The Seduction (22 page)

Juliet pulled his coat closer about her
shoulders. The fabric carried his essence, that clean, male-and-soap smell that
she wanted to breathe forever deep into her lungs-to hold in some part of him,
even if only his scent.

How foolish, when it was so thoroughly over! The
pretty game and the play at seduction. Destroyed forever. He would go on his
way and leave her to hers.

Yet her skin craved the touch of his hands. Her
mouth silently called out for the press of his lips, for the demon knowledge of
his mouth and tongue. Her palms longed to feast on the muscles displayed, clean
and hard, beneath his damp shirt. If he asked now, even with a look, she would
not be able to deny him.

He did not ask.

So, in spite of his avowed vocation, he was
merciful!

Juliet turned her head away, just as two horses
came crashing along a track through the woods. In the lead cantered a stout
black cob, carrying a small blond-haired boy. The second rider was a slender
young man on a bay.

The boy took off his hat and waved it. "Lord
Gracechurch!"

"Look out!" Juliet shouted.
"There's a ditch!"

She had a confused impression of blue eyes and a
stubborn young mouth, then the blond head dipped as the child grabbed for mane
with both hands. The black plunged awkwardly. The boy tumbled forward. His hat
went flying as he fell over his mount's shoulder and disappeared.

Alden had already vaulted from the carriage. He
ran six paces and slid down into the ditch.

His face white, the man on the bay dismounted.

John pulled up the grays and Juliet clambered
down, stripping Alden's jacket from her shoulders. In that one glimpse of the
child's face, she had seen a ghost. Some trick of the light, no doubt. Some mad
jolting of memory, of an image of another blond boy running away from his
nursemaid, laughing at the world. Why must the sight of any carefree child
bring back such excruciating echoes?

"It's all right, Peter," Alden said.
"He's unharmed."

Juliet ran to the edge of the ditch.

Ignoring satin breeches and high-heeled shoes,
Alden Granville knelt in several inches of muddy water, holding the little boy
in his arms. The lace at his wrists was solid with muck. The hem of his
embroidered waistcoat dragged in the mire. The child's mouth was clamped shut
under a layer of wet grime, his stubby fingers clamped onto his rescuer's
clothes as Alden wiped the boy's face with a lace-edged handkerchief. The child
was trying very hard not to cry.

Alden glanced up at Juliet and smiled.

She dropped the jacket into his outstretched
hand. Alden wrapped the child in its folds and held him tightly as the little
boy shivered against a broad shoulder.

"My lord," the man named Peter said. He
had tied the horses: his own bay and the child's black cob. "I am- You are
sure he's all right?"

"No broken bones. Α few bruises, a bit
of a shaking-and a dunking, of course. We must get him inside and warm."
Alden looked down at the boy with infinite tenderness. "Very precipitate,
Sherry. You must prepare your mount properly before a leap, or he’ll take it awkwardly
and dump you in the ditch. It takes concentration. Besides, a gentleman never
leaps his horse while waving his hat to a lady."

The child coughed up a little ditch water onto
Alden's shoulder and wrapped both arms about his neck. "But you did. Mr. Primrose
told me."

Peter Primrose colored. "Alas, my lord,
Ι did. Ι told him how you leaped. your horse right over the thorn
hedge while waving your tricorn at Lady Gracechurch."

"Thereby making my mother scream. Very bad
manners. Ι have never done it again."

The child tried to grin, but his lip wobbled and
tears pooled in his eyes.

Alden smoothed the yellow hair back from the
round forehead. "Never mind, sir. "I’ll take you home and have Cook
make you some currant buns."

He handed the child, wrapped in the jacket, up to
John, before he climbed out of the ditch. Peter Primrose hurried ahead of them
to make a bed from the blanket and his own coat as the coachman carried the boy
to the carriage.

"The very devil, they say, with women,
Lord Gracechurch," Juliet said dryly.

He glanced down at her. She couldn't read his
expression.

"He's your son?" she asked.

"Lud, no."

"Obviously the child cannot ride home and
you must take him back in the carriage."

His expression was remote, almost cold, as he
stared away toward his house. "And also carry a lady into my den of
iniquity, when she is so deuced unwilling to go?"

"I will not come back with you. It would
achieve neither your purpose, nor mine."

He ran both hands through his damp hair, pushing
it back from his forehead. The ribbon had slipped away. Blond strands straggled
across his shoulders and back. He looked rugged, very male.

"My purpose being to ravish you shamelessly
and add you to my list of conquests. Yes, it's true."

"So it failed," she said. "See to
the child. My purpose now is only self-preservation. Ι don't need you for
that."

Before she could react, he leaned down and kissed
her once on the mouth. His lips were icy. "Yes, my seduction failed. We
shan't see each other again. But the joke is on me, ma'am. I'm in love."

Her heart stopped, then leaped back to life,
pounding heavily. "But we part here. Good-bye, Lord Gracechurch."

"Madly. Passionately." He gave her a
lighthearted grin. "So, you see, you have won, after all. However, we
still have a problem: Ι cannot leave a lady abandoned beside the
road."

"I will borrow one of the horses."

"You can hardly ride home in hooped skirts
and without a lady's saddle."

"Watch me," Juliet said.

Still meeting his gaze, she backed up to a tree
and reached up under her skirts at the back to untie laces. He lifted one eyebrow
- incredulous.

Juliet raised her chin. Her hooped petticoat fell
to the ground. She stepped out of the folded whalebone and gathered her limp
rose satin skirts in both hands to walk swiftly to the tied horses. The black
cob was little more than a pony. With the help of a nearby stump, Juliet
climbed astride onto the child's saddle. She adjusted the stirrups, arranged
her dress, and turned the animal's head toward Manston Mingate.

