The Seducer (26 page)

He turned her in his arm and guided her to the carriage. She did not hesitate to enter it. Her soul wanted to believe everything he said. Love left her weak-kneed. Physical desire had begun its focused pulse.

The carriage door closed. He lifted her onto his lap and wrapped her into an embrace that pulled her close. He neither kissed nor caressed her as the carriage moved. He merely grasped her to him, his breath warming her temple, his firm hands permitting no release.

The slow, silent ride excited her. She needed no demonstration to know how much he wanted her. It was in the air and in his silence. She could feel it in the tautness of his body and in the steady rhythm of his heart.

She glanced up at him. His expression said where his thoughts were, no matter what restraint he showed. Anticipation enlivened her body more than a hundred caresses. The mix of sensual arousal and emotional intimacy made her heady. Whoever thought that confidences and quiet silence could create such a powerful seduction.

Seduction.
The word caused a little flash of reason to penetrate her stupor of excitement.

He had offered her exactly what she wanted. He had seduced her back by giving her what she craved most—the promise of himself.

No servant opened the door. No sounds came from the chambers. Daniel led her inside by the hand, as if guiding her to a place she had never been before.

“Is everyone gone?” she asked.

“No.”

“Only out of sight?” He had given instructions on this. He had wanted to spare her any ceremony or embarrassment when she returned to him.

He had also assumed that she would be coming back.

His embrace inside the entry insured she did not mind his confidence too much. The memory of his face as he waited for her at the pond said he had not been truly confident at all.

His possessive kiss gave expression to the hunger that had made the ride slow and sensual.

“Do not leave me again,” he muttered between kisses as he held her face in his hands. She heard a plea below the command.

Suddenly she was cradled in his arms, moving up the stairs through a blur of lights and shadows.

His instructions had been obeyed. They met no one in the house. He would not have cared if they had.

He carried her to the bedroom. Only there would he be able to fill the ghastly void inside him that his promise had carved.

The chamber’s draperies and shutters had been closed, sealing it from the city. He kicked the door closed. His blood raged and he wanted to lay her down and tear off her clothes and bury the hungers roaring within him.

Acknowledging their violence made him pause. If he followed those impulses, she might misunderstand. Nor could he explain what was in him. He only knew that it was not physical. Mere sexual arousal would never create this kind of need.

Her arms still encircled his neck. Amusement entered her eyes. “Are you inclined to ravish me?”

“Yes.”

She glanced to the bed and then up at him quizzically. “You have changed your mind?”

He laid her down. “Today deserves better.” He flipped her and released the tapes on her gown. Sitting beside her, he worked at her corset’s lacing.

She looked so lovely, lying there in the cool, filtered light. Her skin seemed paler, her eyes darker. The unlacing aroused her. He could tell that from the way her lids lowered, and he felt it in her body’s subtle flexing.

He caressed her back through the thin chemise and traced the same path with kisses. Containing his desire was not easy, but this patient path gave the maddening urge a special power.

His slow kisses reached her shoulder and nape. “Wanting you, especially now, is about more than pleasure.” She deserved to know that, especially since he did not trust that his behavior would prove it. “I do not want you to think that I am only reclaiming my rights as a husband here.”

She rolled onto her back. “You have never made me think it was only that. Even the first time. That is what frightened me.”

And later, when he was cold, that was what devastated her.

“It is never only pleasure with me, either.” She spoke reassuringly, as if she worried he did not know that. “I do not think it ever could be.” She smiled. “It is a good thing that you want me and I want you, because I do not think I could ever be a Margot.”

He traced the sloping line of her loose gown’s edge. “It is good to hear you say that.”

“That I could never be a courtesan or mistress?”

“That you want me.”

“You doubted it? I told you that I love you.”

“For women there can be love without desire.”

“You surely can tell. When we are together—”

“I can make you feel pleasure, but that is also a separate thing.”

“
I
came to
you
that first night.”

“You had an ulterior motive.”

Glints of understanding entered her eyes. “I have no ulterior motive today.” She scooted off the bed, pulling her disheveled garments around her.

She stood in front of him, inches away but not touching. Her hair had gotten tousled and mussed. Curls and tendrils fell around her face and shoulder. He was glad she did not move to take it down completely, because she looked lovely just as she was.

