The Dangerous Viscount (11 page)

His brain was on the sharpest alert, acutely sensitive to any indication of her thoughts and mood. Unfortunately he couldn’t follow the dialogue between Diana and a lady with a strange leafy concoction on her head.

More guests arrived and none seemed to leave. Bodies crowded in on them and Sebastian awaited the right moment, when he could make it appear an accident. As though pushed, he stepped back several paces and collided with her.

“I do beg your pardon,” he said, spinning around and trying to ignore the jolt contact with her gave him. “Lady Fanshawe,” he cried. “I didn’t see you there. What a surprise to meet you again.”

Much to his satisfaction she appeared discomfited. “Mr. Iverley,” she murmured. Her companion nudged her. “I beg your pardon, Lord Iverley, I believe. Should I congratulate or commiserate with you?”

“You are very kind.” And couldn’t think of a thing to say. Which didn’t matter since engaging her in conversation was not part of the evening’s strategy.

“Lady Gee,” he said instead. “May I accompany you to the refreshment room? Rumor has it there is food to be found there.”

Lady Georgina’s titter almost rivaled her sister’s. “Oh Lord Iverley! You are so very droll.”

Fifteen minutes later Diana tracked down James Lambton.

“Diana,” Lamb said, bowing with grace despite the burden of a glass of claret cup and a rout cake. “I haven’t had the pleasure since Mandeville. Do you see who’s here?” He jerked his head toward a part of the room where Sebastian Iverley, surrounded by a sizeable group, appeared to be the life and soul of the party.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Hard to believe the transformation, isn’t it?”

“Lamb,” Diana said as calmly as she could. “Have you spoken to anyone about our wager?”

“How can you ask? Upon my honor, I said I would not and a gentleman always keeps his word.”

“What about Blake?”

Lamb stared at her. “How could you even suggest such a thing?”

Diana shrugged, not wishing to stir up gossip by confessing that Sebastian had almost cut her dead. “I just wanted to make sure there was no way he might know about it.”

Lamb repeated his protestations. “Look at him,” he added. “Coming into the title must have turned his head. Obviously it hasn’t improved his eyesight. I wonder what the viscountcy has done to his conversation.”

Diana smiled and laughed as Lamb continued to elaborate on the theme but without really listening. She was too busy puzzling over the reason why a man who had kissed her so passionately no longer seemed interested in pursuing the acquaintance.

T
he initial glow of triumph turned to ashes when Sebastian saw Diana with Lamb. They were discussing him—he could tell by the way they darted covert glances in his direction—and laughing. She was laughing at
him,
doubtless reminiscing with Blakeney’s best friend about Sebastian’s humiliation.

“For God’s sake, cheer up,” Tarquin ordered an hour later when they’d retired to his Albany rooms to conduct an inquest on the evening. “You were a success. At least a dozen ladies asked me about you.”

Sebastian stared into his glass without replying. The fifty-year-old brandy reminded him of Diana’s hair by candlelight.

“Wasn’t she there?” Tarquin asked. “There’ll be other opportunities.”

His resolve hardened as his anger rekindled to a blaze. Yes, there would. He couldn’t expect victory the first time out.

Tarquin echoed his thoughts. “Persistence, remember?”

“Persistence I can manage. But there’s one other thing I need to consult you about. Or Cain. Once I’ve completed the persistent pursuit and captured
the lady in question, what do I do with her?”

Tarquin stared at him. “You’re not asking me for advice about a marriage proposal, are you? I’ve no experience there. Besides, how hard can it be to choke out what a woman is so anxious to hear?”

“No, I’m not asking about marriage.”

“I’ve always wondered and haven’t liked to ask. You’ve never done it, have you?”

Sebastian shook his head.

“How the hell have you stood it all these years?”

He grimaced. “A strong right hand.”

“The schoolboy’s best friend. Am I to understand you mean to put an end to this unnatural state of virtue? Don’t worry. When it comes down to it you’ll know what to do. Men have an instinct for it.”

Of that Sebastian had no doubt. His “instinct” had been lately speaking to him with great urgency.

