The Seduction (18 page)

As he leaned forward his smile interrupted her, a
smile carrying intelligent, worldly-wise humor. "I’ faith, it rapidly
grows more visceral than that. Flirting and teasing are for children. Adults go
to bed together."

It hung between them for a moment. That it had
been so lightly said was oddly reassuring. She wondered if this was how men
talked with their friends, with this open, unemotional honesty.
This is how
it is. We all accept it.
She felt completely safe.

"With someone else's spouse, of
course," she said.

He smiled over his wineglass. "Unless you
both agree not to act on what lies between you - usually the lady's
decision."

"And you would argue that it's better to
have such an affair, where the rules are clearly understood-" She was
distracted by a sharp rustle in the flower border.

He picked up the wine bottle. Light played over
the ruby liquid. "Less damaging than false protestations of undying love,
certainly."

Dark marigolds quavered. Abednego appeared for a
moment with something in his mouth, then raced away up the path.

"That wasn't what Ι believed when
Ι married," she said. "Ι thought Ι was in love. Ι
meant every word of my vows. But it was only a child's attraction to something
that glittered."

"Like gold?"

Juliet glanced back at him. "More like ice:
gleaming in fascinating drapes over a winter pond, but destined to melt into
vapor when the sun returns. Gold implies value and permanence. Yet both are
cold at the core." She reached up one hand to tip a lantern to dazzle for
a moment on his face and hair. "However superficially alluring when gilt
gleams in the dark."

Released, the light swung back to illuminate her
in her turn. Her hair lay over her shoulder, soft against her cheek, the color
intensified to mahogany.

"Ah," he said. "Which is why gold
longs for a rare wood, smooth and warm under the palm. Yet you wear gold for
love, Juliet."

She glanced down. Her locket hung outside the
neckline of her petticoat. The metal gleamed softly. She clutched one fist over
it and closed her eyes. "This locket was something Ι shared with the
only person, other than my parents, whom Ι truly did love." The words
came out in a rush, as if she couldn't stop them. "My baby brother. "

The wine bottle hit the table with a small thud.
"Your
brother?"
Distress twisted wildly as she thrust the
locket away. "Don't ask me about him. He is dead."

Immediately she was horrified. She had confided
in this man, this stranger, as if she really could trust him. She had broken
her own resolution to play lightly, to enjoy the evening as an amusing episode.
Α comfortable evening with friends.
Now she had shattered
everything.

Because of the shifting shadows? Because of the
dark night? Juliet dropped her face in her hands.

He rose in a rustle of muslin. His slippers
struck softly on the path.

Was he angry that she had introduced such a bane
into his beautiful seduction of rosemary and love apples? Or could he turn
aside what she'd said, find a way to recover the carefully orchestrated mood?
If he did that, she would hate him. Yet for a moment she felt bereft,
devastated at the thought that he would simply walk out of her life.

Silence stretched, broken only by the thump of
her heart.

"Ι also lost a brother," he said
starkly. "Five years older than Ι. He died while Ι was in Italy.
There are no words sufficient to comfort such a loss. Nothing ever really heals
it. Ι won't ask you, Juliet."

Breathlessness entrapped her, made her frantic.
Stunned, Juliet fought for equilibrium, thinking she might need to gulp for
air, but the breath still moved in and out of her lungs. The night remained
quiet, though her eyes burned with tears.

"Nor Ι you - I am sorry."

"It's all right." His voice gentled.
"News of his death finally broke my ties to Italy."

She looked up through a glaze of tears. Scattered
with the remains of their supper, the table still glowed. Beyond the halo of
lamplight, night wrapped its mystery about the garden. Dark on dark - only his
hair gleaming in gilt mockery of the moon - Alden Granville stood with his
back to her, gazing at the sky. Α small breeze stirred his
silver-and-black robe, fluttered the inky muslin draped from his broad
shoulders like a necromancer's gown.

Perhaps it will bring us a serene breath from the
icy moon. Will it waft the spiced scents of history and foreign blooms onto our
deeply shaded patio?

She had felt the shimmer of his presence in her
body and in her blood, the vital charge sparking between male and female. Now
she felt it in her heart - a bond of sympathy, of shared tragedy, of a loss
understood. Far more terrifying.
All or nothing?

"So you came home? And Maria-?" She bit
off the question, hating herself.

"Maria had died of a fever a few months
earlier."

The breath congealed into a hard lump in her
throat. It hurt as if she'd been struck by a hammer. "I’m sorry. Ι
thought-" She forced herself to start again. "Ι don't know what
to say. Ι assumed you had abandoned her."

"If you like." His robe moved as if
caught in a dark flood tide. "The passion died first - by only six months,
but it had died - for both of us. Alas, Ι found Ι wanted more than a
flower, however sweet, and she had found a new interest. She and her husband
had a child by then. Ι mourned my friend's loss and their child's loss,
but she did not break my heart, nor Ι hers. In the end, Ι wasn't so
important."

"After six years?"

He nodded. "What else would you like to
know?"

"Nothing, nothing," she said
desperately. "Ι did not ask for this relationship, these strange
games that seem to spiral into something else. Ι don't wish to feel too
safe with you. Ι don't think we should exchange such personal confidences.
Ι
am
sorry."

"The apology is mine, ma'am," he said
formally. "Ι will ask no more questions and tell no more secrets.
Ι am not a man of much principle. Ι am indeed a rake. It was never my
intention to do more than amuse you."

"Tomorrow is Friday," she said.
"The sun will burn away all of this false intimacy and the next day you'll
be gone-"

He turned. "Yet Ι like you, Juliet,
very much."

She suppressed a sob. "You don't even know
me! Perhaps Ι am a shrew."

