Leslie Lafoy (23 page)

He eased away from her, his gaze coming back to hers as his fingers worked their way farther down the row of buttons.
Still daring?
she heard him silently ask as he undid the sash at her waist. His fingertips brushed over her skin as he drew her gown wider.
How far will you let me go, Sera?

“I’m afraid that I’m quite out of practice,” she confessed, her breath catching, her heart trying to hammer its way out of her chest as he cupped her breasts in his hands.

Shall I kiss you again, Sera?
Ever so slowly, he scraped his thumbs over her hardened nipples.
Here?

She was on fire, her insides thrumming and molten. Time. She needed time to gather her wits, to remember how she was supposed to move so that Carden didn’t think her a complete novice. “Not that I was ever really very good at it, mind you,” she admitted, desperate to temper his expectations. “At kissing, I mean. And lovemaking, too. I didn’t mean being a rake. Women can’t be rakes.”

They could, Carden knew, but people didn’t call them rakes. They called them whores. And that gender made such a difference in people’s minds was precisely what Sera needed to understand. It took every measure of his conscience and self-restraint to still his hands and ask, “Sera, are you willing to pay the price for satisfying your curiosity? They
will
talk. About you. Me. Us. It will follow you for the rest of your life.”

She smiled and drew her fingers through his hair. “
If
they find out.”

God, what he wouldn’t give to have fallen so far from honor that he could declare her naїve hope good enough. “No, Sera,” he protested, his throat tightening as dread clawed at his chest. “You can hope for the best, and we can do our utmost to be discreet, but you have to be willing—right this minute—to accept the consequences of the worst.”

She wasn’t; he could see the flickering shadows of doubt in her eyes. He closed his own, unwilling to let her see the depth of his disappointment. Swallowing against the knot trying to strangle him, he released her breasts with a lingering, regretful caress, and then drew the edges of her night rail over the sweetest temptation he’d ever known.

Her hands slipped from his hair, touched his shoulders just for a moment, and then were gone. He felt them brush against his own arms, heard the sound of sliding satin as she tied her sash into place.

“I think I had best be going back to my room now,” she said, rising to her feet, her voice sounding every bit as sad as he felt.

God, what a pathetic excuse for a rakehell he was. A decent one wouldn’t have a viable conscience. It shouldn’t matter one whit whether the woman at hand was making an informed, intelligent decision. A willing body was a willing body. The problem was that he’d spent far too much time talking with Sera. He’d come to know her and, in doing that, he’d come to respect her and want what was best for her. She wasn’t a nameless, soon-to-be-forgotten stranger who existed simply to warm his bed and give him pleasure. Yes, no more miserable, worthless excuse for a rakehell than Carden Reeves had ever existed in the history of sex. Wanton and mindless or otherwise.

“If you change your mind about wanting to see the scar on my thigh,” he called after her, thinking to make at least a pretense of maintaining the standards, “my room is at the far end of the hall. You needn’t knock.”

She laughed and the sound somehow made his sacrifice feel less forever and more endurable. He opened his eyes to see her standing by the door, the lamp in her hand, the edges of her night rail open just enough to remind him of how close he’d come to paradise.

“Good night, Carden,” she said with a wistful smile and turned away.

“Seraphina?” he called after her. He waited until she looked back over her shoulder to smile at her and add, “Your parents named you perfectly. Sweet dreams, angel. Dream of me.”

Sera nodded her assent and went on, knowing that reason and fear held no sway in the world of sleep. Carden would come to her in her dreams and she would lie with him. She would awaken aching and feverish and regretting with all her heart that the heady dream could never be made real. It didn’t matter that people would talk about the fact that they were lovers. She would actually feel a most immodest sense of pride about that.

No, what she couldn’t bear to hear them say—today, tomorrow, forever—was how blindly, laughably foolish she’d been to fall in love with a man whose only true commitment in life was to bed women and walk away.

Tears spilled over her lashes as what had been a brief, elusive, and unnamed hope withered and died.

