The Rules of Seduction (2 page)

“You were gone a long time,” Irene complained. She held up one of the bonnets. “I still say it cannot be saved and I should get a new one. Timothy said I could.”

“Our brother is too fast to spend,” Roselyn said. “Unless we want your season to ruin us, we must be frugal when we can.”

“Timothy does not speak of frugality. Only you do. Nor will it be a proper season, no matter how many hats and bonnets I have.” A petulant note entered Irene’s tone. “I will not be invited to the best balls. All my friends have said so.”

“At least
you
will have a season,” Roselyn said. “Would you rather be the sister of an important banker, or the sister of an impoverished country gentleman? You should thank God our brothers invested in this endeavor. If we were back in Oxfordshire, you would be happy to see one new hat a year, and would choose it most carefully instead of buying three that do not become you.”

Alexia sat between them, hoping to end the argument by making a barrier. As the youngest of the Longworth siblings, Irene did not appreciate the good fortune that had come with Benjamin’s decision eight years ago to invest in the bank. She saw only what she had lost in status and did not weigh that against the luxury that had been gained.

Roselyn at twenty-five remembered the bad years when debt caused the sale of their lands in Oxfordshire. Her own season had been impossible when she was of age for it, and her chances for marriage dim. When the bank’s more recent success produced a long line of suitors, she had proven skeptical and discriminating. Alexia suspected that Roselyn resented that all these doting young men had managed to fall in love with her only after her family became rich.

“We can replace the pink satin ribbon with this yellow,” Alexia said. “And look here, I can trim the straw on the sides, so it brings the bow closer to your face.”

“I will hate it. I do not care for remade bonnets, even ones remade with your skill. Take it for yourself, if you want. You can have the dress that goes with it too, so you will not have to wear that high-waisted one anymore. I will tell my maid that it is to be yours, so she will not claim it first.”

Alexia stared at the ribbons’ mix of shine and color gleaming in the sunlight. Irene was not cruel by nature, just young and, due to the free-spending ways of her brother, spoiled.

A heavy silence claimed the table. Irene picked up the bonnet, fretted over it, then threw it down.

“Apologize,” Roselyn said in a dangerous voice. “I have half a mind to send you down to the country. London is turning your head, and it is most unattractive. You forget who you are.”

“She forgets nothing,” Alexia snapped. She immediately wished she had not spoken, but it was out in all its pique and resentment.

She took a deep, calming breath. “Nor do I forget who I am. Only you do because you are so good. Everyone else knows that I am dependent on this family, a poor relative who should be grateful for my young cousin’s castoffs. Every bite I eat is out of the charity of your brother.”

“Oh, Alexia, I did not mean…” Irene’s face crumbled with regret.

“That is not true,” Roselyn said. “You are one of us.”

“It
is
true. I accommodated myself to my situation years ago. I do not mind.”

Except she did mind. She tried not to, but it chafed. The humility and gratitude required of her situation sometimes escaped her, especially since she had not felt obligated to don that retiring demeanor at first.

Her slide had been inevitable when her family’s property went to a second cousin. There had been no invitation to live with that heir, the way her father had assumed, however. Barely eighteen, she had been forced to write to the Longworths, cousins on her mother’s side, asking for a place with them. She had brought nothing to them but twenty pounds a year and a talent for remaking hats.

Benjamin, the eldest, had never let her feel beholden, even though her arrival had coincided with the launch of his new venture and for the first year there would not be much to spare. His quick smile and good humor had refused to permit a pose of demure subservience on her part. Only after he died did the reality of her dependence become clear. Where Ben had assumed he should provide for her as he did for his sisters, Timothy did not. She only advised while on visits to the London modistes now. Timothy saw her as the burden she was, while Benjamin had seen her as…

A carefully preserved memory of love, an echo of an emotion deep and poignant, made her heart ache. He had seen her as a dear cousin and a dear friend, and that last year had alluded to so much more. If what Lord Hayden had said was true, she had not misunderstood. If Ben had returned from Greece, he would have married her.

