The Secret to Seduction (9 page)

And he knew no performer could move unless they truly
felt
what they were playing. She’d understood the piece, the passion and poignancy of it.

“She certainly did,” Wyndham concurred. “And really, Rhys, there could be no other explanation for Sophia’s performance tonight. I mean, we hadn’t even reached the begging or bribing stages. You can be certain that if Miss Fairleigh were plain, Sophia would not have made the effort.”

“I’d had the thought as well. No doubt Sophia needs adulation the way La Valle needs his drink, and perhaps Sophia thought there wouldn’t be enough for her should we spare some for Miss Fairleigh. But Miss Fairleigh is hardly any sort of competition for Sophia, in singing or any other aspect of life.”

Rhys had leaned his stick against the wall to pay proper attention to his cigar.

“Are you going to tell Sophia so?” Wyndham wanted to know.

“Good God, no. I’m not mad.”

Wyndham laughed.

Nor did Rhys plan to pay a visit to Sophia tonight. She would be expecting him of course, thinking all she’d needed to do was wind the golden rope of her voice around him to tug him back into her bed. It was a familiar little game. He didn’t think he was tired of it yet.

He did, however, think he might enjoy tinkering with the rules.

He could do without her tonight. One of the advantages of being The Libertine, and a grown man, was that he wasn’t at the mercy of his sensual needs. He knew they would be met very nearly the moment he needed them met. It pleased him a little to think that few other men could make a similar claim.

And then he felt restless, because this knowledge did rather shave the sweet sharp edge of uncertainty from desire.

God, but he was tired of feeling restless.

“So how’s the painting coming, Wyndham?”

“I’ve made a tree.”

“Good, good,” Rhys said absently. “Make some more.”

Wyndham bent to shoot again. “Speaking of the fair Miss Fairleigh, we’ll be deprived of part of our party tomorrow. Lady Mary informed me at dinner they intend to return with the Colberts for a visit to see Lizzie Colbert’s new baby!” Wyndham imitated Mary’s breathless tones.

Rhys grinned. “I’ve nothing at all against new babies. Something needs to replace all the ones that grow to be adults. Here’s to Lizzie.” He raised his glass.

“And it seems Lizzie Colbert has an ailing father who would appreciate a visit from a ‘man of God,’ or so those were her words, so your cousin Geoffrey will go along, as well as the fair Miss Fairleigh. Who, as she sat at my other elbow at dinner, told me the winter will be early and hard, thanks to the squirrels in Tinbury, or some such.”

“Deuced squirrels,” Rhys said idly, and took a long satisfying pull from his shortening cigar.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I
DON’T LIKE the look of the sky,” Tom said grimly. “It’s too still, too even a color. Mark my words, there will be a snowstorm soon.”

Living on the street for a good portion of his life had given Tom an animal’s instinct for the caprices of weather.

The trip from London to Gorringe had been long and uncomfortable, as the first snows had muddied the roads and other passing equipages had made great furrows of them. The horses slowed to pick gingerly over ruts, but the wheels took them hard nevertheless, and conversation inside the coach began to sound like hiccups from the sheer amount of jolts. Up top, the coachmen availed themselves heavily of the contents of flasks, as much a winter accessory as the scarves and wool coats they wore.

Jamie Shaughnessy had been left for the day with his aunt Daisy and The General, who spoiled him unconscionably, and would probably inadvertently add a word or two to his vocabulary that didn’t belong. But they loved him nearly as much as his father did.

And at last the stained-glass windows of the church, bright as jewels, signaled the travelers, and they were there once more. Susannah unconsciously reached for Sylvie’s hand, a gesture of hope. She wondered if she would always approach this particular church with hope and trepidation.

Kit pushed open the door. “Mr. Sumner?” he called experimentally. He hoped to find the vicar about and lucid, since it was shortly after Matins, and before the time when the vicar might be dipping into the wine.

“Good day, my friends. Can I be of some assistance?”

