The Rules of Seduction (21 page)

“Good, good.” He shed his interest in Hen’s designs. “My brother looks smug, Alexia. I hope that he behaved well and that the satisfaction was mutual. We come from a family that has reason to think the initial joys of the marriage bed are all that recommends the wedded state to either man or woman.”

Hayden sighed and shook his head. “You might let her test the water and get used to the temperature, Christian. Seeing you dressed like that was enough for one day. It was good of you not to enter in your robe.”

Easterbrook looked down at his garments. “If looking proper would not have given Henrietta a victory, I would have gone through the trouble for your bride.”

“I quite understand,” Alexia said. “I have been known to deny some people a victory or two on occasion.”

“I am sure that you have. It is why I favored you at once.” He took Hen’s place on a nearby chair. “Several more letters arrived for you today, Hayden. No doubt from those who missed the miserably discreet announcement that was published last week. Although I expect the word circulated among the women quickly, since the batch sent over earlier contained many invitations. Hen reports that there is much curiosity about the lady who succeeded where so many failed.”

“They will all meet her soon. We will accept most of those invitations.”

“Does the notion of being inspected frighten you, Alexia?”

“A little. It is best to be done with it quickly, however.”

“How sensible. She really is very sane, Hayden. In a town full of feminine frivolity even among the men, she is refreshing.”

They stayed a while longer. The men spoke of politics and sport. The conversation drifted over and around her. She sensed that Easterbrook prolonged the visit for her sake, so she would feel welcome. Or perhaps he did not mind her company because he thought her sensible.

It had been a compliment from a man who did not waste breath on false flattery. It had not been the sort of praise that most women would look for, however.

Sensible. Not beautiful or entrancing or clever. Sensible. What a dull word.
Yes, here I am, little sensible me. A paragon of practicality. A citadel of sobriety. Even the passion I experience with this new husband is a matter of accepting that which I cannot change. We are both making the best of a marriage decreed by foolish impulse and heartless pragmatism.

She looked at Hayden. He appeared in no hurry to take his leave. He enjoyed conversing with his brother.

He felt her gaze and looked her way briefly. Warmth softened his countenance, and his eyes reflected memories of their intimacies.

For a few sweet moments, the life she lived at night intruded on the day, and she did not feel very sensible at all.

Hayden did not retire with her that night. She left him in the library, writing a letter. Joan waited for her in her bedroom. Joan had arrived from Kent at midday to serve as her lady’s maid. Alexia had decided it would be silly to look for another maid if she had found one who suited her. The girl was excited about her new duties and the chance to come to town.

Joan helped her change into a nightdress, then brushed out her hair. She dismissed Joan and laid in her bed.

This chamber had not been used in all her years in this house. Rose had not occupied the mistress’s chamber, reserving it for the future wife of Benjamin, then Timothy. It connected to the master’s suite of chambers that Hayden now used.

She gazed at the ivory drapery suspended above her. She had promised Hayden that thoughts of her cousins would not invade their nights, but Hayden was not here now. The events of the last week had kept reflection at bay, but now she was alone again. She had once expected to lie in this bed, waiting for a different man, and Ben’s memory eddied through her in increasingly vivid ripples.

She owed that memory nothing besides the fond thoughts of a close cousin. Her emotions regarding Ben had been unsettled since she read those letters in the attic, however. It hurt her to think she had been only one of many dalliances to him. She had never suspected that his insistence on discretion was because he did not want his brother and sister to know that he behaved dishonorably toward her.

He had, however. Her pride wanted to believe she had been his true love, his future wife, and that those letters came from a woman who merely satisfied his needs until he married. Hayden had even suggested that was the case. The romantic girl in her heart would probably hold on to that explanation for years. Alexia Welbourne, the woman who had learned the world’s harsh truths too well, was less inclined to be so generous.

That woman could not exorcise Ben’s memory completely, however. He demanded attention of a different sort than that of wistful regret or longing. Walking through the door, she had also stepped back to her recent worries about him. His memory remained vaguely incomplete now, in certain essential ways.

She again saw him when he kissed her before leaving for Greece. Had it only been excitement she sensed in him? She had resented his eagerness to leave but had buried that perception. It loomed now in her mind, released from the lie that wanted to ignore it. She watched his smile and heard his reassurances. She also saw the other emotion deep in his eyes.

Relief. He was glad to be gone. From her? She doubted she mattered enough. He could be rid of her without going to Greece.

