The Secret to Seduction (10 page)

“I’ve thanked you for that,” Geoffrey said.

“Yes, you did,” Rhys confirmed. “As you did all of the other times I’ve come to your aid with money. And you’ve clearly something to ask, Geoffrey, so you may as well go about it.”

Geoffrey cleared his throat. “Well, you see, Rhys…I’ve learned in my new position as a curate in Tinbury…how very much I enjoy the quiet life of service and—”

“Tea? Brandy? Whiskey? A cigar?” Rhys interrupted suddenly, gesturing. A glint in his eye.

Oh, God, all of them, all of them, please.
“No, thank you. I don’t—”

“Ah, but you used to, Geoffrey.” It was partly a tease, and partly a jab, and partly a test, Geoffrey knew. “You used to, and then some.”

“But no longer, Rhys,” Geoffrey said somberly. “And I cannot, of course, afford to buy cigars, should I care to smoke them.”

He couldn’t help but add this, and realized it was a bit of a mistake. A faint whiff of bitterness lingered in the air, acrid as the smoke from a bad cigar.

Rhys’s eyebrows went up in mock sympathy. “But you’ve found fulfillment in your latest role, you say. What about Miss Sabrina Fairleigh? She has a ‘mission,’ too, you see. She wishes to help people abroad, or so she confided this dream to us all at dinner. I find it unusual to play host to all manner of folk from Tinbury.”

Geoffrey paused. “She’s pretty, isn’t she?” he said.

“Yes,” Rhys agreed fervently.

And because they were Gillrays and couldn’t quite help themselves, they shared a brief moment outside of resentment and grinned at each other.

“But I found her a bit righteous,” Rhys continued more somberly, a moment later.

Was this a test? “Perhaps it’s just that she doesn’t share your predilections,” Geoffrey said carefully, and just a little primly.

“Don’t you mean
our
predilections, Geoffrey?”

“
Your
predilections,” Geoffrey said quickly. “They aren’t mine any longer, Rhys, I swear to it. I have—”

“Oh, that’s right. A calling. And just to be clear: your calling doesn’t include whiskey, cigars, parlor maids, actresses, fast horses, or gaming hells?” Rhys asked with a furrow in his brow.

Geoffrey struggled to keep the yearning from his expression. He felt a bit like a starving man listening to a menu of his very favorite dishes.

“I swear to you, Rhys. I should like to go on a mission. I find it is my higher calling.”

“How much will this mission cost?”

Geoffrey inhaled and willed his features to hold very still. “Eight thousand pounds,” he said piously.

The earl stared at him, mouth open. “Eight
thous
—” Rhys slapped the desk and barked a laugh. “Oh, cousin, I’ve missed you.”

“But I’m not…,” Geoffrey trailed off. He knew already it was futile. “I’m not jesting.”

“Geoffrey.” Incredulous patience. “I told you the last time I paid off your gaming debts that I wouldn’t do it again. Your father found you a position as a curate; I suggest you make the most of it. And Tinbury sounds like an
excellent
place to lie low if you’re dodging debt. There’s a fair every year, I hear.”

His bloody cousin was so damn smug. And now Geoffrey truly was sweating. He remained silent, and gripped the knees of his trousers to dry his hands. That eight thousand pounds seemed to close in on him now, threatening as a flock of vultures.

“I swear to you, Rhys…it’s a mission. For travel expenses, and medical and building supplies, and—”

“All right,” Rhys said calmly. “If you remain a curate at Tinbury for a year at the very least, then return and we’ll discuss your mission once again.”

Geoffrey stared at Rhys, looking for any give, and of course found none.

A leaden silence followed.

“How is your father?” Rhys asked finally, somewhat conciliatorily.

“Not well,” Geoffrey said shortly.

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

Geoffrey nodded shortly, not wanting to talk about his father, and they were quiet together for a moment, no longer certain how to speak to each other.

“Rhys?” he said after a moment.

“What is it, Geoffrey?”

