Seven Secrets of Seduction (28 page)

“We can head home, or wait it out.” His eyes were hot, enticing, watching her. They had been since they'd been interrupted in the library.

A thrill coursed through her—a thrill stemming purely from the way he made her feel, her gambit almost forgotten beneath the heat he generated within her. The layers that restlessly awaited discovery. She moved toward him across the space, allowing her new resolve to carry her forward to what she truly wanted to do. To turn his world around. To turn her own in the process, under
her
control for once.

She let a soft bump move her hands to his knees to steady herself.

Her hands slipped up his thighs, almost of their own volition. She heard his intake of breath and smiled. Whatever else, he affected some deep feminine wile and want inside of her. Made her feel both powerful and powerless at turns. She gripped the power and pulled her silk-encased fingers down his strong thighs and back up. Letting the motion of the carriage guide her actions, pulling her forward between his legs. His dark eyes turned fierce, and his hand slipped into the hair at her nape, caressing the soft skin there.

“Miranda, what are you doing?”

“Enjoying the thunderstorm.”

She slipped her fingers around the fasteners at the top of his trousers and flicked them free, her new gloves doing nothing to hinder the motion, their quality, clutching and hugging each furrow and tip, giving her unparalleled dexterity. The image from the pages
of the scandalous illumination rose in her mind. The devilry depicted of a woman chaining a man to her bidding. Putting forth a siren call, but without sound, through the touch of fingers to skin, mouth to limb.

He reached for her, as if to bring her back to the seat, to take control of their movements. She flicked his hand away and pushed his chest so that he was leaning back against the cushion.

His eyes were black. Anticipation, lust, and uncertainty in their depths. Just as she wanted.

She took him in her hand, pulling the new silk along hot skin. “Page six intrigued me just as much as page seven. You will let me satisfy my curiosity, will you not?”

If it was possible for black to go a darker shade, his eyes did. He breathed in a long stretch of air, his head tipping back as she explored.

A wild drumbeat thumped in her, under her, over her. Her heart beating as quickly and loudly as she could ever recall. He thrust in her grip, giving her a wild sense of power.

She touched her lips to him, much as she'd seen in the picture, and within half a beat, she was pulled up and on top of him, the rocking of the carriage immediately thrusting them together in an intimate dance, her lips crushed to his. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gripped on for dear life as he clutched her to him. His hands ran along and under her, lifting and spearing her. Sounds were lost to the rain and thunder, the beat of the stones beneath them.

“My beautiful Miranda.”

She rocked against him, in time with him, buried deliciously deep within her, each thrust touching something white-hot.

Thunder crackled, and the carriage swayed more wildly. A wheel caught the edge of the stones and lurched dangerously as he thrust inside of her more intensely. She hung on, drugged and delirious with the urge to move closer, to connect that extra bit, to merge, the almost violent sensations coursing through her, burning her skin, her blood, urging her forward.

The carriage could rip apart, her biggest fear realized, and still she'd likely clutch him all the more to her breast, between her thighs. His mouth hot against her skin, whispering words lost in the thunder. His lips pledging a thousand words that even the finest sonnet couldn't capture.

She came apart above him as he grabbed her hips and made her world explode. Clutching him as the shudders wracked them both. As the rain pelted the windows.

But, no matter what game she would continue to play, there was something that told her he would always have the upper hand. For she was willing to risk everything in the game, and he had no need to do so.

 

He rested on the carriage blanket, the thickness of it unable to keep away the damp grass that clung to the edges of the fabric when their actions moved it. Here in the afterglow of the light rain, they were alone. She rested against him, absently pulling a piece of wet grass between her fingers. Everything was still. The silver of the sky reflecting against the glass of the water. Two ducks coasted across the surface, a light triangle of movement in their wake.

He toyed with a lock of her hair. He had been sent reeling in the carriage. He had been reeling all morning actually. He didn't know what he had set into
motion with his actions last night at the masquerade, but she had been liquid fire all day. It tempted and unnerved him.

He had been driven to a craze when he'd seen her speaking to…His mouth tightened. Nothing his father or family did should surprise him. Like taking the identity he had carelessly cultivated and using it against him. Forcing him into a corner.

The identity he had created in an attempt to mock London's masses. To mock his parents and their conquests. To mock himself.

Worse for the way the public had responded. Had gone mad. He'd been driven to write a note against himself. What were people thinking to find Eleutherios a man to admire? Writing tactics to seduce and enslave.

An identity that he'd locked away with mockery, until he'd seen the letter to the editor from an M. Chase. Only a person half-hidden in the clouds of her own guilelessness could have been responsible for writing such a note. And yet there was something in the note that had spoken to him. Some deep desire within to be the man that M. Chase thought he was.

