Seduce Me Please

SEDUCE ME PLEASE

The Prodigious Peregrines

Once you meet them, you’ll do

anything to please them

Piper’s Story

Nichole Matthews

SEDUCE ME PLEASE

Published by Nichole Matthews at Kindle

Copyright
©
2011 by Nichole Matthews

Cover design by Nichole Matthews

Kindle Edition, License notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you
’
re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Kindle and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are products of the author
’
s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real person, living or dead is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Many thanks to my friends and family who make me laugh.

Your presence by my side on this creative journey inspired me;

I was never alone.

PROLOGUE

I believe Seymour gained an unconscionable amount of pleasure informing us at the picnic that Lord Rockwell was caught in a compromising situation with a young lady during the Keckilpenny ball last season.

I was sure he was teasing because they have been friends for an age, but alas, no.

What a completely silly woman I am becoming.

Poppy would most certainly laugh until tears streamed uncontrollably down her face if she could see me at this moment, pining away for an irrefutably unsuitable gentleman?

I should be laughing at myself…

Piper’s journal

3 September

GRAYDON SCRUTINIZED THE NOTE IN HIS HAND with a deep frown etched across his brow; shaking his head in vexation.

This was the last thing he needed.

His narrowed eyes skimmed over the ballroom, glancing over the sparkling masses; his mother nowhere in sight.

Of course she wouldn’t make this easy for him.

Throwing him in the path of marriageable ladies seemed to be the only activity that brought her pleasure of late.

He loved his mother dearly, but good lord, this was a little too much, even for her.

He shouldn’t be surprised that he would be summoned to the library during a ball. He knew she desperately wanted him to marry and bear the earldom an abundance of heirs, but he was getting
bloody
tired of her matchmaking attempts, especially when those efforts curtailed his own pursuits of hedonistic pleasure for the evening.

Although he knew his mother had the best of intentions, he had made it abundantly clear for her to stop meddling. He in no way needed her assistance with finding a woman. And he was categorically
not
interested in meeting the milk and water misses she insisted on parading in front of him at regular intervals. Childbearing hips or not.

He was bored.

They
bored him.

He knew he was bound by family obligation to produce an heir, but must he do that today? He was barely thirty.

Well, he was putting his foot down.

He refused.

He refused to allow someone else to force him into making one of the biggest decisions of his life without careful thought and consideration.

His parents’ marriage was reason enough for his skittishness. He wasn’t going to be dictated to by anyone, his mother included.

She deserved to be happy, he was not completely insensitive. Thus he would indulge her attempts at matchmaking and allow her the moment’s pleasure of at least the perception of running his life.

It was after all, the least he could do.

He paused in his examination of the ballroom, his agitation obvious to any of his acquaintances as soon as he ran his hands through his meticulously disheveled mane of golden waves.

Pushing away from the wall, he tugged at his scarlet waistcoat.

“
Just a moment,” Graydon called out, his lips thinned. He believed the note to be from his mother, but what if it wasn’t? He searched once more for any sign of the author, flipping the note over in his hand, but could find none.

“
Who handed you this note?” Graydon asked briskly, stopping the footman who delivered the note.

The footman skidded to a stop, turning abruptly. “My lord?” An exasperated look crossed his face as he regarded the elegantly dressed gentleman before him. “I were given the note by another gentleman, such as yourself. Weren’t given his name. Said I were to deliver it to you straightaway.”

“
Very well,” Graydon replied with a shrug, giving the note one last cursory glance before inclining his head towards the footman in dismissal. Spinning around, he made his way across the ballroom.

Keckilpenny was normally quite prickly of guests wandering throughout his house unattended. He was such a stickler. But surely he would excuse this breach of etiquette.
He couldn’t very well ignore his mother, no matter how much he wished to
.

Glancing around the room, he allowed his eyes to roam once more over the miniature brunette haired goddess standing directly across the floor. He’d secretly watched her for the past three seasons, but had never bothered with an introduction. He didn’t even know her name. Hell, why should he? One thing he knew for sure, he knew he didn’t need or desire the burden of a tiresome virgin, no matter how ridiculously attractive he found her. In point of fact, he had never even seen her up close. He hadn’t even a clue as to the color of her eyes? Contrary to his resigned feeling on the matter, his eyes sought her out the very moment she entered into a room as if some unseen magnetic force drew them towards her.

He could have any woman he wanted, why her
?

C’est la vie
.

