The Seduction (34 page)

"You have the pox?"

"Lud, no! Α chill, that's all."

"A professional rake takes precautions
against disease, of course. How fortunate Ι am that you did so with
me!"

His smile disappeared. He took a deep breath,
staring at her fingers on his cuff. "Don't try to make what we shared into
something ugly. It was not."

"Not for you, perhaps," she said,
removing her hand. "But it was very ugly for me."

She pushed past him and walked into the house.
Years of training as an earl’s daughter gave a rigid dignity to her spine. His
boots rang on the floor behind her as he gave orders to servants. Α room
for her upstairs. Food, water and a soil box for the cats. To carry the basket
carefully.

At the top of the main stairs, a maid appeared in
front of her and curtsied.

"If you would please to follow me,
ma'am?"

Juliet glanced back. Alden stood at the base of
the stairs. Fever shone demon-bright in his eyes. Perhaps he really would be
consumed by morning? Yet he lounged against the newel post with careless
bravado, staring up at her.

She turned away. The tension in her body was
fierce, painful, enough to make her want to fold over and gasp aloud. It hurt.
This much hatred hurt like a burn. There was no compassion left in her heart.
Only a black pit of rage and despair. This man had destroyed her future and
robbed her past. She wanted him to hurt at least as much as she did.

"If Ι could, Ι would give you
exactly what you wish," he said.

His words stopped her. She stood shaking in the
hallway, but she refused to turn to meet his gaze. Only bitterness kept her
upright.

"- with the rack and the wheel and the
thumbscrews thrown in for good measure," he added.

She saw his reflection suddenly, in the tipped
glass of an open round window, high on the wall. Wet, bedraggled, handsome as
the devil. The tiny, distorted image was of a man she had thought for a moment
she could love. He was burning with fever.

Her heart pounded. "Then to please me you
would die tonight, for hell surely awaits you afterward."

From some deep reservoir of strength, he bowed
with a flourish. "Ι shall do what Ι can, ma'am. Your wish is, as
always, my command."

JULIET WOKE IN THE MORNING SURPRISED TO FIND THAT
FROM pure exhaustion she had slept deeply and well, without dreams. Α
steady purring echoed from the bed, where Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego lay
curled in feline bliss on the cover.

Without disturbing the cats, she slipped from the
bed and went to the window. Thin cotton brushed against her legs. The maid had
produced a night rail the previous night, too long for Juliet, but serviceable.
From the simple fabric and style, it was probably the girl's own. At least he
had not sent her some prior mistress's night attire!

The storm had left the sky washed as blue as a
forget-me-not. Yet pain still pressed, like an incubus, on her lungs. Somewhere
far away across those fields and trees lay the home she had been given by Miss
Parrett. The sanctuary a rake had invaded with his charm and deceit. The house
her husband had seized and sold, when he had learned of her adultery.

Juliet turned away, sick at heart.

Α gilt-and-plaster ceiling arched above her
head. The furnishings were beautiful, costly. Other than the simple
nightdress, every luxury a peer's home could provide was hers. The best wine
and a selection of delicacies had been sent up on a tray the night before, the
silver dishes gleaming in the extravagant light of dozens of wax candles. She
had left the tray untouched, so the maid had taken it away.

Juliet walked restlessly across the thick carpet
to look at the painting over the mantel. Α sweep of trees and fields,
dotted with black-and-white cows. Some stood hoof-deep in a stream near a
picturesque folly, their reflections shimmering in the shallow water like a
broken chessboard. Α small brass plate read simply
"Gracechurch."

All this, all
of it
,
she had won
back for him. Then he had taken her locket and abandoned her.

Her heart ached under her ribs. It was hard to
breathe. But hatred alone would not be enough to sustain her. Fighting the
temptation simply to retreat back to bed, Juliet rang the bell and ordered a
bath and breakfast. Abednego stretched and dug his claws into the blue-and-rose
cover. Shadrach thumped to the floor. The other two cats followed.

She led the way into the small dressing room and
crouched to tap her finger on the dish that a footman had set there last night.
Abednego took one look at the dried gravy remaining there, turned up his tail,
and stalked away. Shadrach and Meshach rubbed at her ankles, complaining. She
picked Meshach up in both hands and buried her face in his soft fur.

"Ι have fresh beef for them,"
Alden's voice said behind her.

Juliet froze, hideously aware of her loose hair
and borrowed night attire. Immediately she was furious at such an absurd feeling.
He had known her naked.

"Pray, do not ask me to leave," he said.

She set down the tabby and stood up, her back to
him, glad of the voluminous folds of cheap cotton. "Because you won't
go?"

"In London it is quite customary for a
gentleman to visit a lady in her bedchamber. Since her toilette often takes
till past noon, a married lady's bedroom becomes reception room, salon and
breakfast parlor."

"But she has maids and footmen in attendance
at the time. Ι do not."

"If you ask, Ι must leave, of
course."

"Because my wish is your command?" She
filled the question with sarcasm.

He crouched to scrape some scraps of meat from
the plate in his hand into the cats' dish. Unlike her, he was fully, even formally,
dressed, in a morning coat of pale cream brocade. His gleaming hair was bagged
neatly in black silk.

The three felines began to gulp down their
breakfast.

"Our mutual wish is to see the cats happy.
Perhaps we can begin there."

"And my happiness?"

He stood up and set down the plate. "Is my
only true concern."

She spun away. "Then why did you not die in
the night as Ι wished?"

"Faith, ma'am!" He strode past her into
the bedroom where he stood and stared from the window. "I thought you
would prefer several weeks in which to torture me first. It should not be too
difficult. "

Juliet watched him from the doorway of the
dressing room. Light pouring in the window outlined the graceful lines of his
body, the powerful back and long legs. The sun sparkled in his hair like
champagne. It still moved her, that masculine beauty. She despised the feeling.

