The Rules of Seduction (18 page)

The hell he hadn’t. The darkness poured out of him, making the air thick. Hayden strode to the bedroom, fetched the light, and returned.

It revealed his brother. Christian was not in the robe, as Hayden expected, nor unkempt. Rather, he had been groomed impeccably and wore his finest coats. His expression showed no ill effects of his strange vigil. His countenance appeared more crisp, more alert, than Hayden had seen in months.

He gestured to the coats. “Do you intend to go out tonight?”

“No.”

“I really wish you would not act so peculiar at times, Christian. You are too young to be boldly eccentric.”

“And you are too young to be emotionally abstract.”

What the hell did that mean? Hayden set the lamp down. “I would be grateful if you came down to supper. Or perhaps only for a few minutes now, if that is all you can grant. Miss Welbourne is here, and I would like you to welcome her into the family.”

Attention rippled through the stillness. Christian did not move, but he thoroughly returned to the world. “You are marrying this woman?”

“It appears so.”

“Not vigilant enough, eh?”

“It appears not.”

“Damned decent of you. The only thing to do, of course.”

There had been other things to do, and they both knew it.

“I always knew you would marry a woman like her.”

“Of course.”

“Although I had hoped—well, let us go to her. As it happens, I am already dressed for it.” He rose to his feet. “I anticipated some need to look civilized. I did not think it would be this, however.”

They trailed toward the stairs together. “What did you hope?” Hayden asked.

Christian’s expression darkened, as if he thought the question too bold. Then it cleared in an instant. “Ah, you meant my comment just now. It was a very small hope, and not important.”

“I am curious all the same.”

Christian shrugged. “I had hoped you would fall in love, Hayden. But it is better this way. Less dangerous.”

She was not entirely on display in the drawing room. Once good wishes and a blessing of approval had been administered by Easterbrook, the brothers chatted among themselves while they waited the call to supper.

A quarter hour after Hayden’s return with his brother, another guest arrived. Henrietta sailed in, wearing a formal dinner dress of blush tulle and
gros de Naples
. Her face glowed with delight beneath the bird of paradise plume that adorned a pink beret-turban that Alexia had allowed her to buy last week.

She targeted Easterbrook with her stride, not looking at anyone else. Halfway to him, her eye caught Alexia. Confusion flickered, but Henrietta was not to be waylaid.

“How generous of you to invite me, Easterbrook. After this morning, I worried that perhaps you—I was undone to receive your request to come, although surprised that you meant tonight. Such short—Well, I am here, grateful and relieved.”

Easterbrook’s welcome carried a formal edge. Alexia sensed the coolness was not for his aunt so much as for her unexpected addition to their group.

When Henrietta acknowledged Alexia, she spoke indulgently. “I am happy that my nephew could find you. I trust there will be no more talk of your leaving. How generous of Easterbrook to allow you to stay for our little party as well. You may take my carriage back once the meal is finished. I am sure that my nephews will see that I am returned.”

Hayden took his aunt’s hand between both of his. “Aunt Henrietta, this will not so much be a little party as a little celebration, and Miss Welbourne’s attendance is essential. She and I became engaged this afternoon.”

Henrietta smiled up at him in her dreamy way. Very slowly, her mouth tightened and her eyes turned to ice. A chilled silence claimed her for several slow moments.

“How wonderful, Hayden. I wish you both every happiness.”

“It is wonderful, isn’t it? I could not be more pleased,” Easterbrook said. He offered his arm to his aunt. “Let us go down. I hope it is not a cold supper. I detest them.”

Henrietta was not a happy woman. She never addressed Alexia during the meal. She shot little glares across the table, however. Hayden read the insults.
Scheming Jezebel
.
Wanton adventuress.
And, most often,
traitor
.

Hen’s mouth pursed in disdain when he described the quick, private ceremony, but Christian and Elliot acted as if it were perfectly normal for the brother of a marquess to marry that way.

“Where will you make your home?” Elliot asked, raising a problem that quick weddings produced.

“In my happiness at Miss Welbourne’s acceptance, I did not turn to that yet. I will visit estate agents tomorrow.”

“With the season approaching, you will not find anything to let now that you want,” Elliot said.

“You could always live here, of course,” Christian said, emerging from a long period when he merely observed. He proceeded to drink some wine, oblivious to the astonished silence that greeted his quiet statement.

