The Seduction of an English Scoundrel (22 page)

“They most certainly are,” he insisted. “No one is marrying my mistress.”

“I will not agree.”

“Of course you will.” He gave her a knowing look. “Remember last night? I carried you halfway to heaven already. A person in your position must be practical. This is the most sensible solution to your dilemma.”

She took another burning swallow of the sherry, tempted to hit him over the head with the whole bottle. Coughing, she sputtered, “I don't want to be a kept woman.”

He reacted with an indulgent smile. “What do you want?”

“I want . . . well, I suppose I want love.”

“Love?” He
tsk
ed in amusement. “Ask me for a chest of diamonds. Or a palatial manor. A shipload of silk.”

“You needn't make it sound like an obscenity.” She came to her feet, the potent sherry, his offer, making her feel light-headed. “Some people do fall in love, Grayson.”

“Do they?” He stood to tower over her, his eyes sparkling. “Ah, I had forgotten how deeply you loved Nigel. I trust your attachment to him will dwindle over time.”

She took an involuntary step back. “I told you last night that I never loved him.”

“Then that leaves room for me in your affection, doesn't it?” he asked without hesitating.

She stared at him, her stomach clenching at the cool mockery in his voice. “I feel unwell all of a sudden. Would you please take me home?”

His blue eyes reminded her of storm clouds, darkness brewing in their depths. “Of course, Jane. Pleasing and protecting you are part of our bargain.”

 

Heath raised his brow when Grayson recounted the details of his day in the privacy of his study. “All in all, I'd say it went rather well.”

“I cannot believe you took her to Devine's. In broad daylight. What of her reputation?”

Grayson stared at him, shrugging off a faint sense of guilt. “What of it? It was my original goal to protect Jane from the damage Nigel's fictitious desertion had done. But she did not care a fig about her name when she constructed her scheme.”

“But the ton—”

“I have never cared what the ton thought,” Grayson interjected. “Anyway, all's well that ends well. Once we are married, the gossip will stop. It's amazing how holy wedlock can restore honor.”

Heath managed a grim smile. “Did it ever occur to you that something might go amiss with this line of reasoning?”

Grayson glanced through the stack of letters on his desk, dismissing his brother's warning. “I have a legal contract with her father's signature to marry her. Will Jane be angry? Perhaps. But in the end she will realize that she has no choice. I do believe she loves me.”

Heath gave a worried sigh. “Well, I certainly hope you know what you're doing. And that nothing goes wrong in this game.”

“It won't.” Grayson looked up, meeting his brother's concerned look. “As you said, it is a game, and I will not take it too far. A few days at the most. What could possibly go wrong?”

 

“Tell him I've taken desperately ill,” Jane whispered in her bedroom to Simon three hours later. “Tell him I have a raging fever. The plague. Malaria. Cholera. Smallpox.”

Simon felt her forehead in concern. “I did tell him. He sent Weed to his physician for advice. He's been waiting here all evening.”

“All evening?” A note of panic crept into her voice. “Grayson has been in our house that long?”

“He was playing billiards with Uncle Giles. The man is determined to have you.” He hesitated, looking completely at a loss. “What have you done, Jane? I know you're in dire trouble somehow.”

She covered her face in her hands. “Don't ask me. I can't tell you. I cannot explain. It's such a hideous mess, and I caused it all myself.”

“Then you can hardly expect me to help,” he said in bewilderment.

“There's nothing you can do anyway,” she muttered.

“Are you certain? Jane, you—you aren't with child?”

“Oh,
Simon.
”

“Well. It's not that bad then, is it?” he asked in a hopeful voice.

“I have dug my own grave,” she said. “It is beyond bad.”

“Sedgecroft is a powerful man. Perhaps he has a solution.”

“Don't you understand anything? It is Sedgecroft who is my problem. He wants me to be his mistress. Yes, Simon, he asked me this afternoon.”

He glanced down at the floor, a flush of anger suffusing his face. “I suppose this is all Nigel's fault,” he said awkwardly. “I could kill the fool for this. What are we going to do?”

What Jane wanted to do was hide under the covers and pretend she had never started this whole debacle. “You're my brother,” she said in desperation. “You know what Papa would do in your place.
Make
him leave.”

For a moment Simon looked so appalled at the prospect of confronting a personage like Sedgecroft that Jane might have laughed. Had she not wanted to die.

