The Rules of Seduction (15 page)

The starburst slowly dimmed. The transcendence of fulfillment gradually released him.

He looked down at the woman beneath him. She awkwardly embraced his hovering body with one arm. The other lay slackly by her side, imprisoned by the shoulder straps of her stays and chemise. He rose up on his arms, then dipped down to kiss her exposed breast. A beautiful breast, round and full, womanly and soft. A tremble shimmered through her, reminding him that she had not remained with him in the pleasure.

Her expression remained full of the vulnerability he had seen when he entered this attic.

“Did I hurt you badly?”

“Not badly. Enough, however. I am thinking that nature could have done better by women.”

He almost laughed. Instead, he relinquished the feel of her. She considered his withdrawal with a little frown, as if trying to decide if he had made it better or worse.

He moved off completely and fixed his garments. With a final kiss on her lovely breast, he put the stays’ strap back in place. “It is not always unfair. Only the first time.”

She rolled away so he could close her dress. “You appeared surprised when you…You did not think it would be my first time, did you? Despite what I told you, you believed Ben and I were lovers.”

He wished to hell he could say he had believed that. It would be an excuse of sorts. He could use one. The only thing he felt now was contentment, but guilt waited. Already an awkwardness insinuated itself between them.

“The surprise you saw was astonishment. It is one thing to desire a woman and another thing to live the fantasy.”

She rose to her knees as soon as the dress was fixed, then froze. He looked over to see what distracted her. Her gaze rested on the letters covering the floor beyond the trunks.

“I will put them back,” he said.

“Thank you, that is very kind. Your aunt will be returning soon and I should not remain here. I need to change and…As it is, this may be no secret from the household.” Blushing, she began pushing herself up.

He grasped her arm, stopping her. “Alexia—”

She looked him right in the eyes. “No. Please. Do not say it. Do not say anything.
Please.
”

“There is much that needs to be said.”

“Not really. Not now, certainly, and perhaps, if we are wise, not ever.” She extricated her arm from his hold and stood. “Please allow me to make this the memory I want it to be.” She glanced to the letters as she turned away. “I am very good at that, you see.”

She lay in bed, listening to the silence of the night, trying to become familiar with herself.

She had left that attic a changed woman. She saw the world differently now. It was a truer view, she suspected. The disillusionment over Ben partly accounted for it, but the rest—the abandonment and intimacy and the startling pleasure—those experiences gave a woman a special wisdom.

She did not castigate herself or mourn her innocence. She was not really sorry she had done it. That was hard to admit, but doing so voided the need for dramatic recriminations. It also allowed her to face honestly the implications of what had happened. Pride, not fear, demanded that she leave this house now.

The hat’s shadow darkened her writing desk. The night and the muslin obscured its details, but she saw it in her mind. She would not alter her intention to sell it, or any other plans either. What happened with Hayden would not waylay her from the path she had chosen. Her decisions were the right ones, and she should execute them more quickly if she wanted to control this memory.

She closed her eyes, hoping for sleep. Instead, her mind turned in on itself and on her body. She felt him. The soreness gently ached as if he still filled her down there. His presence still invaded her mind.

A wistful emotion kept sliding into her heart. She would allow that nostalgia to find its place and stay. It would be dishonest to build a memory full of sin and blame, after all. She had enjoyed herself too much for that.

CHAPTER
TEN

W
hat the hell was wrong with him?

Hayden pondered that question the next morning. There had been no sleepless night this time. Contented and sated, he had put off the reckoning until dawn. Now he examined his behavior hard while he dressed.

“Are you quite sure you want this waistcoat, sir? I thought you did not favor it with the blue frock coat.”

His valet’s question pulled Hayden out of his reverie. Nicholson was as methodical and organized, as rational and regular, as Hayden himself. Years ago they had fallen into a routine devoid of wasted time or movements. Hayden’s distraction today had Nicholson sighing with strained forbearance.

“And the cravat, sir. That is the third one you have tied, and it won’t do. Perhaps you would allow me to—”

“The hell you will. I am not a schoolboy.” He whipped the miserably creased cloth off his neck, grabbed another, and began once more. He peered at his reflection in the looking glass while he manipulated the knot. He judged himself and showed no mercy.

The steady and rapid decline of his honor amazed him. Alexia’s own passion did not excuse him, fondly though he remembered it. She had been distraught and vulnerable, and the man who first comforted her had then seduced her.

Nor did he regret it, scoundrel that he was becoming. Even while he acknowledged his sins, ruthless satisfaction glowed. Half his mind indulged in erotic fantasies of having her again.

A discreet cough interrupted. Nicholson waved the offending waistcoat beside the frock coat. They looked hideous together. Hayden could not recall choosing either.

“Whatever you think best, Nicholson.”

“
Very
good, sir.” With sublime confidence in his superior taste, Nicholson returned the waistcoat to its wardrobe and debated an alternative.

