The Secret to Seduction (7 page)

“Perhaps the trial will not go on as long as years,” Sylvie suggested hopefully. She wasn’t eager to hear about the trial day after day, either. In a few short months Susannah and Sylvie had acquired each other, and husbands, and new, extraordinary lives, and they each were looking forward to the day when they could savor their newfound happiness unadulterated. “Let us try to find Sabrina in the meanwhile.”

But they’d talked of this before, and they didn’t have the faintest idea where to begin their search for their sister.

Through the walls of the dressing room they could now hear The General, Tom’s partner and choreographer, arguing with Daisy Jones, who had retired from bawdy performance and now shrewdly managed the finances of The Family Emporium, helped plan productions, and mercilessly spoiled young Jamie Shaughnessy, Tom’s son. Somehow Daisy contrived to be just as much of a diva in her new role as the old one. The voices rose, and rose, and rose, until there was one inevitable final shout, this time from The General, followed by a low conciliatory murmur from Tom.

Susannah suspected Tom had won the argument. He invariably did.

Shortly thereafter, there was a knock at the door. “May I enter?” Tom’s voice came through the door.

Squeals rose up from the dancers, a chorus of playful false modesty. There wasn’t a soul in the room who would have minded if Mr. Shaughnessy were to view them in the altogether, with the exception, perhaps, of Susannah. And even Susannah had confessed to losing her breath with her first look at Tom Shaughnessy a few months ago.

Tom and Daisy stood side by side, The General having stormed off, no doubt, muttering. He would forgive and forget, as he always did, as he was in love with Daisy, after all.

“To the stage!” Daisy ordered the cluster of pretty ballerinas, who filed swiftly off in a cloud of powder and a rustle of taffeta.

Daisy settled herself on one of the chairs before a dressing table vacated by a ballerina.

“What are you chatting about, m’dears?” Daisy was an honorary aunt to both Sylvie and Susannah, as she was the only person they knew who had known and loved their mother, Anna, who had once been an opera dancer. And it was Daisy who thought Sabrina might have been raised by a curate.

“We were talking again of Sabrina. We should like to find her.”

“Well, love, why don’t you ask the vicar in Gorringe if he has a curate? It seems the place to start.”

Susannah and Sylvie exchanged a look. It was as good an idea as any.

Sylvie and Tom had come for dinner at the Grantham town house, and over roast lamb and peas, Susannah repeated Daisy’s suggestion to her husband. Kit regarded his wife thoughtfully. She might have been born in Gorringe, but she’d also nearly died there—twice. Gorringe was also the place he’d acquired the long scar scoring his biceps, traced there by a knife.

In short, charming though it might be, Gorringe was not precisely his favorite place to visit.

Susannah read his expression. “No one can harm me now, Kit. Especially not when I’m with you.”

Kit snorted. His wife knew he could see right through any attempt at wiles, but it entertained her now and again to make the attempt. She smiled at his snort.

“Some of the roads to Gorringe might become difficult until spring. What if something becomes of Sabrina before then?” Now this was a very fine argument, and it came from Sylvie.

Kit sighed. “Very well. Shaughnessy, can you spare a day’s worth of travel to speak to a vicar who has very little memory left?”

“It might be longer in this weather, Kit.”

“Perhaps we should send a message ahead to the vicar to prepare him for our visit?” Susannah suggested this.

“Do you trust Vicar Sumner to remember reading a message, or to remember to respond to it?”

And this was a very good point on Kit’s part, as communicating with the vicar had proved as taxing as communicating with a fog.

“All right.” Tom had begun planning. “We’ll set out for Gorringe tomorrow.”

CHAPTER SIX

L
ATER THAT DAY Mary and Paul and Sabrina and Geoffrey attempted to tramp about the grounds of La Montagne, which were vast and were rumored to include a labyrinth, but the air had acquired more of a bite and the wind had whipped up, penetrating clothing and setting teeth chattering, driving the visitors indoors once more.

