The Secret to Seduction (11 page)

“Goodness. He rather resembles—”

“Geoffrey. Yes, doesn’t he? That’s the Viscount Merrivell.” He turned to Sabrina. “He was hung for marde. No doubt because he succumbed to untoward passions.”

He turned back to the portrait, eyes glinting.

She willed herself to stay composed. “Fortunately, I doubt you shall ever need to worry that Geoff—Mr. Gillray will end in such a manner.”

“Is that so, Miss Fairleigh?” Absently said.

“He is admired by the people of Tinbury.”

“And by one of them in particular, as I’ve witnessed.”

She took a deep breath. “He very much would like to do some good in the world outside of Tinbury, Lord Rawden.”

“That would make for a pleasant change.”

She frowned a little. “I beg your pardon?”

The earl ignored her question. “I imagine you sought me out for a reason, Miss Fairleigh. Do you wish to plead the cause of your lover to me, then?”

Her jaw dropped; she quickly clapped it closed again. “He is
not
my lover.”

“But…you did kiss him.” The earl’s brow creased in feigned confusion.

“No! Yes! Well,
he
kissed
me.
And—”

“Are you married to Geoffrey?”

“What—I—you know full well I am not, Lord Rawden.”

“Well then, are you
engaged
to be married to Geoffrey?”

She hesitated. “No, but—”

“Do you have any sort of understanding at
all
with Geoffrey?”

She didn’t quite know the answer to this, but she certainly wasn’t going to tell the earl so. She remained stubbornly silent.

“Then he’s your lover,” he concluded firmly. “And
I
of all people should know what a lover is.” He returned his eyes to the portrait. But not before she saw the spark of devilry in them.

Did he suppose she was another Sophia Licari, for heaven’s sake? Going about recklessly kissing people? Or was he merely being incorrigible again?

“Geoffrey
can’t
be my lover as we haven’t…we haven’t . . .”

She stopped and squeezed her eyes closed.

“You haven’t what, Miss Fairleigh?” The odious man was laughing silently at her. “Oh, wait, I recall now. You’ve a will of iron and cannot be seduced. So of course you…‘
haven’t.
’ And I am a scoundrel to suggest such a thing to an unmarried girl. And so on.”

“Lord Rawden. I am
not
like you.”

“No?” he wondered in an idly insinuating way.

Sabrina bit her lip to keep from retorting. She’d come for a purpose, and she wasn’t about to be diverted from it. With some effort, she gentled her voice, as she might when speaking to a nervous animal.

“Lord Rawden, as you’ve devoted your life to pleasure, I imagine it is difficult for you to understand a man such as Geoffrey, who is willing to make sacrifices in favor of a higher calling. But if you’d only—”

The earl barked a genuine laugh. “Devoted my life to pleasure! Why, my dear little hypocrite, you’ve devoted your life to pleasure, too.”

Sabrina blinked, thinking of the work in Tinbury at the vicarage, the work that kept her moving and thinking swiftly from the moment she rose until her head landed on her pillow again at night. Thinking of her dreams of laboring as a missionary.

She was
incensed.

“What on earth do you mean?” Her voice thrummed with outrage.

“Don’t you take pleasure in judging me? Don’t you take pleasure in…
helping
? Don’t you feel just a little bit superior because you
do
help? Come now. Confess all, Miss Fairleigh.”

“I—” She disliked the way he said “helping.” Though this was, in fact, very difficult to deny. She would consider the part about “feeling superior” in a moment. She had an uncomfortable suspicion that she wouldn’t like what she discovered.

“And why do you do it?” he prompted, very much as though she were a schoolgirl and he a schoolmaster, when she said nothing. “You couldn’t even resist
helping
with my poem when I asked, even though it was about seduction—not a very
nice
topic—and even though you think I’m a complete reprobate. Come, Miss Fairleigh. Tell me why.”

Oddly, she sensed he was a bit angry now, too.

