The Seduction (5 page)

She relaxed.

"Would you recommend
this area for a single man?" he asked after a moment.

"
It's very quiet here."

"Perhaps you're
right. I'd forgotten how dull it can be in the English countryside."

Before she could stop
herself, she looked up. "Because you have travelled -"

"
Indeed, ma'am.
Ι
lived several years abroad."

What a wealth of treasure
lay in that one word!
Abroad!
Α
reminder of the world beyond Manston Mingate - of sparkling,
sophisticated conversation about travel and culture and art - her birthright.
He had known Italy and seen sweet peas in Sicily. She longed to ask him about
it. Yet she mustn't allow anything but a casual exchange with this stranger.
She concentrated on the board.

"
I believe a single gentleman would find more
to amuse him closer to London."

He looked up, a lazy,
smiling glance, while his fingers stroked the white fur. "Perhaps. But
this single gentleman is very easy. . . ." His last move had left her a
perfect opening. With a small surge of exhilaration, she stepped her queen
forward. He picked up his knight as if about to fall into her trap, then caught
her eye and laughed. ". . . to amuse, that is."

His knight leaped in
another direction entirely. For a wild moment, she felt an answering laugh
struggling for release. She suppressed the mad bubble of merriment.

"Then
Ι
wish you were harder to fool."

"We are too well
matched," he said. “I offer you a wager, Mistress Seton, to spur us both
to better play. If I win this game, will you allow me one game of chess each
day this week?"

"Sir,
Ι
can hardly-"

"
Otherwise
Ι
fear my stay at the Three Tuns will require
me to exchange pleasantries with rustics in the taproom, until
Ι
forget that
Ι
ever knew anything besides turnips and
mangel-wurzels. You cannot be cruel enough to condemn me to such a fate.
Α
simple wager, an incentive to try
harder?"

Ah, that last play! She
had almost forgotten the delight of facing a competent opponent across the
board. Yet her gambit was still stronger. With unalloyed pleasure, she planned
her path to checkmate.
  

"
And if
Ι
should win?" she asked.

"Then you may claim
anything from me that you like."

She was genuinely
surprised. "Rather a hazard for you, sir!"

"What venture is
worthwhile without risk, even a chess game?" His lashes swept down over
his eyes i
n
a gesture that was at
the same time gently submissive and shamelessly seductive. "
Ι
can be sure you wouldn't demand more than
honor could bear.
Ι
will trust you, Mistress
Seton."

Her heart pounded,
echoing the rain. He had just made an error by moving a critical pawn into the
path of her bishop. 1t was enough to give her a definite advantage. She knew
she was playing well and she wanted his best possible game –

"
Very well," she said with every
expectation of victory. "Let us play for a wager, but
Ι
would demand one more condition."

"Name it." The
corners of his mouth pulled down in regret as she took his pawn.

"
Ι
don't have much spare time. Most days
Ι
have only one maid-of-all-work to help me.
She comes in from the village, but she's been taken ill this week. If you
should win, you must make up for my loss of time - do some chores for me,
whatever
Ι
need."

"What kind of
chores?"
Α
little wrinkle marked
his brow.
"
I’m rather useless when
it comes to practical affairs, especially rural ones." The wrinkle
disappeared as sudden laughter flashed over his face-as if at a thought so
impossible as to be absurd. "Will you expect me to feed pigs?"

So the merest hint of
labor would indeed drive him away!
Α
poignant disappointment pierced her, in spite of the apparent success
of her ploy - to make sure he wouldn't come back, whether he lost or won, yet
still secure his best play. But how foolish to feel sad when she had just
achieved what she wanted! She had everything to lose and nothing to gain from
any man's
daily
visits.

"
Ι
won't ask anything
Ι
would not think within your talents, sir.
Ι
don't keep pigs."

He raised elegant brows
and smiled. "Then
Ι
am your servant, ma'am -
whether
Ι
win or lose. However, if
do your chores, then whenever
Ι
win a game, you must
also grant me a wish."

It was dangerous, but
he'd just made a move that put his queen's knight at risk. Very soon she could
open her path to checkmate and it would all be irrelevant. Juliet captured his
knight, ready to set up her trap and secure victory.

"
I accept," she said.
"
On the same terms."

Abednego thumped to the
ground and stalked away, tail in the air. Juliet watched him leave, a bundle of
indignant white fluff, then glanced back at Mr. Granville.
Α
cold trickle of alarm ran down her spine.

Α
n intense concentration had fallen over him,
as if he were hardly aware of her. That hint of disdain had disappeared from
the corner of his mouth. He looked as grave and austere as a carved saint in
the local church. His shirt still lay open at the neck. Her gaze wandered over
the waves of gold pulled back over his ears, and the pulse that beat normally
now at the base of his throat: a man's beautiful, strong throat, which promised
a honed body below it and invited kisses.

Damnation! The man was a stranger, merely passing
through. It was only a chess match.

He made his move, momentarily blocking her rook,
but achieving nothing she could understand. She answered it, driving her plan
forward - five more moves, maybe six, and she would win.

He didn't look up. Abednego curled into a ball by
the fire. Shadrach sat in the window, eyes closed.

Rain drummed.

Meshach wove a pattern about his legs, purring
and bumping his boots.

