The Rules of Seduction (12 page)

Yes, I do. I intend to take these packages to my chamber and begin making hats so I can earn the money that will permit me to never again have to suffer your presence.

“Some private matters,” she said.

Apparently he thought that meant she had nothing important to do after all. He gave the coachman instructions to drive to Hyde Park.

“It is rather cold for a turn in the park,” she said.

“Our stroll will be brief. I would like to speak with you about something.”

Her heart filled with the heaviness that heralded bad news. “I doubt this conversation will include the apology you owe me. Nor do I anticipate receiving your reassurances of being spared such behavior in the future, since your intruding on this carriage would itself raise eyebrows.”

Kindness softened his expression. A frank, knowing gaze added a sardonic touch, however, compromising the effect. “I am sorry that you are offended by my silence. I accept that you are due both the apology and the reassurances. I cannot say the necessary words yet, however.”

“Why?”

“Because they would be lies.”

The carriage grew very small then. He still appeared friendly. Nothing in his face or pose threatened her. Her entire being became too aware of him, however. Her body reacted as if he titillated her with a long, slow caress.

It was a mistake to be alone with him. She hated how this devil could so easily call forth such scandalous reactions.

“Lord Hayden, I will consider any further addresses of that nature as insults of the cruelest kind.”

“I cannot decide if that is true. That you want it to be true matters, of course.”

“How generous of you to consider my preferences.”

“It is your true preferences that I contemplate. However, be content that I do not intend to discover what they are today. I wish to speak with you about something else entirely.”

“What would that be?”

“A topic you will enjoy much more. Benjamin Longworth.”

Dangling Benjamin’s name silenced her objections. He suspected she would suffer all kinds of addresses if they included reminiscences about her beloved cousin.

If you become my mistress, I agree to hold two conversations a week about Benjamin Longworth. Only not in bed, if that is acceptable to you.

She ignored him as the carriage took them to the park. He spent his time wondering what was in the packages and noticing the careful mending along the cuff of her brown pelisse robe. The carriage ensemble being made by Madame Tissot would look lovely on her, and its cerulean hue would complement her eyes.

It was not yet the fashionable hour, but enough broad hats and nipped waists dotted the park to banish the sense of their being alone. She suffered his company beside her as they strolled. Her posture bespoke how she remained on her guard.

“We are in a public place, Miss Welbourne. I can hardly importune you here.”

“You speak too boldly. One stolen kiss does not give you rights to such familiarity.”

“Bold talk has marked our conversations from the start, and not by my initiative. Nor was it one kiss, and I stole very little. However, let us not argue today but instead speak of friendly things.”

Her glance said he was no friend, but the allusion to the pending topic softened her. Her stride slowed and her ice melted. “Will you tell me how he decided to go to Greece?” she asked. “It was a shock to us, and so unexpected.”

Reference to Ben brought a lovely flush to her cheeks and lively sparkles to her eyes. She appeared much as she had when he kissed her, and the memory caused the gentleman to disappear for a long count. In his mind he gazed into a field of violets while the breeze carried the rhythmic groans of a woman welcoming the pleasure as he stroked into her—

Vigilance. Vigilance.

“He learned I was going and decided to join our motley brigade,” he said. “I believe it was one of those impulses for which he was famed.”

“A generous one. He risked his life in a noble cause.”

“Certainly.”

Like hell. No one expected to really get hurt, let alone die. Nor had Ben gone on principle. He was motivated by an urge for adventure and the hopes of impressing an unattainable lady.

It was not his place to disillusion Miss Welbourne, however. Nor would she thank him if he did.

“I’m sure he was very brave,” she said. “I imagine him there, like a hero in a painting.”

He bit back the urge to tell her the truth. Ben had been very brave once, that was certain. Madly, impulsively so. The desire to confide in her confounded him.

“He fought as best he could, as did we all. The Greeks are not well commanded, however. They have no sound strategy, and their factions will not cooperate. I fear that the current siege of Missilonghi will end very badly.”

“Ben said the Greeks must be freed. As a symbol, and to repay them for all that civilization owes their history.”

Ben did not give a damn about that. He parroted the philhellenes to give you an excuse for leaving. He knew little about the politics or the history.

Those altruistic reasons had motivated the rest of them, however. They had been his own justification for doing something that, on hindsight, was irrational and impetuous and a mad grasp at the romantic heroics found in poems.

His principles had been noble, but the reality of that war had not been. He had seen unbearable atrocities committed by both sides. He had returned jaded and disenchanted, only to watch others go after him, all full of the same simplistic ideals.

“Do you think they will win?” she asked. “I would like to believe he did not waste the last year of his life.”

“The Ottoman Empire is old and corrupt. It stands only with the help of countries like ours. The Turks will leave Greece someday, and the current war and its support in England will have helped that to happen.”

They talked about that as they paced along, his boots crunching dried leaves that blew into their path. She peppered him with questions, forgetting that she was supposed to be angry with him or even that they were supposed to be talking about Benjamin. For twenty minutes the world stage occupied her inquisitive, intelligent mind.

He was the one who herded the conversation back to Ben. He did so regretfully, but this accidental meeting had a purpose.

“Was it difficult for the family while he was gone?” he asked.

The allusion to the Longworths produced a perceptible stiffening. “Timothy had begun at the bank by then, so it was not a strain that I could tell. We still lived in Cheapside at first too. It was soon after Ben left that their situation improved so significantly.” A touch of resentment lifted the last words.
Only to be completely destroyed by you, of course.
She did not say it, but the accusation was there. It probably always would be.

“You saw no improvements the first years you were with them, while in Cheapside? It all came later?”

“Tim explained that the bank had been building itself those earlier years but now was established. We could enjoy the fruits of his and Ben’s careful stewardship. I will admit that I thought Tim enjoyed those fruits rather too freely, but perhaps it was normal to indulge too much.”