Henrietta looked ready to swoon from her shock at the injustice. “I would think Miss Welbourne would prefer her own home,” she suggested, her voice strangling on her dismay.

“Is that so, Miss Welbourne?” Christian asked. “Would you prefer your own home right away? Say, one like the house on Hill Street where you now live?”

“I will be content wherever Hayden chooses. A house like the one on Hill Street would be more than adequate.”

“The solution is clear, then. Hayden must take residence in that house rather than your coming here.”

“What?” Henrietta cried. “Easterbrook, there is not enough room. If you had visited you would know that. Why, we barely manage as it is and—”

“It has over twenty chambers. My brother will soon find one better for his bride, but that one will be adequate for now. Miss Welbourne says so.”

Hen’s face reddened. “It is
my
house, may I remind you.”

“But you will allow them to live there, won’t you? Because of all the kindness Hayden has shown you. And as a special favor to me.”

Hayden tilted his head toward Alexia and spoke quietly. “Do you want that? If not, speak now.”

“It is my home,” she whispered. “I would be happy to remain there.”

Hen did not miss the danger in the silken tone Easterbrook used. She tried to swallow her dismay and looked miserable in the effort. “I suppose we can all manage together for a few months.”

“I think you and Caroline had best leave,” Christian said. “If my brother wanted relatives underfoot, he would have accepted my offer that he and his bride live here.”

“Sir, that is not necessary,” Alexia said. “I do not want to live there if it puts your aunt out in any way.”

Christian called for more wine. He gazed at his full glass for a long minute. “My aunt will not be put out without also being accepted in. You and Caroline will live here, Aunt Hen.”

He might have announced the French had invaded. Everyone stared at him.

“We will? Oh, my, now I am truly undone. You are too good, Easterbrook. Why, this will make Caroline’s season an untold success. And she will have the chance to really know both you and Elliot. I cannot express my emotions—”

“Yes, yes. Well, I am glad it suits you.”

Oh, it suited her. Hayden saw the triumph beneath Hen’s tears of gratitude. No more glares went Alexia’s way. The governess was no longer a fallen woman getting better than she deserved but an accomplice whose strategies had achieved the impossible.

Christian ignored Henrietta for the rest of the meal. He would get a lot of practice at that now.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

T
he ladies from Hill Street alighted from the coach in front of St. Martin’s Church. Alexia looked up at the portico. This morning its columns looked dirty and the shadows behind them appeared menacing.

“Why don’t you and Caroline go ahead,” she said to Henrietta. “I will take some air for a minute, then follow.”

Caroline grinned. “A little unsettled, are you? I have heard that some girls bolt, just run away. There was that one two years ago who—”

“That will be quite enough,” Henrietta said. Her cheeks sucked in and her lids lowered. “I am very sure that Miss Welbourne is neither unsettled nor afraid and has no thoughts of running away. She merely wants some air. Come with me.”

They walked up the stairs, getting ever smaller until the portico’s shadows ate them.

Alexia’s gaze darted from spot to spot on the steps and street, hoping to see what her heart knew would not be there.

She had written to Rose and Timothy a week ago, two days after the supper with Easterbrook. The letter had been difficult to compose. The logic for accepting this marriage seemed less rational when she tried to pen the words.

However, she had also denied the impulse to beseech their forgiveness. Hayden had wronged the Longworths most grievously, but her acceptance of his proposal had complicated her loyalties. If she was going to marry the man, she should not damn his character in a letter she wrote after her engagement.

Instead of the long outpouring of excuses, she wrote a brief letter that explained her decision in a few sentences. She asked them to attend the wedding and for Timothy to give her hand in marriage. She offered to send a carriage for them. She even promised to find them a place to stay in town for a few days.

No reply came. No request arrived for the carriage. By the fourth day she accepted they would not even acknowledge her marriage. All the same, as she prepared this morning she had listened for their familiar voices in the house, hoping they would surprise her at the last minute.

The vacant steps, the empty portico, showed that had been a childish fantasy. She would do this completely alone.

She tried to bury her sorrow beneath the other emotion overwhelming her. Unsettled did not do justice to describing her state today. Panic swelled whenever she thought about the step she was taking. Bolting was not out of the question.

A figure appeared between the columns above. A man walked down to her.

“Would you allow me the honor of escorting you, Miss Welbourne?” Elliot asked.

“Yes, I think so.”

