The Seducer (23 page)

She tilted her head so that she could look at him. In the moonlight he saw a smile before she stretched to kiss him.

“I am thirty-two.” He did not even know why he said that. It just came out, a half-measure to encourage her to ask for the truth, perhaps. “In Scotland you were curious about my age. I am thirty-two.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. “And you came here when you were eight? Then perhaps the countess was correct. She said it is rumored that you were an émigré during the revolution. Were you?”

“Yes.”

She rose up on an arm and looked at him. “Was your father an aristocrat? Were you fleeing?”

“My father was not an aristocrat. He chose to leave, however. It was not a good time, and no one was safe.”

“So you came here, and lived in that house in Scotland. Where are your parents now?”

“My mother was dead when we came. My father died soon after we arrived. Louis was with us. The chevalier had helped us get out, because he was an old friend of my mother’s. He saw to my care until I was old enough to fend for myself.”

“Margot said that you went to sea very young.” She sounded like someone finishing a story, content she had read the whole book.

She settled back in his arms. “Do you remember much from back then. Coming here, and your life before, in France?”

“I feel as though I remember all of it.” Every day, and every sight. Every loss and every fear. He remembered too well.

“I remember almost nothing. We both left our homes as children and went to new ones. Why should you have such clear memories and I have so few?”

“Memories are capricious. Some disappear, and others, insignificant ones, stay forever. Perhaps the difference is that I did not feel very much like a child by the time I made that journey.”

He had not felt at all like one. Life had already made him old and tired and hard. There had been nothing of childhood left when he followed Louis onto that small boat.

The conversation produced an intimate mood, such as only night confidences could. It made the day and its distractions disappear. He relished their retreat.

Her arms tightened and she kissed his chest. “Daniel, I want to tell you something. I came to England looking for something. There was this . . . hole in me, this gap, that never seemed to go away. I thought that if I found my relatives, my history, that it would be filled. I think I thought that being loved would fill it.”

His heart hurt for her unhappiness and the years she had lived with that hole. He wished to God he could change it for her, but he knew that he of all men could not.

“I have found what I was looking for.” Her voice barely surpassed a whisper. “I had it all wrong, you see. I thought that being loved would fill that empty place. I have discovered that it is loving someone else that does it.” She paused, and the silence begged for more words. “I know that you do not feel the same way, and I do not mind. I think that I am supposed to, and maybe one day I will. Right now, loving you fills me so completely that I am grateful for that alone.”

Her words touched him so deeply he could not speak. He moved her until she lay on top of him, with her head on his shoulder and her face against his. He could embrace her totally this way and feel her body all along his skin.

It would be wise to be more careful with your love.
He wanted to say it, to warn her. He did not. Instead he lifted her body so he could enter her again, and so their passion could obscure the warning, and even the reason for giving it.

He eased her shoulders up until she sat, straddling his hips, snugly connected. Her dominant position confused her. She appeared unsure of what to do, and surprised to find them together before she was wild with need.

“This was not on a plate that you marked,” she said.

“No. Do you dislike it?”

“It feels different, having you inside me before I . . .” She checked the situation again. “Do we just stay like this?” A little squirm accompanied the question and answered it at the same time. She leaned forward to resettle herself.

“Stay like that, so I can touch you.” He reached to caress her. With his touch he felt her arousal begin, tightening her hold on him. She looked so beautiful, like a dark statue touched by faint moonlight. Her eyes watched his hands smooth over her body.

The languid build of pleasure created a blissful intimacy. He was aware of every reaction she had, every breath she breathed.

She straightened and slowly ran her smooth palms down his torso. She said nothing, but her earlier declaration of love was in her touch and the way she gazed down at him.

That made his heart burn painfully. Beautifully. He leaned her forward again so he could kiss her lips, then farther still until his mouth could touch her breasts.

He did not have to show her what to do. Pleasure did. She propped herself over him as his tongue teased at her breasts. Her hips moved in response to the deep, delicate tremors binding them as closely as their bodies did.

The ecstasy came slowly, in a long climb out of the world. Her cries, the way she moved, her astonishment at the intensity—it offered a complete escape for his spirit and heart.

He did nothing to hasten the end. He held off the beckoning climax, not wanting to relinquish the soulful layers beneath the pleasure. In her arms, for a while, he was no longer a slave to memories and anger.

chapter
22

D
upré is spending money like a man with great expectations,” Adrian reported. “Going back to all the places I first took him for supplies, ordering zinc and copper and silver disks, pans and chemicals and iron. Lots of iron.”

Daniel stripped off his shirt and hung it on the dressing chamber’s hook. He walked with Adrian out to the hall.

“I worry about this partner of his, Daniel. I agreed to help you in Paris because you got me out of that trouble in Syria. You spoke of settling a score without bloodshed, and it seemed little more than a prank. I do not like the idea that someone is being ruined now, however.”

“I will look into it, and make sure that no innocent is harmed.”

Daniel had not explained to Adrian that the partner was Andrew Tyndale. He had certainly not laid out how the plans for Gustave had taken on a new and different life.

