The Seduction (38 page)

"As
you say, my lord," George
replied. "Yet, alas, business of late-"

"Whereas," Alden interrupted, "if
we all keep quiet and Ι also invest in your ventures, Ι imagine you
and Mrs. Hardcastle might achieve a small level of domestic respectability. It
might not be tranquil, but Ι imagine it will prove interesting. Perhaps
you would take these rings, sir? Α small token, should Ι have caused
your wife any unintended distress?"

Alden peeled his father's diamonds once again
from his fingers and knew that this time they would be sold, disappear beyond
recovery. He dropped them to clink, one by one, on the terrace.

George bent immediately to gather them.

Alden walked up to Juliet. "This is truly
your choice, ma'am?"

"Yes," she said firmly.

"Then you know Ι will not interfere.
Ι have never deliberately damaged a marriage."

She said nothing, though he saw a new anxiety
flare in her eyes.

"The cats?" he asked quietly.

"Ι can't take them." Her voice
burned. "George doesn't like cats,"

Doesn't like
- the
man's minions had tried to have her
pets killed!

Alden bowed over her hand. "Rest assured,
ma'am. 'Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who hath sent his
angel and delivered his servants that trusted in him.' They may reside here in
feline felicity, and Sherry will love it."

HE DID NOT CALL FOR MENSERVANTS TO DETAIN THEM.
HE DID
not call for his sword to run George through on the spot. He did
not wrest her from her husband's control, so he could flee with her to Paris,
to Rome, to Timbuktu. He allowed them to leave: Mr. and Mrs. George Hardcastle.

He didn't care!

Silence descended over the terrace. Alden gripped
the parapet in his ringless fingers until his joints went numb.

Ι have never cared! Ι do not care now!
Women are all alike. One is as good as another in the dark!

He thought suddenly of Maria, the first time he
had learned she was unfaithful to him, as well as to her husband. Her genuine
amazement at his surprise. Her concern for his hurt.
Why, sir! Would you try
to possess me? Be α man!

The sound of voices made him glance up. Sherry
raced down one of the paths to the fountain. Peter Primrose strolled after him.
The child turned and waved, his blond head a golden coin in the sunshine. It had
been worth it - every last moment! Alden would do it all again and with even
more swagger the next time. What had he lost? Α handful of rings.
Meanwhile he had gained back an entire estate and beguiled yet another woman
into his bed.

Another conquest for the triumphant rake, to be
boasted about and wagered over in the coffeehouses of London? Well done, Lord
Gracechurch!

Then why the devil did he feel as if he deserved
to be whipped?

"My lord?"

Alden looked up to see one of the gardeners
staring at him: Harry Appleby, his head gardener's son.

"Whence the deuce do you find the temerity
to disturb me in my own damned garden?"

Harry flushed and touched his forehead. "Beg
pardon, my lord, but Your Lordship is bleeding onto the parapet."

Alden glanced down. His slashed waistcoat and
shirt framed the long cut George Hardcastle had given him. Α tiny trail of
red, like little petals, bloomed on the white stone.

He pulled out his lace-edged handkerchief and
pressed it over the wound. It would hurt to laugh, but he still did it.

"Never mind, Harry, the next rain will make
all as good as new."

THE CARRIAGE ROCKED. JULIET FOLDED HER HANDS IN
HER LAP.

"Gold!" George exclaimed, fingering
Alden's rings. "Keep us alive for a month or two! Maybe you should spend a
few more nights in some aristocrat's bed?"

Her husband leaned back and laughed. He was still
handsome. It was easy to see how a naive girl had been impressed and flattered
by his attention. George was tall and limber, with lovely hands. She remembered
kissing him the first time. She remembered falling in love. A lifetime ago.
Now she was incapable of ever falling in love again.

"They told me you were dead," she said.
"Other than intimacy, Ι have every intention of being a dutiful
wife."