Then Simon's gaze slid away from hers, and she knew she had lost her last defender. “That's the problem,” he said, swallowing hard. “As much as I'd like to plant the marquess a facer, Papa left me explicit instructions that I was not to interfere in this courtship. Strange, now that I think of it.”

“Courtship?” Jane cried. “This is not a courtship. It is Wellington taking Toulouse, the French peasants storming the Bastille, the . . .” The color drained from her face. “Do you mean to say that Papa has no objection to my becoming Sedgecroft's mistress?”

“Ah,” said a deep voice from the doorway. “Our patient is well enough to argue. There is hope for her then.”

Jane shrank beneath the covers even as that velvet baritone seemed to penetrate into her bones. “Grayson, this is most unseemly. What are you doing in my room?”

He came up to the side of the bed, his masculine face a mask of oversolicitous concern. “Simon had been gone so long, I began to fear you'd taken a turn for the worse. I must say you look better than I expected, Jane.”

“I thought so, too,” Simon said, throwing another clod of dirt on Jane's self-dug grave. “In fact, I never would have believed there was a thing wrong—” His voice cracked at the frown she shot him. “Except for the fever, of course.”

“Let me check.” Grayson leaned down and pressed his cool hand to Jane's forehead, his blue eyes boring into hers. “Oh, dear.”

She felt a traitorous glow of pleasure at his familiar touch. “ ‘Oh, dear' what?” she asked suspiciously.

“You are rather warm.” He leaned down a little lower, his voice a teasing murmur. “Is it really the fever, or are you thinking about what we did last night?”

“Go away,” she whispered. “My brother is watching.”

“Shall I ask him to leave?” he whispered back.

“You're the one who should leave,” she managed to choke out. “Simon?”

Simon cleared his throat. “What did your physician say about her condition, Sedgecroft?”

“Well, without a complete examination, his best advice was either a bloodletting or a holiday by the sea.”

“I am not submitting to a bloodletting,” Jane said with a shiver of repugnance.

Grayson straightened, his gaze moving over her huddled form. “And so I told him. Which is why I have made arrangements for a stay at my villa in Brighton. We leave first thing in the morning.”

“Well,” Simon said, missing his sister's frantic looks. “There's nothing like the sea air to revive one's spirits.”

“Except that we are going to meet the family at Belshire Hall,” Jane said in a shrill voice. “An unplanned holiday really is tempting but impractical.”

Grayson stared down at her, his eyes glittering with unholy determination. “Where your health is concerned, Jane,” he said in dulcet tones underlaid with iron, “we will not take risks. I insist you stay at the seaside. I refuse to allow you to go to the country.”

“Good for you,” Simon said; he was obviously of the mind that peace should be had at any price. “She never listens to my advice.”

Jane sat up slowly, her gaze locked with Grayson's. “Are you going to force me?”

His lips curled into a thin smile. “If it comes to that. I have promised your father that I would protect you in his place. I would be remiss in my duty if I did not take this illness of yours seriously.”

“I suddenly feel much better,” she said with enforced heartiness.

He shook his head. “The strain of what you have suffered recently has finally come home, Jane. Perhaps it is not good to stay in London.”

“Do you suggest I go into hiding?”

“We cannot have you languishing in bed to grow plump, my little pigeon.”

“I do not want to go,” she said, biting off each word.

“You need a holiday, Jane. I shall push you along the promenade in a bath chair with all the other hypochondriacs.”

“Talk about a tempting offer.”

“A donkey ride then.”

“I know who the donkey will be.”

He smiled. “You might enjoy a scrubbing down with the local seaweed.”

“I might enjoy strangling you with it.”

“I shall have a maid help you pack,” Grayson said in a quiet voice, his stare challenging.

She stared back at him and wondered whether the first woman who had fallen victim to the Boscastle Blues felt as she did now. For while she was in shock over what he had proposed, in her heart of hearts she wished to go wherever the gorgeous devil beckoned. She wanted to be in his arms, to give herself to him, to be the woman he desired. Foolishly she had fallen in love with the illusion of a protector.

“Your offer is more then generous, Grayson,” she said in one last attempt to resist him. “But I can hardly go off on a holiday with you alone.”

