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Authors: Theresa Romain

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BOOK: Season for Surrender
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Too late, he recalled that the greenery-gathering had been Louisa's idea. He must have stumbled on his words, because Lockwood kicked the desk again and smiled.
That smile was deeply unappealing. Far too wide and showing too many teeth. Xavier resolved to adjust his own future smiles to improve upon the appearance.
“That is,” he continued, raising his voice, “I shan't be told when I ought to win, any more than I will permit you to tell me that I can't lose.”
That was the crux of it, wasn't it? He'd had enough. He didn't want to be Xavier anymore. Not the Xavier everyone expected him to be.
He didn't know what he wanted instead, but he'd never figure that out while men like Lockwood were cluttering up his time and sapping his ingenuity with their frivolous demands.
“I'd never tell you that,” Lockwood said with another of those vulpine smiles.
Kick. Kick
. “After all, your money will line my pocket if you don't triumph over the Oliver chit.”
“Please refrain from damaging the furniture.” Xavier raked a hand through his hair, only to find it already bristling. Well, this was why he kept it cropped short. “And please refrain from insulting my guests.”
“I won't insult anyone who doesn't want to be insulted,” Lockwood said.
Kick. Kick
. He tossed back the brandy and smacked his lips. “But little Miss Oliver's got a wild streak, don't you think? I've seen the spark in her eye. I think she wouldn't mind a bit of . . . insult.”
The snifter thumped onto the desk. Lockwood had set it on—oh, hell, on the ledger and papers Louisa had given Xavier last night.
After he'd brought her to orgasm on the chaise longue in the library, as though she were a lightskirt. A lightskirt and every inch a lady, who had left him achingly unfulfilled and dreadfully uncertain.
He drew his chair closer to the desk, willing his body not to recall Louisa, the wet silk of her folds, the startled gasp she'd let out when her body shuddered apart.
“Please take the snifter off of my papers, Lockwood,” he said harshly. “Have a care.”
“Why ought I to start now?” Lockwood slid from the desk and slammed the snifter back onto the sideboard with enough force to make his muddied eyes squeeze shut in pain.
He sauntered back to the desk and turned the stack so it faced him. “What are these papers that you're so infatuated with?” His brows knit. “What is this? Russian? I can't read it.”
“It's a history of our families, but it's been ciphered. Miss Oliver has begun to decipher it. Did you know the first viscount won his title from Good Queen Bess for—”
“Is he the one who diddled the maid?” Lockwood looked mildly interested. “My father mentioned it to me once. Had a taste for books. I never did, but scandal's always interesting.”
Xavier blinked. “Yes. As a matter of fact, he
did
diddle the maid. Actually, the queen's favorite lady-in-waiting.”
“I'd love to know what he did to her,” Lockwood mused, flipping the pages of the encoded ledger. “Anything that earns a man a viscountcy must have been a sexual masterpiece. Does it describe the act? This book?”
Xavier was still trying to shake off the wonder of Lockwood's knowing something about their family history that he had not. “Ah . . . no. Not in any greater detail than what we've already mentioned.”
“Pity.” Lockwood raised one of Louisa's scribbled-on papers to the slanting light from the window. “And this is the key, then? She's a clever one, that Oliver chit.”
“Don't insult my guests,” Xavier repeated, and Lockwood shot him a
ha-I-got-you
look over his shoulder before returning his attention to the paper.
He wasn't playing his part well enough; Lockwood would grow suspicious. Xavier scrabbled for his usual languid tone, his casual pitch. “The whole book's full of scandal from what I can tell. It's a wonder our lineage survived long enough to create us.”
“It didn't.” Lockwood turned back to the desk and set the paper down. “Title's in the second creation.”
“I was speaking figuratively,” Xavier covered. Fortunately, he had spent a little time the previous night with Louisa's tables and the ledger. It wasn't as though he could drop off to sleep in the state she'd left him, and the code tables offered a welcome distraction. “Yes, our families behaved badly following the Restoration. Do you know about the mistress?”
Lockwood frowned. “Melissande?”
“Not
your
mistress. That is, former mistress.”
Lockwood's frown deepened, and Xavier explained, “No, the second earl fathered several children by a mistress. The legitimate heirs all died off with suspicious swiftness thereafter.”
“Hell of a coincidence.”
“I doubt it,” Xavier said. “The king granted the title to a distant cousin, who married one of the mistress's children. It's like something the Borgias would have arranged.”