She didn't expect Lord Gracechurch to stop her or
say good-bye. He did not.

Without a backward glance, in all his ruined
finery, he spun about, strode to the carriage and stepped inside. The child
cuddled against him, rubbing one fist over a tear-streaked face.

"You will escort Mistress Seton to the Dower
House, Mr. Primrose, where you will secure a carriage to take her home,"
Lord Gracechurch said over his shoulder. "John will take Sherry back to
the Abbey with me. Meanwhile, Ι pray you will not be careless enough to
allow this lady to end up in a ditch."

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE CARRIAGE BOWLED AWAY. JULIET GLANCED BACK.
SHE would never see him again. Restless emotions surged whether anger or
heartache she wasn't sure. Had he, in one week, forever destroyed her peace?

The young man rode up beside her on his bay.
"My name is Peter Primrose, ma'am. Ι pray you will allow me to escort
you?"

"Of course, sir." She tore her gaze
away from the departing carriage. "Nevertheless, we shall ride straight to
my home."

He colored a little and pushed his tall bay to
block the road. "Lord Gracechurch is an indulgent employer, ma'am.
However, it would be wiser to secure another carriage. The Dower House is quite
close." He glanced at the sky. ''It's going to rain again."

Α chill breeze stirred through the damp
leaves. It was at least ten miles back to Manston Mingate. The Dower House was
probably unused except for storage. The rational choice. It would be senseless
to insist otherwise.

"Very well, Mr. Primrose," Juliet said.
"I put myself in your hands."

They left the road to follow a track across the
fields. Peter Primrose stopped his horse to open a gate for her.

"The little boy," she asked. "Who
is he?"

"James Sherwood, ma'am. We call him Sherry.
I'm his tutor. He's a brilliant child, remarkable for his age." Mr.
Primrose maneuvered his mount so that she could ride past him into the next
field. ''He's an orphan. No relation to the family."

"Yet Lord Gracechurch gives him a home?"

He glanced at her with thinly veiled scorn.
"I'm sure it seems odd to a lady such as yourself for Lord Gracechurch to
care so much for his dependents, yet Ι would say that he and the child
love each other like father and son. Without the viscount's protection, the
boy would starve."

Α lady such as yourself!
What did that mean to this severe young man with
the look of a cleric? Among other, more obvious and insulting, implications,
that she was incidental, irrelevant, to the viscount's life, to this tutor's
life, making a home for an abandoned child.

Yet she replied gently. "You are very loyal
to your employer, sir."

He seemed to soften a little. "As is
everyone at the Abbey. When the viscount came back from Italy, he found nothing
but debts. Creditors were out for his blood. Anyone else would have sold up or
at least trimmed the staff, forced ruthless frugality. Lord Gracechurch
promised to pay, then assumed the burden of a ruined estate and all of its
dependents without a second thought." He closed the gate and rode up
beside her. "His servants are more than loyal. They're devoted."

Juliet looked away across the open farmland.
Every cow, every blade of wheat, every worker - his responsibility. Was it a romantic
madness to make no economies, keep on all the old servants?

"Yet if the viscount fails, all of his
dependents will suffer, instead of just a few. When his debts are so severe,
how can he possibly recover?"

Mr. Primrose rode ahead of her and tossed the
answer over his shoulder. "Through the only path open to any gentleman,
ma'am: he gambles."

Juliet followed, not wanting to think about what
she'd just learned and could clearly imagine. An old estate encumbered with
dependents. Servants too ancient or infirm to find employment elsewhere,
retired workers, widows, children…and an orphan boy. Lord Gracechurch tried to
support all of them and still stave off his creditors by relying on wins at the
tables?

"There are other options," she insisted.
"He's a viscount. He could marry for money."

The tutor stopped his horse and turned to face
her. "That is hardly my business, is it, ma'am?" he asked. "Nor
yours."

He spun the bay about and rode away down the
track.

Alden, Viscount Gracechurch.
Α man who, when he married, must marry an
heiress. Why had he not done so years ago?

Her family must have known his, of course, though
she didn't recall ever meeting any of them. She had never known anything about
Alden, the younger son, not even his name. The heir, Gregory, had been killed,
she thought, in a duel-?

Five years older than I
.
He died while Ι was in Italy. There are
no words sufficient to comfort such a loss. Nothing that ever really heals it.
Ι won't ask you, Juliet.

Another part of the tenuous bond, deeper than
mere physical attraction, that had somehow sprung up between them. But he had
not been the cause of his brother's death, whereas she had been the cause of
hers.

She concentrated on mundane details, the passing
scenery, the flexible spine of the young man who rode ahead of her, until they
arrived in the stable yard of a large mansion. The rain started again.

Mr. Primrose helped her dismount. Α closed
coach already waited for them. Alden -
Lord
Gracechurch
-
had
obviously sent word as soon as he'd arrived home with the little boy.
Holding her trailing skirts off the wet cobbles, Juliet walked to the carriage.

"Lady Elizabeth Juliet Amberleigh?" a
woman's voice asked.
In stark shock, Juliet spun about.

Peter Primrose bowed deeply to the lady who had
just joined them. "Lady Gracechurch, your servant, ma'am."

Though a paler, more abstracted copy of her son,
it could be no one else. Alden's mother stood in the archway that led to the
house. She glanced away, as if not quite paying attention, or as if paying
equal attention to the clouds or the cobbles or the horses harnessed to the
carriage. Then she looked directly at Juliet once again and frowned.

"I remember you as a girl, Lady
Elizabeth," she said. "You were an ungrateful child. Children are a
great trial to their parents. If I’d had daughters, Ι would have wished
them to have been more obedient and grateful. Yet sons are so very, very
difficult. Your father has no children, does he? Not now?"