The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton (10 page)

“Help me up,” she said, reaching for the loft edge since there was no ladder.

His touch on her waist and the cool air on her bare bottom as she struggled up had her thinking about “doing it” again. Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. She giggled softly at that thought in a sheep barn. Once she’d scrambled into the loft she arranged herself on the hay in an alluring pose, or so she hoped.

“Come and join me,” she cooed. The speed and determination with which he swung himself up indicated a willingness to accept her invitation.

Then a tingling in the back of her nose presaged an enormous, noisy sneeze. The place wasn’t just dry, it was thick with dust. And that wasn’t all.

“Oh lord,” she shrieked and twisted bolt upright onto her knees, slapping wildly at her back and shoulders.

“What is it?”

“Insects. Or something. I can feel them crawling down my back.” She thrashed around in a panic.

“Keep still,” he said, half laughing. “Here. It’s just a little spider.”

“Ugh! I hate spiders.”

“All gone now.” He dropped the offending creature over the side. “You’re covered in hay and dust.”

She could sense it all over her skin. Joyful lust had dissipated to be replaced with a sense of being grubby and charmless. Yet looking back at Terence she didn’t find
him
unattractive. “I must look a fright,” she said.

He leaned back to examine her with exaggerated portentousness. “The dust has made your hair look almost white. Rather like a cauliflower.”

She was watching his face as it happened. Affectionate teasing faded to confusion. He swayed and clutched his head. A new consciousness dawned.

“Miss Seaton,” he said.

Chapter 13

It’s always best to own up before you are caught.

T
he curtain parted and he was in a ballroom. The scraping of fiddles mingled with the uistakable babble of the chattering
ton
. Quite normal. A young woman stood before him, looking anxious. That was normal, too, Tarquin made sure of it. He never gave marriageable females, or their chaperones, the chance to get the wrong idea. He knew this girl: she was a little older than some, though it was her first season. Lady Trumper, who discreetly charged handsome sums to the rich and unconnected for introducing their daughters to London, had attempted to foist her in his direction several times, trying to win his approval and help the chances of a lady lacking beauty, elegance, or wit. He’d even been bullied into dancing with her once, though he couldn’t recall how such an anomaly had come about. What was her name? He always forgot.

She looked even less prepossessing than usual. Unkempt was the only word. Why on earth had her chaperone let her out with her hair in such a mess? Not even pinned up, it framed her face in a wild dusty halo. He blinked twice.

Apparently Lady Trumper had also let her out without her gown.

A sharp pain pierced his skull. The music and voices faded as the curtain closed behind him. Then, for the first time in a while it disappeared. His memory no longer had closed off rooms: it felt clear and complete. He even remembered her name.

“Miss Seaton,” he said. “Why are you dressed like that? It is most improper. And what are we doing in this . . .” he glanced around “ . . .
barn
?”

She regarded him with a wary expression. “Do you know who you are?”

“Of course I do. Why would I forget my own name? I am Tarquin Compton. What an absurd question! I wish I knew what I was doing in this place, however.”

She smiled. “You don’t remember anything about how we came to be together? Nothing at all?”

He thought about it. Clearly they weren’t in London. That established, he remembered traveling to Yorkshire to visit his estate, then making a trip away from Revesby on business of some sort, getting lost. Involuntarily he touched the back of his head and found a bump and a scab.

It all came flooding back, every bit of it, up to and including making love to Miss Celia Seaton in the open air. An act of indiscretion he’d committed in the belief that he was Terence Fish and she was his promised bride.

He’s always known there was something fishy about the story, but it had never occurred to him, fool that he was, that the whole thing had been invented by
her
. He wasn’t the villain of the piece, she was.

“My God! You knew.” His breath was taken away by her effrontery. “Don’t even pretend you didn’t know exactly who I was, right from the start.”

He jutted his head at her and she shrank back against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest. “I won’t,” she said quietly.