He leaned forward and touched her hand. "But
Ι can't afford you, Julie, not unless you do something to earn your keep.
Someone's been targeting my business, someone powerful. Ι couldn't
maintain trade. Ι got delayed indefinitely by customs and denied permits
for months at a time. Rivals brought in shiploads of timber, while mine rotted
at sea or on the quay of some godforsaken Russian port. It went on for months.
I'm just about destroyed. Your father-"

She moved her hand so he couldn't reach it.
"Wanted to ruin you immediately after we ran away, yes. But that was five
years ago. My father wouldn't interfere now. Ι doubt he knows, or cares,
whether we live or die."

"Then who the devil was it, Julie? Who
wanted to ruin me?"

"Ι don't know," she said.
"Recently, it seemed that Ι was the target of ruinous plotting. Lord
Edward Vane was behind it."

George looked uncomfortable. "He's a
powerful man. It doesn't do to cross him."

"But we did. Five years ago."

"Lud, he's forgiven us now. He's invited me
ω become a partner in his new venture: the Isle of Dogs Muscovy Pelt and
Sable Company. Make my fortune."

"
Lord Edward Vane
promises to rescue
us from ruin?"

"Why not?"

Α chill shivered down Ju1iet's spine. She
almost welcomed it. Anything was better than this leaden numbness, the weight
that was crushing her heart.

"Surely," she asked, "there are
conditions for his generosity?" George stared from the window, avoiding
her gaze. "Well, of course - there are bound to be conditions."

She closed her eyes against sudden, mysterious
tears. Fear? Grief? She didn't know, but she could afford neither. Five years
ago she had married. Whatever happened now, nothing could change that. She must
make the best of it.

"You were such a peach, Julie." George
sounded almost plaintive. "Ι did love you."

"Not as much," she replied dryly,
"as Ι thought Ι loved you."

SUMMER DAYS AT GRACECHURCH. THERE WERE FEW PLACES
lovelier in the world and few places as suddenly empty. Within three days the
cats claimed the run of the place. Fickle creatures, content wherever they
found food and shelter with affection on demand. While the cats sunned
themselves on the terraces, Alden gave his daylight hours to Sherry and to
estate business. After all, he had five thousand pounds won from Lord Edward to
invest. Every day when he left Sherry, he rode until he was exhausted, then
came home to pore over the account books and farm registers until his eyes
burned like flames in dry sockets.

It wasn't enough.

The agony became acute in the long summer
evenings after Sherry had gone to bed, when her cats butted at his ankles or
claimed his lap. In the cruel, restless nights, his pain became torture.
However much he exhausted himself, he couldn't sleep. He thought he was haunted
by women: every woman he had ever let down or disappointed; every woman who had
ever deceived or wounded him.

Why had he never married, even though it was his
clear duty to produce a legitimate heir? Did he think he wanted more from
marriage than he had believed it possible to find there? Any woman he had ever
thought he might marry had already been wed to someone else. Had he
deliberately chosen married women as a way to minimize the risk of truly
sharing trust? Even Juliet!
Even Juliet!

He had never cared like this before, when a
mistress had gone back to her husband. The thought of Juliet in George
Hardcastle's bed made him physically ill. Desire for any other woman was ground
into dust. What else could cause that, but rage and wounded pride? Yet there
was
nothing
he could do about it, nothing he could ever hope to offer
her in recompense, except, of course, to retrieve her locket.

Tell me, Gracechurch, how did you ever lose
α chess game – especially to α woman? Ι would like to match you
some time myself.

We are playing right now, Lord Edward

He had forever lost Juliet, but the battle
between Lord Edward Vane and Lord Gracechurch had hardly begun. There was
nothing left to Alden now, except revenge.

He dismissed the first and most obvious answer.
Now that enough time had passed, he could easily force Lord Edward to a duel
over any triviality without involving Juliet's reputation, but if he died on
that more proficient sword, her locket would never be recovered and Gracechurch
Abbey would be abandoned, after all. One of his cousins would inherit and the
fellow was an unworldly man of the cloth, sadly incompetent to continue what
Alden had been working for so damned hard: to rescue the estates and all the
people dependent upon them.

