Seducing the Single Lady (6 page)

Susannah saw a similar
loneliness in Frannie’s eyes and imagined that most of the men she met were far more coarse, rough, ill-mannered and possibly even unkind. She was glad to be Percy, a slight, gentle, feminine man who would was kind and nonthreatening.

Even though
Damien, beside her, was kind—for all of his wretched behavior as an adolescent boy, she knew this to be true—there was still something dangerous about him. He could overpower her in an instant, if he so chose.

If
he wanted, he could pick her up and carry her off, perhaps over the threshold to Bedford Manor. And from there, straight through the foyer, up the stairs and down the hall to the master bedroom where he’d lay her on the bed and…

“Is the pie very hot?” Damien inquired politely. “You colored up for a second there.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” She stumbled over the words under his knowing gaze—even though he couldn’t possibly have read her thoughts.

“Could you get your sweetheart to serve me more ale?”

“Sure,” Susannah said. And with a smile and a kindly worded request for “another glass for my mate” Frannie fetched more ale for
Damien—her eyes on Percy all the while, though.

“What else might you have in store for us, Damien? For that matter, what do gentlemen do all day, anyway?”

“
I have recently discovered that it actually involves a lengthy review of accounts with our stewards and estate managers, followed by a lengthy review of correspondence with our secretaries. Then one must stomp around and act haughty and lordly for at least an hour.”

“And here I thought you blokes just played games of cards, made ridiculous and
exorbitant wagers and had pissing contests.”

“We do,”
Damien said with a sigh that spoke of fond memories. “That is, before we inherit and become responsible.”

“
How tragic,” she drawled.

“Indeed.”

“I was sad to hear about your father. He was always so kind to me,” she said softly. She didn’t need to add when no one else was. It was understood.

“Of course he wa
s. You were his future daughter-in-law, whom he selected himself.”

“When I was
a babe and looked just like a Christmas ham,” she grumbled.

“
You did! But you do not any longer, if that is any consolation. Not at all.”

“
No, now I look like a handsome young man,” she said boastfully.

“Not quite, Susannah,”
Damien said, taking a long sip of his beer. “Or should I say Percy?”

“
That’s not what Frannie thinks. And don’t say anything. I’m rather fond of her.”

“She is adorable,” he agreed.

“She is a kind, lonely soul, hungry for love,” Susannah said softly.

“And what of you, Percy? Are you lonely?”

******

Damien
found himself leaning in closer to Susannah, awaiting her answer. He had planned to marry her, but he hadn’t planned to care about her. Yet here he was certain and terrified of her reply. Just as she could see the loneliness in Frannie’s eyes, he could see it in hers. It had been there yesterday, even in the room full of “friends.”

“I hardly want for company,” she replied.

“Your drawing room was a mob scene of fortune hunters, lovesick suitors, desperate rivals and their machinating mothers. It made my head ache wretchedly.”

“Just how I like it. Everyone will be speculating madly when I am not at home to callers today.
I am always at home to callers.”

He was glad, deeply, to have whisked her away if only for one day.

“What will you tell them?”

“I shall let them invent ficti
ons,” she answered. “I will smile demurely and neither confirm, nor deny. This day’s adventures shall be our secret.”

“
Though if word got out…”

“Yes, I know you’d gallantly marry me to save my reputation, meanwhile assuri
ng that you become the proper, upstanding and respectable gentleman your father always yearned for you to be. He did miss you, you know.”

“I know,” Damien said softly. He thought of the letters full of lectures on an heir’s duty
—including the commitment to Susannah. It was his father’s way of asking him to come home; he could understand that now. Then there were no more letters, save for one informing him that shortly after hearing news of Damien’s death, his father suffered an apoplexy. He felt partially responsible for his death.  

“Your father
did enjoy your adventures, though,” Susannah said. “You should know that. He read of them avidly in the papers and shared the contents of your letters with me when I saw him.”

“
He did? You saw him?” Damien wanted to hear more of this—it was all news to him—even as it broke his heart to do so.

“
Every so often our paths would cross,” Susannah said. But not often enough for his father to discover her wretched circumstances or do anything about them.

“
It was wrong of me to stay away so long.” What an awful son he’d been, throwing away valuable time with his family for stupid trouble with degenerate “friends.” When he thought of all the years, money and time wasted, he felt sick.

“You were
young and wild and would have gotten into monstrous amounts of trouble had you stayed in London. Look, you haven’t been back a fortnight and already you are actively encouraging me to indulge in all sorts of scandalous behavior.  After you had promised to behave, too.”

“Wicked means to a noble end,”
Damien said simply. Since he had set eyes on Susannah, wanting to marry her had less to do with duty and more to do with desire.

“We shall see about that. I find I quite like adventures before breakfast.”

Damien was about to tell her they could have adventures before breakfast every day as man and wife. If she wanted to ride hell for leather, they could do so in Bedford Hills. If she wanted to flirt with barmaids, he could invite Frannie to move to the Bedford village tavern. If she wanted to dress as a boy and stroll around the estate, he would not stop her. But Frannie reappeared, drawing Susannah’s attention and making it quite inconvenient for him to propose. Again.

“Would you like more ale,
Percy?”

“Please.”

“Careful now, Percy. That stuff will go to your head. Bad ideas will seem good. Trouble will ensue.” He was jesting—but only a bit. He enjoyed watching Susannah relax and enjoy herself and he was here to keep her out of any real trouble or danger.

