Seducing the Beast

by Jayne Fresina

Some men are born to make dynasties and some women are born to make trouble.

Hellbent on arranging a pardon for her exiled cousin, Madolyn Carver will stop at nothing to achieve her aim, even if it means seducing the mysterious Earl of Swafford. So what if he's known as "The Beast" and is immensely powerful? Plucky Maddie isn't frightened off easily.

Returned home after too long abroad, The Beast also has a mission. He must remove his younger brother and heir to the vast Swafford estate from the clutches of a most unsuitable woman. When a misunderstanding leads him to mistake Maddie for his brother's cunning mistress, he takes her captive under the guise of The Beast's manservant. Now she can no longer be a threat to his misguided brother's future, or so he thinks. And surely, The Beast's infamous iron will can resist the charms of one particularly disobedient, witty, intriguingly stubborn young woman.

But there is a far greater danger. A deadly assassin has come to the Swafford estate, and The Beast's fear of falling in love might just be his downfall. Maddie, the woman he won't trust, is the one innocent soul who can save his life--and his heart.

She wore no elaborate headdress, just a simple caul for her midnight black hair. Her gown was rich, crimson damask, the sleeves a little too long, the bodice too tight. He stood swiftly, spilling wine from his goblet.

“Oh.” Her eyes were wide and clear blue, the color of a robin’s egg. “You? Once again? It must be providential.” She was flustered, her cheeks tinted pink

He bit down on his tongue, tasting his own blood. Damn. Where was Wickes? Where was the guard outside his door? He never dealt with women petitioners. Now, left entirely alone and at her mercy, he was tongue-tied, fumbling for the words to chase her out again. She was even lovelier than he remembered from earlier. Who the Devil …? Someone put her up to this. It was some sort of scheme to make a fool of him perhaps, to verify the rumors of his “great incapability”.

Was it possible one of those devious courtiers, Dudley for instance, sent this creature here out of mischief?

He made a sudden, whimsical decision. “The Earl isn’t here.”

And so it was done. Like that, the burden was shifted. For a while.

Seducing the Beast
9781616503024
Copyright © 2011, Jayne Fresina
Edited by Tiffany Maxwell
Book design by Lyrical Press, Inc.
Cover Art by Renee Rocco
First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: August, 2011

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To Our Mum

I would like to thank Renee and the folks at Lyrical Press for being brave enough to take me on as an author, and my terrific editor Tiffany Maxwell, for keeping me sane throughout the process. I would also like to thank my husband for his patient support; my sisters for occasionally slapping me down to size, and the good friends who volunteered to be my very first readers -- Nancy, Stephen, Annie, Jill and Cate. Without all of you I would never have persevered. Thank you.

Seeds of Deception

London 1563

Madolyn Carver had decided God must be female. Although shocking, subversive ideas were not uncommon in her head, this one she kept to herself, for once. And the reason for her outrageous conclusion? Breasts.

Clearly, a man would have given himself breasts, since he was so fond of the objects and spent most of his life--from infancy to dotage--in their pursuit. However, not only was this habit predictable among the male species, it was most propitious for Madolyn, who had a certain fellow to seduce today, and a bosom to assist her. Indeed she had an excess, about to be put to good use, if only it would temporarily behave itself.

Hands gripping the bedpost in a murderous throttle, she groaned. “Make haste, for the love of Saint Pete. How much longer will it take?”

“Patience, Maddie!” her sister exclaimed, tugging on the laces of a bodice several inches too small. “I go as fast as I can. Breathe in!”

Apparently her sister thought her lungs were in her bosom. “Grace, there is no more ‘
in
’ to be had.”

“There must be.”

Madolyn replied, with as much solemnity as the scant wisps of air at her disposal might allow, “Sorry, sister. The more you squeeze one part of me, another falls out.” It seemed an awful lot to go through when she fully expected to be undressed again quite soon. Not that she could tell her sister.

“Just a half inch to go.”

“Oh, farewell cruel life! It may have been tragically short, and I’ll die a maid, but don’t weep for me, Grace. Bring flowers to my grave and take comfort knowing I died in the worthy pursuit of a narrow body.”

Her sister shook her head. “With your flare for the dramaticals Maddie, ’tis a pity women cannot act in plays. There, now I think ’tis in--or as much of it as possible. I suggest you accept no more of Cousin Eustacia’s cast-off gowns. There is much less of her than there is of you.”

Releasing the much-abused bedpost, Madolyn whirled around, impatient to examine her reflection in the looking-glass.

Over her left shoulder, her sister’s countenance tightened with reproof. “I sincerely hope, Maddie, you’re not thinking of wearing that gown in public.”

With every stunted breath, a little more plump flesh popped out under the strain, and the overall effect wouldn’t look out of place in a Southwark bawdy house.

“Why ever not?”

“Because you’ll take someone’s eyes out with…all that.”

She snorted with laughter, ruthlessly disposing of her sister’s warnings, for while Grace was the dutiful sibling, the epitome of goodness, Madolyn, having barely survived an unruly childhood, was dedicated in the pursuit of an equally mutinous adulthood. People expected it of her and she hated to disappoint.

Long, soot-black curls swept back over her shoulders, she thoughtfully considered that bosom, now directly under her chin, like two squabbling, precocious, bald-headed babes, and returned to her previous holy musings, concluding that if God was a man he would also have given himself a womb and left no need for woman at all. No, no, God was definitely female and man simply an afterthought when She suddenly realized there was no challenging entertainment for women without them.

