A Study In Seduction (25 page)

Lydia twisted the folds of her skirt. Mrs. Boyd had been waiting for her when she returned from a brief meeting with Talia at St. Martin’s Hall. Her heart ached at the discovery that Alexander had gone to her grandmother without her knowledge, even as she could not deny a thrill at the evidence of his persistence.

The man
wanted
her to be his wife.

“You know quite well why I refused,” she told her grandmother.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, Lydia! Have you forgotten your position? That you were responsible for ruining your own future? That once Jane leaves this house and begins her own life, you have
nothing
?”

“I could… I couldn’t agree to his proposal without
telling him the truth.” Lydia forced away the tears beginning to fill her chest, to choke her throat. “He has… has a reputation, I know, his family does, but he’s a good man. He has a good heart. And if he were to take a wife who…”

“A wife who what? Who is a mathematical genius? Clearly he finds that an asset rather than a detriment. And have you thought about what this could do for us?” Mrs. Boyd moved closer to Lydia. “Everyone with whom I have spoken has been conciliatory about the viscount. Oh, several have mentioned the scandal, of course, but really, Lord Northwood is not to blame for that. His own reputation remains intact, as long as one does not punish him for the sins of his parents. Which I am not inclined to do.”

“And what of
my
reputation?”

“You have no reputation, Lydia, not in such lofty circles. That is why Lord Northwood chose you—he doesn’t want a titled woman who fears the scandal will reflect upon her family. With you, the man has a respectable woman who is admired for her intellect and will prove a good and honorable wife.”

“I am not honorable.”

“You can be.” Her grandmother thumped her cane hard on the floor. “Idiot girl! This is your only chance to better yourself, Lydia, to better the pathetic life you lead. You don’t even have your work anymore, do you? Not the way you’d wish for it to be. Do you want to spend the next twenty years hiding, wasting away to nothing?”

“What makes you think marriage to Northwood would prevent that?”

“You’d at least have a good life, Lydia! Yes, he has difficulties, but even two months ago did you imagine you
would ever be in this position? He’s a viscount! He has a fortune. Imagine what you could do if he allowed it.”

The horrible thing was, Lydia could imagine. She’d thought about little else ever since Alexander first proposed.

She imagined working with Talia on the ragged schools’ educational program, helping establish mathematical curricula for girls’ schools. She could imagine teaching governesses how best to approach mathematical instruction, funding symposiums, lectures. She could even see herself at Alexander’s side with the Society of Arts—exhibitions of inventions, award programs, judging panels.

And, of course, she could envision
him—
talking with him, touching him, kissing him, feeling his hands on her body, his gaze warm on her face.

Whenever she wanted. All the time. Without reservation. With him.

Imagining all that, picturing it in her future, caused a longing so deep, so sharp, that Lydia almost couldn’t breathe.

“Is this what you wanted?” Her grandmother’s voice was closer.

Lydia turned to look at her, into the blue eyes so like her own, so like her mother’s. Mrs. Boyd’s expression softened with regret. She put her hand on Lydia’s cheek.

“Did you really expect your life would turn out like this?” her grandmother asked.

Lydia swallowed past the lump in her throat, her heart squeezing painfully. “What will you do if I accept him? What about Jane?”

“Oh, Lydia.” Her grandmother’s eyes glistened with a sheen of tears. “We’ll be here. We’ll always be here.
You’ll see Jane as much as you do now, if not more. And do you think Jane’s feelings for you will change one whit simply because you’re married to Lord Northwood?”

Lydia’s tears spilled over, rolling so fast that she tasted salt on her lips. She grasped her grandmother’s hand where it rested against her cheek. “How can I not tell him?”

“Because you can’t.” Such a simple response, and yet so tangled, so twisted. “It isn’t as if anyone will ever know.”

“Everything will change,” Lydia whispered.

“Only for the better.”

“I’ve already refused.” She struggled to hold on to her resolve, but she could feel it weakening, breaking, the light of a possible new future showing through the cracks. The shadows would always be there, but maybe now, finally, the brightness would overpower them.

If she allowed it to.

