The Problem with Seduction (15 page)

That was when he’d turned to investing. But his new lady, Lady Luck, was playing coy these days.

The warm wind blowing off the Thames changed direction. Fetid scents assailed him: horses and coal smoke, a pile of refuse in the gutter. His belly tightened. He held his breath as the wind seemed to bring the putrid odor of the floating prisons right to his nose. The stench was
too
close to that of King’s Bench, where he’d spent the most terrifying six days of his life. He never wanted to see that place again.

Lady Luck needed to stand by his side. Soon.

He tugged his hat more firmly onto his head lest a stray wind blow it into the drain overflowing with filth. He turned down Bond and reminded himself that he shouldn’t fear prison as much as he did. He’d paid his creditors. Darius’, too, for God’ sake. If Dare was in over his head again, well, that wasn’t
his
problem, was it? He need only worry about his own investments failing.

But that was one of the troubles with being a twin. He wasn’t sure he could turn his back on any of his brothers, but Dare… Dare was a piece of his own soul.

He didn’t want to consider too closely what it meant if he couldn’t just stand by and watch the selfish rotter be condemned to debtors’ prison. Merely thinking about the place made him want to retch. Their father had
died
there. Just outside of King’s Bench, in a tiny hovel Tony had purchased for him when he’d scraped together enough to buy Liberty of the Rules. Being confined to filthy apartments rather than the prison itself hadn’t been enough. The squalid streets around the fortress bred disease, and gaol fever didn’t concern itself with rank.

Blast it all, but he needed a solution. One with more permanence than the turn of a card. Other men were able to make a living prospecting? Why not he?

He strode blindly down an empty street shadowed by the gray pall of evening. There was just so much he didn’t
know
. His lacking was compounded by the fact that, in a family of rakes and attorneys, there was no one he could ask for help. No one he dared to ask for help, at any rate, and even if he did ask, what would any of them do besides shake his head and
tsk
? Not a one knew the first thing about finances. So what was the point in telling them how badly he’d mucked up his affairs? Or betraying Darius?

His stomach knotted. What could be done for his brother that they hadn’t already tried with their father?

He thrust Dare from his thoughts. He’d rather think about Elizabeth and her child. He felt pleased with his efforts in that direction, actually. He liked being the one she depended on. She
listened
to him.

It did bring him back around, however, to the matter of advertising his relationship with her. Dusk had settled over the city, but it was still early yet for him to call on her. He wound his way down the London streets as he waited for full darkness to fall.
Were the right neighbors watching her door? Would anyone take note of his comings and goings?
Or should he arrive much, much later than this, and stay on until morning, when his presence at her townhouse couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a carnal
affaire
?

His body leapt at the thought of having her. He forced himself to train all of his energy on making the correct turns at each street corner and not being flattened by a barouche. He didn’t regret the terms of their association…but…

Much as he’d like to pretend he was immune to her… He wasn’t.

Finally, full darkness fell. He made his way to Elizabeth’s doorstep and paused before knocking. He needed to get himself under control. Somewhere between Will’s and this door, his imagination had run afoul of him. He was frustrated, emotionally, intellectually and now sexually. His body thrummed as though he really
were
about to enter his mistress’s house. Not a mistress in name only, but a beautiful woman who’d see to his pleasure until he opened his pocketbook and dumped it across her bed.

Curse his need to play the gallant. And double-curse the fact that it
was
much safer to keep their important bits at arms’ length. He would do well to remember that his pledge to Oliver came first.

It was with this professional mindset that he knocked upon her door. The butler saw him into a room Con vaguely recalled from his last visit. A window stood cracked open, letting in the night breeze and the occasional sounds from the busy street below. Candles wavered in the draft. It seemed the entire room was one warm glow, in fact...

To and fro his head jerked as he took in the multitude of tapers arranged on every surface.
This wasn’t right.
He was here to be seen coming and going, not for what his peers would assume went on in between.

What he hoped…

Absolutely not. He might not understand
this
setup, but he knew how far it was going. Nowhere.

Piqued by her presumption, he stalked to the window. His ire had a long time to build. She kept him waiting half an hour. An infuriating half-turn around the mantel clock. Long enough to play a dozen scenarios in his head, all of them ending with her back pressed against
that
window seat, her legs draped over
this
chair…

No.

A swish of skirts behind him broke into his latest fantasy. “Lord Constantine,” Elizabeth murmured in a voice made to drip down his spine, “how thoughtful of you to see me tonight.”

He pulled the window frame closed and snapped toward the voice. He expected to see her in her customary garb: a modish day dress that complemented her dark locks and fine gray eyes. Not a plunging neckline outdone only by tantalizing black lace, and trimming a pale peach skirt so sheer and clinging, he could see the curve of her thighs and the outline of— “Good God, woman, what are you wearing?” He wrenched his right arm from his coat. His shoulder twisted painfully as the garment protested removal from his person. He muttered another oath and fairly ripped the other sleeve from his left arm.
By God,
he wouldn’t be tempted like some sex-starved sailor facing his first dockside wench.

“Oh, this? Do you like it?” She trailed her fingertips over one rounded hip. “It’s been some time since I had cause to wear it.”

Sleeves freed, he thrust his coat out and marched toward her. The closer he came to her, the more aware he was that he’d just lost a key barrier between his skin and hers.

She watched his approach with curious amusement. When he stopped before her, her eyes roamed his person from the top of his head to his arms extended toward her, to the coat gaping before her hips. “Here,” he said, giving the coat a little shake, because he was suddenly aware he couldn’t very well put his arms around her, and even if he could, what would he do? Tie the sleeves behind her? Then he would be close enough to smell her hair, or her skin, or press his lips right
there…
“Here,” he said again, “take this.”