She picked up the bonnet. “Thank you, Irene. I will be glad to have it. Blue ribbon, I think now. Neither pink nor yellow has ever complemented my hair or complexion.”

Roselyn caught Alexia’s eyes with an apologetic look. Alexia returned one with her own message.
I was born the daughter of a gentleman, but here I am now, almost twenty-six, with no fortune and no future. Such is the way of the world. Do not pity me, I beg you.

“Who is that?” Irene asked, interrupting the silent conversation. “Up there, at the drawing-room window.”

Roselyn turned in time to see the dark hair and broad shoulders before the man retreated from the glass. “We have a visitor? Falkner should have sent for me.”

Alexia began removing the pink ribbon. “He asked only to speak with Timothy and begged that you not be disturbed.”

“But Timothy is ill.”

“He rose from his bed all the same.”

Alexia felt Roselyn’s attention on her as she busied herself with the hat.

“Who is it?” Roselyn asked.

“Rothwell.”

“Lord Elliot Rothwell? The historian? What business—”

“His brother Lord Hayden Rothwell.”

Irene’s eyes widened. She bounced and clapped her hands. “He came
here
? I may faint. He is sooo handsome.”

Roselyn frowned. She looked at the window. “Oh, dear.”

“You have been drinking, Longworth,” Hayden said. “Are you sober enough to hear and remember what I say?”

Longworth slouched comfortably on the blue divan. “Too damned sober.”

Hayden examined Timothy Longworth. Yes, he was sober enough, which was good since this could not wait. The plan’s chance for success diminished with each hour.

“I spent the last two days with Darfield while you hid in your bed drinking,” he said. “The bank should survive this current crisis, if you do as I say.”

“I told Darfield it would. He is an old woman and feared the reserves were too low, but I said we were solid.”

“It will survive only because I made the decision yesterday to keep the family deposits with you. Word of that alone stopped a run that began this morning.”

“There was a run?” Longworth had the decency to look chagrined. “I should have been there, I know.”

“Hell, yes, you should have been there.”

“The worst has passed, however? The danger is averted, you said.”

“Hardly. Despite pulling through today, the bank still is in serious danger. Furthermore, I am reconsidering my position with you. The choice is a hard one, because if I remove the family’s money, the bank will fail. If it does, you will surely hang.”

Longworth stilled. He became a sprawled statue of indifference.

Hayden resented like hell being entangled with Timothy Longworth. He had ensured the bank’s growth with family funds and deposits in order to help a good friend. He had not signed on to save the neck of this younger brother.

Longworth smiled broadly. That made him look more like Benjamin, despite his light coloring, which was in contrast to Ben’s dark hair and eyes. It was a resemblance that Hayden would rather not see right now.

“Of course you are speaking metaphorically when you say ‘hang.’ Although ruined is a bare improvement, it is not death.”

“When I say hang, I mean hang. Gallows. Noose. Dead.”

“Banks fail all the time. Five have during the last fortnight in London alone, and dozens in the counties. It is no crime. That is what happens during financial crises.”

“It is not the bank’s failure that will send you to the gallows but what the accounting afterward would reveal.”

“Nothing to endanger me, I assure you.”

Hayden’s patience ebbed fast. He had not slept last night as he and Darfield sorted through the mess hidden within the bank’s accounts. The fury that he had barely contained upon learning the worst now threatened to break the frayed leash that held it in check.

“I decided to leave the family money with you, Longworth, but I worried about my aunt and her daughter. Their three percent funds are all they have, and they are dependent on the income. As their trustee I could not risk it. So that part, that small part, I decided to remove.”

Longworth cocked his head as if this preamble confused him, but the first signs of panic sparked in his eyes.

“Imagine my shock when I saw that their consols had been sold and that my name, as trustee for my aunt, had been forged to do it.”

Tiny pearls of sweat rose on Longworth’s brow. “See here, are you insinuating that
I
forged—”

“I have proof that you repeatedly committed the crime of utterance. You forged other names in order to sell other securities as well. You continued paying out the income so no one would suspect, but you stole tens of thousands of pounds.”

“The hell I did! I am shocked and grieved by this news. Darfield must have done it.”