He raised his heavy eyebrows in surprise. “Of course not. Uncle Giles and Simon will be there for the sake of decency.”

There was a pause, his diabolical smile informing her that decency was the last thing on his mind.

So, everything
had
changed between them. He had planned this down to the last disgraceful detail. A calculated coolness had come over him, a detachment that signaled danger. Yes, he was as charming and attentive as ever, but beneath those virtues he displayed the cunning of a . . . a jungle animal waiting for just the right moment to attack.

Had she imagined all that gentleness, the good-natured instincts that made him so irresistible to a woman? Or was her own guilty conscience muddling her ability to see? Never in her wildest imaginings had Jane envisioned herself the mistress of a rogue. Her life had taken an appalling detour off the road of decency, and it would be a dark, hard journey back. Perhaps an impossible one. Perhaps she would even enjoy it.

“Really,” she said, with more courage this time, “it isn't possible, or proper. A woman alone with three men, even if two of them are her family.”

His smile patronized her, made her suspect he'd moved two steps ahead in their game. “Jane, you know me better than that. Naturally I have asked Chloe to accompany us.”

“And she agreed?”

“Yes,” he said.

But, he thought cynically, only after two hours of threatening and tears, followed by Chloe concluding that her presence at Brighton might be the only consolation in Jane's devastating fate: a Boscastle seduction. Not that Chloe or anyone else would interfere in the lesson he intended to teach his darling deceiver. Grayson was merely setting the stage with the appropriate props. Oh, how he was looking forward to this holiday.

“Of course Chloe agreed,” he said. “She will come to enjoy your company as I do.” He turned back to the door, the matter clearly settled in his mind. “It works out quite well, really,” he added offhandedly. “This way I can keep my eye on both of you.”

“You mean keep us both under your thumb, don't you?” Jane called out to his retreating figure.

Chapter 19

Spending an entire day trapped inside a traveling coach with Grayson, Simon, Uncle Giles, and Chloe did not resemble Jane's idea of a relaxing experience. The men talked of steeplechasing and parliamentary reform. Chloe refused to talk to or even look at her brother, using Jane as a medium of communication as the well-sprung vehicle lumbered along the coast road.

By the time they stopped for a luncheon at Cuckfield, no one was speaking at all, and it was a silent and stiff-limbed little party that tumbled out of the carriage that same evening at Grayson's Georgian-style villa on a terrace overlooking the sea. Jane examined the graceful three-storied house in wary silence. The elegant red-brick facade impressed the eye as did its owner. Yet who knew what surprises lay within? She wondered what she'd learn about the man she loved behind those closed doors. What would she learn about herself?

They dispersed in the entrance hall with its marble pillars and a soaring plaster ceiling of Baroque design. Chloe locked herself in her suite, murmuring that she craved a sea bath and a glass of claret. Simon and Uncle Giles disappeared for a late-night stroll on the promenade, hoping to meet up with old friends.

Jane and Grayson stood alone. As he had undoubtedly planned. As she had secretly hoped, if she were to be honest with herself.

“Well,” she said, admiring a Ming vase on the corner pedestal in an attempt to pretend she were not on pins and needles. “Here we are. Is Heath joining us?”

“I'm really not sure.” Grayson watched her from the shadows, amused by her attempts to evade the inevitable. “Would you feel better if he were here?”

Her heart was beating furiously. “Why should I?”

He took her into his arms, murmuring, “My brother has a strange effect on women. Some are attracted to him. Others find him rather intimidating. Jane, my dear, is it possible that you are afraid of me?”

Afraid? Only of losing him, of ruining her own life.

“I begin to think I don't know you, Grayson,” she said in a subdued tone.

“Have I not proven myself your friend?” he asked, his hand sliding up her nape, his thumb stroking the tender spot behind her ear.

His caress brought heat to the surface of her skin. “I suppose that depends on one's definition of friendship.”

“Oh, Jane,” he said in a deep, sardonic voice. “Always so on guard.” He blew softly against her ear.

Her voice faltered. “Apparently my guard has failed me.”

“Then perhaps the wisest . . . the wickedest course is to surrender.”

“And then?” she asked, her breath catching.

“I don't know.” He asked lightly, “Why spoil the surprise? I suppose we shall have to follow our instincts and let the dice fall where they may.”

She swallowed over the knot in her throat. “There is a little more at stake than you realize. At least for me.”

