A Seduction at Christmas (3 page)

She smiled at Mr. Denby.

He smiled back.

Reminding herself of the twenty pounds waiting for her, Fiona turned the handle, and opened the door.

The candlelit room was designed for seduction with sound-muffling draperies covering the walls and a linen-covered table intimately set for two. But what made her stomach twist into a knot of apprehension was the four-poster bed that dominated the majority of the room, its bedcovers turned down in open invitation. A welcoming fire burned in the grate.

However, something was wrong.

The room was empty. Hadn’t Mr. Denby said Lord Belkins had already arrived?

A chair had been pulled from the table. A glass of wine poured. Perhaps Lord Belkins had stepped out for a moment?

After all the stewing she’d been doing over entering this room, to find herself alone seemed a bit of a disappointment.

Then again, his absence could work in her favor. She could pour the vial into his wine now.

But just as Fiona moved forward to do the deed, a strong hand came out from behind the door and grabbed her. It clamped over her mouth, preventing her from shouting an alarm, while another hand jerked her up against a hard, muscular body.

Panic ripped through Fiona as Lord Belkins kicked shut the door, holding her prisoner with his body, his hand covering her breast—

“You aren’t the Spaniard,
” he said with angry surprise. He released his hold as if scalded, sending Fiona toward the table.

She caught herself before she could fall and reached for the closest weapon she could find—a fork. She whirled to face him—and then it was her turn to freeze in shock.

Her attacker was none other than the wickedly handsome, dark-haired Duke of Holburn.

How many times had she
thought
of him?
Dreamed
of him?
Hoped
that someday they would meet again?

Now, here he was, larger than life, furiously angry, and the only thing she could think to say was, “You aren’t Lord Belkins.”

“And
you
aren’t Andres Ramigio,” the Duke of Holburn shot back—and she realized he didn’t recall meeting her. Not one flicker of recognition crossed his face.

The man of her dreams didn’t remember her.

It was a humiliating moment.

He frowned at her fork, dusting off some imaginary piece of lint from his sleeve. “What are you going to do with that? Prick me to death?”

“The idea has merit.”

She meant the words.

T
he tart’s cool response to his comment caught Nick’s attention.

At last, he troubled himself to give her a good hard look and then almost dropped his jaw in stunned surprise.

The resemblance between her and the Oracle he’d met nine years ago in the ruins at Delphi was uncanny. Almost frightening. And yet there were differences.

The Oracle had been a spirit, a glowing, ethereal vision whose eyes had been hidden from him. This woman was flesh and blood and her eyes snapped with insult. He could well imagine her skewering him with her fork, but he didn’t
understand why. He really hadn’t been that rough with her.

What she did share with the Oracle was beauty. Her cheekbones were high, her red hair a dark auburn that tumbled becomingly down around her shoulders, the pins having been knocked loose when he’d grabbed her. She was of average height, her waist trim, her breasts full. It was almost the perfect figure for a woman, except there was a leanness to her as if she’d missed more than her share of meals. It was a look common amongst London’s lower classes.

A memory floated in his consciousness. “We’ve met before,” he said, speaking his thoughts aloud.

He knew he was right because her shoulders straightened and her gaze grew wary. “Where was it?” he asked.

“Where is Lord Belkins?” she countered. She had courage. Few spoke to him in that manner.

Nick spread his arms to show he hid no tricks. “I don’t know.”

“He was supposed to be here.”

“He sent me instead,” Nick answered and decided to lay all his cards on the table. Then perhaps she would relax to tell him her purpose and he could gain a clue to the mystery of Ramigio.

“Lord Belkins owes me money. A gambling debt.” It was no news that Belkins was done up.
He’d lost huge sums to men all over town and the rumor was he had little chance of meeting those obligations. “He came to me yesterday with an offer. He said he could arrange a meeting with Andres Ramigio, Barón de Vasconia, if I would forgive the debt, something I was willing to do. The barón took something from me once that I want back. I’ve been searching for years for him. You can imagine I leapt at the opportunity. I was expecting the barón to walk through the door, not you.”

His explanation obviously did nothing to ease her fears. She kept her fork pointed at him.

“What of yourself?” he prompted. “Why are you here?” And why did she expect to meet Belkins when he so obviously hadn’t planned on being here himself? If Belkins had passed up an assignation with this beauty, he was a fool.

A small worry line appeared between her brows. Her glance drifted to the door behind him and he knew she wanted to escape.

He wouldn’t let her do that. Not until he knew more about her. It had to be more than a coincidence that she, who looked so much like his vision at Delphi, should appear at the same time he’d been approached about Ramigio.

He tried charm, albeit his was rusty from disuse. In fact, his smile stretched his face in ways
he’d not felt for quite some time. “I know I gave you a scare when you first came into the room. That wasn’t my intention. I beg you to accept my apology, Miss—” He paused, waiting for her to fill in the answer.

