The Trouble With Seduction (2 page)

An overpowering urge to hold and touch items Edward made for her became paramount. Her teeth ground together as she strode to the door. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, I’m not able to go with you today. Megpeas will show you out.”

“I say, Sis, getting away for a little while might be just the thing.”

She yanked open the door. “Unfortunately, I already have a very full day.”

Sarah nearly ran up the stairs and down the long hallway. Her shoes tapped on the marble slabs as she turned into a darkened corridor. Three rows of rectangular wooden moldings marched along the walls.

After checking up and down the empty hallway, she pulled a chain from under her collar. On it hung an ornate key. She counted to the middle fifth rectangle on her right, ran her finger under the lower left-hand corner, and fitted the key into the lock. Giving it a firm twist, the secret door swung inward. She quickly stepped through and relocked the door.

For Sarah, entering this plush, gilded room had been an escape from everyday life into a world of pleasure and sensuality. Sparkling red and gold veils filtered sunlight and shed an aura of fantasy across masses of soft furs and pillows. This had been her and Edward’s secret seraglio.

Slowly making her way across the soft sheepskin and llama hides, she touched the face of the court jester automaton Edward had designed for her. Polished music boxes lined a Chippendale bookcase. She lifted the lid on a mahogany and rosewood music box. The tinkling melody of Schubert’s ‘Near My Beloved’ began to play.

Humming along, she grasped the silver salver from the bedside table’s bottom shelf and set it on top, pulled back the red velvet and unveiled its contents. Special oils, redolent of lime, cedar and incense – still pungent after all this time – burst through the air and filled her senses.

Eddie, the Earl of Strathford, her second husband, hadn’t been what most considered physically attractive or possessed of a conventional personality, and in certain social situations he could be slightly awkward. None of these things mattered.

Though twice her age, she’d grown to treasure him for his good heart, his curiosity about the world and his sheer brilliance. How she had relished watching him create. Out of scraps of odds and ends he’d piece together the most miraculous inventions.

Sarah breathed in the fragrances and perused the salver of Edward’s toys like she would a tray of tasty treats. A smile worked its way across her lips. Oh, the wickedness of that man. Over the few short years of their marriage, dear Eddie had shown her what a creative inventor could do for a woman. Unfortunately, his inventions often took priority and his toys became her only bed partners. Perhaps she should see if they still worked?

Gliding a hand over a few of the devices, she paused above the ‘spine tickler.’ Then pressed her palm into its shiny ball bearings.
Hmm.
No
.
Maybe not.

This one, perhaps?
Her fingers flexed over the ‘pony rocket.’ A particularly provocative memory locked her teeth, sending a zing through a molar.
No. She didn’t trust herself with the ‘pony.’

Her hand grazed the slightly ribbed surface of the ‘Buzzy Bee,’ Edward’s redesigned version of
le
Tremoussoir
. He’d painted it yellow and had given it to her for her twenty-fifth birthday. She picked it up, admiring its contoured design and perfect dimensions constructed just for her. The surface felt surprisingly warm, almost inviting.

Once more, for old time’s sake
?

Sarah lay down on the bed’s soft fur, hiked up her skirts and, as she turned the key to wind up the device, read Edward’s inscription: THINK OF ME.

“Eddie. Dear Eddie, how I’ve missed you,” she whispered, as she pressed the button and smiled at the mechanism’s low
zzzzzz
.

The initial touch always startled. After a few moments, its buzzing vibration filled her nether regions with a tingling hum. She closed her eyes, concentrated on Edward’s sweet visage and let her imagination unfold.

Unbidden, instead of Edward, the handsome face and strapping physique of one extremely irritating dance partner surfaced.

Mr Cornelius Ravenhill.

She sank deeper into the furs and commanded his image to smile, only to realize she’d not seen him smile, merely glower disapprovingly. While they’d danced, she’d been agape at his good looks and manliness. He, on the other hand, barely said two words to her and kept his gaze pinned to the doorway. Rude lout. A little over a week had passed since, and she refused to give him even a second thought. How had that vexatious man snuck into her daydream?

The ‘Buzzy Bee’ bravely soldiered on, spurring her cleft into a delicious throb, making her hips quiver. Soon her sinews quickened, readying to find that sublime moment of bliss.