Hayden strode over, grabbed Longworth by the collar, and lifted him from the divan. “Do not dare impugn that good man’s name. I swear that if you lie to me now, I will wash my hands of you and let you swing.”

Longworth threw up his arms to cover his face, cringing away from the anticipated blow. His fear both checked and disgusted Hayden. He threw Longworth back down on the divan.

Timothy folded forward, his face in his hands. A sickening silence claimed the drawing room, one throbbing with Hayden’s anger and Longworth’s palpable desperation.

“Have you told anyone yet?” Longworth’s voice cracked with emotion.

“Only Darfield knows, and he fears the implications for all the banks if such a scheme comes to light in the current mood abroad in the City.” Hayden had envisioned that horror too often during the last two days. The “funds”—the solid government securities sitting in trusts and paying out income to untold women and retainers and younger sons and daughters—were assumed to be secure. Banks only maintained them for clients. The money was not supposed to be vulnerable at all.

Timothy Longworth had broken a sacred trust in forging those names and taking that capital. If it became known, the current panic would increase tenfold.

“What the hell were you thinking, Longworth?”

“I did it for the bank. We were vulnerable; reserves got low. I did it to protect the deposits—”

“No,
damn it
.” Only when Longworth jolted did Hayden realize he had yelled. “You did it to buy this house and that coat and the coaches you ride in with your expensive mistress.”

Timothy began to weep. Embarrassed for him, Hayden turned away and looked out the window.

Down in the garden, a pair of violet eyes glanced his way, then turned back to some ribbons and straw.
Eyes like violets in the cool shade, and a fetching form that
hints of hidden glories.
That was how Benjamin had spoken of Miss Welbourne when in his cups one night in Greece. Not entirely respectfully, but affection had been in his voice, so Hayden had not really lied to her. When he saw her reaction—the tears threatening and the way her face softened so sweetly—he wished he had not said a word, however.

Not a beautiful face, but those eyes made that irrelevant. Their unusual color captivated first, then one noticed how they reflected an intense spirit and intelligent mind. Worldliness showed too, as if this woman understood the realities of life too well. While sitting under the unrelenting gaze of those eyes, he had forgotten for a few moments the horrible mission that had brought him to this house today.

A mouth like a rose, with nectar as sweet.
Apparently Ben had trifled with more than Miss Welbourne’s emotions. Nothing surprising about that. A man bursting with life the way Benjamin Longworth was managed to trifle with a lot of women.

Roselyn and Irene Longworth, Benjamin’s sisters, sat in the sun with Miss Welbourne. The elder was a handsome woman with fair skin and dark golden hair and a sweet face. She was distinctive in her beauty but proud by all accounts. The younger one’s hair was long and pale, her form slight and still childish.

He felt a presence by his side. Longworth had risen from the divan. He also gazed down at the three women in the garden.

“Oh, God, when they learn of it—”

“I swear that they will never learn the truth from me. If we can save your neck, you can tell them whatever lies you want. A forger and thief should be able to devise good ones.”

“Save my—there is a way? Oh, mercy, whatever…however…”

Hayden waited while Longworth again collected his composure.

“How much, Longworth?”

He shrugged. “Twenty thousand maybe. I did not mean to. Not really. The first time it was to be a loan of sorts, to pay off an unexpected debt—”

“Not how much did you take. How much do you have?”

“Have?”

“Your only chance is if we make them whole, every one of them. With what you have and with notes you sign.”

“That will mean telling them!”

“If they suffer no loss, however—”

“It would take only one to speak of it for me to…”

“To hang. Yes. One forgery was enough to do it. You will have to hope that repayment will satisfy them and that they understand that only silence will ensure that repayment. I will speak for you, and that may help.”

“Pay them all? I will be ruined. Totally ruined!”

“You will be
alive
.”

Longworth gripped the sill of the window and steadied himself. He gazed out again and his eyes moistened. “What will I tell them? And Alexia—if we are reduced to the income from the country rents, if I must pay off debts with it too, I cannot support her.” As if a new horror occurred to him, his face fell.