He had been relieved to leave England, and despondent about returning. Hayden believed the latter melancholy had made Ben careless on that ship. So careless that he ended in the sea.

She squeezed her eyes tight against the tears beginning to burn. Whether as lover, fiancée, or cousin, she had loved him dearly. She did not want to think of him so unhappy, so desperate, that he…

Because of her? It would be a terrible kind of significance, if his entanglement with her made him so unhappy. Surely it had been something else in his life.

She wished she had read those letters more carefully and seen more than the evidence of another woman in his life. She wished she had not ignored the other papers in the trunk. She had gone to it only to find the answer to the question that plagued her tonight. She had been too quick to grab at the belief that he had never changed and too distracted to remember her goal once she smelled that perfume.

She rubbed her eyes, wiping the tears that had brimmed through her clenched lids. She blinked hard and looked again into the night.

Hayden stood a foot from the bed. The light of a small, far lamp created a nimbus around the edges of his body. She startled on seeing him. She had not even heard him enter.

As the shadows came alive with russet glows, she saw that he wore a loose robe, carelessly tied. The fabric was dark and of a substance that flowed softly.

“You were crying.”

“I wasn’t. Truly.” It was not really a lie. The tears had not flowed enough to be called crying.

He shed the robe. Vague highlights played over the hard angles of his body and face. Her awe at his beauty obscured the thoughts that had filled the last hour.

He joined her in bed. He pulled her closer and looked down. A sly shimmer of anticipation quivered through her.

He did not kiss her. His hand rested on her hip in the firm pressure that expressed so much about him. He did not clutch or grip. He did not have to. This more gentle hold spoke his assumptions of possession more eloquently.

“Why were you crying?”

He should not demand an answer like this. It did not really matter to him.

“You said there were some things we would not talk about at night, Hayden. I am thinking that was a good rule.”

His head turned slightly. He gazed away, at nothing.

“I will let or buy another house. West of the park, if necessary. I guessed that living here would be a mistake.”

“Please do not. Please. It is not this house. The nostalgia will come on occasion wherever I live.”

His attention returned to her, as if she had said something profound. His hand caressed down her thigh and leg. With long strokes, he pushed her nightdress up. “Perhaps I should leave you to the nostalgia tonight, but I think not.”

Did he believe he competed for her attention after that? Was that why his kiss was so long, so thorough, so designed to leave her breathless? She could not ignore the new, subtle hardness in the way he handled her. His kiss did not so much cajole as direct. He dominated much as he had in the carriage when he insisted her body admit that their passion was not mere duty.

She submitted easily. She wanted to. She had been so alone in her thoughts. So adrift from the people and love that gave her existence some meaning. The intimacy waiting seduced her more than the pleasure.

His skin pressed hers as he stroked his face against her hair. His breath entered her, stirring her as much as his caresses did. He lifted her shoulders and pulled the nightdress off, then laid her back down, naked beside him.

She loved the way his hand moved on her. She closed her eyes to savor the sensation of those slow, confident paths along her body. Every inch of her waited to experience that warmth, to grow more alive under that touch.

He spread her legs and moved atop her, resting between her thighs. Her body instinctively positioned to accept him, but disappointment whispered within her arousal. It would be quick tonight. She had hoped…

He did not accept the offer her body made. He removed her hands from his shoulders and set them to either side of her head. The lack of embrace added a new note of vulnerability. Her breasts rose, utterly exposed, so sensitive the air titillated her.

He did not tell her to stay like that, but she knew he expected her to. He had seemed pleased in Kent when she participated, but tonight he wanted her only accepting. She felt much as she had in the carriage and sensed the same aura in him too. She did not think generosity moved him now any more than it had then.

A kiss on the side of her breast obliterated the vague resentment forming. The warm press of his lips, the fluttering touch of his hair as he dipped his head enchanted her. There was beauty in whatever he thought he proved by this. The way he kissed the fullness of her breast made her feel precious as well as owned.

Soon the impatient chant for more whispered in her head as her body knew what would come. He took his time letting her have it. Her anticipation grew excruciating before his fingers replaced his mouth and his caress slowly circled her nipple.

He brushed the tip. Her whole being groaned with relief and hunger. He teased until a chaos of pleasure and frustration filled her. His weight kept her lower body from moving, denying her even the small respite promised by the urge to shift her hips.