They began to mount the steps. Halfway up, another figure slid into place beside her. Elliot glanced over at the billowing black drapery and flowing red hair, then looked again, longer.

Alexia paused and accepted Phaedra Blair’s embrace and kiss. Phaedra and Elliot examined each other while Alexia introduced them.

“Your cousins could not swallow their anger, I see,” Phaedra said.

“No, and I am all the more grateful for your attendance.”

“If I do not approve of such matches, that is my own view. I accept that my path is not suitable for most women. Well, let us do it, then.” She took Alexia’s hand and urged her forward.

“You intend to give her hand?” Elliot asked.

“What an interesting idea. The symbolism would be preferable to that of the usual practice. However, I will only walk with her, if that is acceptable to you. She comes to this church dependent on no man, so no man should presume to give her to another. She will relinquish her freedom by her own judgment, for good or ill, and it is a pity the church is not full of people to see the truth of it.”

Elliot retreated into bemused silence. Phaedra marched alongside, her garments floating back in the breeze like a Nike of the night.

Easterbrook, Caroline, and Henrietta waited within the church with a small group of guests. Hayden stood near the altar, alongside a young man whom Alexia did not know.

“My, my,” Phaedra whispered. “The Earl of Chalgrove has come up to town to stand by your fiancé’s side. And that foppish, tired fellow with the gold hair is Viscount Suttonly. The guest list may be a short one, but the blood of your witnesses is very rich.”

As she walked down the aisle between her escorts, Alexia’s heart pounded. Her mind raced through a final reckoning.

She might be making a terrible mistake, one that all the security would never outweigh. What did she know about the man waiting there ahead? He had shown her some kindness and warmth, he could make her moan with pleasure, but she had also seen his coldest cruelty. The latter might be waiting for her in the future.

Phaedra and Elliot left her standing alone at the end of the aisle. The priest took his position. Hayden came to her and offered his arm. She grasped it too hard.

“You look frightened,” he said.

“Not frightened,” she lied. “Just too aware, too alive.”

“When I was a boy, I would sometimes deliberately venture down an unknown road, not knowing where it would bring me. The sense of adventure was similar to what I experience today.” He guided her toward the priest. “I think that we will be good companions on this journey, Alexia. I promise that you will be safe with me.”

They departed from Easterbrook’s house after the wedding breakfast. The coach did not carry them to Hill Street but to a property that Hayden owned in Kent.

“Your aunt was already packing yesterday,” Alexia said as the coach rolled into the country. “Caroline is very excited by the change in residence and promised to work very hard at her French and dancing while I am gone.”

“My brother expects Henrietta to effect the move in two days, now that she has her victory.”

“Easterbrook was very kind to give it to her. I think he is an interesting person. One senses something within him. A silent center that watches and waits. Yes, that is it. He is waiting for something. It is palpable.”

She looked charming, her expression serious as she picked through her memories and attempted to understand the cipher that Christian presented. In naming the source of Easterbrook’s darkness, she had also succeeded where for years Hayden had failed. Christian’s eternal distraction
was
much like that of someone who waits for news.

She wore the carriage ensemble ordered from Madame Tissot. Its cerulean blue complemented her fair complexion. Her dress for the wedding had come from that small wardrobe too. She would need to commission a much larger one when they returned to town.

She had appeared so fearful, so unsure as she came toward him in the church. Questions had shimmered on her much as the light had glossed over the silk she wore.

Her vulnerability had touched him and also crystallized his own questions. He felt more the seducer in that church than he had in the attic, luring her with wealth and jewels away from a self-possession that had given her strength.

“I am glad that when we return to town it will be to that house,” she said. “My life and my circles will probably change much in the months ahead. It will be reassuring to return at the end of the day to familiar chambers and passageways.”

He was happy she would be comfortable, but he wondered if their choice of home was wise. There were ghosts in that house, and more memories than he knew about. It might have been better to let a hovel in a rookery.

“Did you inform your cousins of the wedding?” He poked a stick into the river to judge its depth and current.

The old tightness flexed through her. A false passivity claimed her expression. “I wrote. There was no response. It will be as I predicted, I think. Perhaps, with time…”

He took her hand and pulled her toward him. He grasped her waist and set her on his lap. The bonnet’s brim poked his face, and he untied the ribbons and cast it aside.