“Why?
Why?
” He was yelling and he wanted to strangle her. Rather than risk yielding to temptation he jumped down from the loft and berated her from the floor below. “You had me wandering around the moors like a damned idiot for three days, believing I was Terence bloody Fish.” The fact that he’d believed no such thing just made him angrier.

“I’m sorry.”

Not good enough. He wanted her to weep but her eyes were dry and flat.

“You said we were engaged. My God! We lay together. How could you? What were you thinking? You’re a lady of breeding. How could you allow something so improper?”

“I don’t remember you being so reluctant,” she said with a show of spirit.

She was correct and it made him more furious. He’d known he was doing wrong. In his shame he lashed out at her. “You were a virgin. You should have guarded your virtue.”

Celia had been cringing with guilt, prepared to grovel at his feet and beg his forgiveness, but that riled her. She crawled over to the edge of the loft and glared down at him. “I know about men like you. You seduce innocent girls, force them to your will, then blame them.” He was no different from Francis Featherbrain, only older and not fictional. And probably taller. And not stupid.

“I beg to inform you, madam,” he sputtered, “that I have never forced a woman, neither have I seduced an innocent, in my entire life. And I certainly wouldn’t have seduced you—and I beg leave to dispute that I was the seducer—had I not believed us to be betrothed.” He put his hand on his hips. “Why did you do it? To trap me into marriage? Well, madam, you fail. I refuse to fall victim to your scheme.”

Celia wanted to scratch his eyes out. Tarquin Compton had returned just as supercilious and nasty as he’d ever been. What a fool she was to believe him different, to fancy herself in love. The man she’d fallen for, Terence Fish, had never existed.

“Your arrogance is overweening,” she said, low and deadly. “How could any woman want to live with a man like you? I’d sooner starve than marry you.”

He raised his hands in clawed supplication to some higher power. “Then why in the name of all that’s holy did you claim we were engaged?”

“Because I needed your help getting away from my kidnapper.”

“And you didn’t think I’d give it unless you made up your farrago of nonsense?”

“No,” she said bluntly. “You never seemed like the kind of man who would help a stranger.”

“An outrageous conclusion to make about a gentleman.” His eyes narrowed. “And why choose such a ludicrous name for me? That, madam, has the odor of spite.”

“Well, Mr. Tarquin High-and-Mighty Lord-of-All-He-Surveys Compton. Maybe it was spite and maybe it was fair recompense. You never remembered my name, not once in all the times we were introduced in London. Not even when you destroyed my prospects and doomed me to a life of drudgery as a governess.”

“What nonsense! You became a governess because your uncle failed to change his will. Unless you lied about that too.”

“I would have married Mr. Jocelyn if it wasn’t for you.”

“John Jocelyn? He’s a pompous fool. No one would want to marry him.”

“Mr. Jocelyn,” she said with a complete disregard for truth, “is a man of good sense and character and I would have been proud to be his wife. But he never offered because
you
told him I looked like a cauliflower.”

“You did look like a cauliflower and you still do.”

That was enough! Celia let out a squeal of rage and would have stalked out of the barn, except she was perched on the edge of the hayloft.

She gritted her teeth and prepared to drop. “I’m coming down. Get out of the way.”

But instead of moving, he held up his arms, caught her, and lowered her gently to the ground. For a moment he was Terence again, strong, gentle, and chivalrous. But Terence was dead and Tarquin was only strong. The touch that made her chest thump and her skin tingle was devoid of inner softness: his heart was as hard as his muscles. Once she was safe on the floor he released her and folded his arms over his chest.

“I’m leaving,” she said, gathering up her blanket and heading for the exit without bothering to say thank you.

“You have nowhere to go.”

“I’ll find Mrs. Stewart on my own. Or I’ll return to Joe. He appreciated me.”

She pushed open the door and was greeted by a howling gale and sheets of rain. So intent had she been on their quarrel she’d ignored the thunderstorm that raged without.

“Don’t be a fool. You can’t go out in this weather. Besides, what about the kidnapper and his cohort? There’s no reason to think they’ve given up the pursuit.”

Undecided, she stood and let the rain blow in and wet her shift.

