The Secret to Seduction (5 page)

“But…why do you want to . . .” Sabrina cleared her throat. “Seduction implies…enticement. Luring someone against her will. Does it not?”

“Are you saying it isn’t…well,
nice
to write about it, Miss Fairleigh?” He sounded concerned. “I thought…well, I truly thought that within every woman is the will to be seduced. That they in truth
want
to be seduced.”

“Within the unfortunate women, perhaps,” she corrected gravely. “The ones possessed of weaker wills. There are others of us who are blessed with more fortitude.”

She knew nothing at all about seduction, but she did know a bit about sermonizing.

“Ah. So what you are saying is that
you
cannot be seduced.” The earl nodded sagely, mulling this. “Because of fortitude. And that you think seduction has to do with ‘will,’ and the possession or lack thereof.”

Sabrina suddenly realized how often the word “seduced” and its variations had been used in the last minute or so. She had the uneasy suspicion that she was being lured out into the middle of a sticky, silky web woven of the word, but wasn’t certain how to scramble back to safety.

“But we are not animals, Lord Rawden,” she said gently. “We possess the ability to control our actions, and I’m fortunate in that I’ve never experienced difficulty doing so in any circumstance. And as I said, I’ve been blessed with an even temperament, and I’ve nothing but—”

“—compassion for those of us afflicted by tempestuous animal natures. Oh, yes, I recall. Pray, will you answer a question for me, Miss Fairleigh?”

“I shall certainly try.”

“You hail from the country, yes?”

“Yes, Tinbury is a country town. Nothing at all like London.” She only realized she’d made “London” sound like “Babylon” when his mouth tilted up a little.

“Very well, then. And in the country…do you see animals adapt to their circumstances? Grow longer coats for winter, grow spots so as not to be seen by predators, or coloring to attract others of their species?” He had a thoughtful little crease between his eyes.

“Well…yes. I do. For instance, the cattle have all grown longer coats this year, for winter. And the squirrels have begun gathering more nuts, and Mrs. Dewberry believes this means this winter will be early and hard.”

He nodded in a satisfied manner. “Very well, then. But here is the question I’ve been pondering.” He leaned slowly toward her, so close she could see how very thick his eyelashes were, and that his eyes featured more than one shade of blue.

He clasped his hands on his knees thoughtfully. “Why, Miss Fairleigh . . .”

And without warning, his voice slowed, the timbre of it changed—and just like that, it wound around her senses like a silken rope and held her fast.

“. . . why do you suppose a woman’s skin is so soft…so very,
very
soft…if it isn’t meant to…tempt? If it isn’t meant to be…touched?”

The last word was very nearly a whisper. It landed on Sabrina as surely as a breath blown softly against the back of her neck.

This was when her lungs ceased to take in air.

His blue eyes refused to relinquish hers. She was well and truly caught.

That voice went on. “And if we aren’t meant to take pleasure in our own skin, Miss Fairleigh, why then can so
very
much pleasure be had from touching it…and from being touched?”

She felt his words somehow everywhere on her body.

He waited. But she couldn’t speak. She breathed in deeply, appalled to hear how uneven her breath was, how she struggled to take it. Like a genie freed from a bottle, his words entered her mind and took shape there, filling it with images she’d never before entertained.

The earl nodded, as though he’d confirmed something.

“We are
all
animals, Miss Fairleigh.” He said this mildly.

And sat back in his chair, dropped his head again to the page, that little smile playing over his lips, and his pen began scratching away as though this conversation had been naught but a pause to yawn and stretch.

He’d lured her into his web and made his point as surely as if he’d thrust a sword into her. And he’d done it, she suspected, purely for his own diversion. She, as far as The Libertine was concerned, was child’s play.

Sabrina remained silent. And then she turned about ten more pages of her book, not reading or seeing any of them. She finally decided that ten pages’ worth of pretending to read was enough to salvage her dignity.

And finally she stood and moved across the room to get closer to the fire. The leaping blaze seemed far less dangerous than the Earl of Rawden.