They spun about to see the ancient vicar, precisely as Susannah remembered him: a tiny, spotted head, bare of hair, propped by a neck that was all soft folds of skin now.

They exchanged bows all around, and the vicar’s eyes landed on Susannah and Sylvie and lit with pleasure. The vicar did appreciate a pretty girl.

And then he turned his attention to Tom Shaughnessy and studied him, mildly puzzled. Unlike Kit, who was quite obviously a lord to his toes, he seemed to have difficulty placing what Tom might be.

“My goodness,” the vicar finally said.

Considering this a compliment, Tom swept a deep bow.

“I recall your visit, sir,” the vicar said to Kit. “You said you’ve been known to be a generous benefactor on occasion. You inquired after the birth records here. And pretty girls.”

Kit bit back a smile. The vicar, as all vicars were, was interested in anything that might add to the coffers of the church and his own income, and he hadn’t forgotten.

“We’ve returned with another request, Mr. Sumner. To ask another question. This time about a curate, rather than a pretty girl. Have you a curate now?”

“Oh, the curates never linger long,” the vicar said with a drifting sort of cheeriness.

This didn’t surprise Kit in the least.

“Many years ago, nearly twenty years ago…did a curate assist you here in Gorringe?” he pressed.

The vicar’s eyes drifted toward the windows, and the eyes of the four travelers followed his there.
Faith, Hope, Charity,
the windows read. The sun pushed through and made a colorful, softly blurred reflection of the words on the floor of the church.

Tom Shaughnessy cleared his throat.

The vicar turned back to them in surprise, as if just remembering they were there. “Fairleigh,” he said.

No one seemed certain what to make of this.

“Fairly…long ago?” was Kit’s careful guess.

Mr. Sumner’s fuzzy gray brows dipped, puzzled. “It
was
fairly long ago, son, yes.” He said it gently, as though humoring Kit.

And waited.

“Fairly long ago that you…that you had a curate?” was Tom’s contribution.

“Yes. Fairleigh. Long ago.” The vicar’s brows had now met, and his forehead had collapsed into four deep puzzled lines.

Another uncomfortable silence limped by.

“The curate’s name was Mr. Fairleigh!” Susannah burst out delightedly, as though they’d all been in the midst of a game of charades. “And he was your curate long ago!”

The curate turned a mild expression on her and his forehead smoothed out. “That
is
what I said, my dear.”

“Do you know what became of Mr. Fairleigh?” Kit said immediately, to take advantage of the vicar’s moment of lucidity.

“He was offered a living in the town of…of . . .”

He drifted again, smiled dreamily.

Sylvie possessed the least patience of anyone standing in the church. “Of?” she barked.

“Tinbury!” The vicar looked startled, but the barking had clearly jarred the word loose from his brain.

“Tinbury?” Kit repeated. “That’s in the Midlands, yes?”

“I suppose so, son.”

“Do you remember when this curate left for Tinbury?”

“He merely told me he’d been offered a living, and as I could never begrudge the young man a living of his own, I wished him Godspeed. So I cannot tell you a year, I fear.”

“Did your Mr. Fairleigh have any children, Mr. Sumner? Do you recall?”

The vicar’s head creaked up toward the ceiling in thought. And then creaked back down again. And slowly, he shook it to and fro with regret.

As the curate, Mr. Fairleigh, had not been
pretty,
as it were, no doubt Vicar Sumner had relinquished any memories associated with him. Kit imagined it was a pleasant and practical way to rank memories, if you could only keep a few. He rather thought he’d only want to remember the pretty things, too.

A
mission
!

The moment the fetching Miss Sabrina Fairleigh had shyly confided her dream to Geoffrey Gillray on their decorous little walk a few months ago, he’d all but shouted “Eureka!” He’d known it was precisely the story to bring to his cousin Rhys: he’d become a new man now that he was a curate. He enjoyed his quiet life, his sermons, the helping of others. He’d developed a taste for doing good works; he understood now, after a wildly misspent youth, that he had a calling to spread his newfound devoutness and brotherhood to other cultures and continents.

