The Rules of Seduction (16 page)

“He does nothing but mourn his past and curse his fate. Perhaps with time he will address the present and the future.”

Rose had handled the present with a shrewd eye and practicality. Alexia had visited this property frequently with the family while they all lived in town, and now she noticed the furniture that was missing. Rose had selected carefully, selling off a few pieces of good quality that would not leave the chambers stripped.

They retreated to the library. Many books were missing but not enough to make the shelves appear stark. Alexia wondered how long the sale of bits and pieces could be sustained before the house was reduced to bare necessities.

She set her basket beside her on the sofa. “I have brought you a few things. I stopped at the shops before coming here.” She pulled aside the cloth atop the basket. The gifts inside now seemed silly to her. Impractical things, bought on an impulse to bring joy to her cousins. Better she should have brought meat.

Rose plucked out the little gifts, unwrapping each with great care. “Tea! I was distressed I would have none to offer you. And scented soap.” She held it to her nose and closed her eyes dreamily. “Such a luxury now.” She poked more, discovering the new ribbons and pretty hairpins, exclaiming over each one.

“I have something else for you. I must give it now, lest Tim decide to grace us with his presence.” She opened her reticule and produced the ten-pound note.

Rose’s face fell. “You cannot afford that. I dare not accept.”

“You can and must. It does not come from my wages or from my income. I have found a way to earn some money.” She described her overture to Mrs. Bramble and the hat she had crafted in her room. “This morning I brought it to her. She paid me well for it.” Not ten pounds, but Rose did not need to know that.

“You are making hats for a shop?” An unpleasant reaction shimmered over Rose’s face.

“Secretly.” Alexia laid the banknote on Rose’s lap. “We must be selective in our pride, Rose.”

“That is true. Every week I select more things over which to no longer be prideful.” A serious expression replaced her mirth. “You are fortunate to have such a skill with hats, Alexia. I regret I do not possess any practical abilities, besides knowing which chest or chair might be sold without much notice.”

Sounds above their heads indicated someone moved in the chamber there. “Let us walk. It is not too cold, and if he is about, I would rather—We argue too much, and today—”

“A walk would be delightful.”

Rose left to get a wrap. She took the basket and money—to hide, no doubt. Once outside, they strolled down the lane that led to the village. Alexia asked after Irene.

“She chafes at our diminished circumstances,” Rose said. “Such injustice cannot be countenanced by youth. She complains about helping clean the house and runs to the Mortensons’ whenever they invite her. She builds castles in the air over their son, who will never have her now, of course.” She pulled her cloak a bit tighter against the damp.

Rose glanced back at the house, now just a dot down the lane. “Tim speaks of selling it. He has lost all hope, all fight. Our family’s home, he would sell. When things were bad the last time, Benjamin found a way to make them better, but Tim can only contemplate selling and selling until there is nothing more to sell. Where will that leave us when all is gone?”

“I will continue sending you some money. With the hats—I can always send a little. Enough so that Tim does not sell. If he does, most will go to debts anyway.”

“So I tell him. At least we have a roof.”

A nice roof. A nice home, and a place in their old world. The property was the last anchor to who and what they were supposed to be. Alexia knew all about that, all about hanging on to one’s place and dignity with one’s fingernails.

She linked her arm through Rose’s. Her cousin had just opened a door that led to the past with Benjamin. Alexia had thought about him a lot last night. As the hours stretched toward dawn, her mind had swung between accommodating what had happened with Hayden and the shock that had led to her abandon. Discovering those letters had put Ben’s memory in a new light, and she had studied the altered image with curiosity. Not with hate, though. Perhaps with time the hurt would encourage that much distance, but it had not yet.

“Rose, I have been thinking of late about our happy time in Cheapside.”

“I wish we had never left that cozy home. The fall would not have been so far from there. Tim spent money as if the well would never go dry.”

“But Benjamin did not. Yet that bank was doing very well earlier. For years, I expect. If all that money was available for Tim, much the same would have been there for Ben.”

“We had those debts. The ones inherited from Father. I thought all was clear right after the war. However, Ben said there was one more debt, a big one, that he still had to repay. It was one reason I could not have a season.”

That made sense, but then again it did not. It would be very coincidental if a big debt suddenly was paid at the same time Ben died. Tim had begun spending freely almost at once.