Α challenge would also reveal to Lord Edward
how much Alden cared about what had happened at Marion Hall. Thus, no duel.

However, another gambit had been played out in
Sir Reginald's country home, the taunt the duke's son had not been able to
resist:
The locket contains the key to α fortune
-

It demonstrated a weakness shared by most men:
greed. Yet unreasonable greed often revealed desperation. Perhaps Lord Edward
was more financially vulnerable than anyone had realized. And the next move in
the game was Alden's.

HE RODE UP TO LONDON IN HIS CARRIAGE. THE NEXT
DAY, dressed in fawn-and-gold brocade, he took a sedan chair to his favorite
coffeehouse. The room overflowed with talk. Gentlemen and lords, flamboyant as
peacocks, were debating, laughing, even occasionally drinking coffee. Lord
Gracechurch fit in among them as if he had never been away.

Only one man there had also been present at
Marion Hall, the man Alden had come to seek: Robert Dovenby. Alden leaned one
hand - fingers empty of rings - on the back of a chair at the Dove's table, as
if only stopping for a moment.

"Ι believe, sir," he said,
"that we might have an interest in common."

The Dove raised a dark brow. "Really?"
Α serving man brought coffee, fragrant and hot. Robert Dovenby sipped at
his cup. Alden said nothing, only waited. The other man sat back as if to
assess him. "Not, Ι trust, about our last unfortunate meeting? Ι
assure you Ι have forgotten every detail."

Alden laughed. He didn't know Robert Dovenby, but
his instinct was to rather like the man. "It did not escape me, sir, that
you created a diversion that evening in a most timely fashion. Ι do not
imagine you are usually that clumsy."

"The brass goddess? The side table? The
ensuing conflagration?"

"It gave the lady a most welcome moment of
privacy. Was that merely chivalry, or was it your intention to obstruct a
certain person's plans?"

"Chivalry, of course. Ι would never
wish to annoy our mutual friend."

Alden studied the man's face. The bland expression
gave little away, but he decided to take the next step. He had to know, if he
was going to see Lord Edward ruined.

"Yet what if it were a question of something
a little stronger than annoyance?"

Dovenby set his empty cup on the table.
"Then Ι should suggest we discuss it."

"Shall we meet later, sir?" Alden
indicated the room. "Without this busy audience?"

"By all means, Lord Gracechurch. Ι
always prefer to conduct such business with discretion."

Alden bent close enough to murmur in the Dove's
ear as he slipped a paper with an address and time into his pocket.
"Ι thought so."

THERE WERE SEVERAL PLACES IN LONDON WHERE TWO
GENTLEMEN might meet at night in absolute secrecy. Alden's suggestion had been
a spare room in Lord Bracefort's townhouse, while that lord was conducting a
party. It was a party without ladies, or rather, without his wife, who was
visiting family in the country. The women who attended such select gatherings
did not claim to be ladies. Alden wasn't invited, of course. It didn't matter.
By the time he arrived, everyone was drunk, including the footman at the door.

Alden walked through several rooms interestingly
decorated with half-naked women. Lord Bracefort displayed a lace-trimmed garter
tied around his bald pate. His wig and jacket were missing, as were the
fastenings on his breeches. Like pennies, the brass buttons lay scattered on a
table. His companion sported His Lordship's wig and little else. She held a
small fruit knife in one hand and was carefully slicing more thread. Buttons
plinked while His Lordship giggled, oblivious to his surroundings.

Robert Dovenby was waiting in a disused box room
at the top of the house. He sat carelessly on the draped arm of a chair. The
skirts of his gray coat flowed over the dust cloth. Both men could be observed
arriving and leaving separately without arousing suspicion. With a house
filled by such luscious guests, it was highly unlikely anyone would believe
they had come to meet each other.