“I think that we should expose the whole thing, to be sure of that.”

“In time, but not just yet. I relieve you of responsibility for any of it. I know who the partner is, and neither he nor Dupré is worth your concern. Believe me when I tell you that their crimes are so great that even their deaths would not repay them.”

“I would feel better if you told me all of it, Daniel. It is clear now that I know very little.”

“Trust me, you do not want to know all of it.”

Nor did Daniel want him to know. If Adrian learned all of it, he would probably feel honor bound to warn Tyndale. The son of an earl would feel obligated to protect the son of a marquess.

Adrian looked highly skeptical. “I fear this has turned into a fraud.”

“It was always a fraud, only now money is at stake and not a reputation. It is not our fraud, however. I did not lure Dupré into what he does now. Greed did. And his partner is a thief, as is Dupré, and you cannot cheat swindlers. There is no sin in lying to the devil.”

“It gets a bit murky, doesn’t it? Which of you is the devil and swindler?”

Daniel saluted with his sabre. “Not at all. We all are. I have no illusions about that.”

Diane strolled down the garden path in a daze of contentment. Bright flowers peeked up at her, and the pear tree was in bloom. She loved this garden, and this house, and her life. She marveled at how she had been reborn in this love she had. It made her feel safe and warm, wanted and complete. All of the things she had never known, she enjoyed now. The girl at the school might have never existed.

Jeanette sat under the pear tree. Since the marriage, Jeanette had been happier too. They were sisters now, and Jeanette often asked about the parties and theater performances Diane attended. Diane hoped that one day soon Jeanette would give up being so reclusive and join her and the countess or Daniel when they left the house in the evening.

“Perhaps when the weather gets too warm this summer we can all go up to Scotland,” Diane said. She handed Jeanette some pear blossoms as she picked them. “I expect that you would like to visit the house there while you are in England.”

Jeanette half-shrugged as she held the little blooms to her nose.

“Were you left alone there when Daniel went to sea? It must have been very lonely. Very isolating, what with your father dead too.”

“Being alone has never made me lonely or sad.”

“Who cared for you? Was Paul a friend already?”

“The first few years that Daniel was at sea, two women took care of me.” Jeanette made a gesture of impatience. “It was long ago. I do not think of that time anymore. Once Daniel made his fortune, he got me back to France, which is where I belong. Unlike my brother, I can never be comfortable here. In fact, I will be asking him to arrange for my return to Paris soon. I have been overlong in this city.”

“I wish that you would stay with us. I do not like to think that marrying your brother means that I lose your company.”

“You will come to Paris often. You must insist that Daniel bring you. He does not care for that city any more than I care for this one, but if you ask it of him, he will come. I would say that you could visit alone, but I think that he needs you more than I do.”

That was an odd thing for Jeanette to say. Daniel needed no one, from what she could tell. He had lived an independent and adventurous life. He appeared contented in the marriage, even happy, but he did not need her. He enjoyed her company, but he did not require it.

The mail was brought out. Jeanette glanced through a few invitations and set them aside with a mutter of exasperation.

Despite her being reclusive, invitations had always arrived for Jeanette, daily little proddings that irritated her. More had come recently, and Diane guessed it was curiosity on the senders’ parts. The story of Daniel’s marriage had made this invisible sister a subject of speculation. A few ladies had even called, but Jeanette had not received them.

“You will disappoint them,” Diane said. “It has become a game, to see who can snag you first. If you should decide to accept one, I hope it will not be from any woman who has been unkind to Pen.”

“Should I ever change my mind, only the countess would be worthy of such a triumph, I assure you. But I will not be put on display for these women.”

Diane flipped through her own letters. “Will you accept my invitation, at least? I think that I will give a dinner party soon. A small one, with Pen and her brothers and perhaps Mister Hampton, not that he is very good company, since he so rarely speaks.” Toward the bottom of the stack was a letter on paper less fine. She slid her thumb beneath the plain seal. “What do you think? Can I pull it off without making a mess of—”

She froze and her voice died on her lips. Her gaze rested on a very surprising word at the top of the paper in her hands.

It was the name of the town from which the letter had been sent. The town in which the writer lived.

Fenwood.

The first line of writing revealed that this letter had come from Fenwood’s vicar, Mister Albret. Within five words she realized that Andrew Tyndale had never visited the vicar. This letter was in response to the one she had sent while at the house party.

She read the letter quickly. Her heart began pounding, first a low, rapid beat, then a loud, clamoring one. Her head throbbed with the sensation that an anvil was inside it, clanging to the same rhythm.

She got the gist of the letter, enough to leave her struggling to breathe. She returned to the beginning and read again. As she absorbed the implications of the contents, the drum of excitement slowed to a painful pulse.

She read it yet again, trying to make it say something other than it did. Her heart hurt so badly she thought it would break. It was all she could do to hold it in one piece. She knew that if she did not, the shattered bits would get smashed even more by the waves of confusion crashing through her head.

“Jeanette, where is Daniel today?”

