The Seduction of an English Scoundrel (9 page)

He flicked his forefinger against the mother-of-pearl button at her elbow. “That isn't a bad idea, now that you suggest it. Unfortunately I cannot indulge their prurient interests. Or yours.”

“I didn't suggest it, you—you irresistible fiend.”

“Irresistible fiend.” He looked pleased, widening his eyes to mock her. “That sounded almost like a compliment.”

She smiled reluctantly. “I suppose in your own way, you're only trying to help.”

“That's right.” As unbelievable as he himself found the notion. “Now do as I ask. I shall set the rascals straight on your status.”

“A rake with a conscience,” she went on in a thoughtful voice. “A rake with a streak of kindness running through his rotten heart.”

He gave a laugh. He was not comfortable with this role. “Well, don't let it become common knowledge. I have a well-earned reputation for rottenness to resume once I have put your life back in order.”

She folded her arms across her chest and sat back to examine him. “Seriously, Sedgecroft, haven't you ever considered marriage yourself?”

He gave her an exaggerated frown. “Seriously, Jane, no.”

“Why not?”

“Why should I?” he asked mildly.

“One cannot remain a rogue forever. Not with your obligations.”

“I can certainly try,” he retorted, although the same damning thought had haunted him lately. “In the olden days my male forebears had the good sense not to submit to wedlock until they were maimed within an inch of their lives on the battlefield, and good for nothing else.”

“Their wives must have been beside themselves with gratitude,” Jane said in a wry voice. “What an honor to care for an incapacitated Boscastle.”

His grin was devilish. For a moment he was disconcerted by the realization that he was already revealing more about himself to Jane than he ever had to any of his mistresses or old friends. “The point, my impudent lady, was to breed another line of ill-behaved Boscastles when all other options for adventure were exhausted. My ancestors proved themselves quite capable of fulfilling this pleasant duty until their dying breaths.”

“Did they indeed?” she asked faintly.

“Yes, Jane,” he said, enjoying her reaction. “And their wives never complained. They performed.”

“Performed?”

“Their wifely duties. Which—”

“Further explanation is not necessary.”

He paused, wondering how far he dare go and why he liked provoking her so much. “Forgive me. I thought you might be curious.”

She felt a telltale flush of pink warm her cheeks. The thought of breeding a Boscastle heir brought some unspeakably earthy images to her mind. How in the world had this conversation evolved?

“My brother is probably listening,” she whispered admonishingly.

“In all his corpselike attentiveness.”

She wiggled around to give Simon a firm shaking. Grayson watched, grinning, as she virtually pummeled her brother back to life. She had a delightfully sharp bite under all that reserve.

“Wake up, you wastrel,” she said sternly. “Make yourself of use to the world.”

Simon stirred, opening his bloodshot eyes to examine his surroundings in disbelief. “Sedgecroft. Jane. And all these flowers.” He levered up on one elbow. “Has someone died? Was it—God, has Nigel been found? Don't tell me we're on the way to his funeral.”

Jane examined his rumpled clothing in chagrin as he blinked painfully against the daylight. “No one has died, Simon,” she said in a very precise voice. “You are here as my chaperone, as useless as you appear to be in that capacity.”

He ran his hand through his tousled brown hair. “I wouldn't talk about appearances. That dress is rather revealing for—” The warning look Sedgecroft gave him stopped him cold. “
Has
anyone heard from Nigel?”

“Not a word,” Grayson replied, his jaw hardening at the reminder. “I'm still making inquiries, of course, but it appears he's left London without a trace.”

Simon released a sigh. “Where are we going anyway?”

“To the Duke of Wenderfield's breakfast party,” Grayson replied.

Jane leaned forward to remove a white silk stocking from her brother's vest pocket. “Dear God, Simon, where did
you
go last night?”

He shrugged helplessly. “I don't remember. I don't even know how I got here.”

“You attended a midnight masquerade,” Grayson said dryly as he extended his hand to help Jane rise. “Your coachman found you half conscious between a nun and Cleopatra's handmaiden.”

“Were the three of us—”

Grayson cleared his throat. The amused glitter in his eye spoke volumes. “I think we can finish this conversation in private, Simon.”

Jane dropped the stocking to the floor in distaste. “And I think the answer to his question is disgracefully obvious.”