She lowered the gown seductively. “If I have come back, it is only fair that you know all the reasons, Daniel. You wanted me to know that you don’t only want me for pleasure. I need you to know that pleasure is most definitely one of the reasons I am here.”

The gown fell to her feet, forming a froth from which her lithe body rose. She looked so lovely that his whole being ached. He wanted to grab her.

She noticed. “Do not. Not yet. Not until I am sure that you understand how my love and desire are braided together, and not separate things for this woman.”

Elegantly, she began peeling her chemise. She eased it off her shoulders and down her luminous skin. Her expression mesmerized him as much as her body. Half-worldly, half-shy, all loving, she gazed at him and let her expression reveal her delight in his attention and in the incredible currents streaming between them.

She made him burn. This time he reached for her. She stepped back and shook her head. One delicate foot rose and nestled itself between his thighs. With a naughty grin she snuggled it deeper until her toes rested at the base of his erection.

Her fingers played along the top of her stocking. Blood thundered in his head. Her foot maddened him more. He contained it and slid his hands up her leg. “I will do it.”

He caressed to the top of her stocking, then higher up her thigh. Her breath quickened as skin touched skin and his fingers slid over the moistness at the top. She moved her leg just enough to permit him to touch the dark, shadowed spot that was barely visible, but compellingly available.

He caressed close enough to make her want it, to arouse her more. Her gaze, locked on his, reflected how the seduction had now become mutual. She waited for the next touch with parted lips and glistening eyes, ready to succumb to passion.

If she did, they would be entwined on the bed in mere seconds. He realized that he did not want that yet.

He moved his hands down and began sliding the stocking off.

The sensation and delay made her toes curl so intimately that he had to grit his teeth for control.

She must have seen his reaction. When she removed that leg and propped the other, those toes wiggled even more.

His vision blurred. “Stop that now.”

She smiled impishly, wickedly, as her foot made one more devastating movement.

He did not bother with the stocking. He pulled her to him, impatient to touch her. She demanded to do it her way. With a gentle climb, she sat on his lap, facing him, her bent knees flanking his hips and her bottom nestled on his knees.

He kissed her to release some of the mind-splitting hunger. It only made him want more. Instead of a delay, the kiss sped things forward. Holding her naked body, feeling her soft skin and smelling the faint musk rising from her parted thighs, sent him reeling. Her own embrace and kiss were just as aggressive. Together they spun up a tight little coil of pleasure and anticipation.

She pushed his coat off his shoulders, and he shrugged it away. While she kissed and moved to the rhythms of her arousal, she removed his cravat and waistcoat. Together they got the shirt off, but he did not know how. All the while they stayed together in the hot, unending kiss, taking turns, until finally he was able to hold her against his chest so that her naked skin warmed and caressed his.

He broke the kiss and held her, feeling her heart beat, hearing her breath. Beneath the violent need there flowed the most exquisite sensation. Contentment. Gratitude. It awed and humbled him, and filled the ugly emptiness he had battled as they returned to this house.

The new feeling fascinated him. It was not a thing apart from his wanting her. It never could be. Nor would it die with the end of today’s lovemaking. It would be another thread in the braid. Its power suggested it would be the strongest one.

He loosened his embrace and set her back on his knees. That confused her. She frowned, a little hurt.

“Not yet.” He smoothed his fingertips over her breasts. Her breath caught and she grasped his shoulders. He teased at the tips until low cries escaped her. He loved hearing her passion. Loved the way her body moved, and the sensual sparkle in her eyes. He loved how both her body and heart had returned to him and wanted him now.

The madness began spinning again. She reached down and fumbled with the buttons of his trousers. With new boldness her hand groped and closed on him, and then stroked low to where her foot had nestled.

She watched his reactions just as he had watched hers. “Do you believe that I want you now?”

“Yes.”

Her fingers slid up and down, making him insane. “Even when we sit at meals, I want you. When you are gone and I think of you, I want you. When you are near, you have only to look at me for my body and heart to react. Even before I knew what to call it, I felt it.” Her finger began a devastating circling of the tip of his phallus. “I’m glad that you know. I do not want you thinking of me as these Englishmen do their wives. I do not want you believing it is only duty. I do not want you looking for a mistress in order to find pleasure.”

“I would never do that.”

“I intend to see that you don’t.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him. “I have been studying how to see that you never want to.”

