The Seduction (9 page)

She sat down on the bed
and began to laugh - letting the laughter have free rein, bubbles of madness
welling up, making her sides ache. It was a struggle to regain control, but at
last she picked up her comb and began to unweave the night's tangles, before
brushing out the long chestnut waves and plaiting them into a knot.

The sound echoed.
Creak,
whir. Creak, whir.

Mr. Alden Granville was
sharpening metal!

SHE SAW HIM AS SOON AS
SHE STEPPED INTO
Τ
H
Ε
YARD. H
Ε
WAS leaning casually against the door of the
shed, a bottle-green tricorn tucked under one elbow. His gaze was speculative,
as if contemplating the results of his labor at the whetstone. The scythe lay
propped against the open field gate, fifty feet away. The newly honed blade
sparkled in the sunlight.

Juliet stopped, torn
between astonishment and the dying
shreds of her laughter.

His gilt hair was curled, immaculate, tied back
neatly in a dark green ribbon. Α fall of lace snowflakes foamed at his
throat. Α full-skirted, dusky-pink brocade coat lay unbuttoned to reveal a
leaf-green waistcoat, exquisitely embroidered in gold thread, over pink brocade
breeches. More layers of white lace fell from his extravagant cuffs to caress
the backs of his hinds. The rich lining of the flared coat framed the lean
length of legs and hips. Outlining the hard shape of his calves,
silver-and-white striped stockings disappeared into red-heeled, white leather
shoes, fit for a ballroom.

His face gale, composed, with one tiny, discreet
patch placed high on one cheekbohe, Alden Granville shone in her yard like a
rose.

"What a flower!" she said dryly. ''You
sharpened the scythe?"

He turned his head and met her gaze with an
amused lift of the brows. "Until lethal."

"You cannot really mean to cut my hay."

"Why not?" His smile struck her with
undiluted force, like a sea wave knocking the breath from a child.

"You're a gentleman."

He bowed his head. "Worse, ma'am."

"
Worse?
Worse than what?"

"You might say Ι am a popinjay."
Humor danced in his voice.
"
I
am disappointed you did not." He flicked one finger over his cuff.
Sunlight caught his profile for a moment. "This is Mechlin lace."

"A gift from a princess."

"Nevertheless, Ι still mean to cut your
hay."

She smoothed her palms down her blue smock, then
tucked a stray wisp of hair under her flat straw hat. Absurdly, her heart still
hammered too hard and fast. "What if Ι no longer wish it?"

"I’d be desolate."

"You
want
to do it? Dressed like
that!"

"Dressed like what?" He set the tricorn
on his head and strolled to the field gate. "This is my usual morning
attire."

She marched after him and leaned both elbows on
the gate. "This Ι must see," she said, genuinely amused.
"By all means begin mowing, Mr. Granville."

He stared for a moment at the tall grass,
sprinkled with buttercups and clover, then glanced back at the scythe. The
blade curved dangerously. "Which end do Ι hold?"

"Why not the sharp end?"

"Flowers may have thorns, ma' am, but you do
not distinguish between risk and foolishness?"

"Do you?"

His smile caressed. Only when it involves death -
or love, of course."

He bent and correctly grasped the two grips on
the scythe handle before striding to the top corner of the field. Powerful
shoulders flexed. The blade swung in a long, low arc.

Swish.

Α swath of grass fell neatly to one side. He
stepped forward. The rose-pink jacket stretched and relaxed across his back.

Step, swish.

Another patch of grass fell. Lace fluttered over
his hands as he swung the scythe in long, steady strokes.

"
You wretch!" she shouted. "You took
lessons! Who taught you?"

"We agreed to trade forfeits," he said
without breaking rhythm. "Do you now wish to trade secrets?"

"You admit to having secrets?"

"Only ones worth having."
Step,
swish. Step, swish.
"There's nothing arcane about slaying all this
innocent grass."

"You are expert at the slaughter of
innocence?"

"Innocence doesn't need to be slaughtered.
It just lies down and surrenders." There was only a slight catch in his
breathing. "Ι find experience far more interesting."

Juliet didn't reply. He would need all of his
breath. Anyway, what reply could she make? She had been innocent once, until
she had done more than lain down and surrendered.

Meshach rubbed at her skirts. Shadrach and
Abednego followed. The cats leaped, one after the other, onto an oak branch
that formed part of the hedge. Folding their paws, they sat and watched the
stranger in the rose-pink coat. Six feline eyes stared at him as if he were the
god of cats.

Like her pets, Juliet couldn't tear herself away.

It was incongruous, bizarre, beautiful. He shone
like a jewel against the backdrop of the woods: a study in contrasts - this man
in his exquisite clothes wielding a workman's tool with such precision and
grace.

Step, swish. Step, swish.

The cats rumbled contentedly, purring.

Α small trickle of guilt disturbed her
amusement. He was strong. He was clever. But, even though he had somehow
learned the knack of swinging a scythe, he was obviously unused to such work.
Twelve hours of it would destroy his hands, scorch a tearing pain into his
muscles. It was a very cruel price to demand for a chess game!

She closed her eyes for a moment, unsure of her
emotions. "Look like you could use a hand there, sir," a stranger's
voice said. "Are you hiring?"

Juliet looked up to see a man in a laborer's
smock standing in the lane. Α giant of a man, he carried a scythe over his
shoulder.

Mr. Granville had worked down that side of the
field and was close to the gate. "Α very kind offer, I’ faith,"
he said without stopping.
"
I’ll
trade you, but only for something Ι have on me."

The man eyed him speculatively. "Your hat,
sir?"

Alden Granville took the green tricorn from his
head and tossed it to the giant. The man jammed the hat onto his head, flung
open the gate and began working. The tricorn sat jauntily on his brown hair. It
was obvious he knew all about the scything of hay. Yet Mr. Granville kept pace
with him.

