Seducing the Single Lady (9 page)

Before descending to breakfast, she composed a brief note:

Damien,

I am at home for calling hours this afternoon.

Percy

She charged a footman with delivering it and sat down to breakfast in her small morning room.
Everything was just so: the pot of steaming hot tea with a bowl of sugar lumps. A china plate with toast and buttery scrambled eggs. Highly polished silverware. Freshly ironed newspapers just to the left of her plate.

Everything was just as she liked it. But she thought longingly of ale and meat pies and mismatched pewter. She missed Frannie’s smile. She missed having broken at lea
st a dozen rules and having enjoyed a bunch of adventures before breakfast.

Then she turned to the gossip columns, immediately, as one does. She shrieked when she saw her name. And
Damien’s name.

Susannah rang for a footman.

“Quickly, you must go and recall the note I sent to Lord Bedford and deliver him a message.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Tell him I said to hell with him!”

******

Damien woke to a strange combination of feelings. He recognized the slight ache in his muscles and the slight ache in his head indicating that he had slept in, likely due to overexertions the previous day or night. But he did not feel the aftereffects of alcohol: the pounding head, fuzzy mouth and odd sensation of his insides having been pickled from so much wine and whiskey. No, he felt fine—along with the faint satisfaction of having had a rollicking good time. Usually, he had not experienced one without the other.

This bode
d well for his determination to be good and married. He could still enjoy himself. He could still have adventures.

He took a moment to recollect the source of yesterday’
s escapades.

Susannah, in breeches that clung to her shapely legs an
d bum the way a drowning man would hold tight to anything that might keep him afloat.

Susannah’s expression of wild, utter delight to be finally
galloping while riding astride.

And then, at the tavern. Frannie. The kiss.

And then, after the tavern. Their kiss. They had made love. For all of his experience with bedding women, it had never been like that: passionate and playful, intense and delightful, teasing and utterly serious. The pleasure—soul deep, overwhelming, breathtaking, heart-stopping pleasure.

It had been a risk, encouraging her to break all those rules. But it was lik
e she’d been awakened by it. He, too. They could start anew. He would never shut her out. Not again.

Damien
rolled over in his bed, ready for more. She was not there. This was a grievous crime. He would go to her and propose again. But first—a bath, a shave, breakfast, and a quick glance at the day’s newspapers.

He flipped past the parliamentary news and intelligence from the continent
and went straight to the gossip columns. He saw his name, linked with Susannah’s and began to swear.

After his lengthy grand tour full of all sorts of reckless and debauched behavior, the new Viscount Bedford has returned home intent upon a life to honor the wishes of his late father—including upstanding behavior and finally marrying heiress Miss Susannah Grey, to whom he’s been betrothed to since birth (and whom he once called a scrappy brat).

He must have assumed she was still a scrappy brat—news of her beautiful transformation having not reached his drunken self whilst on the continent—otherwise he wouldn’t have dreamed of wagering with Lord Watson that he’d be
married to her within the week. And for the paltry sum of fifty pounds, too.

One can only hope she refuses him on principle. Although, this author does love a happy ending and a love match. I should hope to read of their marriage—but not until next week.

--Fashionable Intelligence by A Lady of Distinction

The London Weekly

In Susannah’s drawing room,
Damien paced nervously and pushed his fingers through his hair in frustration as he waited to learn if Susannah was “at home” to callers. More specifically, at home to him.

Upon reading the disastrous news reported by A Lady of Distinction
, he knew his immediate attendance upon the queen of pleasure (or presumably, today, the queen of displeasure) was essential if he was to have a prayer of salvaging their relationship. Would The London Weekly’s infamous gossip columnist cause more havoc with her reporting? Would anyone believe it? Yes, The Lady of Distinction—whoever the hell she may be—was mostly right yet always believed.

The heavy oak doors burst open
, slamming into the damask papered walls. A fashionable fury approached him.

“You ha
ve some nerve to turn up here,” she said coming to stand close in front of him. Her eyes were blazing. Her hair seemed redder. Her cheeks were flushed with anger.

“Susannah, allow me to explain.”

“I think the newspaper is quite clear. You just assumed that I would be yours, at your convenience. You just assumed that I was pining away, desperately, waiting for you to deign to shine your light on me. This proves that you do not know about me at all.”

“
I did make those assumptions,” he said.

She paused, perplexed.
“That’s what I said.”

“I was wrong,”
Damien said.

She had been spoiling for a fight. He did not want to fight. He wanted to love her and make love to her. The carpet seemed plush enough…

“Very. You were very, very wrong,” she admonished. “You have made the mistake of thinking you are irreplaceable. When I could have anyone of my choosing, as fast as I could snap my fingers.”

“We are in violent agreement,”
Damien said.

“And yet I am
still utterly enraged at you,” she replied coldly.

“Tell me more.” She would vent her frustrations. He would listen. In time she would calm down and…perhaps the settee would be more comfortable.

“I’m going to call you a carriage,” she said.

The heavy wooden doors to the drawing room burst open.
A young footman, dressed in a fine uniform of red and gray livery, interrupted them.

“Ma’am. Lord Bedford was not at home
,” he said, apparently unaware or unconcerned that Lord Bedford stood before him. “Here is the note.”

