Sweetest Little Sin (11 page)

SHE was sitting by the window, gazing out, when he walked into the villa he’d bought for her under an assumed name. She always sat there when he came. Jardine wondered if she ever moved from that spot, if she even noticed the pretty stand of willows with the stream running through it.

He’d done his best for her. But it wasn’t enough.

She must have heard him walk in, but she did not turn her head to look at him or greet him by name. He knew the reason. Even after all these years, he wasn’t forgiven.

He’d done his duty by her. By God, he’d given her every comfort money could buy. Staff to see to her needs day and night. A generous allowance to spend however she chose. He’d freed her from her former life. He’d even tried to give her himself, though the attempt had cost him dearly. But she’d spurned his pious, grudging gesture, and rightly so.

“Celeste.”

“Yes, Marcus?” She didn’t turn her head.

A flash of annoyance quickly fizzled to pity. She didn’t want him looking at her face. Vanity had not fled with the passage of time, nor with the ruin of her once-spectacular looks. “I have to go away. I came to see if you needed anything.”

Her husky voice, as remote as her gaze, answered him. “No, Marcus. I don’t need anything.” She paused. “Why should I?”

But she did need something. Many things. All of them beyond his power to give.

And it seemed hard, so very hard, not to resent her.

Because she was the living reminder of all he stood to lose.

SURELY, it was a mean-spirited person who would not take joy in her own mother’s delirious happiness. Surely, if she were truly selfless, she wouldn’t feel the tiny, poisonous barb of envy pierce her skin every time Millicent extolled the virtues of her prospective husband. Nor would she have to force the words through tight lips when her approval of yet another item in her mother’s lavish, endless trousseau was paraded before her.

But misery was a selfish beast, and Louisa couldn’t help feeling thin paper cuts of pain every time she remembered that she would never know the joys of a husband and children or a household of her own, even for the first time.

Perhaps she couldn’t prove her marriage, but it had happened, all the same. She’d taken those vows and she’d meant every word. She could not cast them off as lightly as a winter cloak.

The memory of Jardine’s mouth against hers, his hands on her body returned, an aching torment. It was the height of cruelty, the way he took advantage of her weakness, time and again, despite rejecting her in the most brutal terms. A crime that she could never resist him. She loved him, and that made it so hard to say no.

She despised herself for giving in, but she could never seem to refuse him, even when she’d steeled herself time and again against his wiles.

“You don’t think this is too much like mutton dressed up as lamb, darling?” Millicent’s light voice broke into her thoughts.

Her mother pirouetted before the cheval glass in her boudoir, clad in a sprigged muslin gown that made her look like a debutante.

“Not at all, Mama. You are a picture to gladden any man’s heart.”

Millicent’s features lit like moon glow. “Do you really think so, Louisa? You have such exquisite taste. I rely on your opinion utterly.”

“When you begin to resemble any species of livestock, I assure you, I shall be the first to comment upon it.”

Millicent tilted her head, giving her own reflection another doubtful survey. “Are you quite certain? Because I had thought these ribbons might be too fussy.”

Louisa took a deep, calming breath.

The air was fragrant with lilac blossoms—overpoweringly so. Thank the good Lord above that her mother’s wedding was set for the following week.

Smiling a little, Louisa pictured Woolly relating his plans for Millicent’s entertainment abroad. Nothing could have been more calculated to please her mother in every respect. Millicent was more fortunate than she knew.

The door opened and Finch announced, “A Mrs. Burton has sent up her card, ma’am.”

Millicent’s vigorously plucked brows drew together. “Mrs. Burton, you say? Why didn’t you deny me, Finch? I am not receiving visitors today.”

“Beg pardon, ma’am, I did mention that you were not at home, but I gather it’s Lady Louisa whom Mrs. Burton wishes to see.” The glint in Finch’s austere eye told Louisa the mysterious Mrs. Burton had given him a handsome douceur for unbending sufficiently to allow her access.

Calmly, Louisa rose and shook out her skirts. “Thank you, Finch. I shall be down directly.”

Millicent wrinkled her brow. “Burton? Who is this Mrs. Burton?”

“A very agreeable lady,” said Louisa. She hoped so, anyway. “I made Mrs. Burton’s acquaintance last week at the British Museum.”

If Louisa had mentioned meeting the lady in a brothel house, her mother could not have been more disapproving. “Bluestocking, is she? Honestly, Louisa. I don’t know
where
you find these people.”

“I told you, Mama, I found her at the museum.”

Louisa moved to the door. “I assume you don’t wish to meet her. I’ll have the phaeton brought ’round, and we’ll go for a drive.”

Millicent made a little moue of disapproval. “Do as you wish, darling. Only take your wide-brimmed hat. With Mr. Radleigh’s house party approaching, I don’t want you to develop a freckle.”

Refraining from rolling her eyes, Louisa gave the order to Finch about the phaeton, then tidied her hair and hurried downstairs to the drawing room.

As she walked into the cavernous salon, a figure standing at the window turned quickly, an expression of amused surprise sweeping her features.

The woman was no fresh-faced girl, but she was far younger than Louisa had expected an agent of Faulkner’s to be—perhaps younger even than Louisa herself.

“Oh, how fortunate I am to find you home, dear Louisa!” The woman started forward, holding out her hands and drawing Louisa in for a kiss on each cheek, in the French fashion.