Before Tarquin and Cain had joked about widows, it hadn’t occurred to him that bedding Diana was an option. He’d always assumed, naïvely perhaps, there was a clear divide between ladies, whom one married if one was foolish enough to be caught, and women with conveniently loose morals. Now he couldn’t get the idea out of his mind.

“I’d like to do better than muddling through,” he said, remembering his first attempt at a kiss. If he ever got Diana Fanshawe into bed—and he still couldn’t believe it would ever happen—Sebastian wanted to do much better.

“It’s true, the first time tends to be fast,” Tarquin said. “I was so excited I lasted exactly half a minute. Of course I was only sixteen.”

“How did that come about?”

“My uncle took me to a brothel.”

“Uncle Hugo?”

“Good God, no. The Duke of Amesbury, my guardian. Always did his duty by me. In which your guardian apparently failed. But I suppose there wasn’t much scope for dalliance on the wild shores of Northumberland.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered if there was. My uncle never went near a woman. Hated them.”

“Why?”

“He never told me and I never asked, but I had the idea that he’d been betrayed by one in his youth.”

“And you never fell for that other traditional destroyer of unwanted male innocence, the buxom maid?”

“No. I did visit a bawdy house in London once, but I found the place repulsive.”

“Such places aren’t to my taste, either. I prefer the more exclusive regions of the demimonde.”

“Very exclusive, so I hear.”

“I never thought you listened when such topics arose.”

“Sometimes it’s hard not to.” Though he didn’t mind being frank with Tarquin in his search for information, Sebastian shied from admitting how trying his celibacy had been. The choice between avoiding the female sex and using one of its members for his own physical ease had not been an easy one.

“Do women enjoy it?” he asked.

“They certainly can.”

“Even ladies?”

“The sexual tastes of ladies are outside my area of expertise, but I don’t see why not. They are just
women after all. I can give you a few suggestions, I suppose.”

Sebastian wasn’t sure he was up to such frankness in conversation, even with Tarquin. “Can I learn about it from a book? All those erotic rarities you buy must hold some useful information.”

“You are welcome to make use of my library. Just let me know if you need any help with French vocabulary of a specialized nature.”

The premises of Mr. Sancho, bookseller,
South Molton Street, London.

M
inerva Montrose was bored. Bad enough that Diana had taken it into her head to visit this very dull bookshop. A greater mystery was why she’d already spent a full half hour in the place and shown no sign of concluding her business. Not that Minerva had anything against bookshops. She’d already visited Hatchard’s and Diana let her buy all the latest volumes of memoirs by the people who’d peopled the stage of European politics for the past decades. Mr. Sancho stocked quaint old volumes, many in dead languages, and nothing Minerva had the least desire to read. How Diana came to have an interest in them she had no idea. Her sister’s normal shopping expeditions involved bonnets, not bibliography.

The most intriguing thing in the place was the proprietor himself. Minerva had never encountered a Negro before, those of exotic ancestry being rare in Shropshire. She’d enjoyed a most interesting talk with Mr. Sancho, learning that his father had been a slave in the Indies. Before she discovered how the
son came to own a bookshop in the chillier clime of Mayfair, Sancho had been summoned to attend to a customer. Now the three of them—Diana, Sancho, and a little woman with fair hair—were engaged in deep discussion of a tedious nature about printing in the age of Elizabeth.

So Minerva turned her attention to the street, or as much of it as was visible from the window. She would have liked to go outside and explore the neighboring merchants, but Diana insisted it was neither safe nor proper to go out alone in London. At that moment Min would give anything to see something unsafe or improper, preferably both.

A man walked by in a hurry on the other side of the road. Something about the tall, bespectacled figure seemed familiar. Minerva opened the door and called out, doubtless breaking all sorts of rules, if not laws.

“Mr. Iverley!” she called.

The man ignored her cry. He’d already rapped on the knocker of a door a few yards up. It opened and he disappeared inside.

Tarquin Compton collected English poetry and French novels, novels euphemistically described in catalogues as being of special interest to gentlemen. Apart from congratulating his friend on the acquisition of a bawdy treasure, Sebastian had never attended much to the latter. After a couple of days reading he’d greatly improved his French and acquired rather a special interest, not to say painful need, of his own.