“Thank you
,” she said, accepting the paper, which Damien immediately intercepted it in spite of her protestations. He broke the wax seal and read her scrawled missive. The footman left the room.

“Ah, you
have asked me to call upon you,” Damien reported what he read. “Signed, Percy. I was right about that. See, I am not always wrong.”

“While I am this angry at you, I’d advise you not to point out anything remotely in your favor. Also, I wrote
that before I saw the newspaper.”

“
Susannah, I am sincerely sorry for my stupid presumptions about you and I and our marriage. It was wrong of me and I have seen the error of my ways,” he said, clasping her hands and dropping to one knee.

“Oh, do get up.”

“I have so thoroughly enjoyed being proven wrong by you. Yesterday was certainly the best day of my life. Please, do me the favor of becoming my wife.”

At that moment—before she could reply—the drawing room doors burst open to reveal another young footman, who,
upon seeing Lord Bedford shouted: “To hell with you!”

“
Yes, what he said,” Susannah replied, slightly bemused. “Thank you, Footman. That will be all.” 

“I presume you sent him to re
scind the invitation,” Damien drawled.

“Precisely.”

“So you’re saying I’m right,” Damien said. He couldn’t resist.

“Oh!”

“It seems you are still angry,” he remarked as she pummeled his chest with her small, ineffectual fists. He would have wagered—but he would not—that she’d longed to hit him like this. It didn’t hurt in the slightest so he let her carry on.

“I’m always angry at you! For my tea set and my white dress and a hundred other pranks and indignities. I am still angry because you did not come for me when I asked you to. I am angry at you for coming back now
when I didn’t want you to. And I am livid that you would think I was still a scrappy brat who would just tumble right into your arms!”

He clasped her wrists, holding her still. She huffed, blowing a wayward strand of hair out of her furious eyes.

“What can I do, Susannah, to win you?”

“
I am not something to be won! I am a girl to be loved.”

With that, she wrenched out
of his grasp and stormed away, slamming the heavy oak doors behind her.

It was only later that he realized
what else she had said. Once upon a time she’d bidden him to return and he hadn’t come to save her. He thought of that letter, long burnt and long forgotten. What heartache they all—Susannah, his father, himself—might have been spared if he had only listened to her then.

When Damien came to call again the day after their fight, Susannah could not deny how emotional he made her feel. There was lust—pure, scorching, molten lust. An outrageous craving to touch his bare skin, nibble his lower lip, or rock her hips in time with his as he thrust deeply into her…

Yes, she felt lust. Then she remembered the wager
, and she felt anger. Surely she was worth more than fifty pounds!

Then she remembered
that they had despised each other for most of their lives. One of them had even put an entire body of water and several nations between them. For nine years.

But she also had to consider the perfect day he had planne
d for her, rife with adventures, and how he grinned and held her hand through it all. She remembered the surge of contentment she experienced whilst lying in his arms after making love.

To her surprise
, he had shown he was everything she never thought he was—attentive, adventurous, loving. There were times when he hurt her or made her cry. She had sworn never to forgive him. But at the end of the day, all she wanted was to be in his embrace.

Clearly, there was much to be emotional about and she was completely within her rights to be ever so slightly out of sorts. But when he appeared she was in turns angry and relieved, happy and sulky.

“You. Again.”

The words came out sullen and petulant even though she had spen
t an entire day dissolved in tears because they had fought bitterly. And because she had fallen in love with him.

She didn’t want to be without him and she was afraid that he’d walk away again.  She loved him.
She did not want to be a brokenhearted girl.

And by some miracle he was here even though she’d
refused his proposal for the third or fourth or fifth time. Who was counting, so long as he asked once more? She was happy to see him. Relieved, frankly. All hope was not lost.

Nevertheless the words that escaped her lips were “You. Again.” With all the boredom, sarcasm,
disdain and contempt she didn’t know she could muster.

“It is lovel
y to see you again, Miss Grey.” Damien spoke courteously and this inflamed her temper.

Miss Grey?! She
had been Susannah to him! She’d been Percy to him!

“This is my solicitor, Eastwick
,” Damien said, introducing the elder, somber gentleman accompanying him. They all took seats in the drawing room and she served them tea from the yellow china tea set. All the while her heart was buzzing. Whatever could this be about?

She eyed
Damien. He did not meet her eye. Coward.

“What is this about, Lord Bedford?”

It was Eastwick who answered. “His Lordship has called this meeting regarding a contract obliging the two of you to marry.”

“I am familiar with it,” Susannah said coldly.

“We have consulted the original document and find that, while there are no ‘escape clauses’ if you will, the language is such that it allows the Viscount Bedford to dissolve the contract if he should so choose,” Eastwick said. “Please, take a moment to review it.”

With that, he handed her a sheaf of papers. She glanced at them and all the serious legal words swam meaninglessly before her eyes.

“The Viscount Bedford? A specific one, or any one, in general?” she inquired.

“Any
one in general,” Eastwick answered.

“This one in particular
,” Damien stated.

Susannah sipped her tea and didn’t taste it at all.
If she were understanding them correctly, he meant to dissolve the contract. It was either the most romantic thing in the world or completely and utterly devastating.