She eased off his lap. He did not realize why until she lowered herself to her knees. Anticipation shouted in his head, drowning everything else, even his surprise at her confident expression.

The pleasure almost undid him. It might have, if the unbearable sensations had not created a new hunger and a new anticipation. Even as his awareness swam in a delirium of torment, a primitive compulsion beat within it.

He reached for her, raising her up, kissing her too hard. Standing, he laid her on the bed and stripped off his lower garments.

Everything about her revealed that passion had crazed her as much as it had him. Her parted legs and expectant expression, her full breasts and hard nipples, even the flush of her skin and the low, quick breaths were those of a woman in abandon. Her gaze took him in, slowly and completely, in a frank manner that showed there would be no notions of innocence inhibiting them any longer.

He spread her legs more and knelt between them. He gave her the caress she had wanted from the start. Her hips gently rose as she invited his touch. A low chant of passion flowed quietly on her frenzied breaths. He touched in ways that made her cries rise and beg.

He lifted her hips. He did not ask permission. Her own special kisses had already given it.

The scent and taste of her obliterated everything but his sense of her reaction. He heard and felt her shock, and then her acceptance, and finally her moans. He used his tongue to tease lightly at her excitement until her surprise disappeared, and then more deliberately as they both succumbed to the savage pleasure.

Her climax came violently in shudders that shook them both, in a scream that no walls would hold. It tore at his control and made him crave different kisses and different abandon.

She grabbed for him as he moved into her. She clutched him madly, her cries still riding on every breath, the climax not ending her need. “Yes, yes.” She pulled him to her waiting body. “Yes, fill me up, Daniel. Fill me.”

She did not only speak of her body. He knew that because she filled him too. She no longer obscured the angry past as she had before, but replaced it. Her love poured into him with every desperate kiss and clutching caress and breathless cry, promising there would be no gaping emptiness.

In that bliss where they possessed and completed each other, he finally believed that he could fulfill his rash promise to her.

chapter
25

W
ait here. I will call you later to bring out my trunk.” Diane issued the instruction as the footman handed her down from the carriage in front of Margot’s building.

It was a glorious afternoon, cool and bright. Since Daniel had gone to Hampstead, Diane had taken the opportunity to reclaim her belongings. Margot had sent a letter asking her to visit and explain all that had transpired.

There was not much that could be told. All the same, Margot had taken her in when she ran away, and deserved some accounting.

Diane contemplated what that would be as the front door opened.

The house sounded very quiet. The silence was so complete that as she followed the servant to the drawing room, a footfall back by the door sounded extremely loud.

Margot sat on a chair, upright and stiff. Her eyes reflected worry.

Diane hurried over to her. “You do not appear well. What has happened since you wrote to me, to cause this?”

Margot took her hand in a crushing grasp.

Diane embraced her. “Is it Mister Johnson? Has he ended things with you?”

Margot shook her head. “Forgive me. I fear that I have done something that may cause more trouble between you and your husband,” she whispered. “He came early, and insisted I write and invite you here. He spoke of love making him rash. He said St. John had forced you to return, and that you would want to see him.” Her brow puckered. “If I made a mistake, I am very sorry.”

Diane looked down, not comprehending. As she did, the air in the chamber subtly changed.

She suddenly sensed a new presence, and pivoted.

They were not alone. Someone else stood in the chamber now, near the door. Diane instinctively took a step back.

“You are looking lovely, as always, my dear,” Andrew Tyndale said. “How thoughtful of you to respond to your friend’s summons so quickly.” He walked toward them. “Also, how convenient. It will make everything much more efficient for us.”

“You are off today, St. John,” Vergil said. “Keep making mistakes like that and I will inadvertently draw blood.”

Daniel stepped back and lowered his sabre. He
was
off today, and his sparring had grown clumsy and dangerous. His heart was not in it. Neither was his soul or his head.

He had spent years perfecting this skill, but the reason for doing so was gone. This might be sport to the young members of the Dueling Society, but it had never been that for him. It appeared that he could not make it so, either.

He gestured for Vergil to begin again and tried to concentrate. Beside them Adrian and Hampton sparred, and by the wall Louis was giving young Dante his first lesson.

