Temptations of a Wallflower (3 page)

After a moment, she began to write.

Lady Josephina surveyed the garden party with a sharp, predatory eye. She couldn't stop the smile that curved her wide, sensuous lips. Sarah also smiled, much like her heroine. The story's possibilities opened up like a corridor filled with doors, each of them swinging wide to admit her to another place, another world. Where to go next?

So many men to choose from! Which one would come home with her to share her bed? Or perhaps she might select more than one lover. After all, she was a woman of expansive appetites. Seldom could she find satisfaction in the arms of a lone man.

Oh, this would be a good one. Sarah could already tell. Her pencil flew across the page, muting the sounds of the chatter in the background.

Beneath her red satin bodice, her breasts grew tight and heavy. Josephina enjoyed the hunt as much as a lioness did, but it was in the satiation of her hungers that she found true satisfaction. Besides, her bed was large enough to accommodate an entire orgy if she so desired. She knew this from firsthand experience. There had been those Spanish sailors . . .

The tension that knotted Sarah's shoulders and coiled in her stomach slowly spiraled away. She closed her eyes and let the warm, comfortable sensation drift through her. At last, she could be her true self.

Lady Sarah Frampton. The Duke of Wakefield's daughter. The Watching Wallflower. She was all of these things, and none of them. For her true identity was known to her readers as the Lady of Dubious Quality, author of several extremely successful and popular erotic novels.

No one at the marquess's garden party knew. Not a single person. Including her own mother.

Precisely the way Sarah needed it. Should anyone find out that the Lady of Dubious Quality was, in fact, Lady Sarah, the scandal would be devastating. Even a man as powerful as her father might not be able to help her weather such a storm. The family might not be received by others, while she would be cut off from all of Society, forced to flee to the coun
try or abroad. Perhaps she'd have to assume a new name, since all decent people would have nothing to do with her, knowing that she was the author of salacious novels.

And yet, despite the fact that she knew she courted danger by writing and publishing such work, Sarah couldn't stop herself. She might as well give up eating and drinking. Writing was
essential.
She'd known it from the age of four, when she'd learned how to hold a pen. Her parents had often had to take away her quill and paper and chase her outside to play, or else threaten her with no paper for a week if she didn't put down her pen and go to bed. And when she hadn't obeyed, and they had taken away her foolscap, she'd written in the end papers and margins of her books.

Sarah scanned the sheet in front of her, smiling ruefully to herself as she read what she'd written.

Everyone wanted her to be decorative, useless and virginal, but penning erotic stories pushed blood through her veins. If only Lord Allam's garden party was as debauched and free as Lady Josephina would have liked. If only Sarah could be as liberated as her heroine. Her sensual education had started only a few years ago when a certain book had fallen into her hands by mistake, but ever since then, her eyes had been opened, and the world was entirely different. Yet Lady Sarah had a reputation to preserve, so, rather than experiencing the sensual realm in real life, she freed herself with writing about a woman on a sensuous hunt, searching for the perfect sexual prey.

After using a small knife to sharpen her pencil, Sarah began to write again.

She had heard that Lord E. had a most impressive—

“Sarah? Sarah?” The doorknob rattled.

Damn.

She barely had time to shove the paper into her reticule before the door opened. Her mother sailed into the room.

“What are you doing?” Mama demanded. “Writing? What have I said about that?”

“It's just a garden plan.” Sarah hated gardening and scrupulously avoided it.

Lady Wakefield made a tsking sound of displeasure. “You shan't find a husband scribbling in rooms, all alone.”

In truth, no fewer than four offers of marriage had been presented to Sarah in her first two years out. And Sarah had refused every one of them. But neither she nor her mother would discuss that—it was too frustrating.

Her mother sighed. “You're spoiled by your father. Too many books ruin a girl's mind. Not to mention reading causes wrinkles, just here.” She pointed to the corners of her eyes.

“You have no wrinkles, Mama,” Sarah pointed out.