She hesitated, reluctant to relax her guard, but at last said, “Bowen. Miss Bowen.”

“Like in Hester Bowen?” he hazarded. “The woman who paid for this room?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Liar.”

Her eyes widened at the accusation. Nick almost laughed at having caught her in the fib. “Hester Bowen is known by every gentleman of my acquaintance. She makes certain it is that way. You are no Hester Bowen.” He flicked his gaze over her person in an appreciative way. “And you should be thankful of that.”

Risking that she wouldn’t bolt for the door, and undecided of what he’d do if she did, Nick walked to the table. He pulled his coin purse out of his pocket and held it up for her to see before dropping it on the table. “What is your name and why are you here?”

It is to her credit that she stood in indecision a moment. She didn’t trust him, and she shouldn’t. Her gaze dropped to the purse.

“Hester Bowen hired me to come here and
deliver a message to Lord Belkins. He jilted her and she’s very angry. I don’t believe she knew anything about this Ramigio you keep talking about, Your Grace.”

Her lilting Scot’s accent didn’t detract from the culture and intelligence in her voice. She held her head high and her movements had a natural grace. This was not the sort of woman a man associated with Hester Bowen and her kind.

He moved the purse an inch across the table toward her, prompting her, “And your name?”

She swallowed, and then said, “Fiona.” She reached for the purse with her free hand, her shawl falling off her shoulder to hang loosely over one arm.

Nick snatched up the purse. “One second,” he warned. “You haven’t answered
all
my questions yet. Besides, I find myself hungry. Aren’t you?”

“No,” she said, even as her stomach rumbled loudly.

Color flooded her cheeks. Nick almost laughed until he saw the flash of irritation in her eyes. “I answered the questions that were important,” she informed him. “You are changing the bargain.”

“It’s my bargain to change,” he said. “And it is a long ride back to London.” As if to punctuate his words, a cold blast of air came down the chim
ney, making the flames in the fire dance. “A quick bite,” he urged soothingly, “and then you can be on your way.” He didn’t wait for her response but left the room, leaving the door open as he stood in the hall and called, “Denby, we want our supper.”

“I was supposed to hang the scarf from the inside door handle to the outside,” Fiona said. “That was the signal we wished to be served.” She raised a hand to self-consciously push a stray lock of her hair back in place.

He had her.
He’d seduced enough women to know he’d crossed an important hurdle. Nick turned to give her a smile—and then was riveted in place by the memory of exactly when and where he’d seen her.

“Lady Viner’s ball,” he said. “You were even wearing the same dress.” Amazing that he could remember even that detail.

Her sudden stillness told him he was correct.

Nick walked back into the room, shutting the door. He leaned his back against it. “My mother had arranged a match for me to a young woman the Duke of Colster was trying to rid himself of.”

Her gaze narrowed. He’d touched a nerve. “He wasn’t trying to be rid of her. He’d thought to arrange a decent match.”

With a shrug, Nick told her it didn’t matter to
him one way or the other. “Mother had made the arrangements on her own, asking a hefty price for her services. Mother has a greedy nature.”

“As I remember you weren’t very interested in meeting the young woman.” And then, almost as if her pride couldn’t stop her, she said, “Who is my sister-in-marriage now. She’s a fine woman and a good wife to my brother.”

“Then we wouldn’t have suited,” Nick surmised lightly. He wasn’t interested in the other woman or his mother’s misplaced avarice.

“She married my brother that night,” Fiona informed him proudly. “They are very happy together.”

Nick nodded, barely paying attention. She was so very lovely. “Fiona,” he said, wanting to test her name. “It fits you. There is a gracefulness to it.”

He wanted her.

The need was primal, instinctive.

It had been a long time since he’d desired a woman so much.

“I saw you in the ballroom,” he said. “I followed. You knew I was there.”

She didn’t deny the charge. Resting her fingers on the back of the chair as if needing to steady herself, she said, “You didn’t remember me when I first came into this room.”

The universal feminine complaint.

Nick let a slow, easy smile cross his face. “I should have. I’d been drinking the night we met in the ballroom. So, when I saw you, I believed my eyes deceived me.”

Her brows came together. “Why?”

He could have told her of her uncanny resemblance to the Oracle, of how he later had convinced himself it had all been the trick of a brandy-soaked mind. But then she would question his sanity, and he didn’t want that right now. It was hard to seduce someone who thought you were mad.

“Because you are so beautiful.”

Fiona was no fool. Her gaze went to the wine glass he’d emptied right before her arrival. She crossed her arms protectively against her chest, gathering her shawl around her as she did so. “You should stop drinking.”

Her tart comment startled a laugh out of him. She truly was unique. He pushed away from the door, coming toward her.

