her words. “I might fail.” He waved a hand. “Then you will be all the richer.”

“I, I can't.”

“You don't want the copy of
The Bengal
? I'll tell you what. I will give it to you just for agreeing and seeing the challenge through for a week. And the cuff too. I've heard all the ladies desire one.”

Her uncle would kill her for refusing. But everything about the proposal and the silken way he uttered the seemingly casual words screamed, “
Danger! Crumbling cliff ahead!
”

She swallowed. “Where would I wear such a piece?”

“Wherever you wish.”

She stared at him. She'd just mosey on down to the market with a fortune in diamonds dripping from her wrist.

“No hidden strings attached as long as you accept the challenge. Just one measly week.”

When she continued to stay silent, he leaned toward her with an intensity she couldn't define. “Do it for me,” his husky voice wrapped around her. “Try and teach me what you see.”

The syllables, the heat, caressed her skin, looking for ways to lock her inside.

“Very well.”

Had that been her breathless voice accepting?

He smiled, and her heart thumped in her chest. “Excellent. I can't tell you how pleased that makes me.”

He leaned toward her another few inches. She remained frozen in place as his lips grazed her ear. “I promise that I will make the bending very pleasant.”

Each word curled inward. Her chest felt unexpectedly heavy—lifting and straining against her dress, which suddenly felt one size too small. His cheek brushed hers as he slid back, the edge of his mouth touched the edge of hers. Her eyes closed of their own will. A corner of her stone rationality crumbled as she wondered what being kissed truly felt like. Would it be like the wonder of finding a new, beloved book? Or the awe of seeing fireworks lighting the sky?

She felt the edge of his mouth curl. “Such temptation that I can't resist,” he whispered, the words barely audible above the pounding of her blood, around the dampened perception of everything else in the room that wasn't him.

If he but turned a hair to the left. If she but turned one to the right…

He rose suddenly, a swish of warm skin, then cold air. “Shall I send some men to help you?”

She let out her breath, eyes jerking open to blindly stare at the books littering the floor. Had she just accepted a challenge to be seduced by one of the most notorious men in the land? And then almost literally caved within the prologue of the contest?

“I believe I might need to reorganize first,” she said as well as she could manage. Reorganize, in both body and mind.

“Ah, I must make up for my carelessness with the stacks. I've caused you extra work.” The deliberate misinterpretation of her words struck her again, even
through the haze. Signaling the games he might play to win.