“But there is so much pleasure to be gained.”

“Stop,” she whispered.

“I cannot stop.” He shrugged helplessly. “I won't stop. Not until you are mine in every way.”

She shivered in reaction, despite herself. “This isn't the way I wanted it to be.”

“Do we always have a choice in our lives, Jane?”

“I would hope so,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. “Yet perhaps not always.”

“Will you accept my offer?” he whispered, his other hand already unfastening the back of her gown, stroking, stealing down her spine. His charade had almost come to its end. He would not tease his scheming love much longer, using what remained of his time to full advantage. His lesson could go only so far. Every time he looked into her beautiful green eyes, he felt his anger melt a little more. Soon it would be gone. They would make amends to each other.

“Do you not love me at all, Jane?” he murmured.

She met his gaze, her voice clear, her eyes clouded with emotion. “You know I do, or I would not be here.”

In this, at least, Grayson knew she had given him an honest answer. He knew Jane now. Her secret fears, her cunning. The key to her desires. And for an instant, he questioned the benefits of continuing this charade. Perhaps she had misled him, but she, too, had fallen in love with a fraud.

He was not the rescuer he had presented himself to be. He was not a hero, but he loved her. He loved her with a desperation that brought both his strengths and weaknesses into play.

And in the end, they would belong to each other. Their game would soon be over. Their future as man and wife would begin. She would understand she could never deceive him again. Nor would she need to.

She would realize she could trust him not only with her secrets, but with her life. All their passion and capacity for love would be centered on each other.

“Come to my bed, Jane,” he coaxed her. His impatience was not part of his plan. But he could not wait any longer. He wanted her so badly, had dreamed of this so often that he intended to savor every moment.

He ran his fingers down her throat into the deep cleft of her breasts. “Come. Leave your dignity at the door.”

“What dignity do I have left?” she whispered.

“Be undignified with me,” he taunted her.

She closed her eyes. How it had come to this, she could not say. She had made a mistake, taken a wrong turn in her longing for a love of her own choosing. She had branded herself an outcast. What, if anything, in his pretended courtship of her had been real? Only their desire for each other? Surely there was more—

His voice broke into her thoughts. “Be your wildest, Jane. I have not seen every side of you, have I?”

“What—what are you saying?”

“There is another Jane deep inside you, isn't there?”

“You are certainly showing your true colors,” she retorted. “As in black, blacker. And blackest.”

He backed her into the staircase, his laughter low and alluring. Soon she would be laughing with him. They would laugh at each other—after a huge passionate argument, perhaps. It would feel good to be himself with her again.

“Yes or no, Jane? Kiss me and give your answer. I have been dreaming of how I will take you. I will surely die if you say no.”

She felt as if the room had suddenly gone up in flames. Fire. There was fire everywhere. In the sting of his lips on her throat, in the air they breathed, fire running up the backs of her legs, leaping in her belly, to her fingertips. How frightening it was to love like this. How thrilling. What would be left of her after tonight?

“Yes,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck to kiss her fill of him. There was no other answer. “Yes.”

They were both burning with need.

 

His bedchamber was cavernous, the plaster ceiling adorned with Baroque ornamentation. A pair of beeswax candles in scrolled silver sconces on the wall threw mysterious shadows across the thick Persian carpet, and a moist sea breeze blew in from the open windows. The curtains fluttered. The silk coverlet had been turned down enticingly to reveal lavender-scented sheets.

She was breathless with desire before he deposited her on the bed and undressed her with a leisurely expertise that should have offended her but instead only heightened her arousal. She was eager for pleasures she could not even name. She fell back against his other arm, opening herself to him, inviting him.

Her heart raced as she gazed up into his lean face. Never had she felt more vulnerable or more beautiful as she did in that moment when he studied her body without bothering to hide his lust for her. When he was finished, Jane felt as if every inch of her flesh had been examined and found desirable.

“You are perfection, Jane,” he said, his voice deep and unnerving. He stroked the curve of her cheek. “Trust me.”

She was spellbound by his voice, aching for him to touch her. As he shifted on the bed, her pulses leaped, and she felt moisture pooling between her thighs. He kissed her once, slowly, deeply, until she was writhing beneath him. The ache inside her grew unbearably.

