The Secret to Seduction (3 page)

“And who are the women who have just arrived?” Wyndham wanted to know. He put his boots up on the little table stretched out before the settee. Rhys scowled at him.

Wyndham swung them down again.

“Oh, they scarcely count as women, at least not of the sort that would interest you, Wyndham. Lady Mary, the twittery blonde, is married to Lord Paul Capstraw. Capstraw has been visiting relatives in the Midlands, and he sent a note round asking whether he could meet his wife here, as La Montagne is between his uncle’s house and Tinbury. Old school chum, Capstraw. Doesn’t seem to mind that I’ve a dastardly reputation, or perhaps he assumed I’d like nothing to do with his wife. If so, he assumed correctly. And the friend…Miss Serena somebody? She’s the daughter of a vicar. Or so I’m told.”

Rhys turned and stared out the window, wondering if Sophia was still out there somewhere, strolling the grounds. No: it was too cold, and her voice would suffer from it. She would have considered her point made and reentered the house by now.

Why should he care whether Lord Levenham had bought the scarlet pelisse for Sophia? It wasn’t the pelisse so much as the way Sophia had slid it into conversation. Rather like sliding a stiletto between his ribs.

His pride was hurt.

At least something hurt.

“Tinbury? Where the devil is that?” Wyndham wanted to know.

“Does it matter?” Rhys said idly. “Come, Wyndham, I’ll show you the solarium. It’ll be a brilliant place for you to paint. And then we’ll head to the billiard room.”

The tea was delicious and accompanied by a slice of un-asked-for but entirely welcome lemon seedcake. Sabrina wondered if it was a particularly fine blend of tea, or whether the fact that it had been served in an exquisite little china pot painted all over with blue milkmaids and brought to her by a servant had anything to do with it.

She’d divested herself of her warm wraps, the bonnet and scarf and pelisse, and swabbed her face and the back of her neck and her armpits with the water in the basin, which turned out to be scented with lavender. Feeling considerably fresher, she thought she might try to find Mary.

But she’d neglected to ask for Mary’s room when she’d been so brazen as to ask after Geoffrey.

And the hours between now and dinner stretched before her with the dizzying, nearly wasteful luxury of those rooms she’d passed by on the way to this one. As she’d never before been asked to a great house party, she’d never before been presented with expanses of time to fill with frivolity. Her life hadn’t been entirely
free
of frivolity. But she was ever busy at the vicarage, visiting the elderly and sick, managing the household budget and planning meals, sewing and mending and cooking and tending the garden, rallying the villagers of Tinbury to donate cast-off clothing to the housebound and poor and drunken. Of the latter, fortunately, there was only one—poor Mr. Shumley, who was convinced he was King George. The villagers generally cheerfully indulged his delusion, bowing when they saw him and inquiring after His Majesty’s health. He slept in barns, typically, during the warmer months; in the winter, her father occasionally allowed him to sleep in the vestry.

And once a year a fair was held in honor of the church, and everyone attended. It was great fun. Sabrina was content; it all kept her very busy. There were assemblies and dances, as well. But it wasn’t until Geoffrey Gillray had arrived to serve as her father’s curate that the assemblies took on a frisson of something else besides gaiety.

She decided to wander downstairs and listen for voices; perhaps other guests would have arrived, and Mary, the most social of butterflies, would have found them by instinct. But at the foot of the stairs just past two sitting rooms, she passed the library.

She couldn’t help herself. It drew her in.

Reading was the one activity she wanted to do a great deal more of in Tinbury, but given the other demands upon her time, most of her reading took place just before she fell asleep. Candles were dear, so she confined herself to a strict twenty pages per evening. And while it took her ages to finish reading a story in this fashion, it made the story last longer, too.

The library was large, of course, but altogether more subtle than the other rooms she’d so far seen. The only gold in the room glowed tastefully from the words etched into book spines and from the bowed legs of a little table near the fire. The shelves and furniture were fashioned of dark woods and fabrics; the curtains pouring to the floor were the color of chocolate and corded in silk ropes of black; the carpets were patterned in twined scrolls of brown and black and were, coincidentally, just as soft beneath her feet as the carpet in her bedroom.

