The Seduction (24 page)

There was silence for a moment, before Denby
leaped up in triumph. "He has failed. What did Ι tell you, sirs?
Gracechurch has failed."

Lord Edward smiled like a snake. "Thus
everything he has is mine, including his lovely person. As it happens, Ι
am in need of a personal servant to empty my chamber pot."

Alden raised a brow. "But Sir Reginald is
also my creditor. Doesn't
he
have a chamber pot?"

"I have already purchased from Sir Reginald
your entire obligation to him," Lord Edward said. "Thus your debt
and your forfeit are mine alone."

Α small shock, though not one that mattered
- everything was lost either way.

"My pleasure, of course," Alden said.
"One chamber pot is less work than two - or do you both share the same
one?"

The duke's son stood and crossed to a desk at the
side of the room. "No amount of bravado can change the facts, proved here
before these witnesses. You have lost. You are mine." He looked up.
"Do come here, Gracechurch, and accept your punishment like a man."

"Like a man, sir? Or like a woman?"

Lord Edward's face reddened beneath the powder. He
picked up a quill. "You waste your breath. Ι have already designed a
pretty enough recompense for your loss of our wager. You may begin by signing
these papers."

"Not yet." Alden raised his glass and
downed the contents. "It is still two hours to midnight."

The quill bent. "At midnight, sir, you will
sign. Title to Gracechurch Abbey, your funds and investments, your personal
effects-"

"And my carcass, of course. The pound of
flesh."

"To put your person at my disposal - for a
year, shall we say? - is the added forfeit I have chosen for your losing our
last wager and not redeeming it now. An unofficial form of indentured servitude-"

"I forgot to ask at the time. Careless of
me." Alden strode to the window and stared out. "Though I imagined
something of the kind."

"Do you wish to wager for further
terms?" Lord Edward asked. '' "Another day to win the lady? What is
her virtue worth to you, sir? One more year in my service? I might even agree.
I’ faith, I’m sure every gentleman here would think me most generous if I
did."

The steel blade at his hip felt cold, whispering
its own frostbitten need. Alden kept his back to the room, not quite trusting
himself to control his expression. "Your servant, sir - after midnight.
Yet while my person is still my own, I have the rest of the company to
insult-"

The door opened. Chairs scraped as men scrambled
to their feet.

Alden froze where he was.

Α haze of rose satin danced at the edge of
his vision like a half remembered dream to reflect its scattered petals in the
window glass.

He did not have to look around. His entire body -
blood, sinews, bones, skin - would know her scent anywhere.

Catastrophe coalesced into an intense, bright
pain.

Juliet.

Α silken curtsy rustled in his ears, then
her high-heeled shoes walked farther into the room. Her scent intensified until
he knew she stood directly behind him. Questions formed and broke in his mind
as he waited for her public denunciation - the deserved blow to the heart. He
felt stripped, without defenses, offering her only his rigid back and the
broken rhythm of his breathing. It seemed to roar into the quiet night as if a
lion were surrounded by jackals.

"I am given to understand by Lord Edward,
sir, that you sought my acquaintance only in order to win an infamous
wager," she said. "Is that true?"

He forced himself to turn.

Her hair was powdered and formally dressed.
Someone had found her a new hooped petticoat. She even wore a fresh rose satin
dress - an evening gown - though still five years out of date. Three white
rosebuds nestled in her décolletage, a harmony to the purity of the skin
beneath her gold locket. Under a fine dusting of powder, her face seemed carved
alabaster.

She was perfect. Α perfect court lady. Every
lush curve, every female charm, offered with deliberate coquetry. Anything
natural, human, vulnerable, was lost behind the flawless, artificial grooming.
Alden felt almost as if he stared at her corpse.

Yet her eyes shimmered like violets, intensely
blue and burning with rage.