Later, after all the guests had gone up to bed, Rhys bent over a billiard table across from Wyndham. His shot was true; the little triangle formation of balls scattered across the table, finding the pockets he’d meant them to find.

“Good start, Rawden.” Wyndham bent to take his own shot. “Your mood seems to have improved. What brought it about? Did Sophia grovel or beg forgiveness or do some other significantly more pleasant thing to cause you to relax?”

Rhys’s mouth twitched. “Hardly. Take your shot, Wyndy.”

Wyndham took his shot, and it was splendid. “Ha!” he said pleasantly to Rhys, and stood upright, leaning upon his stick.

“No,” Rhys continued, “it has naught to do with Sophia. But I think I may have discovered a cure for boredom.”

“Has it anything to do with the righteous but pretty Miss Fairleigh?”

“Pretty?” Rhys repeated idly, as if he hadn’t noticed at all.

Of course he’d noticed. He’d gazed at her long enough today, and had been vaguely irritated with the conclusion. Upon close assessment of her features, no other conclusion could be drawn, really. Her eyes were spectacular, a disconcertingly direct and clear green, a bit tilted, long dark lashes fanning from them. A mouth full and gently curved, soft-looking, just barely pink. The color of her skin when she blushed, her lips were. It hardly seemed necessary for a vicar’s daughter to have eyes like that, or a mouth like that, or skin so luminous it seemed to create its own light.

And he couldn’t shake the sense that there was something familiar about her. Perhaps it merely had to do with her timeless sort of beauty.

“Well, yes,” Wyndham continued. “I thought it was why you’d paid Miss Fairleigh any attention at all. You don’t think she’s pretty, Rhys? You can scarcely call her anything else. Despite her unfortunate years-old frocks and her pious plans for her future. Or…is that what you like about her?”

“She’s clever,” Rhys said mildly, not addressing the question of whether or not she was pretty. Or mentioning the fact that he had, for a moment, been genuinely entertained by his exchange with Miss Fairleigh. “But she’s also more than a little self-righteous. I think it will be diverting to prove a point.”

“What precisely did you have in mind?”

Rhys straightened and cupped his hands over the top of his cue, rested his chin atop his hands. “She claims she cannot be seduced.”

“You
cannot
have sat in the corner and discussed seduction with the proper Miss Fairleigh while I played cards with her friends and Sophia.” Wyndham said this with awe. He’d acquired a good deal of respect for Rhys’s power over the female of the species.

Rhys laughed, but opted to remain cryptic. “Let’s just say I think it will be diverting to broaden Miss Fairleigh’s horizons.”

“How will
I
know when her horizons have been broadened?”

“She’ll blush in my presence. She’ll stammer. She’ll fawn. She’ll be speechless.” Rhys ticked off the list, sounding bored.

“Oh, I see. The usual way.” This was how women behaved near Rhys typically, anyhow.

“And then she’ll go back to Tinbury ever-so-slightly enlightened, and she might just pleasantly surprise whoever eventually marries her.”

“Good God, Rawden, you don’t propose to—”

“Relieve her of her virtue? No. But I do intend to relieve her of a little of her innocence.”

Wyndham took his shot. An abysmal one. He shook his head regretfully. “How do you propose to do it?”

“I haven’t yet decided.”

But he knew that he could. Miss Fairleigh didn’t know it, but she was proud. She was clever. She was proud of
being
clever. He also suspected she possessed a temper and an imagination, for he’d watched her listen to him today, her eyes abstracted, taking in his words.
Feeling
his words.

A clever man would know how to take advantage of the clues Miss Fairleigh offered to what other aspects of her nature might lie dormant.

Rhys smiled to himself as he sank the ball of his choice in the pocket of his choice.

He was a very clever man.

CHAPTER FOUR

A
ND AT BREAKFAST the following morning at last, there was a familiar lean figure in somber clothing helping himself to kippers from the sideboard. Sabrina’s heart gave a little leap.