Alexia took some comfort in the bare facts, however. Hayden’s allusions to Ben’s melancholy and to the Longworths’ finances had nudged at her for days now. She hated thinking that some dire predicament had waited for Ben in England. She resisted the notion that perhaps, due to that, he had become so drunk he fell off that ship. Or maybe did not fall at all.

Rose’s story relieved her of that nagging suspicion. The debt had been an old one, not new. It would not cause a sudden despondency. They did not live in luxury in Cheapside, but it had been comfortable. The hard times had been conquered, even if a good deal of Ben’s success was still going to pay for his father’s bad judgments.

“I expect there might be something in his trunks about all of it,” Rose said.

A chill shivered through Alexia at mention of the trunks. If they contained information regarding this debt, she did not see it. She had ceased looking once she found those letters.

The image of those letters invaded her head. The hand, the love, the scent—glimpses assaulted her, bringing back a taste of her shock. The memories poked and poked, demanding her attention and misery.

“I will be earning enough from the hats to pay my own keep, Rose. I will be leaving my situation soon.” The brick buildings of the village could be seen through trees and brush, waiting ahead around a bend in the road.

“You have sold one hat, Alexia. Do not be rash. I hate the idea of your being in service at all, and for that man’s family even more, but it is a home and some security and—”

“I am confident I can maintain myself. However, this may be the last time I have use of a carriage.”

Rose’s face fell. “Then it may be a long time before we see each other again.”

“It will not be this convenient, but I will find a way.”

“Maybe I will be the one to find a way.”

Alexia stopped walking. “What do you mean?”

Rose faced her. “I cannot live like this forever. With Tim’s behavior, it will only get worse. The house may eventually have to be sold after all. Perhaps it is time that I make some hats too, so to speak.”

“You said you had no skill to sell.”

“Nature gave every woman something to sell, Alexia.”

They looked at each other. Rose adopted a solemn, determined expression, one that dared Alexia to scold and lecture.

There would be no admonishments. She had lost all rights to preach yesterday, when she gave herself to a man on an attic floor. Rose merely speculated anyway. It was nothing more than a calculation by a woman facing a bleak future. Alexia knew all about that, and where it sometimes led one’s thoughts.

They began walking toward the village again. After a few footfalls the silence broke. A thunder of horses poured toward them, growing louder like a fast-approaching storm.

A large equipage rounded the bend and aimed right at them. They moved off the lane and the coach blurred past. Alexia noticed the crest on its door.

Rose’s expression hardened. “It appears that Easterbrook is finally gracing the county with his presence. I should not blame the man for his brother’s failings, but my respect for the entire family has been compromised, and I wish he had stayed in town. Thank heavens he never entertains, or Irene would be unbearable.”

Alexia made the most of her few hours with Rose. They strolled the village and visited shops, then returned home for some tea and confidences.

Not the biggest confidence, of course. Rose must never learn about what had transpired with Hayden. The memory of that spoiled the visit somewhat. Being back with the family he had wronged, noticing the details of precarious finances, added to Alexia’s embarrassment at her weakness. How could she have forgotten what Hayden had done to this family? How could she have treated him as anything other than the enemy?

She took her leave in early afternoon, soon after the carriage returned.

“I will see you again soon, Rose.” She kissed her cousin. “I will visit again as soon as I can.”

“Once you are resettled, write and tell me where. Perhaps I will visit
you
and see what I am worth.”

Alexia wished Rose did not allude again to the chance she might come to town to sell herself. It made the suggestion more than a groundless threat spoken in a fit of pique. She should not have let the last reference pass but received some reassurance that Rose did not truly consider such a thing.

As the carriage began its journey back to town, she debated the ways that she could help her cousins. Mrs. Bramble had paid two pounds for the hat and indicated she would charge five on any orders. If they could be made by day and not only by night, if the designs she invented drew enough orders, if she obtained this year’s income and bought enough supplies…would it be sufficient when all was done to support herself and also the Longworths?

Not in style, but they were all past that. She had forgone such dreams long ago, and surely Rose would see that virtuous frugality was preferable to luxurious sin.

She gazed at the countryside winding past her window. Her heart thickened with quiet dread. She saw again the hard lights in Rose’s eyes as they faced each other on the lane.

There was an alternative. For reasons she could not fathom, she suspected that Hayden would offer her a special situation if she gave him the slightest encouragement. He had come close in the attic, but she had not wanted to hear the proposition that would damn forever what had just occurred.