“Lord Northwood told me the offer stands for one more week,” Mrs. Boyd said. “He wants to marry you, Lydia. He wouldn’t have asked otherwise. You mustn’t allow this opportunity to pass. For Jane’s sake, if for no other reason. Do for her what your parents were unable to do for you.”

A thread of candlelight wove through the darkness. Lydia approached the bed where Jane lay beneath the covers, staring at the pattern of shadows across the ceiling.

Lydia paused and looked at the girl. She saw no resemblance to Theodora Kellaway in Jane’s rounded features, her soft, full mouth, her dark eyebrows. And as much as she wanted things to have been different with her mother, Lydia was glad—fiercely glad—that Jane bore no similarities to a woman whose mind had filled with darkness.

She sat on the edge of the bed and rested her hand over Jane’s. Jane tried to pull away, her body stiffening.

“Jane?”

Jane turned her head, studying Lydia with a peculiar intentness, as if she’d never seen her in this light before.

“What did Grandmama say?” Jane asked. “Did she tell you Lord Northwood came to her about the proposal?”

“You knew about that?”

“I heard them talking.”

“What do you think of the idea?” Lydia waited, hoping for a faint flicker of interest, of
something
, to cross Jane’s expression, but the girl’s face remained as unreadable as a china plate. “Does it upset you?”

Jane shrugged. “Do what you like. I won’t be here much longer anyway, at least once Grandmama makes the arrangements for Paris.”

A faint accusing tone underscored her voice. Lydia tightened her clasp on Jane’s hand.

“I should like to go to Paris,” Jane continued. “And I like Lady Montague.”

Unease constricted Lydia’s heart. “She seems kind, doesn’t she? Certainly very… very refined.”

“Grandmama’s right, you know. My education has been a bit lacking. I ought to learn French and that sort of thing.”

Lydia forced a smile. “Well, Paris is the place to do that.”

Jane sat up so quickly that Lydia released her hand. The candle flame flared across Jane’s pale features.

“That’s it?” she snapped. “You don’t even care that I’m going away?”

“Of course I care, Jane. I’ll miss you terribly.”

“No, you won’t! You’ll be glad to get rid of me, won’t you, now that you’ve got Lord Northwood.”

Shocked, Lydia watched a flood of tears fill Jane’s eyes. “Jane—”

“No.” Jane pushed at Lydia’s hands when she tried to reach for her. “Leave me alone. Is that why you gave him the locket, Lyddie, so he’d ask you to marry him?”

The locket?

“Jane, how… how did you know he has the locket?”

“I saw him with it when I went for a piano lesson. Then he… yesterday when he was… Oh, never mind.” Jane glared at her, her chin set with mutinous stubbornness. “Is this why he had it? Because you wanted to marry him?”

“No.” Lydia pressed her hand to her throat, unable to absorb exactly what Jane was telling her. “No. The locket… Oh, it’s such a long story, but it’s true. Lord Northwood never intended to keep it. It was always meant to be yours one day.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want it.”

“Why would you say such a thing? And why would you think I’d trade the locket for marriage?”

“So you could get away from the boredom of
this
.” Jane flung her arm out as if to encompass their lives together. “So you could live the life of a viscountess. So you wouldn’t need to do whatever Grandmama says and you’d no longer have to bother with me.”

“What gave you the notion I’ve ever considered you a bother?” Lydia tried to reach for her again, but Jane rolled away and curled herself into a tight ball. “I love you, Jane. I love our life. If I did marry Lord Northwood, it wouldn’t be because I was trying to escape.”

Lydia rubbed her burning eyes, exhaustion falling
over her. She bent to wrap one arm around Jane, ignoring the girl’s stiffening rejection as she pressed her lips to Jane’s hair.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “None of this was intended to hurt you. Just the opposite. I only ever wanted to protect you.”

“From what?” The pillow didn’t muffle the crack in Jane’s voice.

“From… from living a life you didn’t want. From being unhappy.”

“Like you are?”

A lump clogged Lydia’s throat. “You think I’m unhappy?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Not when I’m with you. Never.”