“Because the only thing I'll read is
La Belle Assembleé,
” her mother said proudly, “and even then, I make sure I don't peruse it for more than ten minutes at a time. You'd be wise to follow my example, Sarah.”

“I'll try.” There were many days, especially when Sarah was younger and believed in—and wrote—fairy tales, that she hoped herself to be a warrior queen from
a mythical realm. Perhaps she was a foundling. Yet she and her mother bore a striking resemblance to each other . . . appearance-wise. And she had her father's love of reading to prove that she was, in fact, an ordinary girl, not a fierce monarch wielding an enchanted sword rather than an embroidery needle.

“Come now,” her mother snapped. “We'll return to the party at once and make ourselves agreeable. I saw how you walked away from Sir William.”

It was useless to protest. Lady Wakefield would only goad and harangue Sarah until she agreed. Perhaps soon, in another few years, her mother would finally accept defeat and realize Sarah would never marry.

With an internal sigh, Sarah rose from the desk. She secretly patted her reticule, making sure that her writing was safe. After giving the little room one last, longing glance, she followed her mother toward the garden in the back.

“Honestly, Sarah,” Lady Wakefield protested as they walked, “I cannot understand why you don't give potential suitors any encouragement. The years are ticking by, my dear.”

A fact Sarah was counting on. Telling her mother outright that marriage would never happen was impossible—Lady Wakefield would only see that as a gauntlet thrown down, a challenge to be met. Her efforts to pair her only daughter off would become unendurable.

They finally reached the terrace outside, and Sarah and her mother gazed out at the assembled guests.

“Smile, darling,” her mother said in an undertone. “You look far too serious and, well,
literate
.”

“I'll endeavor to appear more vacant,” Sarah replied.

Her mother shot her a sour glance.

Sarah looked out over the party full of Society's finest male specimens. Nearly all of them were titled. A good many had decent fortunes. Most still had all their teeth and hair. A few were known to be fond of their drink and gambling. The majority of them would make for acceptable husbands—after all, love wasn't a requirement of marriage.

But what of passion? What of fire? She'd read and written so much of all-consuming hunger, that magnetism that pulled two bodies together and made it impossible to part. Could Sarah ever find such a thing for herself, or was it exclusive to the pages of novels? Her new character, Lady Josephina, couldn't be the only woman to know it.

None of the men in this garden had the allure of the heroes from her books. None of them made her feel that intangible, ravenous physical need. The only desires she truly felt now were those to write, but when it came to sensual urgings, she felt . . . uninspired. The men she encountered didn't stir her blood. Certainly never enough to give up what little power she had. Once she was married, she became a man's property. She'd never be able to write again.

Now, as Sarah gazed around her at the charming garden scene, words formed in her head to describe it.

The Marquess of Allam always threw a wonderful garden party, thanks in large part to the efforts of Lady Allam. The garden itself was a jewel tucked away from the busy Mayfair streets—French doors opened from the house onto a wide, paved veranda, with a spacious
terrace leading down to gravel-covered paths. Though it was late in the season, some hardy blooms still made their appearance along the walkways, and here and there stood silent, mossy statuary, gazing out with sightless eyes at the parade of London's most fashionable elite.

Small tables were arrayed throughout the garden, little islands of conversation where guests could take their rest and enjoy the plentiful refreshments. Autumnal sunlight shone down in pale splendor.

Sarah took a seat on a hard little iron chair with the widows and matrons, an array of iced cakes and tea set on a table before them. Her mother wandered off somewhere to maintain her status as one of the older set's most charming and influential women.

While Sarah appreciated a fine garden as much as anyone else, she longed to be back inside, at her desk with pen in hand, either writing her newest tale or else working on her edits for her latest book. Her publisher could barely contain his fiscal excitement over the Lady's next work—
The Clean and the Filthy,
about the amorous adventures of a laundress. That rewrite wasn't going to be completed with her stuck at a garden party.

