Seducing the Single Lady (2 page)

The men shook on it.

Damien’s gaze returned to the woman in the blue dress. The gown showed off her figure advantageously. The contrast between the swell of her milky white breasts and her narrow waist made his mouth dry.
Watching the movement of her skirts, he got a hint of how she moved her hips and damned if that didn’t make him make him imagine bedroom things.

Judging by the expressions on the faces of all the
other gents, they were thinking the very same. 

The dance had concluded and she bowed gracefully to her partner. Damien didn’t miss the gleam in her eye that promised mischief and delight. Oh, he knew that look well—from the looking glass or ca
tching his reflection in a well-polished silver whatever at some late hour.

He reminded himself, yet again, that he was reformed. He wasn’t Damien the
Debauched but Bedford the Behaved. Really, though, he wanted to follow that girl and indulge in all sorts of wicked pleasure with her.

She snapped open her fan, shielding her face with it, before sauntering off into the thick crowd.

“I don’t see Susannah,” Damien said told Watson. “I suppose we ought to take a walk through the ballroom.”

“Yes, let’s,” Watson agreed. But it sounded like he was choking on something.
Again. Oddly.

Damien set off in the direction of the mysterious, tantalizing woman. Drawn to her, he was. However, he kept his pace slow and paused to acknowledge the gasps of shock his appearance caused—he had been declared dead, after all. But given that he was on a mission, Damien kept any greetings short and polite. He did not take the time to explain how he’d been assumed dead and why he’d returned.

And then, they turned a corner from the ballroom to the refreshments room and came face-to-face with her, the girl of the auburn hair, incredible figure and blue gown he would rather see on a pile on his bedroom floor.

She emitted a startled “Oh!”

“Ah, Miss Grey. We’d been hoping to find you,” Watson said grandly. 

Miss Grey?
This was Miss Grey?!

Damien’s jaw might have dropped in shock, which was not the best response.
This was not the Miss Grey he had left.

“Alas, I cannot say the same,” she replied coolly and Damien’s heart stopped for a second.

His plans, gone up in smoke.

His wits, dissolved.

His desire, inflamed.

“I hope I needn’t perform introductions between you and your fiancé,” Watson replied smoothly. Damien’s h
eart still hadn’t remembered its purpose.

“Damien. It’s been an age.” She held out her hand in a graceful movement that was both polite and dismissive all at once. He kissed her hand.

As a gentleman. With ungentlemanly desires.  

“Yes. A long time,” he conceded. All his instincts for roguery were warring with his determination to be Good. He wanted to ravi
sh her. But one did not ravish one’s betrothed. Especially when said fiancé was not remotely pleased to see him.

“I thought you were dead
.” Susannah never had mastered subtlety.

“You sound disappointed that I am not,” he replied. 

She merely shrugged and he was transfixed by the curve of her milky white shoulders and especially the rise and fall of her full breasts.

Watson laughed and asked, “Shall I leave you two to become reacquainted?”

“Yes,” Damien said firmly.

“No,” Susannah said firmly.

Their eyes met. Her gaze was scorching—and not with passion.

Watson strolled away, muttering something that sounded like “
Married within the week?”  It was followed by uproarious laughter when, truly, there was nothing remotely humorous about this situation.

Damien was prepared to marry a plain spinster who would not tempt him away from the upright life he intended to live.

Damien, instead, had encountered an imperious and devastating beauty whose loathing for him was as strong as his desire for her. Time has not softened her heart to him.

“You look…”

Susannah gave him a cutting smile.

“Like a Christmas ham? Or a scrappy brat?”
she asked, throwing his words back in his face.

“I was going to say beautiful,” Damien replied.

“I’m not the girl you left,” she said, which was the understatement of the century.

“And I’m not the man who
left.”

“Let me guess. You have tired of your rakehell ways and have come to reform, in honor of the memory of your father. The first thing, of course, is to marry that plain, pesky girl to whom you’ve been betrothed since forever.”

Then his mind went blank. He—an expert seducer who took endless enjoyment in the pursuit and seduction of beautiful women—could not keep a thought in his head with Susannah in his sights.

“We should marry. It is time,” he said, collecting some semblance of his wits.

“The answer is no, thank you. If that was even a proposal.”

Her refusal—swift
and sure—sparked his temper. Roguish Damien beat back Bedford the Behaved for just a moment.

“We’ll see about that, Susie,” he said with a grin. Then, just as he always used to
do (and as she always used to hate), he reached out for one of those luscious auburn curls and gave a little tug.

******

Susannah was terribly vexed to discover that Damien was as handsome as ever. His boyish good looks had matured into devastating handsomeness.

If he’d been anyone else…

With his looks he would have made her heart beat faster with desire (not fear that he’d ruin her fun). Or he would have left her breathless with anticipation (not from the strain of concealing the storm of emotions she felt upon seeing him again).

But it was Damien, the man who had called her horrid names, had teased her endlessly and who had fled the country rather than be wed to her. She despised him.

Granted she had never wished to be married to him either—but she hadn’t declared it publicly and in the most humiliating way. Scrappy brat. Ha!

Her heart was still racing, and she would not attribute it to something like desire or how
she felt warmed to her core because of his hot gaze upon her. She had felt his attentions upon her earlier in the evening, while she was dancing with Sommerly and before she even realized who he was.