“What is it, dear? You look as though you are going to swoon.”

“Where is Daniel?” She glanced up from the letter to see Jeanette frowning with concern at her.

“Where?”

“I think that he rode to Hampstead. To the chevalier.”

Diane crushed the letter in her fist and rose.

The house in Hampstead was quiet. Daniel’s horse was tied in front. No sounds of ringing steel came through the open windows.

Diane did not wait for the coachman to open the door. She did for herself, impatient to be out of the confining space. On her command they had made all possible haste, and now the horses panted and snorted and dripped with sweat.

The fury that sent her rushing out of London had subsided to a sickening desolation. She looked at the letter, still crumpled in her hand. If she had never spoken to the servant . . . if she had never written to the vicar . . . if, as the letter said, he had followed his first inclinations and not responded . . .

If any of those things had not happened, she would have been happy a while longer.

Her heart hurt. Her whole chest did. Hot tears stung her eyes. She wished that she had been allowed more time to be complete before the truth came crashing into her dream, emptying her out again.

She wanted to discard the letter and pretend it had never come. Her love wanted to, desperately. She could not ignore this, however.

She turned away from the house. She had come to speak to Daniel, but it could wait. She was not so brave that she welcomed asking him the questions that she had, and hearing the answers he would give.

Entering the woods, she followed the path. Her feet just knew where to go. Of course they did. They always had. She had not gotten lost the first time she came here. Without even thinking, she had found her way from the big house to the cottage.

It came into view as the clearing neared. There was no sense of a moment relived this time. It appeared crisply familiar. Snips of memories flashed in her mind, of the bushes smaller and the path wider.

She walked over to the well and peered down. The echo of a woman’s voice called in her head, warning her not to climb up because it would be dangerous.

She turned, half-expecting to see an old woman wearing a cap and simple garments at the door.

The door opened, but no woman appeared. Instead it was George, the man who lived here now. He paused and studied her.

“Do you want something?” he asked curiously. “You look ill.”

“I am not ill.” She stared at him, begging her mind to cooperate. “You said when we last met that you had been here for years. Did you always live in this house?”

He shook his head. “Used to be up there, at the stables. Was a groom in those days, when there were lots of horses here. Head groom at the end. Then, when it was empty and everyone else had left, I became caretaker, as I am now.”

Horses. Yes, of course. She saw George in her head, years younger, his hair not so white and his beard not so full.

“And the woman who lived in this cottage before you? The old lady. What became of her?”

“Alice? You know of Alice? I’ll be damned—um, sorry, you just surprised me. She stayed on a bit, but passed away, oh, ten years it is now, so I moved myself down here.” He cocked his head. “How do you know Alice?”

“I am Diane.”

His mouth fell open, and then formed a big smile. “Well, I’ll be dam— I thought you looked familiar last time. Couldn’t place it. Just a certain something. ’Course, you were just a tiny thing when you left. Quite the lady you are now, eh? Well, who would have thought it.”

Yes, quite the lady. Only one person would not be surprised by the transformation.

“Would you permit me to see the house? The inside?”

He stood aside and gestured gallantly. “Well, of course. Was your home as a child, now, wasn’t it?”

She paused at the threshold and took a deep breath.
Her home.
She stepped inside.

Memories assaulted her, hooking themselves to what she saw. Not to the whole space, but to details and sensations. The way the light fell on the floor from the open window. A scent, such as every house had, distinct to this place alone. The beams of the ceiling, and the way one had an edge that had split away.

The hearth. The sight of it brought complete and precise memories suddenly. The hearth in summer, cold and lifeless, and in winter, a source of warmth and rocking embraces.

She did not stay long or ask to see the other chambers above. She could not do that today. The recollections offered her no peace. They did not fill the sick emptiness inside her. Another time perhaps they would. Another day, when her heart did not know that dreadful unhappiness waited, she might enjoy finding this history that she had so long dreamt of discovering.

Steeling her courage, she returned to the house. She walked through the woods and her feet made no wrong turns. The path caused her to approach the house from an angle that showed a bit of its side and back. That image, of the half-timbers angling away from the corner upright, might have been branded on her brain.

The familiarity startled her. If the last time she had returned this way and not another, if she had not been distracted by Daniel’s kisses by the brook, she would have realized what this place was to her.

Daniel’s kisses . . . She stopped and closed her eyes and forced down an unbearable sorrow.

She found him in the house. She heard a mumble of voices and followed it to a chamber in the back of the house. Small and tidy, with a few elegant items of furniture, it appeared to be the chevalier’s private sitting room.

He and Daniel sat in two chairs near the window, sharing a bottle of wine. Both had removed their coats. They made a picture of relaxed friendship, of complete trust.

They had heard someone coming. Their talk ceased before she arrived. When she found herself at the threshold of the chamber, looking at them, they were looking back.

“Diane.” Daniel’s inflection revealed surprise and curiosity. “We had assumed the coach was one of Louis’s students.”

“It is only me.” The sharp and clever accusations had deserted her along with the initial fury. She could only look at him and wish this day had never begun.