C
HAPTER
13

He’d suggested that Seraphina wear the red dress knowing that she’d choose the blue just to oppose him. But if she’d also harbored any hopes about the relatively plain gown’s allowing her to fade into the Stanbridges’ dining room wallpaper, she had to be supremely disillusioned. She was absolutely, stunningly beautiful with her dark hair piled atop her head, loose ringlets framing her face, and no jewelry whatsoever except for the diamond brooch in the décolletage of her gown.

But then, Sera didn’t need adornments. There wasn’t a man present who hadn’t looked long and appreciatively when he’d brought her into the Stanbridge home. What initial tension that had caused among the women had completely dissipated before the introductions were completed. Sera was Sera: gracious, sincere, and wholly unaffected by her beauty. Everyone adored her.

Melanie Stanbridge—every five-foot, happily plump, pin-curled inch of her—was especially delighted with Sera. Not five minutes into the general parlor talk, he’d watched her slip away to quickly rearrange the seating at the dining room table. It hadn’t surprised him at all to find himself seated opposite Sera and with Melanie on his right.

What bothered him, though, was that their hostess had put her son on Sera’s left. Her intent wasn’t lost on him. Or on Barrett. And while his friend hadn’t done or said anything that could be construed as even slightly flirtatious, he knew Barrett and what he was thinking. One false move, one inattentive moment, and Barrett would step into the breach and try to charm Seraphina away from him. They’d done it to each other countless times in the past and it had never mattered to their friendship. It was a good-natured competition, a game of sorts with a prize they usually ended up passing to the other. But not this time, Carden silently vowed. Not with Seraphina.

“So tell me something about your life in Belize, my dear Sera,” their hostess chirped amid the general buzz of dinner conversation. “I should think it would have been utterly fascinating.”

“I’m afraid it’s not much of a tale,” Sera replied with a dismissive shrug of one delectably bare shoulder. “My father planned for us to be there only a few months and so we lived in a tent just outside Belize City. My mother spent her every waking moment trying to keep the bugs and creatures from overtaking it and, while she attended to a spirited home defense, my father and I hiked out into the wilds every day. He collected plant samples and made copious notes. My task was to make detailed paintings of the various specimens he assembled.”

“How long were you there?” Barrett asked.

“A few months stretched into a year and a year into two,” Sera supplied, turning her head to meet Barrett’s gaze and smile. “As you might well imagine, we amassed an incredible catalog of information in that time. The conditions of the tent being what they were, especially in the rainy season, our work was always in danger of being wrecked in one way or another.”

“Was it?” Carden inquired, determined to deprive Barrett of her attention.

“No, thankfully,” she said, her smile seeming brighter for him than it had been for Barrett. “Arthur and Mary were kind enough to offer to store everything for us in the relative safety of their clapboard home. It was Arthur who convinced my father that he should submit his notes and my paintings for publication.”

She laughed softly and added, “I’ve often thought that Arthur made the suggestion largely out of a sense of self-preservation, to simply get the mass of paper out of his house. Had it ever caught fire, it would have burned for a week.”

Barrett shot Carden a look across the table, cocked a brow, and asked, “And was your father’s work ever published?”

“If it was,” she answered, looking back at him, “we never received news of it.”

Melanie Stanbridge innocently intruded on the contest by asking, “What was your father’s name, my dear?”

“Geoffrey Baines Miller.”

So much, Sera thought darkly, for Carden’s assurance that Melanie Stanbridge wouldn’t let her make a misstep. The woman’s eyes had widened to the size of the bread plates and the gentle hum of dinner conversation had abruptly dropped into the abyss of dead silence.

“Baines Miller,” Barrett said, chuckling softly. “Of course.”

“Can you believe it!” someone down the table whispered.

Suddenly, heads bobbed and murmurs rippled. Everyone kept glancing at her and smiling shyly before looking away to murmur and nod some more. And Carden … he was no help in terms of providing an explanation, much less an assurance, wordless or otherwise. Her devilishly handsome, always-in-control escort was too busy trying to choke down whatever had gotten caught in his throat.

“Oh, my dear girl,” her hostess said breathlessly, “you truly don’t know, do you?”

“Apparently not,” Sera admitted, wishing someone—anyone—would be brave and considerate enough to share what was apparently, to everyone except her, common knowledge.