Damien had come back for her. Just when her fun was beginning.

What cursed luck!

Susannah strolled through the ballroom, fan fluttering before her face, her heart stil
l beating at a rapid-fire pace and felling as it had for one rare, strange and slightly magical moment from years ago.

Damien, being a
n idiotic young boy, had, just for his amusement, pushed her into the lake that bordered their neighboring properties. She had emerged from the cold water with her hair dark and wet, hanging in perfect tight curls instead of their usual frizz. Her ill-fitting white dress had been plastered against her newly developed curves.

For one long awkward, confusing moment they had stood, riveted. She could still feel the warm sunlight on her cool skin and the weight of her wet dress tangled around her legs. The way his eyes had darkened and his lips had parted was the same then as tonight. On both occasions her heart started to thud fast and hard, like a series of fireworks explosions in her chest. S
he also remembered the hot flush of mortification when she realized that he could see…everything…everything…

She felt that again tonight, like déjà vu.

But she hadn’t seen any of the charming, rakish rogue all the stories claimed him to be. Those qualities were apparently reserved for his collection of lovelies on the continent. The Damien who had returned was a tongue-tied gentleman who issued the least romantic proposal in the history of the world.

We ought to marry. It is time, he had said, apropos of nothing, in the middle of Almack’s.

Susannah was deeply glad to have refused him, though she suspected it would not be the last she’d hear or see of him. In fact, she was aware of him for the rest of the night. 

She waltzed and flirted and laughed as she
always did, and pretended she was a young heiress out on the town without a care in the world.

Everywhere Susannah looked, she saw Damien. She stayed at the ball until late into the night—or early into the morning—helplessly comparing all her other suitors to him. Upon a few occasions, she was convinced that she had seen him in a darkened corner. She bit her lip to keep from calling his name.

The following
day she took a stroll through the park and again, everything reminded her of Damien. The way a gentleman glanced at her and did not set her heart aflutter made her think of him. Any broad-shouldered gent drew a second look. When she came to the Serpentine, she remembered, again, the day at the lake and the one instance—save for last night—when he really looked at her.

She couldn’t help but reminisce
. She pushed the thoughts away.

Even though she did not want to see him, and even feared another confrontation, Susannah found she could not go anywhere with
out thinking she saw him.

Later that afternoon she returned home for calling hours. They were always
a lively affair, just as she liked it after all those lonely years. Because they were so full of her beaux, other marriage-minded mothers brought their own daughters, thus creating quite a scene full of all manner of matrimonial dreams and schemes.

Except for S
usannah’s, of course. She had thought perhaps to take a lover, for companionship and affection. But she had every intention of remaining unwed. Never again would she put her fortune and freedom in the control of another. It made her feel trapped and desperately dependent upon the whims of others.

But
Damien’s return from the dead most likely put an end to that plan. So long as she was bound by it, she would not be free to marry another if she were so inclined. Damien had made it clear that he would not release her from the obligation. Oh, she could evade his proposals and no one could force her to marry him. But she was not truly free.

Would he listen to her wishes? Take away her choices?

Damien was older, more mature, more grounded than the wild boy she remembered. Perhaps he’d hit his head sometime between quitting the country and his rumored death.

But there was no doubt
that Damien was Damien, and not some desperate pretender. He was not dead. Which meant she was still betrothed to him. Which meant her suitors would vanish in due course. Why waste their attentions upon her when they had no chance of profiting from her favors? 

“What do you say, Miss Grey?”

Susannah blinked, pasted a smile upon her face and peered around her drawing room to see who might have spoken. Obviously she had just missed a lively conversation. Already Damien was driving her to distraction!

“I beg your pardon?”

“Woolgathering, are you?” Stanford murmured.

“You must be quite distracted by
the return of your betrothed,” Lady Crowden gushed and everyone heartily agreed with her.

Susannah noticed then that her drawing room was more crowded than usual today.
Of course, news of Damien’s return traveled fast and the ton would be expecting A Scene. They had presumably gathered here to witness it. She would not deliver it to them.

“
It was quite unexpected,” she replied.

“Of course! We all thought he was dead!”
Lady Montague declared.

“
One would think he would call upon his fiancé,” Lady Hastings added. “It would be the right thing to do.”

“Especially one as s
ought after as you, Miss Grey,” Miss Everleigh said kindly.

Susannah
smiled, her stomach turning a flip-flop or two.

“Speaking of fiancés, ho
w are your wedding plans coming along, Miss Everleigh?”

“Oh, I’d much rathe
r hear about yours, Miss Grey,” the young girl replied, in spite of Susannah’s hopes to change the topic of conversation.

Susannah considered declaring there would be no wedding.

The questions persisted until Susannah became rather cross with her callers and wished for solitude. This wish intensified when Viscount Bedford was announced and a buzz of excitement erupted and swarmed around the room, thus dashing her hopes that anyone would leave. A mother and daughter, who had just bid everyone a goodbye, mentioning an urgent appointment, sat right back down.

“Look
who has returned from the dead to grace us with his presence,” Susannah declared.

“Miss Grey.” The way
Damien said her name, all low and slightly rough, sent a shiver racing right up and down her spine.