He crumpled the mysterious note and stuffed it in his pocket. Tossing off the remainder of his drink, he sat it down on the nearest table and made his way indolently across the room.

Let the games begin.

Piper eyed him from where she stood surrounded by a throng of adoring suitors. Too late to witness his hungry perusal or she might not have exhaled such a deep, heartfelt sigh. She couldn’t help herself, for each time he walked into a room her eyes fixated on him like an arrow shot towards a bullseye. She tried to ignore him, she truly did, but she couldn’t escape him no matter how hard she tried or she evidently was not trying hard enough. Leave it to her, the supposed level-headed one to form an infatuation with a completely unsuitable gentleman.

Tamping down his annoyance, Graydon tapped his friend, the Earl of Seymour lightly on the shoulder. Not caring if he interrupted his obvious flirtation with the young, newly widowed Lady Wilton.

“
Have you perhaps glimpsed my mother the few times you’ve come up for air, old friend?”

Looking up through hooded eyes and with a salacious grin spread across his face, Seymour drawled, “I do apologize with all sincerity, Rock, but I have been otherwise engaged.” Glancing down at Lady Wickham’s artfully exposed bosom with a raised brow and apparent approval. “Forgive me, Rock if I was unable to concentrate on anything else in the room.” Seymour’s gaze one of guileless apology. “We were actually about to flee from this over-heated ballroom.” He held out his arm. “Right, my dear?”

Fluttering her eyelashes flirtatiously, she allowed her right hand to drift slowly down Seymour’s chest, replying in what Graydon presumed was to pass for a seductive purr. “Yes, my lord.” All the while her eyes were trained on Graydon. He watched as she ran the tip of her small pink tongue across her lower lip. “You’re welcome to join us, my lord.”

Seymour chuckled lazily at her impromptu invitation.

Graydon shot her an annoyed look, his humor fading quickly. He was all too aware of Lady Wilton’s
peccadilloes
. “Not tonight, my dear,” he replied, rolling his eyes towards Seymour.
Honestly, is this what his life had become?

Seymour shrugged, grinning lewdly. “Are you being an old stick?”

Graydon did not bother to reply. “Excuse me.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “Do carry on.” Pivoting on the balls of his feet, he swiftly made his way through the crowded room.

Furtively looking about as he exited through a well concealed door and walked quietly down the darkened hall. He paused only after entering the library to give his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. The weak glow of the low burning fire in the grate of the massive stone fireplace cast just enough light for shadows. He felt the stirrings of a smile as he thought of his mother’s meddling. She was unable to resist the pull for grandchildren, or more specifically an heir, to cement her place in the Morgan family. He could find no fault with her. Security and social standing were all that she believed she had left and then longer he put off his familial duties, he was sure she felt even that slipping from her grasp.

Noticing the top of a woman’s head, he walked towards the settee. “Just what is so urgent that you must pull me from a ball for a private
t
ê
te-
à
-t
ê
te
, Mother?” he questioned. “I’m becoming quite irritated with your match-making attempts. I told you…” He stopped suddenly, his smile slipped, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he felt a warning tingle crawl up his spine, but it was too late—too late to keep him from walking into the trap.

A deep frown etched across his face as soon as the smooth bare leg came into view. “
Fuck,
” he muttered, a look of disbelief flashed across his face. “What the devil is going on here?” Backing up, he glanced hastily around the room expecting someone to jump out at any moment to catch him in this compromising situation.

His mind preoccupied with a different woman, he had not even considered anything other than what it appeared. With a hard shake of his head, he realized it was definitely too late. He’d let his guard down too easily. Frustrated with his situation, fantasizing about an innocent young lady had left him all too vulnerable to be ensnared by a conniving, money hungry, title seeking pariah.

“
Rockwell, darling,” Roberta Carlyle purred, glancing cunningly over her naked shoulder. Not even the menacing scowl on his face deterred her. “I’ve been waiting an age for you.” Slowly stretching her arms above her head in what he could only assume to be a well-rehearsed plan of seduction, she rose languidly from the settee. “What took you so long, darling?”

He didn’t even have time to reply. The sound of footsteps pounding down the hallway alerted Graydon that his night was definitely not going to end well and revealed that Roberta Carlyle had sent out other invitations. Invitations that were going to seal his fate.

“
What the hell is going on here?” A deep voice boomed from the doorway.

For one unguarded moment Graydon stood frozen. Then he straightened his shoulders, his dark gaze swept over the woman who did not even pretend to cover her nakedness, and cursed.