He lightly traced the side of her face. Alexia Welbourne, cousin to the Longworths, remained distant from him, but his touch awoke a different woman, one who existed for him alone. The hunger to totally possess her simmered within his desire, but he would settle for less.

“We will help your cousins as they will permit,” he said.

Little fires ignited in the eyes gazing up at him. A wise man would retreat, on this of all days.

She spoke no accusations, but they were there all the same.

“There is more to your cousin’s ruin than you know,” he said, responding to the impulse to douse those fires even though he never could.

She frowned. “What more?”

“It is not for me to tell you. I only say that it was not all as it appeared.”

“That is conveniently vague, Hayden. I think if there is more to it, you would have told me by now.”

He kissed her, silencing her skepticism, abandoning the futile urge to remove her inner anger. He prolonged the kiss, tasting and claiming, luxuriating in his building arousal, until he sensed her trembles submerge the old resentment.

“We will not speak of it now,” he said. “I cannot command your forgiveness, but when I kiss you I do not want your bitterness between us. I want you to leave the Longworths outside the door when you and I meet in bed.”

She appeared to ponder his demand. Her fingertips slowly skimmed his face. The small touch tantalized him to the point of senselessness.

“I think of nothing much at all when you kiss me, so I may be able to forget my cousins during the times that I do my duty as your wife.” She paused. “All of my cousins.”

He kissed her deeply to ensure that she did. He unfastened her pelisse and caressed her breast, determined to prove that in the pleasure she belonged to him alone.

She had not meant it as a challenge, but he reacted as if she had. The slow, long kisses, the devastating touch on her body, deliberately drove her to madness. Even the rocking of the coach became sensual, a rhythm that echoed the throb of arousal that built with each mile.

He did not try to undress her further, but she wished he would. Her breasts became so sensitive beneath the subtle play of his fingertips that she wanted to tear off the garments that shielded her skin. Her awareness constricted to the sensations. They slid down her body in titillating streams, pooling between her legs, awakening again the physical yearning for completeness.

He kissed her neck, her chest, her breast, his ardor restrained but its power palpable. Memories of the pain became insignificant.

His touch grew less gentle, reflecting the strain she sensed in him. His caress handled her breast possessively, demanding more from her. Arrows of fire shot to her vulva and her mind.

More.
The relentless hunger intensified so badly she wanted to whimper. Her body ached from the exquisite torture, and her mind screamed from frustration.

He pressed his hand against her swaying hip, stopping both the rhythm and the vague relief it gave. “Are you feeling dutiful, Alexia?”

“If you would like.”

His hand slid to her stomach, its firm pressure over her womb. “I did not ask if you are ready to do your duty in this coach, but if you felt merely dutiful.” He turned his gaze to her. His expression made her breath catch. “It will not be duty you bring to me. That is one lie we will not live. You will accept me because of this.” He pressed gently, and a wonderful warmth shuddered through her loins. “And this.” He bent and kissed her breast.

He caressed lower, pressing down her thigh and leg, then up again, below her skirts. “And this.”

The feel of his hand on her bare skin mesmerized her. The confident fires in his eyes, the sensual hardness in his face, left her breathless. Her body knew at once what he meant and began pulsing with anticipation. His slow, upward caress ruthlessly teased.

She bit back a moan when he touched her, but a cry shrieked through her whole body. The intense sensation repeated again and again, sending her into abandon.

He shifted her hips onto his thigh. “Spread your legs.”

She did not obey. The need was almost painful. Her madness frightened her.

He pressed against her knee, in command and encouragement. “Do as I say.”

Her legs parted without her choice. She felt his touch better then. Too well. Long slow strokes made her tremble. Short rapid ones teased at a spot of unbearable sensitivity. A darkness closed in on her, one that obscured him and herself and all of her body except where his caress focused. The chant for more turned into a rising, desperate demand.

Pleas entered her head. She lost control of body and mind and did not care. She was going to die anyway, so she gave herself over to the wonderful anguish.

A warmth pressed her temple. His embrace tightened, supporting her. The caress changed, making it worse, better, frightening, excruciating. She plunged further into pleasure’s insanity. Suddenly the sensation increased tenfold in an instant. It reached a crescendo of awesome perfection, then snapped and split and showered through her in a rain of beauty.

The release awed her. She accepted it in stillness, amazed by the unearthly rapture of such a physical experience. She kept her eyes closed and dwelled on its last remnants as they sparkled through her limbs.