He decided to attend to the matter. Then he could forget about seducing Diana, an idea he regarded as
faintly dishonorable, and return to his original plan of merely breaking her heart.

He didn’t know who had called out his name, though the voice was female and that was unusual. It hadn’t occurred to him that No. 59 South Molton Street was just across from Sancho’s establishment and there was a chance someone would recognize him. Whoever it was, Sebastian hoped she’d never learn the nature of the business conducted at No. 59, a narrow brick-faced house with a single window on each floor.

When a maid came to the door Sebastian almost knocked her over in his anxiety to get in off the street and out of sight. The young woman, little more than a child to his admittedly inexpert eyes, had a slatternly look and a developing sty over one eye. He found her unconvincing as the personal attendant to a lady of elevated French parentage, but had no trouble seeing her as doorkeeper to a prostitute.

“What?” she asked laconically.

Sebastian remembered he was supposed to practice articulacy in the presence of females. Not that this one would recognize a complete sentence if it bit her on the ankle.

“I’ve come to see Miss Grandville,” he said, “if she’s available.”

The girl flashed him a gap-toothed grin. “Mamzelle ain’t busy. I’ll show yer up.” The only part of her that moved, however, was her hand, palm upward. Sebastian gave her a small coin and followed her to the narrow staircase.

As they climbed the first flight he detected a noise behind the door on the landing, masculine groans punctuated by the occasional trill. The urgency
arising from two days in Tarquin’s library seemed less desperate. Perhaps, he thought hopefully, the girl was wrong and “Mamzelle” was otherwise engaged.

“She’s on the next floor.” He plodded on after her. “This one,” she said, swinging her thumb at the door.

Since the servant’s duties didn’t apparently extend to the ceremonial announcement of visitors, he knocked.

“Entrez,”
bade a voice. He
entrez-ed.

Whatever he’d expected of a courtesan’s parlor, it wasn’t an ordinary sitting room decorated in a style not out of place in a country manor. The only article of furniture remotely inviting lascivious thoughts or activities was a chaise longue, covered in a serviceable sage green cloth rather than decadent brocade or velvet. The upholstery looked stiff, not conducive to lounging. The room’s occupant rose to her feet from a straight chair. Aside from the fact that her gown revealed a good deal of breast, she might have been a daughter of that manor. Pretty enough and distinctly unlike any whore he’d seen in London’s streets. At first glance he could tell that, in one aspect at least, her description in the popular guide to females of a certain profession lied. Miss Elise Grandville hadn’t seen twenty for some years. This didn’t bother him since he’d selected her for another reason. A certain passage had seemed particularly apposite:

If “student” meant wholly inexperienced, then she was his woman. She seemed reasonably appealing. Not equal to Diana Fanshawe when it came to looks, but who was?

“My dear mademoiselle. I am honored and enchanted to make your acquaintance,” he said in slow, careful French. There. That sounded polite, if not eloquent.

He didn’t understand a single word of her reply. “I do beg your pardon,” he said. “Though I studied your language for many years, I haven’t spoken it much, and hardly ever with a native.”

Following his lead, she switched to English, of a kind. An improbable kind. “Zee Englishmen zay do not speak well zee
français.”
Sebastian, who occasionally attended the theater, was put in mind of a comic French character in a cheap farce.

“Excuse me, mademoiselle,” he asked, “but I thought you had been in England for some years, since your father was a nobleman who escaped the guillotine.”

Mademoiselle revealed good teeth in a wide smile and dropped her French accent. “Oh, that book! They just make that stuff up, you know. I wanted to be the vicar’s daughter seduced by a wicked rake, but there’s already one of them in this house. But I quite fancy being the daughter of a marquee who sold herself to save her family from starving. How d’you like my French?”

“I couldn’t understand a word of it.”

“And I didn’t understand a word of yours.” She sat on the couch and patted the seat next to her. “Here,” she said. “Sit down. What’s your name?”

“Jack,” he said on impulse. “Call me Jack.”