Sarah was uninterested in trying to drag out pointless conversations with gentlemen she had no desire to meet. Considering how many of their gazes flicked over her with barely any notice, she didn't think any of them wanted to meet her, either. Sir William scrupulously avoided her gaze. Sitting as she was with the more mature women, her place on the shelf as a spinster looked decidedly certain.

With her practiced scribbler's eye, she looked
around at the assembly, seeking food for her Muse. Men and women milled about the terrace and down into the garden itself, exchanging conversation deftly. The air glinted with bright talk. Gazes danced like butterflies fluttering on the cool breeze.

To one side was a hedge maze—a convenient place for a tryst. The lilac bushes were also thick, making for a good location to sneak a kiss . . . or something more. Given the way some of the faster set looked at one another, the possibility was a distinct one. She could well imagine it now. The woman in the pink gown would brush up close to a gentleman, pretending to drop her fan. When he'd retrieve it, their fingers would brush. Once, twice. A shared look, fraught with meaning. Their gazes would glide over toward the maze. Shared understanding. Then the woman would float into the maze and await her soon-to-be lover.

Lady Josephina could find a lover in a maze . . . Sarah tucked that idea away for later.

If only Sarah could skip marriage and go straight to being an adventurous widow. Then, at last, she could do precisely what she pleased—write, take lovers—away from the strict confines of what Society expected of her. Perhaps if she went away to America and reinvented herself . . . but that would mean losing her family and everything she'd ever known.

“Does anyone have need of spiritual counsel?” one of the matrons next to her murmured slyly.

Another older woman snickered.

Following the other women's glances, Sarah looked toward the top of the terrace, where a man was stepping out onto the flagstones.

A newcomer had arrived.

His simple clerical black highlighted the beauty of his long, sculpted face and high cheekbones. His lips weren't precisely full, but they held a surprising degree of sensuality for a man—especially a man of the cloth. Even from a distance, his blue eyes shone like warm tropical seas. His clothing also served to emphasize his lean, tall body, as well as the width of his shoulders and narrowness of his hips. The curls in his blond hair seemed to beg for a woman's fingers, urging them to tease and play.

He looked around at the assembly with a careful gaze, a hint of reserve in his expression. Whoever he was, he wasn't precisely pleased to be here, but neither did he reject the setting. Like her, he seemed to be cautiously testing.

But he did not shine with a holy light. If anything, he radiated an earthy quality.

A story formed in her mind, like shards of pottery assembling themselves into a whole. He was the product of a nobleman's tempestuous affair with a strolling actress. A man who had seen much sin and wickedness in the world. Rather than follow in his mother's footsteps by living on the stage, the stranger sought goodness and a sense of purpose by taking up clerical orders. Yet he struggled every day with his mother's hot blood urging him to give in to the sensuality that pulsed through him.

“I hope we won't be treated to a sermon,” a matron near Sarah muttered.

“Maybe if I give him a donation for his church, he'll leave us alone,” said another older woman.

“Oh,” sighed a matron, “it might be amusing to sully a man of the cloth.”

The women tittered amongst themselves. Then they caught sight of Sarah and smothered their laughter. She fought a sigh. She had that effect on people—always dampening their amusement or excitement, as if her status as an unwed woman of excellent reputation meant she couldn't appreciate such sentiment.

I want to live, too!

But who could she say that to? How could she break the golden tether that bound her in place? Impossible.

Lord Allam strode up to the clerical man—he was too young to be that high up in the Church hierarchy, so that must make him . . . a curate? A vicar? Ah, now she remembered. As Lord Allam shook the man's hand, she recalled that her host's nephew was a country vicar. Though she'd never met the man before, she knew him by reputation as a serious and scholarly fellow. No one had ever told her how bloody handsome he was, however.

Sadly, he wasn't a highwayman or a pirate. Good looking as he was, the vicar couldn't compete with the men of her fantasies. He had probably never heard of half the sexual acts she wrote about—more the pity. Furthering their education together could be interesting.

She shook her head, dismissing the thought. If anyone was to show the vicar the ways of the flesh, it wouldn't be her, a duke's unspoiled daughter.