Hayden forced some order on his thoughts. He laid out the facts like so many entries in an accounting book. He had seduced Miss Welbourne. She had touched him and he lost all sense. He had intended to comfort her and instead had misused her. He had taken a good woman’s virginity
on an attic floor
. His behavior had been inexcusable, dishonorable, irrational, and disgraceful.

And he wasn’t nearly as sorry about it as he was supposed to be.

“Perhaps this one, sir?” Nicholson demanded attention and presented a different waistcoat.

“Yes, yes,
whatever,
man.”

The most logical course was to ask Alexia to be his mistress. Passion never lasted, least of all the kind that had sane men doing insane things. He would make sure she was provided for afterward. She would establish some security. She would be better off in the end.

While that was the most sensible and predictable result of yesterday’s impulses, he doubted she would agree to it. It would make her fall complete and explicit. Miss Welbourne would probably starve before she accepted a situation that so publicly denied her respectability.

He could make amends more directly, of course. He could simply settle an amount on her. If presented as a form of penance, she might not see it as payment for favors granted. Broaching the idea with her would require considerable diplomacy. It would also avoid the worst connotations only if he ceased any further pursuit of her. He had not yet convinced himself to accept that part.

Finally, he could do the right thing and marry her. He would have said he was the last man to make such a marriage, but he had not been himself of late. Would she even accept? She still blamed him for bigger sins than being a seducer.

He imagined the life they would have. Separate mostly, as was the way of most marriages he knew. Passionate at first, then later…He could not picture himself not wanting her. That was odd in itself. Normally he could imagine the end even before there was a beginning.
What the hell was wrong with him?

However,
her
passion might cool quickly. Perhaps it already had. The reality of sexual congress might have chilled her forever. Nor did she care for him much. Accusations, not affection, usually warmed her eyes when she looked at him.

Passion has its place, but the mind must always rule. Emotions lead to impulses that destroy honor, fortune, and happiness.

He laughed at himself. Damnation, one false step now and he would prove his father right.

“Sir, I wish you would allow me to tie the cravat. That is the last of the fresh linen, and if you continue to massacre—”

“Hell, go ahead, then.” He turned so Nicholson could get it right.

A knock on the dressing-room door interrupted them both. Nicholson stared down the footman who dared invade the valet’s fief. The young man held his ground.

“The marquess requires your presence below, Lord Hayden.”

The formality of the summons was peculiar, but the real mystery was that there had been a summons at all. His brother never played the nobleman so baldly.

“Where is Easterbrook waiting to give me this treasured audience?”

“The morning room, sir. He was having breakfast.”

At nine in the morning? Hayden was almost curious to know what had caused his brother to rise so early.

He told Nicholson to take his time tying his cravat. He dallied while Nicholson gave his boots a final buff. With something approaching their normal routine, the valet helped turn him out presentably.

Finally, ready in his own good time and dressed for his day’s plans, he stuffed a small pouch in his pocket and went down to attend to his older brother’s caprice of the day.

He opened the door to find Christian lazily eating a breakfast of fish and bread. As expected, the marquess was dressed informally, although he had eschewed the exotic robe for trousers and a morning coat. Still, the lack of a cravat, the open neck of his shirt, and the barbaric disorganization of all that hair left him appearing as inappropriate as if he wore nothing but a loincloth.

That impression probably had a lot to do with the fact that Christian was not alone in the morning room. He had a female visitor.

“Ah, here is Hayden,” Christian said. “Look who turned up today, Hayden. Aunt Henrietta was good enough to visit. Before calling hours too, so it would not interfere with my day. This is such a treat, Aunt Hen. So often I am left to spend my mornings in isolation, sleeping too long, with nothing but peaceful silence to accompany me.”

If Hen heard the sarcasm, she did not show it. “I am grateful you received me. I am far less unsettled now that we spoke.”

“Aunt Henrietta is most distraught, Hayden. There has been a tragedy at her house.”

“Not a tragedy, of course…”

“Now, now, don’t try to be brave, Aunt Hen. The exact words sent up to me were,
We are facing a terrible tragedy. As head of the family, you must do something.
” He turned to Hayden placidly. “Informed of such a crisis, of course I rose from my bed to attend to the matter.”

“Well, it
is
a tragedy,” Aunt Hen said. “There will be no way to rectify the disaster that this inconstant woman has created.”

“Woman?” Hayden asked, doubting he appeared as innocent as he tried to look.

“Miss Welbourne.” Christian’s lids lowered while he sipped some coffee. He allowed an eternity to pass before he spoke again. “It appears she is abandoning her duties.”

“With no notice to speak of,” Hen cried. “When she said last night that she would continue with Caroline, I assumed she was merely indicating she would leave after the season. I thought she was informing me of her plans so I could find another companion come summer. Today, however, before she left in the carriage, she explained that she would visit our house by day, but that she would remove herself from the house by week’s end.”