Daniel managed to keep half his mind on Vergil’s sabre, but the rest worked at the conundrum facing him. He had promised Diane that he would give up his plan for Tyndale, only that was easier said than done. The plan had taken on its own life and progressed apace in that shed in Southwark with no effort on his part. Extricating himself from that scheme seemed nigh impossible, short of meeting with Tyndale and confessing the whole ruse.

That would surely result in the duel that Diane wanted to avert. It appeared that the only solution was to let the demonstration run its course and fail. At which point, he supposed that he would have to propose that Tyndale deduct the costs of the equipment and chemicals from the gambling debt.

That struck him as a suitable recompense, and one that Diane would accept as just. It would kill him to do such a thing, but that was the whole point of penance.

Of course, Diane might suggest that the gambling debt itself should be forgiven. It would be just like her to do so. Daniel debated whether that was really necessary.

Vergil abruptly paced away, and then turned with a scowl. “What are you laughing at? Not me, I hope. I am no expert at this, but you are hardly the grand master today either.”

“I am not laughing at you, but myself.”

“St. John, you have never laughed at yourself in the three years I have known you, so I doubt you have begun today.”

“Perhaps I am no longer the man you have known. Maybe today I begin a new life.” The notion struck Daniel as a wonderful joke and he laughed again.

That distracted Adrian and Hampton. They paused and looked at Daniel curiously.

Vergil gestured and rolled his eyes. “He is drunk, I think.”

Daniel walked over and clamped his hand on Vergil’s shoulder. “Not drunk. I am trying to determine how I can extricate myself from a devil’s trap.”

“And you find that amusing? You
are
drunk.”

“Since the trap was of my own making, it is enormously amusing.”

Vergil began to respond. Something distracted him. His gaze snapped to the hall’s entry and he groaned with exasperation.

“Hell, she is here again. Once is a mistake, twice is too bold. If her husband was not such a bastard, I’d insist she return to him so he could keep her out of trouble, because the task is too great for me.” Shrugging off Daniel’s hand, he strode toward the threshold, where the Countess of Glasbury stood.

“We have been favored by a visit again,” Adrian said. “Who is that stunning blonde with her this time?”

Daniel had not noticed the blonde, who stood behind the countess, with her head barely visible. Now the head moved into his view.

“That is an old schoolfriend of Diane’s.” He handed his sabre to Adrian, just as Vergil turned and gestured for Daniel. “One of you fetch my shirt, please.”

Foreboding grew in his heart as he approached the doorway. The women’s expressions caused it, and the mere presence of Margot made it worse.

Diane was supposed to visit Margot today.

By the time he reached the door, he knew that this intrusion heralded danger. What was left of the man he had been for years began rising above the giddy mist of love to deal with it.

He did not wait for an explanation. “Duclairc, bring them to Louis’s study. I will come as soon as I am presentable.”

Adrian arrived with his shirt and coats as soon as the women disappeared. Daniel pulled them on and followed.

“I apologize for pulling your sister into this,” Margot was saying to Vergil. “I learned that M’sieur St. John was coming to this place, but did not know how to find it. His butler said that he was meeting you here, and I called on Lady Glasbury in the hopes she would know the way.”

“Do not apologize,” the countess said. “Of course you had to come. I am grateful that you did, if it will resolve this more quickly. Here is St. John now. Give him the letter.”

Daniel held out his hand and Margot placed a sealed letter into it. He recognized Diane’s writing on its back.

“Where did you get this?”

“From her. It was waiting for me after he took her away.”

“Andrew Tyndale is whom she means,” the countess inserted with excitement. “Daniel, it appears he may have abducted her.”

Daniel’s heart made a sickening fall, then filled with anger directed mostly at himself. There would be no escaping the devil’s trap now.

“Damn the man, that is bold,” Vergil said.

Yes, it was bold. But, knowing Tyndale, well thought out. “Do you know what it says?” he asked Margot.

She shook her head. “He made me leave the room when she arrived. Her carriage was right outside, and if I had known he was going to take her I would have—but I thought he would leave alone, of course. They went out through the garden and were gone before I could alert your coachman.”

“He said that they were lovers and that Diane would want to see him,” the countess said angrily. “He has made it appear that she has run away with him.”

Margot was close to tears. “At first I believed him, so I wrote the letter asking her to come. But as I thought about it, I was suspicious. She had not sought him out while she stayed with me. She had not written to say you had made her return—I have been very stupid, and when I found them both gone I knew something was amiss.”