“Trust me, Jane,” he said again, and only later would she remember the faint hurt in his voice when he spoke.

“I do trust you,” she said, realizing it was true. “I have never trusted anyone as much before.”

He leaned even lower. His eyes smoldering, intense, he feathered kisses on her face, her throat, her breasts and belly, the delta of her sex. She tangled her fingers in his silky mane of hair. He groaned in pleasure and pushed her thighs apart, breathing deeply of her scent, rubbing his jaw against her nest of curls. He was a lion, her lover.

Her spine curved at the potency of this forbidden act. His tongue parted her swollen folds and found the hidden bud he sought. “Grayson, you can't—”

“You cannot deny me this, Jane.”

In the shadows he was a stranger, her seducer, not the man she had come to trust, but a rake whose sole purpose in life was pleasure, who made seduction an unhurried ritual. Yet even as a stranger, she could not resist him. Her heart knew his name. Her body answered to his skill.

Perhaps his voice seemed deeper, different. But Jane had desired him since the day of her wedding. She had been drawn to his potent masculinity even then, and look where her desire had led her. Discovering the gentleness beneath his sensual allure had doomed her. Now she could not resist his cruelty.

“I cannot believe we are doing this,” she whispered as her body began to respond, hips moving, her hands stroking the ridged muscles of his shoulders.

“I think it is a natural progression of a relationship between a man and a woman,” he said in a low voice.

Whatever she might have said was forgotten as the pulsing tension in her belly neared its peak. She moaned, awash in pleasure as he took full advantage of her helpless sensuality to drive his tongue deeply inside her.

It was bliss. It was humiliating and uplifting and not enough for either of them. She smothered another moan as her body came apart, pinned where she lay between his arms. For a full minute she could not bring herself to open her eyes, knowing he had proved his power over her in the most elemental of ways.

“Natural progression, my foot,” she whispered into the dark. “I could almost be convinced you planned it from the start.”

“How devious that would make me,” he said with a deep laugh. “We have always been honest with each other, haven't we?”

No answer for that. She opened her eyes, her heart still pounding, as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt and trousers. His nude silhouette warmed her blood, as if she had fallen asleep too long in the sun. Her gaze traveled the length of his muscular torso to the swollen member between his legs. She looked up slowly into his face, not certain what she had gotten into, knowing only that she wanted him, that she wished this could be forever, her fate.

His silver-blue eyes gleamed in the shadows. She craved what she saw in their smoky depths, the fulfillment of her secret desires. He held her heart in his wicked hands. Whatever happened between them tonight would involve her whole being. Jane would never be a woman who could separate her sexuality from her deepest self.

“Grayson,” she whispered. “One day someone will tame that arrogance.”

“Perhaps it will be you,” he said, taunting her.

“Perhaps.”

“I think I might enjoy that, Jane.”

“I long for the day.”

“Practice is required.”

She stared at him, wondering how he could captivate and infuriate her at the same time. “Is it?”

“Months and months of it,” he answered in amusement. “Unless of course you show a natural talent, as I suspect you might.”

Heat suffused her neck and shoulders.

“Shall I show you how it's done?” he asked in a deep whisper.

She suppressed a shiver, her body more than ready for what he promised. “Please do.”

He lowered himself to her. Instinctively she pressed her breasts against the hard plane of his chest. He shuddered at the contact and ran his hands down her back to knead the rise of her bottom. His fingers followed the arch of her spine, teased the heart-shaped indentation below. His large hands moved over her, taking possession.

“Give me everything,” he whispered. “I want it all.”

Turning onto his side, he took her in his arms. The feel of his muscular body against hers flooded her with longing. She lifted into him, craving closer contact. With a shiver of anticipation, she felt his erect penis pulsing against her belly. Before she could stop the instinct, she brought her hands down to touch him. Her fingertips closed around hard silken muscle. He groaned and pushed himself against her, muttering, “Touch me like that, and I will be tamed.”

“I wish that were true,” she whispered. “I think you'll always be wild at heart. I shall have a devil of a time taming you.”

She was wrong, he thought. She did not know what he felt, how she had changed his life, how empty and shallow his world had been before her. How only in her hands, at her touch, could he be gentled. He was entranced with her, as hard as iron, hurting so badly he had almost forgotten the part he was supposed to play. No. No playacting right now. Loving her was too real.