Juliet closed the gate and climbed up to sit on
the top rail, fascinated, like a prisoner who sees the bright world ring by
beyond a barred window.

The two incongruously dressed men worked on down
the field.

Within ten minutes a second stranger had stopped.
This time a swarthy fellow with black hair accepted the rose-pink coat. He
replaced his smock with the gorgeous brocade and preened for a moment, checking
the fit across his narrower shoulders. Then he also began to expertly swing his
scythe.

Mr. Granville's white shirtsleeves glittered in
the sun. Royal lace frothed over his hands. Embroidered gold-thread flowers and
birds fluttered on his green waistcoat, leaping to life with each swing. Yet he
kept step with the two laborers.

Step, swish. Step, swish.

Juliet pressed one hand to her throat. Her runnel
of remorse had evaporated like a thin sheen of water spilled under a hot sun.
She only wanted to laugh. How on earth had he arranged this?

The sun was rising higher above Μill
Spinney. The chickens needed feeding. Climbing down from the gate, she hurried
away and rushed through the most urgent of her chores. As she threw out the
grain in the chicken coop and refilled the water pan, sudden cheers rose from
the direction of the hayfield. She heard them again as she set her bread out to
rise.
Cheers?

She raced back to the gate. Five men now worked
steadily through the hay, shoulders swinging in rhythm. Each of the new
arrivals wore some article of gentleman's apparel, absurdly added to his work
clothes.

The brown-haired man had pulled the tricorn down
solidly over his forehead. The dark fellow sweltered in the pink coat. He wiped
his face on the gorgeous cuffs and grinned as if at some tremendous joke.
Α wiry newcomer - not much more than a boy - was almost swamped by the
glorious green waistcoat. The embroidered birds flapped about his skinny
thighs. Another stranger sported
lace - Mechlin
lace - on his coarse
homespun shirt, but he had pinned the cuffs above his elbows so the expensive
lace fluttered about his brawny forearms without damage as he worked.

Mr. Granville stepped and swung in time with
them, stripped now to shirt and breeches. In contrast to the others, he looked
calm, elegant, even comfortable.

Α crowd of locals had gathered in the lane -
men, women, mothers with young children in their arms. The babble of their
excited voices and the yap of village dogs drifted across the flattened hay.
The cats had abandoned their post on the oak branch and were now leaping in
pursuit of the mice disturbed by the mowing. 1t was just the same when Farmer
Hames cut her hay, or when any group of men gathered for the communal tasks of the
countryside - an excuse for a party.

And she was the hostess.

Juliet managed to catch young Jemmy Brambey's
eye.

The boy ran over, his round face flushed beneath
his freckles. "Morning, Mistress Seton! 1t's a rare sight this, then,
eh?"

She smiled. "It is, Master Brambey. Would
you do a favor for me?"

Jemmy nodded and followed her into the house,
where she raided the little hoard of coins she had been saving. He listened and
nodded as she gave him his instructions, then he ran away into the village. Juliet
went back outside. Another stranger, a redhead carrying a scythe, had
shouldered through the giggling crowd in the lane to lean on the gate.

Mr. Granville didn't break step. The other men
winked to each other as they also kept working. Only the brown-haired man
stopped for a moment, lifting the green tricorn to mop his brow. He met the
newcomer's gaze and grinned.

The redhead grinned back, then nodded to the
blond gentleman in the field and shouted out to him. "Look like you could
use another hand there, sir."

"I’ll trade you." His breathing was
definitely broken now - with labor or with laughter? "But only . . . for
something . . . Ι have on me."

Α cheer went up from the lane. "Your
shirt, my lor- sir?" The cheer redoubled.

Alden Granville set down his scythe and peeled
off his white shirt. Muscles rippled in his back. His skin glowed. Juliet imagined
living marble, mysteriously lit from within, as if a Greek statue had come
miraculously to life. The tail of gilt hair curled down over his strong, sunlit
shoulders, the ends of the dark ribbon startling in contrast-a supreme elegance
of form knit to deadly male strength.

It was a terrible weakness to want that, to find
it so beautiful, to feel it devouring her peace and making her breathless.
Decent ladies did not admire men in that way. Her mother had never looked at
her father and had such thoughts. Only she! Only she- a natural wanton among
women! This man symbolized everything she had tried to renounce and she was
trapped here. She couldn't flee. It was her hay meadow.

The grass was almost all cut. The sun blazed. The
men labored on.

The strangers in their fantastic clothing had
begun a kind of chant to keep the rhythm. It swelled up into the summer air.
Their faces shone with sweat as their arms swung. No doubt now that they were
truly farm workers. Yet she had never seen any of them before, certainly not on
the road to Upper Mingate - no more than two farms and three cottages - a lane
rarely traveled by anyone except locals.

Only Mr. Granville didn't know the song. He shone
among the others like Apollo. His bright blade bit through the grass and
buttercups. His hard muscles, his certainty of movement, his fine white skin,
mocked her. The wretch wasn't even tired yet! Was he entirely ruthless to have
created this dance of wit and defiance in her hayfield?

Working side by side, the six men again reached
the top of the field. The last swatch of grass fell. It was done.

The crowd in the lane cheered again as a cart
rumbled toward them from the village. Mr. Sandham, the innkeeper, sat on the
box driving a brown horse.

Jemmy Brambey raced up to Juliet, his freckled
face beaming.
"
Here he is, ma'am!
With the ale for the men, as you wanted! But Mr. Sandham said to keep
this." The boy thrust out the coins she had given him. "The fancy
gentleman had already ordered it all this morning at the inn and paid for it -
the usual ale and food, he said, for haymaking, with some extra for
onlookers."