He flicked his tongue on the other nipple, creating a sensation that was too delicious to bear. He laved gently, multiplying the shuddering downward pulses until they flowed in a continuous stream of wonderful torture. His touch on her other breast added to her delirium. She arched her back shamelessly, begging him to continue forever.

She crossed to that place where only carnal hunger existed. Her mind clouded to everything except the way he aroused her and her need for it, for
more
. That chant entered her physically. It beat in her heart and pulsed in her blood and ached between her legs where her sex waited, hollow and incomplete, tingling and throbbing.

He shifted and she felt the dampness between them, the slickness weeping out of her. She tried to slide down, so he could enter her.

“Do not move.”

He was the one who moved lower. He kissed a hot path as he did. She frowned when he passed her waist and kept going. He was not—surely he did not intend—

The heat of his mouth on her mound stunned her. Shocking kisses on her inner thighs made her gasp. She looked down her body at the scandalous way he lay so low, so near—She glanced to the small lamp. He could probably
see
her.

He touched her carefully, precisely. Heavenly spears of pleasure overwhelmed her shock.

“I intend to kiss you too. Do you want to negotiate, Alexia? You are allowed to refuse.”

Kiss her?
The instinct to stop him, to cover herself with her hands, was demolished by another caress. The sensation stunned her whole body. Her hips rose in offering.

He did not kiss her. Not really. But whatever he did with his mouth and tongue created pleasure so deep, so astonishing, that she moaned. Her release crested slow and long and shattered so violently that she screamed into the night.

He was with her before her cry ended, turning her so she hugged the mattress, covering her with his body. He did not ask if she accepted this part. He totally cloaked her so no part of her was not touched. There was no doubting his domination this time. His thrusts kept the trembles of her climax echoing where they joined. They were still pulsing when his finish came.

He did not move for a long time. She felt his hard breaths on her hair and shoulders and his weight on her hips. Subtly, the forearms bracing his strength above her back pressed closer in an embrace. She was too spent to care how submissive she felt beneath him. But not afraid. Never afraid. Nor did she feel badly used. There was nothing cold or indifferent in his desire.

He pressed a kiss on her back, between her shoulder blades. “We will remain in this house if you want.” Then he was gone, the robe flowing around him as he left the bedchamber.

She rolled onto her back. She still had not recovered, but she realized more had happened than learning new pleasures.

Perhaps she was wrong about the warmth, the…caring she felt in him. Maybe tonight had been only a test, to see if her history in this house would interfere with what he expected.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

V
ague scents of spring blew on the crisp breeze as Hayden rode through the City. He raised his face to the bright sun, noting its position. It had begun its hopeless annual attempt to tame London’s eternal damp.

He stopped in front of the imposing sprawl of classical facades that compiled the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street. He had dealings here often enough, but today he had not come on normal business. Among the letters awaiting his return from Kent had been one from Hugh Lawson, an assistant cashier at the bank.

Lawson was an ambitious young man who curried favor with Hayden in the hope of being included in promising investment syndicates. Lawson’s letter had been a response to Hayden’s own inquiry. Yes, the gentleman in question had kept a private account at the Bank of England, he wrote. If Lord Hayden would call at the bank, Lawson would try to answer any other questions.

After he left Alexia last night, he had thought for a brief while that he would not make this visit. Passion had a way of obscuring reality while it reigned.

She had been quietly weeping when he entered the room. Over her cousins’ rejection? She had gained worldly wealth in marrying him, and status and security. She had discovered physical pleasure and appeared to revel in its power. But she had lost the love of the only family she knew.

Worse, he sensed another presence in the chamber and guessed she had also been crying over Ben. The letters in the attic had compromised that memory, but women had a habit of loving scoundrels even when they knew the truth.

He had resented the intrusions more than he should have. He had exploited the power that pleasure gave him in any competition with the past. He had carried her into a different world, one that the Longworths did not invade.

No ghosts had hovered around that bed when he left. If he had stayed much longer, however…would one specter have seeped in again, lading the air with nostalgia and sorrow?

If so, it would not have been entirely Alexia’s fault. Not only her eternal love kept Ben ever present in their lives.

Questions that demanded answers loomed about Ben. An instinct warned that a wise man would leave it alone, but his negligence the night of Ben’s death was a guilt that begged for more information.

He made his way through the high-vaulted chambers of the bank’s offices and down some stairs. Lawson received him in a small, spartan chamber beneath the bank’s public rooms.