 

Grayson did not bother to acknowledge the greetings of the young bucks who had gathered on the steps. The avid curiosity in their eyes as they spotted Jane infuriated him. One of them had finally recognized her.

“Sedgecroft,” she said, her voice steady but underlaid with trepidation.

“It's all right, Jane,” he said in a steely tone. “Smile but do not stop. They will take the hint soon enough.”

They shouted to him, posturing like overdressed monkeys, fighting for even a crumb of his attention. Damn them, Grayson thought, his gaze completely impassive. Damn their impudence for daring to stare at her as if she had suddenly become a demirep. The muscles from his shoulders to his fingers tightened in the fierce urge to punch every last sly look from their faces.

“I told you,” she said, staring straight ahead.

He glanced down at her. Despite the quiver in her voice, she looked perfectly composed. He was so accustomed to ignoring public opinion that he probably would not have minded the notoriety had he been with another woman. Mrs. Parks would have cheerfully responded to all the fuss with a crude finger gesture.

“It might do you a world of good, Jane,” he murmured, “to let your reserve slip just once.”

“I don't think the world is ready for the sort of slip I am capable of,” she said enigmatically.

One of the bucks raised his quizzing glass to examine her, then dropped it immediately at the deadly look Grayson shot him.

For a moment he considered taking action, dragging the impudent pup down the steps to make an example of him. But another scandal would hardly help Jane, and for the first time since Grayson could remember, he forced himself to swallow his anger and consider the consequences of his behavior.

It would take effort, he thought, to guide her through these narrow straits of Society to safety. He would have to be on his guard to protect her from insults and inappropriate advances. He had understood that when he offered to help her.

What he hadn't realized was how easily he could lure her astray himself.

“What are you thinking, Jane?” he asked in an undertone.

“I shan't tell you, Sedgecroft. You would be shocked.”

“Not me, darling.” Ludicrous, after the life he led. As if a proper young lady like Jane had anything on his past. “Nothing
you
would do could shock me.”

Chapter 8

Their host and hostess escorted them through the gardens, introducing them to the foreign guests of distinction who graced the party. Simon found a glass of champagne and disappeared into the crowd with Lady Damaris Hill, whose whispered comment about a missing stocking explained the mystery of the nun's identity at the previous night's midnight masquerade.

An orchestra played on the grass beside a classical pavilion set at the end of the parkland's sloping lawns. A platform had been constructed for dancing; several younger people had spilled onto the east lawn. The pastel gowns of the ladies swayed like butterfly wings as they moved in graceful flutters.

“Are you hungry?” Grayson asked Jane, keeping his hand on her shoulder in a light but proprietary way.

“I am ravenous.” She hesitated. “It does take nerves of steel to eat when everyone is staring at us though.”

“I have forgotten them.”

“How could you?”

“Perhaps because I don't care,” he said with conviction.

“Well, then, neither shall I.”

He stopped, studying her with a faint knowing smile. “Of course you care. All women do.”

“Only those who are husband hunting,” she said with a sigh.

“Which we might be.”

“No, we're—” She bit the tip of her tongue, remembering how she must appear. “I am not ready to be put back on the market.” Not now, and probably not ever again, she felt like adding.

“Remount, Jane,” he said with an unmerciful smile. “One fall from the horse does not spinsterhood make.”

She could have pinched him, reducing the complications of her life to such simple terms. “I wish you would stop equating my situation to equestrienne activity.”

He gave her an apologetic look. “I keep forgetting how sensitive you are on the subject.”

“Sedgecroft!” A woman's cry of delight interrupted Jane's response, not that she knew how to respond to his remark without lying through her teeth.

She and Grayson turned simultaneously to see a petite figure in brown silk bearing down on them, a flute of champagne held gracefully in hand. Jane stared. Surely that was not Mrs. Audrey Watson, the popular courtesan and former actress whose intellectual buffet suppers had made her a celebrity in the demimonde and the ton. Rumor had it that the Duke of Wenderfield desired her for his mistress.

“Audrey,” Grayson said warmly, a little
too
warmly in Jane's opinion as the pair exchanged a brief embrace.

“Sedgecroft, it's been centuries since—” Audrey caught herself and gave Jane such a genuinely friendly smile that she could not help softening toward her.

“Belshire's beautiful daughter, the eldest, isn't it?” Audrey asked in puzzlement. “What is she doing with the likes of you, Sedgecroft?”