She was already soiled, however. Ruined, if any of the servants had heard them. The security provided by a brief liaison with Hayden would far exceed any she could ever provide herself. She possessed neither Rose’s exquisite beauty nor Phaedra’s dramatic style. She was the most ordinary of women, yet Lord Hayden Rothwell had fixed his attention on her.

She weighed the choice. If she became his mistress, Rose and Irene might still salvage some kind of life. She would not be able to stand beside them in society, but she could obtain enough money to return them there for a while. They were both lovely, and perhaps that alone would bring marriage offers.

If one wanted to be practical, if one set sentiment aside and assessed who had the better chances to make an honorable and virtuous future, of the three she was the least likely to do so.

Nor would it be horrible to become Hayden’s mistress. He had already proven that. If she allowed the pleasure to have its way, she might be able to ignore that she bartered her body with a man she would never love.

The carriage turned, rocking her out of her thoughts. She noted the crossroads through her window. It was the one where the lane met the road to London. The carriage had not turned south, however. They were heading north.

She opened the trapdoor and called for the coachman’s attention. He stopped the equipage and turned to face her through the opening.

“The road is clearly marked, good sir. We are now going the wrong way,” she said.

“M’lord said to bring you to Aylesbury Abbey once you were done with your cousin.”

“You misunderstood, I am sure.”

He shook his head. “They made a stop in Watlington and he saw the carriage. Told me to bring you along.”

“I do not choose to visit with Easterbrook today. Turn this carriage around and—”

“Not the marquess who spoke with me. Lord Hayden, it was.”

She saw the coach speed past and the blur of a profile within. Of all the days for Hayden to decide to come down from London, she could have done without his choosing this one.

“I refuse to accommodate Lord Hayden’s whims. Take me back to London or it will be nothing less than an abduction.”

“Well, now, you can explain all that to whoever wants to listen. You serve his family and eat at their board. You stepped into their carriage and sit there now. For a woman abducted, you have been most accepting.”

He turned away and cracked the reins. All thoughts of the Longworths left Alexia’s mind. It filled instead with the strong words she intended to shower on Hayden’s head very soon.

Beneath her indignation, a quiet voice whispered. It was a sad voice, from the soul that understood the world all too well.
Why not?
it said.
You have nothing of value left to lose.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

A
lexia judged Aylesbury Abbey to have over a hundred chambers. The ancient monastery was long gone from the property, replaced by a massive stone building.

Her eyes took in the Palladian raised portico and sprawling wings. She refused to be awed.

One of Aylesbury’s servants handed her down. She addressed her coachman. “Do not go to the stable. I will be back very soon, and we will return to town in good time.”

She and the servant marched up the stairs, entered, and began winding through the public rooms. Restrained luxury and saturated hues enclosed her like so many tastefully embellished jewel boxes. Perfect proportions marked each chamber, and superb craftsmanship enhanced every detail.

Hayden waited in the library, a chamber twice as long as it was wide and tall. Although furnished for comfort with sofas and reading chairs, the mahogany wainscot and carved moldings, the perfect bindings, the grand fireplace, the landscape oils—all of it identified the room as part of a great country house.

“You are delaying my return to town,” she said. “It was an unfortunate coincidence that you decided to visit the family seat today and learned I was here.”

“It was no coincidence. I followed you here. The coachman spoke of your plans to the groom, and—”

“And you inquired? And followed? What reason could compel you to make such a journey when I would be back tonight?”

“A conversation compelled me. One that is long overdue.”

“Believe me, you do not want any conversation with me today. I have just come from my cousin.”

He exhaled audibly. When he spoke again, his tone was almost gentle, but firmness sounded too. “I accept that you will never forgive me for their change in fortune. However, the Longworths are not part of the conversation I had in mind.”

To be sure, this was going to be the conversation she anticipated.

“Will you not sit?”

“I prefer not to. Say what you have to say. Let us have this conversation, so I can be gone.”

He strolled toward her. “Aunt Henrietta visited Easterbrook today. She woke him early this morning to complain about your plans to leave her house. She now believes she must move in with him in order to find another governess.”

She was wrong. He was not going to ask her to be his mistress. His thirst no doubt had been slaked yesterday. Now she was merely the servant with inconvenient plans, and he was just Easterbrook’s lackey.