She couldn’t hear her own footfalls as she entered the room, and for a moment she felt disoriented, as if she’d suddenly become a ghost, and was haunting La Montagne rather than visiting.

Two dark leather chairs with backs like fans and a long settee striped in black and brown faced each other near the fire. The servants seemed determined to keep the entire house warm, and the very idea of this boggled—Sabrina and her father pored over the vicarage budget as though it were a battle plan and the vicarage expenses an enemy to vanquish, and they relished discovering strategies for conquering them. She had a very good idea of how much warming a house this size would cost.

Arrogant house, arrogant man, arrogant budget.

Compassion,
she reminded herself. She recalled his anger this morning, and the hurt she’d sensed beneath it. She wondered who the woman was: his mistress?

Good heavens, was she really under the same roof as a
mistress
?

The bookshelves were generously laden with tomes bound in deep somber colors—blue and dark green and brown and burgundy—and organized by subject. Philosophy stretched over one shelf, history another, novels over another. Lady novelists were well represented along with the men. And—

What was this? Poetry?

A prickle of thrill touched the back of her neck. Would his infamous poetry be here? And would she dare to read it, if it was?

Nervously, swiftly, she read the names on the spines: Yeats. Coleridge. Southey. Keats. Chatterton. Wordsworth. Lamb. Brentano. And Byron, of course. Now
there
was a chap who was easily as scandalous as The Libertine, at least in his everyday life, but was rumored to have fled the country to fight in some misguided foreign war. Poets and their wayward temperaments. She’d always half suspected they had clouds for brains. Sabrina shook her head. What a relief it was to not be a poet.

But she was spared from the decision about reading the earl’s poetry: it wasn’t on the shelf. It seemed an odd omission, but then again, perhaps it was so scandalous it was kept locked away from curious guests.

At last, Sabrina chose a novel by Miss Maria Edgeworth because the title seemed appropriate to her current setting and she thought she might perhaps learn a thing or two:
Tales from Fashionable Life.
She tested the chairs and the settee with a moment of sitting in each, and decided upon the settee. And as there was a clock nearby, she didn’t worry about missing supper.

Besides, Mary had known her long enough to look for her in a library.

“And here’s a room you won’t be spending very much time in, Wyndham,” Rhys said as they passed the library on the way to the billiard room.

Wyndham began to laugh, then muffled it as he peered in.

“You’re stocking females in your library now, Rawden? Is this your way of persuading me to spend more time with the philosophers and poets?”

“Am I? Is there?”

This was interesting news. The earl peered in, too.

A shining head could indeed be seen over the top of the settee. The woman’s hair was dark, with copper and gold strands threaded through it—the firelight told him this—and it was pulled simply up and pinned in a casual little heap on top of her head. A few loose spirals traced a delicate profile. She seemed to be squinting a bit as she read, or frowning over a sentence; her brow was knit.

She hadn’t at all noticed them standing in the doorway, staring at her as though she were part of the furnishings; the book had engulfed her.

Rhys recognized the volume, as it was the only one he owned bound in burgundy leather. It was the Maria Edgeworth novel. An intelligent woman, Miss Edgeworth, and a fine writer, but given a bit to preaching between the lines and a bit overfond of realism. These days, he wanted to take in only words that sang and soothed or aroused; he’d had enough lessons and grit to last a lifetime. But he kept the volume out of consideration to Miss Edgeworth, whom he’d met and whom he’d liked.

Given the choice of novel, Rhys felt certain he knew who this was.

“It’s only the vicar’s daughter,” he whispered to Wyndham. “Let’s leave her to her sermons.”

Wyndham stifled a laugh, and they went on their way.

CHAPTER THREE

I
T’S ONLY THE
vicar’s daughter.