She shook her head. “I think I must go,” she whispered more to herself than him. She snatched up his coin purse from the table and would have hurried past him except that Nick caught her arm. He swung her around and without preamble, kissed her.

Fiona’s lips parted in surprise. Tension shot through her. She raised her hands to push him away.

Nick wasn’t about to let her go. He took her by both arms, turning his head, forcing the kiss, willing her to bend to him. She resisted, she held—and then she opened.

He didn’t waste time. He knew what he was doing. And yet, at the first full taste of her mouth, at the first hint of her submission, it was he who was trapped.

Kissing her was different from kissing other women. The spark of lust that had driven him now exploded into something more powerful than he’d experienced before.

And when she melded her lips to his, when she kissed him back—tentative at first, but with growing desire—he had only one wish and that was to scoop her up in his arms and carry her to the bed.

Nick pulled her close, wrapping his arm around her waist, ready to do exactly that when a knock sounded on the door.

It was an untimely interruption. It broke the spell for her. She pulled back, struggling to be free.

At first, he held tight, wanting to keep her, to continue to explore this almost supernatural connection between them. After one kiss, he craved
her,
needed
her. Denby and his supper dishes could go to the devil.

Her body arched, the heels of her hands pressing against his shoulders.

Through the haze of lust, he realized she was panicking.

He didn’t want that. He wanted to keep her, protect her.

He broke the kiss, and she started to collapse at his feet as if her legs could not bear her weight. He eased her back into the chair by the table.

Fiona struggled for breath, feeling as if she’d run a long, hard distance.

Dear Lord, she was shaking…and she didn’t dare look at the duke—or else she might rise from this chair and move right into his arms again.

What had come over her?

If it hadn’t been for the knock on the door, she feared where that kiss would have taken them.

She’d tried to resist. She’d just met the man. She was no whore. No Hester Bowen. Why, she and her former friend Grace McEachin had parted ways for that very reason. Grace had turned to the stage and to men who would protect her. She’d not understood Fiona’s pride. She’d not understood Fiona would think being a seamstress better than being a dancer and ogled by men.

The door opened. She didn’t know if the duke had opened it or not. Footsteps crossed to the table where she sat. Covered dishes were set on the table. Fiona kept her head lowered.

There followed the door closing. A wine bottle was uncorked. “Drink this,” the duke ordered. He filled the glass close to her place. He poured himself a glass before setting the bottle down.

When she didn’t drink he threw himself down impatiently in the chair beside her. He lifted his glass. “To your health, Fiona.”

He drained his glass, then put it aside to take hers and place it in her hand. “Drink it. You need the color to return to your face.”

She shot him a glance of surprise, her fingers automatically wrapping around the stem of her glass. “Why should you care about the color of my face?”

“We rakes don’t like seducing pasty white things,” he said in self-mockery. He began heaping food from the dishes onto her plate, his actions more that of a diligent nursemaid than a rakehell.

Fiona took a sip of her wine, the smells of roasted chicken, new peas, and hot bread threatened to make her swoon. Hester Bowen was probably wondering what was going on inside this room. For the briefest second Fiona felt guilty that
the woman waited for her, but one bite of the tender chicken erased Hester from her mind.

She tried to eat daintily but within minutes she caught herself holding a piece of bread in one hand and a forkful of chicken in the other. It had been a long time since she’d had a meal such as this.

The duke watched her intently. His eyes were blue, midnight blue. His shoulders were broad and his body long and loose limbed. He moved the chair around to sit by her and stretched his legs out toward the fire, the very picture of a young lord at ease.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Fiona asked, swallowing.

“No, I prefer to drink,” he answered, pouring himself another glass of wine. He gave her a lazy, good-humored smile. “You know, you could have given me a false name.”

Too late Fiona realized he was right. “How do you know I didn’t?” she responded. She’d finished the last of her supper and laid her napkin beside her plate. She should leave now…but she found herself in no hurry to go back out into the cold, damp night. Hester would be angry that Lord Belkins had thwarted her plan for revenge and probably rant and rave all the way back to London.

Whereas here, she had a full stomach, a glass of wine, a warm fire, and the duke’s coin purse. The purse had been heavy. There was probably not as much as twenty pounds in it, but close. Watching the flames in the hearth, Fiona ticked off all the things she would do with the money: pay her landlord, buy a new pair of shoes, leave London completely…she would take Tad into the country where they would be happier—

His lips brushed against her neck. He nuzzled her ear.

Fiona thought her insides would melt.

She gripped the edge of the table knowing she should pull herself up and leave, except it was already too late. He kissed the line of her jaw—and she knew that she wasn’t against this. She had to be careful and not let it go too far, but a part of her was fascinated by him. He was the devil, tempting her…and what was wrong with just a moment or two more in his company?