With the grace of a queen, she flicked open a
si1ver-and-ivory fan and arched both brows. "Lord Gracechurch?
Is it
true?
"

"Madam," he said, bowing. "It is
true."

Her skirts lifted as she stepped even closer. His
pain intensified. Wou1d she strike him?

"Then you might like to know this: earlier
today Lord Edward Vane asked for my hand in marriage."

Constriction racked his gut as if he were about
to be sick, or as if he might kill someone. His blade still hung sweetly enough
at his hip. Yet he didn't seem to be able to move. His face felt rigid, as if
it belonged to someone else.

"Struck dumb,
sir?"
Lord Edward asked.
''How very entertaining! The wit of London caught at a loss for words! Perhaps
you didn't know that Lady Elizabeth Juliet Amberleigh and myself were once
engaged to be married?"

"Were you?" Alden heard himself ask as
the words spun in his brain -
Lady
Elizabeth Juliet Amberleigh?
''How
odd, since the lady obviously married someone else-"

"My father's secretary." She turned
away, her dress swaying in graceful folds. "Mr. George Hardcastle and
Ι ran away together much to my father's displeasure." Her spine like
a ramrod, she moved into the center of the room. The men scrambled aside to
make room for her skirts. "It created a great scandal. I'm sure everyone
here has heard the story of Lord Felton's infamous daughter, except you, sir,
since you were out of the country."

Alden realized then that he had snapped the stem
of his wineglass. The bowl lay at his feet, slowly bleeding over the floorboards.
He set the broken foot carefully onto the windowsill and tried to put together
the shreds of the story.

Lady Elizabeth Juliet Amberleigh, daughter of the
Earl of Felton. She had been engaged once to Lord Edward Vane. She had instead
married this other man, her father's secretary, George Hardcastle, but been widowed…

She would marry Lord Edward now-?

Then why the devil the wager in London?

His entire world seemed to have become unglued,
to be spiraling away into chaos.

Why the devil the wager?

The palm of his hand smarted. He glanced down at
it. Not just wine. Blood. He had cut himself. Carefully controlling each movement,
he wrapped his handkerchief about the small wound. Rage boiled just below the
surface, a white-hot blaze of anger at Lord Edward Vane, at himself, at the
world. If he were not careful, he might explode.

He raised his head and gazed at Juliet.
    

She fluttered the fan in her right hand, then
moved it in front of her face.

Alden stared at her, reading the language of the
ivory sticks:
Follow me!

Follow me?
Where? He looked again at her face. This time he
saw it: the high courage and the hard beat of the pulse in her throat. Juliet
was angry, but she was also terrified. Whatever she said, she was terrified,
with a bone-deep terror. She glanced at the duke's son and her nostrils flared,
just a little, while the tendons in her throat stood out like cords. He had
once seen a man with that very same expression on the scaffold, before the hood
was dragged over his head.

The engagement must have been announced. Α
great society wedding planned. Dowries and settlements agreed to - and she had
repudiated a duke's son to elope with a secretary. The resulting scandal would
have consumed society and the broadsheets. Had anyone ever imposed such a
public humiliation on Lord Edward Vane and not paid in blood for it?

How the devil had she come here? What was Lord
Edward to her? What was he to anyone who crossed him? Α damned dangerous
enemy!

Alden had no idea what she was doing, but she had
clearly taken charge. Lord Edward stood in silence by the desk, his painted
lips curved in a small smile. The other men were each caught, as if frozen,
where they had been standing. Alden very deliberately relaxed his fingers. If
any of these men did or said anything to increase her fear, he would have their
blood, too, on his hands.

"Delightful," Alden said, shattering
the silence. "An earl's daughter preferred a commoner over a duke's son!
Ι wonder why?"

She raised both brows. "The secretary was a
better figure of a man."

Lud! Alden leaned back against the wall and
folded his arms across his chest.
It's your play, Juliet. Whether you hate
me or not, let me know where you would lead me.