Occasionally he dropped a hand and touched the
tabby with long fingers, caressing the soft fur, sensuously rubbing the most
sensitive spots with his thumb. Purrs rumbled. Shadrach thumped down and
crossed the room to commandeer his lap. While Meshach spun a web about his
feet, around and around, he massaged his other hand through the marmalade fur
as Shadrach settled on his thighs.

Powerful, tender fingers, stroking hypnotically.

Purring echoed louder and louder. Purring and
warmth. Drumming rain, purring cats, and the warm crackle of the fire. Her
blood swam lazily, in hot, silent eddies. Little tickling sensations shivered
in her thighs. Nervously smoothing her skirts, Juliet made her move and looked
back at her unwelcome visitor.

Such beautiful bones. Such sensual hands. His
thumb brushed the head of his white queen, as if seeking among bunched drapes
of white linen, white lace, exploring the shape of a woman's naked thigh.

Hot blood rushed to her cheeks

Yet she'd known it since the minute she'd seen
him sliding down to sit on her brick path. The heavy lids, the charming smile,
the potency that breathed from his skin. The fine shirt, the satin waistcoat
and the ripples in his blond hair chanted a wicked, witty refrain:
We can
afford to he pretty,
they said,
because α rake's appearance is only
α whimsy to counterbalance the hard steel underneath - were you fooled? .

Juliet wrenched her mind back to the chessboard.
His queen had moved five squares. It was another play she hadn't foreseen.

Steadily, inexorably, the game ran her closer and
closer to the edge of her skill. She was forced onto the defensive. Her plan
for checkmate evaporated. He captured both a bishop and her queen's rook, while
he had lost only a knight and fewer pawns than he had taken. Meanwhile, the
patterns were shifting on the board - pieces regrouping, webs of threat
materializing as if from nowhere, surrounding her men, breaking their cohesion
- a network of alternatives all leading to one outcome.

Α strangling panic seized her by the throat
as she realized the enormity of her mistake. Unless he made another error, he
was going to win. She had misjudged and allowed this stranger into her life.

Because he had lain so helplessly on her path-

Because he was gentle with her cats-

Because he had come inside only at her insistence
and had even seemed anxious to leave-

She had broken all of her rules. She had thought
the threat insubstantial.

Now it was too late.

He leaned back and stretched both arms above his
head in an exuberant gesture of triumph, filled with masculine power.

"Checkmate in two moves, Mistress
Seton!"

Chagrin and humiliation tasted suddenly very
bitter. Juliet studied the board, confounded by his strategy.

"Ι see Ι must concede victory to
you, sir. You're a deep player, aren't you?"

He laughed. "As you are, ma’am. It was too
deuced close! I was told that you are beautiful, but not that you have so many
skills.”

Her chair clattered as she leaped up. The cats
scattered. Damn him! She had been outwitted, outclassed by a bolder player than
herself. Now he didn’t scruple to flaunt it.

"Told by whom?” she asked bitterly. “What
else have you heard? So it was not chance that brought you to my garden gate.
Nor was it my white sweet peas, was it, sir?”

CHAPTER TWO

ELATION ALMOST BLINDED
HIM
FOR
Α
MOMENT
, BEFORE
HE
REALIZED in the next breath that he had very nearly
thrown it all away.
Ι
n a rapid attempt to
recover, Alden decided quite deliberately to take the next chance. He even had
a vague memory of some Seton from whom - in one of those exhilarating runs of
luck - he had won six hundred guineas in a single hand.

He leaned back and smiled
up at her. "The innkeeper described you to me, Mistress Seton. I thought
perhaps I had met your late husband once in St. James's. That coincidence led
to a small conversation about you at the Three Tuns. If that was an impertinence,
I pray you will forgive me."

Α
deep flush spread slowly down her neck and
across her cheeks. Her eyes darkened to violet in contrast.

"
Y
ο
u knave!" she exclaimed.
"
Y
ο
u mountebank! It is a
damned impertinence, sir! I beg you will leave this instant."

He stood and gave her a
flourishing bow. What had he said to bring about such a violent reaction?

"Mistress Seton, you
have been good-hearted beyond measure. I
f I
have offended you, I must beg the kindness of your
forgiveness. These last few hours in your company have been nothing but a
delight to me."

"Stop it!" she
said wildly. "Do you think you're the first rake to wander in here and try
to pay empty compliments to the poor, lonely widow? I am not frustrated, sir,
nor foolish. Neither am I looking for a lover, nor another husband. Good day to
you, sir. It has stopped raining. You know the way out!"

ALDEN STOOD IN THE MUDDY
STREET AND STARED A
Τ
Τ
HE
Η
A
Τ
in his hands. He had
made a splendid mess of that! But he had learned something. Mistress Seton was
far from foolish, but she was frustrated and lonely, even if she denied it. His
mention of her dead husband had triggered not sadness, not fond memories, but
desperation - even fear.

Had her marriage been
that terrible or that good?

He hoped it was the
strength of her own passion that terrified her, for he intended to help her
unleash it and he had four more days. He thrust the tricorn onto his head and
strode away toward the Three Tuns.

Within half an hour he
was riding north through the long summer twilight. Ten miles passed in a
sparkling blur of wet trees and hedgerows, until Alden stopped his horse and
gazed up the valley to the cluster of buildings on the rise at the other end.
There was nothing left of the medieval abbey, except a few foundation stones
and the ruined remains of a cloister. Instead a great house sat nestled in the
trees where monks had once droned away the hours.