Or something in a novel. Anything could happen in a novel.
He dragged his chair still closer to the desk, until the solid mahogany pressed tight against his midsection.
“You don't say.” Lockwood looked interested. “Well, I'm not surprised we've got scandal in our blood. After everything we've entered in the betting book at White's—”
“Lockwood, I'm afraid I am rather busy right now,” Xavier cut off his cousin. So many times had they talked of scandal, and wagers, and White's, and he had no desire to hold such a conversation again. He drew before himself the account book Hoskinson had left behind, then laid hold of his quizzing glass. “You know how it is. Tedious estate affairs.”
“Lord, yes,” Lockwood replied at once, filling his snifter once more. “Absolutely dreadful, aren't they? It's a shame you have to deal with all that during a house party. You'll be missing all the fun.”
He stood. “Well, I'll leave you to it. Don't forget about tomorrow, though.”
“Oh?” Xavier looked up from his steward's crabbed writing. He couldn't remember what was in store.
Lockwood sighed. “Your aunt or cousin or whoever she is—Mrs. Tindall—thinks we all ought to tramp around some cursed ruin at the edge of your property.” He drained his glass. “I must say, Xavier, I preferred your parties of past years.”
“I'm sorry to hear it,” Xavier replied, his voice vague to suggest that he was already concentrating on his account book again. He stared at the page as Lockwood set down his snifter and walked to the door.
In front of Xavier's eyes, numbers swam, and as soon as the door closed behind Lockwood, he pushed back the chair and returned to the window. It was no good, sitting and pretending and chattering about coded scandal. Even his family's old misdeeds reminded him of Louisa, since without her, he'd never even have known of them.
He sucked in a deep breath and clutched at the wooden window frame. Louisa was not the first woman who had made him feel that he was not good enough. But she was the first who made him feel he could be more.
Like everything about her, this was equal parts aggravating and intriguing.
Xavier liked surprising people. And how it would surprise the world if he embarked on the greatest scandal of all: turning over a new leaf.
He turned back to his desk, ready to fold himself into the seraglio chair again and make sense of Chatterton's accounts. Really. He would, this time.
But then he noticed that the ledger, and all Louisa's papers, were gone from his desk.
Chapter 15
Containing the Tale of a Paddling
“Where should this book go?” Jane asked for the six hundred thirty-seventh time.
All right, not that many. But Louisa's morning in the library had been full of questions and chaos, since Alex had bid his young cousin to work off her speculation debt of time by, as he put it, “obeying Miss Oliver's every command in the library, if you can manage such a sensible act.”
Louisa wasn't sure if he'd meant this as a kindness to her or Jane, or if he simply wanted both women out of his sight for a while.
Fine. Louisa didn't mind keeping the troublesome man out of her sight for a while, either. She couldn't trust herself to behave wisely around him; she had learned that the previous night.
But she
could
trust
him
. He'd done nothing worse than follow her lead. He'd stopped when she stopped him.
Wait. Why had she stopped him?
She shivered. Never mind. She and Jane had plenty of books to occupy their time, and Louisa ought to keep her thoughts occupied, too.
“Jane, are you still taking notes on the morocco-bound books?” Louisa called over her shoulder as she heaved a beautifully bound folio from an upper shelf. “You'll have to flip those open and check the pages. The binder didn't mark a single spine. Very unhelpful of him.”
“I do like creating chaos,” Jane commented. “Is there any point to what we're doing beyond that?”
Louisa stepped back, folio clutched in her arms, and turned to her friend. “Yes.”
She laid the folio on the chaise longue—
cover it with books, don't think of what you did here last night
—and knelt before it, stroking the finely tooled and gilded leather with her fingertips.
“Your cousin requested that I learn what I could about the library,” she said. “Even make a beginning at a catalogue.”
“I knew you were brilliant,” Jane commented. “You're doing exactly as he said, but in such a way as to infuriate him.”
“Why should he be infuriated by our obedience?” Louisa asked blandly. Jane grinned and dropped another book with a
thump
.
Assisted by a capable housemaid named Ellie, Jane and Louisa had been slamming books around for several hours now: noting the titles, stacking them in tottery towers, and distributing an ungodly amount of dust. It was the first time Louisa had truly looked around the library since finding the encoded family history. The books, and Jane's chatter, were welcome distractions.