Tap, Tap, Tap.

Sarah grimaced and her eyes rolled back into her head. She barely heard the knock at the secret door as her inner muscles coiled and tightened toward that glorious peak.

Tap, Tap, Tap. “My lady. Are you in there?”

Her maid’s voice momentarily broke through the pleasurable sensation.

Sarah pressed the ‘Buzzy Bee’ harder against her – concentrating, clenching, feeling the deeper sensation drive tremors all the way down her legs.

Tap, Tap, Tap. “Please, my lady.”

Oh, for God’s sake
. “What!”

Gracie called from the other side of the door. “One of the workmen found something in the laboratory’s ashes. The foreman thinks it highly important, something you must see.”

***

A few minutes later, Sarah limped through the curtain hung to block the dust and grime in Edward’s burned laboratory. A fine hum of frustration stiffened her spine. This day had been one interruption after another.

Several workers leaned on their shovels talking and laughing. In the corner, the burly carpenter swung a huge hammer into the wall, shattering the charred plaster. He bent over to inspect his work.

She stopped abruptly. Her eyes fastened on the two firm mounds of –
Good Heavens!
She spun around. Workmen stood about dawdling, inflaming her sensibilities to palpable aggravation. She pivoted again in search of the foreman. “I was told an item had been found, one I needed to inspect,” she announced to no one in particular.

“Yes, my lady,” a low rasp vibrated behind her.

She turned.

The carpenter mopped a sleeve over his forehead and slid a stub of pencil behind an ear. The movement drew attention to the flexed muscles outlined by his tight work smock. “It is over here, my lady.” In three long, languid steps he arrived at a worktable in the opposite corner.

Sarah followed, growing testier by the second.

Leaning forward, his broad shoulders crowded her against the table. His scent of soap and charred wood suffused the air. He pointed to what looked like a half-burned cord.

She clutched her high collar and sought to calm her clambering pulse. “What is this… thing?” The nearness of such an overtly virile male made her insides jumpy.

“A spent blasting fuse, my lady.” His voice lowered to a breathy scratch. “Fuses like this one are used in mines to blast out rock. Not the sort of thing generally found lying about stately mansions.”

“My husband was an inventor. He collected many unusual items for his contraptions.”

“Did his inventions include explosions?”

Not in the usual sense
. She pulled at her collar. “I wouldn’t know.”

“This fuse was not totally destroyed in the blast.” He motioned to the charred walls.

The ominous sound in his voice made Sarah’s mouth go dry. “What are you saying?”

“It appears, my lady, your husband’s laboratory may have been purposely destroyed.”

“Is this what the foreman wanted me to see?”

“Yes, my lady. He has gone for the police.”

CHAPTER 2

Not far away, Damen Aloysius Ravenhill, eldest son and heir to Viscount Falgate, trudged down the dim, rock-lined corridor of Falgate Hall. The cold fortress remained as forbidding as ever. With each step, dread clawed deeper, forcing him to hesitate in the bedchamber’s doorway at the prospect of what he would soon find.

He took a step into the dark-paneled room. A mammoth four-poster bed dressed in a green canopy and intricately carved ebony bedposts stood in its center. At the head of the bed, Damen could barely make out a large, bowl-shaped wrap of bandages.

Viscount Falgate, his father, sat in a wheelchair at the side of the bed, hunched forward, gently holding a lifeless hand. Cornelius’s distinctive amber ring glinted on the hand’s little finger.

Deep bags spilled over the viscount’s prominent cheekbones. His once robust physique now appeared shrunken, desiccated to a bird-like fragility. Damen hadn’t seen his father since he’d visited Liverpool six months before. His decline verged on frightening.

Falgate glanced at him through puffy red eyes and croaked angrily, “I told you not to come.”

Damen had caught the first train to Falgate Hall anyway. Worry rode with him every twist and turn of the journey.

Heart heavy with foreboding, he took another step. Now he could see his battered, almost unrecognizable younger brother propped up against the headboard. From his eyebrows upward, layers of bandages circled his skull like a turban.

“Cory.” Damen barely recognized the tight rasp of his own voice.

His father swallowed audibly. “The villains tried to make it appear a mugging.”

“Who did this?”