And so he'd done the only thing he could. He had written a scathing note directly to M. Chase in the same manner that he'd written the scathing invective against his own work. Determined to bury it. Destroy it.

When an equally compelling rejoinder crossed his desk, he had responded even more harshly, but with new inklings of the type of person he might be responding to. That maybe M. Chase was
real.
Note after note was exchanged, leaving him with the increasing determination to find out who the person was on the other side of the pen. He'd sat in his carriage outside the bookseller's shop for two hours
before she'd exited. And he had known who she was immediately.

No need for her to confirm that she was a woman. He'd known as soon as he'd seen her that she was M. Chase. Would have known her anywhere, quite possibly. The faraway look in her eyes, the practical bent to her step. She stood out from everyone else on the street. She shone like a lighthouse beacon. He couldn't credit why the men passing her on the street didn't stop and stare in wonder. But it was as if they had blinders on, looking in every other direction.

It had taken him two days to figure out a proper response. A way to develop a more personal, informal exchange. To lure her to admit she was female. To start a flirtation, a devious, hidden one. A plan within a plan.

And still there had been that desire to destroy it all. For it would all be destroyed sooner or later. Why prolong the inevitable and make it remotely painful? Especially when she continued to support Eleutherios. Damn author. Damn writings. He had urged her to write to the man. Determined to crush her illusions of him. To respond in the manner that he always mocked.

And yet…when she had written, he had been unable to do it. He'd gripped his pen and tried to write each crushing word. To slaughter the illusion.

But he'd been unable to do it. Had thrown the inkpot against the wall.

And then had promptly written her back, all of the sappy, stupid emotions that he repressed finding their ways onto the page.

Another inkpot destroyed, he had directed Jeffries to obtain a copy of the Gothic he knew she would enjoy. Had sent it with the shortest note of which he was capable.

Had destroyed a third inkpot afterward, then had gone straight to his club to drown the thoughts of his intentions.

He looked down at her uncovered hair. At the way the filtered light caught the shine, unable to dim it even in the clinging darkness after the storm.

For all of the strangeness of the morning—for what had come over her in the library organization?—he had to acknowledge that this newly freed facet just added to the intoxication. She would make the absolutely perfect mistress. She just proved it over and again. Made him further determined to secure her to him.

He wondered if one could chain one's wife to the country house and stay with one's mistress all the day and night.

He thought of the draft betrothal document sitting upon his desk, awaiting his revisions and additions. Distasteful business securing a wife. His mother would know. But he would not make the mistake his mother had.

He wouldn't fall in love with his wife. He wouldn't marry for love.

Element #2: When you find the perfect specimen to enchant, you must make sure to guard yourself in return. For enchantment, like seduction, can quickly be turned upon the enchanter.

The Eight Elements of Enchantment

(work in progress)

 

S
he stared at him, her hand upon a stack of books once more. “Go with you where?”

“To Windsor. There is a small estate I have to visit. And some business I must attend to.”

“You actually do something constructive during the day?”

“Amusing.”

She had only been half joking.

“For the day?”

“The weekend.”

She blinked. “I can't go with you for the weekend.”

“Why not?”

“It's…it's unseemly.”

“Is it?” He looked amused. “Unseemly
now
?”

She ignored the question. “For all of his blissful ignorance to my behavior these past weeks, I'm sure my uncle will notice my absence for a whole weekend.”

“I'm sure your uncle won't mind.” He tossed a book on the table. She could see the letters on the binding.
The Bengal Returns.
A short sequel that was even more rare than the original.

She touched the cover, not looking at him. “You are too used to getting your way,” she whispered.

“It is better that way. Besides, tell him the library could use a scrub.”

“A scrub?” She'd give it a scrub. She tapped her fingers on the leather, then looked up. She smiled widely, innocently. “I will take care of it as soon as we arrive. When do we leave?”

 

Max watched her across the swaying carriage. He thought about using the interior in the same manner they had previously but found himself absorbing the way her features changed when she took in the new sights, when she talked of things especially dear to her.

“The Louvre.” She sighed. “Someday.”

“You say that often.”

She smiled faintly. “I do.” A delicate crease appeared upon her brow. “And I can't simply carry on as is, or nothing will change.” It was almost as if she were speaking of something else. “But it is so hard to change, to take a forward step when one's current situation is not terrible. Is in fact pleasant.”

“But the rewards aren't as great.”

She gazed at him, something in her eyes making him want to shift on his seat. They were speaking of her, not him. And he hadn't felt tendrils of unease over his
own actions in a very long time. Why did he always feel them around her?

