Seducing the Single Lady (10 page)

Of course
, Damien would wait until she had gone and given him her heart, body and soul! She dared another glance at him. He met her gaze this time, but she could not read his intentions in his eyes.

“Please be abundantly clear, gentlemen. This is a very sensitive and grave matter.”

Damien said nothing. Not with words, anyway. But his actions could not be more clear. He took the contract, dated decades earlier and signed by their dear, departed, beloved fathers, which bound them together for life, since birth.

He ripped it in half.

Then in quarters.

Then in eight
hs.

And then he sprinkled the lot of it, like
celebratory confetti, into the fire.

She felt as if he were ripping her heart in half.

Then in quarters.

Then in eighths.

Then
burning it all, leaving nothing but a pile of ashes.

             
“What in heaven’s…?” Susannah set down her teacup with a clatter. A jumble of questions lodged in her throat: What does this mean? Do you no longer wish to marry me? Do you not care to know that I have fallen in love with you? If you had only asked me once more, I might have said yes! Dear Damien, what have you done with my heart?

“W
e are now no longer betrothed,” he said.

“But—”

“We are not aware of any other copies of the contract,” Eastwick added. “However, these things have a pesky habit of lingering in old trunks and hidden desk drawers and the like. Which is why Lord Bedford has taken the liberty of drawing up this new contract dissolving all and any outstanding obligations you may have to each other.”

“Do you need a pen?”
Damien asked. “Eastwick has brought a pen.”

Eastwick could take his pen and—Susannah took a deep breath and smiled. Like a lady. Who was having unladylike thoughts.

“I will have to review this with my own solicitor before I sign,” she replied. “If I sign.”

“If?”
Damien asked the question with one little syllable and the lift of one brow. “Eastwick, a moment if you please.”

“Of course, Lord Bedford. Miss Grey.” He stepped out of the drawing room, closing the doors
gently behind him. The latch clicked softly.

“What is this about,
Damien? Just yesterday you proposed. Again.”

“
And you refused. Again.” Damien smiled wryly. He pushed his fingers rakishly through his hair he leaned forward earnestly. God, she loved him. And he was leaving her. “I want to live an honorable life, Susannah. One with a wife and children and heirs who will proudly and honorably carry on the Bedford name.”

“But not with me.”
The question should have been what about me? What about me and the babe we might have conceived just yesterday?

“You had your chance, Susannah. You said no. Repeatedly.”

“But we…” How did one say “But we made love?” It didn’t seem quite the thing to declare over tea and legal contracts in the drawing room.

“You said you wished to take a lover. I pride myself on being an obliging gentleman.”

Susannah wanted to scream. This is why she had despised him for years! Taunts and teasing, relentlessly! Twisting her words and wishes around, giving and then taking away. Only this time her heart was involved. No, her heart had always been his. Why else would she have pushed him away—if not for the thrill of his return to her? How else would she have fallen so quickly for him? She could only conclude that a small part of her had always loved him and always known they were fated to be together.

That is, until he threw the shreds of the contract into the fire.

No, they were meant to be together. She believed this now.

And
then she caught him glancing at the clock above the mantel.

“But you will lose fifty pounds!”
she blurted out.

Damien
only shrugged. “I can afford it. You mustn’t forget, Susannah, that not everyone has need or want of your fortune.”

And with that he cast himself into even sharper r
elief with all the “suitors” who crowded into her drawing room. Her allure to the ton was her fortune and her fashion sense. But none of that mattered to Damien, for he had dressed her as a lad, and then undressed her completely. He had no need of her fortune. Thus the only reason for them to be together now wasn’t the contract or a need for her funds, but love.

She loved him. Alas alas alas he did not feel the same. Alas!

“Damien…”

“Do
have your solicitor review the contract, though I can assure you the document is sound. It fairly and simply absolves us of having to marry each other.”

With that he stood,
and nodded politely. “Goodbye, Miss Grey.”

Every moment Damien spent in Susannah’s presence during which he pretended to have a hard heart was torture for her—and for him. The things he did for love!

The simple truth had finally entered his thick skull: she would not marry him out of obligation. She would only marry him
if it were her choice to do so. Only love would impel her to choose a lifetime with him. She could never be sure that he loved her if they were still bound by the terms of the contract. That would give her reason to suspect he was just doing the honorable thing.

But really, he needed her
to know that his heart beat for her.

So he ripped up the contract.

Even though in doing so he lost his only hold on her. In giving her a choice in her fate, he risked losing her forever. She might take Frannie as a lover, or one of the stupid bucks of the ton. She would be free to marry whomever she wished. But if she were so inclined, she could choose to marry him.

He prayed fervently that she was so inclined.

It was an act of madness, of a crazy man. A deranged man. An utterly insane man. Love, and only love, could drive him to such risky endeavors.

Having dissolved their obligation to each other,
Damien now proceeded to the second part of his plan: courting and seducing the now-single lady of his heart.

Like any ot
her suitor—much as he was loath to consider himself any other suitor—Damien arrived for calling hours. He stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the scene. Susannah sat on a throne-like chair, smiling prettily and surrounded by a swarm of eager men, including her dearest friend, Stanford. The smile, he noted, did not reach her eyes. Was it wrong to find hope in her sadness?