With the briefest of shrugs, his father muttered, “Before dying, his footman said they’d been following a bawd when five ruffians attacked. He said Cory knew one of the villains. Our coachman found your brother and his footman the next morning in an alley behind the Mission of Mercy in St Gi—” A wracking cough stole his breath.

St Giles
?
Why was Cory in St Giles?

The last time he’d seen his brother had been in Liverpool five years before when he’d shipped out on a vessel bound for the Orient.

His father’s face contorted. “He’d barely been back in London two weeks.” After a moment, he regained control and turned to Damen, scrutinizing him. “Are there no barbers in Liverpool?”

Resisting the urge to rake his fingers through his long beard, he took halting steps toward the bed. He grasped the bedpost and finally let his eyes drift over his brother. If not for his occasional shallow gasps, Cory appeared a corpse.

Sentiment wrapped its talons around his heart and squeezed painfully. Had they used his brother’s head as a battering ram against a brick wall? His fists ached to pound the bastards into a bloody pulp. “Do the police have any leads?”

“I prefer they not be involved.” Anger vibrated in his father’s hoarse voice. His gaze drifted back to Damen’s beard, almost making it itch.

The police in St Giles had been an unscrupulous, overbearing lot when Damen was a boy. Clearly, his father still considered them corrupt. “Is there anything I can do?”

Anguish lined the viscount’s face as he shook his head.

“Why was Cory in St Giles?”

“Suspicious fires destroyed parts of our warehouses and properties. He’d been investigating them. I’ve lost the stamina to fight this.” His shoulders slumped. “If they’re not stopped, there’ll not be a pot left to pi—” He coughed deeply, dug into a pocket for a handkerchief and wiped his mouth.

Damen paced to the window. He should have been here. Sorrow and barely repressed fury boiled inside. Only a year apart, as boys he and Cory looked enough alike to be twins. They’d often used their resemblance to fool marks and shopkeepers – running them in circles.

Cory was the charmer. He’d seen him talk his way out of trouble too many times to count. When that didn’t work, Damen had always been there with the heavy fists and dirty tricks to chase whomever needed chasing off.

“You should have sent word.” He cut a sharp glance toward his father. “You know I’m better at dealing with rabble than he is.”

“You had your hands full in Liverpool. Cory offered to help.”

Mementos from the pranks he and his younger brother had enjoyed as youths lay scattered about a heavily carved table. Lifelike decoy ducks used on their hunting trips lined the table’s back. Damen twiddled the movable feet of a small metallic duck as he studied the new, exotic items brought home from his brother’s recent travels.

The assault on Cory couldn’t have come at a worse time. Crews were in the midst of constructing two warehouses – a risky, weighty task. Fists, brawn and cunning ruled the Liverpool docks. He should be there right now to safeguard his family’s interests.

Still, he and Cory were as close as any two brothers could be. Not since his mother passed had his powerlessness so frightened him. He had to do something. He couldn’t bring Cory out of his coma, but he could catch the brutal villains who’d done this and put them behind bars. An idea took form as Damen gazed at the decoy ducks again. “I’ll find Cory’s attackers.”

“NO!” his father barked with surprising force. “This is precisely why I told you not to come!”

“I spent my boyhood in St Giles. I know the ways of that world. No one is more prepared than I.” As a boy, against his parents’ orders, he’d explored the rookery’s labyrinthine underworld. There, villains could melt into the murk, their identities amorphous, ever shifting. If anyone could find them, he could.

“Cory and I were often mistaken for one another. No one would—”

“I forbid it!” His father’s voice came out as thin and sharp as a dagger nailing him to the wall. “You were nine when you left, still a boy. Your full attention is needed for our growing business in Liverpool. I wanted you there for a reason… to keep you as far from St Giles as possible.”

“Farnsworth, my superintendent, can take over in my absence.”

The muscles worked in his father’s emaciated jaw as he gazed up at the ornate cast plaster on the high ceiling. “You underestimate the danger.”

“I know the police can’t be trusted, and the villains’ trail grows colder by the minute.”

His father’s face turned crimson. A new vigor seemed to revive him. “Stubborn fool!” He pounded his cane on the floor. “How can you be so brilliant yet so dense? If they were bold enough to do this to him, they will not hesitate to do the same to you!”