“But other times? You seemed so. At least until you met Lord Northwood.” Jane shifted, turning to peer at Lydia over her shoulder. “Why is that?”

Lydia’s heart wrenched. She thought of Alexander, that beautiful man with his sunlit black hair, angular features, and formidable build that contained the strength of a thousand ancestors.

She tightened her arm around Jane.

“Because, my dearest girl,” she whispered, the confession falling like drops of water from a leaf, “I love him.”

Alexander didn’t move. He watched Lydia as she stood inside the doorway of his drawing room, her hands twisted in front of her, her skin as pale as milk. A dark storm brewed in her eyes.

He cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said I accept your proposal, my lord,” Lydia repeated. “I will marry you, should… should you still desire the union.”

I will marry you.
The words he’d longed to hear since the night he’d proposed. A cautious hope began to form.

He approached Lydia, his boots soundless on the carpet. She drew back closer to the door.

“What has brought on this change of heart?” he asked.

“You told my grandmother.” An accusatory tone sharpened her voice.

“Because I knew she would see reason.”

“Well, then? You’ve got what you want. I said I’ll marry you.”

Alexander scraped a hand through his hair. Although she spoke the words he desperately wanted to hear, unease twisted through him. He’d wanted Mrs. Boyd to convince Lydia to marry him, but something was still wrong—and he’d no idea what.

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t wish our relationship to cause suspicion of impropriety. I take full responsibility, of course, as I’m the one who initiated… things. And because of that, I must do what I can to rectify the situation.”

“So you’ll marry me to stifle a scandal of which there is yet no evidence.”

Her eyes flew to his. “I don’t mean to imply that’s my only motive, but I know you understand the necessity of avoiding gossip.”

Alexander was silent. He studied her for a moment, attempting to read beneath the surface of her contained demeanor.

“Two weeks ago you were adamant in your claim you would never marry,” he said. “You were equally adamant that you would never marry
me
. Now because I’ve spoken to your grandmother, you stand here not only willing to marry me, but also claiming your acceptance is a protective measure.”

“I… I refused before I knew that rumors were—”

“You refused because you did not want to marry,”
Alexander interrupted. “Why did you allow your grandmother to change your mind?”

“I realized there is a possibility of damaging rumors.”

“That wasn’t enough to deter you from asking me to be your lover.”

A crimson flush bloomed across her cheeks. “I… I fear I behaved quite irrationally. I apologize. I should have maintained my sense of decency.”

Alexander stepped closer to her so she was backed against the door; then he cupped his hand beneath her chin and brought her face up. She still didn’t meet his gaze.

“You think”—his tone dropped dangerously low—“you think what we have done is indecent?”

Her jaw tightened against his palm. “A respectable woman does not engage in affairs.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

He moved his hand to the side of her neck, resting his thumb against the pulse that beat just underneath the surface of her skin. The movement of that little pulse revealed her emotions far more acutely than her words did. In a purposeful reminder of their very first encounter, right here in this room, he began to stroke her throat with slow movements of his thumb.

Lydia swallowed. A tremble coursed through her. Alexander stepped even closer, so close that not an inch separated them, so close that their bodies touched. So close that her clean scent filled the air he breathed.

He pressed his lips against the gentle hollow of her temple. Her pulse increased against his palm. He put his other hand against the door behind her. He moved his mouth lower, over her cheek to her ear.

“You think it’s been indecent, Lydia?” he whispered.
“That you haven’t behaved respectably? Writhing naked in my bed? Letting me kiss your bare skin, touch your—”

“Alexander…” Her voice was strangled.

He inhaled the scent of her, brushing his lips across the soft skin of her neck. “Why didn’t you accept my first offer?”

“I… I should have.”

He pulled back to look at her, his breathing rapid. “Why didn’t you?”

Something appeared to harden within her—a resolve, a determination—and she lifted her eyes to his.

Alexander stared down at her, watching with a trace of fascination as Lydia’s mind worked behind her lovely blue eyes. It was like gazing at a clock, knowing all the gears, weights, and springs were operating in complex unison behind the perfect, pristine face, yet still having no idea how everything fitted together.