“Well,
look who has arrived,” Susannah remarked when her gaze settled upon him. For a moment, their eyes locked across the crowded room. He dared to hope he still had a chance. She smiled and addressed the room full of callers. “Ladies, take note. He is keen to marry.”

“
Miss Grey is right. I am eager to wed.”

“I’m always right,” Susannah said.

“And I am wrong,” he replied.

“Terribly, grievously
wrong,” she continued. The rest of the room was confused, but also transfixed. They seemed to sense that they were witness to a private communication. One in which he, in so many words, apologized again for the foolish wager, his stupid assumptions about her and the cowardly way he had fled his fate to pursue his freedom.

“Thus the rumors are true?
” Lady Roxbury asked. “We have heard that you two are no longer betrothed.”

“I had hoped, and dared to dream, but didn’t dare believe I’d have
a chance with you, Miss Grey,” a young man said passionately, dropping to one knee before her.

“Now, now, Frederick,
” Susannah replied, smiling at her suitor.

Damien
’s gut knotted. She could have anyone she wanted. He might have lost her, in following some misguided romantic notion.

“
It is true that Miss Grey and I have amended the terms of our betrothal contract,” Damien said, even though it pained him to do it.

“What sort of amendment?”
Lady Roxbury inquired.

“Ripped
to bits and burned in the fire,” Susannah said succinctly. “You may yet find some scraps remaining in the fireplace.”

“What on earth has brought about such a breach?”
The guests began to whisper and murmur amongst each other. They would all dine out on this scene for weeks.

“
Matters have changed,” Damien said evasively.

Damien
could have said Frannie and let everyone assume what they would. He could have been more explicit. He could have mentioned how she had gallivanted around town dressed as a man and behaving like a reckless rogue.

He could
have hinted at how they had spent the afternoon locked in a passionate embrace and yet remained unwed. Damien could have ruined her a dozen times over.

As a ray of salvation, he could
then offer his hand in marriage as the one and only way she could redeem herself and maintain a proper place in society.

But he would never, ever, ever
do any of that. Damien loved her. Loved her in a way that drove him to distraction.

He ought to have gone over
his correspondence with his secretary that morning, but he had found himself dreaming of her lips.

He ought to
have been reviewing accounts; instead imagined the taste of her and the sound of her cries as she climaxed.

He
had considered spending an afternoon in the old way—drinking himself sick and wagering exorbitant sums in the company of degenerate fools.

Instead he went shopping.

“I have brought you a gift,” Damien said. He crossed the room and handed her the carefully wrapped box. 

“Well
, that is unexpected,” she remarked.

“Open it, but take care. It’
s fragile.”

With care and
a touch of suspicion, Susannah carefully unwrapped the package. Then she lifted the lid of the box. A dozen little items were all wrapped in paper and nestled in together. She needed only to unwrap one to understand.

“Oh,” she gasped, letting the paper fall to the floor.
Susannah’s head jerked up. Tears stung in her blue eyes. In her hands, a tiny teacup made of white china and painted with dainty pink roses.

“Compliments of Lord Destructo. And myself. I believe we owe you.”

“Now what am I to do with a child’s tea set?” she asked trying to sound haughty, but her true feelings were revealed by one plump tear making its way down her cheek. Everyone in the drawing room had fallen silent.

Have tea parties with our daughters. That was
Damien’s hope and intention.

“Take tea in incre
dibly small quantities?” he suggested with a shrug. A few people tittered. He wished them gone, but as long as Susannah and he might provide a scene, no one would leave and risk missing it.  Instead, he would take his leave.

“Good day, Miss Grey,” he said softly.

He’d made it as far as the foyer when he heard her call his name two, three times in a row.

“
Damien…Damien…Damien…”

He stopped. Heart pounding.

“Tell me this doesn’t mean what I think it means,” Susannah cried, slightly breathless.

“What do you think it means?”

“That you are honoring your obligations to me so that you can make a clean break, and never be bothered with me, the scrappy brat.” Susannah’s anguish was plain. She twisted her hands in the pale blue silk of her skirt. Her eyes fixed upon him, begging for answers.

“No, Susannah. That isn’t it at all.”

Then Damien forced himself to walk away.

******

The next afternoon, Damien defied her expectations and arrived again during calling hours. Upon this occasion, he brought flowers: a hothouse bouquet of roses in varying shades of red and pink—the colors of love, not friendship.

Did he mean—?

Did she dare suspect—?

Was it only wishful thinking
?

Susannah’s
pulse raced and she started to feel light headed. Men brought flowers to women they courted. Thus, was Damien courting her? The signs seemed so, but she was hesitant to believe. After all, she’d been ready to accept one of his proposals and then he’d gone and ripped the contract, setting them free.

Setting her free! Susannah deeply inhaled the luscious fragrance of the flowers and didn’t try to stop the rushing of her heart.
She was free to marry whomever she wished, or not marry at all. Finally, for the first time in her life she was truly her own mistress, beholden to no one.

What a gift
Damien had given her! At the time it had felt like the worst sort of cruelty, but now she could see it differently.