She strolled away, step for step. “Your aunt’s design on Easterbrook’s house is Easterbrook’s problem, and perhaps yours. It is not mine.”

They both stopped, newly positioned in the magnificent library, but just as distant. “My brother is most insistent that you be cajoled into staying.”

“He sent the wrong knight on this errand. But then, he does not know why it would be hopeless if you spoke for him.”

“Actually, I think he suspects.”

“Then he is a little stupid to send you. However, if that is the reason for this abduction—”

“Hardly an abduction, Alexia. A slight detour.”

“You may inform him you did your duty, but the lady, upon learning your mission, was unmoved, even if she was considerably relieved.”

He walked again, but not in her direction. He strolled in front of the bookcases, thinking.

“You expected a proposition when you arrived here, didn’t you?”

How had things become so muddled? She was insulted that he did not want her as his mistress, even though she knew the offer should be the bigger offense. “One is due. There are rules to seduction, aren’t there? For gentlemen, at least. Or perhaps you only saw me as fit for a quick dalliance, such as men of your station enjoy with servants.”

“I cannot blame you for thinking the worst of me, and you can upbraid me at length in due time. However, right now I only ask that you reconsider your decision to leave my aunt’s house.”

“I am sure you will see that she is not too inconvenienced.”

“Her distress may be self-centered, but my concern is for you alone. Your decision is unwise.”

“I weighed it most carefully.”

“You will be vulnerable and alone.”

“I am now. You of all men know that. You saw it at once.”

He stopped pacing abruptly. “What do you mean by that?”

“If that had been my family’s home, and my father had received you and my mother saw you at parties, if I had even still been the poor relative in the Longworths’ house, would you have done it?”

Surprise and discomfort passed over his expression. Then he assumed the sternness that so often masked his thoughts.

It was enough of a reaction to release her dammedup insulted pride. “There are rules to seduction, as I said. In going into service I lost the protection of the best rules, the ones reserved for daughters of good families. Here is the truth of it. If I had been a woman worthy of the best rules, I do not think you would have even noticed me. It was my fall that made me interesting, the fact I had tumbled outside the demands of strict honor. You are an intelligent man with efficient habits. I doubt you waste desire on ladies whom the rules make unattainable.”

“Fine, I am a damned scoundrel. Right now we will return to your decision to leave that house. Do you even have enough to buy a room in which to sleep?”

“Do you think I am so stupid as to make such a move if I did not?”

“When what you have is gone, who will provide for you?”

“I will provide for myself. I am turning to one of my other options. The first, being a governess, did not suit me.”

Surprise cracked his mask. “Since you are incapable of theft, that leaves the hats. You are taking employment in a
shop
?”

“Perhaps it was the other option that I now contemplate. There was one more. Maybe you are not the only man who is pursuing me and I accepted someone else’s protection.”

She confounded him again. “I do not believe that.”

“Of course you don’t. I am not the sort of woman who would dazzle several men at once. Actually, I am not the sort to dazzle any at all, which puts an unpleasant light on recent events.”

“I do not believe it because it is not in your nature.”

“Perhaps it is. I always assumed it would be hideous to be kissed by a man whom I did not love, but I was wrong. I have discovered that love and passion are not the same thing.”

She received a deep, direct gaze for that, the kind that would have flustered her not long ago. She was not nearly as afraid of this man today as she had been in the past, however. Yesterday had leveled the field between them quite a bit.

“You came here thinking I would proposition you, but you entered the house,” he said. “You feared hearing it, but you intended to listen. You are willing to consider it.”

It took her a moment to get her response out of her throat. “Yes.”

“Because of the pleasure?”

“Because of the
money
. A woman facing an uncertain future, a woman seeing her family in dire need, will consider anything.”

“Would it not make more sense to marry? Most women consider that first.”

“Then find me a man of substance who will marry a woman of my age, countenance, fortune, and stained virtue.”

“You would marry out of practicality? I assumed you would not. It was not on your list.”

No, it was not. It should have been, unlikely though that option would have been. She had always dismissed it as impossible, but in truth she had rebelled at settling for such a match after once believing she would have much more.

“I would seek such a man for you, but there is always the good chance you will not care for him,” he said.

“Then I will have much in common with many other married women. But we speak nonsense, and my carriage awaits.” She turned on her heel and headed toward the doorway.