“Where did it come from, all those years ago? The money?”

“Money?” Rhys repeated, his expression neutral.

“There was no money…your father and mine and the bad investments, and then your father was killed and your mother and sister were—”

“I recall the delightful sequence of events,” Rhys said curtly. “You were just a boy.”

Things had been bad indeed, then, Geoffrey recalled. Fear had permeated his home like a mold; it had been everywhere in the atmosphere. And then it had been gone, the fear, because suddenly there was money.

The money had come too late for Rhys’s family, in some respects. But at least there had been money.

“Where did it come from? The money? The house? I thought you were given a house somewhere.”

“It was serendipity,” Rhys said after a moment. Cryptically.

“Is that a town in Yorkshire?” Geoffrey asked. A faint bit of humor.

And Rhys did smile a little. “Clever. Cleverness will be useful when you give sermons, Geoffrey. And now, if you’ll excuse me? I’ve as usual enjoyed our conversation, but I’ve La Montagne business to attend to.”

Dismissed. It had always been his cousin’s right to dismiss him, and Geoffrey obediently stood, habit winning out over the never-far-from-the-surface resentment.

But he’d never before asked Rhys about the money, or the house. Nor had he ever asked these questions of his father.

And Rhys’s evasive answer was
very
interesting.

Later that afternoon, after spending part of the day absorbed in a volume of Greek myths, Sabrina found Geoffrey quietly reading a book in the drawing room. That shock of dark hair was falling over his eyes as he read. Sabrina was possessed yet again of the urge to brush it away. If she became his wife—aw, that was no way to think—
when
she became his wife—she could reach across any table and do that as he looked over the sermon he would give, or as he sat down to the dinner she’d cooked.

She came and sat quietly next to him. He looked up, the memory of their kiss in his eyes, and she felt her face growing warm.

“Did you enjoy Miss Licari last night?” Sabrina asked.

“Did I
enjoy
her?” He looked slightly startled. Almost guilty. “Oh, did I enjoy her
singing,
do you mean?”

“Well…yes.” What else could she possibly mean?

“Well, I found it . . .” He seemed to be searching for a word.

“Glorious?” she suggested resignedly.

“Loud.” He smiled a little.

“Truly?” Sabrina was puzzled. “You didn’t want to simply…soak in it? To let it take you over?”

Geoffrey smiled a little. “How you do talk sometimes, Sabrina.”

“She is beautiful, though, isn’t she?”

“Is she? I didn’t notice.” He glanced quickly down at his book.

“Nonsense, Geoffrey,” she teased.

He smiled again, but it was a tight, narrow thing, and his fingers were plucking nervously at his book. Truly, Geoffrey seemed liable to jump out of his skin lately.

“Geoffrey, is aught amiss?” And then she felt uneasy. “Was the earl unreceptive to your request?”

And when she saw his expression, she felt her missionary dreams begin to slip away.

Geoffrey sighed and looked across the room, to where the earl and Signora Licari and Wyndham and the cello player were having what appeared to be an animated discussion. Wyndham was waving his hands about.

“Sabrina…I don’t think he will offer funds.”

“But—!”
She lowered her voice to a strident whisper when she realized she’d squeaked the word. “But he has so very much! Look at this
house
! How can he possibly refuse you?”

“I think the earl has other priorities and other interests, and many of them are gathered about him right now. Artists and opera singers.”

Sabrina blinked in the face of his bitterness.

“But you are so very eloquent, Geoffrey. I cannot see how you would have failed to arouse his sympathy for your cause!”

Geoffrey seemed to gather his composure with some effort, took a deep breath, pushed his shock of hair out of his eyes. “Sabrina…he likes you,” he began.

“He does?” This was a surprise. She didn’t know how this could possibly be true. She considered correcting Geoffrey:
He seems to like
torturing
me.

“He deigned to turn the pages for you as you played last night.”

“That was because—that is, well, he did turn the pages, didn’t he? It was kind of him.”