“Besides,” Louisa added, “it's not as though anyone uses this lovely room. The only times I've ever encountered another guest is when someone entered looking for Lord Xavier.”
“You've been spending a lot of time with him, haven't you?” Jane asked. “Ugh, this is geometry. Or calculus. Something dreadful.”
Thump
. “Ellie, hand me another book.”
As Jane and the housemaid handed off volumes, Louisa flipped the folio open, her eyes dimly noting the fineness of the marbled endpapers. “I suppose I have spent a lot of time with him, yes,” she answered.
Jane's chatter was now failing as a distraction. This was not good.
“Well, I pity you,” Jane said. “Xavier is dreadfully dull.”
This was so surprising that Louisa sat back on her heels. “Dull?” She turned to face her friend. “Isn't he widely supposed to be a rake? A charmer? A scandal in human form?”
The apple-cheeked housemaid, Ellie, looked up, her eyebrows raised with interest. An industrious worker, Ellie had banished most of the dust from the denuded shelves and the much-abused carpet. She was also an entertaining companion, a fount of below stairs gossip about the other guests and other fascinating but unmaidenly topics.
Jane snorted. “I'll grant you that he's my relative, so his manly appeal escapes me. But surely the polite world can cough up a better example of charm and scandal than Xavier.”
“There's many who would call him charming,” said Ellie, returning to her dusting. “Though I myself haven't ever seen him do nothing so scandalous. When he'd have his house parties in the past, his guests were a wonder, but he wouldn't take part in much himself.”
Jane plumped down onto the chaise, almost sitting on the folio. “I'd agree with that. He likes to shock people, but the better you know him, the duller he is.”
The better Louisa knew him—no, he didn't seem dull. He was like those nested Russian dolls; every time she broke through one facade, there was more to discover behind it. Never had she expected to find a rake who read Dante. Who cared for his young cousin Jane's well-being, and for Louisa's. Who took none of his own pleasure; who only gave.
Stupid. She was remembering the chaise again. He'd sat where Jane was sitting now; his long fingers had slid over Louisa's skin, slipping within her.
She turned her head and took a deep breath. Self-control. Yes. One of her polite masks. She assumed an expression of bland curiosity. When it felt like it was molded correctly on her features, she folded her legs and sat on the floor, then looked up at Jane like a child begging a story from a governess. “You think Lord Xavier is boring? Do tell, please.”
Jane smiled. “Any interesting qualities he may have, he got from me, which means he must have been a positive cipher for the eight years of his life before I was born.”
“For instance . . .”
“For instance,” Jane said, warming to her subject, “he used to play cards with me for hours when we were young. I always dealt from the bottom of the deck, and it took him
months
to figure out how a mere girl could beat him so soundly every time. I do believe his notable skill at cards today is due to my ability to cheat over a decade ago.”
“Ah,” Louisa said. “That's why he kept teasing you during our game of speculation.”
“Yes,” Jane admitted. “Now that I can't cheat when I play him, he's much harder to defeat. It's hardly any fun playing by the rules.”
Ellie laughed, but when Jane and Louisa looked over at her, she simply continued her dusting.
“What about his reputation as a rake?” Louisa's throat felt dry, and she coughed. “Pardon me. It must be the dust we've stirred up.”
Jane waved a dismissive hand. “I can't think of a man in the
ton
who hasn't had a bit on the side. Xavier's not married, so he can do what he likes. But he doesn't do all that much, believe me. He flirts, but how often have you seen him touch a woman? Or pursue her?”
“Um.” Louisa felt the need to study her cuticles. With great attention.
“Exactly,” Jane concluded. “He has these shocking ideas, but it's someone else who always does the dirty deeds. He might squire around a new opera dancer every week, but it's all for show. He had a very sad childhood, you know,” she added in a mock-tragic voice. “Death of his parents and all that. The poor man positively thirsts for attention.”
Her small slippered feet swung and patted the floor. “The very subject is revolting, considering my relation to him, but I don't believe he knows what to do with a woman half as well as the
ton
thinks he does.”
“Hmm,” Louisa replied, thinking of a strong hand sliding up her thigh. She was sure her face was as red as a morocco binding. She kept her head bowed, studying her nails, her hands.
“He does tell the most fascinating stories, though,” Jane mused. “I've heard bits of a tale about an opera dancer and a pineapple, but I can't get anyone to explain it to me.”
