Twice the Temptation (2 page)

In any case, isn’t this what she deserved? It was ironic and entirely fitting that she should pay for her trespasses in this manner.

Yes, entirely fitting and precisely what you deserve.

“Catherine—”

“Goodbye, Mr. Beaumont.” She made her voice flat and emotionless.

His features softened. His hand lifted as if reaching out to her. She moved then, stepping hastily back.

Difficult didn’t come close to expressing just how hard it was to maintain eye contact, to not drop her gaze from the sympathy in his. If it appeared emotional turmoil resided there as well, she chalked it up to guilt at her misconstruing his attentions.

At length, Lucas spoke, his voice soft and heavy with regret. “Goodbye, Catherine.”

While she could still manage to maintain her composure, Catherine turned with a swish of skirts and walked blindly away. Walked away from him first for she could not bear to watch him take the necessary steps it would take to walk out of her life.

C
HAPTER
O
NE

London, 2 August 1864

C
atherine was
not
a seductress, possessing no appreciable wiles she was aware of. Which made what she was being asked—or daresay begged—to do impossible.

While the request may ostensibly appear flattering, catering to the sometimes bottomless well that was a woman’s vanity, the whole of it was singularly insulting.

Belatedly, she clamped her mouth shut, as it had fallen indelicately open. Not upon hearing the question but in the process of making sense of it. Spine lengthened and head tipped slightly back, Catherine regarded Miss Beatrice Claremont, youngest daughter to Baron Frederick Claremont.

The young miss, blonde-haired and pink-cheeked, sat opposite her on the brocade sofa in the drawing room, looking the epitome of everything innocent and earnest despite the discomfort that had her fidgeting with the pleats of her skirt.

Looks, it appeared, could be very deceiving, as Miss Claremont’s request clearly revealed. For there was a jaded side to the young woman that one could not discern by merely looking at her. Sweet and innocent indeed, one must add in a healthy dose of cynicism and cunning. Ah yes, and one mustn’t forget the sheer audacity it must have taken to issue the request.

It took several seconds more for Catherine to compose herself enough to respond. “Am I to understand, Miss Claremont, that you would have me seduce the man you wish to marry?” She spoke softly, almost tenderly on the off chance the poor girl had recently suffered a serious head injury and all her faculties had yet to be fully restored, but in a tone that conveyed she wholly understood the enormity of the insult just dealt her.

Catherine was well aware that her and her sister’s acceptance by the
ton
—and she meant acceptance in the loosest definition of the word—was due solely to their half-brother’s position in society. Not only was James Rutherford the wealthy and prosperous Earl of Windmere, in the years since their father’s death, he’d become an influential member of Parliament in the House of Lords. But no one had ever had the temerity to address her with such an exceeding lack of tact.

The whites of Miss Claremont’s eyes were now more prominent than the brown of the irises. A sharp inhale of breath preceded her hushed, “Seduce him? Oh my goodness not in
that
manner.”

Catherine blinked. “I wasn’t aware there was any other.” Perhaps she’d missed a vital lesson in boarding school that would have contradicted her.

A nervous laugh bubbled from the young woman’s throat. “Oh nothing so untoward. I merely meant that you should flirt with him. A smile or two. A glance. Act in the manner a lady would when attempting to gain the attentions of a gentleman.”

Well, it would appear that their definition of seduce varied dramatically. Rather like the difference between poke and stab, the results of which depended largely on the person’s intent not the type or size of the instrument used to perform the act. In this instance, she rather thought
seduce
was the stab, and
flirt
, the poke.

When Miss Claremont had called on her at James’s London residence, Laurel House that morning, Catherine had been surprised for they could only be considered passing acquaintances. At nineteen, Miss Claremont was six years her junior and had come out only the past season.

But when she’d timidly asked if she could beg a favor, Catherine hadn’t the heart to refuse her an audience. Although what the young woman could want from her had been a mystery.

This may appear somewhat unorthodox, but I’d like you to seduce Lord Jacobsen,
had solved that particular mystery, negating necessity for any strenuous sleuthing.

May appear unorthodox?
Bethlem hadn’t been called Bedlam for nothing and if Miss Claremont continued to issue those sorts of requests, she may very well end up there. “Why pray tell, would you want me to do that?” A fair question if one was ever asked.

The silk of her turquoise day dress gave a soft hiss as Miss Claremont shifted in her seat. She absently smoothed the pleats that required no smoothing. “You must have heard what happened with Lord Ashmore.” Her delicate features tightened in what could only be described as remembered pain and embarrassment before her gaze dropped to her lap.

Miss Claremont’s former betrothed.

The scoundrel.

All of London had heard—some bearing witness—to what happened with Lord Ashmore. Not only had the whole sordid affair run rampant in the rumor mills, but the gossip rags had spent a great deal of ink and paper informing the voracious reading public of every salacious detail. As faithless and dissolute as many gentlemen of the
ton
were, it was a rare occasion that one was actually caught in
the act
of being faithless and dissolute. The woman had been his mistress, which it would appear, he hadn’t been about to give up over the trifling issue of an engagement of marriage. Poor Miss Claremont had barely escaped the scandal. Even now, there was still a faint tarnish to her previously spotless reputation.

The small nod of acknowledgment Catherine gave also offered her sympathies. It was simply impolitic to speak of the incident. One only spoke of it if Miss Claremont herself broached the subject and even then, one’s response must not delve into the particulars unless otherwise explicitly invited to do so. No such invitation had been extended nor did Catherine wish for one.

