The Problem with Seduction (6 page)

For now, she must see Lord Constantine. Her pulse quickened at the thought of what he might want. He’d not given her any notice, nor sent up a message with her maid. It must be another attempt to see Oliver. She narrowed her eyes just thinking of his nefariousness.
They’d had a deal.

She stood quickly, sending her chair rocking. She pulled on a rose-hued shawl and looked into Oliver’s cradle. It was one of those rare quarter-hours when he’d consented to sleep in his cradle instead of in her arms, which meant one less worry. She could afford a few minutes to see what Lord Constantine wanted, then send him on his way.

She wasn’t going to allow him to take Oliver, not for an afternoon or even for a minute, and she wasn’t going to spare him a single extra pence. She would
not
be bullied.

But if he threatened to expose her treachery to Nicholas, what
could
she do?

Lord Constantine had been seen to her drawing room. She left Oliver with Mrs. Dalton and went down. He looked expensive beside the whitewashed slab of her mantel cluttered with cheap gewgaws, a polished appearance at odds with his decided lack of fortune. It was the man, rather than the attire, which drew her attention—even when she
hardly
wanted to admire the physique of a man who could ruin her with just a word.

Not that she could claim he was shoddily clad. His bottle green coat and buff breeches befitted a fashionable gentleman. If the way he filled out the seams drew her appreciation, well, such costly cuts would likely look well on anyone. And no woman could really be faulted for looking twice at a man with such an interesting tenseness between his eyebrows, could she?

Whatever the reason, she could not take her eyes from him.

“Elizabeth,” he said, inclining his head, “you are looking very lovely.”

Her eyes widened a fraction.
Was she?
She’d forgotten to check the mirror. Momentarily, her pressing problems fell away. Heavens, she hadn’t given her appearance a single thought.

Oh, no. It
couldn’t
be happening, not so soon. Fear of becoming an unkempt hag had worried her all through her confinement. It had terrified her almost as much as the thought of labor itself. Yet the worn look of other friends who had embraced motherhood abruptly made sense. In the last few days, she’d feared only losing Oliver. Nothing else mattered. In point of fact, she still wasn’t sure she cared, even knowing she must look a fright after three days of nothing but fearing Nicholas’s next move.

If Lord Constantine was put off by her dishevelment, he didn’t show it. He smiled appreciatively. “You needn’t worry about the apron. I do believe you could look appealing in a brown sack.”

She pressed her lips together. Her hands smoothed down the front of her pinafore though she wished she had the restraint to pretend she’d
meant
to receive him in it. She’d completely forgotten about it. Espying a mirror she went to it, then relaxed a fraction. He wasn’t entirely bamming her, even if he’d indulged her a bit. She didn’t look a complete fright. Just tired. Was that a bit of spittle on her shoulder?

She pulled her rose shawl more tightly around her and turned toward him. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

He inclined his head sheepishly. A roguish smile twitched his lips, though he still wore that slight frown between his eyes. “If you’re referring to your suggestion that I leave your house and go hang myself, well, I thought about it, but I didn’t want to waste perfectly good rope. I’m not exactly flush in the pockets to be misusing it like that.”

She could have smiled, but she didn’t want to be amused. She just wanted to know his reason for coming. “I’d be more than happy to lend you a bit of braiding, after you tell me why you’re here.”

“Generous as well as beautiful.” His hand settled on the mantel. The proprietary gesture made him seem even larger than he was. And he still hadn’t answered the question.

She frowned. “What do you want?”

He tilted his head to one side as though she were an unfamiliar specimen. “I assumed a woman as renowned for entertaining as you are would have mastered the art of small talk. Is there no room for pleasantries in your world?”

At any moment, Oliver would wake from his nap. She was being harassed by two men, each with enough power to destroy her. Now Lord Constantine was playing games. Of course she had no time for idle conversation. “I see no reason to waste words. I’m not exactly flush with time to be misusing it.”

Approval lit his eyes. “Touché.” He rested one elbow on the mantel and leaned his cheek into his hand. He regarded her from beneath heavy-lidded bedroom eyes.
Oh, no.
She didn’t need him to
desire
her. Or was this part of his game?

What could he possibly he want?

“Miss Spencer.”

She winced. That was a name that had never belonged to her.

His voice lowered an octave. “May I call you Miss Spencer?”

“No.” She didn’t flinch this time.

He watched her a moment. She prayed he wouldn’t try the other name. The one she’d all but put from her memory.

“Elizabeth, then,” he said, his frown inescapable. “Elizabeth, I believe we have a few things to talk about.”

He hadn’t provoked feelings she’d assured herself were long-dead by using her other name.
Good.
Nevertheless, his tone riled her. She glared at him angrily. “I have nothing to say to you, my lord.”

“Please, call me Con. All of my family does.”

Her body froze in horror. “We are
not
related.”

He shrugged. “Families come in all forms. And I think I got ahead of myself.” Suddenly, he left the mantel and approached her. He dropped to one knee. She took a step back, but he grabbed her hand. “Elizabeth Spencer, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

“What?
No!
” She yanked her hand back and nearly tripped over herself trying to put distance between them. What had he—had she heard him correctly? She couldn’t have.

“Thank God.” He closed his eyes in momentary relief while he sucked in great breaths of air. Then he thumped his fist to his chest as if trying to restart his heart, opened his eyes and shook his head. “I am so
very
relieved one of us is sensible.”

She didn’t expect him to act so…relieved. “Have you gone daft?”

“Oh, no. I think so. Maybe.” He shook his head again as if to clear it, then looked at her with a grin. “I had a feeling you’d reject me, but asking
is
the gentlemanly thing to do. At least, that’s what my brothers said.”