“I am
not
the kind of man who abandons a woman to her fate, even if she is a stranger.”

“I don’t want to marry you.” She continued to stare out at the sodden landscape.

“I don’t want to marry you, and I won’t,” he said. “Unless you are enceinte. Did you even consider that outcome? But I’m not leaving you until you find your father’s friend. That would be the act of a scoundrel.”

She should, she supposed, be glad he was prepared to stand by her if she was with child. Any impulse to gratitude was quashed by the condescension of the offer. Both offers. They were inspired by pride and the need to do right in the eyes of others. For the opinion of the
ton
was what mattered most to a dandy and Tarquin Compton was the consummate dandy. He’d do nothing—father a child out of wedlock or leave a helpless woman—that would expose him to worldly censure.

Much as she’d like to spit in his eye, she had to be sensible. “Thank you. I accept.”

“Good. Now that nonsense is out of the way, shut the rain out.”

The crude planks were heavy and the door had blown wide open until it banged against the stone wall of the barn. Already wet, she didn’t hesitate to step out, but the wind was too strong. She couldn’t move it.

“Get inside,” he yelled over the storm. “I’ll do it.”

She continued to tug but her fingers kept slipping on the wooden latch. He came out to help and they stood, each naked from mid-thigh and below, as water soaked through the linen of her shift and his smock.

He wasn’t helping her. Instead he gazed out at the hills, rain plastering his hair flat and making his forehead gleam. She yelled something and he came to his senses. Together they backed into the barn, dragging the door with them. It slammed shut to leave them in eerie quiet.

A sweep of hands over his head wiped the water from his short hair. Hers hung in wet matted hanks. At least the powdery dust would have washed out. Her blanket, luckily, she’d dropped on her way out and it was only a little damp. She wrapped it around her like a shawl and shivered. She’d been stupid to attempt to leave. Not only were they stranded in a barn together, barely on speaking terms, they were also likely to catch a chill. Yet Mr. Compton looked less angry than he had since regaining his memory, and also less human. She wasn’t sure how he managed it, something about the way he held his head at a slight angle, his chin tilted upward and his eyes peering down his aquiline nose at her. Mr. Tarquin Compton, the terror of the
ton
, was back.

“I know where we are,” he said, the ice in his voice matching that in his eyes. “I recognize the landscape. We’re on my land, less than a mile from my house at Revesby.”

“Joe said Stonewick was near Revesby.”

“Three miles away. As soon as it stops raining we’ll go home and I shall take you to your friend by carriage. I shall remain in the neighborhood until you know whether you are with child.”

She understood the unspoken corollary: if she wasn’t he’d never willingly see her again.

H
is valet stropped the razor to a fine edge and applied it to Tarquin’s face, warm and softened from his bath. With deft passes over lathered cheeks and jaw, upper lip and chin, his three-day shadow was scraped away. As each stroke of the blade left a path of smooth skin, Tarquin felt Terence Fish recede into history. The man who had walked barefoot, tickled for trout, brawled with a yokel, and fallen in love with an impertinent governess disappeared with his beard. By the time the servant rubbed a soothing tonic into his skin, all that remained of him was black bristles wiped onto a white towel.

A clean shirt of finest linen lay soft and crisp against his skin, so different from the crude homespun smock. Taking the strip of starched muslin draped over the valet’s arm, Tarquin began the practiced ritual. As he wound it twice about his neck and tied the elaborate knot, arranging the folds so they framed his clean chin in frothy precision, a pang of regret assailed him, a fleeting dread that he returned to prison and the neck cloth was a chained collar.

He shook off the fanciful illusion. “Waistcoat,” he said.

And with each garment and layer he felt more himself until Tarquin Compton, the best-dressed man in England, stood before the cheval glass in all his tastefully restrained magnificence. One last twitch to the cravat, an adjustment of his cuff, and he was ready. Once he left the room, confident in the perfection of his dress, he wouldn’t give it another thought. Man and appearance were united in aesthetic harmony.