Lawson appeared conspiratorial as he closed the door. Discussing one client’s dealings with another was not accepted, even if one of those clients was dead. Hayden was glad for the exception, but he would never again trust Lawson overmuch.

“Benjamin Longworth indeed had an account here, as you inquired. In fact, it still exists, and a respectable amount remains in it. His heir must have been unaware of it.”

That meant Ben’s records of this account were not among his papers that Timothy received upon his death. “Was it a large one?”

“It varied. A good deal of money would come in, then a good deal would go out. It appeared much as one sees with active merchants, especially importers. Money is moved to an account, then removed to pay bills of sale and such.”

“How large were these amounts that moved out?”

Lawson shrugged. “Anywhere from a hundred to thousands at a time.”

“Bank drafts?”

“At first. Then notes exclusively.”

“I would like to see the records.”

Lawson had already crossed a line. Now his expression indicated he hesitated to take the next step.

“I have cause to think that Longworth was under financial stress. As his friend, I would like to put my mind at rest that he was not,” Hayden said. “It would be a great favor, I realize. One impossible to repay, although I would do my best to try.”

Lawson’s expression cleared. If he made a loan against his honor and prospects, he only wanted assurance that the accounts would be balanced. He was a banker, after all.

He removed a thin account book from among a stack of similar ones on his desk. He placed the book atop the others, and left the chamber.

When the door closed, Hayden lifted the account book. Ben had first put money here years ago, about six months after he bought the partnership in Darfield’s bank. First small sums, then larger ones.

He ran his finger down the deposit column, mentally adding. Over four years, Ben had hidden more than fifty thousand dollars in the Bank of England. This must be where the money came after he forged the signatures and sold out his victims’ funds. It was much more than he and Darfield had thought. Darfield was still busy tracking down all the sales and determining which were frauds. If this account was any indication, the poor man would suffer apoplexy before he was done.

Six months into the account’s life, a series of drafts began, creating a long list of dispersals. Some moved money back to his account at Darfield and Longworth, presumably so he could pay the ignorant clients their income and they would never guess the principle in their funds was gone. Some went to individuals, and others to accounts at county banks in Bristol and York.

He scanned the drafts. Halfway down the list, a new name appeared that arrested his attention and made the others insignificant. A series of drafts had been made to one individual. They occurred at regular intervals but too frequently for income payments. Then, a year prior to Ben’s death, they stopped. However, at the exact same two-month intervals to the very day, money continued to be removed, only in notes.

The pattern jumped out at him, proceeding to the month when Ben left for Greece. The intuitive caution that had warned to leave it alone sneered viciously in his head.

It was worse than he thought. Ben had been blackmailed, and the demands had escalated his last year in England. And Hayden himself had introduced Ben to the man who bled him.

“It is a little late to be asking me about him,” Phaedra said. “You are still tied to him no matter what I say.”

You did not ask my advice before you agreed to marry him, so why do so now?
her tone said.

Alexia wanted to know what Phaedra thought of him because her own thoughts were confused. Her vision kept clouding. At night, when their bodies joined and entwined, she experienced an intimacy so stark, so binding, it frightened her. Her nights had begun to seem more real than her days.

“I did not realize you knew him. The introduction outside the warehouse appeared to be the first. However, you just referred to him as cold, so I asked why you think so.”

“I had never met him. One hears things, however. And you must admit that he does not appear very warm by nature.”

They sat in Phaedra’s rather odd sitting room. Alexia never knew what to think of the place. The divan showed quite a bit of wear on its sapphire upholstery, but a careless array of exotically patterned shawls gave the appearance of luxury all the same. The furniture was a mix of finishes and styles yet managed to please the eye with its eclectic disarray. Two cats roamed the chambers freely, one black and one pure white. The white one had a habit of jumping on Alexia’s lap and now curled there, shedding long hair all over her brown pelisse.

Books tumbled over the two tables flanking the divan. Piranesi engravings of eerie staircases decorated the walls. Only a small watercolor to her left looked like the normal sort of art people owned. Crystalline washes of color depicted the view from a hill down on a lake.

“I would not put much faith in what one hears, nor in a countenance that is the result of breeding,” she said.

“Then I assume you have not found him cold and have overcome the aversion that his behavior toward your cousins caused,” Phaedra said. “I am heartened to hear it. A married woman has no choice about sexual congress, so it helps if she enjoys it.”