“Kind.” Geoffrey repeated the world flatly, ironically. But didn’t expound. “And he did suggest that you play another piece. So perhaps he enjoyed your playing.”

“Yes. Perhaps.”

Again, the suggestion that she play another piece was more a gesture of torture than of fellowship, Sabrina suspected. Then again . . .

No. It had been a test. She knew it had been a test. But she’d rather enjoyed the piece, and so, in the end, it had felt like a gift. An uncomfortable gift, in a way. She hadn’t known it had resided in her, the ability to interpret a piece so lovely and sweeping. It was something new about herself she was forced to consider. But she hadn’t room in her plans for new assumptions about herself at the moment. She wanted to be a missionary, and the wife of a missionary.

“Perhaps, then, Sabrina…perhaps you can persuade him to review my cause?”

“Do you really think it would help?”

“I cannot think that it would hurt. The earl is known to be susceptible to”—his gaze dropped to her lips—“feminine charms.”

“Geoffrey!” Sabrina said, blushing, casting her lashes down for an instant. This house party had certainly unleashed his more ardent qualities. “Do you really think I’m capable of
charming
him into supporting our—your—cause?” She stumbled, a little mortified by her slip yet again. “He’s so very . . .”

Geoffrey didn’t appear to notice her slip, or perhaps, now, it was the way he thought of it, too:
our.
It was their future, the future she’d dreamed about for nearly a year now, and it was fading quickly.

“If anyone can charm him, Sabrina…it’s you.”

And then he laid his hand over the top of hers, surreptitiously, so that no one in the room could see.

Why is a woman’s skin so very,
very
soft, if it isn’t meant to be touched?

Sabrina stared down at his hand, considering the feel of Geoffrey’s skin against her skin. It was the very first time he had touched her so intimately, apart from the sudden kiss.

Why then can so very much pleasure be had from touching…and from being touched?

It was odd, but she would not have described it as pleasure; pleasure was too strong a word for this contact.

Perhaps the sort of touch the earl had described was entirely different.

Sabrina glanced up. There was heat of a sort in Geoffrey’s eyes; she glanced away, and gently slid her hand out from beneath his, with a little smile to tell him she didn’t mind. She didn’t want to entirely discourage him, after all.

But she did want to think about how it felt to be touched by him before he touched her again.

“All right. For you, Geoffrey, I shall try.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

S
HE KNEW SHE could wander the grand house for a day and not encounter the earl, so she sought out Mrs. Bailey instead. Sabrina knew she was about to ask a bold question. Then again, perhaps the housekeeper was growing accustomed to bold questions about the whereabouts of gentlemen from the seemingly mild-mannered Miss Fairleigh.

She cleared her throat. “Mrs. Bailey, I wonder if I might trouble you for the earl’s whereabouts?”

Mrs. Bailey fixed her with a gaze striking in its impartiality. It tempted Sabrina to say all manner of controversial things. It was a very freeing sort of impartiality, Mrs. Bailey’s gaze.

“The earl was last in the portrait gallery, Miss Fairleigh. It is just beyond the yellow sitting room.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bailey.”

The portrait gallery turned out to be a large room featuring portraits as tall as actual people, or even taller. As if making them very large would make up for the fact that they were all dead. Between the portraits were sconces, and the room glowed softly, lighting all the painted faces, should someone care to come in and view them.

Oddly, the earl was there, but he wasn’t gazing at a portrait rather at a space between the portraits where a portrait ought to have been.

“Why, good evening, Miss Fairleigh.” He’d scarcely glanced her way.

“Oh! Good evening, Lord Rawden.” She tried to sound surprised to find him here.

In profile, she saw his mouth turn up a little. He knew she was pretending. Still, he didn’t attempt to engage her in conversation.

He moved on to a portrait; it featured a man with a pointed beard and dark eyes and long face, his neck encircled by a stiff ruff. A pair of spaniels cavorted at his feet. He looked very familiar.