They were brought mugs of chocolate, and a card game was undertaken. Mr. Mumphrey and Mrs. Wessel had set out on the road early this morning, as another engagement in another town awaited them. Mr. Wyndham was off somewhere else in the house, painting, it was rumored; no one knew what had become of the earl.

Funny way to conduct a house party,
Sabrina thought. Avoiding one’s guests. But his presence on the whole seemed so very…pronounced…when he
was
present that his absence seemed somehow more notable. She was grateful for a bit of distance from him.

A few minutes after they’d arrived indoors, Signora Licari drifted picturesquely down the stairs and was persuaded to join them for a few games of cards.

Two games were all she seemed to have tolerance for.

“It is a bad hand,” she said at last listlessly. She put her cards down and turned her back abruptly and wandered away, as if to punish the cards.

Signora Licari paused and looked yearningly out of the window toward, Sabrina suspected, London.

Plainly, Signora Licari was bored.

So, as guilty as she felt to admit it, was Sabrina. She liked cards well enough, and she liked Mary and Paul well enough, and it was pleasant to be with Geoffrey in another context besides the vicarage, and the house was very grand, but she had begun to suspect she wasn’t designed to withstand too much leisure.

And Geoffrey was conspicuously distracted. He said very little; he smiled very little; he laughed not at all. She wondered if he felt a bit of guilt at his sudden kiss. Or perhaps he was worried about his meeting with his cousin.

He took up his new hand of cards, and his hair flopped down over his brow as he studied them. And yet he appeared, somehow, not to see them.

And thus a few relatively pleasant hours were passed until dinner, though they seemed, to Sabrina, nearly interminable.

Upstairs in his chambers Rhys spent the afternoon bent over a piece of foolscap. Scrawling out a word. Then scratching it out again vehemently. Staring out the window. Pacing. Scratching another word. Pacing to the window again. Watching the sun sink lower and lower and lower in the sky.

Watching snow melt would have been a more productive way to spend the afternoon.

Finally, in a fit of petulance that embarrassed him seconds later, he flung the quill across the room.

It wasn’t the quill’s fault the words just wouldn’t come.

Sabrina found dinner a merrier affair, as Mary had pressed the earl to send an invitation to dinner to the Colberts, who lived a mere two hours’ ride away from La Montagne. Much chattering over a pheasant done in a sauce of onions and herbs took place. Or, rather, much listening took place, as Mary did most of the chattering.

And after dinner, inevitably, Signora Sophia Licari was again importuned to sing, this time by Mr. Wyndham.

Signora Licari tilted her head back; her eyes closed briefly, and her long lashes hovered against her cheekbones.

She opened her eyes again. “Not tonight,” was her languid conclusion. As though her singing voice could only be conjured by a séance.

Sabrina watched the earl and Mr. Wyndham exchange cryptic glances.

“Perhaps Miss Fairleigh is musical?” This suggestion came from Sophia Licari, and there was a hint of whimsy in it. Sabrina disliked being considered whimsical, particularly by Signora Licari.

“Sabrina plays very well,” Geoffrey maintained.

Sabrina beamed at his gallantry.

Mary chimed in. “Oh, Sabrina, play something! Do let’s have dancing!”

From the expression on Sophia Licari’s face, Mary might well have cried: “Oh, do let’s have cholera!”

“Yes,
do
play, Miss Fairleigh!” the earl echoed suddenly. “One of the pieces on the pianoforte is a minuet. Perhaps you’d like to try your hand at it? I would be honored to turn the pages for you.”

Sabrina eyed him somewhat warily, looking for ulterior motive in those faceted eyes. He gazed levelly back at her. His enthusiasm seemed genuine enough. Perhaps now that he’d expended the urge to be a devil, he wished to redeem himself by being helpful. This seemed unlikely, but she could hardly refuse his offer of help, as he was their host.