“True.” She looked away again, and the constriction in his chest eased a fraction. “But then why wouldn't one grab those rewards? Fear is a powerful motivation. One can't realize one's true potential if one clings to fear. Or hate.”

“Hate?”

“Sometimes hatred of the self is the reason.” She said it lightly, gazing out at the countryside. He felt it like a brick to the head.

“Do you hate yourself?”

“No.” She looked from the window to him again. There was a strange calmness to her gaze. “Do you?”

“Hard to hate perfection.”

She shook her head and looked back through the pane. But her expression was pensive. Not the amusement or irritation the words should have caused.

He tapped a finger against his leg militantly. “A strange response. Hatred of the self? Where did you come up with such nonsense?”

She didn't say anything for a long moment, then she shrugged. “It matters not.”

“I must know.”

“Simply a sentiment that I've encountered lately in a…friend.”

He didn't like that answer at all. He wanted to pursue the inquiry, but something held him back. He wouldn't like where it led. Somehow he knew that.

“And fear? What do you fear?”

She tilted her head, watching him. “Stepping outside of that which is immediately comfortable. But I've been working on my trepidation,” she said a bit wryly. “And
some of the fear is spawned from guilt. I survived, they did not.”

She had told him of the carriage accident that had claimed the lives of her parents and brother.

“Yes,” he said, simply. Then coughed into his hand, realizing too late that she had only told him the story on paper. That she had never told
Viscount Downing
the tale. He coughed again. “Yes, that would do it. What happened?”

She looked down. Her hands knotted in the carriage blanket. He wished he could see her eyes. “Oh, I feel I've repeated the story too often as of late, and I don't want to be a bore. Suffice it to say there was a carriage accident, and my family did not survive.”

“The scar on your thigh.” It was something he had wished to ask her before.

She looked up, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. “The least of my wounds.”

He reached across the space and tipped up her chin, wiping away one escaped droplet. “Yes.”

They'd been on their way to the seaside. To take a boat to Calais. To go on the Grand Tour.

“Tell me of them.”

Her emotion always spilled onto the page. And while he abhorred the weakness of it in himself, he found himself craving it from her. Wanting to share her feelings and vitality.

“My father and brother were both full of life. Mischievous. Always trying to make my mother smile.” She smiled fondly under her misted eyes. “However unwillingly.”

Her mother, the schoolmistress.

“My mother was a strict disciplinarian. But she loved us. She just held us to her standards. I would
present quite the disappointment at the moment,” she said lightly.

“I don't know. If she had your happiness at heart, wouldn't she have wanted what made you happy?”

She tilted her head, regarding him. “With my happiness at stake? Perhaps.” She fingered the blanket absently. “I'd like to believe so.”

“And you? Where did you reside in the mayhem?”

“Caught in the middle, I suppose. As a girl, a woman, I was held to standards that my brother didn't have to observe. He was able to be freer with his thoughts and actions.”

“You don't seem to possess a block against your own freethinking.”

She looked at him through her lashes. “I am paralyzed at times. Torn. But I wish for joy. For a happy life.”

It was one of the things that had pulled him to her immediately. Her optimism. Her realism tempered with good humor. None of the crushed idealism that had turned him cynical and sour.

“What about you? Your family?” she asked, watching him as if she were asking after the secrets of the universe.

“Catherine, Colin, Conrad, and Corinne—in that order—have their endless amusements or causes. You would enjoy Corinne and Conrad.”

Unbeknownst to her, she had already enjoyed Conrad. Damn puppy and their damn father for cooking up the Eleutherios scene at the Hannings'. “They have your flair for happiness in the face of trouble. And Catherine is the model of a lady, though it gets passed over in the face of the rest of us. Colin is a priggish cuss. Stubborn. Though we seem of a similar bent, as you've already observed.” He grimaced.

She smiled. “How did you end up being a Maximilian?”

“Ah, a black joke of Mother's, though Catherine Philippa was already innocently named before the joke took hold with Colin. All of their middle names start with a P as well. C for cuckold. P for philanderer. Alas that she couldn't find one for M.” He smiled without humor. “And if only she'd named Catherine Lydia or Lisette…an L would have given her far more to play with. Libertine, libido, lecher, lothario…lover. She was quite unhappy with my father, then it became something of grim irony.”

He watched her lips part and her eyes widen. The sudden silence lasted two beats too long. She shook her head and opened her mouth, assuredly to change the subject or speak of his siblings. She'd not push him for further revelations—he knew that. But his own lips moved, words tumbling out as if they'd been held behind a dam far too long.

