Seduction in Mind (18 page)

Taking his cue, he moved back and shut the door.

She waved once and smiled.

He nodded at his driver.

And the carriage pulled away from the curb.

But rather than his normal relief at taking leave of a lover, a niggling discontent insinuated itself into his brain.

She hadn't once asked "When will I see you again" or "Won't you come over soon" or any of the familiar cajoling female phrases he was used to evading.

He was not only surprised but mildly annoyed.

And, more startling, disappointed.

For her part, Alex was wondering if she'd ever see him again. Realistic about the viscount, she wasn't unduly optimistic. Her view was purely rational, quite separate from the blissful happiness she was feeling. Ranelagh certainly knew how to leave a woman ardently aglow. But if he didn't call upon her, her life was entirely complete without a man. After two husbands, she was well past the point of
needing
a man in her life. And not from malcontent. Rather, she was enjoying the broad and diverse pleasures of her unmarried state.

As the carriage took her away from the beauty of last night, though, a small sigh escaped her.

If Ranelagh didn't call on her, she
would
miss his magnificent and inventive talents in bed, she thought selfishly.

Euterpe Ionides came sailing through Alex's open terrace doors shortly before noon, her fashionable persimmon and white striped skirts trailing over the green slate entryway, her mouth set.

"You finally came back, I see." Her acerbic pronouncement was delivered in a biting staccato, the tattoo of her heels brisk on the stained wood of Alex's studio floor.

"In the future, kindly refrain from monitoring my activities, Mother," Alex said blandly, brushing a slash of pale rose on the canvas before her. "At thirty, I find it extremely embarrassing."

"I should think it better to be embarrassed than ruined," her mother said crisply, coming to rest behind Alex. She surveyed the painting on the easel with a critical eye. "Wouldn't it be nice, darling, if you painted lovely portraits like Letty Cassavettis."

"And wouldn't it be nice, Mother, if you spent more time at your needlework than you did bothering me."

"Letty sells every portrait
before
she paints it. She's a very good businesswoman. Is that yellow thing a gate or a chair?"

"It's Christ on the cross, Mother," Alex replied mockingly. "I'm painting him in a summer garden to make his suffering more palatable to the viewer."

Euterpe sniffed and pulled off her white kid gloves with a brisk snap. "Make your jokes at your old mother's expense, but I've seen much more of the world, and it wouldn't hurt you to heed my advice."

"And what advice would that be? On my painting or on my lack of children, or perhaps you'd like to know exactly how large Ranelagh's bed was."

Horrified, Euterpe stared at her daughter. "Now I'll have to have the priests say a thousand prayers for your soul."

"They can save their prayers for the starving beggars in the streets. Those poor souls need God's grace more than I."

"You may ridicule my concern all you wish, but mark my words, Ranelagh will ruin you and then leave you without so much as a good-bye. Look what happened to his wife!"

"She died while out with one of her lovers, Mother. Surely, you can't blame Sam for that."

"Sam, is it! Well, it certainly didn't take him long to bewitch you!" Her mother's eyes snapped with affront. "I suppose he has you curled around his little finger already! And don't look at me like that," she noted peevishly. "I know what men like Ranelagh do. And while your father may be too polite to chastise you, I have no such compunction and I tell you straight out,
Miss Bohemian Artist
," she articulated with a withering sarcasm, "you'll rue the day you took up with a man of his notoriety! And if you don't care for your own reputation, think of your family's!"

Alex set down the brush she was holding and began wiping the paint from her hands. Clearly, she wasn't going to be allowed her privacy this morning, nor did she care to engage in a fruitless argument with her mother. "I have an appointment in the City. You're welcome to watch me dress if you wish."

"With
him
, I suppose!"

"No, with the superintendent of one of my schools. And for your information, Mother, I doubt I'll be seeing much of Ranelagh. We both have very busy lives."

"He's tossed you over already," her mother said testily, following Alex into the bedroom. "As if I didn't know his kind. You see, dear, what comes of allowing men liberties?" she reproved, picking up a blouse draped over a chair and walking toward the armoire. "They have no respect for you."

Alex sighed, having heard this lecture countless times, along with disapproving ones on her modeling, which she ignored as well. "I'm sure you're right, Mother."

"Of course I'm right," Mrs. Ionides decreed, hanging up the blouse. "A little mystery in a woman is alluring."

"I'll think about it, Mother." At the same time she thought about becoming a monk…

"Don't you have any couturier gowns in here?"

Her mother was brushing through her array of garments, her mouth pursed in distaste. "Surely you can afford to dress a bit more stylishly, darling."

"I like my clothes. They're comfortable."

"If a lady wishes to appear to best advantage, comfort is not necessarily a first priority."