“You shall need some audience members to admire your playing, so some of us will regard you while the others dance,” Signora Licari pronounced. Her voice always sounded as if she were stretching luxuriously while she was speaking.

Splendid. Now she was to be “regarded” by Sophia Licari.

“I shall be pleased to play for you,” Sabrina conceded at last.

Chairs were gathered before the pianoforte, and other chairs and settees and those ubiquitous little tables pushed aside to make room for the dancing. Mary and Paul and Geoffrey and the Colbert girls gathered across the room, and looked over, faces bright and expectant.

Sabrina approached the pianoforte almost gingerly. It was a grand pianoforte, all gleaming curves of mahogany trimmed in spotless brass, and if she was not mistaken, the keys were made of mother-of-pearl. It was the aristocratic cousin to the battered but stalwart square pianoforte from which she coaxed tunes at the vicarage, nearly an entirely different instrument by comparison, and it seemed almost disrespectful to play reels and jigs on it. But then again, a pianoforte was built for music, after all, no matter how grand.

She settled before it, and the earl stepped up and hovered attentively over her shoulder.

“This one seems a pleasant enough tune,” he suggested. He plucked up the music in one of his long-fingered hands, fanned it open for Sabrina to read. She was close enough to smell the starch in his white shirt, and something sharper, lime perhaps. For an instant her senses were dazzled and she couldn’t read the notes at all.

He leaned back, and, finally, Sabrina took a deep breath, positioned her fingers over the keys, and began.

The tone of the pianoforte was exquisite, and the keys sank beneath her fingers and bounced right back up again as though they could play the tune entirely without her assistance.

Across the room, Mary, her husband, Geoffrey, and the other game guests had gathered in the formation of a minuet, and with every appearance of gaiety launched into it. And for a time she almost forgot the earl stood behind her, and she smiled softly, enjoying herself, and watched them.

“You would enjoy it more if you opened your mouth a little,” the earl said idly over the music.

“Open my mouth, Lord Rawden?” No one had suggested she should sing. Which had been very wise of everyone, as far as Sabrina was concerned.

“Yes. And relax into it.”

“Into…the song, sir?” she ventured, confused.

“Into kissing,” he corrected absently and turned the page.

Scronk.

Sabrina’s hands stumbled and collapsed on about five wrong keys. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a few eyes disappear into winces, but everyone recovered with rapid aplomb. No one had expected her to play particularly well in the first place, and now that she’d gotten the first mistake out of the way, the suspense was over, and her audience looked considerably more relaxed.

Sabrina’s hands kept moving independently of her mind, which was fixed on the large man leaning over her with the pretense of being solicitous and the intent of being a devil.

“I’m certain I don’t take your meaning, sir,” she managed coolly.

“There I was,” he continued into her ear, “merely strolling from one room to another, enjoying my wonderful home…and what should I find but my cousin and Miss Fairleigh engaged in an…indiscretion.”

Of all the deuced rooms in this house, the master of the house happened to stroll past the one they were in.

“It was a private moment, sir.” Her frosty tone was beginning to tremble and thaw at the edges. Temper licked at the edge of it.

“There are no
truly
private moments at a house party, Miss Fairleigh.”

Ignoring him. Perhaps that was the solution to enduring those of his temperament. She would ignore him; he would grow bored of toying with her if she didn’t respond. Figuratively speaking, she would roll up like a hedgehog, and not rise to his goads.

She willed her scorching face to cool. She played on.

“Did you enjoy it?” There was his voice again.

“Dinner? Dinner was lovely, thank you.” She said it firmly and a little desperately, to give him an opportunity to locate his manners.

“The kiss.”

She should have known.

She realized she’d played the same passage three times over, and the dancers had circled each other three times, and would soon be in danger of toppling over from dizziness.

Sabrina drew a long breath in through her nose then exhaled. “Will you turn the page for me now, Lord Rawden?”

Compassion,
she reminded herself. Poets are capricious by nature. Batted helplessly to and fro by their passions.