This wasn’t at all going as she’d hoped.

She scrambled for her mental footing, but he’d succeeded in poking her temper up again, which made it nearly impossible. “I cannot speak to how
thorough
a reprobate you might be, Lord Rawden, but—”

He laughed, this time sounding for some reason thoroughly pleased. “Why, then, do you help, Miss Fairleigh? Are you afraid for my immortal soul? Because you’re the vicar’s daughter, and must always do good?”

“I was adopted,” she said curtly. “I’m not the vicar’s daughter.”

“Ah, well then, that explains
every
thing.”

“
What
does it explain?” Her voice was perilously close to shrill.

“Never mind, Miss Fairleigh. Do go on. We were talking about your fear for my immortal soul.” He was laughing silently at her again.

“Your immortal soul concerns me very little, Lord Rawden.” This wasn’t entirely truthful. At the moment, she rather wished his immortal soul someplace that would appall her father.

“Why, then?” he persisted. “What compels you, Miss Fairleigh, to devote your life to…helping? I would like a truthful answer before we pursue the topic of Geoffrey and his mission.”

“Because—”

She stopped, realizing what she was about to say. He was again right: she helped because it made her uncomfortable
not
to help.

In short: she helped because she enjoyed it.

“Do you do it because you want to, or because you think you should?” he coaxed. She could not recall encountering another man so utterly determined to prove a point.

“Aren’t they the same?” She said it rather helplessly, delaying her moment of confession.

“One is about pleasure, Miss Fairleigh, and the other is about duty. Then again, perhaps you take pleasure in duty. I can only imagine you do, if you’ve dreams of living in penury serving the poor as a missionary. Tell me, once and for all, why do you help?”

She tried for a partial answer. “Because I…must. Because it’s right.”

“Right for whom?” Relentless, he was. Ferocious as any debater who ever stood in the House of Lords. She wondered if he did take his place in debates in the House of Lords. She didn’t know where he’d find the time to do it, given his schedule of debauchery.

And in a way it was invigorating to encounter a mind that would never let her dodge a truth. Then again, she could have happily lived without being shown certain truths.

But as she was innately honest, she could hardly avoid answering.

And at last she did. “Right for…me.” Her voice was a trifle creaky when it emerged.

Like a tiger with its kill between its paws, he all but purred the next words. “Ah. Very well, then. Feel free to make an entreaty on Geoffrey’s behalf, Miss Fairleigh, and feel free to judge me if you will, Miss Fairleigh, but judge me honestly. We are not so very different, you and I, in our commitment to pleasure.”

Humbled, Sabrina looked up into his satisfied face.

But she suddenly understood something: that satisfaction he felt was only momentary. The rest of the time he was restless and bored and—

“Oh, I fear there you are wrong, Lord Rawden. For helping makes me
happy.
”

And it was a pleasure, and not a pleasure, to watch him blink as though she’d slapped him. All the fierce light and satisfaction fled his face for an instant, and unguarded, he looked purely…astonished.

His mask was back in an instant, as if the moment had never been.

“You came here to plead with me about Geoffrey, I imagine, Miss Fairleigh,” he said calmly. “What is it you wish to say?”

Sabrina could not recover quite so swiftly as the earl from their exchange. She took a deep breath to steady herself. Sparring with him—and his mere presence—was as invigorating and disturbing as a stiff wind. And all the things he made her aware of, things she wasn’t certain she wanted to know, crowded into her thoughts now, tangling with her plans and the words she wanted to say.

“He wants to do some good in the world, Geoffrey does,” she said quietly, simply. “That’s all, Lord Rawden. You have it within your means to permit that to happen.”

“And you want to accompany him on his mission.” A statement.

She was silent for a moment. “I would very much like to do some good as well. And we are of two minds, philosophically, Geoffrey and I.”

“Of even temperament?” he asked ironically.