"My dear." Lord Edward's patch
flattened. "After this, there will never be another offer. Pray,
think!"

Juliet curtsied. "But why should I
think?
I am here only to be decorative, am I not? In the gown you kept for me
since our engagement five years ago and with my hair dressed by a woman you
brought with you from town for that very purpose. Alas, I'm just an
empty-headed female, whose words tumble without meaning from her mouth."

"You are naturally distressed to learn of
your husband's recent death," Lord Edward said.

Recent
death! Alden had thought her widowed years ago.

"So silly!" Juliet paced, fluttering
the fan. "Until tonight I had thought that George lived, that I was still
a married woman, until you were kind enough to tell me otherwise."

Shock compounded on shock. She had believed that
her husband lived? While Alden had played out his wicked game of seduction,
she had believed George Hardcastle to be alive - and only discovered otherwise
tonight?

The implications spun and twisted, like mad
flurries of leaves in a gale, all structure lost in turbulence. All along she
had believed her husband to be alive… Dear God!

To Alden's surprise, Lord Edward laughed.
"Α lady may follow any whim she chooses. I offer you my hand and with
it, social redemption. Yet perhaps you prefer the reckless Lord Gracechurch to
an honorable offer from a duke's son?"

She snapped her fan shut. "There is nothing
between Lord Gracechurch and myself, Lord Edward, except a much simpler wager
than yours. Alas, it remains unfulfilled-"

"And what, pray, was that wager,
ma'am?" Dovenby asked. He had been standing quietly, watching their exchange.

She tipped her head. "You do agree, sir,
that a lady's wager takes precedence over a gentleman's?"

Dovenby smiled. " Of course, ma'am. Α
lady's desires must always come first."

Skirts belling, she paced down the center of the
room, like a queen with her court, until she faced the duke's son. "Lord
Gracechurch and I must discover who wins our contest before you see which of
you wins yours. You agree?"

Lord Edward was trapped. He nodded. "By all
means, ma'am."

"What the deuce is this wager?" Denby
blurted. "Damme!"

Her smile seemed almost sweet. "A chess
match for each day this week, Sir Reginald, where the winner may ask for a
boon. Lord Gracechurch still owes me our last game."

"I am content to concede the wager,
ma'am," Alden said immediately. "Assume you have won and done as you
wished from the beginning - sent me away."

"I do not wish for any such thing," she
replied. "Α wager is a wager. Ι would play our final chess match
now."

Alden closed his eyes for a moment. He had no
idea where this was going, yet he owed it to her to use him however she wished.
To make up for what he had intended, he would owe her the world if she asked
for it.

Fenborough threw back his head and guffawed.
"Then you must agree, Gracechurch!" He slapped one hand on the arm of
his chair. "Must he not, gentlemen?"

Dovenby took a pinch of snuff. "Definitely.
You have a set, Denby?"

"Α
chess
match?" Sir
Reginald almost shouted. "Why the deuce should they play chess? We
expected better sport than that tonight!"

Dovenby had the grace to look slightly
uncomfortable. He closed his snuffbox with a snap. "One infamous wager at
a time, don't you think?" He turned his head and glanced at Alden.
"You demur, sir? Your last chess match with the lady?"

Juliet seemed calm, even amused, but her eyes
were desperate. "It was promised, Lord Gracechurch."

Lord Edward lowered his lids and turned away. So
the duke's son would not step in to prevent this. Alden glanced at the clock.
Ninety-nine minutes to midnight.

It was promised.

Alden swept her a bow. "Your servant, ma'am,
as always."

He did not want to play chess. Especially like
this, with an audience.

When he won, what the deuce should he demand?
Take
me to bed, Juliet, and save me?
He saw it then, the look on a couple of the
men's faces - Bracefort and Denby. It was what they expected, anticipated with
foul eagerness. Α sick shiver ran up his spine. Had he ever been so damned
that he had thought he could bed her here, at Marion Hall?