He walked silently back to her. He took her
fingers, then bent to kiss them. It was done with a light, gallant humor,
though something else, something deadly serious, lurked beneath.

"And what's wrong with a shrew?" his
voice teased. "A private, beneficial creature, otherwise known in various
localities as the nursrow, shrove mouse, nostral, rannie mouse, skrew mouse,
thraw mouse, rone mouse, or herdishrew. You have read your
Historie of
Four-footed Beastes
far too carefully, ma'am. Alas, it's full of
lies."

She tried to smile. "What?"

He folded her fingers into her palm and returned
her hand to her. "Topsell's
Four-footed Beastes
is every
schoolboy's favorite text. Far more amusing than all that Latin and Greek.
Allow me to quote: 'The shrew is a ravening beast, feigning itself gentle and
tame, but, being touched, it biteth deep and poysoneth deadly. It beareth a
cruel minde, desiring to hurt anything, neither is there any creature that it
loveth, or, it loveth him, because it is feared by all.' "

"But none of that's true!"

"Just foolish country tales. We are
bedeviled by them. The shrew is no more poisonous than the apple of love - and
neither are you."

Juliet gazed up into the mysterious, intelligent
smile. "Then what am Ι?"

His smile widened. "A sad lady in need of
diversion." He sat down. "Let us play chess, ma'am. It's your turn to
win."

Yet she knew she would lose before they began. In
spite of his charm, he was deeply disturbed and he couldn't quite hide it. She
had shredded the magic atmosphere and let it spiral away into smoke. She knew
he only wanted to leave and would do so as quickly as possible.

She was right. Ruthlessly taking her pieces and
destroying her strategies, he ravished the board like a miniature battlefield,
scattering her defenses. As if it mattered! There was only one more day.

"What do you claim for your forfeit this
time, sir?" she asked at last.

He looked up at her with something close to
desperation in his eyes, but he laughed.

"That we play chess somewhere else tomorrow.
We have played once in the kitchen and thrice in the grape arbor. Why not a
fresh location?"

"Very well," she said.

"And my chore for the day?"

She pushed away from the table and stood up.
"Ι think you have already fulfilled it, sir. You brought
supper."

Juliet spun out of the arbor and hurried away up
the path.

ALDEN WATCHED HER GO. THE ITALIAN ROBE FLOWED out
behind her like wings.

Tomorrow. He must bed her tomorrow at Marion
Hall. Failure was out of the question. Ruin was simply too great a punishment
for one night's mad gaming: for himself, his servants, his mother - and above
all little Sherry, who wouldn't even understand enough to condemn him for it.

Yet he didn't seem able to play the game as he
generally played it. Because so bloody much depended on the outcome? Or because
Juliet had touched so much deeper than usual?
She had lost a little brother.
She had married for love.

He had followed the first three stages of any
seduction: shown her his flattering interest; created a physical awareness in
her; begun to dispose of her objections so she would feel secure in his
company. Juliet was almost ready, surely, for the fourth stage: his clever
hands and more clever mouth.

Why had he told her about Maria? Of course, it
was a simple enough truth. While little more than a boy, he had loved. He had
stayed away from England because of it. His Italian mistress and her fatherly
husband had helped form his life and his expectations. Yet the thought of Maria
no longer moved him. When it was over, it had not broken his heart. Perhaps he
had no such vital organ? .

Only Gregory's death had ever really mattered,
and there was no one - not even his mother - to whom he could talk about his
beloved older brother. Lady Gracechurch simply behaved as if she'd never had
another son, as if Alden had always been expected to inherit.

Had he thought he must warn her? Tell Juliet in
so many words that he was faithless, superficial? Why had he allowed the
evening to slip from his careful design, let the mood change, slide away from
his sensual onslaught? Created the moment when she had told him about the
locket and he had felt forced to mention Gregory? He had wanted to win her
confidence, make her feel safe with him, but he hadn't wanted to delve so
deeply into the personal.

He struck one fist into the palm of the other
hand. Was he doomed to bring pain to a woman he liked? For he truly did like
her.

Abednego appeared at his feet, purring. The white
cat dropped a small creature from its mouth. Alden bent to look at it. Not a
shrew. Only a mouse. Quite dead. He moved it with his slipper. Abednego pounced
on the carcass and raced away with it.

This locket was something Ι shared with the
only person, other than my parents, whom Ι truly did love. My little
brother… Don't ask me about him. He is dead.

Her words felt like a curse. Yet by tomorrow he
must deliver her locket to Lord Edward Vane, or see his world go up in flames.

Alden had no doubt that he would find it in
himself to do it.

JULIET AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING TO THE SOUND OF
hammering at the front door. Sunlight flooded her bedroom. She had asked Kate
not to wake her. Throwing on a wrap, she leaned from her window. The sky
already blazed blue above her head, the air thick. Another hot, oppressive day
filled with dust.

Jemmy Brambey stood on the brick path in front of
the house and was squinting up at her.

"Message from the Three Tuns, Mistress
Seton!" The boy waved a scrap of paper in one dirty hand.

Cats scattered as Juliet hurried down the stairs.
Tilly had already thrown open the door. Jemmy exchanged a few words with his
sister before he ran off with a farthing in his pocket.

Carrying the note, Juliet walked into her parlor.
The paper was sealed with red wax, impressed with his crest. She stared at her
name on the front, while her heart thumped uncomfortably in her breast. For
several minutes she sat perfectly still, holding the note as if it had come
from beyond the grave. She could not afford a repetition of what had happened
last night, that dangerous slide toward real intimacy. Yet she wanted
something
out of this odd encounter, something to remember-

She opened the sheet and rapidly scanned the few
lines, then read them again. Suddenly she laughed.