“I thank you for finding me with such speed, and I thank you, Countess, for showing her the way. You have both been true friends to my wife and I will never forget that.”

He carried the letter over to the window and slid his thumb to break the seal. Behind him, he heard the movements that said the others were leaving the chamber.

Tyndale had dictated the letter, that was obvious. Diane declared that she was leaving for good, and would be staying with some friends in Kent. Nothing in the letter could be used as evidence of the villainy at work, just as Margot’s belief that Diane had been abducted would not be believed. If it came to the word of a courtesan against that of the brother of a marquess, there was no doubt who would win.

The letter left the husband in question with no alternative but to track down the lovers.

Diane was being used as a lure. Again. Only a different man used her this time. One who would not care whether she was hurt.

He closed his eyes and said his first prayer in years. He silently begged that once Tyndale had the man he wanted, that he would allow Diane to leave.

A sound jarred him. He looked over his shoulder. Louis stood ten paces away. He held a sabre in one hand and the box of dueling pistols in the other.

“How much do you think he knows?”

Daniel shrugged. “It is probably only about the steel. That would be enough.”

“Bring some of your young friends.”

“What would I say to them? That I defrauded a prominent scientist and the brother of a peer? That a respected member of Parliament has abducted my wife? No one but she and I know that she willingly returned, and that she did not love Tyndale before our marriage.”

“They are your friends. They will believe you.”

“They are acquaintances, and when it comes to something like this there are no democratic circles. Blood will count more than the loose friendships I have with them. That is how it works, Louis. We both know that.” He folded the letter. “I never expected Gustave to admit that the discovery was not his own. I depended on his pride keeping his connection to me a secret.”

“What will you do when you find them?”

“Give Tyndale whatever he wants, if it will buy Diane’s safety.”

“It is obvious that what he wants is you.”

“Then he will have me.”

“If you will not bring the others, I will accompany you.”

“If I ride up with a companion, we will be told neither Tyndale nor Diane is there. I fear that if I do not play this game his way, he will do her harm.” He also feared that even if he gave Tyndale satisfaction, Diane was in danger. He would not want her telling the world that he had abducted her, even if he thought his reputation could survive the accusation.

Louis ceremoniously laid the sabre and box on the table.

“I doubt it will be so honorable,” Daniel said.

“Bring them. It is the safest way for him. He will not want suspicions and accusations of murder. And such a man never believes he can lose.”

“Then it will be pistols. He has no advantage with sabres.” Daniel smiled bitterly as he lifted the box of dueling guns. “I had promised her to give it up.”

“She will not want you to give it up so much that you are dead.”

“No, I expect not.”

“When you see him, remember—a clear head. A cold heart. Sangfroid is essential.”

“So you have always taught, old friend.”

Daniel tucked the box under his arm. “Years ago I asked you to leave this to me, but I now have a favor to ask of you.”

“Certainement.”

“If I fail, and she is harmed in any way, kill him.”

“
D’accord.
Of course. It will be a privilege, and a pleasure.”

“She is so lovely. So young. Like a little sparrow.”

Diane did not stir or open her eyes. Upon waking, she had decided to pretend that she slept on. She did not want Andrew Tyndale to see her fear.

She had not intended to sleep, but had nodded off anyway. It had been delicious to escape like that into her dreams. She wished she could have stayed there until Daniel came.

She could smell the damp of the cottage. Even the little cot on which she slept had a musty odor. The humble home had not been aired in months before they arrived.

She guessed that they were on one of Tyndale’s properties. He had not brought her to the big house where there would be servants, but hidden her here instead.

The man who spoke was not Tyndale. It was the other one, the funny little Frenchman named Gustave, who had been waiting in the carriage outside Margot’s garden. She guessed that Gustave did not speak English, because Tyndale had only used French with him, and sometimes English with her when she guessed he did not want the Frenchman to comprehend.

The threats had been in English.

“So innocent. So—”

“Oh, hell, enough. You sound like a swooning fool. She is his wife, and, like all women, she is a whore.”

“You are barbaric to speak of her like that. I do not like this. A woman—it is not honorable,” Gustave said. His voice was very close. She could feel him leaning over and peering at her.

“I told you, once he arrives we will let her go.”