“Oh, you,” she said dismissively. “I can hold my liquor.”

“It’s beer. It’s different.”

“
Bother that,” Susannah muttered. “You take my meaning.”

He did take her meaning. The ale had already gone to her head. And she wished to chat with Frannie.
“I’ll leave you two for a moment while I hit the privy.”

When he returned, the two girls—or one young lad and one young lady as far as anyone knew—were having a soft conversation, with sweetly awkward pauses, light laughter and
affectionate gestures of a quick touch of a hand to a wrist. He paused to watch them for a moment.

High-
society Susannah did not act thusly as far as he had seen…and he had watched her closely at the ball and during calling hours. He wanted to chase away the loneliness and offer his affection. He wanted to be the one to make her blush. For the first time, he found himself jealous of a barmaid.

Susannah—
Percy—excused herself to use the necessary. Frannie offered to show her the way. Damien sipped his mug of ale and watched Susannah walk away, her hips swinging and swaying like clockwork temptation.

******

Thus far, this was the greatest, happiest day of Susannah’s life. And it was not even luncheon yet! Fresh air, sunshine, hearty food, comfortable clothes, adventures galore. Damien and she were managing civil conversation for possibly the first time in the long history of their relationship.

Matters were
helped by the fact that he hadn’t tugged her hair or poured ale on her lap or put a toad on her plate or any other juvenile prank that he found uproarious and she found horrifying. But then again, she hadn’t acted like a scrappy brat or a young girl permanently scowling at him and his antics.

Nor did she slouch and sulk and stare sullenly at him through stringy hair as she ha
d done when she’d grown older and accepted that he had wanted nothing to do with her, not at all, not ever.

She had been happy to be free of him, then troubled by his return
. But then why was she enjoying herself tremendously? How did he know just what she wanted when he’d been a stranger to her for nine painfully long years?

W
hen these perplexing thoughts and feelings about Damien threatened to overwhelm her, Susannah took a sip of her ale (so lovingly kept full to the brim) and chatted with Frannie, in whom she recognized a kindred spirit of a girl who didn’t quite belong to anyone and who managed to get by in a world that largely overlooked her. Susannah’s heart ached for she at least had the prospect of a fortune and freedom but she suspected that Frannie had no such twist of fate awaiting her. She only had the hope of a decent marriage to a nice man. A man like Percy.

Frannie
was waiting for her after Susannah used the necessary. Lingering in the dimly lit corridor.

“I haven’t me
t a man like you before, Percy,” she said wistfully. She leaned against the wall and Percy did the same. “Most are so brutish and boorish. My brother Angus is the worst and the blokes that come in here aren’t much better. But you are nice.”

“You are nice too,
Frannie.” She was truly lovely. For the longest time no one ever told Susannah that she was nice—or paid her any compliments, really. She had felt the absence keenly and did not want sweet, lovely Frannie to feel the same.

“Percy.
”

“Yes?”

“Do you think…maybe…Oh…” Frannie’s hands knotted in her dress. Her eyes were wide and questioning and nervous. Her lips parted.

S
he didn’t need to say the words for Susannah to understand everything. When you found something good and sweet you wanted to hold on to it, drink it in, drown in it. 

When their lips collided it wasn’t cle
ar who had leaned in first or farther. There was only one true thing, and that was the softness of Frannie’s lips. And the way the world spun softly. And the way Susannah’s heart beat hard in her chest. This.

This kiss was wicked and scandalous but it was also sweet, so sweet. Strangely innocent. Completely lovely.
Susannah wasn’t sure if she parted her lips first, or did Frannie? Which one was so bold? Tongues tangling, tasting. Fingers sliding through soft hair. Bodies inches apart then closer, almost touching, breast to breast.

Susannah kept her distance
, achingly aware of her breasts bound in yards of muslin beneath her shirt and waistcoat and jacket. But she didn’t break this kiss. The ale and the breeches had made her bold. Yes, she was playing the part of a young man by the name of Peregrine Xavier Grey. But a true part of her heart was definitely connecting with Frannie’s heart.

How could that be wrong?

The kissed continued, slow and tentative, each girl yielding and exploring new pleasures and sensations. This hazy wonder world was destroyed with the jarring sound of a door slamming open and banging loudly against the wall.

“What the bloody hell is going on here?”
A large, hulking bald man growled.

Frannie and Susannah jumped apart.

“Angus! It’s nothing!” Frannie cried out. “Leave us alone.”

Angus? Oh,
her brother! The two could not look less alike. One looked like an angel; the other like the Devil’s own henchman.

“You trol
lop, kissing a bloke in the corridor when you ought to be working! Or are ye working? You trollop!”

“Do
not speak of her thusly!” Susannah shouted. She stepped in front of Frannie as if she could defend her from this horrible brute.

“Oh, Pe
rcy,” Frannie said with a heart-melting sigh that revealed no one ever stood up for Frannie.

“Oh, now you have a care for her honor
, do ya? Better late than never, I reckon.”

“
What is going on here?” Damien, striding into the scene with his boots pounding the floorboards.

“What’s it to you?”
Angus asked, quite rudely.

“That
’s my brother,” Damien said with a jerk of his head toward Susannah. 

“Well
, your brother was kissing my sister,” Angus said angrily. 

“Is that so?”
Damien murmured slowly, turning his head to have a look at the two girls.  A long look in which a regretful smile teased at his lips.