Beyond Seduction (2 page)

"Your dinner, sir," he said, just as if Nic had ordered it. He removed the brandy decanter in order to

place the meal on the little table at Nic's side. Then he waited. Nic knew the butler wouldn't leave

until he saw him eat.

He lifted the hefty beef-and-pickle sandwich and took a bite. "There," he said. "Satisfied?"

Without comment Farnham poured a steaming cup of coffee and set it on a saucer. The smell alone

was enough to clear Nic's head—at least until Farnham slid a fat white envelope between the dishes.

"You'll be wanting your mail, sir."

Nic snorted, his mouth full of savory bread and beef. Farnham knew that for a lie as well as he did.

This particular letter had been following him around the house all week, appearing beside his plate at breakfast, peeping from the pocket of his coat. Nic had ignored it with a determination honed by years

of practice. Unfortunately, unlike Nic, Farnham didn't believe in putting off till tomorrow what one

would rather not face today.

With a grimace, Nic put down his coffee and took the envelope. It
had
been a week. His commission

was finished, his mind as serene as it ever was. Surely he was ready to open the damn thing now. What was there to fear, after all? The contents of his mother's correspondence were invariably the same.

"I'll leave you to it then," said Farnham as Nic's thumb slid under the flap.

The letter was as he'd expected. A brief expression of hope for Nic's well-being—omitting, of course,

any mention of his work—then straight to a summary of the myriad tasks she had undertaken since her last report. The sheep, the fields, the drainage in the village ditch: all had been seen to with his mother's trademark efficiency. She was the strongest, most managing person he knew, and yet behind each proof of competence lay an unspoken accusation.

These responsibilities are yours, Nicolas. Yours
. Never mind she would resent the mildest interference, she still behaved as if his failure to bestir himself were an affront. "What's more," she continued, "the

boy needs the steadying influence of a male. He's nearly fifteen. I can no longer guide him as I should."

Guide him.
Nic snorted. More like
rule
. Skimming to the end, he crumpled the page and tossed it into the fire. A smaller note remained, which had been tucked inside the other.

Nic opened it. Against his will, his heart began to rap more swiftly against his ribs. The note was from

the boy, the usual update on his progress at school. The tone was formal. The boy always called him "sir." Never volunteered more than the impersonal, nor asked questions he'd learned would not be answered. Unlike the dowager marchioness, the boy was far too sharp to inquire when Nic would visit. Nic had seen him twice in his life: once shortly after his birth and again when he was four. At the time, the boy's resemblance to Bess had been too wrenching to make Nic eager to repeat the experience.

Some memories were better left to lie.

He ran one finger over the spiky loops of ink. Despite the stiff language, he fancied he could read the boy's character in the scrawl. Bright. Impatient. True to his friends. Fonder of sport than he was of schooling but, apparently, from one comment he let slip, a budding admirer of Trollope.

Nic smiled at that. With an impulsive movement at odds with his former languor, he opened the drawer

in the table at his side. As he'd expected, Farnham had stocked it with writing materials. Using the arm

of the chair as a desk, he scribbled a response.

Dear Cristopher,

Am doing well, though busy with work. Should you need anything for which you would prefer

not to ask the marchioness, feel free to write my man of business.

He bit the end of his pen and reread what he' d written. His eyes strayed to the nearest rank of shelving. A small flutter of satisfaction warmed his breast. Yes, he did have a leather-bound set of
The Eustace Diamonds.
The pages, bright with gold leaf, hadn't yet been cut. The boy might have read the novel,

of course, but not in such handsome form. Rising, he pulled out the first volume and opened it to the frontispiece. The pen was still in his hand. He should write something, shouldn't he? Otherwise, the

gift would seem too cold even for him.

He pondered a moment.

"Thought you might like this," he wrote, then hesitated over what to sign. "Your father" would probably please the boy, but Nic wasn't sure he could force that appellation through the nib. He could sign himself "Northwick" he supposed, but that, too, seemed insufferable. In the end, he simply wrote "Nicolas" and, just in case, added a twenty-pound note. Warm, it was not. He had no wish, however, to promise more than he could give.

*  *  *

The mansion in Knightsbridge hummed with the pleasure of its guests. The holidays had never come so grandly as they did to these lofty rooms. Hundreds of beeswax tapers lit them, all banded with crimson bows. Every door was a faerie forest of fresh-cut pine. The scent of sugared negus and French perfume drifted like incense through the heated air. Bosoms glowed, jewels glittered, and trains like satiny peacock's tails swept inlaid marble floors. The sweet melancholy of a Chopin nocturne was nearly drowned by laughter.

When the clock in the hall struck
midnight
, no one showed the least desire to leave.

One reveler stood apart from the cries of "Happy New Year." In the relative quiet of the blue salon, a slender, freckled woman with hair like a scrub brush of red-gold wire stared intently at a portrait of the host. The picture had been hung that morning above the mantel, and ever since Merry Vance, only daughter of the duke of Monmouth, had been haunted by what it said.