Grayson gave Jane a long burning look that brought a blush to the ends of her hair. If she hadn't known better, she would have believed he was truly infatuated with her—oh, he excelled at this, the devil. She felt as if she ought to applaud his performance.

He drew Jane forward. “Have you ever had the honor of an introduction, Audrey?”

“No.” Audrey studied the younger woman in concern; there was no pretense about her, no striving to impress. Her earthiness had earned her loyal supporters from politicians to struggling poets; her bluntness often offended. “But, my dear lady, aren't you brave to be out so soon, after yesterday? And you, Sedgecroft, you did not waste a single second before going on the pounce, did you?”

Going on the pounce? Jane thought in amused indignation. What a way to phrase it, reducing her relationship with Sedgecroft to predator and prey.

“Actually,” she said when it became obvious that the aforementioned scoundrel was not about to set Audrey straight, “Lord Sedgecroft is only—”

“A man bewitched,” he said under his breath, as polite and self-possessed as the next accomplished predator. Oooh. The talented wretch, making her tingle all over with his outrageous performance when she knew perfectly well not to believe him.

Jane gave him a poke in the back. “To be honest, our association is not all that provocative. Nigel and Grayson are—”

“Rivals.” He grasped her hand, squeezing the small bones of her knuckles until she glared at him. “One man's loss is another's gain, isn't it? Let us just say that I have quietly admired Jane from afar. I was not about to let anyone else take advantage.”

Audrey took a deep sip of her champagne, glancing from the classically beautiful young lady to the sinfully handsome scoundrel who, she noted, was holding Jane's slender hand in a painfully possessive grip. “Whatever you say, Sedgecroft, but”—she brightened—“this means I can invite you to a supper together.”

“That would be very nice, I'm sure,” he replied, while Jane wondered what her parents would think of this development. Surely even her broad-minded mother would disapprove of her daughter drifting into the demimonde. Or perhaps not. This plan had taken the most unpredictable turn. Jane was beginning to think she had jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire.

And Sedgecroft definitely stoked the red-hot flames of hellfire in her soul.

“I think I see an old friend of mine at the table,” she said, attempting to disengage her hand from his. “Would you both excuse me for a moment?”

Grayson brought her hand to his mouth to kiss her gloved fingertips, murmuring in a lovelorn voice, “Only for the shortest moment?”

It was an act. She knew it in her intellect, but all her female senses responded to the seductive timbre of his voice. “Yes,” she said, flustered by the realization that he was perfectly aware of the disconcerting effect he had on her. “But I'm only going over to the tables.”

He drew her forward by her fingertips, her knees touching his. A sinful flutter stirred deep in her belly. What did he think he was doing?

“Hurry back,” he said, his eyes holding hers.

And then he let her go. Releasing her breath, she turned quickly to lose herself in the crowd.

Grayson watched her pensively, half aware that he himself was being watched by the other woman beside him. Acting the part of a smitten suitor was easier than he'd expected. Just being in Jane's presence made him ache for unbridled sex and reminded him he had not had a lover for longer than he cared to admit.

Perhaps her inaccessibility was what challenged him. He suspected there was more. She was intelligent, practical, his equal in conversation. She amused him with her prim dignity, and he was positive there were depths to her she had never dared reveal to anyone. He might have enjoyed plumbing those depths had his task not been to smoothly reinsert her back into Society.

His sultry gaze followed the movements of her body, her awkward dash to escape across the lawn. The fact that she strode like a soldier in no way detracted from the sway of her nicely rounded bottom beneath her pink gauze dress. Pink, he thought, his body hardening in a swelter of arousal. She'd be pink and white all over. Roses and cream. Sweet enough to enjoy in one bite. But he wouldn't devour her all at once. He would savor her in slow, tender nibbles. . . .

Dear heaven. She had his thoughts chasing one another in circles. His intention was to return her to respectability, not ruin her.

“Is it possible, Sedgecroft?” Audrey inquired softly. “Are
you
behind that wedding scandal yesterday?”

He hesitated, his lean face amused. This was a critical moment, a test of his ability to dissemble. Audrey had known him for a long time. He didn't want to lie to her, but chances were that anything he told her today would be broadcast all over London by tonight. “You know better than to ask me that. Would I admit it if I were?”

“This is very unusual behavior. I believe I am concerned. Do you know that the gossips are calling her Lady Jane Jilt?”

He felt a surge of anger. “Not to my face, they're not.”