He’d like, in other words, to go on a mission.

And he needed eight thousand pounds in order to do it. For medical and building supplies. Those sorts of things.

This last bit, particularly the eight thousand pounds bit, was going to be difficult to say with a solemn face, and without sweating.

But it was, in fact, the most crucial bit of the story. In truth, eight thousand pounds was two thousand more pounds than Geoffrey actually—urgently—needed, but he’d decided it would be practical to request a little extra, as dear
God
he missed his life in London, and none of the things he missed were inexpensive.

It was safer at the moment not to venture into London at all, of course. He’d wrung a good deal of credit from the Gillray name and the fact that he was cousin to the Earl of Rawden—he was in fact a little bemused at just how
very
much—but the pity was…merchants inevitably wanted to be paid for their goods. And men tended to want their vowels honored, too, after a certain amount of time had elapsed. Geoffrey wasn’t averse to paying anyone. It was just that it had all caught up to him yet again—it had happened several times before, this snowball of debt, and his father and his cousin had several times been importuned for money—and now the straits were dire, indeed. Merchants had cut off his credit; some had even, to his surprise, resorted to threats of violence.

His father, ill though he was, had managed to secure him a tucked-away position in Tinbury with the Vicar Fairleigh, who happily had a pretty daughter who had proved diverting and pleasant to look at. Geoffrey would have outright languished if he hadn’t had
someone
pretty about to look at, even if that particular someone was much too innocent and provincial for his tastes. Tinbury was driving him slowly mad, but it ought to protect him from his creditors for the time being. They were proving to be a determined group, but it would probably be some time before they thought of looking for
him,
of all people, in Tinbury.

And Geoffrey had no intention of remaining a curate. He was a Gillray, for God’s sake. He was born to be a bloody
gentleman.

Geoffrey hadn’t been to La Montagne since he was a child, since Rhys’s father, the former earl, had lost everything, and sold all holdings that could be sold. And it seemed, through some kind of miracle, Rhys had been able to buy La Montagne back for the Rawden title. Geoffrey had been astounded to discover that nearly everything he recalled from his youth—the fixtures, paintings, statuary—had been restored to its place at La Montagne. Seeing all of it had stirred up the resentment that always waited somewhere in him.

His cousin, it was clear, had money, and plenty of it.

They were so alike, he and Rhys. Geoffrey was younger, but at one time he and his cousin, the earl, had genuinely enjoyed each other, sharing as they did the family sense of humor, the appreciation for all things beautiful, and a gift for, a pleasure in, words. But Rhys had somehow turned those things into tools that served him, and had created a grand life from them. Geoffrey had tried, or at least tried
somewhat,
but he was forever swept along by the current of his own predilections. He didn’t enjoy working. He’d worked, and he’d
not
worked, and he vastly preferred the latter.

“A curate, Geoffrey?” were Rhys’s first words when Geoffrey sat down before him in his office. “How in God’s name did that come about?” He sounded faintly amused.

Geoffrey struggled to keep his expression neutral, as it was crucial to making his story convincing, but even he was a little amused by the fact that he’d become a curate. “Father found the position for me.”

“Well, I suppose it’s one way to use that Gillray silver tongue. Up at the altar with a captive audience, no less. Less expensive than talking your way beneath the skirts of parlor maids and actresses.”

Geoffrey leaped to his own defense. “It was only
one
parlor maid. And she was unusually pretty.”

“And
expensive,
” Rhys emphasized. “For me, anyhow. No doubt you’ve a son in Cornwall now, because that’s where she went after I paid her to leave. But her disgruntled employers miss her. Apparently she was the best damned parlor maid they’d ever had.”

Geoffrey sighed. Geoffrey was clever, but so was Rhys, and Rhys had always been so bloody quick. Rhys knew precisely why Geoffrey was sitting before him today, and he had deftly seized the upper hand in the conversation.