“I've never heard a complaint about him from the other maids,” Ellie added. “Some of them other gentlemen, now, they're a different story. Pinchy hands, if you know what I mean.”
“No, I don't,” Jane said. “But I want to. Won't you tell us?”
Louisa looked up at the housemaid, safe now with this change of subject. If she was flushed, it would only be because of the promise of gossip. Yes. Good. She scooted to lean against the long seat of the chaise, and Jane slid onto the floor next to her.
“Well”—Ellie pretended reluctance—“I've seen gentlemen in here many a time in past years. Not for the books on the shelves, but . . . for these.” She dropped her dustcloth and trundled over to the window seat, pressing on the wood face of it until it flipped open to display its hidden shelf.
Which Jane had, apparently, not known was there. “Gracious,” she breathed, then lunged for the secret shelf, scuttling and crawling across the room.
Louisa followed. Why not? She'd filched the copy of
Fanny Hill
, but there were dozens of other books she'd never opened.
Jane tugged a book in yellow paper covers from the line of naughty works, opened it up at random, then slammed it closed again with a gasp.
“Let me see,” Louisa said. Her friend let the book fall open to a most instructive woodcut, and both young women stared at it.
“That can't be accurate,” Louisa decided. “Grown gentlemen wanting to be hit upon the bottom, like children being punished?”
As she said it, the slippery heat between her legs reminded her: yes, there was something intoxicating about being pushed down and pleasured. About surrendering one's dignity into someone else's hands.
Even so. Hitting upon the bottom? Ridiculous.
“There's some that do like it, miss, that's for sure,” Ellie confirmed. “I've never seen it done myself, but last year one of his lordship's guests brought a mistress that told me about it. I won't say who brought her, for it's more'n my job is worth. But she would put on a special outfit cut down to here”—she drew her hand across her torso just below her bustline—“and then she'd have at his behind with a book.”
“These poor books,” Louisa murmured. “Does anyone ever
read
them?”
“I don't believe it,” Jane said. “The mistress must have been lying.”
“Why would she lie about something so embarrassing?” Louisa asked.
“It makes for a good story, doesn't it? Here it is a year later, and we're still talking about it.”
“It's true, miss,” Ellie insisted. “I swear it. I heard the sound of the paddling myself when I was up in that hallway to lay the fires.”
Jane blinked, assimilating this fact. “Well, there aren't going to be any good stories from this year's party, that's certain. Not unless I make them up.”
Louisa had to laugh. “What, giving Lord Kirkpatrick one hundred sixty-one kisses wasn't interesting enough?”
Jane was now lying flat on the floor. Her whole head was beneath the window seat, the better to see the books hidden on that shelf. “Not the way I did it,” came her muffled voice. “Kirkpatrick would never so much as hold my hand if he wasn't forced to, but the wager was a matter of honor, so he had to agree.”
She poked her head out. “Do you think that's because he knew me as a child? Xavier has such dashing friends, but to them I'm like a younger sister. I can never seem to turn these old relationships to my advantage.”
Louisa slid forward to lie on her stomach beside her friend. Their dresses were already creased and dusty; there was no sense in worrying about appearances anymore. And there was a delicious freedom in lying flat on a carpet during daytime, without a single chaperone around to protest.
“I wonder, Jane, if Xavier hasn't been protecting you from his friends,” Louisa said. “He does seem to feel responsible for you. And he wouldn't want someone like, say, Lockwood to pursue you.”
She disliked even the sound of the marquess's name. Propping herself higher on her elbows, she shrugged as though she could cast him off.
“Lockwood? How vile.” Jane rolled onto her back, staring up at the painted ceiling of the library. “I won't learn what I want from a book. I won't learn it at
all
, as long as Xavier holds the purse strings. I did tell you he was dull, didn't I?”
Louisa's cough was almost sufficient to cover her laugh.
“But next year I'll be of age, and I'll have money of my own,” Jane concluded. “I might even have a suitor, if I can ever get a man to look at me.”
“Remember, it's the woman inside who counts,” Louisa said. “Men get distracted by curves and giggles, but those don't last. And the good men will realize that.”
“I wish I believed you,” Jane said.
“I know. Sometimes I don't believe myself.”
Louisa bent her mouth into a reasonable approximation of good cheer, then looked over her shoulder to see whether they had been overheard. No; having concluded the discussion of paddling, Ellie had moved off to straighten the teetering stacks of books they had built that morning.
BOOK: Season for Surrender
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