“It is the first time I have ever seen you with a decent female,” she said quietly, following his lead as he merged back into the flow of traffic. “Beware, Sedgecroft.”

“Beware of what?” he asked with a negligent shrug, his gaze leaving her to return again to Jane. “I am an honorable man. Have you ever known a woman to regret a friendship with me?”

She put her hand on his wrist. “It is you I worry about. That heart of yours may not easily be captured, but once it is, I suspect the loss might be fatal. Despite what happened to her yesterday, she is a woman made for marriage.”

“That accursed word again. Yes, I know she is made for marriage.” He frowned, noticing that quite a few of his acquaintances had crowded around the breakfast table to introduce themselves to Jane. Little boys, he thought in contempt. They're practically licking their chops. He couldn't see her expression, what she made of it. But was she actually going to eat while they all stood there drooling over her? “Look, we'll have to continue this lovely conversation later. The wolves are gathering, and she is in no state to defend herself.”

Audrey turned to see what he was talking about. “This possessive side of you is fascinating. I don't believe I've ever seen it before. It doesn't mean—”

He brushed around her in annoyance. Hadn't he promised to protect Jane? “It isn't what you're thinking.”

 

Audrey stared after his broad-shouldered body as he broke through the line of his male friends with his usual Boscastle arrogance. Her heart gave an unsettling flutter even though she had long ago resigned herself to a platonic association with the intriguing marquess. “It might not be what
you're
thinking either, darling,” she said wistfully.

 

Several tables had been set up on the southwest lawn, draped with damask tablecloths that held silver chafing dishes, jugs of lemonade, and pots of coffee, tea, and chocolate. One of Sedgecroft's friends had brought Jane a plate of strawberries and sugared almonds.

She had just popped a strawberry into her mouth when she saw
him
cutting like a sword through the cluster of guests. Her tongue curled around the tart berry. She was conscious of the other women around her interrupting their conversations to stare. And no wonder. His masculine vitality cast a spell too potent to ignore. Who would not be swept away in his whirlwind of staggering appeal? He was a breath of fresh air to challenge the stale strictures of Society.

His male friends clapped him on the back and cast meaningful glances from him to Jane, as if awaiting a formal introduction. Which he refused to give for reasons she could not fathom. She already knew several of the young men through her brother. Sedgecroft actually looked angry at them. And at her. What an actor. What a nuisance.

“There you are,” he announced across the table in a loud possessive voice that could not help but draw attention. “I have been looking for you everywhere. Do not leave me alone again.”

Jane felt people staring at her, conversation arrested. Her voice caught at the back of her throat as she swallowed the strawberry whole. Color climbed into her cheeks. She wasn't as polished at this as Sedgecroft. Her natural impulse was to hide under the table. “Well, I was right here.” Which of course he had known. “With your friends.”

“Friends?
My
friends?” He cast a dismissive glare at the four men standing behind her. The quartet immediately began to drift away, warned by Grayson's tone of voice that they had trespassed on private territory.

“Well, who would have guessed?” one of them murmured. “Nigel's jilt and Sedgecroft?”

“Perhaps she wasn't a jilt, after all. Perhaps Nigel was given no choice in the matter.”

The four men stopped and stared back at the table, sharing the same covetous thoughts. Was the Earl of Belshire's beautiful daughter about to be set up as a mistress? Who would have guessed she would be available for such a delicious arrangement? Or did the situation carry more serious implications? Was their idol about to be leg-shackled?

“That,” Jane said, pursing her lips as the rogue himself came up beside her, “was a rather unnecessary act of drama for this early in the day.”

“Convincing, wasn't I?” He grinned sheepishly. “Forgive me, but I had a hunch you needed to be saved.”

“From eating breakfast?”

He took her elbow. “One does not accept attention from a gentleman without a certain indebtedness,” he said with mock severity. “Breakfast today, bed tomorrow.”

“Oh, honestly, Sedgecroft. Only a mind like yours could make such a connection. Breakfast . . . and bed sport.”

“They are compatible, believe me.”

“In your world, perhaps.”

“Are we that different, you and I?” he teased.

“Of course we are.”

“Well, far be it from me to corrupt you.”

“I don't think you're all that corrupt.”

He looked up suddenly, his eyes narrowing. Something had caught his attention behind her. “Don't you?” he asked distractedly. “Does that mean there's hope?”