“She left in the carriage, you say?” Hayden asked.

“Yes, and that is another fine kettle of fish. She is leaving at week’s end, but she still took this week’s free day. Brazen, if you ask me. I am undone. Caroline’s season will be ruined.” She rose and began pacing around Easterbrook.

Christian ignored her hovering distress while he deboned his fish. “You must calm yourself. Hayden is here. He will fix everything. Won’t you, Hayden?”

“Certainly.” Damned if he knew how. He had not expected Alexia to bolt. “Why did you not come to me with this, Aunt Hen?”

Hen’s face pursed into a haughty, wounded mask. “I thought it best to bring it to Easterbrook,
thank you.
He is head of the family, after all. You have not had much time for us of late. I did not want to
impose
on you more than I have.”

“She is being delicate, Hayden.” Christian kept most of his attention on his elegant, surgical manipulation of the fish. “She has alluded to concerns about this decision on Miss Welbourne’s part. I think—forgive me if I am wrong, Aunt Hen—that she believes it has something to do with you.”

Silence claimed the room. Christian ate some fish. Hen blushed to her brow and primly looked out the window.

“How so, Aunt Hen?” Hayden asked, knowing the answer might damn him.

“I think that perhaps you mishandled that little scolding yesterday. I am told you arrived while I was at Madame Tissot’s.”

“Scolding?” Christian looked over, too curious. “Have you been scolding the estimable Miss Welbourne, Hayden? The woman worth wages and a half, as well as use of the carriage?”

“Hen requested—”

“That you speak with her regarding Caroline’s French, not that you drive her from the house,” Hen cried. “You must have been most severe if she is leaving before she received the wardrobe that Easterbrook is buying for her.”

Christian’s fork paused halfway to his mouth.

Hen patted his shoulder. “You have been so kind to her, one would assume she would show her gratitude by treating the family more fairly. Why, the fur muff alone must have cost twenty pounds. Why would a woman in her poor situation abandon such generosity?”

“Why indeed?” Christian’s half smile was for Hayden alone.

Hen began pacing again. “What are we to do? We can hardly have her continue as a day governess, as if we are some merchant family.” She threw up her hands. “There is nothing else for it. Easterbrook, you will have to find Caroline another governess.”

Easterbrook gave the fish a thin smile.

Hen became all business. “I daresay the only way to find a fit one now is if the household that employs her is of the highest reputation and station.”

Easterbrook stared at his knife.

“We will have to live here, of course. Nothing less will quickly attract a governess of suitable accomplishment and references.”

Easterbrook set down his breakfast implements. “Would it not be simpler to appease the governess you still have?”

“How can I appease her? I do not even know why she is throwing us over.”

“I am very sure Hayden can discover why and speak reason with her.” Those dark, all-knowing eyes locked on Hayden. “Can’t you, Hayden?”

The carriage rolled to a stop in front of the handsome house in Oxfordshire. Alexia alighted and tucked her basket over her arm.

“The village is a mile down the road,” she explained to the coachman. “You can see to the horses there and refresh yourself. Come for me in three hours.”

She walked up the stone path between strips of dormant garden plantings. The house was a good-size square of stone situated on twenty acres outside the village of Watlington. It appeared the property of a prosperous gentry family. Two generations ago that was exactly what it had been, and miles of the surrounding farmland had been attached to it.

The door opened. Roselyn rushed out, arms wide, laughing with excitement. They embraced closely.

Alexia had carried considerable guilt with her on this little journey, but it disappeared in Roselyn’s warmth.

“I thank God you were able to come, but your letter spoke of next week,” Rose said.

“I unexpectedly had a free day and decided not to delay the visit. I hope you do not mind the surprise.”

“Do these tears look like I mind?” She tightened her hold in a final squeeze, then stepped back. She grinned at the carriage. “Whenever I think of how you managed to obtain use of it, I enjoy a deliciously naughty pleasure.”

“You are looking well, Rose.” She did look well. She wore a fashionable dress of Esterhazy wool, preserved when much of her wardrobe was sold. Her bright eyes and good color indicated that rationing fuel and food had not yet taken a toll on her health.

“Anticipating your visit gave me heart and good cheer, Alexia. For the first time in weeks I began feeling my old self again after I received your letter this morning.”

They strolled arm in arm up to the house. “Tim is above, and I regret to say that he is too indisposed to see you. He is unwell.” Rose’s voice flattened on the last word. “Irene is visiting the Mortensons at Burberry Grange. The family has been generous to her, despite our situation, which, of course, everyone knows.”

Alexia was sorry she would not see Irene, but she did not regret she would miss the unwell Timothy. “Your brother’s persistent illness is unbecoming. I expected him to show more fortitude.”