Mind, there was nothing wrong with the thing. The likeness was exacting, the execution skilled. The artist had posed her father standing behind the desk in his study, with one hand resting on a globe and the other steepled lightly over a well-thumbed copy of the
London
Times
. A soft golden light, like the end of an autumn day, angled down from a nearby window to diffuse over the rich black wool of his coat sleeve.

At the very limit of the wedge of slanting sun, a small felt lion lay toppled on its side. The lion was a toy from Merry's childhood, treasured by a father who had four sons and just one daughter. The sight of it lying there, half in the light, half out, struck her with the force of a strange and uncomfortable portent. Indeed, the whole picture made her squirm.

Her father appeared vigorous, his stance confident, his jaw firm. But there was something in his eyes:

a look Merry had never noticed and now could not imagine how she'd missed.

How did I get here?
the look said, and,
What has happened to the world I used to know?

In that moment, for the first time in all her twenty years, she thought of her father not as Her Father but as a person like herself. Despite his title and his wealth, despite being a citizen of the mightiest empire on earth, he, too, was capable of doubt. In one way, the realization scared her but, in another, it made her even more determined to control her destiny.

When she was her father's age, she did not want to know regret.

Ten more years and I'll be free, she thought. That's when the estate left in trust to her by her grandmother would be handed into her care. She could live as she pleased then, answerable to no one

but herself—but only if she managed to stay unwed.

A husband, she knew, would not support her secret plans.

A whisper of orange-scented silk warned Merry she had company. Her best friend, Isabel Beckett, now Lady Hyde, laid a delicate, white-gloved hand upon her shoulder. Both girls were fair, but where Merry was as wiry as a jockey, Isabel was pleasingly plump. Pretty, too, with fashionably wavy hair and skin

as smooth as cream. They'd attended the same finishing school, two incorrigible pranksters. Merry couldn't count the times her friend's batting golden lashes had gotten them out of trouble. As Isabel

joined her in gazing at the portrait, her expression was one of amusement.

"They say he spent three months seducing Lady Piggot."

"What!" gasped Merry, far from ready to face this news.

Isabel giggled. "Not your father, silly. Nicolas Craven. The artist. Did you get to meet him while he

was here?"

Merry shook her head. "I only caught a glimpse of him in the hall. He was all over paint and wild-eyed—like a refugee from Bedlam. I don't think he even noticed I was there."

"Probably caught up in his Art," said Isabel, nodding sagely. "Mother claims he's a terrible rake. Says

no decent woman would sit for him."

"Well," Merry retorted, "he is not a very efficient rake if it took him three months to seduce Lady Piggot."

"No one says she wasn't willing to give in sooner. Apparently, he likes to savor his conquests." The

newly married Isabel licked her upper lip. "Morsel by morsel, as it were."

"Hmpf." Merry ignored a rush of warmth through her inner regions. "Likes them panting after him,

I'll bet."

"I wouldn't mind panting. My husband is almost as boring as your fiance."

"Ernest is not my fiance."

"Good as," Isabel countered. "You know your parents have their hearts set on the match."

Merry did know this, and had known it long before he began proposing. Ernest Althorp was the son of

a neighboring landowner, now employed as her father's secretary. Growing up, he'd been her refuge

from her brothers: calm when they were impetuous, sympathetic when they teased.

Not that she had ever considered marrying Ernest. He was like a brother to her, and a stuffy brother

at that. Besides which, his father's baronetcy was hardly a match for her father's dukedom. Merry cared less for such matters than her friends, but if one had to be leg-shackled, one did not want to sink! Her father, however, thought him "sound." Her mother just plain adored him. Whenever Merry spent time with her, thankfully not often, she found an excuse to sing Ernest's praises. Merry was beginning to think the duchess had a
tendre
for him herself. Most of all, though, her parents thought Ernest was precisely

the steadying influence their wild young daughter needed.
Time you settled
, her father liked to say.

Trade those horses of yours for a husband.

Merry shuddered. Trade her freedom for a yoke, more like. Ernest was as conservative as he was steady.

"At least he isn't fat," said Isabel, whose own husband was portly. "And at least you like him."

But liking him made it worse. Merry knew she didn't have the meanness to defy him the way she would

a bully. Nor did she like him enough. Once upon a time, Merry had been in love. She'd been young,

and it hadn't ended well, but the experience had taught her how deeply her passions could be stirred.

Stymied, she stared at Nicolas Craven's painting as if it held the secret to her fate. The candlelight

caught a hairline crack in the gilded frame. That will be my life, she thought, if I can't fend Ernest off.

"Nothing has been decided," she said aloud.

"Will be soon," warned her friend. "I'd be surprised if old Ernest doesn't propose again tonight. Your brothers have been winking at him all evening."

"Argh," said Merry, suspecting she was right.

Isabel laughed and squeezed her waist. "Shall I hide you in the broom cabinet the way I used to do at school?"

"No," Merry sighed. "It's time I let them all know where I stand."