With a few strides he blocked her path. “Actually,
my
carriage awaits, and it will wait a little longer.”

“Easterbrook’s carriage, if we are going to be particular.”

“Not yours, however.”

“Mine for the day.”

“Only because I was undressing you in my mind while you negotiated.”

“Then you should clear your thoughts before you negotiate in the future.”

“That is excellent advice, Alexia. Considering the direction this conversation has taken, very timely advice as well.”

“There is nothing to negotiate.”

“You just invited a proposition.”

For a large library, it suddenly felt very small. Even so, the door was far away. She attempted to maintain her plain-speaking stance, but the ground beneath her wobbled.

“Do not waste your time, unless you intend to offer carte blanche.”

He laughed quietly and moved closer. “That would be reckless. I would never invite such ruin.”

“No, probably not. I expect that before you negotiate, you calculate the accounting with precision.”

“Always. Therefore, I am aware that your lack of affection for me requires some enhancements in the offer.” He made a display of thinking it over. “A house of your own. An army of servants and a cook. A carriage with a matched pair, for your use alone, and, of course, a new wardrobe. How does that sound?”

She stared at him. Her shock amused him. He made a little gesture under her chin, to suggest she might close her gaping mouth.

“Oh, and jewelry, of course. This, to start.” He removed a velvet pouch from his coat, lifted one of her hands, and emptied its contents into her palm.

A necklace of rubies and gold dripped around her fingers. The glitter mesmerized her. She could not move.

“Are they real?”

“There are rules, as you said. One is that a gentleman does not give a lady fake jewels.”

“Do I get to keep it, no matter what?”

“Yes.”

“The house and coach too?”

“The jewels and wardrobe are yours. The house and coach will be mine but at your command.”

Being able to keep the house when he tired of her would be better, but she could see where that was expecting too much. And the jewels alone would go a long way to ensuring her future and seeing that Rose and Irene had a second chance.

“And in return for this generosity?”

“You are mine alone for as long as I say.”

“I require a more complete answer. I have heard of things that would not be worth all the jewels in England to endure.”

He took the necklace from her hand and stepped behind her to fasten it on her neck. “Are you implying that I might be a pervert, Alexia?”

“Goodness, no, but you have never married, and I just thought that perhaps—”

“We could call in the solicitors and draw up a contract. One that lists my preferences and your agreement or lack of it, act by act.”

“I merely thought that you are being rather generous for such as me and that there may be a misunderst—”

“You discount your own worth too quickly. As for what happens in bed, we will negotiate all of that as honestly as we have this.”

She felt the jewels on her neck. She saw them sparkle beneath her face in a looking glass on the other side of the room. She looked much more sophisticated and pretty than she had just minutes ago. Hayden’s dark form backed hers in the reflection, but he was looking down at her, not at their images.

“So in return I will be your lover.”

His hands circled her waist. His head dipped. The warmth of his lips pressed her neck. “Yes. Oh, and you will also help with Caroline’s finishing.”

She giggled, because his kisses were tickling her. All of her. She had the shocking thought that a man’s kiss felt more exciting when you were wearing jewels worth several hundred pounds. “Your aunt will hardly agree to that if I am your mistress.”

He kissed her nape, and a thrill spiraled down to the soreness that still gently throbbed. “She certainly would not accept you then. However, this is not so much a proposition as a proposal. I am speaking of marriage.”

More shocked than when she saw the necklace, she stared at his bent head in the looking glass. She stepped away and turned to face him.

“Marriage?
Why?
”

He laughed and began to embrace her. She slipped out of his reach.

“You were correct. If you had still been living with the Longworths, if you had a father or family, if you were not alone and vulnerable and poor, I would have never seduced you. I would have wanted to, but those protections would have checked me.”

“So now you have concluded the best rules apply to me after all, and you make the obligatory proposal. I confess that I thought you had more…independence.”

“It is not only the rules. Your forthright nature, which has probably put off most men, happens to suit me. We are much alike in our sensible ways. We will know what we have in each other and treat each other with more honesty too.”

He was itemizing what she brought to this marriage. The list struck her as fairly dismal. “You gain little from this. You do not need any wife. If you have decided you want one, you should find a woman with a fortune or style or beauty.”

“In your own way, you have all three.”

The flattery disarmed her, as it had in the library the day of that first kiss. He said it to make the best of an awkward situation, but her heart smiled anyway.