Louisa had an impression of vivid, cool beauty—blond hair, ice-gray eyes, a delicately provocative mouth—before she became immersed in a cloud of expensive scent, felt the soft press of a rose-leaf cheek against each of her own.

A little overwhelmed at this enthusiastic greeting, Louisa’s body stiffened slightly.

Smoky eyes laughed at her with understanding and a hint of friendly derision. It flashed across Louisa’s mind that this woman was everything she herself would like to be.

“Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Burton? I’ve ordered my phaeton to be brought around. Would you care to take a drive with me?”

“Oh yes, indeed! I adore going on drives,” said Mrs.

Burton, managing to convey by her excess of enthusiasm that nothing could have been more calculated to bore her. “Do, please, call me Harriet, darling. None of this stuffy Mrs. Burton!”

Something offhand, almost contemptuous, in this Mrs. Burton’s demeanor made Louisa’s hackles rise.

Remember what you’re doing this for
.
Remember for whom.

They conversed in vague pleasantries until the carriage was ready, and once they were seated in Louisa’s vehicle, they dispensed with the groom and were on their way.

“I suppose you are wishing you’d never been saddled with me,” observed Harriet in a tone that told Louisa the notion didn’t bother her one bit. “Now, we must settle this before we go any further. How did we meet?”

“I told my mother we met at the British Museum.”

“Oh no!” Harriet laughed. “What on earth would someone like Harriet Burton be doing at the British Museum?” She inclined her head towards Louisa’s. “Harriet Burton, my dear, is frivolous and charming, with not two thoughts in her head to rub together. Merely adding up the years she has been married to the staid
Mr.
Burton taxes her tiny brain. No one concerns themselves about Mrs. Burton.”

Louisa glanced at her companion and Harriet simpered back, her face transformed from the mocking, quick-witted woman who had turned to greet her in the drawing room mere minutes before.

They entered the park, moving at a brisk trot along the carriageway. Thank goodness this Mrs. Burton had turned out to be presentable, at least.

“We are here at the right time,” she murmured, scanning the thickening crowds. “Much later and there won’t be room to move.”

“Let us drive on. We shan’t take notice of anybody beyond a polite nod,” said Harriet. “You, Lady Louisa, are so enchanted with my company that you don’t wish for anyone else. Let us laugh”—Harriet broke off into a trill of mirth that sounded birdlike and sweet—“and appear to be the very best of friends.”

Louisa gave a smile that could best be described as perfunctory. “How
did
we meet, if anyone asks?”

Harriet waved an airy hand. “Oh, I daresay we met in a millinery shop, don’t you think? You were there outfitting your mother for her bride visits and I desperately needed someone to advise me on the color of ribbons for my hat.”

Her quick eyes took in Louisa’s ensemble. “No one will wonder at that, for you are the epitome of elegance, my dear.”

“Thank you.” Usually, any kind of compliment embarrassed, but the tone of this one was too matter-of-fact to put her to the blush. “Oh, there is Mr. Radleigh. We should stop.”

A delicate, gloved hand closed like a vise around Louisa’s wrist. “Don’t. Drive past and pretend you haven’t seen him. You and I find each other too fascinating to be aware of anyone else.”

Louisa cast a doubtful glance at Radleigh’s tall form astride a showy chestnut gelding. They were almost upon him, but he hadn’t seen them yet. He’d paused to reach down and shake hands with a dowager in her open landau.

“But our entire object in doing this is to gain you an invitation. . . .”

“We will, my dear. We will. But one thing you ought learn about men: they value more that which they cannot have. Make him chase you. Lead him a merry dance and when you snap your fingers, he’ll come to heel.”

“Just like a cocker spaniel,” said Louisa dryly.

“Exactly. Men are simple creatures, you know.”

The image of Jardine rose in her mind. “I’ve never found them so.”

“Perhaps
you
have not, but I assure you that underneath, they are all the same.” Harriet patted her cheek and Louisa’s skin tightened in protest. “You are an innocent, my dear. But we can change that.”

Ugh. The woman was patronizing her. How would she put up with this sort of thing for the months ahead?

Oblivious of Louisa’s reaction, Harriet nodded complacently. “If you are seen in my company often and appear to find more delight in it than in his, Radleigh will be piqued. He’ll wonder who I am. Then we’ll all meet—accidentally, of course—and you will show how delighted you are with me, and he will be delighted, too. You will bat those remarkably sooty eyelashes and beg your indulgent beau to include me in his house party. He cannot deny you anything, so he’ll be forced to say yes.”

LOUISA could only be glad that Radleigh’s house party took place so soon after her mother’s wedding. Despite Millicent’s vagaries, Louisa would miss her in the months ahead.

Now, as Louisa rode in a hired post chaise with the inimitable Mrs. Burton, she did her best to gather her courage. She trusted Harriet would be quick about completing her mission so Louisa could dissolve her false betrothal and leave.

“I am glad you decided to dispense with your maid’s services on the journey,” observed Harriet. “I wonder how you will manage.”

There was a gentle malice in Harriet’s tone. Louisa thought of the years she had
managed
without a personal maid, the years she had been housekeeper, maid, and sometimes even cook to keep her mother’s household running.

“Yes, how
shall
I survive?” she said dryly. She waved a hand. “Never mind about my domestic arrangements. Just you concentrate on whatever business takes you there and on not getting caught.” She paused. “Faulkner said Radleigh is dangerous.”