Her lips curved in a slow, seductive smile. “I’m not cold, my lord.”

“You ought to be,” he said with as much hauteur as he could muster. “You’ve dampened your skirts. You’ll catch your death.”

“I’ll have the fire built up. Rand?” She turned as she called, giving Con a view of her backside torturously swathed in peach silk. “Have a maid sent in. And brandy. Lots of it.”

“This isn’t a social call,” Con said, still holding his coat out. The room had seemed cold in the split second when he’d removed his coat, but now he didn’t need the fire stoked. His body was warming by the second. Her slender spine and generous hips were cast in a golden glow that slid and dipped into the shadowy crevices created by the dampened silk. Curls large enough for him to wrap around his fist had slipped from their hairpins, giving her a bed-tousled look. His traitorous body responded with barely-leashed desire.
He wanted her.

Confound her.

Her hand slid ever so slowly from her hip to her thigh, her open palm caressing the curves he would give his last shilling to touch.

“Stop that,” he ground out.

She raised her eyes to meet his. “Is something amiss, my lord?”

“I didn’t come here to be seduced.”

“Ah. But there is no harm in a little surprise every now and again, is there?” She sauntered toward him. Her eyes never left his face. “I’d hoped we might get to know each other better. In fact, I’m quite set on it.”

She’d come within reaching distance again. This time he didn’t hesitate. Ignoring her gasp, he flourished his coat over her head and draped it across her backside, then deftly pulled the sleeves around her waist and knotted them.

He meant to step back after that. But her hands splayed over his chest, as though she’d meant to push him away and then changed her mind. Her breasts rose with quick, sharp pants of desire and her gray eyes fixed on him with luminous interest.

Confound it, he
could
smell her skin. Honeysuckle, and a faint, warm scent he couldn’t define.

“There.” His voice was husky with desire. “Much better.”

She didn’t move. He awarded her a point for sheer intrepidity. With a mental sigh for his own stringent morals, he dropped his hands and took a step away.
He couldn’t do this.
Not the way she was doing it. There were several strong arguments for why this was a poor decision, but he wasn’t concerned with any of them at the moment. It was something else.

Her seduction of him…just felt…wrong.

She straightened but otherwise didn’t move. Her gaze dropped to the superfine coat slung about her hips. Her eyebrows rose together. “Are you…” She paused. Her head shook. “Never mind.”

A maid entered, making it impossible for him to ask Elizabeth to finish her sentence. The maid’s eyes darted to her mistress’s awkward pannier. Without comment, she set down a tray arranged with a bottle of brandy and two snifters, then went to tend the fire.

The room brightened as the flames roared back to life. Elizabeth went to the fireplace and stretched her hands toward the grate. He was caught by the gracefulness in the gesture, the languid way her hands extended from her slightly curved posture… Then he realized what he’d unconsciously been aware of the entire time. Her grace was not unintended. It was planned.

“That will be all, Penny.” Her voice purred, thick for seduction. It trailed like sharp nails across his back. Arousing yet off-putting. What did she mean, entrancing him like this? They had no business in bed. Taking their arrangement between the sheets left them open for a lover’s spat, or worse.

Then where would Oliver be?

He didn’t mistake the hunger in her eyes when she turned around. The gentle
snick
of the door closing behind the maid broke the silence. They were alone. Why? The longer he searched her face, the surer he felt that this wasn’t right. She seemed…it felt as though she looked right
through
him. As if she were forcing herself to entice him, or playing a well-rehearsed part. Why? Why this sudden, brazen attempt to get him into her bed?

A very, very tiny little part of him asked very loudly,
Couldn’t the answer wait until tomorrow?

Elizabeth easily read the emotions playing across his face. Hunger. Desire. Confusion. They mirrored her own tangled thoughts. She
did
mean to seduce him, to hold him physically so he wouldn’t feel the need to leave and find solace in another woman’s arms. He was a man, and a virile man at that. When he wanted to expend himself, he would. He must choose her when he felt that desire.

She hadn’t expected to
want
him.

He was attractive, of course; she’d already admitted as much. Impossibly tall, with a stylish disorderliness to his hair and that wrinkled line of concern between his brows. He cut a fine figure in his starched cravat, purple waistcoat and—heaven help her—billowing shirtsleeves. Perhaps
that
was when her head had stopped controlling her behavior, and instinct had kicked in. When he’d undressed, his muscles bunching as he’d struggled out of the tight coat, and watched her with a crystal fire that had seared her to her toes.

With his coat on he was broad of shoulder and trim through the waist, as she was used to seeing him. With his coat off and his shirtsleeves free to flow about him like a pirate captain’s, she was barely able to calculate her next move.

She’d always been intrigued by powerful men. Older men, usually, but she was coming to think there was a hunger to be stoked in a younger man. One who hadn’t had twenty years of sexual encounters to jade him.

Yet it wasn’t her thrill at his
dishabille
that caused her to fear what would happen next. It was his reaction to her. His passion empowered her, and like a heady drug, addicted her. His tightly leashed desire to push up her skirts and throw her over the back of the couch excited her in a way his pretty words wouldn’t. She fed off his desire. He wanted her, and she longed with all of her heart to be wanted.

She must play her cards right. He wanted her, but not because he wanted to. Why he didn’t remained a mystery, one she would unravel with her next few moves. She’d succeeded with less.