Sabrina knew she was supposed to feel compassion, but they were now seated around a long dinner table, and what she still felt was rankled. Slightly
less
rankled than she had been earlier this afternoon, but rankled nevertheless. The man had all but looked through her this morning as though she were vapor, and this afternoon he had dismissed her with a whisper. She’d heard it as they left, saw his tall dark frame striding away from the library with his friend.

Why she should care was a bit of a mystery. How on earth such a man could be related to Geoffrey was yet another mystery.

And this was worrying, too: Geoffrey should have arrived hours ago, and he was nowhere to be seen.

Sabrina shifted her elbow a little to allow the attentive footman next to her to add peas to her plate.

Above the table hung chandeliers dripping crystals sharp as fangs; slim silver candelabra topped with tiny flames marched down the length of snowy linen. Everywhere out of the corner of Sabrina’s eye things glinted: forks, tureens, the jewels about the throat and wrist of Signora Sophia Licari, who turned out to be the woman who had so incensed the Earl of Rawden earlier today, and who was apparently the famous opera singer and alleged mistress of the earl.

Miss Licari’s gown was copper silk, and somehow magically, precisely matched her eyes. Those eyes were long and almond-shaped, and she regarded the world through languorously lowered lids, as though her thick lashes were too heavy for them.

To Sabrina’s right was a Mr. Wyndham, who, she’d been informed as they were introduced earlier, was a painter. On her left was a man who played the cello, a Mr. Mumphrey, and the woman who traveled with him, Mrs. Wessel, who, Sabrina had been fascinated to learn, apparently gave dramatic readings and also played the flute. Sabrina wasn’t fooled: this meant Mrs. Wessel was an
actress
who played the flute. This was somewhat alarming. But Mrs. Wessel didn’t look particularly immoral; she was handsome, heavy, and cheerful; it was possible her hair was hennaed, but she wasn’t otherwise garish. No mention had been made of whether they were married to each other, though Mr. Mumphrey seemed pleasant enough for a man who might very well be living in sin with a woman. He devoted himself to the pork and peas with almost religious fervor, and inquired pleasantly about Tinbury.

Mary and her husband, Paul, who had arrived this afternoon, were at the other end of the table, near the earl. Mary, as usual, seemed to be talking ceaselessly while her husband nodded and beamed at intervals.

The earl was nearly as lazy-lidded as Signora Licari, but then Mary’s chatter
could
occasionally have a stupefying effect, particularly upon men.

In fact, Sabrina thought she’d never seen a man look so bored, though his face was arranged in an expression of polite tolerance. Somehow, everything else about him radiated tension, as though he was poised to spring at the appropriate provocation.

The food was splendid, however, and she intended to take full advantage of it while she was here.

“Oh, did you hear, Rawden? Viscount Bedford took a ball in a duel,” Mr. Wyndham said suddenly.

Sabrina’s fork froze halfway to her mouth.

“Was it over a woman?” the earl asked, as though discussing the price of hay.

“
Ma naturalmente,
” Signora Licari murmured. “What else would it be? It is Bedford we speak of, after all. His name suits him…so many beds.”

“The Countess Montshire,” Wyndham clarified.

“Ah,” the earl said, as if this explained everything. “And how is her husband taking it?”

And at this, Sabrina set her fork very, very carefully alongside her plate and stared down at it. It was rather a large dose of sophistication to take in all at once: Countess? Duel?
Husband?
And all delivered in that accent of offhand irony.

Even Mary’s chatter had slowed, and her lashes were batting rapidly, as though something had been splashed in her face. Paul looked less distressed, but he’d shot a warning look at Wyndham. Wyndham shrugged and smiled, as though he could not be held responsible for what popped from his mouth.

And then, to Sabrina’s chagrin, the earl seemed to notice her stillness.

“Our apologies, Miss Fairleigh. Do we scandalize?”

There was that voice again, as deep and elegant as a cello. She somehow doubted he was sorry if he’d scandalized. But his words had been polite, and delivered directly to her, and he was their host.