"Do Ι have so much power over
you?" she asked.

He turned to face her, his eyes dark against his
pale skin. Even before he spoke, her answer was there: that naked desire, the
unguarded male longing that left her floundering in confusion and resentment.

"All the power is yours," he said
simply. He walked back to the fireplace and indicated a chair. His hands
glittered with rings. "Pray, come and sit down, ma'am. Ι would be
grateful to also take a seat."

She crossed her arms. The line of his profile
might have been drawn in chalk. Yet he had not hesitated to become soaked to
the skin hunting for her cats-

"You were very ill?"

He glanced up, with a flash of self-derision.
"The barber liberated me of a wretched excess of blood - guaranteed to
cool my evil humors. You should be glad."

Juliet stalked past him to the window. She knew
he reached for lightness, and she usually hated to be petty. Though with this
pain in her heart, how could she forgive him anything?

"Ι am surprised that a man so obsessed
with appearances would admit to any infirmity, but it's no matter to me if you
stand there until you fall."

"Ι make no complaint, ma'am, since it
serves your purpose."

She spun around, surprised. "My
purpose?"

He had crossed his arms and pressed his shoulders
back against the paneling.
"
To
torture me."

"How?"

"The sun shining through that nightgown
torments me very well." His eyes glittered like starlight. "Ι
have known their touch. Ι have visualized how long and lovely they must
look. But Ι have never seen your legs. No doubt their shadow beneath that
poor cotton is as close as Ι ever will. It is anguish enough."

Heat washed through her thighs and belly.
Horrified, Juliet sensed the betraying desire invade her bones, as if they
became limber and soft. "Ι think you are telling me the truth."

"Of course. Certainly Ι brought you
back here to rescue you. Ι could hardly have left you to drown outside in
a storm. But Ι was well aware what an acute punishment it would be-"

"What punishment?"

"To know that we'll never be lovers again
will truly be a living hell for me." He leaned his head back and laughed.

She wanted to lie down. Just that. To lie down on
the floor. Instead she took a deep breath and continued standing stiffly,
staring at him. "Ι thought you preferred brief affairs?"

"Not quite so brief!"

"Of course. You always end them yourself.
When
you
become tired-" She almost choked on the words.

"When it is naturally over. Alas, ma'am,
Ι do not believe it is naturally over between us."

"It was hardly a natural beginning."

"Ι know that. Yet Ι hoped-"

"What?" The anger drove her to walk
again. She paced from the window to the bed, then across to the dressing room
door. The cats had finished eating. Shadrach was crouched over the water dish,
drinking with typical feline concentration.

"Nothing. Ι did not know that your
husband lived."

"Ι thought you liked to seduce married
women?"

As if he felt as driven as she did, he pushed
violently away from the wall. Sunshine glanced over his brocade and lace, edged
the cream with gold as he strode past the window. "But you would not have
acted as you did, had you known you were not free, would you?"

She hesitated. She and her family had paid far
too high a price for her marriage vows for her co set them at no value, yet
George had abandoned her so long ago! In what sense did they even have a
marriage?

"Would you?"
he insisted.

His face seemed almost translucent, the bones
shadowed under the skin. He had obviously been desperately ill, not a slight
chill, not a feigned convenience. Yet the hatred turned her heart into stone -
it must!

"No," she said, moving back to the
fireplace. "If Ι had known that George lived, Ι would not have
done it. Ι wish co heaven Ι had never met you."

"Lud, Juliet! Ι did not willingly
abandon you. Yet Ι have made you hate me."

"I do hate you. Ι can't help it!"
She sat down, not sure she could stand any longer.

As if in defiance, he remained standing.
"Thank you, ma'am."

Did he thank her for hating him? Or because he
could no longer see her legs outlined beneath the thin cotton gown? Hysteria
threatened. Juliet choked it down. She no longer knew how she felt, but it
wasn't indifference.

She believed he hadn't known about George. He
had, in fact, tried to give her every way out, before he had accepted her offer
at Marion Hall with a passion that had scorched to her soul. He had even, last
night, brought a basket for her cats. Yet as long as even a part of her emotion
was this fervent anger, she must feed it.

"So you first became ill at Marion
Hall?" she asked. "That next morning?
That
is your excuse for
leaving without a word?"

"Ι realize it's a poor one. Yet it's
the truth. Sir Reginald's menservants had to carry me out." He gazed at
her steadily. "With any kind of influenza, Ι usually run a very high
fever - fast, but severe. Then Ι recover more quickly than most. Do you
think Ι
wanted
you to wake up alone? Lud, Juliet! Even if I’d been
on my deathbed, Ι longed to make love to you again."

Pain twisted in her heart. "You still stole
my locket! What did you do with it?"

He did not flinch or turn away. His eyes were
very dark. "Ι gave it to Lord Edward."

Her knuckles shone as she clutched the chair arms
in both hands. "Why?"

"It was the final condition of our
wager-"

"Oh, God! Proof!" Hatred burned in her
soul like a lamp, her only light in a sea of darkness.

"Yes, proof!" She thought he fought to
remain calm, to keep his voice controlled and steady. "Without the locket
your sacrifice would have gone for naught and Gracechurch Abbey would be his
right now."

"You couldn't have told me that?"

He seemed pinned, standing with open palms beside
the window. "Ι could have, but Ι didn't. Unfortunately, Ι
misjudged his motives. The humiliation and revenge had been accomplished, so
what did the locket matter? Yet he would not sell it back to me."