“Barrett, darling, in the—”

“I’m well ahead of you, Mother,” he threw back over his shoulder as he strode out of the dining room.

Still at a loss, she met Carden’s gaze across the table. He’d recovered, but the look in his eyes sent a tendril of fear snaking through her frustration. He didn’t like what was happening at all. She had the distinct impression that he wanted the floor to open up and swallow everyone but the two of them. “Carden?”

“No, I won’t say a word,” he answered, finding a faint smile for her. It disappeared as he glanced around the table, adding, “And neither will anyone else. We won’t ruin the surprise for you.”

“As I mentioned to you just the other day, I’ve never been particularly fond of surprises. I’d prefer to know in advance, please.”

“Too late,” Barrett announced cheerfully, returning with a huge, leather-bound tome in hand. He held it out to her, grinning. “Your father’s book, Seraphina.”

Stunned and holding her breath, she took it with both hands, her gaze skimming over the front cover. Her father’s name was there, across the bottom, in large gold-embossed letters. Her own was beneath his, in smaller gold letters, italicized, naming her as the illustrator. It seemed real and yet it didn’t. She opened it to a random page and instantly recognized the picture, remembered the day she’d painted it. On the facing page were the words, not in her father’s hand as he’d originally set them down, but in a formal type. She read the first line and finally believed. “I can hear his voice,” she whispered. “It’s as though he were here.”

Carden saw the shimmering veil of tears come to her eyes and knew that she’d be horribly embarrassed to have them fall with everyone watching her as intently as they were. “Look at the fly page, Seraphina,” he instructed, breaking the taut silence, hoping to draw her from her memories in time. “Tell us what it says.”

She gently closed the book and reopened it, casting him a quick glance of appreciation as she turned to the proper page. “It was published the same month as my father’s death.”

The same month? Carden frowned, suspecting that this surprise was going to lead to a considerable number of other surprises and that not a one of them was going to be pleasant.

Sera looked up at him. “And it’s had ten printings?”

“Oh, probably more,” Melanie Stanbridge declared with a wave of her hand. “I’ve had that copy for well over a year. Almost two.”

“And I should imagine each printing is quite large,” Cecil Stanbridge offered from the head of the table. “It’s a required text at university, you know. In public school, as well. Every botany student in the empire has a copy.”

“Every person with a conservatory has one, as well,” someone else contributed.

“Two, in most instances,” said another. “One for the excellent reference it is and a second for disassembling so that the pictures can be framed and displayed throughout the house. They’re simply stunning artwork. Anyone with any taste at all has at
least
one or two on the walls of their homes.”

“Haven’t you noticed those on my walls, Seraphina?”

Sera glanced at the wall high above the sideboard. Two prints of her work, in ornately carved and heavily gilded frames, hung from the crown molding, side by side. She had come into the room without looking up and there was nothing to do but be honest about it. “I’m sorry, but no, Mrs. Stanbridge, I haven’t before just now. I’ve been too preoccupied trying to remember everyone’s names, who is here with whom, and what everyone’s interests are.”

“You’re forgiven, my dear,” Melanie said breezily. “It was such a delight to see you learn of it the way you did. I shall never forget this evening for as long as I live. Seraphina Baines Miller learned of her celebrity in my home, at my table.”

Sera looked back down at the book and shook her head sadly. “If only Father had lived long enough to learn of it. He would have so enjoyed knowing that his life’s work had been of help and interest to others.”

Cecil Stanbridge snorted and laughed. “I’d think that he would have also enjoyed knowing that he was leaving his family a most impressive bank account.”

Sera looked up at their host, her brows knitted, and Carden knew that until that moment the notion of money had never crossed her mind. All she’d cared about was her father’s dream having come to fruition. It was so very Sera. “Seraphina?” he said gently, calling her gaze to his. “As your father’s only heir, you’re entitled to the royalties.”

“Which,” Cecil observed, “I would hazard to guess to be at least twenty thousand pounds.”

Sera laughed, closed the book, and wrapped her arms around it. “You’re exaggerating, Mr. Stanbridge. That’s an obscene amount of money.”