She didn’t respond. Breathed in, breathed out. Her temperament at the moment felt more like waves battering at cliff walls.

It was entirely his fault.

The earl nodded to himself once, as if her silence was answer enough. He eyed the portrait that so resembled his cousin. Spent another moment in quiet.

“Has he offered for you, Miss Fairleigh? Do you yet have an understanding? You didn’t answer my question.” His voice was level. The question seemed reflective.

She flushed. “Well…no, he has not yet offered. But I believe it’s because he is uncertain about his future, and he is concerned about what he may be able to offer a wife. I have every expectation that once he knows . . .”

“You’ve a good deal of faith in Geoffrey’s intentions, Miss Fairleigh, have you?” And he was ironic again.

How difficult it must be, she thought, to think so cynically of everyone. What a burden.

“I—,” she began, but he held up a hand to stop her, shook his head once, as though he didn’t require an answer.

She waited again, as he said nothing for a time. Reflective. He turned to her, looked down at her with those light eyes of his.

“You should know that I have already outright refused Geoffrey’s request for assistance. Did he tell you that? Did he send you to plead with me, or did you do it of your own volition?”

Sabrina’s heart became a stone, and sank. Geoffrey hadn’t said as much, in so many words; he hadn’t said he’d been rejected. She did wonder why. Perhaps he refused to believe his cousin’s refusal had been irrevocable. She said nothing; she cast her eyes down briefly.

When she looked up again, the earl’s eyes were on her, his expression inscrutable. She suspected that he could read her as clearly as any book in his library.

“You’ve very pretty eyes, Miss Fairleigh, but it takes much more than that to persuade me to part with my money.”

It had been flung like stardust, the compliment. Her breath hitched strangely. There hadn’t been a shred of flirtation in his statement. It rather sounded like something he’d been thinking for some time.

He sought out her eyes and held them, and in the silence that followed, Sabrina could feel it: the very nearly tidal pull he exerted. It seemed right to succumb to it, to see what might happen.

And she wanted to free herself from it, too.

She didn’t know how to go about either of those things.

With some effort, she finally turned her head and began studying another portrait.

A moment later she heard him move away from her, three leisurely steps echoing across the gallery.

She wondered why it was he was here, lingering over each portrait. It was as though he was reviewing his lineage, ascertaining that all his relatives were hanging where they belonged.

He paused at that empty space between portraits once again.

“My mother and my sisters belong here,” he said shortly. Almost to himself.

The words “my mother and my sisters” touched on the longing she felt for her own, stirring the memory of a long-ago night.

“I’ve always wanted a mother and sisters.”

He turned to look at her then, interest apparently piqued. “And what did you have instead, Miss Fairleigh?”

“A father and two brothers much older than I. I never knew my mother. My mother died, it seems. Or so I was told.”

“So did mine,” he said shortly, his voice nearly inflectionless. “So did my sister.”

The revelation surprised her. It made that empty space seem somehow more eloquent. She wanted to ask why the portrait was missing, but his silence had an impenetrable quality to it, and her nerve, which seemed uncommonly pronounced when he was about, was lost.

Finally, the earl spoke. To the wall, not directly to her.

“I will consider offering Geoffrey the living at Buckstead Heath, Miss Fairleigh. He may live at the vicarage there, if he chooses. The rest of your future is in Geoffrey’s hands. But I shall not finance his…mission…-regardless of your entreaty. And I fear my answer is final.”

She’d expected to feel acute disappointment. And she
was
disappointed. But disappointment seemed to be wrestling for her attention with a dozen other thoughts and sensations at the moment, and so its edge was blunted.

She had been a vicar’s daughter; she certainly knew how to be a vicar’s wife, and in truth, of all the futures she could imagine, it seemed as suitable for her as any. She knew good livings were rare; she knew Geoffrey would be fortunate indeed to be given one. And perhaps when the earl offered Geoffrey a living, Geoffrey would offer for her.