How like Phaedra to just start talking about that, like it were perfectly acceptable to do so. Yet it relieved Alexia that the door had been nudged ajar. She had mourned the loss of Rose’s easy friendship the last few days. A woman needed to have another woman to confide in sometimes.

“I enjoy it rather too much, I think,” she said.
It overcomes my aversion too well. Too thoroughly, perhaps.

“What an odd thing to say. I hope you do not hold with the stupid notion that pleasure is sinful.”

“No.” Not sinful. Just…dangerous. She could not explain that to Phaedra. She did not begin to know the words to use. But sometimes, when she abandoned herself, she sensed that she offered him a part of her soul.

“I only wonder if it is quite normal to enjoy such things with a person whom one does not love.”

“If men do, why shouldn’t women?”

Why not, indeed? Alexia could not deny the soundness of the question. She doubted that Hayden worried whether
he
experienced too much pleasure.

Phaedra rearranged herself on the divan, turning her whole body and hitching one leg up. She presented the image of a woman settling in for a good gossip.

“Since you asked why I said he was cold, I will tell you it is not merely due to the somewhat severe humor he shows the world. I know one of his former mistresses.”

“This mistress called him cold?”

“She said he was a good lover but he remained remote. She shared pleasure with the man the world sees, who is hardly warm, you must admit. Normally, in bed, another man will emerge.”

Alexia understood that. She had sensed the inner man emerge. It flattered her that perhaps Hayden had been less reserved with her than with this mistress Phaedra knew.

“I expect he had a lot of lovers.” No doubt he would have more mistresses in the future. He had all but said he would. There was no danger for
him
in their intimacy.

Phaedra shrugged. “It is common enough. My friend said he was a bit odd about it. He could have seduced merely with that face of his. Instead, he always made very sure his women understood what they would gain and what they would never have. The arrangement was comfortable but lacking even the slightest romantic illusion. Even courtesans like to pretend there is more, you see. We all do.”

He had made the arrangements explicit with her too. So explicit she had assumed he was asking her to be his mistress, not his wife.

Even courtesans like to pretend there is more.
Was that what she was doing? Pretending there was more? Maybe the warmth, the sense of a bond, was an illusion conjured up by her heart to spare her from the harsh truth that she really
was
a courtesan in marriage.

“The oddest condition of his protection,” Phaedra continued, “was his insistence that his mistresses be examined by his physician first. He did not seduce first and negotiate later.” She chose a little cake from a plate on her table and offered one to Alexia. “That does not speak of a man overwhelmed by emotion, does it? It is logical precaution but also coldly calculating.”

Alexia accepted a cake because she knew Phaedra actually made them herself. She had no servants, not even to clean, even though her income would allow one.

“As you can tell, I have been asking about him, once I knew you would marry him,” Phaedra said. “I heard about those oddities in his family history, of course.”

“What oddities?”

Phaedra’s eyes widened as she paused in biting the cake. Alexia laughed at her comical appearance. Phaedra laughed too, spewing a snow shower of cake crumbs down the front of her dress.

She brushed them off. “As I said, this was a conversation we should have had
before
you wed. You knew nothing about him.”

“I knew enough,” she muttered, studying her cake.

Phaedra’s laugh had a bawdy note. “The effects of your awakening are delicious, Alexia. Who would have guessed that pleasure would conquer that practicality of yours? A man seduces you and you lose hold of your judgment? Next you will say that you fell in love and do not care who and what he is.”

“Mock all you want, but do not accuse me of being a romantic fool. I did not quiz him on his relatives’ past. There was no polite way to do so.”

“It was a point of history worth knowing, perhaps. It is said that his mother would go for days, weeks, never leaving her chambers. Perhaps she suffered from deep melancholies. However, I have heard that she had a talent with the pen, and I think it more likely she lost herself in her art. The last years of her life, she retired completely to their country estate, however. Some think she went mad. That is often the reason a family member becomes reclusive.”

“I do not believe Hayden’s blood is tainted that way. He would have told me, warned me.”

Phaedra brushed a few errant crumbs off her garment’s skirt. “Perhaps it was not bad blood, so he did not believe he needed to tell you. It is a topic that has found new life now that Easterbrook is turning eccentric, however. Those who raise the speculations believe she was mad and that one day Easterbrook will be too. There are other explanations for how and when she disappeared, however, and I tend to favor one of them.”

“What explanations would those be?”