"Many ladies of the first rank wear the same styles I do." Alex preferred what was deemed "aesthetic dress." The gowns were natural-waisted, the sleeves comfortable and loose, the fabrics flowing with the rhythm of the body. They were worn without corsets or crinolines.

"Bluestocking women." Her mother pronounced the phrase like an epithet.

"Women who prefer not strangling their bodies in tightly laced corsets." Another ongoing argument with her mother.

"Hmpf," Euterpe muttered unsympathetically.

"I don't need a nineteen-inch waist because fashion dictates it."

Her mother turned away from the closet and gazed at her daughter. "You have a perfectly fine waist."

"I know, Mother."

"But I still don't like Ranelagh."

"You don't have to like him."

"And I disapprove of you seeing him."

"You made that clear." Alex smiled. "And who knows, Mama, you may be right after all. He may be long gone, in which case perhaps I shall be more inclined to listen to your advice in the future."

Euterpe didn't indulge her daughter's humor enough to actually smile, but she said, "You know, your papa and I want only the best for you."

"I know."

"And we dearly hope you don't marry another man old enough to be your father."

Alex's eyes gleamed with amusement. "Ranelagh's only thirty-three."

"But not the marrying kind," her mother pointed out, her lips pursed in contempt.

"Are you coming with me to the Camden Street School?" Alex asked, because there was no rejoinder to such unalloyed truth.

"If you don't wear that awful crumpled white muslin."

Alex lay down the gown she held. "You pick one out, Mother."

Ten minutes later Alex and her mother set out for the meeting with the superintendent. The immigrant schools she supported were an undertaking on which she and her mother could always agree.

Sam's meeting with his brother and the golf course designers took place in his offices in the Adelphi, and before lunch they'd agreed on the exacting dimensions of each fairway on their five-hundred-acre estate. There was the pretty tree-girdled third and the scary blind drive over yawning cross-bunkers fifth. The first and fourth would be manicured around two natural pond sites. A dauntingly narrow driving corridor over a large fairway bunker confronted them on the second hole, while the remainder of the front nine was a succession of lovely holes along the western stone wall of the property and through the remnants of a mature forest. The tight, leafy back nine would meander around a series of small ponds and natural trout streams, which should prove a technical challenge, particularly on the gorgeous downhill par-five twelfth and the hazardous, short fourteenth.
⁵

By early afternoon, consensus had been reached on combining the best of classic golf with the most brilliant of technical subtlety. The two young designers left with the plans under their arms and the approval necessary to begin excavating.

Sam and his brother, Marcus, enjoyed another drink from the bottle of brandy they'd opened to toast their new endeavor.

"You seem in good humor today. But you've been wanting to build this course for a long time and now, finally—" Marcus raised his glass in salute.

Sam smiled. "We'll have some championship golf in our own backyard."

"The boys are beginning to learn how to play with the clubs you had made for them."

"I'll come over tomorrow and give them some pointers," Sam offered. His nephews were a source of great pleasure to him.

"Evelina is having her reading group over tomorrow. You might prefer meeting us at the Blackheath course. Hedy Alworth will be at the house."

Sam dipped his head. "Thanks for the warning."

"She still thinks you're going to marry her someday."

"For no plausible reason."

"Her mother keeps telling her the Lennoxes and Alworths have always made marriage alliances."

Sam's brows rose. "Not in recent memory."

"Reason has nothing to do with female notions of romance and marriage."

Sam's gaze narrowed. "You and Evie are still getting along, aren't you?"

"Oh, perfectly. You know I adore her, and she's the sweetest of wives. Not to mention the best of mothers."

"Thinking of having more children, are we?"

His brother turned red. "Actually…"

"Congratulations!" Beaming, Sam rose from his chair and shook his brother's hand. "I'm pleased for you."

"I'm damned lucky. Especially after… well—"

Dropping back into his chair, Sam laughed. "You can say it. After my fiasco."

Marcus looked uncomfortable, but then, he always did when there was any mention of Sam's marriage. "Mother and Father shouldn't have insisted."

"And I shouldn't have married for no good reason. Or at least," Sam said with a fleeting smile, "I should have taken a better look at my fiancee."

"I'm not sure a closer look would have mattered. She was—"

"Deceitful… and manipulative?"

"So Evelina has always maintained."

"But Mother was looking at all those Sutherland acres with great longing, and Father, I believe, particularly liked Penelope's blond hair."

"Well, that's over with," Marcus said with feeling, the years of Penelope's presence in the family still a highly explosive subject.

"And now I'm depending on you and your boys to keep the title in the family."

"Surely you'll marry again someday."

Sam shrugged. "I doubt it. Although…"

Marcus smiled. "Does your 'although' pertain to Miss Ionides? Everyone saw you at Ascot and then not again last night."