“Lord Jacobsen intends to ask my father for my hand. Before—well the unfortunate situation with Lord Ashmore—I had no expectations of fidelity. Truth to tell, I don’t believe I’d given it much thought at all. But my expectations are very different now. Now, not only do I expect it, I’m resolved not to marry until I have some assurance I shall get it—at least as much as a woman can be assured of such things. And because I believe fidelity requires more than a man’s word, I can think of no other way to make him prove himself than this.”

Catherine was the
this
to which she referred and she didn’t know whether to feel affronted or flattered. Sympathy overrode both. To varying degrees, they were comrades in arms in this.

Miss Claremont continued with her impassioned statement. “I adhere to the idea that a man’s actions speaks louder than his words. If nothing else, my experience with Lord Ashmore taught me that.”

Catherine could not have agreed with her more. Truly, such sage words from one so young. And indeed, it was a novel approach, though some might find it a tad underhanded. But in the light of what happened to the poor girl on her first go-around in the marriage mart, it wasn’t altogether surprising she’d approach this engagement with a great deal more caution…and an abundance of skepticism.

“While I understand your motivation—although I can’t say I fully approve of your chosen method—pray, why would you ask me?”

Based on the look her question evoked, one would swear a third eye had just appeared in the middle of Catherine’s forehead. She almost raised her hand to her brow to make certain one had not.

Miss Claremont stared at her in the suspended beats of silence that now encompassed the sun-lit room with its corniced ceiling and silk, white-and-gold papered walls. She shook her head, but not hard enough to displace even one of the coiled curls framing her heart-shaped face. “Miss Rutherford, have you no access to a mirror? You’re nothing short of ravishing. You and your sister.”

As she and Charlotte were twins and mirror images, that was par for the course.

But to Miss Claremont's blatant attempt at flattery—emotional arm twisting as it were—Catherine suppressed the overwhelming urge to roll her eyes. She was
not
ravishing. Truly, she was not.

Reasonably pretty? Yes, that she would concede to. And some would even say beautiful on one of her better days when her hair decided to cooperate. But ravishing? Hardly.

Nevertheless, all claims of modesty aside, she’d be a liar if she said she didn’t welcome the stroke to her vanity when only five months before, Lucas Beaumont had dealt it and her heart a blow from which she had yet to recover.

Lucas.

She gave her head a mental shake to clear him from her thoughts, and resisted the urge to rub the ache that had suddenly formed in her chest; an ache she preferred to attribute to heartburn not heartache. Today, it must be the kippers she’d eaten that morning.

“While I am flattered by the compliment, there are women far prettier than I who would be far better suited for this sort of thing.” Natural flirts like Meghan Townsend and women like, Olivia Spencer, whose acting talents would make one believe she’d been born to take to the stage. And she could say this about them because they were her dear dear friends.

“It’s true that there are other women just as stunning. Your friends Lady Meghan and Lady Olivia, to be sure. However, before I came out, my cousin had asked Lord Jacobsen to name the three most beautiful ladies in all of London and he named you and your sister first.”

Catherine’s eyebrows shot up. Indeed? She’d sensed not a glimmer of admiration on his part. He’d been polite but nothing more. He hadn’t once asked for a space on her dance card or paid her special court. But perhaps a woman set on an unswerving path toward spinsterhood—no matter how attractively packaged—hadn’t been enough to entice him to look past her dubious lineage.

But who is their mother?

That question had plagued her and Charlotte since James had brought them to live with him ten years ago. It had haunted her and her sister until they’d learned the truth four years later. And now while they had full knowledge of from whom they came, the collective
ton
could not if she wanted to keep her precarious place in society.

Miss Claremont laughed gaily. “He remarked that he could scarcely believe you had not already married.”

She’d loved but once and that love hadn’t been reciprocated. And as she would not marry for anything less than love, she’d almost resigned herself to the fact she’d never marry. That she may never hold her own babe in her arms.

But
almost
was the operative word. She wasn’t quite ready to relinquish that hope just yet.

Pulling her mind back to the conversation at hand, Catherine asked, “And from that you took to mean that if anyone could tempt him enough to disregard his affections for you, it would be me? A man who has never once shown me any interest?”

“But I’m sure that is because you’ve never paid him any mind. Have you?” The latter seemed to come as an afterthought.

Truthfully, Catherine had seen him only a handful of times over the years and now that she thought more on it, she couldn’t recall if they’d even been formally introduced. Her memory of him was that of a quiet, studious, dark-haired, young gentleman of average height and build. Pleasantly unassuming.

“No, but—”

“I’m sure that is precisely why. Lord Jacobsen is the kind of gentleman who would require encouragement of
some
sort. Quite unlike Lord Ashmore, he’s not at all the brash and boastful type.” Her pink lips tightened in seeming displeasure at the mention of her former betrothed.

Catherine sighed in sincere regret. While she sympathized with the girl’s plight, she simply couldn’t bring herself to agree to such a plan. She wasn’t the sort of woman who could play the coquette—at least not convincingly—even if she were inclined to help.

Goodness, the last time she’d come even close to flirtation had been with Lucas, and look how that had turned out. He’d gone back to America and promptly forgotten about her as evinced by the lone letter she’d received from him when he’d first arrived. The letter had held all the familiarity and affection one would bestow upon a distant relation. She’d rather he had not written at all.