She was
not
disappointed. He was clearly babbling and she’d never once considered marriage to him. She barely even knew him. Nonetheless, she’d never received a proposal of marriage before. It must be natural to expect to hear words of undying devotion or at least a persuasive argument when a man finally came up to scratch. This mangled request for her hand mortified her. He couldn’t be more obvious about his aversion to the idea of saddling himself with her.

Even with all of her experience, she would never understand men.

He drew up and patted the rich velvet of his coat. “Well, then, that wasn’t as bad as I expected. I knew you were a right sort. If Lord Antony asks, you will tell him I did it, won’t you? Not that I expect my brother to come here, but I can never predict where his sense of righteousness will take him.”

“Why on earth would he have wanted you to propose to me?” she blurted before she could feign ennui and act instead as though men regularly arrived on her step with nonsensical ideas of matrimony. She did deserve some sort of explanation, didn’t she?

Con looked about the room, then strode to an overfilled wingback. “Shall we sit?”

She wanted to know why he’d made such a patently absurd proposal, but a glance at the clock reminded her that Oliver would be waking any moment now. And surely it wasn’t in her best interest to bother with Con’s reasons. Maybe she
was
curious to know what peculiar ideas banged around in his head, but what did it matter to her if he was as mad as a hatter? “I think you should be leaving.”

“Just a moment, please. Until I have my wits and then I will go, I promise.” He didn’t wait for her to agree. The chair squeaked as his weight sank heavily onto it. He still looked a bit green around the gills. “My legs are shaking something violent. Don’t you know, I’ve never proposed to anyone before? I wouldn’t have, but my brothers made me feel like a complete cad about it.”

She crept closer. Her fingers felt around for the back of the sofa. She leaned toward the sturdy frame, a bit shaky herself, and regarded the handsome young man she’d underestimated. Blond hair spiked fashionably about his head. Mussed pieces stood out on one side where he’d run his hand through it. His elbows rested on his knees, his broad shoulders hunched a bit, and a trace of a self-deprecating smile tilted his lips. Even winded-looking, he took up half the room with his presence.

“The thing is,” he continued, giving her a sidelong glance, “Tony thinks I ruined your business that night in the gaming hell. Something about you not being able to find work anymore because I announced you’d been with me when you’d had an agreement with Finn.” He looked sheepish. “Have I said it delicately enough?”

She didn’t need him to tell her that no man wanted an unfaithful mistress, any more than he wanted to risk being made a fool of in front of his friends. But she hadn’t expected Lord Constantine to concern himself with the implications of that. She took a moment to assimilate what she thought she knew about him with what he’d just revealed.

She’d obviously misjudged him. She’d thought him as silly and reckless as his oldest brother, who she knew by association from her years as a Cyprian. She’d imagined Con to be like Roman, but with even less sense of responsibility. An aimless younger son who’d happily divest her of her ten thousand pounds and meander on his merry way. She’d also thought he’d be immune to the subject of lightskirts. But while he hadn’t blinked once at her scheme to paint him as a philanderer, it was clear now that he was a bit more innocent than she’d presumed. He colored pink at having to explain that half of London thought she was not just an expensive bit of muslin, but a fickle slut. Roman would have announced it with a hearty laugh and a wink.

She smoothed her hands over the scroll frame rolling along the backrest of the sofa. “I did ask you to ruin me. You needn’t have worried what that might mean for me later.”

Con stretched his long legs and crossed his ankles under her low table. “I can hardly explain that to Tony now, can I? He thinks I should have been more private about airing our linen. Not much I can say there to defend myself. You asked me to make it as public as possible. We left Finn no choice, but now Tony’s bent because I abandoned you and my supposed babe a day after snatching you from the relative comfort of another man’s care. I’m a real blighter, in my brothers’ opinions.”

Her twinge of conscience surprised her. He was a man. The brother of a peer. Handsome and well-mannered, and still virile enough to be attractive even without a fortune. Scandal would die down for him. But she hadn’t expected his involvement with her to drive a wedge between him and his family. She was so used to being alone that she’d never expected that he might have others in his life who would give a fig to know what he got into. That he cared what they thought of him in return was just as astonishing.

What would have happened if she’d had less presence of mind just a moment ago? If she’d said yes to his absurd proposal? He’d have ruined himself just to satisfy some chivalrous sense of family honor. For it was one thing to get a mistress with child, and another thing altogether to
marry
her. “I can’t believe you offered for me merely to save face with your brothers. What would you have done had I accepted?”

He shrugged. “Trade one scandal for another, I suppose. Abandoning one’s fiancée at the altar is generally seen to be in bad taste, but I can’t imagine I’d have actually gone through with a wedding.”

Oliver’s cry saved her from having to reply to that delightful admission. Con’s head turned in the direction of the sound. “My word, he has a set of lungs on him, doesn’t he? I don’t think I could make half that noise if I set my mind to it. I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t let me take him to see Mother the other day. I don’t know what I would have done with a squalling infant.”

She stiffened at the reminder of his attempt to “borrow” her child. If he’d really meant to be gone just for the afternoon, she supposed she’d been a bit melodramatic the other day. Still, Oliver wasn’t some pet to be trotted out when Lord Constantine wished to appear responsible in front of his family.

She started for the door, wanting to be away from this man who was a mass of contradictions. “I need to see to my son.”

“Wait.”

She paused and turned. Con’s bright blue eyes watched her intensely. “I didn’t disappoint you, did I?”

Her heartstrings tugged so hard, her heart might burst with longing. She didn’t care that this man had asked her to marry him. She was too practical to think she had any feelings for him after so short an association. But to be married…to have a real family, with a man who loved only her… “I really must see to Oliver.”