“Mother began her quest to be the most notorious woman in England after Colin's birth, even though people question all of our existences and parentages as well in retrospect.”

She laid a hand upon his knee. In other circumstances, in a different conversation, he might have taken the action and turned it into a more physical dialogue that would have her arching beneath him, her eyes focused on nothing but how much further he could push her tolerance for pleasure.

“I'm sorry,” she murmured.

But there was something in him, between them in this space, that demanded a different outlet.

He touched her gloved fingers against his trousers, playing with the tips. “I care not what people think.
It amuses me usually. And they have no conception of what is truly behind their gossip.”

He had been four and at his mother's side when they'd walked in on his father tupping two maids in his parents' bedchamber. He'd never asked her later if that was the first time she had found her husband with another woman.

“Mother is a flitting, alive thing when she is involved in a mad scheme. A butterfly who shouldn't be caught, lest she be crushed in your palm.”

He'd also been there with his mother when the eighteen-year-old niece of their neighbor had been splayed out under his father in the rolling meadow behind Bervue. And when the most notorious widow of their county had been moaning and riding his father in the stable house, both bare as the days they were born.

Miranda tilted her head.

“Mother was in love with Father.” He shrugged, not feeling the sentiment. “He is constantly in love. With many things. All of them real. For a time. It took her a long time to realize it.”

And there had been many times he had observed his father without his mother present. His libidinous father, for all his marital faults, always had time for his children. Always took Max on trips to the estates, to Parliament, to social appointments. Inevitably seduced yet another woman at the end of a meal or in the hall or in a back cottage, all while his son was at his side. Oh, he didn't take them there on the floor or table or whatever surface was readily available while Max was present. But he'd work his wiles. Make appointments for later.

And doors occasionally got left ajar. Loud sounds permeated even the heaviest oak. Women would stumble
out, ravished and glowing. Would give him sly glances and sometimes touch his young cheeks telling him that they'd be back for him someday.

“Oh. Poor woman,” she whispered.

“She is fine,” he said, unable to stifle the bitterness that always lingered when thoughts of his parents' marriage surfaced. Unable to stifle it when speaking to the woman in front of him, at least. For she called within him a need to be clean, to fly free. “Now.”

Yes, fine. If one could call what his mother did in order to hide
fine.

He remembered his father's reaction the first time he found his mother with another man in London. Max had been ten. His father had watched for a moment, given a laugh, booted the man out of his home, then ravished his own wife. Luckily, Max's tutor had pushed him down the hall and into his room before he had witnessed anything that would scar him further. His mother had had a smile on her face all that next morning. Max had been giddy, her happiness infectious. Thinking that perhaps his parents would be happy together finally. For he loved them both.

And then he and his mother walked in on his father rutting with a maid in the sitting room a week later. The woman's eyes had been glassy and unfocused. Little ohs on her lips. Just like the ones that had been on his mother's.

Her happiness had dissolved. His youngest sister had been born nine long months later.

Max had never quite forgiven his father for the light that had seeped from his mother's eyes though he loved him still.

“It is silly to marry for love.” He stroked the underside of Miranda's first finger.

Her brows knit. “There is nothing wrong with marrying for love.”

“To see the same longing face in the mirror every morning? To be emotionally constrained to that other person for the rest of one's days? Better to marry some cold, expensive fish who can entertain and do her duty and not expect a thing.”

“That's horrible.” She looked appalled.

“It's smart business,” he said intently, trying to make her understand.

“How can you say that? You who wri—” She took a deep breath. “You who rides the line of seduction.”

“I'm not against marriage, nor love.” He had to make her understand. He stroked her finger. “I'm just against love
in
marriage.”

She stayed silent for a moment. “I feel sadness for your mother. And even your father. But I think emotions are lovely,” she said softly. “Even if they fall to the negative for a time. The sun will rise again another day. The sadness perhaps never forgotten, but a new day enjoyed in another way. A way that could not have been but for the sadness's existence.”

“That seems to be Father's view on life. That there is always a new day. A new
friend.
”

“I don't mean something that changes. I mean something that evolves because of changes. Something to be enjoyed.”

A feeling, a mad want opened in him. “It makes one weak.”

She tilted her head, leaning toward him, the play of her freed fingers bearing down just a touch on his knee. “Does it make me weak then that I love sentiment?”

He tugged her silk-covered digit between his forefinger and thumb. He was still surprised to see the new gloves
on her hands. The girl he had “met” in the bookshop would not have purchased such no matter how much she wanted them. Too practical and cautious. “It is a feminine prerogative to do so.”

“Shakespeare wrote wonderful sonnets. Only a man with a keen eye toward sentiment could have done so. Even if one simply seeks to mock.”