He looked at her pelisse again. It was at least several years old. He thought about her dull, high-waisted dresses. Tim had indulged himself and his sisters but not his cousin.

The bastard had been robbing people of their legacies and had not even bothered to shower some ill-gotten gains on the poor cousin in his house.

“Actually, the bank enjoyed steady growth all along,” he said. “The overnight change to extravagance was not due to how it matured. Ben could have enjoyed some of the fruits earlier. I would have expected there to have been a slow but steady evidence of that. You say there was not?”

“Not in ways I noticed. We lived very comfortably in Cheapside. He had his club and a carriage the whole time. There was no indication matters were changing one way or another.” She looked over with sharp curiosity. “Why do you ask about this?”

“I have been thinking about him of late, Miss Welbourne. I am seeing him on that ship those last days. He was in a deep melancholy. I wondered if he returned to financial problems, but it appears not, from what you say.” He paused and assessed whether to go on. “I now wonder where the increased income he received those last years went, if not to his own household and habits.”

“Back into the bank, I expect. Then Tim inherited it all.”

It was a good answer, just the wrong one. He had seen the records of Ben’s personal account at the bank. Little had been sitting there for Timothy to inherit.

Some money would have been used to pay the people who expected to receive the income from the funds that had been stolen, of course. That amount had grown with each theft. Much more than that had disappeared, however.

He would have to work it out, now that he knew Ben had not been spending a big portion of it on luxuries. And he should probably determine if Ben had other accounts at other banks, ones that held the fruits of his criminal labors.

Their walk had taken a circular path. The carriage waited ahead. Hayden put Benjamin out of his mind and just enjoyed strolling beside Miss Welbourne for the last hundred yards.

She kept forgetting to hate him. Their walk had been too
friendly,
and he was no friend to her or those she loved.

Now here they were in the carriage again, and that other lure, that damnable excitement, interfered even more. She found that very disconcerting. To sit across from a man whom your mind cursed but your body did not—the various vexations got all jumbled.

He regarded her the way he did too often now, with a lazy contemplation that created a subtle predatory mood. His drifting gaze paused and lingered on her hands. “My apologies are due. I have been inconsiderate of your comfort and health. I should have noticed that you wore half gloves and had no muff.”

She looked down at her fingers, pink beyond the gloves that ended just past her knuckles. She had worn half gloves so she could touch and assess the materials at the warehouse.

He flapped open a carriage blanket and wrapped her hands in it, swaddling them so the wool could warm her quickly. She suffered the attention, and her fingers tingled in the toasty cocoon. His closeness made her heart beat too hard. The sensation of his hands pressing hers through the wool stole her breath.

She possessed no control over that reaction. None at all. That frightened her. The part of her that forgot to hate him existed independently of good sense. The responses stirred so deeply she could not name their source. They emerged from a primitive essence that her rational mind could not subjugate.

Only absence from him would free her completely. Fortunately, she would arrange that soon. For now she sought refuge in the one place she knew she could find it.

“I have enjoyed our conversation about Benjamin. Your description of his melancholy surprises me, however. I never knew him to be like that.” It did surprise her. A slight ill ease simmered, as if a question mark had joined all of her exclamation points about Benjamin.

“After the excitement in Greece, perhaps he mourned the loss of drama once he came home.”

She did not care for that explanation. After all, he came home to
her.

“Forgive me for being forward, Miss Welbourne, but…did Benjamin propose to you, either before he left or in a letter?”

She might never forgive him for being
that
forward. His question resurrected one of her own. It whispered sometimes late at night when she gave herself over to memories.
Did I misunderstand?

“He spoke of our being together forever.”

“Then you had a fair understanding. Perhaps he worried that you would reject him when he formally proposed, however. That may have been the reason for his mood.”

No, it had not been that. He had the advantage in their love. She was the one who had to worry about rejection.

That thought just sprang into her mind. She resented its honesty and the way this man had forced it on her.

“It is perhaps just as well that he is gone,” she said. “If you were a friend, what you did to the Longworths—your duty, as you called it—would have been more difficult.”

She searched for some signs of guilt in him at the reference. She saw none.

“I expect that you write to them,” he said.

“Of course. And my cousin Roselyn writes to me. Timothy is a broken man. His health has been badly affected.”

“Brandy does have a way of taking a physical toll.”

“How dare—”

His full severity flashed as soon as she began the scold. Her instincts shouted a silent warning to hold her tongue. Their last heated argument had produced drastic results.

She swallowed her ire. “Roselyn writes that they barely have enough to eat, so I doubt he can afford brandy.”

“Cheap gin will do the job just as well. I am sorry to hear of the ladies’ distress, however. I will send Miss Longworth some money. If it goes to her, can we trust that it will remain in her hands and not be used for her brother’s illness?”

“She will never accept it from you. Her pride will never permit it, nor will her anger. She will starve first.”

“Then I will give it to you to give her. She need never learn its true source. Say, fifty pounds for now?”

The offer surprised her. She should grab it, she knew. However…she eyed him suspiciously. Would this be like that new wardrobe? Would it put her in his debt?

His slow smile showed that he read her thoughts. “Miss Welbourne, if I sought to make you my mistress, I would never be so subtle and indirect. You would know it, and I would never insult you with such a small sum.”

The carriage arrived on Hill Street then, not a minute too soon. A footman hurried out and helped her step down. She walked away quickly while Rothwell stacked the packages into the servant’s hands. She was halfway to the door before she made up her mind about the money. She turned and addressed him as he stepped out of the carriage.

“My pride should not interfere with my dear cousins having some relief. I will give it to her. Only ten, however, since I cannot explain having more. She will never know it came from you.”