Geoffrey turned and saw her, and looked startled. “Sabrina! What on earth?”

“Are you surprised to find me here, Geoffrey?” She said it almost breathlessly.

“I confess I am. But may I also say that I’m pleased?” He smiled at her, recovering nicely from his surprise.

Geoffrey had such a pleasant way of speaking. Her father occasionally allowed him to give the sermons, and he chose many pretty words to make his point. “You may.” She smiled back at him.

He lowered his voice. “And good heavens, what brings you to the den of my scandalous cousin?”

Sabrina dimpled a little. “I am a guest of Lady Mary Capstraw. I am traveling as her companion.”

She saw Geoffrey look puzzled for a moment, and then his face registered the cleverness of her strategy, and became peculiarly speculative. It seemed he had just realized what she might be about. He smiled a little…and good heavens, it was a bit…well,
sultry.

“I would have arrived sooner, you see, but our carriage suffered a small accident,” he told her. He was certainly helping himself to a good deal of eggs, she noticed. Possibly he didn’t get enough to eat at the vicarage. “I’ve only just arrived an hour or so ago.”

“Oh, dear! A carriage accident? Are you sound?”

“I am perfectly sound, thank you for your concern.” He paused in his dishing of eggs and turned to study her a moment longer, and a glimmer of sorts seemed to move over his eyes. He lowered his voice a bit more. “Sabrina…might I beg a private meeting with you?”

She loved the intimacy of his lowered voice and his intense gaze. House parties were most
definitely
exciting, she decided then.

Sabrina tried not to glance over her shoulder, where Lady Mary and her husband and Mr. Wyndham were happily devouring their breakfasts. Presumably Sophia Licari was having a late morning lie-in.

Perhaps with The Libertine himself, as he wasn’t present at breakfast, either.

She mentally brushed aside the very idea of it. One conversation about seduction, and see how quickly her thoughts fell into his way of thinking? He was a dangerous man, indeed.

“Certainly, Geoffrey.”

“There is a sitting room all done in yellow in the back of the house. I recall it from when I was a boy. Follow the black-and-white-tiled hallway to the small table with the gilded turned legs, and turn right. If you find yourself in a gallery of sorts featuring portraits, you’ve gone too far. Once we’ve finished breakfast, excuse yourself and wait fifteen minutes. You will find me there.”

She was a bit startled by how briskly and efficiently he planned what essentially amounted to an assignation. But as intrigue was unfamiliar to her, she found it quietly thrilling, too.

“Have you spoken to the earl about our—” Sabrina corrected herself just in time. “Your mission, then?”

They now stood across from each other in the room Geoffrey had suggested. Yellow indeed. Wallpaper that reminded Sabrina of eggs—white and yolk-yellow—striped the wall, and made her a little dizzy. She looked at Geoffrey instead, because he typically made her a little dizzy, too, in a pleasanter way.

Geoffrey’s gaze was wandering the yellow sitting room, over velvet, marble, ormolu, rosewood, up the walls to the endlessly high ceiling. The filigreed hands of a grand clock glided forward to land upon eleven. It pinged out the hour tastefully.

“I’ve an appointment with him tomorrow to discuss it,” Geoffrey finally said. “He’s expecting it.”

“As formal as that, are you?” she teased. “He’s your cousin. Shouldn’t you just discuss it on a stroll to review the horses, or whatever it is men enjoy doing together?”

Geoffrey’s eyes returned to hers. “We…aren’t very close now, I’m afraid.” The words seemed carefully chosen. His expression was odd. As though he were trying with some difficulty to disguise a stomachache.

“Were you ever close?”

Geoffrey didn’t answer; suddenly he was more restless than Sabrina had ever seen him. Gingerly he picked up a small vase splashed with delicate pale pink roses, turned it in his hand. Worth a fortune, and would break if one sneezed, no doubt. A lovely, unthinkably frivolous thing, the result of someone’s painstaking labor to create.

All for displaying flowers.