“This burden,” Grace proclaimed crisply of her sister’s wayward appendage, “is the Good Lord’s way of punishing you for an ill-spent youth.” Patting down her own demure shape, discreetly hidden by a lace partlet and ruff, she added with a sniff, “All those hours spent in our barn, stabbing a carving knife at a hanging sack of straw…”

“Cousin Nathaniel’s lessons on how to defend myself.”

“Were an utter waste of time. Lessons with needle and thread would have served you better. You favored so many unladylike pursuits, I daresay the Almighty had to do something to remind you of your place and purpose in life.”

Nothing provoked Madolyn’s temper with as much frequency as her elder sister’s lectures, but today she found no retort suitably satisfying and supposed, with her lungs so severely constricted, she was too stupid to think of a witty retort. It was effort enough to roll her eyes.

This, however, was no time to fret over a little thing like breathing. If all went as planned, she would soon have those laces undone again in any case.

Or the Earl of Swafford would.

Hopefully he liked the look of her. She’d done her best to arrange her finest feature to its advantage, front and center, but she was not blind to her many imperfections.

Regretfully eyeing her reflection, she remembered what their Cousin Eustacia, previous inhabitant of this fine damask gown, often said.
A silk purse cannot be made from a sow’s ear.
Here was proof. She wondered if she was truly so short, or if it was simply a cruel trick of the mirror. Until they’d come to stay with their cousin, she never saw her full reflection.

It was disheartening to say the least.

“Papa would never let you out of the house in that gown,” her sister cautioned. “It’s indecent. I fear Cousin Eustacia’s lifestyle is a bad influence on you.”

“As long as you pray for me, dear sister, I’m sure I’ll be safe from the temptations thrust upon me in this wicked town,” Maddie coyly assured her. “Besides, do trials like these not make us stronger?” She paused. “Don’t purse your lips, Grace, it makes little pin-tucks around your mouth and Eustacia says frowning encourages wrinkles. We can’t have you getting old and haggard, since you’re the family’s greatest hope of a good match.”

Grace began smoothing her forehead with one hand, before apparently remembering how she always insisted she was neither vain, nor concerned at being twenty-five and unwed. “Watching you fall head first into yet another jar of pickles, Maddie Carver, ’tis no wonder I begin to look frayed.”

Disapproving of adventure, especially her younger sister’s brand of diablerie, Grace claimed to get all the excitement she required from poetry and needlework, but she had lately caught the eye of a very fine gentleman who professed himself ardently in love and had courted her for almost a month. She was unusually jittery because of it, and Madolyn was delighted at least one of her missions in London--the getting of a husband for Grace--progressed smoothly. All that remained was to secure a pardon for their exiled cousin Nathaniel. This mission she embarked upon now.

The mysterious Earl of Swafford, by all accounts a very powerful man and the only soul who might save Nathaniel, was about to be seduced. Thoroughly. Maddie would devote every scrap of her energy to the cause.

Possessing no valuable trinket with which to bribe the earl, no silver cup or cameo ring to slip into his hands, instead she made do with what God gave her. Despicable as the means might be, the ends would surely justify them and, as Cousin Nathaniel himself would say, grand principles and scruples were for those who could afford them.

Grace would be appalled, lecturing her on the sainted virtue which must be saved, but Madolyn saw no cause for it in her case. She’d lost her childhood sweetheart two years ago and deeply regretted not giving herself to him when she’d had the chance. Furthermore, she was unlikely to make a good marriage now, for with her uncurbed tongue and penchant for doing exactly as she pleased, no other man-sober--considered her wifely material. All considered, maidenhood was, in her opinion, a vastly overrated commodity. Better use it now, than throw it away out of sheer desperation for excitement at the hands of some sweaty youth, or the village carpenter, a lusty, eager fellow who, whenever in his cups, declared himself in love with her.

Scrumpy cider, she mused wryly, the great beautifier. If only she had a jug to aid her seduction today.

Usually, she depended on her tongue to argue a cause, but Grace assured her she would get herself arrested if she dashed around London expressing opinions, thus she resorted to these desperate measures of negotiation. No one was ever arrested for “feminine wiles”. Or were they? Now an itch began, somewhere under her corset. Running to the carved bedpost, she wriggled her back against it, cursing under her breath, while Grace looked on in bemusement, exclaiming she must have fleas.

“Or else you’re up to no good,” she added. “That nervous itch is always a sign.”

Maddie protested her innocence, while frantically rubbing a new shine into the ridges of the old bedpost.

New to her, seduction sat awkwardly on her shoulders, but her course was set, nothing would stand in her way. Her family didn’t call her “Maddie the Merciless” for naught.

And so what if folk referred to the Earl of Swafford as “The Beast”?

It could be a term of endearment.

* * * *

Portsmouth--two days earlier

Huddled within the glowing embrace of an inglenook hearth, the two men spoke rarely, but their silence was not the awkward discomfort of strangers. They were good friends, their relationship forged recently in genuine respect and admiration, despite a shared reticence to make new acquaintances. One being a generation older than the other, anyone looking on might mistake them for father and son, yet they came from two different worlds, and the fact they shared anything in common would surprise a great many folk who knew either man.